Antinuclear

Australian news, and some related international items

As Trump Threatens Weekend Strike on Iran, Albanese Pretends Pine Gap Isn’t Complicit

1 February 2026 David Tyler AIM Extra

Albanese’s Iran Illusion: How Australia Sleepwalks into Someone Else’s War

While our federal government waffles on about rules based order, Iran is rewriting the rules of modern warfare. Trump is threatening regime-change. The Strait of Hormuz has become a kill box where $13 billion aircraft carriers play sitting duck to lethal, glorified speedboats, where cyberattacks double as deterrence, and where Australia, ever the loyal deputy, pretends it’s all someone else’s problem. Labor’s silence isn’t prudence. It’s complicity in a US strategy that’s already unravelling, and we’ve got the scars to prove it.

Trump already bombed Iran once. In June 2025, Operation Midnight Hammer saw seven B-2 stealth bombers drop bunker-busters on three nuclear facilities while Pine Gap provided the targeting data. Iran’s face-saving response, a telegraphed missile strike on Al Udeid Air Base in Qatar, fooled no one. But it burned through 25% of America’s total THAAD interceptor stockpiles, missiles the US produces at a rate of roughly one per month. Now Trump’s threatening round two, this time with explicit regime-change goals, and Albanese still won’t acknowledge that Australia’s uncritical alignment has painted a target on our own facilities.

The real damage? Washington’s isolation campaign isn’t weakening Tehran. It’s shoving Iran into Beijing and Moscow’s arms, locking in an anti-Western axis that thrives on American blunders, while teaching every threshold nuclear state that compliance buys nothing but bombs. Why won’t Labor admit the scale of the mess? Because doing so would mean confessing its own role in a policy already fraying at the seams.

Iran’s Budget Warfare: Turning American Strength into Liability

Iran isn’t trying to match the US ship for ship. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has crafted a playbook that turns American firepower into dead weight: coastal swarms, cyber harassment, proxy deterrence. The goal isn’t winning a war. It’s making escalation so unpredictable, expensive, and politically toxic that the US thinks twice before starting one.

In the cramped waters of the Strait, even Iran’s modest fleet of fast-attack craft becomes a force multiplier. The IRGC doesn’t need a knockout punch, just enough chaos to trap US commanders in a no-win scenario. Push ahead and risk humiliation. Retreat and signal weakness. Dither in the middle while morale drains away. So far, the Pentagon has mostly chosen door number three, proving you can outspend your opponent by billions and still lose the initiative to speedboats and audacity.

The Strait of Hormuz: Where Geography Beats Firepower

The USS Abraham Lincoln isn’t just another, elderly ship in the Strait. It’s a floating monument to American overreach, now redeployed for what Trump calls an “armada larger than Venezuela,” the latest regime-change operation on his scorecard. Iran’s swarm tactics don’t need to sink a nuclear-powered carrier to succeed. They just need to make every transit a gamble, every patrol a potential disaster.

The IRGC’s speedboats may look like dinghies, but in these confined waters where 20% of the world’s oil flows, they’re a constant reminder: geography, not firepower, decides who blinks first. Tehran isn’t trying to win a shootout. It’s turning the Strait into a quagmire where the US loses whether it escalates or backs down, and every crisis burns through irreplaceable defensive systems while China takes notes.

Cyber Jihad: How Iran Turned Hacking into Deterrence

Iran may not match Russia or China’s cyber prowess, but it doesn’t need to. Its campaigns against US, Israeli, and Gulf targets aren’t about knockout blows. They’re about raising costs, sowing doubt, ensuring any strike on Iranian soil comes with a digital counterpunch. From disrupting Saudi oil facilities to probing Israeli water systems, Tehran’s message is simple: hit us, and we hit back, not just with missiles, but with chaos in your backyard.

At home, the regime has weaponised the internet itself, using imported surveillance tech and homegrown censorship to crush dissent. Since January 8, Iran’s internet connectivity has been throttled to 1% of normal levels, a digital blackout designed to hide what appears to be one of the bloodiest crackdowns in modern Iranian history. It’s crude, effective, and one more layer of deterrence the Pentagon now factors into every war plan.

The Massacres Under the Blackout: What Trump’s “Humanitarian” Intervention Ignores

Here’s what Trump won’t mention when he frames the next strike as protecting Iranian protesters: his administration is planning regime change in a country already reeling from mass killings. Since late December, Iran has experienced its largest uprising since 1979, sparked by currency collapse and spreading nationwide. The regime’s response has been catastrophic…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The Pine Gap Paradox: Australia’s Uncritical Complicity

Australia isn’t a neutral observer. Through Pine Gap, we provided the intelligence backbone enabling the June 2025 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, operations now drawing genocide allegations at the ICJ given the broader context of US-Israeli coordination. That makes us complicit, and Tehran has noticed.

Iranian Brigadier General Mohammad Akraminia was explicit in his warning: if the US strikes again, “the scope of war will certainly extend across the entire region… From the Zionist regime to countries that host American military bases, all will be within range of our missiles and drones.” That’s not bluster. That’s a direct threat to Australian facilities, delivered after we’d already enabled one round of strikes.

The Herzog visit crystallises Labor’s paralysis. Albanese frames it as “solidarity” with Jewish Australians, but the timing, amid ICJ hearings, domestic protests, and credible reports of an “imminent” second US strike aimed at regime change, screams political theatre. Hosting an Israeli president while Pine Gap’s data flows unrestricted into contested operations isn’t tone-deaf. It’s a neon sign for Iranian retaliation: cyberattacks, grey-zone harassment, or worse.

Yet Albanese won’t acknowledge the risks, because doing so would mean admitting our uncritical alignment with Washington has made us a target. So we get silence, deflection, empty platitudes about “shared values,” while senior US military officials tell Middle Eastern allies that Trump may strike Iran “as soon as this weekend.”

Greg Moriarty, our ambassador in Washington, saw this coming. His warnings about blowback from sanctions and military-first strategies should be shaping the debate. Instead, they’ve been sidelined, because realism doesn’t win elections, and admitting the Pine Gap Paradox would require honesty this government doesn’t possess.

The Nuclear Cascade: What Comes After Trump Bombs Iran Again

If Trump follows through, the consequences extend far beyond the Middle East. Every regional power watching this crisis is recalculating. Saudi Arabia has made no secret of its nuclear ambitions, with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman publicly declaring the kingdom would pursue weapons if Iran did. Riyadh’s deepening defence cooperation with nuclear-armed Pakistan isn’t coincidence. It’s a hedge against American unreliability and regional instability……………………….

Crossroads: The Choice Albanese Won’t Make

Australia still has options, but the window is closing fast. We can deepen our operational integration with the US, provide targeting for regime-change strikes, and hope Iran decides we’re more trouble than we’re worth. Or we can use our position inside the American security ecosystem to argue for de-escalation, regional guarantees, diplomacy over another roll of the dice with irreplaceable defensive systems and global proliferation architecture.

The second path means telling a distracted superpower our support has limits, that we won’t sign a blank cheque for a strategy multiplying our exposure while delivering only drift. It means acknowledging publicly that Pine Gap’s role in the June strikes has already made Australia complicit, and that a second round aimed at regime change crosses a line we should never have approached.

But if Albanese won’t level with the public about the stakes, we risk sleepwalking into a conflict shaped by other people’s decisions, on other people’s timelines, with Australian facilities providing the targeting data that helps trigger a regional war and global nuclear cascade.

Drop Site News reports the strike could come “as soon as this weekend.” Common Dreams notes 56% of Americans already believe Trump has gone too far with military interventions. Even many Iranian protesters warn the US will exploit their struggle rather than support it. The pieces are in place for a catastrophic escalation, one that makes the June strikes look like a warning shot.

The question isn’t whether Australia can afford to speak plainly about these risks. It’s whether we can afford not to, and whether Albanese has the courage to admit that our “shared values” with Washington don’t extend to enabling regime-change operations that will make us targets while accelerating nuclear proliferation across the Middle East.

The silence from Canberra isn’t prudence. It’s complicity. And if Trump pulls the trigger this weekend, Albanese’s refusal to acknowledge our role will look less like diplomacy and more like dereliction.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES, https://theaimn.net/as-trump-threatens-weekend-strike-on-iran-albanese-pretends-pine-gap-isnt-complicit/

February 2, 2026 Posted by | secrets and lies | Leave a comment

Herzog, Iran, Pauline, Susssan, Pete and the Rio deal | Scam of the Week

February 2, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Rules-Based Order: Where America Gets Away with Murder, and Everyone Else Gets the Bombs

When the US bombs Iranian nuclear sites, it’s a “strike”. When Iran defends itself, it’s “aggression”. When the US funds insurrections, arms rebels and sabotages economies, it’s “promoting democracy”.

While Ms Penny Wong chants the “rules based order” mantra, Mr Moriarty, gets the gong: he is off to Washington to ensure Australia remains locked in step with the world’s biggest bully. Meanwhile, as the ICJ rules that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute plausible genocide, and as the US and Australia continue to arm and fund Israel’s apartheid regime, the hypocrisy would knock you over. The “rules based order” isn’t about justice. It’s about power and who gets to wield it without consequences.

31 January 2026 David Tyler , Australian Independent Media

Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong chants “rules based order” like a sacred hymn.

Order? In reality, it’s a squalid, pseudo-legal jargon for a world where might is right. While the US drops depleted uranium on Iraqi children, arms Israeli apartheid and fuels insurrections in Iran, any nation that dares assert its independence is crushed under a tonne of bricks. In Iran’s case, a hail of “precision strikes” designed to wound, maim and cause lifelong agony. Meanwhile, in Gaza, the International Court of Justice has declared Israel’s actions plausible genocide, ordering an immediate halt to atrocities and unimpeded humanitarian access. The US and its allies, including Australia, have ignored every ruling, proving once again that the “rules based order” is nothing more than a mafia protection racket, and we’re collecting the rent.

Depleted Uranium is often said to drop but it’s part of the super new bullets or “rounds” in use. The A-10 Warthog’s GAU-8 Avenger, for example, fires 30mm DU rounds. Tank rounds (e.g., the US M829 series) use DU in their cores to penetrate enemy armour. So kids get a spray of it, rather than a drop.

When these rounds hit a target, they aerosolise into fine, toxic dust, which can be inhaled or contaminate soil and water, leading to long-term health risks (e.g., cancer, birth defects) and environmental damage.

The Rules Based Order A Licence to Kill

Penny Wong stands in Parliament, her voice trembling with moral certainty. To her, Australia stands with the brave people of Iran as they struggle against an “oppressive regime”. She invokes the rules based order like it’s a force field against tyranny, a beacon of justice in a murky, chaotic and mercenary world. Just one snag. The rules apply to everyone else. Only.

When the US bombs Iranian nuclear sites, it’s a “strike”. When Iran defends itself, it’s “aggression”. When the US funds insurrections, arms rebels and sabotages economies, it’s “promoting democracy”.

When anyone else does it, it’s “terrorism”. And as the US sprays depleted uranium, children become cancer statistics? Birth defects are an inter-generational curse, it’s “collateral damage” a euphemism for war crimes.

This isn’t a rules based order. It’s a licence to kill, and Australia through our defence secretary Greg Moriarty, our intelligence agencies and our slavish alignment with US foreign policy is complicit at every step.

And now, as the International Court of Justice declares Israel’s actions in Gaza a plausible genocide, ordering Israel to halt its military operations and allow humanitarian aid, the US and its allies, including Australia, have done what they always do ignored the ruling and doubled down.

Loaded Language “Regime” vs “Government”, “Strikes” vs “Slaughter”

Let’s talk about the language of empire. The US and its press never refer to the “Iranian government”. It’s always the “Iranian regime” a term that strips legitimacy, implies tyranny and justifies intervention. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, a brutal monarchy that beheads dissidents and bombs Yemeni school buses, is a “key ally.”

Israel, an apartheid state with nuclear weapons, is a “vibrant democracy”

When the US bombs a Syrian hospital, it’s a “precision strike”. When Iran fires a missile in self defence, it’s “terrorism”. When the US funds, arms and trains insurgents in Iran such as the Network of Iranian Activists for Democracy (NAD), which distribute Molotov cocktails to protesters and boast about “turning Tehran into a warzone” it’s “supporting democracy”. When Iran arrests those same insurgents, it’s “crushing dissent”.

This isn’t reportage. It’s propaganda, and it’s designed to manufacture consent for the next war.

The Dirty Weapons Engineered to Maim, Designed to Terrorise

The US doesn’t just kill. It maims. It terrorises. It leaves behind a legacy of suffering so grotesque that it defies the term “war crime”. What’s happening is worse than death. Generations suffer. The US has used depleted uranium munitions in every major Middle East conflict since the Gulf War. Why? Because DU is dense enough to pierce armour, but its real legacy is cancer, birth defects and environmental poisoning.

In Fallujah, where the US used DU in 2004, doctors reported a 14 fold increase in birth defects; babies born with two heads, missing limbs and organs outside their bodies. The called the city “the new Hiroshima”. In Syria, the Pentagon confirmed using DU in 2015, despite international condemnation. The result? Radioactive dust that lingers for decades, poisoning soil, water and people. In Iraq, the US ignored its own guidelines, firing DU at unarmoured targets, buildings and even troops turning cities into toxic wastelands.

The US knows DU is a war crime in slow motion. It just doesn’t care.

The US military has set out to maximise suffering. From cluster munitions banned by 100 countries, but still used by the US to white phosphorus, which burns through flesh to the bone, the goal isn’t just to win wars it’s to leave populations traumatised, disabled and dependent.

Cluster bombs scatter hundreds of tiny bomblets, many of which fail to explode until a child picks one up years later. White phosphorus doesn’t just burn. It melts flesh and re-ignites when exposed to air, ensuring victims suffer excruciating, prolonged deaths. Drones don’t just kill targets. They terrorise entire communities, turning the sky into a permanent threat and leaving survivors with PTSD for life.

This isn’t warfare. It’s sadism, dressed up in the language of “national security”.

The Australian Connection Greg Moriarty and the Art of Complicity

Australia isn’t just a bystander to this horror-show. We’re in it up to our necks. Greg Moriarty, our defence secretary and soon to be ambassador to the US, cut his teeth in Iran. As Australia’s ambassador to Tehran from 2005 to 2008, he briefed George W. Bush on Iranian politics at the height of US sabotage operations, assassinations and economic warfare against Iran.

Moriarty’s stellar career is a masterclass in how Australia punches above its weight in the US empire from intelligence sharing to military drill, from sanctions enforcement to diplomatic cover for US aggression.

While Ms Penny Wong chants the “rules based order” mantra, Mr Moriarty, gets the gong: he is off to Washington to ensure Australia remains locked in step with the world’s biggest bully. Meanwhile, as the ICJ rules that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute plausible genocide, and as the US and Australia continue to arm and fund Israel’s apartheid regime, the hypocrisy would knock you over. The “rules based order” isn’t about justice. It’s about power and who gets to wield it without consequences.

Historical Parallels Chile, Guatemala, Iraq, Syria and Now Iran (and Gaza)

This isn’t new. The US has been skittling independence for decades. In Chile in 1973, the CIA sabotaged the economy, funded strikes and backed a coup against Salvador Allende all to protect US corporate interests. The result? Seventeen years of Pinochet’s torture chambers……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Call tyranny for what it is. While we are still permitted to express dissent.

This article was originally published on URBAN WRONSKI WRITES https://theaimn.net/the-rules-based-order-where-america-gets-away-with-murder-and-everyone-else-gets-the-bombs/

February 2, 2026 Posted by | politics international | Leave a comment

Hate speech. Protecting Israel’s reputation in Australia just got cheaper

by Rex Patrick | Jan 26, 2026 , https://michaelwest.com.au/hate-speech-protecting-israels-reputation-in-australia-just-got-cheaper/

Israel’s reputation is treated as a strategic asset to be managed in Western media and political domains. The Israeli ‘machine’ spends a lot of money and effort doing it. The passing of hate laws in the Parliament just switched some of the cost to us. Rex Patrick explains.

Let’s start with some disclosures. 1) I respect people of Jewish faith. 2) I respect people of Islamic faith. 3) Hamas’ 7 October 2023 attacks on Israeli citizens were wrong. 4) Israel’s genocide in Gaza was wrong. 5) Hezbollah and Houthi attacks on Israeli citizens were wrong. 6) Israel’s attacks on Lebanese citizens were wrong. 7) The terrorist attack at Bondi Beach was wrong.

“Violence against civilians is wrong.“

I’ve been asked to weigh in on the Gaza conflict on numerous occasions. I’ve declined because it’s complicated, requires a substantive understanding of history and involves perspectives that, without significant research, will just leave me speaking from an uninformed place.

I’m also of the view that nothing said here in Australia, including by our Prime Minister, will change the views of the Netanyahu government or Hamas. We might be a “middle power” internationally, but Australia really doesn’t weigh very heavily in the strategic or political balance in the Middle East.

I condemn the violence on all sides and advocate that, whilst everyone has a right to respectful commentary and peaceful protest, Middle Eastern affairs should not be a basis for hateful or violent division in the Australian community.

Balcony over Jerusalem

I did, however, decide to try to find out at least something about the current environment in the Middle East from someone who’s spent time there and I could trust. That’s what caused me to buy John Lyon’s book, ‘Balcony Over Jerusalem’.

Lyons is a leading Australian journalist, currently working for the ABC in Washington and, on occasion, upsetting Donald Trump. He takes the reader of his book through the wonders and dangers of the Middle East experienced and learned in his 6 years as a foreign correspondent living in Israel. 

Whilst the book takes the reader on an interesting walk through conflicts across the Middle East, including in Gaza and the Occupied Territories, one clear theme that emerged from the book was the lengths the Israeli ‘machine’ went to try to shape and indeed control the outside world’s perception of Israel.

Controlling the narrative

In the book Lyons argues that Israel treats its international reputation as a strategic asset, and is up there with national security and diplomacy in its importance. It uses a ‘machine’ that doesn’t just react to criticism of Israel, it engages in proactive narrative shaping, which includes systematic engagement with journalists, diplomats and influencers.

Here in Australia members of Parliament are often offered all expenses paid trips to Israel, where see the Israeli perspective on security. I was invited to do so when I was a senator, but declined.

A 2018 study by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute found the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), part of the ‘machine’, was the largest sponsor of all non-Australian Government funded trips for federal parliamentarians from 2010 to 2018.

The ‘machine’ is responsible for political donations, predominantly to the Liberal Party, but also to Labor. If the machine wants a motion in the House or Senate, or assistance to confuse Israel/Zionism criticism with antisemitism, all it takes is a phone call.

Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr has called what Israel does a “well-funded foreign influence operation designed to put the interests of Israel above the interests of Australia and its foreign policy”. MP or senators that speak out will be reminded of donations and threatened with the possibility of a well-funded opponent running against them at the next election.

If the reader googles the words “John Lyons Balcony Over Jerusalem review”, the first entry that is returned is a scathing AIJAC’s review. Query “Bob Carr Israeli foreign influence” and the first return is a critical NSW Jewish Board of Deputies’ Facebook Page.

Taxpayer funded study

Whilst the attack that took place at Bondi on 14 December 2025 was clearly antisemitic, and abhorrent, it’s clear that Prime Minister Albanese wasn’t interested in establishing a Royal Commission.

Unrelenting lobbying was clearly behind Albanese’s decision for the Royal Commission to go ahead. The ‘machine’ did not hide its efforts to get him to see things from their perspective.

Firstly, past Royal Commissions have looked at events, institutions, industries, policies etc while, uniquely, this Royal Commission is peering into the minds of the citizenry. If the Royal Commission does its job properly, it will open a can of worms; worms which have proven to be beyond the management of governments trying to deal with religious discrimination or free speech Bills.

“Oh, and you can’t easily put the lid back on the can.’

Secondly, there’s the problem created by the duplicity of the ‘machine’ not wanting Gaza to be brought into the discussion but wanting peaceful protests over Gaza blamed in some way for what happened at Bondi Beach.

But to control that, the ‘machine’ would have to insert its own Commissioner into the chair. It tried, but thankfully Albanese went with his own choice, former High Court Justice Virginia Bell.

Maybe the ‘free’ study the ‘machine’ has got won’t deliver the desired outcome.

Ill-informed premise

Turning to the Combatting Antisemitism, Hate and Extremism (Criminal and Migration Laws) Bill 2026, the Attorney-General stated in her second reading speech:


The violent terrorist attack we saw in Bondi did not occur spontaneously. Violent extremism starts with words, words of hate spread throughout the community by pernicious individuals and organisations. This hatred is corrosive to a multicultural democratic society. This bill targets those that support violence, in particular violence targeted at a person because of their immutable attributes. This conduct is criminal, but, more than that, it is the seed of extremism, the roots of terrorism. It must be stamped out with the full force of the law.

A major problem is that we don’t know with sufficient clarity what motivated the Bondi attackers; something the perpetrators heard being said in the community, observation of Israel’s conduct in Gaza (and conflating Israel’s conduct with the principles of the Jewish faith), online teachings from Islamic State that originated overseas or locally generated extremist propaganda.

We might find the Bill advanced through the Parliament on an ill-informed premise.

From the River to the Sea – Hate Speech

The other problem is that the offences under the Bill are open to interpretation.

Saying something hateful doesn’t engage the terms of the Bill. It has to be speech that advocates or threatens violence against a person of a particular a race, or nation, or ethnicity.

So, what happens when someone turns up to a protest against the genocide that took place in Gaza and chants “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free”. The person who says it might not have a violent bone in their body and, from their perspective, be rightly using it as a call for human rights, dignity, and equality for Palestinians living under military occupation in the Occupied Territories or Gaza.

An Israeli or Jew wandering past could, from their perspective, rightly view the words as a direct threat to the existence of Israel and the safety of its Jewish population, or an anti-semitic expression.

The non-violent person may have committed a criminal offence, or given cause for their visa to be cancelled.

When asked about just how this would all work,

“the Attorney-General could not answer.”

The cost burden transferred

That’s great for the ‘machine’.

It’ll surely find a way to test the law (including our Constitution), with the taxpayer now picking up the tab for maintaining the narrative and suppressing criticism.

The chanting defendant might win the case, but lose their house in the process. And more chilling is that the uncertainty will remain because the outcome will most likely have turned on the ‘circumstances of the case’.

And if they’re locked up instead, the chant will change to a different set of words that could mean different things to different people and

“the litigation roundabout will continue to turn.”

Meanwhile, because Michael West, who doesn’t back down on honest reporting, stated the chant in a social media report presenting the non-violent persons perspective, MWM might find itself fighting to avoid being listed as a prohibited hate group.

The outcome of the Court case might not matter – with the taxpayer funding the prosecution, the legal fees might bleed the organisation dry. Noting MWM’s fearless reporting on Gaza, the ‘machine’ would be ecstatic

“In truth, the whole thing is a mess.“

But that won’t worry the ‘machine’. Having got the Australian Government and Parliament to pick up a lot of their work, they’ll be redirecting their very considerable resources to new techniques of influence and control.

February 2, 2026 Posted by | Uncategorized | Leave a comment