When it was announced in October that the largest delegation ever of politicians and journalists were going to Israel in December I predicted the focus would be Iran. Screw the Palestinians. Well, you can imagine my deep shock to read over the weekend one of the supposedly serious reporters on the trip (Lenore Taylor of…
Showing all posts tagged United States
David Hicks shows us what we became after 9/11
My following book review appeared in yesterday’s Sydney’s Sun Herald newspaper: AUTOBIOGRAPHY Guantanamo: My Journey David Hicks (William Heinemann, $49.95) Reviewed by Antony Loewenstein Almost 10 years after the Bush administration launched the ”˜”˜war on terror’’, the victims of the policy remain largely voiceless. The unknown number of civilians murdered by Western bombs have no…
News flash to hookers; Washington won’t give you anything you haven’t paid dearly for
Kenneth Davidson in the Age gets it right: As former Liberal prime minister John Gorton said in the 1960s, too many Australian politicians and bureaucrats are infected by the puppy dog syndrome: roll over and get your tummy tickled. Not much has changed. We are seen as a loyal ally. In Washington this gives Australian…
US elites don’t want to hear about failings of US elites
This is what passes for serious commentary in the US mainstream media. Dana Milbank in the Washington Post, after smearing Julian Assange and Wikileaks – “I confess I’d like to throw a cream pie in his face myself” – doesn’t like to be told that his beloved US may not be such a fan of…
Rove and Sweden make sweet passionate love
Sweden is not an independent nation: Karl Rove’s help for Sweden as it assists the Obama administration’s prosecution against WikiLeaks could be the latest example of the adage, “Politics makes strange bedfellows.” Rove has advised Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt for the past two years after resigning as Bush White House political advisor in mid-2007.…
Shut down the web or face a Wikileaks inspired future
A wonderful piece by John Naughton in the Guardian from early December that perfectly captures this Wikileaks moment: What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. In the last decade its political elites have been shown to be incompetent (Ireland, the US and UK in…
Finding ways to dismiss leakers in the US
A reader sent me this disturbing move from the US Senate to supposedly protect whistle-blowers but in fact is the complete opposite. Wikileaks is causing worries across the political establishment: On December 10, 2010, the Senate passed the Whistleblower Protection Enhancement Act (S. 372) by unanimous consent. After a careful review of S. 372, the…
An info-struggle that we must win
An open letter published in the UK Guardian this week: We are writing this statement in support of democracy. Since Sunday, 28 November, WikiLeaks and five major newspapers from around the world (the Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, Le Monde, El Pais) have been publishing redacted versions of leaked US diplomatic cables in…
