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 shut by authorities reopened weeks later.

John Curtis isn’t a man to accept such grim statistics.

A former Australian commando (he was thrown out during training for being “ineffective” – code for ambivalence towards the required tasks – though he eventually joined them successfully) he drifted through various jobs over the years. He was looking for meaning in life.

Curtis expresses outrage with Australia’s acceptance of Indonesia’s brutal take-over of East Timor in 1975 and Canberra’s re-engagement with that country’s elite troops in the 1990s.

“I was disillusioned with the Australian government’s lack of balls and their duplicity,” Curtis writes. He left the force in disgust.

His dedication to helping people extends to setting up his own home as a safe house in case the former Howard government kicked out East Timorese refugees. His partner becomes pregnant and fatherhood consumes him. Curtis explains movingly of seeing his five-year-old sleeping daughter and hearing a voice in his head: “There are children her age being abused in south-east Asia.”

He soon dedicates himself to infiltrating the Thai underground and saving children experiencing abuse. His transformation is written like an almost religious experience, a moment of clarity that led Curtis to find real purpose: “It sounds a bit melodramatic, I know,” he writes. “But I think it was fatalistic, and I think my mindset was a symptom of my depression.”

He tells his daughter, Emma: “There are girls like you in Asia who are suffering, honey … What I’m going to do is rescue five of those little girls for you.”

He throws himself into meeting like-minded groups and “the unpleasant business of hanging around in bars and brothels, looking for a kid or kids to rescue”.

He could be accused of naivety, ignorance and obsession but this would grossly undersell his achievements. This book reads like an adventure story with a very serious purpose.

Curtis sets up The Grey Man, “an organisation dedicated to eradicating the trafficking and exploitation of children. Our main role is the rescue of children from traffickers. However, early on we realised that rescuing children was not enough. We realised that we needed to stop them from entering the sex trade in the first place”.

This is an ultimately uplifting tale of one man’s dedication to making the world a better place. The book is written in workmanlike style about a person unafraid to challenge established power.

I ask him whether Australia should oppose a resolution at the UN to declare a Palestinian state regardless of negotiations with Israel. Abbott replies: “My instinct would be to do nothing which would prejudice the continued viable existence of Israel. There are a number of countries close to Australia in outlook and values and Israel is certainly one of those [ed: so Australia values a violent occupation of another people?]. Israel is under existential threat in ways that probably no other country on Earth is and it does no good for Australia to seek brownie points with other countries by trifling with Israel’s security.”

Howard was the most pro-Israel prime minister Australia has produced. Abbott would be in Howard’s tradition, and perhaps even more so than Howard.

Abbott’s choice of the statesman he has most admired is, unsurprisingly, Winston Churchill, “the greatest democratic leader the world has seen”.

“In more recent times, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan would rank up there with the best of them.”

But then he adds a perhaps surprising choice: “At least as a foreign policy prime minister, I also think Tony Blair made a very important and influential contribution.”

What Abbott likes about these leaders is that they didn’t apologise for Western civilisation and Western values. Apology is unlikely to be the dominant motif of Abbott’s foreign policy either.

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 than previously revealed.

The documents, which include extensive interviews with Major O’Kane when he returned from Iraq in 2004, reveal that as a military lawyer embedded with the United States he was a primary author of the manual for processing prisoners in Iraq.

He also advised on the legality of interrogation techniques being used on at least one detainee. Major O’Kane was instructed to deny access to the Red Cross to nine ”High Value Detainees” during their January 2004 visit because the prisoners were undergoing active interrogation and, according to the US view, fell under the exemption of ”imperative military necessity”. This view was contentious.

After his return he told superiors he was aware of rumours that the US had ordered an internal investigation of Abu Ghraib and it had something to do with photos, though his knowledge does not appear to have extended beyond a conversation with a US officer who assured him it was being investigated.

Although Major O’Kane’s role was discussed at a Senate inquiry in May 2004, he was not permitted to give evidence because he was said to be too junior.

He also did not attend US congressional hearings into the abuse, despite the documents revealing that the Democrat leader, Nancy Pelosi, personally asked the then prime minister, John Howard, to allow him to attend.

…

As point man for the Red Cross during visits to Abu Ghraib, Major O’Kane saw highly critical Red Cross working papers alleging abuses at Abu Ghraib and drafted responses for the prison chief, Brigadier-General Janis Karpinski.

Major O’Kane was also aware that the US was hiding a high-level detainee – dubbed ”Triple XXX” in the US media – from the Red Cross. This had been done at the direction of the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

Even more sensitive was Major O’Kane’s involvement in a highly secret mission referred to in the documents as ”Operation Eel”.

This involved the transfer of a high-value detainee from the US warship USS Higgins, anchored in the Persian Gulf, back to Abu Ghraib on December 16, 2003. The timing is significant because it was near the time of the capture of Saddam Hussein. This week Defence denied Major O’Kane was involved in the transfer of Saddam. But the documents and other sources suggest the detainee might have been someone who helped pinpoint Saddam’s last hideout.

”Major O’Kane did not observe any abuse of the suspect who was manacled and hooded during the transport operation,” the Australian Eyes Only report says.

In December 2003 and January 2004, Major O’Kane was involved in negotiations with the Red Cross for access to Saddam.

Australia went to war in Afghanistan without a clear policy on how to deal with enemy detainees, secret papers reveal.

When a policy was adopted, the then chief of the Defence Force, Admiral Chris Barrie, expressed reservations about the legality of the agreed approach.

The documents also show another former Defence Force chief, General Peter Cosgrove, informed the Howard government of the death of an Iranian man captured by Australian troops in 2003, but the Australian public was never told.

The papers, obtained under freedom of information laws by the Public Interest Advocacy Centre and made available to the ABC, reveal utter confusion at the highest levels of the Howard government and the Department of Defence over how to deal with enemy detainees.

On February 25, 2002, as Australian troops fought in Afghanistan, Admiral Barrie wrote to then defence minister Robert Hill complaining his commanders were being put at risk.

“There is currently no clear government policy on the handling of personnel who may be captured by the ADF … Defence and in particular ADF commanders are currently accepting the risk flowing from the lack of government policy,” he wrote.

Admiral Barrie proposed a set of interim arrangements, such as asking for American help to move captives from where the Australians were in Kandahar to a US detention facility, where an ADF team could supervise any prisoners captured by Australians.

Robert Hill gave permission for Admiral Barrie to negotiate with the United States and added a series of handwritten comments at the end of Admiral Barrie’s missive.

“I don’t understand why I didn’t get this brief before the Afghanistan operation,” he wrote. “We clearly should have sorted out this issue with the US as leader of the coalition months ago.”

What emerged from the negotiations became Australia’s detention policy in Afghanistan and Iraq: that if even a single American soldier was present when Australian forces captured enemy fighters, the US and not Australia would be recognised as the “detaining power”.

In a paragraph with words redacted, Admiral Barrie expressed reservations about the legality of this approach.

“Such an arrangement may not fully satisfy Australia’s legal obligations and in any event will not be viewed as promoting a respect for the rule of law,” he concluded.

The revelations just keep on coming and indicate a government in Canberra that is more than willing to play the post-colonial game. From simply fighting with the big boys in Afghanistan to creating trouble themselves closer to home:

Leaked diplomatic cables sent from the US embassy in Lisbon, Portugal in June 2006 have revealed that a leading Portuguese intelligence official told American diplomatic officials that the Australian government had repeatedly “fomented unrest” in East Timor, in order to advance its “geopolitical and commercial interests.” The extraordinary exchange occurred two weeks after Canberra had dispatched a military intervention force to the oil and gas rich state, as part of its “regime change” campaign against Timorese Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri.

The Australian government, then led by John Howard, targeted Alkatiri because of his perceived alignment with rival powers, especially Portugal, Timor’s former colonial ruler, and China. The Fretilin party leader was also despised by Canberra for his extraction of unwelcome concessions during negotiations over the division of the Timor Sea’s energy resources.

In February and March 2006, about 600 Timorese soldiers, known as the “petitioners”, mutinied. President Xanana Gusmao then issued a provocative speech on March 23 in which he denounced the Alkatiri government as corrupt and dictatorial. In April, various criminal and ex-Indonesian militia elements joined the petitioners and staged a series of violent attacks on soldiers and security forces who remained loyal to the state. The Australian government seized on the unrest to demand Alkatiri’s removal.

An Australian occupation force, comprising 1,300 troops and police backed by armoured vehicles and attack helicopters, was ordered into Timor on May 24. At the same time, the Australian media went into a frenzy, demanding Alkatiri’s resignation. The ABC’s “Four Corners” broadcast a lurid report featuring bogus accusations that the prime minister had formed a “hit squad” to assassinate Fretilin’s opponents. On June 26, Alkatiri capitulated, handing power to Canberra’s favoured candidate, Jose Ramos-Horta.

Concurrently with these developments, the World Socialist Web Site characterised what had happened as an Australian-inspired political coup. The WSWS concluded that there was no doubt that Australian military and intelligence operatives in Dili had advance knowledge of, and likely encouraged, the petitioners’ mutiny and violent protests. (See: “How Australia orchestrated ‘regime change’ in East Timor”)

The WikiLeaks-released diplomatic cables from the US embassy in Lisbon, published in the Portuguese weekly newspaper Expresso, have provided important new evidence confirming this analysis.

The key cable was sent by the US ambassador to Portugal, Al Hoffman, on June 12, 2006, i.e. 19 days after Australian troops were sent into Timor and 14 days before Alkatiri resigned. Headed, “Portugal: An Intel View of East Timor”, the cable reports on a discussion between a US embassy official (identified only as “Pol/Econ DepCouns”) and Jorge Carvalho, chief of staff of Portugal’s Intelligence Services (SIRP). The cable—which noted that Carvalho is Portugal’s equivalent to the US Director of National Intelligence—was marked “priority” and was widely circulated. Copies were sent to the US embassies in East Timor, Australia, New Zealand, and Malaysia; in Washington, to the Secretary of State, Defence Secretary, National Security Council, and Central Intelligence Agency; and to the US military’s Pacific Command and Joint Intelligence Centre in Hawaii.

The cable read: “Carvalho commented that Australia had not played a productive role in East Timor, underscoring that Australia’s motives were driven by geopolitical and commercial (e.g. oil) interests while Portugal’s main interest was to maintain stability.”

The analysis presented by the Portuguese intelligence chief was clearly self-serving—Lisbon was and is just as preoccupied as Canberra with geostrategic and commercial concerns in East Timor. Carvalho’s remarks underscore the long-standing and bitter rivalry between Australia and Portugal over who would play the dominant role in so-called “independent” East Timor. However, his frank exchange with the US embassy official also demonstrates that the real motivations of Australia’s military intervention in 2006 were clearly understood by those in power internationally. The Howard government’s claims of a “humanitarian” operation aimed at providing security for the Timorese people were purely for domestic consumption in Australia.

Former prime minister John Howard will visit Israel as a guest of the Israeli government.

The trip is being treated as a state visit and will include a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The unusual honour for a former head of government reflects Mr Howard’s reputation as an ”unapologetic friend of Israel” – his own description while prime minister.

It contrasts with the snubbing of former US president Jimmy Carter and former Irish president Mary Robinson, both vocal critics, on repeated private visits.

Mr Howard said yesterday he would be travelling as a guest of the government to meet senior people, including Mr Netanyahu. He had previously visited in 2000 as prime minister, with two earlier trips in 1964, and 1988 as opposition leader.

Last night’s large event in Sydney to support the right of Wikileaks to publish material was a huge success. Thousands turned up to hear speakers chastise the Australian government for shamefully bowing down to America’s wishes over Julian Assange.

Wikileaks enjoys majority community support:

A high-profile human rights lawyer claims Julian Assange’s only crime is embarrassing the US government and if America doesn’t want to be embarrassed it should “stop doing embarrassing things”.

Supporters of the WikiLeaks founder packed Sydney’s Town Hall last night to hear Julian Burnside QC and others denounce the treatment of the whistleblower website and the Australian-born Assange at the hands of the Australian and US governments.

A panel which included journalist John Pilger and federal MP Andrew Wilkie, a former intelligence analyst and Iraq war whistleblower, said the saga has followed a narrative similar to that of former Guantanamo detainee David Hicks.

“Like Julian Assange, he’s a courageous Australian citizen who was denied the help of his government,” Pilger said of Hicks, who attended the event.

Wilkie expanded on the theme, comparing Assange to Mamdouh Habib, another ex-Guantanamo inmate, and Allan Kessing, who blew the whistle about inadequate security practices at Sydney Airport.

Wilkie described the heavy price he said he paid for challenging the Howard government over their case for war with Iraq in 2003.

“Julian Assange is going through the whistleblower grinder … and my experience is that when you stand up and try to speak the truth to power it is tough. “For my efforts you were told that I was mad,” said Wilkie, adding that whistleblowers commit suicide at a higher rate than the rest of the Australian population.

Burnside said a successful prosecution of the accused WikiLeaker Bradley Manning, a US Army private, is unlikely to have any impact on whistleblowers coming forward in the future.

“The First Amendment right of free speech in the US means that the publication would not be an offence, even though the leaking was an offence and the only exception to that … is if the leaking creates a real and present danger and there’s no suggestion of that in this case,” said Burnside, responding to a question from ninemsn.

The panelists and moderator, former SBS presenter Mary Kostakidis, were all adamant in their view that WikiLeaks has a role to play in an open and democratic society.

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has ordered a fresh inquiry into the case of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib.

Julia Gillard requested the new probe amid dramatic claims of Australian government complicity in his 2001 CIA rendition to Egypt, where he was detained and tortured.

The investigation follows a secret compensation payout made by the federal government to Mr Habib in December, apparently triggered by untested witness statements implicating Australian officials in his detention and brutal maltreatment in a Cairo military prison.

The new evidence, not previously made public, includes a statement from a former Egyptian military intelligence officer that he was present when Mr Habib was transferred to Cairo in November 2001.

In the statement, tendered as part of Mr Habib’s civil case against the commonwealth, the officer says Australian officials were present when Mr Habib arrived in Egypt, handcuffed, with his feet bound, naked and apparently drugged.

The statement says: “During Habib’s presence some of the Australian officials attended many times. The same official who attended the first time used to come with them.”

It continues: “Habib was tortured a lot and all the time, as the foreign intelligence wanted quick and fast information.”

The statement is at odds with repeated assertions by the federal government and security agencies since Mr Habib’s return to Australia in January 2005, that they had no knowledge of or involvement in his rendition or detention in Egypt.

As recently as November, in a letter to Mr Habib, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade insisted it had never been able to confirm Mr Habib’s presence in Egypt.

My speech addressed the often complicity of the mainstream media in keeping government secrets away from the public. They want to be gate-keepers, close to power. I reject this; independence is vital to not be seduced by official romancing.

Here are the notes from my speech:

Wikileaks rally, Sydney Town Hall, 15 January 2011

-       Welcome to country.

-       War on whistleblowers.

-       Rudd Labor government pursued leakers more than double the rate of Howard government.

-       Obama administration also pursued whistle-blowers more than Bush years.

-       Bradley Manning, torture-like conditions in US, virtual solitary confinement, UN investigating his treatment. This is how our key ally behaves.

-       Key revelations from Wikileaks aren’t about Assange or his personal life but that our governments lie to us every day and now we have the evidence to prove it. In the Middle East, Africa, Australia, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen.

-       Journalists reacting with anger towards Wikileaks. Jealously, frustration and outrage. Why aren’t they doing their job better?

-       Insider journalism is the enemy of an open democracy.

-       General silence of journalists in speaking out in defence of Wikileaks and what it represents, especially in the US and Australia.

-       Secrecy is the problem not leakers. Who keeps the secrets? Governments and their media courtiers.

-       In 2011, we demand greater transparency, an independent Australian government to support Wikileaks and a press that doesn’t take its cues and leaks from government advisors.

And what of the countless corporate journalists taken on embedded trips to Afghanistan, simply “reporting” futile battles and tiny details that ignore the big picture? They’ve been on the drip-feed and it shows:

We squabbled with our allies, yet in public we talked of close co-operation. We frustrated the Americans with unfulfilled promises. Our politicians big-noted in public but dithered in private. Our bamboozled bureaucrats tried to make sense of the details. All along, the public was kept in the dark.

Not any longer.

Thanks to WikiLeaks, we have an insight into the diplomatic skirmishes behind the war in Afghanistan, now in its ninth year and which has cost 21 Australian lives.

Leaked US diplomatic cables expose friction between Australia and its allies, undermining the public veneer of coalition solidarity.

We did not trust the Dutch, our key partner in Afghanistan.

We confounded the Americans by dithering over Kevin Rudd’s promised ”civilian surge” – a promise made to head off a US request for more troops, by offering advisers and police instead.

Ministers and officials were left in the dark over the promise, while federal departments bickered as they struggled to make the pledge a reality.

The US State Department cables, released exclusively by WikiLeaks to The Sunday Age, include reports from the US embassy in Canberra that reveal deep distrust between Australian and Dutch forces in Oruzgan province, where Australia was part of a Netherlands-led force.

In February 2007, Australian officers, concerned the Taliban were preparing a do-or-die offensive, started planning to send special forces back to Oruzgan.

This was just five months after the Howard government pulled them out, in September 2006, when it argued Oruzgan was ”relatively stable” and that Australian reconstruction troops remaining in the province were well protected by their own forces and Dutch troops.

But the claims of stability and the stated faith in the Dutch were undermined when intelligence reports warned of a Taliban resurgence.

While the army planned another special forces deployment, officials in Canberra briefed journalists that the troops would be under Australian – not Dutch – command. But privately, Australia actually wanted them under US command.