Jeremy Scahill's Blog, page 8

Sohail Daulatzai on Islam, White Supremacy, and the Myth of the Empire of Liberty

You might not know it from watching the news these days, but the U.S. is engaged in multiple wars across the world, both declared and undeclared. The so-called targeted killing program continues unabated under Donald Trump, and the civilian death toll has been skyrocketing over the past year and a half in Syria and Iraq. Trump famously tore up the Iran nuclear deal, and he has conspired with Israel, the Saudis, and the United Arab Emirates to lay the groundwork for regime change in Iran. The...

More Than Just Russia — There’s a Strong Case for the Trump Team Colluding With Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the UAE

Donald Trump has fully embraced both official, legalized corruption as well as good, old garden-variety individual corruption. Did Trump directly conspire with Vladimir Putin and Russia to influence the 2016 election? That is certainly possible. Will we see concrete evidence of that, especially evidence that would stand up in a court? That also is possible. It is also plausible that Robert Mueller issues a public report that would be damaging, if not damning, to Trump, but for whatever reason...

Allan Nairn on How Trump Dragged a Rightist Revolution to Power

Donald Trump has been in office 16 months. And the majority of media hours and column inches spent on his administration deal primarily with the Russia investigation, Stormy Daniels, and Trump’s personnel intrigue. It’s not that there isn’t great journalism being done on other issues. It’s that this narrow set of stories consume much of the energy and are on constant repeat pretty much everywhere in corporate media, except for FOX, which generally broadcasts from an alternate reality.

On Inte...

Blacklisted Academic Norman Finkelstein on Gaza, “the World’s Largest Concentration Camp”

Israel has once again conducted a premeditated, full-scale massacre in broad daylight, in front of the cameras of the world. Once again, it took place in Gaza.

On May 14, Israeli snipers and other forces gunned down more than 60 Palestinians, and wounded thousands of others, including civilians, journalists, and paramedics. “You try nonlethal means and they don’t work,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “So you’re left with bad choices. It’s a bad deal. You know, you try and you...

U.S. Navy Reserve Doctor on Gina Haspel Torture Victim: “One of the Most Severely Traumatized Individuals I Have Ever Seen”

An American doctor and Naval reserve officer who has done extensive medical evaluation of a high-profile prisoner who was tortured under the supervision of Gina Haspel privately urged Sen. Mark Warner, the vice chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, to oppose Haspel’s confirmation as CIA director, according to an email obtained by The Intercept.

“I have evaluated Mr. Abdal Rahim al-Nashiri, as well as close to 20 other men who were tortured” in U.S. custody, including several who were to...

Bonus Intercepted Podcast: Ralph Nader on Gina Haspel, John Bolton, Syria, and the “Decrepit” Democratic Party

Subscribe to the Intercepted podcast on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, Stitcher, Radio Public, and other platforms. New to podcasting? Click here.

Ralph Nader is the best known public advocate in modern U.S. history and has run four times for president. On this special episode of Intercepted, we are going to dig deep into several issues facing the country and the world right now. In case you are not familiar with Nader, he rose to prominence in the 1960s after blowing the lid on extreme safety...

Arundhati Roy: “I Need to Know the Place Where I Stand and Why I Stand There”

Twenty years ago, Indian writer Arundhati Roy published her debut novel, “The God of Small Things.” It won the ultra-prestigious Man Booker prize and propelled her to international fame. But it was not until last year that her second novel, “The Ministry of Utmost Happiness,” was published. Both her novels are beautiful, powerful epic stories. 

Cover art: Two Associates/Mayank Austen Soofi

So what did Roy do for those 20 years besides working on her latest novel? She used her very significant p...

Video: A Brief History of U.S. Intervention in Iraq Over the Past Half Century

Fifteen years ago this week, on April 9, 2003, television networks across the globe cut to a live scene unfolding in Baghdad’s Firdos Square. A motley hybrid of what appeared to be ordinary Iraqis and uniformed U.S. troops — who had begun to occupy Baghdad — pulled down a massive statue of Saddam Hussein. It was a brilliant, semi-staged propaganda exercise meant to reinforce the neoconservative promise that ordinary Iraqis would be exuberant over the fall of the regime and welcome the U.S. tr...

The Radical Imagination of Eve Ewing

Every week on Intercepted, we examine various threads of power and their impact on our society and on everyday people’s lives. We speak to journalists, lawmakers, lawyers, and activists about war, about guns, about racism, and political hypocrisy. But we also have made a commitment to feature the work and voices of artists and musicians and poets and writers. These folks play a unique role in our society, particularly at moments like the one we currently live in.

One such artist is Dr. Eve Ew...

Before He Was FBI Director, Chris Wray Supervised an Investigation That Found Erik Prince Likely Broke U.S. Law

As a private attorney in 2016, FBI director Chris Wray supervised a team of lawyers that informed the Justice Department that Blackwater founder Erik Prince had likely violated U.S. law while trying to sell secretly modified paramilitary attack aircraft to Azerbaijan’s military.

Wray and Robert Hur, now a senior Justice Department official, were both partners at the powerhouse law firm King & Spalding in 2015 when officials at Prince’s Hong Kong-based logistics company, Frontier Services Grou...