While Sri Lanka continues to descend into a brutal police state and minority Tamils are discriminated against and shunned, of course Israel is more than happy to help a fellow country killing and repressing others: Sri Lanka’s navy is acquiring more fast attack craft as its role shifts to protecting the island’s exclusive economic zone…
Real reporters in war aren’t looking to paint troops in a lovely, glowing light
General Leahy heads the National Security Institute at the University of Canberra and has a rather curious view of the media: General Leahy says the Defence Force sees some journalists as ignorant sensationalists with no interest in good news stories, and divides them into two camps: those it can trust and those to be shunned.…
The global lure of Muslim resistance
Amazing reporting by Ghaith Abdul-Ahad in the UK Guardian: British-based men of Afghan origin are spending months at a time in Afghanistan fighting Nato forces before returning to the UK, the Guardian has learned. They also send money to the Taliban. A Taliban fighter in Dhani-Ghorri in northern Afghanistan last month told the Guardian he…
We can define what being Australian is
Great essay by outgoing Meanjin editor Sophie Cunningham in Crikey that discusses the effect of the web on writing and what, if anything, constitutes “Australian writing”: The Australian voice became more in fashion after WW2, in a shift that was aided and abetted by Australia’s (well-founded) sense of itself as finally being a player on…
Memo to self; always check you have the right Nazi
Oops: The Independent was threatened with legal action today after being accused of emblazoning a picture of a Croatian actor across its front page and describing him as a German Nazi mass murderer. In an incident that appeared to highlight the perils of quick-fire journalism in the age of Google and the internet, the newspaper…
Israel should fear global opinion realising how it occupies
This Associated Press story makes it to the Washington Post, a significant development in the rising global profile and impact of BDS. Israel can claim to be the victim as much as it wants; increasing numbers of people know how it treats the Palestinians: There is a budding movement by foreign investors and activists to…
America’s real priorities (and the arms industry are very happy)
Some revealing facts from the essential War is Business blog: $10.9 billion was the value of military training and sales agreements executed in fiscal year 2000 by the Pentagon’s global arms delivery service, the Defense Security Cooperation Agency. $31.6 billion was the sum of the agency’s business in fiscal year 2010, which concluded at the…
Using Wikileaks to sue the US
The enduring power of Wikileaks: Iraq’s Baath party, forcibly removed from power by the US-led invasion of 2003, believes leaked American military documents could help it sue the US government over the war. Baathist officials are planning to meet with international law experts in March to discuss the possibility of taking legal action against Washington,…
Talking to the DPRK is essential
Acting sensibly over North Korea is clearly not in the playbook of Washington. War games beckon. Investigative journalist Tim Shorrock has a great take at the Daily Beast (and here on Democracy Now!): As the Obama administration dispatches an aircraft carrier to the region, following North Korea’s deadly and unprovoked shelling of South Korea, experts…
Keep those terror threats coming (the dollars are rolling in)
The “war on terror” is making some people a lot of money. But it’s all about protecting us from terrorism, of course: The companies with multimillion-dollar contracts to supply American airports with body-scanning machines more than doubled their spending on lobbying in the past five years and hired several high-profile former government officials to advance…