keywords: Osama Bin Laden
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AUSTRALIA
- Jeff Sparrow
- 31 January 2019
18 Comments
John Howard promised to 'stay the course' in Afghanistan. So too did Tony Abbott, Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard. So complete was the political consensus that parliament didn't even debate the Afghan intervention until nine years after it began. Now that there's no longer a course on which to stay, we're due some accountability.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Rachel Woodlock
- 14 November 2017
7 Comments
These lone-wolf terrorists are more like miners' canaries. Whether it is a paranoid loner, an enraged ideologue, a jihadist or a white supremacist, they are screaming out at the top of their lungs that something is terribly wrong.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
Brian Doyle was the editor of Portland Magazine at the University of Portland, the author most recently of the essay collection Grace Notes, and a long time contributor to Eureka Street. Brian died early Saturday morning 27 May 2017 following complications related to a cancerous brain tumour, at the age of 60. Here we present a collection of some of Brian's best pieces from the past 12 years.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Binoy Kampmark
- 19 January 2017
5 Comments
Manning became the victim of an institutional drive to target whistleblowers, with the centrepiece of the prosecution focusing on computer crimes and the Espionage Act. Despite the eventual commutation of her 35 year sentence, the severity of that sentence demonstrated the gulf between the cosy, public relations air of an administration keen to project certain achievements and its stomping on those keen to disclose inappropriate and illegal conduct in the security and intelligence services.
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MEDIA
- Binoy Kampmark
- 22 September 2016
9 Comments
The relationship between the whistleblower and journalism has not always been a neat one. The tendency for symbiosis to become positively vengeful is evidenced in the Washington Post stance on Edward Snowden's whistleblowing activities. Having scooped up a Pulitzer working on the Snowden findings, the paper got nasty. There was little need for the paper to wade into these waters, but the editors obviously felt so strongly about Snowden it went for the jugular with seething conviction.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 28 February 2013
After cataloguing the ways in which the film belittles and marginalises the experiences of black slaves, Williams laments the fact that such marginalisation continues to exist seemingly unnoticed in mainstream popular culture. The Oscar awarded to Django Unchained is the epitome of popular culture 'not noticing'.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Tim Kroenert
- 31 January 2013
5 Comments
The tagline 'history's greatest manhunt for the world's most dangerous man' is ironic. By the time of bin Laden's execution his dangerousness was arguably largely emblematic. Zero Dark Thirty portrays the manhunt as a quest for revenge, and leaves open to question whether America was enhanced or diminished by exacting its vengeance.
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AUSTRALIA
- Tony Kevin
- 01 November 2012
9 Comments
If citizens of other nations could vote, it should be Obama by a mile! Outsiders are perplexed by polling that suggests a cliffhanger in the contest between the incumbent Obama and the Republican compromise candidate Romney. The issues – many of which are vital for Australia – are clear, but the outcome is not.
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AUSTRALIA
- Pat Walsh
- 12 October 2012
4 Comments
The bombing in Bali ten years ago today did not target Balinese directly, but they took the collateral damage to tourism, their bread and butter, very personally. Drawing his finger across his throat in a slitting motion, a smiling Balinese says he is happy the bombers have been executed.
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AUSTRALIA
- Jim McDermott
- 10 September 2012
3 Comments
The US finished Act One of its quadrennial orgiastic political kabuki last week with the Republican and Democratic National Conventions. Originally conventions were intended to choose candidates, but today they’re more about motivating the parties’ bases, but really just a total schmozzle.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- P. S. Cottier
- 12 January 2012
'Kennedy was a cold warrior, but Johnson took it to the next level. He had the same my-balls-are-bigger-than-yours complex as Dubya.' The narrator journeys into the past in order to produce a kinder America. One that may not throw itself into Vietnam with such lust. Published 16 November 2011
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AUSTRALIA
- Brian Doyle
- 11 January 2012
1 Comment
To remember the roaring courage of the people who rushed to help, or the people who used their last minutes on earth to call their families and say I love you I love you I will you forever, is to pray for them and us and even the poor silly murderers, themselves just lanky frightened children. Published 8 September 2011
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