Good news and Bad News...

Brendan: from Afghanistan. . First, the bad news. 'Over three million refugees have returned, but there is little aid to help many of them resettle on lands often blighted by years of drought. The drugs economy has boomed, to the benefit of both the Taliban and the warlords: Afghanistan is now the world's largest opium supplier. The country is less safe...  Full post

Where are we now?

Brendan: And where are we going? These are the big questions that face us, and the Iraqis. Jonathan Freedland has an article here that expresses the growing unease many of us have about where Iraq is now going. 'Iraq wasn't built in a day - and rooting a democracy in soil dried and hardened by decades of dictatorship will be no...  Full post

There's anti-semitism you can talk about

Brendan: ...and anti-semitism you can't. Without wanting to get into the 'Is criticism of Zionism necessarily anti-semitic?' which would be a long and complex discussion, I would just like to point out the screamingly obvious fact: that the major source of anti-semitism in the world today is not 'the left' or Yassar Arafat, or even Iran, but Saudi Arabia. As Bernard...  Full post

Bush and Bandar up a tree k i s s i n g

Brendan: Nothing much is happening in Iraq at the moment apart from economic collapse, mass murder, gangs of armed rapists wandering throughout the country killing at random, the resurgence of Islamic fundamentalism, very probably the infiltration of Al-Qaeda into the country: in other words, business as usual. So, because I jump on every bandwagon going, let's have yet another look at...  Full post