Neil Prakash's Life The New Daily 6 May 2016

Neil Prakash’s life before he became an IS fighter


May 6, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

2


From vulgar rapper to a slain member of ‘the most evil organisation on Earth’.


Prakash, a top ISIL recruiter, was believed to be fighting in Syria. Photo: ABC


Slain Australian terrorist Neil Prakash was a failed rapper who wrote about sex and drugs before defecting to the world’s most notorious terror group, where he preyed on vulnerable young people and threatened innocent families.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull celebrated his death this week after being informed by United States intelligence that Prakash, one of Islamic State’s most senior recruiters, had been killed during a drone attack in Mosul, northern Iraq.

“Neil Prakash’s death is a very, very positive development in the war against Daesh and the war against terror,” he said.

• Australia’s most wanted terrorist killed
• Senior Aussie IS member a ‘cold blooded killer’• Charged teen ‘in deradicalisation program’


ASIO said 50 Australians fighting for IS had been killed. Photo: AAP

The news of Prakash’s death came as ASIO announced that 50 Australians had been confirmed killed fighting for the Islamic State.

Many of those who have died have done so anonymously, the government having repeatedly refused to release the names of the dead.



Only 24 when he died, Prakash was a high school dropout who had been a Buddhist, an apprentice mechanic and a rapper before converting to Islam in 2012.

He spent many of his formative years living in the garage of a friend. He ran with an Asian gang called the Springy Boys in Melbourne’s south-east.

Prakash’s unsuccessful early career as a rapper known as Kree Dafa did not land him in a world of fast cars and cash.

Some of the songs were extremely crude and far from the musings of a devout man.

His life as a wild eyed suburban rapper bore little resemblance to the man Prakash was to become: a fighter for one of the world’s most barbaric organisations who became known as Abu Khaled Al-Cambodi.

Through online networks he was associated with the terror plots against Anzac Day both this year and last, as well as plans to target a Mother’s Day fun run.

Later, Prakash wrought havoc on travel in the Middle East, forcing three major airlines, Etihad, Lufthansa and Turkish Airlines, to ground planes after a bomb hoax.


Prakash attempted to recruit vulnerable young people to carry out violent acts for Islamic State. Photo: ABC
‘The world is a safer place’

National Security editor at The Australian, Paul Maley, the first journalist to mention Neil Prakash by name, was threatened with beheading.

Mr Maley told The New Daily he was well looked after by ASIO, the police and his employers, but there was an inevitable sense of relief.

“I would never revel in the death of any man even one like Prakash, but the community is much safer without him,” he said

“He threw his lot in with the most evil terrorist group on Earth. I feel sympathy for his mother and the people who loved him. But I don’t have sympathy for him. The fact is that just as the community is safer, so am I.”

Professor Greg Barton of Deakin University told The New Daily there were many paradoxes with the Australian authorities’ celebration of Prakash’s death and their provision of assistance in tracking down Australian citizens.

“This is a whole new area,” he said. “It raises a lot of questions. There is a war going on.

“It is a conventional war on the ground in Iraq and Syria, but it is also about the hearts and minds of young people in Australian suburbs.

“It is dealing with very sad and tragic issues. It is good news that Prakash is no longer online trying to influence young people but his own story is a very tragic one. His story is full of pathos.

“He was a lost kid who ended up in a bad place and sadly influenced others, and took them to a bad place.”

Prakash was linked to Melbourne teenager Numan Haider, who was shot in 2015 during a confrontation with police.

Thailand: Deadly Destination continues to get coverage, Sickening video - British tourists viciously assaulted in Thailand, Michael Smith News, 28 April, 2016.

http://www.michaelsmithnews.com/2016/04/sickening-video-british-tourists-viciously-assaulted-in-thailand-because-they-were-farangs-westerner.html In the comments section: seeker of truth said... From a 2014 UK Daily Mail article - A new book has branded Thailand one of the world’s most dangerous tourist destinations. Australian author John Stapleton suggests that widespread police corruption, violence and crime are all blighting a country once commonly referred to as the ‘Land of Smiles’. In his book Thailand: Deadly Destination, Mr Stapleton attempts to expose the reputation of Thailand as a welcoming country, claiming a boom in tourism since the 1960s has created a hatred of foreigners and a ‘murderous indifference’ to the millions of tourists who flock to the country’s white-sand beaches, picturesque countryside and thriving nightlife each year. He also says that the death rate among tourists, which he claims often goes unrecorded, is ‘the worst scandal in the annals of modern tourism’. ‘Thailand’s carefully manufactured reputation for hospitality, as a land of palm trees and sun-drenched beaches, happy-hour bars, world class hotels and welcoming people, as paradise on Earth, is very different to the reality many tourists encounter,’ Mr Stapleton says in the book, which is being published next week. ‘The rapid growth in Thai tourism has been a triumph of advertising and image creation; building the perception, firmly entrenched in the West, that Thais embrace strangers. ‘In reality, the relations between ethnic Thais and foreigners are often difficult; and there has been growing friction and disengagement, a drift from curiosity to contempt, as visitor numbers have increased. While many foreigners leave the country happy, there are equally thousands of travellers from Europe, America, Australia, India and the Middle East, both short-time tourists and long-term residents, leaving the country impoverished, distressed, frightened and unlikely to ever return. ‘If, with the murder or accidental deaths of tourists a common event, they leave at all. ‘Life in Thailand is cheap. And the deaths of foreigners often go unlamented; even unrecorded. Tourists are still given few warnings of the reality of the situation they are entering.’ Mr Stapleton previously worked as a news reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald from 1986 to 1994 and for The Australian between 1994 to 2009. He has been visiting Thailand since the 1970s before moving there in 2010. After being repeatedly robbed and attacked, he began looking into news reports on the welfare of tourists, which he describes as ‘scandalous’, suggesting that the police have little interest in helping foreigners who report crimes..... Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2833369/Thailand-one-dangerous-tourist-destinations-Earth-Ex-pat-investigation-lifts-lid-dark-Land-Smiles.html Mr Stapleton might have been right on the money with his book "Thailand: Deadly Destination" A big no no in these Asian tourist spots is to argue with the locals. Reply Thursday, 28 April 2016 at 02:48 PM

Seeker of truth comment post UK Daily Mail 26 April 2016

seeker of truth said...

From a 2014 UK Daily Mail article -

A new book has branded Thailand one of the world’s most dangerous tourist destinations.

Australian author John Stapleton suggests that widespread police corruption, violence and crime are all blighting a country once commonly referred to as the ‘Land of Smiles’.

In his book Thailand: Deadly Destination, Mr Stapleton attempts to expose the reputation of Thailand as a welcoming country, claiming a boom in tourism since the 1960s has created a hatred of foreigners and a ‘murderous indifference’ to the millions of tourists who flock to the country’s white-sand beaches, picturesque countryside and thriving nightlife each year.

He also says that the death rate among tourists, which he claims often goes unrecorded, is ‘the worst scandal in the annals of modern tourism’.

‘Thailand’s carefully manufactured reputation for hospitality, as a land of palm trees and sun-drenched beaches, happy-hour bars, world class hotels and welcoming people, as paradise on Earth, is very different to the reality many tourists encounter,’ Mr Stapleton says in the book, which is being published next week.

‘The rapid growth in Thai tourism has been a triumph of advertising and image creation; building the perception, firmly entrenched in the West, that Thais embrace strangers.

‘In reality, the relations between ethnic Thais and foreigners are often difficult; and there has been growing friction and disengagement, a drift from curiosity to contempt, as visitor numbers have increased.

While many foreigners leave the country happy, there are equally thousands of travellers from Europe, America, Australia, India and the Middle East, both short-time tourists and long-term residents, leaving the country impoverished, distressed, frightened and unlikely to ever return.

‘If, with the murder or accidental deaths of tourists a common event, they leave at all.

‘Life in Thailand is cheap. And the deaths of foreigners often go unlamented; even unrecorded. Tourists are still given few warnings of the reality of the situation they are entering.’

Mr Stapleton previously worked as a news reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald from 1986 to 1994 and for The Australian between 1994 to 2009.

He has been visiting Thailand since the 1970s before moving there in 2010.

After being repeatedly robbed and attacked, he began looking into news reports on the welfare of tourists, which he describes as ‘scandalous’, suggesting that the police have little interest in helping foreigners who report crimes.....

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/travel/travel_news/article-2833369/Thailand-one-dangerous-tourist-destinations-Earth-Ex-pat-investigation-lifts-lid-dark-Land-Smiles.html

Mr Stapleton might have been right on the money with his book "Thailand: Deadly Destination"

A big no no in these Asian tourist spots is to argue with the locals.

ReplyThursday, 28 April 2016 at 02:48 PM

Belgium-style Attack Could happen in Australia The New Daily 23 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/23/belgium-style-attack-happen-australia-experts/

Belgium-style attack ‘could happen in Australia’


Mar 23, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

15


Security at Australian airports is flawed, dysfunctional and uncoordinated.


Airports are 'soft targets' for terrorists, warn experts. Photo: AP


Anti-terrorism measures at Australian airports may not be enough to stop a Brussels-style attack happening here, experts including a former head of Qantas security have warned.

Following a plea from Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, border force personnel have cancelled planned strikes over Easter, including a 24-hour stoppage planned for Thursday at all major airports.

Following the Belgian attack, Australian Federal Police also announced heightened security measures and patrols at major international airports.

Airports around the world are on high alert following the attacks in Belgium, which have claimed 31 lives with almost 200 injured.

• Brussels suicide bombers were ‘known to police’
• Europe let security ‘slip’ ahead of Brussels attack: PM• PM: Brussels attacks highlight Europe’s porous borders
• Gallery: Beautiful tributes flow for Brussels


London, Paris, New York and Frankfurt have all stepped up the number of police patrols around their airports.


A Belgian Army soldier patrols at Zaventem Airport in Brussels.Photo: AP

The Brussels attacks occurred on what aviation experts call the “land side” of airports – the public areas where travellers can check in before passing through immigration and security checks.

The suicide bombers in Belgium – named on Wednesday as brothers Khalid and Ibrahim El Bakraoui – passed through no security checks.

Roger Henning, a security expert with Homeland Security Asia/Pacific, told The New Daily there were “chilling” similarities between Sydney and Brussels airports.

“The attacks could be duplicated here,” he said. “Both Brussels and Sydney airports have underground access to their terminals, both have unfettered access to their check-in areas and no one working at major airports in Australia is trained to handle a response if it does occur.”

Mr Henning said the only safe airport in Australia was Avalon Airport in Victoria, which had instituted security procedures compliant with UN protocols.

“The rest are wide open,” he said.
Security needs to be tightened

Mr Henning launched a scathing attack on successive prime ministers for government failure to implement a string of recommendations by security experts.


Security in Australia needs to be beefed up, experts say. Photo: AAP

He said few of the recommendations of the 2005 Wheeler Report had been put in place.

That report found security at Australia’s airports was seriously flawed, dysfunctional and uncoordinated, with no one taking control of policing and agencies failing to share information.

Geoff Askew, who was head of Qantas security for 20 years, told The New Daily a Brussels-style attack could happen in Australia.

“It would be naive [to say] it couldn’t happen here,” said Mr Askew.

He called for a government agency to be made responsible for all screening at airports, rather than the present situation where the responsibility fell to airlines and airports. This would allow proper training and standardised procedures.
‘Terrorists are going after soft targets’

When asked if a terrorist attack like that in Belgium could occur in Australia, John Kendall, the director of Border Security Solutions for technology company Unisys, told The New Daily: “Of course it could. Terrorists are going after soft targets and anywhere where you have a lot of people gathered is a soft target.”

Mr Kendall said airports were difficult to secure on their so-called ‘land side’, but in terms of impact offered opportunities beyond comprehension.


Candles and flowers on Place de la Bourse, a square in central Brussels. Photo: AP

Neil Fergus, chief executive of Intelligent Risks and a consultant to the government on security, said that nothing beat human intelligence.

“There are no guarantees in relation to the security of mass transit nodes and areas of mass assembly if and when a determined asymmetrical terrorist element has capability and intent to attack those types of targets,” he told The New Daily. “Therefore proactive intelligence collection and risks assessment are key elements in the security architecture.”

Transport Workers Union Secretary Tony Sheldon toldThe New Daily security at the nation’s airports was a massive problem, with a deadly combination of poor training, high staff turnover and lack of experience.

“We have long been concerned about the impact of a high turnover of a mainly casual and poorly-paid workforce on security at our airports.”

Anti-protest laws 'draconian' and 'oppressive' The New Daily 20 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/20/freedoms-attack-australia/

Anti-protest laws ‘draconian’ and ‘oppressive’

Mar 20, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

7


Harsh new laws to quell protesting have sparked outrage from several quarters.



The mining sector could be the big winner from the anti-protest laws. Photo: AAP


Emotions have been running high following the passing of laws in NSW which will see political protesters fighting against the coal seam gas industry, even on their own properties, face large fines and up to seven years in jail.

Hundreds of people demonstrated outside NSW Parliament last week against the harshness of the new laws, which were specifically designed to quell protests against the actions of mining and coal seam gas companies.

Critics say the laws achieve little more than restricting free speech.

• Earth sets terrifying new temperature record
• Paris terror suspect hid for months
• Company tax cuts to benefit workers: Sinodinos

Greens MP Jeremy Buckingham described the laws as a “jack-boot police crackdown on democratic rights”.

Protestors affected by the legislation go way beyond eco-warriors. Civil libertarians, farmers and unionists are all up in arms.

President of the NSW Law Society Gary Ulman told The New Daily the laws were draconian and interfered with people’s ability to engage in demonstrations vital for a democratic state.


The laws were designed specifically to protect coal mines like this. Photo: AAP

“The Law Society is very concerned with the trend of expanding police powers without corresponding judicial and other safeguards,” he said. “In our view, such a trend represents an erosion of long-standing democratic institutions and individual rights.”

Mr Ulman said the laws affected a broad cross-section of the community and could be used, for example, against people protesting the removal of trees in Centennial Park.

• Click here to read the Law Society’s concerns, plus a summary of the changes

Narrabri landholder Phil Laird, national co-ordinator for the anti-CSG Lock the Gates Alliance, told The New Daily: “The government has deliberately removed access to the courts. Farmers can be arrested on their own properties for hindering the working of CSG equipment driven onto their property by a multinational mining company.

“They can stop you, detain you, put you in jail, fine you, seize whatever you have in your possession. This is anti-democratic.”

President of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties Stephen Blanks told The New Daily: “There are reasons to regard Australia as a police state now. There are so many draconian powers that police have. It is completely oppressive.


Some say Mike Baird has not listened to concerns about the laws. Photo: AAP

“What is particularly concerning is that the NSW laws criminalise intent. If police form a view that you intend to do something, even if you have done no act towards illegal activity, police can charge you and the penalties are draconian.”

Premier Mike Baird told journalists: “Those that decide to protest and put not only their lives at risk or try to interrupt businesses that are going about their day-to-day life, well we’re asking them not to do it and we’re putting measures in to ensure they don’t.”

NSW Minerals Council CEO Stephen Galilee, a former chief of staff for Mr Baird, issued a statement saying the new laws would be particularly welcomed by mining workers.

“These tougher penalties are a strong deterrent that will mean less people doing dangerous and stupid things that put themselves and others at risk,” he said.

The Inclosed Lands, Crimes and Law Enforcement Legislation Amendment (Interference) Bill passed through NSW Parliament last week with the support of the Shooters and Fishers Party and Christian Democrat Fred Nile.

A recent Reachtel poll showed 61.4 per cent of the public opposed the laws.

John Stapleton has worked as a reporter for both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. His book Hunting the Famous, which includes details of encounters with Anthony Burgess, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal and Dirk Bogarde, will be available mid-2016.

Why Killer Robots Must Be Stopped 17 March 2016 The New Daily

Why killer robots ‘must be stopped’

Mar 17, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

THE ADVISOR
3


The latest weapons technology is so frightening that there are calls for it to be banned.


Isaac Asimov's 'I, Robot' predicted a future where humans lost control.


Humanity is on the verge of experiencing a “nightmare scenario” of robot warfare that until now has been confined to the realms of science fiction, experts have warned.

Killer robots are far smarter than any soldier, physically tougher, not prone to battle fatigue, not subject to human error and not beset by emotions, such as inconvenient compassion. Or guilt.

With rapid developments in Artificial Intelligence, the machines are already far more intelligent than any individual could possibly be.

The Pentagon is seeking $15 billion in next year’s budget for AI and related research, including “deep learning” machines which could think and act on their own.

• Malware threatens millions of smartphone users• Computers ‘can assess boredom levels’• Pope Francis warns of ‘soulless robots’ taking jobs

The arrival of killer robots, more academically known as “autonomous weapons”, is being compared with the invention of gunpowder and nuclear weapons.

Leading AI expert Professor Toby Walsh of the University of NSW is giving a public lecture this month titled Killer Robots: The Third Revolution in War . The talk will be broadcast on Radio National’s Big Ideas program.

Prof Walsh told The New Daily the history of warfare was the history of ever more efficient killing technologies.

“We are not very far from nightmare scenarios,” he said. “That is why we have a small window of time in which to ban this technology.

“They would be terrifying weapons to come up against as a human. The worry is that they will be making their own targeting decisions.”


People argue that it is a moral line we should not cross. They will completely transform warfare.

Prof Walsh believes that if any military power pushes ahead with AI weapons, a global arms race is inevitable.

He said the release of the Drone Papers, where whistleblowers within the United State’s national security apparatus revealed President Barack Obama’s extensive use of the remotely controlled weapons, illustrated the problems involved in relying on machines.


The civilian death toll from US drones is a blight on Barack Obama’s legacy. Photo: Getty

The Papers revealed that nine out of 10 of those being killed were the “wrong people”, and drone strikes inevitably involved the deaths of large numbers of women, children and the elderly, one of Mr Obama’s most controversial legacies.

Prof Walsh said drones were being controlled by military personnel, but it was a very short step to taking humans out of the loop, allowing them to make their own life and death decisions.

He said robots were ideal for tasks such as assassinations, destabilising nations, subduing populations and killing particular ethnic groups.

Prof Walsh’s lecture comes at a time when killer robots are coming ever closer to being deployed on battlefields and worldwide consternation over their use is escalating.

The Campaign to Stop Killer Robots is an international coalition of 59 groups, including Human Rights Watch and the Nobel Women’s Committee.

Spokesman Peter Asaro, an affiliate scholar at the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford Law School, said an international treaty to ban the weapons was urgent.

He told The New Daily killer robots would make it difficult to hold anyone accountable for war crimes and atrocities.

“In practical terms they could be subject to hacking, spoofing, and hijacking, and they could initiate or escalate conflicts without human approval,” he said.


Scenes from the Terminator film franchise may not be as farfetched as they once were.

“The delegation of the authority to kill people to an opaque and unaccountable algorithm raises serious moral concerns.”

Later this month there will be a Stanford University symposium on the ethical and moral problems of using non-human agents in warfare, while next month will see a meeting in Geneva of experts under the auspices of the UN.

Prof Walsh was one of the driving forces behind an open letter calling for the banning of killer robots which has been signed by 22,000 people, including the world’s most famous physicist Stephen Hawking, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Skype Yaan Tallinn and the author of more than 100 books, philosopher Noam Chomsky.

Signatory Professor Stuart Russell, AI pioneer and founder of the Centre for Intelligent Systems at the University of California, Berkeley, told The New Daily that in the absence of a treaty, there is the prospect of an arms race with negative outcomes for both humanitarian and strategic concerns.

“In particular, it may lead to a new class of scalable weapons of mass destruction. Weapons that even small groups could use to attack human populations,” he said.

Time is of the essence, and the UN meeting could kick the can down the road or take effective steps, such as setting up a group of governmental experts, that would reflect the wishes of the vast majority of humanity to avoid a future in which humans beings are utterly defenceless.”

Middle East Threatens to Bubble Over The New Daily 11 March 2016

Middle East threatens to bubble over


Mar 11, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

8


A disillusioned Islamic State fighter gave anti-terror fighters a big win, but IS remains more dangerous than ever.


Photo: Iraqi Shiite fighters with a captured Islamic State flag. Getty


The cauldron of the Middle East continues to grow more dangerous by the day, as new details emerge of an old enemy’s presence within the ranks of the so-called Islamic State.

This week a disillusioned defector leaked the identity of 22,000 Islamic State (IS) supporters in more than 50 countries, including Australia.

He cited as one of his motives the growing influence of former members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party inside Islamic State. He believed they were corrupting the purity of the group’s Islamic beliefs.

• Islamic State defector outs 22,000 terrorists
• Hackers breach Australian banking apps

Following the revelations, terror experts have lined up to point out that Islamic State would be nowhere near as powerful as it is today without the many former military offices of Saddam Hussein who have joined the group.

And they point the finger of blame firmly at the American invasion of Iraq.

The 2003 de-Baathification law promulgated by Administrator of Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, Paul Bremer, barred 400,000 members of the defeated Iraqi Army from government employment and pensions.

Unemployed and with families to feed, they were a large pool of disenfranchised men with significant military experience.


The spectre of Saddam Hussein, and his Baath party, looms large over the current conflict. Photo: Getty

Author of Australian Jihad and one of the world’s foremost experts on Islamic State, Beirut-based journalist Martin Chulov, told The New Daily Bremer’s decision to dissolve the Iraqi Army was one of the the most decisive factors in the disenfranchisement of the Sunnis.

“The officer class was largely Sunni and lost a great deal; careers, status, pensions – and dignity,” Mr Chulov said.

“This was one of the the most significant factors in the rise of IS over the next decade, eventually uniting highly organised, efficient and vengeful Baathists with driven ideologues.

“The Baathists and the jihadists were operating in unison by 2007 and, during the latest incarnation of ISIS, have been central to their growth.”

Leader of Islamic State Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, while not a Baathist himself, built his organisation by actively recruiting former Baathists, who have now taken many of the group’s senior leadership positions.

They have been pivotal in the group’s ability to take and hold territory.

Terror expert Professor Clive Williams of the Australian Defence Force Academy told The New Daily the American incarceration of hundreds of extremists and by then unemployed and severely disillusioned former Baath Party members in the notorious prison known as Camp Bucca had thrown together extremists and government functionaries.

The Americans essentially gifted some of Saddam Hussein’s most brutal, and most capable generals and administrators to Islamic State.

“Imprisoning Baath party members along with extremists was a mistake by the Americans,” Mr Williams said.

“They are better organisers than the extremists. With those two working together they got the best administrators and best generals from Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, which has made them formidable.”

A recent investigation by the Reuters News Agency also concluded that former Saddam Hussein military officers had strengthened the group’s spy networks and battlefield tactics and were instrumental in the survival of its self-proclaimed Caliphate.


An anti-Baath party demonstration in Basra, 2013.Photo: Getty

Former Baathist intelligence and army officers officers oversee a network of informers across the country and have been a critical factor in their military successes.

The old saying from the Saddam era, “the walls have ears”, can once more be heard across Iraq.

Iraq’s Finance Minister Hoshyar Zebari told Reuters: “They know who is who, family by family, name by name.”

The investigation revealed that of Islamic State’s 23 portfolios, former Saddam regime officers run three of the most crucial, security, military and finance.

Former Australian army officer and Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute, Associate Professor Rodger Shanahan, told The New Daily that once a group is disempowered they are going to look at ways to regain power.

The existence of so many Baathists within IS had enabled them to seize and hold territory.

“This is a consequence of cutting them out,” he said. “The 2003 invasion, an absolutely horrendous foreign policy mistake, wasn’t well thought out in second-order effects and this is one of those.

“We have seen the effect the Baathists have had already. They are adaptive, they think in longer terms of campaign planning, not just individual operations.

“They have shown the kind of military capabilities that professional military officers understand and practice.

“It takes a long time to get those professional skills. It’s the competent ones IS want, those who understand planning and military planning processes and how to construct campaigns.”

John Stapleton has worked as a general news reporter for both The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. His book Hunting the Famous, which includes details of encounters with Anthony Burgess, Joseph Heller, Gore Vidal and Dirk Bogarde, will be available in paperback mid-year.

Margie Abbott sidelined by Credlin, author claims The New Daily 7 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/07/margie-kept-dark-former-pm-tony-abbott/

Margie Abbott sidelined by Credlin, author claims

Mar 7, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

27


New book reveals how Tony Abbott’s wife and daughters were increasingly kept on the sidelines.


The PM's wife was rarely seen by his side. Photo: Getty


As a staunch Roman Catholic, Tony Abbott campaigned on traditional family values.

But with his wife Margie barely in evidence throughout his time as Prime Minister, at the same time as his chief of staff Peta Credlin was constantly at his side, traditional family roles were not what the rumour mill of Canberra suspected was being played out inside the PM’s office.

News of the widespread but previously unpublished perception that Mr Abbott and Ms Credlin were having an affair has been headline news in Australia for days. Both parties have denied it.

“I’m not in the business of raking over old coals nor am I in the business of responding to scurrilous gossip and smear,” Mr Abbott said on Monday.

• There’s a sense of deja vu on the road to ruin
• Credlin attacked Abbott publicly and often: book• Why the ‘s’ word strikes fear into politicians’ hearts

In The Road To Ruin, author Niki Savva claims Mrs Abbott was denied any of the normal assistance a Prime Minister’s wife can expect.

“The edicts on Margie’s isolation, such as making her sit well away from others in the office when she was there for a social engagement, made staff uncomfortable, especially those who had worked in other offices for either leaders or senior ministers. Staff struggled for explanations for Margie’s exclusion.”


Prince Harry (C) is greeted by then-PM Tony Abbott, his wife Margie and daughters Bridget (L) and Francis (R) in Sydney in 2013. Photo: Getty

During the election campaign, Liberal Party apparatchiks recognised what the Labor Party already knew, that Mr Abbott had an image problem with women. He was seen constantly in the company of his wife and three daughters.

The day after his election win, they became virtually invisible. The excising of Mrs Abbott began early.

At a celebration dinner party the evening after Mr Abbott’s election victory, businessman Alf Moufarrige hosted a celebration at his plush Hunters Hill home in Sydney. Arriving guests saw place settings for the entire Abbott family arranged on one table. When they next looked, the settings for Margie and the girls, which had included specially created laminated placemats, featuring photos of the Abbott women, were gone.

Disappointed Abbott staff, there with their own partners, who had been looking forward to congratulating Margie and the girls for their efforts during the campaign – as well as hoping that Margie would become a regular fixture in the PM’s schedule – asked what had happened. The response: an edict from Mr Abbott’s chief of staff.

The treatment of Mrs Abbott not only disturbed staffers and supporters; many believe it was a principal factor in the PM’s downfall.

Support staff were not permitted to inform the Prime Minister’s wife, or family, about any invitations until Ms Credlin had sifted through them. Former staff confirmed that a request from Margie for diary details was denied.


Tony Abbott’s chief of staff Peta Credlin has been accused of coming between him and his wife Margie. Photo: AAP

According to one former adviser: “Margie was kept in the dark.” According to another: “Peta did not want Margie to have access to staff, despite staff wanting to go to events with her.”

Mr Abbott’s behaviour has continued after the Malcolm Turnbull coup.

Ms Savva records: “His private behaviour continued to puzzle colleagues, while his public behaviour infuriated or disappointed them.”

Before he flew out to the Margaret Thatcher lecture in October last year, an excited Mr Abbott told a friend: “I am being taken to the south of France. I don’t know where – it’s a surprise.”

The books reveals details of the trip.

“News broke that a villa had been rented. He was going to spend time there with Credlin and a couple of other former staff. His wife, Margie, who had accompanied him to London … flew back home on her own. He flew to Paris. He spent his 58th birthday in France with Credlin … For many of his colleagues, the whole thing was as bizarre as some of the events they had witnessed during the Abbott–Credlin tenure. It sent the rumour mill into overdrive.”

But while accused of running unsourced scuttlebutt and innuendo, Ms Savva defended her work. A number of high-profile figures went on the record, and as one of the nation’s most respected journalists, few doubt the veracity of her sources.

“It is important for people to know what happened, and how the peculiar dynamic between the Prime Minister and his chief of staff, and her level of control, affected every aspect of his life – usually, to his detriment,” Ms Savva writes.

“Credlin exercised an unprecedented level of control over the activities of the Prime Minister’s wife.”

Credlin attacked Abbott Publicly and Often: Book The New Daily 6 March 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/06/abbott-openly-abused-sworn-credlin-book/

Credlin attacked Abbott publicly and often: book


Mar 6, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

28


It was a pivotal relationship but its dysfunction has been laid bare in a new book.



High office was not enough to protect Tony Abbott from Peta Credlin's temper.


Tony Abbott was abused by his chief of staff Peta Credlin at such a volume that her swearing over the phone could be heard by others in his presence, according to a new book.

The Road to Ruin by journalist and former Liberal Party staffer Niki Savva, released on Monday, contains numerous well-documented examples of expletive-laden explosions by Credlin.

Many of the tirades, kept private until now, were excruciatingly embarrassing to witnesses, including staunch Abbott supporters.

• Abbott to Bishop: don’t apologise for chopper
• Tony Abbott ‘used terror threat as political weapon’
• ‘Third piece’ of MH370 show up on La Reunion



On one occasion in the lead-up to the 2013 election, Murray Cranston, one of Abbott’s most devoted advisors, was travelling to the airport in the back of a Commonwealth car with senior press secretary Tony O’Leary. Abbott, in the front seat, was on the phone to Credlin. The conversation got so heated that the two other men could hear her shouting at him to “f*ck off”.

On others occasions, she would yell at Abbott that, without her, he would not have gotten where he was or that he would be nothing without her.

“The truly sad part was that he believed it,” Savva writes.

But, by Monday afternoon, Abbott had hit back at his time in office, saying his government substantially delivered on its commitments.

Abbott said the best response to the book was the objective record of his government.

“The boats were stopped. The carbon tax and the mining tax were repealed. Three free trade agreements that had languished for years were finalised,” he said in a statement.

Mr Abbott said infrastructure got under way under his leadership, including the western Sydney airport that had been talked about for 50 years.

“Our country was kept safe. And a strong start was made to the vital task of budget repair,” he said.

The former prime minister claimed a “dysfunctional opposition” couldn’t win an election and a “dysfunctional government” couldn’t have got so much done in just two years.

“That said, I’m not in the business of raking over old coals nor am I in the business of responding to scurrilous gossip and smear.”

Speaking to The New Daily, Savva revealed that Tony Abbott rang around senior staffers and cabinet ministers asking them not to speak to her. But many of them did.

“This is an important piece of Australian political history, and I think people were keen to have a more complete version of it told,” she said.

As to why so many of the detailed revelations in the book have never been published before, she says: “Previously people were too frightened to speak out.”
Offshore eruptions

Not even being on a sensitive diplomatic mission could curtail Credlin’s behaviour, the book alleges.

On a trip to Indonesia, Credlin and Abbott reportedly had a confrontation at a critical meeting between Australian officials and the Indonesian President Bambang Yudhoyono.

Savva writes that the meeting was to restore the bilateral relationship after a spying scandal and controversy over boat turnbacks. But their dispute quickly escalated. Credlin and Abbott were forced to retreat to an anteroom to argue while numerous Australian and Indonesian officials were kept waiting.

“I remember thinking how indulgent, irresponsible, and arrogant it was to hold everyone hostage to her mood, even on Batam Island in Indonesia,” recalls Jane McMillan, the director of Abbott’s press office during the first year of government.

“It was pitiful to watch.”


Credlin faced intense scrutiny as the chief-of-staff to Tony Abbott. Photo: AAP
Margie marginalised

The most difficult material in The Road to Ruin is the relationship between the former Prime Minister and his wife Margie, whom Savva describes as “a woman of warmth and dignity with the potential to be his greatest asset”.

But Crelin put her in the chiller.

It was this treatment that most bothered staffers. Astonishingly, she insisted that staff at Kirribilli could not order food for Margie or shop for family meals, despite the Abbotts residing at the official residence.

Mrs Abbott may have been prominent during the election campaign, but she soon became the prop of last resort, with her access to the normal assistance offered to a Prime Minister’s wife, including access to his diary, denied.

“He was either oblivious to this or complicit in it,” Savva writes.

“He either simply tolerated it or he incited it. It was one of the biggest single factors in his loss of the prime ministership, wreaking on him the humiliation he feared most: dismissal at the hands of his own colleagues. The fact he could not see it coming, could not see how bizarre his behaviour appeared to others, or what effect it had on their opinion of him and his fitness for the job, was a most worrying aspect of it. It was pitiful to watch.”

According to the book, Ms Credlin not only adjusted her boss’s ties, she shared his desserts in restaurants and fork fed him food off her plate. At the same time she was making life a living hell for almost everyone working in the Prime Minister’s office, ridiculing her co-workers as incompetents.

Savva suggests that Credlin believed Abbott could not govern without her. And as Savva acidly observes, his self-esteem was so low he believed her.

“Even if she had offered to resign, he would not have allowed it. He would have been completely lost, so low was his opinion of his own abilities. Credlin was almost certainly right … Abbott would not have been able continue without her. It was utterly bizarre.”

While the relationship between the pair was apparently toxic, one important question remains. What sort of damage has been done to the Liberal Party by the dethroning of Abbott?

Savva told The New Daily: “Whether any lasting damage is inflicted depends on how serious Abbott is when he says he wants the Turnbull Government to win.”

The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin destroyed their own government by Niki Savva. Scribe Publications, 336pp. Published today.

Father of Reconciliation Patrick Dodson to Enter Senate The New Daily 2 March 2016.

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/03/02/labors-senate-hopeful-patrick-dodson/

‘Father of Reconciliation’ Patrick Dodson to enter Senate

Mar 2, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

4


A giant of Australia’s aboriginal human rights movement will enter the Senate for Labor.


A Senate spot would extend what has been an extraordinary life so far. Photo: AAP


Patrick Dodson, a Yawuru man from Broome in Western Australia, is distinctive in appearance, with a long flowing beard and a trademark black Akubra hat marked with the Aboriginal colours.

He is also one of the country’s most distinguished Australians, combining sharp intellectuality, deep spirituality and a common touch to become almost universally respected.

Mr Dodson was endorsed on Wednesday to replace the controversial Labor Senator Joe Bullock, who has announced his resignation, citing the Party’s refusal to allow a conscience vote on gay marriage.

For Mr Dodson, his likely ascension to the Australian Senate will be just one achievement in a long and extraordinary life.

• Labor Senator quits politics• Pell arrives for third day of royal commission• Record hot Aussie summer

Born in 1948, he was orphaned in 1960 upon the death of his father, when he and his brother Mick Dodson were made wards of the state.

Mick went on to become a barrister and academic who was made Australian of the Year in 2009.

Patrick’s achievements are equally remarkable. He was formerly Commissioner into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, the 2008 winner of the prestigious Sydney Peace Prize and Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation between 1991-1997. He has held numerous other positions, including director of the Central Land Council.

His biographer, anthropologist Kevin Keeffe, wrote in Paddy’s Road: Life Stories of Patrick Dodson about his distinguished style, the way he could make other indigenous people comfortable with the lilting rhythms of Aboriginal English, and then switch easily into the formal tones of the business and political establishment.


The distinctive Patrick Dodson is a fierce advocate for Indigenous human rights. Photo: AAP

Yet the softly spoken Patrick Dodson has not always had the same public profile as other Aboriginal political figures such as Warren Mundine, Lowitja O’Donoghue or Noel Pearson.

During the 1990s, when he was chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation and sentiment was running strongly on both sides of the divide, Mr Dodson was often enough nowhere to be found, off in his hometown of Broome fishing, or attending an event in a remote outback settlement. Media stories ran without the voice of the chairman.

Which was fine by him.

There is no doubt of the respect with which he is held across Australia’s not always unified Aboriginal groups. “He talks up for all our mob,” is a typical sentiment.

The late 1990s were a period of heightened tensions in Aboriginal politics.

The 1997 Australian Reconciliation Convention, where the crowd turned their back on the then-Prime Minister John Howard, the Wik land rights decision by the High Court and the Bringing them Home Report, along with the issue of a national apology, all of these elements were reverberating in the national psyche.

Mr Dodson, unfailingly polite, found himself increasingly at odds with the Howard government, and within months of the close of the Convention left his job as Chairman of the Council for Aboriginal Reconciliation, “rolled his swag” and returned to his roots among the Yawuru people of Broome.

In a sense he was making his own journey home.
Love of his land

Like almost all indigenous people, Mr Dodson has a unique attachment to the land of his birth, and amongst the many curiosities of his life, early in his career he became Australia’s first Aboriginal ordained Catholic priest. He attempted to blend Catholicism and traditional Aboriginal spiritual belief, which brought him into conflict with the ecclesiastical hierarchy.

After many years of confrontation he finally left the priesthood, decrying the “plague of intolerant self-righteousness” from preachers, who condemned the conduct of Aboriginal people even as they buried them.

He once asked Christian readers to imagine themselves as Aboriginal Australians before the white invasion: “As to your knowledge of the land, your country, you would know every tree, every rock, because through the Dreaming, the great ancestors came this way.


Mr Dodson poses with Professor Noam Chomsky in 2011.Photo: Getty

“And they are still here. They live. They must be revered, appeased, paid attention to. It is they who cause conception as a woman walks near. When the child is born he calls that part of the country Father.”

Most Australians have never seen and will never see the many remote Aboriginal communities of Australia, or ever appreciate both their beauty, their triumphs and, over the decades, their appalling tragedies.

Mr Dodson has seen them in their hundreds, at one time being ranked the most travelled passenger on Australian airlines, and has seen firsthand the devastating impacts of westernisation.

But he has also spoken eloquently about shifting the dynamics of the public sector towards policies and strategies which raise up Aboriginal people’s lives and status in a way which is fair and beneficial to all Australians: “I think at some point you’ve got to stop proclaiming the sense of loss if you’re no longer prepared to do something about those losses.”

A long beard and an Akubra hat wreathed in Aboriginal colours, inside the Australian Senate. Don’t be surprised.

Telegram, 21 February, 2016.

John Stapleton

For once the advertising logo is correct. The headline grabbing mobile app Telegram promotes itself as a “new era of messaging”. It uses military grade encryption to ensure the privacy of communications. That it is one of the most popular programmes for jihadists and Islamic State supporters is for some beside the point. You might as well criticise the mujahadeen for driving cars.

For others it is entirely the point.

A new era of encryption products has created a nightmare for security agencies worldwide.

In recent months Islamic State have claimed responsibility for the Paris massacre, the shooting down of a Russian airline and other attacks on Telegram, as well as using it as a major propaganda tool.

A terror plot can be hatched without leaving a whisper in cyberspace. Messages can be set up to self destruct within a second, while end-to-end encryption combined with the use of a Virtual Private Network, which scatters IP addresses around the globe, ensures that the user cannot be traced and the communications cannot be decoded.

So confident is Telegram that its messaging cannot be decrypted, last year it began offering a $US300,000 reward  for anyone who could do so. The prize remains unclaimed.

The company was founded two and a half years ago by Russian brothers Nikolai and Pavel Durov, who fell out with Vladimir Putin and are now based in Berlin.

This week the company announced that the number of messages delivered every day has topped 15 billion, it has 100 million active users worldwide in any given month and 350,000 new users sign up every day.

When asked if he was losing sleep knowing terrorists were using his platform, Pavel Durov is reported to have said: “The right for privacy is more important than our fear of bad things happening, like terrorism.”

The Telegram app has been made even more appealing by the introduction of “channels” last September, which means anyone can broadcast anything they like to their chosen audience without revealing the identity or location of themselves or their followers.

Despite all the Australian government talk of making it more difficult to access Islamic State’s online propaganda, it takes only seconds, with the assistance of Google, to find the Islamic State Telegram channel English Nashir, under a banner displaying the Islamic State flag and logo and with the words: “Come Forth to Your State!”

If you do not have a Telegram account already interested parties are prompted to join.

There are also numerous links to online propaganda, from IS linked Twitter accounts to the latest copy of their expensively produced magazine Dabiq.

Once connected through Telegram, what people are watching, reading or listening to or who they are communicating with immediately becomes hidden from the authorities.

Technology expert and CEO of consulting firm Eye on the Future Morris Miselowski told The New Daily there was no solution.

“There is a dichotomy,” he said. “Consumers are screaming out for programs which can’t be hacked. We want the technology. we just don’t want the bad guys to use it.

“Humans will communicate, and we are increasingly doing it in digital spaces. We can’t yell at Telegram and Facebook, we might as well be yelling at humans for using it.”

Critics call apps such as Telegram the command and control centres of terrorism, while British Prime Minister David Cameron is pushing legislation through parliament stopping companies including Apple and Google from using encryption technology so sophisticated not even the companies themselves can decode it.

But many others warn against yet more futile legislation.

Laurie Patton, head of the peak body Internet Australia, told The New Daily that while they supported efforts to counter criminal activities, especially terrorism, knee-jerk reactions such as the Data Retention Act pushed through parliament by Tony Abbott were doomed to fail.

Ross Schulman, Senior Counsel for the Open Technology Institute in the US, told The New Daily that when it came to encryption the genie was already out of the bottle. “There is not much that can be done to stop the use of encryption, precisely because so much of these products are either open source, or produced by companies not within the jurisdiction of our various governments. Legal mandates are bad policy for privacy, commercial, and cyber security reasons, and are often times simply unenforceable.

“The rise in these types of apps can be put down to two forces: First is advances in technology and usability that make these sorts of tools more and more available and easier and easier to use. Second is a growing awareness among the public that our lives today are digital and lived largely online and on our phones. They are our digital homes, and people are seeking to protect these devices in the same way we all seek to protect our physical homes.”

1990 In the Herald, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 February, 2016.

ActivePaper Archive1990 In the Herald - Sydney Morning Herald, 19/02/2016

1990 In the Herald

BRIAN YATMAN

Mr Fraser blocks supply

The Herald spoke with Malcolm Fraser, aka ‘‘the Minister’’, a trucker who had instigated a blockade in Wodonga. ‘‘Asked why he was holding the protest, he said it was because of all the trouble interstate drivers are getting from NSW. He felt the public was behind their action and there was some evidence for this as shopkeepers across the road from the picket line were supplying meat and groceries.’’

Mardi Gras in the rain

‘‘The rain bucketed down, turning Oxford Street into a sea of umbrellas dotted with half-naked bodies dancing to disco, writhing to drums or pouting to opera,’’ wrote John Stapleton. ‘‘The night was full of disparate images: a group of 50 women in leather known as Dykes on Bikes revved their machines, wigs drooped and ran in the rain, and King Kong held aloft the woman of his dreams.’’

TAFE strike called off

‘‘A 48-hour strike from tomorrow by TAFE teachers in NSW has been called off after the state government backed down on plans to average teachers’ overtime hours. The government would seek an urgent Industrial Commission hearing so TAFE teachers could be awarded a 3 per cent pay rise, a spokesman for the Minister for Education, Dr Metherell, said yesterday. Up to 17,000 TAFE teachers had planned to strike.’’

Prison Population in Australia has climbed 18 February 2016

http://thenewdaily.com.au/news/2016/02/18/australian-prison-population/

Prison population in Australia has climbed

10
inShare

Feb 18, 2016
JOHN STAPLETON

11


There’s a simple solution to the country’s growing prison population, one expert says.


There are 45 times more Aboriginal people in jail now than in the late 80s.


More Australians are in prison now than at any time in the nation’s history.

That’s the finding of one of Australia’s leading criminologists, Don Weatherburn, who delivered a paper on Australia’s ever-rising incarceration rates at a conference in Brisbane on Thursday.

Dr Weatherburn, director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research, told The New Daily there’s one reason for the explosion in the number of prisoners held in the country.

• Local councils gouging on rates• Government won’t hold back on superannuation• Islamic State may create ‘dirty nuke’

He blamed the endless thumping of law and order issues by politicians, who he argued were exploiting public fear and ignorance.

Former deputy South Australian Premier Kevin Foley once famously declared: “Rack ‘em, pack ‘em and stack ‘em if that’s what it takes to keep our streets safe.”


Former South Australian politician Kevin Foley was blunt when it came to law and order. Photo: AAP

Fear and loathing now dominates the debate, a reversal from the 1970s when surveys showed most people supported rehabilitation and keeping people out of jail where possible.

During the past 30 years, politicians have enacted a series of policies that resulted in more people going to jail, being refused bail and staying in prison longer.

There are now 36,000 Australians in prison, costing taxpayers $2.6 billion a year, although in fact crime rates have been falling since the year 2000.

If the imprisonment rate in Australia continues to grow at the same rate, within three years there will be more than 43,000 people in prison, at a cost of $3.5 billion a year.

Australia’s incarceration rates are higher than Britain, Canada and much of Europe.

The costs of high imprisonment regimes is both personal and social.


“The moment you put someone in prison you substantially reduce their prospects of getting a job, they will be on social security on release, more taxpayer money down the tube,” Dr Weatherburn said. “The economy doesn’t grow as well as it could and the taxpayers are forking out more than they should.”

He argues the cheapest solution to the nation’s burgeoning prison population and associated costs is for politicians to stop beating the law and order drum, and show some compassion and common sense.

And to introduce social policies which put people into work, not into prison.
The heroin factor

Mr Weatherburn claims the fall in crime rates has nothing to do with increased imprisonment. Instead, he said it has been driven by the end of the heroin epidemic, a booming economy and high employment rates between 2000 and 2010.


The declining heroin problem led to lower crime rates, not the increase in prisoners, according to one academic.

Rising heroin use from the 1970s led to a situation where Australia had some of the highest property crime rates in the world, a situation which began to reverse in 2000.

“We started out with a genuine crime problem, which was huge in the 1980s and 1990s,” Dr Weatherburn said. “We got tough, as most societies would.

“That problem disappeared in 2000 but most people haven’t woken up to the fact we have had 15 years of falling crime rates.

“When we have surveyed the public it is amazing the number who have no idea what is going on. The public are ignorant and politicians are too nervous to do anything that looks like they are going soft on crime. Sections of the media are all too willing to exploit the situation. We are all involved.”
Indigenous prison population

Mr Weatherburn said high imprisonment rates were particularly impacting on Aboriginal people.

The number of indigenous Australians in prison is now 45 times higher than they were at the time of the Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, a four-year inquiry which began in 1987 and was equivalent in impact to the Bringing Them Home report or Reconciliation in terms of national soul searching.


Jobs could be the key to reducing the incarceration rate for Aboriginal people.

At the time, all Australian governments committed themselves to reducing the number of Aboriginals in custody. But however many well-intentioned government programs were spawned, matters only got worse.

“Aboriginal kids are so frequently picked up by police it is a case of not if but when,” he told The New Daily. “The stigma of incarceration falls away when so many of your uncles, brothers and relatives have all been to jail.

“There are no jobs, and too many Aboriginal people are lost in an endless cycle of substance abuse and crime.

“At some point you have to cut the Gordian knot. You have to give them the capacity to get out of that situation. For my money the starting point is to improve school retention and create jobs.”

John Stapleton has worked as a journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. His most recent book, Terror in Australia: Workers’ Paradise Lost is available in digital format at all major outlets, including Amazon, Barnes & Noble, iBooks, Google Books and at Australia’s major online bookstore Booktopia

Blood Year, David Kilcullen, 17 February, 2016

John Stapleton

The result of Western intervention in the Middle East has been the creation of battle hardened terrorist groups wealthier and more dangerous than ever before.

A new book by internationally acclaimed Australian-born terror expert David Kilcullen, Blood Year: The Failures of the War on Terror, released this week, slams President George Bush’s invasion of Iraq as a diabolical mistake. But the author is no more complimentary towards President Barack Obama, who, he says has mistaken brave talk for effective action and

increased the terror threat worldwide. Tens of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives have been wasted.

As Mr Kilcullen puts it so eloquently, Western countries now face severely reduced international credibility and a larger, more unified, capable, experienced and savage enemy in a far less stable world.

The terror threat has metastasized across the Middle East, and both al-Qaída and Islamic State are back in the game everywhere, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Syria, Somalia and Yemen.

The biggest question from an Australian standpoint is: how did we get involved in this mess?

Mr Kilcullen told The New Daily: “It was a mad f...ing idea to go into Iraq in the first place. It is an American screwup, but we are all participants. There’s plenty of blame to go around.”

He said back in 2002, while working at Army Headquarters, he received a background briefing on the invasion of Iraq with a group including a very senior politician, presumably Prime Minister John Howard, although Mr Kilcullen refuses to confirm his identity.

“I thought, ‘I will never get the chance to ask this again’. So I asked, ‘why are we doing it?’ This person said: ‘You are asking the wrong question. The Americans are invading, should we be in it or not?”

But by failing to urge caution and encourage broader approaches to the disaster of Iraq, Australia proved a very poor ally indeed.

Mr Kilcullen, who now lives in the US but is in Australia this week for lectures and interviews,  is unique among commentators for his insider knowledge, both as a former military officer and as a counterterror adviser at the highest reaches of the American government, including as Chief Strategist at the US State Department.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott made national security his signature tune, but Kilcullen says politicians of all stripes have an interest in exploiting terror to attack opponents in the trench warfare that passes for political process. “You may as well criticise a dog for barking,” he says. “Politicians manipulate public opinion. It is what it is. All sides are trying to spin up the terror threat.”

Kilcullen says one of the reasons he wrote Blood Year was to force a rethink: “What are we trying to protect?”

Ways to defeat Islamic State being rolled out in the West, including Australia, involve pre-emptively detaining people on the suspicion they may be planning to commit a crime, mass surveillance and treating all Muslims as a threat. “We are destroying society to save it,” he says. “There is a real risk of that happening.”

Some parts of Blood Year are deeply shocking, including the extreme barbarity perpetrated by all sides in a collapsing Iraq. It records, for instance, how, under the noses of Coalition forces, commercial kidnapping gangs auctioned off terrified children for slaughter in a makeshift night market. “A whole underground industry grew up around the making of sectarian snuff videos… like any drug, blood-lust demands progressively bigger hits to satisfy its addicts.”

Blood Year contains a very apt quote from German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche: “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, the abyss also gazes into you.”

Of the war fatigue that has settled on Australia, even as increasing numbers of bombs paid for by Australian taxpayers rain down on the Middle East, Mr Kilcullen, puts it down to the length of the conflict. He expects “this enormous slow-motion train wreck” to last at least another five years.

Mr Kilcullen is the first to argue that America, and Australia, should never have invaded Iraq in the first place. Now that intervention has spawned the escalating threat of Islamic State the questions have changed. “What is the end game?” he asks.

Islamic State believe they are key agents in a coming Apocalypse, and many, including Mr Kilcullen, fear that 2016 may prove to be a escalating disaster far worse than anything that has gone before.