Welcome to our legacy in the Middle East: A grim picture of the US and Britain’s legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes. Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
How easy was that? Visit Syria and see for yourself
Behold a rarity. An Australian commentator, Richard Ackland, visits Syria and writes sympathetically about Iraqi and Palestinian refugees.
A one-eyed view of Sri Lanka
My following article appears today in ABC’s The Drum Unleashed: A Western journalist visits the Sudanese capital Khartoum to interview President Omar al-Bashir. The reporter, after calling him “controversial” due to his “bloody” record in fighting terrorism, gives the leader a platform to explain his views and tactics. The only other voice featured in the…
Who knew that occupation caused Muslims to hate us?
Robert Pape tells us what we should already know. When the West occupies and kill Muslims, they may want to respond in kind. Funny that: More than 95 percent of all suicide attacks are in response to foreign occupation, according to extensive research that we conducted at the University of Chicago’s Project on Security and…
Invade, beg, pay
Is the British rule that massive aid to poor countries can mostly come after a disastrous Western invasion and occupation? Britain is to double to …£3.8bn the amount of aid money spent on war-torn countries such as Afghanistan, raising fears among charities that national security priorities will determine development spending. As David Cameron warned that…
Assange; the importance of making powerful enemies
In the annual “50 People Who Matter 2010” for New Statesman, John Pilger endorses Julian Assange and Wikileaks; guts that matters and so necessary: The arrival of WikiLeaks is one of the most exciting developments in the enduring struggle of ordinary people for the right to call secret power to account. This is what journalism…
Moving forward? Australia’s relationship with Israel is dire
My following lead essay appears in the Australian literary journal Kill Your Darlings: I first discovered the importance of the Israel/Palestine conflict in my early teens, in Melbourne. I remember sitting around the Sabbath table with my parents and cousins, discussing the events of the week as we consumed schnitzels, soggy vegetables and chicken soup.…
Outsourcing detention centres open to mental and physical abuse
The following article is in this week’s Green Left Weekly newspaper: During recent protests in Villawood Detention Centre that followed the September 20 suicide of detained Fijian exile Josefa Rauluni, detainees who tried to help rooftop protesters with water and blankets were stopped by security. One man was bashed. Hunger strikers were kept quiet in…
Australia may have followed Julian Assange into the toilet
Exposing state crimes in the “war on terror” comes with a price. And don’t expect governments to protect you: Australian spy agencies may have monitored the WikiLeaks spokesman Julian Assange, and the Attorney-General would welcome prosecution of the group’s members if offences could be proved. The new claims come less than three weeks before the…
Hello my name is Barack and please don’t hate me for begging Israel on a daily basis
So, two years into the Obama administration and America is again rightly viewed as hopelessly compromised in the Middle East and a backer of Israeli apartheid, repression across the region, occupations etc etc: Approval of U.S. leadership is now similar or lower than what it was in 2008 in several of the Middle East and…