Conquest isn’t what it used to be. Large scale invasions and occupations are out of the question. The West is still militarily preeminent on paper, yet in practice its coalitions have floundered in Iraq and Afghanistan. This situation has forced a shift away from conventional military force towards a more politically palatable method of warfare (More…)
War continues in the restive tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan. After several failures at democratization, many of us continue to seek a way to break the impasse. I believe that we must reformulate ourselves, and take inspiration from the Zapatistas. (More…)
Who could argue with such a simple request? “1 Euro for education”, the sign reads, advertising IKEA’s ongoing commitment to donate that amount to Save the Children with the purchase of each soft toy. But given the context, it’s hard not to read the message as a disturbing double entendre. (More…)
The writing is on the wall. Saudi Arabia, in its current form, is destined to self-destruct. The question is what will succeed it. And if it’s the Saudi-we-know that will collapse, we’re already seeing indications of Saudi-to-be in the violent, and ineffective Nitaqat Program. (More…)
Many have noted, with amused or outraged disdain, the contortions with which right-wingers from Dick Cheney to David Cameron are seeking to appropriate a piece of the Madiba magic. Few have as yet noted its converse: icons of the modern left condemning Nelson Mandela for not being socialist enough. (More…)
It’s difficult to access pornography in Yemen. Most adult websites are blocked by a firewall. It was at the end of a particularly bloody week in the capitol city, and I was looking for some diversion. An article in Gentlemen’s Quarterly intrigued me, not the least because GQ is itself somewhat risqué. (More…)
When the House and Senate budget talks got underway a few weeks ago, Paul Ryan, the GOP’s lead running dog on economic policy, reiterated the party line: The current situation is unsustainable. Negative consequences will fall hardest on the poor and the elderly. Therefore, sacrifices must be made…by the poor and the elderly. (More…)
As much as I love New Zealand, it has been increasingly difficult to ignore disturbing strands within the dominant Pakeha (European) culture here. As a liberal British import to the land also known as Aotearoa, having traversed half the globe to another democratic first world country with a proud progressive history, I expected a similar level of tolerance as that which I had encountered in my former home, London. (More…)
I was speaking to my mother about democracy, expressing wariness about European models, which many Pakistanis associate with the Soviet-inspired experiments of the Afghan Communist era. I mentioned the jirga, as a way of envisioning direct democracy, in South Asian vernacular. She found it appealing. “That’s like the old days, people coming together to talk about their problems, that isn’t from the West,” my mum replied. (More…)
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that a quick deal between the P5+1 powers and Iran failed to materialize. Hopes were understandably raised by the fact that the United States wanted a deal, and that Iran declared its openness to unprecedentedly intrusive inspections of its nuclear facilities. But what is at stake in these talks goes beyond the atomic issue. It deals with the entire Western approach to the Middle East. (More…)
Our cultural fascination with decay is pervasive and profound. The visual vocabulary of ruination connects the decay of built spaces to the aging of human bodies: a death spectacle. But in the Rockaways, New York City’s thin ribbon of battered coastline, we discover that the vulgar voyeurism of the decay-seeking gaze is more closely connected to our social understanding of wealth than to our animal understanding of death. (More…)
I’d said that Afghanistan’s future had been ruined by naive leftists. The analysis visibly bothered one of my classmates. Perhaps it wasn’t as subtle as it could have been. I still stand by it. Afghan Communists blew it. Not just because their missteps allowed for foreign meddling. But also because they failed to understand democracy. (More…)