[…] bomb containing VX nerve agent, the most potent chemical weapon in the US CW armoury. The bomb was dropped on elements of the Republican Guard in Southern Iraq, I was informed. Heavy casualties resulted. The operation, directed by the Central Intelligence Agency, was a counter-strike, following an Iraqi Scud that fell on Israel. The […]
[…] to cut supplies as this would cause hardship in the short term and revolution in the medium term. I wondered if he foresaw the 2003 war on Iraq. He writes: ‘As the United States has not managed to unseat Saddam Hussein, it is left with the uncomfortable choice of accepting the Iraqi regime or […]
Greg Palast London: Robinson, 2003, £7.99, p/b As the war on Iraq has reminded us, journalism can be a dangerous vocation: the nearer a reporter, photographer or filmmaker gets to the action, the greater the risks run. Away from the shooting, the hazards are different, though only a little less potent, and Greg […]
[…] and a belief that life should be better for the vast majority of mankind for whom it is unbearable.’ And on the subject of liberty, and the Iraq of his diary, he quotes approvingly T. E. Lawrence: ‘Freedom is taken, not given.’ Glass does not pontificate on the remark – he rarely does on […]
[…] Project for Excellence in Journalism (PEJ) published in June (26) estimates that some 30,000 employees of US and European-based Private Security Companies (PSCs) are at work in Iraq. ‘They have been involved in firefights…..scores of them…..have perished….. add by 20% the number of foreign troops in the country.’ Not that this would be apparent […]
[…] a US president tries to advocate a contrary view. Thus, for instance, attempts to resolve the occupation of the Golan Heights are invariably ignored, delayed or wrecked. Iraq Perhaps the most interesting chapter in the book deals with the 2003 invasion of Iraq which, the authors argue, was triggered by intense Israeli lobbying of […]
[…] and strikes, but this has never stopped him doing deals with the union bosses. Most recently, of course, they helped him avoid discussion of the invasion of Iraq at the party conference, something that shows the state of the Labour Party better than anything. But his career actually started with deals with the union […]
The Americans’ catastrophe in Iraq is prompting a rethink of US military tactics: as in, maybe it would be helpful if we knew something about the countries we invade. We need anthropologists, says Dr. Montgomery McFate, in ‘Anthropology and counterinsurgency: the strange story of their curious relationship’, Military Review, March/April 2005 (at ) ‘Anthropology […]
[…] in the courts. More successful examples which also illustrate litigation lobbying’s increasing boundaries could be: British coroners taking on the American government vis-à-vis ‘friendly fire’ deaths in Iraq; Westminster’s recently established All Party Rendition Group. The latter has agreed with human rights groups to use American laws ‘to get Washington to reveal how many […]
[…] Instead we have chapters on the Cold War, the Korean War, Suez, Vietnam, the Falklands, the first Gulf War, the Bosnian and Kosovo interventions, and the present Iraq war, only; whose main purpose seem to be to explain how Labour foreign policy has metamorphosed so drastically recently, into its present ‘humanitarian interventionist’ guise. In […]
