Article published in Amauta with permission from TomDispatch Source: TomDispatch by William J. Astore Kleptocracy — now, there’s a word I was taught to associate with corrupt and exploitative governments that steal ruthlessly and relentlessly from the people.  It’s a word, in fact, that’s usually applied to flawed or failed governments in Africa, Latin America, or the nether [...]

Article published in Amauta with permission from TomDispatch and the author Source: TomDispatch U.S. War-Fighting Numbers to Knock Your Socks Off by Tom Engelhardt In my 1950s childhood, Ripley’s Believe It or Not was part of everyday life, a syndicated comics page feature where you could stumble upon such mind-boggling facts as: “If all the Chinese in the world [...]

Article published with special permission from TomDispatch Source: TomDispatch Pentagon Time: Tick…Tick…Tick… by Tom Engelhardt January 26, 2010 Back in 2007, when General David Petraeus was the surge commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, he had a penchant for clock imagery.  In an interview in April of that year, he typically said:  “I’m conscious of a couple of things. One [...]

Source: The Guardian Ten years after the publication of No Logo, Naomi Klein switches her attention from the mall to Barack Obama and discovers that corporate culture has taken over the US government by Naomi Klein January 16, 2010 Extracted from a 10th anniversary edition of No Logo to be published by Fourth Estate on 21 January. In May 2009, [...]

versión en español abajo Source: Rebel Reports Contrary to popular belief, the US actually has 189,000 personnel on the ground in Afghanistan right now—and that number is quickly rising. by Jeremy Scahill December 17, 2009 A hearing in Sen. Claire McCaskill’s Contract Oversight subcommittee on contracting in Afghanistan has highlighted some important statistics that provide a window into the extent [...]

Source: t r u t h o u t by Yana Kunichoff December 17, 2009 According to a new government report, more than 50 percent of the Department of Defense workforces are military contractors and the Obama administration’s troop surge in Afghanistan is set to only increase these numbers. The report, prepared by the Congressional Research Service (CRS), the [...]

versión en español de la misma noticia abajo Source: New York Times by James Risen and Mark Mazzetti December 10, 2009 WASHINGTON – Private security guards from Blackwater Worldwide participated in some of the C.I.A.’s most sensitive activities – clandestine raids with agency officers against people suspected of being insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan and the transporting of detainees, [...]

Source: The Nation by Jeremy Scahill December 10, 2009 The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) has hired a private corporation to help prepare government reports for Congress about US government contracts with other corporations in Afghanistan. The massive consulting firm Deloitte and Touche was hired on a one year contract signed with the US Army’s Contracting [...]

Source: TomDispatch How to Escalate in Afghanistan by Tom Engelhardt December 10, 2009 In his Afghan “surge” speech at West Point last week, President Obama offered Americans some specifics to back up his new “way forward in Afghanistan.”  He spoke of the “additional 30,000 U.S. troops” he was sending into that country over the next six months.  He brought [...]

Source: Facing South by Sue Sturgis December 1, 2009 President Barack Obama is scheduled to deliver a speech to the nation tonight from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., in which he’s expected to announce he’s sending up to 35,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. Anti-war groups are already planning protests against the escalation. United for Peace [...]