Oh the horrors: A federal judge denied a request by a former contractor, convicted of killing an Afghan civilian, for permission to return to Afghanistan for employment, according to a ruling made public Wednesday. Calling the request “ill-timed” and “the epitome of arrogance,” U.S. District Judge Robert G. Doumar flatly refused to give Virginia Beach…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Post 9/11 MSM thinking; get somebody, anybody
As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, get ready for an orgy of self-justification (endless war is required because “they” still hate us). This piece by Seamus Milne in the UK Guardian is fascinating because it reveals the mindset of so many elites to the terror attacks. It’s a handy reminder that fear-mongers and war-mongers…
Contracting in Afghanistan is turning that country into a deformed beast
My following investigation appears today in Crikey: In the 10 years since 9/11, millions of people have been killed but countless firms have benefited from the explosion in Western defence spending. Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president at Rand Corporation, recently told National Defence that “the war on terrorism cost $3.8 trillion in…
Afghanistan may be at war but rest assured the vultures will come
A friend says that a link to this page appeared on Murdoch’s Australian today, just proving that exploitating the fears and conflict of a war-torn country is never beyond the remit of disaster capitalists: U.S. geologists just found some $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. What’s next for the war-torn country? Overnight, Afghanistan…
Memo to world; you’re paying the enemy in Afghanistan not to attack you
This fascinating feature by Matthieu Atkins in Caravan Magazine highlights the role of India in backing an insurgency it claims to be against. Just like the rest of the Western powers in this disaster – revealed in a very powerful ABC TV 4 Corners documentary tonight that shows the complete lack of understanding by Australia…
How 9/11 showed a West unsure of who it wanted to kill
This week’s New Statesman editorial: Above all, the doctrine of liberal intervention, even on so-called humanitarian grounds, was gravely undermined by the misadventures in Iraq and Afghanistan. Mr Blair’s dream of a new, interdependent world order turned out to be no more than the delusion of a western triumphalist who believed that history was moving…
Anybody care that countless billions wasted in Iraq and Afghanistan?
American multinational KBR has its tentacles everywhere, including in Australia. The US-based Project on Government Oversight laments the over-reliance on suspect corporations with little or no accountability. This is the definition of disaster capitalism: At least one out of every six dollars spent by U.S. taxpayers on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past…
When you say “liberating” Afghanistan, you mean privatising the lot?
The future of warfare, led by America and the West, is fueled by unaccountable corporations: At least one in every six dollars of U.S. spending for contracts and grants in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past decade, or more than $30 billion, has been wasted. And at least that much could again turn into waste…