Emeritus Professor of Sociology, U. Sydney, Adjunct Professor, UCD, Adjunct Professor, U. Tasmania. https://teapawt.net/t.co/Ic41jDnX1C #VoteYes
Joined May 2009
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Robert van Krieken retweeted
I've been in politics for a quarter century. It's hard to express how staggering it is to see a conversation like this on corporate US media. The Morning Joe panel gobsmacked by the directness of @AbdulElSayed's points.
(clip via @DropSiteNews)
Robert van Krieken retweeted
Both the left & the right have to come to an agreement about this shit.
This is an insane image.
Robert van Krieken retweeted
"The US military has its sights on this beautiful Tasmanian wilderness in the Tarkayna, why? Because under the ground is tungsten, a metal used to fuel the US war machine."
— David Shoebridge
Robert van Krieken retweeted
3 years ago today: my open letter to all staff and students at the University of Sydney asking Vice Chancellor @mscott why he was silent about Israel’s crimes against Palestinians; the crimes have since widely been condemned as genocidal, but eerie silence remains his choice…
Robert van Krieken retweeted
This contentious interchange between the NY Times and @GinaHinojosaTX was truly amazing. Hinojosa offered one of the best explanations of populism I've ever seen. Her comments were a total rejection of Corporate Dems' neoliberal formula. Her Texas victory is a game changer.
Robert van Krieken retweeted
Watch my lecture for the Amsterdam Centre for Middle East Studies, ‘The structure of genocide in Palestine’, on 3-11-2026 at 17.00 CET, 16.00 GMT, 12.00 EST. Also viewable afterwards on the same link.
hva-uva.cloud.panopto.eu/Pan…
Robert van Krieken retweeted
“I would submit it’s as big a waste of time as watching the Kardashians.”
CURB YOUR ENTHUSIASM (2021)
#LarryDavid
Robert van Krieken retweeted
baby giving a kiss to a golden street performer and then getting a magical "life" reaction is everything you need to see today. ✨💛
Readers added context they thought people might want to know
This video matches a common AI-generated template of a baby kissing a gold-painted living statue rather than real footage.
alici.ai/formulas/media…
x.com/buzzpark/statu…
Robert van Krieken retweeted
May those who live, work or holiday on top of this have nightmares about what lies beneath them. May they imagine the cries of the dying and may it keep them awake at night.
Robert van Krieken retweeted
In the pro-Netanyahu demonstration today, one of his supporters threatens left-wing Jews: "We’ll beat you. You’re the first enemies we’ll send far, far away, to Birkenau, to Auschwitz, and we’ll rebuild Sobibor for you!" Israel 2026. The Jewish state.
Robert van Krieken retweeted
More and more ordinary Europeans are waking up and refusing to swallow the endless stream of propaganda, excuses and outright bullshit the establishment keeps trying to force down their throats.
This video is now going viral across France and the EU, spreading like wildfire on YouTube, TikTok and X.
And it’s hardly surprising.
People are fed up with being lied to, patronised and treated like fools by their own leaders.
Every failure, every political disaster and every consequence of their own decisions is conveniently pinned on Russia.
Enough is enough.
Europeans are tired of the endless blame game, the manufactured excuses and an establishment that is incapable of taking responsibility for its own failures.
Robert van Krieken retweeted
THE MOST INCOMPETENT WAR IN HISTORY: SARAH PAINE ON TRUMP’S IRAN DISASTER
Dr. Sarah Paine, a leading historian of great-power conflict and strategy, delivers a blunt verdict on the Iran war. She calls it one of the most incompetent wars in human history. The decision ignored basic principles of assessment, put maximum costs on America itself, and left permanent damage to the country’s power and alliances. This is not hindsight—it is the predictable result of hubris meeting reality.
THE CORE VERDICT
➡️ “The Iran war is probably one of the most incompetent wars in human history.”
➡️ A competent war puts the costs on the enemy and minimizes them for yourself.
➡️ This one did the opposite.
THE COST CATASTROPHE
➡️ It trashed the US economy.
➡️ It blew the US alliance system.
➡️ Iran is hurting, but the collateral damage is taking down the world’s economy.
➡️ That transforms the United States from a partner into an annoyance—and for many, a primary adversary—because it is threatening their economies.
➡️ “That’s breathtakingly incompetent.”
THE STRATEGIC BLIND SPOT
➡️ Any serious assessment looks at the enemy’s strengths and your own weaknesses, plus everyone else who might intervene.
➡️ That was absent.
➡️ The first thing Iran would do is shut Hormuz. Narrow seas close in wartime. Ukraine already showed this with the Black Sea.
➡️ Shore artillery, mines, and other tools stop traffic. There is no mystery here.
➡️ The big naval base in Bahrain becomes unreachable. The fallback is Diego Garcia, 2,500 miles away in the middle of nowhere. “That would be a mess.”
THE HUBRIS THAT MADE IT POSSIBLE
➡️ The people making the calls are historically unqualified for the job. That makes them profoundly dangerous.
➡️ Type A hubris assumes all decisions that matter happen in the United States.
➡️ Type B hubris assumes being good at one thing makes you good at everything.
➡️ Half-court tennis: you only watch your own side and never study the other team.
➡️ The Iranians understand Americans far better than Americans understand them.
THE UNFEASIBLE OBJECTIVE
➡️ Trying to “solve” Iran with 90 million people was never realistic.
➡️ Nazi Germany had roughly 80 million and required an occupation force of about 1.5 million just to hold it after the war—before counting everyone else.
➡️ The goal was unattainable. Pursuing it guarantees overextension and a bad ending.
➡️ The lesson the world takes is simple: get a nuke. The war incentivized proliferation.
➡️ This was a pivotal error. The choices that existed before are gone and will not return. “We will never be the trusted partner ever again. It’s done.”
THE BOTTOM LINE
The Iran war did not merely fail. It maximized American costs, destroyed trust with allies, and handed every rival a clearer reason to treat the United States as a threat to their own prosperity. Competence would have contained the problem at affordable cost. Hubris chose the opposite.
This is what permanent strategic damage looks like.
#IranWar #SarahPaine #StrategicIncompetence #HormuzDisaster #USHubris #AllianceCollapse #CatastrophicMistake
HT: YouTube The Diary Of A CEO
Robert van Krieken retweeted
A classic chart to counter the wisdom of crowds idea. US Americans are absolutely clueless about how common things are. They think over a quarter of Americans are Native Americans, one in five Americans is transgender, over a quarter of the population are Muslim, one in five households earn over half a million dollars. The right answer to all of these questions is 1%. They build their worldview on totally incorrect assumptions towards reality. Data literacy matters.
Robert van Krieken retweeted
Wow!
Canadian journalist asks Moshe Feiglin, a former Likud Member of Knesset, if he is concerned about Israel's plummeting global standing.
Feiglin's response is chilling, as it reveals the fundamental supremacist view he and many in Israel hold.
He says that the real moral supreme court is in Israel, ie with the people of Israel.
The Bible says, he explains, that those who bless Israel will be blessed, and those who curse Israel will be cursed. As a result, it's we - Israelis - who get to judge you, rather than you judging us.
And then he adds?
"Are you with the children of God or not?"
Robert van Krieken retweeted
On this Israeli election day, I’d recommend reading this extraordinary @haaretzcom interview with billionaire Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress and once one of Benjamin Netanyahu’s closest confidants.
One of Lauder’s most striking conclusions: “I realized at the end of the day that Israel really didn't want peace, but they wanted dominance.”
This is coming from someone who helped launch Netanyahu’s political career, introduced him to powerful figures in American politics and media, and secretly negotiated with Hafez al-Assad and Rafik Hariri on his behalf in the late 1990s.
In one of the interview’s biggest revelations, Lauder says Netanyahu agreed to a comprehensive peace deal with Syria and Lebanon, including withdrawal from the Golan Heights, but ultimately refused to sign it for political reasons.
“He chose politics over peace. He put his political future before the deal.”
Now 82, Lauder describes his profound disillusionment with Israel’s direction. After decades of supporting Israeli and Jewish institutions, he has sold his Tel Aviv apartment, given away his Be’er Sheva property, and says he has no intention of returning to Israel.
He warns that Netanyahu’s dependence on figures like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich is damaging Israel, alienating diaspora Jews and eroding support in Washington.
The interview is also full of fascinating details about Lauder’s role in Netanyahu’s political rise. The two became close friends in the 1980s, when Netanyahu was Israel’s ambassador to the UN, speaking almost daily at times.
Lauder says he introduced Netanyahu to speech coach Lilyan Wilder to improve his public speaking and, crucially, to Republican strategist Arthur Finkelstein, who would become instrumental in Netanyahu’s electoral success.
When Netanyahu left New York to pursue a political career in Israel, Lauder threw him a farewell party attended by some of the most influential figures in American media and politics, including Rupert Murdoch and the head of the New York Times.
Lauder recalls opening doors for Netanyahu and helping him cultivate the relationships that would underpin his rise to power.
What makes this interview so revealing is that Lauder is no longtime critic of Israel. He had been a committed Zionist, a Republican power broker, and a man who spent decades financing Jewish institutions, cultivating relationships with Arab leaders, and pursuing diplomatic openings on Israel’s behalf.
A fascinating read 👇
haaretz.com/israel-news/elec…
