If President Obama’s plan for withdrawal demonstrated the unusual feat of simultaneously pissing off both sides of the aisle in the US, he need not despair: in Afghanistan he most certainly drew applause from both the Taliban, and Karzai – who crowed in an interview with CNN on Sunday that even if things got really bad, he would …
Conflict
Woman Convicted of Genocide and Rape. Run ‘Half the Sky’ By Me Again.
The aid and development world likes to deal in simple certainties. Africans are starving (1985)? Feed the world. Communism has failed (1989)? Privatize the world. A new mantra that has found wide acceptance in recent years runs something like this: Your country is still poor? You’re probably sexist.
New Film About Old Murder Mystery Rekindles French Debate On Racism and Justice
One of France’s most gripping real life whodunits is now the subject of a new feature film. But in addition to suspense and drama “Omar M’a Tuer” (“Omar Killed Me”, see trailer here) creates, its recounting of a Moroccan gardener’s conviction for the 1991 murder of a rich French widow is also generating renewed debate …
Following U.S. Lead, France Announces Afghan Troop Withdrawal
Just hours after U.S. President Barack Obama announced his timetable for withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, his French opposite Nicolas Sarkozy followed suit by revealing Paris’ plan to also gradually bring soldiers in its Afghan contingent home. The swiftness of Sarkozy’s decision—which clearly followed consultation with …
What Would Orwell Say: How War in Libya Makes Language Suffer
In the aftermath of World War II, George Orwell reflected on politics, power and language: “When the general atmosphere is bad,” he wrote, “language must suffer.” To wage war, to justify empire, the politicians of his time mashed words, turning English to euphemistic mush, he said. In turn, the “sheer cloudy vagueness” of political …
What Do Pakistanis Really Think About the U.S. and India?
The Pew Center has a fascinating new poll out this week measuring public opinion in Pakistan. Among the most surprising results is the degree to which Pakistanis’ view of India have deteriorated over the last several years:
“Pakistani views of traditional rival India have grown increasingly negative in recent years.
…
In Libya, the Clock Is Ticking Toward NATO Failure
Western leaders may insist that Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi is weakened, isolated, irrelevant, and about to bow out, but their words hide hide a growing anxiety in Western capitals about the implications of his tenacity. Three months and counting into a bombing campaign that has yet to force out the regime, there’s growing …
Has Ban Ki-Moon Lived Up to His Goals as UN Chief?
Ban Ki-Moon won a second term as United Nations Secretary General yesterday, affirmed by applause as he was the only candidate. Ban pitched himself as a mediator and bridge-builder, so it’s not surprising that he has been a less visible, less controversial and, his critics would say, less charismatic Secretary General than his …
World Refugee Day: Three Things You Must Know
Today marks 60 years since the founding of the UN refugee agency. Initially tasked with assisting 2.1 million Europeans displaced by World War II, it now works in 120 countries and is charged with helping millions more. In a cover story for TIME last year, Krista Mahr reported that the system is over-stretched and under-funded. The …
Four Decades Later, It’s Time to Scrap the Dead-End Drug War
I recently returned from the desert city of Durango, Mexico, where forensic officials are still trying to identify some 240 corpses discovered this year in mass graves. More than 200 other bodies have been found in similar fosas across northern Mexico. All were victims, many of them innocent victims, of the drug-trafficking …
Obama Pulls A Bush On Libya Vote
For a man whose sobriety, intellectual rigor, and oratory skills have often impressed supporters and opponents alike, U.S. President Barack Obama certainly seems comfortable in his current re-enactment of Bill Clinton’s infamous Lewinsky-era attempts to spin reality with heavy-handed semantic ploys. With Clinton, the issue of whether …
Why Ba’asyir’s Sentence Doesn’t Spell the End of Extremism in Indonesia
He says he’s just simple preacher. But on Thursday, Abubakar Ba’asyir, the man widely considered the grandfather of Islamic militancy in Indonesia, was convicted on terror charges and sentenced to 15 years. Ba’asyir, 72, was charged with founding and financing a militant group that ran a terrorist camp in Aceh, northern Sumatra. The …
Five Things the Conflict in Libya Is Not
Libya-related chatter in the U.S. on Wednesday seemed to revolve around how the White House was going to wriggle away from stipulations of the War Powers Act — Swampland’s Jay Newton Small has the answer here. Evidently, the U.S. is acting in a “support” role, with no boots on the ground, and is “not engaged in any of the activities …