Category Archives: Article

Beyond tolerance – Syria as a model for religious integration and harmony

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Jim Maher

Father Dave has just returned from a moving visit to war-ravaged Syria. One of the hard lessons he learned is that, in the face of aggressive, ‘takfiri’ Islam, Australians might need to rethink their attitudes to religious tolerance. DIVINE Service … Continue reading →

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Fathers – don’t let your daughters grow up to be women

Posted on December 20, 2016 by Jim Maher

FATHERS in Eastern Aleppo are asking religious scholars if it is cool to kill their daughters before they are “captured and raped by Assad, Hezbollah, and Iranian militias”, Middle East Monitors reports. The publication, sometimes accused of links with the … Continue reading →

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Rebel, rebel – how couldn’t they know?

Posted on December 11, 2016 by Jim Maher

SUDDENLY, late in the Syrian day, one mainstream western news outlet is taking baby steps towards honouring the claim in its title. The Independent’s Robert Fisk has joined colleague, Patrick Cockburn, in calling bullshit on key elements of the propaganda … Continue reading →

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Media turns its guns on Syria

Posted on December 4, 2016 by Jim Maher

  In war, truth is the first casualty THE QUOTE above is generally attributed to a Greek bloke called Aeschylus, a dramatist churning out blockbusters a good 500 years before Jesus Christ walked the earth. In the American age, however, … Continue reading →

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What hand will The Donald play on Syria?

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Jim Maher

WHAT does the election of billionaire property developer and reality tv star, Donald Trump, mean for terrorised Syrians? Some pro-Syrian commentators have hailed Trump’s rise to the top job in Washington as a breakthrough but that city’s leading newspaper counsels caution, … Continue reading →

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Al sham – the name says it all

Posted on November 13, 2016 by Jim Maher

WHEN are the lads from Al-Qaeda not such a bad lot, after all? When they are having a crack at the Middle East’s last remaining secular government, it seems. That’s right, Al Qaeda – the mob who flew into the … Continue reading →

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Chemical weapons, George the 2nd and pork pies

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Jim Maher

AS liberation battles gather pace in Aleppo and Mosul propagandists continue to muddy the waters. While the resistance to fundamentalist Islam in Iraq is hailed a fight for freedom by western media outlets, many of those mastheads pour scorn on … Continue reading →

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Disown the fundamentalists, Archbishop pleads with West

Posted on November 2, 2016 by Jim Maher

ALEPPO’S Catholic Archbishop is urging the west to drop its support for jihadi fighters and to, instead, back Syrians battling to free their second city. Monsignor Jean-Clement Jeanbart has called on France and other western nations to turn their backs … Continue reading →

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Propaganda and the ABC of war

Posted on October 30, 2016 by Jim Maher

By road, it is 626km from Mosul, Iraq, to Aleppo in Syria – the same distance, give or take a quick detour to pick up a kebab, as Sydney to Grafton in northern New South Wales. Makes you wonder why … Continue reading →

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Moderates – what moderates?

Posted on October 25, 2016 by Jim Maher

SOME US foreign policy analysts concede it is time for a “ruthless” look at whether CIA-backed fighters in Syria can be considered “moderate”, the Washington Post reports A senior US official told the Post this week, the battlefield performance of … Continue reading →

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