Whistleblower David McBride believes the Four Corners story was a “planned hit job” and that the journalists downplayed the real issue — the need to stop war crimes. Alex Bainbridge reports.
Afghanistan
No matter who attacks, the Baloch people are the target on both sides, writes Farooq Tariq.
Three years after the Brereton inquiry into war crimes in Afghanistan, not one of the perpetrators has been charged but David McBride faces jail for revealing them. Alex Bainbridge reports.
Green Left speaks to veteran Pakistani socialist Farooq Tariq about the attitudes of the Pakistani state and ruling elite to the Taliban's recent return to power.
Republicans are trumpeting their big gains in the November 2 midterm elections as a mandate to turn the country sharply to the right. Don’t buy it. Mainstream media commentary on the election was largely set before a single vote was cast. Voters would correct President Barack Obama’s supposed leftward course in his first two years in office by sending a cabal of right-wingers to Congress. The scale of the Republican victories — especially in House of Representative races, where the party now holds a comfortable majority — cemented the media’s impressions.
Six fighters from the private army of Afghan warlord, drug trafficker and highway robber Matiullah Khan were recently in Australia for training with the Australian Defence Forces, the October 29 Sydney Morning Herald said.
As if straight out of a Cold War era movie, US corporate media outlets such as the Miami Herald ran headlines on September 18 claiming scientists from Albuquerque “tried to sell classified nuclear data to Venezuela”. Readers were no doubt shocked to read in the Miami Herald that “an elderly maverick scientist who battled the scientific community for decades over laser fusion was indicted Friday in New Mexico, charged with trying to sell classified nuclear weapons data to Venezuela”.
In a July 6 speech to the Lowy Institute Gillard announced that her government was pursuing a regional agreement for offshore processing of "unauthorised arrivals".