On February 20, Julian Assange, the daredevil publisher of WikiLeaks, will be going into battle, yet again, with the British justice system – or what counts for it. The UK High Court will hear arguments from his team that his extradition to the United States from Britain to face 18 charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 would violate various precepts of justice. The proceedings hope to reverse the curt, impoverished decision by the remarkably misnamed Justice Jonathan Swift of the same court on June 6, 2023. (more…)
Binoy Kampmark
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Yemen and canal errors: when Australia misread the Suez crisis
Australia’s assistance in striking targets in Yemen, obediently abiding by the direction of the United States and United Kingdom, had a certain curious resonance to another event that involved foreign shipping, the wounded pride of imperial powers, and meddling Arabs. (more…)
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Corporate murder: the Australian companies behind Gaza’s destruction
The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organisation of some note, recently released a list of companies profiting from Israel’s current campaign in Gaza, including its operations in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria between October and December 2023. The list of nasty participants is impressive and familiar. (more…)
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AUKUS and an aggressive US imperium, its reach vast, its mind paranoid
Warmongering think tanks, self-appointed members of the military commentariat, and the whole stable of security-minded cognoscenti in the Anglosphere are terrified about one thing come November 2024. Will AUKUS, that boil on Australia’s policy landscape but boon for the US military industrial complex, be lanced by Donald Trump? (more…)
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Doomed frigates: Australia, defence and the problems of procurement
It’s becoming a force of habit. Initially, grand plans and hopes for those in defence. A future weapons program in the offing able to add new capabilities. Much anticipation and the inking of signatures with the relevant manufacturer. Then, mounting costs, technical faults, the disappointment, and revision. In the case of the Future Submarine deal with the French Naval Group, an agreement worth $90 billion was sunk before it ever set sail, erased by the AUKUS security pact announced in September 2021. (more…)
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Bernie Sanders and the eviscerated left
The Left, and certainly a number of broadly defined progressives, have a strange affinity towards violence and conflict. When the absurdly labelled Global War Against Terror was declared by the semi-literate US President George W. Bush, the use of torture and resort to illegal invasions had the support of such noted liberal figures as Michael Ignatieff. (more…)
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Vassal’s privilege: Exmouth and Australia’s role in US space imperialism
The AUKUS arrangements between the United States, United Kingdom and Australia envisage the transfer of nuclear-propulsion technology and nuclear-powered submarines to the Royal Australian Navy – what policy wonks call the First Pillar. This does little to advance Canberra’s security but does much to confirm that Washington is keen to keep other powers in the Indo-Pacific in check and under chokehold, the most obvious candidate being the PRC. (more…)
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Australia: Land of the persecuted whistleblower
In Australia, whistleblowers are feebly protected. They tend to muddy the narrative of perfect institutions, spoil the fun of having illusions, and give the game away. Despite recent amendments to the Public Interest Disclosure Act 2013 (Cth) regarding, for instance, the creation of a National Anti-Corruption Commission, public sector employees remain vulnerable to prosecution. The NACC, for one, already risks being hobbled by secrecy restrictions imposed by the Albanese government. (more…)
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Anthony Albanese: Australia’s lobbyist for the US Imperium
Australian sovereignty should have been something of a pub joke prior to AUKUS. After it, it has become a dead letter. Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese’s sole purpose during his visit to Washington is to be the country’s uncritical undertaker, ensuring that remains of independence are buried, even as the minerals are extracted. (more…)
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War mongering through the Scott Morrison lens
The former Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison continues to maintain his role as the country’s noisiest anti-Beijing figure. Still a federal member of the New South Wales seat of Cook (when will “sod” and “off” make union regarding him?), he is showing electors, each and every day, why his resignation is in order. (more…)
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As Palestine bleeds, Sydney Opera House drapes itself in the colours of apartheid
“We are fighting human animals and are acting accordingly.” – Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant. (more…)
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Flagging support: Zelenskyy loses favour in Washington
Things did not go so well this time around. When the worn Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy turned up banging on the doors of Washington’s powerful on September 21, he found fewer open hearts and an increasingly large number of closed wallets. The old ogre of national self-interest seemed to be presiding and was in no mood to look upon the desperate leader with sweet acceptance. (more…)
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Vale Dianne Feinstein: Persecutor of Assange, servant of the US imperium
“She was the longest-serving female senator in US history, a trailblazer for women in politics and a champion for social justice and gun control.” So began a piece from the Sydney Morning Herald’s North America correspondent on the passing of Californian Democratic Senator, Dianne Feinstein. (more…)
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Mike Pezzullo: Despot in waiting……
One Mike Pezzullo a coup does not make. But a few such characters pose a serious question to the health and ticker of democracy. If Canberra’s most powerful bureaucrat can entertain thoughts about swimming deeply in a political process he should be viewing from the sidelines, then we are no longer dealing with appointees who know their limits. (more…)
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Mission to free Assange: Australian Parliamentarians in Washington
It was a short stint, involving a six-member delegation of Australian parliamentarians lobbying members of the US Congress and various relevant officials on one issue: the release of Julian Assange. If extradited to the US from the United Kingdom to face 18 charges, 17 framed with reference to the oppressive, extinguishing Espionage Act of 1917, the Australian founder of WikiLeaks risks a 175-year prison term. (more…)
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Overthrowing Allende: Australia’s special role in destroying a democracy
Every September 11, those in the United States mourn the 2001 attacks that reduced the Twin Towers to rubble and holed the Pentagon. Some 3,000 people perished. US President George W. Bush declared in a speech following the attacks that the US had been targeted for being “the brightest beacon for freedom and opportunity in the world.” (more…)
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The paranoia of China going global
Empires are anxious creatures, run by those predatory types with egos vast and awareness minimal. The awareness only gets pricked when risks are posed to the financial returns, military security, what might be called, at a stretch, their way of living. Such risks can come in many forms, and for the US imperium, it’s less a warming planet and global poverty than the threat posed by the People’s Republic of China. (more…)
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Going dark on information: The Albanese government’s transparency problem
When governments first assume the reins of power, an air of optimism accompanies them. They will be different from their erring predecessors, adopt a more conciliatory approach to opponents, listen to various positions and develop policy with mild sagacity. Within a few months, the air palls. Old practices reaffirm themselves. (more…)
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Plea deal pitfalls for the world’s foremost political prisoner
Julian Assange could hardly be blamed for considering a possible plea deal that would alleviate the immense suffering he has endured since becoming the object of state persecution. Terms less brutal than those he potentially faces – anywhere up to a 175-year prison sentence in the cell of a US supermax – can only be seen as appealing. (more…)
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The edifice of the consultancy-military-industrial complex is crumbling
The consultancy-military-industrial complex continues to reveal its sinister nature as serious questions are raised over conflicts of interest in the tender process for KPMG’s $46 million REDSPICE contract with the Australian Signals Directorate. (more…)
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The ASPI interference machine: China is everywhere
It’s hard to credit, but the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) continues its incessant grumbling about forms of interference across a number of areas of Australian political and economic debate. What stands out in this method of noisy declaration is the tactic of sidelining legitimate public debate. Such interference supposedly impairs the credibility of the argument, given that the argument is also being advanced by sinister external forces. Blame Johnny Foreigner, and you have scored a few points in your favour. (more…)
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Kits for killing: AUKUS goes to school
While Australians pride themselves, for the most part, in having stricter gun laws than most and not being warlike in disposition, their governing officials have increasingly thought otherwise. War drums are beating. The chatter about acquiring and building armaments is getting more frenzied. As a client state of the US imperium, firmly enmeshed in the security arrangements of the AUKUS agreement, Canberra is becoming increasingly interested in militarising the population and turning the country into a garrison state. (more…)
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The US Studies Centre: Washington’s mole in plain sight
Espionage, surveillance and monitoring in a society require guile, judiciousness, and care. Secrecy matters. Inserted agents assume roles for years as friends even as they are purloining your secrets. They are the charming thespians of treachery. (more…)
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Paternal Western interference in Solomon Islands drives Honiara towards China
In the last few years, Australian and US foreign policy toward the Pacific has been framed as a benign influence, couched in money terms, offers and suasion. But in such offers comes that bit of intrusive steel, a less than subtle threat that gravitating into the orbit of another power, most notably China, will come with costs. (more…)
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Simon Crean: Advocate against war
He was a creature of workmanlike officialdom, a unionist, a federal Labor opposition leader never allowed to contest an election by the machinations of his own party, but still clear on one gloriously sane point. It takes a lot to oppose the squealing and hollering for war, and the late Simon Crean did that in 2003 in a number of speeches against the illegal invasion of Iraq. Some of these proved to be his finest. (more…)
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Even Henry Kissinger warns against war with China
Henry Kissinger, self-praised and adulated as a statesman of genius, foreign policy expert of prowess, recently warned the world that, to avoid world war three, America and China must learn to live together. They have less than ten years, he argues. He has also become a centurion. (more…)
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Stella Assange in Australia
For those familiar with the ongoing prosecution of Julian Assange by the United States, a brutal carnivalesque endeavour that continues to blight that legal system, there is not much to be said. Assange is a political prisoner who must be freed. But the task remains for those like Stella Assange to convince politicians and journalists to embrace that course. (more…)
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Scott Morrison and Australia’s Lobby Complex
The former Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, has been somewhat of an absentee in the Federal seat of Cook. Since losing the May 2022 election, he has been aggressively chasing up contacts and deals on the consultancy circuit, bellyaching about the usual talking points: the gruesome China menace; defence matters; and, just to round it off for good measure, additional iterations of the China menace. (more…)
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The edifice sports complex, AFL and Tasmania
Historically, Australian sport has been bosom-tied to corrupt administrative and state management. Administrators of the myriad sporting codes are typically conceited in assuming they provide a service for an increasingly obese populace. The sports personalities turn up and play; spectators turn up in their colours, pies and beers; the sporting hierarchs can then claim they are doing society a service. The logical equation that follows from this is revenue raising for the facilities – as long as the sporting body is not the one doing it. (more…)
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Cutting funding to the Independents: Insights from the Rugg case
Parliamentary representatives of all stripes deserve to have the necessary staffing and means to discharge their duties to constituents. (more…)