Joanne invited me on the Around the Empire podcast to do a 'high level compare and contrast' of two war comedy films set in different wars in Afghanistan: Charlie Wilson's War and War Machine. The films are similar in many respects - both comedies, both have A-list lead actors, both set in wars in Afghanistan, both based on books - but politically they are diametric opposites.
While Americans await the confirmation vote on another U.S. Supreme Court Justice nominee, Judge Brett Kavanaugh, the important question they should be asking themselves and their elected representatives is whether this nominee is the ‘constitutionalist’ they are looking for.
The recent anniversary of 9/11 got me thinking about some of the ongoing oddities around the World Trade Center attack. It also got me thinking about various interesting connections in elite circles, New York real estate, the Trump era and how it relates to the ongoing psy-op of the post-9/11 world we all woke up […]
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – As the U.S. marked the 17 years that have passed since September 11, 2001, people across the Muslim world have looked back on the destruction the U.S. has unleashed in the so-called “Global War on Terror” that was launched in the wake of the World Trade Center’s destruction.
WASHINGTON – Less than two decades after the attacks of September 11, the U.S. government has now effectively allied with the Al Qaeda terrorist group it has long blamed for planning and executing those attacks, which still remain the worst terror attacks to have ever taken place on U.S. soil.
The pain of 9/11 remains unresolved because the crime of 9/11 remains unsolved. In 17 years no one has been prosecuted for carrying out the attacks, and the court of public opinion is very much a hung jury.(Read more...)
Condor is a TV reboot of Three Days of the Condor, and centres around a CIA officer who goes on the run after he is framed for killing 11 of his colleagues. In this episode I examine whether Condor was CIA-sponsored, why the Agency might support a series that shows them planning massive crimes, and […](Read more...)
In this special episode I reflect on the war in Syria and the propaganda emanating from governments on both sides. In particular I focus in on how the apparently anti-war Left has been fooled into becoming de facto propagandists for the Russian and Syrian security states, and how the same binary narratives are issued in […](Read more...)
The military legal drama Rules of Engagement is perhaps the greatest modern example of racist, warmongering propaganda. Unsurprisingly, it benefited from full Pentagon support, in exchange for numerous script changes. The film was eerily prescient, foreshadowing two terrorist attacks in Yemen, and in some ways the entire post-9/11 war on terror. In this episode I […](Read more...)
