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John Mearsheimer
Mr. Mearsheimer, who is a prominent expert on international relations, cf. Britannica, has been relatively uncommunicative since 2022, after the war he had warned about ever since 2014, started. Maybe he did not want to tell us “I told you so”. Or was his case perhaps one of not being allowed to tell us? Like…
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Quoting Kissinger
To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous. To be a friend of the United States is fatal” Henry Kissinger Indeed. In the wake of the Ukraine debacle, many of us are beginning to understand the statement. Here in Europe, all states, including Ukraine, are seeing an unprecedented rise in the cost of…
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Five minutes of foreign policy
What’s going on in Niger? I wonder. My next thought is: How strange the press is! Today, I’ve checked AP, Reuters and Al Jazeera – these are the most common sources that feed local papers in the West about situations in places to which a news outlet may not be able to send its own…
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On antisemitism in the West
So, the British Labour Party has barred Jeremy Corbyn from running as Labour’s candidate in the next election on the grounds of – of all things – antisemitism. Corbyn’s, that is. The dethroning of Corbyn has allowed Keir Starmer to take his place and he, Starmer, is certainly neither willing nor able to rally opposition…
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La semana trágica
No language can compete with Spanish when it comes to heartbreaking titles (surely you will admit that “The tragic week” isn’t up to much). There must be hundreds, if not thousands, of tragic weeks scattered throughout the pages of history, even (or rather, not least) recent history, yet my search engine only returns results from…
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Prayer for Africa
What are the headlines in your country? I bet one of today’s biggest headlines in your country is the same as in my country: about the implosion of a small vessel somewhere off the coast of Canada. It had a handful of passengers, it is true, and to their families, we of course offer our…
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The Great Divide
The other night I had a terrible argument with a couple whom I consider particularly close friends. They were spending the weekend at my place, and we had enjoyed two lovely days, when in the evening, I unwittingly stepped on a sore toe. Now, I had been very careful not to even mention Ukraine; in…
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What enlightenment is not
Yep, artificial intelligence and Wikipedia have already met, I fear. Or are the automatons at work human? Diligent cancelists? At any rate, things are starting to happen, awful things reminiscent of noxious chemical reactions. The other day, I looked up Helsinki Times in Wikipedia. The first paragraph read: Helsinki Times is the first English language…
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Back to Palestine
While the war in Ukraine has engulfed most of our attention, the plight of Palestinians in Gaza, the occupied territories, and Jerusalem has grown dramatically worse. Almost every day, one or multiple Palestinians are killed. The paragraph I just wrote is no different from what you might read in any mainstream paper. What is missing…
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Suggested reading
Article by Jacob Siegel: A Guide to Understanding the Hoax of the CenturyThirteen ways of looking at disinformation Though the title may seem sensationalist, the contents of this profound and illuminating analysis are not. If you prefer to just get a gist of what Jacob Siegel wrote, you can turn to Glenn Greenwald’s interview of…