Lebanese Chess is a fascinating blog written by a Lebanese Australian. His recent post is titled, “A week of speeches“: Khatami, Halper and Loewenstein … three public speakers at Australia’s main political university, the Australian National University (ANU), in a week. I went to see them all, and nothing much out of the three surprised…
Showing all posts tagged Afghanistan
Making very bad friends
Middle East expert Juan Cole on the West’s useless mission in Afghanistan: And it seems to me that mainly what the US, Britain and Australia are doing in the south of the country is to shore up the government of Hamid Karzai. And if that’s the goal, that’s a tough mission. Karzai only controls 30…
Life and death in Afghanistan
Photographs by Louie Palu and audio clips recorded during his travels capture the violence and tranquility in everyday Afghan life:
The failing campaign
Wow: Wikileaks has cracked the encryption to a key document relating to the war in Afghanistan. The document, titled “NATO in Afghanistan: Master Narrative”, details the “story” NATO representatives are to give to, and to avoid giving to, journalists… The encryption password is progress, which perhaps reflects the Pentagon’s desire to stay on-message, even to…
The logic of “liberation”
A confidential NATO report from January reveals that civilian deaths from the war in Afghanistan have increased by 46% over the past year. The 12 page report was authenticated and released today in full by the transparency group Wikileaks.
What price for information?
Being a journalist, even in so-called “democracies”, can be a deadly business: The number of journalists and other media workers killed as they carried out their jobs across the globe fell to 70 last year, according to figures released today by the World Association of Newspapers. Global media fatalities in 2008 were down from the…
Why the Afghan war will never be won
Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, February 10: The situation is ripe for Iran to connect with two of its enemies – the Taliban and the US – both of which are seeking Tehran’s help against each other. This is a trademark of Iranian diplomacy – to connect with its enemies and then exploit the situation…
Welcome to reality, world
Writing in the Asia Times, M K Bhadrakumar explains the ways in which Iran is slowly but surely being brought back into the international community and rightly assuming its place as a leading power: Anyone familiar with the complex ways in which Persians express their heart’s desire will agree Ahmadinejad’s response within hours of Obama’s…
Our boys are so brave, daring, beautiful, courageous etc.
This article from today’s Australian newspaper, headlined “Taking the fight to the Taliban”, could have been written by the Australian government (ie. a press release dressed up as propaganda): “Get to the wall, spread out, spread out.” The words can be heard amid the clatter of automatic weapons fire. There is a brief pause, more…
The policy on Israel
My following article is published in Dawn, Pakistan’s leading English-language newspaper: During this year’s US presidential campaign, both Republican nominee John McCain and Democratic contender Barack Obama expressed unwavering support for Israel. It was the only country in the world that required constant loyalty tests. Obama told the leading Zionist lobby, AIPAC, that he would…