The 15th Century take on ShrekA friend of mine linked to a fabulous post by Lindy West at the Guardian “The Five Most Pathetic Female Film Characters of All Time”. Okay, not the most inspiring International Women’s Day post. But if I’m honest with you, I think she’s spot on with her list (although I haven’t seen Twilight so I can’t really judge that... but it seems to confirm everything I’ve heard about Bella.)There is nothing worse than a...
Not so much.Lawfare blog has a post on today’s Executive Order on Guantanamo Bay. (Link to the Obama administration's fact sheet PDF here). Lawfare tends to be more conservative than most international law blogs, but it’s excellent and an absolute must-read for keeping up-to-date on all things law, national security and the war on terror. (Or as I like to call it, Saturday night!) There’s some good commentary on the refusal of Congress to help...
Is NATO headed for all the attendant risks (via) of a Libya no-fly zone, but with implementation after it would prove most effective? Also, at what point does a Civil War last long enough that it is okay for a third party to start directly arming its preferred side?
To me, the high point of academic blogging is putting out a request for insight to readers on a specific problem and crowd-sourcing a wealth of useful feedback that helps me be better at what I do than I would have been had I gone with my gut. Sometimes these blegs are about research and sometimes about teaching, and sometimes about how to wade through the backwash of scholarly life without getting too dirty. I want to thank everyone who...
So this email arrived my mailbox yesterday:Hi Mr. Carpenter, I am a fourth year college student and I have the honor of reading one of your books and I just had a few questions... I am very fascinated by your work and I am just trying to understand everything. Can you please address some of my questions? I would greatly appreciate it. It certainly help me understand your wonderful article better. Thank you very much! :) Sincerely, [NAME...
It is impossible to know at this point whether there is any connection between these two disturbing events reported yesterday: NATO forces’ mistaken killing of nine boys gathering firewood in Afghanistan; and, a few hours later, the killing of two American soldiers at Frankfurt airport, apparently by a Muslim man of Kosovar origin. We do know that other terror suspects have stated that they acted in response to U.S. policies in the GWOT, in...
Adam Jones and Augusta del Zotto made this case years ago, and so have I. Glad to note the New York Times has finally taken notice by publishing Lara Stemple's excellent op-ed: AS disturbing new reports of male rape in Congo made clear, wartime sexual violence isn’t limited to women and girls. But in its ongoing effort to eradicate rape during conflict, the United Nations continues to overlook a significant imperative: ending wartime sexual...
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1970 is a pretty amazing document. Over the last few days I’ve found myself trying to decide if this a rare example of the UN Security Council doing what it was originally designed to do – or an example of an international organization working because there is a relatively powerless state with no allies involved. I suspect it’s probably both. Still, I’ve been following The Multilateralist blog over at...
For those interested, Tinariwen was profiled in Steve Chandra Savale's six-part documentary on Music of Resistance that aired on AlJazeera English back in 2009. It provides a brief history of the Tuaregs and of the band:
Many of the "mercenaries" fighting on behalf of Gaddafi's regime in Libya are ethnic Tuaregs who fled conflicts in Mali and Niger in the 1970s and 1980s. In 1980, Gaddafi began encouraging the young Tuareg men -- illegally residing in Libya -- to join military service as "African regiments" within the Libyan military. The general reputation of the Tuareg are as fierce and brutal fighters and they appear to be the "foreign mercenaries" in many...
Building on Dan's observation this past week, Theo McLauchlin is a PhD student at McGill University offers us some insights on the role of the military in the various Arab revolutions we're witnessing. He works in the area of military defections and civil wars.Which Middle Eastern regimes seem liable to fall? That's a popular question these days, and an important answer, as Dan Nexon points out, is that it depends on each country's armed...
Suspected Mercenaries in LibyaI really do more things than tweeting, but this morning I got up to find that the ICRC had sent out a message that simply stated the title of the Convention of the OAU for the Elimination of Mercenarism in Africa. Libreville, 3rd July 1977 and a link to the treaty. I can only assume they're doing it in response to the situation in Libya where it has been alleged that Gaddafi has been using mercenaries (from Chad?...