My following book review appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: A journalist with access to a superpower’s military machine refuses to toe the line. “I went into journalism to do journalism, not advertising,” independent American journalist Michael Hastings told… The Huffington Post… in 2010. ”My views are critical but that shouldn’t be mistaken for hostile – I’m…
Articles in Sydney Morning Herald
Ignore the world’s warming and pay a heavy price
My following book review appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: An investigative journalist finds altered weather patterns are already having a significant impact. We are constantly bombarded with evidence of apocalyptic climate change – uncontrollable weather patterns that will irreversibly destroy sustainable life on planet Earth. Deniers argue such warnings are exaggerated. The Republican US…
The silent horrors of Sri Lanka still resonate
My following book review appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: An insider reveals the tortuous history of Sri Lanka’s conflict. The United Nations recently released a report into war crimes committed in Sri Lanka in the final stages of that country’s brutal civil war between the Tamil Tigers and the Colombo regime that ended in…
What US occupation looks like on the ground
My following lead book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: INFERNAL TRIANGLE Paul McGeough Allen & Unwin, $32.99 This unblinking collection of dispatches separates the rhetoric from the reality of the post-September 11 battlefields. The new US Defence Secretary and former CIA director, Leon Panetta, recently told journalists the Obama administration was ”within reach”…
The Net Delusion is alive and well
My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: THE NET DELUSION Evgeny Morozov Allen Lane, 408pp, $29.95 As people in the Middle East have been protesting in the streets against Western-backed dictators and using social media to connect and circumvent state repression, it would be easy to dismiss The Net Delusion as almost…
Western politicians prefer to ignore Israel’s inherent racism
My following article appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald: Imagine a mainstream Australian politician saying that Aborigines should be banned from leading tourists around Uluru because they might “present anti-Australian positions” to visitors. The outcry would be furious. But a bill is currently before the Israeli Knesset, led by a parliamentarian from the “moderate” Kadima…
Hungry for a kinder regime
My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: THREE FAMINES Tom Keneally Knopf, 324pp, $49.95 History is littered with catastrophic examples of government-induced disasters. A new book by the University of Hong Kong’s Frank Dikotter, Mao’s Great Famine, claims that 45 million people were killed between 1958 and 1962. Mao achieved this by…
Disaster capitalism envelops us all
My following article appears in the Sydney Morning Herald today: Last year’s cessation of hostilities between the Sri Lankan government and the Tamil Tigers, after up to 40,000 Tamil civilians were murdered in the last months of the conflict, has heralded a Beijing-led invasion of the island. The authoritarian Rajapaksa regime was assisted by Chinese…
How to report on a descent into African hell
My following review appeared in Saturday’s Sydney Morning Herald: A reporter puts ethics aside when he becomes involved in a bloody rebellion in Liberia. MY FRIEND THE MERCENARY James Brabazon Text Publishing, 304pp, $34.95 Some journalists live under the delusion that they are objective creatures, unable to be bought or sold and committed to telling…
Why internet censorship is a fool’s paradise
My following article is published today by the Sydney Morning Herald/Age online: We live under the illusion that governments can protect us from the evils of the world. Paedophilia, extreme violence, lessons in self-harm and suicide, race hatred and terrorism. We have every right to expect governments to monitor hate and terror sites and arrest…
More articles in Sydney Morning Herald
- Conflicts of interest — October 31, 2004
- Burning Down My Masters’ House — May 1, 2004
- Simpson and his insane donkeys — April 24, 2004
- In The Line of Fire — December 9, 2003
- Why The War Was Wrong — December 6, 2003
- The Blogs of War — October 21, 2003
- Defiant Israel Blind to What It Has Become — July 3, 2003