US Base Battle: Newsweek Forgets Decades of Occupation
Newsweek breathlessly covers the evolving drama around Diego Garcia, an island base described as 'strategic' for US interests. What their corporate-approved narrative conspicuously omits is that this 'strategic' base exists because the Chagos Islanders—the indigenous inhabitants—were forcibly removed by the British in the late 1960s and early 1970s, making way for the US military installation. The
UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in 2019 (116-6) for the UK to return the archipelago to Mauritius, a vote the US and UK ignored, preferring 'strategic stability' over human rights. This isn't a 'battle' in any honest sense; it's the continuing fallout from a clear act of colonial ethnic cleansing. The 'new twists' are just further iterations of international courts and bodies pointing out
the obvious, only to be met with the predictable silence from Anglophone media outlets—and governments—who benefit from the original crime.