Showing all posts in June 2019

The “shock” resignation of NSW Premier Bob Carr has caused much of the press pack to compete for superlatives. I won’t even bother trying to compete with those hacks. I met Carr a few years ago while researching Not Happy, John! about the Hanan Ashrawi affair. He had bravely resisted pressure from Zionists to withdraw…

Ahmad Humeid is a Jordanian graphic designer, newspaper columnist and entrepreneur. Listen to his views about the opportunities for podcasting and blogging in the Arab world.

“MI5 tried to recruit senior al-Qaida figure Abu Qatada as an informer in a bid to keep terror off the streets of Britain, it was reported Wednesday.” According to the UK Evening Standard, intelligence sources hoped that he “would not bite the hand that fed him” and “keep terrorism off the streets of the U.K.”…

What are the war cheerleaders going to do? Where will they turn for the appropriate turn of phase now that the Bush administration has announced that the term “war on terror” will be phased out for more nuanced language. “As the struggle evolves some of the language will evolve as well,” a senior Administration official…

“Our military, police and other law enforcement agencies have completely shattered al-Qaida’s vertical and horizontal links. It no longer has any command, communication and propaganda structure in Pakistan.” Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, July 2005

Jane Fonda announced this week that she opposes the Iraq war and will be touring America spreading that message. Good for her. “I have not taken a stand on any war since Vietnam,” she recently told 600 people at a bookshop in Santa Fe. “I carry a lot of baggage from that.” David Bloom deconstructs…

While Prime Minister Howard visits the Australian troops in Iraq – and the media pack breathlessly report the details of the “wildest ride of his life” – he refuses to announce any timetable for withdrawal. Back on planet Earth, and with increasing reports of civil war on the cards, calls for US withdrawal is growing…

While our leaders prepare to “deal” with Islamic extremism – and yet completely ignore any discussion about the foreign policy goals of the Howard government – a more disturbing report closer to home suggests that a great number of Australians hold homophobic views. Queensland and Tasmania are the most bigoted states while Victoria is the…

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan may end up costing the US over $700 billion. “Osama bin Laden doesn’t have to win; he will just bleed us to death,” says Michael Scheuer, former counterterrorism official at the CIA who led the search for bin Laden and recently retired after writing two books critical of the…

In the wake of increasingly vicious anti-Muslim sentiment within the Australian community and the decision of a leading Islamic body to send letters to 200 Muslim clerics and leaders asking them to repudiate violence, racial harmony is hardly served by comments by The Anglican Bishop of South Sydney, Robert Forsyth. The Sydney Morning Herald reports…