Tag: politics
Do something
In fifty years, we’re going to look back at the first half of the 21st century and remember again that the Syrian crisis—the apex of larger regional and international conflicts—was the defining struggle of a...
Not my voice
The final speech of the Republican National Convention painted a bleak, Blade Runner-version of America. The only solution, according to Trump, is himself. “Nobody knows the system better than me, which is why I alone...
Come November, I’m voting for democracy
Here is the bottom line: Donald Trump does not represent the ideals of democracy. He is an authoritarian egoist, a celebrity of insolence, a self-made cult of personality. Many of the values he openly professes...
Syria in summary – February 2016
The third attempt at a peace conference in Geneva pretty much started off already on a downhill slide. The opposition, championed by the Saudi-founded High Negotiations Committee, was immediately irritated by an unprecedented uptick in...
Against Humanity
You hear the term “crimes against humanity” and imagine a whole movie reel of the most horrible atrocities ever committed by human hands. You draw up images of naked, starving, rail-thin children screaming in concentration...
How to make 2016 a better year for Syria
The city of Qamishli in northeastern Syria closed out 2015 with explosions. They weren’t fireworks. They were the blasts of a car bomb outside a popular café. Thirteen people were killed, mostly young men and...
Syria in summary – January 2016
An estimated one million refugees crossed the Mediterranean to Europe in 2015, but the brief open-door sentiment captained by a German government newly-alert to the severity of the refugee crisis at its doorstep is already beginning...
Stay in the Middle East loop. Read these.
1. ‘I wish I could die’: Meeting the man who helped trigger the Arab Spring – Clemens Höges, Spiegel Online International, Jan. 21 “The acts of desperation quickly transformed into a political hurricane. It swept along Africa’s...
Better than words
Much braying about the moral health of the country has gone firing across the social corral in the last week. From all sides fly cries of victory and defeat, right and wrong, absolutes bellowed with...
What you should know about the brief wondrous career of Aaron Schock
Seven years ago, Aaron Schock was positively chipper. At 27 years old, he was the youngest representative elected to Congress — and the first congressman born in the 1980s. He wore pastel ties and overused...