Defence and Security
-
Cavan Hogue. Mr Turnbull goes to Washington.
Despite one welcome outburst of independence by refusing a request for more troops on the ground in the Middle East and a generally less sycophantic approach than most of his predecessors,the Prime Minister’s visit to Washington had all the usual hallmarks of a client presenting tribute to the Emperor. The fact that Australian and American Continue reading »
-
The Frontier Wars
The following extract ‘The Frontier War’ was part of an address I gave in September 2013 for the launch of the Catholic Social Justice Statement. It was carried on this blog at the time. It was one of many blogs I have posted concerning the Frontier War and also the Maori Wars. Our military association Continue reading »
-
How ‘Crazy’ are the North Koreans?
Joel S. Wit writes about how the North Koreans have played their cards extremely well despite the appalling nature of their regime. See link to an article in the New York Times, by Joel S. Wit, who is a Senior Fellow of the US-Korea Institute at John Hopkins University. http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/10/opinion/sunday/how-crazy-are-the-north-koreans.html Continue reading »
-
Commercialisation and the casualness of going to war
Repost from 23/04/2015. If we feel overwhelmed by the crass commercialism of Gallipoli and Anzac, take a deep breath because there are three years to go. Target has sponsored ‘Camp Gallipoli’, Woolworths has asked us to ‘Keep Fresh in our Memories’ the losses of Gallipoli ; VB depicted for us actors on the steps of Continue reading »
-
Peter Drysdale. Taiwan’s Political Choice.
On Sunday, Taiwan will elect its next president, the successor to President Ma Ying-jeou from the Kuomintang (KMT) party who has been in power for the past eight years and is ineligible to run for another term. The vote will almost certainly record a decisive choice for political change. In the run up to the Continue reading »
-
John Menadue. Australians who fight in overseas wars.
Repost from 02/03/2015 The government has been concerned, as many of us are, about Australians fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq. The government is threatening to revoke the Australian citizenship of dual nationals who involve themselves in this war. Whether this will be successful is a very moot point. It is asserted by many Continue reading »
-
Richard Butler. Nuclear North Korea: Profound and Dangerous Hypocrisy
During the last 10 years, North Korea has resigned its membership of the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and conducted four nuclear test explosions. It claimed that the latest of these, detected four days ago, was of a hydrogen (fission-fusion) bomb. It made no such claim for the earlier three tests; said to be merely Continue reading »
-
The forgotten war – Chinese resistance to Japan.
Repost from 17/09/2015 WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 — Few in the West remember the fact that China was the first country to enter what would become World War II, and it was an ally of the United States and Britain from just after Pearl Harbor in 1941 till Japan’s surrender in 1945, an Oxford expert said. Continue reading »
-
John Tulloh. The Cost of the star-spangled arms banner.
Repost from 05/10/2015 O say can you see, by the dawn’s early light, What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming, Whose broad stripes and bright stars through the perilous fight, O’er the ramparts we watched, we’re so gallantly streaming? And the rockets’ red glare, the bombs bursting in air, Gave proof through Continue reading »
-
John Menadue. Radicalism and terrorism.
Repost from 15/10/2015 Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull is talking a lot about his government’s commitment to counter radicalisation in the Muslim community. The NSW Premier and Police Commissioner also keep talking about countering radicalisation. At least this is preferable to the endless talk we had before about a ‘death cult’ and ‘team Australia’. But radicalism Continue reading »
-
Cavan Hogue. Shia vs Sunni in Iran and Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia’s execution of a Shia cleric who criticised its policies has exacerbated the split between Shia and Sunni Nations. Politics and religion have come together in a way that will be familiar to anyone who knows Northern Ireland. Sunni Saudi Arabia is the home of the deviant puritanical Wahabi sect which is rejected by Continue reading »
-
Allan Patience. Australia and the War in Syria.
Repost from 02/09/2015 Australia and the War in Syria: Perverting a Noble Vision in International Law for Ignoble Domestic Political Purposes In 2005 a summit of world leaders at the United Nations unanimously endorsed the doctrine of the Responsibility to Protect (R2P). Along with the establishment of the International Criminal Court, it constitutes one of the most Continue reading »
-
John Menadue and Peter Hughes. Slogans vs Facts on Boat Arrivals, Part 2
Reposted from 23/09/2015 Tony Abbott did not stop the boats In this blog yesterday (22 September 2015) we pointed out that Tony Abbott kept the door open for tens of thousands of boat arrivals by opposing legislation that would have enabled implementation of the Malaysia Arrangement in September 2011. By this action, he helped turn on Continue reading »
-
John Menadue and Peter Hughes. Slogans versus facts on boat arrivals. Part 1
Reposted from 22/09/2015 How Tony Abbott helped to keep the door open for people smugglers. The ABC provided us with excellent coverage of the Turnbull-Abbott shoot out, but the various commentators still swallowed the myth that Tony Abbott stopped the boats. That is a great piece of spin, but the reality is different. This blog Continue reading »
-
What is the driving force behind Jihadist terrorism?
In this article, (link below) Olivier Roy identifies the patterns of radicalism which have led to terrorism. He describes these patterns Frustration and resentment against society seems to be the only psychological trait they share. The majority of the radicals come from second generation Muslims born in Europe Many have histories of petty delinquency and Continue reading »
-
ISIL is really a revolt by young Muslims against their parents’ generation.
In Quartz on 7 December 2015, Australian journalist, Emma-Kate Symons, shines a particular light on young Muslim terrorists. She argues that ISIL is really a revolt by young Muslims against their parents’ generation. We have seen that many times on numerous issues – younger people who reject the values and materialism of earlier generations. See Continue reading »
-
Culture and Religion, Defence and Security, Immigration, refugees, Media, Politics, Religion and Faith, World Affairs
Magical thinking about ISIS.
Adam Shatz is the contributing editor at the London Review of Books. He lives in New York. In this article he says ‘The attacks in Paris don’t reflect a clash of civilisations, but rather the fact that we really do live in a single, if unequal world, where the torments in one region inevitably spill Continue reading »
-
Richard Woolcott. Australia’s role is in our region.
There is no doubt that Malcolm Turnbull’s visit to Indonesia and his and Lucy’s contacts with President Jakowi and his wife have very substantially improved the situation between Indonesia and Australia that existed before Malcolm’s visit. The most recent and important meeting was between the Indonesian Ministers for Foreign Affairs and Defence with our Ministers Continue reading »
-
Spencer Zifcak. Co-opting the Judiciary: Counter-Terrorism Laws at Work
Regrettably, one matter that has drifted to the sidelines in Australian debates about the operation of counter-terrorism laws is that these laws consistently marginalise and undermine the role of the judiciary. Judicial power, and hence the rule of law, is being incrementally distorted and diminished. Counter-terrorism law continues to burst from the executive and the Continue reading »
-
To solve the Syrian Crisis, we need to overcome these three obstacles.
In the Huffington Post on 9 December, Seyed Hossein Mousavian describes the three issues that need to be addressed in order to solve the Syrian crisis. For link to this article, see below. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/seyed-hossein-mousavian/syria-crisis-obstacles_b_8740514.html?ir=World?ncid=newsltushpmg00000003 Continue reading »
-
Walter Hamilton. The Great Wall in the South China Sea
As Australians enter the end-of-year ‘doze zone’ they would do well to take time to watch a report, available online, prepared by the BBC’s Rupert Wingfield-Hayes, which lifts the curtain on China’s bid to permanently militarise the South China Sea. Wingfield-Hayes and his crew defied threats from the Chinese Navy in order to video construction Continue reading »
-
Culture and Religion, Defence and Security, Immigration, refugees, Politics, Religion and Faith, World Affairs
The Refugees and the New War.
In the New York Review of Books, Michael Ignatieff draws a link between failure of Western policy in the Middle East, it’s failure to counter ISIS and the resulting refugee flow into Europe. He says ‘ISIS wants to convince the world of the world’s indifference to the suffering of Muslims; so we should demonstrate the Continue reading »
-
Gabrielle Appleby. What say do our elected representatives have in going to war?
The authorisation of military force is one of the most serious and consequential powers that governments possess. This power should be exercised with appropriate caution and, where circumstances allow, considered deliberation. Governments should be publicly accountable for its exercise. Across the world, debates have emerged around the extent to which the legislative branch should be Continue reading »
-
Allan Patience. Fighting Holy Wars in the Middle East
How do we deal with Daesh? The Islamic State (ISIS) has proven to be a brutally formidable force in Syria and Iraq. As we saw recently in Paris, it has spread its vicious tentacles into Europe. It is highly probable that we’ll see it erupt in North America and very possibly again here in Australia, Continue reading »
-
Jon Stanford. Defence procurement and the new submarine
When people remember Gough Whitlam, few would identify him as an economic rationalist. Economics was not his primary interest and, partly because of the perceived urgency of implementing “the programme” after 23 years in opposition, partly because of the incompetence of some of his Ministers, the budget blew out excessively on his watch. Yet in Continue reading »
-
Turkey and Daesh
In this blog on 6 December 2015 ‘Turkey’s new neighbour – Daesh (Islamic State)‘ John Tulloh referred to an article by David Graeber in The Guardian on how Turkey is obstructing Kurdish forces that are the most effective opponents of Daesh. In that article, David Graeber asserts that ‘Western leaders could destroy Islamic State by Continue reading »
-
John Tulloh. Turkey’s new neighbour – DAESH (Islamic State)
President Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey must feel like a chess grand master playing several games simultaneously. He has far more neighbours and different cultures to contend with than most leaders: eight in all. They are a mixed bag across more than 2600 kms of borders – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Armenia, an Azerbaijan enclave, Georgia, Bulgaria Continue reading »
-
Richard Butler. Bombing Syria: Where’s our Debate?
On December 2nd, the UK House of Commons debated for 10 hours, a motion moved by the Government, that it should authorise bombing of DAESH targets in Syria by UK airforces. (Prime Minister Cameron announced early in his statement that, henceforth, ISIL should be referred to as DAESH: the acronym of its name in Arabic). Continue reading »
-
Travers McLeod. Relaxing airstrike rules is a recipe for disaster.
Tony Abbott has argued Australia and her allies should relax targeting rules for airstrikes to destroy the Islamic State. At best, he is ignorant of the lessons of the military campaigns waged in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. At worst, he is willing to repeat mistakes to differentiate himself on national security and open a Continue reading »
-
Michael Kelly SJ. Treating Islam’s clerics like their Christian equivalents will save lives
There is an unexpected upside to the mayhem and carnage across the world, visited on the unsuspecting innocents of countries where Muslims are not a majority of the population – Europe and beyond. It’s something the Catholic Church has had to learn, too. And that is the simple fact that that misbehavior among religious adherents Continue reading »
