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Finally, a place to call home

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Antony Loewenstein

12 May 2008 in General. 0 Comments

Back in 2004, I interviewed a stateless refugee housed on Manus Island by the former Australian government. Aladdin Sisalem was a kind, quietly-spoken man who simply craved a better life for himself, but John Howard’s system wanted him to suffer for this desire.

I met with Aladdin a few times in Melbourne after his release. He seemed to be struggling with his new life, unsure what he would do and without a clear directive from the government on his legal status.

But now life has apparently turned the corner:

Coming to Australia after 18 months held in the Manus Island detention centre — 10 of them by himself — Aladdin Sisalem felt he had finally found a new beginning.

Instead, the stateless Kuwaiti-born Palestinian found that he had merely exchanged one form of living in limbo for another. He was placed on a temporary protection visa that banned him from applying for permanent protection for five years.

He has spent the past four years not knowing if he would have to uproot himself and try all over again to find another country to take him at the end of next year.

It is only now, after a change of government, that a relieved Mr Sisalem has been told his wait has been cut short by a year. He can apply immediately for permanent residency in Australia.

For the first time since he fled persecution after a backlash against Palestinians in Kuwait on November 15, 2000, the United Nations-certified refugee may have somewhere to call home.

“They called me last week as promised and told me the office of the Minister of Immigration has agreed to specify a shorter period to process your application,” he said.

The wait to apply for permanency, and its accompanying right to visit overseas, has come at a heavy personal cost for him.

The recklessness and cruelty of the Howard government towards asylum seekers will shame Australia for years to come.

Iraq, the Kurds and where to from here

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Antony Loewenstein

5 May 2008 in General. 1 Comment

I was recently interviewed by Peshawa Muhammed of the Kurdistani Nwe Newspaper, the publication of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Iraqi Kurdistan (Noam Chomsky was also interviewed recently.) The article ran on May 4:

Peshawa Muhammed: Five years on, how do you assess the current US policy in Iraq? Which option do you think can finally put an end to the ongoing fiasco; partition or keeping Iraq united?

Antony Loewenstein: The Iraq war is one of the greatest crimes of my lifetime. After more than five years, the death of over 4000 American troops, over a million Iraqis and millions of displaced refugees, the decision to invade and occupy the nation remains a disaster on all levels. The majority of polls in Iraq since 2003 find citizens believe life under Saddam, as brutal as it was, remains preferable. Foreign troops must leave the country as quickly as possible and the future of Iraq decided by Iraqis alone. I am against partition because it appears most citizens oppose it. The international community has a responsibility to assist the Iraqi government to get back on its feet. The current regime in Baghdad’s Green Zone is an illegitimate puppet of Washington, creating Shia death squads to obliterate potential enemies. Ethnic cleansing must stop.

Muhammed: Previously, Australian Defence Minister Brendan Nelson has admitted that securing oil supplies is a key factor behind the presence of Australian troops in Iraq. How do you explain the Australian objectives in the Iraq War?

Loewenstein: Australia, like many so-called allies in the war against Iraq, joined the Bush administration out of compulsion, fear and gutlessness. The previous Australian government, led by Prime Minister John Howard, was an unashamed fan of Bush and his “war on terror” policies – by pure coincidence, he was in Washington on September 11, 2001 – and believed that “democracy” should be imported by bombing and occupying a nation. Oil was certainly a key reason for the war as was securing a new, post-Saudi Arabia staging post in the Middle East. The US embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the world, indicates that America never had any intention of leaving.

Muhammed: If Iraq eventually fails as a state, what alternatives are there for the future of Iraqi Kurdistan and what assumptions are made by each alternative? Will Independent Iraqi Kurdistan be a viable option?

Loewenstein: The idea that Iraq is a state is clearly the invention of the Western powers just under one hundred years ago. Iraqi Kurdistan has the right to autonomy and independence, if a fair and free vote is taken. Of course, Turkey and the central Iraqi government oppose such a move, but it is probably inevitable. It is encouraging that Iraqi Kurdistan has benefited from the invasion and largely prospered. A ray of light in a sea of darkness.

Muhammed: Nothing or little is known about Australian-Kurdish relations. To the best of your knowledge, how does Australia view the Kurdish question in Iraq?

Loewenstein: There is a stable Kurdish population in Australia that receives little media coverage or discrimination, as far as I know. When the largest protest in the country’s history took place in 2003 against the Iraq war, the Kurds here were one of the few groups, aside from the Howard government, to encourage America to invade. In terms of Australian attitudes towards the Kurdish question, this is a difficult question. There is general sympathy for groups that are legitimately calling for a homeland – such as the Palestinians – but the issue receives little attention. My gut feeling is that there would be concern over creating a Kurdish state and increasing instability in the region.

Muhammed: What will happen of the coalition forces withdraw from Iraq prematurely? Regardless of the causes of the war and its eligibility, don’t you think it is the responsibility of the invading forces to restore peace and order before leaving Iraq?

Loewenstein: The international community certainly have a responsibility to assist the Iraqis, but poll after poll has found since 2003 that a majority of Iraqi people want foreign troops to leave. Indeed, much of the insurgency is directed at foreign troops. I fear that the Western powers will continually say that the country is too unstable to withdraw troops, therefore ensuing an endless occupation (something seemingly suggested by Republican presidential nominee John McCain.) There are other ways to support the country other than American troops, such as food aid, infrastructure support, financial compensation and the UN.

Muhammed: What are your general recommendations and advice for the future US Policy in Iraq?

Loewenstein: The US operates under the delusion that it had and continues to have the right to occupy Iraqi indefinitely. The countless examples of abuse committed by US troops against the Iraqi people must be compensated. Lessons must be learned, namely that the mentality that led the country to invade a nation that didn’t threaten it in any way has been counter-productive, weakened Israel, emboldened Iran and allowed China and India to continue to challenge Washington’s dominance of the globe, not a bad thing, in my opinion.

Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq

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Antony Loewenstein

22 April 2008 in General. 1 Comment

My following book review appeared in the Melbourne Age on April 19:

On the fifth anniversary the Iraq War, The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn, the finest Western reporter in Iraq, wrote that the conflict “has been one of the most disastrous wars ever fought by Britain. It has been small but we achieved nothing . . . All governments lie in wartime but American and British propaganda in Iraq over the last five years has been more untruthful than in any conflict since the First World War”. Rupert Murdoch’s Australian praised the “liberation” and hailed the “principled reasons” behind the invasion.

The Guardian’s correspondent Jonathan Steele, a journalist who has spent time in Iraq since 2003, told Democracy Now! in March that, “the war was lost when they decided to have this open-ended occupation of the country without giving any date for withdrawal”. In his compelling new book, Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq, Steele dispenses with analysing how the war could have been fought better, smarter or less violently, a feature of much Western media discussion.

Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter once said that growing anti-war sentiment in America wasn’t due to real opposition to the war, but rather that his country wasn’t “winning”. Steele writes that, “occupations are inherently humiliating” and the Americans, British and Australians were seen as “murderous outsiders”.

The region was rightly wary of “imperial intrusion”, something ignored or unknown by George Bush, Tony Blair and John Howard. Steele’s book provides ample reasons why the Middle East craves freedom from Western meddling and has every right to resist its imposition.

Under the banners of “freedom” and “democracy”, the Western powers sought to transform a sanctions-starved nation into a nation run by Republican-indoctrinated hacks. Iraqis were not seen as trustworthy to run their own country. More ominously, Washington and its clients ignored the legitimate grievances held by many in the Arab world towards the West. Steele quotes Mohammed Heikal, an Egyptian journalist/historian and editor of Al-Ahram, who writes about the US-led war to oust Saddam from Kuwait in 1991: “When Westerners accuse Arabs of being over-suspicious, they tend to forget that the West has never shown even-handedness on issues which affect the survival of the Arab nation. History’s influence in creating what the West says is an over-suspicious Arab attitude to Western involvement was much stronger than most in the West realised . . . the crusader, the colonist, the mercenary and the spy have all made their mark on Arab attitudes.”

The invasion of Iraq merely consolidated these fears.

Steele, unlike many Western journalists whose understanding of the war has been through the lens of the American military, engages with real Iraqis and reveals their initial relief at deposing Saddam then anger at being humiliated by racist, foreign troops. He claims thousands of innocent civilians were murdered by American troops and the vast majority of the families were never compensated.

Not unlike in the lawless Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel - an environment that taught Washington a great deal about “managing” an indigenous population - disorder and chaos were the chosen method of control.

Steele recounts meeting American-appointed political leaders who talked openly about torturing “terrorists” to tame a growing insurgency. One dictator was being replaced with another equally brutal.

This book is a useful primer of a war that has slipped off the front pages of the Australian media. Steele urges a “negotiated withdrawal” that would hopefully “bring an orderly and relatively casualty-free departure”.

Leading investigative journalist Seymour Hersh recently told an audience in Canada, in views likely to be echoed by Steele: “I don’t think it is bad for a journalist to come back (from covering a war) and say it sucks.”

Antony Loewenstein’s My Israel Question is published by Melbourne University Publishing.

The view from the Murdoch perch

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Antony Loewenstein

7 April 2008 in General. 0 Comments

Scott Burchill, Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the School of International & Political Studies at Deakin University, comments on a Murdoch mouthpiece:

Quote of the week goes to Liberal Party lunchalot and honorary Republican Party ambassador, Greg Sheridan.

According to the Foreign Editor of The Australian, “Rudd will be a tremendous disappointment to the ideological Left in Australia“.

As is so often the case, Sheridan couldn’t be more wrong. No sane observer of Kevin Rudd from either end of the ideological spectrum expected Rudd to be anything other than a craven and uncritical supporter of Washington’s reckless foreign adventures. Rudd was always going to be as pro-American as Howard, and anyone who claims otherwise is being disingenuous. Anyone who says there are people who believed anything other than this is simply nuts.

Rudd is the same on Israel. Same on China. Same on Indonesia. Same on everything that counts (Kyoto doesn’t). Why else would he give Bush an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan as a quid pro quo for a partial withdrawal from Iraq, when the war is hopelessly lost, has no coherent strategic objectives and only imperils Australia’s strategic position? Bipartisanship was never in doubt.

This is what we’ve become

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Antony Loewenstein

25 February 2008 in General. 0 Comments

The great Guantanamo puppet theatre.

The hardest word

Published by

Antony Loewenstein

20 February 2008 in Israel. 1 Comment

My following essay appeared on February 19 in the Israeli publication, Haaretz:

Newly-elected Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd formally apologized last week to tens of thousands of Aboriginals known as the ’stolen generation’, who as children were forcibly removed from their families by the government until as recently as the early 1970s.

The apology was welcomed by Australian Jews who have historically supported the country’s indigenous population. The Australian Jewish News endorsed the move which comes after 11 years of deliberations in Australia politics. “We are a people all too familiar with persecution and discrimination,” the AJN published in response to the apology. Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence of the Great Synagogue in Sydney called on Jews to “acknowledge the wrong, to apologise for the damage caused” to the Aboriginal community.

“We’ve suffered 2000 years of persecution, and we understand what it is to be the underdog and to suffer disadvantage,” said Mark Leibler, a prominent Melbourne Jew who co-chairs Aboriginal rights group Reconciliation Australia.

Rudd’s apology acknowledged the “profound grief, suffering and loss” inflicted on the Aboriginal people but no Jewish leaders seem capable of considering similar sentiments towards the Palestinians.

They blame somebody else for the fact that the number of settlers rose by five percent in the West Bank in 2007. They remain mute when Israel’s Interior Minister Meir Sheerit suggests destroying a Gaza neighbourhood. They look away when Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger urges Israel to move Gazans to the Sinai Peninsula.

New Republic editor Marty Peretz recently told Haaretz, “No occupation is kind or sweet. But bad things happen everywhere, all the time.” Israel was therefore only acting with the best intentions when it announced last week plans to build 1120 apartments for Jews in East Jerusalem, a Palestinian area.

Many Australian Jews resist recognising the suffering of the Palestinians. “Pounding the enemy only makes the enemy want to pound you back”, Forward editorialised in early February. The fact that Hamas has offered a long-term ceasefire to the Israelis is not mentioned. “Why doesn’t our government jump at this proposal?” asked Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery. “Simple: to make such a deal, we must speak to Hamas. It is more important to boycott Hamas than to put an end to the suffering of Sderot.”

The Zionist leadership in Australia and across the Diaspora prefers a state of war to a state of peace because they have not yet acquired the moral standing to take responsibility for Israeli actions. As Aboriginal leader Patrick Dodson said last week: “It takes courage to apologise. It takes courage to forgive.”It was a far cry from the Anti-Defamation League’s Abraham Foxman, who last year equivocated over using the term ‘genocide’ to describe the massacres perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire against the Armenians because he feared upsetting the Turks.

How much longer must we wait for the worldwide Jewish community to understand the dispossession and dislocation of 1948 and 1967? And when will the global Zionist leadership realise that Israeli policies in the occupied territories is leading to the country’s destruction? America will not forever provide the moral, financial and military blanket for the Jewish state’s behaviour. A recent survey by B’nai B’rith World Centre in Jerusalem found a majority of Israelis believed that Diaspora Jews had no right to publicly criticise the Israeli government. However, some Jews recognise that they have a special moral responsibility not to remain mute over Israeli crimes committed in their name and on which they may have some clear effect.

Such common sense suggestions are absent from the mainstream media debate. After the destruction of the wall between Gaza and Egypt, the Australian Jewish News meekly condoned Israel’s suffocation of the Strip, saying Israel had “no options but to keep Gaza sealed off”, shrugged its shoulders. Despite the stated Israeli aim of destroying support for Hamas in Gaza, the opposite has predicably happened, with recent polls indicating a rise in support for the Islamist organization.

Israel has become an object of uncritical adulation. The Rudd government is not likely to disappoint. It was a rare moment, after the death of Yasser Arafat in 2004, when Rudd expressed his condolences and stated that the PLO head was a “passionate, controversial leader of the Palestinian people. Whatever people thought of Arafat, there was wide consensus that he was a symbol for a secular Palestinian state.” Since then, however, Rudd has rarely expressed any sympathy for the Palestinian cause.

Rudd, who has visited Israel twice and said in 2004 that he was “passionately pro-Israel”, sadly believes that appealing to nearly 400,000 Australian Muslims, and becoming “passionately pro-Palestinian”, is political suicide. The Zionist lobby may not have the clout of their American brethren, but they still are significantly intimidating to their perceived enemies.

Rudd’s government will undoubtedly continue the historically bipartisan support for the Jewish state. John Howard was viewed by many of the country’s more than 100,000 Jews as the best friend Israel has ever had in the Australian parliament.

Like many Jewish communities around the world, a leader’s credentials on Israel are praised if they offer unconditional support. It is high time that the Jewish community offered true leadership and reflected on the moral significance of last week’s apology to the victims of our crimes. The Palestinians deserve nothing less.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist, author of My Israel Question and co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices.

We say sorry

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Antony Loewenstein

13 February 2008 in General. 0 Comments

Australia’s new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd says sorry to the Stolen Generations with the following statement to parliament:

I give notice that, at the next sitting, I will move:

That today we honour the Indigenous peoples of this land, the oldest continuing cultures in human history.

We reflect on their past mistreatment.

We reflect in particular on the mistreatment of those who were Stolen Generations - this blemished chapter in our nation’s history.

The time has now come for the nation to turn a new page in Australia’s history by righting the wrongs of the past and so moving forward with confidence to the future.

We apologise for the laws and policies of successive Parliaments and governments that have inflicted profound grief, suffering and loss on these our fellow Australians.

We apologise especially for the removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children from their families, their communities and their country.

For the pain, suffering and hurt of these Stolen Generations, their descendants and for their families left behind, we say sorry.

To the mothers and the fathers, the brothers and the sisters, for the breaking up of families and communities, we say sorry.

And for the indignity and degradation thus inflicted on a proud people and a proud culture, we say sorry.

We the Parliament of Australia respectfully request that this apology be received in the spirit in which it is offered as part of the healing of the nation.

For the future we take heart; resolving that this new page in the history of our great continent can now be written.

We today take this first step by acknowledging the past and laying claim to a future that embraces all Australians.

A future where this Parliament resolves that the injustices of the past must never, never happen again.

A future where we harness the determination of all Australians, Indigenous and non-Indigenous, to close the gap that lies between us in life expectancy, educational achievement and economic opportunity.

A future where we embrace the possibility of new solutions to enduring problems where old approaches have failed.

A future based on mutual respect, mutual resolve and mutual responsibility.

A future where all Australians, whatever their origins, are truly equal partners, with equal opportunities and with an equal stake in shaping the next chapter in the history of this great country, Australia.

Despite the criticisms and hesitations about the apology - and the lack of a compensation fund is a noticeable absence - the act of saying sorry is an important step in asking for forgiveness for Australia’s shameful treatment of our indigenous population. It has always been a part of our history that shamed me deeply. It is also important that so many Aboriginal leaders have embraced the apology (with caveats.)

Now, with the many challenges ahead, the test will be whether indigenous Australians are viewed as an integral part of Australian society. This will be the true test of Kevin Rudd’s apology.

Rupert embraces the inner terrorist in us all

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Antony Loewenstein

31 January 2008 in General. 2 Comments

Rupert Murdoch’s Australian website, news.com.au, conducts an “investigative report” into “the hidden war on Australia” - the stories are titled “online jihad” - and discovers these startling facts:

A special investigation by NEWS.com.au infiltrating these global networks has identified jihadi references to the “embarrassing collapse” of the Howard government and cites Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s Iraq withdrawal as a “victory”.

The stories are embarrassing in their fear-mongering. One section is titled “laughing at us”, suggesting that Islamists, some of whom are unpleasant figures, mocked former Prime Minister John Howard’s defeat in last year’s election. I think you would have found millions of Australians having similar thoughts on November 24.

There is no doubt that Islamic extremism is a problem for Western societies, but this kind of “investigative” report is little more than trawling through some forums and chat-rooms and finding comments that celebrate the defeat of Western forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. The clear implication appears to be that withdrawing troops from Iraq is being cheered by jihadis and perhaps Australia should reconsider doing so.

The fact that the war is both illegal and immoral is apparently irrelevant.

The internet is filled with material from across the political spectrum and much of it may be objectionable, but that’s hardly cause to parade flimsy stories on Murdoch’s leading local news-site suggesting that Islamists are “laughing at us” and therefore determined to kill Australians wherever and whenever they can. We seem to forget that occupation forces in a country like Iraq and Afghanistan are legitimate targets for resistance, however unpalatable that may be for Westerners to accept.

Changes afoot?

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Antony Loewenstein

11 December 2007 in General. 0 Comments

Following my recent essay in US magazine The Nation on the election of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, I was interviewed by the syndicated American station RadioNation about the realities of the new Australian government.

Will we really see a change?

A Rudd Government - ‘passionately pro-Israel?’

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Antony Loewenstein

4 December 2007 in General. 2 Comments

My latest article for Online Opinion is about Australia’s new Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his uncritical love of the Jewish state:

Not unlike many Jewish communities around the world, a leader’s credentials on Israel are praised if unconditional support is offered. Howard was loved for this reason - and a majority of Australian Jews have become Liberal voters in the last decade with Israel playing a key role in that decision - but surely true friends offer friendly criticism when required.

Rudd, who has visited Israel twice and said in 2004 that he was “passionately pro-Israel”, sadly believes that appealing to the close to 400,000 Australian Muslims, and becoming “passionately pro-Palestinian”, is political suicide. The Zionist lobby may not have the clout of their American brethren, but they still wield an unfortunate level of intimidation against perceived enemies.

A Rudd Government will talk about pursuing the Road Map, a two-state solution, protecting Israel’s security and demonising Hamas. As a middle-power, Australia’s influence is minimal, but it should use whatever influence it does have to counsel the American administration to pressure the Israelis to cease construction of all settlements, release Palestinian political prisoners and isolate the rejectionists on both sides.

War crimes alert

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Antony Loewenstein

2 December 2007 in General. 0 Comments

A petition worth signing (even with a recent change of Australian government):

To: International Criminal Court

We, the undersigned, call for the indictment and prosecution of John Winston Howard (currently Australian Prime Minister), Robert Hill (former Defence Minister) and Alexander Downer (Foreign Minister) for acts of terrorism and war crimes.

We believe that under Australia`s Criminal Code Act 1995, and under the articles of the International Criminal Court, there is a prima facie case for the prosecution of Howard, Hill and Downer for complicity in illegal attacks upon and mass murder of civilian populations of Afghanistan and Iraq, between 2001 and 2005.

These prosecutions should include the following crimes, committed by the accused in their official capacities:

Complicity in the massacre of hundreds of civilians in Baghdad, Basra, Khormal, Babel, Nassariya, Najaf, Karbala and Anbar, in March 2003, through aerial bombardment, including cluster bombs, assisted by Australian `imagery specialists`
Complicity in the S.A.S. backed murder of ten Sabri tribespeople (mostly teenagers) in Afghanistan, 16 May 2002
Complicity in the massacre of between one thousand and three thousand prisoners, after US operation `Anaconda` operation at Shah-i-Kot, Afghanistan, March 2002
Complicity in the maintenance of an international network of torture, from Pakistan to Iraq to Egypt to Guantanamo Bay (US-occupied Cuba)
Complicity in the two criminal attacks on the civilian population of Falluja, in April and November 2004 - where between one thousand and two thousand people were murdered in attacks which included the use of napalm, and the blockading of Falluja Hospital

We reject utterly the claim that any of these crimes could be carried out under any `democratic mandate` from Australian citizens.

We urge responsible Australian prosecutors to take action under Australian law, and to support this referral to the International Criminal Court.

Hold us close

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Antony Loewenstein

2 December 2007 in General. 0 Comments

Former Australian Prime Minister John Howard and new leader Kevin Rudd see the world in essentially the same way.

In other words, subservience is the name of the game.

Neo-con Ledeen praises Howard as “arguably the greatest Western leader of the past decade”

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Antony Loewenstein

28 November 2007 in General. 2 Comments

My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey:

Michael Ledeen is a key figure in the neo-con firmament, a man whose ideas about the Arab world have been thoroughly proven false time and time again. It therefore makes sense that Australia’s leading Zionist lobby, AIJAC, has invited him here on a speaking tour to discuss his latest book, The Iranian Time Bomb (about a country he admits to never having visited).

AIJAC wholeheartedly backed the Iraq invasion and occupation and now advocates a military option against the Islamic Republic, both in the name of protecting the Jewish state.

In 2002, Ledeen argued in National Review Online of the “desperately-needed and long overdue war against Saddam Hussein and the rest of the terror masters”. To support the invasion, Ledeen wrote “that Saddam is actively supporting al Qaeda, and Abu Nidal, and Hezbollah.” His wish? “One can only hope that we turn the region into a cauldron, and faster, please. If ever there were a region that richly deserved being cauldronized, it is the Middle East today.”

Ledeen now regularly claims he never supported the invasion, an outright falsehood as easy to prove as using Google.

Ledeen - praising John Howard last weekend as the “arguably the greatest Western leader of the past decade” - spoke last night at the Sydney Institute and outlined, in his deceptively calm manner, why Iran is the “centre of world terrorism” and has backed al-Qaeda since the mid 1990s, supports Hizbollah which, he claims, has killed more people in its history than al-Qaeda and how internal dissent is always brutally punished (he must have conveniently missed the thriving online culture, including attacks against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the vibrant Islamist blogs.)

Iran is undoubtedly a repressive regime – something I discovered myself earlier in the year while researching a forthcoming book about the internet in non-democratic countries – but Ledeen’s suggestion that the “Iranian people want a revolution” to overthrow the Mullahs contradicts the vast evidence that American funding of pro-democracy groups actually hinders the cause of freedom.

Of course, Ledeen probably doesn’t hear these realities when speaking to American Enterprise Institute-funded, Iranian dissidents who want America or Israel to “liberate” the country. Every Iranian I met consistently said they didn’t want another revolution, especially one imported from Washington, but rather gradual reform.

For a man who was personally involved in Reagan’s Iran-Contra affair and allegedly played a role in spreading bogus intelligence before the Iraq war, Ledeen’s credentials as an authority on what Iranians want is negligible. (He even dared to suggest that “in Iraq, living is approaching normal in most of the country.”)

This deluded worldview argues that the Iranians are crazy and utterly incapable of compromise with the West, determined to destroy our way of life with nuclear weapons. In fact, the Mullahs generally act rationally and advocate their self-interest.

The Ledeen doctrine is expressed thus: “Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business.”

Kevin Rudd, agent of change?

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Antony Loewenstein

28 November 2007 in General. 0 Comments

My following feature appears in US magazine The Nation and discusses the rise of Kevin Rudd to Prime Minister of Australia:

The political annihilation of Prime Minister John Howard in the November 24 election marks a milestone in Australian history. “From this day forth,” writes political columnist Glenn Milne, “no government can rely on the successful management of the economy to guarantee its re-election. The message from election 2007 is that long-serving governments must demonstrate the will to renew both their ideas and their leadership to survive in the modern electoral era.”

He is correct, but the election of Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd to the prime ministership may not necessarily represent a repudiation of the worst excesses of the past decade. An “It’s Time” factor became almost infectious as soon as Rudd assumed the Labor leadership in late 2006. Voters wanted change, a younger personality to replace the near 70-year-old Howard, and Rudd offered, in his cautious technocratic way, a sense of slight change without seriously challenging the fundamentals of relatively prosperous, conservative capitalism. No polls indicated intense dislike for Howard before the election, though he was accused, like so many global leaders before him, of not recognizing when it was time to retire. His Liberal Party is now out of power at every level of Australian government.

Booker Prize-winning author Thomas Keneally, a Sydney resident, wrote recently in the Sydney Sun-Herald that Howard belonged to a generation that has a “tendency to the dark prejudices of our childhood, to them-and-us thinking, to a narrowness and vengefulness…. He has a gift for spotting the opportunities to scapegoat to advantage. And his targets are…union bosses, asylum seekers and the Muslims to whom he extends one hand open and the other sheathed in [intelligence agency] ASIO’s steel mitt.”

Farewell, bigot

Published by

Antony Loewenstein

25 November 2007 in General. 0 Comments

Good riddance to John Howard.

Salon’s essential Glenn Greenwald explains why.

Welcome, Kevin (sort of)

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Antony Loewenstein

25 November 2007 in General. 0 Comments

The John Howard era of Australian politics is over.

Kevin Rudd is the new Australian Prime Minister (though after last night’s acceptance speech, it’s hard to get too inspired by our “dentist” leader.)

After nearly 12 years in office, Howard’s reign has been characterised by a desire to drive a wedge through Australian society, between the “elites” and others and a slavish devotion to Washington (and Bush has already welcomed Rudd into the club).

Get ready for a change in Australian society, though who really knows how different it will be. I’m not overly optimistic, but glad the Australian people have finally rejected a man who personifies the worst aspects of gutter politics.

Changing of the guard

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Antony Loewenstein

24 November 2007 in General. 0 Comments

Guy Rundle, Arena Issue 91:

Australian intellectual life changed when Murdoch — Rupe or Lachlan (remember Lachlan?) — sacked Paul Kelly as editor of the eponymous national broadsheet, and moved him sideways to be editor-at-large. Under Kelly’s editorship, the one-time left-liberal publication had moved to a position on the Centre-Right — hardly strident, but committed to framing issues in a certain way, and prioritising certain debates. It was pretty scrupulous in its attitude to the factuality of its news stories, hands off with regard to book reviews, and possessed of a sombre and considered opinion section featuring a series of regular columnists. It was also monumentally boring, a policy wonks newspaper, the op-ed pages featuring huge slabs of Alan Wood, Judith Sloan and their ilk, overwhelmingly focused on the topics that would form the substance of Kelly’s book, The End of Certainty.

The subsequent appointment of Chris Mitchell, notorious as Courier Mail editor for an obsessive and unbalanced campaign against the memory of Manning Clark, was a sign of what the paper was about to become — one which imported an American notion of the ‘culture wars’ to Australian life and attempted to reshape debate in that fashion. Murdoch’s tabloids had already begun that process, but in those there was limited scope for anything more than passing swipes. The Australian offered the opportunity to frame the debate more explicitly. Prior to this, during the brief Downer follies leadership of the Liberal Party in 1994, John Howard had carefully laid out his comeback strategy by working up the then relatively new theme of political correctness, drawing in a section of Labor’s socially conservative working-class voters irritated by Paul Keating’s combination of historical revision — such as the Redfern speech — and unashamed celebration of excellence in the arts (and implicitly critical notion of an Australian complacency about cultural achievement). Howard took the PC theme all the way to the 1996 election, portraying it not as the enemy itself, but as the sort of thing that was wrong with the Keating Government. By the time he was joined by The Australian, and by columnists such as the Herald Sun’s Andrew Bolt, who were more willing to draw ideas into their columns; political correctness had acquired a class base — the ‘elites’.

Time for a change of government

Published by

Antony Loewenstein

23 November 2007 in General. 1 Comment

The Australian federal election is tomorrow. I’ve deliberately not commented greatly about it - aside from this piece about the possibility of a Labor government supporting a US-strike on Iran and the occasional article about the major parties’ slavish attention to Israel - so a few words are in order.

The nearly 12 years of the Howard government has caused the country to lose its moral compass - a position I share with former Prime Minister Paul Keating, though it’s sickening to read a man who cozied up to former Indonesian dictator Suharto talk about ethics - through the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, the treatment of refugees as cannon fodder, gross exaggeration of the terror threat to ram through draconian legislation and blind support for the rogue, Jewish state. Some of these issues resonate with voters, and many do not. These are my personal feelings.

It’s hard to be inspired with the likely win of Kevin Rudd when he talks about being tough against boat people. Rudd seems to me to be a dull technocrat who acts like a robot when appearing in public. No passion or true conviction, though he surely has both. Robert Manne, a leading critic of the Howard years, is right when he argues today that the current government has been a master at wedge politics, causing fear in the community and highlighting divisions along racial lines. This should be reason alone to change government.

For much of the last decade, I’ve regularly been ashamed to call myself an Australian, especially when travelling the world and being asked why our government has walked so closely with the Bush administration on a host of issues, from war to climate change. Sadly, Australian leaders have rarely been able to say “no” when Washington comes knocking.

As a fierce critic of Howard for many years, I’ve rarely been inspired by the Labor opposition. On many issues, they are little different to the Liberals, though with perhaps softer edges on some issues, like industrial relations. In terms of foreign affairs, I fear that Rudd would be as pathetically in thrall to America and its priorities. As a middle-ranking power, joining illegal wars for the “sake of the alliance” is a bogus reason and fundamentally short-sighted. Iraq was such a war. Iran could be.

Many of my friends support the Labor party and believe it will bring change in the social fabric of the country. Perhaps, but I doubt it. They see a party how they wish it was, rather than how it truly is.

I desperately want a change of government tomorrow, and I guess that therefore means a Rudd win. I will not be voting for him, however. I will, as I have done now for many years, support the Greens, a party not without its faults, but one that generally believes in principle over pragmatism. Morality does matter in public life, especially when we see how it can be so corrupted. Much of the mainstream media is supporting a Rudd government, but I can’t help but think this is more about wanting to back a winner, rather than truly believing Labor has a better team. The Murdoch broadsheet especially regularly talks about ideology but this is always a cover for maintaining power at any cost. Hence its endorsement of Rudd today.

The role of journalists should be to challenge and counter establishment power, not endorse it. There are notable exceptions. It is for this reason that we can only hope that a change of government, if it happens, brings a modicum of decency back to Australian political life.

The media elite are probably too far gone for true reform.

Australia’s role in the blockade of Gaza

Published by

Antony Loewenstein

19 November 2007 in Israel. 1 Comment

This letter has been sent to the Australian politicians listed. These leaders cannot act with impunity when their actions or ommisions are likely to lead to the deaths of non combatants.

To: Prime Minister, John Howard

john.howard.mp@aph.gov.au

Minister for Foreign Affairs, Alexander Downer

A. Downer.mp@aph.gov.au

Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd

Kevin.Rudd.mp@aph.gov.au

Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs, Robert McLelland

R. McClelland.mp@aph.gov..au

16 November 2007

Dear Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs, Leader of the Opposition and Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs,

We are a group of concerned Australians acting now because the blockade of Gaza is escalating to a new and concerning level that will profoundly affect the lives and welfare of over 1 and a half million people (women and children included). This has followed upon an almost complete paralysis of economic, social and administrative activity. This siege has included a prohibition of infant milk powder and denial of crucial medical supplies for patients who are largely disallowed from leaving the Gaza Strip.

Australia has enabled the Israeli Government to carry out acts which the United Nations have declared to contravene the Geneva Conventions (Article 33 of the Fourth Convention). The prohibition on collective punishment does not just refer to criminal penalties, “but penalties of any kind inflicted on persons or entire groups of persons, in defiance of the most elementary principles of humanity for acts that these persons have not committed” (ICRC).

Australia has repeatedly and consistently voted in the United Nations to give approval to actions of the Israeli government that violate the Geneva Conventions. The voting patterns of the majority of nations in response to numerous UN Resolutions demonstrate that Australia approves these acts by the Israeli government. According to Geoffrey Robertson QC, Ministers of the Australian government have individual responsibility for the consequences of their acts or omissions. Similarly the Australian people have a collective responsibility to correct their government’s errors when these are brought to their attention.

The inevitable consequences of the Israeli military blockade include the infliction of severe malnutrition and ill-health, suffering and the premature death of Palestinian infants and children. The United Nations have not approved this blockade. The blockade of Iraq from 1991-2003 caused the deaths of 1.5 million Iraqi children and has been acknowledged that the United Nations committed an error of judgment in pursuing this course of action.

We believe that the Australian people would wish to instruct their government to abide by the 1949 Declaration of Human Rights and its successor Protocols and Covenants which Australia has ratified enabling this country to take an honourable place within the community of Nations.

We call upon Prime Minister John Howard, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd, and Shadow Foreign Minister Robert McClelland to respect the wishes of the Australian people not to be implicated in any acts or omissions which would result in collective punishment to non-combatant civilians and particularly the most vulnerable members of the Gaza community.

We are yours faithfully.

Going for the More Public Transport Party

Published by

Antony Loewenstein

18 November 2007 in General. 0 Comments

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