Australian Foreign Policy

A major people's Inquiry into the costs and consequences of the US Alliance and Australian involvement in US-led wars has been launched. Why is this inquiry so different? Because it is not run by government. It is run for the people by the people. The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has trumped most voluntary organisations by taking democratic power into its own hands. This people's inquiry was conceived of and agreed to by IPAN members and is run and officiated by volunteers, in cooperation with web news-site Independent Australia. You are invited to make a personal or organisational submission because they really want to know what you think about Australia's foreign policy. Please consider donating.

The Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) is encouraged by recent statements by the Foreign Affairs Minister, the Hon. Marise Payne, following the Australia-U.S. Ministerial (AUSMIN) talks in Washington, where the Minister indicated that Australia has no intention to injure our important relationship with China but instead seeks to ‘make our own decisions, our own judgments in the Australian national interest’. [To better situate the area in question, Candobetter has included a 2014 video about the disputed islands in the South China Sea.]

Friday 29th May 630pm: Prof Clinton Fernandes is the guest speaker at one of Avid Reader bookshop online events. Co-hosted by Independent & Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) and Just Peace Qld. The topic “Australian foreign policy after Coronavirus: navigating the US-China rivalry.” This is a great opportunity to hear from one of Australia's best foreign policy analysts. Having Vince Scappatura MC will make this event one not to be missed!

Spirit of Eureka condemns the Morrison government and the ALP Opposition’s compliant endorsement of the US intervention and preparations for a “regime change” in sovereign Venezuela. This points to the urgent need for an independent Australian foreign policy that upholds and promotes the sovereignty and independence of countries to determine their own destiny.

The next Meeting of IPAN in Victoria will be on 20 February, Level 4 Trades Hall at 5.30 pm. This meeting will commence earlier due to a small overlap with a meeting on Venezuela on the same night, at 7pm in the Trades Hall, at which the Venezuelan Consul will be speaking. IPAN meeting will be at 5.30pm – 7pm to enable people interested to learn more about the situation in Venezuela to attend.
Just when you thought all your co-citizens were asleep at the wheel on Australian Government support for America's latest regime change initiative, the Independent and Peaceful Australia Network (IPAN) has issued a response. IPAN reminds us that this is not our decision, nor the USA's to make, but is a decision for the Venezuelan people. IPAN has made several recommendations, including that Australian needs to develop an independent foreign policy.

See also: Countering the dangerous MSM (mis)perceptions of Syrian conflict (10 Oct 2015) | RT Op-Edge

The Australian Foreign Minister, Julie Bishop, is pushing long-refuted lies about Syria as she speculates where she and her colleagues might find a replacement for Assad, without the slightest suggestion of irony or 'elections'. Article first published in Russian Insider at http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/australia-fm-pushing-long-refuted-syria-lies/ri10271, October 6, 2015.

The Syrian Network for Human Rights and Irin both purport to be disinterested information sources on conflict in Syria and boast that the UN relies on them as its primary source. But they are not disinterested. There is abundant evidence that they promote the 'rebel' or terrorist side of the conflict and that their funding is from organisations and countries aligned with US-NATO support for aggression in the region. They are in fact promoting war propaganda against Syria and it is amazing that people one would expect to be more discerning, take this on face value. In this article I try to find out why Tim Costello, of World Vision, came to accuse the Syrian government of killing more people than ISIS without taking into account that these deeds were actions by a national army defending its people from multiple assaults by violent gangs, including ISIS, many of them supported by US-NATO funding and arms.

This article was previously published on SANA as Protests in Turkey in support of Syrians and against Erdogan-backed terrorism (1/5/15).
Update (4/5/15): Israeli occupation forces continue treating terrorists wounded in Syria (4/5/15) | SANA, Al-Jaafari: Syria first line of defense against extremism and terrorism (4/5/15) | SANA, 4 Turkish officers killed in joint raid by Syrian army and Hezbollah on NATO-backed terrorists’ command centre in Idlib (2/5/15) | Syrian Free Press, At least 52 civilians dead in US-led strikes in Syrian village: not even a terrorist among those killed (2/5/15) | Syrian Free Press, Turkey to start training terrorists on May 9 | PressTV (2/5/15): New protest in Turkey demanding a halt to terrorism-supporting policies of Erdogan | SANA.

Jabhat al-Nusra terrorist in Jisr al-Shugour, just south of the Turkish border, 25/4/15

Ankara, SANA – Unions, civil society organizations, and political parties in Turkey organized a protest in Taksim area in Istanbul on Friday to express solidarity with the Syrian people and to denounce the support provided to terrorists by Recep Tayyip Erdogan and the Justice and Development Party government.

The protestors rallied in front of Galatasaray School in Taksim area, denouncing the terrorist organization Jabhet al-Nusra and the government of the Justice and Development Party.

Speeches delivered during the protest held the Justice and Development Party responsible for the massacres committed against Syrian people, calling for stopping all the military and logistic support provided by the Party to ISIS, Jabhet al-Nusra, and ISIS terrorists.

UPDATE 24 Nov: We have just published an apology from the ABC regarding this complaint, here: http://candobetter.net/node/4197 where they have apologised for their misinformation.David Macilwain again complains to the ABC about their uncritical recycling of propaganda about the MH17 aircraft downing. He also expresses his disgust at the posturings of Tony Abbott with regard to the G20 and Vladimir Putin, based on this propaganda.

Those who want to know the truth about the recent Houla massacre, blamed by the corporate newsmedia on the Syrian government, should consider these chilling words said in 2005 by Ziad Abdel Nour, a corporate-financier and founder of "Blackhawk Partners" as well as chairman of the Neo-Conservative run "United States Committee for a Free Lebanon" :

The callous and evil slaughter and rape of ethnic Tamils last May by the Sinhalese armed forces in Sri Lanka compares with the Indonesian mass murder of East Timorese in the Indonesian Invasion of 1975 and again in the 1991 Dili Massacre.

In September 1974, in central Java, Australia's Prime Minister Gough Whitlam told Indonesia's President Suharto that East Timor was “too small to be independent”. Thirty odd years later the Australian Government turned a blind eye to Rajapaska's Tamil genocide in Sri Lanka.

Seems Australia has quickly forgotten the lessons of Vietnam War. The late Martin Luther King is oft quoted from a sermon he delivered in 1967 on the Vietnam War "A time comes when silence is betrayal".

[This article follows on from the initial article after Rajapaksa's war crime assassinations of surrendering Tamils on 10 May 09: Tamil Tigers - hunted down and exterminated like vermin by Sinhalese President Rajapaksa [22-May-09]]