It all depends, I think, on whether criminals are our friends (Stalin at the time) or our enemies (Hitler and his fellow Nazis), whether they have their future uses (the Japanese emperor) or whether we’ll get their wealth more easily if they are out of the way (Saddam and Gadhafi).

Related Entries

• February 16, 2012 The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective, Part 2
• February 15, 2012 Will Catholic Bishops and the Religious Right Save Obama?
• February 15, 2012 ‘Colbert Report’: Contraception Crusade
• February 14, 2012 A Religious War Out of Thin Air
• February 13, 2012 Sheldon Adelson: An Anti-Semite’s Dream

Related Entries

• February 18, 2012 Syrian Troops Kill Mourner at Damascus Funeral
• February 15, 2012 White House Isn’t Buying What Syria Is Selling
• February 11, 2012 Syrian General Killed by Gunmen in Damascus
• February 8, 2012 27 Dead as Violence Escalates in Homs
• February 6, 2012 Syrian Army Unleashes Heavy Attack on Homs

Related Entries

• February 13, 2012 All Hades Breaks Loose in Greece
• January 26, 2012 A Unique Face of Evil
• December 31, 2011 Krugman: Austerity Still Doesn’t Work
• December 21, 2011 The Story of the ‘Iranian Schindler’
• December 11, 2011 Quarreling EU

It’s sleek, it’s glossy, it’s in eloquent Arabic, Pashto and Dari, and it pours derision on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan; it is the brand new propaganda wing of the Taliban: not just Internet video of attacks on the Western armies in Helmand and Kandahar, but professionally produced magazines.

Related Entries

• February 17, 2012 Truthdigger of the Week: Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis
• February 15, 2012 The Afghan War’s Nine Lives
• February 10, 2012 Romney’s Overriding Ambition
• February 7, 2012 Europe Decides Not to Play America’s Game
• February 7, 2012 Report Contradicts Obama on Drone Casualties

If you want to know how brutally Pakistan treats its people, you should meet Amina Janjua. An intelligent painter and interior designer, she sits on the vast sofa of her living room in Rawalpindi—a room that somehow accentuates her loneliness—scarf wound tightly round her head, serving tea and biscuits like the middle-class woman she is.

Related Entries

• February 10, 2012 China Jails Dissident for Poem Sent Over Internet
• February 9, 2012 Silent State: Washington’s Campaign Against Whistle-Blowers
• February 7, 2012 Europe Decides Not to Play America’s Game
• February 7, 2012 Report Contradicts Obama on Drone Casualties
• February 6, 2012 Why Russia Just Can’t Quit Syria’s Dictator

The greatest problem of writing historically about the Middle East is that the story has not ended. The war goes on. And both “sides”—actually, there are rather a lot of sides—produce conflicting narratives.

Related Entries

• February 18, 2012 Iran Could Cause Mideast Cold War, U.K. Official Warns
• February 17, 2012 Pay Close Attention to China
• February 16, 2012 The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective, Part 2
• February 15, 2012 Apple’s China Comes Home to Haunt Us
• February 13, 2012 Sheldon Adelson: An Anti-Semite’s Dream

What keeps old men in power in Egypt? And what keeps middle-aged men wanting power in a country whose crippled society, increasing sectarianism, brutal police force and endemic corruption are only compounded by an electoral system widely regarded as a fraud?

Related Entries

• January 11, 2006 Site Preferences
• February 19, 2012 On the Up and Up
• February 17, 2012 Will We Choose a Chinese Future?
• February 15, 2012 White House Isn’t Buying What Syria Is Selling
• February 15, 2012 Congress Might Actually Make a Payroll Tax Deal Soon

The Israeli-Arab conflict is about land. It is about colonies and walls and about binational states and two states and—in the end—about who has power. The Israelis with their eternal American supporters? Or the Palestinians, hopelessly divided and soaked—in Gaza, at least—in corruption and nepotism.

Related Entries

• February 18, 2012 Iran Could Cause Mideast Cold War, U.K. Official Warns
• February 16, 2012 The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective, Part 2
• February 14, 2012 Class vs. Race
• February 13, 2012 Sheldon Adelson: An Anti-Semite’s Dream
• February 13, 2012 Occupy Draws Strength From the Powerless