War & Military

Anatomy of the Deep State

March 5, 2014
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Many years ago Bill Moyers made a documentary on the Secret Government in the US, a scathing critique of the Executive Branch of that carries out secretive operations contrary to the wishes and values of the American people. In the video interview below, Moyers presents an updated version of this same phenomenon, called “the Deep State.” It’s a fascinating interview with government insider Mike Lofrgren, who has also written this related article for the Bill Moyers program. Here is the original Bill Moyers documentary on the Secret Government:

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Guantanamo human factory farm

May 5, 2013
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It’s not often that one can turn to the Economist for moral guidance, but on the issue of Guantanamo Bay, the British pro-business magazine  is right on target. A recent Economist article entitled “Enough to make you gag,” correctly calls the American military prison a “disgrace” that “needs to be closed rapidly. There are now 166 prisoners at Guantanamo, some of whom have been there for more than 11 years, and 90% of whom have not been charged with any crime. Approximately 100 of these prisoners are currently on a hunger strike. In a sane world, this would be a horrible…

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Harris, Greenwald, and elementary logic

April 26, 2013
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An opinion piece written by Murtaza Hussain and posted on the Al Jazeera website last month has given rise to a rather heated and very public dispute between Sam Harris and Glenn Greenwald. The dispute can be found in this vitriolic email exchange, which Harris posted on his blog, this response from Greenwald, published in the Guardian, and this follow-up piece from Harris. All are well worth reading. Those who have skimmed through this material may well wonder why these two well-educated and highly articulate men, who share much in common, can’t seem to agree on anything. What exactly is it that so divides…

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Israel is losing the propaganda battle

January 30, 2013
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And the best evidence yet comes from a new documentary film called The Gatekeepers, which features interviews with the six former heads of Shin Bet, the Israeli security agency, all of whom speak out on the public record against the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Interviews with the director of the film, Dror Moreh, can be found on both Democracy Now and CNN. From these interviews one can clearly see that neither Moreh, nor the Israeli security chiefs featured in the film, approach this subject  from a leftist or ideological perspective. Moreh correctly describes his interviewees as “pragmatists” who are…

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Sam Harris and the ethical argument for guns

January 11, 2013
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In a recent and lengthy blog post entitled “The Riddle of Guns” author Sam Harris takes issues with the “fanatacists and zealots” on both sides of the gun debate in America.  He claims to be searching for some rational middle ground between the two extremes of, on the one hand, the “liberals”who respond to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School with calls for much stronger gun control and, on the other, the right-wing NRA types who respond to the tragic mass shooting with calls for more guns in the form of armed guards at elementary schools and other public…

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The Israel lobby in the UK

December 14, 2012
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The US and Canada are not the only countries with influential lobby groups working to ensure that the majority of politicians support Israel no matter how illegal or immoral its policies may be. One of these groups in the UK is the Conservative Friends of Israel, which claims on its website to have 2,000 activists and 80% of Tory MPs as its members. It sponsors trips to Israel for these Conservative parliamentarians and candidates and campaigns hard to get them elected in their districts. In this article in the Telegraph, Peter Oborne describes how the CFI has helped to push the…

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The ten myths of Israel

December 11, 2012
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Ilan Pappe, the Jewish historian and professor at Exeter University in the UK has complied an insightful list of the ten dominant myths surrounding Israel, myths that  impede the understanding and resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The ten myths are as follows: Myth 1: Palestine was a land without people, waiting for the people without a land Myth 2: Palestinians resorted to acts of terror against Jewish settlers prior to the creation of Israel Myth 3: Myths around the creation of Israel Myth 4: Israel was a benign democratic state prior to 1967 Myth 5: The Palestinian struggle has no…

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Canada’s support for Israel

December 11, 2012
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First the bad news. At the recent vote for an upgrade to the status of the Palestinians (to non-member observer state) at the UN General Assembly, Canada went out of its way to demonstrate that it is as strong (if not stronger) a supporter of Israel and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories as is the United States. It also made it clear to the world that the Canadian government could not care less about the morality or legality of the occupation, world public opinion, or Canada’s reputation as a good global citizen. Following the lop-sided vote, in which Canada…

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South Korea’s support for Israel

November 27, 2012
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While diplomatic and trade relations between South Korea and Israel have a somewhat checkered past, the two countries have grown much closer during the current administration of Lee Myun-Bak, which is currently negotiating a free-trade agreement with Israel. And as Israel’s relationships with neighboring countries—especially Turkey—deteriorate, South Korea seems eager to step in and pick up the lost business opportunities, especially in arms sales. According to this article in the Jerusalem Post, South Korea is already conducting arms trades with Israel and Seoul is now planning “to make Israel one of its main arms suppliers alongside the United States.” In…

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Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

November 27, 2012
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What follows are responses to some of the questions that arise in discussions of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Some of these questions reflect biases that impede the understanding of the conflict.  1. What is the official position of Hamas regarding a resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?  As you can read in this Wall Street Journal article, the official position of Hamas as of 2009 is to accept a Palestinian state along the 1967 borders (roughly 20 % of historic Palestine), which is also the international consensus on how to resolve this conflict. 2. Hamas’ founding charter called for the destruction of…

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How to stop Israel

November 19, 2012
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With the latest cycle of violence in Gaza thoughts naturally turn once again to the important question of how to bring an end to Israeli aggression, the Israeli stranglehold on Gaza, and the illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories. There is obviously no realistic military solution to this problem, and a diplomatic settlement is virtually impossible given the position of the U.S. government, which would veto any attempt of the UN security council to constrain or even criticize Israel. One alternative approach is for people of conscience from around the world to put pressure on the Israeli government by boycotting…

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The week the world stood still (by Noam Chomsky)

November 5, 2012
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In his article “The week the world stood still,” published originally on TomDispatch, Noam Chomsky reminds us how close the world came to thermonuclear apocalypse in 1962 and also provides some insight into what really happened behind closed doors during the standoff between the US and the Soviet Union. It is of great importance to get the facts right about this dark moment in human history right, especially since the majority of people on earth were not alive in 1962 and can only learn about it through historical scholarship. Noam Chomsky therefore does us a great service in this article; his…

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Grapple in the Apple

October 12, 2012
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This famous debate on the invasion of Iraq between Christopher Hitchens and George Galloway took place in New York in 2005, at the height of the war. It was an intense and highly entertaining clash of personalities, if not views. Well worth watching. 

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Global Land Grab (by Terry Allen)

June 25, 2012
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Global Land Grab by Terry Allen, senior editor at In These Times, documents and analyzes the attempts that certain countries (primarily China, India and South Korea) are making to purchase tens of millions of acres of farmland from some of the poorest countries in Africa, South American, and South Asia to grow crops for export. What is taking place is, in effect, a new form of colonialism under the guise of business transactions. Allen writes: The “new colonialism” is less like a crusade and more like an ordinary business transaction floated on a promise of “win-win.” The deal-makers include international agribusinesses, investment banks,…

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Julian Assange interviews Moazzam Begg and Asim Qureshi (The World Tomorrow)

June 25, 2012
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From the website of the The World Tomorrow: [The fifth episode] of The World Tomorrow takes us to the very heart of America’s War on Terror: Guantanamo Bay. Julian Assange sat down with a former Gitmo prisoner and a rights campaigner fighting for those still trapped behind the wire. Ten years ago the war on terror prompted the opening of the facility.  Now, more than three years after President Obama ordered its closure, the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, like the war in Afghanistan, remains with us. Over a year ago, Wikileaks blew the lid on Gitmo by releasing a cache of…

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Julian Assange interviews Hassan Nasrallah (The World Tomorrow)

April 22, 2012
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In the world premiere of Julian Assange’s ‘The World Tomorrow‘ on RT, he interviews Hezbollah leader Sayyid Nasrallah, his first appearance in  international media in over six years. For interviewing such a “radical” on an English-language Russian news network, Assange predicted that he would be denounced as a traitor. And sure enough Assange’s predictions are being proven true by the reactions of the international corporate media.  Episode 1:

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New PR for the coming attack on Iran

March 23, 2012
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Peter King, the Republic Chairman  of the U.S. House Committee on Homeland Security convened a meeting this week to explain that the United States is currently facing a grave threat from a new scary monster: Iranian-backed Hezbollah agents that are inside the country and ready to attack. The shocking new evidence upon which these claims are based appears to be reports of Iranians videotaping subway tracks. Scary stuff indeed. In light of these reports, King claimed that “We have a duty to prepare for the worst.” One can listen to his opening speech at the committee meeting. It’s truly breathtaking.…

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The Crisis of Civilization (documentary)

March 21, 2012
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The Crisis of Civilization is a documentary feature film investigating how global crises like ecological disaster, financial meltdown, dwindling oil reserves, terrorism and food shortages are converging symptoms of a single, failed global system. Weaving together archival film footage and animations, film-maker Dean Puckett, animator Lucca Benney and international security analyst Dr. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, offer a stunning wake-up call proving that ‘another world’ is not merely possible, but on its way. The film consists of seven parts which explore the interconnected dynamic of global crises of Climate Catastrophe; Peak Energy; Peak Food; Economic Instability; International Terrorism; and the Militarization…

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Media failures in the Iran war debate

March 16, 2012
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Has the American media informed or mislead the public on the debate about whether or not the US should initiate or support an attack on Iran? In this article, originally published in Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt, Professor of International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, provides a helpful list of the top ten media failures on this issue. He also participated in this related discussion on an NPR radio program.   .  

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The Kony controversy

March 16, 2012
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In the middle of the two or three-day period in which the Kony 2012 went viral, a note was posted on this blog linking to the video and recommending support for the campaign to arrest Kony. The world is now witnessing a viral explosion of criticism of the Kony 2012 video, which also deserves some comment. Aljazeera has devoted a section of its website to what it calls the “Kony Debate,” though it is less a debate than it is a collection of complaints against the film. Nonetheless, it is probably the single best source of information for understanding the criticisms…

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