The Guardian reports that a lawsuit brought by a Pakistani journalist over wrongful deaths in drone strikes has forced the CIA station chief in Islamabad to flee the country. The official’s identity was discovered by the journalist, Karim Khan of North Waziristan from other journalists or possibly from disgruntled elements in the Pakistani military. It […]
Iraq Arrests Dozens in Terror Sweep, Offers Help to Iran
Iraqi authorities are going for the trifecta. They are finally forming a new government, nine months after the March parliamentary elections, to be headed by incumbent Nuri al-Maliki at the head of a Shiite-Kurdish coalition. They have finally gotten UN sanctions on Iraq, implemented after the 1990 occupation of Kuwait, lifted. And they are increasingly […]
Stewart: Aljazeera Pays More Attention to First Responders than Senate Republicans, US Networks
The Republican Party has since September 11, 2001, been absolutely insufferable in invoking those attacks at every possible moment for every possible reason, and in trying to portray themselves as better than other people precisely because they demagogue this issue so much. So what a surprise that the Republicans in the Senate, who after all […]
Movement for Palestinian State gains International Momentum, to Dismay of US Congress
Palestinian authorities on Thursday protested the resolution passed by the US congress on Wednesday condemning movement toward a unilateral declaration by Palestinians of a Palestinian state. The congressional resolution was actually fairly weak, showing the tensions between the US and the far rightwing government of Binyamin Netanyahu, since it did call for the establishment of […]
BP Platform Blow-Out was covered up in Azerbaijan: Wikileaks
The Guardian reports from US State Department cables released by Wikileaks that the oil and gas giant, BP, experienced a platform disaster in the Caspian Sea off Azerbaijan in September, 2008, very similar to last summer’s Deep Water Horizon platform explosion. BP was reported to have covered up the details of the catastrophe even from […]
The Costs of War: Afghan Civilian Casualties Spike, says ICRC
An important price of President Obama’s decision to pursue a big new military campaign in Afghanistan under the rubric of ‘counter-insurgency’ has been a spike in civilian casualties, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. A new ICRC report notes, ‘ As the conflict has intensified and expanded geographically, civilian casualties have once […]
Fox Management Ordered Reporters to Spin Global Warming
Surprise! Management at Fox Cable “News” instructed journalists to spin reporting on climate change by casting doubt on the indisputable fact that the world has warmed over the past 50 years. This according to Media Matters, which got hold of a memo by Bill Sammon, ‘ questioning the “veracity of climate change data” and ordering […]
Domestic Crusaders and Islamophobia in Literature
McSweeney’s is publishing Wajahat Ali’s important Muslim-American play: ‘ The Domestic Crusaders focuses on a day in the life of a modern Muslim Pakistani-American family of six eclectic, unique members, who convene at the family house to celebrate the twenty-first birthday of the youngest child. With a background of 9-11 and the scapegoating of Muslim […]
NIE Questions Progress in Afghanistan
Congress has been briefed on a new National Intelligence estimate on Afghanistan that is said to throw cold water on the idea that the US military has made significant progress in Afghanistan as a result of President Obama’s troop escalation. In a further demonstration that people leak classified documents all the time in Washington–it isn’t […]