December 2010

Fatima Bhutto: What the WikiLeaks revelations tell us about how Washington runs Pakistan

by TomDispatch 12.09.2010

Reprinted with permission of TomDispatch.com I mean, you couldn’t make this stuff up.  In fact, if I were to offer a conspiracy theory to explain it, I might suggest that the U.S. government now exists mainly to feed material to The Daily Show.  I’m referring to an article in the New York Times reporting that “the Obama administration and the [...]

Read the full article →

WikiLeaks reveals Shell’s grip on Nigerian state

by News Sources 12.09.2010

The Guardian reports: The oil giant Shell claimed it had inserted staff into all the main ministries of the Nigerian government, giving it access to politicians’ every move in the oil-rich Niger Delta, according to a leaked US diplomatic cable. The company’s top executive in Nigeria told US diplomats that Shell had seconded employees to [...]

Read the full article →

How WikiLeaks turned the First Amendment into a ‘problem’

by Paul Woodward 12.09.2010

First Amendment attorney Floyd Abrams says: “WikiLeaks may just be the price we pay for freedom of the press in this country.” Why not: “WikiLeaks demonstrates the value of the First Amendment”? After all, what’s the good of having a free press when journalists so willingly serve the interests of the establishment? If the Fourth [...]

Read the full article →

Latest graduate in FBI’s terrorist training program

by Paul Woodward 12.09.2010

Since it’s difficult to identify and capture terrorists, the FBI seems to have concluded that an effective counterterrorism program can only work if they first find potential terrorists, coach them and then catch them. It’s a bit like sports hunting for those whose pride in displaying a trophy is undiminished by the fact that the [...]

Read the full article →

Why Assange and Wikileaks have won this round

by News Sources 12.09.2010

Ian Welsh writes: The odd thing about Wikileaks is that their success has been assured, not by what they leaked, though there is some important information there, but by their enemies. The massive and indiscriminant overreaction by both government and powerful corporate actors has ensured this, and includes but is not nearly limited to: Shutting [...]

Read the full article →

The accusations against Assange

by News Sources 12.09.2010

Kate Harding writes: You don’t have to be a conspiracy theorist to find the timing of Interpol’s warrant for the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who turned himself in to British authorities today, curious. The charges — “one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape,” according to [...]

Read the full article →

How the US and China colluded to undermine Copenhagen climate summit

by News Sources 12.09.2010

Der Spiegel reports: Last year’s climate summit in Copenhagen was a political disaster. Leaked US diplomatic cables now show why the summit failed so spectacularly. The dispatches reveal that the US and China, the world’s top two polluters, joined forces to stymie every attempt by European nations to reach agreement. In May 2009 the Chinese [...]

Read the full article →

US effort to limit Sadr bloc’s influence in new Iraqi government

by News Sources 12.09.2010

Christian Science Monitor reports: The US is warning that it could cut substantial funding to Iraq’s Health, Education, and Transport ministries if the anti-American Sadr bloc is given those cabinet posts in a new government being formed by Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. The comments by a senior US embassy official were the clearest public statements [...]

Read the full article →

Lying for the State Department

by Paul Woodward 12.08.2010

Is skill in the art of lying a prerequisite for the job of State Department spokesman, or is it just an ability acquired through on-the-job training? James Rubin, State spokesman for the Clinton administration, demonstrated that he retains his fluency in an interview he did this afternoon alongside Salon‘s Glenn Greenwald and John Burns from [...]

Read the full article →

Court ruling gives Obama power of judge, jury and executioner

by News Sources 12.08.2010

The New York Times reports: A federal judge on Tuesday threw out a lawsuit that had sought to block the American government from trying to kill Anwar al-Awlaki, a United States citizen and Muslim cleric in hiding overseas who is accused of helping to plan attacks by Al Qaeda’s branch in Yemen. The ruling, which [...]

Read the full article →

Leiberman suggests New York Times could be investigated

by Paul Woodward 12.08.2010

The Guardian reports: Joe Lieberman, the chair of the Senate homeland security committee, told Fox News: “To me the New York Times has committed at least an act of, at best, bad citizenship, but whether they have committed a crime is a matter of discussion for the justice department.” Lieberman also said that the department [...]

Read the full article →

Paypal and the State Department’s legal charade

by Paul Woodward 12.08.2010

“On November 27, the State Department — the US government basically — wrote a letter saying that the WikiLeaks activities were deemed illegal in the United States and as a result our [acceptable use] policy group had to make the decision of suspending the account,” PayPal’s VP of Platform Osama Bedier said on stage at [...]

Read the full article →

There’s a war going on inside America

by News Sources 12.08.2010

Robert Reich writes: The deal the President struck with Republican leaders is an abomination. It will cost $900 billion over the next two years — larger than the bailout of Wall Street, GM, and Chrysler put together, larger than the stimulus package, larger than anything that’s come out of Washington in years. It makes a [...]

Read the full article →

Tom Engelhardt: epitaph from the imperial graveyard

by TomDispatch 12.08.2010

The American war dead disappear into the darkness By Tom Engelhardt America’s heroes?  Not so much.  Not anymore.  Not when they’re dead, anyway.  Remember as the invasion of Iraq was about to begin, when the Bush administration decided to seriously enforce a Pentagon ban, in existence since the first Gulf War, on media coverage and [...]

Read the full article →

US ditches effort to get Israel to extend settlement slowdown

by Paul Woodward 12.07.2010

I guess Hillary Clinton already has her hands full overseeing the State Department’s UN credit card number theft operations along with coordinating cyber attacks on WikiLeaks — the Middle East peace process would just have to go on the back burner. There will be a statement tomorrow. I wonder whether Israel still gets a free [...]

Read the full article →

How Israel and the US benefited from the murder of Rafik Hariri

by News Sources 12.07.2010

Who has benefited most from the assassination of Rafik Hariri in Beirut in 2005? As the International Court of Justice arrives at its version of events, Dyab Abou Jahjah, writing in Open Democracy, finds confirmation in WikiLeaks for pointing us in a different direction. Lebanon nowadays seems much bigger than it actually is. In a [...]

Read the full article →

Truth in chains

by News Sources 12.07.2010

Chris Floyd writes: Well, they got him at last. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, the target of several of the world’s most powerful governments, turned himself into British authorities today and is now at the mercy of state authorities who have already shown their wolfish – and lawless – desire to destroy him and his organization. [...]

Read the full article →

Wikileaks and the long haul

by News Sources 12.07.2010

Clay Shirky writes: Like a lot of people, I am conflicted about Wikileaks. Citizens of a functioning democracy must be able to know what the state is saying and doing in our name, to engage in what Pierre Rosanvallon calls “counter-democracy”*, the democracy of citizens distrusting rather than legitimizing the actions of the state. Wikileaks [...]

Read the full article →

Visa and Mastercard are happy to transfer donations to the Ku Klux Klan, but not WikiLeaks

by News Sources 12.07.2010

The BBC reports: Visa Europe has begun suspending payments to whistle-blowing website Wikileaks ahead of carrying out an investigation into the organisation. It follows a similar move by rival payments processor Mastercard on Tuesday. Charles Arthur, the Guardian’s technology editor, points out that while MasterCard and Visa have cut WikiLeaks off you can still use [...]

Read the full article →

The arrest of Julian Assange

by News Sources 12.07.2010

Outside the court, Assange’s lawyer Mark Stephens said: WikiLeaks will continue. WikiLeaks is many thousands of journalists around the world. A renewed bail application will be made. We have heard the judge today say that he wishes to see the evidence himself. He was impressed by the fact that a number of people were prepared [...]

Read the full article →

The Carmel catastrophe is burning all illusions in Israel

by News Sources 12.07.2010

Max Blumenthal puts the Carmel forest fire in context. “When I look out my window today and see a tree standing there, that tree gives me a greater sense of beauty and personal delight than all the vast forests I have seen in Switzerland or Scandinavia. Because every tree here was planted by us.” – [...]

Read the full article →

The war on free speech

by News Sources 12.07.2010

John Naughton writes: ‘Never waste a good crisis” used to be the catchphrase of the Obama team in the runup to the presidential election. In that spirit, let us see what we can learn from official reactions to the WikiLeaks revelations. The most obvious lesson is that it represents the first really sustained confrontation between [...]

Read the full article →

The expanding Saudi file

by Paul Woodward 12.07.2010

Saudi Arabia’s Prince Turki al-Faisal demanded on Sunday that WikiLeaks be “vigorously punished” and said that it was incumbent on the US “to not just be extra vigilant but to try to restore the credibility and the legitimacy of their engagement with the rest of us, and ensure that there are no more leaks to [...]

Read the full article →

New York Times plays down Saudi role in promoting terrorism

by Paul Woodward 12.06.2010

“WikiLeaks cables portray Saudi Arabia as a cash machine for terrorists,” declares The Guardian, reporting on the US State Department’s concerns about the Kingdom’s role in funding al Qaeda and other militant organizations. The New York Times opts for the bland, “Cash Flow to Terrorists Evades U.S. Efforts,” with a subhead, “Arab Allies Resist U.S. [...]

Read the full article →

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →