Laith shares what makes on-the-ground reporting in this period unique, especially covering resistance operations, civilian impacts, and massacres in the south.We go deep into the human cost: the daily plight of displaced families, children growing up without homes, destroyed villages, and the constant fear under continued Israeli strikes and presence despite broader regional ceasefire dynamics.

Essential listening for anyone seeking unfiltered insight into Lebanon’s struggle, the resilience of the resistance, and the human reality behind the headlines in West Asia.

YouTube:

Spotify:

Australia is suffering a national crisis not experienced in generations. The 2026 illegal US-Isreal-Gulf war with Iran has triggered a severe fuel and energy shock that has emptied bowsers, crippled trucking routes, and exposed the country’s dangerous dependence on imported petrol, diesel, fertiliser, polymers and petrochemicals — with Australia now importing 80-90% of its refined fuels — farmers desperate for urea from the Gulf, remote communities running on diesel generators, mining operations, and millions of households facing astronomical commuting costs in one of the world’s most car-dependent nations.

Built on sprawling suburbs, over-leveraged freeway homes, vast road-train supply chains across an isolated continent, and an economy that extracts wealth with massive diesel fleets, Australia’s entire way of life was constructed on the assumption of cheap and reliable fuel; that assumption has now collapsed, turning a wealthy resource-rich country’s long-ignored vulnerabilities into an urgent national reckoning — one that brings both deep pain and a rare opportunity for genuine resilience.

The Fragile Foundations Exposed

It’s not just the fuel prices at the bowser, or the diesel allocations that run up day to day for trucking companies, it’s the fertiliser for farmers in an agricultural country. Australia is currently desperately pushing to find more urea (an LNG byproduct), as 64-70% of our supply comes from the Gulf and the Middle East, and winter cropping season needs to be sown. Resilient farmers are looking to change to less fertiliser intensive crops, and the government claims to be searching high and wide for alternative suppliers and products, but the word on the street is that we are in a national fertiliser crisis; something that can act as a prelude to a national food crisis. Oil plays a huge part in feedstock. Diesel is the lifeblood of farm operations, and liquid fuels are the catalysing elements that provide Australians with food from a Darling Downs farm to a plate in Dandenong.

In all the national disbelief, as Australians still book holidays to places with no aviation gas, and the Government has offered no changes to the way we access fuel other than telling us to ‘catch the bus’, many are unaware of the impending catastrophe and both ill-equipped and ill-informed to deal with it. This is especially concerning with strategic stocks sitting at just over a month supply of key fuels — far below the IEA’s 90-day benchmark.

Some on the left may say the fuel shortage is good for EVs, or those on the right may think Trump’s war with Iran is worth the higher cost of living, but they both speak from a position that is both alarmingly ignorant and concerning for the future. Liquid fuel is more than Ford Rangers and cheap plastic crap, it’s polymers for pipes, plastics for vital medical applications, injection molding for vital building materials. Liquid fuel is the base for roads, a key element in pharmaceuticals, synthetic fibers, resins, lubricants, waxes, refrigerants. All totally essential to the functioning of modern economies, across the spectrum of politics around the world.

Australia lacks domestic petrochemical self-sufficiency after eight refinery closures in the past 20+ years (leaving only two operational refineries supplying roughly 17% of national fuel demand); reliance on imported feedstocks compounds fuel import vulnerability. You just have to look at the map to know that Australia’s isolated geographical position leaves it vulnerable to this situation, and Anthony Albanese ringing up everyone in Asia for a couple more tanker-loads isn’t going to address the situation. If the war ended tomorrow, the damage heading this country’s way is already terrifying based on some of the warnings ringing thorough he global economy.

A Perfect Storm of Dependence

The already tenuous idea of buying an over-leveraged developer home on a flat piece of land by a freeway, far away from public transport and shops, and a double digit kilometre distance from work, seems impossible when an already strenuous long drive is met with astronomical fuel and grocery bills. The danger of unemployment caused by possible stagflation only makes the problem worse.

The entire concept of Australian neoliberal housing is based on the motor car, and is untenable without it. Australia has one of the highest vehicle ownership rates in the world, driven by sprawling cities, regional distances, and limited public transport outside major urban centres. Just-in-time supply chains, geographic isolation, and a car-dependent economy are turning out to be a perfect storm.

It takes roughly one thousand kilometres to bring calories from farm to plate in Australia. A mango gets picked in Bowen, Queensland, may have to be trucked down to Ultimo in NSW to a duopoly supermarket distribution centre, before being palletised, wrapped, loaded and trucked back up to a Bowen supermarket shelf. The centralised nature of our highly concentrated corporate giants, leads to labyrinthine supply chains that only make sense to them and their shareholders, and the neoliberal nature of the Australian business’ format means many things are made and stored further up in just-in-time supply chains overseas. Just-in-time-supply chains break when all the things that make them just in time fail.

The division of labour nebulised under neoliberal offshoring is compounded in a vast land poorly serviced by rail, and over-reliant on road-trains that run across the swathe of Australia hostile lands to reach rural towns and population centres that dot this largely uninhabitable country. Generators run remote communities, remote hospitals and police stations, the extracted wealth that is dug by thirsty multinationals mining companies who pay no tax, is done so with the same sovereign volume of fuel used bu ambulances and fire trucks. Who is dolling it out?

Missed Opportunities and Political Failure

Some may be fearing a Mad Max prequel environment, and are filling old water tanks and plastic containers on trailers hooked to Dodge Rams for good measure. Others may be hoping that the people elected to represent our country may be thinking outside the square a little more.

Penny Wong has ruled out the Russian oil the Filipinos have gained permission from the US to purchase, she won’t address the diplomatic options that US ally Japan took in bilaterally resuming fuel trade with Iran, but Albanese is playing coy going to Singapore and Brunei to scab a few barrels here and there, when he should be threatening to cut AUKUS if the belligerents of this war don’t discontinue blocking the entire global economy so Israeli soldiers can invade Lebanon, conduct a regional war with Iran, and continue committing a UN declared genocide in Gaza.

The coalition is talking about Torana’s, sharing Ampol ad’s from the 80s on social media, and deifying old factory jobs that John Howard destroyed, Labor talks about more neoliberal incrementalism and leans on how good they think they are as blokes compared to the other lot, and they both largely dither during this once in a century economic crisis, and both miss a golden opportunity to make the most of the bad situation.

On the right, the possibility of a Menzies style reset based in full employment, cheap housing and Aussie jobs could sound attractive right about now. On the left, a sovereign minded social and regionally focused national plan that includes housing, jobs and unique national ideas could be massively appealing, and with all those ideas not on the table, decreasing our relations with Israel and the US are polling quite popular…Wait a minute… they are really the same thing! Australians want a sovereign minded government who isn’t secretly working for big business, Israel, or the United States national interest. Its not currently available.

This is the ultimate low hanging fruit. Guaranteed to ensure political clout and a public mandate that could last for a generation. Australia could be recreated in the vacuum like it was after the US left the region in WWII, it could dream a new world if the right people were in power to see it. Electrification, green steel, high speed rail, renewable projects, nation building projects that realign our multicultural country under common goals and values that are modern and cutting edge. Green Armies, diplomatic corps, prison rehabilitation programs, a national building commission that puts half the nation to work building the affordable homes they will one day live in with Australian made materiel.

Whatever it is, after the hard times ahead that are coming, we wont be going back to what was before. Whether we want to or not. How about some big ideas?

But so far, this government has offered little more than cautious navel-gazing and the familiar refrain to “catch the bus”. It cant even review taxing the multinational gas giants, allowing another ripe piece of fruit to fall from the vine — ready to be devoured by political carrion birds such as Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer. While Australians from both sides of the aisle desperately crave a genuinely sovereign solution, none is in sight.

As the crisis deepens, the government’s reactive efforts appear hollow. They come against the backdrop of a thirty-plus-year legacy of involvement in Israel-US conflicts across the Muslim world — a legacy that has helped shape the very fuel shock now gripping the nation. As Australians make tough choices in the months ahead, many will also grow tougher on the decisions that led us here, and on those in Canberra on all sides who failed to prepare for this day.

We discuss the unreported damage inside Israel from Iranian missile barrages , the true costs of the war, and whether Israel has dangerously underestimated Iran’s resilience and US ability. Shaiel addresses internal warnings of IDF collapse, growing criticism of Netanyahu, we also dive deep into the rationale behind Israels brutal Lebanon invasion.

#IsraelIranWar #Unit8200 #ShaielBenEphraim #IDFInsider #IranMissileStrikes #LebanonInvasion #GreaterIsrael #GazaEthnicCleansing #LavenderAI #NetanyahuCriticism #LebanonNormalization #8200Alumni #IsraelDamageAssessment #MessianicInfluence #WestAsiaWar #BoganIntelligentsia

“Australia is not an active participant in this war. But all Australians are paying higher prices because of it” echoed the words of Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese during a national address about the crisis in Iran and the consequent economic and fuel catastrophe that awaits. The speech was viewed round the world, but it fell flat at home, failing in the days that followed to meaningfully reassure a country at the bottom of a broken supply chain caused by a war that both Albanese and his government actively support, and leaving many Australians wondering: why was any of this even necessary in the first place?

The higher price that Albanese mentions is the economic meltdown caused by the US-Israel-Gulf war on Iran, and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz — a situation only made certain by the invasion he supports. The markets have reflected this position, with the record rise in the price of a barrel of oil only being matched by the record crash of the stock market and the abrupt disruptions to the global supply chain. The ‘active participation’ the PM refutes our involvement in is also one of the biggest national porky pies in the country’s history, and one of the most consequential.

“Australia is at war, today” — retired ADF Major Stuart McCarthy on the Bogan Intelligentsia podcast.

As the government attempts to square the circle to redefine the meaning of ‘active’, it was Australian sailors onboard the US submarine that fired the opening salvo of the war, sinking the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena as it returned from neutral naval exercises in India. From the moment the government hyper-extended to support the Israel-led strikes that opened the war, killing senior government figures, the leader of the Shia Islam, Ayatollah Khamenei, and over 170 school girls in Tehran, the Albanese government has moved in tandem with the invading axis. That includes coordinating data via US spy bases located in Australia like Pine Gap, consignments of air-to-air missiles to the UAE, the dispatch of an SAS contingent, and the deployment of an E-7A Wedgetail and an entire crew. This seems pretty active.

Albanese made his important speech to the nation on April Fools’ Day, followed by Keir Starmer and Donald Trump along the time zones. Fitting, considering the counterintuitive messaging piped from all parties. The former two indicated ominous times ahead, and the latter declared victory along with an escalation that involves a ground invasion of Iran. While the global markets pumped and dumped at what seemed like market manipulation and insider trading, rumours of peace from the White House that were couched in acts of war and talk of de-escalation ended up in skipping up rungs of the ladder and jamming the conflict into ‘forever war’ mode. The PM’s address was watched with bated breath, and frustrated sighs.

“We must substitute co-operation for competition and public service for private profit,” was what John Curtin said during WWII. In hard times you stick together. When the recession began in the 90s, Paul Keating rallied the nation around the difficult circumstances. “When you’re confronted with a challenge, unity is strength,” seeking to galvanise the country at a time of economic downturn. “The months ahead may not be easy. I want to be upfront about that. No government can promise to eliminate the pressures that this war is causing,” said Anthony Albanese after his government supported the opening strikes that began this crisis, making a statement before an international audience that amounted to taking the bus. That was about it.

Albanese’s speech seemed to be padding the ground for Netanyahu-Trump’s war for regional Zionist hegemony, like his government has passed the test for economically, diplomatically and militarily supporting Israel during its genocide in Gaza, or acting coy when the US kidnapped sovereign Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez. As Penny, Richard and Albo stay mute on the capture of Greenland, the starvation blockade of Cuba, the chainsawing of NATO, the favouring of autocratic sycophants who don’t mind crushing their people for end-stage neoliberal projects mainlined into the US, they stuff us into this horror by default.

Kevin Rudd hands away our trillion-dollar super fund like it’s a bottle of snake oil to Mississippi congressmen, Marles waits in the DC hallways for a chop out from the volatile Trumpian avatar Pete Hegseth, and Penny Wong puts on her wise nods when standing next to US diplomats in moral suspended animation, who flip words around about liberty and democracy while the whole world burns from the top of the Black Sea down to the Horn of Africa due to American design. And we haven’t even mentioned the trillion dollar tithe that is AUKUS, which is unlikely to ever provide us with the nuclear subs we need to not contribute active support in the future. Fair fucking dinkum.

As his nation faces a looming crisis not experienced in multiple generations, with the cockpit lights flashing one after the other, Albanese didn’t repudiate the warmongers who seem on the verge of escalating the conflict, he didn’t announce the need to strategically realign our diplomatic footprint around energy and common struggles with our Asian and Pacific neighbours, he couldn’t even vote in Parliament to tax the multinational gas giants that are taking our resources offshore.

Labor has squeaked out a small objection to the Israel-US war of aggression against Iran, purely out of economic concern towards its cataclysmic existence, but it has barely said boo about much else other than chiding Iran as some unreasonable actor who is bringing the world fuel supply to its knees for some vibe.

The Foreign Minister’s ‘Dennis Denuto’ approach to representing Australia’s interests during this impending crisis was captured in a corporate action shot on her social media on a conference call with 40 western leaders speaking about opening the Strait of Hormuz as part of Australia’s support for international efforts to reopen the critical waterway.

Consent for the Iraq War was manufactured in the media-hyped aftermath of September 11, 2001. Consent came after the West had enjoyed a decade of neoliberal prosperity, while the West had the money in the bank and the international reputation lift in the tank. Not so now, after decades of polyshambolic omnicrises like subprime mortgages, generational housing affordability, years of pandemic, an overwhelming cost of living surge, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the genocide in Gaza, the unveiling of a global pedophile elite spending a few largely unpunished decades partying on an island, and of course the long series of dodgy American “forever wars” that consent was manufactured for. John Howard had times of plenty to draw from, but Anthony Albanese has that.

Maybe the ominously deployed Wedgetail can get a better view of the situation, because the government speaks of the Strait of Hormuz closure like some Iranian-manufactured Gordian Knot, and not what it is: a brutal invasion of a sovereign nation of which Australia is a participant. Seventy-five percent of Australians are against this war, and more opposed to Australia’s involvement — however active or not the government wishes it to be — and no classy action shot from Penny Wong or augmented sentence structure from our under-equipped PM is going to change that.

It was a great show and a conversation about music, the power of unity and love, and the cultural void that feeds through Australia.

Full episode 👇

Apple:

Spotify:

YouTube:

The strength of Australian fuel security has been brought into question during the war in Iran and the boiling crisis in West Asia, and Australia’s decision to be involved doesn’t help the situation. As nations scramble to secure their energy needs in an uncertain future, Australia could be poorly positioned due to a number of factors, not least a bipartisan policy that has outsourced vital sovereign considerations including national fuel security, and a foreign policy that has put Australia front and center on the list of belligerents in this conflict.

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, his Energy Minister Chris Bowen and the government have spent the last couple of weeks in crisis mode responding to the fallout from a regional war his government has militarily supported from the onset. And just as the government has not reckoned with the fact that Australian service people have been involved in taking Iranian lives at the onset of this illegal conflict, it has not quite reckoned with the fallout from the actions of it.

Australia is tethered to the pointy edge of this war. Albanese was bending over backwards to approve the Netanyahu-Trump invasion of Iran. Now he is deploying a Fuel Task Force to oversee the allocation of available fuel as a consequence of the war he supports. A lesson in what not to do. In the vital Asian trade node that doles out the refined fuels needed to run Australia, it might be considered how Australia’s recent diplomatic footprint will determine its fate in a dwindling pool of resources.

In three weeks the world’s energy supply has all ground to a halt, along with the supply chains that deliver it, with consequences mounting by the day. Fuel shortages and service station closures around Australia make international news, services take on levies, shops run out of stock, and supply chains strain under pressure. Australia is a just-in-time economy, with time about to run out.“Our Fuel Supply Taskforce is up and running”, announced a rather confident looking PM cast against what the IMF is calling the worst economic crisis in eighty years (WW2). The government hailed some success in arranging a bilateral fuel arrangement with Singapore, and is reconvening the Fuel Supply Taskforce to look at additional measures, but that casts against an environment of rapidly developing supply chain issues and force majeure actions being made on significant oil and gas contracts around the world.

The Netanyahu-Trump war on Iran is a disaster. The spiking price of oil has sat next to the crashing western financial markets, the global economy is taking on shocks that cannot yet be fathomed, and the world rapidly shifts towards a period of uncertainty. Global markets have transformed into daily yo-yos dependent on President Trump’s performance of a diplomatic pantomime involving the simultaneous announcement of war and peace from the White House, met with total rejection from Tehran, and compounded by the escalatory ladder that sees further destruction of vital energy infrastructure and the crippling of the global markets.

Our greatest friend and security guarantee under Trump in Washington has gone beyond the pale in its invasion of Iran, and so too has Canberra for supporting it. Only stirring the pot is the Israel-US ‘good cop-bad cop’ approach to the conflict, compounded by Iran’s unwillingness to engage diplomatically, and as it stands, apart from the disjointed announcements from the Trump camp, there are no signs that this conflict is going to end any time soon. The options available in Australia are limited, partly due to the government’s willingness to support the Israel-US war from the outset—and for a country run by governments so keen to be involved in US misadventures in faraway lands, you would think it would have the wherewithal to secure an energy buffer for when that foreign policy pastime goes awry.

A complex asymmetrical war develops along an escalation ladder, with every rung another step too far away from a diplomatic exit, and a catastrophe for global energy supply and the economies and lives of billions. Iran is not accepting America’s terms, and America is not agreeing on the counter-proposal from Iran, and in a battle where both sides seem to be measuring completely different metrics of success, the damages to vital global energy infrastructure seen in barely three weeks seems minor to the cadence of what this war could wreak if it goes beyond three months.

Downstream from the frozen fuel nodes in the Strait of Hormuz, Asian fuel refiners scramble to take in the reality, and act accordingly. Our Japanese oil refiners amend their outputs and their clients, Korean and Singaporean suppliers respond to government calls to secure domestic supplies, and China halts almost half of its consignments of aviation fuel to Australia. Between the Asian refineries and the hungry ports in Australia live hundreds of millions of people in dozens of countries, many of whom have better relationships with each other than we do with them. Europeans are looking at multilateral contingencies, Asians are revisiting multilateral diplomacy to re-imagine Asia’s energy mix, and Australia looks pretty isolated sitting with a bunch of Pacific Islands we have been pissing off for decades down here at the bottom of the earth.

The situation would not have been so dire if bipartisan governments didn’t move to close 8 refineries in two decades, leaving one of the biggest nations in the world by landmass with two oil refineries. Long-term structural failures in energy policy have seen decades of under-investment in refining and fuel security. Australia has a couple of handfuls worth of fuel reserves, and a heavy reliance on imported refined products leaves Australia one of the most vulnerable modern economies in the world.

“Without Trucks Australia Stops” is a common sign spotted on the back of endless fleets of diesel trucks that run overland freight across vast distances where our energy returned over energy invested strains across the harsh space that separates a unique geography. Road trains running up the Hume and across the Nullarbor hail others turning down crossroads that lead to remote locations that are bone dry of fuel, and far away from a solution. Gardening maintenance companies to postal fleets see the price of logistics double at the fuel pump, MRI operators to fish and chip shops run low on helium and packaging.

The closure of the biggest gas fields in the world (Qatar, South Pars (Iran)) means vital gases for energy, high tech production, and medicine are unaccounted for. The collapse of the Gulf petrochemical industry means a halt in plastics, polyester, polyurethane and paracetamol. As the IMF issues dire warnings along with establishment financial experts, there is a developing crisis in the supply of Urea and Ammonium Nitrate fertilisers. Farmers can’t power their machines, and world hunger joins the equation. The flow-on effects of the crisis are endless.

In a situation like this, sovereignty is the driver of a nation’s response, and as nations from the Philippines to Burkina Faso seek to enact national emergency measures, the Albanese government has taken some more time to consider. Japan and Korea, both with 200-day sovereign fuel reserves, have enacted restrictions. Both of those countries refine the fuel that makes its way to Australia at the end of a fragile resource supply chain that is being rearranged.

Footage of middle Australians filling up jerrycans, old water tanks, and industrial storage units on the back of thirsty Dodge Rams paints a bleak reality. The Albanese government has yet to deploy any measure to combat this practice. Citing the rage, Coalition White Knight Andrew Hastie has made the most sovereign sounding statement made by a Liberal politician in recent memory, condemning Trump’s war, saying Australians are “suffering” because of it, and placing the blame for the crisis on the White House. This marks a shift that is growing rapidly against anyone in Canberra upholding this status quo, and applying additional pressure on any political entity prepared to uphold it.

Matt Canavan is posting old Ampol ads on his social media, Pauline Hanson and Clive Palmer are threatening to tax the foreign-owned gas giants, the Greens are embarrassing the government in the Senate, Hastie is stirring sovereign pangs in the heart of middle Australia; the Albanese government stands alone, refusing to budge, as the world crumbles around them, as the number one party of Trump in Australia, and the number one party of war. Not a good look in the current political situation.

Albo’s decision to lump in has been made as fast as one could, and his support for the US-Israel war is more than words; it is the deployment of Australian military personnel to an opaque war that has repercussions that go beyond the cost of petrol and the price of groceries. This isn’t some automatic decision. It’s not to be taken for granted. This is the most consequential conflict Australia has had to consider in generations, filled with the pitfalls, traps and tinged with messianic open-endedness. What the fuck are the government doing getting so close so quickly into this war?

The crisis in the Gulf has stirred up the global economy in ways not yet fully reckoned with—a situation compounded in Australia which sits in this predicament partly due to proximity and policy. What a disgrace that our government stands before us with serious faces, acting like prudent sovereign managers, when they have committed diplomatic and military support to the belligerents of the conflict and those responsible for the catastrophic situation in the Gulf. The fuel crisis in Australia is due to a bipartisan neoliberal economic policy that has prioritised corporate profits over national security. It’s partly due to geography, but it’s also due to the sovereign, moral and ethical decay of the Australian political class.

Full episode:

Spotify:

YouTube:

Bogan Intelligentsia is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Full Episode:

YouTube:

Apple:

Spotify:

Albanese spoke of ‘collective self-defence’ when he announced 85 Australian defence personnel and Australian military assets would be embarking on a mission to aid the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to assist in its defence from Iranian attacks as it responds to the Israel-United States attack that began the conflict. The government announced those personnel were to deploy on an E-7A Wedgetail aircraft, along with the transfer of Advanced Medium-Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAMs), in a further direct involvement in a theatre of war that is evolving beyond the parameters of the ill-equipped decision-makers in Canberra. The government has stated that this limited support is intended to counter Iranian missile threats to the UAE and help maintain regional stability against escalating aggression.

The Deployment Decision

Lurching forward with a poorly defined level of support, based on poorly informed ideological decision-making since early Australian involvement in the sneak attack on Iranian warship IRIS Dena as it left military exercises in India, Australia is one of the few nations to offer such comprehensive military support. Apart from former colonial powers, UK, Italy and France, and bellowing from the war footed Ukraine, Australia is the only other outlier contributing such substantial commitments to the conflict. While most nations are being shaken down for THAAD systems, or spare PAC-3 (Patriot) missiles--and are choosing to let the phone ring out on calls to join the conflict-- little Australia is jumping up to be picked in Captain Americas footy team.

The E-7A Wedgetail is one of Australia’s highest-cost military platforms, serving as the centrepiece of the Royal Australian Air Force’s (RAAF) national air defence and battle management capability. The Wedgetail is a highly capable AWACS platform acting as essentially a flying radar system that can track hundreds of live targets over hundreds of square kilometres, providing vital command and control data information that feeds into military operations throughout the battle. With six of these aircraft in our possession, they are used to monitor vast maritime and air domains for potential intrusions or escalations.

The Wedgetail mission itself—to aid in the collective defence of the UAE—will involve providing airborne early warning and long-range reconnaissance, providing real-time situational awareness along with data sharing, and filling surveillance gaps—gaps caused by Iranian attacks that have created them. The Wedgetail’s arrival to the Gulf comes as the UAE has rumoured to have lost a similar advanced early warning and air surveillance aircraft, Saab GlobalEye, that was reported to be destroyed in its hangar on the tarmac. With the war currently waging for control of the eyes on the battlefield, advanced early warning and air surveillance aircraft like the Wedgetail become prime targets, and with reports of multiple large military aircraft being successfully struck in an increasingly undefendable battlespace, the decision seems like a bad one.

Risks of Escalation

“This could be the thin end of the wedge,” noted Retired ADF Major on the Bogan Intelligentsia podcast, who points to the Vietnam War, where Australia first committed training teams before peaking at three battalions as the war ground onwards. Major Leckie notes the risk that any Australian deployment to the Gulf could be used by the government to justify further involvement, noting cynically that a “tethered goat” scenario, whereby any harm to the Wedgetail and its crew could provide a casus belli that leads to further involvement, could not be ruled out as a factor behind the decision.

The decision has come barely months after Albanese and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan issued a Joint Declaration elevating the relationship to a Strategic Partnership in September 2025, and is perhaps an example of that agreement in action. The agreement slipped under the radar during a diplomatic excursion that was fraught with more genocidal considerations during the human catastrophe by Israel in Gaza, and escaped the scrutiny it deserves. With a term and a half of supporting AUKUS and Israel under their belt, and previous support for the UAE’s massacre in Yemen, it should come as no surprise that we are witnessing this decision to commit Australians to another warzone.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) often portrays itself as a beacon of modernity, tolerance, and humanitarianism in the Middle East, but this masks a reality of domestic repression, support for divisive armed groups abroad, and systemic exploitation of migrant workers. The UAE has armed, funded and backed brutal conflicts and foreign interventions that include the humanitarian crisis that was called the War in Yemen, the destabilisation of Libya, and the funding of brutal separatist groups like the RSF in Sudan. The Albanese government decision to enhance its military relationship with the UAE has come after all of these developments, and reflects a diplomatic callousness that sharply departs from the ALP’s traditional claim to support human rights.

Australia’s deep military integration with the United States has seen it repeatedly drawn into wars of aggression, and calling the current conflict with Iran unrelated to US interests is folly. From Cold War contributions in Korea, Vietnam, Malaya, Burma, and Indonesia to ongoing support in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen, Australia has provided lethal aid, components, or direct involvement in conflicts across the Middle East and beyond. The thin end of the wedge is visible here once more: what begins as a “modest-sounding mission” of collective self-defence for the UAE mirrors Vietnam’s early advisory role, where small deployments were framed as limited and defensive before they escalated into full-scale war. A callous byproduct of being so closely tethered to the US—especially under Trump—is that Australia is further inclined to be dragged into its messes abroad. With a cohort of bipartisan career politicians who have outsourced sovereign agency to Washington, the country careens ahead on an outdated US autopilot, hoping our ally will hit the brakes as it laughs maniacally with the foot on the accelerator.

Consequences and the Call for Sovereignty

Gone is the muscle memory of a more complete national vision that included diplomacy and independent decision-making; the once rugged Australian semi-independent approach has atrophied in the shopping-mall mentalities that now pervade the neoliberal Canberra bipartisan blob. That pattern has seen Australians fight and die in another hemisphere for over half a century, and it sees us doing something strikingly similar now.

As Palantir gain laminated keypass access to our defence offices, Tony Burke has agreed to sell off our biometric data to ICE and DHS in America—US defence contractors are given top secret status, US bases are being expanded, and US interests are being ensured even when they defy the laws that govern us. Foreign Minister Penny Wong talks sheepishly about Australian spy bases being used in targeting in Iran, the PM shoegazes about the nature of the forward deployment of the Wedgetail to the Gulf, Kevin Rudd hosts rambunctious US Senators and offers them access to trillions of super investments, and in all their entirety, these activities cant be mistaken for anything other that the total sovereign acquiescence of Australia.

The decision-makers in Canberra may feel that they are playing 4D chess, and could think that knocking back a more consequential request for naval deployment is a firm middle ground that they have toiled for, enabled by aiding the UAE via permission from Washington. Australians polled are overwhelmingly against the war, and any government commitment to dispatch a naval mission to free the Straits of Hormuz, and many are horrified at the Australian involvement in the sneak attack on Iranian warship IRIS Dena. The political considerations that guide the calculations of Canberra look just as horrifying.

This whole war is for Israel, the first war of its size fought for a foreign nation’s objectives in its own region. The US has aided Israel in its expansion aims, arming it, and now fighting for it, to achieve them. US President Donald Trump has said so himself. The escalation politics that leaves US decision-makers vulnerable to escalation is also applied to the core allies (vassals) of the US imperium like Australia. The tricks and snares of the escalation trap, that falsely thinks overwhelming force converts to success on the battlefield, lures in the frenetic belligerents, especially as they start meeting resistance.

We are not allied with Israel and our mutual defence pact with the UAE is something we only put on paper months ago before we started, yet we forge ahead into the unknown, driven by a bipartisan engine in Canberra. Have they learned from Iraq, Afghanistan, from Vietnam or Korea? Do we not deserve better leaders who can? At not one point has Albanese or his cabinet condemned the Israel-led war for regional hegemony, nor has it applied its weight as a middle power on the earth to urge for de-escalation; in fact, it has been the most vociferous ahead with the strongest words of condemnation towards Tehran.

The consequences of a rushed and poorly planned regional war aggressively started by an Israel-United States coalition are starting to be felt at the petrol bowser and the shopping till in Australia. As our sovereign fuel supply policies and our domestic resilience come under strain in this dark time, never before has there been an opportunity to explore a more prudent approach to our place in the world. Now would be the most reasonable time to cast a critical sovereign eye on what’s happening around us, like many other nations are, to recast our view on what’s important. It could be a good time to stop being a junior partner and start being sovereign: Canberra lumps into another Israel-US war. Australians deserve better.

Full Episode:

Full Episode:

YouTube

Apple

Spotify

Full episode:

YouTube

Spotify

Apple

The Prime Minister Anthony Albanese smirked when he confirmed the involvement of Australian submariners onboard a US submarine that torpedoed an Iranian warship (IRIS Dena) returning from neutral military exercises in India. “I can confirm that there were three Australian personnel onboard that vessel,” said the almost cheerful PM in an interview with Sky News Australia, alluding to the fact that Australian service personnel have been involved in the opening salvo of a war that is threatening to upend the global economy and millions of lives in West Asia.

Australia’s Initial Involvement in the Conflict

The submarine attack was the gravest naval attack since the Second World War—ignoring conventions and the laws of the sea—striking the Iranian warship in international waters—an event Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has called an “atrocity at sea”.

The Sri Lankan navy rescued 32 sailors while recovering 87 bodies, and a fairly unanimous response of support followed throughout the mainstream political class. This included the opposition leader, cabinet members in both major parties, and the increasingly tight spectrum of mainstream political orthodoxy that appears to revolve around a central consensus. Even the Greens—who have provided an outlet for anti-war voters during the UN-declared genocide in Gaza—spoke about the oppressive regime in Iran right up until the day of the invasion, before condemning the illegal attack by the Israel-US coalition.

Only days earlier as the news came in of 175 dead schoolgirls killed in an AI-powered Israel-US attack on the Minab School in Tehran, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese gave one of the most vociferous responses is in the OECD By praising the US-Israeli invasion into Iran by saying “We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran continuing to threaten international peace and security.”

The Prime Minister placed Australian government support for the war on full display while hosting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney. Both leaders offered different versions of the same position—and it was fascinating to watch two empire lapdogs perform on opposing sides of the short tether afforded to them by Washington. On one side, Carney initially expressed support for the US-Israeli strikes on Iran but later qualified it “with some regret”. Albanese, meanwhile, insisted on eliminating Iran’s “ongoing threat” to peace and security, choosing to go all the way with Donald J. Trump.

This gung-ho position was challenged by Insiders host David Speers in an interview with Foreign Minister Penny Wong. She parried questions about Australian involvement in the quagmire, stating, “We’re not in a position to determine the legal basis of decisions the US and Israel have made.” While Wong and her party attempt to unravel their own hubris to justify a war that began with a salvo assassinating a religious leader and killing nearly 200 schoolgirls, Australia has already made its mark. Eighty-seven dead Iranian souls, and the hollow words of this government, stand as a lackadaisical and ignorant testament to the gravity of the event.

“Turn the temperature down,” Albanese had urged a divided nation, before plugging Australia into a Netanyahu-Trump war in the wake of Epstein. Only days earlier he had promised not to send Australian defence personnel to the region, only to backflip almost immediately and consider requests for military assistance from Gulf states. Sensing Australia’s automatic involvement in another US war in-and-around the delineations of Greater Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Sharren Haskel tried to weigh in on the level of that involvement: “Wake up and fight for Israel and ‘freedom’,” said a member of a government that is committing genocide and engaged in active combat across several countries in the region.

So while the government backflips after insisting Australia would not take part in any military operations inside Iran—despite our service personnel being involved in a Lusitania-type incident from the outset—it cannot completely rule out the use of US bases in the country. As the conflict evolves, with French and European military assets being deployed to the region, Australia’s position could change dramatically—especially if Washington decides to drag its allies by the scruff of the neck into a “coalition of the willing”. In Washington, Donald Trump brushed away the fact that more American lives will be lost in this war for Israel: “There will likely be more. That’s the way it is,” he commiserated, amid murmurings of troop deployments and a protracted regional crisis.

Political Support and Policy Shifts

Australia has deployed military assets to the Middle East as the conflict with Iran spirals out of control. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced that a Royal Australian Air Force C-17A Globemaster heavy transport aircraft and a KC-30A Multi-Role Tanker Transport would be part of the second of four confirmed flight to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) aiming to evacuate some of the 115,000 Australians trapped in the region. But what could further involvement look like?

Amid scenes of total solidarity from the Iranian population rallying behind their besieged government, the White House has pivoted its objectives rapidly—from liberating the good people of Iran, to vowing to stop its missile capability, to demanding unconditional surrender. In reply, Albanese has shifted from “no troops”, to evacuation flights, to considering requests for military assistance from Gulf states. Going by the last few days, the shy is the limit.

Trump spoke in genocidal terms on a flight before the media about the people of Iran, blabbering about the possibility of no Iranians being alive when they are done, calling them “among the most evil people ever on earth”. “The only ones that need to be worried right now are Iranians that think they’re going to live,” said Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth with the zeal of a zealot. Why is Albanese scratching at the feet of people speaking the most unhinged language of war from any government since Menzies committed Australian troops to Vietnam?

Historical Lessons and Future Risks

Unlike Vietnam, which defeated the United States after a decade-long battle of attrition, Iran is a continuous civilisation state. Its population dwarfs that of 1965 Vietnam; Iran is six times the size of Vietnam; its military is a modern, self-reliant regional deterrent compared to the guerrilla armies of the North Vietnamese Army. Iran has near-universal youth literacy, the highest proportion of female STEM graduates in the world, and is an institutionally deep nation with native AI, satellites, and tech-enabled regional-superpower status.

The US took 20 years, hundreds of lives, and trillions of dollars to replace the rudimentary-equipped Taliban with the Taliban—currently it cannot stop the Houthis in Yemen. How are they going to topple a 90-million-strong superpower? Even a bloody war of attrition leading to US troops on the ground in Tehran would result in a modern, heavily armed, and well-trained Taliban-like situation, with decentralised military units fighting across the region for decades.

The US has suffered one of its biggest military losses since Pearl Harbour. The most valuable US bases on earth—in Bahrain and Qatar—trillions of dollars of assets built over decades, including billions in extremely finite and valuable early-detection radars throughout the region, have been hit. Iranian missiles are finding their targets with increasing success, drones are flying unimpeded into highly sensitive sites, and the damage across US-Israel positions is devastating.

As the Iranian response defies even the most optimistic assessments in Washington, Trump is drawn deeper into the conflict and faced with an increasingly grim set of options: retreat and lose the Middle East, put boots on the ground and risk American lives, or deploy a nuclear response and doom the fate of humanity. With these bleak choices beginning to harden as the conflict complicates and compounds, why are Albanese and Wong so keen to show their zeal for the Trump-Netanyahu war—more so than any government in the West?

This overreach did not emerge in a vacuum; Australia has demonised Iran for a long time, evolving as it became screwed into the “Axis of evil” during the US global war on terror. It has only ramped up what had been fairly stable relations after ASIO claims that Iran was involved in a string of antisemitic attacks in Australia, leading to the suspension of diplomatic ties with Tehran. The image of the Ayatollah’s imposing figure to an ignorant and propagandised public, alongside decades of reports about human rights abuses—particularly against its female population—has sat alongside the unrelenting efforts of global Zionist interests to dismantle the regime in Tehran.

All the talk about the brutality of the Iranian state and the demonisation of billions of Muslims has morphed over thousands of kilometres through the propaganda of empire and media, casting a heartless detachment from conflict abroad in Australia. This detachment can even be seen in pro-Palestinian supporters trying to square the circle on justifying the assassination of Ayatollah Khamenei, while condemning the lunacy of the Netanyahu-Trump-Epstein invasion. Many who see this conflict struggle with cognitive dissonance, trapped in the shallow national discourse of Australia. After the Western-backed destruction of Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and Libya, and CIA-backed coups in Egypt, Iran is the last state to evade subjugation to US-Israeli domination in the Middle East. Bipartisan governments in Australia have supported each of these conflicts with words and military contributions, and this government would always join in the misadventure now unravelling.

Have we not learned the mistakes of Iraq and Afghanistan? Or Vietnam and Korea? Since Richard Perle put together the “Clean Break” memo that architected the wars of the Middle East for Israel, and since Netanyahu has spend his adult life banging the drum for nearly four decades about Iran being on the verge of acquiring a nuclear weapon—with invasions of Iran depicted in video games and movies—all roads have led to a President weak enough to acquiesce to Israel’s plans for regional hegemony. They found their man in Donald Trump. Why do so many in the West blindly support this fate?

The Cost of Involvement

In order for Australia to see its sovereign future, it has to shake off the tunnel vision that has seen it nestle into US-led wars of aggression. The simplicity of Australian decision-makers, the shallow thinking, the ignorance, and the lack of creativity have become endemic in the class of politicians that hold sway in Canberra. Trapped in the spoon-fed mindset of an imperial prism— constructed by John Howard—a crystallised nexus of thought reflects bad ideas off mirrors held up by our political class, refracted through foreign-owned media, and beamed into our policy.

To apply any credit to the leaders of this country would be a stretch, but the situation they face would not be pleasant. The increasingly narrow lines of core vassal status yield increasingly less sovereign mobility, compounded by decades of bipartisan acquiescence and outsourcing to Washington, and capped off by AUKUS. Just like Trump’s dangerous overcommitment to unconditional surrender in Iran, the Albanese government’s decision to double down into the Israel-US war also doubles our visibility. Tehran has noted Australia’s involvement in the submarine attack on its destroyer and is considering retaliation options.

Toxic rain is falling over the capital city of Iran, and Tel Aviv, Haifa, and Beit Shemesh lay in ruin, making for apocalyptic scenes. Tit-for-tat strikes on desalination plants, oil refineries, and military installations see untold devastation in the region. The Gulf states may never recover. Apart from bronze-age statements calling for the utter subjugation of the Persian landmass, the endgame is not clear. If there ever was a time for leadership in Australia, it would be now.

Back at home, after the women and children of Iran inhaled toxic fumes from strikes on oil storage tanks, Albanese was celebrating his female party members for International Women’s Day, fluffing around about his government’s cost-of-living measures, at a country that is seething. A few days into this war that Australia has fired shots in, small businesses break at the petrol pump, single parents on the edge see the prices of essentials jump, and the consequences of being at the bottom of a just-in-time global supply chain—in a hollowed-out neoliberal service/mining economy a few reviews away from Argentina status—start to roost.

Support for this brutal invasion is a coffin nail in this country, and Albanese’s decision to support the war in Iran may not impact the fuel prices in the scheme of things, but it has trampled on the last vestiges of Australian moral and strategic independence only to join the closest thing to World War 3 we have yet to see in this world. As the skies darken over Tehran and the oil flows dry up across the Gulf, the echoes of that choice will haunt Canberra long after the last missile falls—marking not just the end of an era, but the quiet surrender of a nation’s soul to a fire it helped ignite.

Full Episode:

YouTube:

Spotify:

From the moment of the pre-emptive Israel-US attack that included assassination strikes on Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei, there has been a strong response from Iran, which has deemed the action an existential threat and is responding accordingly. Media blackouts in Israel have been echoed throughout the West, with varying reports emerging amid the chaos; this article will attempt to objectively delineate some of the developments, drawing on perspectives from all sides.

Since firing the opening salvo that killed Ayatollah Khamenei and reportedly 180 killed (mostly schoolgirls) at a school in Tehran, the Israel-US coalition has been hitting targets inside Iran with a continuous volley of cruise missiles and airstrikes. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) has claimed the Israel-US coalition has launched over 2000 strikes, gaining air superiority over parts of the country.

Although the US and Israel have conducted successful missions with aircraft and cruise missiles, Iran has managed to use its ballistic missile arsenal to effect, striking targets throughout the entire region. After a fierce opening stanza that is already having a dramatic impact on global stability, Tehran has officially announced that it will not negotiate with Washington, plunging the region into an uncertain future.

Scenes reminiscent of Baghdad in 2003 were beamed out of Tehran, where intense missile attacks blew smoke and rubble into the skyline of the city. US officials maintain the strikes target military sites to prevent nuclear proliferation, although +555 civilian casualties have been reported in Iran, and some of images of the tell a different story.

Iran has targeted multiple countries in response, including military installations of the United States throughout the Middle East, and constant attacks into Israel. Military bases, industrial zones, luxury hotels and high-rises, and energy infrastructure in the region are either damaged, destroyed or being evacuated; airports and shipping lanes are closed.

The valuable Leviathan gas field is closed, Qatar Energy has just ceased its LNG production, Aramco’s refinery in Ras Tanura, Saudi Arabia, has been hit, the Straits of Hormuz is shut, supply chains and resource pipelines disrupted—the lives of millions impacted, economic and energy security everything now uncertain. The fallout from a war that sees a primary global energy and trade node at a standstill, coupled with poorly defined objectives from incompetent and contrarian voices in Washington and Tel Aviv who prosecute the war, and a defiant Iranian regime preoccupied with preserving its very existence, spells disaster for a world simmering from half a decade of pandemic, economic strain, climate crisis, genocide and war.

Scenes of high-powered explosions in the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait as Iran’s retaliatory strikes continued, demonstrating a capability to project force with drones and missiles that has been sobering to observers. The Iranian strategy has been to engage the Gulf states with the aim of economically and politically destabilising the fragile political and economic environment in the region.

Media blackouts have not stopped the reports of incredible damage in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Beit Shemesh and Jerusalem, Israel. Among footage of powerful ballistic and hypersonic missile strikes, Israel has responded by attacking Lebanon and increasing its strikes on Iran, and the US seems to be moving the goalposts while it comes to terms with the enormity of its uncertain endeavour, as the omnishambolic aspects of this conflict come into play.

A flustered Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth, who addressed US media as news of dead US soldiers was trickling in, would not provide any timeline for the conflict, nor rule out boots on the ground. Hegseth spoke about a protracted war: “No stupid rules of engagement, no nation-building quagmire, no democracy-building exercise, no politically correct wars,” snapping at reporters, before handing over to a top brass who spoke the same thing in a less excited tone.

Recent sackings from the joint chiefs of staff, leaks, and the dangerous exposure of US assets in the region are emblematic of the schism in Washington. Developing rifts between Trump and Vice President JD Vance beget rifts between the Pentagon and the White House, and from a few more angles than one; this war looks like a bad decision.

Footage of Iranian missiles evading multiple interceptors has been a common sight early into the conflict, and already there are concerns over reports of insufficient interceptor stockpiles, backed up by leaked statements about unpreparedness from the Pentagon. Retired Admiral James Stavridis suggests Israeli-US munitions and air defence stockpiles are running low, and it begs the question: why would an aggressor low on missile defence measures choose to attack a regional power in their home territory that has built its defence on mass-produced missiles and drones in the first place? Secretary of State Marco Rubio seemed to hammer the final nail in with an astonishing admission: “They are producing, by some estimates, over 100 of these missiles a month. Compare that to the six or seven interceptors that can be built a month.”

Along with Iran’s modern drones and its numerically superior missile stockpiles, Tehran has now acquired BeiDou navigation and hypersonic anti-ship missiles from China. And while the US lumps in with another regime-change-style war without changing the broken formula, the scope and variety of Iran’s response is based on a generational leap in low-cost military technology and a well-constructed strategy that has been preparing for this situation for decades. While the beleaguered empire in the United States scrambles around hemispheres to maintain its unipolar hegemony on the world, Iran has been focusing on building its entire military strategy around repelling this very attack.

Iran is a unique military power, in that it relies on its large arsenal of drones, ballistic and hypersonic missiles for deterrence, as opposed to other nations that use land, air and sea power to project force. In military simulations against Iran over twenty years, the US has been exposed for its “vulnerability to low-tech warfare”, and now it is faced with a modern, cutting-edge war against a nation united by the killing of its religious leader that has been at the frontline of hypersonic missile and drone technology.

The people in Iran, whom Western leaders say need to be liberated from tyranny, have turned out in massive pro-government demonstrations, galvanised after being attacked several times in the last 12 months and united by the death of their Supreme Leader. Scenes of solidarity show crowds in their tens of thousands in Yemen and Kashmir, in Lebanon, Bangladesh and Iraq. The Shia majority in Bahrain is on the verge of uprising, riots have occurred in Iraq, embassies and consulates have been stormed in Karachi. The murder of Ayatollah Khamenei, who was a sacred and papal-like figure for millions of Shia Muslims, has not weakened the Iranian regime as the Trump administration hoped, but kicked a hornet’s nest across the Muslim world.

At the moment, the Middle East is wrecked, Tehran and Tel Aviv are smouldering, and dead civilians along with the grinding halt of international trade represent the cold reality of this war. A discombobulated US strategy with no-end-in-sight is being met with statements about ‘Decentralized Mosaic Defense’ from Iranian officials that speak of multiple succession plans, decentralised leadership, and cells that can act independent of centralised command. A post on X by Iranian Foreign Minister Seyed Abbas Araghchi confirms this strategy, stating: “We’ve had two decades to study defeats of the U.S. military to our immediate east and west. We’ve incorporated lessons accordingly. Bombings in our capital have no impact on our ability to conduct war.” A war that seems to be developing momentum in ways both parties cannot ultimately control.

Footage of a US evacuation from the UAE and the redeployment of forces accompanied a claim from Saudi Arabia that America has abandoned them in defence of Israel. Saudi political analyst Suleiman Al-Aqili spoke on Al Jazeera: “America has abandoned us, and focused its defence systems on protecting Israel, leaving the Gulf states that host its military bases at the mercy of Iranian missiles and drones.” Israel, a nation with no resources that hosts no US base like the Gulf states, and ultimately offers no financial benefit to the US citizen, is now being seen to receive US protection at the expense of the Gulf states—who have gifted royal jumbo jets, real estate contracts and investments to the United States—now left isolated against the wrath of Iran’s retaliation.

After the assassination of Khamenei and the string of pre-emptive strikes that preceded it—from the assassination of General Qasem Soleimani in Trump’s first term to the extrajudicial killing of an IRGC spy chief in Damascus by the IDF—decapitation strikes have not had the effect of toppling the regime. And now, after pushing Iran to an existential war, the United States, its arbiter Israel, and their limited number of overt supporters including Australia are faced with a sclerotic and protracted war against a modern (pissed-off), existentially threatened, asymmetrical opponent fighting on its home turf. What’s next?

The US-Israel pre-emptive operation against Iran, launched on 28 February 2026, has eliminated Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and inflicted substantial damage on military and nuclear-related infrastructure through more than 2,000 strikes, securing partial air superiority over key areas and delivering devastating attacks in Iranian territory. Iran’s response—hundreds of ballistic missiles and drones targeting Israel, US bases across the Middle East, and Gulf Cooperation Council states—has produced significant casualties, widespread infrastructure disruption, and critical energy shocks, continuing in volume to this very moment. Global oil prices have risen sharply, with European gas markets experiencing extreme volatility. Hezbollah has joined the conflict, and regional protests have intensified. That is a lot to take in. As the operation heads into its first week, US officials fluff around on a projected duration to neutralise threats, while the United Nations and several governments call for immediate de-escalation. The conflict’s trajectory remains uncertain, with risks of broader regional involvement and severe economic consequences seeming inevitable.

Australians are losing their right to digital safety and freedom. Revelations show that biometric and identity-document data are to be transferred to the Trump administration’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database. Without setting foot in the United States, Australians could be catalogued by the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) under an arrangement that could grant agencies such as ICE full access to Australian biometric and ID databases.

An article by Bernard Keane for Crikey brought the story to light, revealing that the Albanese government is in discussions with the Trump administration to establish an “Enhanced Border Security Partnership” (EBSP) with the DHS. This partnership will potentially include the transfer of Australian biometric data to a sovereign DHS system that could extend to voice and iris recognition data. Unlike passwords or tokens, you cannot “reset” fingerprints, iris patterns or voice prints. Every packet of data sent creates a permanent, cross-border tracking risk. Something Minister for Home Affairs Tony Burke has avoided commenting on.

Another Crikey contributor, Cam Wilson, has written about a recent defence pact that sees Palantir secure a $7.6 million contract for the Cyber Warfare Division ($26 million overall) without a tender process. Independent Senator David Pocock questioned the scale of the contract and the integrity of the recipient, calling it “deeply problematic” for a company with a recent history of nefarious data handling to be awarded such a substantial contract. This is also a company receiving the contract as its stocks tumble in the wake of key figures being named in the Epstein files.

All of these arrangements are occurring in the post-Epstein political environment, where key figures in the tech industry — including those linked to Palantir and other giant companies that build and maintain sovereign government and defence tech infrastructure in Australia — are implicated in disturbing elements of his dealings. Bill Gates' and his company Microsoft, a man beleaguered by his own pocket of the Epstein scandal, has secured a multi-billion-dollar cloud computing contract with the Albanese government. Elon Musk’s Starlink has secured a contract with the ADF, and tech giants all linked to the Epstein files — such as Google/Alphabet (linked to Sergey Brin and Eric Schmidt), Meta (Mark Zuckerberg) and Reid Hoffman (LinkedIn/Microsoft ties) — continue to expand their footholds.

Before the surreal, almost comedic clips of CEO Alex Karp swinging swords with over-conviction in offices and threatening to spray detractors with fentanyl-laced urine from drones became public memes — but after Palantir started testing its systems with the IDF in Gaza — supermarket duopoly giant Coles cut a deal with Palantir in February 2024. The company was tasked with deploying an Artificial Intelligence Platform (AIP) across 840 store operations to “better understand and address workforce-related spend”.

From the places we shop to our most complex national infrastructure, this acquiescence to the sovereign digital identities of Australians is happening at a technological avalanche that consumes national legacy institutions and threatens our sovereign right to be forgotten by a rapacious industry being supercharged via Washington. Stuck in its own interpretation of great-power competition and sensing a losing technological battle with Beijing, the Trump administration is going all-in on tech and AI — much of it not battle-tested, let alone fit for operation — in a reckless gamble that includes a grim authoritarian hedge: the digital mapping of all its subjects at home or abroad.

Minister for Defence Pete Hegseth unveiled a new era of techno-military fusion by announcing AI integration with military systems across the armed forces, hoping to give forces the ability to more rapidly assign and eliminate targets on an ever-more-ambiguous battlefield. The techno-accelerationists like Thiel were the modern architects of Hegseth’s strategy. The mainstreaming of his CIA-funded startup-cum-LOTR-themed tech surveillance overlord, Palantir, has come at the expense of more traditionally human considerations (diplomacy, realism, strategy) towards power and has aggressively inserted a techno-fetishism that pervades decision-making in the United States.

This techno-fetishism has led to the rapid mass surveillance of domestic populations by government, the privatisation of data, the control of complex and critical national infrastructure, and even access to nuclear arsenals. Super Bowl ads for Amazon in the US promoted a new function for its Ring doorbells called “Search Party” that tracked lost pets through an activated doorbell network but smacked of an Orwellian network of cameras that can constantly track everyone. Google devices monitor our children’s voices and map their innocent minds; social media platforms spin algorithmic flurries at their users that engage rage, encourage baiting and trapping, leaving everyone fighting over left- and right-wing scraps while their era of techno-feudalism is installed in our societies like a software update.

In Canberra, the same politician-to-lobbyist pipeline that propels our modern politicians’ careers into banking, resources and defence now draws our former paragons of representative democracy into nefarious big-data application software giants like Palantir. Former Labor MP Mike Kelly retired suddenly from parliament on health grounds before joining Palantir only days later, highlighting the efforts by transnational AI surveillance tech companies to establish Australian footholds through willing former-political actuators.

Our government is busy granting AI-themed contracts to Epstein-linked tech giants, while guard rails to protect Australian citizens in an AI-driven Wild West seem few and far between. Tony Burke is mulling over how much of our human data he is willing to trade to a techno-fascist government in Washington. Meanwhile, fundamental issues are emerging in the reasoning component of large language models — as companies start mass-sacking employees and the technology appears more as an elaborate deception designed to liberate credulous dupes of large amounts of money than to liberate the masses with technology. What about the future of the Australian workforce, and the safety of Australian children?

“One of the things that is always unfair in this comparison is people talk about how much energy it takes to train an AI model … But it also takes a lot of energy to train a human. It takes like 20 years of life and all of the food you eat during that time before you get smart. And not only that, it took like the very widespread evolution of the hundred billion people that have ever lived and learned not to get eaten by predators and learned how to figure out science and whatever to produce you, and then you took whatever, you know, you took.” – Sam Altman

There was a recent AI experiment using most of the pre-eminent models that simulated a war between two fictional nuclear powers with Cold War-like military capabilities. In 95% of cases, leading AIs from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google recommended the use of a nuclear weapon. The “WOPR” computer in the film WarGames has been made real, and somewhere between Terminator 2 and Brave New World is all we humans can expect from what is to come. Where are our human governments? The cold programming of these machines delivers a cold and destructive outlook in these simulations, and so do the dystopian utopias envisioned in the cold minds of their creators.

What limited push-back remains in the industry against total military-AI fusion involving mass surveillance and military applications such as autonomous weapons is currently under attack. Anthropic, citing concerns about the erosion of democratic values, has recently been joined by Google workers seeking “red lines” on the technology’s application. Anthropic is now a target of potential sanctions for holding its position on the human interest — a position it will be forced to relent on.

The Albanese government, if it was aware or concerned, could be mandating open-source or locally hosted AI for non-classified use and requiring competitive tenders with Australian data-residency clauses — measures that would directly counter the “no alternative” narrative. But all roads from Canberra lead to Palantir and the tech panopticon being meted out from the antisocial tech leaders in Silicon Valley, and our leaders are starting to sound like AI prompts, in the uncanny valley that has become Australian politics.

People with machine minds are building systems to control humans, and our cyborg governments are handing our biological and digital sovereignty to wolves and imposing these systems on all of us. Documentarian Adam Curtis speaks about the foundational tech philosophy of Silicon Valley in the 1970s, describing the Ayn Randian proto-libertarianism that was programmed into the first machines of Silicon Valley by acolytes of a philosophy that calls for progress and individual greatness to the exclusion of all others and everything else. The Antichrist-admiring Peter Thiel, Marc Andreessen, and the tech hyper-accelerationists like Musk are the descendants of these people, arguing against regulating capitalism, technology, or AI in favour of speeding them up to force radical change.

Whatever that change is, and however it is communicated by the transhumanist pharaoh-dweebs who run our planet, it is not a change that seems favourable to human survival. Governments elected to ensure the human objectives of their human voters need to cast away the techno-fetishism, question the need for some of these systems, and begin to protect their human populations collectively. We are dealing with a future that seems not to care if we are in it. As jobs are lost — contrasting against governments enabling the same tech giants taking them — sovereign citizens will start to demand a separation of tech and state and will seek to achieve it as a human right. Something Tony Burke and his government have not yet placed enough value on.

Apple:

Spotify:

YouTube:

The visit from Israeli President Isaac Herzog to Australia has thrown a country already suffering from issues related to a lack of social cohesion into a state of flux. Arriving under the invitation of the Albanese government—from Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Governor-General Sam Mostyn, and representatives of the Australian Jewish community—it comes at a time when state and federal governments are emphasising social cohesion, during a period in history where Israel stands charged with a UN declared genocide.

Invitation Amid Division

Albanese welcomed President Herzog at Parliament House in Canberra, thanking him for the comfort he was providing Jewish Australians. As crowds protested outside, Herzog replied with thanks before tacking in a message of hope for negotiations between Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump. He emphasised that the former was focused on convincing the latter that “undermining that empire of evil emanating from Tehran” was a good idea.

Herzog’s response reflects Israel’s interactions with the Albanese government in the post-October 7 era of diplomacy, developed by Tel Aviv and advanced by Zionist interest groups in Australia. The Albanese government has been no slouch when it comes to assisting Israel during this period, whether through what it says, what it doesn’t say, or what it chooses to ignore: from cutting UNRWA funding, to abstaining from calls to recognise genocide at the UN, or ignoring ICC criminal charges against key Israeli government officials. In doing so, the Albanese government has largely maintained military, diplomatic, and economic normalcy with what is arguably the most belligerent nation on the planet—for no apparent benefit.

At no point has the Albanese government’s position been enough for Zionist interest groups, pro-Israel advocates, the media, and the opposition, who have made no secret of their dislike for the Labor PM. Tensions turned to outright repudiation when the PM attended the Bondi vigil a week after the Bondi massacre, where he was met by boos and jeers. Albanese accompanied Herzog in a Sydney synagogue, almost dragging his feet behind the Israeli president, with a look on his face that could only be described as worried. He appeared more like a man undertaking a humiliation ritual than a confident leader of a nation, as he moped past a crowd that wanted his career ended in no uncertain terms.

Chris Minns, cheered by the same crowds in Bondi, held an umbrella over Herzog at Bondi in the dappled rain, as his state heaved under the pressure of the visit. The picture spoke a thousand words about the state of the Australian political class on issues surrounding Israel: pure subservience, total fear, and a lack of courage. However, the peace afforded Herzog and his entourage—via a massive police presence and exclusion zones barring protesters access anywhere near the procession—was not afforded to the people of Sydney only hours later.

Crackdown in the Name of Cohesion

On the streets, Australians were treated in ways not expected of the average citizen. In the name of ‘social cohesion’—a rationale invoked since the world changed after October 7—it has been used to justify restricting Australian public freedoms, serving as the philosophy behind the rallying cry that saw NSW police unleash a form of brutality not seen in this country for some time. It was this so-called social cohesion that led to police kettling protesters in Sydney (which they denied). It was what they demanded while hammering a population protesting Herzog’s invitation, roughing up peaceful attendees who were praying, and brutally assaulting others.

The monopoly of violence took on a different meaning in the secular streets of Sydney, where a government uses the social cohesion—built on the back of generations of multicultural Australians—as a cudgel to beat them in the interests of Zionists. International news captured the brutal police crackdown, turning the story into global headlines. Australia’s image as a peaceful, secular paragon of Western democracy, already tested since the pandemic and amid Canberra’s support for actions in Gaza, appeared as nothing but a brutal crackdown, shocking global audiences.

Herzog isn’t a religious leader; he is a head of state. He represents the state of Israel, which is seen by many as a global pariah. A religious leader can engage with a grieving religious community, but a head of state—especially of Israel—can only advance interests pertaining to Israel. UN Humanitarian Lawyer Chris Sidoti puts it clearly: “Wrong time, wrong person... Herzog should have been banned from entry.” Speaking to the crimes of Israel, for which Herzog as head of state bears responsibility, this is more than enough reason for him not to have been invited. This point is totally lost on the pushed carelessly into our town.

The West Australian, appearing frustrated in its writing style—as its readers must be—posted a headline that read like a mid-ranking Facebook reply: “Progressive protesters hate Israel so much they rally against its President who backs gay rights” (though he opposes interracial marriage in a country where gay marriage is illegal). The Sydney Morning Herald, a tabloid dressed as a broadsheet, published another piece from Peter Hartcher titled ‘We have a choice with Herzog visit – futile fury or solemn solidarity’, filled with what seems like fan fiction, including: “A protest against Herzog cannot make the least difference to even a single Palestinian in Gaza. But it can continue the roiling division inside Australia, pitting Australian against Australian.”

Entangled in Imperium

Albanese has governed during one of the most heated times in modern history and has been unable to steer the nation through a series of crises that break like waves across our vulnerable sovereign nation. His government has us tethered to AUKUS, lashed to Washington, and chained to the objectives of the Israel/US imperium, which heaves like a sinking dreadnought. After loading legislation upon legislation onto the Australian population like a pack horse—and then whipping it towards the flames of the Herzog visit—Australians are watching the representative of a country accused of genocide walk around like he owns the joint, backed fully by the state and federal governments of what purports to be the major party of the left.

As Herzog arrived in Melbourne—for reasons that elude much of the concerned Australian public—Foreign Minister Penny Wong was responding to questions from Greens Senator David Shoebridge about the rationale for the visit. Questioning its intention of promoting peace, Shoebridge asked Wong how the trip could be about peace when the attendee had signed bombs and advocated the theft of Palestinian land. An ashen Wong stumbled on her words, muttering something insufficient and returning serve with her signature gaslighting flurry, which many have come to dislike about the foreign minister. But it lacked conviction. Wong has been joining her colleagues in a disingenuous waltz over Israel for over two years, and they look beleaguered; Australians want them to sit down.

Letting the cat out of the bag in the case of the Herzog visit is a comical understatement to the serious ramifications of Labor’s handling of the post-Bondi tragedy environment. It exemplifies its entire stewardship of the country since Israel began flexing its power and influence to pursue exclusive interests involving regional war and ethnic cleansing. Hiding behind an unimpressive neoliberal policy platform, knee-deep in the quicksand of the Israel/US imperium as a core vassal, and laden with the ugly complicity and hypocrisy of supporting actions in Gaza, the Albanese government has damaged the resting heartbeat of the nation, shocking the population into a social arrhythmia that many would have to ask their grandparents about for comparable times in Australia’s short history.

The Albanese government, studded with senior figures who have taken trips to Israel alongside Herzog and forever motivated by political metrics, may feel that appeasing Israel is prudent. With the coalition in capitulation and the country’s political opposition divided, Albanese and the faceless policymakers may think this is a compromise they can make over a population now starved for any political alternative. But the streets heave, the population revolts, and Australians lose another chunk of the social contract as they watch their leaders act like turkeys to prop up Herzog.

“At a time when they are feeling isolated from world opinion… this is a reaffirmation” – UN Humanitarian Lawyer Chris Sidoti

Resistance and Reckoning

Herzog leaves the country with a total victory, while Albanese and the Zionist premiers hand us back a country that will never be the same. Chris Minns sheepishly owned up to the police actions, saying in no uncertain terms that they received his government’s instructions and refusing to apologise. But as the smoke settles and Minns returns to governing between the lines of a secular Australian premier again, he may find his name is the bane of many. The monopoly of violence was modified to allow kettling of Australians protesting the outrageous invitation of Herzog, and that is not going away.

At the Sydney rally, in a city that felt occupied, Grace Tame—former Australian of the Year—echoed a line to the crowd: “From Gadigal to Gaza, globalise the intifada.” She called out the state and federal governments that have made such statements taboo or illegal, reclaiming the term itself as ‘shaking off’—not a call to genocide, but resistance to global tyranny. Following him wherever they could, Australians saw Herzog off with chants of “resistance is justified if the people are occupied”, sending a message to him and to our governments that none of this is acceptable, whether in Gaza or Gadigal.

Our leaders have completely stuffed this up, and nothing short of a national apology will prevent a worsening impact. Australians don’t deserve this storm imposed on our society by a government captured by foreign interests, and we don’t want to hand over the country we have built to leaders working for the interests of a nation that is killing innocents and threatening war. Only by reclaiming our sovereignty and demanding accountability can we begin to heal the deep divisions this visit has exposed and ensure such subservience never again tears at the fabric of our nation.