The Washington Post explains how Canberra is desperate to help America maintain hegemony: The United States and Australia are planning a major expansion of military ties, including possible drone flights from a coral atoll in the Indian Ocean and increased U.S. naval access to Australian ports, as the Pentagon looks to shift its forces closer…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Vulture capitalism shifts gear in Afghanistan
Shifts are afoot in Afghanistan over private security but the reality remains murky; what happens when mercenaries try and get respectable? The Afghan government is giving companies extensions ranging from a few weeks to 90 days to change from private security guards to a government-run force, officials said Sunday. The reprieve comes just three days…
MSM ignore it but past spin, AfPak war now about face saving for America
Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray cuts through the lies and unloads: UK Defence Secretary Philip Hammond’s visit to Tashkent on 28 February was not covered in any UK mainstream media that I can find, which is peculiar, given the media’s obsession with covering anything to do with “Our heroes” in Afghanistan. It was…
Who loves war? Corporations (so thank you America post 9/11)
Turning a profit from war is an old story, way before September 11, 2001, but the last decade has seen an explosion of companies making a killing from countless, Washington-led wars. This recent story in USA Today is a cracking yarn and reveals how deeply problematic is vulture capitalism: As the Pentagon has sought to…
What we do to Afghans every week is terrorism
Michael Hastings: They say [the shooter] has a traumatic brain injury. But what we see on a weekly basis is”¦Afghans being killed. It happens because we have 100,000 troops in Khandahar who know that we’re leaving”¦ If he’s insane, he’s a symptom of an insane policy.
We are all Israeli says alternative Australian prime minister
Words fail. A nation that occupies millions of Palestinians has values like us? Well, I guess Australia is fond of backing American-led occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan so perhaps it’s true. The man has form. The Australian Jewish News reports: Federal Opposition Leader Tony Abbott gave a strong endorsement of Israel’s right to defend itself…
State of the Taliban 2012
Fascinating insights, published by Matthieu Atkins in GQ: This month’s issue of… GQ… contains an… exclusive account of the 20-hour assault on the U.S. embassy in Kabul last September. As the article shows, the attack—though militarily unsuccessful—was a public relations victory for the Taliban. In February,… excerpts from a classified NATO report were leaked… in the press that further undermined…
Memo to media; US massacre in Afghanistan is about Afghans not US military
Another tragedy in Afghanistan. And what do most of the corporate media focus on? How will this affect NATO strategy? What will US troops do? Will Obama’s supposed counter-insurgency tactics be derailed? What about wondering about the Afghans themselves? Here’s FAIR: The news that a U.S. Army sergeant killed 16 civilians, most of them children,…