Letters to the Editor
Why two?
August 3, 2025
My question has always been “why two bombs?” Even if the bomb had been the clincher, surely the evidence from one city should have been enough for the Japanese high command? Was it because some in the US wanted to try both a uranium and a plutonium bomb, and here was the opportunity?
Geoff Taylor from Perth
In response to: Did the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6 and 9 August 1945 end the war?
No-one is OK and some will never forget
August 3, 2025
When you consider the number of Holocaust survivors still alive, what comes to mind is the feelings the Holocaust generates amongst those who didn’t directly experience the genocide and what actions the Holocaust generate and justifies. Now add the time long ago when God promised a “homeland. Consider how many years of retaliation by Palestinian victims and survivors the world will suffer once the boot is on the other foot. Even if Netanyahu’s grand plans succeeds, as history has shown, there are sufficient non-resident Palestinians scattered across the globe for these atrocities never to end. Is...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: No-one is okay
Author swallows BRI debt-trap canard
August 3, 2025
Some interesting material here, but spoiled by the author swallowing the canard about China's Belt and Road initiative being better described as a debt trap for countries taking part. This suits the anti-China agenda of the US and others in the West, but is at odds with reality. Any AI search will show how BRI has helped low-income nations in Africa, Southeast Asia and Central Asia build or upgrade roads, ports, rail links and power stations, helping accelerate economic activity, trade and connectivity. Yes, there have been challenges, with for example some countries risking default, which critics...
John Wallace from CARLTON NORTH
In response to: No Indonesian high-speed rail wizardry for Oz
Endless growth is reckless
August 3, 2025
Mark Diesendorf’s article The principal barrier to a rapid energy transition makes for sobering reading. With clear calculations, he shows that unless we significantly curb the growth of global energy consumption, renewables won’t replace fossil fuels fast enough to counter climate change. His solution? A steady-state economy based on reduced energy demand and planned degrowth. The IEA says global energy intensity — energy used per unit of GDP — must fall 4% annually to reach net zero, double the 2010–2019 rate. But how do we get there? In Pearls and Irritations (May), Diesendorf outlined five steps: demote GDP...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: The principal barrier to a rapid energy transition
Again, the Prince of Wales?
August 1, 2025
Rather ironic for the British to send HMS Prince of Wales to project power into the South China Sea. That has been tried before in the 1940s, not too successfully.
John Queripel from Newcastle
In response to: Britain’s back, China’s the target. We’ll likely pay the price again
Climate crisis
August 1, 2025
Chris Young has helpfully reminded us of the splendid analysis of our climate crisis, Too Hot to Handle: The Scorching Reality of Australia's Climate-Security Failure, published 15 months ago by the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. Presumably that analysis was too acute and its ramifications too compelling for the government to acknowledge publicly and respond to with a coherent set of policies. But this sobering dose of reality is what the nation needs as panic sets in about the cost of shifting from fossil-fuel power generation to the transmission of clean energy. There's no doubt that cost is daunting...
Tom Knowles from Parkville Vic 3052
In response to: Time for a moonshot?
Innovation and vision
August 1, 2025
While the US war machine yet again loses more wars from afar, its tech industries continue to conquer the world, surreptitiously invade particularly the English-speaking world with their internet, movies, fads, maps and language etc. The tech industries' prime concern is that each advancement is built on those that went before and dare I say that there is another country that has been very good at that and continues to take the lead. This is one area where, for a relatively low cost (hackers do it all the time) with constant innovation, even the smallest of countries/people can be...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: How Trump’s vision of a single-minded China containment has failed
Genocide?
August 1, 2025
I have been waiting in vain for something like a Four Corners investigative analysis of whether Israel is committing genocide in the Middle East. No doubt the message has gone out from management, don’t ask such embarrassing questions – there are some things we don’t want to know.
Brian Bycroft from Evans Head NSW
In response to: 'Our media refuse to call out genocide in Gaza'
Time for a moonshot
July 31, 2025
Jennifer Goldie has highlighted one of the major security risks that we and other countries face from the consequences of our changing climate, bringing an immediacy to last year’s call from the Australian Security Leaders Climate Group. This risk of mass movement of people is also recognised in the UN’s 2025 Global Risks Report. Currently, there are some 123,200,000 forcibly displaced people worldwide. This means 1 person in every 67 is displaced as the result of persecution, conflict, violence, human rights violations and more. Floods, droughts and rising sea levels are expected to increase the number of displaced people...
Chris Young from Surrey Hills, Vic
In response to: How will the Earth cope with a billion refugees?
AI: Embrace or ban it
July 31, 2025
“These evolving technologies have unprecedented capabilities to rapidly analyse huge volumes of information, often identifying unique new patterns.” Why then are they not used to stop hackers and scammers attacking our everyday lives? Why then aren’t they used to stop our children watching inappropriate material on the internet instead of passing ineffectual laws that will only serve to make lawyers rich and the courts full? Are governments so scared of AI that they won’t use it for the good of society? What is the real story? What do they know? What aren't they telling us? Has...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: It’s time to talk about AI and national security
Australia is playing a cynical game re Palestine
July 30, 2025
Bob Carr in his article suggests that Australia should follow the French in their stated plan to recognise Palestine in September. This ignores the reality that for Macron this is a combination of theatre and self-protection, not a serious proposal at all. More than 140 nations already recognise Palestine, representing the vast majority of UN member states. The fact that Macron has consulted closely with Mahmoud Abbas, the aged leader of the Palestinian Authority, an organisation which works closely with Israeli military forces against Palestinians in the West Bank, and an organisation which has no credibility among Palestinians...
Peter Henning from Melbourne
In response to: Mass Palestinian starvation as a weapon of war
You don’t need a bulldust detector, Ross...
July 30, 2025
You don’t need a bulldust detector, Ross; a reality check would give the same result. Any economic modelling that doesn’t factor the impact of climate change is delusional. The almost seasonal floods and coral bleaching across tropical Queensland threaten the economic viability of that region’s tourism, agriculture, aquaculture and horticulture industries. The South Australian algal bloom, now in its sixth month, has destroyed the commercial and recreational fisheries, along with the marine aquaculture industry of that state. Tasmanian salmon farms, along with the rest of the aquaculture sector is struggling with increasing water acidification and temperatures. On land, droughts...
John Mosig from Kew, Victoria, 3101
In response to: Roundtable warning: When they say ‘modelling’ grab your bulldust detector
$30b is chicken feed if it is for Defence
July 30, 2025
“The last quote was $30 billion for fast rail between Newcastle and Sydney. This is cheap for a rail link that would be used regularly and could be expanded, when you consider the cost of submarines and the fact that past Defence white elephants have never fired a shot in defence of Australia. That is, if they are ever delivered. This figure would be cheap even if we don’t buy the latest from China for fear of them spying on our kangaroos and cows in the bush.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: No Indonesian high-speed rail wizardry for Oz
Tide turning on government climate accountability
July 29, 2025
In 2013, Dutch environmental group Urgenda and 900 citizens sued their government to force stronger climate action. In 2019, the Dutch Supreme Court ruled the government had a legal duty to cut emissions by at least 25% by 2020, compared to 1990 levels. Since then, similar attempts in Australia — by eight children and two Torres Strait Elders — have failed. In both cases, judges said it was for governments, not courts, to act. But the legal tide may be turning. The International Court of Justice recently issued only its fifth-ever unanimous advisory opinion, declaring that all nations...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: 'New era of climate accountability': ICJ says nations have legal duty to combat
It’s not about getting re-elected
July 29, 2025
The one point missing from this article is that Sussan Ley is a woman. A woman surrounded by old, white, male dinosaurs. As we saw when Julia Gillard was leader of the Labor Party, there was a lack of support for her, none of the old Union “one out, all out“ mentality. Long after the unions had abandoned their “once they're married, they should stay home and look after the kids“ position of the 1950s, the party allowed Tony Abbott to ambush her without the support they would have given even a prime minister from a different faction. Even...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: Ley must be saved from drowning over net zero
A job in the humanities
July 29, 2025
Gareth Evans, as usual, touches a nerve. Universities often claim they are cancelling humanities courses to focus on programs that lead directly to employment. But this is misleading. Humanities enrich every kind of work. In some professions, they are not just relevant – they are essential. One such profession is that of the civil celebrant. Celebrants must be skilled in public speaking and creative writing and possess a deep understanding of human nature. Their work draws on music, literature, poetry, story creation, storytelling, choreography, and symbolism – all core components of the humanities. Ceremonies are fundamental to...
Dally Messenger from DOCKLANDS
In response to: Evans gobsmacked by change in ANU plan
Ley must be saved from drowning under Waterford
July 29, 2025
Matt Kean’s UN climate-guru Simon Stiell is swanning around Australia again. Claiming his “blueprint” can unleash “colossal” rewards to “protect” workers. They and Jack Waterford badger Sussan Ley. Embrace the “science” of “net zero” or else. Yet all the graphs confirm that population, GDP, consumption, emissions, CO2 levels, and land/sea temperatures are all growing. That the emissions of this perpetual-growth can miraculously “net” to zero is vanity not science – no friend of workers or equality. No brake on Australia's perpetual war-on-the-environment. Despite easily-protected borders and untold energy-riches, Australia delivers extreme population pressures, very high energy prices, and...
Stephen Saunders from O'Connor
In response to: Ley must be saved from drowning over net zero
The same law for everyone?
July 29, 2025
Australian citizens who go to Israel, serve with the IDF and then return home should be treated exactly the same as those Australian citizens who went to support Islamic State in Syria then returned home. We are all equal before the law. Aren't we?
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Australia urged to investigate Australians in Israeli forces for Gaza war crimes
Our PM is beyond contempt
July 29, 2025
Anthony Albanese has been thoroughly bought by the pro-Israel lobby and aligns us with genocide by sticking with our good ally the US. The murders would have stopped long ago, but for the steady supply of US bombs. As for the hostages ... when has Albanese ever mentioned the thousands of Palestinians held without charge for years in Israeli prisons? Why hasn't Albanese noticed that, of released hostages, Israelis are far better cared for? What of Hamas, once promoted by Netanyahu? Hasn't Albanese looked at the alternative media that we are looking at? What possible threat could come from...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Israeli Knesset hosts conference on plan to 'Occupy Gaza' and 'Relocate Gazans'
It started with the Nakba
July 28, 2025
Pearls and Irritations continues its good work in presenting humanitarian voices objecting to Israeli actions in Gaza. An even more through examination of current opposition sentiment in Israel itself can be found in a weekly round-up at Conflicts Forum. However, all these articles miss one crucial point. None of them anchor their interpretation of the current situation in Gaza in the Nakba. Israel came into being on the stolen land and destroyed the lives of the occupants of Palestine, the Palestinian people. They were evicted, killed when they objected, and the survivors were herded into enclaves, Gaza being the...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: Message from the Editor
To counter the albatross of Gaza
July 28, 2025
The use of severe restrictions governing the release of medicine, food and water to the traumatised residents of Gaza continues unabated. Public reaction swings from horror in much of the world to seeming indifference in much of the West to outright glee in Israel. On Israel's northeast, it now controls all of the Golan Heights. This opens the road into Syria, and secures for Israel both water and, through Afek Oil and Gas, oil and gas deposits. These energy reserves are similar to the coveted undersea deposits located off Gaza. Israel seems to be set on expansion through...
Hal Duell from Alice Springs
In response to: On Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism
Less taxes and less service
July 28, 2025
Recently the new leader of the Liberals was quoted as saying: “I’ve never met an Australian that wanted to pay more tax “ She might have said she has never: met a mine owner who would not take more for her/or his ore; met an employer who wanted to pay more wages; met an employee who didn’t want a pay rise; met a hospital that didn’t need mor funding; met an ambulance patient who liked ramping; met a bushfire/victim who didn’t want a quicker response from the government; or met a general/dmiral...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: BREAKING: Albo doesn’t yell at Xi — (part of) nation panics
The cat is out of the bag
July 28, 2025
Humans are enslaved due to the failure to recognise the fundamental role of the government and the private sector. The private sector has taken control of the government sector and can only be trusted to make a profit. Along the way the private sector has developed the ability to convince the voting public, and in turn our elected representatives, what we want, what we need and what can’t be done. By giving control of our telecommunications to the private sector, we lost control of all communications. By the continual controlled criticism of all things China and its undemocratic...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: When technology enslaves humans
Economic Reform Roundtable must listen to Henry
July 28, 2025
Thank you for publishing Ken Henry’s address to the National Press Club. It was a privilege to read it. Henry’s ability to explain how productivity and a sound economy depends on a healthy natural environment and a safe climate is unsurpassed. One sentence summed it up nicely: “Independent reviews confirm that the environmental impact assessment systems embedded in the [nature] laws are not fit-for-purpose. Of particular concern, they are incapable of supporting an economy in transition to net zero and they are undermining productivity.” It is pleasing to see that Henry has been invited to the Economic Reform Roundtable...
Ray Peck from Hawthorn
In response to: Our last, best chance – national environment laws that protect nature and power
All of a sudden…
July 28, 2025
It’s interesting what it takes politicians and the mainstream media to act. They don’t mind civilians trapped, suffocating in the rubble, they don’t mind limbs torn off by bombs, they don’t mind amputations performed without anaesthetic, they don’t mind cancer hospitals bombed and medical staff abducted, raped and tortured, but a child, skinny and starving, suddenly offends their sensibilities. Or for politicians, it is more like the mid term elections are coming up, their constituents are bristling or they’re now realising they have to cover their own complicity. For the mainstream media, it is more like Murdoch has...
Alyssa Aleksanian from Hazelbrook
In response to: The disgrace of deliberate starvation: Israel's war of hunger in Gaza
How will the Earth cope with a billion refugees?
July 28, 2025
Richard Heinberg cites Tim Lenton's book Future of the human climate niche that warns that 2 degrees C warming may result in a billion refugees. Later, Heinberg refers to the simple, though stark, reality that humanity faces climate change and resource depletion, and that living space is likely to become more constricted. We may reach 2 degrees warming by 2035. That is 10 years away. How on Earth are we to cope with a billion displaced humans in the next decade? Where will they all go? Surely, this is emerging as one of the great moral crises of our...
Jennifer Goldie from Cooma NSW
In response to: Let's (not) choose sides and fight
Clarifying what the word Semitic means
July 28, 2025
Robert, Palestinians are generally considered Semitic peoples. The term Semitic refers to a language family and a cultural group that includes various ancient and modern populations, including those who speak Arabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic. Palestinians primarily speak Arabic, which is a Semitic language, and their lineage is traced back to the region of the Levant, where many Semitic peoples have historically resided. While the term Semitic is primarily linguistic and cultural, it has also been used in racial and ethnic contexts. In this broader sense, Palestinians are also considered Semitic due to their historical and cultural connections to the...
Melody Kemp from Balmoral Brisbane
In response to: On Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism
Francesca Albanese
July 28, 2025
Yes, the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize should go to Francesca Albanese. On 24 July this year, The World Beyond War movement awarded her the individual 2025 War Abolisher Award. At the award event, Hanieh Jodat began with these words: Today we come together not simply to present an award – but to bear witness: to courage, to truth, and to a voice that has never trembled, even when the world has demanded silence. and ended with: Francesca has become a map, a mirror, and a megaphone for the dispossessed and displaced. Francesca, your words have become lifelines....
Janet Grevillea from Lake Macquarie
In response to: Francesca Albanese’s bravery merits the Nobel prize
Genocide and Western values
July 28, 2025
No sentient moral and ethical being could rationally dissent from the view that the Israeli state is worse in its savagery than the Nazis, as it triumphantly flaunts its barbarity and arrogant criminality openly before the world as God's chosen people. That is widely recognised by the vast bulk of humanity. What is even more distressing is the active participation in, and evident support for, this vast atrocity by the overwhelming bulk of the leadership of the civilieed West. It has become a truly nonfunctional and iniquitous civilisation that deserves the contempt and detestation of that vast bulk of...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: The disgrace of deliberate starvation: Israel's war of hunger in Gaza
A REAL nomination for the Nobel-Kishore Mahubhani
July 25, 2025
Great quote in this article from a man I greatly admire for his integrity, intelligence, compassion and geo-political understanding. Mahubhani represents the best aspects of a universalism and inclusivity that is entirely absent from those who pose as the foreign policy elites of the dying west. Whilst we promote our western values ceaselessly around the planet, we fail almost universally to actually live up to those supposed values. We only apply them to the often fabricated atrocities attributed to the behaviour of those we look down upon as lesser civilisations, whilst blithely ignoring our far greater capacity and willingness to...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Defenders of rules-based order: not who you thought
Neo-cons know their world is dying
July 25, 2025
The western neo-cons shouting into the void reflect their futility and anger at the dying of their largely white Anglo-Saxon hegemony over the world. Intellectually unequipped to deal with the newly emerging multi-polar world that rightly sees them as infantile examples of humanity senselessly throwing their toys out of their cots, they fulminate furiously their prevarications and delusional mendacities. The problem for them is that the world has moved on past their conventional wisdoms, spread as they overwhelmingly are in the dying legacy media space that they thought would enable them to control the public mind on a permanent basis....
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: BREAKING: Albo doesn’t yell at Xi — (part of) nation panics
Antisemitism should apply to 400 million Semites
July 25, 2025
This is up to Robert's usual high standard, but even it never mentions the other 400 million semites and their rights. The cleverly constructed identification of antisemitism with only antijewism for over one hundred years enables us all to sympathise with only a tiny proportion of Semites, who are daily slaughtering many of the other Semites. This is no small matter as those other Semites, all 400 million of them, are the principal targets of the Jewish state. We in the West are prone to adopt simplistic notions that suit our prejudices and often use them to shape our view...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: On Jillian Segal’s report into combating antisemitism
A better use of our taxes
July 25, 2025
As far as the United Nations is concerned I have come to the conclusion that it is a very expensive retirement home for politicians and public servants - a reward for services rendered - and when it really counts ineffective. Sound a bit like parliaments in general. There have been too many examples of vetos by the major players based on other left/right alliances, unarmed UN peacekeeping forces standing helplessly by and climate inaction and ineffectiveness . The League of Nations reached its use-by date between the wars and the UN is long past its use-by date. The new body...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: defenders-of-rules-based-order-not-who-you-
What’s new about that
July 25, 2025
10+ years ago a report (Choice I think ) into supermarket pricing found that supermarket prices for the big two varied due to the affluence of the area in which they were located. While advertised specials (bait) were the same, general prices varied and not as you would expect - dog food, potato chips and soft drinks etc were dearer and more plentiful in the less affluent areas but overall the more affluent areas were the cheapest
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: the-new-pricing-scam-how-surveillance-prici
ANU change proposals
July 25, 2025
Is the ANU angling to become Canberra's best vocational training institution?
K M from Canberra
In response to: Change proposals risk relegating ANU to middle-ranking regional un
Imperilling ourselves in Service to the US
July 23, 2025
Every war-game the US has undertaken regarding their desire to invade China has resulted in US defeat. Pete Hegseth and Marco Rubio have both acknowledged that on several occasions. Making these never-never Subs subject to US control whenever they might just arrive won't affect that outcome in any way at all. The obvious observation that never appears to occur to our strategically illiterate politicians, is that we are talking about the invasion of the second largest population on the planet. Their technological competence vastly outmatches the US, Japan and Australia combined and would be defending their homeland. Whilst we would...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: Australia and Japan cannot accept America’s war on China
Seeds of hope
July 23, 2025
Further to Eugene Doyle's recent article regarding French Resistance in WWII, and the heroes who oppose genocide, there are seeds of hope with several legal precedents in the United Kingdom. Back in 1996, the Ploughshare Four were found not guilty of criminal damage to a Hawk warplane bound for East Timor at the Warton aerodrome in Lancashire. Their actions were considered reasonable under the Genocide Act 1969 More recently in January 2017, the Reverend Dan Woodhouse, a Methodist minister in Leeds and Sam Walton, a Quaker, were arrested at the same site attempting to disarm warplanes bound for...
Bernard Corden from Spring Hill, Brisbane
In response to: Vive la resistance! The heroes who oppose genocide
A life largely unmourned
July 23, 2025
Stone was one of the last utterly committed Neo-Liberals to occupy the head of Treasury position. Maybe it was his interest in physics that taught him to think in binary terms and without any civilisational sense. Sufficient to say his intellectual arrogance, and conviction that only he perceived reality, were sufficient to make his rejection of a modern, relevant economics a hallmark of Treasury during his leadership. His Senatorial role simply re-enforced that intellectually reactionary persona.
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: From ‘Stone Age’ treasury boss to National Party Senator: John Stone 1929–2025
The Dodgy Brothers and AUKUS
July 23, 2025
Pithy and succinct is the best description of the article from Geoff. In admirably few words he summarises the geo-strategic infantilism of this dodgy-brothers deal, set up by the devious, imbecilic rodent Scott Morrison. Were this to proceed, which seems increasingly unlikely, the US seems intent on proving the accuracy of Kissinger's aphorism that being a friend of the US can be fatal. To continue with a deal with a disintegrating empire that has, for more than a century, shown itself as having no permanent friends or enemies, only interests, as Kissinger also said, reeks of political cowardice and strategic...
Les Macdonald from Balmain NSW 2041
In response to: AUKUS – an American problem
Is a BBC/ABC documentary on Iran war propaganda?
July 23, 2025
Beyond Vietnam, Martin Luther King’s strident anti-war address, is as relevant today as it was in 1967 because most of us are as disinclined to protest against government policy and conventional thinking as Americans were then. As King said: “Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government’s policy, especially in a time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one’s own bosom and in the surrounding world.” Beyond Vietnam revealed the history of America’s...
Susan Dirgham from Melbourne
In response to: Spare more than a thought for Iran’s protesters
Negotiate with Trump - you’ve got to be kidding
July 22, 2025
Apart from the worst Prime Minister we have ever had (and that’s saying something when T. Abbott had the job and A. Taylor wants the job) can anybody possibly think that negotiating anything with with D. Trump is a good idea?
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: aukus-an-american-problem
Higher echelon loyalty to Australia not the US
July 22, 2025
Congratulations to Jack Waterford for some very plain talk about the relationship with the Trump US. I quote: ” Indeed, if Australia did blab, there would be any number of Australian officials, regarding themselves as having a loyalty to the alliance over and above their loyalty to Australia, who would leak about it.” Can we read “US” for “alliance”? And if so, and if Jack’s assertion is true, don’t words like “undue foreign influence” or even in a few possible cases, “treason” come to mind? Do we need an oath of allegiance?
Geoff Taylor from Borlu
In response to: Trump’s negotiation position diminishes as Albo sits him out
Local responses to climate impacts misplaced
July 22, 2025
A focus on the marine crisis in South Australia as a matter of state versus national politics, wildly misconstrues the context and misapprehends the looming danger. Like the drought impacting Southeastern South Australia and the western half of Victoria, the dystopian-like conditions these events are characterised by are entirely consistent with all of the predictions for the extreme impacts of climate change. In Australia, the droughts and flooding rains of the past were, for all their harshness, part of a cycle our biological systems had long adapted to. These new extremities are unable to be responded to so, as we...
Patrick Hockey from Clunes, Vic
In response to: Environment: Forget 1.5 degrees C, even 2 degrees C, while forests and peat disa
Trump Governs by ventriloquist dummy
July 22, 2025
While I was disappointed that Albo didn’t cancel the AUKUS/5 ministers Morrison pact in the first weeks of his first team I have to admit that I’ve been impressed with his steady as she goes treatment of all things Trump. If he can keep a lid on any further US instalments, keeps playing the long game, perhaps buys some conventional subs from Japan, or France, or even China, as part of Trumps demands for increased defence spending, he could well out-last Trump or even the (not so) United States. As always with all politicians the polls rule. I’ve no doubt...
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trumps-negotiation-position-diminishes-as-a
Memo Wong: first, resurrect integrity
July 21, 2025
If Australia's “diplomatic, economic, strategic and military capabilities are all going in the same direction, should they be if one or more of those elements is deliberately going in the wrong direction? Marles has only ever shown the delight of the incompetent in being allowed to play with his superiors, going along with whatever they say. Hence our increasing military absorption into the US warmonger machine. Marles should be dumped. His replacement by someone even halfway more competent would be a definite improvement. Wong, on the other hand, is smart but seems to have left her integrity at...
Margaret Callinan from Hawthorn VIC 3122
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
Less Security Dependence
July 21, 2025
Good article by Paddy Gourley in the July 19 P&I. With luck America will force Australia to finally adopt a more independent security posture and capability. They have voted for Trump, twice and the world is different even if many remain in denial. Surely we must avoid being dragged into another fruitless conflict following our Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq mark 2 experiences. We have to believe we can do it as do most other countries around the world. And the Europeans are now doing as NATO is being unilaterally changed. To achieve similar national security to what we now believe...
David Hind from North Sydney NSW 2060
In response to: Time for Foreign Minister Wong to put her foot down
It's time to become truly independent
July 21, 2025
John Menadue's excellent article sums it up very well. I'd just add that the US likes to parrot its commitment to democracy. Fact is it doesn't give a rats about democracy and never has. Not only with the numerous 'regime changes' Mr Menadue refers to but some specifics would include destroying Iranian democracy in 1953 by overthrowing their government (with the UK) for oil, egging on the Hungarians endlessly in 1956, promising them the world when they overthrew the Soviet puppet government, letting them rot. Numerous incursions into the affairs of South American countries and even in their own country,...
Wes Mason from Gisborne
In response to: Donald Trump and his minions may yet do us a favour by ending AUKUS
Michael McKinley’s moral perspective
July 21, 2025
McKinley brings a refreshing moral perspective to discussion of US & Zionist false narratives on Iran. I always like to read him in P&I. I am 100% pro-Iran. I recommend Prof Mohamed Marandi's regular analysis on YouTube. He says Iran is ready for another treacherous Israeli/US surprise attack and will obliterate Tel Aviv and Haifa with nonnuclear weapons if it comes. I believe him. This is effective deterrence.
Tony Kevin from Canberra
In response to: Military operations seen through Gauguin etc
Where do all the obsolete weapons go?
July 21, 2025
I’ve often wondered where some of the poorest people in the world get their weapons/ammunition from. I constantly see that they seem to get great pleasure from firing into the air rounds from automatic weapons. Firing 100 to 1000 per min? at $1 to $2 each? How do they pay for them? Then I saw the delivery of obsolete Australian tanks to the Ukraine. Never a shot fired in anger but out of date/obsolete, scrap value to some. What a great business model! Even better when you’ve got the president of the US spruking for you.
Bob Pearce from Adelaide SA
In response to: trump-wants-us-to-spend-a-bomb-on-defence-w