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6+1 Questions about ANATOMY OF TORTURE
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Recent Posts
What, Me Worry? The Trump Administration and Pandemic Preparedness
Imagine if your town had been especially fire prone with fires that threatened to spread to the rest of the city. City officials created a fire prevention fund for nearly 40 parts of town prone to...
Donald Trump is trying to refute my new book before it’s even come out.
The past week has not been a good one for global health. What gives? I can only come up with one explanation: the Trump Administration is doing its darnedest to disprove the argument in my new book....
The legacy of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf: Why ‘great inspiration’ is not quite enough
A co-authored post by Dr Leena Vastapuu and Dr Maria Martin de Almagro. The first elected woman head of state in Africa, President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, has just stepped down from her office in...
More Recent Posts
“Courageous Restraint” Medal
NATO is considering a medal for soldiers who display "courageous restraint" in their use of lethal force to save civilian lives. According to CNN,"Although no decisions have been made on the award itself, the idea is consistent with our strategic approach," Sholtis said. "Our young men and women...
The War at Home
Is this another step in the ongoing "war" between the southwest US and Mexico? or is it, more ominously, a shift to a military approach to the war on terror at home? or is it...well, just Texas?
The (Final!) Johnny Foreigner’s Guide to the UK Election: (Insert ‘well hung-parliament’ joke here.)
Well, the entire UK General election and transition came and went in less time than it took to do a US Presidential transition. While the ending was a little bumpy with the “hung parliament” result but a full, formal coalition government has been formed and it is no longer ‘anarchy in the UK’....
How Wars End: V.E. Day 65 Years On
I will be writing more on the outcome of the British election soon, but for now I thought that I would post in recognition of the fact that it’s the 65th anniversary of V.E. Day. (You know, in that whole World War II thing that pretty much allows Britain - and most of Europe - to have elections in...
Watching Hunger
I finally took the time (and found the courage) to watch Steve McQueen's "Hunger" (2008). It is the story of the events that led to the 1981 Irish hunger strike at Maze Prison in which Bobby Sands and nine other men died. The film is hauntingly beautiful from an aesthetic standpoint and horrifying...
Headlines
It is all a matter of how you spin it I guess:1. "Pentagon Report Shows Afghanistan Violence Up 87 Percent, Support for Karzai Low" Fox News, 29 April 2010.2. "Pentagon says Instability has 'Leveled Off'" Washington Post, 29 April 2010.3. "Encouraging trends in Afghanistan despite rise in...
The Johnny Foreigner’s Guide to the UK Election Part III – Cursing old ladies edition
I’ve been getting surprisingly decent feedback on these posts. Some of my colleagues at work (who know more about democracy and elections than I do) have said that they felt that they were not entirely wrong or embarrassing so I’ve decided to stick with it until it’s all over next week – and then...
Professor Fred Halliday
I was alerted this morning to the death of Professor Fred Halliday. Halliday, who specialized in the Middle East and was very much a legend around the London School of Economics. I was fortunate enough to be in one of the last classes of MSc students who sat through his IR theory lectures. These...
Brutality and Counter-insurgency
Recently, while discussing the war in Afghanistan with a conflict studies program in the mid-west, I had a rather odd debate with a leftist professor who was devil's advocating what he claimed was a "neo-conservative" position (based on some of his recent interaction with naval officers and RAND...
The Johnny Foreigner’s Guide to the UK Election Part II – The Second Great Debate
I’m planning on writing a larger post on the topic after the Second Election Debate tonight – particularly since it is going to be about UK Foreign policy (and, in theory, more or less related to the topics of this blog...)In the mean time if you haven’t been paying attention, the election has...
My plans for the weekend
Garzon’s Reign in Spain Falls with Mainly Who to Blame?
It was announced last week that Judge Bathazar Garzon will be investigated for over stepping his authority for knowingly taking on a case that was outside of his jurisdiction. Garzon is, of course, famous for indicting Chile’s General Pinochet for crimes against humanity in the 1990s which lead to...