Many in the corporate press love to luxuriate over drones, those seemingly silent and deadly killers against America’s “enemies”. The reality is rather different, explains Nick Turse in TomDispatch: According to statistics provided to TomDispatch by the Air Force, Predators have flown the lion’s share of hours in America’s drone wars.… As of October 1st,…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Holding corporates to account for helping America torture
Centre for Constitutional Rights launches a necessary case: Last night, attorneys for Iraqi torture victims abused in the infamous Abu Ghraib prison and other detention centers in Iraq challenged two private military contractors’ claims to immunity from being sued on the grounds that their alleged torture occurred during wartime. Today, a coalition of groups, including…
The deadly risk of being a journalist in 2011
Committee to Protect Journalists offers a grim end of year report: Pakistan remained the deadliest country for the press for a second year, while across the world coverage of political unrest proved unusually dangerous in 2011, the Committee to Protect Journalists found in its year-end survey of journalist fatalities. CPJ’s analysis found notable shifts from…
We leave Iraq a ruined nation
After America withdraws most of its troops, the New York Times, a key paper that backed the invasion in 2003, editorialised yesterday and sounded contrite (a little, though no mention of the mainstream media’s drum-boat towards the conflict): America’s reputation has yet to fully recover from the horrors of Abu Ghraib. The country is still…
This is how Western forces gather “intelligence”
Human Terrain Systems is the term with private companies increasingly hired by the US army (and Australia) to use anthropologists and other related fields to gather “intelligence” in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. 21st century warfare (privatised, of course): More about this film here.
Iraqi “liberation” keeps many US secrets
Interesting piece on the New York Times At War blog: Several weeks ago, we heard that a local businessman had purchased some trailers from a closing American base. We were told the trailers were parked at a nearby junkyard, so one afternoon I headed out with our security team to find them. I didn’t believe…
How the Iraqi government sees “liberating” Washington
“The image of the American soldier is as a killer, not a defender. And how can you give a killer immunity?” said Sami al-Askari, a lawmaker who is also a close aide to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.