Paul McGeough

War of words is Israel's best defence

Paul McGeough Is Israel actually going to war - or merely threatening to go to war?

US war for oil lacks a punchline

Paul McGeough 'What's the difference between a duck,'' my father would ask us as kids.

Alexander leaves us on a downer

Paul McGeough A great week for huffin'-'n'-puffin', what? First, Alexander Downer takes an airbrush to history. And then, more gobsmackery by our top soldier, on what he ''always knew'' was a raw deal for the...

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Throwing good money after bad

Paul McGeough The pussyfoot President is off to the Middle East and you won't believe the nonsense going on over where he can and can't go in Israel and, for a matter of minutes, the Palestinian Occupied...

Paul McGeough

The NRA-style potshot is alive and well

Paul McGeough If just a single bully works the neighbourhood, there's a good chance that his protection racket can hold up.

Paul McGeough

Rash Israel lights Arab Spring powder keg

Paul McGeough The Middle East this week? Think Colorado in July and the movie megaplex massacre.

Paul McGeough

Light the touch paper and stand back

Paul McGeough What the hell was that? In a perfect global storm: massive over-reach by crackpot Christian fundamentalists in California collided with what may have been a lucky break for the remnants of al-Qaeda's...

Paul McGeough

The military adviser left out in the cold

Paul McGeough The lost pages of Catch-22 have turned up: they are the real-life career notes of Gwenyth Todd.

Paul McGeough

Take a bite out of Iran at your peril

Paul McGeough You'd have thought the reality of Afghanistan and Iraq might act as a break on the instinctive lunge by hawks to compare apples with oranges as they try to gull us into a belief that war is a doddle.

Paul McGeough

Iran is still talking, if nothing else

Paul McGeough It could hardly be called an agreement. But when talks between Iran and a European Union-led delegation broke up in Geneva on Tuesday, a faint promise of more powwow hung in the chill Swiss air.

Paul McGeough

West will be losers if Gaddafi holds on

Paul McGeough Muammar Gaddafi looks like a flake, so we don't expect logic from him. But with all their fine suits and braided uniforms, we do expect it from those higher up in a Western military campaign that...

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Paul McGeough

WikiLeaks reveals unreliable war cries and chequebook democracy

Paul McGeough THE danger in WikiLeaks' dump of reams of super-sensitive cables from Washington's worldwide listening posts is not merely that the game has been revealed but how it might play out in future.