Tag: iraq

Clooney is a (small L) liberal

Activism

Who would thunk it 😉 [via Miguel]

First he directs Good Night and Good Luck, and then stars in Syriana (which is excellent, but not quite as amazing as I’d been led to believe). I sense a theme there.

The best pull quote from the piece:

The fear of being criticized can be paralyzing. Just look at the way so many Democrats caved in the run up to the war. In 2003, a lot of us were saying, where is the link between Saddam and bin Laden? What does Iraq have to do with 9/11? We knew it was bullshit. Which is why it drives me crazy to hear all these Democrats saying, “We were misled.” It makes me want to shout, “Fuck you, you weren’t misled. You were afraid of being called unpatriotic.”

Amen to that.

No civil war?

International politics

Newsvine: No Civil War in Iraq!. In his latest book, Robert Fisk talks about the claim of “civil war” from the U.S and British spin-meisters from as far back as the 1991 attack on Iraq. Interesting that Newsvine is spreading the word…

I’m still getting through Robert’s book. It’s a long and hard read, so detailed and so devastating. I think it is a must read for anyone who wants to know just why there are so many “issues” in the Middle East. Hint: it has a lot to do with our governments’ actions over the past, oh, 50 years.

Wave of terror

Australian politics, International politics

Across the front page of the SMH this morning “Wave of Terror sweeping across the globe”. They go on to list the bali bomber death, the blasts in Jordan, etc. etc. One small omission: the 26,000+ people that have died in Iraq as a result of miltary intervention. A war which involves our own defence forces.

“Oh but that doesn’t count as ‘terror'”. Why? “Because it’s the military, because we are ‘liberating’ Iraq”. Such a twisted view of the world that can live with 26,000 deaths abroad, but speak of “horror” and “terror” when we lose “our own”. Until we wake up and realise this, the terrorist threat in Australia, and the west, will continue unabated.

Meanwhile our Prime Minister is pushing anti-terrorist laws described by one NSW politician as being a quality to make Hitler smile. And our democratic devices (namely the Senate) have been put on a leash and, without a Liberal back-bench revolt, will be passed into law. So who are we bringing “democracy and freedom” to again?

Iraq Casualties

International politics

Iraq Body Count now lists over 20,000 casualties. This report lists September 11 casualties at 2,819. That’s around 15% of the number killed in Iraq. And the Iraqi’s weren’t even implicated in the Sept 11 attacks. And that figure doesn’t include casualties in Afghanistan. It’s a mixed up world.