AK47 and RPG Spotting in the WikiLeaks video: 101
By Eric Pettifor
There seems to be some confusion as to whether or not AK47s and RPGs (rocket propelled grenade) were present in the video released by WikiLeaks of the slaughter of civilians, including two Reuters news staff, by the crew of an Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007. Consequently, I present here a brief [...]
WikiLeaks’ truth, Reuters’ “truth”
By Frank Moher
We now know, thanks to WikiLeaks, that the US military lied about the killing of 11 Iraqi civlians, including two Reuters reporters, in 2007. “There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force,” said its spokesman at the time. But the classified video released yesterday [...]
The WikiLeaks video: arms-length slaughter
By Eric Pettifor
An important story over at WikiLeaks concerns what appears to be the slaughter of innocent civilians by American forces, including two Reuters news staff, in Iraq . I should warn you that the video is very disturbing, taken as it is from the Apache helicopter doing the firing.
I’ll leave it to a [...]
Abdelrazik: Let the questions begin
By Alison@Creekside
Justice Minister Rob Nicholson announced in Question Period Friday that the government will comply with, rather than appeal, the Federal Court decision ordering it to repatriate Abousfian Abdelrazik, stranded in Sudan since 2003.
Good.
As Chris Selley writes: “It’s all over but the thousands of unanswered questions”Here’s one.
How much did this July 2006 US Embassy memo [...]
Don’t ask, don’t know
By Alison@Creekside
Big hullaballoo following CSIS lawyer Geoffrey O’Brian’s testimony before the public safety committee, in which he said that Canadian intelligence agencies would make use of information obtained by torture from foreign agencies in the “one-in-a-million” eventuality that “lives were at stake.” In fact, said O’Brian, who has been with CSIS since its inception in [...]
Iraq in Ontario
There is at least one difference between Americans building up justifications to invade Iraq in order to grab its natural resources and Europeans invading Canada several hundred years ago to harvest the natural resources here. We are significantly more polite about it. Plus, we have decided to forget that we did it.
As I write this, [...]
Manufacturing dissent
Two images that hit the media in the last two weeks really creeped me out: Hugo Chavez shutting down an opposition television station in Venezuela and a scene of Shia schoolgirls in Sadr City, a Shia suburb of Baghdad, learning English by rote.
There is a lot to like about Hugo Chavez. He is a socialist, [...]
When it comes to hate, Imus is an amateur
By Frank Moher
So, Don Imus has been fired from both his CBS and MSNBC gigs because he referred to the Rutgers women’s basketball team as “nappy-headed hos.”
Stupid? Yes. Racist? Certainly. A firing offence? I’d say so.
Then again, Rush Limbaugh once told a black caller to “Take that bone out of your nose,” and in another [...]
Dingbat of darkness
Nobody wants to hear defence critic Denis Coderre holler for the referee when the Liberal record is criticized. Especially when the criticism is more than fair.
It is General Rick Hillier’s duty to report the state of Canada’s armed forces, even if he uses inflammatory language like “decade of darkness” to describe the cuts that [...]
Peace, 10 minutes at a time
There is a way through the mess in Iraq. But it will require patience and impulse control, something that — like my kids — Americans currently seem to lack. It will require talking to people who dislike each other intensely. Americans have been able to do this in the past: Nixon opened China and Reagan [...]
