On 5 December 2011 NATO countries held a conference in Bonn Germany to discuss Afghanistan.   Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd didn't make the cut for front ranks of the class photo.

But The Rudd was keen to make his mark.

So he gave a speech "intervening".

Back home he felt he'd been snubbed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard at the previous weekend's Labor Party Conference when she'd mentioned all previous Labor Prime Ministers - except him.

He must have been narky about something.

Or maybe he was just The Rudd being The Rudd.

Whatever the reason, it's pretty rare to find an email like the one that Kevin Rudd generated that day.

Two great allies - the US and Australia.  And one foreign minister (Clinton) gets a note about the other (Rudd) headed "Warning" - he's stalking you!

Yet!

It's handy to have a private email system when you're talking about stuff like this.

In 2008 Emily's List spent $3.2M on Hillary Clinton's US presidential campaign.

By April 2010 when its 25th anniversary rolled around it had raised $78M for female political candidates.  Serious money.

It wanted to mark the 25th anniversary with Hillary Clinton as star turn at its major fundraiser.

But the ethics team at the US State Department had other ideas, as Huma Abedin explains.

As it turns out Hillary wasn't all that keen anyway.  What's $3.2M for your presidential campaign between friends?

But the Chair of the Board was quite insistent - even changing the event from a fundraiser to an "as you would be aware" wink wink "Benefit of Membership".

Ah for friends with benefits.

Nancy Pelosi got the gig.

"You have changed the face of power," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Thursday at the organization's anniversary lunch. "And in doing so, you have changed the course of history."

Wonder who did their incorporation work?

In early 2010 the Arab Spring had sprung and Al Baghdadi had just taken the reins at the Islamic State.

It was an important time in the Middle East and every US public utterance was closely monitored for clues as to US directions and plans - both by Islamist authorities and those who'd prefer freedom.

US Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, USFS officer Sean Smith and two CIA contractors Tyrone S. Woods and Glen Doherty still had two and a half years to live before they were killed in action in the Battle of Benghazi.

That also meant two and a half years for the US to put its stamp on the region, to protect its interests and to project its authority. 

On 16 February 2010 Hillary Clinton had the chance to make a landmark speech on what the US stood for. 

What actually happened in deciding what went into that speech speaks volumes about the broader foreign policy failures under Clinton's watch in the Arab world.

Here's the introduction.

Remarks At Dar Al-Hekma College Town Hall

Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Jeddah, Saudi Arabia
February 16, 2010

DR. AL-QURAISHI: (In progress) — engage in a dialogue with our students in this exciting town hall meeting. As you can see, they are all enthusiastically waiting for what I referred to in my email to them, “a rare opportunity.”

We commend your choice in coming to a woman’s college, and thus supporting our noble and challenging undertaking to provide the highest quality education to our young women in Saudi Arabia. Dar Al-Hekma literally means, “the House of Wisdom,” and has the special honor of being inaugurated by our great King, Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud. (Applause.) We hold him the Man of Wisdom. Since his ascension – (applause) – since his ascension, the Kingdom has experienced enormous growth and prosperity on national and international levels, and wide world recognition for our efforts and achievements. And, if I may add, as women, as well — particularly as women.

More here

Case Button was Hillary Clinton's official state department speech writer.

Huma Abedin was Clinton's personal assistant.

She's also the daughter of Pakistani-born Saleha Mahmood Abedin, a leading member of the women’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Sisterhood (full bio notes with attribution below).

So who set the tone for this important US Foreign Policy speech?

It wasn't Hillary.

So was it Case Button?  Nope - Case deferred to Huma.  And Huma deferred to her mum.

How did Huma respond?  With glee.

Case did all that and Huma dutifully sent it all off to the Muslim Brotherhood's sister.

How did Mrs Abedin's react to the official US position that was to be conveyed in the speech?

Hack away and edit she did.  Ferociously.

Freedom - gone.  

Democracy - gone.

Elections - gone.

Empowerment of women - gone.

IN fact Mrs Abedin much preferred that the US didn't talk about the way we in the West see the fact that women in Islam are treated differently from men.  She thought - on behalf of the students of course - that those issues were in-house Muslim issues that the US had no business addressing.

And so Hillary didn't.  Which suited Mrs Abedin.

And the Muslim Brotherhood.

Here's a link to the speech as then Secretary of State Clinton delivered it.

https://still4hill.com/2010/02/17/secretary-clintons-remarks-at-dar-al-hekma-college-town-hall-jeddah/

Search for "freedom", "democracy", "empowerment" - you won't find them.  There's a passing reference to the Organisation for Islamic Countries supervising elections in Iraq but beyond that no lofty ambitions expressed for giving people the chance to vote in elections.

Let all that sink in for a moment, then read Saleha Mahmood Abedin's resume below - and ask yourself this question.

How would the media treat this if it was Trump not Clinton who'd outsourced the tone of a significant US Foreign Policy speech to his PA's mother?

Australia was at war in the Middle East alongside our ally the United States fighting the Islamists Mrs Abedin was so close to. At least now we know how close Hillary was to them too.

Huma Abedin’s mother, Pakistani-born Saleha Mahmood Abedin, is a leading member of the women’s branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the Muslim Sisterhood. Saleha Abedin is in fact a member of the Presidency Staff Council of the Muslim Brotherhood’s International Islamic Council for Da’wa and Relief alongside leading Muslim Brother, Abdullah Omar Naseef, who played an integral role in both al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood, the same Naseef who co-founded Said Abedin’s Saudi-based Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs.

Though the Muslim World League’s financial arm in the United States—Rabita Trust—was shut down for its terror ties, it still exists under the name Rabita al-Alam al-Islami. Saleha Abedin is also a member of this organization.

Saleha is also Chairwoman of the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child (IICWC). Her IICWC is in turn a subsidiary of the Saudi-financed Muslim World League controlled by the Muslim Brotherhood. The charter of Saleha Abedin’s IICWC was drafted by Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader, Yusuf al Qaradawi.

In a 2009 speech aired on the pro-Muslim Brotherhood Al Jazzerra in Qatar, Qaradawi declared, “Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them…”

Salema Abedin’s IICWC official policies include support for marital rape, child marriage, female genital circumcision and polygamy. The Position document of Salema Abedin’s International Islamic Committee for Women and Child (IICWC) states: “The criminalization of female genital circumcision completely clashes with Islamic law, which did not provide for this prohibition, as confirmed by Dr. Yusuf al-Qaradawi, who was one of the drafters of the Charter… ”

In 2010, just as she was about to launch the Arab Spring wave of Islamic Color revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya and Syria, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton went to the Saudi Arabian Dar al-Hekma college for women at the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. Her hostess there was Abedin’s mother, Dr. Saleha Mahmood Abedin. At the time, Saleha Abedin, mother of Hillary’s closest associate and keeper of some 650,000 emails now being investigated by the FBI, was Vice Dean of the college. Saleha Abedin co-founded the college along with Yaseen Abdullah Kadi—a Saudi who was named in 2000 in UN Security Council Resolutions as a suspected associate of Osama bin Laden’s terror network, al-Qaeda. Saleha’s college also enjoyed support from members of the bin Laden family.

Huma Abedin is in no way estranged from her Muslim Brotherhood family. She is an integral part of it. Huma served as Assistant Editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, whose editor was mother, Saleha and whose brother Hassan Abedin was Associate Editor. Huma joined the journal, founded by her late father, also tied to the Muslim Brotherhood, in 2002 and officially remained there until September, 2008, shortly before taking a top position with Obama Administration Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. At the time she joined the journal of her mother, in 2002, designated terrorist, Muslim Brotherhood leading figure, Abdullah Omar Naseef sat on the Advisory Editorial Board.

Moreover, in 1997 while she was a student at George Washington University and serving as White House intern for Hillary Clinton, Huma Abedin was on the executive board of the George Washington branch of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), the most influential Muslim student organization in North America, founded in 1963 by members of the Muslim Brotherhood. That was also the same time that Huma Abedin, Vice Campaign Manager and decades-long intimate of candidate Hillary Clinton, was an assistant editor at Naseef’s journal.

http://www.williamengdahl.com/englishNEO4Nov2016.php

If you'd prefer a toned down version, here's the Saudi news service Al Arabiya's version.

http://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2016/11/17/University-that-connects-Hillary-Clinton-Saleha-Abedin-and-the-Muslim-Brotherhood.html

It pays to take a close look at the Rohingya and their leadership. 

The next post comes from an apparently normal, run-of-the-mill young Indonesian woman, Fatimah Az Zahra.

She refers to the Rohingya as Mujahideen (the plural for one who is engaged in Jihad).

She says,

"Mujahideen Rohingya (as heading)

If you're Muslim comment (ie on her Facebook page) aamiin (means something like Allah please fulfil our prayer) 

Allah protect our Rohingya Muslim brothers - and protect all Muslims in spirit and Muslims all over the world aamiin

If you're Muslim, share"

Finally to the Malaysian state of Sarawak which has made its views about the Rohingya people very clear as this report from the Borneo Post shows.

I wish Julie Bishop and others who seek the international limelight would take a leaf out of this book.

All his own work, all from his own Facebook page.

Christopher I know too well the truth of the maxim "you'll be judged by the company you keep".

I wish I'd been less impetuous and more thoughtful in some of my decisions of the past.

We can't change history;  and it's difficult to watch you making it so ill-advisedly .

You are an elected member of parliament courtesy of the Liberal Party and a minister of the crown in an ostensibly conservative government.

What are you thinking consorting with the enemy?

Could you imagine John Howard, Peter Costello, Paul Keating, Bob Menzies, Tony Abbott - anyone with a skerrick of gravitas cavorting with that political company for a publicity shot?

What are your priorities mate?

UPDATE

Thanks for your notes and well wishes.

Last Thursday morning I woke up with a line of what looked like Mr Vesuvius(es) on my left outer calf.

Couldn't really walk, went to local medical facility and was diagnosed with cellulitis with some bacterial infection that was right throughout my system.

The main reason I've been away from the website is the painkillers as the sausage-skin struggled to keep the leg-innards in.  I'm off them now, still on the horse tablet antibiotics and will be (God willing) full speed ahead in the morning.

ORIGINAL POST

I've been quite unwell the past couple of days - on an IV antiobiotic drip with a serious but slowly improving infection on my lower left leg.  

I'll spare you the gory details.  Hopefully back tomorrow.

I've never been more angry in the Senate than this. The govt openly laughed at my motion praising climate scientists. pic.twitter.com/dNQMwPSeBy

— Peter Whish-Wilson (@SenatorSurfer) September 14, 2017

Bruce Morton WILSON, Julia Gillard's lover and partner for at least 4 years - in action outside the Trade Union Royal Commission.

Former union boss linked to murder

• 3:16PM September 14, 2017
•  

  WA Chief Reporter

  Perth

  @AndrewBurrell7

  

A witness, Philip Hooper, today described to the West Australian Coroner’s Court how he and his girlfriend were parked near the murder scene in South Perth on the night and had heard four gunshots.

He said two men — who he identified as police officer Bernie Johnson and Perth identity Laurie Tudori — later came up to his car and told him not to go to the police.

He broke down in tears as he described the threats and intimidation he had since endured, including how Mr Johnson had threatened to frame him for the murder of Ms Finn. Mr Hooper, 68, who is gravely ill, said his testimony was his final chance to tell the truth of what had happened.

“I have been scared for 42 years,” he said. “I have been shot at and it’s not nice.”

Mr Hooper said Mr Wilson — who he knew as an Australian Workers Union leader in WA — had left a .357 magnum bullet on his car at his workplace with a note that said: “Keep your mouth shut or you’ll get one of these.”

He said he knew of Mr Wilson as a “violent person who liked to get his own way”.

Mr Wilson had once attempted to throw a roofing contractor off the roof off a building site because he refused to pay $10,000 to the union.

Mr Hooper said Mr Wilson’s threat had prompted him to make a statement to police in 1994. “I thought, ‘this has got to bloody stop’,” he said.

The allegations made by Mr Hooper predate Mr Wilson’s relationship with Ms Gillard by about 15 years.

Mr Wilson has been connected to the establishment of an AWU slush fund at the time he was in a relationship with Ms Gillard.

The AWU affair dogged Ms Gillard during her time as prime minister. Ms Gillard, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, provided legal advice to help Mr Wilson establish the fund.

Mr Wilson has never previously been linked to the murder of Ms Finn. The case has intrigued Perth for the past 42 years.

The inquest is continuing.

(digital reconstruction from original elements in Tim's book)

Tim Wilson MP, Liberal MP for Goldstein wrote to me and some of our readers this morning.

DM me your address and I'll send you a copy. I think you'll find they are quite good. pic.twitter.com/QFrIXGrt1A

— Tim Wilson MP (@timwilsoncomau) September 14, 2017

Dear Tim,

Thanks for your note today. Now I'm more worried about you than ever.

Until now you could have argued the colouring-in books were already ordered.  

You might have said you couldn't have known the books would be such a divisive issue in the same sex marriage wars.  

You could've added that with the benefit of hindsight it's not the best of looks.

You'd still be stuck with trying to justify blatant political advertising to children - paid for by taxpayers.

But if you'd laid low and not further inflamed the issue the whole thing might have blown over and out.

But your note to me today comes in answer to mine in which I wrote:

It's bad enough the blatantly political advertising was made for kids.

Worse it was sent to schools.

But worse still is Wilson's effort to get between the way parents want their children raised and the way he sees the world.

Do what you want with whoever you want in your own time Tim.

But don't sell it to kids.

Don't use the Party's logo to legitimise your own decisions.

AND DON'T EXPECT TAXPAYERS TO PAY FOR IT!

In answer, Tim says "give me your address and I'll send you a copy (of the books).  I think you'll find they are quite good".

Well Tim, they might be "quite good" as colouring-in books go.

You and Ryan might be beautifully depicted.

But my criticisms have gone unanswered - and your judgement has gone missing.

Adulation from people who'll never vote for you will leave an empty feeling at the next election.

Fond regards,

Michael

PS - well may we say the colouring-in books are quite good.   Quite good for whom is not so clear.

This is a beautifully written story from the Australian War Memorial.

Congratulations digger and thank you for your service. 

Theogene Ngamije was just a boy when he thought his life was over. He’d been separated from his parents in a refugee camp in war-torn Rwanda in 1994, but the kindness of an Australian peacekeeper gave him hope when he needed it most.

Now, 23 years later, Ngamije is a private in the Australian army.

“No day was easy, it was hard. I was always scared, hungry and intimidated,” Ngamije said at a ceremony to mark the 70th anniversary of Australian involvement in peacekeeping at the Australian War Memorial on Wednesday. “I wished there was another planet on which I could make a living. I thought that was the end of my life.”

Growing up in a refugee camp, Ngamije said he had “no future direction or any hope of a better life”, but that destiny and luck never left his side.

“On the good day, a day I can call being born again, a tall Australian soldier took a knee and offered me a piece of biscuit and Australian flag patch from his uniform. That kindness came when I needed it most,” he said.

“It is stuck on my heart and it feels like it was only yesterday. He saved my life and many other children who were displaced at that time. There are no words that can describe how thankful I was and remain even to this hour.”

In January 2011, Ngamije arrived in Australia with his uncle and his family.

“Australia recognised me, gave me hope and a home,” he said. “The opportunities I had were unlimited.”

Ngamije began to think of ways in which he could “pay back … this beautiful nation” and “specifically a peacekeeping soldier that helped me”.

He decided the best way was to join the army, and after a long wait for citizenship, enlisted in the Australian army on the 6th of February this year.

“I pray that someday I get to change someone else’s life,” Ngamije said.

“I chose to enlist in the army due to the help, inspiration and unforgettable rescue I received from that Australian soldier. I also wanted to pay back this wonderful community for everything they gave me.

“To the peacekeeping soldier that changed my life, from deep down in my heart I thank you. I shall forever be grateful and keep carrying your load as a soldier.”

Australia first sent military observers on a United Nations Consular Commission to Indonesia in September 1947, and since then has had tens of thousands of military and civilian operatives on station around the world.

The anniversary was marked by a special ceremony at the Memorial commemorating the 16 Australian peacekeepers who have been killed on duty.

Memorial Director Dr Brendan Nelson said the anniversary highlighted another side of the Australian military experience, one of good will and development that continues to change and adapt as the 21st century progresses.

“Peacekeepers, and the work they have done and continue to do in Australia’s name, are vital facets of the story we tell at the Memorial,” he said.

“It is a story of war but also a story of compassion, service and mateship. It includes interactions with our friends and neighbours during times of trouble and also of peace.”

But for Theogene Ngamije it means so much more. And he will be forever grateful to the unknown Australian peacekeeper whose kindness changed his life.

ENDS

 

Rwanda (UNAMIR), 1993 - 1996

Conflict	Period 1990-1999 Rwanda (UNAMIR), 1993 - 1996
References	Fry, Gavin; Lloyd, David, Rwanda : the Australian contingent 1994-95(Canberra: Australian Army, 1996) Horner, David Murray, The Australian centenary history of defence. Vol. 4, The making of the Australian defence(Melbourne: Oxford University Press, 2001) Londey, Peter, Other people's wars: a history of Australian peacekeeping(2003) Parry, Bill (Winston Oliver), We were there in the R.A.R. / Bill Parry. We were there in the Royal Australian Regiment(Mango Hill, Qld.: Winston Oliver Parry, 2005)
Category	Operation
Unit hierarchy	Rwanda (UNAMIR), 1993 - 1996