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Brull’s bookshelf

I’m not a Christian, so I didn’t think of doing this earlier and saying ‘go and get these for Christmas for your pinko friends’. But the end of the year is as good a time as any. So, I thought I’d recommend some books.

I just read it, so this one’s first: Bleeding Afghanistan, by James Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar. I think leftists should understand the wars we should be opposing now. This book is five years old, but is very, very good. It looks at the history of Afghanistan; it rightly situates Hamid Karzai as the Western puppet he is, talks about the Islamist warlords we’ve supported, the Islamist theocracy we’ve created and the role of Zalmay Khalilzad. There have been developments since then and greater documentation. But in a pretty brief book, it’s very well reported, hits all the right notes and sets out the contours for understanding our occupation of Afghanistan. I do not necessarily agree with all of its recommendations – it is rather equivocal about ending the occupation. Specifically, the authors say public opinion in Afghanistan at the time was supportive of the occupation continuing. They therefore recommend ending the occupation when the country is safer and warlords are disarmed (or something like that). I think the former condition is the kind of condition Cheney would support – so that they could justify occupation for the next 20 years. The other recommendations are more reasonable. Considering recommendations only take up a few pages, I would not want my reservations on this score to detract from what I consider an excellent and important book, which is the one book above all I would think should be read by activists against this war. People should not just talk about bombing of civilians in Afghanistan – they need to understand more, and this book sets it out clearly and carefully. ... read more

Written by Michael Brull on 30-12-2011, 2 user comments

The US forces in our country

On 17 of November Barack Obama touched down in Darwin for a visit that sent Darwin into a tailspin. The visit had been announced weeks earlier, giving Darwin time to spruce up for the visit. This included painting all the public benches on The Esplanade, where Obama was going to pay tribute to the US sailors who were killed when the Japanese bombed the USS Peary in 1942. It also included moving all the ‘Longgrassers’ (itinerant people, mainly Aboriginal, who congregate on the green grass, under shady trees during the day) out of town. ... read more

Written by Rohan Wightman on 22-12-2011, 3 user comments

The Hunger Games and rebellion

Here’s another small straw in the wind.

This is the trailer for The Hunger Games movie.

... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 17-11-2011, 4 user comments

Malalai Joya in Australia

The presence of Australian troops is only beneficial for the bunch of warlords and criminals ruling Afghanistan. The Afghan people face dire conditions as the US and their allies have massacred innocent women, children and men – and are continuing so. Since 2001, tens of thousands civilians have been killed by the blind bombardments of the US and their allies, which includes Australia as well. […] Therefore, the Australian people need to demand that their government stop supporting such a treacherous regime and instead support the democratic forces of Afghanistan who are struggling under extreme conditions to bring peace, independence, democracy, freedom, and women’s rights. Furthermore, they should ask the Australian government to withdraw its troops because their presence is only making the situation worse.

... read more

Written by Editorial team on 15-08-2011, No comments

Goldstone’s bias pt 2: intentionality and evidence

In his op-ed for the Washington Post, Goldstone made the remarkable claim that if he had known during his investigations ‘what I know now, the Goldstone Report would have been a different document’. This was supported by two primary claims in support.

The first: ‘While the investigations published by the Israeli military and recognized in the U.N. committee’s report have established the validity of some incidents that we investigated in cases involving individual soldiers, they also indicate that civilians were not intentionally targeted as a matter of policy.’ He supported this by reference to the notorious murder of 29 members of the al-Samouni family. Goldstone says: ‘The shelling of the home was apparently the consequence of an Israeli commander’s erroneous interpretation of a drone image, and an Israeli officer is under investigation for having ordered the attack.’ He is confident the issues will be appropriately resolved: ‘While the length of this investigation is frustrating, it appears that an appropriate process is underway, and I am confident that if the officer is found to have been negligent, Israel will respond accordingly.’ ... read more

Written by Michael Brull on 4-05-2011, 1 user comment

Death of bin Laden

So Osama bin Laden has been killed. Ok. Now what?

In the short term, an orgy of ghoulish US nationalism, as the media drools over the bloodied corpse,  a body that, we're told, the US now has in its possession, to be (no doubt) lovingly displayed at some future date.

Bin Laden was a mass murderer and no friend of the Left. Still, what does it say about our era that that the decade's biggest news story centres not on a new scientific discovery nor a medical breakthrough nor the extension of healthcare nor the provision of public housing but rather on the celebrations attendant upon a public enemy being gunned to death?

Will the wars come to an end? Of course not. Bin Laden never played any role in Iraq nor in the Afghan insurgency. As for the new quagmire in Libya, well, that's a pretty good example of how the the killing can continue without any reference to al-Qaeda whatsoever -- Gaddafi is to that war what bin Laden was to the other two. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 2-05-2011, 7 user comments

Goldstone’s bias

SWITZERLAND-MIDEAST-CONFLICT-GAZA-UN-RIGHTS-GOLDSTONERichard Goldstone’s recent op ed in the Washington Post has caused a flood of discussion of what we call the Goldstone Report. I think there are three issues relating to the report and its current fallout worth considering. In this post, I will address the bias of Goldstone and the report. In the next, I will address the issue of ‘intentionality’ addressed in Goldstone’s op ed, and in the third I will address the issues raised by the Goldstone Report that weren’t addressed in his op ed. ... read more

Written by Michael Brull on 27-04-2011, 1 user comment

Naomi Klein, John Berger et al: An open letter to Marrickville Council

Below is an open letter to the Marrickville Council (via Antony Loewenstein) from prominent international academics, writers and artists who support the council’s BDS position. Marrickville Council is voting on the boycott again today.

Dear Marrickvile councilors,

We the undersigned would firstly like to congratulate the Marrickville Council in Sydney’s Inner West, Australia for their courageous motion (dated December 14, 2010) in support of the Palestinian-led global movement of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law. The BDS campaign is deeply inspired by the South African anti-apartheid boycott and divestment campaign for freedom and equality. We understand the Marrickville councilors have come under immense pressure to reverse their decision. After concerted political attacks laden with misinformation about BDS and its alleged costs to the council, a vote is being held on Tuesday April 19 to attempt a reversal. As supporters of universal principles of human rights, we are writing today to appeal to all Marrickville councilors to uphold their principled motion in support of BDS.

... read more

Written by Editorial team on 19-04-2011, 9 user comments

NFZs and other benevolent interventions

No foreign intervention – via Lisa Goldman

There is a fissure in the Left at present; in Australia, it’s playing out on the pages of Crikey, liberal blog Larvatus Prodeo and Benjamin Solah’s Blood and Barricades. The Left is divided between western intervention in the Libyan uprisings, or not. About a UN-endorsed no-fly zone over Libya, or not. About whether such interventions are right, tactically speaking, or not. ... read more

Written by Jacinda Woodhead on 16-03-2011, 68 user comments

Metal ghosts

I’m sitting in a small roadside tent in Phonsavan, Laos. The sounds of dusk traffic and cooking fill the air. In front of me there is a small TV. The wall behind it is decorated with bombshells, grenades and articles. Some of the bombs are rusted, the others polished; all in all it makes for an interesting tour office. I lean forward so I can better hear the words from the TV. It’s playing The CIA’s Secret War, a documentary about the nine-year war (1964–1973) that America waged in Laos.

Through a mixture of archival footage, interviews with journalists and leading CIA figures in charge of the war, I’m learning that Laos is the most bombed country in the world. That over 2 million bombs have been dropped on it, 30% of which are unexploded, lying on the ground even now, waiting for the slightest touch. How at one stage there were 400 flights a day leaving from America’s secret air base in Laos making it the busiest airstrip in the world. How these flights were run by a private company – Air America – that was, in fact, owned by the CIA. How ‘soft rice’ meant actual rice and ‘hard rice’ meant ammunition. How Air America was helping with the export of heroin to Vietnam. As I watch all this, I can’t help but think of the drones flying overhead in Pakistan and the bombing going on there. My mind also drifts to Iraq and the involvement of corporations there. ... read more

Written by Scott Foyster on 1-03-2011, 2 user comments

The politics of paranoia

decision_points_gerogewbushIn his scathing review of George W. Bush’s account of his Presidency, Decision Points, at the LRB, Eliot Weinberger suggests that the most likely Republican candidate for the US presidency in 2012, is Jeb Bush. The fact that we might find ourselves heaving a covert sigh of relief at this news, that at least Jeb Bush isn’t Sarah Palin, shows how much our sense of what is mad and what is dangerous have been elided in the past few years. Of brother George, Weinberger writes: ... read more

Written by Stephen Wright on 25-01-2011, 10 user comments

Tunisia and the zombification of war

uprising_tunisiaAt the recent joint meeting between Australian and British foreign and defense secretaries, Britain’s Liam Fox made an astonishing confession. ‘In terms of having adequate manning, in terms of having adequate equipment,’ he said, ‘we’ve really only been in Afghanistan for the last year.’

Get that? The previous nine years (nine years!) had been, according to Fox, so thoroughly mismanaged that they may as well have not happened at all. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 20-01-2011, 6 user comments

The social significance of the Arizona massacre

We are now seeing a concerted attempt to obscure and confuse the meaning of the terrorist act that took place in Tucson, Arizona.

In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, many people expressed their revulsion at the violent rhetoric that’s become so much a part of contemporary conservatism, particularly in the US. Since then, however, the push back has begun.

Some commentators simply deny that the massacre possesses any political significance whatsoever. Look at his YouTube clips, they say. Jared Laughner, the alleged shooter, was nuts, a crazy person. That was all this was about: a disturbed man, living out a violent fantasy. ... read more

Written by Jeff Sparrow on 11-01-2011, 34 user comments

The violence of everyday

new-detention-centre-for-south-australia-363086In a world in which we’ve been desensitised to the shock of war and conflict, in which those two very things are normalised, you sometimes need to slow things down, step outside and put things into perspective. This year at TiNA, I saw an event that did just that. It was the publication of Westside Jnr’s 2010 book: Violence.

Launched fittingly on the International Day of Non-Violence, the book is a collection of writing that arose out of workshops at seven schools in Western Sydney. The workshops were run, in conjunction with the Australian Literacy and Numeracy Foundation, as part of the Refugee Action Support Project. Alongside the writing workshops there were forum theatre workshops on bullying, where students learned ways of defusing situations before they escalate. ... read more

Written by Scott Foyster on 20-12-2010, 2 user comments

The legacy of humanitarian imperialism

Overland editor Jeff Sparrow is making waves this week: writing to the Prime Minister and crashing internets; arguing, with teammate Adam Bandt, for troop withdrawal from Afghanistan; speaking on the BBC, on RRR, at Melbourne's WikiLeaks demo.

He’s also penned one of the lead essays in Overland 201, which traces the history and discourse of the war in Afghanistan, and dissects liberal imperialist arguments supporting the war.

‘The banality of goodism’ begins like so: ... read more

Written by Editorial team on 10-12-2010, No comments