”We can’t kill them. When I kill one, I create three.” A U.S. officer working with the task force overseeing training of Iraqi troops admitting the difficulty of fighting the Iraqi insurgency. Are we reaching a tipping point? According to a new study in Australia, 60 per cent of people don’t think the Iraq war…
Showing all posts in June 2019
The dodgy guys in the pack
Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room is a wonderful documentary. Screening at this year’s Sydney Film Festival (and receiving a wider release in the coming months), the film tells the sordid tale of greed gone horribly wrong, the distorted American dream and the relationship between former Enron CEO Kenneth Lay and the Bush family.…
Ordered around
The Queen’s Birthday Honours List. The best excuse to become a republic. And soon. Despite the archaic honours, this year sees a handful of worthy winners. Phillip Knightley is one of this country’s finest journalistic exports. He made his name working on the London Times from the early 1960s, before the days of Rupert Murdoch.…
Covering their behinds
Corporates are discovering the wonders of blogging and offering readers insights into the culture of multinationals. Richard Giles, an account manager for Sun Microsystems Australia in Perth, says that, “Microsoft is looked at as being evil, and very closed and not very innovative”, but corporate blogs can change the perception, providing a human side to…
Just how much is a journalist’s life worth?
Robert Fisk asks the key question. In the aftermath of the assassination of anti-Syrian Lebanese journalist Samir Kassir, and the ever-increasing rate of murdered journalists around the world, Fisk wonders what keeps him going, and his battered profession. “I’m still not sure why I still walk in harm’s way. There’s nothing vicarious about war and…
The buck must stop somewhere
How much environmental damage is occurring thanks to American arrogance? The facts are in and it’s not pretty: “The United States constitutes 4 per cent of the world population. It is responsible for a quarter of all carbon dioxide emissions – an average of 40,000 pounds of carbon dioxide is released by each US citizen…
The real truth about Iraq
The deceptions around the Iraq debacle are becoming clearer by the day. Take the latest Downing Street memo written eight months before the invasion detailing the apparent lack of US plans for any occupation problems. The current explosion of violence there proves that America had little or no idea about what to expect in Iraq…
Working into the grave
Will Australian workers be better off under John Howard’s proposed industrial relations changes? George Simon thinks not. I tend to agree.
Truth and lies
“The US and Britain have agreed on how the debt owed by the world’s poorest nations can be erased”, booms the New York Times. The Age’s James Button writes that the world’s beautiful people are pressuring the leaders of the most powerful nations to do something about Africa. He approvingly quotes Bono, Bob Geldof and…