Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott immediately seized upon the attack on the Charlie Hebdo editorial offices in Paris to foreshadow further boosting the vast powers of Australias police-intelligence apparatus and expanding the countrys frontline participation in the U.S.-led war in Iraq and Syria. While claiming to speak in defense of free speech and other supposed precious values of Western civilization, Abbott sought to justify a barrage of measures that abrogate free speech and other fundamental democratic rights, along with stepped-up involvement in the renewed drive by American imperialism to establish hegemony over the Middle East. Even before the basic facts surrounding the Charlie Hebdo attack in Paris were known, Abbott lumped it together with recent incidents in Australia, despite the obvious differences between them. Abbott not only echoed, but amplified, the responses from the U.S., British and French governments, declaring that a global war had been launched against the freedom of the Western world. Abbott linked the Charlie Hebdo massacre to the armed siege last month at the Lindt Café in Sydney, in which two hostages and the deranged hostage-taker were killed, and the alleged attempted stabbing of two policemen in Melbourne last September by a teenager who was slain by the police. This is yet another effort, on the basis of unsubstantiated claims, to promote public fears of terrorism and whip up anti-Muslim hysteria. Whatever the affiliations of those responsible for the Charlie Hebdo and other attacks in France—which remain unclear—neither of the Australian incidents was part of an assault organised by ISIS. Abbott gave another indication that his government is preparing to publicly accept the Obama administrations request to send more troops into the Iraq-Syria war. The professed bipartisan commitment to freedom of expression and other precious values is part of the free speech hypocrisy being peddled by governments and the media internationally to exploit public fear and confusion and whip up support for authoritarianism and militarism.
Posted on: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 09:45:45 +0000
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