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WHEN IT COMES TO PRINCIPLE, HYPOCRISY RULES

WHEN IT COMES TO PRINCIPLE, HYPOCRISY RULES

“A hyp­ocrite is the kind of politi­cian who would cut down a red­wood tree, then mount the stump and make a speech for con­ser­va­tion.” Attrib­uted to U.S. Vice-pres­i­dent (1893–1897) Adlai Steven­son I, the quote is an apt warn­ing that stri­dent avowals of West­ern lead­ers to go all out to help Ukraine are as much a thin veneer cov­er­ing self-inter­est and hypocrisy, as they are firm and unshake­able policy.Read the rest

A Billion Here, A Billion There

A Billion Here, A Billion There

It must be real­ly annoy­ing to be so rich that bleed­ing hearts are always bang­ing on about how you could sin­gle-hand­ed­ly solve world pover­ty or what­ev­er. So, here’s a sug­ges­tion to ease the pain for the world’s lead­ing mul­ti-bil­lion­aires: try cash­ing in on the wis­dom of Ben­jamin Franklin: “It is prodi­gious the quan­ti­ty of good that may be done by one man, if he will make a busi­ness of it.”Read the rest

A God for All Reasons

A God for All Reasons

The Peanuts char­ac­ter Linus once said: “There are three things I have learned nev­er to dis­cuss with people…religion, pol­i­tics, and the Great Pump­kin.” Pump­kins aside, the rare con­ver­gence of Passover, East­er and Ramadan prompts me to ignore his wis­dom and pon­der why faith is so often used as an excuse for venal behaviour.Read the rest

The Punishment Putin Can’t Escape

The Punishment Putin Can’t Escape

The chances of self-imaged macho man Vladimir Putin end­ing up in court for war crimes in Ukraine are slim to nil. He has, how­ev­er, already been judged impo­tent by the one thing his mas­sive fire­pow­er could not overcome…the per­verse tru­ism that the worst of human beings invari­ably bring out the best of them.Read the rest

Sanctions aren’t a ‘smart bomb’ for all targets

Sanctions aren’t a ‘smart bomb’ for all targets

West­ern gov­ern­ments are all but crow­ing over the effi­ca­cy of sanc­tions as a weapon in the war in Ukraine. For­got­ten in the rush is that what­ev­er their con­tri­bu­tion towards vic­to­ry over Vladimir Putin, sanc­tions are on the point of destroy­ing the peo­ple of Afghanistan, but have lit­tle chance of chang­ing let alone oust­ing the Taliban.Read the rest

If you find war coverage ‘disturbing’…

If you find war coverage ‘disturbing’…

“Warn­ing: view­ers may find some of the images in this report dis­turb­ing.” Can there be a more point­less and insen­si­tive caveat to a sto­ry about the civil­ian vic­tims of war? You are sup­posed to be dis­turbed by war and suf­fer­ing. The jour­nal­ists who cap­ture those images often take hor­ren­dous phys­i­cal and psy­cho­log­i­cal risks.Read the rest

UKRAINE: Lessons Still to Learn

UKRAINE: Lessons Still to Learn

Near­ly sev­en decades after they were writ­ten, the repeat­ed lines at the end of each verse of Pete Pete Seeger’s great polit­i­cal song “Where Have All the Flow­ers Gone”, pose what may be the defin­ing ques­tion for some of the ways the world is deal­ing with the war in Ukraine: “When will they ever learn?”Read the rest

BEWARE PUTIN THE PUNISHER

BEWARE PUTIN THE PUNISHER

How much blood­shed, destruc­tion and chaos Vladimir Putin is will­ing to inflict upon Ukraine can be guessed at by look­ing at how far he’s already gone down the road to per­fidy and infamy. And bear in mind he claims to be doing it to “de-Naz­i­fy” the coun­try and end “bul­ly­ing and genocide.”Read the rest

Racist War Reporting? I Beg to Differ…

Racist War Reporting? I Beg to Differ…

Accord­ing to a recent head­line: “Cov­er­age of Ukraine has exposed long­stand­ing racist bias­es in West­ern media”. The thrust of that and sim­i­lar arti­cles was that reporters not­ing the vic­tims were Euro­peans, rather than peo­ple we nor­mal­ly think of as being refugees, were guilty of racism. As a jour­nal­ist who has cov­ered more than a few con­flicts, I beg to differ.Read the rest

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Basis of Putin’s Iniquity

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Basis of Putin’s Iniquity

Experts tend to have bet­ter focus than periph­er­al vision. In the case of the Russ­ian inva­sion of Ukraine, there is con­sid­er­able evi­dence many of them had nei­ther. Vladimir Putin’s aims have long been obvi­ous, sub­tly framed by his his­tor­i­cal per­spec­tive and steadi­ly but­tressed with means to fight back if they are opposed.Read the rest