Al Qaida

Just for a minute, imagine if David Hicks was charismatic, brilliant, eloquent, and truly, truly remorseful. He came across as precisely none of those things on ABC TV’s David Hicks special on Australian Story last night. But if he had, would Australia forgive him?

We’ll never know. Because what we saw was an unconvincing charade. And some irrelevant shots of Hicks on a motorbike, his wife in soft focus, and his mate making a cup of tea.

The former Guantanamo Bay detainee, by blaming his childhood and talking about his way forward, seems to be seeking some sort of forgiveness. ‘Closure’, even.

Continue reading "David Hicks is a sinner, sinned against, but no martyr" »

The death of Al-Qaeda’s leader has sparked a fierce response that lacks an understanding of the real world. The world is not perfect and nobody should pretend that it is.

Nor is foreign policy black and white. It is a cocktail of aspirational idealism and hard fought realism but too often we forget this. The last few weeks have seen an army of armchair commentators purporting their often narrow and moralist interpretations of events as the only courses of action that would have been permissible. So let’s set the record straight on ten fundamental questions with some real world answers:

1. Could Bin Laden have been captured rather than killed?

No.

Continue reading "Everything you ever wanted to know about OBL’s death" »