The Russian invasion of Ukraine has ushered the Western world into an innovative moment of history managed by the media, who aim at nothing less than erasing the public’s perception of history and historical processes. Welcome to the age of nonstop...
In a recent webinar titled, “Recognition of the Taliban as a Legitimate Government of Afghanistan,” a participant asked me which constitution is currently in place and the status of the Afghan Constitution from 2004? I couldn’t answer because the status of the constitution was still unclear. In August 2021, the Taliban came to power in Afghanistan through unconstitutional means. They initially did not establish a new government or issue a...
More than a century ago, the Russians and the British played the Great Game for the control of Afghanistan. Immortalized in Rudyard Kipling’s “Kim,” this game defined three generations of soldiers, spies and diplomats. As the remarkable Rory Stewart records, the Great Game never ended. The Soviets and the Americans carried on where the Russians and the British left. Now, a new great game is about to begin. Is Afghanistan Going to Break Apart? READ...
Released just before Christmas on Netflix, Adam McKay’s “Don’t Look Up” instantly became the most talked about movie of 2021. The professional film critics immediately weighed in, mostly with unfavorable reviews. By the following week, the reviews were being reviewed. “Don’t Look Up” had taken on the status of an event rather than a piece of entertainment or a work of art. The reason for this curious phenomenon, similar to...
The Green New Deal is a progressive wish list that combines the reduction of carbon emissions with investments in Green technologies and Green jobs. In the United States, the Green New Deal has largely remained aspirational: a non-binding resolution that has not yet come to a vote in Congress. In South Korea, on the other hand, the Green New Deal is a policy reality. In 2020, the ruling Democratic Party...
The Biden presidency is still in its early days, but it’s not too early to point to areas in the foreign policy realm where we, as progressives, have been disappointed — or even infuriated. There are one or two positive developments, such as the renewal of Barack Obama's New START Treaty with Russia and Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s initiative for a UN-led peace process in Afghanistan, where the United...
Ivermectin is an excellent drug, at least as long as you happen to be a horse or a cow or some other livestock. If you are a patient infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, not so much. As the American Food and Drug Administration admonished earlier this year via Twitter, “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” In the United States these days, this...
There is no question about it: Our planet is warming faster than ever before. Having plateaued around 280 parts per million for thousands of years, global CO2 emissions have shot past 400 ppm at the end of the last decade, an atmospheric rise set in motion by the 18th-century Industrial Revolution. Human activity in its myriad modes of creative destruction has led to a global average temperature rise between 1.1˚C and 1.2˚C...
