I spent today at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre for refugees and met men from Iraq, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan. Stories of pain and trauma. All refugees can’t understand why the Australian government keeps them in limbo for months and years deciding on their fate. They fear being returned to Iraq, Afghanistan or Sri Lanka and…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Some drugs and loss in the noble US army
This is what war does to the occupier: When Lt. Col. Dave Wilson took command of a battalion of the 4th Brigade of the 1st Armored Division, the unit had just returned to Texas from 14 months traveling some of Iraq’s most dangerous roads as part of a logistics mission. What he found, he said,…
We weren’t in Iraq for the cheap booze?
Futility and criminality yet no accountability: British soldiers in Iraq were “dying for no strategic benefit” because Tony Blair’s government did not appreciate what it was taking on when it planned the invasion, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, the chief of defence staff, has told MPs. There was a “failure of strategic thinking” in…
What the unhinged Israel lovers want next
Blogger Andrew Sullivan, recently made aware of the disastrous and destructive actions of radical Jews and hardline Zionists, gets it in one: Peter Beinart heralds it in: “Ever since 9/11, according to opinion polls, Republicans have worried more about terrorism than have Democrats. Initially, this fear translated into overwhelming support for military action abroad. But…
KBR and the food shortage in Baghdad
Lessons in corrupt contracting (and something increasingly relied upon by Western allies in Iraq): The U.S. Embassy in Baghdad paid millions to a government contractor for meals and snacks that nobody ate, according to a new internal State Department report. The State Department’s Office of the Inspector General (OIG) found that the embassy overpaid by…
Chilean paramilitaries protecting Aussie embassy in Baghdad
What better way to show affection for an occupied nation? Hire thugs to protect a space that only exists due to the Australian government’s desperate desire to join the Bush administration into the country in 2003: The Defence Department plans to fully privatise security at Australia’s Baghdad embassy by the end of the year, after…
What erasing Iraq means on the ground
Iraqis still remain almost invisible when the war is being discussed. Far easier for the corporate press to interview a US general who blathers about something. But Iraqi refugee schoolchildren are struggling in Syria and literally millions of Iraqis are displaced, abused and lost. All these issues are addressed in my friend Mike Otterman’s recently…
A massive payout coming the way of Assange?
Guy Rundle reports in today’s Crikey that Julian Assange should be defended and supported by those who believe in human rights (and don’t want to back imperial wars in the Middle East or beyond): The treatment of WikiLeaks’ spokesperson Julian Assange, facing investigations of harassment and rape, has been disgraceful, leading international human rights lawyer…
Wikileaks needs an army to stop it?
This would be funny if it weren’t so serious. One website, Wikileaks, now requires so much American power to try and stop/manage/control it. If only the same effort was spent on actually stopping the wars in the first place: In a nondescript suite of government offices not far from the Pentagon, nearly 120 intelligence analysts,…
Mandela knows about ethics and Blair has no idea
What a true statesman said about a war-monger: Nelson Mandela expressed fury to the British government over Britain’s decision to join with the Americans in invading Iraq, it emerged yesterday. The former South African president picked up the phone and called London to spell out his anger about the decision to join the US-led mission…