Noam Chomsky has won the 2011 Sydney Peace Prize over his legendary support for human rights and challenging power it all its forms. That makes him an enemy of a Murdoch empire that spends its entire time wanting to be intimate with government and business. The poor dears can’t understand why a man who opposes…
Showing all posts tagged war on terror
Our post-legal and unaccountable society in the WOT
Barack Obama made a conscious choice when taking office to Look Forward and Not Back after eight years of illegal torture committed by the Bush administration. Tom Engelhardt unpacks this legacy: To put it another way, every CIA torturer, all those involved in acts of rendition, and all the officials who okayed such acts, as…
Handy reminder that Sri Lanka wants to teach world how to use terror
Human Rights Watch issues a timely statement: Governments should decline the invitation to attend a Sri Lankan military conference that seeks to legitimize the unlawful killing of thousands of civilians during the armed conflict with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), Human Rights Watch said today.… The Sri Lankan government has invited 54 countries…
Blackwater launches privatised mercenary army for global hire
Welcome to the future of warfare; privatised, deadly, unaccountable, brutish, secretive and increasingly attractive to so-called democracies and autocracies looking for a stealth force to repress or kill. A stunning New York Times investigation yesterday: Late one night last November, a plane carrying dozens of Colombian men touched down in this glittering seaside capital. Whisked…
NYT should call US torture by its proper name
The New York Times has long refused to call American torture by its rightful name; torture. Why? Because government officials say it’s not torture and therefore it ain’t. The paper’s Public Editor today publishes an examination of this putrid policy and argues that the editors should drop the pretense of worrying about the feelings and…
Lupe Fiasco calls for taking on power, wherever it is (and Gaza isn’t forgotten)
The Colbert ReportTags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive The Colbert ReportTags: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive
Bin Laden bled US and continues to do so
Asking questions about the Western obsession with Osama Bin Laden brings spluttering from certain areas of the elite class (indeed, so does saying anything against the glorious Zionist state, as a blogger in today’s Murdoch Australian says I’m polluting the ABC with anti-Israel material. Thank God standing up for Palestinians receives this bile). The real…
Who knew I was a nihilist leftist who loathes Western civilisation?
So I wrote an article for the ABC last week on the murder of Osama Bin Laden. I asked questions about his death, the significance of his assassination, the role of Al-Qaeda in making the US an insanely paranoid security state post 9/11 and the terror leader’s relevance (or otherwise) during the Arab Spring. But…