Showing all posts tagged United States
US mass surveillance in the Pacific
Here’s my weekly Guardian column published today: What if China was beating the US at its own super-power game in the Pacific and we didn’t even notice? While Washington distracts itself with… shutdown shenanigans… and failed attempts to control the situation in the Middle East, president Obama’s “pivot to Asia”… looks increasingly shaky. Beijing is… quietly filling the gap,…
On the fallacies, toughness, bias and challenges of war journalism
Reporting from a conflict zone is messy and complicated, rarely as smooth as journalists try to convey. Britain’s Patrick Cockburn, writer for The Independent, is one of the finest chroniclers of post 9/11 madness. His essay in Counterpunch outlines what we should know: The four wars fought in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria over the…
How BDS against fossil fuel companies grows in power
Interesting results and instructive of how similar tactics are increasingly used by critics of Israel through the BDS movement. The Guardian reports: A campaign to persuade investors to take their money out of the fossil fuel sector is growing faster than any previous divestment campaign and could cause significant damage to coal, oil and gas…
What happens when you cross mad Zionists, Rwanda's Paul Kagame and Elie Wiesel?
Whole lotta mess. Here’s a great The Real News report by Max Blumenthal and Alex Kane about a recent event in New York (background here and here):
Glenn Greenwald challenges puerile pro-government BBC questioning
The Guardian reporter shows how it’s done. Note how virtually every BBC “question” could have been written by the British government in relation to intelligence and Edward Snowden. Welcome to mainstream journalism (just as bad as this infamous interview with Julian Assange in 2012):
3AW Melbourne radio interview on Profits of Doom
3AW is one of Melbourne’s biggest radio stations. I was interviewed by… Alan-Pearsall last weekend on his overnight program about my new book, Profits of Doom, and we mostly discussed privatised detention centres for refugees and war contracting in Afghanistan:
American Jews become less religious, more critical, mature
A startling and important new study that surely shows a Jewish community evolving into a far more mature entity. Less Zionist. More open. More multicultural. Less keen on maintaining a ghetto. More, please. The New York Times reports: The first major survey of American Jews in more than 10 years finds a significant rise in…
US selling drone warfare to impoverished African nations
The future of surveillance and warfare, and US-based arms manufacturers are very happy about it. The Wall Street Journal reports: Taking a cue from the U.S., more African governments are spying from the skies. From Kenya to Nigeria, African air forces are acquiring surveillance drones—often made in the U.S.—to track militants, poachers and drug traffickers…
Seymour Hersh; journalism isn't propaganda
Far too many reporters see themselves as extensions of power instead of checks on it. One of the finest journalists in the world, Seymour Hersh, unloads on this trend. I couldn’t have put it better myself (via Guardian): Seymour Hersh has got some extreme ideas on how to fix journalism – close down the news…