Desperate to distract attention from the Epstein files, and retain his faltering grip on domestic power, US ‘Peace President’ Donald Trump has attacked another sovereign country, and murdered its leader, along with numerous others, and Australia’s prime minister is apparently fine with that.
‘We support the United States acting to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon and to prevent Iran from continuing to threaten international peace and security,’ said Anthony Albanese, hours after the first bombs struck Tehran.
When asked if the attack was legal, or would achieve anything apart from further eroding the international rules-based order, Mr Albanese avoided the question, saying ‘Well, those judgements and statements are for the United States and for those involved directly in the attack…
‘Australia stands with the brave people of Iran in their struggle against what is an oppressive regime.’
An American-led attack on Iran has long been a cherished dream of the disgraced leader of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, whose military is working closely together with the United States. Netanyahu claims the aim of this operation is to enable ‘the brave people of Iran to free themselves from the chains of tyranny… we will strike thousands of targets of the terrorist regime.’
In spite of the lack of any legal figleaf for this new war (either from the United Nations or the US Congress), no clear objective or exit strategy, or compelling evidence that Iran presents a nuclear threat, we are apparently all-in on another conflict in the Middle East.
As an unabashed ally of the United States and Israel, including the provision of signals intelligence via Pine Gap and North West Cape, this country is now at growing risk of terrorist attack, along with the repercussions of any wider war. Australia will also pay the price at the petrol pump, and via heightened tensions between those of Persian and Jewish descent.
While there’s no doubt that Ayatollah Ali Khamenei was the leader of an extremely brutal and murderous government, America’s history of violent, enforced regime change in other countries has tended to make things much worse, not better, for ordinary people.
Will it be any different with ‘stable genius’ Donald Trump at the helm?
Remember Skynet?
Trump’s latest war comes hot on the heels of another far-reaching decision made via his clownish Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, to remove Anthropic AI from all federal agencies, in favour of rival companies who are less squeamish about their technologies being used to kill humans.
Until recently, Anthropic held a $200 million Pentagon contract, with its creation Claude being the first artificial intelligence model deployed on the US military’s classified networks. It’s thought to have been used to design the recent military operation in Venezuela, resulting in the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro.
AI is already widely used by the military to help identify targets, analyse drone surveillance and provide real-time battlefield coordination, but Anthropic imposed two firm restrictions on the US government: its technology could not be used for mass domestic surveillance, or to power fully autonomous weapons systems (where AI, not humans, makes final targeting decisions).
After Anthropic refused to back down on these ethical guard rails, Hegseth acted to designate Anthropic a ‘supply chain risk’, a classification normally reserved for companies tied to foreign adversaries.
With Anthropic being locked out of government contracts, the beneficiaries are likely to be rival AI companies led by Sam Altman and science fiction fan Elon Musk, who is busy at the moment converting many of his Tesla car factories to produce robots. Peter Thiel and Palantir are also involved. Science fiction dystopia, anyone?
You don’t need much imagination to consider what might happen when unhinged political leadership allows hostile AI to be combined with the latest robotics and drone technology.
Have a look at what robots are capable of already. This is from China, two weeks ago.
If things go pear-shaped, Arnold Schwarzenegger won’t be coming to save us from any of this.
Originally from Canberra, David Lowe is an award-winning filmmaker, writer and photographer with particular interests in the environment and politics. He’s known for his campaigning work with Cloudcatcher Media.
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