Defence and Security
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AUKUS security pact: a story of recklessness and delusion
The AUKUS security pact is another provocative alliance that can only end in blood and tears. And for no good reason other than a nostalgic addiction to imperial power. Continue reading »
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The deputy sheriff rides again with AUKUS
The AUKUS deal will cost us a lot of money, a substantial loss of sovereignty, a lowering of our reputation in the world and the potential to get dragged into a war we should avoid. But we will get our tummy tickled by our great white fathers. Continue reading »
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There are much greater threats to Australian security than the Chinese military
As a middle power, Australia should be strengthening international organisations and a global community, rather than treating our alliance with the US as the foundation of our foreign policy. Continue reading »
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Mike Scrafton: Nuclear-powered submarines are just bad defence policy
Australian governments are now certain to be bedevilled by submarines for generations. Continue reading »
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Saturday’s good reading and listening for the weekend
What people in other forums are saying about public policy Continue reading »
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The ‘forever submarines’ go nuclear
The nuclear submarine deal intensifies Australia’s military cooperation with the US. It will be up to our regional neighbours to decide whether, as Scott Morrison says, the deal will help and not hinder them. Continue reading »
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Cavan Hogue: Chile coup was another example of Australian support for US interests
National Archives documents released last week revealed how closely Australia’s overseas spy agency worked with the CIA in the lead-up to the 1973 coup in Chile. Former diplomat Cavan Hogue reflects on the political and social environment at the time. Continue reading »
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Five Eyes intelligence failure in Afghanistan, or something worse?
If corruption was central to the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, and US intelligence ignored it, what should become of the Five Eyes alliance? Continue reading »
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America’s wars in revenge for 9/11 caused nearly a million deaths
Countless innocent people died in the 20 years of war the United States launched in the name of its 9/11 dead. Tens of millions of innocent people were displaced. Continue reading »
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Coalition’s game of chicken with China for political advantage
Does Australia continue to provoke and insult China not so much to hurt our biggest trading partner as to motivate our most important ally – the United States – to maintain a strong economic and military presence in the area? Continue reading »
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ASPI complicit in US and Australia’s Afghanistan deceit
The Taliban victory in Afghanistan and the ensuing debacle of the Western withdrawal from Kabul was always going to test the conscience of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). Continue reading »
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Australian government’s secrecy obsession and the role of ASIS in the overthrow of Chile’s Allende
Freshly declassified National Archives documents show just how closely the Australian Secret Intelligence Service (ASIS) worked with the CIA in the lead-up to the coup-d’état in Chile in September 1973. Continue reading »
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Afghanistan intervention marks the beginning of the US’ decline
It is time to forget the idea that the whole world should conform to the principles and values for which America alone stands, no matter how admirable they may appear to be. It was never feasible and it is conducive of conflict. Continue reading »
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‘Fortress USA’: How the September 11 terror attacks produced a military industrial juggernaut
The best chance to reverse the militarisation of the US state is policy guided by the radical proposal that life is indeed precious. Continue reading »
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Five Eyes on the Afghan collapse-one eyed or blind?
The catastrophic failure of US and coalition intelligence in Afghanistan offers serious food for thought about the extent to which Australia relies on the vaunted Five Eyes arrangements. Continue reading »
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Afghanistan, the aftermath: Recognition or engagement?
What are the options for states, including Australia, in their dealings with Afghanistan following the retreat of the previous government and the assumption of power by the Taliban? Continue reading »
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Australia’s government scares me more than the Saudi government
I left Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most oppressive regimes. But the Australian government’s recent draconian rules remind me so much of home. Continue reading »
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Dungeons and dragons: The China threat fiction
China is an increasingly authoritarian state, actively asserting its will regionally and within its own borders giving rise to a dangerous fiction. Continue reading »
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The terrible effects and disastrous consequences of war. But we keep doing it.
The chaotic end to the war in Afghanistan coincides with a debate in the Senate on a bill which would curtail the unrestrained power of the executive to take the country to war. Continue reading »
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Cowardly acts by both ISIS-K with its suicide bombers and the US with its drone strikes
ISIS-K uses human suicide bombers to personally assassinate targets and murder civilians. The Americans use mechanical drones piloted from Langley, Virginia to do the same. Continue reading »
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Australian Strategic Policy Institute rorts Wikipedia
In an important but shocking article in Michael West Media (MWM) on 21 August, journalist Marcus Reubenstein has exposed a pernicious practice by which supporters of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) have assiduously removed all negative criticism of ASPI from Wikipedia’s ASPI page, and added fawning praise of ASPI which renders the page, in Continue reading »
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“No Australian who has ever fallen in our uniform has ever died in vain, ever” The PM and the AWM
Prime Minister Morrison’s recent statement to the ABC that “No Australian who has ever fallen in our uniform has ever died in vain, ever” is glib, facile, devoid of any content and oblivious to the catastrophe in Afghanistan and to Australia’s role. It is little more than an arbitrary assertion – that Australia’s wars, by definition, bring good Continue reading »
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Crocodile tears by Morrison over plight of Afghans
The Taliban advance was swift; that was the point at which the Australian evacuation of at-risk personnel and their families should have begun. . Hiding behind ‘intelligence’ is a poor excuse. US intelligence relating to Afghanistan has been as bad as their intelligence on Vietnam. Continue reading »
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The United State’s use of Australia in the race to weaponise space
The militarisation and weaponisation of space highlight Australia’s integration in the US military-industrial-surveillance complex and the continuation of the US war for planetary hegemony against China and Russia. Continue reading »
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Easy Lies & Influence in the $90b submarine boondoggle
No-one knew what the evaluation process involved, but it was clear the decision was political, not driven by the obligation of government to spend public funds for the best product and the best price. Continue reading »
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Best we don’t ask why we go to war.
Australia seems to hold more inquiries into itself than almost any other country. We inquire into everything, from Indigenous deaths in custody, child sexual abuse, and same sex marriage to bank misdemeanours, casino operations, pandemic responses, and alleged war crimes. There’s one exception to our obsession with self-scrutiny: Australia’s wars. Continue reading »
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Afghanistan- of course it was about oil.
The Afghanistan war disaster raises questions about the ANZUS treaty and what we were really fighting for. Continue reading »
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The Great Game of smashing countries
As a tsunami of crocodile tears engulfs Western politicians, history is suppressed. More than a generation ago, Afghanistan won its freedom, which the United States, Britain and their “allies” destroyed. Continue reading »
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Afghanistan: Was September 11 the only reason for the attack on Afghanistan?
In one of his latest statements, Joe Biden reiterated the US states mission in Afghanistan, “America went to Afghanistan 20 years ago to defeat the forces that attacked this country on September 11th. That mission resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden over a decade ago and the degradation of al Qaeda.” Continue reading »
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Making sense of Afghanistan in fragments: part 2: the present and the future
The deluge of images carried by the mass media are in realty merely an overburden of a disaster foretold. Their precedents were freely available long before the Western forces entered Afghanistan but they were brought into sharp relief as soon as that happened. Albeit less drastically, the documentation since then – specifically, the voluminous, now declassified Continue reading »