No kidding: A man whose lies helped to make the case for invading Iraq – starting a nine-year war costing more than 100,000 lives and hundreds of billions of pounds – will come clean in his first British television interview tomorrow. “Curveball”, the Iraqi defector who fabricated claims about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, smiles…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Challenging MSM approved imperial enforcers
Here’s a book review I wrote a while ago published here exclusively: The Imperial Messenger: Thomas Friedman at Work Belen Fernandez Verso, $22.95 Michael Ignatieff: The Lesser Evil? Derrick O’Keefe Verso, $22.95 Antony Loewenstein Back in May 2003, two months after the start of the American-led war in Iraq, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman…
“Paper of record” still too keen to report US/Israeli view over Iran
Editor of the New York Times Jill Abramson claims her paper’s coverage on Israel and Iran is impartial and there’s no chance the “flawed” 2003 reporting over Iraq could happen again (via Politico): Q: What are the concerns and considerations you take into account when covering the tensions between Israel and Iran, especially in light…
American invasion of Iraq caused mass destruction and still Baghdad gives DC the finger
This is almost comical. After years of occupation, mass killings and utter American criminality and incompetence, Foreign Policy reports that Washington just can’t get any love or support: The first major test of U.S. post-war influence in Iraq is now raging over efforts to stop Iran from funneling arms to Syria through Iraqi airspace, but…
What serious media would have reported about Wikileaks (but did not)
So many stories and so much missed deliberately or wilfully ignored. Interesting extract from a new book, The phone hacking scandal: journalism on trial. This is by Justin Schlosberg and details how many key media outlets consistently fail to hold power to account (and no, it ain’t an accident): The performance of serious media in…
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…
Just how close is Google to the US government?
Newly released documents from Wikileaks suggest that the internet giant has an agenda rather different to just a very fast search engine (via Al Akhbar): Top Google execs, including the company’s CEO and one of Barack Obama’s major presidential campaign donors Eric Schmidt, informed the intelligence agency Stratfor about Google’s activities and internal communication regarding…
MSM has duty not to replay Iraq 2003 with Iran 2012
While some in the corporate media, such as this article in the LA Times, question how the US has any idea about Iran’s actual nuclear program, the bigger question is how journalists report the information given by military and government sources. Do they become, like in Iraq in 2002 and 2003, propagandists for war? The…
What the MSM isn’t telling us about the war in Afghanistan
My following book review appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: A journalist with access to a superpower’s military machine refuses to toe the line. “I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising,” independent American journalist Michael Hastings told… The Huffington Post… in 2010. ”My views are critical but that shouldn’t be mistaken for hostile – I’m…
Why can’t we just stay in Afghanistan forever?
The last decade has seen an explosion in private security and intelligence companies making a killing in the “war on terror”. And now, with growing anger towards both mercenaries and the Western occupying forces that use them, this suggestion seems both delusional and symptomatic of the rot that imperial thinking guarantees: The chairman of the…