History repeats. Leaders learn nothing or don’t want to. Countless media hacks repeat the talking points about fighting “terrorism” and ask few questions. The “war on terror” has been a catastrophic debacle from day one. If you ask the civilians who suffer under its wrath, which most reporters don’t, you’ll know that. Seumas Milne in…
Showing all posts tagged war on terror
How the crimes in Vietnam echo to this day
Kill Anything that Moves is a new book by Nick Turse that uncovers the reality of American brutality during the Vietnam war. There were countless My-Lai type massacres. Here he writes about the legacy of that war and its relevance to (virtual) media silence over the human cost of US-led wars since 9/11: Leaving aside…
We suffer the terrorism that we help create
Powerful column by Yasmin Alibhai Brown in The Independent: Western power merchants – particularly British and Americans – in contrast, use each such tragedy to engender discord. They strut the world stage, issue threats and remind us who is boss. When will they see themselves as others see them, or try to empathise with the…
The Western war to assist brutality against the Shia
With the current Western war in Mali (in simple terms, blowback from our intervention in Libya), who and what exactly is the West supporting in the Muslim world? Patrick Cockburn writes in Counterpunch that hypocrisy is name of the game: It is a ferocious war waged by assassination, massacre, imprisonment and persecution that has killed…
Documenting the unaccountable war on terror
Laura Poitras is a remarkable American film-maker who has faced constant harassment by US officials for simply doing her job of documenting the countless abuses against innocents since 9/11. Here are two short films, made for the New York Times, that are beautiful, moving and rage-inducing. This is the true face of America in the…
Former Guantanamo Bay detainee David Hicks details US torture post 9/11
Moving testimony on the 11th anniversary of the opening of Guantanamo Bay, a gulag that remains open to this day. Justice is yet to be done:
Fighting the Obama administration’s war on whistle-blowers
The failure of many journalists to challenge the great war against individuals who speak out against illegality is startling and revealing of the mindset that most mainstream hacks have towards establishment power; they’d much rather embrace it than oppose it:
Al Jazeera’s Sami al-Hajj, imprisoned for six years at Gitmo, speaks out
Post 9/11 America implemented a draconian system of torture, imprisonment and illegality that continues today under Barack Obama. The story of Al Jazeera cameraman… Sami al-Hajj is shocking, a man who disappeared into a legal and moral black hole for years and now speaks exclusively to Democracy Now! in Qatar. This is what the “war on…
How Obama treats Americans who dare challenge the “war on terror”
During my recent trip to Washington I met former CIA officer… John C. Kiriakou. He was friendly and generous and aware that he was facing time in jail. It’s both ironic and outrageous that the Obama administration, who has pursued whistle-blowers more than any US government in history, is happy to send this man to jail…