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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

“FREEDOM” ISN’T FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

“FREEDOM” ISN’T FIRST PERSON SINGULAR

Those who equate free­dom with irre­spon­si­bil­i­ty and heed­less self-indul­gence nei­ther under­stand nor deserve it. For what it’s worth, that’s my take on the so-called “Free­dom Con­voy” protest that began in Cana­da with the ral­ly­ing cry “Free­dom” and spawned copy­cats around the world. Here­with why…Read the rest

CIRCUSES AND CYNICISM

CIRCUSES AND CYNICISM

The ear­ly 2nd cen­tu­ry poet Juve­nal coined the phrase “bread and cir­cus­es” to describe how Roman emper­ors dis­tract­ed their pub­lic from gov­ern­men­tal short­com­ings. The rash and ulti­mate­ly short-sight­ed ploy echoes today in the form of crises. The dan­ger is that crises can be lethal if mis­han­dled, a dis­tinct pos­si­bil­i­ty when they are sea­soned with cynicism.Read the rest