Bartlett's Blog

As the speech itself acknowledges, a single speech can't resolve things.  But it is impossible to overstate how significant it would be if the vision President Obama expresses and aspires to in this speech is successful.  The text of the speech is here, or here for translations into 14 other languages.  It is worth taking the time to listen to and watch as well.

Larvatus Prodeo draws attention to a significant and sensible comment by British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who has acknowledged the unhelpfulness and inaccuracy of the “War on Terror” phrase and indicated the British government stopped using it some time ago.  Anyone in Australia who has made the same point over the last seven or so years has usually been branded as being at best “soft on terror” or ...

I went along to a meeting of peace activists held in Brisbane over the weekend, examining ways forward in the current political and social environment.  I suspect promoting peace above conflict has always been a far harder row to hoe, but it’s still something worth struggling for wherever possible. The urgency of now does tend to make us overemphasise the present situation compared to the past, which now seems ...

This week saw the fortieth anniversary of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). One thing that has often perplexed me is how much the public anxiety about the proliferation of nuclear and other armaments has diminished over the last twenty years. The end of the Cold War could explain some of it, but given the repeated references by various political leaders to the threat of terrorism, a ‘War on Terror’, rogue ...

It was 1981 when an Australian Democrat Senator first proposed to amend the Defence Act to require the approval of Parliament before our troops could be sent overseas to war. It has been proposed many times since - I still have a Bill before the Senate which would achieve this.- but has never gained the support of a major party. Prof George Williams has a good piece in ...

A US soldier has appeared at Congress, stating his refusal to serve in Iraq, citing grounds that the US military presence there “is unconstitutional and illegal.” Sergeant Matthis Chiroux had already served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines before he was honorably discharged and placed in the reserves, which immunises him against any cheap shots that he is just a coward. As a reservist, he was due ...

It is understandable that the media and community tend to focus on the people killed in action in wars, as well as on the civilian casualties in the war zone. But it does mean that the ongoing impacts on the soldiers who return home can be forgotten – especially those who return apparently unwounded. It is an unfortunate tendency of governments to be more enthusiastic about sending people to ...

Cutting ten billion dollars in spending from the Defence Department sounds dramatic – until you notice it’s to be spread over ten years. Apart from the basic mathematical fact that this immediately reduces the cuts to just $1 billion a year, government money announcements – for both cuts and spending – that are spread over ten years have a strong tendency to be back-ended to the outlying years, which ...

The fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq has provided plenty of reflections on the consequences and correctness of that decision. The Easter long weekend is probably as good a time as any time to read back over some of what was said at the time of the invasion. One quote from around that period which is worth revisiting is that of former Prime Minister, John Howard, who ...

I wrote a couple of weeks ago about the lack of public debate in Australia regarding our ongoing troop commitment in Afghanistan (also touched on over at Larvatus Prodeo).  This contrasts with Canada, where that country’s Liberal government has given notice that it wants to extend the country’s combat mission in Afghanistan until 2011, which will trigger a debate and vote on the matter in their Parliament next ...

Sometimes I find it strange that there is so little public debate about the ongoing engagement of Australian troops in Afghanistan. As this piece from The Age last October noted, "recent polling indicates declining public support, with half saying the troops should be pulled out", even though "there is bipartisan support for that war from the major parties" and "Labor leader Kevin Rudd has gone so far as to ...

Former Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser gave an interesting speech last week entitled “Finding Security in Terrorism’s Shadow: The importance of the rule of law”. It is an interesting and thought provoking speech. It is appropriately scathing of the neo-conservatives and their malign influence not just in the USA but on the globe. But it also goes beyond that into the history, role and importance of the rule ...

While our government makes every effort to distract the public with their undefined, ever-shifting ‘war’ on terror, there is a real war and real ever-present terror going on – one which our government, and thus our country, initiated and continues to support. The USA based magazine The Nation has just published a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war. Our war. ...

I'm in Yeppoon this weekend attending some of the Peace Convergence – a gathering of people protesting against the Talisman Saber defence exercise (also known as 'war games'), which are taking place in nearby Shoalwater Bay, next to Byfield National Park. Some protestors and activists have been here during the week, but the main actions are over the weekend. Tonight, over 300 people packed out the Yeppoon Town ...

The Senate has been sitting last week and this week. The Parliament will then rise, returning in the second week of August (missing the period which is usually the harshest part of Canberra's winter). Pre-election hysteria has very much hit inside the sealed off bubble that exists around Parliament House, and any issue that doesn't fit into the chosen storylines and mantra of the political spin ...

I wrote a piece on this blog last year about four Australian peace protestors being put on trial for entering the Pine Gap intelligence facility as part of a nonviolent protest (which I note attracted a much larger than usual number of comments from readers). Even though many people have been charged over the years with basic trespass offences as part of protests at Pine Gap, this time ...

A piece in The Australian states that our Defence Force is “losing its new soldiers, sailors and pilots at an accelerating rate, with more than one in five army recruits quitting in the first 12 months.” As well continuing difficulties with retention, we are also falling short in initial recruitment numbers. No doubt there are many reasons why this is so, but I am convinced that a key ...

Further to my recent post on whether or not Australia should further embrace uranium and the nuclear fuel industries, today I attended a screening of A Hard Rain, which is the new documentary by Australian film maker David Bradbury, who also managed to get along to answer a few questions at the end of the film. David Bradbury has a long career of political documentaries, and it’s no surprise ...

I attended an interesting function today in the Chinatown Mall in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley. It was the unveiling of a commemorative Chinese bell, dedicated to all Australian military service personnel of Chinese heritage, past and present. The bell is 1.41 meters tall and 0.91 metres in diameter. Weighing in at 1080 kilograms, I think it is reasonable to describe it as a big bell. It is engraved with ...

Apart from being Valentine’s Day, February 14th is also National Servicemen’s Day. Veteran’s Affairs Minister, Bruce Billson has issued a press release ‘encourag(ing)…all Australians to reflect on the service and sacrifice of Australia’s national servicemen…’ He is right to draw attention to the role of those who were obliged to serve our country during the 1950s, 60s and early 70s. 20 000 Nashos served in Vietnam and ...