Mahler's Prodigal Son

This piece in The Independent reflects how all of those who even remotely value transparency in what our so-called leaders do, and lead us into, should more than welcome what WikiLeaks achieved.....rather than concentrating on Assange the individual. As Julian Assange evades arrest by taking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in Knightsbridge to escape extradition to Sweden, and possibly the US, British commentators have targeted him with shrill abuse. They almost froth with rage as they cite petty examples of his supposed gaucheness, egotism and appearance, as if these were criminal faults. These criticisms tell one more about the conventionality and herd instinct of British opinion-makers than they do about Assange. Ignored, in all this, is his achievement as founder of WikiLeaks in publishing US government cables giving people across the world insight into how their governments really behave. Such public knowledge is the core of democracy because voters must be accurately informed...

It has always been the strident Israelis who continue to claim that in the Palestinians they have no partner for peace. It's a hollow cry and one clearly de-bunked in this piece from The Daily Beast. Can fair-minded people really point to anything the Israeli government has been doing in its governing of Palestinians that undermines the chances for peace—I mean, the very peace Israel says it wants a generation from now, when presumably Palestinian society has “matured” politically and conditions have ripened? The answer, sadly, is perhaps the most indicting data to come out in recent years, revealed this past week. Israel has stripped as many as a quarter of a million Palestinians of residency rights over the past generation—but not just any Palestinians. These are mainly the sons and daughters of West Bank and Gaza families who have gone abroad to study for more than seven years, many earning advanced degrees. Take a moment and let this sink in. More than anything, Netanya...

No one could accuse Thomas Friedman, author and op-ed writer for The New York Times, as being anything but an all-American booster of and for his country. It therefore sits more than untidely to read his latest "offering" in the Times dealing with the Arab Spring and where it might be headed. His description of the situation in many Arab countries is doubtlessly correct, but hey, weren't the Americans the biggest supporters of these corrupt and thug-like leaders, etc. etc? If there is one thought that summarizes the strength and weakness of the Arab awakenings, it’s the one offered by Daniel Brumberg, a co-director of the democracy and governance studies program at Georgetown University, who observed that the Arab awakenings happened because the Arab peoples stopped fearing their leaders — but they stalled because the Arab peoples have not stopped fearing each other. This dichotomy is no surprise. That culture of fear was exactly what the dictators fed off of a...

The West, whipped along principally by the US and Israel, has Iran in its sights because it seeks to establish a nuclear capacity. Ignore, for the moment, that Israel is said to have a very substantial nuclear armory. But, is Iran the real threat to the world as some of the West's leaders would have us believe? It's more than a valid question- and one taken up by Gideon Rachman writing in The Financial Times Yet it is Iran’s non-existent nukes that continue to obsess the west. Diplomats have spent so long trying to stop Iran that I get the impression they no longer even ask themselves why it is such a high priority. Press them, and you will get explanations about the dangers of a Middle Eastern arms race and Iran’s regional ambitions. Interestingly, few seem to take seriously the idea that Israel often evokes – that Iran might actually commit nuclear genocide. Western concerns are valid. But, in themselves, they do not seem compelling enough to explain the desperate...

Let it not be said that there aren't at least some principled Members of the US Congress to call the drone attacks, now widely used by the Americans, for what they are - "illegal" under international law and their continued use a "journey into moral depravity". From The Bureau of Investigative Journalism : Kucinich has viewed America’s targeted killings programme against alleged terrorists with alarm for some years. Recently he has agitated for the United States to be open about its covert wars, and for Congress to assert its right to declare war – or not – in places like Pakistan and Yemen. And Kucinich, twice a Presidential primary contender, is also trying to introduce a Bill that would outlaw the assassination of American citizens by US agencies like the CIA. On the day that the Bureau spoke with him, a UN expert in Geneva had just labeled a CIA drone tactic used in Pakistan as ‘a war crime’. We began by asking him about the implications: Dennis Kucini...

Whilst we sit down and watch our TV news bulletin or read the latest news in a newspaper or on line, the sobering fact is that journalist's lives are very often on the line. The Columbia Review of Journalism has the facts. With 72 journalists killed so far this year, 2012 is on pace to be the deadliest on record, the International Press Institute (IPI) announced here on Sunday. The media freedom organization’s executive director, Alison Bethel McKenzie, choked up and struggled to speak as she addressed the group’s annual conference. “From Somalia to Syria, the Philippines to Mexico, and Iraq to Pakistan, reporters are being brutally targeted for death in unparalleled numbers,” she said. The most lethal year so far in the 15 that IPI has been keeping records was 2009, when 110 journalists died. Last year was the second worst, with 102 deaths. Syria, where peaceful protests have turned into a violent civil war, has been the most dangerous country in 2012, with 20 profess...

Seen today in Croatia: No. 1: On a T-shirt - "I don't need Google......My husband knows everything". make of that what you will..... and No. 2: The please service the room type sign to hang on the door handle outside the room with not just the mundane "Please make up the room" but rather "We went out to seize the day". A great sentiment, especially on vacation.