October 2010
12 posts
‘Plan Colombia’ Turns 10 →
Counternarcotics cannot solve Colombia’s problems, said Felbab-Brown, because coca is not at the root of those problems. “There is only so much that counternarcotics programs can do given the basic economic and political situation in Colombia,” said Felbab-Brown. “You have a set-up where labor is heavily taxed and capital and land are lightly taxed, so even when you get economic growth, it...
“Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence” by Howard Zinn →
An excerpt from the first chapter of his last book, “The Bomb”:
The bomb dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, turned into powder and ash, in a few moments, the flesh and bones of 140,000 men, women, and children. Three days later, a second atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki killed perhaps 70,000 instantly. In the next five years, another 130,000 in- habitants of those two cities died of...
“If we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand...”
– Howard Zinn (See “Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence” by Howard Zinn ) (via Instapaper)
Time to act surprised again →
The Guardian:
The new logs detail how:
US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.
SHOCK
A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
...
New Left Project: “God helps those who help... →
Jamie Stern-Weiner over at NLP did a really great interview with Norman Finkelstein about the Israel-Palestine conflict.
It’s split over two parts: here’s part one and part two.
Here’s my pull from the second part:
What is the British government’s role in the conflict? It is officially committed to the international consensus two-state settlement, but what has our record been in practice?
...
Exposing Gordon Kerr and Tony Blair’s secret army... →
The death squads in Iraq were run by the bloke who ran death squads in Northern Ireland.
Murder, old and new.
(via Instapaper)
Bloody Sunday’s Architects | The Nation →
Peter Pringle:
Saville’s report is now accepted with relief by the families as the official truth—but only regarding who shot whom. The darker side of Bloody Sunday—and of the forty years of the Troubles in Northern Ireland, during which more than 3,500 civilians and soldiers died—was the role of Britain’s secret service, MI5. Here Saville failed.
The example attracting most publicity is...
Kodak’s Nazi Connections | The Nation →
Similar to the previously linked piece about Ford, but shorter.
(via Instapaper)
Ford and the Führer | The Nation →
I recently re-read this great piece by Ken Silverstein about Ford’s dealings in Germany and occupied France during the second world war. Essentially, they were more than happy to make money by manufacturing equipment to be used by the Nazis.
(via Instapaper)
Bin Laden, the Taliban, Zawahiri: Britain’s done... →
Mark Curtis:
The government says it has prevented 12 bomb plots in the last decade and that we face a threat from 200 networks. My concern is that the wards of state pledging to protect us have neither accounted for “blowback” nor stopped contributing to it. Governments guided by morals would have different priorities and would discontinue policies based on interests that endanger us and much...
“Take your mum and grandma as war booty? What? In Nottingham?”
– A good piece in the Leicester Mercury about the EDL.
The Realities of Empire →
The New Left Project interviews John Newsinger, the author of “The Blood Never Dried”:
There is no doubt that the ferocity of the repression unleashed against the rebellion in Kenya in the 1950s was made possible by the fact that the victims were black. It is inconceivable that the government would have got away with hanging white men for offences such as the administering of illegal oaths....