Dahr Jamail is an independent journalist and author who has spent a total of nine months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. Dahr has also has reported from Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. He has also reported extensively on veterans’ resistance against the war. Dahr uses the Dahr.org website and his popular mailing list to disseminate his dispatches.
Dahr currently writes for the Inter Press Service, Le Monde Diplomatique, and many other outlets. His stories have also been published with The Nation, The Sunday Herald in Scotland, Al-Jazeera, the Guardian, Foreign Policy in Focus, and the Independent to name just a few. Dahr’s dispatches and hard news stories have been translated into French, Polish, German, Dutch, Spanish, Japanese, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabic and Turkish. On radio as well as television, Dahr reports for Democracy Now!, has appeared on the BBC and NPR, and numerous other stations around the globe. Dahr is also special correspondent for Flashpoints.
Dahr’s reporting has earned him numerous awards, including the prestigious 2008 Martha Gellhorn Award for Journalism, The Lannan Foundation Writing Residency Fellowship, the James Aronson Award for Social Justice Journalism, the Joe A. Callaway Award for Civic Courage, and four Project Censored awards.
BP anniversary: Toxicity, suffering and death
April 20, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of BP's catastrophic oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On this day in 2010 the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, causing oil to gush from 5,000 feet below the surface into the ninth largest body of water on the planet. At least ...
Lawsuit Filed Against BP Compensation Czar
TAMPA, Florida, Mar1, 2011 - A first-of-its-kind lawsuit alleging gross negligence and fraud has been filed in a Florida state court against Kenneth Feinberg, the administrator of the 20-billion-dollar compensation fund for victims of BP's Gulf oil spill, and the Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF).Attorney Brian Donovan of the Donovan ...
Gulf Coast fighting for recompense
"I just got off the phone with Feinberg's people and I'm really upset," says seafood merchant Michelle Chauncey from Barataria, Louisiana.Her business, which sells wholesale and retail crabs, has not provided her with an income since the end of May, and her home is being foreclosed.Attorney Kenneth Feinberg's Washington-based firm, ...
U.S. Sick Gulf Residents Beg Officials for Help
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, Jan 14, 2011 (IPS) - In an emotionally charged meeting this week sponsored by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, fishermen, Gulf residents and community leaders vented their increasingly grave concerns about the widespread health issues brought on by the three-month-long disaster."Today I'm ...
Illnesses linked to BP oil disaster
Despite BP having capped its well in the Gulf of Mexico in July, the health-related after-effects of the disaster subsist.Gulf Coast residents and BP cleanup workers have linked the source of certain illnesses to chemicals present in BP's oil and the toxic dispersants used to sink it - illnesses that appear to be both ...
Environmental Protection Agency?
Michelle Nix, from Pensacola, Florida, founded the group Gulf Coast Oil Spill Volunteers in an effort to be pro-active and do what she could to help when the BP oil disaster began on April 20."I had 500 volunteers coordinated to help with cleanup, people offering free oil boom, people donating ...
Illness Plagues Gulf Residents in BP’s Aftermath
Increasing numbers of U.S. Gulf Coast residents attribute ongoing sicknesses to BP’s oil disaster and use of toxic dispersants.“Now I have a bruising rash all around my stomach,” Denise Rednour of Long Beach, Mississippi told IPS. “This looks like bleeding under the skin.”Rednour lives near the coast and has been ...
Gulf Coast residents, fishermen, seafood distributors, and scientists believe that living on the coast and eating seafood from the Gulf has become hazardous to their health.In response to their oil disaster last summer that released at least 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, BP admitted to using ...
Broad Coalition Rallies for BP Accountability
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana, Nov 1, 2010 (IPS) - Gulf coast fishers, conservationists, seafood distributors and oil workers rallied here at Louisiana's capital over the weekend to demand that oil giant BP be held accountable for the "ongoing" use of toxic dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico."We don't have the open ...
Fishermen Report Louisiana Bays Filled With Oil
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldOn Saturday, October 23, Truthout spotted what appeared to be massive areas of weathered oil floating near Louisiana's fragile marshlands in both East and West Bays along the Mississippi River Delta. In addition, at least two more oil leaks were spotted near oil and gas platforms along ...
Evidence Refutes BP's and Fed's Deceptions
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldIn August, Truthout conducted soil and water sampling in Pass Christian Harbor, Mississippi; on Grand Isle, Louisiana; and around barrier islands off the coast of Louisiana, in order to test for the presence of oil from BP's Macondo Well.Laboratory test results from the samples taken in these ...
Evidence Mounts of BP Spraying Toxic Dispersants
Shirley and Don Tillman, residents of Pass Christian, Mississippi, have owned shrimp boats, an oyster boat and many pleasure boats. They spent much time on the Gulf of Mexico before working in BP's Vessels Of Opportunity (VOO) program looking for and trying to clean up oil.Don decided to work in ...
Despite "All Clear," Mississippi Sound Tests Positive for Oil
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldThe State of Mississippi's Department of Marine Resources (DMR) opened all of its territorial waters to fishing on August 6. This was done in coordination with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Food and Drug Administration, despite concerns from commercial fishermen in Louisiana, Mississippi, ...
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldThe scene is post-apocalyptic. Under a gray sky, two families play in the surf just off the beach in Grand Isle, Louisiana. To get to the beach, we walk past a red, plastic barrier fence that until very recently was there to keep people away from the ...
Uncovering the Lies That Are Sinking the Oil
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldThe rampant use of toxic dispersants, out-of-state private contractors being brought in to spray them and US Coast Guard complicity are common stories now in the four states most affected by BP's Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.Commercial and charter fishermen, residents and members of BP's Vessels Of ...
Out of Sight, Out of Mind (Even when it’s not out of sight)
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldPhoto by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010Since BP announced that CEO Tony Hayward would receive a multi-million dollar golden parachute and be replaced by Bob Dudley, we have witnessed an incredibly broad, and powerful, propaganda campaign. A campaign that peaked this week with the US government, clearly acting ...
Gulf Residents Likely Face Decades of Psychological Impact From BP's Oil Disaster
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldWhile the devastating ecological impacts of BP’s oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico are obvious, the less visible but also long-lasting psychological, community and personal impacts could be worse, according to social scientists, psychologists and psychiatrists.“People are becoming more and more hopeless and feeling helpless,” Dr. ...
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldWe rather be ruined than changed. We rather die in our dread, than climb the cross of the moment, and let our illusions die.-W.H. Auden, excerpted from “The Age of Anxiety”Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010Not long ago we strolled along a beautiful white-sand beach in Orange ...
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldPhoto by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010Recently we met with Captain Louis Skrmetta who runs Ship Island Excursions out of Gulfport, Mississippi. His father Pete came to the US from Croatia in 1904, and began working as an oyster fisherman, now an endangered endeavor. From that background arose ...
BP Oil Poisons the Gulf of Mexico’s Food Chain
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldPhoto by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010NEW ORLEANS – Environmental experts warn that the eco-systems and food chain in the Gulf of Mexico and surrounding region already deeply harmed and toxified by the ongoing British Petroleum (BP) oil disaster likely face much greater damage.“You know how the pelicans ...
BP’s Scheme To Swindle The “Small People”
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldClint Guidry, the Louisiana Shrimp Harvester Representative on the Louisiana Shrimp Task Force created by Executive Order of Gov. Bobby Jindal, has called BP "liars" and "killers." (Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010)Gulf Coast fishermen and others with lost income claims against British Petroleum (BP) are outraged ...
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldPhoto by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010For the first time in 87 days, little or no oil could be escaping into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s Macondo well. The new Capping Stack was deployed on July 11 from onboard the Transocean Discoverer Inspiration.Photo by Erika Blumenfeld © ...
Toxic Dispersants Near Gulf Harm Humans and Wildlife
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldMy eyes are burning as I type this. We've just returned from spending the day down in Barataria, located about an hour's drive south of New Orleans. The community of fishermen is swimming in oil. Within minutes of arriving, our eyes begin to burn and we begin ...
Hell Has Come to South Louisiana
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldPhoto by Erika Blumenfeld © 2010Clint Guidry is a shrimper from Lafitte, Louisiana. As we sit together, he shows me a picture of his house with 18 inches of water in it as a result of Hurricane Ike in 2008.In his deep voice, he looks me in ...
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldFrom the air, the area north of Grand Isle, Louisiana, much of it around Barataria Bay, looks like scorched earth. This area has been and is heavily afflicted by BP's oil. The so-called cleanup efforts, including laying out booms to supposedly prevent oil from destroying more marsh ...
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April 16th, 2011
BP anniversary: Toxicity, suffering and death
April 20, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of BP's catastrophic oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On this day in 2010 the Deepwater Horizon ...
March 1st, 2011
Lawsuit Filed Against BP Compensation Czar
TAMPA, Florida, Mar1, 2011 - A first-of-its-kind lawsuit alleging gross negligence and fraud has been filed in a Florida state court against Kenneth Feinberg, the ...
January 22nd, 2011
Gulf Coast fighting for recompense
"I just got off the phone with Feinberg's people and I'm really upset," says seafood merchant Michelle Chauncey from Barataria, Louisiana.Her business, which sells wholesale ...
January 15th, 2011
U.S. Sick Gulf Residents Beg Officials for Help
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, Jan 14, 2011 (IPS) - In an emotionally charged meeting this week sponsored by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon ...
January 8th, 2011
Illnesses linked to BP oil disaster
Despite BP having capped its well in the Gulf of Mexico in July, the health-related after-effects of the disaster subsist.Gulf Coast residents and BP cleanup ...
December 6th, 2010
Environmental Protection Agency?
Michelle Nix, from Pensacola, Florida, founded the group Gulf Coast Oil Spill Volunteers in an effort to be pro-active and do what she could to ...
November 26th, 2010
Illness Plagues Gulf Residents in BP’s Aftermath
Increasing numbers of U.S. Gulf Coast residents attribute ongoing sicknesses to BP’s oil disaster and use of toxic dispersants.“Now I have a bruising rash all ...
September 13th, 2010
Evidence Mounts of BP Spraying Toxic Dispersants
Shirley and Don Tillman, residents of Pass Christian, Mississippi, have owned shrimp boats, an oyster boat and many pleasure boats. They spent much time on ...
January 15th, 2011
U.S. Sick Gulf Residents Beg Officials for Help
NEW ORLEANS, Louisiana, Jan 14, 2011 (IPS) - In an emotionally charged meeting this week sponsored by the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon ...
April 16th, 2011
BP anniversary: Toxicity, suffering and death
April 20, 2011 marks the one-year anniversary of BP's catastrophic oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. On this day in 2010 the Deepwater Horizon ...
December 6th, 2010
Environmental Protection Agency?
Michelle Nix, from Pensacola, Florida, founded the group Gulf Coast Oil Spill Volunteers in an effort to be pro-active and do what she could to ...
October 5th, 2010
Evidence Refutes BP's and Fed's Deceptions
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldIn August, Truthout conducted soil and water sampling in Pass Christian Harbor, Mississippi; on Grand Isle, Louisiana; and around barrier islands off ...
August 17th, 2010
Uncovering the Lies That Are Sinking the Oil
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldThe rampant use of toxic dispersants, out-of-state private contractors being brought in to spray them and US Coast Guard complicity are common ...
July 30th, 2010
Photography by Erika BlumenfeldWe rather be ruined than changed. We rather die in our dread, than climb the cross of the moment, and let our ...
'The East'
Why have you started a comedy festival in northern Michigan in the middle of winter?
Because if you were here in the dead of winter in the middle of nowhere (which is actually somewhere to us), you'd need a few laughs too ... Continue Reading
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