The full hour long version of that interview I linked to below between Australia's most outspoken, courageous journalist and Julian Assange :

Australian journalist John Pilger in interview for his revelatory, truth-telling new movie 'The War You Don't See' :




A short collection of clips from the movie about the government lies the mainstream media pumps out, decade in and decade out, to mindwash people into believing war is not only, repeatedly, necessary, but utterly patriotic :



'The War You Don't See' doesn't have an Australian cinema or TV airing release date, which seems strange. Surely the million or so Australians who marched against the War On Iraq in 2003 would be exactly the kind of audience who'd want to see a movie like this.

Plus the millions more who have since learned the truth of the Australian government & Murdoch media lies, myths and deceptions about the Iraq & Afghanistan wars over the past seven years.

The Sydney Morning Herald belatedly realises that John Pilger is one of Australia's most incisive writers and brilliant orators, and publishes excerpts from his recent speech to students at Sydney Boys High School :

...Australia has changed its Anglo-Irish characteristics for a nation drawn from all corners of the earth, this amazing diversity is celebrated (at this school)....

In congratulating all school leavers, I urge you to remember success in life does not necessarily come from prizes. What is important is the person you are, the kindness you express, the compassion you feel and the courage you show. Go into the world and relinquish the safety of silence and make trouble - remembering that the most important trouble is calling to account those who assume power over our lives.

The Rest Is Here

I wonder if the Herald, or any other Australian mainstream media, will publish Pilger's thoughts on Obama, the aftermath of the War On Iraq, and the rumbling War On Iran?

Probably not.

Pilger : The War On Afghanistan "Is A Fraud"

Australian journalist John Pilger was awarded the 2009 Sydney Peace Prize in August :

The jury made the decision on the basis of Pilger's “courage as a foreign and war correspondent in enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard”. It also praised his “commitment to peace with justice by exposing and holding governments to account for human rights abuses and for fearless challenges to censorship in any form”.

On November 4, he will receive the award at a lecture at the Opera House. On November 6, Pilger will speak to some 1500 students at a peace festival hosted by Cabramatta High School.

John Pilger's work is not published in any Australian city daily papers, despite being our most famous, internationally recognised journalist. Nor is Pilger published on supposedly "edgy" comment and opinion sites like The Punch or The National Times.

Why?

This is why :

The Afghan war is a fraud.

It began as an American vendetta for domestic consumption in the wake of the 11 September 2001 attacks, in which not a single Afghan was involved. The Taliban, who are Afghans, had no quarrel with the United States and were dealing secretly with the Clinton administration over a strategic pipeline. They offered to apprehend Osama Bin Laden and hand him over to a clerical court, but this was rejected.

The establishment of a permanent US/NATO presence in a resource-rich, strategic region is the principal reason for the war.

Too Much Truth

John Pilger On Obama

It still seems astounding that neither the Murdoch or the Fairfax media in Australia publish Australian journalist John Pilger's writings.

Next year, both Fairfax and Murdoch will be asking readers to pay to read some, or all, of its columnists. But the columnists that people might actually pay to read, like Pilger, won't get a run. Why is that? What is the truth that Pilger speaks that so many in the Australian media are so clearly afraid to publish?

The harshest kind of truth.

John Pilger On The Gaza Genocide

Australian journalist, and decades-long veteran war correspondent, John Pilger, remains one of the most internationally respected and best-selling non-fiction writers this country has ever produced, and yet no Australian daily newspaper will publish his work. Not one. He's a journalist who he can premiere his latest documentary in Sydney and Melbourne and pull audiences numbering in the thousands, but Pilger is effectively black-banned by the mainstream Australian media.

Are stories like this the reason why?

For what happens in Gaza is the defining moment of our time, which either grants the impunity of war criminals the immunity of our silence, while we contort our own intellect and morality, or gives us the power to speak out. For the moment I prefer my own memory of Gaza: of the people's courage and resistance and their "luminous humanity," as Karma Nabulsi put it.

On my last trip there, I was rewarded with a spectacle of Palestinian flags fluttering in unlikely places. It was dusk and children had done this. No one told them to do it. They made flagpoles out of sticks tied together, and a few of them climbed on to a wall and held the flag between them, some silently, others crying out. They do this every day when they know foreigners are leaving, believing the world will not forget them.

Read The Full Story Here

Howard Government Denies Conspiracy to Overthrow Government Of East Timor

World Bank Now "Stands Ready To Assist" East Time After PM Kept Them Out For Years

By Darryl Mason


This remarkable image by Glenn Campbell appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald.

The rumours and whispers have grown so strong, so convincing, that now even the Australian Treasurer, Peter Costello, has been forced to publicly state Australia did not play a r0le in overthrowing the government of East Timor.

"It's absolutely false that Australia has intervened in any way in the political line-up in East Timor," he said on Channel 9.

"Australia, by the way, has troops that are serving, in difficult conditions, the East Timorese people, keeping law and order on the streets.

"Those troops are there at the invitation of the president and the then prime minister Mr Alkatiri. So they were asked to be there."

Well, that's not quite true now is it Mr Treasurer?

Australian ships and helicopters and ground vehicles and troops were sent to East Timor with the expectation that the Prime Minister Alkatiri would ask for Australian troops to come in and help out, at the height of the rioting, the burning and the killings last month. But he refused to commit for days, unsure of what the role of foreign peacekeepers should be in East Timor.

Alkatiri feared a coup back then, and warned his supporters that this might happen. Now he has been forced to quit, his supporters believe his prediction has come true.

When Australian troops entered East Timor there was still a bit of paperwork left to be signed, and the East Timorese Prime Minister Alkatiri was extremely reluctant to allow foreign troops into the country, no doubt forseeing his disposal.

Australian troops were allowed into East Timor mostly due to President Gusmao, who engaged in "shouting matches" with the Prime Minister in the days leading up to Australia's intervention.

The Australian Treasurer plays dumb when it comes to discussion of just how influence 1300 Australian troops, with gunned up trucks and Blackhawk helicopters, can have on local happenings in East Timor.

"To claim that they've engaged in domestic politics is absolutely false and I can say that for a fact."

This is a ridiculous thing to say and Costello knows it.

Any time foreign troops enter a sovereign country, and are seen to be protecting, or keeping watch over anti-government forces, as Australians did, then they are becoming involved in domestic politics.


It's not getting any better in East Timor. The government is in chaos after Alkatiri quit. and he is now being accused of arming kill squads to take out his political enemies in the early days of the current conflict.

Homes are being burned, Australian troops are having big time trouble keeping rival gangs from beating and stabbing ten kinds of hell out of each other, and even the displaced persons camps are being attacked and harassed.

Their bodies trembled with fear. They sobbed. They stared wide-eyed, heads bowed. They were mostly women and children, huddled at the gate of Dili's main wharf yesterday.

They had been chased there by anti-Alkatiri rioters who then stood on the road 20 metres away, screaming threats. "We're going to kill you all," a mob leader yelled. "You are all dead."

All that mattered to the rioters, who were frothing at the mouth and screaming incoherently, was that they believed the petrified women and children they had bailed up were from East Timor's east.

That's how far East Timor's conflict has gone: Timorese attacking strangers because of where they were born.

Australian troops are heavily restricted by their rules of engagement in East Timor. They can't open fire unless they feel their lives are directly threatened, but the rioters aren't targeting the troops. They go after women and children and the houses and businesses of those they view as their enemies.

...the soldiers must remain "neutral". Major James Baker, the spokesman for Australia's peacekeeping force in Dili, said: "Our soldiers are taught to have a measured response to defuse any situation which might arise. Our job is to make sure the feuding parties are separated."

The soldiers separate them, but then the rioters run around the block and attack each other, or innocent passers-by, all over again.

The soldiers jumped out and chased the culprits, one of them screaming "Come here, you little f---ers." The soldier ran down and grabbed the slowest by the neck before bundling him into one of the vehicles. The rest of the rioters escaped, free to terrorise elsewhere.

Australian journalist John Pilger has covered events in East Timor from the early 1970s, when Australia first refused to interfere with the ongoing Indonesian genocide that wiped out 1/3 of the entire population over the next two decades. Here's an excerpt of his take on what's happening in East Timor today :

These days Australia likes to present itself as a helpful, generous neighbor of East Timor, after public opinion forced the government of John Howard to lead a UN peacekeeping force six years ago.

East Timor is now an independent state, thanks to the courage of its people and a tenacious resistance led by the liberation movement Fretilin, which in 2001 swept to political power in the first democratic elections. In regional elections last year, 80 percent of votes went to Fretilin, led by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, a convinced "economic nationalist," who opposes privatization and interference by the World Bank.

Barely three days after Prime Minister Alkatiri stepped down, the World Bank has made it known that it "stands ready to assist in any way we can."

World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz was one of the most insidious of all the NeoCons who lied their country into the brutal 'War On Iraq', later admitting that the story of Saddam's WMDs was just a cover story to help sell the war.

Wolfowitz has now got his World Bank sights well and truly set on East Timor, after being denied extensive exploitation rights by Alkatiri for the past six years. Not anymore. Says Wolfowitz :

"This chance for a united approach to peace and recovery may not come again."

That almost sounds like a threat.

Go Here For Extensive Coverage From May 28, When Australian Troops Had Just Entered East Timor

Go To 'Your New Reality' Blog For Coverage On How The Current Troubles In East Timor Began And Quickly Spiralled Out Of Control.

Another Slab of Coverage Here