So I wrote an article for the ABC last week on the murder of Osama Bin Laden. I asked questions about his death, the significance of his assassination, the role of Al-Qaeda in making the US an insanely paranoid security state post 9/11 and the terror leader’s relevance (or otherwise) during the Arab Spring. But…
Showing all posts tagged Iran
The West has much to learn post Bin Laden death
My following article appears in today’s ABC’s The Drum: The triumphalism after the American targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden is a sure sign that the US is incapable of understanding the significance of the painful years since September 11. We suffered and now you must, too. “I’ve never been so excited to see the…
ABCTV News24 on Bin Laden and why resistance won’t die
I appeared tonight on ABCTV News’ The Drum (video here) talking about Osama Bin Laden’s murder and its ramifications, alongside Australian Financial Review journalist David Crowe, US Studies Centre Dr Pete Hatemi (formerly in the US military post 9/11) and former CNN correspondent Michael Ware (here’s partial video of the show, mainly featuring the intrepid…
Not all resistance to Western occupation is terrorism
And nowhere is that clearer in Afghanistan, where the Taliban, as vile as it often is, is not the same as Al-Qaeda (or Hamas or Hizbollah or Iran). Our political and media classes have largely failed post 9/11 to even try to understand Islamism or resistance: Considering how closely tied their histories have been, the…
Hold the champagne, Bin Laden’s murder doesn’t remove Western occupation of Muslim lands
Time.com’s Tony Karon, one of the most perceptive journalists in the American mainstream, writes that the US killing of Osama Bin Laden is all about symbolism and will do nothing to help the Western position in the Arab world: Before leaving for a vacation in South Africa in December of 2001, my editor asked me…
BDS keeps seeping into the US (while Israel fiddles with settlers)
This will only increase in frequency while the Zionist state continues to occupy Palestinian land. And how many young American Jews look at Israel and like what they see? Less every day: On Friday night [in Washington], a favorite cafe among progressives, Busboys and Poets, gathered letters to Gazans; the next aid flotilla in May…
Israel knows military strike against Iran futile
Wikileaks breaks through Zionist propaganda that has long threatened Tehran with annihilation: Senior defense officials ruled out an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites as early as five and a half years ago, telegrams sent from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv in 2005 and 2006 indicate. The cables, which were revealed over the…
Why Israelis can’t just lie back and think of Arab democracy
From a young age, the vast majority of Israeli Jews are taught that Judaism is a superior religion and treating Arabs badly is a necessary price to survive in the Middle East. Hence a nearly 45 year old military occupation of Palestine. Here’s an interesting perspective from Eyal Press: Shortly after the democratic uprising began…
Israel is “an island of stability”
Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak tells a Jewish audience in the US that Zionism is peachy, occupation is lovely (oh, apart from this and this, of course, but he must have mentioned this when the recorders were off) and the Jewish state should be given even more Western backing. Who believes this nonsense (apart from…