Charles Glass in the London Review of Books: The Libyans are lucky that Muammar Gaddafi did not hold out longer. If he had, there might not be much of the country left. Nato long since ran out of military targets, and it had to hit something to get the ragtag rebels into the royal palace…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
How America has no clue about the wars it is fighting, part 75432
From Wired: It’s no secret that the U.S. Army has a language barrier to overcome in Iraq and Afghanistan. A decade of war has led an English-constrained military to seek all kinds of quick fixes, from translator gadgets to private contractors — something Defense Secretary Leon Panetta lamentedthis week. But more galling is the fact…
The tangled web of so-called freedom in Libya
So here’s how it works. Find a dictator, love him then hate him, bomb him to smithereens and look for unique business opportunities. Asia Times: Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P (“responsibility to protect”). Instead of neo-conservatives,…
KBR is company that needs investigation and yet officials love ’em
KBR is a leading contractor that operates in America, Australia and across the world. Its human rights record is constantly found wanting time and time again and yet governments continue giving them contracts. That’s privatisation on crack. Read this and weep: The skirmishing has not yet subsided in the high-profile suit brought by Jamie Leigh…
Fisk on Assad’s real worry (and it isn’t poor little Obama)
Indeed: Obama roars. World trembles. If only. Obama says Assad must “step aside”. Do we really think Damascus trembles? Or is going to? Indeed, the titan of the White House only dared to go this far after condemnation of Bashar al-Assad by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the EU and Uncle…
Screw the media hacks who only follow elections to get high
Salon’s Glenn Greenwald on what elections are really about; the corporate press and business with the general populace mere bystanders: Obviously, at least in theory, presidential campaigns are newsworthy.… But consider the impact from the fact that they dominate media coverage for so long, drowning out most everything else.… A presidential term is 48 months;…
Just how are merchants of death supposed to make a good living these days?
Are the good times really coming to an end, or will Western-led wars be increasingly privatised? The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are winding down, Osama bin Laden is dead, and the federal government is deeply in debt. This spells the end of what was a golden decade for the defense industry. In the decade…
Why only corporate fools treat anything Tony Blair says seriously
The shameful legacy of Iraq should never be forgotten (via the Daily Mail): The exhausted secret intelligence officer was heading home after a heavy session analysing reports from Iraq. As he stepped out through the high-security air-lock exit from MI6’s grand headquarters beside the Thames in London, a newspaper-seller’s placard caught his eye — ”˜45…
Selective BDS understanding, not by chance, in Australian corporate media
Following the appearance today of a story in Murdoch’s Australian about BDS, one of those interviewed, Kim Bullimore, sent me the following details of her interview with the paper’s reporter, Cameron Stewart: Stewart (the reporter) wanted to know when was our next action. … I told them Sept 9.… … He… wanted to know if we would be picketing…
How many companies are shafting America in its WOT?
Far too many and who really cares? A United Arab Emirates-based logistics contractor billed Defense Department authorities in Iraq for parts at prices marked up as high as 5,000 percent and 12,000 percent, according to a quarterly report released Saturday by the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction. A review of a $119 million reconstruction…