Showing all posts tagged United States
The naked love affair between the CIA and #ZeroDarkThirty
The pro-torture, pro-US and pro-war on terror film… is given deeper meaning with the release, via Gawker, of a document that confirms what many of us suspected; the CIA wanted a propaganda film and the film-makers were apparently happy to comply: Kathryn Bigelow’s Osama bin Laden revenge-porn flick Zero Dark Thirty was the biggest publicity coup…
Israel desperate for regional war?
Savvy piece by Larry Derfner in +972 magazine. The lack of mainstream criticism over Israeli actions against Syria reveals the agenda; install a pliant thugocracy in Damascus. Good luck with that: People in this country [Israel] have been worried that the fighting in Syria is going to “spill over the border,” and now Israel, unprovoked,…
Why standing up for human rights, against the tide, matters
Salman Rushdie writes in the New York Times on 27 April: We… find it easier, in these confused times, to admire physical bravery than moral courage — the courage of the life of the mind, or of public figures. A man in a cowboy hat vaults a fence to help Boston bomb victims while others flee…
Dr Strangelove at the White House over Syria
This would be comical if the situation in Syria wasn’t so serious. This reporting, via the New York Times, shows the complete inability to understand that Washington isn’t the arbiter of what happens inside Syria. Nor should it be. This is ineptitude framed as serious policy. Besides, there are countless forces backing the “rebels” and…
What torture at Guantanamo Bay feels like
Powerful statement by the campaigning British group Reprieve: Younous Chekkouri, a detainee who has been cleared for release but remains held in Guantanamo, has given the first inside account of… the raid carried out by prison authorities on Saturday 13 April. Speaking to a lawyer from human rights charity… Reprieve… via an unclassified phone call, Mr Chekkouri has…
Jeremy Scahill, Amy Goodman and Noam Chomsky talk “Dirty Wars”
The following event took place on 27 April in the US:
How a Jew managed life inside prison with neo-Nazis
Fascinating and disturbing story (via the US-based Southern Poverty Law Centre) about the largely ignored reality of skin-heads, white pride members and bigots inside US jails: David Arenberg had everything going for him. He was smart, the son of a research scientist and a teacher. He graduated in 1980 from the elite University of Chicago…