Required reading/listening is British thinker George Monbiot, author of The Age of Consent who recently visited Oz. A repeat interview by ABC FM's Margaret Throsby - what a wonderful interviewer! - was broadcast on Monday.
George is a columnist for the Guardian and has held visiting professorships or fellowships at universities including Oxford, Bristol, Keele and East London.
Link to the interview is:
George Monbiot
Monbiot's website
And, Margaret's got Age journo/writer Martin Flanagan on Friday.
And while, we're at it, get a hit of John Pilger...
"What good friends left behind ...
Two years ago, as the bombs began to drop, George Bush promised Afghanistan 'the generosity of America and its allies'. Now, the familiar old warlords are regaining power, religious fundamentalism is renewing its grip and military skirmishes continue routinely. What was the purpose?.............."
The link is:
Pilger on Afghanistan
And, TT's London correspondent Scott Plimpton says that " last night on ITV, his latest film "Breaking the Silence" was broacast. It is reviewed in today's press thus:
Breaking the Silence, a review
ITV1's Breaking the Silence: A Special Report by John Pilger was an astonishing piece of television that should be required viewing in every home, school and office. With facts bristling from his fingertips, Pilger revised the Bush/Blair version of events leading up to the conquest of Iraq to reveal an agenda of unprovoked aggression, excused and obscured by ruthless manipulation of September 11. Mr Blair's cod-Churchillian rhetoric about "freedom and justice" sounded more hollow than ever against images of devastated civilian lives in Kabul and Baghdad. Mr Bush's wild claim that "the United States of America is a friend to the Iraqi people" lacked that ring of truth when we'd seen screaming infants with limbs blown off.
The film's high points came when Pilger confronted the beady-eyed apologists of the Washington regime. One Douglas Feith, an undersecretary of defence, denied Pilger's evidence of civilian casualties, denied the fact that the US and the UK had supplied arms to Iraq, and seemed ready to deny that fish gotta swim and birds gotta fly until he was stopped by a sinister, unseen military minder. Others squirmed under the lash of Pilger's research, but were unshakeable in their faith in America's divine right to be right.
Pilger is good at confrontation; he doesn't lose his cool, and he has the gimlet glare of a man who knows he's right. His arsenal of facts was awesome. We saw footage of Colin Powell in February 2001 saying that Saddam Hussein had not developed weapons of mass destruction, nor had he rebuilt his military power. The US had originally funded and supported the Taliban. There were no links between Iraq and al-Qaida. There was no 45-minute capability. Even a former CIA man admitted the pretext for war was "a charade".
Breaking the Silence ended with a rallying cry. There are only two superpowers left, said Pilger: the USA, and worldwide public opinion. "If we remain silent, victory over us is assured."
RAPID RESPONSE EMAIL: What do you think?
Wednesday, September 24, 2003