Category: The Conversation – Global Perspectives

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Rick Sarre, Emeritus Professor in Law and Criminal Justice, University of South Australia

Two books on the recent Erin Patterson trial have just been published, both by experienced true crime writers. Both are meticulously researched (primarily relying on the transcripts of evidence), well written and eminently readable. The timing of their publication is remarkable, given it’s only been a month since the sentencing. Having said that, neither book seems rushed.

Greg Haddrick, who writes from the perspective of “a fictional juror” in The Mushroom Murders, also wrote In the Dead of Night, about the 2020 murder of Russell Hill and Carol Clay in Victoria’s remote Wonnangatta Valley. Duncan McNab, author of Recipe for Murder, is a former detective, a private investigator (specialising in criminal defence) and an investigative journalist.

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Review: The Mushroom Murders – Greg Haddrick (Allen & Unwin); Recipe for Murder: The poisonous truth behind Erin Patterson – the mushroom murderer of Leongatha – Duncan McNab (Hachette)

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I enjoyed both books immensely – not for the horror of the tale itself, but for the insightful way they tackle this most intriguing story. Neither book offers anything new by way of evidence, as what is written is all on the public record. But readers will nevertheless find a great deal to interest them in the narrative of both authors, especially their descriptions of the legal wranglings and media frenzy.

Haddrick’s imagined perspective as a (female) juror who runs a (fictitious) picture-framing business in Morwell is an intriguing literary device. He is careful to advise readers that he neither approached nor spoke to any of the real jurors. Indeed, the law does not allow such an approach, given the requirement of the confidentiality of their deliberations.

The entire book is narrated by this fictional person. “I wanted readers to feel they were on that journey with the jury,” Haddrick explains in his preface. All the evidence, he says, “comes directly from, and only from, the evidence those jurors heard and saw during the trial”. Some readers may find his choice of storytelling technique somewhat disingenuous, but the narrative gives the book an impressive immediacy.

Haddrick writes, again in his preface: “Like all of us, our narrator has her own strengths, flaws and opinions, and she does speculate. But where she does engage in speculation, it is clearly identified as separate from the evidence that leads to her verdict — and it reveals some surprising insights into police methodology along the way.” True, there is much written about some very impressive policing, but I found none of it surprising.

On the first page of Haddrick’s book, we read: “A family lunch. Three murders. What really happened?” One might opine that it’s a tad misleading to state that a book narrated by a fictional juror and engaging in speculation regarding (her) thought processes can tell us “what really happened”. But this gradual, unfolding narrative from the perspective of an (albeit imaginary) juror remains a compelling tale if the reader is happy to suspend disbelief and see the trial through her (fictional) eyes.

Does this literary device pose an ethical issue? Perhaps so (especially if it leads to misleading understandings of the facts or the law), but in the legal sense there is no difficulty as long as it’s clearly explained.

The setting

On July 29 2023, in the small rural Victorian town of Leongatha, members of Patterson’s extended family sat down for a casual Saturday lunch of beef Wellington. As Haddrick quips in his opening pages, this has become the most talked-about meal since the Last Supper.

The next day, all four guests were hospitalised. Within a week, three of them were dead: Erin’s mother-in-law Gail Patterson, her husband Don Patterson, and Gail’s sister, Heather Wilkinson. Ian Wilkinson, Heather’s husband, was fighting for his life.

When Patterson was arrested and charged with their murders, the case captured media attention around the world. After a trial that lasted 11 weeks and produced 3,500 pages of transcript, a jury of 12 (seven men and five women) determined she had deliberately poisoned her estranged husband’s parents, and his aunt and uncle, leading to the deaths of three of them and the life-threatening illness of the fourth.

As McNab writes,

Patterson’s cruelty in watching four people who had been nothing but kind and loving to her eat a meal she knew would kill them was the ultimate act of betrayal.

Mushroom murders – a fictional juror’s view

Haddrick’s The Mushroom Murders principally tells what was going through the mind of his fictional juror as she heard the evidence. Readers interested in the way criminal evidence is presented will get a clear picture of that process. His speculation of the iterative process that possibly goes through a juror’s thinking as the evidence unfolds is well constructed. But it is only speculative.

The first third of the book takes readers through all the evidence of Erin’s relationship with her estranged husband, Simon. It was a fractured and, at times, tempestuous marriage. It is easy to gloss over this narrative since it reads like Days of Our Lives, but it is important in the story. At this stage, the fictional juror is entirely sympathetic to Erin, taking to heart the trial judge’s reminder to the jury, in his preliminary remarks, of the importance of the presumption of innocence.

But as the story continues and the beef Wellington is served (it arrives halfway through the book), the tempo increases. With a third of the book to go, Haddrick has his juror thinking that sticking with “Team Erin” was becoming more difficult.

It was getting harder and harder to keep “presuming innocence”. At so many moments in the story, there were no reasonable explanations for her behaviour compatible with innocence.

Those moments continue all the way to the book’s conclusion.

Haddrick’s epilogue is devoted to the post-trial release of evidence that had been excluded (and charges dropped) regarding three allegations that Erin attempted to poison Simon during their marriage. His narrator’s strong opinion is that the trial judge’s ruling in a preliminary hearing to exclude these allegations from the trial treated the jury as mugs.

I know we had been told at the beginning of the trial to put those dropped charges out of our minds, but I’m sorry. If it leads to a situation like this, where the blindingly obvious question never gets asked, that’s just legal nonsense.

That might be his fictional juror’s feeling, but Justice Beale’s direction in the preliminary hearing had been vindicated by a three-member Court of Criminal Appeal. The law on this subject is clear: the High Court ruled in 1995 that prejudicial evidence (such as the unsubstantiated allegations regarding three earlier attempts to poison Simon) is inadmissible unless the judge considers that evidence has very strong probative value, that is, evidence sufficiently useful to prove something important in the case at hand.

In this case, he did not. If those charges were to be pursued, that would need to happen in a separate trial.

Recipe for Murder

Duncan McNab’s Recipe for Murder does not have the first-hand immediacy of The Mushroom Murders, but it, too, is compelling. Indeed, some readers may find McNab’s analysis more insightful, as it is not underpinned by Haddrick’s literary musing.

McNab’s book shares a similar structure to Haddrick’s. There is a description of the family, their church, the often fractured relationship between Simon and Erin, their multiple marital separations, their children, their Christian faith (or, in Erin’s case, ostensible atheism) and their finances.

McNab takes readers through the evidence of Erin’s fascination with true crime, and her ill-health self-diagnoses (including ovarian cancer and heart issues). He describes her relationships with her own parents, both deceased. In messages to friends, he reveals, Patterson called her mother “essentially a cold robot” and said “Dad was a doormat”. He also reveals her propensity to be loose with the truth, including her being sacked from her job as an air traffic controller for lying about her work hours.

He departs from the formal record of the trial evidence in explaining Justice Beale’s ruling in the fast-tracked preliminary hearing, namely that the allegations relating to Simon’s previous illnesses (the alleged attempted poisonings) could not be tried in the “beef Wellington” trial.

Moreover, he explains the ruling on the location of the trial (Morwell, not Melbourne), noting that under the Victorian Criminal Procedure Act unless there are strong reasons related to unfairness, the trial should take place at the court most proximate to where the alleged offending occurred. (By contrast, Haddrick’s book does not deal with the reasoning in these preliminary matters at all.)

Next in the McNab narrative comes the meal, the deaths, and the investigations, including a close look at the forensic science evidence, such as the sighting of deathcap mushrooms growing in rural Victoria, and Erin’s phone being “pinged” in the vicinity. Then follows the funerals – and inevitably, the arrest of Erin Patterson.

Because he is writing with the value of hindsight, McNab is never in doubt about the correctness of the verdict.

Read one, not both

Recipe for Murder is significantly more detailed than The Mushroom Murders in relation to the summing up to the jury by prosecution counsel, defence counsel and finally the judge. This process would take nearly six days once the examinations in chief, the cross examinations and reexaminations finally came to an end.

On day 40 of the trial, the jury (after the balloting out of two jurors, to reduce the number to 12) retires to consider its verdict. It returns nearly six days later with guilty verdicts on all four charges.

Surprisingly, neither author makes any comment that this was an extraordinarily lengthy process, other than McNab’s quip that there was “a vast amount of evidence.” Yes, that may be true, but as both authors admit, that evidence was very persuasive.

Importantly, Recipe for Murder then pays significant attention to the victim impact statements. There were 28 tendered to the court, seven of them read aloud; some, like Ian Wilkinson’s, by their authors; some, like Simon Patterson’s, by proxies. Simon’s statement referred to his children:

Like all of us, they face the daunting challenge of trying to comprehend what she has done. The grim reality is they live in an irreparably broken home with a solo parent when almost everybody knows their mother murdered their grandparents.

Directing his attention to the sentencing hearing, McNab tells us Justice Beale heard from defence counsel that Erin would likely spend 22 hours a day in her cell. Beale took that into account. There was to be, he announced, three life sentences (the maximum penalty under Victorian legislation) to be served concurrently. The non-parole period was set at 33 years. (The Victorian Director of Public Prosecutions is now appealing that non-parole period on the basis that it was overly lenient.)

McNab concludes his discussion of the sentencing remarks with suitably understated drama: “An emotionless Erin Patterson was led from the courtroom.”

Both books are commendable. But there is no value in reading both, as they cover much of the same material. If I had to pick one as a tool for teaching students the art of examination (and cross examination) of witnesses, and the processes of trial, verdict and sentencing, McNab’s Recipe for Murder would be my choice.

A third book on the trial will be published next month – The Mushroom Tapes, by Helen Garner, Chloe Hooper and Sarah Krasnostein. It is clear there is more for us to read, and perhaps learn, about what unfolded in the Victorian Supreme Court, sitting at Morwell, during the winter of 2025.

Rick Sarre does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Two true crime books on the mushroom trial are out – one is told by a fictional juror – https://theconversation.com/two-true-crime-books-on-the-mushroom-trial-are-out-one-is-told-by-a-fictional-juror-266676

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Tara Djokic, Scientific Officer, Palaeontology, Australian Museum; UNSW Sydney

Hidden beneath farmland in the central tablelands of New South Wales lies one of Australia’s most extraordinary fossil sites – McGraths Flat. It dates back between 11 million and 16 million years into the Miocene epoch, a time when many of today’s familiar plants and animals evolved.

It is here that palaentologists and geologists from the Australian Museum Research Institute have made remarkable fossil discoveries. Where dust and drought now dominate, a lush rainforest once flourished. In stunning ecological detail, fossils at McGraths Flat reveal this ancient ecosystem.

Strikingly red in appearance, the sedimentary rocks here are composed entirely of goethite – a fine-grained mineral that contains iron. This iron has preserved a range of plants, insects, spiders, fish and feathers with exceptional detail.

Our new study, published in the journal Gondwana Research, shows there’s another reason these rocks are so intriguing. They fundamentally challenge ideas about where well-preserved fossil sites on Earth can be found, and why.

Beyond shale and sandstone

Traditionally, the most exceptionally well-preserved fossil sites are from rocks dominated by shale, sandstone, limestone, or volcanic ash.

Consider Germany’s Messel Pit or Canada’s Burgess Shale. At these sites, organisms were rapidly buried in fine-grained sediments, allowing the exceptional preservation of soft tissues, not just hard parts.

Messel Pit has preserved roughly 47 million-year-old fossils showing the outlines of feathers, fur and skin. Meanwhile, the Burgess Shale contains soft tissues from some of Earth’s earliest animal life, dating back about 500 million years.

By contrast, sedimentary rocks made entirely of iron are the last place you’d expect to find well-preserved remains of land-based (terrestrial) animal and plant life.

That’s because iron-rich sedimentary rocks are predominantly known from banded iron formations. These massive iron deposits largely formed around 2.5 billion years ago in Earth’s ancient oxygen-depleted oceans, long before complex animal and plant life evolved.

In more recent history, iron is considered a mere weathering product, forming rust on the continents when exposed to our oxygen-rich atmosphere. Just look at Australia’s iconic red-rocked outback landscape that preserves these million- to billion-year-old features.

Yet the discovery of McGraths Flat has defied these expectations.

Terrestrial life entombed in iron

McGraths Flat is made from a very fine-grained, iron-rich rock called ferricrete. It’s essentially a cement made from iron.

The ferricrete consists almost entirely of microscopic iron-oxyhydroxide mineral particles, each just 0.005 millimetres across. When an animal died and was buried in the sediment, this minute scale is what allowed the iron particles to fill every cell. The result? Extraordinarily well-preserved soft tissue fossils.

Compared with marine life, fossil sites preserving terrestrial life are notoriously rare. Terrestrial sites that preserve soft tissues? Even rarer. The exceptional detail captured in the McGraths Flat fossils reveals new snapshots of past life we don’t often get to find.

These fossils are so perfectly preserved that individual pigment cells in fish eyes, internal organs of insects and fish, and even delicate spider hairs and nerve cells can be seen.

This level of preservation rivals other well-preserved fossil sites, such as those consisting of shale or sandstone. Except here, they are entombed in iron.

How did McGraths Flat form?

Our new study sheds light on how this fossil site came to be – a crucial step for finding similar terrestrial fossil troves in iron.

McGraths Flat began forming during the Miocene when iron leached from weathering basalt under warm, wet rainforest conditions.

Acidic groundwater then carried the dissolved iron underground until it reached a river system with an oxbow lake – an abandoned river channel. There, the iron became ultra-fine iron-oxyhydroxide sediment.

It rapidly coated dead organisms on the lake floor and replicated their soft tissue structures down to the cellular level.

A new fossil roadmap

Understanding how McGraths Flat formed could provide a roadmap for finding similar iron-rich fossil sites worldwide.

Key features to look for include very fine-grained and finely layered ferricrete in areas where:

• ancient river channels cut through older iron-rich landscapes, such as basaltic rocks from volcanoes

• ancient warm, humid conditions once promoted intense weathering, and

• the surrounding geology lacks significant limestone or sulphur-containing minerals (such as pyrite), because these could interfere with the formation of the iron-oxyhydroxide mineral sediments.

The red rocks of McGraths Flat open an entirely new chapter in our understanding of how exceptionally well-preserved fossil sites can form.

The next breakthrough in understanding ancient terrestrial life might not come from traditional shale or sandstone fossil beds, but from rusty-red rocks hidden beneath our feet.

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The study’s authors acknowledge the traditional custodians of the land and waterways on which McGraths Flat is located, the Wiradjuri Nation people.

Tara Djokic and co-authors received funding for this research from the Etheridge family descendants; Australian Museum Research Institute, Australian Museum Trust; and Australian Research Council (ARC). We acknowledge the scientific and technical assistance of Microscopy Australia, especially from the Centre for Advanced Microscopy, ANU (jointly funded by the ANU and the Australian Federal Government).
Tara is affiliated with the not-for-profit organisation Women in Earth and Environmental Sciences Australasia (WOMEESA).

– ref. Unusual red rocks in Australia are rewriting the rules on exceptional fossil sites – https://theconversation.com/unusual-red-rocks-in-australia-are-rewriting-the-rules-on-exceptional-fossil-sites-266904

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Andrew Thomas, Lecturer in Middle East Studies, Deakin University

The first steps of the peace plan for Gaza are underway. Now both parties have agreed to terms, Hamas is obligated to release all hostages within 72 hours and the Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) will withdraw to an agreed-upon line within the strip.

Hopes are high, particularly on the ground in Gaza and in Israel after two years of brutal conflict. Some argue the parties are now closer than ever to an end to hostilities, and US President Donald Trump’s 20-point peace plan may be an effective road-map.

But the truth is we have been here before. Hamas and Israel have now agreed to a road-map to peace in principle, but what is in place today is very similar to ceasefire deals in the past, and a ceasefire is not the same as a peace deal or an armistice.

The plan is also very light on specifics, and the devil is definitely in the detail. Will the IDF completely withdraw from Gaza and rule out annexation? Who will take on governance of the strip? Is Hamas going to be involved in this governance? There were signs of disagreement on these issues even before the fighting stopped.

So if the ceasefire steps hold in the short term – then what? What would it take for the peace plan to be successful?

First, the political pressures to refrain from resuming hostilities will need to hold. Once all the hostages are returned, which is expected to take place by Tuesday Australian time, Hamas effectively loses any remaining leverage for future negotiations if hostilities were to resume.

Once the hostage exchange is complete, it’s likely Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will see some pressure from his right to resume hostilities.

With Hamas relinquishing this leverage, it will be essential for the Israeli government to see these negotiations and the end of the war as fundamental to its long term interests and security for peace to hold. There must be a sincere desire to return to dialogue and compromise, not the pre-October 7 2023 complacency.

Second, Hamas will likely have to relinquish its arms and any political power in Gaza. Previously, Hamas has said it would only do this on the condition of recognition of a sovereign Palestinian state. As recently as October 10, factions in Gaza have said they would not accept foreign guardianship, a key part of the peace plan, with governance to be determined “by the national component of our people directly”.

Related to this, any interim governance or authority that takes shape in Gaza must reflect local needs. The proposed “body of peace” headed by Trump and former UK prime minister Tony Blair, could risk repeating previous mistakes of cutting Palestinians out of discussions over their own future.

Part of the peace deal is the resumption of humanitarian aid flows, but the fate of the Gaza blockade that has been effectively in place since 2007 is unclear. The land, sea and air blockade, which was imposed by Egypt and Israel following Hamas’ political takeover of Gaza, heavily restricts imports and the movement of Gazans.

Prior to October 2023, unemployment in the strip sat at 46%, and 62% of Gazans required food assistance as a result of the limits placed on imports, including basic food and agricultural items such as fertiliser.

Should the blockade continue, at best Israel will create the same humanitarian conditions in Gaza of food, medical and financial insecurity that existed prior to the October 7 attacks. While conditions and restrictions are orders of magnitude worse in Gaza today, NGOs called early incarnations of the blockade “collective punishment”. For peace to hold in the strip, security policy needs to be in line with global humanitarian principles and international law.

Most importantly, however, all parties involved must see peace in Gaza as fundamentally connected to broader peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Seeing the Gaza conflict as discrete and separate from the broader Palestinian-Israeli conflict would be a mistake. Discussions of Palestinian national self-determination in Gaza and the West Bank must be taken seriously and be a central part of the plan for peace to last.

While the 20-point plan mentions a “credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood”“, history tells us these pathways struggle to get past the rhetoric stage.

Many challenges stand in the way, including Israeli settlement and annexation, the status of Jerusalem and the question of demilitarisation.

A meaningful step would be for the US to refrain from using its veto power at the UN Security Council (UNSC) against votes supporting Palestinian statehood. While several states recognised a Palestinian state at the recent UN General Assembly, the US has blocked formal status at the UNSC every time.

Despite all these concerns, any pause in hostilities is undeniably a good thing. Deaths from October 7 2023 number nearly 70,000 in total, with 11% of Gaza’s population killed or injured and 465 Israeli soldiers killed. The resumption of aid delivery alone will go far in addressing the growing famine in the strip.

However, peace deals are incredibly difficult to negotiate at the best of times, requiring good faith, sustained commitment and trust. The roots of this conflict reach back decades, and mutual mistrust has been institutionalised and weaponised. Difficulties in negotiating the Oslo Accords in the 1990s showed just how deep the roots of the conflict are. The situation is now much worse.

It is not clear if any party involved in negotiation possesses the political will needed to reach an accord. However, an opportunity exists to reach one, and it should not be taken for granted.

Andrew Thomas does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Will Trump’s ceasefire plan really lead to lasting peace in the Middle East? There’s still a long way to go – https://theconversation.com/will-trumps-ceasefire-plan-really-lead-to-lasting-peace-in-the-middle-east-theres-still-a-long-way-to-go-267112

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Matt McDonald, Professor of International Relations, The University of Queensland

In his rambling speech to the United Nations last month, United States President Donald Trump described climate change as “the greatest con job ever perpetrated on the world”.

Of course, this claim was unfounded, ignoring the overwhelming scientific evidence that climate change is occurring.

It was also unlikely to convince gathered dignitaries, who appeared bemused by a speech better suited to a campaign rally than a presidential address to world leaders.

But coming on the eve of the crucial global COP30 climate talks in Brazil, the speech does raise the question: what does the second Trump administration mean mean for international climate action?

Trump digs coal

Beyond enabling climate denialists and disinformation peddlers, Trump has ultimately delivered on his campaign promise to aggressively support the US fossil fuel sector. In his words: “drill, baby, drill”. Or, more recently: “mine, baby, mine”.

Soon after his inauguration, Trump signed an executive order to withdraw the US from the Paris Agreement, the legally binding UN treaty aimed at limiting global temperature rise well below 2°C degrees over pre-industrial levels.

Last month, Trump announced a plan to open up 13 million acres of federal land for coal mining, and offered hundreds of millions in federal subsidies for coal projects.

He has ordered the removal of climate data from government sites and all but eliminated direct government funding for climate science research and monitoring.

And he has gutted the Inflation Reduction Act, the signature climate initiative of the Biden administration that was designed to stimulate large-scale investment in renewable energy.

All told, Trump’s initiatives are likely to mean an additional 7 billion tonnes of emissions will be created compared to a scenario where the US met its Paris commitments.

This is bad news. But what implications will it have for international climate cooperation?

Dark clouds on the climate horizon

Clearly, 7 billion tonnes of additional emissions is a problem. By some accounts, this represents around one fifth of the global carbon budget if we are to keep to the Paris target of under 2°C.

And when the world’s most powerful state, largest economy and second-largest greenhouse gas emitter walks away from the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), it does not bode well for international climate action.

Of course this raises the question of how the Brazilian climate talks organisers can motivate states to adopt strong emissions targets when wealthy, high-emitting countries walk away. There is a real risk the US position takes the pressure off other high-emitting countries, such as the Gulf States and Russia, who are disproportionately responsible for the problem.

Finally, climate finance – financial resources used to support action on climate change – looms once again as a crucial issue at climate negotiations. Securing sufficient funding will be far more complicated given Trump’s “America First” platform, which prioritises foreign and domestic policies serving US interests.

Despite this, there are still grounds to be optimistic.

Leadership without the US

A first point in the case for cautious optimism is that global emissions have potentially peaked and are on the verge of decline for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.

This has been driven by unprecedented global investment in renewable energy. The energy market is changing rapidly despite aggressive US subsidies for the fossil fuel sector. Global energy investment is likely to top A$1.5 trillion in 2025. Meanwhile, coal, oil and natural gas will see the first decline in global investment since the COVID pandemic.

There are also signs other countries, like China, view the US position as an opportunity. Last month Beijing outlined a target for emissions reduction (7–10% by 2035) for the first time in its history. Even though China is still adding to its fleet of coal-fired power stations, it is also adding more solar and wind capacity than the rest of the world combined.

China may want to make a case for itself as a responsible global leader in contrast to the US. This could in turn advance China’s strategic interests in regions such as the Pacific which are acutely vulnerable to climate effects.

So far, there’s no evidence countries have used US backsliding as an excuse to pull back from international cooperation. No country has left the Paris agreement since Trump’s withdrawal.

In 2001, when the Bush administration signalled the US wouldn’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol, Australia’s Prime Minister John Howard soon followed suit.

But in 2025, only months after the US withdrew from Paris, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese outlined an increased emissions target.

Even at home, Trump’s position has not amounted to a death knell for climate action. California, whose governor Gavin Newsom famously parodied Trump’s communication style on social media, already oversees one of the world’s largest emissions trading schemes and has entered into a climate partnership with Brazil to further cooperation ahead of COP30.

All in all, there are grounds for cautious optimism, even hope, that the rest of the world might band together without US leadership.

Eyes on COP

Negotiators at next month’s COP30 talks will face formidable challenges which have only become more pressing as a result of the Trump administration’s climate stance.

But past experience suggests hard-fought COP negotiations can build strong momentum for global action by focusing international attention.

Perhaps they can build pressure on the US to come back into the fold, or at least enable pro-climate actors within the US to pursue reform despite President Trump’s interference.

Matt McDonald has received funding from the Australian Research Council and the Economic and Social Research Council in the UK.

– ref. Why Trump is not a death knell for global climate action – https://theconversation.com/why-trump-is-not-a-death-knell-for-global-climate-action-266350

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Chris Thompson, Lecturer in Theatre, Australian Catholic University

In the chilling final scene of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1972 masterpiece, The Godfather, the door to Michael Corleone’s office is closed in the face of his wife, Kay. It simultaneously signified the opening of many more doors for the career of actor Diane Keaton.

In that film, so heavily dominated by male actors, Keaton more than holds her own. For someone who would become known for her daffy, comic style, it showed us she also had serious dramatic acting chops.

The multi-award-winning actor, producer and director has died at the age of 79. She leaves behind a legacy of memorable roles in films that include classics such as The Godfather and Annie Hall, spanning genres from comedy to drama.

First steps on stage

Keaton started life in Los Angeles as Diane Hall on January 5 1946. The eldest child of Dorothy and Jack Hall, she was the only one of her siblings – brother Randy and sisters Robin and Dorrie – to show interest in the theatre. It came about in an unconventional way.

When she was “eight or nine”, she told NPR’s Fresh Air in 2004, her mother won “Mrs Los Angeles”

I remember sitting down [in the audience] watching her being crowned. It was that she was the perfect homemaker. […] I did not want to be a happy homemaker, that did not appeal to me. But I did want to go on stage. I saw that that was something that did appeal to me. There she was in the theatre, and I saw the curtain open and there was my mother. And I thought, ‘I think I like that for myself’.

Her career began as a teenage Blanche in Santa Ana High School’s production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

In her 2011 memoir, Then Again, she remembers her father coming backstage:

I could tell he was surprised by his awkward daughter – the one who’d flunked algebra and smashed the new Ford station wagon. For one thrilling moment, I was his Seabiscuit, Audrey Hepburn, and Wonder Woman rolled into one.

She began drama studies at nearby Santa Ana College but soon dropped out, took her mother’s maiden name – Keaton – and travelled to New York to study at the Neighbourhood Playhouse.

In 1968, after a stint in summer stock, she was cast as an understudy in Hair on Broadway. She was 19 and famously refused to do the nude scene.

“It wasn’t for any sort of philosophical reason,” she told the New York Times in 1972, “It was just that I was too scared.”

Silver screen breakout

Her heart was set on the big screen which, of course, meant starting out on the small screen in shows like The FBI (“The worst thing I have ever done,” she told the New York Times. “I was unanimously, resoundingly bad!”) and Night Gallery.

Instead, it was theatre that led to her breakout screen roles.

In 2023, Francis Ford Coppola revealed to Hollywood Reporter he had seen Keaton in Hair.

He later told Keaton he cast her in The Godfather because,

although you were to play the more straight/vanilla wife, there was something more about you, deeper, funnier, and very interesting. (I was right).

Then she auditioned for a new theatrical comedy, Play it Again, Sam, by up-and-coming comedian Woody Allen. That turned out to be what’s known in romantic comedies as a meet cute.

It led not only to their much-publicised relationship, but to a significant collaboration in eight films including the 1977 hit Annie Hall.

For that role, Keaton won the Oscar for best actress. And her costume, designed by Ruth Morley, made her a fashion icon of the 70s. She also gave us the whimsical phrase, “la di dah”.

It’s often thought that Annie Hall was about her relationship with Allen, but as she told the New York Times, “It’s not true, but there are elements of truth in it”.

A force

For the next five decades, Keaton would become a Hollywood force.

She had comic roles in films like The First Wives Club (1996), Something’s Gotta Give (2003) and the Father of the Bride franchise. Alongside these comedies were remarkable dramatic roles in Looking for Mister Goodbar (1977), Reds (1981), The Little Drummer Girl (1984), Crimes of the Heart (1986), Marvin’s Room (1996) and two more Godfather films.

She was also a notable director of films like Unstrung Heroes (1995), Hanging Up (2000), Heaven (1987) and even an episode of Twin Peaks.

In addition to Annie Hall’s Oscar, BAFTA and Golden Globe, she received Oscar nominations for Reds, Marvin’s Room and Something’s Gotta Give (for which she won her second Golden Globe). She was also nominated for a Tony, two Emmys and another seven Golden Globes.

Despite much-publicised relationships with Al Pacino, Woody Allen and Warren Beatty, Keaton chose to remain single her whole life. In her 50s, she adopted two children, Dexter and Duke.

A rich creative life

Keaton made comedy look easy but told the New York Times in 1977 that “both comedy and drama are equally difficult”.

She later told Fresh Air,

You’re constantly battling with yourself when you’re acting in a [dramatic] part, at least I am. Because it’s just not that easy for me. I think I’m more inclined to live comfortably in the world of humour.

Either way, we were the richer for her creative life and are the poorer for her loss.

Chris Thompson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Diane Keaton thrived in the world of humour – and had the dramatic acting chops to back it up – https://theconversation.com/diane-keaton-thrived-in-the-world-of-humour-and-had-the-dramatic-acting-chops-to-back-it-up-267293

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By David Smilde, Professor of Sociology, Tulane University

Few can doubt the courage María Corina Machado has shown in fighting for a return to democracy in Venezuela.

The 58-year-old politician and activist is the undisputed leader of the opposition to Nicolás Maduro – a man widely seen as a dictator who has taken Venezuela down the path of repression, human rights violations and increasing poverty since becoming president in 2013.

Maduro is widely believed to have lost the 2024 presidential election to rival Edmundo González, a candidate substituting Machado, yet still claimed victory.

Machado has been in hiding since the fraudulent vote. And her courage in having participated in an unfair contest and in exposing Maduro’s fraud by publishing the true vote tallies on the internet, surely made Machado stand out to the Nobel committee.

Indeed, in making Machado the 2025 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, organizers stated they were recognizing her “tireless work promoting democratic rights for the people of Venezuela and for her struggle to achieve a just and peaceful transition from dictatorship to democracy.”

But as a scholar of Venezuela’s political process, I know that is only part of the story. Machado is in many ways a controversial pick, less a peace activist than a political operator willing to use some of the trade’s dark arts for the greater democratic good.

Joining a controversial list of laureates

Of course, many Nobel Peace Prize awards generate controversy.

It has often been bestowed on great politicians over activists. And sometimes the prize’s winners can have complex pasts and very non-peaceful resumes.

Past recipients include Henry Kissinger, who as U.S. secretary of state and Richard Nixon’s security adviser was responsible for the illegal bombing of Cambodia, supporting Indonesia’s brutal invasion of East Timor and propping up dictators in Latin America, among many other morally dubious actions. Similarly, former Palestinian Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin were both awarded the prize, in 1994 and 1978 respectively, despite their past association with violent activities in the Middle East.

The Nobel Committee often seems to use these awards not to celebrate past achievements but to affect the future course of events. The nods to Begin and Arafat were, in this way, used for encouragement of the Middle East peace process.

In fact, sometimes, the peace prize is seemingly bestowed as a sign of approval for a break from the past.

Barack Obama won his in 2009 despite only being nine months into his presidency. It was taken by many as a rejection of the previous presidency of George W. Bush, rather than recognition of Obama’s limited achievements at that time.

In 2016, Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize just days after his peace plan was rejected in a referendum. In that instance, the committee seemed to want to give his efforts a push just after a major setback.

Democratic path or dark arts?

So what should be made of the Nobel Peace Prize committee’s decision to recognize opposition to Maduro now?

Certainly Machado’s profile is ascendant. In her political career, she has participated in elections – winning a seat in the National Assembly in 2010 – but boycotted many more. She also boycotted negotiation processes, suggesting instead that foreign intervention was the only way to remove Maduro.

In 2023 she returned to the electoral path and steadfastly mobilized the Venezuelan population for opposition primaries and presidential elections, even after her candidacy was disqualified by the government-controlled electoral authority, and innumerable other obstacles were put in her path.

The campaign included spearheading caravans and events across the country at significant personal risk.

However, much of her fight since then has been via less-democratic means.

Machado has shunned local and regional elections suggesting there was no sense in participating until the government honored the results of the 2024 presidential election. She has also again sought international intervention to remove Maduro.

Over the past year she has aggressively promoted the discredited theory that Maduro is in control of the Tren de Aragua gang and is using it to invade the United States – a narrative gladly accepted and repurposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In addition to being the expressed motivation for a U.S. military buildup off the coasts of Venezuela, this theory has also been the central justification cited by the Trump administration for using the Alien Enemies Act to deport, without due process, 238 Venezuelan men to a horrific prison in El Salvador.

Relations with Trump

The Nobel Peace Prize could help unify the Venezuelan opposition movement, which over the past year has begun to fray over differences in strategy, especially with respect to Machado’s return to electoral boycotts.

And it will certainly draw more international attention to Venezuelans’ struggle for democracy and could galvanize international stakeholders to push for change.

What it will mean in terms of Trump’s relationship to Machado and Venezuela is yet to be seen. Her main connection with the administration is through Secretary of State Marco Rubio, who has aggressively represented her views and is pushing for U.S. military intervention to depose Maduro

Awarding Machado the prize could strengthen Trump’s resolve to seek regime change in Venezuela. Or, if he feels snubbed by the Nobel committee after very vocally lobbying to be awarded the peace prize himself, it could be a wedge between the U.S. president and Machado.

Machado seems to understand this. After not mentioning him in her first statement after the award was announced, she has since mentioned him multiple times, even dedicating the prize to both the Venezuelan people and Trump.

Trump has subsequently called to congratulate her.

A game changer? Perhaps not

To the degree that the Nobel Peace Prize is not just a model of change but a model for change, the decision to award it to Machado could conceivably affect the nature of Venezuela’s struggle against authoritarianism, leading her to continue to seek the restoration of democracy with a greater focus on reconciliation and coexistence among all Venezuelans, including the still politically relevant followers of the late Hugo Chávez.

Whatever the impact, it probably will not be game-changing. As we have seen with other winners, the initial glow of public recognition is quickly consumed by political conflict.

And in Venezuela, there is no easy way to translate this prize into real democratic progress.

While Machado and other Venezuelan democrats may have more support than ever among global democrats, Nicolás Maduro controls all of Venezuela’s institutions including the armed forces and the state oil company, which, even when sanctioned, provides substantial resources. Maduro also has forged strategic alliances with China, Russia and Iran.

The only way one can imagine the restoration of democracy in Venezuela, with or without military action, is through an extensive process of negotiation, reconciliation, disarmament and justice that could lay the groundwork for coexistence. This Nobel Peace Prize could position Machado for this task.

David Smilde does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. María Corina Machado’s peace prize follows Nobel tradition of awarding recipients for complex reasons – https://theconversation.com/maria-corina-machados-peace-prize-follows-nobel-tradition-of-awarding-recipients-for-complex-reasons-267268

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Mireille Rebeiz, Chair of Middle East Studies, Dickinson College

On Sept. 21, 2025, a senior U.S official boasted that an Israeli-Syrian security agreement to resolve months of conflict was “99% complete” and would be announced within two weeks.

Those two weeks have now passed. And the reality on the ground suggests that the two countries are still far from sealing any deal to end the Israeli military incursions into Syrian territory that have occurred since the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad in December 2024. Just days after the American official gave his prognosis and as negotiations continued, Israel struck several Syrian targets.

Citing negotiation sources, several news outlets reported that the delay in securing a deal was primarily related to Israel’s 11th-hour demand of creating a so-called humanitarian corridor that would link the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to Sweidah, a city in southern Syria. Israel said the purpose is to protect religious minorities in the Golan Heights and Sweidah.

The hitch, after months of U.S.-mediated talks, reflects Syria’s vulnerability in these negotiations. Seeking to move on after year of war, the current Syrian leadership is eager to snuff out remaining internal violence, secure the borders and return to the United Nations-brokered truce with Israel that had been in place for decades. However, concluding a deal with its militarily superior neighbor risks the further fragmentation of Syria and an entrenched violation of its sovereignty.

Indeed, as an expert on the Middle East, I believe the talks and the potential last-minute snag point to Israel believing it has the upper hand. Meanwhile for Syria, a desire for security can’t mask what it sees as Israel’s expansionist policy in the region, and concerns that it is using things like a proposed humanitarian corridor as a way to achieve recognition of areas only recently under Israeli control.

The fraught history of Syrian-Israeli relations

Following the United Nations’ partition of Palestine in 1947 and the proclamation of the state of Israel in 1948, a coalition of five Arab armies, including Syria, declared war on Israel and lost the ensuing conflict.

As a result, Syria was forced to sign an armistice agreement with Israel on July 20, 1949.

Yet de facto peace never lasted long. The two countries squared off in repeated conflicts in the next 25 years, including the Six-Day War in 1967 that launched Israel’s still-ongoing occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights.

In 1974, the U.N. brokered the Agreement on Disengagement between Israeli and Syrian forces. While not a peace agreement, the pact served to codify a ceasefire and created a buffer zone between the two countries monitored by U.N. observers.

For 50 years, that status quo held uneasily, as subsequent peace efforts failed. The conflict was effectively frozen, punctuated by occasional flare-ups of violence.

Entering the post-Assad era

The fall of Assad and his goverment in December 2024 suddenly injected a new dose of uncertainty into Israel-Syria relations.

As rebel-turned interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa worked to consolidate power and vowed to restore peace and stability for his war-torn country, Israel went on the offensive.

Shortly after the collapse of the Assad government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared the 1974 Disengagement Agreement “void until order is restored in Syria.” As a result, and in violation of the agreement, Israel occupied the demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights and expanded its control inside Syria. For months, Israel has conducted a campaign of airstrikes across Syria, repeatedly bombing Syrian military positions, including near the presidential palace in Damascus. Israel says it is doing so to stop weapon transfers from Iran and to protect its borders and ensure its security.

At the same time, it has pressed the U.S. to keep Syria weak and divided, in part due to Netanyahu’s and his far-right coalition’s hostility to an Islamist-governed neighbor.

The U.S., at the urging of allies like Saudi Arabia which are close with the Sharaa government, recently lifted sanctions on Syria. For months, officials of the Trump administration have likewise mediated talks and pushed Israel and Syria to conclude an agreement to stop Israel’s seizures and air campaign.

For his part, Sharaa and his negotiators have continually pressed for a halt to Israeli incursions and a return to the 1974 disengagement agreement and the de facto borders it established, describing it as a “necessity.”

Hints of common ground on Hezbollah and Iran

Aside from Syria’s immediate desire and chief priority to end all hostilities on its territory, there are some potential benefits to a new arrangement with Israel from both countries’ perspective.

Before its fall, the Assad government was close to Hezbollah and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia Islamist political party and paramilitary group funded by Iran, supported Assad and played a major role in Syria’s civil war.

Furthermore, under Assad’s government, Syria served as a land bridge between Iran and Lebanon through which Hezbollah fighters transported their military equipment, money and drugs.

Under Sharaa, Syria’s central government is now closely allied to the Arab Gulf countries that have long been Iran’s regional rivals. In strengthening its security, Syria will no longer serve as Hezbollah-Iran meeting point, which will subsequently benefit Israel. For Syria, it will also stabilize the country against Iranian interference.

The risk of Syria’s further fragmentation

The risks of a deal with Israel from Syria’s standpoint, however, are significant.

In defending its incursions into Syria, Israel has pointed to both the security threat it says Syria poses to Israel and also the situation of minority groups in Syria, where sectarian violence has risen against communities like the Christian Orthodox and the Druze.

Israel has floated a number of plans for how it intends to retain a heavy footprint in Syria beyond the occupation of the Golan Heights and the 1974 Agreement of Disengagement.

One option on the table is an extension of the historical buffer zone and splitting Syria into autonomous zones, in which Sweidah province would be a demilitarized buffer zone between Israel and Syria. With the most recent idea of a humanitarian corridor couched in the language of protecting Syrian minorities, Israel could be seeking a wider area under more explicit control.

From the Syrian perspective, all of the above are backdoor ways by Israel to cement post-Assad military actions beyond the scope of the 1974 truce. As such, agreement to a security pact on Israeli terms would mean jeopardizing or shrinking Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

The Syrian leadership’s challenge going forward

After years of war and fragmentation, most Syrians will take any cessation of hostilities with Israel as a welcome development – but not at any cost. Many Syrians are opposed to further fragmentation of the country. And considering the ongoing killing and displacement of Palestinians in Gaza – described recently by a U.N. body as genocide – and Syria’s historic commitment to pan-Arabism, many Syrians will likely be skeptical if a security deal with Israel means a de facto recognition of the land and sovereignty Israel has acquired since December 2024.

That points to the major dilemma underpinning Sharaa’s position. Syria is in a vulnerable place and is not in position to negotiate from strength, especially as Sharaa tries to open Syria to the Western world, boost its economy and bring back the civil war refugees from neighboring countries. Seeking to consolidate his government’s hold on power and end the presence of a foreign military, Sharaa likely sees a security agreement as in his immediate interest.

While such a pact may bring some stability to Syria and the region, it could also codify Israel’s nearly unchallenged regional power.

Mireille Rebeiz is affiliated with the American Red Cross.

– ref. For war-weary Syria, potential benefits of security pact with Israel comes with big risks – https://theconversation.com/for-war-weary-syria-potential-benefits-of-security-pact-with-israel-comes-with-big-risks-265785

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Marika Sosnowski, Senior research fellow, The University of Melbourne

There are jubilant scenes in both Gaza and Israel after both sides in the war have agreed to another ceasefire. If all goes well, this will be only the third ceasefire to be implemented by Israel and Hamas, despite there being numerous other agreements to try to stop the violence.

There is a lot to be happy about here. Most notably, this ceasefire will bring a halt to what has now been established as a genocidal campaign of violence against Palestinians in Gaza, the release of all hostages held by Hamas, and the resumption of aid into Gaza to alleviate the famine conditions there.

However, a lot of unknowns remain. While the terms of the “first phase” of this ceasefire have been rehearsed in previous ceasefires in November 2023 and January 2025, many other terms remain vague. This makes their implementation difficult and likely contested.

After this phase is complete, a lot will depend on domestic Israeli politics and the Trump administration’s willingness to follow through on its guarantor responsibilities.

Immediate positives for both sides

The ceasefire agreement appears to be based on the 20-point plan US President Donald Trump unveiled in the White House alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on September 29.

What will be implemented in what is being called the “first phase” are the practical, more detailed and immediate terms of the ceasefire.

In the text of the peace plan released to the public, these terms are stipulated in:

• Point 3 – an “immediate” end to the war and Israeli troop withdrawal to an “agreed upon line”.

• Points 4 and 5 – the release of all living and deceased hostages by Hamas in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

• Point 7 – full aid to flow into the strip, consistent with the January ceasefire agreement terms.

While these steps are positive, they are the bare minimum you would expect both sides to acquiesce to as part of a ceasefire deal.

Over the past two years, Gaza has been virtually demolished by Israel’s military and the population of the strip is starving. There is also great domestic pressure on the Israeli government to bring the hostages home, while Hamas has no cards left to play besides their release.

The text of these particular terms has been drafted in a way that means both Israel and Hamas know what to do and when. This makes it more likely they will abide by the terms.

Both sides also have a vested interest in these terms happening. Further, both parties have taken these exact steps before during the November 2023 and January 2025 Gaza ceasefires.

Given this, I expect these terms will be implemented in the coming days. It is less clear what will happen after that.

What comes next: the great unknown

After the first phase of the ceasefire has been implemented, Hamas will find itself in a situation very similar to ceasefire agreements that occurred during the Syrian civil war that began in 2011 and only recently ended with the downfall of the Assad regime in late 2024. I call these strangle contracts.

These type of ceasefire agreements are not like bargains or contracts negotiated between two equal parties. Instead, they are highly coercive agreements that enable the more powerful party to force the weaker party into agreeing to anything in order for them to survive.

Once the hostages are released, Hamas will go back to having negligible bargaining power of its own. And the group, along with the people of Gaza themselves, will once again be at the mercy of Israeli military might and domestic and international politics.

Other terms of the Trump peace plan relating to Hamas’ demilitarisation (Points 1 and 13), the future governance of Gaza (Points 9 and 13) and Gaza’s redevelopment (Points 2, 10 and 11) are also extremely vague and offer little guidance on what exactly should occur, when or how.

Under such a strangle contract, Hamas will have no leverage after it releases the hostages. This, together with the vague terms of the ceasefire agreement, will offer Israel a great deal of manoeuvrability and political cover.

For example, the Israeli government could claim Hamas is not abiding by the terms of the agreement and then recommence bombardment, curtail aid or further displace the Palestinians in Gaza.

While Point 12 rightly stipulates that “no one will be forced to leave Gaza”, Israel could make conditions there so inhospitable and offer enough incentives to Gazans, they might have little choice other than to leave if they want to survive.

Points 15 and 16 stipulate that the United States (along with Arab and other international partners) will develop a temporary International Stabilisation Force to deploy to Gaza to act as guarantors for the agreement. The Israel Defence Force (IDF) will also withdraw “based on standards, milestones, and timeframes linked to demilitarization”.

But these “standards, milestones and timeframes” have been left unspecified and will be hard for the parties to agree on.

It is also possible Israel could use the vagueness of these terms to its advantage by arguing Hamas has failed to meet certain conditions in order to justify restarting the war.

Knowing it has no leverage after the first phase, Hamas has explicitly said it is expecting the US to fulfil its guarantor role. It is certainly a good sign the US has pledged 200 troops to help support and monitor the ceasefire, but at this stage, Hamas has little choice other than to pray the US’ deeds reflect its words.

While the ceasefire has now been passed by a majority of the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), five far-right ministers voted against the deal. These include Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who said the ceasefire is akin to “a deal with Adolf Hitler”.

This opposition bloc will no doubt be making more threats – and could potentially act – to bring down Netanyahu’s government after the first phase is implemented.

The problem with ceasefires

The first phase of this ceasefire will offer Hamas and Israel key items – a hostage-prisoner swap, a halt to violence and humanitarian aid.

After that, rather than a bargaining process with trade-offs between negotiating partners operating on a relatively even playing field, without US opprobrium, the ceasefire could easily devolve into an excuse for further Israeli domination of Gaza.

A ceasefire was always going to be a very small step forward in a long road towards peace between Israelis and Palestinians. Without meaningful engagement with Palestinians in their self-determination, we can only hope the future for Gazans will not get any worse.

As a Palestinian leader from Yarmouk camp in Syria told me back in 2018: “If there is a ceasefire, people know the devil is coming.”

Marika Sosnowski does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. The Gaza ceasefire deal could be a ‘strangle contract’, with Israel holding all the cards – https://theconversation.com/the-gaza-ceasefire-deal-could-be-a-strangle-contract-with-israel-holding-all-the-cards-267208

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By John Hart, Emeritus Faculty, US government and politics specialist, Australian National University

US President Donald Trump’s efforts to deploy the military for law enforcement duties in selected American cities is likely to end up before the US Supreme Court.

If it does, the nine justices will be faced with sorting out a dog’s breakfast of constitutional and statutory laws full of contradictions and ambiguities.

Given the propensity of the current Supreme Court to support and even extend the scope of presidential authority, it could very well rule in Trump’s favour. And this would have far-reaching implications for civil liberties and democracy in the United States.

How did we get to this point, and what does the law actually say about using the National Guard in US cities?

What is Trump attempting to do?

The National Guard is made up of part-time reservists assigned to units in each state. These soldiers are typically called into service by the governors of the states where they serve to respond to disasters or large protests.

In certain circumstances, presidents can also “federalise” National Guard troops, though it rarely happens against a governor’s wishes. Before this year, the last time this happened was in Selma, Alabama, in 1965, to protect civil rights protesters.

In recent months, Trump has attempted to “federalise” the National Guard units belonging to several states and dispatch them to cities (Los Angeles, Memphis, Washington DC, Portland and Chicago) that he claims are out of control.

The troop deployments have been opposed by the Democratic governors in some of these states, then blocked or restricted by temporary restraining orders issued by federal district court judges. (The order in California was subsequently stayed by the US Court of Appeals, pending a further appeal).

There are several issues being contested:

• the conditions under which the National Guard can be mobilised by the federal government
• the degree of collaboration between federal and state governments in issuing orders to the National Guard, and
• the prohibition on the military being used for domestic law enforcement purposes.

Trump’s moves are testing the uncertain boundaries of all these constraints on executive power. But, more significantly, he is also challenging the long-standing American tradition of keeping the military out of domestic politics.

What are the legal issues at play?

The constitutional authority to deploy the National Guard is actually assigned to Congress, not the president. Article 1, Section 8 of the US Constitution gives Congress the power to “provide for calling forth the militia to execute the laws of the Union, suppress insurrections and repel invasions”. Militias have been interpreted to include the National Guard.

However, the Constitution also charges the president with two very significant duties. The first is to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States”; the second is to “take care that the laws be faithfully executed”. These two duties can amount to a significant grant of power in times of crisis.

The Trump administration will almost certainly argue he is deploying the National Guard in these US cities to carry out these duties.

There’s a bigger issue for Trump, though. Another law, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, makes it illegal for federal troops to engage in civilian law enforcement unless expressly authorised by the Constitution or the law.

Trump is currently acting without this explicit legal authorisation. However,
as the Brennan Center for Justice has recently pointed out, there are 26 different laws that allow for the military to execute the law in specific situations. These exceptions undermine the purpose of the Posse Comitatus Act, making the case for urgent reform of the law.

What about the Insurrection Act?

One of these exceptions is the Insurrection Act of 1807, which gives the president the power to use the military or federalise National Guard troops to put down domestic uprisings. Since the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the act has seldom been used.

Trump said this week he would consider invoking the act to “get around” any court decisions blocking his move to deploy National Guard troops in US cities.

He also claimed the demonstrations against the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) building in Portland amounted to a “criminal insurrection”.

Trump then ramped up the rhetoric and the hyperbole even further by calling for the jailing of Illinois Governor JB Pritzker and Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson for failing to protect ICE agents in that city.

The demonstrations against Trump’s immigration policies in Los Angeles, Portland, and Chicago are nowhere near meeting the definition of insurrection.

But, as the president told the meeting of military generals in Virginia last week, he is keen to push the bounds on using the military in domestic affairs. Or, as he put it, to use these cities as “training grounds” for the armed forces.

If the Supreme Court rules in Trump’s favour on this issue, it would be tantamount to saying the president is the only arbiter on whether a political protest amounts to an insurrection and when it’s necessary to use the military to quell it.

It would also expand the scope for Trump to use the military in other areas of domestic politics.

The president has already deployed the military for border protection, so patrolling universities or even the lines outside polling stations on election day could be next.

John Hart does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

– ref. Explainer: what powers does Trump actually have to deploy the military to US cities? – https://theconversation.com/explainer-what-powers-does-trump-actually-have-to-deploy-the-military-to-us-cities-267109

Source: The Conversation – Global Perspectives – By Emma Shortis, Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

[…]we took the freedom of speech away.

We should use some of these dangerous cities as training grounds for our military[…]

They’re poisoning the blood of our country.

Stand back and stand by.

The president has been saying it out loud all along.

During his first administration, in 2019, US President Donald Trump said the Constitution gave him “the right to do whatever I want”. Five years later, the Supreme Court affirmed that view when it ruled the president has quasi-regal powers of immunity for “official acts”.

And then last week at the Marine Corps base in Quantico, Virginia, Trump’s existential threat to American democracy escalated significantly.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth had assembled around 800 of the United States military’s top leaders. Hegseth convened the conference in an attempt to impose an ex-National Guard major’s authority on America’s professional military leadership. He reduced professionalism to physical appearance and fitness standards dressed up as “the warrior ethos” and “lethality”.

His speech was a charge of far-right talking points. Obesity and beards are out. Hyper-masculinisation and misogyny are in.

No more identity months, DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) offices, dudes in dresses, no more climate change worship, no more division, distraction or gender delusions – we are done with that shit.

Trump commandeered the event. The president’s stream-of-consciousness, campaign-style speech took an even more radical turn.

His disdain for the admirals and generals was clear from the outset. “If you don’t like what I’m saying, you can leave the room – of course, there goes your rank, there goes your future.”

From both Hegseth and Trump, the message was clear. The military leaders in the room – who have all sworn an oath to defend and uphold the Constitution (not, it should be noted, the commander-in-chief) – should consider themselves nothing more than obedient servants of the president.

That in itself would represent a radical shift in civil-military relations.

But Trump, as he always does, took things even further.

He said:

I told Pete [Hegseth] we should use some of these dangerous cities [Washington DC, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Portland] as training grounds for our military.

The president of the United States has decided that the US military, which is now meant to be more focused than ever on “lethality”, should include American cities and the people who live in them in their operational plans.

‘Do whatever the hell you want’

Trump’s main audience for this speech, as usual, was not really the people in the room. It was his MAGA (Make America Great Again) base, a movement that he knows well and plays like a virtuoso. The same base he told to “stand back and stand by” in 2020, just before the January 6 insurrection.

We can bet they are listening. That base knows, instinctively – as does the leadership of the movement – that Trump’s promise of no consequences extends beyond the military. He showed them that when he pardoned those that had tried to overthrow a democratically elected government on his behalf.

This context matters, because Trump, Hegseth and the rest are reshaping not just the military but the entire federal government in their ideological image. Through mass layoffs and recruitment – all laid out in Project 2025 – they are consolidating their power everywhere.

The cities Trump wants the military to use as “training grounds” are the same cities being targeted by violent, oppressive enforcement of the Trump administration’s “mass deportations” policy, led by the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

In practice, those operations include the arbitrary arrest and detention of American citizens and the denial of legal rights and due process. In Chicago, where Trump has just deployed the National Guard, raids have reportedly included pulling children naked from their beds in the middle of the night and separating them from their mothers. Those same agencies using these practices are clashing with protesters in increasingly violent confrontations, and the National Guard is being deployed as reinforcement.

At times during his speech, Trump spoke directly to “border patrol, ICE” saying that if they were spat at or had bricks thrown at their vehicles, “you get out of that car and you can do whatever the hell you want to do”.

The president then went on to immediately compare this to the administration’s attacks on Venezuelan boats in international waters, which the New York City Bar Association has described as “unlawful executions”. As Trump put it: “we take them out.”

ICE is currently engaged in a program of mass recruitment, spending $30 billion to find 10,000 new deportation officers, even going so far as to offer $50,000 bonuses. In July, DHS Secretary Kristi Noem said that recruits were needed because “Together, we must defend the homeland”.

This blood-and-soil style violent nationalism infuses everything the administration is doing, from its recruitment to its firings, from its promises to crackdown on the “radical left” to its suppression of free speech.

The president has repeatedly told the movement behind him, and the military and law enforcement agencies, directly and indirectly, that they are free to impose this radical vision for America violently – without fear of consequence.

An American tragedy

Trump has long mused about using the military against his own people. According to former Defense Secretary Mark Esper, during his first administration, enraged at Black Lives Matter protests, Trump reportedly asked “Can’t you just shoot them, just shoot them in the legs or something?”

On Thursday US time, NBC reported that officials in the White House were having “increasingly serious discussions” about invoking the Insurrection Act, which would allow the President to deploy the military domestically for civilian law enforcement. That process is now, according to an unnamed source, on its way up “an escalatory ladder”.

As has been noted many times, Trump is now surrounded by people who are all-in on his agenda. The guardrails have been dismantled.

What Trump suggested in Quantico would mean the use of unaccountable, unsanctioned force against American citizens delivered by the all-volunteer personnel of the US military.

None of the assembled generals or admirals walked out when he said that.

In the absence of resistance, this transforms the US military into a domestic political tool of the executive and turns American military leaders into the enforcers of presidential political will against the American people themselves.

The meeting at Quantico was a transformation point in the second Trump presidency. It turned the assembled admirals and generals into a de facto enemy of the people.

It transforms the United States into an autocracy and the presidency into a dictatorship.

This is the tragedy of Trump’s America.

Emma Shortis is Director of International and Security Affairs at The Australia Institute, an independent think tank.

– ref. Trump’s tragedy: the US becomes an autocracy and the presidency, a dictatorship – https://theconversation.com/trumps-tragedy-the-us-becomes-an-autocracy-and-the-presidency-a-dictatorship-266675