Tag: Abbot

Alan Jones blows Abbott off on air over G20.

November 19, 2014November 20, 2014 ·

When Alan Jones blew off his old pal Tony Abbott on air this Monday, Sydney sat up and took notice. The relationship between the nation’s talkback shockjockracy and Australian politics is a complex and symbiotic interweaving yet it is central to understanding the contemporary climate of unreason which squats like a venomous toad on the Australian body politic. That zeitgeist has many components. Chauvinism, parochialism, racism, xenophobia, homophobia, misogyny, fear, ignorance, cultural cringing, prejudice and superstition – to name but a few – are all constituents. And nowhere are all strands represented better than in the Prime Minister’s regular meetings with Alan Jones, the Sydney radio mouthpiece of all that festers in our national conversation. Nowhere better seen are its dangers.

When Abbott fronted card-carrying misogynist 2GB shock jock Alan Jones, for his regular, cosy rubdown on Sydney morning talkback, the unsuspecting PM copped a bucket of abuse. Jones, the Bondi trout of Australian media, blindsided Abbott with an outburst of invective, screaming insanely at his guest. Jones’ extreme manner channelled Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe, another rabid old man, whose pathological rantings stand as a textbook caution to all other tin-pot potentates of the dangers of leaving your syphilis untreated.

‘Jonesy’ was unhappy with Tony. And he lost no time in letting him know. The customary mutual fawning foreplay was ditched in favour of a full-frontal attack. Lips puckered, eyes closed, the PM received no tenderness in return but, instead, was dealt a resounding slap in the face. Abbott’s affections were spurned, his fond hopes dashed with an ice-bucket of scorn. For any lesser mortal it would be a wake-up call, but if the PM heeded his rebuke, only time will tell.

Jones was all worked up. Mouth frothing, he unleashed his yellow-peril-spittle fury all over his studio and hapless guest, flecking the PM’s comb-over and new-look intellectual style rimless spectacles. ‘Jonesy’ ranted about RET, free trade deals with China; how everyone knows the Chinese were buying up Australia; and how, as a result, Abbott was a dead man walking. You don’t have a mandate for this type of free trade, he cautioned.

Jones let it rip. Such was the force of his animation that free trade with China became momentarily almost real, conjured somehow into being from its status as quintessential oxymoron, a contradiction in terms equivalent of a binding agreement with Vladimir Putin or an indemnity from the Iraqi government. Or perhaps a self-regulating command economy. But it was all a scam to Jones and his listeners. Or scam, scum and humbug.

Begrudgingly, Jones acknowledged that Abbott got something right. He had spruiked dirty coal to a visibly alarmed G20 meeting of world leaders many of whom were affecting a new public display of energy-cleanliness. This concession aside, the scheduled post-summit frottage session then plummeted off script, departing its typical mutual pleasuring and dog-whistling agenda.

Jones attacked the Federal Renewable Energy Target for preventing growth. He even declared that Mr Abbott was failing the “pub test” with his imminent free trade agreement with China.

“You know that wind turbines are a fake and heavily subsidised by the taxpayer. Global warming is a hoax, we’ve had nothing for 18 years,” the 2GB breakfast host waded in, massaging two noxious prejudices in the same toxic breath whilst causing mangy dogs to howl from Balmain to Bondi and, on the home front, no doubt earning himself a lifetime’s supply of briquettes from a grateful coal industry.

“People listening to you now say, well he’s talking economic growth, but hang on, the cost of energy with renewable energy targets is crippling economic growth. They’re saying to me ‘we used to have the cheapest energy in the world. Now because of all of this, we actually cannot afford to go on doing what we’re doing, and jobs are being lost here’. Doesn’t economic growth start at home?”

Ears ever attuned to things domestic, Abbott leapt at the opportunity to repeat Goebbels-like the lie that his government’s axing of the carbon tax had hugely reduced power bills across the nation. His listeners, would, however, be under no illusion. Most Australians have seen little or no reduction in their electricity bills. Nor will they. On the contrary, both power and gas are set to increase significantly in the near future.

What listeners missed most, however, was any attempt by their Prime Minister to challenge Jones’ lie.

Why? Abbott is content to collude with Jones’ arrant nonsense. It has worked for him so far. Granted, he knows it is nonsense: his government’s own research shows the opposite is true. Its hand-picked economic modeller which evaluated the impact of the Renewable Energy Target, ACIL-Allen, has found that a wind-back of the scheme’s target would end up costing electricity consumers money, to the benefit largely of fossil fuel suppliers and generators.

Similar conclusions have been reached by other major Australian energy market modelling analysts – including ROAM Consulting, Sinclair Knight Merz, Intelligent Energy Systems, Schneider Electric and Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

Abbott could have chosen to share this truth and refute Jones. Yet what listeners heard from the Prime Minister’s lips was more raw Bondi effluent:

“I still think they’re high… one of the reasons we want to scale back the Renewable Energy Target is because we want to further reduce power prices,” he said.

“I can’t work miracles Alan, there is no magic wand.”

The Abbott-Jones show is the collusion of two deceivers. One is a folksy-sounding politician who cynically trades in simple conservative slogans and sound-bytes which he hopes people want to hear. The other is a self-interested commercial demagogue who inflames prejudice while pretending to act in the public interest. Constructed on the Abbott-Jones show by the Abbott-Jones show is a two-dimensional black and white Prime Minister working to entice the primitive in the electorate, a public leader in retreat from reason, science and research. Dumbing down, on the other hand, engages all his energies and attention. A leader content to feed us lies, he prefers to buy votes where he may, however he may, at the cost of our country’s future. It is, of course, an ultimately unsustainable strategy. And it will be the end of him.

Jones raged that US President Barack Obama had upstaged Abbott with an “absolutely meaningless” climate pact with China. On rubbishing the climate pact, Jones, Hunt, Abbott, Hockey and Turnbull are on the same song sheet. It is a petty, desperate tactic unworthy of any reasonable adult, let alone a federal government. Yet there was a twist. On foreign ownership, the going was all Jones’ who argued that, of course, there would be free trade because such future trade would involve Chinese companies in Australia dealing with companies in China. Jones claimed this was one-sided. The yellow peril was advancing.

“Hang on… China are giving us nothing. The dairy farms are owned by China,” Jones cried.

In Western Victoria, Jones bellowed, 50 dairy farmers had already signed deals to sell to China.

The Van Diemen’s Land Company, a big Tasmanian dairy outfit, was also preparing to sell to China.

“By this time next week, who is going to own little Tasmania,” asked Big Alan.

“The public are very, very angry Prime Minister about this I can tell you.”

Abbott did do his best to mildly placate if not entirely rebut Jones anger but by then the show’s wilful damage had been done. Renewable energy had taken a hit amidships; the value of the world’s most significant climate change agreement had been trampled in the mire; and fear of overseas ownership had been boosted. And Abbott was in trouble with the people.

Abbott got across his own spin: including the outrageous assertion that he and Barack Obama were on good personal terms, a palpable falsehood given Obama’s address on climate change was virtually a direct personal rebuke in public of him. Yet the exchange was one-sided if not wounding and if Abbott landed the odd punch he was lucky.

He who sups with the devil must have a long spoon. Whatever he has got out of the show does not diminish its potential to continue to harm Abbott. Jones’ latest tantrum shows his hospitality is finite. Above all, Abbott will be paid back in his own coin. The lowest common denominator is a savage beast which grows in appetite by what it feeds on. A hungry beast awaits Abbott outside the studio, waiting to drag him down whenever it can. Just as he has used the beast to drag down his nation’s politics; turning ignorance, fear and falsehood to temporary advantage; his nemesis daily gathers strength, preparing, in the end, to devour its master.

Glossary:

Blow off: to get rid of something or someone.

A Bondi trout: Australian vernacular phrase meaning untreated faecal matter released into the Bondi sea water prior to the advent of sewage treatment systems.

Abbott government crisis: G20 Show undergoes urgent revamp.

November 14, 2014November 15, 2014 · 1 Comment ·

Public derision from any quarter is confronting to anyone. But members of political elites are especially susceptible. When one is derided by 6 billion people, it may well hurt just that little bit more. Even case-hardened psychopaths can prove sensitive, as the contemporary case of Tony ‘Shirtfront’ Abbott superbly demonstrates. Having made a complete international laughing stock of himself with Vladimir Putin and his moronic, mindlessly self-destructive yet sycophantic atavistic ranting about coal and humanity, a pale and visibly shaken Australian PM, Abbott has been forced to ‘rush through’ a total revamp of the G20 show in BrisVegas tomorrow.

Entitled ‘Operation Panic Button’, the remodelled show is supercharged with adrenaline, testosterone and sheer terror. Upstaged from the start by his own complete inexperience, Abbott is galvanised by a terrifying reality – being relegated into perpetual irrelevance and obscurity by a series of real world events, including Ebola, ISIS, Russia’s resolute determination to annex Ukraine and the recent announcement of a deal on carbon emissions between China and the United States.

Clearly angered at being blindsided by the shock announcement from US president Barack Obama and Chinese premier Xi Jinping of new national climate change goals and the way it has trashed his own G20 agenda, Abbott appears to be struggling to maintain any semblance of forward momentum, let alone any show of composure, especially now he has the added distraction of bits of the Russian navy up his clacker.

Having successfully made a personal lifelong enemy of Putin, the world’s most powerful and dangerous psychopath, Abbott is believed to be anxiously receiving regular special naval briefings on the accuracy and range of Russian missiles, nuclear weapons and other sea-borne armaments. Advertisements for auditions for the role of Abbott body double have appeared on all social media, in the press and on selected supermarket community noticeboards in all major capital cities. A food taster has been engaged for all official banquets and refreshment stations. Abbott in the meantime, has issued a statement which has only served to further alarm mental health experts and others who remark the disunity his cabinet demonstrates under pressure.

Spin doctors have been performing emergency triage on the Abbott government. Yet the patient’s vital signs continue to provide cause for concern. Media comments by a politically phlegmatic Julie Bishop and others have provided little but unintended comic relief. When the going gets tough, the Abbott government gets spinning. Avoid the truth at all costs: ‘Of course, the Russian Navy is always doing this sort of thing. It is only to be expected. They are in international waters. We have been monitoring them for some time.’ Hardy ha ha ha!

Australians are left scratching their heads trying to recall the last time a small fleet of Russian vessels was off the coast of Queensland during any international gathering. For those who still don’t get it, Russia has personalised Putin’s gun barrel diplomacy by pointedly claiming, tongue in cheek, that a purpose of their naval voyage is to seek information about climate change.

The government has been skittled. Abbott government unity, as distinct from Peta Credlin’s iron fist, is chimerical. Liberal unity is a contradiction in germs, given its lack of any coherent ideology and the peculiar circumstances of its origin. It is called Liberal because Menzies did not want the electoral handicap of the appropriate word ‘Conservative’. Certainly, on this occasion, it was all over the shop or, giving another dimension to the term, as it is fondly and blasphemously whitewashed, a broad church.

Anti-environment Minister and work experience student, Greg Hunt hollowly applauded the US-China deal in a Monty Python moment of magnanimity and irrationality. Like the Black Knight, his own imminent mortality was not in contention. Yet again, no one paid any attention. Smart-arse, Julie Bishop claimed she was not surprised. She knew, ‘already, she said.’ The accommodating, avuncular and ponderously inept Joe Hockey deemed it an ‘acceptable item for discussion’ within a larger topic, the world economy, typically missing the point that global warming is the larger topic.

Abbott, finally, took off like a startled hare, bolting along on yet another tack, ‘We are talking about the practical. We are talking about the real. We are not talking about what may hypothetically happen in fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty years down the track. We are talking about what … what we will do and are doing right now, and that is what the Australian people expect of us. I’m focusing not on what might happen in sixteen years’ time. I’m focusing on what we’re doing now, and we’re not talking, we’re acting.’ Sheer spin, fantastically out of control from a febrile leader who is neither talking nor acting but denying. Someone needs to take his temperature.

Abbott’s dizzy spell to one side, boffins are working feverishly around the clock to pull the fat from the fire. Joe Hockey’s original Headland PowerPoint: ‘Who has the key to a bigger GDP? Is now a snappy: ‘Catch the Rats who won’t pay Tax,’ and has been creatively re-crafted into a sultry torch song come bump n grind dance bracket format entitled: ‘Screw you over, give you the bill’: Australia – open wide for business.

Sharing centre stage, but Miss Piggy style hogging the limelight, Foreign Affairs Minister, the incomparable Julie Bishop will perform her own lap (band) dance whilst belting out a fetching rendition of ‘Hey, Big Spender, while Smoking Joe steps through a specially choreographed IMF routine assisted by ‘The Hendersons will all be there’, an IPA giant dancing puppet troupe and led by a special Australian armed forces massed brass band supported by the Jacqui Lambie backing singers.

A second provisional number, ‘I will survive’ is a less certain Hockey offering, although it is rumoured that the Foreign Affairs Minister has expressed keen interest in putting her own stamp on this classic.

Global warming is back on the agenda. Once opposed as an agenda item (and indeed as anything of significance) by the same man who could not refuse Putin’s attendance because the G20 runs on consensus, will now be fully and energetically embraced in a late night team building and bonding workshop at the Viper Room, a world-class adult entertainment centre in Brisbane’s red light district. Featuring a complimentary international smorgasbord of divertissements, refreshments will include Scots whisky, Cuban cigars, Kiwi green, Cabramatta hydro and Bendigo ice. IMF and World Bank Paramedics will be on standby with wads of money to revive the fortunes of those who may become indisposed, in return for sovereign rights to that country’s economy in perpetuity.

The shirt front that roared.

November 12, 2014November 12, 2014 ·

When Tony Abbott threatened to ‘shirt front’ Putin, he put a lot on the line. He told journalists that he was going to shirt front the Russian president on the sidelines of G20 summit over the tragedy of the Malaysian airliner crash in the Donetsk Region of Ukraine in July.

What was he thinking? What did he hope to achieve? Who knows with Abbott? What is certain is that the gesture got him a lot of media interest. A bit of this was benign and non-intrusive. Some media types even looked up the term and explained thoughtfully on TV that it was an expression from Aussie Rules football. It was hopeful but did not really explain or excuse anything. The net effect, moreover, was to hang an albatross around Abbott’s neck.

Perhaps the shirt front was calculated to appeal to the alpha male. Perhaps it did win Abbott a flicker of attention if not admiration from macho types who believe that assertiveness equals being ready with your fists. Ironically, however, the same types would be irrevocably alienated by the lack of action. You can’t make a threat you are not prepared to carry out. Whatever modest gain in attention, the challenge is likely to have cost him further credibility. And the rest of us have probably had enough machismo to last a lifetime. Or Abbott’s political lifetime.

The shirtfront venue was first set for Brisbane at the G20 which Abbott is pretending to chair. Yet even Abbott subsequently realised that a shirt front was an unnecessary complication at a meeting which would require every ounce of his energy, just to appear to be in control. The distraction of an impending punch up out the back could be a tad distracting. Accordingly it was brought forward to APEC. (Entrepreneurs are probably hard at work as we speak creating an iPad shirtfront booking app for that.) And there Abbott would be happy to let the matter lie. But some matters will not just lie down and die.

The shirt front is irresistible on many fronts. It conjures up an attractively incongruous image. Its inappropriateness appeals, especially given Abbott’s aspirations on the international stage. And the media would not leave it alone. Even as he stepped on to the carpet at his APEC meeting, there was a man or two chasing the PM with a microphone asking if ‘the shirt front was on’ at APEC. (APEC, by the way, is the meeting John Howard liked to talk up. APEC is the one where they all get dressed up in funny shirts for a photo opportunity. It is uncertain what else it achieves.)

In the event, there was no shirt front. Tony toned it down almost immediately. By the next day he was telling reporters that he was absolutely determined to have a very robust conversation with the Russian president.” Instead, he appears to have had a quick private whinge to Putin. No doubt he got on to the Russian leader’s complicity in the death of innocents in the shooting down of MH17. No doubt also Putin could have raised Australia’s appalling human rights record on asylum seekers and its recent indictment by the UN committee on torture.

It does not seem to have gone all that well. His promised great remonstration with the Russian leader is said to have lasted a whole fifteen minutes. He claims to have raised the issue of compensation by offering an indirect analogy. The US offered compensation when they accidentally shot down a passenger jet. Putin’s response is not known but can safely be guessed at it.

Ты меня достал! (You piss me off.)

The shirt front was more than an embarrassing gaffe. It will haunt Abbott for some time to come. It has got him the sort of attention that he would rather have done without. Naff. Limited. Testosteronic. Not flattering. Not useful. But enduring. And it even attracted the attention of the Minister for Foreign Affairs. You know you are in trouble when Julie Bishop goes into bat for you.

Putting, as usual, an impossible spin on it, Bishop claimed this week that the term has now entered the diplomatic vernacular. It’s not a gaffe but a nifty new term for a diplomatic confrontation. Abbott did not lose control after all. On the contrary we should all be grateful for his talent as a wordsmith. Quite the Shakespeare of the world stage.

If you swallow that you are in deep trouble. Next you will be believing that Tony Abbott is capable of leading the G20 through the next meeting. Or that he has prepared for the task. Or that he has the capacity to follow the discussion, let alone make a useful contribution.

What is more likely is that this lapse will prove a defining moment. When the world leaders look up at him at the podium on 16 November in Brisbane, it is likely to be through the lens of the shirtfront. They will wonder how a man who has trouble being in charge of his lip could ever be in charge of anything bigger, even if the chairmanship of the G20 will last only a year. They will not be happy with his almost complete lack of preparation; his ideological bent towards letting the market sort things out for itself when many of them have put in the hard yards intervening to prevent financial meltdown. They will see a man with anger management issues, a man who has trouble keeping his temper. They will see a parochial primitive predisposed towards a reductive approach to conflict resolution, a sort of spaghetti western hero who will invite adversaries out the back where we can settle this with our bare fists, man to man. And they will be antagonised, if not downright angry. Who knows, one of them might offer to take him out the back and sort out his attitude for him.

Blood on Scott Morrison’s hands.

November 8, 2014November 8, 2014 ·

Funeral of Reza Barati.

On 17 February 2014, men armed with guns, machetes, knives, pipes, sticks and rocks, systematically and brutally attacked asylum seekers detained on Manus Island. Reinforced by PNG Police and the PNG ‘mobile squad’, who pushed down a fence to join the fray, the assailants carried out acts of violent retribution to asylum seekers who had been protesting for three months, demanding that their claims be processed.

Reza Barati, a 23-year-old Faili Kurd from Iran was murdered in the attack. At least 62 other asylum seekers were injured. One man lost his right eye, another was shot in the buttocks and another was slashed across the throat.

The attack needs to be kept in sharp focus as the Abbott government, despite many protests and appeals from the local and international community, seeks to consolidate its high handed arbitrary approach while priding itself on the efficacy of its practices.

Changes to the Migration Act currently before the house, extend Maritime Law, redefine Australia’s responsibility to refugees and effectively give unprecedented powers to Minister of Immigration, Scott Morrison. Also slated is a plan to create a new super Ministry of Homeland Security with Scott Morrison at its head.

The legal changes proposed by the Immigration Minister would re-introduce temporary protection visas to be applied to about 30,000 asylum seekers still living in Australia. Asylum seekers found to be refugees would get a three-year visa allowing them to work, but they would ultimately have to return to their country of origin. Maritime powers would be expanded, covering people detained at sea, and allow Australian law to significantly limit the country’s responsibilities under international human rights laws.

Especially draconian is the intent to raise the risk threshold for sending arrivals in Australia back to another country. Currently, people will not be returned to the country they came from if there’s a 10 per cent chance they will suffer significant harm there. The Government will now raise that risk threshold to greater than 50 per cent. Mr Morrison says the higher threshold is the Government’s interpretation of its international obligations. Greens Senator Hanson-Young says the bill will result in more asylum seekers lives being put at risk. “This is a mean, dangerous law from the Government,” she said. “If this was not so serious, if it was not about life or death, it would actually be a joke.”

Whilst Morrison’s colleagues hold him to be one of his government’s ‘top performers’ for stopping the boats, this is no commendation. Indeed, their high regard is an indictment on the rest of the cabinet. It also reflects poorly on both sides of Australian government and, indirectly, on the Australian public who have allowed themselves to accept their country’s hard-line approach.

Morrison is not the man to promote. Not remotely. Outside of the government’s joy in turning back the boats, few Australians would approve of his self-abrogating approach or his performance in his portfolio. Most of us feel a deep sense of anger and shame. Many eminent Australians in many walks of life have called for the Minister to resign.

Julian Burnside added to the calls with his public claim this week that the Minister of Immigration bribed witnesses to Reza Barati’s death to retract their testimony in return for transfer to Australia.

Burnside’s claim is, sadly no bolt out of the blue. It comes at the end of a long series of sordid reports of cover up and whitewash by the Abbott Government.

It is, nevertheless, a typically courageous challenge by a highly regarded champion of human rights and deserves to be heeded as a timely reminder of the alarming track record of this government’s cruelly punitive approach to asylum seekers. Sadly it was rejected with typical hostility by Morrison who launched a libellous attack on Burnside for his opposition, malice and lack of evidence.

“This is a false and offensive suggestion made without any basis or substantiation by advocates with proven form of political malice and opposition to the Government’s successful border protection policies. The government once again rejects these claims,” Mr Morrison said. Yet there is independent evidence that Burnside’s account is correct.

An asylum seeker at the Manus Island detention centre has alleged 3 November that he and another detainee were tortured, physically assaulted, threatened with rape and forced to sign papers withdrawing their witness accounts about the night Iranian asylum seeker Reza Barati died.

The man, aged in his 20s, has spoken publicly for the first time about what he said Wilson Security guards and Transfield staff did to him in a secret compound called Chauka. The asylum seeker making the claims said he was too scared to be named.

Ben Pynt, director of Human Rights Advocacy at Humanitarian Research Partners, a non-profit human rights and humanitarian research organization is clear that the witnesses are speaking the truth.

“The specificity of their claims is such that you couldn’t make it up. Dates, times, places, people and then the documents corroborate all of those things,” he said.

“It really makes me think there’s no doubt.

“Quite frankly, I don’t believe the Minister and neither should the Australian public. The Minister’s denial has no factual basis.

“He hasn’t responded to any of the individual claims and he hasn’t asked an independent person to find out what happened.

He has been in regular contact with the two asylum seekers and raised their allegations of mistreatment with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) and the office of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCR).

What caused the violence in February on Manus Island? It was not the suppression of a riot. The savage attack was the authorities’ response to a protest. More an armed attack than a ‘response’, the action was utterly unjustified, totally inappropriate and, in Reza Barati’s case, ultimately fatal. Detention Centre personnel were not attempting to quell any riotous assembly at the detention centre despite Immigration Minister’s version of events. Indeed, it seems, at the time of the incident, things had settled.

The previous day, 35 protestors had escaped. Yet by the day of the attack, only one individual remained protesting. The brutal, violent assault has been widely misreported as a riot in a whirlwind of spin generated by Morrison and his department in order to shift the blame from those running the camp and by extension himself.

How did Reza Bararati die? Julian Burnside QC gave this account last Wednesday. One G4S worker bashed the Iranian asylum seeker with a piece of wood which had two nails driven through it. His scalp torn open, Barati fell to the ground and was then kicked repeatedly by a dozen employees from within the detention centre including two Australians.

They kicked him in the head and stomach as he tried to protect himself with his arms, Mr Burnside recounted for the audience at his Sydney peace prize award last Wednesday. He said another employee took a rock and smashed it on Mr Barati’s head with “such ferocity, it killed him”. Other reports had stated that Mr Barati died of a head injury on the way to Lorengau hospital in PNG.

The morning after Reza Barati’s death, the story had been given a different spin. Minister for Immigration, Scott Morrison laid the blame squarely at the feet of the asylum seekers.

On 26 May, retired senior Australian Public Servant Robert Cornall’s report found Barati’s death occurred after guards entered the centre to suppress the protest. His ‘administrative review’ for the Federal Government revealed that contractors working for the Australian government were responsible for the death of one asylum seeker, the serious injury of others, and the mass trauma of dozens.

Yet Scott Morrison took the review as an exoneration. The evidence? Morrison instances the fact that Cornall found it was not possible to isolate one factor that could have mitigated injuries or damage.

Cornall’s 107-page ‘administrative review’ concluded that the ‘incidents were initiated by transferee protests’.

Its recommendations included increased security and reducing the processing time for refugee claims. It reaffirmed that no one could be resettled in Australia. By and large it said what the government wanted it to say. It sent the ‘right message’. Yet it must not remain unchallenged.

Long before Barati was killed, whistle-blowers provided sufficient information to prevent his tragic death. He did not have to die. But Morrison does have to come forward, accept the truth and his responsibility.

Former G4S former safety and security officer Martin Appleby quit because he found management ignored his concerns about the violent and volatile conditions.

“I couldn’t handle what was going on; no one wanted to listen,” he told Crikey. “I wrote many reports, and nothing was ever taken up. The lead-up started a long time ago.”

Manus Island is a hell. The single men there face indefinite detention, without timeline, without information, without hope. Supplies are meagre. Facilities are few. It is hot and crowded.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald:

Asylum seekers have been denied adequate water and soap supplies or even urgent medical attention. They suffer “snakes inside their accommodation, malaria, lack of malaria tablets, no mosquito nets, [and] inedible food that often has cockroaches in it.

Manus Island offshore detention centre represents a flagrant disregard for human rights, justice or compassion. It is, moreover, an expensive and indefinite detention. One billion dollars has been spent to detain 2000 asylum seekers offshore on Manus and Nauru but, since 2012, only one has been processed. All up the Coalition has budgeted $2.87 billion over the next year to run Manus and Nauru. Transfield Services’ contract alone is worth $1.22 billion to run both camps for the next 14 months. The cost of holding one asylum seeker in offshore detention was found to be more than $400,000 per year by the Commission of Audit. The Refugee Council calculates this cost to be five times that of ‘processing’ in Australia.

Yet for all the money spent, the quality of care provided to detainees is substandard. The death of 24-year-old Hamid Khazaei, an Iranian on September 5 was entirely preventable. A cut on his foot led to septicemia. The tragedy resulted from a simple lack of basic first aid. Not only was it totally unnecessary, it has come to represent the ugly side of a deliberate policy of deterrence. In most civilized societies, it would be regarded as an act of criminal neglect.

Political commentator, former diplomat, Bruce Haigh believes Morrison should step down, ‘The Minister for Immigration, Scott Morrison, should resign. He is not a fit and proper person to be responsible for vulnerable lives.’

Haigh instanced the Manus Island assault and problems with our neighbor, Indonesia. ‘Without any help, Mr Morrison has taken the relationship with Indonesia to its lowest point since the mid-1980s. He appears to understand nothing and listens to no one…’

Christine Milne has similarly called for Morrison to resign. Tasmanian Independent Andrew Wilkie has formally asked the International Criminal Court prosecuting authority to investigate whether the treatment of asylum seekers contravenes international conventions.

In the meantime, immune to all criticism, the government presses on with its plans to settle 1000 asylum seekers in Cambodia. Scott Morrison is seeking to change the law to give the Abbott government even greater authority. To this end, he introduced the “Migration and Maritime Powers Legislation Amendment” in September. Morrison argued:

“The new statutory framework will enable parliament to legislate… without referring directly to the Refugee Convention and therefore not being subject to the interpretations of foreign courts or judicial bodies which seek to expand the scope of the Refugee Convention well beyond what was ever intended by this country or this parliament.”

The controversial bill is now in its third reading. It is a bizarre attempt to twist a treaty to suit the Abbott government’s own agenda. “It’s a sudden and unilateral reinterpretation of a treaty which has been signed by 145 countries around the world and has been the cornerstone of international refugee protection for over 60 years,” according to Daniel Webb, director of legal advocacy at the Human Rights Law Centre (HRLC) in Melbourne. Meanwhile, Cambodian officials are travelling to Nauru, for what Webb calls “an active selling of the refugee transfer arrangement by members of the regime that stands to profit from it”. 1,000 detainees from Nauru are slated to be transferred to Cambodia in exchange for US$35 million in aid. Cambodia has treated past asylum seekers poorly; it lacks the capacity to care for 1,000 newcomers. Above all, details of the proposed plan have not been made sufficiently clear. The Australia-Cambodia Memorandum of Understanding does not specify how much money will be allocated for temporary accommodation and basic needs – or who will decide how the money is budgeted. It is simply one more damning move in Australia’s practice of deterrence which masks a callous indifference at best and at worst an unrepentant and calculated cruelty to innocent victims.

Under the Abbott government and its gung-ho Immigration Minister, Scott Morrison, the treatment of asylum seekers is a travesty of our international obligations and an affront to our humanity.

Moreover, as Julian Burnside reminds us this week, we have a minister whose department has not only shown gross negligence leading to accidental death, it has also been complicit in the brutal suppression of a protest on its Manus Island detention centre in February which resulted in the murder of an innocent victim. All the evasions and forced retractions in the world cannot wash away the blood on the Minister’s hands.

Renewable energy target cutback: dirty trick; dirty work and dirty business.

October 28, 2014October 28, 2014 ·

Australia is one of the best-placed countries in the world to take advantage of wind and solar energy. The country should lead the world in the use of renewable energy. Everyone could be winners: consumers, producers, our children, their children and of course the planet. And it is the people’s choice. The Australia Institute found 86 per cent of respondents want to see more renewable energy and 79 per cent think governments should support an expansion in renewable energy. There is also very strong support for more electricity generated from hydro (72 per cent), wind (80 per cent) and solar (90 per cent). By comparison, only 11 per cent wanted more electricity generated from coal. So not only are we are naturally blessed with abundant resources of sun and wind, surveys suggest that we have a population which is strongly in favour. You would think that any sane government would act in accordance with these facts.

Yet, instead, a dirty business is set to be the winner if our government gets its way. Solar will be stopped in its tracks in favour of dirty old king coal and later, nuclear. Power companies and industry associations will demonstrate once again that the Abbott government is their puppet. Some dirty work has been deployed to contravene the will of the people.

The coalition’s dirty work was brazen. When the Abbott government made a big effort to appoint climate change denier, businessman and former RBA member, Mr Richard Francis Egerton-Warburton, aka `Dick’, in charge of a ‘review’ of Australia’s Renewable Energy Target, it sent a clear signal to all parties that its previous commitment to renewable energy targets was to end. And, as it did with the commission of audit and the national curriculum review, the coalition pulled a dirty trick. It hired a third party to do the dirty work.

The decision to mount its own inquiry was, in itself, cause for concern for those in the renewable energy sector. Why did Abbott not leave the review in the hands of the climate change authority? The authority was already scheduled to carry out a review. It seems, however, there are reviews and ‘reviews’. The Abbott government did not, in fact, want any independent evaluation or analysis, it simply wanted to justify turning back the clock to support its allies in the coal-fired electricity generation business. And as the cynical old adage has it: only commission an inquiry when you know the outcome beforehand. On this Tony Abbott and Vladimir Putin should have something in common should they meet in a fortnight in Brisbane during the G20 shindig.

In the case of Tony and Dick’s RET review, it was not a review which the government was after: it wanted a result. It wanted to stop the renewable energy industry in its tracks by watering down the RET, a closing of the scheme to newcomers and, if Abbott’s instructions were to be adhered to, abolished altogether. Old king coal stood to gain a new lease on life; his backers stood to pocket billions.

As things turned out, it was not an easy scheme to pull off. The appointment became a little controversial when Warburton, the favoured candidate, attracted the attention of the federal police. Hand-picked by Abbott, who faced down more than a whiff of scandal over allegations of bribery in a foreign venture, Warburton was engaged as Abbott’s hired gun. It was to be a double-barrelled gun. A self-professed climate sceptic, with connections to fossil fuels, Warburton was also the author of a Quadrant essay in 2008 in which he argued that Australia’s only alternative fuel option was nuclear. For many observers, the outcome of Warburton’s review appeared a foregone conclusion.

And so it has proved. Despite his disavowal that being a climate change sceptic would not in any way affect the outcome, Warburton’s panel report is clearly the product of those who cannot see the need for renewables; those who see all too clearly their duty to protect dirty coal powered generation. It recommended the RET either be closed to new entrants or increases in the RET be limited to half the increase in electricity demand — a “real 20 per cent’’ scenario. It must be noted that the RET is 41GWH. It has never been a percentage. Australia’s RET goal is for large-scale generators to deliver 41,000 gigawatt-hours or enough to power about 6.2 million households.

In proposing a ‘real 20%’, the government will cut the RET by 40% to 25-26 GWH. If adopted, the recommendations will decimate the local industry. The lights will go out in local wind and solar industries. Estimates are that 13 billion dollars of investment would be lost or one per cent of Australia’s GDP. Regional areas would bear the brunt of the lost investment in manufacturing wind turbine towers from Australian steel, and for other Australian products and services.

Obsolete coal burning plant will, however, be given a new lease on life. Existing power suppliers who are chiefly in the dirty business of burning coal to produce electricity stand to gain as much as $8 billion. Old, inefficient, obsolete plants previously decommissioned would be recommissioned. Power costs to consumers will rise. Research by Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows wholesale electricity prices could increase by $5 a megawatt hour by 2020.

Abbott’s appointment of Dick Warburton reveals his own and his party’s connection to big business and obsolete, dirty technology. It also hints at a potential nuclear future. Warburton is a highly successful businessman who has enjoyed lucrative directorships on many business boards including Caltex Australia. Yet his career has not been free from controversy. A director of Note Printing Australia, his firm was investigated by Federal police for alleged bribery throughout Asia between 1998 and 2008. Consequently there was some discussion over his suitability to head the review, but Abbott was prepared to make his captain’s call and appoint Warburton personally.

Abbott was aware at the time of appointment of a secret internal investigation into Warburton’s role as a former director of a firm involved in Australia’s worst foreign bribery scandal. Abbott personally approved the appointment despite serious questions about the role of Mr Warburton and his fellow former NPA directors in overseeing a company that police allege engaged in repeated foreign bribery. Accordingly, it has come as no surprise that the recommendations of his review represent bad news for the renewable energy sector, the Australian people and the planet.

Putin calls Abbott

October 18, 2014October 19, 2014 ·

PUTIN: Is that you, Anton? Listen to me, Anton Antonovich, you piss-weak coward. You cloth-eared, rat-faced little arse-wipe.
ABBOTT: I am busy, Vladimir. This is not a good time for me.
PUTIN: Busy? Don’t shit me. Don’t make me laugh. Making me laugh is bad for you, believe me. Bad for other people seeing me laughing. Hearing me laughing.
ABBOTT: Look, Putin, if you have just called me just to indulge your sick sense of humour, you can think again. The joke is on you, pal. You are out on your own like a country dunny. You are on the nose. You have no friends. No one likes you. No one respects you, pal. No-one wants to answer your calls. You are as lonely as a bastard on father’s day.
PUTIN: Projecting your own problems, Anton? You would not dare abuse Putin. Abusing Putin not smart move. Many in Russia have found this out. Found out hard way. But, then, perhaps you are not smart man. Maybe you have trouble getting all four paws on the mouse. Of course, you know all about unpopular, Mr negative approval rating. You and your government are creating an Australian record for being on the nose. You popular as polly waffle in public pool. If you become funeral director, people stop dying.
ABBOTT: Jesus wept! So you’re a smartarse, too now are you? Are you looking for a knuckle sandwich?
PUTIN: Laughing for me is when I am enjoying killing only. When I am hurting another creature only. Always laughing when killing rats on Stalingrad apartment landing as young boy. Killing rats with bare hands. I crush skulls. Love to see them twitch and scream. And the blood. Makes me feel good to feel my own power over life and death. No-one pushes me around, knuckle-head.
ABBOTT: You sick bastard. It’s true what they say about you. You are a psychopath. You need psychiatric care. Committal to a psychiatric ward. For ever. No discharge. Throw away the key. Can you ring me back later. Like never again? Or when you want to tell me who downed MH17? Or is that why you have rung me?
PUTIN: No. Putin never rings back. You can’t put me off, Antonovich. MH17 is Ukraine business. Red herring. Not even side issue. As we say in Russian: elder-berry is in the kitchen-garden, and the uncle is in Kiev.
But nobody pushes Putin aside. Pushes Putin around. Many have tried. Sadly they are no longer with us, Anton. If they are not dead, they are in exile. Fearing death.
ABBOTT: You eliminate your rivals. Your opponents are either killed, disappear or emigrate in a hurry. You then get your hands on their property. You have risen to power by every foul means in the book. You are a real piece of work.
PUTIN: Thank, you. Anton. Takes one to know one. Let me tell you Russian proverb: man who steals 3 kopecks is hung as thief, but man who steals 50 kopecks is hero. Disappearing? Of course, every barber knows in politics there is danger. In life there is death.

ABBOTT: Look, Putin. No time for folklore, right now.
PUTIN: You make time for Putin. For Putin, always make time. Especially if planning to have next birthday. Planning future. Staying well. Insurance policy. No nasty accidents. No bad happenings to your family. Of course. I have advice. Advice I make free for you, now, Anton. Road test bicycle before every polly pedal. Before setting out on weekly ride. Lycra caucus, I am reading, it is called. Nothing is certain, my friend. Fate is written with pitchfork on flowing water.
ABBOTT: You threatening me, Putin?
PUTIN: No. Not threat. Not threatening. Warning. Due notice. Caution words. For years Russia makes for KGB special instructions. Special brief to exterminate enemies. Eliminate individuals who make enemies of Russian state. Russia creates special terrorist units for these special operations. Best in world. Ask your ASIO. They should know. Even your ASIO Keystone Cops. Clowns. Everybody knows Sheraton hotel bungle. Makes me laugh. Stupid stuffing up. Now I am reading yesterday ASIO is bugging itself. Makes me laugh. Whole world laughing.
ABBOTT: Your visa will be cancelled if you have terrorist connections. My government has just improved security.
PUTIN: You full of piss and wind, Abbott. All froth and no beer. All mouth and no trousers. Political-girly man who sits down to wee. You love to make the threats, yourself. Can only make threats. You making me laugh more. Is like hunting. Hunting makes me laugh, also. Also hunting and killing. Always. Makes much laughing matters for me. Bringing tears to my eyes, I laugh so much.
Maybe bear. Maybe smaller prey. Maybe wretched little rodent like you, Mr Rabbit. With bare hands I break neck of rabbit by twisting. Also pain making. Suffering. When I make enemy to be in pain. I laugh also. Much laughing. When hearing enemy scream for mercy.
ABBOTT: You watch your language. We have secret agents with vastly increased powers. Our own secret agents. I have seen to this personally. Everything you say is recorded and reviewed by our anti-terror people.
PUTIN: Please not interrupt, Anton, I make serious point. Death or pain making very funny to me always. And now you and your pain. Own political suicide. At you, I am now laughing, Mr Rabbit. Very much enjoying laughing. Whole world is laughing at you now. Very funny when you make yourself total joke, Anton. Complete cock-head. Laughing stock of diplomatic world. Kill all hope of your own re-election with one stupid comment. Destroy your own political career. About me is stupid comment. Very expensive stupid comment. Your minders stupid? Stupid? Doing nothing? Ah … but, then is Russian saying you get the minders you deserve in politics, Anton.
ABBOTT: Look, Putin, I am busy. Too busy to waste time talking to you …you never listen to a word I say. Anyone says. You listen only to your ego. Your own evil monster ego. Your twisted sadistic heart of mindless cruelty. Your heart of pure evil. Look, tell you what. Hang up and find me the criminals responsible for MH17.
PUTIN: Ego? Evil? Thank you. With fear comes respect, Anton. Only with fear. I am telling you this and only this Abbott: no-one pushes Putin around. No. Not expecting you talk… just shut up and listen. Listen! If you have courage. Guts to stand up and blow off is easy; real guts is what it takes to sit down and listen. I have things you need to hear, gutless wonder. Need to hear. Believe me. Hear from me. Trust me. Before you hear them from someone who really doesn’t like you. Or your family hears from someone unfriendly as me. Or maybe just drop out of sky one day. Or when drinking cup of tea, just drop dead. Pfft! Gone.
ABBOTT: Like Alexander Litvinenko? Litvinenko wrote two books, Blowing up Russia: Terror from within and Lubyanka Criminal Group, where he accused your Russian secret services of staging Russian apartment bombingsand other terrorism acts to bring you to power. I know. Peta read them both. Briefed me.
PUTIN: Litvinenko was deluded. Paranoid. I fired Litvinenko. Personally. Disbanded whole unit …FSB officers holding press conferences? Not on my watch! Not job for FSB. Not to air dirty laundry, either. Not make internal scandals public. Litvinenko was deluded. Paranoid. Thought himself safe in London. No-one safe from Russian agents of justice, Anton. No-one!
ABBOTT: You trying to tell me something?
PUTIN: Listen to me, Anton. Easy for you make threats when you so far away. Shirtfront me. Whatever that is meaning. Illegal in your football, I understand. Easy for you accuse me of murder. Trot out US lies about Ukraine, you craven bootlicking lickspittle of American capitalists. You have no self-respect. No independence. Disgusting little sock puppet. Abbott.
Listen to me now you slavering suck-hole. Just for one time make effort. Everyone is entitled to be stupid but you abuse the privilege.
ABBOTT: Spare the insults, Putin. Read those in Pravda. Cut to the chase. Your point is?
PUTIN: Anton, none of these things would you say to my face. You little wiener, you little prick, you vainglorious cockalorum. You need to remember no-one pushes Putin around. No one.
I am Putin. Putin. Most powerful man in world. Russia number five economy in whole world. After Ukraine maybe number four. Australia may be thirteenth if lucky.
ABBOTT: You are an amoral, unprincipled, opportunist, lying, thieving, murdering bastard.
PUTIN: You are losing plot, Anton. Foaming from mouth. My record is spotless. I am Putin. Strong man. Russian bear. Man of principle. Russia has strong principles.
ABBOTT: Principles? You mean you tap power of ignorance, prejudice and superstition.
PUTIN: Greed and bullying makes world go round. In Russia just like in Australia.
ABBOTT: My government?
PUTIN: In your dreams! You are merely caretaker. Current incumbent puppet of capitalist interests. You can do as you like as long as you let them pull your strings. Walk all over you. PFFT! Throw out when they are through with you.
ABBOTT: Through with me?
PUTIN: When you are bad for business. When you get in the way of greatest profit for your oligarchy. When you make country into international laughter stock!
ABBOTT: Hypocrite! You are an oligarch, yourself.
PUTIN: Thank you for compliment. Is international best practice in capitalist business management. Putin richest man in Russia as result of clever oil investment.
ABBOTT: You mean you put your biggest oil oligarch in jail and then stole his billions. Putin, I need to go. I have a G20 briefing.
PUTIN: Of course you do.
ABBOTT: What do you mean by that?
PUTIN: You have to check all strings for puppet masters.
ABBOTT: You are still attending?
PUTIN: Of course. You have no power to stop me. G20 is run by consensus. A clown like you is just there to make sure the catering is up to scratch and to twitch when the US pulls your strings. Brown-nose. Lick arse.
ABBOTT: You need a security detail…
PUTIN: Of course. But I will bring my own. Not meaning to offend but your keystone cops don’t cut it. Except maybe as human shields. Crash test dummies. Speed humps. I will see you in Brisbane next month.
ABBOTT: Assuming you are still President.
PUTIN: Assuming your good health continues. And no nasty accidents or bad luck. Assuming you are still Australian Prime Minister, Anton. I am Russian President for life.

To invite Putin to Brisbane is to invite disaster for all.

October 13, 2014October 13, 2014 ·

The Australian government has recently defended its controversial decision to allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to attend the G20 leaders’ meeting to be held in Brisbane. The Prime Minister Tony Abbott’s main defence that inviting Putin would subject him to a ‘full and frank discussion’ is both highly implausible and in clear contradiction to Australia’s previously adversarial stance towards the Russian Prime Minister. As Opposition leader Bill Shorten put it the government had “gone from talking tough to trying to pretend Putin coming here isn’t an issue Australians are concerned about”.

There was nothing accommodating about the Australian Prime Minister’s treatment of Putin over the MH17 disaster on 7 August this year. Mr Abbott, accused Russia of preparing to invade Ukraine. Telling him he “has been a bully”, Abbott called on Putin to hold back his forces from crossing the border into Ukraine or risk becoming an international outcast.

“Right at this moment, Russian forces are massing on the border with Ukraine,” Mr Abbott told reporters in Sydney, “If there is any movement by his forces across the border, it won’t be a humanitarian mission, it will be an invasion. It will be an invasion.”

Ten weeks ago, clearly, Abbott was disputing Putin’s intentions in Ukraine and threatening to review Russia’s invitation to the G20. Now comes a complete back-down. Instead of using its status as host and its seat on the UN Security Council to prevail upon other G20 members to back Australia in declaring Putin unwelcome, the Abbott government appears to have become weak-kneed. Yet there is ample precedent. Australia could have followed the G7 example from June when the planned G8 Sochi meeting, to be hosted by Russia, was cancelled with G7 leaders holding their own meeting without Putin. They underscored the point by symbolically choosing to meet in Brussels, the headquarters of NATO and the EU instead.

Why the change of heart? So far the explanations are neither convincing nor adequate. The Australian public and the international community have been fobbed off with lame excuses about consensus, the need for open discussion and the MH17 red-herring. Joe Hockey, yesterday pleaded that Australia was powerless to disinvite:

“The G20 is an international gathering that operates by consensus – it’s not Australia’s right to say yes or no to individual members of the G20. I think it will be pretty crystal clear that we think that Russia needs to fully cooperate in the investigation into the MH17 atrocity.
I think it’s the world’s expectation on Russia that there will be full cooperation with the investigation and there will be a willingness to hand over to police for trial anyone who Russia might have access to who turns out to have played a part in the downing of that aircraft.”

The downing of MH17 and its implications must not be overplayed as dominant and problematic as it may be. Whilst Russia’s involvement in this outrage alone should merit it exclusion from the meeting, that exclusion must rest also on the many other ways in which Putin has demonstrated that his conduct violates all reasonable expectations of human behaviour let alone the actions of a reputable statesman let alone any type of international citizen. Putin’s Russia is a country where political rivals and vocal critics are often killed, and at least sometimes the order comes directly from the president’s office.
Gessen, Masha (2012-03-01). The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladmir Putin (p. 226). Granta Books. Kindle Edition.

Nor should ‘our right to say no’ to the G20 be underplayed. It may not be Australia’s right to hijack G20 consensus protocols but it is most definitely Australia’s responsibility to take a stand and to take the initiative in lobbying to change that consensus. Otherwise, especially in the light of Abbott’s earlier condemnation of Putin, Australia loses credibility and sacrifices its capacity to be a useful world citizen as far as it is able. Doubtless that capacity has already been significantly compromised by the Abbott government’s stance on a range of critical issues including global warming, climate change, the sale of brown coal, carbon trading, renewable energy, asylum seeker detention and its unquestioned allegiance to US foreign policy in Iraq. An Australian stand against Putin, might begin to stem if it cannot staunch international critics of our credentials as global citizens with a commitment to a sustainable future.

Ironically, in inviting Putin, Abbott risks undermining his own stance on terror. Refusing the Russian leader is clearly mandated by our newly revamped, stronger anti-terror stance. Whilst some may quibble at the label terrorist, Putin is no stranger to rule by terror, it is intrinsic to his absolutism and his determination to eliminate of all forms of domestic opposition from liquidating opponents to control over media. It is also plays an integral part in his aggressive foreign policy of annexing neighbouring states. It is seen in his support of the genocidal strategies of Syria’s Assad.

Clearly Putin’s behaviour at home and abroad, disbars him from Brisbane’s G20 event. It is, therefore, vital that Australia summons the resolve required to put pressure on other members of the G20 to exclude the Russian leader or hold the meeting somewhere else. The consequences of making him welcome threaten the very foundations of the G20 itself if not the spirit of international cooperation whilst signalling that we may be afraid of him or just don’t know what to do with him.

Inviting Putin to Brisbane helps give the Russian President the legitimacy he covets, the legitimacy that helps him cloak Russia’s war of terror in a veneer of acceptance. That rule of terror includes the annexation of Crimea, ethnic cleansing, abduction, torture and murder, the downing of flight MH17 plane; violating international law yet claiming that Russia is not “involved.” Do we really need to help him legitimise his “humanitarian” convoys and referendums in Ukraine, his assistance to Syria? Are we to condone his economic sabotage, Russia’s recent history of quietly undermining US and world economies? In 1998, for example, Russia defaulted on $40 billion of domestic debt, forcing the Federal Reserve to engineer a bailout of hedge fund Long Term Capital Management.

More recently Russia’s ‘aid’ to Ukraine represents a unique form of political control if not loan sharking. Instead of handing aid money directly to Ukraine, Russia had the Ukrainian government float $3 billion in bonds denominated in Euros. Russia then bought the bonds. A cunning provision written into the bond is that if the Ukraine’s debt-to-GDP level reached 60%, Russia could call the bonds for immediate payment. The highly unusual qualification brings Ukraine further under Russian control. Today, Ukraine has Eurobonds outstanding to several countries, so it has no option of defaulting on Russia alone because it would hurt the price of all their debt. Putin’s foresight thus also ensures that US aid money will find its way to Moscow.

Groucho Marx’s wish not to belong to any club that would accept him as a member applies to Putin. His involvement demeans the status of the G20, itself a creature which has yet to acquire international credibility in achieving long-term strategic coordination between all members on some of major global issues or in failing to reinvigorate global trade or complete the WTO Doha development round. To its critics, including Australia’s Chris Berg of IPA it seems more a meeting to exchange platitudes about free trade and to endorse neo-con economic positions about small government than pursue significant international reforms such as the green agenda proposed by Korea or Bill Gates’ recommendations for alternative methods of financing development tabled in 2011. In brief, Putin needs the G20 more than it needs him. The Abbott government, on the other hand, urgently needs to summon the courage to say ‘Nyet’ to Putin before it further loses its will and with it the capacity and the credibility to achieve any significant initiative as an international citizen. To say nothing of the continuing cost to its electoral support and credibility at home.

Morrison stitches up deal with Cambodia in bizarre rewrite of Australia’s obligations to refugees.

September 30, 2014October 1, 2014 ·

A move within the Abbott cabinet to establish a homeland security super-ministry drawing together several major departments and functions looks to have been scuttled because senior figures viewed it as an attempt by backers of Immigration Minister Scott Morrison to elevate him to future leader status.

The Age 1.10.2014 MARK KENNY AND JAMES MASSOLA

MORRISON: That you, Tony? Morrison here. Best on ground. Your star performer. Rising star. Team captain before too long. And on dancing with the stars. On hundred dollar bills soon.

ABBOTT: Scotty. Maaaate. [aside. God give me strength. The clowns I have to deal with. Some think they’re God Almighty. Or comedians. Or both.]

MORRISON: Are you free to talk, mate? Not got you at a bad time? Need a quick dicky. A quick word.

ABBOTT: Never a good time, Scotty. Not since opposition. Remember the days? Bag the shit out of Gillard all day and all night you could. Never had to do anything else. Apart from sloganeer. And have Alan Jones blow smoke up my arse.

Ahhh … the slogans. You know tell I love them still. Axe the tax. Turn back the boats. Turn back the boats. Still good. Wake up at night. Find myself shouting it. And punching the bedroom wall.

And we did it. You did it. Always time for you Morrison, old cock. Time for you, Scotty. Time for you. Time for you. Time for you. You.

MORRISON: God Almighty! What the hell is that echo?

ABBOTT: Peta on conference phone. Credlin. The Boss. Oh and ASIO, ASIS and the FBI. Of course. Peta’s gotta to be working for them all I reckon. Smart girl that one. And the best arse in parliament.

CREDLIN: [aside: hold it right there, Abbott. Keep your hands in the open. Where I can see them.]

Scott Morrison! How the f**k are you. Back already? You lucky bastard! Didn’t step on a landmine, then. Kept out of bar doorways. No grenade in the kisser? Clap missed you, too I guess. How was your trip?

ABBOTT: Near the doorway? Clear of doorways? Clap?

CREDLIN: Doors of bars in Shinaoukville. Rival owners on scooters. Ride up. Toss in grenades. Ride off. Nobble the opposition. Disrupts trade. Smart tactic, though. Go well in Canberra. Not on Shorten, though. Be wasted. The bastard would fall on it like a giant wet weetbix. Smother the blast. Spoil the fun.

MORRISON: Place is f****d. Filthy. Stinks. Trash everywhere. Sewer stinks. Sex industry worse. Prostitutes everywhere. Ugly older men and young girls. Sleazy Europeans fondle teenage girls on their laps. Crawling with sex tourists and touts for child prostitutes. Children come up, begging or trying to get hold of groceries, snatching food out of your bag. Homeless kids live on the street. Crawling with children everywhere. Cambodian population mostly school kids. It’s what it looks like. Bird flu epidemic. Corrupt. Most corrupt country in the world. Or among them. Rampant corruption among judges, prosecutors and court officials. Slavery and child sexual abuse. Dangerous. You can get away with murder. And torture. You can die from just drinking the water. No-one in his right mind would want to go there. Live there. [laughs] Perfect place for asylum seekers.

CREDLIN: Spare us the travelogue, Scott. We didn’t send you over to dip your wick. Cut to the chase. Did you get us a deal or not? Where the bloody hell are you?

MORRISON: The Deal? Yes. Got good news and bad news, PM.

ABBOTT: Let me guess. The telegram that said your mother had died? Turned out to be your mother- In- law? You drop 40 million at the casino. Turns out to be someone else’s money? And your boss gives you a pay rise?

CREDLIN: Keep it brief guys. Tony, you and I have a briefing soon. No time to listen to a couple of galahs rabbiting on.

MORRISON: Briefing? Course you do, Peta. What on? How to tell Obama’s arse from his elbow? Hope he’s in on it. Someone needs to tell him! Seriously. Where the border between Syria and Iraq is? Jesus! Better let the Syrians and Iraqis into that. Or how we wasted all those years and all those billions training up an Iraqi army who can’t fight its way out of brown paper bag. Whose battle plan is to drop their weapons and run away? We’d all love to know the answer to that.

ABBOTT: Enough of that, smartarse. Deep briefing from top brass on keeping our boots off the ground.

CREDLIN: While we fight the mother of all battles. Aleppo. Baghdad. Armageddon.

MORRISON: Not another oil war in the Middle East. You know they are unwinnable. Got your head up your arse again, Tony. First we arm and train ISIL against Syria. Now we turn them into Anti-Christ. Wouldn’t it be easier and cheaper just to take more Timor oil? I know some good lawyers.

ABBOTT: [changing subject] How’d the bubbly go? You really know how to seal a deal, Morrison. But if you want Moet, by Christ, we’ll give you Moet. But we do expect you to turn up on time. And not to spill their drinks.

CREDLIN: Yes. We heard you turned up half an hour late. Crashed a tray of Cambodian glasses and then pretended to toast the deal for the camera. Poor bastards didn’t even have empty glasses to raise for the photo-opp.

MORRISON: It’s not all bad. Good news is the Cambodians agreed to take a few. From Nauru. Now that we’ve redefined our refugee obligations. So that we don’t have any part in looking after their welfare.

CREDLIN: In legal terms, the deal represents an abrogation of Australia’s responsibility to refugees who have been found to legitimately need our protection. Moving refugees somewhere else does not absolve Australia of its legal obligations. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, describes it as “a worrying departure from international norms”.

ABBOTT: [ignoring Credlin] A few hundred? Morrison, you are a legend. A few hundred, you say?

MORRISON: Not that many.

ABBOTT: A hundred now. Five hundred next year?

MORRISON: No. Two or three at this stage. They will see how they go.

CREDLIN: See how you go, you mean! You gave them 40 mill? The 40 million we gave you to sweeten the deal. $40 million over four years. No strings attached. No questions asked. And they are taking just two asylum seekers?

MORRISON: Two or three. It was news to me too. They call it a pilot programme. But just wait. There’s a bit you haven’t heard yet. They keep the bastards in Phnom Penh a year. After that they are relocated.

ABBOTT: Jesus. Your Cambodian officials will all be down the casino now. Just imagine it. $40 million. Pissed up against the wall. Then it’s return to sender? God almighty!

MORRISON: No. They send them home.

CREDLIN: And where would that be?

MORRISON: Where they bloody came from. And don’t you worry about the 40 million being spent by officials. Any spend’s a good spend. It’s bound to trickle down. Create opportunities.

ABBOTT: So what’s the bad news Scott?

MORRISON: We still have to pay them.

CREDLIN: Pay them?

MORRISON: Yes. Everything you do in Cambodia costs money. Haven’t worked out how much yet. Under wraps. Christ, they know how to haggle. Basically, Australia agrees to pay the board and lodging. And …

CREDLIN: And?

MORRISON: Agrees to let Cambodia set the fee.

CREDLIN: Which is likely to be how much?

MORRISON: Billions.

ABBOTT: Mary, mother of God! Tell me again. Why did we send you Morrison? What in God’s name possessed us?

MORRISON: I’m the Immigration Minister. I am the star of Sovereign Borders. Soon I will be the head of Homeland Security.

ABBOTT: And?

MORRISON: And I’m way out in front in the opinion polls. You’re in negative territory. Going backwards. I can do what I like. Get away with anything. The country thinks your government is shite. Your budget stinks. Your terror diversion isn’t working. Your Royal Commission is a waste of money. You couldn’t lie straight in bed. No wonder Australians don’t trust you. But they know where they are with me. Gotta go now, Peta and Tony. Mission accomplished. Leave you two to sort out the invoices.

Communication Breakdown

September 14, 2014September 16, 2014 ·

The Abbott government has created a hub of 37 communication and social media specialists to monitor social media and offer strategic communications advice costing taxpayers almost $4.3 million a year.

Details released in Senate documents show the ‘‘Strategic Communications Branch’’ was implemented late last year, where the 37 staff are expected to oversee media within the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, including Indigenous Affairs and the Office for Women. According to the documents, staff are expected to monitor social media, offer strategic communications advice and create internal newsletters graphic design support, among other duties.

A spokesman for Opposition Leader Bill Shorten slammed the number of communications staff engaged to spin Tony Abbott’s messages.

Soon after assuming office, Prime Minister Tony Abbott is reported to have created a strategic communications unit comprising 37 staffers. Their exact role is unclear. So, too are many other details, a responsible government would normally be expected to divulge. What is clear, however, is that most of us have been mystified to learn of the unit’s existence. Or evidence that it has been anything but a dead loss. Perhaps its clearest function is what it communicates to the Australian people about Tony’s tin ear and the remoteness of his government. Not only have previous governments done well without such a unit but by definition if you need a tin ear symphony to be in touch with your electorate, you lack the essential communication skills and sense to govern.

Mr Abbott has been less than, well, communicative about his communication unit as befits his chosen style. But no doubt he believes it was a prudent investment made as it was in the midst of his chicken little alarm calls about the economy. Not that he believed he had any real alternative. After all, even Abbott knows it’s an imperative: now that he’s won the election by pretending to have alternative policies and pretending that Labor was incompetent, raddled with leadership challengers and too inclusive of women, he has to pretend that he’s now capable of being Prime Minister. And he had to do something about
his recurring nightmare that one day, after years of fun and games with Alan Jones, Rupert and his other mates who flocked to him in rubbishing the country’s Prime Minister and everything she stood for, he woke up and he was expected to perform as a Prime Minister.

Typically, our little Aussie Bolter, Abbott has thrown caution to the winds. No consultation. He’s been quick with another captain’s call. You can’t waste time listening to others if you want to set up a communications unit. Besides, since when has Abbott given a rat’s bum for anyone else’s views?

Some would see Rat’s Arse Abbott’s Strategic Communications Unit as a bold initiative. It’s certainly one with ample historical precedent. Joseph Goebbels exploited a similarly strategic approach to government to some effect. Goebbel’s Proganda Principle 16 is being followed as we write:

Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.

The rest of Australia may well see it as foolhardy, self-defeating or premature. Apposite, timely communication, it must be acknowledged, is almost impossible in the absence of any coherent plan, let alone any vision.

Granted its creation was poorly timed. The announcement of the unit was made amidst shock revelations that there was nothing in the budget but a wad of well-thumbed IOUs, Peter Slipper’s Cabcharge dockets and few unused meal vouchers bearing the name M Coulson. Worse than nothing. Those Labor bastards were profligate. Spent money like water. But they didn’t have a strategic communications unit.

Fecklessly staring down those who might accuse him of hypocrisy or inconsistency, Mr Abbott spent up big. He appears gifted at finding funds a plenty when it comes to making him sound good. He found buckets of money to splurge on fabricating an ersatz authenticity, gravity, competence and legitimacy. The unit gives him a chance of looking as if he’s across the detail of issues and events. The unit gives him a faux empathy, a diminished level of ignorance and a coherence he would be hard pressed to muster on his own.

Some would argue the Unit faces a big job. It could take any number of hacks to make Abbott sound half-way credible. Others would say that it’s an impossible task. You can’t polish a turd. Even the attempt will cost you dearly. The PM’s unit is expensive turd polish.

Let’s say, conservatively, each staffer in the TPU (Turd Polishing Unit) is on subsistence wages of $100,000 per annum or more. There would have to be dirt money and danger money in the staffer’s EBA. Factor in legal insurance against malpractice, fraudulence, defamation, perjury and other litigation costs insurance fees. A cheer squad is never cheap to feed.

We can only speculate. In the absence of any clear communication, it may be assumed that conservatively, his ghost-writers cost the nation $4.3 million. That’s the official figure. Do your own add ins. That’s a heck of an investment especially when you add in Joe Hockey’s spin unit. Then, of course, we need to add Scott Morrison’s departments which employ more than 95 communications staff and spin doctors, costing at least $8million a year.

Now we are up to a very conservative $12 million per year. Let’s say the government invested that amount each year for 15 years. Put it by for some frippery such as health or education. Assume an interest rate of 5%. Total funds available would be $283,889,901. Imagine if these funds were directed to help the needy and the underprivileged.

Then of course there is the incredible Credlin, Abbott’s minder, body servant and groom of the King’s close stool who must draw a performance bonus for the extra quota of turd-words as may be necessitated to meet daily contingencies such as our suddenly being at war in Iraq as stipulated in her EBA. Say what you like about Peta. She won’t come cheap.

The spending does not stop there. Other experts include a vocal coach to get Abbott to speak more slowly. Repeat key phrases. Key phrases. Even a spectacle coach, it would seem, has been engaged to get him to wear his glasses on camera to add gravitas. Or do a pale imitation of a policy wonk. On the other hand, perhaps it’s to tone down the anticipated hostility, Abbott’s public appearance unfailingly generates. You don’t punch the kid wearing glasses.

Whatever the motive, Abbott’s unit are guaranteed to be a pack of very busy minders. And there efforts to date have been entirely unsuccessful. We point to the “slow down, Tony” strategy as one that is clearly working. It’s painful to witness but we must console ourselves that its logical extension must surely be that Tony speaks so slowly he says nothing at all. That is no bridge too far. Doubtless, the revised performance plan for the Chief Turd Polisher would be a bonus for getting Abbott to shut up completely. Government by wooden faced narcoleptic stupor has, after all worked well for such elder statesmen as Ronald Reagan, Vladimir Putin and Warren Truss.

Communication is a two way process. It requires a capacity for listening, a gift for tuning in, for sharing another’s point of view, an ability to feel for others, a non-judgemental approach which enables you try to see the others’ points of view. Above all it requires respect for and acceptance of others regardless of their age, station, beliefs or abilities. By definition, genuine communication does not include government by opinion poll, focus groups or the many other expensive artificial ways of measuring the bath water before you turn on the tap. The opinion poll led government tends to move in ever decreasing circles until it disappears up its own rat’s rectum.

We have been saddled with an incompetent, remote and completely out of touch government which came to power by destroying the credibility of its opponents. The Prime Minister’s Strategic Communication Unit exists at our expense to remind us of the cost of a party that wins government by default. In due course it will be telling us that we have never had it so good. Or anything else really that its diligent researchers tell it is required to keep it in power. What we should know. And what we should think.

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Joseph Goebbels – Propaganda Principles

GOEBBELS’ PRINCIPLES OF PROPAGANDA

Based upon Goebbels’ Principles of Propaganda by Leonard W. Doob, published in Public Opinion and Propaganda; A Book of Readings edited for The Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues.

1. Propagandist must have access to intelligence concerning events and public opinion.

2. Propaganda must be planned and executed by only one authority.

a. It must issue all the propaganda directives.

b. It must explain propaganda directives to important officials and maintain their morale.

c. It must oversee other agencies’ activities which have propaganda consequences

3. The propaganda consequences of an action must be considered in planning that action.

4. Propaganda must affect the enemy’s policy and action.

a. By suppressing propagandistically desirable material which can provide the enemy with useful intelligence

b. By openly disseminating propaganda whose content or tone causes the enemy to draw the desired conclusions

c. By goading the enemy into revealing vital information about himself

d. By making no reference to a desired enemy activity when any reference would discredit that activity

5. Declassified, operational information must be available to implement a propaganda campaign

6. To be perceived, propaganda must evoke the interest of an audience and must be transmitted through an attention-getting communications medium.

7. Credibility alone must determine whether propaganda output should be true or false.

8. The purpose, content and effectiveness of enemy propaganda; the strength and effects of an expose; and the nature of current propaganda campaigns determine whether enemy propaganda should be ignored or refuted.

9. Credibility, intelligence, and the possible effects of communicating determine whether propaganda materials should be censored.

10. Material from enemy propaganda may be utilized in operations when it helps diminish that enemy’s prestige or lends support to the propagandist’s own objective.

11. Black rather than white propaganda may be employed when the latter is less credible or produces undesirable effects.

12. Propaganda may be facilitated by leaders with prestige.

13. Propaganda must be carefully timed.

a. The communication must reach the audience ahead of competing propaganda.

b. A propaganda campaign must begin at the optimum moment

c. A propaganda theme must be repeated, but not beyond some point of diminishing effectiveness

14. Propaganda must label events and people with distinctive phrases or slogans.

a. They must evoke desired responses which the audience previously possesses

b. They must be capable of being easily learned

c. They must be utilized again and again, but only in appropriate situations

d. They must be boomerang-proof

15. Propaganda to the home front must prevent the raising of false hopes which can be blasted by future events.

16. Propaganda to the home front must create an optimum anxiety level.

a. Propaganda must reinforce anxiety concerning the consequences of defeat

b. Propaganda must diminish anxiety (other than concerning the consequences of defeat) which is too high and which cannot be reduced by people themselves

17. Propaganda to the home front must diminish the impact of frustration.

a. Inevitable frustrations must be anticipated

b. Inevitable frustrations must be placed in perspective

18. Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred.

19. Propaganda cannot immediately affect strong counter-tendencies; instead it must offer some form of action or diversion, or both.

Tell it like it IS in Iraq, Mr Abbott.

September 7, 2014September 7, 2014 ·

Truth was always going to be the first casualty of office for the Abbott government. During the election campaign voters were showered with lies, hollow promises, empty slogans and just plain hokum. Lies about no surprises. Lies about balancing the budget without cutting spending. Lies about a fair budget. Lies about education funding. Lies and secrecy about asylum seekers. About superannuation.

The government’s lies reflect an apparent arrogance and superiority which is costing it dearly. At worst it suggests contempt for the intelligence of the average voter. At best voters feel they are taken for fools. Taken for a ride. Embedded with its advisors in a culture of spin, where a convenient version of events is concocted hourly for public consumption, the government has apparently overlooked a prime prerequisite for democracy: trust. Without trust there can be no true partnership, no social or political compact.

Or else, seduced by a rampant aggressive narcissism, as practised by its top dogs, such as Scott Morrison, it cynically believes it can bulldoze its way through the trust barrier, too.

Sally McManus itemises the coalition’s 282 broken promises. It may be a record for a government in its first year of office. Little wonder then, that opinion polls show a record low in popularity for Abbott’s adults in charge for their first year. And a mounting anger and frustration with a government that appears to have no clear agenda beyond the maintenance of power.

That low opinion is likely to decline even further given the betrayal of trust involved in Abbott and Bishop’s pronouncements about Iraq. Ironically, the short military adventure which may, to his advisors, have seemed guaranteed to boost Abbott’s flagging personal popularity could ultimately cost him and his government dearly. Sadly, it will also put at risk the lives of innocent men and women.

Yet Iraq also presents Abbott with an opportunity to stop the rot. Tell it like it is. Build on the bit of himself that has attracted positive attention. Forthright is how they see him overseas, according to some elements of the press. Outspoken. Direct. Not a truth twisting weasel who is economical with the truth and who backs away from commitments. Not an arch manipulator with a pathological desire to tell you what you want to hear. Or what the focus groups have scripted. Abandon pretext and pretence just this once. Step up to the plate. Behave like an adult in charge.

Iraq offers the Prime Minister a chance to begin to rebuild his popularity. It will be a long journey. But it begins with a simple step. All he has to do here is step up and tell the truth. Can the humanitarian mission crap. Crap is a word he’s already broken in with regard to climate change. It’s catchy. But it’s applicable this time.

Do your duty, Mr Abbott. Make the captain’s choice. Tell Team Australia it’s all about oil. IS controls most of Syria’s oil and gas production. Next step will see it in control of Iraq’s. It already controls half the country. Tell voters you have decided we need to follow our leader, the United States. Follow the Great Satan as its many enemies in the region call it, into a complex and dangerous theatre of war. Tell them we are joining a Kurdish counter revolution, a conflict where we don’t belong to interfere in the lives of people who mostly don’t want us there. And who will kill to make the point. Locals will resent our alien presence and will already suspect our pretence of liberation as a cover for our commitment to defending the interests of western capitalism.

Or you can call the whole thing off. Or hold your high horse, Napoleon Cockatoo. Reflect awhile. Consult. You pay for good advice. Man up and listen to it. It will not be flattering. But it will be real. And you need to get real. You are making a big mistake. You don’t need another doomed, inglorious and dangerous intervention in the shifting sands of unwinnable wars abroad at a time when domestic affairs warrant your full and undivided attention. You need to pull things together. Call your ministers into line. Let’s be frank. You don’t even have a coherent budget strategy. And your treasurer is not one you can safely leave alone to get the job done.

Come clean about Iraq, Mr Abbott. Its government has persecuted Sunnis for the past eleven years. It has shown proficiency only in two areas: venality and alienating and radicalising the Sunni majority in the region. It has provided fertile ground for IS recruiting. And another western intervention will be just the drawcard needed to persuade the waverers into joining up. Why give IS what they want?

Stop the spin about saving Iraq. There’s not much to save. The Iraqi government is in a state of delusion or denial. They have just lost half their country to IS. Yet they go about their daily political affairs as if none of this was happening. They are crippled by incompetence and beset by corruption. Their army is nimble in retreat.

Iraq’s defence capability is symbolised by the single helicopter that buzzed ineffectually over its troops as they briefly engaged IS troops in Tikrit on 15 July. There were supposed to be many, many more.

“I wonder what on earth happened to the 140 helicopters the government has bought over the last few years,” asked a former Iraqi minister. It’s highly likely that it was stolen by one of the most corrupt states in the world where the motivation for public office is to secure as many kickbacks as possible. Iraqi soldiers who headed to the Tikrit front rushed home after they discovered that the rations were pitiful, they had to supply their own weapons and buy their ammunition.

Iraqi security forces are an oxymoron, a disturbing contradiction in terms. Beyond help. We are rushing to the aid of a hopelessly corrupt state’s hopelessly dysfunctional armed forces, forces which have not won a single counter attack against IS. Not only is Iraqi security it a liability in combat, it is a gift to its enemy. It’s real function is to supply munitions and materiel to the other side. It acts as a virtual armoury, a cornucopia of easily captured modern weapons for IS to further strengthen its military capacity.

Now there has been talk of supplying the Kurds with a weapons drop. You tell us that our intervention is to save the Kurds and support the Iraqi government. The two aims are contradictory. Have you overlooked the bitter enmity between Iraq and Kurds? Have you not listened to your advisors who would have told you that the Kurds have been the scapegoat for the failure of Iraqi security forces?

Isis is not a bunch of Bedouin bovver boys who have galloped out of a David Lean desert set to raid and return to base leaving life to go on much as it did. Nor are they about to be frightened off by the sight of uniformed westerners in uniform. Or by modern weaponry. Quite the reverse. Ruthlessly efficient, ISIS has modern weapons already and it knows how to use them. It is an organised and capably administered military organisation. It controls an area larger than Great Britain containing around 6 million people. It is the superior force in the Syrian opposition. And it appears to be consolidating power over an expanding area. There is little sign of successful local checks on its rise. Syrian and Iraqi opposition is in disarray. And it would relish the chance to have infidel western adversaries to add legitimacy to its regime of brutal terror.

Trivialising ISIS is no solution. It is no lightweight fly by night insurgency as it is typically constructed in the shortened attention span of our media. It is financed by its control of oil wells and by its control of key roads. It has powerful outside regional backers keen to foster any anti-Shia forces. It has local roots and it has had Saudi and Qatari outside financial backing. Monstrous, yes but a monster others have helped to create. Saudis have helped many Sunni movements in Iraq and this support has been crucial in boosting ISIS recruiting of Iraqis.

TV grabs of public executions are sickening and are guaranteed to get any viewer to want their government to do everything it can to stop them. But it has to be the right thing. Not some half-baked military intervention masked in moral posturing in a desperate attempt to secure oil supplies. If we simply supply arms in a divided front there is every chance that those arms will be captured and used by ISIS. Or other local terrorists such as PKK. Time for mature and deep consideration, not a knee jerk reaction. Less demonising and more dispassionate, rational analysis. More thinking and less emotive hyperbole.

The place to start is to tell it like it is. The way to be a statesman begins with acknowledging reality. Iraq’s Shia leaders were boosted by US intervention against Saddam Hussein. Their day is over. Their power has been squandered in corruption and ineptitude and by the events of 2011 in Syria when Sunnis gained the ascendancy and upset the sectarian balance of power in Iraq.

The war on terror failed. The result of western intervention in 2003 and its policy towards Syria has been to pave the way for a Jihadist movement vastly more powerful than Al Qaida which spans Syria and Northern Iraq. In Patrick Cockburn’s words, a new and terrifying state has been born.

Urban Wronski Writes

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