The Australian Federal Police today announced that they have spent $8.2 million on the fruitless investigation into “terror” suspect Mohamed Haneef. Yet another debacle in the never-ending “war on terror.” Not unlike this alarming case in the UK: A masters student researching terrorist tactics who was arrested and detained for six days after his university…
Showing all posts tagged al-Qaeda
The changing of the guard
Robert Fisk in the London Independent on the current crisis in Lebanon: Another American humiliation. The Shia gunmen who drove past my apartment in west Beirut yesterday afternoon were hooting their horns, making V-signs, leaning out of the windows of SUVs with their rifles in the air, proving to the Muslims of the capital that…
Is Iran next?
My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed: The fifth anniversary in March of the Iraq war should have given the political and media elite time to reflect on their actions since 2003. Virtually ignored by the mainstream media were stories such as life in Fallujah, where citizens remain mired in poverty and resentment. Despite…
A family affair
My latest New Matilda column is about the Bin Laden family and its influence in the world: The Western world still understands little about the motivations behind the September 11, 2001 attacks nearly seven years after the fact. American journalist Steve Coll, a Pulitzer Prize winner, foreign correspondent, Washington Post managing editor and contributor to…
Even terrorists like bureaucracy
Mohammed Atef was furious. The Al Qaeda leader had learned that a subordinate had broken the rules repeatedly. So he did his duty as the feared military chief of a global terror network: He fired off a nasty memo.
9/11 helps Israel
A prominent Zionist leader lets the cat out of the bag: The Israeli newspaper Ma’ariv on Wednesday reported that Likud leader Benjamin Netanyahu told an audience at Bar Ilan university that the September 11, 2001 terror attacks had been beneficial for Israel. “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the…
How to talk to “terrorists”
Once were terrorists: US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has asked for “embarrassing” travel restrictions on Nelson Mandela and South African leaders to be lifted. A bill has been introduced in the US Congress to remove from databases any reference to South Africa’s governing party and its leaders as terrorists. The African National Congress (ANC)…
We must engage Hamas
My latest New Matilda column is about the need to talk to Hamas and speak honestly about Israel’s ever-expanding occupation: The international isolation of Hamas has failed. This is not merely the opinion of those who believe that the democratically elected Palestinian Government should be engaged, but includes a number of prominent Israelis, including Yossi…
Moving forward (without dogma)
Former Israeli official Daniel Levy – writer of the essential blog Prospects for Peace – offers thoughts to the next US President (though clearly the idea of engaging Hamas is something the Australian government is already keen to ignore, preferring to stick with failed policies of the Bushies): Contrary to popular misperception, Hamas and al-Qaeda…