Fran Baum
17.4K posts
@baumfran
Professor of Health Equity, @UniofAdelaide Author of The New Public Health (2016) and Governing for Health (Jan 2019) #G4H = #govern4health @phmglobal
Another free speech row at a literary festival has erupted, with Adelaide University abruptly cancelling a high-profile event featuring UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. trib.al/wDf97mn
BREAKING: Israel Carries Out A Beach Massacre In Beirut An Israeli strike reportedly targeted displaced people’s tents in the Ramla al-Bayda beach area. A huge number of dead & injured. An outrageous war crime reminiscent of the massacres carried out in Gaza.
There are moments in war that pierce through the abstractions of strategy and power. The sinking of the Iranian warship Dena in the vast expanse of the Indian Ocean is one such moment. A ship far from its home waters, sailors far from their families, suddenly consigned to the deep, dark silence of the sea. Whatever the legality of war, the image is haunting: young men swallowed by an ocean that knows nothing of geopolitics. The Indian Ocean has always been, for me, a space of memory, trade, music, and human exchange — not a graveyard of sailors lost to distant rivalries. That an Iranian vessel returning from naval exercises could meet such a fate so far from its shores feels like something from another age, almost like a War of the Worlds moment where the machinery of war intrudes upon the human world with brutal indifference. One cannot help but think of the families waiting for news that will never come, of the letters unwritten, of lives ended beneath cold waters thousands of miles from home. Strategy may justify such acts. Law may permit them. But the ocean keeps its own counsel. It reminds us that every war, however rationalised, leaves behind human sorrow in its wake. The question lingers uneasily: for what purpose were these lives lost in the depths of a faraway sea? #IndianOcean #WarAndHumanity #RememberTheSailors
Alon Mizrahi, an Israeli journalist, one of the most worthy Jews in the world: "We are witnessing history. Iran, to everyone's surprise, is destroying American bases so thoroughly, on such a large scale, and so decisively that the world is not ready for this. In 4 days, Iran has managed to expand its sphere of military dominance in the region. Iran has destroyed the most valuable and expensive military bases, property, and equipment in the entire world. The American bases in Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia are among the largest military facilities in the entire world. These facilities have cost trillions of dollars over several decades to build. We are talking about the fact that the bulk of the military spending that has been made over more than 30 years has gone up in smoke. We see radars costing hundreds of millions of dollars each being destroyed in an instant. We see entire military bases being abandoned and burned, looted, and destroyed. And I'm telling you, as far as I know, the U.S. has never suffered such destruction in its entire history, except perhaps for Pearl Harbor, but that was just one attack. No enemy in a conventional war has ever done this to American military forces as Iran is doing right now. It's hard to believe. The military situation is so serious that censorship is blocking almost all new information about this war. If you've noticed, we're getting less and less information every day. Thirty-five years ago, during the first Iraqi war, we were shown endless footage from Iraq. Back then, smart bombs and cameras were a novelty, but every night we were shown night-time footage. Now we hardly see any videos at all. Understand this! Supposedly, this is the world's largest military power, with the world's largest air capabilities, and on the fourth day of the U.S. offensive, supposedly and supposedly breaking through Iranian defenses, we don't see any signs of American dominance in the Iranian sky. Where are all the video recordings of our planes flying over Tehran or any other part of Iran, for that matter? American soldiers can't even dream of setting foot on Iranian soil. And to understand how desperate this war is, on the fourth day you're already hearing the most insane proposals and ideas from the Trump administration. They're proposing sending military escorts for oil tankers leaving the Persian Gulf. What are you even talking about! You want to send American ships into the zone of destruction of thousands of Iranian missiles? NOW no one can get through the Strait of Hormuz. The Iranians have been preparing for this for decades. They're flaunting the idea of arming Kurdish militias to invade Iran. What the hell are you talking about? Have you seen a map of Iran!? It seems the Trump administration has never seen a map of Iran! Do you know how vast it is? What does it mean to invade Iran!? Do you think a militia of 10,000 people could invade Iran!? Or even 50,000? Or 100,000? Iran will swallow them up. The U.S. and Israel have already lost this war. The U.S. and Israel can kill millions of civilians in their homes. They have powerful bombs and can blow up buildings, but they won't win this war. Iran's military infrastructure and weaponry is deep underground all over IRAN. Neither the Americans nor, especially, the Israelis have any chance of reaching any of it. They're in deep shit. They started something they have no chance of finishing. When this all ends, the U.S. will never return to West Asia. There will be no American presence in the Middle East. I'm telling you this now with certainty." t.me/Palestinianspi…
Another free speech row at a literary festival has erupted, with Adelaide University abruptly cancelling a high-profile event featuring UN Special Rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territories, Francesca Albanese. trib.al/wDf97mn
