June 2003

The deaths of the 6 military policemen in al-Amara have pointed up just how dangerous and – especially- unpredictable Iraq has become. Despite the weird, heroic old-empire nature of the incident – the last stand in the police station against a thousand-strong armed mob – it shows yet again how politically and technically poor the…

Read More Reconstruction and Security in Iraq

There’s been a certain amount of terror porn concerning an aeroplane stolen in Angola, which major media have recently picked up on as a supposed “9/11 plot”. But the story isn’t new, and the reality may be much less dramatic. This was the first report I saw of it, on the 28th of May. Aviation-related…

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Well, I suppose I really ought to write something vaguely connected to the aims of this blog….. The reshuffle furore demonstrated a very good political rule, which is that doing something wrong in the right way scores many more points than doing the right thing the wrong way. A paradox which is important at the…

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