The massacre at Haditha is at last getting some media coverage. Don't know why it's taken six months, but better late than never.
I remember an episode of the BBC's Spooks in the last series where the intelligence services decided to serve up one of their own as having carried out a crime so as to show transparency within the system. Dahr Jamail thus reminds us that there are daily reports of civilian abuse by US forces lest we think Haditha is a one off.
Maybe the difference is that someone had a camera to film the aftermath of Haditha. It just couldn't be ignored. The same way the only things people know about Abu Ghraib is what pictures have been released when it is known that more footage - even worse footage than what we've been exposed to - has been suppressed.
The best form of protection we can give to Iraqis then is cameras. But maybe we'd get bored of that footage after a while too. This letter in today's Herald summarises our despicable attitude to dead Iraqis:
Continue reading "Haditha and the need to get Iraqis cameras" »
Expat academic historian
Bush and Blair like to speak of how the "international community" is being challenged and how big their global coalition is.
"Foreign criminals" have been in the news recently, but what do we mean by "foreign"? According to this week's
Former US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright yesterday
The Church of Scotland have
The head of the Catholic Church in England has
West of Scotland MSP
In the MCB's
Apologies for coming onto this one a bit late, but the
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has called for Israel to be wiped off the map, should bear in mind that his own country could also be destroyed, Israeli elder statesman Shimon Peres said on Monday.
The West needs to take the threat of fundamentalist, militant Islam more seriously, controversial British commentator Christopher Hitchens told a predominately older audience at the Geology Corner auditorium last night. In an hour-and-a-half program, the liberal-socialist contrarian with a wry British wit and a sharp English tongue offered up barbs against Osama bin Laden, Muslims, liberals and Jacques Chirac.
There's been much consternation over the rise of the BNP at last week's local elections in England. It was in some way lower than predicted -
Chick Yog
It came as a surprise to many when Jack Straw was booted from the Foreign Office on Friday to be replaced by Margaret Beckett. The news was overshadowed by the sacking of Charles Clarke, meaning there has not been a lot of analysis of the move by Blair.





