Spot the issue with this New York Times story: Iraq’s Baghdad Trade Fair ended Tuesday, six years and a trillion dollars after the American invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein, and one country was conspicuously absent. That would be the country that spent a trillion dollars — on the invasion and occupation, but also on training…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Blackwater are essential to keep the Arab kill ratio up
The ongoing case of the US private military contractor Blackwater – covered extensively on this site here and here – continues. Note the seeming inability (or unwillingness, probably) of the US establishment to stop using an outfit charged with serious cases of murder and mismanagement: In the aftermath of the 2007 Nisour Square massacre in…
My, that is pretty mad capitalism in your window
John Perkins, the bestselling author of Confessions of an Economic Hit Man, has a new book out, Hoodwinked: An Economic Hit Man Reveals Why the World Financial Markets Imploded—and What We Need to Do to Remake Them. Here, on Democracy Now!, he outlines the problems with psychotic capitalism the West has embraced: I think it’s…
Ahmadinejad wonders just what Obama has really achieved
The Guardian asks Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad what it would take to normalise relations with the US: Change should happen in practice. Which change has happened? Was Guantánamo Bay shut down? Were the US policies supporting Zionists and the mass murder of Palestinians stopped? Were the US policies in Afghanistan changed? Were the policies in…
Indonesia moves a little towards America, for now
Following my recent visit to Aceh in Indonesia, this piece in today’s Washington Post is particularly interesting (though highlights the seeming inability of the American corporate media to see the world in anything other than what benefits the US): In many ways, Indonesia — a nation of 240 million people scattered across 17,000 islands —…
War reporting should only have one victim
My friend Mike Otterman, author and New York based human rights consultant, writes about the fallacy of “objectivity” when talking about war: In my view, journalism cannot be purely objective in any area—education, healthcare, crime, education–so why should war be any different? The fog of war exacerbates the inherent problems of objective journalism, i.e. presenting…
What, reporters aren’t just spokespeople for the US military?
Books by American journalists about Iraq that avoid discussing the Iraqis themselves. That’s a real achievement.
Reporters are whores for war (repeat after me)
Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting remind us that the corporate media has remembered nothing from the Iraq debacle; their job is to amplify those in power: There have been recent discussions (e.g., New York Times, 9/29/09) about whether the press is doing a better job covering allegations about Iran’s nuclear program than they did during…
”˜Anti-Zionist’ Jew: author of ”˜My Israel Question’ heads for Bali
The following article by Katrin Figge is published today in one of Indonesia’s largest English newspapers, The Jakarta Globe: For a person who gets hate mail and death threats on a regular basis, Antony Loewenstein remains surprisingly cheerful. The Jewish-Australian journalist, activist, blogger and author, who is based in Sydney, has stirred up plenty of…
When America liked the brutal Iranians
How inconvenient and reminiscent of Washington’s support for Saddam: For all the recent uproar over Iran’s nuclear program, little attention has been paid to the fact that the country which first provided Tehran with nuclear equipment was the United States. In 1967, under the “Atoms for Peace” program launched by President Eisenhower, the US sold…