As part of the Twenty Years project, a journalistic and artistic initiative with Afghans in Australia and around the world to assess the legacy of the US-led war in Afghanistan, we commissioned young, female, Afghan-Australian artists to make a short film on these themes. This is their statement: The fall of Kabul in 2021 was…
Showing all posts tagged John Howard
Triple R interview on politics of citizen's arrests
I was interviewed by Melbourne’s Triple R radio this week: On, Michelle Bennett talks to author, journalist and activist Antony Loewenstein about Western hypocricy and “peaceful citizen’s arrests”. In a column he wrote recently [for the Guardian], Loewenstein put forth a discussion-provoking argument for greater accountability of Western leaders, including pushing for a serious enquiry…
Should John Howard face a citizen's arrest over Iraq war?
My weekly Guardian column is published today: Years after America officially withdrew from the country it invaded in 2003, Iraq remains… in chaos. The issue is largely ignored in the press these days, except for the occasional horrific… tale of carnage. Nobody senior in the western world has found themselves in the dock defending their justifications for…
David Hicks deserves justice, an apology and compensation
My weekly Guardian column is published today: It’s hard to think of an Australian individual since 9/11 who has experienced more humiliation and abandonment by the federal government than… David Hicks. Julian Assange, who declared he felt abandoned by the Australian government, perhaps… comes close. As they both found out, an Australian passport is no guarantee of…
David Hicks in his own words about Guantanamo and search for justice
After years of smears and lies told about Australian citizen David Hicks (along with the legal, physical and moral abuses), former Guantanamo Bay prisoner David Hicks speaks to the Sunrise program and explains why he needs and deserves justice for years of assault:
The Daily Show on gun crime, America, Australia and lunatics
John Howard on Gun Control. from John Beohm on Vimeo.
A man out to save young, innocent lives in Asia
My following book review appeared in last Sunday’s Sydney Sun Herald newspaper: The Grey Man John Curtis (Macmillan, $34.99) Al-Jazeera reported in 2008 that the child sex trade in Cambodia was rampant, fuelled by local interest and Western tourism. In 2007, Cambodian authorities arrested only 21 people for sex crimes with children and many brothels…
The gospel according to Tony Abbott (future Australian leader?)
The Liberal Opposition leader Tony Abbott is interviewed in today’s Murdoch Australian by Greg Sheridan, a man who never saw a war he didn’t love to watch (from a distance). The message? Abbott loves America, Israel, the West, the “war on terror” and anything Washington asks. That’s not a foreign policy; its sycophancy: I ask…
Australia and Abu Ghraib; a cosy relationship
Years after this scandal exploded, we’re still receiving details on US allies being far too willing to excuse and defend abuses: Secret Defence documents obtained under freedom of information laws show an Australian officer, Major George O’Kane, was far more deeply involved in the operations of Abu Ghraib prison when terrible abuses of prisoners occurred…
How legally unprepared was Australia for invading Afghanistan?
According to new evidence, clearly deeply. Of course, we’ve seen countless examples in the US of senior government officials escaping any kind of punishment; it’s all about targeting individuals low down the food chain. When a so-called democracy refuses to take responsibility for illegal actions in war, little stops future leaders doing exactly the same…