Category: War

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Joe Biden’s legacy? The Palestinian genocide

American presidents are big on talking about what they believe to be their legacy, even if there is no substance to the claims they make. With Joe Biden, it is crystal clear what he can claim as his legacy: the genocide that has resulted in close to 70,000 Palestinian lives being snuffed out.

[First published in Pearls & Irritations on January 17, 2025]

The announcement of a ceasefire days before Donald Trump’s inauguration is meant to confer credit for this deal on the Biden team when all they have done is block everything apart from Israel’s murderous campaign that was designed to clear Gaza of all human life.

But the past tells us that no chief executive of the US can pretend to be powerless in an Israeli-Palestinian stoush; there are numerous examples of how the man in the White House has put his foot down and got what he demanded. Continue reading “Joe Biden’s legacy? The Palestinian genocide”

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Chris Mitchell claims to be a journalist. I have my doubts

Chris Mitchell, the former editor of The Australian, has accused the world’s media at large of wanting Iran to win the current war with the US and Israel.

Mitchell, who somehow reminds me of a bulldog, was out there this week, castigating journalists for believing any statement made Iranian officials. US President Donald Trump has claimed that Washington is negotiating with Iran, but a majority of the media has tended to believe what Iran has had to say.

Mitchell doesn’t like this. Essentially, a man who loves to claim he is a journalist is asking newspapers to take sides and barrack for one side, rather than report fairly on the ongoing stoush. Continue reading “Chris Mitchell claims to be a journalist. I have my doubts”

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When it comes to Ukraine, David Speers forgets he is a journalist

David Speers, the ABC employee who hosts the Insiders political current affairs show on Sunday morning, is not known for being afraid to confront his guests during an interview. He interrupts them frequently, always trying to get a point across and validate a narrative that he has.

But in front of Ukrainian Ambassador Vasyl Myroshnychenko on 2 July, Speers was like a lamb, never asking the envoy anything that would cut across the latter’s view of the Ukraine war — obviously a sympathetic one — and seemingly unable to ask even a single contradictory question.

There was plenty to question Myroshnychenko about: for example, there have been a number of reports that a bid for peace between Russia and Ukraine in April-May last year was quashed by the intervention of Boris Johnson at the instigation of the US. Continue reading “When it comes to Ukraine, David Speers forgets he is a journalist”

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14 years after civil war ended, Sri Lanka is still feeling the effects

Fourteen years ago, the civil war between Sri Lanka’s armed forces and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam came to a bloody end, with the government shooting dead, in cold blood, a slew of Tiger officials who had neogtiated a surrender and were making their way across a lagoon, holding up white flags.

This act of bastardry was what enabled the government to show the dead visage of Tiger leader Velupillai Prabhakaran on TV, signalling that the conflict, which had run for 26 years, was finally over.

There were claims and counter-claims after the war ended, with both sides accused of war crimes. But because Sri Lanka is of little importance in the global scheme of things, there has been no push internationally for investigation of these claims.

The country has been left to stew in its own juice. Continue reading “14 years after civil war ended, Sri Lanka is still feeling the effects”

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Killing people remotely: the fallout of the US war on terror

National Bird is a disturbing documentary. It isn’t new, having been made in 2016, but it outlines in stark detail the issues that are part and parcel of the drone program which the US has used to kill hundreds, if not thousands, of people in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and a number of other countries.

The use of remote killing was even seen recently after a bomb went off at Kabul Airport following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. There were boasts that two people responsible for the blast had been killed by a drone – only for the truth to emerge later.

And that was that the people killed were in no way connected to the blast. Using faulty intelligence and an over-quick finger, America had pulled the trigger again and killed innocents.

Continue reading “Killing people remotely: the fallout of the US war on terror”

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Australia is a vassal state of the US. That will never change

The craven manner in which Australia continues to bow before the US is borne of a deep-seated fear that Washington will again choose to interfere in Australian politics as it did in 1975.

That year, the late Gough Whitlam, who was prime minister, hinted that he might have second thoughts about renewing a lease for Pine Gap, a base in Australia’s northern parts which the Americans use for spying on other countries.

Whitlam was sacked by the governor-general John Kerr shortly thereafter. A full account of the affair is here; the CIA’s involvement has never been in doubt.

Continue reading “Australia is a vassal state of the US. That will never change”

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Vale, Robert Fisk

The veteran Middle East correspondent Robert Fisk died recently at the age of 74, and his death means one of the Western world’s journalists who best understood the region has left the scene.

Fisk lived in Beirut for most of the 30-plus years he covered the region and reported the troubles in Northern Ireland before venturing out of the country.

He reported on the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the continuing woes in that country. Fisk interviewed the al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden thrice and also covered the US invasion of Iraq.

Robert Fisk.

Some questioned his approach to journalism; he did not believe in getting opinions from both sides, so-called balanced journalism. Rather, it was his belief that the job of a reporter was to provide an outlet for the underdog.

His famous example was that of the liberation of a concentration camp. And he asked whether one should be expected to get a quote from a SS guard for balance, a query which nobody has attempted to answer.

Continue reading “Vale, Robert Fisk”

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Saudis want US to fight another war for them

On 3 August 1990, the morning after Iraq invaded Kuwait, the Saudi Arabian government was more than a bit jittery, fearing that the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein would make Riyadh his next target. The Saudis had been some of the bigger buyers of American and British arms, but they found that they had a big problem.

And that was the fact that all the princes who were pilots of F-16 jets, considered one of the glamour jobs, had gone missing. Empty jets were of no use. How would the Saudis defend their country if Baghdad decided to march into the country’s Eastern Region? If Hussein decided to do so, he would be in control of a sizeable portion of the world’s oil resources and many countries would be royally screwed.
Continue reading “Saudis want US to fight another war for them”

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Abbott ratchets up the fear factor to boost poll standings

When a prime minister has discovered that only one tactic — ratcheting up the fear factor — helps to boost his poll numbers, and his poll standing is desperately low, what does he do?

Tony Abbott has made a profession of demonising asylum-seekers and Muslims and pretending that the world faces an existential threat from the terrorist Islamic State group.

In recent times Abbott has gone back to similar tactics. First, he engineered a “request” from the US, for Australia to join in air strikes on Syria.
Continue reading “Abbott ratchets up the fear factor to boost poll standings”

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America’s Kurdish adventure will end in tears

AT THE end of World War I, many ethnic groups were able to get a patch of land for themselves, with the area and population therein largely dependent on the extent to which they had pleased the imperial powers that came out as victors of that war – France and Britain.

The Kurds were one group that missed the bus and ended up scattered over four countries – Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey. They are a restless lot and the countries in which they lived often had to keep them quiet by one means or another.

The late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein gave them a limited measure of autonomy. But there was always the implicit understanding that if the Kurds got too ambitious, then they would be met with blanket slaughter. Dictators like Saddam — and his neighbour, the late Hafez al-Assad of Syria — do not do things by half-measures and for years the Kurds were content to remain within their allocated freedoms.
Continue reading “America’s Kurdish adventure will end in tears”