Forget the crocodile tears of Western leaders. This is about unseating a leader who opposes Western designs in the Middle East (albeit Assad is an incredibly brutal dictator). Here’s Australian intellectual Scott Burchill: How genuine is the West’s concerns about the use of chemical weapons in Syria five days ago? Not very, I suspect. … …
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
Direct call for whistle-blowers to reveal what state shamefully denies
My following article appears in today’s Guardian: Revelations of British government intrusion of legitimate media reporting of… American-led, global surveillance… is a call to arms for journalists everywhere. Australian attorney general Mark Dreyfus recently claimed that Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden… weren’t whistle-blowers… because they were “politically motivated”, and neither man exposed government wrong-doing (in fact, both did in…
Voice of Russia interview on asylum seekers and privatisation
Yesterday I received a call out of the blue from a producer in Moscow asking if I’d like to be interviewed by The… Voice of Russia about Australia’s refugee policies. It was conducted live. Let nobody say that Australia’s ever-worsening cruelty isn’t being noticed by the world: A boat carrying Asian refugees to Australia has sunk…
US surveillance state isn’t new but its scope is
Perhaps the most startling few words about the revelations related to Edward Snowden appeared in the Washington Post this week (via Glenn Greenwald): The Washington Post this morning has… a long profile of Gen. Keith Alexander, director the… NSA, and it highlights the crux – the heart and soul – of the NSA stories, the reason Edward…
Transparency required in journalism yet sorely lacking today
My following article appears in the Guardian today: Are mainstream journalists dedicated to journalism? This may seem like a strange question, especially since I’m a journalist myself, though independent and not tied to a corporate news organisation. We are bombarded with details that claim to inform us about the world. From war and peace to…
US army vet offers war truths on breakfast TV
Now and then, voices appear in the mainstream media that challenge the overly comfortable blabber that passes for news. This morning on Channel 7’s Weekend Sunrise US army veteran Vince Emanuele spoke on Iraq, Afghanistan, drones, the war on terror and Australian gutlessness towards Washington:
Tony Abbott’s foreign policy would be as clueless as George W. Bush
My following article appears today in the Guardian: In April 2010, as the war in Afghanistan was raging and US president Barack Obama… “surged” 30,000 more troops… into the country, Australian opposition leader Tony Abbott suggested that under his leadership, a Coalition government would have considered increasing involvement. “The government should explain why it’s apparently right that…
Remembering the late, great Michael Hastings, friend and fine journalist
Yesterday the world was greeted with the tragic news that 33 year old, US investigative journalist Michael Hastings died in a car crash in LA. Apart from being a fearless reporter, he was also a friend. I’m still in shock. We weren’t overly close but met years ago at a writer’s festival in Brisbane and…
Why it’s dangerous to privatise America’s intelligence services
The post 9/11 world has seen an explosion in private companies making a killing in both assisting and exaggerating the “threat” of terrorism. I examine this deeply in my upcoming book, Profits of Doom. Here’s a great piece by a beacon on this issue, journalist Tim Shorrock, writing in the New York Times: And if…
Public ignorance over Iraq carnage largely due to media blindness
When countless journalists refuse to take responsibility for accurately reporting on the reality of wars in Iraq, Syria or Libya, it’s unsurprising that the effect on civilians can be so easy ignored. Medialens explains: Last month, a… ComRes poll… supported by Media Lens interviewed 2,021 British adults, asking: ‘How many Iraqis, both combatants and civilians, do you…