Yesterday, in a pub amid the spires and ivory college walls of Cambridge, I tapped out my take on the war so far. It prompted reader Dave Hansell, who should be on a steel city retainer, to supply a link … Read More »
The fog of war is always and necessarily thick but, like banks of cloud viewed from a plane, it shifts in swirling patches which here and there part to bring moments of unexpected clarity. Not everything is anyone’s guess; some … Read More »
Social programs do not die in committee rooms; they die in the realm of justification. Through the threat of looming abandonment by Uncle Sam, German voters will accept that their €49 rail ticket cannot be renewed because the Bundeswehr needs … Read More »
In a preamble to yesterday’s post on the world’s first livestreamed genocide – Gaza: lies and ‘spiritual’ cant – I promised a return, later in the week, to the ultimately related matter of: … America’s proxy war on Russia in … Read More »
* Eight days ago ago the European Commission, executive body of the EU, issued a statement by its president, Ursula von der Leyen. This is its opening paragraph: We are living in the most momentous and dangerous of times. I … Read More »
Cracking rumours emerge from the US-Russia bilateral negotiations in Riyadh. The US is reportedly offering to withdraw its military presence from former Soviet republics, dismantle missile sites in Poland and Romania, cancel all sanctions and even tease the eventual withdrawal … Read More »
Remind me. Which country has waged virtually non stop wars for more than two centuries? Which one devastated the Middle East in the name of – take you pick – a war on terror which massively amplified and weaponised the … Read More »
My December 14 post, On Syria, chess, and Nat King Cole, generated this three-way exchange below the line. I’m dressed in a rather fetching red: You really think [Assad] a good man? A kind leader? At least read Syrian Gulag … Read More »
Nine days ago, in Syria glimpsed through the fog of war, I spoke of: … the well meaningly clueless, and the less well meaningly calculating, [who] celebrate the fall of the region’s last Ba’athist government to Turkish, Israeli and Western … Read More »
When I say I was wrong about Syria, I don’t mean I’ve at last acknowledged Bashar al-Assad to be the monster depicted by an empire-serving propaganda blitz for which ‘universalists’ Owen Jones and George Monbiot gave left-liberal cover. While I’ve … Read More »