“Despite fearful rhetoric to the contrary, terrorism is not a transcendent threat. A terrorist attack cannot possibly destroy a country’s way of life; it’s only our reaction to that attack that can do that kind of damage.” In the wake of last week’s failed bombing of an airplane over Detroit, Bruce Schneier asks us to leverage the inherent strengths of our democracies.
edition.cnn.com
terror
30/12/2009
Is aviation security mostly for show?
31/05/2009
After Iraq, it’s not just North Korea that wants a bomb
“The idea that there is something irrational in North Korea’s attempt to acquire nuclear weapons is clearly absurd. This is, after all, a state that has been targeted for regime change by the US ever since the end of the cold war, included as one of the select group of three in George Bush’s axis of evil in 2002, and whose Clinton administration guarantee of ‘no hostile intent’ was explicitly withdrawn by his successor.” Seumas Milne identifies the single greatest driver of nuclear proliferation.
www.guardian.co.uk
15/03/2009
The Beach of Death
“She’d been treading water for seven hours, before local fishermen found her in the water.”
current.com
20/01/2009
Why they might miss Dubya when he’s gone
“Like it or not, I fear it will not only be the cartoonists and impressionists who will miss the easy target in the White House when he has gone”, writes Mick Hume on the day George W Bush leaves office.
spiked-online.com
20/01/2009
The 44th President
I was just following the swearing-in of Barack Obama as the 44th President and listening to his Inaugural Address. It appears to me that, at long last, the United States of America have got a class act to lead them.
16/12/2008
Welcome to the Police Academy state
“Sir Ian Blair captured the febrile nature of this climate, giddy on nightmares, when he said that de Menezes was killed in the ‘fog of war’. Given that this fog engulfed those giving the orders, little wonder officers stopped behaving rationally.” Tim Black reflects on what the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes tells us about the institutions of the British state.
spiked-online.com
03/10/2008
The Legacy
“It would have been nice to let Bush’s two terms marinate a while before invoking Herbert Hoover and James Buchanan from the cellar of worst presidents. But then—over the last two weeks—he completed the trilogy of national disasters that will be with us for a generation or more.” Timothy Egan assesses the Bush Presidency.
egan.blogs.nytimes.com
31/05/2007
We had the very best of intentions
“We did not go into Iraq to impose representative government on the Iraqis. We went there to manage a threat to our own safety.” Richard Perle explains why, in his view, the United States of America had to invade Iraq and topple Sadam Hussein.
commentisfree.guardian.co.uk
22/09/2006
Privatsphäre ist wie Sauerstoff
In German
“Der politische Stand ist eine Symbiose mit der Medienindustrie eingegangen, die aus finanziellen Gründen den Terrorismus in einem Maße ausschlachtet, das objektiv nicht zu rechtfertigen ist.” Privacy is like oxygen, argues Pär Ström. You’ll miss it when it’s gone…
www.bundestag.de
26/08/2006
What the terrorists want
“Defense against terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. Our job is to recognize that terrorism is just one of the risks we face. And our job is to fight politicians who use fear as an excuse to take away our liberties and promote security theater that wastes money and doesn’t make us any safer.” Bruce Schneier is not about to give in. Are you?
www.schneier.com
26/07/2006
Israel takes a stupid pill
“Olmert has somehow persuaded the Israeli military to ignore strategy, think tactically, and in the process become really stupid.” Larry C Johnson asks whether anyone has really thought this through…
www.alternet.org
22/08/2005
Fireworks in Washington, despair around the World
“The president and his speechwriters have yet to confront the tension between their rhetoric about freedom, which is universally popular, and their practice of projecting US firepower, which is resented in equal measure.” Former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook on the day George Bush began his second term in office.
www.guardian.co.uk
Robin Cook is Dead
Robin Cook, one of few political figures to command my lasting respect, has suddenly died on August 6, 2005. If you are only ever going to read one political statement made to the House of Commons, read Robin Cooks’s resignation speech from 18 March, 2003.
30/07/2005
A minute of silence
Last week I got caught up in the traffic jam that followed the killing of an innocent man at Stockwell tube station. Today, I passed the same spot again. This time I stopped.
Remembering Jean Charles de Menezes one week after he was shot and killed by police at Stockwell tube station in London. What did the ubiquitous CCTV cameras record that morning?
Update: Reports are now emerging that Jean Charles de Menezes had already been restrained by an officer when he was shot in the head seven times.
18/05/2005
Echoes of war
World Press Photo is the largest and most prestigious press photography contest in the world. Every year, the exhibition is visited by more than a million people in over 40 countries. Today I got a chance to see the Winners Gallery 2005 in Hamburg. Of all the images on display, that of Private Eric Ayon had the biggest impact on me.
“Private Eric Ayon of Echo Company of the Second Battalion, Fourth Regiment of the US Marines stares through the windshield of a Humvee ambushed at Ar Ramadi in Iraq on April 6, 2004. Eight out of the nine marines on board were killed. Ayon himself died in an ambush at the same intersection only three days later. During its tour of Iraq, Echo Company suffered the worst casualties of any US company since Vietnam.”
2nd Prize in the category General News Singles, World Press Photo 2005.
© David Robert Swanson, USA, The Philadelphia Inquirer.
Reproduced with kind permission.
08/05/2005
Power of Nightmares re-awakened
“The Power of Nightmares – first screened in Autumn 2004 and repeated this week on BBC2 – questions whether the threat of terrorism to the West is a politically driven fantasy and if al-Qaeda really is an organised network.” Read producer Adam Curtis’s responses to comments from viewers around the world.
news.bbc.co.uk
27/09/2004
The Power and the Glory
“Divine ordination is a very dangerous idea, especially when combined with military power. With God’s approval, you need no human standard of morality.” Howard Zinn expands on the myths of American exeptionalism.
www.bostonreview.net
20/09/2004
Fotoshow: Nein zum Krieg
In German
In February 2003 millions around the world were united in protest against going to war in Iraq. Take a look at this gallery of pictures taken during that period.
www.geo.de
People protesting against going to war with Iraq in Hamburg, February 2002.
01/08/2004
A cloud over civilisation
“Wars are a major threat to civilised existence, and a corporate commitment to weapons procurement nurtures this threat.” Economist John Kenneth Galbraith argues that companies control the state.
www.guardian.co.uk