“Well, it might not have been a good idea to create it [Israel], but now that it’s there, it has to be supported.”
Murdoch, according to Scott McConnell, former New York Post editorial page editor. McConnell’s article on the influence of the Weekly Standard magazine makes for fascinating reading. In the weeks after 9/11, Max Boot wrote for the Standard and included this line: “Afghanistan and other troubled lands today cry out for the sort of enlightened foreign administration once provided by self-confident Englishmen.” That’s US foreign policy in one, echoed by any number of neo-conservatives, chicken-hawks and imperialists the world over.
Murdoch’s Australian today features, without a hint of irony, an article “written” by US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. What exactly does it take for a person to be excised from the pages of the Murdoch organ? Henry Kissinger is still published, so presumably war crimes aren’t an impediment to editorial space.
Rumsfeld talks about the glorious bond between Australia and the US and the “bold, significant” steps to enhance the relationship. At a time when Iraq is in chaos and the country has become the new Afghanistan, Murdoch’s little helpers are happy to publish a man who has contributed incompetence, barbarity and sanctioned torture to the “war on terror.” I’m surprised he wasn’t placed on page one.