In this desperately complex situation, the nature and extent of Australian involvement is effectively in the hands of just three people—Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, and Defence Minister David Johnston …
It is a classic situation of a war government gathering support on the home front by creating divisions and binding loyalties, and of a shallow media setting up feared figures then knocking them over in preemptive ways in what we are expected to see as civilised media behaviour.
A war is being waged in and on Syria. Protecting the people from the dictator is no more than the usual pretext for attacks on Middle Eastern countries.
It is beyond most Westerners to understand today how offers of democracy are really much more than this: there is a widespread incapacity to grasp the social assumptions embedded in our 'gifts' writes John Hinkson
