Derek Gregory is professor of geography at the University of British Columbia, and author of excellent The Colonial Present: Afghanistan, Palestine, and Iraq. He discusses the evolving character of conflicts in the borderlands of former empires and the blurring of the conceptual borders of war itself.
Category: USA
Greenwald discusses Wikileaks on FAIR’s Counterspin
On this week’s Counterspin Glenn Greenwald of Salon discusses new developments in the Wikileaks saga.
(I think Al Jazeera is head and shoulders above competitors in the mainstream as a media institution. But I can’t say I am a fan of its media watch show The Listening Post. The show lacks political edge, and the media analysis is trite. One wishes they would follow the hard hitting style of FAIR‘s excellent Counterspin.)
This week on CounterSpin: The journalism organization WikiLeaks is under massive attack by U.S. government officials, corporations, and journalists. Many are calling for the group and its spokesperson Julian Assange to be prosecuted; some have even called for Assange’s execution or assassination. Transnational companies like Visa, MasterCard and Paypal have cut off services, and even liberal US pundits are attacking the group with inaccurate smears. WikiLeaks crime? Making leaked U.S. diplomatic cables available to the world both directly and through its mainstream media partners. In this special extended CounterSpin interview, we’ll talk to Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald about the assault on WikiLeaks and Assange, and what it means for journalism.
Bradley Manning: The man accused of leaking US secrets
He is the true heir to Daniel Ellsberg. And he is being treated inhumanely by the establishment whose inhumanities he helped expose.
Naomi Wolf schools CNN’s secrecy apologist
Islamophobia goes mainstream
It is too easy to mock the crude prejudices of the Tea Party. But in the US, Islamophobia has universal sanction, from Bill Maher to Bill O’Reilly. The following is therefore disturbing but not entirely surprising. Kudos to Anderson Cooper for bringing some sense to American mainstream television.
Nir Rosen on the aftermath of America’s wars
Nir Rosen, is a fellow at NYU’s Center on Law and Security, and one of the best war reporters in the world. Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World is his account of the impact of US wars in the Middle East and Central Asia. In this interview he speaks to Glenn Greenwald of Salon about his book.
And here is the transcript:
Glenn Greenwald: My guest today on Salon Radio is Nir Rosen who I think is unquestionably one of the best war journalists and commentators in the country probably in the world. He is a freelance writer photographer, film-maker, and he is currently a scholar associated with the New York University Center on Law and Security, and he has just written a book that I finished reading actually today entitled Aftermath: Following the Bloodshed of America’s Wars in the Muslim World. It’s really an amazing book. It describes the impact of multiple American wars on families and people in various countries including Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, and other countries where Nir has spent a great amount of time. I’m really excited to talk about this book. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me today.
Nir Rosen: Thanks for reading the book.
Continue reading “Nir Rosen on the aftermath of America’s wars”
Michael Moore on why he helped bail out Assange
Michael Moore on why he supports Assange and Wikileaks and why he posted part of his bail (other contributors included John Pilger and our dear friend Tariq Ali)
Also, FAIR has circulated this petition which we encourage you to signt:
We Support WikiLeaks
Stand with Daniel Ellsberg, Barbara Ehrenreich, Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky and others–sign FAIR’s petition in support of Wikileaks today.
December 14, 2010
As journalists, activists, artists, scholars and citizens, we condemn the array of threats and attacks on the journalist organization WikiLeaks. After the website’s decision, in collaboration with several international media organizations, to publish hundreds of classified State Department diplomatic cables, many pundits, commentators and prominent U.S. politicians have called for harsh actions to be taken to shut down WikiLeaks’ operations.
Continue reading “Michael Moore on why he helped bail out Assange”
On a wing and a prayer
Flying is one of the safest modes of travel — i.e., unless you are flying a Boeing 737 NG. As the following investigation by Tim Tate reveals, the FAA and Boeing have been covering up serious structural flaws with this most widely used model. Next time you are on a 737, just hope that the manufacturers have read Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.
Air travel is a question of trust, but a People & Power investigation asks what happens when that trust is shaken.
Neocons holding up START treaty
The neoconservatives represent the Likud wing of the Israel lobby. In the 1970s, when the United States was reeling from the defeat in Vietnam, and reconsidering its imperial stance, the neocons joined the military-industrial complex and unreconstructed Cold Warriors to derail the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT) and Nixon’s detente. The Cold War is over, but the neocons still have an interest in maintaining a state of conflict. Once again, therefore, they are derailing a worthy arms control initiative. Here are some wise words from Ivan Eland as to why the neocons are so afraid of New START.
The START treaty, which would reduce the United States and Russia’s nuclear arsenals by 30%, has been held up in Congress for months by neoconservatives. Will the treaty gain any traction before more conservatives join Congress in January? RT’s Dina Gusovsky is joined by Jacob Hornberger from The Future of Freedom Foundation and Ivan Eland from the Independent Institute to discuss the START treaty.
Why Academic Boycott?
Last week I thoroughly dealt with the not-so-scholarly and o-so-fallacious Nobel Laureates’ statement on BDS. In almost pure cosmic irony I just got a link from a friend to a Prime Minister’s Office “non-tender”: Request for information about improving Israel’s image on U.S.A campuses.
Now that those talkback-esque arguments are out of the way, let’s get into the direct cynical use the Israeli government makes of the academia, in order to further its propaganda.
[Limited by my translation]:
P U L S E 