Dive into the archives.
- Jeremy Scahill’s Recent Short Documentary
Blackwater’s Youngest Victim: Father of 9 Year-Old Killed in Nisour Square Gives Most Detailed Account of Massacre to Date (full article…)
- Iraq War
The invasion of Iraq was illegal, a senior government lawyer told the Chilcot inquiry into the war today. (full article…)
- That Oil is Ours Dammit!
Oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens told Congress on Wednesday that U.S. energy companies are “entitled” to some of Iraq’s crude because of the large number of American troops that lost their lives fighting in the country and the U.S. taxpayer money spent in Iraq. (full article…)
- The Palestinian Tragedy
The fact that the divided Palestinian political leadership is silent about the mistreatment of the refugees by Arab states does not make such behaviour any less reprehensible – or less dangerous. Some 250,000 Palestinians were chased out of Kuwait and other Gulf States to punish the Palestinian political leadership for supporting Saddam Hussein. Tens of [...]
- Coverup
The British military’s chain of command has instructed the country’s top investigators not to examine hundreds of incidents involving Iraqi deaths and serious injury, a former British military police officer told the BBC Sunday. (full article…)
- The Cost of U.S. Propaganda
Alhurra, set up under former President George W. Bush to broadcast an American perspective of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East, was the subject of a joint investigation last year by ProPublica and CBS’ 60 Minutes. The investigation and a series of ProPublica articles revealed serious staff problems, financial mismanagement and long-standing concerns inside [...]
- Why He Threw the Shoe
I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre [...]
- Outsourcing Atrocity
Private security guards who worked for Blackwater repeatedly shot wildly into the streets of Baghdad without regard for civilians long before they were involved in a 2007 shooting episode that left at least 14 Iraqis dead, federal prosecutors charge in a new court document. (more…)
- How To Kill an International Student Program
A decision by the University of Wyoming to name a new center for international students for former Vice President Dick Cheney is drawing criticism from people who say Cheney’s support for the Iraq war and harsh interrogation techniques should disqualify him from the distinction. The former vice president and wife Lynne are expected to attend [...]
- The Shoe Felt ‘Round the World
Zaidi’s actions during the former US president’s swansong visit to Iraq last December have not stopped reverberating in the nine months since. Next Monday, when the journalist walks out of prison, his 10 raging seconds, which came to define his country’s last six miserable years, are set to take on a new life even more [...]
- War Profiteer
A baker scraping by when American tanks rolled into Baghdad, Mr. Mohsin recently spent $50,000 to throw a one-night bacchanal at the exclusive Hunting Club here. When guests visit his second home, in Baghdad, he proudly shows off the two peacocks he imported from Dubai, to join a menagerie of exotic birds that he sometimes [...]
- (Baseless) Statements from the NYT
He made no mention of American troops in a nationally televised speech, even though nearly 130,000 remain in the country; most had already pulled back from Iraq’s cities before Tuesday’s deadline. The excitement, however, has rung hollow for many Iraqis, who fear that their country’s security forces are not ready to stand alone and who [...]
- A Puppet’s Snub
When the Iraqi Prime Minister, Nouri al-Maliki, held a meeting with 300 top military commanders last week a US general who tried to attend was asked to leave. “We apologise to you, but this is an Iraqi meeting and you’re not invited,” he was told. (more…)
- The Brilliant Political Analysis of Thomas Friedman
At first, this dialogue took place primarily through violence. Liberated from Saddam’s iron fist, each Iraqi community tested its strength against the others, saying in effect: “Show me what you got, baby.” (more…)
- This is “Change”
The Pentagon is prepared to leave fighting forces in Iraq for as long as a decade despite an agreement between the United States and Iraq that would bring all American troops home by 2012, the top U.S. Army officer said Tuesday. (more…)
- Soldier Stress
But then an email, written in February 2008 from Katz to a colleague, came to light. “Shh! Our suicide prevention co-ordinators are identifying about 1,000 suicide attempts per month among the veterans we see in our medical facilities. Is this something we should (carefully) address ourselves in some sort of release before someone stumbles on [...]
- Obama’s War
American soldiers opened fire and killed a 12-year old boy after a grenade hit their convoy in Mosul on Thursday. (more…)
- Celebrating With a Barbeque
He went on to take his turn raping the schoolgirl before covering her face with a pillow and shooting her three times. The soldiers started to leave but paused to consider the corpse and after a discussion, decided to douse Abeer’s body with kerosene and set it alight. The men then went back to base [...]
- Shoe-Thrower to Be Pardoned
Den irakiske journalist, der kastede sine sko efter præsident Bush, beder om at blive benådet. (more…)
- A Potential Problem
It is not clear how the US might replace Blackwater. (more…) Is is just so difficult to find eager young killers willing to work for a paltry six-figure income these day.
- Power to the Shoe
The legislative session became so tumultuous that it prompted the speaker of Parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani, to announce his resignation, according to The Associated Press. (more…)
- Time to Leave
The controversial American private security contractor Blackwater Worldwide, which was involved in the shooting of 17 Iraqi civilians last year, should be dismissed by the US Government, an advisory panel to the State Department said yesterday. (more…)
- Guests in Iraq
QUESTION: But he wasn’t a guest. We’re occupiers. PERINO: No, we’re not. We are absolutely a guest. (more…)
- The Cost of Freedom
U.S. military operations, including the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, have cost $904 billion since 2001 and could top $1.7 trillion by 2018, even with big cuts in overseas troop deployments, a report said on Monday. (more…)
- Power to the Shoe
Thousands of Iraqis on Monday demanded the release of Muntazer al-Zaydi, the journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W. Bush. (more…)
- Power to the Shoe
Both shoes missed their target – one went high, and the president ducked the other – and Bush did his best to laugh the whole incident off. “I saw his sole,” he joked. But Bush is unlikely to escape the image of a US president cowering behind a lectern watched by an unflinching Maliki. The [...]
- Another Success for the Bush Doctrine
The brother of the Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at US President George W Bush has said that the reporter has been beaten in custody. (more…) I’m sure this is what Bush intended when he promised to bring democracy to Iraq. Ah, freedom smells great!
- Power to the Shoe
But the lowly shoe and the Iraqi who threw both of his at President Bush, with widely admired aim, were embraced around the Arab world on Monday as symbols of rage at a still unpopular war. (more…)
- Power To the Shoe
Far from a joke, many in the Mideast saw the act by an Iraqi journalist as heroic, expressing the deep, personal contempt many feel for the American leader they blame for years of bloodshed, chaos and the suffering of civilians. (more…)
- Power to the Shoe
“This is a farewell kiss, you dog,” he yelled in Arabic. “This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq.” (more…)
- She Came Up With This All By Herself?
The one exception to the view that our values and interests were inextricably linked had really been the Middle East, where I think we had really focused more on stability at the expense of values. We didn’t talk much about democracy in the Middle East. (more…) Let’s put aside Condi’s view that the Middle East [...]
- Time To Leave
Americans are more upbeat about U.S. prospects in Iraq than at any time in the past five years, but nearly two-thirds continue to believe the war is not worth fighting and 70 percent say President-elect Barack Obama should fulfill his campaign promise to withdraw U.S. forces from the country within 16 months, according to a [...]
- Shoe In
“Just as the men were shaking hands, an Iraqi reporter in the small crowd stood up and hurled not one, but two shoes, at the president, forcing Bush to duck to avoid getting hit,” Raddatz said. “His press secretary, Dana Perino, was hit in the eye by a microphone as the man was wrestled to [...]
- The Price of Freedom
“When I opened the door he tumbled out. His brain fell between my feet,” Kinani said, breaking down in tears. (more…)
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Britain will withdraw nearly all of its troops from Iraq beginning in March and U.S. troops will take over their positions in Basra, according to several British newspapers citing military sources. (more…)
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Federal prosecutors yesterday described a blaze of gunfire and grenade explosions unleashed by six Blackwater Worldwide security guards in a busy Baghdad square last year, calling it an “unprovoked and illegal attack” on unarmed Iraqi civilians that killed at least 14 and wounded 20. (more…)
- Jeremy Scahill: Justice, of a Sort, for Blackwater
For 1,929 days, the Bush administration’s mercenary force of choice, Blackwater Worldwide, has operated on a US government contract in Iraq in a climate that has wed immunity with impunity. Today the Justice Department took the first concrete step to hold accountable the individuals responsible for the single greatest massacre of Iraqi civilians at the [...]
- Washington Post: In Iraq, ‘A Prison Full of Innocent Men’
U.S. officials in Iraq have turned prisons once described as training camps for would-be insurgents into something more closely resembling American-style vocational schools. Religious and technical training are offered to detainees, who are allowed to visit with relatives through teleconferencing calls. But the recently approved U.S.-Iraqi security agreement will soon require the American military to [...]
- Jeremy Scahill: Obama Doesn’t Plan to End the Iraq Occupation
The New York Times is reporting about an “apparent evolution” in president-elect Barack Obama’s thinking on Iraq, citing his recent statements about his plan to keep a “residual force” in the country and his pledge to “listen to the recommendations of my commanders” as Obama prepares to assume actual command of US forces. “At the [...]
- The Israel Lobby & US Foreign Policy
I have been trying to avoid writing this review, not because of the book’s subject matter (this is not a profound book any sense of the word) but because it has been done so many times before and has by now become quite dated in the ephemeral world of controversy. But I finally read the [...]
- Jeremy Scahill: Obama’s Kettle of Hawks
Barack Obama has assembled a team of rivals to implement his foreign policy. But while pundits and journalists speculate endlessly on the potential for drama with Hillary Clinton at the state department and Bill Clinton’s network of shady funders, the real rivalry that will play out goes virtually unmentioned. The main battles will not be [...]
- Noam Chomsky: What Next? The Elections, the Economy, and the World
Well, let’s begin with the elections. The word that the rolls off of everyone’s tongue is historic. Historic election. And I agree with it. It was an historic election. To have a black family in the white house is a momentous achievement. In fact, it’s historic in a broader sense. The two Democratic candidates were [...]
- Jeremy Scahill: This Is Change? 20 Hawks, Clintonites & Neocons to Watch for in Obama’s White House
U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best [...]
