Greg Sheridan, Foreign Editor of Murdoch’s Australian, rewrites history again today. Long known for defending the Indonesian military and the Australian intelligence community over the 1975 invasion of East Timor – claiming in his paper that then Prime Minister Gough Whitlam was “innocent” of charges he knew about the Indonesian invasion of Timor when subsequently…
Showing all posts in June 2019
The pain of “liberation”
The Iraqi town of Al-Qaim is currently being “liberated” by US and Iraqi forces. Virtually no media reports have surfaced from the onslaught, until now: “…The Red Crescent [is] warning that the US offensive has turned the city into a “big disaster”, as local inhabitants complained about the stench of dead bodies laid on the…
Accountability
Any chance of this happening in Australia (let alone reported in our press?) “Eighty-nine Democratic members of the U.S. Congress last week sent President George W. Bush a letter asking for explanation of a secret British memo that said “intelligence and facts were being fixed” to support the Iraq war in mid-2002.” No, didn’t think…
Failure of the MSM
Why Liberals are mad at the MSM, written by John Atcheson, leading journalist in the US. Need help? “Look at the elements. Budget periods cut from ten years to five to hide exploding deficits. Elaborate Mission Accomplished-style propaganda backdrops at every public event. Orwellian names like “Clear Skies,” and “Healthy Forests” designed to hide real…
Got it in one
Ms Fits salutes the appropriate pounding of Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone by ABC’s Tony Eastley. We’ve learnt that Ministers in the Howard government don’t need to display accountability. Moreover, they presume to throw bile in every direction except at themselves. As Margo Kingston rightly demands: “…laugh out loud. It’s all she deserves, apart from being…
The state has lost its mind
John Pilger writes in the New Statesman of the failures of mainstream media during the recent British election campaign. “Omission is how it works. Between 1 and 15 April, the Media Tenor Institute analysed the content of television evening news. Foreign politics, including Iraq, accounted for less than 2 per cent. Search the post-election comments…
When Seymour Hersh speaks…
We should listen. The finest journalist of his generation – he and Robert Fisk would make a formidable team – talks about the American media, Abu Ghraib, Iraq and the future of the Arab world. Highlights: “You have to understand it’s not that hard inside the government to tell a lie. So, this is an…
Blogging the Arab world
Freedom of the press is one of the cornerstones of any democracy. Sadly, in much of the Arab world, citizens cannot take this for granted. Blogging is therefore one of the major ways of communicating “dissenting” ideas and thoughts. Blogging, however, has yet to find a prominent voice in the Arab world, Committee To Protect…
As effective as the withdrawal method
“Ariel Sharon cannot cancel the evacuation [of Gaza], lest he ignite George Bush’s rage. But nor can he actually go through with it [due to internal right-wing pressure]. That’s the perfect situation as far as he is concerned: an eternal limbo, an evacuation that neither lives nor dies.” Amir Oren from Haaretz reports.