Perceptive Steve Coll in The New Yorker: Obama’s advisers explained to reporters that Erbil holds an American consulate, and that “thousands” of Americans live there. The city has to be defended, they continued, lest… ISIS… overrun it and threaten American lives. Fair enough, but why are thousands of Americans in Erbil these days? It is not to…
Showing all posts tagged Iraq
The mess in Libya is deep warning to "humanitarian interventionists"
My weekly Guardian column: Libya was sold as a glorious, liberating war. London’s Tory mayor Boris Johnson… wrote… in March 2011 that the overthrow of dictator Muammar Gaddafi was “of course ”¦ a good idea”. He was cautiously optimistic that a Western-led military campaign would not be a “disaster” like Iraq in 2003. “What kind of democracy…
How the West has always backed brutal Sri Lanka
My weekly Guardian column: The Sri Lankan Navy band was busy last week, learning the tune to Waltzing Matilda. They played it to welcome Scott Morrison, the Australian immigration minister, who was visiting to launch two patrol boats donated by the Australian government. A photo of the moment,tweeted… by journalist Jason Koutsoukis, showed Morrison sitting alongside…
Listening to Iraqi voices when hearing about Iraq
My weekly Guardian column: Since last week’s… victories… by the militant group Isis against a weak, US-backed, Iraqi government, the same, failed protagonists from the 2003 invasion have come out of the woodwork to advocate another… military intervention. Although some journalists, like The Independent’s… prescient… Patrick Cockburn, have been warning about the… growing power… of Isis, voices on the ground are few…
Remembering historical and present war wrongs
My weekly Guardian column: The Australian government recently… successfully blocked the release… of sensitive documents that would have revealed the complicity of Indonesian forces in massive abuses during their… occupation of East Timor. Canberra directed the National Archives to refuse the request of University of NSW associate professor Clinton Fernandes to see internal Australian files on Indonesian military…
The ethics of the US alliance
The job of US State Department favourites (journalists, commentators and politicians who routinely rehash US government talking points over war, peace and the Middle East) must be exhausting. Defending the indefensible while still being on the information drip-feed. Welcome to the US embassy, the free champagne, caviar and PR tips are in the boardroom. I…
Triple R interview on politics of citizen's arrests
I was interviewed by Melbourne’s Triple R radio this week: On, Michelle Bennett talks to author, journalist and activist Antony Loewenstein about Western hypocricy and “peaceful citizen’s arrests”. In a column he wrote recently [for the Guardian], Loewenstein put forth a discussion-provoking argument for greater accountability of Western leaders, including pushing for a serious enquiry…
Western hypocrisy over Russia
Brilliantly strong Gideon Levy in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz: Saddam Hussein has already been executed, and so has Osama bin Laden. But all is not lost for the enlightened West. There is a new devil, and his name is Vladimir Putin. He hates gay people, so the leaders of the enlightenment did not go to…
It's time for Australia to face up to its dark military past and present
My weekly Guardian column is published today: Official, government-mandated story telling should be treated with suspicion. How else to to separate the truth from hagiograhy? Australian prime minister Tony Abbott was in Darwin last week-end to… attend a welcome home ceremony… for soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. “Australians don’t fight to conquer”, he said in a voice…
Should John Howard face a citizen's arrest over Iraq war?
My weekly Guardian column is published today: Years after America officially withdrew from the country it invaded in 2003, Iraq remains… in chaos. The issue is largely ignored in the press these days, except for the occasional horrific… tale of carnage. Nobody senior in the western world has found themselves in the dock defending their justifications for…