Category: America

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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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Israeli envoy takes clueless Australian journos for a nice ride

Journalists based in Canberra are a compromised lot, something that was glaringly evident by their performance — or more accurately the lack of it — during an address to the National Press Club by the new Israeli Ambassador, Dr Hillel Newman, on Tuesday (March 31).

Though many of the questions started out promisingly, they were not prosecuted to any satisfactory conclusion, allowing Dr Newman, a seasoned PR practitioner who has served as consul-general in Los Angeles and ambassador in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, to override the queries with statements that were mostly half-truths.

For example, Matthew Knott, defence and national security reporter at the Sydney Morning Herald, started off the Q&A by asking Dr Newman about the new law passed by the Knesset which can impose the death penalty on Palestinians who are found guilty of terrorism offences that threaten the security of Israel.

Knott is one of two journalists from the SMH who wrote a report on 7 March 2023 claiming that China was set to launch a war to retake Taiwan within the next three years. Both he and his collaborator in this report, Peter Hartcher, the international editor of the SMH, have kept a low profile when the bogus report was raised this month. Continue reading “Israeli envoy takes clueless Australian journos for a nice ride”

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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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How the New York Times runs interference for Israel

When things go badly for Israel, there are always obliging stenographers in the American media to spin things and put the most positive spin on the screw-ups of the Jewish state.

When these include Mark Mazzetti, an employee of the New York Times, who was so close to the CIA that he would submit his articles to the agency for clearance before publication, this is a bit laughable.

It gets even more so when among the four authors of the latest cover-up for Israel is Ronen Bergman, another NYT employee, a Jew, who is extremely close to the Mossad. Some of the stuff in the latest cover-up is risible in the extreme.

The NYT effort — which also has two other authors, Julian E. Barnes and Edward Wong — was republished by the Australian newspaper, The Age. Essentially, it is a cover-up for the failure of the Israeli plan to ignite an internet uprising in Iran by launching the war that is now in train. Continue reading “How the New York Times runs interference for Israel”

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Seventy-two minutes of froth: SBS show The Kingdom is an exercise in narcissism

The SBS documentary, The Kingdom, deals with – well, I thought it was about the church known as Hillsong until I watched it. Turns out that this isn’t the case; it’s actually about Marc Fennell, the presenter, and his quitting of the church. It is narcissism at its very best.

Marc Fennell. Courtesy SBS
Marc Fennell. Courtesy SBS

This would become apparent to the perceptive viewer right at the start of the 72-minute documentary when it opens with a view of Fennell’s chubby face. Such views are common, with the camera sometimes favouring his visage from the left, at others from the right. Not to mention views of him walking purposefully down some street or the other in a T-shirt that is a few sizes too small for him.

But if the documentary had been named Marc Fennell’s Hillsong experience or How one man grew disillusioned with Hillsong, it probably would have attracted much less attention than having a title like The Kingdom [a title that was used for a 2007 film about Saudi Arabia]. At least, one is inclined to think so. Continue reading “Seventy-two minutes of froth: SBS show The Kingdom is an exercise in narcissism”

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ABC reduced to running American propaganda on Four Corners

The level to which Australia’s government-funded media corporation, the ABC, has sunk is illustrated by the fact that in a slot reserved for its main investigative stories, it ran an American propaganda documentary from the American publicly-funded outlet PBS on 3 July.

Vladimir Putin.
Vladimir Putin.

Titled “Putin and the Presidents”, the documentary made no effort to disguise itself, conveniently leaving out masses of context in its bid to paint the Russian president as the villain supreme.

It covers Putin’s interactions with American presidents from Bill Clinton onwards, painting the American leaders as trying to get along with the Russian president, while he did everything to spoil relationships.

One can understand the American obsession with Putin; at the moment, he is the administration’s bete noire, standing between Washington and NATO membership for Ukraine. Continue reading “ABC reduced to running American propaganda on Four Corners”

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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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That day in October when the world really changed

As OPEC+ showed its muscle today, cutting its output and spitting in the face of the US which was seeking lower oil prices, one was reminded of how this organisation first flexed its muscles – 49 years ago, in the wake of what is known as the Yom Kippur War or the Ramadan War.

It was on Saturday, October 6, 1973, that the combined forces of Egypt, Syria and Jordan launched an attack on Israel at two minutes to two in the afternoon.

It was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar and there had been some warnings of an imminent Arab attack. But these were not taken seriously. Continue reading “That day in October when the world really changed”

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Federer shows his class as he quits. Williams is quite the opposite

In recent times, two international tennis players — Roger Federer and Serena Williams — have said, one in direct terms and the other somewhat less clearly, that they would be retiring from the game.

Federer was the more recent to make an announcement saying in unambiguous language that he would retire after the Laver Cup. He has 20 Grand Slam titles to his name and has never been a man who is obsessed by collecting titles. Continue reading “Federer shows his class as he quits. Williams is quite the opposite”

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Loose lips sink ships. Joe Biden does not seem to know that

In 1991, the US, aided by a number of other countries, waged a war given the moniker Operation Desert Storm, to eject Iraqi forces from Kuwait.

Iraq invaded Kuwait on August 2, 1990, after demanding billions from that tiny country which it claimed it was owed because the Kuwaitis had stolen oil from wells which were on the Iraqi side of the border.

Iraq’s demands came after a long and debilitating eight-year war with Iran, during which Kuwait backed Iraq and often suffered attacks to its oil tankers in the Gulf as a result. When Kuwait did not give in, Baghdad’s forces invaded and took over the country in a matter of days. Continue reading “Loose lips sink ships. Joe Biden does not seem to know that”