The nation of Niger, located in west Africa, is under military rule. A coup d’état by a group of officers ousted the civilian president, Mohamed Bazoum, and installed General Abdourahmane Tchiani as leader of the country. The coup took place in late July this year. A former French colony, Niger gained independence in 1960, and currently has a population of 24 million people.

Let’s go into a bit of relevant background, so we can better understanding this coup in Niger. Why is Niger important to the Western nations? Why the focus on the Sahel?

France – former colonial power in the Sahel

Niger is located in the Sahel; the latter is not a country. A bio-geographic, eco-climatic region stretching in a band across Africa, it is the region below the Sahara where the desert conditions transition to savannah grassland. Niger, along with Mali and other west African nations, form a group of states economically and linguistically ties to France, the former colonial power.

For its part, France has maintained a web of intricate political and economic networks in the Sahel, intent on sustaining its predominant position in west Africa since decolonisation in the 1960s. Since the era of De Gaulle, the French ruling class has sought to aggrandise its international role, and kept west Africa as a network of clientele states – a policy of Francafrique.

Niger possesses extensive mineral resources, including uranium, diamonds, cobalt and platinum. Niger provides the uranium which powers the French nuclear and electricity industries.

French troops, since 2014, has been fighting Islamist and nationalist rebels in Niger, Mali, and other Sahel nations. Under the pretext of counterterrorism, Paris has deployed French troops and special forces in its former West African colonies. In 2020, no less a media outlet than the highly esteemed New York Times published an extensive article on the French military expedition in the Sahel.

The NY Times noted that the Sahel was becoming France’s forever war; a quagmire into which French imperialism has poured dollars and soldiers. In 2014, the French authorities promised that the deployment to the Sahel, and combat against Islamist extremism, would only last a few weeks. Seven years later, the French forces were still fighting. It is interesting to note how rival imperialist states are very effective at highlighting the crimes and misdeeds of their opponents.

The European Union (EU) nations have spent billions of dollars over the course of decades, outsourcing the policing and detention of migrants and refugees to sub-Saharan African countries. Niger, a mineral-resource rich nation in the Sahel, has served as a crucial lynchpin of this EU policy. Successive Nigerien governments have had formal partnerships with the EU to detain and corral would-be asylum seekers, preventing them from reaching Libya and Tunisia. The latter nations have served as embarkation points for refugees seeking asylum in Europe.

The US role

The United States, utilising its well worn rationale of a ‘war on terror’, constructed the largest, most expensive drone base in the world, in Niger. Located 5 kilometres south east of Agadez, Niger Air Base 201 cost millions of dollars to build, and requires millions each year for its upkeep. A hub of intelligence operations in the Sahel, the base is part of the expanding US military footprint in Africa. Since the recent coup, the base is unusable, and American military personnel are restricted to its premises.

American special forces have been active in Niger, with the permission of the previous Nigerien authorities. Elite units of American troops have been killed in engagements with Islamist militants, part of a covert war in the Sahel. The US deployment to Niger over the last twenty years has hardly been marginal or tangential to US interests. Not to be outdone, Germany has deployed contingents of troops Niger and Mali. The Bundeswehr, since 2018, has been training Nigerien troops in their fight against Islamist groups.

Not a Conradian ‘heart of darkness’

It is too simplistic, and woefully inaccurate, to dismiss the Nigerien coup as simply the work of power-hungry military officers. African politics is usually interpreted – if at all – by the corporate-controlled media as involving corrupt despots, power-mad generals and tribal warfare. This viewpoint reinforces our view of independent African nations unable or too incompetent to govern themselves.

The Nigerien military coup leaders did not decide to carry out their putsch on a whim. They did not seize power in a fit of semi-libidinous excitement for more authority. Niger is the fourth nation in west Africa to experience an anti-western coup by nationalist military officers. Mali, Burkina Faso and Guinea have, since 2020, undergone coups by military officers who objected to the deployment of foreign troops (namely French and American) on their soil.

The leaders of Burkina Faso and Mali have explicitly stood by their fellow officers in Niger, denouncing suggestions by European governments to intervene militarily if ousted president Bazoum is not reinstated.

It is no wonder that numerous Western governments have watched the unfolding events in Niger with alarm. The role of Russia, if any, is still unclear at this time. The would-be putschist and mercenary Russian braggart Yezhgeny Prigozhin welcomed the Nigerien coup. Moscow’s attitude is more circumspect; however, given the recent high level Russia-Africa Summit, Moscow is making a strong push into African affairs.

Most of the corporate media are portraying the events in Niger as a worrying loss for the West in the fight against Islamist extremism. They are correct up to a point – however, the Nigerien generals are fully committed to combating religiously extremist groups. The ascent of nationalist officers to power in Niger – along with Burkina Faso, Mali and Guinea – is, in a way, the revenge of Gaddafi. The latter was a Libyan patriotic officer who overthrew a weak, imperialist-backed proxy regime in that northern Arab-African nation in 1969.

Since the 2011 demise of the Gaddafi regime, Islamist organisations have spread throughout the Sahel, including in Niger. Rather than a Conradian ‘heart of darkness’ to which African nations are condemned by pro-imperialist writers, the darkness is not in the skin colour of the Africans, but in the imperialist project itself.

Tobias Ellwood, conservative MP in Britain, has faced heavy criticism for posting positive comments regarding the rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan. After a visit to the country, Ellwood claimed that a sense of calm has returned to the war-ravaged nation, and that corruption has been significantly curtailed by the Taliban authorities. The drug trade has also been suppressed under Taliban rule.

In August 2021, the Taliban returned to power after American and NATO forces abandoned Kabul in a humiliating defeat. Ellwood urged the British and western governments to reengage with the Taliban, stating that shouting demands from afar is a failed approach. After making these comments, Ellwood backtracked, and removed the posts from his social media footprint. He has faced calls from within his own party to stand down from the defence committee of which he is the chair.

His comments regarding engagement with the Taliban may be outrageous, but they are not outside the mainstream line of thinking. Only a few weeks prior to the fall of Kabul to the Taliban in August 2021, no less a figure than Britain’s army chief General Nick Carter advised his colleagues that we must give the incoming Taliban a chance. General Carter opined that we may find the Taliban militia more reasonable in their outlook, and effective in government. So Ellwood’s call for engagement was not out of the ordinary.

Ellwood ignored the deplorable treatment of women under Taliban rule, the growing restrictions on women’s freedom of movement, employment and education. There is another cause of the plight of Afghani women, a cause which is within Ellwood’s power to address. The US and Britain have imposed economically crippling sanctions against the country since the August 2021 assumption of power by the Taliban.

Afghanistan relied heavily on overseas sources of revenue to keep its public services, education and infrastructure going. Those millions in overseas holdings have been frozen since the US imposed sanctions as collective punishment on the Afghan people. For instance, after NATO forces pulled out of Kabul, the US not only froze $9.5 billion worth of the Afghan Central Bank’s assets, but also pushed the IMF to stop funding for Covid relief.

There is an ongoing humanitarian catastrophe inside Afghanistan; thousands of women teachers, health care workers, public servants, cannot be paid their salaries. The health care system is breaking down, impacting millions of Afghani women and children. So, if Western feminists want to help Afghan women, they could start by demanding the end of sanctions against Afghanistan.

Farrah Haseen, writing in Counterpunch, notes that the Afghani people do not bear any legal or ethical responsibility for the 9/11 attacks. She points out that the families of the 9/11 victims, have written to the US President denouncing the freezing of funds belonging to Afghanistan. The last thing they want is to take money away from starving Afghans.

Binoy Kampmark wrote, in February 2022, that nothing could be more counterproductive than hitting Afghanistan with sanctions, in an act of collective revenge for the defeat of US military forces in that nation. In fact, by imposing sanctions, thus producing a humanitarian disaster Afghanistan, the US is ensuring that the nation becomes a failed state. I seem to remember American scholars talking about how failed states are conducive to producing recruits for terrorist groups?….the very outcome the Washington beltway pundits claim to oppose…..

If Ellwood’s suggestion to reengage with the Taliban was outrageous – and it was – he was not the first to pursue such a course of action. In the mid-1990s, when the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, their cooperation was actively courted – by the United States. A bevy of conservative oil tycoons and US politicians sought out the Taliban government, in order to construct transnational oil pipelines across Afghan territory.

Why is that important? Have a look at a map of Afghanistan. It straddles Central Asia, whose former Soviet republics contain profitable mineral reserves of oil and natural gas. However, they are landlocked – and constructing pipelines across miles of territory requires the cooperation of friendly governments. In the early 1990s, the newly independent Central Asian republics wanted the investments of oil and energy multinational companies.

The Taliban, after taking power in 1996, were visited by US officials and businesspeople from Unocal, the Union Oil Company of California, now owned by Chevron. Taliban officials were flown to the US in 1997, where they enjoyed the hospitality of their American hosts. One of the go-between for this burgeoning engagement with the Taliban was conservative politician and US policy strategist Zalmay Khalilzad.

Khalilzad, a cunning political operator, wrote an extensive opinion piece at the time, explicitly calling for engagement with the Taliban government in Afghanistan. His article, published in the Washington Post, admitted that while the Taliban were….a little bit on the ultra conservative, misogynistic and Pashtun-centric side of the spectrum, this did not mean that they could not be effective partners. They would be similar in theocratic policies like our other friends, Saudi Arabia.

He was very enthusiastic about the upcoming extraction of mineral resources from Central Asia, with a little help from our Afghan Taliban allies. After all, the US and its subcontractor allies, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, spent millions of dollars on fundamentalist Islamist groups in Afghanistan for their covert war against the Soviets. Now it was time for a return on investment.

Sadly for Khalilzad and the oil barons, these plans were interrupted. In August 1998, Al Qaeda militants attacked two US embassies, in Kenya and Tanzania. Killing over 200 people with these suicide bombings, the Taliban had provided refuge for Al Qaeda. In the immediate aftermath, the Taliban were transformed in the corporate media from reasonable business partners to monsters incarnate.

The suggestion by Tobias Ellwood to reengage with the Taliban was not his idea alone. He is travelling down a well-trodden footpath of US-British policy. Once the shooting war has stopped and the dust settles, the US and Britain do not hesitate to cozy up to fanatical groups in pursuit of geopolitical and economic interests.

The cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth Games by the Victorian State government has been met with a chorus of shrieking denunciations and condemnations by the conservative commentariat. Let’s leave Sky News commentators to scream their venom at this decision – there are more important subjects to talk about.

The Commonwealth Games – the rebadged Empire games – were about cementing cultural and sporting ties with the British empire. Colonialist in origin, the Commonwealth games were designed to promote a feel good narrative involving the colonised peoples of the now defunct empire. Australia, as an Anglo-origin outpost of Britain, has had an ambivalent relationship with the British empire. Aware of our status as a penal colony composed primarily of British rejects, we have bristled at the arrogance and pomposity of the effete British aristocracy. However, we are covetous of a greater place within the rebranded empire, the Commonwealth.

The British empire, in similar fashion to other empires, did not rely exclusively on brute force to maintain its rule. Yes, slavery, racism and exploitation are inherent features of the British empire’s expansion, but cultural ties were/are just as important. Promoting an ideology of empire loyalism gains the English ruling class recruits from among the ‘natives.’ Sport is a powerful factor in shaping identity; not for nothing did some empire loyalists suggest the creation of a British empire Olympic team, appealing to a narrow racial patriotism.

Constituting a supranational organisation, the Commonwealth (empire) games were a curious anomaly. Most sporting events involve geographically consistent entities – the Asian cup, African games and so on. Yes, the Olympics involve multiple nations, but they participate voluntarily. The British empire was not built on a voluntary basis. So while it may be sad for some to see the Commonwealth (empire) games reach obsolescence, it is hardly a cause of mourning among millions of people.

It is saddening to see the athletes and sportspersons, who have trained hard for so long, to have their hopes dashed with this cancellation. This does not blind us to the fact that the Commonwealth games are a faded relic from a long lost era of empire. Sean O’Grady, writing in the Independent, states that the Commonwealth games can be likened to an afternoon bacon sarnie – nice snack between meals, but won’t be missed once it is gone.

International sporting events are always a double-edged sword. Yes, they bring publicity, tourism and dollars to the host nation or city. However, they involve the demolition of local infrastructure purely for the international competition at hand; after all the competitors and fans have left, the stadiums and associated infrastructure become white elephants. The Olympics are the prime example of the putative benefits of hosting the event, being heavily outweighed by its post-event costing blowout.

There are no tears for the cancellation of the 2026 Commonwealth (empire) games. The FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer however, is an exciting international sporting event for Australia. Hang on a minute….am I not being a hypocrite? Why celebrate the FIFA Women’s World Cup soccer, but welcome the demise of the Commonwealth Games?

The Commonwealth games were aggressively promoted by the sporting powers-that-be; never short of funding or publicity, the Commonwealth games has had an unending conveyor belt of financial and cultural support. The women’s soccer, and soccer in general, has had to fight for recognition and its very existence in Australia as a legitimate sport. Long stigmatised as the ‘ethnic’ football, or more crudely, the ‘wogball’, the hosting of the international women’s soccer marks a qualitative step forward in the legitimation of soccer, and women’s sport in particular.

It is true that Australia’s soccer clubs have their foundations in the various immigrant communities that settled in Australia. The Italians, Greeks, Hungarians, Macedonians, Maltese – founded not only their respective social clubs, where migrants could find a safe haven amidst all the challenges of taking up a new life in a new home nation. They also began various soccer clubs – in fact, today’s Matildas can trace their beginnings to St George Budapest and Sydney Prague, two soccer clubs from a non-English speaking background (NESB).

The Italians founded Marconi and APIA Leichhardt in Sydney; the Croatians founded, among others, SC Croatia in Melbourne; the Serbians started the White Eagles in Bonnyrigg, Western Sydney; European Jews started the Maccabi Hakoah club in Sydney’s East; the Hungarians St George Budapest – you get the idea. Sydney Prague (founded by the Czech community), and St George Budapest formed the initial grounds for women’s soccer.

Samantha Lewis writes that the Australian women’s soccer teams, after proving their exceptional talent in local competitions, went on to participate at the international level. In the 1970s, Australian women Socceroos competing in Asian football tournaments, proving their mettle against Thailand, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore. This history is steadily being lost due to, according to Lewis, decades of apathy and neglect. While men’s sport has been assiduously catalogued and celebrated, women’s soccer achievements have been largely ignored. We have the opportunity to correct that omission.

Let the Commonwealth Games die a dignified death – and let’s celebrate the Matildas and their historic achievements in Australian sport.

Growing up in the 1980s in western Sydney, one cannot help but become familiar with the loud, overpowering rendition of the Cold Chisel song, Khe Sanh. Told from the viewpoint of an Australian Vietnam veteran, the lyrics reference not only the battle itself, but the aimlessness and drifting of the veteran in the post-Khe Sanh world.

After his return to Australia, the veteran recounts his life of post traumatic stress, womanising, working in various jobs, alcoholism, and his trip to Hong Kong for casual sex. As an adolescent listening to this most ‘Aussie’ of songs, its undercurrent of sadness indicates the restlessness of youth. The nightclubs of Sydney would consider their repertoire incomplete without the bellowing sounds of Jimmy Barnes, Cold Chisel’s lead singer, belting out Khe Sanh. Barnes’ own struggles with alcoholism and trauma are a reflection of the artist’s life taking on the dimensions of their lyrical subject – a pathos that only adds to the poignancy of the song.

I have often wondered though – what do the Vietnamese veterans think about Khe Sanh? Surely, if our Australian veterans suffered horrible stresses, is there not a comparable experience on the Vietnamese side? Actually, there is.

Colonel Tran Duc Binh, is a Vietnamese soldier; he is a veteran of the battle of Khe Sanh. On July 9, the Vietnamese government marked the 55th anniversary of that engagement. The North Vietnamese army at the time, supported by the National Liberation Front (popularly known in the West as the Viet Cong) battled American troops in Khe Sanh, starting from January 1968. Colonel Duc Binh returns to Khe Sanh every year to honour his fallen comrades.

Khe Sanh was not just an isolated battle, but a ferocious, bloody engagement. US Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, and General Westmoreland, were committed to a strategy known as the McNamara Line, a barrier protecting the US client state of South Vietnam from infiltration and attacks by the North Vietnamese. The US military deployed its entire arsenal in Khe Sanh, in the northwest region of the Quang Tri province. From January till July 1968, Khe Sanh was the most heavily bombarded place on the planet.

General Westmoreland, frustrated by the persistent resistance of the Vietnamese, considered deploying chemical and nuclear weapons, but was overruled by President Lyndon Johnson. The dense, mountainous terrain, it was argued, would limit the effectiveness of non conventional weapons, and result in unnecessary casualties among American military personnel.

The McNamara Line failed, and Khe Sanh fell to the North Vietnamese. The United States still disputes what happened at Khe Sanh, and insists that its forces withdrew to avoid further casualties. There have been numerous competing re-tellings of Khe Sanh, motivated by a nationalistic desire to preserve pride in the face of a military confrontation.

Khe Sanh, and the wider Quang Tri province, has been rebuilt since the end of the war. The pollution and Agent Orange is cleaned up, and the greenery is returning. Agriculture has returned to the province. There are the graves of the fallen, a solemn reminder of the human cost of Khe Sanh.

Subjects like the battle of Khe Sanh must be remembered, not only out of respect to the Australian veterans. In the context of the current Anglo-American war drive against China, there will be untold numbers of future Khe Sanhs, involving Australian and non-Chinese proxies as cannon fodder for American imperial ambitions.

Self-determination, client states and proxies

Being a supporter of the Palestinians involves two essential tasks; keeping up with the news of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian Territories, and also the contortions of US and British foreign policies regarding national self-determination. It is curiously fascinating to watch how, for instance, the Washington beltway experts loudly and forcefully advocate for Taiwan’s independence from China, and yet stubbornly refuse to acknowledge the legitimate demands of the Palestinians for an independent state.

The enthusiasm for Taiwan separatism can be explained by the growing role of Taiwan as a military armaments depot for the United States. The Biden administration has just approved new shipments of American military technology and hardware to Taiwan.

To be sure, Taiwan’s utility as an American base – an island version of the defunct and artificially-constructed Saigon South Vietnamese state – is diminishing with each passing year. Numerous countries are shifting their recognition to Beijing, and Taipei is losing supporters.

Nevertheless, Taiwan is becoming a proxy force for the US regime change plans, no matter how fanciful the latter may be. The Washington beltway punditocracy are experts in deluding themselves. That is fine, but they do not confine their delusions of grandeur to themselves, but spread them throughout the world, grabbing up proxies in the process.

One of the fanatics caught up in his own delusional fantasy land is former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott. He traveled to Taiwan in 2021, and dutifully played the role of war making chicken hawk. Goading Beijing, parroting the line of the Washington beltway, this featherweight pugilist allowed his delusions of heavyweight contention to carry him away. His ranting speech, delivered to a forum in October 2021, gave comfort to ultranationalist phantasms of regime change.

What he actually achieved was expose his lack of credibility – a cringeworthy performance of a barking chihuahua with pretensions of being a German shepherd. If Taiwan is used as a proxy force, backed by the political support for its separatism by the Washington beltway class, it was make a war with China catastrophically global. The magnitude of Vietnam war will recede into the rear view mirror. Numerous future Khe Sanhs will consume the youth of today in futile battles. The time to speak out is now.

A good start would be to cancel the current Talisman Sabre war games.

Indiana Jones is back! Fifteen years after the last, (purportedly final) adventure, the fedora-wearing, whip-cracking hero has returned for a new round of death-defying action, treasure-hunting, thrills and spills. There is no doubt that Harrison Ford, (now in his eighties) is a remarkably talented actor. The Indiana Jones franchise would not be possible without him. However, this does not blind us to the racist literary origins of the eponymous character, no matter how entertaining the movies.

Wait a minute…..Indiana Jones and racism? How can we associate the light entertainment of a Hollywood character, someone who travels to foreign lands and is highly knowledgeable in ancient cultures, with something as despicable as racism? No, I am not suggesting that Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are vicious racists. No, not every moviegoer who watches the Indiana Jones movies is a closet Nazi. What we need to do is dig a bit deeper into the character’s origins, because the basis of the supposed archaeologist is actually in the unsavoury practice of archaeological looting.

Steven Spielberg and George Lucas are incredible filmmakers, and they have studied the field of artefacts and archaeology to make these movies. They should know that the Indiana Jones character is hardly an archaeologist, but a treasure-hunter; which is a polite way of saying archaeological looter. Let’s remember that he steals ancient artefacts – oh yes, only to sabotage the nefarious plans of the Nazis – and takes them to museums. A useful filmmaking tactic – our protagonist is only doing what he does to thwart another group of bad guys.

Disguising his looting with the noblest intentions, he does not actually take the treasures to the museums of their host nations. Don’t ancient Egyptian artefacts, for instance, belong in the museums of Egypt? That is not just my own opinion, but also the opinion of Geoffrey Robertson QC, the Australian human rights lawyer. He states that the British Museum, along with corresponding institutions in Paris and New York, constitute the largest receivers of stolen property in the world.

Marc Fennell, Australian journalist, documented the criminal plundering of ancient artefacts and indigenous civilisations by British colonialism in his documentary series Stuff the British Stole. The British empire was an effective looter, stealing numerous treasures from India, China and African nations. The Indiana Jones character was just one mercenary in this enormous pilfering enterprise.

Gerry Canavan, professor of English at Marquette University, writes in the Washington Post that the Indiana Jones character traces its origins to the swashbuckling adventure ‘boys’ entertainment’ stories of the 1930s and 40s. The lone, courageous white treasure-hunter and explorer, goes off to foreign lands for excitement, thrills and money.

The Allan Quatermain character, the protagonist of the King Solomon’s Mines novel (1885), is an early swashbuckling template of the Americanised Indiana Jones. H. Rider Haggard, the English novelist who created the fictional adventurer of Quartermain, wrote a series of novels extolling the white adventurer, who discovers exotic treasures and mysterious supernatural powers among the indigenous nations. Indiana Jones must negotiate clever booby-traps and poorly understood supernatural forces as he makes his way through various nonwhite continents.

With Quatermain, and Jones, the nonwhite East is a source of powers beyond the comprehension of the eminently rationalist, scientifically skeptical community from which the Europeans originate. It is funny how, in Hollywood, the advocate of the paranormal is the much-maligned ‘outsider’, defying the closed-minded rationalist scientific establishment. In the course of events, the domineering scientific community, hidebound by their philosophical materialist straitjacket, is proven wrong by the revelations of the maverick adventurer.

This appears to be an acknowledgement of the wisdom of the ancients, except for one incontrovertible fact; the indigenous nations had their own rationalist, scientific enquires and knowledge base. It was precisely this indigenous knowledge, and the scientific achievements of the Arab, Chinese, Indian and nonwhite worlds, that were covered up by the predatory nature of all-conquering empires, such as the British and French.

In the Raiders movie (1981), the villainous Nazi-collaborating French treasure hunter, taunts Indiana Jones – ‘we are very much alike.’ However, Dr Jones and his merry band are the only ones with a pure moral motivation. Jones and his native sidekick Sallah are risking their lives – and certain death in a concentration camp – for the glory of archaeological science. There are numerous archaeologists out there, pursuing field work to advance the discipline – Jones is not one of them.

There is a serious threat to the archaeological profession. It is not from looters or indigenous in cahoots with robbers. It is the heavy funding cuts to archaeological departments and education, demanded by a neoliberal business model which views archaeology, and the social sciences in general, as unprofitable and a burden on the goal of generating revenue. When universities and education are run specifically for profit, the importance of preserving the past for the future is obscured.

Archaeology in the UK is in deep trouble, and the Tory government seems committed to its ultra libertarian view of privatisation. This is unfortunate, just at a time when scientific methods, genetic analysis and so on, are becoming evermore important in the field of archaeology. The last thing we need is recycling a persistent anachronism, which only hinders a commitment to archaeology.

Shamima Begum, the British-born woman who traveled to Syria in 2015 in support of Isis, lost her appeal against her citizenship revocation. In 2019, then UK Home Secretary Sajid Javid canceled Begum’s citizenship, thus denying her any opportunity to return to her native England. Of Bangladeshi heritage, Javid claimed she could apply for citizenship in Bangladesh, a nation in which Begum has never set foot.

Begum’s actions, providing positive support for Isis (now branded Islamic State) are certain reprehensible. She chose to become a cog in the Isis killing machine. The Islamist group, responsible for horrifying atrocities against ethnic minorities in Iraq and Syria, took out their sectarian hostility against Muslims who rejected their particular brand of theological fanaticism.

There is no ignoring the fact that she approved the actions of the Isis killers during their short lived ‘caliphate’. We would also do well to remember that she was 15 when she migrated, along with her similarly aged friends. She lost her three children while in Syria. There is no denying that she was damaged psychologically while in the service of Isis, though I am reluctant to use childishly ignorant phrases like ‘Isis bride’ when referring to her situation.

The Isis cult was defeated in 2019, and its loyalists fled their statelet in northern Syria. The returning foreign fighters, along with their partners and children, faced a daunting prospect of returning home. Australia, Britain, the US and other nations had to ask the serious questions – do we allow nationals considered traitors back into the country? Begum has become a reviled figure, denounced as a traitor. But let us not forget the network of malevolent actors in which she became enmeshed.

Begum, it was revealed after her citizenship was revoked, was lured into northern Syria by a person working for Canadian intelligence. Certainly, Begum, as an adolescent, was groomed by Isis men and conditioned to fulfil a particular role as an Isis supporter. However, Canadian intelligence was aware of Begum (and her friends), and the Canadian agent facilitated their travel from Britain to Syria via Turkey.

Mohammed al-Rasheed, the intelligence asset in question, smuggled Begum into Syria. He only recently acknowledged his role in assisting and recruiting Begum. Ottawa did not share this information, so we are told, with the UK government prior to the cancellation of Begum’s citizenship. This strains credulity, as Canada and Britain are members of the Five Eyes intelligence community. They routinely exchange information that is important to each other.

In fact, Western intelligence services have longed recruited and used right wing Islamist groups to further the predatory interests of imperialist states.

Al Rasheed, Begum’s recruiter, was transmitting intelligence to the Ottawa authorities as he ran his people-smuggling network from Raqqa, in Syria. This was at a time when Canada, along with the US and Britain, was funnelling arms and training to various Islamist militant organisations in Syria, with the aim of toppling the Ba’athist regime in Damascus.

Begum remains stateless, stuck in a refugee camp in Kurdish-controlled areas of northern Syria. It is one thing to condemn her membership of a cult that engaged in gruesome violence, it is quite another – vindictive and nasty – to revoke her citizenship thus denying her any possibility of rehabilitation. Australia has the resources and capacity to accept and rehabilitate the wives and children of former Isis fighters.

I raised that last point because of a debate that broke out, in Sydney, when the federal government decided to repatriate about 60 persons, forty of whom are children, from the squalid refugee camps in northern Syria. The people involved are the Australian former wives of Isis militiamen, and their children. The plan to relocate them in western Sydney, where there is a large Iraqi Assyrian community, drew heavy criticism from local politicians. Assyrians were targeted for killing by Isis militants.

Outrage is to be expected from Iraqi Assyrians, and other minorities, who were victimised by the Isis war machine. There is an important point to raise here. The Shia community was also specifically targeted by Isis, and thousands of Iraqi and Syrian Shia were slaughtered. Their viewpoint was never heard or considered during the recent debate regarding the repatriation of the women and children of Isis fighters.

Let’s make an observation here; the opposition of the Iraqi Assyrians to the repatriation plan was motivated not by security concerns, but a generalised bigotry against Muslims. If they had reached out to the Shia community, and expressed interfaith and interethnic solidarity with the multinational victims of Isis terrorism, then that would be encouraging. However, the Assyrians based their opposition on the generalised hostility to Islam and Muslims – ‘we don’t want Muslims here’ was their message.

The repatriated families arrived in Sydney, and have begun to rebuild their lives. While their activities as Isis supporters is despicable, we as a community should be mature and strong enough to humanely reintegrate these former Isis cultists into the wider Australian community.

In fact, the behaviour of the Assyrians, in rejecting children, reminded me of the old racist whites, spewing their vitriol, at black children attempting to integrate into schools, back in the 1960s. Both the American whites back then, and Iraqi Assyrians today, disguised their respective prejudices under the banner of security concerns.

To paraphrase Yasmin Alibhai-Brown’s words, we can find Shamima Begum irritating and objectionable, but also remember what she has been through.

The twists and turns of diaspora communities in the US, Britain and Australia is a source of constant fascination. Middle Eastern diasporic communities are always enmeshed in intrigues and connivances infinitely more astounding than any manufactured soap opera. One aspect of diaspora life is how such communities become transformed into foot soldiers of the US empire. Take the case of the Iranian diaspora.

Matthew Petti, journalist and expert on Iranian affairs, has written an informative and eye-opening article on the extent of cooperation between the Iranian American diaspora and US intelligence agencies, such as the FBI. In the early 1960s, when Iran was a solid American ally under the Shah, the FBI kept tabs on the exiled Iranian community in the United States. Worried about the anti-monarchy sentiments of the Iranians, the US government was looking for purported ‘Communist agents’, and the Iranian exiles happily snitched on each other.

Petti has had access to thousands of secret FBI files from that period. He relates the case of Iranian exile and student activist at the time (1962), Sadeq Qotbzadeh. Iranian students in the US were particularly vocal in their opposition to the Shah, and equally strident in attacking the US financial and military support his monarchist regime was receiving from the US. The Shah’s notorious secret police, the Savak, were trained in torture techniques by US intelligence experts.

Qotbzadeh, an activist student, approached the FBI to explain to them that he was no communist, but a proponent of Jeffersonian democracy. He could never accept atheistic Communism as a pious Muslim. However, these explanations did not stop the FBI from treating the Iranian diasporic community with suspicion. Numerous Iranian Americans willingly informed on their fellow Iranians, alleging the presence of Communist infiltrators.

As Petti notes in summarising the issue:

It was really striking to see how deeply U.S. intelligence had penetrated the Iranian-American diaspora. The FBI was able to compile such a large file because Iranian expats were constantly snitching on each other, calling to complain that their political rivals were Communist agents. Diaspora activists still do that sort of thing today. It would have been a lot more serious back then, when Communism was a crime and the United States was willing to deport Iranian dissidents.

Qotbzadeh, returning to Iran as one of the main supporters of the 1979 Iranian revolution, had a falling out with the new theocratic regime. He was executed by the ayatollahs in 1982.

The times have changed, but the tactics of the US financial-intelligence apparatus remains the same. Today, Iranian Americans inform on each other, this time charging their fellow Iranians with bring agents of the Islamic Republic. Accusations and counter-accusations ensue, followed by lawsuits. The Iranian American diaspora provide foot soldiers for the US regime change plans for Iran.

Let’s pivot this discussion onto the broader issues than regime change in Iran. We need to remember the role of Iraqi exiles, such as Kanan Makiya, is making the case for the 2003 American invasion of Iraq. No, I am not suggesting that Makiya is personally responsible for the entire gamut of US foreign policies. He is responsible for becoming a ‘native’ spokesperson, trotting out the regime change friendly rhetoric, claiming that Iraqis inside their nation will welcome the American invaders as liberators. How wrong he was, and is.

Iraqi exiles in America, such as Makiya, provided a multicultural gloss for US imperial expansion. Intersectional imperialism has become the propaganda technique of choice for the US ruling class. Makiya, as one example, became the go-to spokesperson for war commentary. He authored a book back in 1989 under a pseudonym. The book, Republic of Fear, a denunciation of the Iraqi Ba’athist dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, was heavily promoted by the Washington beltway experts. Makiya conveniently ignored the instrumental role of the US, and the CIA in particular, in the rise of the anticommunist Ba’athist party to power.

Makiya now regrets advocating for regime change, in view of the sectarian violence, the demolition of public services, the ecological pollution and outflow of refugees that have gripped the country since the 2003 American invasion. It is important to note that sentiment, for the following observation; the Washington Beltway structure, the collection of pundits, self-appointed ‘experts’ and foreign policy aficionados, were quick to loudly advocate regime change in Russia, in the immediate wake of Yevgenny Prigozhin’s abortive armed rebellion.

While going into an elaborate examination of the Prigozhin rebellion is out of the current scope – there is reams of commentary on the subject regardless – we can make a number of pertinent observations here. Prigozhin, head of the Wagner private military contractors, has been doing the dirty work for Moscow in Eastern Ukraine. His views are those of the ultranationalist Right. However, from June 24 onwards, after he began his attempted coup – or uprising, or armed revolt depending on whom you talk to – the Washington beltway establishment cheered on Prigozhin’s rebellion, and relished the prospect of a Russian civil war.

Michael McFaul, former US ambassador to Russia, Anne Applebaum, the neoconservative shill, and others, were positively giddy at the excitement of a prospective Russian civil war. Their commentary, issued in the libidinous excitement of the Prigozhin moment, soon evaporated into nothing as the armed rebellion fizzled, a peaceful solution was found, and the much-hoped-for civil war never eventuated.

Were these regime change advocates ready for the disastrous consequences of a Russian civil conflict? The outflow of refugees, the ecological destruction and breakdown of Russian society are predictable consequences too horrid to contemplate. What we can say with certainty is that the diaspora communities which have become cheerleaders for US wars must bear responsibility for the devastating consequences of such imperialist overreach policies.

The United States failed to save millions of European Jews fleeing Nazi persecution during the Second World War; that is the main observation of a powerful documentary available for streaming from SBS On Demand, and from PBS. The US and the Holocaust is a powerful and searing indictment of American immigration and refugee policies during the first half of the 20th century. Millions of European Jews were excluded from seeking asylum in the US, due to a series of legislative measures enforcing an ideology of white supremacy.

It is well known that the United States, from the 1860s onwards, passed a series of legislative measures restricting immigration, particularly Asian. While Chinese labourers helped to build the railways, facilitating the westward expansion of American capitalism, they were subjected to exclusionary laws and targeted by rioting white workers. Between the years 1880 and 1924, two million German and Eastern European Jews migrated to the United States. However, the rising eugenics movement, and the influence of white supremacist thinking among the educated classes, meant that Jews were regarded with the same racist derision as the Asian Americans.

Rather than abolish restrictive anti immigration laws, the US passed even more laws aimed at excluding Eastern and Southern European Jews. Regarded as racially inferior, these measures ensured that European Jews fleeing Nazi-occupied Europe would have next to no chance of gaining asylum in the US. The most famous case of a Jewish family denied refuge and subsequent perishing in the Holocaust is that of diarist Anne Frank. Her father, Otto, tried numerous ways to apply for asylum in the US. His daughters Margot and Anne, and his wife Edith, died in the camps. Otto survived Auschwitz and published Anne’s diaries.

Whenever the question of the US relationship to the Holocaust arises, it is usually restricted to narrow military parameters. Should the US military have intervened earlier in Nazi-occupied Europe, thus saving lives? That is a legitimate question, but it distracts from the very real indifference to European Jewish suffering evinced by the American authorities at the time.

Another which refused entry to European Jews fleeing persecution (and eventual death) at the hands of the expansionist Nazi regime was Canada. The now famous ship, MS St Louis, carrying hundreds of Jewish refugees, was rejected not only by the United States, but also by the Canadian government. Canada, influenced by eugenicist and white supremacist ideology, refused asylum to European Jewish refugees. A senior government official, when asked how many Jews should be admitted to Canada, stated ‘None is too many.’

Nonwhite immigrants, including Jews from Eastern Europe, were regarded with barely disguised contempt by the xenophobic and nativist Canadian ruling establishment. It is important to emphasise that point because, after the conclusion of World War 2, Canada did provide sanctuary to a group of European refugees – Ukrainian and associated Eastern European ultranationalist Nazi collaborators. Along with the UK, Australia and the US, Canada provided a safe haven for those Eastern Europeans guilty of committing war crimes while fighting for Nazi Germany.

In the conditions of the Cold War, Ukrainians and other far right Eastern European nazi collaborations were viewed as useful assets in the fight against the Soviet Union. Their records as perpetrators of massacres of Jews, Slavs and other minorities was quickly forgotten. In fact, the ultranationalist Ukrainians who served in the Waffen SS were basically exonerated and provided refuge in Canada. This policy was in direct contravention of the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg, which ruled that the Waffen SS was a criminal organisation.

Membership of the Waffen SS should have automatically disqualified any application for sanctuary in Britain, Canada and other Allied nations. The 1st Galician division – officially the 14th Grenadier division of the Waffen SS – was a mainly Ukrainian military outfit which fought alongside Nazi troops, committing atrocities against Jews and anti-fascist populations. That formation, for instance, participated in the suppression of the Slovak National uprising. The Slovaks rose up to throw off German rule.

The Canadian authorities, rather than prosecute these Ukrainian ultranationalist collaborators, provided sanctuary for them. Dismissing their SS tattoos as merely evidence of their reliable anti communism, the Ukrainians who fought in support of Nazi troops were given the ‘good life.’ The extent of the quiet cooperation between the Canadian authorities and the ultranationalist Ukrainian fighters came to light in the 1980s.

The Deschennes Commission, established by the then Mulroney government to investigate the influx of Ukrainian war criminals into Canada, basically exonerated the genocidal actions of the former 1st Galician SS members. Canada’s Jewish community staunchly protested the lack of accountability in the findings of the Deschennes Commission. Documents from the Soviet Union and Eastern European nations, elaborating the massacres and crimes committed by the Ukrainian SS fighters, was never admitted by the Canadian authorities.

Until today, there are statues venerating these Nazi collaborators standing in Canada.

When we examine episodes like this from recent history, do we not learn lessons for our times? When white nationalist militants are given sanctuary, we are not only disrespecting those who fought against them, but also rehabilitating their repugnant ideology. We are providing credibility to the co-thinkers of white nationalism. Let’s consider these applicable lessons when changing our foreign and domestic policies towards refugees.

Over the course of the past week or so, the world has been transfixed by a macabre juxtaposition; the death of five billionaire occupants of a submersible which imploded at extreme ocean depths, and the mass drowning of at least 500 refugees fleeing war and poverty in the Mediterranean. The titan submersible has received extensive and saturation media coverage; the deaths of the refugees obtained only scant media attention.

It is not often that the New York Times gets something right, but we must give credit where it is due. Richard Perez-Peña correctly observed, “5 deaths at sea gripped the world. Hundreds of others got a shrug.” Not bad for an NYTimes journalist. There is no shortage of commentary highlighting the media disparity; the ultrawealthy deceased from the submersible spent their time and money on deep sea tourism.

The drowned refugees in the Mediterranean were mainly Pakistanis, Syrians, Palestinians, and other nonwhite nationalities fleeing dangerous conditions at home, making a perilous journey for a chance at a better future. Their homelands are impoverished and dangerous precisely because of wars and foreign policies implemented by the richer European and Anglo-majority nations.

Considerable resources were mobilised and joint efforts made to find the doomed Titan submersible. Extensive cooperation between the US and Canadian militaries and coast guards was apparent, as well as the participation of numerous private companies all pitching in with the latest technologies to search for the submersible. Such international collaboration makes evident the fact that we do have the capabilities, up to and including remote operated vehicles (ROVs) to handle maritime disasters.

No such cooperation was forthcoming in relation to the sinking fishing vessel in the Mediterranean. Greek coast guard authorities were tracking the overcrowded ship, but did nothing to save the people on board. The latest refugee drownings are a tragedy, but a preventable one. This is only one in a long line of maritime disasters in the Mediterranean, a predictable consequence of the EU’s anti-refugee policies. They have turned the entire Mediterranean into a militarised zone, making Europe an impregnable fortress.

Ramzy Baroud, writing about the latest refugee deaths, states that only 104 of the estimated 750 refugees were rescued. The authorities pulled dead bodies out of the water off the coast of Pylos, a Greek island, on June 13 and 14. The dates are significant, given that, only a week later – June 20 – the United Nations celebrated World Refugee Day.

Indeed, between 2014 and 2023, as the EU has turned the Mediterranean into a militarised maritime boundary, 23,000 refugees have drowned or gone missing when attempting to cross into Europe. That appalling statistic is particularly ironic; the same imperialist powers who hailed those East Berliners risking life and limb to cross the Berlin Wall, are now vociferously denouncing the refugees who make the perilous journey from their homelands.

The Berlin wall, from 1961 to 1988, became emblematic of Communist tyranny; the escapees were hailed as ordinary people demonstrating extraordinary courage. The East German government was condemned for implementing a shoot-to-kill policy at the wall, and for sealing the borders of the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Hundreds of East Berliners, knowing full well the perils of escape, nevertheless attempted the journey, in search of a better life.

Since at least 2014, the member states of the EU have ratified numerous cross country agreements to erect fortified borders, particularly in Greece and Italy. Turkey, while not an EU member, has cooperated in enforcing a harsh anti-refugee regime, helping to expel asylum seekers from Europe’s southeastern borders. The refugees, mostly from Middle Eastern and African nations, are the victims of today’s fortress mentality.

Migrant shipwrecks, such as the latest one off Pylos island, are not isolated incidents. Moira Lavelle, an independent journalist based in Athens, writes that such tragedies are the result of deliberate political choices. In 2016, the EU signed an agreement with Turkey where refugees – mainly from Syria – would be sheltered in Turkey itself, rather than making it to EU territory. Outsourcing immigration and refugee policing has become the preferred method of dealing with asylum seekers.

Kenan Malik, writing in the Guardian, states that EU countries are paying the poorer sub-Saharan African nations, to keep refugees in their territories. Niger, Libya (or at least rival Libyan militia groups), are being bribed to retain and force refugees back to their place of origin. Incarcerated in makeshift refugee camps in appalling conditions, the EU has implemented a money-for-taking-refugees business model in African nations – the very philosophy of the people smugglers whom the EU governments strenuously condemns.

Dictatorial regimes in African nations, with horrid human rights records, such as Niger or Rwanda, are considered acceptable business partners when it comes to immigration detention. Libya, prior to the 2011 NATO intervention, was a functioning and reasonably developed society. Since that catastrophic intervention, Libya is a shattered society, and rival militia groups compete for control. The EU pays these militias to lock up sub-Saharan African refugees. Torture, rape and murder occur in these squalid camps.

As Malik observes, the EU has sponsored an entire cross-national regime of refugee detention. Prison camps, warehouses and temporary accommodation has become the norm for asylum seekers trapped in this business model. Let’s not forget that Britain, the US and Australia lead the way in the forcible detention of asylum seekers, all the while participating in policies which destroyed societies and thus prompted the outflow of refugees. No matter how much talk-back radio shouts about stopping the boats, or sneering ‘f*ck off, we’re full’, asylum seekers much prefer to live in their country of origin.

Yes, those who died in the Titan submersible should be mourned. Let’s devote equal – even more – attention towards the thousands of nameless victims of fortress Europe and imperialist wars. We need to re-examine and change our own conduct in global affairs.

There is no question that Novak Djokovic is one of the greatest tennis players in the history of the game. He has equaled – arguably surpassed – the accomplishments of Nadal and Federer. However, we can also make a critique of his political beliefs, without denigrating his achievements. Djokovic was detained by the Australian authorities, in January 2022, for his refusal to vaccinate before entering the country. His detention, at a hotel in Melbourne, garnered a level of sympathy.

The federal circuit and family court struck down the initial ruling canceling Djokovic’s visa. He did not help his cause by testing positive for Covid, and subsequently mingling with photographers and fans. The immigration minister, using archaic provisions of the law, had Djokovic deported. While in detention, Djokovic raised the issue of the mandatory detention of refugees, many of whom have been locked up for years. Djokovic had not raised that comparison prior to his own legal troubles, and has not raised that issue since his release.

While Djokovic was treated unfairly by the Australian Border Force (ABF), the African American bastketballer Brittney Griner, received only hostility and sneering contempt on the part of the corporate media. She experienced an unjust and harsh imprisonment in the midst of international geopolitics. Griner, an Olympic and WNBA champion, was sentenced to nine years in prison for possessing vaping cartridges that had a small amount of vaping hashish oil.

Her sentencing, in February 2022, was driven by political considerations. Moscow wanted to demonstrate that it is tough on drug smugglers. The Kremlin is not exactly sympathetic to the plight of African Americans. In Soviet times, Moscow championed the causes of not only African Americans, but also strongly supported African nations in their struggles against colonialism and racism. Not anymore – the pages of Russian state media are filled with snarling contempt for Black Lives Matter (BLM) and anti racist activists.

Griner served only a few months of her sentence; in December 2022, she was released in a prisoner swap with the United States. Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout was exchanged for Griner’s early release. It is instructive to examine the prisoner exchange, and the attitudes conveyed by the corporate media towards the two individuals concerned.

Viktor Bout, an opportunistic armaments dealer, was demonised as the hyperbolic ‘merchant of death’ in the 2005 film Lord of War. To be sure, Bout’s criminal activities were motivated purely by individual greed and callous indifference to human suffering. But to denounce him as a uniquely malicious actor is the height of hyperbole.

The Watson Institute at Brown University released a study earlier this year that shows the post 9/11 US war on terror has forcibly displaced millions around the world, and undermined the ability of societies to maintain their citizens’ wellbeing. That hardly indicates any concern for human life on the part of the US government. If anyone deserves the moniker ‘merchant of death’, it is the senior personnel of the US military-industrial complex.

Griner’s return to the US, rather than being welcomed as a triumph of diplomacy, was contemptuously dismissed as an unequal and unwanted exchange. Griner, apparently, is an unworthy victim, not of the same standing as ‘hero-spy’ Paul Whelan, who remains imprisoned in the Russian federation. Sputnik news, showing its vitriolic underbelly, sneered that Griner was a ‘black lesbian drug addict’, with Moscow clinching a favourable exchange.

Griner had made comments in the past supportive of the antiracism protests in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s killing. She made critical observations regarding racism in the police force. It is these sentiments which explain the level of hostility directed against her upon her release from Russian incarceration. Accused of ‘hating America’ – in spite of her impressive sporting achievements representing her country – Griner returned home to family and friends.

Djokovic can refuse the vaccination for Covid if he wants, but his refusal, like that of the antivaccine lobby, is that of the privileged. Nyadol Nyuon, a human rights advocate, wrote that it is the perverse height of privilege to choose to avoid a vaccine in a wealthy nation, while there are millions in less developed nations dying while waiting for the vaccine.

The antivaccine fearmongering does take in genuinely concerned people. But the danger, as Nyuon states, is to elevate fears and misinformation to the level of valid scientific reasoning. Djokovic’s refusal is the equivalent of a toddler’s tantrum, couching his rejection in the language of ‘combating oppression’ and ‘defending liberty’.

There have been other Australian sportspeople who have rebelled against authority. A breakaway segment of Australian cricketers, defying the orders of the Australian cricket authority, toured apartheid South Africa in the 1980s. Speaking out in favour of individual liberty, the rebel cricket tour defied the anti-apartheid movement, the latter demanding a complete ban on sporting events in a racially segregated South Africa.

Djokovic quickly returned to the lucrative tennis circuit; the refugees are still languishing in detention centres in Australia. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, former professional basketball player and sports commentator, highlighted the fact that individual decisions have consequences. Unvaccinated players should be removed from teams, he stated. Speaking about the importance of reaching the vaccine hesitant in minority communities, he said that it is imperative to demonstrate the vaccine’s effectiveness and overcome the mistrust of government initiatives among ethnic minority groups.

Djokovic used his status to elevate vaccine hesitancy based on fear and ignorance. Rather than address vaccine hesitation for the purpose of overcoming mistrust, he used his position to enable the already privileged to hide behind the language of ‘oppression’. Brittney Griner deserves our support, because she was the victim of actual oppression.