Don't mention the wars! The critical question is not who attended National Security Committee meetings over the last decade. It is the nature of the decisions taken there.
Invading Iraq and scaling back our commitment in Afghanistan top the list of disastrous blunders. At a time when we should have been helping to rebuild the country and secure the peace, our focus was on settling a score with Saddam Hussein and the ilusory weapons of mass destruction.
As a Senior minister in the Howard government, Tony Abbott should not be allowed to hide from these appalling mistakes. Nor should the rest of the Coalition team.
As indicated in an earlier post Iraq a Mistake: Ex Australian Defence Forces Chief , former Defence Forces Chief Chris Barrie’s confession that the Iraq war was a mistake in that it had distracted us from fighting the real threat in Afghanistan.
We have a leak obsessed media without any real analysis of policies and issues. Tony Abbott and Julie Bishop have not demonstrated any interest or understanding of the real challenges facing Australia in our foreign relations. If elected in 3 weeks time, the Liberal National Parties Coalition will be one of those challenges.
Saturday, July 31, 2010
Abbott Our Biggest Threat to National Security
Friday, July 23, 2010
Iraq a Mistake: Ex Australian Defence Forces Chief
Was I dreaming last night? I watched the launch of ABC News 24. The beat-up by Chris Uhlmann was predictable. A scoop! Rudd weak on national security! Pity it lacked detail, relied on anonymous sources and the confidentiality of the National Security Committee. The highlight was former Defence Forces Chief Chris Barrie’s confession that the Iraq war was a mistake in that it had distracted us from fighting the real threat in Afghanistan. That should have been headlines today. We were told in the report that John Howard never missed a meeting and that the Deputy PM chaired in his absence.
I can’t find the transcript or video of the rest of Uhlmann’s interview anywhere on the web. If it had been said by a senior British military head, it would lead all today’s bulletins: Failure of Afghan War Liberal Mistake! Howard Dropped Ball on Afghanistan!
If anyone locates it, please let me know.
There is a reckless silence in the mainstream media about the Afghanistan war. I wonder if it will get a mention on the Leaders' debate.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Steve McCurry's Iconic Images
We were lucky enough to see an exhibition of Steve McCurry's photographs at the Centro Cultural ;Borges in Buenos Aires' Galerias Pacifico recently.
More at Th!nk3.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Bad news night
I should have continued reading Nicholas Jose's novel The Custodians last night. Turning on ABC1 was a bad move.
First there was the Australian Story's Message from Mandawuy about Yothu Yindi's lead singer and indigenous icon Mandawuy Yunupingu. His struggle with kidney failure was difficult to watch at times. The sadness was mixed with hope as he performed once more at the Garma festival.
Next it was Four Corners turn with Afghanistan, on the Dollar Trail. If you have ever beeen unsure who the enemy is in Afganistan, then this program will only have confused you more.
This excellent piece of investigative journalism from Premieres Lignes Television made me wonder what the rest of the mainstream media have been doing lately. Unfortunately, the answer to that question is also too depressing.
Thursday, October 8, 2009
Rethink Interview with Daniel Ellsberg
Jonathan Kim has interviewed Daniel Ellsberg about the upcoming documentary The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers
His post at the Huffington Post is worth a visit. There are several video clips from the interview such as Why Ellsberg calls the current Afghan war "Vietnamistan"
A primary source from a key player.
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Playing Political Bingo with Boat People
A cross post for Global Voices:
An upturn in the arrival of refugees to Australia by boat has brought tragedy and controversy. The issue of border protection that dominated the 2001 Federal election has re-emerged with extra venom.
A refugee boat has exploded off the north west coast.Three people are dead, two are missing and more than thirty have been injured, some with very serious burns. Three members of the Australian Defence Force, which was towing the boat, are among the injured.
Western Australian police say three people are dead and two are missing following an explosion on board an asylum-seekers' boat being escorted to Christmas Island this morning.
Three dead, dozens injured after explosion on asylum boat ABC News Online 17 April 2009
Allegations that the fatal explosion was caused by asylum seekers have also revived the political storm surrounding the children overboard affair.
Claims that fuel was deliberately poured over the small wooden fishing vessel before the blast will be the focus of inquiries by police and the Northern Territory coroner.
Sabotage fear on boat blast The Age 17 April 2009
A political stoush has erupted with Opposition parliamentarians accusing the government of causing the increase in boat people and encouraging people smuggling through its changes to border protection.
Bloggers are also taking off the gloves. Gary Sauer-Thompson at Public Opinion bemoaned the attempts to politicise asylum seekers again:
Doesn't the old hang on. The Liberals are banging the drum about border security, bad asylum seekers, boat people and soft on security. It is just like a replay of the old children overboard affair with undercurrent of Asian hordes invading Australia because they read The Australian and realized that Rudd Government has gone soft on the processing of asylum seekers.
The reality is that most asylum seekers arrive by plane, many are sent back, whilst the asylum seekers who arrive by boat are processed on Christmas Island. Children are treated more humanely, the so-called “Pacific Solution”, which had people sent to Nauru has been abolished and it has scrapped temporary protection visas, as well as reforming detention policy.
Mark Thomson’s blog, Seeking Asylum Down Under, has a clear purpose:
Yes, we remember! Blame the victims for their own plight, extract as much sensationalism out of the role of people smugglers, put words in the mouth of ADF personnel who cannot answer for themselves, and then whip up public sentiment against refugees. Throw in dollops of confected outrage over your political opponents complete lack of preparedness to face down the ‘threat' and you have the typical Lib's stock in trade response to the terrible plight of some of the most vulnerable people on the planet.
Oh, I forgot - then you set about making weak neighbouring countries complicit in policies that violate human rights!
Human rights in Australia - the fear & smear Liberals are at it again over asylum seekers!
Another progressive blog, Club Troppo, was more restrained:
Yesterday’s “boat people” explosion near Ashmore Reef west of Darwin, in which 3 people were apparently killed outright and many more seriously injured, has eerie if obvious parallels with the “children overboard” saga of 2001 which helped John Howard to his third successive election victory.
Returning to the present, there is a crucial difference between the situation the “children overboard” and “Tampa” asylum seekers faced and that of yesterday’s group whose boat apparently caught fire and exploded. The current group didn’t face being towed back out to sea, and they almost certainly didn’t face prolonged immigration detention while their protection visa applications were processed.
In those circumstances, WA Premier Colin Barnett’s claims that the asylum seekers deliberately doused their vessel and the surrounding waters with petrol doesn’t seem to make sense. There must be more to it than we’re being told, unless these particular asylum seekers simply hadn’t heard that the old Howard government “towaway zone” or ”lock ‘em up offshore and throw away the key” policies were no longer operative. There’s a lot more to be told about this story.
The alternative view was put strongly by Andrew Bolt, newspaper columnist for Rupert Murdoch’s Herald-Sun and perhaps Australia’s best known and controversial right-wing blogger:
AT least three boat people now dead. So how much “kinder” do Kevin Rudd’s policies seem now?
John Howard was supposed to be the cruel one, said Labor. It was Howard when Prime Minister who put in the Pacific Solution, whisking illegal boat people to Nauru, rather than land them here.
Too harsh, said Kevin Rudd, and scrapped it. It was Howard who cut the legal circus that allowed illegal immigrants to play the system for years, until we gave up trying to deport them.
Too harsh, said Rudd, and laid on lawyers. It was Howard who cut the lure of benefits and then imposed on illegal immigrants the imminent threat of return.
Too harsh, said Rudd, and scrapped the Temporary Protection Visas, giving all illegal immigrants—including well-heeled ones fleeing no particular danger—instant access to permanent residency with all the tempting benefits and rights.
Too harsh, said Rudd. And enlightened opinion cheered. Now we were nice. Really? So how nice is it to have now lured at least three people to their deaths? To have not one child overboard—oh, what a confected scandal that was—but a whole boatload of 49?
Yes, indeed. This is a “people overboard” scandal, but for real this time.
Possum Comitatus at Pollytics did not show any restraint when condemning Bolt’s post:
… there is no larger magnet for outright bigotry than asylum seekers.
With refugees it’s literally Moral Panic Bingo; Islam, terrorists, race, xenophobia – refugees are the ultimate canvas upon which the shallow end of the public affairs pool can paint their own preferred pathological animosities. If you don’t believe me, then undertake an experiment:
Write down 9 favourite themes of the small minded nutjob set, not specifically about any given thing, any old generically bigoted idiocy will do – then pop on over to the usual creatures that prey on such feeble minded antipathy and read the comments sections on any post they have about asylum seekers. Every time one of your predicted themes is mentioned by a commenter, mark it off - you won’t have to read far before you’ll be shouting “Wingnut Bingo!”.
Of all the Wingnut Bingo halls in the land, there is none bigger than that hosted by The Undescended Testicle.*
He started yesterday with his sneering innuendo, of asylum seekers being “Lured by Rudd to their deaths?”. There really are no boundaries that Bolt’s hysterical Rudd Rage refuses to cross – although the only thing really being “lured” here are miscreants by the bucketful into Andrew Bolt’s site –herding the dross of the internet into News Ltd advertising by playing up to their shallow and spiteful little fantasies.
Why Andrew Bolt should be Sodomised with a Calculator – Part 142
Not the usual sort of criticisms we expect from a statistician and psephologist. For his data analysis you’ll have to visit Possum’s post.
It appears that most of those on the boat were fleeing Afghanistan, a country where Australian troops are currently fighting the Taliban.
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Voices without Votes: Middle East Bloggers Remember 9/11
A post from Voices without Votes which was taken up by the Huffington Post:
Middle East Bloggers Remember 9/11
Today marks the seventh anniversary of the September 11 attacks on the US, a pivotal day in history and a day which brought about so much heartbreak and destruction not only in the U.S. but around the world. Bloggers from the Middle East reflect on the disaster.
For more, please click either of the links.
Thursday, July 31, 2008
War and Greed
Christopher Kremmer's The Carpet Wars is a book that shouldn't be missed by anyone interested in the ongoing conflicts in Iraq, Afghanistan not to mention the rest of the Middle East and the sub continent. It is primarly about people and their culture rather than politics and war. Essentially a memoir about his time as a journalist before 2001 it has a very critical post 9/11 reflection.
On a related US election issue, he was inteviewed on Life Matters on Tuesday about his upcoming lecture The good, the bad and the greedy The dodgy US financial system and current economy turmoil are another part of George W. Bush's legacy about which John McCain is in denial. Not, not.. not responsible.
Monday, July 28, 2008
McCain: Not responsible
View from Adelaide
Currently spending some time in Adelaide which is definitely a slower pace than Melbourne.
It has been fascinating to watch Barack Obama sweep through the Middle East like Rommel and Europe like a Panzer division. Oops, don't mention the wars! McCain can only bleat at this stage. Can you blame the media for covering Barack's trip rather than John's shopping trips and town hall speeches? The Republicans can't keep avoiding blame for the Iraq debacle and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afganistan which resulted. They are responsible and McCain is just as culpable.
Anway it's back to domestic politics for Obama, with the economy and climate change the biggest challenges. If recent back pedalling by conservatives in Australia are any indication the latter is going to be the battleground of the next few years, especially after the election.
Monday, July 21, 2008
Afghanistan snow for Obama?
Whoever wins in November, the US, and Australia will be in Afghanistan for a very long time. Certainly longer than the Soviet Union. The only question seems to be whether Bush or his successor has the first surge. Their optimism about Iraq may prove to be illusionary, either in the short term or the longer haul. Repeat surges there are hardly a political option except perhaps for John McCain.
Let’s hope that Barack Obama isn't being snowed by the military during his overseas tour. If that’s necessary. You have to wonder how many of his enthusiastic supporters in Australia are aware of his plans to increase military spending and the size of the armed forces. He is no dove.
The political and military goals in Afghanistan are even murkier than in Iraq. At least the US will be able judge when the oil is flowing freely and cheaply again. Afghan stability will be a whole new concept.
Because of the attention on Pope Benedict at the World Youth Day in Sydney, coverage of the US presidential election has been thin lately. The speed of the pope-mobile and photo opportunities with babies have been the clich̩ of the day. It was high theatre with the stations of the cross seeming to take longer than the original story. We can now get back to the important stuff Рsport. It was fitting that the mass for the masses was at a racecourse.
