Keyword: War on Terror

The New Scramble for Africa: Natural Resource Extraction and the Latest Frontier in the War on Terror

Picture: Global Research Video Seven of the fastest growing economies in the world are African. As a continent, the African economy is growing at 7-10%, which is faster than any other continent, but Africa’s growth is fuelled by debt and the mass sale of resources. From Chinese and French interests in Africa’s mineral resources to America’s expanding War on Terror, a host of imposing nations are attempting to consolidate their grip on Africa. Marwan Bishara of Al Jazeera’s Empire travels to Kenya,...

Obama's Great Sin: Normalising the War on Terror

Picture: White House (Pete Souza)/Wikimedia Commons Video Society has changed dramatically, says New York Times journalist James Risen, as he comments on the freedoms that have been ceded to national security since 9/11. The great sin of Barack Obama has been to normalise the War on Terror - to take something that was an ad hock series of emergency panicked moves by Dick Cheney and George Bush and normalise them. Part of that is the approach to the press and the development of false narratives, such as the narrative of Iraqi weapons of mass...

Meet the Costa Rican Lawyer Who Sued His Own President For Backing the Iraq War

Picture: Costa Rican lawyer Roberto Zamorra courtesy of Medea Benjamin/Alternet Medea Benjamin - Sometimes it just takes one person with a creative mind to shake up the entire legal system. In the case of Costa Rica, that person is Luis Roberto Zamorra Bolanos, who was just a law student when he challenged the legality of his government’s support for George Bush’s invasion of Iraq. He took the case all the way up to the Costa Rican Supreme Court—and won. Today a practicing lawyer, Zamorra at 33 still looks like a wiry college student. And he continues to think...

Victoria Brittain: 'Obama Lacks Political Will to Release Guantanamo Prisoners'

Picture: Pluto Press Video When U.S. President, Barack Obama was first inaugurated into office in 2009, he pledged to close the Guantanamo Bay prison. It's 2014 and Guantanamo is still open. Many of its prisoners have been cleared for release by Obama's own intelligence agencies, yet they remain incarcerated. Obama repeatedly makes remarks about closing the prison to no avail. Meanwhile the American Congress is often cited as the obstacle to Obama's pledge on closing Guantanamo. But, British journalist and author,...

Behind Jeremy Scahill's 'Dirty Wars'

Picture: Anna-Sophie Harling/Yale Herald Video War reporting is a difficult and dangerous game, and that's the case when those wars are declared and fought out in the open. Then there are the undeclared wars in countries like Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia fought through drone strikes and black ops teams -- covert military operations that officials barely even acknowledge. Those are the kinds of wars that Jeremy Scahill covers. Scahill made his name in 2007 with a book on Blackwater, the US military contractor that was paid big money by...

The Securitisation of Everything

Picture: An American soldier in Afghanistan courtesy DVIDSHUB/Flickr. Jane Duncan - The images of 22 year old Londoner Michael Abedowale, hands dripping with blood from his fatal attack on soldier Lee Rigby, created shock waves around the world, including in South Africa. His explanation for his actions, caught on camera, portrayed the attack as revenge for the excesses of British foreign policy in prosecuting the war against terror. This incident, and the recent bombing of the Boston marathon, have given Britain and the United States (US) the justification to continue...