Defence and Security
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Bruce Duncan. Iraq: where to now?
Threats from the self-styled Islamic State to kill Australians randomly on the street or wherever by any means possible have shocked us all. The threats were not just against Australians, nor only against westerners, but against other Muslims, even Sunnis who refused to bow to the IS, and especially against the modernising Muslims and the Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Australia could fight another far away war in a better way.
It is sobering to consider that the 21st century is only 15 years old and a geographically isolated and peaceful country like Australia has already participated in two major conflicts – Afghanistan and Iraq – and fought skirmishes in a lesser one, the birth of Timor Leste. Now we are preparing to join another one Continue reading »
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Kerry Murphy. Kurds in the way.
Since the collapse of three divisions of the Iraqi army at Mosul in June 2014, it has been the Peshmerga, Kurdish militias, that have strongly opposed the apocalyptic death cult of ISIS in Iraq. Already Syrian Kurdish forces had strongly defended their territories in Syria. The relief of the besieged Yazidis on Mount Sinjar saw Continue reading »
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Gaza, Israel and Palestine.
In the link below from AlterNet, published on 9 September 2014, you will find a very important analysis by Noam Chomsky. John Menadue. http://www.alternet.org/noam-chomsky-real-reason-israel-mows-lawn-gaza?akid=12222.32110.TSqdYT&rd=1&src=newsletter1018632&t=2&paging=off¤t_page=1#bookmark Continue reading »
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Will we ever learn?
In an article in the Washington Post – see link below – Katrina vanden Heuvel says ‘Our interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan should have made one thing clear: we have neither the patience, the resources nor the willingness to wreak the violence needed to suppress the regional sectarian conflicts. For more than a decade, we Continue reading »
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Secrecy and Propaganda.
Yesterday Richard Ackland in theGuardian.com highlighted the way that the media cooperated with the government in the propaganda about raids on potential Muslim terrorists in Sydney and Melbourne. Both the NSW and Commonwealth Governments spared no effort to highlight the raids. What a contrast this is to the secrecy of ‘on water matters’ in Operation Continue reading »
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Richard Butler. Ukraine, not Sarajevo
In recent months, there’s been no shortage of suggestions, indeed warnings, that Russia’s absorption of Crimea and now it’s pressure on eastern Ukraine, is the equivalent of the assassination of the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand, in Sarajevo almost exactly 100 years ago: the “ shot heard around the world”, which saw the beginning of the First Continue reading »
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John Menadue. We ‘warn the Tsar of Russia’.
In September 1892, the headline ‘The Hobart Mercury warns the Tsar’ did not threaten Russia sufficiently to attract a response or change its belligerent behaviour. I don’t think the Tsar thought it necessary to respond to people who have an exaggerated view of their own importance The Hobart Mercury over-reached itself. Australian Prime Ministers, particularly Continue reading »
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Annette Brownlie. No new war in Iraq.
Both major political parties are once again standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the US, in support of what amounts to a new military intervention in Iraq. The process began with the dropping of humanitarian aid supplies to the Yezidi. It has now moved on to the delivery of weapons and munitions to Kurdish Peshmerga forces. Meanwhile, Defence Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. Canberra’s fork in the road – the humanitarian way or the warpath?
What interesting, fraught and changing times we live in. This month marks the 75th anniversary of the start of World War Two. Britain and France with little ado told Germany to get out of Poland or else. Three days later King George VI made a radio speech to the British nation that good must prevail. Continue reading »
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Tony Smith. The failure of imagination
Australia has rushed to despatch even more armaments into the already troubled areas contested by men of violence across Iraq and Syria. It is clear that once again, our national government has assumed that this action is necessary and unavoidable. In reality, there are always choices and it is disappointing that the Coalition has failed Continue reading »
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John Menadue. The ANZAC Myth.
The four-year and well-funded carnival celebrating Anzac and WWI is now rolling. The carnival will depict WWI as the starting point of our nation, as our coming of age! It was nothing of the sort. It was a sign of our international immaturity and dependence on others. What was glorious about involving ourselves in the Continue reading »
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David Stephens. The children suffer.
Osbert Sitwell’s The Next War, published in 1918, depicts some plutocrats deciding what would be an appropriate war memorial. The senior plutocrat puts a suggestion which his colleagues eagerly take up. “What more fitting memorial for the fallen Than that their children Should fall for the same cause?” Rushing eagerly into the street, The kindly Continue reading »
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Tony Smith. Dubious celebrations of war.
On 28 July 1914, the world was thrown into a terrible conflict. On that day, a Serbian nationalist assassinated an Austrian archduke and his wife. Because European states belonged to alliances which were heavily armed and many countries on other continents belonged to their empires, the war spread until it had consumed over a million Continue reading »
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John Menadue. Anzac and hiding behind the valour of our military.
For those who may have missed this. I have reposted this earlier piece about Anzac and hiding behind our heroes. John Menadue There is an unfortunate and continuing pattern in our history of going to war- that the more disastrous the war the more politicians and the media hide behind the valour of service men Continue reading »
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Graham Freudenberg on ‘The Making of Australia – A Concise History’ by Robert Murray
When I was a teenage Tory in Brisbane in the early Fifties, Bob Murray, a bright young spark from the Melbourne Argus was the most persuasive of my newspaper contemporaries who led me gently towards the light. In Sydney a couple of years later, at the end of 1954, in midnight to dawn sessions at Continue reading »
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John Tulloh. The French at Gallipoli – Lest we not Forget
A popular myth is that the Gallipoli landings were all about the Australian and New Zealand troops – the Anzacs – with the British somewhere involved, having concocted the unfortunate military adventure. But what is so often overlooked is the participation of France in the Gallipoli campaign. It may surprise a lot of people to Continue reading »
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Mid-east Journey to Nowhere. Guest blogger: John Tulloh
I read Marcus Einfeld’s response to my blog regarding Israeli settlements posted on October 16 with both interest and incredulity. It seems that he has grasped my piece as an opportunity to voice his own musings on the question of Israel/Palestinian relations. Mine was based on my own personal bewilderment why Israel on one hand Continue reading »
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The Wars we would rather forget. John Menadue
Aboriginal Wars The Australian War Memorial records as follows: “When it became apparent that the settlers and their livestock had come to stay, competition for access to the land developed and friction between the two ways of life became inevitable. As the settlers’ behaviour became unacceptable to the indigenous population, individuals were killed over specific Continue reading »
