The tragic irony readily apparent in the brief but cogent survey and analysis by the good professor, is that the ‘specialist’ division of labour in academe effectively precludes him from understanding that the driving force underlying each example he cites is the ‘ethic’ of endless accumulation of ‘private’ surplus wealth (Capital) by small groups or classes of dominant elites, whose politico-economic power enables them - with the assistance of well-rewarded senior military and political bureaucrats - to effectively impose such harsh and oppressive rule over their fellow citizens and neighbours.

Although it would appear to be obvious, such things need to be said, and said often.
I am in the process of editing a book, the title of which is "My warrior has a handsome face"
With thanks to Neruda and playing on a line from one of his poems. That indicates what the book is about. One rule for them and one for us. And "they" are the bad guys and "we" are the handsome warriors: the good guys.
Intrinsically.
But reality is simply not like that.
There are some actions that are unacceptable no matter who does them.
But we do not need to list every crime ever committed by every nation in order to criticise a single state for committing a crime today.

Let me see. I can identify Celts among my ancestors. So I am not an Australian, I am a C E L T. Large numbers of Celts have been killed by non-Celts and self-hating Celts over the centuries since their beginning in part of Austria. I will feel cut off from my roots – victimised – until the world’s Celts have a homeland of our own, proclaiming itself the Celt state, governed by Celts for the Celts and open to Celt settlers wherever they may be. A suitable site would be Austria and surrounds. The inhabitants must be expelled, their homes seized and renamed, their farms torn up, their real estate re-allocated to Celts. Some may keep on harassing the new State of Celtia (like the fools who resisted and dismantled the Third Reich and the pests who resist Israel and want it dismantled) but we will defend our state and hit them wherever the challenges come from. We will make nukes just in case, and create a world hullabaloo if any of them even look like making nukes too. The rest of the world owes us support, with their lives if it comes to it. After all we’re exceptional. We’re SPECIAL. If they don’t agree they’re anticeltites, no better than those who have victimised Celts for so long, no better than self-hating Celts who don’t feel the call of the blood.

But of course it doesn’t happen. No Celt would dream of it. I wouldn’t myself (I think I’m really an Australian after all). If any group ever started a movement to demand a Celtia in place of Austria it would be held in hatred and contempt by decent people, including decent Celts, all over the world. And so it should of course

As the late great Gore Vidal said:

"…fifty years ago, Harry Truman replaced the old republic with a national-security state whose sole purpose is to wage perpetual wars, hot, cold, and tepid. Exact date of replacement? February 27, 1947. Place: The White House Cabinet Room. Cast: Truman, Undersecretary of State Dean Acheson, a handful of congressional leaders. Republican senator Arthur Vandenberg told Truman that he could have his militarized economy only IF he first “scared the hell out of the American people” that the Russians were coming. Truman obliged. The perpetual war began. Representative government of, by, and for the people is now a faded memory. Only corporate America enjoys representation by the Congress and presidents that it pays for in an arrangement where no one is entirely accountable because those who have bought the government also own the media. Now, with the revolt of the Praetorian Guard at the Pentagon, we are entering a new and dangerous phase. Although we regularly stigmatize other societies as rogue states, we ourselves have become the largest rogue state of all. We honor no treaties. We spurn international courts. We strike unilaterally wherever we choose. We give orders to the United Nations but do not pay our dues…we bomb, invade, subvert other states. Although We the People of the United States are the sole source of legitimate authority in this land, we are no longer represented in Congress Assembled. Our Congress has been hijacked by corporate America and its enforcer, the imperial military machine…"

Same goes for many other nations on this small blue planet.

And yet God has the right and power to give His land to anyone He wants to. The author also confirms that all are corrupt. Thank God that Christ will sought it out one day as surely as the sun rises.

Well 'Runner' I hope he "sort's" it out,

your blind, blinkered religious fervour seem to serve you well.

Never mind the reality behind your ethos.

I would suggest a long-term education program that is bereft of religious indoctrination for you..........I have never seen such blatant and blind faith in something so removed from reality that you manage to maintain your faith in such small things as your so called 'truth'.

Religion is the solution for those who feign prophecy as the mantra of truth and a complete nuance from reality and scientific reality.

No doubt the dinosaurs will continue to haunt your belief regime.

My god, reality, teaches me the inevitable desire to seek truth, explanation and a rational approach to what we seek, too bad you are so blinded to your myopic view........when will you learn and then provide some real constructive comment toward this important reasoning.

A well thought out article with words that are long overdue in a global system that is so hypocritical as to be nauseous. It is hard to realize that the USA was once the bastion of democracy, freedom of speech and a capitalistic economy as today it is none of these things.

Two presidential elections both with George W Bush winning were contrived and the democratic process cheated through vote rigging.

Freedom of speech is also a fallacy today or if not a complete fallacy then highly selective as the American press is so docile as to be compared to the Soviet press during the days of the USSR.

Freedom of speech doesn't lend itself to news organizations that print objectively during times of war and I am particularly thinking of Al Jazeera that was twice bombed off the air by US troops.

Capitalism has died in America as it is well known that capitalism's worst enemy is the monopoly which are increasingly in evidence in America today particularly in the media where too many media outlets of differing types are held in the hand of too few.

UN laws seem to apply in a highly selective manner as the UN Security Council has long overstayed its welcome and should be dismantled and something of a more democratic nature constructed to take its place reflecting the world today. No vetoes should be bestowed on any country. No more will the big five frustrate the will of the UN where America has cynically given its veto to Israel while the rest of the world have either voted for the resolution or abstained.

What hypocrisy and irony do we witness today when America condemn Russia and China of frustrating the will of the UN through the use of their veto to protect Syria. There is no justice in the UN today but there never really has been

Maybe the time is ripe to dismiss the political teaching of Machiavelli and return to a time of hope, vision and a real global partnership based on the law applying to all countries evenly.

Ulis <Maybe the time is ripe to dismiss the political teaching of Machiavelli and return to a time of hope, vision and a real global partnership based on the law applying to all countries evenly.>

A nice idea Ulis, but who is going to enforce this global partnership based on the law applying to all Countries evenly. That was the original idea behind the United Nations after World War2.
It hasn’t worked in the past and for the same reasons it will not work in the future.

When they taught me about the United Nations many decades ago at school I refuted it in my mind. I thought that will never work, because nations with the power will always seek to have things serve their own interests. There is also the reality that even nations without superior weaponry in the United Nations, vote in ways that serve their own alliances and interests too, so their votes are biased and predudiced and far from a global partnership.

I have never believed in paper treaties and I have never believed that the United Nations could work either and my beliefs have been proven right. Don’t waste time in thinking that what you say above about a global partnership is any less Utopian than it was in the past. A lovely idea but in reality given the fact that human beings will always back a horse called, "Self Interest", impossible.

Stuart Rees,

Makes no mention of the six day war in this article.
The fact that a few Arab states raced over and attacked Israel and got beaten in six days. That was when Israel took control of the Gazza strip probably as a buffer between Israel and the Arab states.

Neither side is right or wrong in this conflict. It is simply
a territorial war over the land, between two bloodlines (tribes).
Both have equal need of the land to survive. They can't share it
as the peaceniks might say, because there is simply not enough room or resources to support the fast growing populations on both sides.

There really is no answer to it. Bloodline loyalties being
what they are, the white Christians tend to side with the Jews and the Arab bloodlines tend to side with the Palestinians. So we could
all be plunged into another world war because of these loyalties.
As we were pulled into World War1 and World War2.

<human beings will always back a horse called, "Self Interest"> Would that be ALL human beings CHERFUL ... or just the anti-social, anti-democratic parasitic elites who make up the Capitalist Class?!

The U.S. and Israel are exceptional.

They are exceptionally imperial, exceptionally deranged, exceptionally stupid, exceptionally warlike, exceptionally racist, exceptionally brutal, exceptionally immature, exceptionally immoral, exceptionally fanatical, exceptionally duplicitous, and exceptionally greedy, etc.

I could've added at least another dozen or more items but I think I've made my point!

How pathetic, Israel and the US are not the source of all evil. Rantings to that effect are just the spleen of those who want unearned power. Lefties feel so pure while creating nothing but expecting to spend and direct the resources of the productive sectors of society.
Frankly these counties are exceptional in that they create a reference point against which all others can be measured. There are no Arab counties as Democratic as the most stacked Democrat machine city in the US, let alone Israel.
The only thing that has held the Middle East together has been oil money, but what is going to happen now that the money-go-round is ending. The US and even Europe has enough energy, it will be interesting.

McCakie you really don't get it do you? America and Israel are not the source of all evil and I don't think even the most left wing liberal would be convinced they are. The trouble with these two countries is that they give themselves airs that other countries (Russia, China and India) don't.

Their hypocrisy and arrogance is beyond all human tolerance. There is no international law that they accept applies to them and their behavior on the world stage is obstructive.

Recently the invisible secretary of State was forced to apologize to Pakistan for attacking a Pakistani contingent with drones and causing many deaths. The apology was initially refused by America as it feels that it is beyond such niceties.

Pakistan that has lost at least 10 fold what America and all her allies combined in the war on terror had had enough and cut America's supply line to its troops on the Afghan/Pakistan border only then was the apology forthcoming. Pakistani lives are no cheaper than American lives.

In the 20th Century we witnessed two world wars and death and destruction on an untold scale. It is ironic that the only country in the history of the world to use atomic weapons, America, and the only country to have nuclear weapons in the Middle East that they refuse to disclose to IAEA inspection should gang up on Iran and accuse it of harboring intent of developing nuclear power for military use.

It is as if the Secretary of State had taken verbatim the play book that the Bush administration used to justify its unwarranted invasion and occupation of Iraq and has just substituted Iran for Iraq. Do they think that the world is so stupid as to buy the same lie twice?

Finally with the fall of the USSR many in the world thought that the 21st century would herald an unparalleled time of peace and prosperity. A country that holds itself to exceptionally high moral and ethical standards is America and yet it is their behavior as an unprincipled warmonger that are preventing peace in the world.

The only nation to use nukes, yes, and correctly so. There is no doubt that many more would have died in a continuation of the then format of war, a sharp shock that successfully proved to the Emperor a continuation was not only futile but pathetic did the job.
I have been to Saipan and Tinian (but not Rota) and have looked at the Suicide cliffs from several perspectives; they almost make the Gap look friendly. Hundreds of civilians jumped off them whilst not being perused, volcanic and coral rocks are particularly cruel. Anecdotally sharks were lunging onto the rocks to get at the mutilated bodies.