Take two: The Way of the Knife: The CIA, A Secret Army, and A War at the Ends of the Earth, Mark Mazzetti (2013)

This was bought new – probably at Books of Buderim – and cost $27.95. The picture it’s taken with is a painting in oils of African violets by Zuza Zochowski. Back in 2013, when the book was purchased, I wasn’t really interested in America’s seemingly endless wars and this probably accounts for the fact that the book was only first read to about page 95. The second time I’ve persisted. 

A full review is on my Patreon. I know I keep plugging away with these links, but you’ll have to bear with me because I love literature but I’d gotten sick of doing all of this work with no reward. Even now I get no financial reward because the subscriptions collected so far only go toward servicing the publishing platform, and nothing gets sent through to my PayPal account. Keep in mind that even if a dollar a month gets through to PayPal it’ll probably be sucked up by service charges on that end anyway. So even though I’ve been asking for money for reviews since February I’ve actually seen not a cent of the money people have so far pledged. The choice is yours. 

China and Russia form new Axis of Evil

It had to happen. In fact I’d been waiting for this development, and the election of Joe Biden as US president only hastened it. 

You get what you ask for. George W Bush signposted an “Axis of Evil” back half a generation ago and in the absence – the raid on the Capitol just being the icing on the cake – of the dictator’s friend in the form of the Orange Liability, a new bloc has sprung up to threaten democracies everywhere. They’ve been busy in recent years. They promise, now, to be busier.

The development is serious, and its ramifications will need a long time to work themselves out. Be prepared for plenty of argy-bargy in the domestic public sphere as the political parties jockey for position. In a way this news is good for the Liberal-National coalition as they are traditionally perceived as the protectors of borders and wagers of war. 

The international policemen, if you prefer. Like little Johnny Howard being Dubya’s “deputy”, “Man of Steel,” “lapdog” – choose your preferred epithet. You do, after all, choose who governs you so why shouldn’t you choose what you call your leaders? You have far more freedom than a man or woman living in Beijing or in Moscow.

For its part, the Labor Party in Australia – the country from which I write – will be disappointed by the moves of its old conferes (China and Russia, harbingers and fellow-travellers in past times of revolution) to rachet up the global security stakes. 

Winners will be defence contractors, arms manufacturers, and the military. Spy agencies will also use this as a pretext to seek additional funding due to the predilection of agents working for foreign powers to try to influence politics in target countries, and to steal intellectual property that can then be used in the new Cold War. Soft skills will be in demand, as well, due to the use of virtual attacks on infrastructure, and the infiltration of important government websites as cybercriminals working for different governments try to steal information, secrets, and defence plans.

Joe Biden has to be careful to be seen to be tough on demagogues, and if he’s smart he’ll link Trump with Putin. If I were his PR director I’d be pushing out stories with this theme, and getting allied organisations to do the same. 

It’s important for America – like Russia and China – to be on the front foot. Linking Trump with kleptocratic fascist states like China and Russia can only, in the long term, do the Democrats good, especially if they stick to their guns and push a consistent line over a long period of time. 

To the barricades!

Book review: The Four Horsemen: Riding to Liberty in Post-Napoleonic Europe, Richard Stites (2014)

I bought this at a reduced price at Abbey’s Bookshop in the CBD one Friday in early November. I had needed a walk and something to read.

The author died of cancer just before the book was passed to editors, Stites having specialised in Russian history. He was born in 1931. Rather than concentrating exclusively on Russia, Stites in his final work turns his gaze also to other parts of Europe that underwent revolutions but as his focus returns to Russia at the end of this book, he didn’t have to venture too far from home. In the early part of the 19th century Italy, Spain, Greece, and Russia all experienced armed uprisings and this is the subject matter he talks about in his engrossing narrative.

As any good historian will be tempted to do, Stites attempts to reframe the narrative most of us grew up with, linking the October Revolution with the French Revolution and, to their precursor, the American Revolution. The book is therefore topical but beyond this you have to marvel at the level of erudition Stites displays, in addition to a dogged determination to find answers in the records of many countries, a task complicated by the fact that a number of different languages were used to make them. 

There are some commonalities between each of the events described, including the existence in each country of secret societies, the draughting of constitutions, armed struggle and war, and reaction which, except for the case of Greece, resulted in aborted revolutions.

The title for this stunning book draws on both fact and fiction. On the one hand you have the precursor artefact of the “four horsemen of the Apocalypse”, which is a popular trope exploited by commentators – especially artists and cartoonists – from time immemorial. On the other hand you have four mounted revolutionaries who led bands of citizens against the forces of the Establishment in the countries under examination in the 1820s.

The 19th century was a globalised era, with the American and French revolutions inspiring men and women in Spain to demand the writing and introduction of a constitution. In turn, their success (though temporary) sparked similar aspirations in Naples (what is today southern Italy), as well as in Greece and in Russia.

A Russian specialist must be particularly attracted to such stories of struggle among people subject to arbitrary rule who, following America’s successful attempt to go it alone, wanted to be their own masters or, at least, to improve their lives. Property law was one area which desperately needed fixing, and (what we call) human relations as well. 

Stites makes a cogent observation toward the end of the book that liberalism and nationalism were, at the time in question, intimately linked. Making the puzzle more intricate was also the issue of religion. In the minds of priests and some parts of the relevant communities, a constitution didn’t just diminish the power of the king, it also threatened (based on the French experience) the viability of the Church, and Spain was a heavily Catholic country, but on the other hand catechisms were a way for the revolutionaries in all cases to communicate their aims to subalterns. For liberals at the time, therefore, popular ideas surrounding God and country made reaching their goals more difficult.

The book serves to locate the October Revolution in 20th century Russia within the context of a longer and larger struggle for self-determination, and ties the Cold War to America’s 18th century shift to self-government. Stites shows, if nothing else that, despite the ardent wishes of those who want to maintain the status quo, patches laid over underlying problems didn’t make them just go away. If there is discord you can’t just fix it with a Band-Aid; if you wish for long-term peace more attention must be given to solving the causes of problems to which discord is linked. Nowadays, governments in such places as Egypt and Thailand would do well to think on Stites’ conclusions. 

Personally, I do think that the kinds of liberalisation that Stites writes about in his book certainly have links to patriotism despite the fact that they derive their inspiration from global phenomena. It’s a clear paradox: if you want to become more global in outlook you must do it in a way that satisfies the desire to belong to a nation. 

Just as every journalist wants to break a big story and win acclaim, every historian must wish to have his or her most cherished insight turned into a full-length study that can then be read and celebrated by the broader community. It is in the grip of such ambition that volumes like this seek an entrance into the world. I received with enthusiasm the result of Stites’ labours, but noted to myself that better proofing might’ve eradicated some unfortunate errors in the text. Repeated sentences, missing conjunctions, and misspellings (“gage” instead of “gauge”, for example) dot the text and suggest that nobody read the thing through after the historian’s death with an eye to catching infelicities. 

Book review: Coxinga and the Fall of the Ming Dynasty, Jonathan Clements (2004)

I’ve lost all recollection of how this book came to be in my collection, but it’s been there for a good long while – from memory, at least 10 years. It came out of a small UK press and seems not to have been talked about much, which strikes me as like a wasted opportunity. This is not only a thrilling (though, like most nonfiction, complex) work of history, it’s also topical.

Complexity can of course put some people off though what might attract readers are the pirates and the smugglers. The story is set on the coast of China, in Taiwan, and in Japan in the 17th century. Dutch traders headquartered at Batavia (now Jakarta) engineered deals through their operatives in northeast Asia and often these turned into skirmishes with Coxinga’s father, a pirate-turned-admiral named Iquan. Coxinga’s mother was a Japanese woman but Iquan later married a Chinese woman who lived at his base in Amoy (Xiamen).

If this sounds complicated it’s not surprising as you are dealing with four cultures (counting the Taiwanese, closely related to Pacific islanders) each with different histories and priorities. It’s however rarely daunting as the style used for the conveyance is at the same time flexible and robust, though at points in the narrative you feel things get a little slippery – which seems fitting given the nature of the story being told.

Since derring-do is so popular these days, perhaps over-the-top TV viewers might want to sample real stories of sorties and escapades, of fortunes stolen and kidnappings, of epic battles and men clad in iron. On top of this kind of relatively predictable scenario – predictable at least in terms of the prosaic motives that seem to drive people, in a way that is much the same as in narco-thrillers – you also get access to solid history.

Here things are fortunately less predictable – depending on your personality, of course; some people like things black-and-white, others prefer greys of different shades (the story of Coxinga’s life is most definitely of the latter brand) – but I’m not sure Clements always makes the most of his material. Perhaps he could have used more that can be found in ancillary records, such as those belonging to the Dutch East India Company, or in China’s or Taiwan’s historical archives.

Why you might want to read Clement’s book, if you are not all that interested in history, would rest with the fact of China’s current standing in the world and the way it positions itself vis-à-vis the West. As Taiwan forms a prominent element in the drama, too, the story of Coxinga has contemporary echoes; it was only with the Qing that Taiwan was brought politically into China’s orbit, so its being considered by some to be “part of” China is a relatively recent innovation.

As for Iquan, how he earned his commission from Beijing might furnish material for a TV drama, but it’s all true (as Shakespeare said of his play ‘Henry VIII’). While the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644) did have a naval presence for part of its reign, it shut down trade apart from Macao, so Iquan’s position as admiral was complicated, as he had financial interests, prior to accepting the posting, that depended on overseas trade. He also kept up good relations with men employed by the Dutch East India Company. If you were to write Iquan’s story today you would have a drug dealer turn into a narcotics policeman.

The Manchus would restrict trade even more radically once they took control. Coxinga, raised in early childhood in Japan, was a very different kind of man from his father. He was educated, steadfast, and loyal to the Ming Dynasty, embodying the Confucian ideal in a way that the arriviste Iquan couldn’t manage to do. The two men expressed their patriotism in different ways.

This difference providing a dramatic hinge upon which the story, to a degree, depends, but the interest inherent in the book isn’t limited to armed conflict alone. It’s actually quite a complex story about the nature of good governance. Cruelty appears often, allied with such ideas as patrimony and justice, but there is little space given to other ideas – love or beauty are absent beyond possessiveness – and so while it is comprehensive as far as the records consulted allow, in a sense the book has a limited scope. Justice without love or beauty is a fragile thing.

Movie review: Kajaki: Kilo Two Bravo, dir Paul Katis (2014)

Even if you are a native English speaker you need to watch this movie – a recreation of actual events – with subtitles turned on. This is partly because the characters are British and if you, yourself, are not a Brit you’ll have trouble understanding the accents. But it’s also because of the specialised military lexicon used to convey meaning. Shorthand forms of words combine with technical parlance to produce a rich and allusive argot to stay on top of which you’ll need help from Netflix.

With action films that have war as a central theme there’s often a lot of high-toned scripting that produces elaborate set-pieces. But as in 2010’s ‘The Hurt Locker’ (dir Kathryn Bigelow), in ‘Kajaki’ there’s less action and more character development.

‘Kajaki’ combines elements deriving (it seemed to me) from the Theatre of the Absurd with those taken from the action thriller genre. It starts with a man swimming in a dam (the dam is Kajaki Dam and it is on Helmand River in the centre of Afghanistan). This relaxing, recreational interlude is suddenly interrupted by an explosion. It turns out that two boys are using grenades to stun fish, setting the devices off in the water so that their quarry will rise, immobile, to the surface where they can be scooped up and put in a bucket. Presumably the fish are then taken elsewhere to be sold in the community.

I can’t say much for fear of giving the game away, but I can say that ‘Kajaki’ is an excellent portrait of masculinity. Men have traditionally been used for war, and it is their culture that suffuses this production. At the outset, the soldiers’ coarse humour appears uncouth, determinedly centred as it is on the body, but by the end the ribbing and the cajolery produces a demotic form of poetry as well as pathos.

A dark humour plays along the film’s narrative arc, linking the opening with the close. I wager you won’t forget this meditation on war for a good, long time. That is its beauty.

TV review: Bodyguard, BBC (2018)

An ex-soldier with post-traumatic stress disorder works as a bodyguard for the Metropolitan Police Service in London. He is assigned to protect the life of Britain’s home secretary (a cabinet minister in government) and becomes romantically involved with her. There are several attempts on her life while he is in charge of her safety.

This series is not over-long at six hour-long episodes, which is a mercy. But I guarantee that if you enjoy crime movies, police procedurals or spy thrillers, this product will entertain. You won’t see the ending coming.

On the face of it, the show looks at the issues of terrorism and of the surveillance state that has, in many countries, emerged to cope with it in the years since 9/11. Other issues are explored in the show but to note them all would give the game away, so I will not do so.

I can safely say that secrecy colours people’s relations in this TV show, and it helps generate a number of plot points. Anyone who has worked in an office will be able to understand the dynamic that guides the characters of Anne Sampson (Gina McKee), the head of the Met’s counter-terrorism command, or Louise Rayburn (Nina Toussaint-White), a detective-sergeant who is investigating the assassination attempts.

For these two characters a stern face suffices most of the time, but Richard Madden has more scope to vary his expression playing David Budd, the sergeant looking after Julia Montague MP (Keeley Hawes). The normally disciplined Budd is sometimes wobbly in private and on top of that he doesn’t much like Montague’s hawkish brand of politics.

The other police in the drama are played fairly straight and don’t offer competition for the viewer’s sympathies to Madden’s Budd. Sophie Rundle is convincing as Vicky, Budd’s wife, from whom he is estranged. The fact that Budd won’t accept counselling for his PTSD is a plot point that appears frequently in the story, so the issue of men’s mental health adds depth to it. And Anjli Mohindra is good as Nadia, a suicide bomber.

Commando Memorial Seat, Martin Place

Last week on Anzac Day I wrote about my family’s involvement in war. In a cursory fashion at least. The Commando Memorial Seat in Martin Place shown below strewn with decayed and wilting flowers is today’s reminder of war. As are memories of the TV special the ABC put on last night with journalist Peter Greste as the host. It was the second in a series that had started the week before and in it again Greste turned his gimlet eye to his subject, Sir John Monash, ever on the lookout for cant and bombast. He showed empathy and a keen intelligence as well, having survived a stint in an Egyptian prison (I wrote about his account of this experience on 19 January this year on this blog). He has also reported from battlefronts over a long career in journalism.

According to Greste, whose own forbears were from Germany, Monash was a complex man and the program basically said that he won WWI for the Allies. Without the involvement of the Australian troops the Germans would likely have moved on to Amiens and then to Paris. The previous year, the Russians had left the war, freeing up hundreds of thousands of German troops who relocated to the western front, tipping the balance in the ongoing struggle there in their favour. Monash prosecuted four decisive attacks on the enemy in an effort to break the German lines and push the front line back east. He was successful. The UK press celebrated the Australian victories and the king knighted Monash on the battlefield.

When the troops came home after winning the war, they were largely ignored. Greste spoke with a retired Army general who said that the spate of suicides among returned servicemen in the years after the war were like a “contagion”. Monash tried to get public support for a memorial but initially he was unsuccessful. Eventually, near the end of his life, he succeeded, and the Melbourne cenotaph was built. Being an engineer, Monash supervised the construction.

So memorialisation is important to soldiers returned from war. Today Sydney saw more ceremonies with the French president giving honours to three Australian servicemen who served with the British forces in WWI and WWII. Wreaths were laid in Hyde Park with President Emmanuel Macron, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian doing the honours.

What we should celebrate on Anzac Day

Watching the program on Monash hosted by journalist Peter Greste last night reminded me that there are things that can be celebrated when we think of war. War itself is terrible and should be avoided at all costs, but there is no escaping the fact that it has played a role in our country’s history. The stories surrounding Monash are salutary. Greste, whose family also has German roots, was a sympathetic but intelligent participant in the story.

How Monash was treated by the war historian Charles Bean, who didn’t like him because he was a Jew, and by Keith Murdoch, father of today’s media mogul Rupert, is worth reflecting on when we consider how we treat people from other countries. The two men got in the ear of the prime minister, Billy Hughes, who even went so far as to visit France with the aim of dismissing Monash. But Monash refused to go voluntarily, and Hughes talked with the general's subordinates to gauge their opinion of their commander. Monash stayed and helped to win the war by using the resources at his disposal in innovative and decisive ways.

The feelings that the French people who live in the north of that country have even today when they think of Australia, are also salutary.

On this day in 2012 I wrote a blogpost about my grandmother’s brother, William Robert Ralph Caldicott, who had served in WWII and had been captured at Tobruk. When he returned he was in frail health but there was something else wrong with him as well. He would hardly speak, and granny never spoke of her brother to us when she was alive, even though she lived with us in our house in Vaucluse, having left her husband who remained in Melbourne. Dad had given her a secure place to live in Sydney and granny worked alongside mum in the gift shop they operated for decades. I can’t account for her silence on the matter of her brother except to reflect that she must have had felt something like shame in relation to him. I haven’t been able to get to the bottom of it but what is incontrovertible is that participation in the war was highly traumatic for him and ultimately shortened his life.

Not all my relatives ended up so badly off as a result of war. Granny’s father William Henry Caldicott had fought in WWI, as had mum’s father’s brother, Arthur Dean. William Henry returned from France and remarried, his first wife having died in childbirth, and he named a son he had with his new wife, Jack Anzac. Arthur returned to Melbourne and studied law, eventually becoming a justice of the Victorian Supreme Court and the chancellor of Melbourne University. He was knighted in 1944.

Many Australian families have stories like this to tell. The other important thing to keep in mind is our relative geopolitical isolation. Our habit of going to war with the US – Australia is the only country in the world to have joined with them in every war they have fought since WWII – can be viewed as something like periodic payments on an insurance policy. It sounds rather brutal to frame it like this, but the continued service of our military personnel in conflicts around the world does have this to recommend it, especially in light of China’s continued reluctance to move toward a political settlement more in line with global standards.

When it comes down to it the dawn service is a fitting way, once a year, to remember the war dead and to reflect on the meaning of war. It should never be used by politicians to justify harsh foreign policy but it will always be difficult to predict what people will do in the future if circumstances change. It certainly has one thing to recommend it: Anzac Day tends to bring people together. Some might reject what they perceive as a glorification of militarism, but in the main, like with other important Australian institutions (the ABC for example), people come together on Anzac Day. On this day they create meaning in a generous spirit animated by the sort of lofty feelings that should be encouraged in any polity. And it happens all over the place, in small communities up and down the country where memorial monuments are found dotting the landscape like dressings on wounds in the body politic that can never entirely heal.

A jacket of the Boxer Rebellion

Earlier this month I wrote about our 1885 colonial participation in the British suppression of the Mahdi Rebellion in the Sudan. That turned out to be the first time Australians were deployed overseas in a war. The following blogpost stems from material gathered on the same visit to the Australian War Memorial (AWM). This time, I’m looking at the first Asian deployment of Australian military forces.

Colonial forces from New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia participated with forces from other Western powers in subduing the so-called “Boxer Rebellion” in China in 1900. Resentment against foreigners among Chinese people had grown since the 1860s, when through a truly scurrilous act of gunboat diplomacy called the “Opium Wars” Britain had forced the emperor to grant its traders access to China’s market. Concessions for numerous foreign powers were established in a number of coastal cities from where trade was carried out. The law in force in each of these concessions was that of the guest nation. From the AWM’s web page:

The Chinese government's failure to resist inroads on its sovereignty and withstand further demands from the Europeans, such as the right to build railways and other concessions, caused much resentment among large sections of the population. This eventually led to the Chinese revolution of 1911 which toppled the imperial dynasty. By the end of the nineteenth century the balance of the lucrative trade between China and merchants from America and Europe, particularly Britain, lay almost entirely in the West's favour. As Western influence increased anti-European secret societies began to form. Among the most violent and popular was the I-ho-ch'uan (the Righteous and Harmonious Fists). Dubbed the "Boxers" by western correspondents, the society gave the Boxer Rebellion its name.

The piece goes on to say that by March 1900 the Western powers decided to intervene, and the Australian colonies sent contingents to fight on behalf of the mother country even though they were already participating in the Boer War in South Africa at the time. Most of these colonial forces for China were naval forces.

When the first Australian contingents, mostly from New South Wales and Victoria, sailed on 8 August 1900, troops from eight other nations were already engaged in China. On arrival they were quartered in Tientsin and immediately ordered to provide 300 men to help capture the Chinese forts at Pei Tang overlooking the inland rail route. They became part of a force made up of 8,000 troops from Russia, Germany, Austria, British India, and China serving under British officers. The Australians travelled apart from the main body of troops and by the time they arrived at Pei Tang the battle was already over. The next action in which the Australians (Victorians troops this time) were involved was against the Boxer fortress at Pao-ting Fu, where the Chinese government was believed to have sought refuge when Peking was taken by western forces. The Victorians joined a force of 7,500 on the ten-day march to the fort, only to find the town had already surrendered; the closest enemy contact was guarding prisoners. The international column then marched back to Tientsin, leaving a trail of looted villages behind them.

The photo below shows a jacket held in the AWM’s collection. It is thought to have been taken from a Boxer. “Although they wore no standard uniforms, the Boxers dressed distinctively and usually wore red turbans or caps with a sash or scarf.”

SBS's path of least resistance in sacking Scott McIntyre

SBS managing director Michael Ebeid in sacking sports presenter Scott McIntyre for a few injudicious tweets has cravenly bowed to the influence of the communications minister, Malcolm Turnbull, who had sent out his own views on McIntyre on the socmed platform on the day the original posts appeared. McIntyre's tweets - which you can read in the SMH news story linked to above - contained nothing incorrect, biased or demonstrably wrong although they were flavoursome, direct and strongly worded. I guess is doesn't pay to be manly and independent-minded these days, which regardless are qualities no doubt the original Anzacs would have held in high regard.

The whole story reminds me of how dicey it is to talk straight on social media, especially if you are declaring your professional affiliation - as journalists always do because of the cachet being a journalist carries with it; that cachet brings along with it a multitude of additional followers - but if you do make the declaration be prepared to have your words scrutinised in a way that the words of an ordinary citizen would not be. You are supposed to be a paragon of balance and fairness. It appears that the managing director of SBS agrees with this view, and that if you for some reason decide for once that you want to let your hair down and actually say things that you have wanted to say for a very long time you are putting your career on the line.

The managing director of SBS has sided with a dope of a communications minister, a misguided human rights commissioner, and a plethora of educationally-challenged fools online who don't know their arse from their elbow. And they can't spell either. But maybe all three categories of individual are the same. Does it matter whether you live in secluded luxury if you have no grasp of the meaning of the freedoms that our Anzacs fought for all those years ago, and in all the intervening years since? Have we all so soon, as one online commenter reminded us yesterday, forgotten the lessons of Charlie Hebdo? Are we to be cowed into silence by a fatuous majority because it's just less embarrassing than facing up to truths it might take some time and effort to competently counter with sensible argument?

Frankly the wording of the SBS social media policy and the corporate code of conduct interest me not at all. Having glanced tentatively at them I came away filled with fear at the long lists of damning sentences. Damning if read in one way, but innocent enough if read in another. Line after line of censoriousness and not a drop of commonsense and humanity, which is the place that we should be taken to on Anzac Day, a place dear to our hearts because it means, apparently, something important about who we are. Are we to be defined by rules and suspicion or are we to be defined by our better natures? We should be ashamed. It's hard enough to find a job as a journalist these days, God knows.

It's "catafalque", not "catapult" ...

This year with the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings in Turkey by Australia and New Zealand Army Corps (Anzac) I woke early from a dream - there, I was discussing my favourite Italian authors with an old friend who had never in real life read the language - and decided to catch the media feed before the sun came up. It wasn't long before I could hear the marching band playing in Martin Place, the sound of the music carrying across Darling Harbour to me through the open balcony windows as a heavy military helicopter roamed, flashing red and blue, across the pre-dawn sky. I tuned into ABC 702 Sydney and caught part of the Sydney service before the feed switched to the service at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra.

I was happy to hear Able Seaman Alan Patterson of the Gunggandji people (pictured; credit: Alex Ellinghausen) play the didgeridoo this year for the first time but at the end of the service I wasn't pleased to hear that the ABC broadcast would not carry the secondary service for Aboriginal soldiers which apparently is held every year at a special memorial installed for the purpose behind the AWM on Mt Ainslie.

But the Anzac service itself is wonderfully short. There is the occasional Christian hymn just to remind us which particular brand of theism has the franchise on this annual antipodean event. So I was brought to remember many of the old hymns from my days as a private school boy when I wore the approved grey woolen uniform at the annual services staged to mark events on the school calendar, such as the end-of-term service. It took me back to those days. And I teared up when the pipes started skirling; I'm a total sucker for bagpipes and will cry automatically as soon as I hear them play.

The words from Lieutenant General David Lindsay Morrison AO were delivered in a regimental tenor, in something between a bark and a growl. I remembered Morrison's televised reproof of Australian servicepeople who failed to respect women and shuddered inwardly. He has lost none of his vocal power in the years since that famous TV appearance. And he spoke of making the world a better place, which I found appropriate and reassuring. You want your military to have a responsible goal, after all.

While military lore and practice appears to be in good health in Australia - the catafalque party presented and shouldered arms at the right moments in the ceremony - the same can't be said for the ABC 702 presenter who came on the radio after the service in Canberra finished. Robby Buck misheard a caller who had spoken of the "catafalque party" and thought he had said "catapult party", which is just too bizarre, especially from a radio announcer who has been given a big job for the Anzac Day gig. I think Mark Scott should take Buck aside and have a quiet word with him. Or else get him to read some of Arthur Rimbaud's verses - French poetry abounds in ceremonial terminology.

Youths who go with Daesh to war resemble Anzacs

It staggers me that noone has made the connection yet between the teenagers who follow Deash now - either by going to Syria to fight, or by plotting terror attacks in Western countries like Australia - and the Anzacs who enlisted to fight in 1915 in their thousands, often at an age so young they needed the permission of their parents to go overseas. The program tonight on the ABC with actor Sam Neill reminds me that we have built up an idea of Anzac that carries the accretions of decades, nay of a century, and so it hardly looks at all like what the war looked like to the young men who went away in 1915 to fight.

There are so many similarities but probably the most striking one lies in how difficult it is for us, living in modern Australia, to understand the motivations that brought these young people to do what they have done. What we do know, and often the only thing we do know, is that they were young. The young men who designed the Anzac Day plot which has just been uncovered by authorities are themselves barely outside childhood and yet they have taken their futures into their hands - just as those young men did a century ago - and despite all the obstacles and despite the danger they have made commitments we find it difficult to comprehend.

If you want to understand the Anzacs nowadays you could do worse than trying to understand the youths who follow Daesh, or ISIS or ISIL (whatever you want to call the movement). They have the same desire to fight, the same irrational commitment to an idea outside of themselves, a bigger dream and a hope for a better world. All of these things are hard to understand, for us, but now we have the opportunity to do so if we take the time to listen to the young people who are going away to fight, or those who bring the fight to our own shores.

Quiet contemplation of memorials and all the usual accoutrements of the day are hardly likely to bring us to a place where we can grasp what it meant to go away on ships to die in foreign countries, not knowing what would happen or when it would happen. That reality is alien to us but we fail completely to do it justice if we merely continue to observe the day in the way we have - over the decades, nay over a century - become accustomed to doing. Something else is needed. We must look to the young conscripts of Daesh for guidance and inspiration.

Let's remember the frontier wars on Anzac Day

I was surprised when a friend of mine on Facebook put up yesterday a link to a story Paul Daley, an Australian historian, published in the Guardian two years ago on his discomfort at the lack of recognition for the Aboriginal frontier wars in Australia's official war record. To me it has always been a no-brainer, which is why in 2010, when I was working as a freelance journalist writing stories for other publications, I wrote a story for Fairfax's National Times website (now defunct) on the same subject. In both stories there is the sense that we should use the official day for commemorating war in Australia to right a wrong, to fill in a lacuna, to set the record straight.

I have never spoken to Paul Daley and I do not even think I have seen any of his books in a bookshop - although I have not read a book since July, which is a subject for another blogpost at some other time; regular readers of my blog will have some inkling as to why it is so - but after seeing his story and after reading it I count him as something of a soul mate. The idea to recognise Aboriginal Australians in Anzac Day ceremonies is the kind of thing that strikes you at once and then stays with you forever. You do not even have to do any rationalising; all you have to do is say the words "Anzac Day" and "Aboriginal frontier wars" and they immediately congregate in the one phrase.

We should recognise the Aboriginal frontier wars in our Anzac Day ceremonies, as Paul Daley says. If the official Act of Parliament that was used to institute the Australian War Memorial gets in the way because of the way it is worded then all you have to do is change the law. Language, as we know, is highly plastic, and can be made to do many things and take on many forms. To merely say that the Act prevents us from changing our official policy is to merely shirk the issue lazily. It is a matter that we need, as a people, to look after in a way that will enable us to make redress for something that has gone untouched for too long. It is just a part, as Daley says, of the puzzle of Reconciliation, but it is one that can be put in place so easily and to such great effect.

The reason I put the story of the lost medals into my story from 2010 is because often we do forget, although the Anzac Day ceremony asks us never to do so. Remembering the lost lives of fighters in the frontier wars is something that we should do collectively. It should should be something that enters into our collective consciousness. We should have the names of the dead as markers to guide us in our observances and in our conversations about it. It is time to do something. Let's do it.

All light and sound: the 2013 RAN Fleet Review

A large-scale popular display such as the Royal Australian Navy Fleet Review presented on Saturday night in Sydney has to please as many people as possible, for a start. As has become routine, the sails of the magnificent Sydney Opera House - a building with a global recall second only to Mickey Mouse - doubled as a cinema screen and on them were shown a sequence of images, often involving newspaper clippings, designed to provide a shorthand history of the RAN. The RAN's credentials thus extend from WWI through the better-known drama of WWII to mostly forgotten wars in Korea and Vietnam. Cyclone Tracey also featured: this was a big mission for the RAN in December 1974 when the force helped to evacuate Darwin after the storm flattened the town. The final phases of the display unfortunately resembled nothing more than a recruitment video designed to inspire the potential sailor with positive feelings like loyalty, pride, and gratitude.

The final image on the sails was the insignia of the RAN with the crown on top - you can see similar crowns on the insignia of the country's state police forces - signalling toward the overt symbolism of Prince Harry's presence at the review as the representative of his grandmother, the Australian monarch. Governor-General Quentin Bryce dutifully played second-fiddle to "the world's most eligible bachelor", a gentleman whose casual review-day attentions were much sought-after by young Sydney women.

The young women who did not get a chance to touch Harry's hurriedly-extended hand as he made his progress through the city's streets could comfort themselves by enjoying the palpable excitement generated by figurations of the most memorable naval event in Australia's history: the war against the Japanese in WWII. This section of the evening's hugely-exploded diorama served up to the audience on the ground in Sydney and - by way of the TV broadcast - to watchers elsewhere was set to the famous strains of part of Gustav Holst's The Planets orchestral suite, 'Mars'. The work was written between 1914 and 1916, we're told, and so dates from about the same time as the RAN was established in 1913. Holst's stirring and menacing music dedicated to the planet named after the Roman god of war - it's where we get the word 'martial' from after all, as in 'martial arts' - came at the same time as the fireworks being set off from boats at anchor at different planes along Sydney's amazing harbour made the night glow red. Spotlights mimicking searchlights added drama to the display.

A lone bugler playing a variety of tunes including the song Australians recognise from ANZAC Day parades - the Last Post - which are memorials for the dead, helped to turn the attention of the crowds and the TV watchers to the men and women who lost their lives in battle, and added a fitting long, solemn moment to the display.

Sailors interviewed by ABC TV after the display were all grins and yelps in their excitement at the show put on in their honour. Fathers and mothers lined up along the shoreline of possibly the best harbour in the world wiped away tears inspired by complex emotions. Children stood around quietly in exhaustion from all the activity - enough to equal their own inherent capacity for movement and sound. The TV anchors beamed with pleasure for the sheer size of the moment of shared community they had helped to create, and happily declared themselves speechless. The cooling air of the calm spring night, absent rain, slowly dispersed the clouds of smoke from the dead incendiary devices. A million people turned their attentions to the problem of getting home on crowded public transport. The black water of the harbour lapped quietly against the stone parapets at the Botanic Gardens and beneath the apartment blocks of Kirribilli. The long weekend continued.

Obama flatters Americans while sending messages

Barack Obama's public speech today on Syria was a PR exercise aimed at a multitude of international players including Syria, Iran, Russia, China, the UK and other countries. The fact that it contained little of substance tells us how much a part of the theatre of international diplomacy it was. In the end, Obama notified the world that a military solution of a limited type - a "targeted strike" - was an option should further diplomatic endeavours involving Russia fail. Syria has admitted that it possesses chemical weapons.

But Obama's theatrical piece was also full of contradictions, and these especially appeared toward the end of the speech when the president's logic convinced him to address the issue of America's sense of manifest destiny, which is core to its identity. "For nearly seven decades the United States has been the anchor of global security. This has meant doing more than forging international agreements. It has meant enforcing them. The burdens of leadership are often heavy but the world's a better place because we have borne them."

I find it staggering that an American president can be so wilfully blind as to the truth of history especially when he dares to call history to his aid while working to gain support for military action. The fact is that "nearly seven decades" takes you right back to the end of WWII. Does Obama sincerely think that people do not remember the unwarranted aggression that led to the disastrous Vietnam War? Incredible to think so, but it appears he's conscripting that crime against humanity to give himself support now. And what about the outrageous destabilisation of the Mossadegh government in Iran in the 1950s? Does America sincerely feel that the animus that continues, to this day, to motivate Iranians against it, has no valid basis in reality?

Under Obama America continues to see itself as the world's policeman, a sobriquet the president was eager to distance himself from (much like John Howard in Australia hated being called George W. Bush's "deputy" despite his fawning eagerness to get involved in the twin stupidity of Iraq and Afghanistan). But for Obama as well as for most Americans the truth of a belief in manifest destiny continues - despite all the military failures and the illegal wars the country has embroiled itself in - to buttress their sense of identity. If we go on to listen to Obama right to the end of his speech we find more evidence of this belief, and of this sense of identity.

"Our ideals and principles as well as our national security are at stake in Syria as well as our leadership of a world where we seek to ensure that the worst weapons will never be used. America is not the world's policeman. Terrible things happen across the globe and it is beyond our means to right every wrong but when, with modest effort and risk, we can stop children from being gasses to death and thereby make our own children safer over the long run, I believe we should act. That's what makes America different. That's what makes us exceptional. With humility as well as resolve let us never lose sight of that essential truth."

As usual in official pronouncements, the sentiment gets thicker the closer you get to the end; it's sort of like a rhetorical money shot. In Obama's case the sentiment is so thick you can carve chunks off it and use them as fuel for a barbecue. America is "different" and "exceptional" and so it can never make mistakes. As in the case of Nixon, time dilutes the stain of ruthless self interest and washes away the lies and the deceptions. An experienced orator, and a good one, Obama has leveraged Americans' sense of self - their very identity - in order to sway international opinion and gather support from himself in the broadest possible public sphere.

Catafalque party a fitting symbol for what war means

The most compelling aspect of yesterday's Lone Pine ceremony at Gallipoli - televised online via the ABC - was not contained for me in the MC's words, in the procession of dignitaries laying wreaths, in the words from the Padre, or in the sung national anthem; it was contained in the emergence of the catafalque party, drummed in and ordered into position around a block of stone.

It's an affecting sight. The four individuals come out and take up positions at the corners of the stone and stand, for the duration of the ceremony, immobile, faces downturned, guns held pointing downwards at ease. And I think about how hard it must be to stand still for such a long period of time. What do they think about while they're standing there? For me, the catafalque party represents a type of solidarity, a link with the past, a real demonstration of solidarity shown by living servicemen and -women with their dead comrades.

Yesterday's remembrance ceremonies as I saw them, and also in the words of people I'm connected to on social media, maintained a fittingly somber tone. And it's not just the dead that those people were commemorating. I saw servicemen and -women on TV, for example, thanking people in the Australian community for words of support sent to them. On social media one person posted to mark her reflections on people alive today: "I am thinking about the damage done to the children of the severely emotionally wounded men who returned." Her post received a number of comments from others who put down their own thoughts, remarking on their families' experiences of war. It's not just the dead. There was Adam Shand on his web page writing about his maternal grandfather who returned from Palestine and took to drink. I wrote about my grandmother's brother, who returned from north Africa and died within a couple of years as a result of health problems occasioned by his posting overseas. And then there was a story on the Age's website about a special centre established by the RSL in Frankston, south of Melbourne, where returned servicemen and -women can go to build resilience following their tours of duty.

When I saw on TV men and women playing two-up in Melbourne it jarred with what I found elsewhere, and clashed with what I myself felt when thinking about what Anzac Day means. Thankfully, I didn't come across any bagpipes during my wanderings online; bagpipes always make me teary. Instead, someone on Twitter posted a link to The Pogues' The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, and it became my resident earworm for the rest of the day. The old song's lyrical melody and the band's nail-hard realism cohere to form a striking amalgam of wet and dry, patriotic yearning and wry pragmatism.

I looked at the place where my legs used to be 

And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me

To grieve and to mourn and to pity

There was a cartoon on the Australian's website showing two people at Lone Pine seated in the morning dark, and one is contemplating out loud the sadness of the occasion and all the lives lost while the other one says something like, "Strewth mate, you'll ruin Anzac Day." Behind the imported draped flags, the warm beanies and the full eskies lies the unpleasant truth that war should always and only be used as a last resort. Irony is readily available for the cartoonist because of this tendency for commemorations of war in Australia to contain within the matrix of ideas these two discordant things: patriotism and the reality of incalculable mental and physical damage to the individual. We use Anzac Day as a proxy with which to say something about ourselves as a nation, but when it comes down to it men and women not only get killed, they also sometimes suffer for decades, and their children can also suffer, because of the stress that state violence visits upon the individual. What does the violence do to us as a nation?

I don't have the answer to that question, so I must look to proxies in order to express myself. For me, as I said, there's something refreshing and apt in the complete immobility of the catafalque party positioned in strict order around the commemorative stone; not just at Lone Pine but elsewhere in Australia and in New Zealand during events to mark this transitional moment in the histories of the two nations. Politicians might get a poll rise out of sending young men and women to face danger, but for me a fitting symbol of Anzac Day is the catafalque party, the immobile soldier in his or her crisp uniform, the infinitely suspended threat of violence that belongs to the trained guardian who is retained off-duty at his or her operational base, the willing expression of solidarity from the individual compelled by tradition and duty to stand stock-still for a good hour while everyone else participates peacefully in the moving ceremony.

Finding my dead uncle's lost war medals

Last year I wrote briefly and not very competently about my grandmother's brother, who died shortly after returning from war, in 1946. He was 44 years old when he died. He died from complications stemming from his war service in north Africa, where he served in Tobruk. He was already fairly advanced in age when he enlisted in Sydney.

These are medals of his, about the existence of which I was alerted in August 2011 by a man who has established an organisation called Lost Medals Australia. He found me because I had uploaded to my website the memoir my father wrote before he died, in which he talks about his family as part of the narrative of his personal story. The gentleman went on to write about returning the medals to the family; they had been held safe for 30 years after having been "picked up in a box of second hand goods".

As my blogpost of last year about William Robert Ralph Caldicott, my uncle, is not very competent because I find it difficult to read the writing in his war record, this post now is also full of shortcomings because I do not know what the medals represent, why they were awarded, and generally what they mean. Further reading is required. Suffice it to say that the medal on the right in the picture above shows a lion standing on top of a griffon, with the dates 1939 and 1945 stamped above the animals. The medal on the left is stamped with the words 'The Defence Medal'. If you know more about these medals, please feel free to leave a comment.

Nixon derailed Vietnam peace talks in '68

Presidents and prime ministers are like popes: they become known on the basis of a single name. The names "Kennedy", "Johnson", "Thatcher" invoke certain ideas and points of reference, but the name Nixon is probably the most despised in the list of US presidents because of the man's political techniques while in office. It appears, however, that Nixon's predecessor, Lyndon Johnson, was partial to listening devices also, and with the passage of time information illegally collected is being released, the BBC reports. Most damning from Nixon's point of view is the knowledge that, in opposition prior to the '68 election, Nixon worked to derail Vietnam peace talks, essentially ensuring the loss of tens of thousands of lives in a bloody war that might have been averted but for his meddling. Nixon was finally forced to end the war in '73. "[The story] begins," writes the BBC's David Taylor, "in the summer of 1968."

Nixon feared a breakthrough at the Paris Peace talks designed to find a negotiated settlement to the Vietnam war, and he knew this would derail his campaign. 

He therefore set up a clandestine back-channel involving Anna Chennault, a senior campaign adviser. 

At a July meeting in Nixon's New York apartment, the South Vietnamese ambassador was told Chennault represented Nixon and spoke for the campaign. If any message needed to be passed to the South Vietnamese president, Nguyen Van Thieu, it would come via Chennault. 

In late October 1968 there were major concessions from Hanoi which promised to allow meaningful talks to get underway in Paris - concessions that would justify Johnson calling for a complete bombing halt of North Vietnam. This was exactly what Nixon feared. 

Chennault was despatched to the South Vietnamese embassy with a clear message: the South Vietnamese government should withdraw from the talks, refuse to deal with Johnson, and if Nixon was elected, they would get a much better deal.

"So on the eve of his planned announcement of a halt to the bombing," we learn, "Johnson learned the South Vietnamese were pulling out."

Whatever it takes. It's hard to think of a more immoral undertaking than to actively pursue the continuation of military hostilities merely in order to further your political career. Well, it's not impossible. The active pursuit of the war against Iraq by George W. Bush, based on bald lies and massaged facts, approximates Nixon's actions in terms of its sheer moral turpitude. Bush got reelected in '04 on the back of his warmongering stance, because the media had not done its job at the time of Iraq to warn the community about how flimsy was Bush's case against Saddam Hussein.

In the case of the Johnson tapes medicinal time has had its soothing effect. By the time the truth comes out about Dubya there will be other, more pressing things to occupy our attention. The release of this new information is hardly timely. If it can do anything it should remind us that politicians will often do anything necessary in order for them to reach elected office, even sacrificing thousands of lives if that's the price for glory. And the importance for the community of people in high elected office will continue to grow. We see this in the way that Kevin Rudd, elected prime minister in Australia in 2007, continues to be a shadowy presence behind the current PM. Any sign of weakness - a fall in opinion polls, the failure to pass proposed legislation - becomes an opportunity to speculate on party support for Julia Gillard.

The world is becoming increasingly globalised and complex. Old certainties fall by the wayside as the corporatised liberal polities and the emerging powers of the global South forge ahead into the white field of the future, where our destinies are yet to be written but where there is an always-receding goal-line that invites nation states to strive forward, and be the first to reach it. In this shifting and uncertain landscape we reach for assurances. In some countries that might take the form of extreme nationalism or religion. In secular Australia we cling to the British monarch to make us feel better, make us feel safe. It's ironic that as our leaders become more presidential and awe-inspiring, we become less likely to embrace independence and finally go the last step to sever the ties that bind us to the House of Windsor.

US to set up cyber warfare units to counter China hacking

Rhetoric between China and the US over cyber security is escalating, with the US military promising to establish "at least 13 units which would have offensive capabilities in cyberspace as part of efforts to protect US infrastructure". The Australian Associated Press story quotes President Obama as well as a military hawk, General Keith Alexander, who heads the US National Security Agency and Cyber Command.

The escalation has been building since the middle of February when a news story appeared that focused on a Shanghai building block ostensibly run by the People's Liberation Army for the purpose of conducting cyber attacks on US interests. On the Sydney Morning Herald website the story (which had been syndicated from a UK firm) has - for some unknown reason - been pulled down now, but there's a 19 February story still available on the Economist site, for example, that refers to Unit 61398 of the PLA.

AN AMERICAN information-security firm has identified a secretive Chinese military unit as the likely source of hacking attacks against more than a hundred companies around the world. In a report made public on Tuesday, the firm, Mandiant, based in Alexandria, Virginia, said it could now back up suspicions it first reported in more qualified form in 2010.

The AAP story that appeared today goes further, with a cybersecurity specialist at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies noting that not all information about attacks had so far been publicly released.

"There is some intelligence which hasn't been made public that points toward China as the major actor in economic espionage," [the specialist] told [Agence France Presse].

Those original stories had been noted in Beijing. Last week, for example, China's ambassador to Australia,  Chen Yuming, published an op-ed piece in the Australian - the News Ltd flagship - in which he had this to say about the allegations coming out of the US as a result of the Mandiant research.

Cyber attack is a global issue. China is one of the main victims of such attacks.Last year, 14 million computers in China were controlled by 73,000 IP addresses from overseas. Coincidentally, most of the attackers were located in the country that has most frequently accused China of hacking. The Chinese government firmly opposes and has fought hard against cyber intrusions according to law. 

In recent years we have carried out bilateral law-enforcement co-operation with more than 30 countries, and tabled to the UN a draft International Code of Conduct for Information Security. 

China calls on the international community to work together to build, on this basis, a cyber space that is peaceful, safe, open and co-operative.

Yuming's promise is that China will advocate for "building a harmonious world of enduring peace and common prosperity, which is the aspiration of people of all countries", and while he addresses the issue of cyber attacks he does not come out and say straight away that the PLA does not operate Unit 61398. Other Chinese leaders have commented on the issue, but these denials clearly do not give confidence to US officials, including the president, whom AAP quotes as saying to US network ABC News:

"What is absolutely true is that we have seen a steady ramping up of cyber security threats. Some are state sponsored. Some are just sponsored by criminals," Obama said in an interview with ABC News released on Wednesday. 

"We've made it very clear to China and some other state actors that, you know, we expect them to follow international norms and abide by international rules. 

"And we'll have some pretty tough talk with them. We already have," Obama said[.]

 Time magazine puts it another way: "The gloves are off."

Brave Ben Quilty goes in to bat for our Diggers

A sketch Quilty made in Afghanistan.

Artist Ben Quilty was on TV news last night again, talking about his year spent as official war artist in Afghanistan. Today he's in the media talking about how sportsmen and -women get a free ride, subsidised by our tax dollars, while artists, teachers, nurses and other specially-trained workers must meet their own financial obligations. It's an interesting point of view as it lies well outside the routine. But this is dangerous ground for anyone to cover. It's certain to attract negative attention from some parts of the media, just like Hilary Mantel's comments on Kate Middleton did. Sport is a sacred cow in Australia; criticise it publicly at your peril! Quilty risks being seen as a younger version of Germaine Greer; now there's someone the shock jocks love to hate. Only the brave take on the 'burbs.

In his article, Quilty compares the cosseted Olympians who were forced to apologise publicly recently for their poor behaviour in London, with Australian servicemen and -women working in Afghanistan under very difficult conditions. Interestingly, Quilty last night on his news spot talked briefly about how their stories are absent from Australia's media. It's a good point because it's absolutely clear that the Defence Department goes to excessive lengths to keep stories out of the media here that could attract criticism. It's a form of damage control. And while it might make life easier for politicians, senior officers, and the Army's media office, it's not good for the soldiers. It's not good for them because silence on this front means they lack the kind of support that they should be entitled to. The rank-and-file in places like Tarin Kowt are being dudded by a hierarchy intent on saving face. It's a damn shame, so good on Quilty for raising the profile of the women and men we send out to face danger, and who will one day come home with the mental and physical scars of their difficult deployment.

If you read what Quilty says about the soldiers he met during his assignment it becomes stunningly clear how cowardly the chain of command is being. Let alone the fact that, as voters and taxpayers, Australians have a right to more information about how the deployment is proceeding in Afghanistan, it is clear from looking at the images that Quilty has made that there is a desire on the part of servicepeople to reach out to the broader community and to generate a meaningful dialogue with them. It is because of the real dangers of serving in places like Afghanistan that we are entitled to enjoying this kind of relationship with these young - and often not-so-young - people. More knowledge about their lives over there and the damage they fall prey to can also signally inform public debate at home about Australia's participation in wars. Is the risk of psychological damage, let alone physical damage, offset by any benefits that can accrue to Australia by participation in such campaigns? We need to know these things. We are ultimately responsible for government actions. It is our right to be informed.

The Australian War Memorial has a long history of sending talented artists to the front lines to chronicle the experience of war. Just go to Canberra and see the incredible paintings that Arthur Streeton made during his assignment in Europe during WWI. And there are many more than this. Quilty joins a long line of painters who have gone to see and witness the experience of Australians serving their country, and he is entitled to be listened to. When was the last time you listened to the thoughts of someone who has spent a year living within the arc of war? How often have you heard someone speak of the experiences of soldiers who daily face the real dangers of battle? We should all listen to Quilty because he has the mark of authenticity on his face. He has been fortunate to see things that we will probably never even dream of.