As a long-time supporter of Wikileaks, since its inception in 2006, its importance is often overlooked by the personal issues surrounding its founder Julian Assange. It’s a complex legal and ethical battle and his fear of US arrest and imprisonment is real and justified. Trusting any authorities is unwise considering the record of governments and…
Showing all posts tagged United States
Obama admin as secretive as Bush admin over legal reasons for killing “enemies”
Good editorial by MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow that challenges the dictatorial style of government in Washington that provides little or no reason why America has the right to murder its own citizens by drone strike: Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Find me a country that isn’t complicit in US rendition
Damning new report (via Open Society) reveals the extent of nations desperate to help Washington break laws and morality post 9/11. When our leaders speak about believing in human rights, the best response is to laugh in their faces. Via the Guardian: The full extent of the… CIA‘s extraordinary… rendition… programme has been laid bare with the publication…
US doctrine: “stability means conformity to US orders”
Noam Chomsky, still as compelling and profound as ever, in an extract from a new collection of conversations with… David Barsamian: Right after the assassination of Osama bin Laden, amid all the cheers and applause, there were a few critical comments questioning the legality of the act. Centuries ago, there used to be something called presumption…
How #ZeroDarkThirty seduces viewers into supporting torture
Days after seeing Zero Dark Thirty I’m still thinking about its normalisation of torture. Rolling Stone’s great writer Matt Taibbi concurs in a stinging piece: Back to the “enhanced interrogation” in the first scene: conducted by chameleonic Australian actor Jason Clarke’s “Dan” character while Oscar nominee Jessica Chastain’s Maya character looks on, it’s shocking, horrific,…
“We’re talking about the potential for a second Holocaust here”
Brooklyn College is hosting an event about BDS and a general discussion over Israel and Palestine. Freedom of speech. Academic freedom. And yet (via the New York Times): Brooklyn College, in the Midwood neighborhood, would seem an unlikely place for Jewish students to feel besieged. Nearly a fifth of the undergraduate population is Jewish, and…
If you don’t think the Israel lobby has deformed Washington, you’re delusional
This brief clip from the confirmation hearings of Chuck Hagel for Defence Secretary shows all you need to know about what can and cannot be said even in elite circles over Israel: More here.
Reflections on #ZeroDarkThirty
Last night I saw the Oscar-nominated film, Zero Dark Thirty. It’s a brilliantly made work, brutal, passionate, eerie, exciting and compelling. It’s also a shameless piece of CIA propaganda. It opens on 9/11 and frames many of the successful and failed terror attacks since then as part of one, big al-Qaeda plot, which is dishonest.…
Still dissecting the US-led torture regime post 9/11
We are still discovering the depth and extent of the crimes committed by the Americans in Iraq post 2003. I’m proud to call journalist Mike Otterman, mentioned below, a good friend. This report by Jeff Kaye on FireDogLake: Journalist Michael Otterman, author of the excellent book,… American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib and…
Supporting Palestine is protected by the US constitution
At a time when Palestine activism in the US is becoming more effective (and more threatening to the Zionist lobby), this initiative is welcome: The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), in collaboration with the National Lawyers Guild (NLG), the Student Speech Working Group and other organizations, today announced the launch of the Palestine Solidarity Legal…