Defence and security links post
The reaction to Barack Obama’s announcement of the Defence Strategic Guidance document is as good an opportunity as any to open a thread to discuss defence-related matters. The document puts a little bit more meat on the bones on some [...]
ACLU statement on Obama’s signing of NDAA
“Any hope that the Obama administration would roll back the constitutional excesses of George Bush in the war on terror was extinguished today.”
The undiscussed refugee never-never
When Tony Abbott promises to cut bureaucracy, I rather doubt ASIO is at the top of his list of places to look for savings. It should be, given that its budget has grown from 60-odd million dollars in 2001 to [...]
Addressing the preconditions of atrocities: Silvestri
Writing at Open Democracy, Sara Silvestri makes an excellent argument about the massacres in Norway, and how we should act to avoid their repetition.
Must read: Shakira Hussein on Norway and terror
Shakira Hussein has written the best piece I’ve seen on the response to the massacres in Norway.
Breivik not a ‘crazed loner’, but a terrorist
We mourn the victims of these massacres by working to ensure that such abominations never occur again. To do that effectively, it is necessary to understand, without illusions and avoiding polemics, why this tragedy occurred.
On the reaction to the tragedy in Norway
Commentary which seems to gloat “Oh look! It wasn’t a Muslim, but a right wing Christian” reinscribes the crazy narratives about terrorism and political violence which precisely require a more dispassionate analysis.
CIA’s fake vaccination drive to get bin Laden
The Guardian reports that the CIA set up a fake vaccination drive in Abbottabad, Pakistan to obtain DNA samples from individuals in the bin Laden compound. The CIA organised a fake vaccination programme in the town where it believed Osama [...]
Violence, democracy and the mass media
It can hardly be denied that violence has a peculiarly vicarious allure in the modern mass media environment, regardless of whether we are talking ratings, book sales, ticket sales, clicks, or good old-fashioned circulation. Think James Patterson, the “world’s best-selling [...]
What I really wrote to The Australian
I don’t like to be too critical of editors of letters pages in newspapers, as they receive many times more letters than they can publish, and it’s not always easy to edit a letter for length whilst remaining faithful to [...]
Let’s call this for what it is: terrorism.
A US congresswoman has been shot at point blank range at a meeting in Tucson, Arizona. Democrat Gabrielle Giffords is in critical condition and a nine-year-old girl is dead. A US congresswoman is among at least 10 people who have [...]
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