This is what Iraq has become; a police state relying on taxi drivers: Taxi drivers the world over are renowned as a bountiful source of gossip, sometimes dubious, sometimes not, gathered in large part via what they overhear from passengers. And in Baghdad, afflicted by a deadly insurgency and deep political instability, there is a…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Kurds and pro-war Americans clean up
Who says the Iraq war was a disaster? The American corporate world and some Kurds are making a killing.
More journalists must take risks, says Wikileaks head
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in the Guardian: There has been an unconscionable failure to protect sources. It is those sources who take all the risks. I was at a journalism conference a few months ago, and there were posters up saying a thousand journalists had been killed since 1944. That’s outrageous. How many policemen have…
The hype against Saddam was false, part 8642
This story isn’t old news and remains key to understanding any possible military strike against Iran: Former UK diplomat Carne Ross claimed that the [British] Government ”intentionally and substantially” exaggerated its assessment of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in public documents. ”Most of the unanswered questions derived from discrepancies in Iraq’s accounting for its…
American use of torture was common and still is
American journalist and author Joshua Phillips talks about his discoveries while writing, “None of Us Were Like This Before“: Prisoner abuse and torture was far more widespread than most people understand. It happened well beyond the walls of Guantánamo, Abu Ghraib, and CIA “black sites.” Prisoners were seriously abused in other U.S. military bases and…
Gillard remains in the gutter over asylum seekers (and she feels fine)
Australia’s new refugee policy is truly a “he-man” competition. Who can seem toughest on those evil people smugglers? Who can maximise political capital over the handful of desperate souls from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Iraq keen to make a better life? Opening a regional processing centre in East Timor smacks of a typical Western colonial…
America doesn’t believe in real democracy, by the way
Note this story in today’s Washington Post: Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton expressed alarm Saturday about what she called a growing crackdown on citizens groups around the world and announced a fund to help them fight back. In what aides called her most important speech in a four-day swing through former Soviet-bloc countries, Clinton…
Will the dishonest mainstream media on torture please stand up?
The reluctance of the American corporate media to call US torture “torture” has been exposed in a recent Harvard study. When “they” do it – Iraqis, Afghans, Colombians etc – it’s called torture. But when “we” do it, well, time to find another, less painful word. Salon’s Glenn Greenwald will have none of it and…
How did David Kelly die?
Here’s a story that requires sun-light. I’ve heard from various sources over the years that Dr David Kelly was probably murdered by either British agents, hired foreign thugs or an intelligence service: The official story of Dr David Kelly is that he took his own life in an Oxfordshire wood by overdosing on painkillers and…
Reporter Hastings on what our profession should be doing
Journalist Michael Hastings is extensively interviewed on Democracy Now! over his explosive Rolling Stone article: