Jeremy Scahill on Obama’s Iraq Withdrawal That Isn’t (Video)

With 70,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, President Obama yesterday dropped his 2009 pledge to remove all combat troops before September, extending the target date 15 months, Gareth Porter reported today at Inter Press Services. The drawdown is intended by the Administration to leave 50,000 ‘residual troops’ indefinitely, but investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill notes the so-called “withdrawal” is a replacement of combat troops with ‘private’ mercenary firms. Earlier today, he spoke with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now! (11:48):

Daily Briefing—18th-19th May 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:

Daily Briefing—5th May 2010

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:

Indiscriminate Killing is ‘Standard Operating Procedure’

Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange set the record straight on frequent misreporting of the discovery of U.S. military atrocities.

Michelle Alexander on ‘The New Jim Crow’: Neo-Slavery in the U.S., a Caste System of Concentration Camps (Video)

Legal scholar on the ‘criminal justice system’ in the U.S. Michelle Alexander gave this extremely sad and illuminating interview to Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez at Democracy Now! highlighting the extensive racism in the framing and execution of law enforcement. She’s written the book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, and is touring the lecture circuit on the topic. What you’re about to see is shocking and heartbreaking to those with the most cynical outlook toward the State, let alone the almost helplessly naïve. As men of color, we felt this deeply and that it’s imperative that consciousness is heavily raised to the snowball effects of tyrannical laws and the way slavery has been overtly executed under our noses.

Arundhati Roy: ‘What is Peace? We Need Resistance and Not Just on the Weekends’ (Video)

Indian author and dissident Arundhati Roy calls democracy “the biggest scam on Earth” in a climate where so-called ‘democracies’ are the driving forces of war, poverty and disenfranchisement. She provides harsh, educated critiques of the American Empire and India’s U.S.-enabled occupation of Kashmir and oppression within in an interview with Amy Goodman and Anjali Kamat at Democracy Now!

Chomsky’s Lectern: Obama’s Foreign Policy and the Importance of Activism (Video)

Prof. Chomsky discusses the Obama Administration’s continuation of the Bush Administration’s foreign policy (consistent with all credible predictions prior to the inauguration), the ‘immoral’ U.S.-led war against and occupation of Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay’s purpose of ‘creating terrorists’, Osama bin Laden’s ‘allegiance’ with the U.S., Obama’s ‘rejectionist stance’ enabling Israel’s expanding occupation of Palestine, his ‘full-time job’ of activism from childhood throughout his career with the ‘antiwar movement’, the myth of the existence of a ‘free-market’, his history of tax resistance, the differing dissents of the intellectual and working class on war.

Focusing on Ft. Hood Killer’s Beliefs an Easy Out to Avoid Deeper Reasons for the Massacre

“It is possible that having been at Walter Reed and having heard all these stories and been an Army psychiatrist and then knowing that he was going to deploy, that all of that caused him to snap,” said Aaron Glantz, editor of New America Media who focuses on the effects of the Iraq War on U.S. military personnel, to Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!.

Scahill and Greenwald on Media Elite Manufacturing Consent for Self-Proclaimed ‘Establishment’ (Video)

A must watch: Jeremy Scahill and Glenn Greenwald, two of our most respected voices speaking truth to illegitimate power, on GRITtv with Laura Flanders, Wednesday. Mr. Scahill and Mr. Greenwald discuss the media elite and how—in their own words—form the “political debate” by not reporting facts, but an ESPN-esque play-by-play of what those in power are asserting. They go after the major TV networks and print media, Chuck Todd, Tim Russert, Tom Brokaw and others on how they ‘manufacture consent’ for torture and immoral war in this 60 minute video, but the segment with Mr. Scahill and Mr. Greenwald ends at the 29:30 mark:

Vodpod videos no longer available.

Bush-Obama ‘Christian Crusader’ Blackwater Founder Implicated in Murder (Video)

Jeremy Scahill broke this story yesterday and spoke with Keith Olbermann on msnbc last night and Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! (DN!). In a sworn affidavit, an ex-Blackwater operative and an ex-U.S. Marine — know only as John Doe #1 and John Doe #2 — implicated the founder of Blackwater founder Erik Prince in murder(s). Blackwater was the Bush Administration’s hand-picked private mercenary squad in Iraq and Afghanistan that continues to operate under the Obama Administration.

John Doe #2 swore: “To that end, Mr. Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. Many of these men used call signs based on the Knights of the Templar, the warriors who fought the Crusades.”

Daily Briefing — 1st-2nd August 2009

David Brooks continues to type a lot of words in the ‘paper of record’ without saying anything; bin Laden had ‘intimate relations’ with the U.S. until 9/11; Justin Raimondo comments on ‘progressives’ turning a blind eye to Obama trampling on civil liberties; Obama wants a military-‘civilian’ court hybrid prison in the U.S.; More MI5 connections to participation in the C.I.A. torture of Binyam Mohamed; Chalmers Johnson lays out three reasons to shut down the U.S. Empire and ten steps to do it; Over 1,000 Afghan civilians killed in the first half of ’09 during Obama’s ‘Af-Pak surge’; Jury rules man should pay $675k to Copyright Nazis for downloading 30 songs; and more…

Military Operative Spied on Anarchist Antiwar Activists for Two Years (Video)

From today’s Daily Briefing: “‘John Jacob’ spent the last two years spying on anarchist activists of the Students for a Democratic Society in Tacoma and Olympia, WA for the U.S. military. (InfoShop News)… If the InfoShop link has problems, you can read more by Jeremy Pawloski at The Olympian.”

Amy Goodman and Anjali Kamat of Democracy Now! (DN!) interview Washington activists spied on by the military operative. The operative reportedly spied on activists from organizations including Students for a Democratic Society, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Port Militarization Resistance.

John Pilger on Honduras, Iran, Gaza, Newspeak, and the American Empire (Video)

John Pilger interviewed by Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!, discussing coverage of the coup in Honduras in contrast with that of the Iran election, the Gaza Massacre, Obama’s warfare stimulus to expand the American Empire.

Daily Briefing — 2nd-3rd July 2009

Glenn Greenwald continues to slam NPR for banning the word “torture” and ducking his interview offers; Philip Giraldi on America’s obsession with creating enemies; 120,000 troops to remain in Iraq at the end of the year; Israel used Palestinian children as human shields in the Gaza Massacre; Afghan and Pakistani civilians grow colder toward the U.S. are it keeps killing people all around them; The Washington Post selling lobbyists access to Obama Administration and Congress; and more…

Two Detainees: One Recently Released Because His Detention ‘Defied Common Sense’ and Another Tortured to Link al-Qai’da to Iraq (mp3/Video)

One of the most informed journalists on Guantanamo Bay and those kidnapped by the Bush Administration in its “War on Terror”, Andy Worthington, interviewed by Democracy Now (DN!) and AntiWar Radio.