Archive for afghanistan
Resignation of Afghan central banker puts Western governments on the spot
The resignation and flight to the US of Abdul Qadeer Fitrat, chairman of Afghanistan’s Central Bank, has been accompanied by a wide-ranging set of allegations from him about corruption being behind the near collapse of Kabul Bank. That it itself is not a surprise, as corruption was already widely suspected, but he has also claimed [...]
LibLink: Nick Clegg, the New Statesman interview and crying
The latest edition of the New Statesman has an interview with Nick Clegg, which has mostly garnered attention for the shock news that Nick Clegg is a human being and has been known to cry to music: He is besotted by his “three lovely boys” and is most proud “by a long shot” of the [...]
Inside the Danger Zones: Paul Moorcraft on thirty years of war reporting
Paul Moorcraft’s account of his several decades touring the world’s violent trouble-spots as a journalist and some-time government representative entertains as well as informs. From Rhodesia in the 1970s through to his contemplation of pioneering a niche market in blind observers for African elections in 2010, Moorcraft’s account reflects plenty of the swagger of many [...]
Nick Harvey outlines the UK’s objectives in Afghanistan
Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Liberal Democrat MP Nick Harvey set out the government’s objectives in Afghanistan in a speech he gave during his visit to Denmark this week. He made clear the limits to what the government is now seeking to achieve: We do not seek a perfect Afghanistan, but one [...]
Camp Victory, Afghanistan
Over the weekend I went to see a screening of Camp Victory, Afghanistan. In short, if you get a chance – go see it. What makes the film different from many others about Afghanistan post-2001 was illustrated by a comment from the director in a post-screening Q+A session. Carol Dysinger explained that, unlike many others [...]
How to defeat Al Qaeda
The cover of Bruce Riedel’s The Search for Al Qaeda shows a group of armed men working their way up a hillside overlooking a beautiful valley that stretches away to rolling hills. It captures the wonder and the tragedy of Afghanistan in one frame. The book itself is similarly crisp, packing a wide-ranging history of [...]
It’s not a science journalism problem, it’s a journalism problem
Late last month, Martin Robbins wrote a fantastic spoof of science journalism for the Guardian’s website – This is a news website article about a scientific paper. In his subsequent commentary on the reaction to that spoof he wrote, Science is all about process, context and community, but reporting concentrates on single people, projects and [...]
In the long-run, it’s governments and not insurgents who win
One of the most commonly made comments about insurgencies such as those in Afghanistan or Iraq, and most famously Vietnam, is that in order to win the insurgents simply need to survive. It’s a piece of conventional wisdom challenged in a thoughtful piece in Foreign Affairs, based on looking at 89 insurgencies over the last [...]
The flaw in war reporting from Afghanistan
On Wednesday evening I went to a Frontline Club event titled Who is winning the media war in Afghanistan? and was reminded of the way what journalists call “the kinetic stuff” (that is soldiers and shooting to you and me) dominates mainstream TV footage. The set of clips shown to set the scene at the [...]
The coalition agreement: families & children and foreign affairs
Welcome to the tenth in a series of posts going through the full coalition agreement section by section. You can read the full coalition document here.
If you have been following this series of posts, you’ll be familiar by now with the mix of statements in the families and children section: a strong showing of Liberal Democrat [...]
