Last Saturday, The New York Times devoted more than two pages of its first section (in print) to a lengthy hit-piece, with the headline shown above. The article was also published in full online. The editors/management had assigned no fewer than nine reporters (and two “researchers”) to preparing this piece, the main argument of which … Continue reading The NYT’s super-tacky hit-job against Singham, Prashad, CodePink →
Now comes (yet another!) book by one of the hordes of nation-security technocrats who dominate West Asian policymaking in Democratic administrations here in Washington. In this case, it is Grand Delusion: The Rise and Fall of American Ambition in the Middle East, a recent book by Steven Simon, a guy who has worked as first … Continue reading An intriguing but frustrating window into Obama’s West Asia policy →
My distinguished colleague and friend Melvin Goodman has had some terrific pieces up at Counterpunch recently, including great, searing critiques of Pres. Biden’s rehabilitation of Eliott Abrams, and of David Ignatius’s latest piece of compacent lunacy regarding Ukraine and Russia. So imagine my surprise when I read Goodman’s latest piece there, in which he proposed … Continue reading A crazy idea (or two) to deal with the Ukraine grain “crisis” →
Back in November, I wrote a bit here on JWN about my struggle to get back to doing my own writing after spending some 12 years of working mainly as an impresario for the work of others. I also wrote about my plan to start a whole new writing project, “to write and publish a … Continue reading Regaining my voice as a writer →
On January 25, the Rand Corporation issued a short-ish study of the conflict in Ukraine, titled “Avoiding a Long War: U.S. Policy and the Trajectory of the Russia-Ukraine Conflict.” The Rand Corporation was initially founded as a think-tank that would provide “Research & Development” (R-and-D) advice to the U.S. military and it still remains strongly, … Continue reading Rand’s latest Ukraine assessment assessed →
The history of World War 1 continues to be eerily relevant today. In 1928, the leftwing British war resister Arthur Ponsonby published a book titled Falsehood in War-Time, Containing an Assortment of Lies Circulated Throughout the Nations During the Great War. Its lessons have massive relevance, that continues until today. In 2001, a leftwing Belgian … Continue reading How to play ‘War Lies Bingo’ →
When I was growing up in England in the 1950s and 1960s, we were all pretty proud of the NHS. It really did a lot to define “British-ness” at a time when the Empire that had done that for previous generations was being unceremoniously sloughed off. At least our generation could be quietly proud that, … Continue reading Britain once swapped an expensive empire for a National Health Service… Today–? →
Hi. I’m just letting everyone here know about my new writing project, Globalities.org. Do check it out. I set it up to be a bit more “serious” and professional-looking than what goes on here at JWN. My plan is to put a new essay onto Globalities each Friday… and meantime I’ll use this space here … Continue reading My new writing project: Globalities.org →
Over the New Year’s break, North Korea’s military test-fired some short-range (350-400 kilometer) ballistic missiles, while the country’s news agency reported that it was testing a new 600 mm multiple rocket launcher system capable of carrying nuclear weapons. On Saturday, the often erratic-seeming North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed his commitment, “to respond with nuke … Continue reading Is North Korea China’s Israel? →
On December 13, the House Financial Services Committee held a long-awaited hearing into the collapse of the FTX crypto empire. FTX’s disgraced former CEO Sam Bankman-Fried could not, as he had hoped to, testify there in person because he was sitting, as Inmate 14-372, in a jail in the Bahamas. Instead, the committee heard an … Continue reading The Egregious Arrogance of Sam Bankman-Fried (& his ilk) →