Tomgram: Rebecca Gordon, How Extrajudicial Executions Became "War" Policy in Washington Posted by Rebecca Gordon Tom Dispatch July 17, 2016 Introduction by Tom Engelhardt of Tom Dispatch Strangely, amid the spike in racial tensions after the killing of two black men by police in Louisiana and Minnesota, and of five white police officers by a black More
Nearly 60 million people are currently displaced from their homes by war and persecution — more than at any time since World War II. Half are children.
When the United States attacks another country whether through all-out invasion, or so-called precision drone strikes, there is an always collateral damage. Let’s call it what it is, civilian causalities. How do we convince the world we’re trying to help, when we kill so many people in our military operations? https://youtu.be/W1w2RboHX-0 Media for the people! Click More
Rania Khalek discusses her reports on Baltimore police training in Israel, Israel targeting children with drone strikes, and Israeli officials openly advocating genocide. Khalek is an independent journalist reporting on the underclass.
Fiore: Remember a couple years ago, when Obama said we’d shape up his drone program and achieve “near certainty” that civilians wouldn’t be killed and signature strikes would basically end? Turns out that’s not quite true. There were some pretty huge asterisks that were attached to his proclamation.
Devereaux: The absence of transparency, despite the Rehman family’s tremendous efforts, has been a defining feature of the Obama administration’s drone program. Typically, no amount of evidence gathered by journalists, human rights investigators or researchers indicating the death of a civilian from a drone strike will elicit an on-the-record response from the U.S. government — let alone an admission of responsibility — or prompt an independent investigation.
From the article: The report raises numerous questions regarding the validity of U.S. official claims that strikes only target individuals who pose "a continuing and imminent threat to the American people" and who cannot be captured.
So, as Collateral Murder turns five, rather than looking at the video as a curiosity from a bygone conflict, we should watch it again and consider how the film continues to speak to us about the state of contemporary geo-politics, journalism and whistleblowing. By Christian Christensen Common Dreams April 4, 2015 A still image from "Collateral Murder." More
Former Air Force pilot Brandon Bryant worked in the U.S. Predator program for four and a half years. truthdig.com January 21, 2015 BBC During that time, he was told, he aided in killing 1,626 people in Afghanistan and other countries through the use of drones. In the BBC’s video interview with Bryant below, he recalls More
Tomgram: Engelhardt, The National Security State "Works," Even If Nothing It Does Works By Tom Engelhardt tomdispatch.com December 18, 2014 It was December 6, 2019, three years into a sagging Clinton presidency and a bitterly divided Congress. That day, the 500-page executive summary of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s long fought-over, much-delayed, heavily redacted report on More
[youtube=http://youtu.be/ioLeTyukD-Q] Al Arabiya 1 August 2014 Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian surgeon volunteering at a Gaza hospital, called the conflict a “major defeat for the development of humanity,” in an interview with Al Arabiya News Channel. Gilbert practices in Gaza’s al-Shifa’a Hospital, where he and Palestinian medical personnel have worked to save the lives of hundreds More
By Polly Mann WAMM Newsletter Spring II 2014 I became interested in Iceland during World War II when the husband of a close friend was stationed at a military base near Reykjavik. (The U.S. maintained a military base and naval station in Iceland until 2006.) No American soldier could go into Reykjavik without written authority from More
