Senior officers ‘let off the hook over war crimes’, says CoalitionBen Packham
29 minutes ago.
Updated 2 minutes ago

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Senior commanders have been let off the hook for war crimes on their watch in Afghanistan, the Coalition and senior defence figures have warned, after Richard Marles stripped medals from fewer than 10 current and former officers for failing to prevent murders by their subordinates.
Veterans groups lashed the revocation of distinguished service awards from commanders who were mid-ranking offers at the time of the crimes, with the SAS Association accusing the Defence Minister of betraying those who risked their lives for their country.
But opposition defence spokesman Andrew Hastie – a former SAS captain who served in Afghanistan – said the punishment didn’t go far enough and higher commanders should have been held to account for the crimes identified in the 2020 Brereton report.
“I believe that our troops were let down by a lack of moral courage that went up the chain of command all the way to Canberra – including in this house,” he said in an emotional address to parliament. “From Tarin Kowt to Kabul to Kandahar to Dubai to Can­berra. Those in the chain of command should have asked more questions.”
Mr Hastie, who once reported a soldier under his command for severing the hand of a dead ­Taliban fighter, said earlier intervention by the nation’s military and political leaders might have prevented many of the war crimes.
He was backed by retired major general Fergus McLachlan – a former armoured regiment chief – who said many veterans would be disappointed that more senior ADF leaders escaped without penalty.

Former defence chief Angus Campbell will retain his Distinguished Service Cross, despite serving as Australia’s joint task force commander in the Middle East in 2011, when some of the war crimes are believed to have occurred.
General McLachlan said: “To me, the unresolved question is why did the minister choose to cap it (at mid-ranking officers), and not at the JTF commander level? I don’t think veterans will be satisfied with this result”. He said General Campbell “should have surrendered his (Distinguished Service Cross) on the first day, when he released the Brereton report”.
Mr Marles “closed off” the government’s official response to the Brereton war crimes inquiry in a statement to parliament on Thursday, stripping medals from between six and nine serving and former officers for war crimes by those under their command.
He refused to name those who faced the penalty, citing privacy laws, but they are believed to include former lieutenant colonels and majors who commanded special operations task groups and SAS deployments.
Up to five more faced losing their medals in advice prepared for Mr Marles by General Campbell, but avoided the penalty.
Mr Marles defended the small number of commanders held accountable for the dozens of murders revealed in the Brereton report, saying he had followed the inquiry’s findings “to the letter”.

Pauline Hanson: Cutting your D**** off does NOT make you a woman!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BL_zXfvC0Hs

Orwell or Huxley? Nightmare visions now stalk feckless West

Adam Creighton, The Australian, 12 September, 2024

The Labor government’s misinformation bill looks almost certain to pass, bestowing unprecedented powers on Australia’s bureaucracy to censor online speech “in the public interest” after a series of perfunctory assurances that freedom of speech won’t be impinged. Don’t bet on it. The West is becoming more controlling. In the birthplace of John Locke, we’ve just witnessed a spate of arrests for people who were expressing their opinions.

This week Brazil joined France, Russia and China in banning video-sharing platform Rumble, just days after it shut down access to X for the same reason: refusing to crack down on misinformation and disinformation.

Last month French authorities arrested the chief executive and founder of Telegram, Pavel Durov, who faces jail time for “complicity” in the alleged crimes of some of the millions of users of his platform. And weeks before this, the European Union threatened Elon Musk for hosting an interview on his own platform with Donald Trump.

Meanwhile, central banks are itching to replace cash and bank deposits with “digital currencies”, whereby every private payment can and will be tracked, perhaps bringing an end to crime and certainly of privacy.

Make no mistake, governments across the West are seeking “no less than unfettered surveillance over our entire digital lives”, according to RMIT professor Chris Berg. Berg wrote: “The law enforcement dragnet is being widened from private financial transactions to private speech. If it is a crime to build privacy tools, there will be no privacy.”

It’s no wonder, then, that George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, published in 1949, as a warning of what life might become, has rocketed up the bestseller charts in recent years.

Winston Smith’s horrible life at the Ministry of Truth doesn’t seem so foreign anymore. As big tech and artificial intelligence become increasingly sophisticated and ubiquitous, the potential to prosecute “thought crimes” is becoming a reality.

Just as “Oceania was always at war with Eurasia”, the US and its satellites are increasingly at war with Russia and China, as the populations of each side are bombarded with daily propaganda that casts the other as evil. State propaganda has proliferated in a way unimaginable even a decade ago. “The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”

During the pandemic, “trust the science” was trumpeted relentlessly, even if much of it proved hopelessly wrong, and contrary to the observations of our eyes and ears. Masks are effective, lockdowns work, Covid vaccines are “safe and effective”. War is Peace, censorship is speech, men can be women. This is as it was for Smith – telling the truth is increasingly a revolutionary act.

Orwell’s classic text is rightly revered as one of the great books of the 20th century, but another, published in 1932, is more relevant for our times – Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, set in 2450AD.

Huxley’s book speaks to a more likely future, where a “world state” ensures universal happiness underpinned by mandatory pleasure, mindless consumption and promiscuity, and genetic manipulation, where an endless flow of drugs and medicines keeps everyone content and “pneumatic”.

Look at us already. Ozempic, which promises to end obesity, is exploding. More than 131 million people – 66 per cent of all adults in the US – use prescription drugs, according to the US congress.

In Brave New World: “There’s always soma to calm your anger, to reconcile you to your enemies, to make you patient and long-suffering.”

We don’t yet have soma, which has “all the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects”, but we do have mindless scrolling on social media, which doesn’t seem to far off.

Orwell’s future is simply too ghastly. In Huxley’s view, “most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution”.

Huxley’s propaganda machine was even more efficient than Orwell’s. “One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them … Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can’t,” World Controller Mustapha Mond explains to his young proteges.

Unlike Orwell’s future, dissent was tolerated: Huxley’s “noble savages”, who “didn’t want comfort” or soma, who instead wanted “God, poetry, real danger, freedom goodness and sin”, were banished to detention centres to be mocked. “Everyone belongs to everyone else,” Mond boasts, in a fashion eerily familiar to that appalling pandemic line: “Nobody is safe until everyone is safe.”

Synthetic food replaced meat, and just as reading is giving way to podcasts now, books were also discouraged in a Brave New World.

The rigid social hierarchy of Huxley’s world, of Alphas, Betas and Gammas, might not be too far-fetched either as so-called “coupling” becomes more class-based, as Charles Murray argues in his magisterial book, Coming Apart.

And perhaps the notion of world government isn’t so fanciful either; massive unwanted immigration has for decades been eroding the justification for individual nation states, as each embraces the same banal “values”, governed by ruling elites who have more in common with each other than their own people.

In explaining why he wrote Nineteen Eighty-Four, Orwell wrote: “Most intellectuals (were) perfectly ready for dictatorial methods, secret police, systemic falsification of history, etc, so long as they feel that it is on ‘our’ side.”

In his 1958 edition, Huxley forecast “the second half (of the century) may well be the era of the social engineers — and the 21st century, I suppose, will be the era of World Controllers, the scientific caste system and Brave New World.”

Huxley died on the same day as John F. Kennedy, which didn’t do wonders for the length of his obituaries, or the lasting fame of his great work. As our societies change rapidly for the worse, his book demands more attention.

Progressive politicians mugged by reality:

The EU is disintegrating before our eyes

Gavin Mortimer, The Spectator, 11 September 2024

Germany’s decision to reintroduce border controls in an attempt to halt mass immigration is awkward for Keir Starmer. A fortnight ago the British Prime Minister, a friend of European free movement, visited Berlin and among the issues he discussed with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz were trade, defence and immigration.

A few days before Starmer’s visit, three people were killed at a diversity festival by a suspected Syrian refugee. Germany’s decision to tighten its borders (initially for six months but this could be extended) is partly a reaction to that atrocity as well as the failed attack last week on the Israeli consulate in Munich.

It is also a response by Scholz to the victory last week of the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Thuringia’s state election.

That success was the latest triumph in Europe for parties variously described as populist, far-right or nationalist. Take your pick.

Another description could be that they are the parties of the disillusioned, voters who see in the EU nothing but a failed project that has impoverished and endangered them.

Across the continent, mass immigration has led to a deterioration in social cohesion, to the ‘ghettoisation’ of inner cities from Malmo to Marseille to Mannheim, and the re-emergence of an anti-Semitism that Europe hoped it had eradicated three-quarters of a century ago.

This disillusionment has now spread to the elites. On Monday, Mario Draghi, the ex-president of the European Central Bank and a poster boy for the European technocrat class, published a 400-page report on competitiveness that was commissioned by the European Commission in 2023.

Shortly before Draghi published the report, the EU Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, posted a message on social media saying that she was ‘eager’ to hear what the former Italian PM had to say.

She might not have liked what she heard. Over 400 pages, Draghi laid bare just how sclerotic and uncompetitive the EU has become this century. Things are so bad that Draghi admitted to having ‘nightmares’ about Europe’s future if nothing is done to halt what he described as the ‘slow agony’ of the continent’s economic decline.

In the press conference that accompanied the release of his report, Draghi said that only ‘unprecedented’ reform would arrest the decline. ‘For the first time since the Cold War, we must genuinely fear for our self-preservation, and the reason for a unified response has never been so compelling’, explained Draghi.

He said Europe required additional annual investment of at least €750 billion – approximately 5 per cent of the EU’s gross domestic product – if the EU is to catch up to America and prevent being overtaken by China. It is a damning indictment of how moribund the EU has become that of the world’s leading 50 tech firms only four are European.

If the 27 EU members ignore his report, Draghi predicted a grim future: ‘We will be forced to choose,’ he said. ‘We will not be able to become, at once, a leader in new technologies, a beacon of climate responsibility and an independent player on the world stage. We will not be able to finance our social model. We will have to scale back some, if not all, of our ambitions.’

In other words, Europe will continue its transformation from a first world to a third world continent.

This is the reason why so many voters have turned away from the traditional mainstream parties, be it in France, Holland, Italy or Germany. They see their living standards are on the wane, and that poverty, violence and anti-Semitism are on the rise.

As I wrote in January, as Europe’s farmers descended on Brussels to vent their anger against an EU determined to impose ruinous green dogma on their industry, Europeans have had enough of the chronic mismanagement that has been the hallmark of the EU this century. ‘In 2008 the Eurozone and the US had comparable gross domestic products (GDP) of $14.2 trillion and $14.8 trillion in today’s prices,’ I wrote. ‘In 2023 the eurozone’s GDP had edged up to just over $15 trillion, while America’s stood at $26.9 trillion’

If France was a US State its GDP per capita would rank it between Idaho and Arkansas, respectively the 48th and 49th most prosperous states. Germany would be 39th, just behind Oklahoma.

Draghi’s blueprint for change contains a series of proposals for reinvigorating the bloc. ‘Europe must become a place where innovation flourishes,’ he proclaimed.

Easier said than done. The two traditional powerhouses of Europe, Germany and France, are in desperate economic trouble with the latter crippled by huge debts. They are also the EU countries where discontent with mass immigration is the most visceral.

France’s new Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, has promised to address the issue and he might be emboldened by Germany’s decision to reintroduce border controls. Three years ago Barnier declared himself in favour of a three to five year moratorium on immigration, saying that the current flow was unsustainable and responsible for an increase in insecurity and Islamism.

The same applies in Britain, although Starmer and his government appear incapable of admitting it. Their heads remain stuck in the sand, not just about the downside of mass immigration but about the scale of the EU’s decline. Why would any sane political leader want closer ties with an organisation that is suffering a slow and agonising death?

Shoebridge to speak as protesters prepare for final Land Forces showdown

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Australian police crackdown on antiwar protesters in Melbourne, calling for an end to the war in Gaza.
Greens Senator David Shoebridge will address anti-war protesters in Melbourne on Friday as organisers encourage people to “mask up” for the final showdown at the Land Forces Expo.
On Wednesday, Senator Shoebridge raised concerns about the police response in parliament and shared legal information for those who were sprayed by police, which encouraged them to document what happened, make a complaint to IBAC and seek damages in a civil case.
“The Greens will continue and always state that protests should be peaceful and will oppose violence by the state or otherwise,” he said.
Disrupt Land Forces organisers told attendees to “come down, mask up, block up, get your goggles,” in a Telegram chat on Friday morning.
Police Association secretary Wayne Gatt blasted Mr Shoebridge for suggesting Tuesday’s anti-war protest was a peaceful movement, saying he made the comments from his “privileged office, protected by police, hundreds of kilometres from the frontline of a protest that saw my members set upon and assaulted.”
“It’s easy to criticise from that place of comfort, but much harder to stand on a thin line between a violent mob of masked thugs and everyday people,” Mr Gatt said.
Mr Shoebridge will also speak at an online forum organised by the Disrupt Land Forces group that was responsible for advocating much of the violence that erupted on Tuesday.

Oops!

Snap, Roger.

Wowee, this brought a tear to my eyes:

kevin smith on X: “Meet Liam. A New York boy with a rare brain disorder and growth hormone deficiency. Who got a very special 8th birthday letter from a very special person. This is the side of Trump the media WILL NEVER show you. https://t.co/5NvwbyXyVk” / X

Tasty…

SHOCK CLAIM: Kamala Harris Was Given “Sample Questions” Prior to ABC Debate | Matzav.com

An eight minute video on whether Kam.Allah was wearing an earpiece or not. This guy is pretty bloody good and the earrings she was wearing look A LOT like the earpieces he’s talking about!!!

BelannF on X: “DIDN’T KNOW WHETHER TO BELIEVE THE EARRINGS WERE ACTUALLY WIRELESS EARBUDS – OR – Is the denial of Kam.alah wearing wireless earbuds a conspiracy about the conspiracy? Take a look and see what the manufacturer has on their website – VERY INTERESTING. What do you think? https://t.co/gudoMYaOo3” / X

Bruce of Newcastle
 September 13, 2024 9:21 am

The antisemites are unhappy again.
‘Feral’: Faeces, fire, graffiti targets candidates in ugly election races (Tele, paywalled)

Anitsemitic graffiti sprawled on corflutes and election posters torched in the dead of night are among the brazen acts of pre-election skulduggery to strike council candidates in recent days.

Here’s the graphic with the story. Such charming people these activists are.

Islam is a vile, eschatological, agnotological, consanguineous ideology, devoid of benefit and virtue. But it would be nothing without the support it receives from the left. Islam is one of the main designated victims of the left. As such it is protected from the treatment it merits, obliteration, because the left frame it as a victim of western hegemony and as a justification for their activism against the West. The left did this in iran and had the Shah removed and when the mullahs waddled in 10s of thousands of the left activists who had enabled the return of the muzzies were executed. Here in Australia rub and tug is finding out his muzzie vote herds are turning against him and voting for themselves. Every time the left champions the enemy of the West and are the first executed. The problem is the rest of us are next in line.

Next to muzzies and commies I hate alarmists like this smug, dumb kunt the most:

Australia ‘incredibly exposed’ to climate change: Zali Steggall (msn.com)

Alarmism is the biggest virtue signalling piece of crap in the leftie arsenal. There is not a shred of evidence to support it but the West is literally being destroyed by alarmism.