When you’re at war, it’s perfectly understandable that you’ll mourn your own losses, both military and civilian, you’ll rejoice in the losses of the enemy’s combatants, and you’ll pretty much ignore his ‘collateral’ losses, which before and since have been a… Read More ›
Afghanistan
THE REPUBLIC OF GILEAD
In the Morgentaler Decision (1988), the Supreme Court of Canada very wisely did an end-run around the metaphysical status of the foetus and chose instead to decriminalize abortion on the grounds that variability in access violated the constitution’s equal protection… Read More ›
A TALE OF TWO CITIES
Salvador Allende was elected President of Chile in 1970 with about a third of the popular vote. Though lionized in places like U of C Berkeley, his popularity never did improve in Chile. Alas, a prophet is never honoured in… Read More ›
COLLABORATORS NEVER LEARN
When a foreign army invades and occupies your country, you need to compare the short-term payoff for collaboration with the probability of being executed by the resistance, or by your countrymen if and when the occupier is driven out. Assurances… Read More ›
THE FORTHCOMING FALL OF KABUL
When the Americans overthrew the Taliban in 2001 the latter were given the same advice that was given to the Vietcong when the Americans sent their ‘advisors’ into Saigon in the early ’60’s. Stay militarily relevant and wait. Fifteen years… Read More ›
MYANMAR, BELARUS, XINJIANG, AND ALABAMA
I can’t help wondering what Americans would do if Alabama decided to reinstate black slavery. People who are about to do something the international community is bound to regard as beyond the rights of sovereignty – the military coup in… Read More ›
THE BOUNTY STORY
During the 1980s, the U.S. financed, armed, and trained the Mujahideen in what proved to be their successful campaign to drive the Soviets out of Afghanistan. In other words, they paid the Mujahideen to kill Soviet soldiers. The Taliban, which… Read More ›
IN DEFENCE … NO, MAKE THAT IN PRAISE, OF OMAR KHADR
Here’s a newsflash for all those American servicemen serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. And for their wives. When you enlist in a nation’s armed forces, there’s an understanding that at some point you may be asked to go off somewhere… Read More ›
Paulosophical Vimplications 