This is a collection of raw material dating back to the 1950s by journalist John Stapleton. It incorporates photographs, old diary notes, published stories of a more personal nature, unpublished manuscripts and the daily blogs which began in 2004 and have formed the source material for a number of books. Photographs by the author.
For a full chronological order refer to or merge with the collection of his journalism found here:
https://thejournalismofjohnstapleton.blogspot.com.au/
The Illawara south of Sydney Picture by John Stapleton
"This conflict threatens not only to destroy the lives of millions of people, but also to destabilise the world economy by massively disrupting global energy flows, shipping routes, air transportation and telecommunications systems, to create unprecedented refugee flows, to redraw the borders of half a dozen nation-states (with huge loss of life in the process), to drag regional and world powers (Iran, Israel, Russia, Egypt, China, Pákistan, Turkey) into an escalating - potentially nuclear - conflict, to encourage radical violence in scores of countries worldwide, and to enable the aggressive expansion of the Islamic state by means of military conquest. Some of this is already happening..."
Blood Year: Terror and the Islamic State, David Kilcullen.
"This case has been mismanaged from the beginning," an annoyed voice said in the dark reaches.
He could hear the disturbed voices of the ice addicts; the frustrated voices of the watchers on the watch, the muffled quiet of party goers trying not to attract too much attention.
"I wonder if he knows already," someone speculated.
Forgiveness and apology. "I understand now."
Australia Day. Or Invasion Day.
Endlessly politicised. Unable to celebrate its own story. It was a classic Australian day, someone had said earlier in the evening, although they meant it in a different sense as they speculated on how they would photograph the protests and the flag waving. Our indigenous brothers. Beaten, vanquished, the subject of brutal consequence. No story could be told without guilt.
He had been in Australia at the same time the previous year; another Australia Day dawning over-cast and disturbed, as if the colour had been drained out of everything. The then Prime Minister Tony Abbott had turned what at least in theory should have been a day of unity into an even greater farce by granting a Knighthood to the Duke of Edinburgh, as if the Queen's husband had any need of more awards from the colonies. The obsequiousness of Australia knew no bounds. Knightmare trumpeted the papers.
"So we pick up where we left off."
"Consumed by hatred." Because their lies had been exposed. "There's so many things wrong with this case."
Trails of stories from the previous few years continued to loom and vanish in an ever darkening night; as if, written out, everything that had gone before had vanished into history. He didn't know who to trust and who not to trust, what was true and what was not. Sometimes he used to chant: "Bring back the intelligent one." But of the invisible wraiths; few of them were kind. So he had shut down all contact, and vanished into the ordinary, as his kind had done so often.
Three a.m. on an Australia Day morning. There would be no forgiveness on this day, for him, from him; as the slate grey skies tumbled overhead. Like many Sydneysiders, he would go down to the Aboriginal themed Invasion Day events; and watch, if he watched at all, the flyovers and splashdash celebrations on Sydney Harbour on television. A face turned to the world. Another few would ever see. This was his country. These were the times.
Surging house prices in Sydney and Melbourne have helped keep Australia near the top of an annual list of the world's least affordable countries.
Key points: The typical Australian house costs 5.6 times the median household income Only Hong Kong (19) is less affordable; with New Zealand (5.2) and the UK (5.1) close behind Australia Sydney is the second least affordable city in the world, with prices 12.2 times incomes
Australia is second only to Hong Kong for housing costs, with the Asian banking hub occupying a unique position given its high-income elite, miniscule size and proximity to mainland China.
Australia Day may mark the arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and the founding of our nation, but for many Aboriginal Australians there is little to celebrate and 'Invasion Day' or 'Survival Day' as it is known is one filled with mixed emotions.
"I've performed for many years on Australia Day morning and it's really a mourning ceremony in my heart and my spirit," Peta Strachan, a descendant of the Boorooberongal clan and artistic director of the Jannawi Dance Clan said.
The dance troupe will open the Australia Day ceremony at Barangaroo in Sydney on Tuesday.
"If I'm dancing on the 26th, I dance for our ancestors who went through all that pain," Ms Strachan said.
"It's basically acknowledging all our ancestors and all the pain they went through since Captain Cook arrived."
A Sense of Place Publishing brings you a quirky new Australian detective novel, <em>Bloody Colonials</em> by Stafford Sanders. The book pits a canny convict sleuth against the ruthless empire-builders of an early penal settlement.
"Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you." Nietszchke.
A chorus of dismay, but this time the anger was directed at themselves, not him. "There's nothing wrong with what he's written,"a voice said; while a soldier poured scorn anyway: "Fuck him." Of course a bullet would be cheaper, but he wasn't going to help them solve the problems of their own making. Every day, as if marching towards an apocalypse, the world became more disturbed. Even in this faroff outpost, Sydney, Australia, there was a mounting sense of unease and discontent. The security forces were alarmed and did not know which way to turn. Platitudinous, reassuring statements from the nation's politicians did not reflect the reality on the ground. No one knew which way to turn.
The Clarion Cow, one particularly unpleasant woman in a massive bureaucratic chain, held up progress, raproachement, for months on end. They thought, she thought, he might not be all that politically correct, did not automatically fall into the group think caste of the self-titled progressives, could be easily dismissed. Those who did not fit their world view were always dismissed. It was no wonder they were losing the war. All you had to do to see their serenity come unstuck was to disagree with them, a meltdown on the spot.
These people had spent their entire careers protecting their own turf, encased in hierarchies, unable to see over the ledge, much less jump off, no parachute swinging over the steep ravines of the valley, and their dank, one-dimensional views cast a deadly pall over any hint of creativity, stifled the bureaucracies in which they ruled and ultimately betrayed the taxpayer who was paying for the mess. Paying, essentially, for nothing. Australia had become stultified with self-defeating bureaucracies, grand schemes which more often than not made the country worse, as the state took over more and more of the responsibilities and life challenges which had once been the province of families and churches and charities and yes, that much misused word, communities.
The night was grey and there was treachery afoot. "Nobody believes either of them anymore," a dismissive voice said loudly in the neighbouring park, where locals gathered and drank and argued and passed away the time. "Enough, enough," a raised arm. "We surrender." "We apologise." But he just pretended to not hear whatever was the murmur in the wind of the day; "better to be undetectable" he said to noone in particular. "The gifts come and go. Better to be invisble. Safer." For his kind had always been hunted; not just here on this planet, but across galaxies, across time; for there was nothing more uncomfortable than a truthsayer.
Yes, imagine a world where it was impossible to lie.
THE BIGGER STORY:
War footing: 2016 hot spots from the Middle East to Asia
Kurdish fighters following their capture of the northern Syrian town Tel Abyad, near the Turkish border, from Islamic State last year.
Only three weeks in and 2016 is already shaping up as a dynamic year, with conflict and instability in many regions. Here’s an overview of nine international hot spots, focusing on what we’re likely to see in the next 12 months.
1. Iraq: slow progress under dire circumstances
Iraqi forces, supported by the US-led coalition, are making real but slow progress against Islamic State. Kurdish troops recaptured Sinjar in November, cutting the highway from Syria to Mosul — Iraq’s second city, enemy-held since June 2014. In December, government forces recaptured Ramadi, capital of Anbar Province, from Islamic State fighters who had occupied it since May.
The city suffered massive damage, and Islamic State combat groups remain active around it, but the seizure of a significant urban area highlights the progress coalition trainers have made in rebuilding Iraq’s army and police from the low point of mid-2014. Coalition leaders hope more airstrikes — directed, in part, by a 200-strong US “specialised expeditionary targeting force” authorised to accompany combat troops and conduct its own raids — will help to hold the newly won ground. We can expect patchy progress through the year, possibly leading to a resumption of the long-postponed Mosul offensive later in 2016.
But the situation is still dire. Iranian-backed militias are challenging government authority and violently oppose increased coalition involvement. Their abuses have triggered shootouts with Kurdish and Sunni communities and in mid-January Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi had to deploy troops to the Shia stronghold of Basra amid a spike in tribal violence, street protests, and militia activity.
Islamic State still controls Mosul, Fallujah and other cities, is on the offensive around Saddam Hussein’s home town of Tikrit, and is far from defeated.
The politics are even more problematic. The Kurdish region in Iraq is a de facto state with its own internal power struggles and regional entanglements that complicate its relations with Iran, Syria and Turkey. Shia areas are slipping beyond Baghdad’s control, and Sunni-majority provinces such as Anbar are bloodily contested or controlled outright by Islamic State. It will take more than military progress (though that’s an essential first step) to re-establish Iraq as a viable state, let alone turn it into a functioning democracy — which is why nobody (least of all Iraqis) expects that to happen anytime soon.
2. Syria: peace talks falter as Russian-Iranian efforts slow
In Syria, Russian strikes have relieved pressure on Bashar al-Assad’s regime and enabled offensives in the northern provinces of Aleppo and Idlib since October. But the advance is bogging down, with many civilians killed and severe damage to Syria’s already devastated cities. Islamic State has avoided the brunt of Russian airstrikes, which mostly target secular nationalist rebels, giving Islamic State fighters space to mount an offensive against Deir ez-Zor, one of only two surviving regime outposts in northeastern Syria. This month they captured large areas of the city, massacring hundreds of civilians and regime loyalists.
Assad’s military successes, limited as they are, make a peace settlement this year more unlikely. Rebel groups (excluding Islamic State and al-Qa’ida affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra) met in December to co-ordinate demands ahead of talks scheduled for Monday.
In last year’s crisis atmosphere, it seemed possible the regime might agree to a general ceasefire, followed by a transitional government, with Assad’s status to be decided later. Now that he feels more secure, Assad is less likely to countenance such a deal. Likewise, Russia has driven the rebels back from its bases at Tartus and Latakia, securing its key strategic goal and making Moscow less likely to push Assad towards peace, even though Russia’s armed forces are in no shape for a protracted foreign operation. So, absent a significant battlefield game-changer, 2016 will likely see inconclusive peace talks amid a stalemated (but increasingly bloody) conflict.3. Middle East: a worsening Saudi-Iranian conflict
Another factor hampering Syrian peace talks is the deepening proxy conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia, epitomised by the Saudi execution this month of Shia cleric Nimr al-Nimr. Tehran and Riyadh are competing for regional dominance: sponsoring opposite sides in Syria, fighting a bloody proxy war in Yemen, rallying regional allies and jockeying for influence across the Middle East, Central Asia and parts of Africa. Now that sanctions are being lifted, as Tehran complies with last year’s nuclear deal, Iran will gain access to $US100 billion in frozen assets, travel and trade bans will be relaxed, and the country will again begin to export oil.
This will only exacerbate a global oil glut that has already driven crude prices to a 13-year low, creating turmoil in global markets and sparking fears of instability in oil-producing nations, notably Saudi Arabia, but also Venezuela and Russia.
The Obama administration is touting the nuclear deal as its key foreign policy accomplishment, and if properly enforced it may (possibly) succeed in limiting Iranian nuclear capability for the next 15 years. But Iran maintains its nuclear ambitions and continues to deny the military nature of its program, and this is far from a reset in US-Iranian relations.
Throughout this year Tehran will likely seek to test US resolve on enforcing the agreement, and we can expect tension, conflict and controversy over Iran’s expansionist influence — as well as increasingly violent pushback from the Saudis.
4. Libya: Islamic State growing amid a low-grade civil war
Both Iran and the Sunni states of the Gulf have meddled in Libya, which has suffered severe instability since 2011, and whose government collapsed in 2014. The country is now split between two rival governments, each with its own parliament and executive, and a string of heavily gunned-up tribal and regional militias are competing for control and engaging in serious (albeit episodic) conflict that has killed many civilians, damaged Libya’s cities and prompted many Libyans to flee the country. Last year things got even worse: Islamic State established wilayats — provinces — in each of Libya’s three regions, created a base in Muammar Gaddafi’s home town of Sirte, and fought (with mixed success) to maintain its influence in Benghazi and Derna, a historic centre of extremism and the source of most Libyan recruits to terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq.
Though the UN managed to broker an agreement last month between Libya’s rival parliaments with the goal of establishing a national unity government, the conflict — which amounts to a medium-intensity civil war — continues, and Islamic State is unlikely to lose its foothold anytime soon. We can expect the organisation — along with al-Qa’ida, which retains deep ties in the country’s eastern region — to cement its control through the year, continue exporting terrorist violence and ideology throughout North Africa and the Sahara, and seek to undermine any fragile moves toward peace and stability within Libya.
5. Africa: increased terror risk
The export of extremism from Libya is only one factor driving increased terrorism risks in Africa. Another is the outflow of weapons and fighters that followed the fall of Gaddafi’s regime in 2011 and triggered conflicts in Mali, Sudan, the Central African Republic and elsewhere. Al-Qa’ida remains highly active in Africa, with groups ranging from Somalia’s al-Shabab — which is increasingly carrying out regional attacks, launching assaults in Somali cities, and overran an African Union base in the country’s south this month — to Algerian terrorist Mokhtar Belmokhtar’s al-Mourabitoun, an al-Qa’ida-linked group responsible for several highly lethal attacks on hotels in Mali and Burkina Faso over recent months. But al-Qa’ida is increasingly competing with Islamic State, which now claims the allegiance of Boko Haram, the West African group that is, by far, Africa’s deadliest terrorist group — and has carried out attacks in Tunisia and elsewhere. Islamic State is encroaching on al-Qa’ida’s turf as well, with reports from Botswana last month suggesting a faction of 200 fighters had split off from al-Shabab to form the first formally organised Islamic State brigade in East Africa.
6. Afghanistan: an impending crisis
Another place where Islamic State has made inroads over the past year is Afghanistan. Expanding from a base in Pakistan, the group began infiltrating Afghanistan’s south and east in late 2014, before mounting major attacks — on both the Taliban and the government — in September last year. In direct competition, al-Qa’ida has also increased its activity in the same regions, driving a spike in violence in urban and rural areas.
But the biggest surge is that of the Taliban, still recovering from last year’s announcement of the death of Mullah Omar, its founder and leader until his demise in 2013. Omar’s successor, Mullah Akhtar Mansour, has cemented his leadership of the movement and is running a two-track strategy — on the one hand negotiating with Kabul, and simultaneously pressuring the Afghan military and police in a ramped-up campaign that directly targets Afghanistan’s cities.
Taliban forces seized the northern provincial capital of Kunduz for two weeks last October — the first time in the entire war they’ve succeeded in seizing a major city. Ordinary Afghans were deeply spooked by this, along with Taliban expansion into their old stomping grounds of Oruzgan, Helmand, Kunar and Nuristan (places that coalition forces, including Australians, fought hard to stabilise over the past decade). In the last few weeks the Taliban has also launched an unprecedented string of terrorist attacks on Kabul and other cities.
In the year ahead, Afghan forces will struggle to contain a Taliban spring offensive come April, alongside increased activity from Islamic State, al-Qa’ida and the Pakistan-backed Haqqani network.
We can expect the Afghan police and military to fight hard and achieve some local successes, but the overall prognosis is not good — indeed, there’s a real risk that, without additional international support for the Afghan government, we may see the same kind of Islamic State breakout and blitzkrieg in Afghanistan in 2016 as happened in Iraq in 2014.
7. Europe: a deepening migration crisis
Afghans — with Syrians, Iraqis, Libyans and Eritreans — made up the majority of the more than 1.1 million refugees and asylum-seekers flooding into Europe last year. Thousands died trying to reach the EU, and many more were marooned in transit and processing camps on the European periphery.
Amid an ongoing eurozone financial crisis, frontline border security forces in Greece, Italy, Spain and the Republic of Macedonia simply lack the resources to secure their borders or process the stream of asylum-seekers flocking on to and through their territory.
Most migrants are heading for Sweden and Germany, countries that are rapidly being overwhelmed by the challenge of caring for refugees, screening them for potential terrorists (a reasonable concern given how many originate from war zones, especially after November’s horrific terror attacks in Paris) and dealing with an increasing public backlash against them.
That backlash will only increase this year, especially after widespread incidents of sexual assault and molestation committed by immigrants against women in six German cities on New Year’s Eve prompted public outrage in several European countries.
This year’s refugee flow will be at least as large as last year — already in mid-January illegal immigrants entering Europe via Greece exceeded the monthly total for January 2014 by almost 2000 per cent.
This poses four risks for Europe this year: the risk of violent crime or terrorism perpetrated by asylum-seekers or those hiding within the mass migration stream; the risk of right-wing violence (or, indeed, mainstream public unrest) targeting immigrants; the risk of a breakdown in European border security, with knock-on effects for Europeans travelling to countries with stricter border controls such as Australia or the US, and the risk that Europe’s welfare state will simply be unable to cope with the short-term burden on an already stressed public housing, unemployment and health system.
8. Ukraine: frozen conflict
Russia’s intervention in Syria coincided with a spike of refugees from that country into Europe. Moscow’s intervention was designed in part to shore up Assad, partly to protect Tartus (Russia’s only Mediterranean base and one of the few warm-water ports available to its navy worldwide), and partly to change the subject — a necessary endeavour, after Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and its sponsorship of separatist rebels in eastern Ukraine brought widespread international condemnation and damaging sanctions. Combined with the drop in global oil prices and the stream of body bags containing Russian “volunteers” killed in Ukraine and Syria, this is hurting Russian President Vladimir Putin. It has prompted tough talk from the Kremlin (including a new and aggressive national military strategy signed by Putin on New Year’s Eve) designed to mask an attempt to regain international credibility by taking on Islamic State, while dialling back Moscow’s support for Ukrainian separatists.
This year we can expect the Ukrainian conflict to congeal along the front lines established in 2015, though there’s a risk of intense localised offensives around contested towns such as Mariupol on the Sea of Azov in southern Ukraine’s Donetsk region.
Russian-backed separatists will likely focus on consolidating their hold on the country’s east, peace talks will continue, Ukraine’s legitimate government in Kiev will continue to lack the resources and international support needed to defeat the rebels, and the war will become one of several “frozen conflicts” that punctuate Russia’s near abroad.9. Increasing terrorism risk in Southeast Asia
Closer to home, Southeast Asia is also likely to see an uptick in terrorist activity.
This is partly driven by the spreading influence of Islamic State, which established awilayat in the southern Philippines at the end of last year, sent militants into Thailand last October to attack foreign tourists, and claimed last week’s attack in downtown Jakarta. But older separatist and jihadist groups are also still active in the region and, as in other parts of the world, the emergence of Islamic State has created a competitive dynamic, with each group seeking to outdo the others, raising the general terror threat from a range of Islamist groups.
Thai, Malaysian, Bangladeshi and Indonesian officials have also expressed concerns about the potential for foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria returning home. All this is likely to generate a higher background threat level for many countries in Southeast Asia, including Australia.
This, of course, is only a very selective survey of the international security environment over the next 12 months.
There are many other potential sources of conflict, from tensions on the Korean Peninsula to maritime stand-offs in the South China Sea, domestic terrorism in Australia, potential state-on-state conflicts in the north Pacific, last year’s massive spike in Colombian cocaine production amid ongoing peace negotiations to end the world’s longest insurgency, and increased unrest in Venezuela and Brazil.
Likewise, issues such as low global oil prices, China’s economic slowdown, drought, disease and natural disasters could have impacts at least as severe as many of the conflicts. And there’s unfortunately no doubt that 2016 will bring conflicts that are impossible to predict. But as of now, the nine hot spots listed are a good initial selection of places to watch.
Perhaps the single most successful book of 2015, “a soaring triumph” as the critics have described it, H is for Hawke is an absolute must read. Every now and then something breaks through the zeitgeist. Author Helen MacDonald wrote in one of the opening riffs: “Forty-five minutes north-east of Cambridge is a landscape I’ve come to love very much indeed. It’s where wet fen gives way to parched sand. It’s a land of twisted pine trees, burnt-out cars, shotgun-peppered road signs and US Air Force bases.
There were strange sapped times and a million silences. Turnbull has been to Washington and seemed to have done well; at least the journalists were impressed and his speech on terror and the Middle East far more nuanced and understanding of the complexities than his predecessor. Kim Beazly is bowing out as Australia's Ambassador to the US, which is a pity as he seemed perfect for the role. Now we will have Joe Hockey, who critics regard as far less appropriate. But Beazly is leaving with reputation intact, highly regarded. It seems a pity he couldn't stay; it would probably have been for the best in an election year.
Finished reading Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World. Brilliant book. Essential reading. Christina Lamb writes beautifully; and is a highly accomplished journalist who seems to know everybody. Some people sneak along in the back alleys; others embrace all the opportunities the world throws their way. Compassionate. Knowledgeable. Insights every other paragraph; one of those books you wish you could read bits to the people around you. But there aren't so many people around anymore; he was out of sync with who to trust or not trust, and life was not so much an adventure as a denouement some days. Everybody grows older; not always wiser. Two steps forward one step back. Two steps forward and three steps back. Too many mistakes at a time when there should be no mistakes. He got pissed and wished he hadn't; stupid things.
The streets grew quieter. Australians seemed just as disillusioned as they had been. The boost in optimism that came with the ascendancy of Turnbull seemed already to have vanished. Good front man, they would say, the admiration, or was it relief, sinking away. But there were no alternatives; the opposition leader Shorten widely regarded as hapless and hopeless, Abbott, despite some very poor grace in defeat, extremely unlikely to ever return to the top job.
He had predicted once, that Abbott would lose his own seat; although at the time it had seemed fantastical, he was still doing reasonably well in the polls and held the seat of Warringah by something like 20%. Now one poll showed most of his own electorate want him to move on; much like the country as a whole.
Seven journalists were killed in Afghanistan; and there was trouble everywhere, death everywhere. The world was a considerably more troubled place than it was even a few short years ago. Summer has been largely grey and overcast, often cold, wet. There were cold snaps in Europe and the US. The story of a million migrants flooding into Europe, mostly Germany, was continuing to play out; and many doubts now being raised about the policies Angela Merkel adopted as an angel of mercy. It is all beginning to look very naive. Sometimes he wondered, what would have happened if all those people had stayed in their home countries; would they have been a pressure cooker for change, by fleeing were they just allowing things to deteriorate. Ruined cities. Collapsed states. Mind bogglingly complex scenarios.
Lleyton Hewitt has played his last singles match; after a sterling 20 year career; widely lauded. Lleyton was a hero in a land with few heroes. Sport taking up an ever increasing percentage of the news bulletins, bread and circuses, and there seemed little room for serious analysis. Australians may once have been happy to talk about politics till the cows came home, but now it was the last thing they wanted to discuss; and it, too, had become a kind of sport for an increasingly narrow band of afficionados.
Australia Day is predicted to be grey and wet, similar to last year.
Sydney University's leading spokesmen all decry the day as a colonialist relic, the celebration of an invasion, the British destruction of an Aboriginal world.
What crisis? What time? A singular loss. He still heard things he wished he didn't; he was going to seek help.
Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has acknowledged that boots on the ground are needed to defeat Islamic State (IS), but says local and regional troops are the key.
Key points: Malcolm Turnbull delivers keynote speech in Washington Says local troops key to defeating IS in Iraq and Syria Says recent taking of Ramadi an example of Iraqi army leadership So far refuses US request to increase military commitment
In a speech at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, the Prime Minister addressed the contentious issue of ground troops directly, having just visited Australian soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"The destruction of ISIL requires military action including boots on the ground but they must be the right boots on the right ground," he told an overflowing room.
"The recent retaking of Ramadi is a prime example.
"Led by the Iraqis themselves, assisted by the Coalition's respective air and special forces, it was not just a blow to ISIL, but an example of the right combination.
"An enduring victory must be won and owned by the people of Iraq and Syria."
The Prime Minister met with the crown prince of the UAE, the President of Afghanistan and Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi during his visit to the Middle East.
He said the Iraqi Prime Minister thanked him for Australia's involvement there but that it was "politically vitally important for him that the retaking of that city [Ramadi] was done and seen to be done by the Iraqi forces".
The United States has asked Australia, along with other nations, to increase military commitment in the Middle East.
Thus far, Australia has refused although while visiting Australian troops over the weekend the Prime Minister said that stance could change with changing circumstances.
There has been no repeat of the request so far on this visit.
A meeting with Defence Secretary Ash Carter at the Pentagon this morning covered discussions about solutions to problems in the Middle East and possible political solutions in Syria.
In his speech, the Prime Minister highlighted the need for a cohesive approach.
"It is above all a time for all parties … to get on the same page and bring this war to an end.
"All of our words and deeds must be calculated with one aim in mind, to defeat the extremists.
"The biggest challenge is plainly finding that political settlement in Syria.
Compelling in detail, compounding in outrage, America's Destruction of Iraq fills in the gaps of how America's disastrous invasion of Iraq created the ultimate breeding ground for the Islamic State.
Ruschutters Bay in the predawn Picture by John Stapleton
When Paris was attacked politicians and pundits fell all over themselves rushing to proclaim what Washington should do next in the war on terror. The vast majority of them would have done better to keep quiet and read Charlie Savage’s new book, “Power Wars,” instead. It offers a master class in how to think seriously about crucial aspects of the subject. Gideon Rose, The New York Times. Flights of fancy and a deconstructive air. Build, rebuild, destroy. "Nothing in this country works," his friend grumbled after they left the ANZ bank in Newtown. It was taking five days to transfer funds which should have taken less than a second. "The biggest thieves in the country are the banks, the insurance companies and the government," he grumbled; a kind of secondhand discontent, because by now he had no faith that anything would ever improve. It was simply a matter of watching the decline and fall. A thousand times, a thousand times. A democracy that was increasingly becoming a failed state; a failure for its citizens, a failure of purpose, a loss of hope. "It's no wonder everyone wants to leave Australia," he said, as they crossed back over King Street.
Lord Malcolm was off in the US hobnobbing with Obama, but at least he had done one sensible thing since coming to power: he had knocked back the request for more troops and more involvement in the Middle East. Australia, historically, almost never said no to anything the Americans asked, an historical obsequiousness which had cost them billions in useless wars and arms purchases, made their own populations less safe, cost hundreds of lives destroyed or damaged, but there it was. We could stand proud. No we could not.
Turnbull had just made a flying 90 minute visit to Iraq; to the Australian base, where 100 SAS soldiers remained hunkered down in a compound where they dared not go outside, within spitting distance of Islamic State territory; and a prime target. The official claims that they were there training Iraqi troops was no doubt just bullshit. For a start, they were a proud people, why would they want to be trained by a bunch of infidels from the other side of the world? The Daily Telegraph, a Murdoch rag which had really in recent years become a rag, reported that the troops were ecstatic to see their Prime Minister. No Australian is ecstatic at the site of a politician, a ruling class for which they have little but contempt. Perhaps they were a little over-excited at the idea that they might finally be getting out of the hellhole that Abbott, Turnbull's predecessor, had sentenced them to. Hundreds of millions of dollars had been wasted on a deployment which had, like all the other involvements, simply made matters worse. "Lions led by donkeys," as the British would say of their own incompetent generals. "Police informant." There you go. The voices always knew best. Some things didn't make sense. Stories didn't add up. Delusions didn't always count. "What's an old guy like you doing here in shorts?" some potbellied houso demanded to know. "Same as me? Parading your wares?"
"Thanks," he said, and listened to some cruelly, crudely pointless jokes.
"Nothing is as it seems." "Things are not always what they appear." He was going to annoy them as best he could. Imaginary friends. As he walked past graffitied walls and rundown houses, tatty down-at-hell shops and a cruel wandering of the mind. He had wanted a base, he didn't want a home. Everything was far from ideal; but perhaps constraints were what were called for. Not the freedom to party through the long nights; drawn not by the oblivion seeking of the past, because he could not cope with the way he felt or the way he thought, but by some hopelessly juvenile desire for adventure which never was. Sex that never was. Satisfaction, fulfilmnet, that could never be. Sydney for many of its increasingly unhappy inhabitants was merely a prelude, a backdrop, a launch pad. He would be gone soon enough. "Are we really that stupid?"
Malcolm Turnbull has countered calls for more Australian “boots on the ground” in Iraq as he prepares for a meeting with US President Barack Obama within days to renew talks on the fight against Islamic State.
Visiting Australian troops in the Middle East on the weekend, Mr Turnbull declared it vitally important that people see Iraqi forces rather than foreign troops retaking cities like Ramadi from the terrorist group.
The Prime Minister also revealed that Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al Abadi made no request for additional Australian help to defeat Islamic State.
“The Iraqi government did not ask us to do anything extra, although we had a very constructive discussion with the Prime Minster,” Mr Turnbull said.
Days before flying to Washington DC for talks on international security, Mr Turnbull flew into Baghdad and an Australian base north of the Iraqi capital to meet some of the 300 Australian troops who are training local soldiers.
While Mr Turnbull said the Australian contribution would “evolve” over time, he gave no ground to critics including former defence minister Kevin Andrews who have renewed their calls for a bigger commitment to defeat the terrorists.
“What further commitments we were to make would depend on the circumstances, but we do not intend to be in Iraq forever,” Mr Turnbull said.
Addressing troops the Taji base, Mr Turnbull told them that his Iraqi counterpart had strongly praised the Australians for their “critical role” in helping Iraqi troops retake Ramadi.
The success against Islamic State had given the Iraqi government a “strategic lift” that could not have been done without the Australian troops, Mr Turnbull said.
Mr al Abadi had given the impression of “real, substantial confidence” that Iraq was “turning the corner” in the battle against Islamic State, Mr Turnbull told the troops.
“It’s obviously vitally important that a city like Ramadi, and others to follow, are seen to be taken by Iraqi forces,” Mr Turnbull told them.
“They’ve got to win back their country but they need our help, and more importantly they need your help and you’ve provided it with great skill.”
Australia is the second-largest contributor to the US-led fight against Islamic State, with six Hornet fighter jets flying missions over Iraq and Syria while hundreds of troops assist the Iraqi National Army.
Barack Obama promised change from George W. Bush's global war on terrorism. But the Obama administration used drones to kill suspected militants and vacuumed data on Americans' phone calls. Obama criticized Bush's unilateralism and secrecy, but launched wars without going to Congress and presided over an unprecedented crackdown on leaks. As the New York Times New York Times book reviewer Gideon Rose wrote of Power Wars: Inside the Post 9/11 Obama Presidency by Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Charlie Savage explores how and why Obama and his legal team, an elite, liberal group who vowed to restore the rule of law, end up accused of entrenching the sweeping powers of the post-9/11 security state. If legitimate, the accusation stands to change the legacy of Obama's entire presidency.
"It is very dangerous to write the truth in war and the truth is very dangerous to come by." Ernest Hemmingway
Signs of the Cross. Golgotha. Everywhere impuned. Flashes of time across distance; pain across space, as if suffering could be translated from one time zone to another, from one historical era to another. But there was nothing like the present. A web of glittering lies. He was reading Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World, by Christina Lamb. Compulsory, compulsive reading. Anyone left who somehow thought the West's involvement in Afghanistan and then Iraq had been a good idea, a gesture for a noble cause, had only to read this book. What a mess. Compounding disbelief. Forty one Australian soldiers died there between 2001 and 2014, along with hundreds of British and Americans. There was no use pretending they did not die in vain, at the hands of weak, self-serving politicians pandering to international alliances and idiotic, unworldly ideologies. They should have had the courage to say: No. They should have had the determination, the strength, to stare incompetence and dysfunction in the face, and withdraw. But they did not. This was Australia. This was the West. This was the path to 2016.
No one had had the courage to stand up and say Go Back: You Are Going The Wrong Way. Mission Accomplished. Heart rending speeches at funerals. All a farce the best of fiction writers could never have invented. The ever expanding highway to the Apocalypse; to a world where one terror story overlaid another, where Islamic State and their myriad affiliated or like-minded groups had won the day, simply by becoming the biggest story on Earth.
In his own life things were becoming simpler or more complex, it was hard to tell. His pursuers had become more subtle, or decamped. It was no longer possible, in the drone of morning television and radio stations, of yawning awakenings and stabs of "I don't want to go to work", what was what, who wished him ill. "He's got my vote." "You're biased against him." "He's lost that job." "For someone so intelligent, he can be amazingly stupid." "I just don't like him, he gives me the creeps." And of course the accusation of arrogance, because anyone who stood up, anyone who did anything, was arrogant in presumption, in a world that so actively sought the ordinary; cooking shows and flash trash and the Goggle Box, a show about people watching television, the ever expanding role of sport in news bulletins, as if anything but genuine news best served the desires of their listeners.
For nobody read anymore.
In awakenings, in crystal dawns, in the emergence from the miasma, brushing away cobwebs, the trails of deceit, the oh too many lies, another parade of politicians was treating the public as if they were idiots. Tony Abbott, the most dangerous Prime Minister in Australian history, was gone; but in his place the bureaucracy had a newer, smarter, more polished presenter, Malcolm Turnbull. Or Lord Malcolm, as he called him, a cheap shot at his wealth and standing. "I look forward to the day when you're Prime Minister," he had said to him once, at a launch of John Olsen's work at a gallery in Woollahra, but when the time came, the targets switched. Because while the oft hated Abbott was gone, in his place was just a more polished spruiker. Malcolm had been too long in the wings; and had forgotten the simple creeds of politics: why should someone go to work in a factory to pay taxes to support this?
The projects were endless; and largely meaningless. Innovation had become the catchword of the new administration, and the government was spending $29 million just to promote its one billion dollar innovation program. In other words, as always in Australian political life, money was being ripped off the back of workers and diverted to the professional classes. Australia was notoriously hopeless at innovation; the country which had invented the bionic eye but failed to make a cent from the invention, the country which had been responsible from some of the signal research behind WiFi, but again failed to capitalise on it. A billion dollars would be frittered away in research grants. There was no test for success; there was no achievable goal. This was a country which, despite its vast distances and scattered population, had hopeless telecommunications, hopeless internet, a country going backwards, a population turning inwards.
Considerable swathes of the population had little or no access to the most sophisticated technology ever utilised by man; the transformative technologies of the 21st Century. People remained remarkably ignorant of the so-called information superhighway which could so enrich their lives; and believed they were happier that way. It suited the governing class to have an ignorant, defenceless, population, lulled to sleep by a largely hapless public broadcaster and an often equally hapless privately owned media. The stories, the questioning, the thrusting urgency to create a better world, it was all gone. In its place: Australian bombs, as part of a stitched together and utterly hypocritical alliance, the so-called Coaltion of the Willing fast forwarded, rained down on Iraq, killing Muslims, killing people for their religious beliefs. Nobody asked why Australia continued to push down a path which had so obviously failed. All questions about what tragets taxpayer funded bombs were taking out were referred to America. The country had handed over its foreign policy to the U.S. of A. Nobody queried, almost nobody bar the Muslim minority protested. And so we marched, as if blindfolded, to our own Golgotha. The cruelties would only mount.
Astronomers have detected the most powerful stellar explosion ever seen — a massive supernova, twice as powerful as anything previously recorded.
Key points Massive supernova is 570 billion times brighter than our Sun, and 20 times brighter than all the stars in our Milky Way Galaxy combined. Scientists unsure about what could be powering the supernova named ASASSN-151h Unlike other super-luminous supernovae, ASASSN-151h exploded in a large, calm galaxy
The supernova, named ASASSN-15lh, occurred in a distant galaxy 3.8 billion light-years away, and is 200 times more powerful than the average supernova.
The huge blast, reported in the journal Science, is at the very upper limit of researchers' understanding of stellar physics, raising new questions about how such a powerful event could be generated.
"It's an extreme example — it's so extreme that it's really unclear what's actually causing the supernova — if that's what it is," one of the study's authors, Dr Benjamin Shappee of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, said.
"This was so exciting and so far outside what's expected, I was a little sceptical until we got the follow-up data.
"Then when we saw it on two different telescopes and confirmed the data I started to get extremely excited."
The record-breaking explosion, thought to be a super-luminous supernova, was discovered in June using the All-Sky Automated Survey for SuperNovae system (ASASSN).
Most super-luminous supernovae occur in small, busy star-forming galaxies. However, ASASSN-15lh exploded in a large and rather calm galaxy.
David Bowie left an incalculable legacyJanuary 17, 2016 12:00am RICHARD WILKINS
Sunday Herald Sun
Richard Wilkins with David Bowie.
DON McLean wrote the song American Pie, lamenting the death — more than half a century ago — of his idol Buddy Holly.
But for many of us it will be the sad day last week that we’ll never forget — the day we learnt of the passing of one of the giants of contemporary music and pop culture.
David Bowie. Even the name screams rock star and his loss is enormous, his legacy incalculable.
The first time I heard him was when Ground Control was dialling up Major Tom and telling him to take his protein pills and put his helmet on — what a song.
The Beatles and The Stones, the Hollies and The Who didn’t sound like that. It was the first glimpse of Bowie’s fascination with the cosmos and a clear indication that he was one to push the boundaries in every way. So inventive and imaginative, with a wry humour and intelligence to burn. He was sailing uncharted waters, following no one, the master of reinvention. While the word chameleon is often used when people are describing Bowie, it’s perfectly accurate.
To meet Bowie was to understand the concept of being in the presence of greatness. He was such a lovely man, passionate about his work, keen to talk about it and eager to have you listen to it. And while his reputation preceded him, he still radiated a warmth and generosity of spirit that made him instantly likeable. Charming, funny, confident about himself, but slightly shy around others, he was everything we want our rock stars to be.
FEATURED BOOK:
From one of the world's most admired war correspondents, Christina Lamb, comes a searing indictment of the West's involvement in wars against fundamentalist Islam, Farewell Kabul: From Afghanistan to a More Dangerous World. The pointless loss of American, British and Australian lives, has achieved nothing; despite the efforts to eliminate the Taliban from the country, their presence has continued to grow. Insurgent attacks have also increased, and the region still struggles against poverty, an unstable infrastructure and a huge number of land mines. Initially billed as the West's success story by both Bush and Blair, Afghanistan remains a lawless, violent land. The promises made to its people in 2001 have not been fulfilled. Foreign correspondent for one of the world's leading newspapers, The Sunday Times, educated at Oxford, a Fellow at Harvard University, a member of the National Geographic Society, former British Foreign Correspondent of the year and a multi award winner, Lamb has been reporting on the region of "pomegranates and war" since the age of 21, when she crossed the Hindu Kush into Afghanistan with mujaheddin fighting the Russians and fell unequivocally in love with this fierce country, a relationship which has dominated her adult life. Lamb has fought with the mujahadeen dressed as an Afghan boy, experienced a near-fatal ambush and head-on encounter with Taliban forces and successfully established links with American, British, Afghan government, Taliban and tribal fighters. Her unparalleled access to troops and civilians on the ground, as well as to top military officials has ensured that Farewell Kabul is the definitive book on the region, exposing the realities of Afghanistan unlike anyone before, compelling, moving and impossible to put down.
Richard Wilkins with David Bowie.
