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Binoy Kampmark
Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.
Binoy Kampmark - Latest News [Page 42]
Nuclear White Elephants: Australia’s New Submarine Deal
Thursday, 16 September 2021, 3:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It does not get any messier or more chaotic than this. Since 2009, when Australia’s Future Submarine Program (FSP) known as Project SEA 1000, began to take shape, strategists and policy makers have been keen to pursue the next big White Elephant of defence ... More >>
News Corp Turns Climate Change Inactivist
Wednesday, 15 September 2021, 3:31 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The faux Damascene converts have been doing the rounds in the Murdoch empire of late, stirring interest in matters green and attempting to shift, if ever so slightly, discussions on climate change. Known for being a stable of environmental vandals ... More >>
Bitcoin the Messiah: El Salvador Goes Crypto
Tuesday, 14 September 2021, 3:36 pm | Binoy Kampmark
In a particular deli store in South Melbourne, a tongue-and-cheek message is attached to the cash register. “Bitcoin accepted there,” it proclaims brightly. Naturally, it is nothing of the sort, a teasing ruse for the punters and those casting an eye ... More >>
Messianic Failure: Pursuing The GWOT Jabberwock
Saturday, 11 September 2021, 4:25 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Anniversaries can provide occasions for reflection and deep consideration. Past errors and misjudgements can be considered soberly; historical distance provides perspective. Mature reflections may be permitted. But they can also serve the opposite ... More >>
Paul Wolfowitz: Deluded and At Liberty
Friday, 10 September 2021, 2:20 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It was all marvellous for Paul Wolfowitz to get on Australian television (why bother?) to brusquely discuss those attacks on US soil in September 2001 and criticism of the invasion of Iraq by US-led forces. After two decades, the former US deputy secretary ... More >>
Weaponised Refugees and Hybrid Attacks
Tuesday, 7 September 2021, 3:16 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Refugees and asylum seekers provide rich pickings for demagogues and political opportunists. The Australian approach politicises their plight by arguing that they are illegitimate depending on the way they arrive, namely, by boat. The twentieth anniversary of the ... More >>
Patriotic Snitch: Bob Hawke As US Informant
Sunday, 5 September 2021, 4:04 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Larrikin is a word often, and inaccurately used, in Australian political lingo. Australia’s longest serving Labor Prime Minister, Bob Hawke, was known as one such figure. He was praised as the great communicator and healer between the forces of ... More >>
Blinken Says No To Greenland Real Estate
Saturday, 4 September 2021, 5:07 am | Binoy Kampmark
In May, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken made a visit to Greenland. In a rather unedifying way, he was called ‘Tony’ by his hosts, a disarming point that was bound to open the floodgates of insincerity. For all the convivial stuffing, there ... More >>
Droning Disasters: A US Strike on Kabul
Wednesday, 1 September 2021, 12:38 pm | Binoy Kampmark
No more profoundly disturbing statement was needed. In the dying days of the official US departure from Kabul, a US drone etched its butcher’s legacy with a strike supposedly intended for the blood-lusty terrorist group ISIS-K, an abbreviation of Islamic State ... More >>
Abandoned and Alone: Lamenting the US-Australian Alliance
Monday, 30 August 2021, 3:21 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Listening to Australian pundits talk about the relationship of their country with the US – at least from a strategic perspective – can be a trying exercise. It is filled with angst, Freudian fears of abandonment, the strident megalomania of ... More >>
The Neocons Speak: Afghanistan as Political Real Estate
Friday, 27 August 2021, 3:42 pm | Binoy Kampmark
When the tears dry, it is worth considering why there is so much upset about the fall of Kabul (or reconquest) by the Taliban and the messy withdrawal of US-led forces. A large shield is employed: women, rights of the subject, education. Remove the shield, ... More >>
Amazon’s Drive Into Africa
Wednesday, 25 August 2021, 2:29 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Since 2004, Amazon has been building a foothold on the African continent. In Cape Town, it already employs thousands in a global call centre and a range of data hubs. Its South African career portal is a busy place, with the vast majority of advertised ... More >>
Reluctant Acceptance: Responding To Afghanistan’s Refugees
Sunday, 22 August 2021, 4:14 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Do not for a minute think that this is a kind, heart-felt thing in the aftermath of Kabul’s fall. True, a number of Afghans will find their way to Germany, to Canada, to the UK, US and a much smaller number to Australia. But this will be part of the ... More >>
Wounded Paternalism: Biden and the US Imperial Complex
Wednesday, 18 August 2021, 1:35 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Civilisation has tended to be seen like a gift by those claiming to grant it. It is done, in the sense Rudyard Kipling intended it, with solemn duty. It is a task discharged as a burden borne heavily. In its modern form, notably in the hands of ... More >>
The Taliban take Kabul
Monday, 16 August 2021, 2:49 pm | Binoy Kampmark
It unfolded as a story of fleeing. The Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, taking flight to Tajikistan, giving little clue of his intentions to colleagues. The fleeing of the infamous Abdul Rashid Dostum, a warlord assured to to fight another day. The ... More >>
A Taste Of Panic: The Taliban Continues Its Advance
Sunday, 15 August 2021, 4:19 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The historical vectors are moving with conviction and purpose; the weak and lacking in conviction are in retreat and the gun is doing the talking. The government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the security services and the Afghan National Army, ... More >>
Targeting The Medical Evidence: The US Challenge On Assange’s Health
Thursday, 12 August 2021, 2:03 pm | Binoy Kampmark
The desperate attempt by the US imperium to nab Julian Assange was elevated to another level on August 11 in a preliminary hearing before the UK High Court. The central component to this gruesome affair was the continuing libel of the expert witness ... More >>
Call In The Khaki: The Australian Defence Force And COVID-19
Tuesday, 10 August 2021, 3:24 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Towards the latter part of July, Australia’s unimaginative Prime Minister Scott Morrison received a request from the police commissioner from the state of New South Wales. It was a query on whether personnel from the Australian Defence Forces might ... More >>
Cultivated Delusions At The Tokyo Olympics
Monday, 9 August 2021, 12:34 pm | Binoy Kampmark
Australia’s Channel 7 team was all about ignoring history as its selected commentators went into describing, poorly, the closing ceremony of the Tokyo Olympics. The trio was poorly equipped culturally, geographically and totally (the Japanese component ... More >>
Silicon Valley, New Zealand And Pandemic Exceptionalism
Sunday, 8 August 2021, 3:59 pm | Binoy Kampmark
There are some crises that never touch the well-heeled. Money, like flab, insulates them from bruising. The generally applied laws of a state can be treated as meaningless jottings; the citizenry ignored with class contempt. But few can blame the world’s ... More >>
