Back to reality: the beginning of the end to top-down measures in Iraq

First published March 5 2009

A small selection of the most distinguished British and American writers, such as Christopher Hitchens and David Aaronovitch, felt tremendously betrayed at the time of George W. Bush’s decision to surge Iraq and get rid of Saddam Hussein.

Why, they asked, were portions of the left, to which they once bestowed so much trust, so blind to see that UK and US forces in Iraq could curb sectarian violence, install democracy in significantly undemocratic regions of the Middle East, and, most vitally, save the progressive and trade unionist comrades who suffer enormous persecution under Hussein? (continue)

The New Radical Establishment

First posted January 14 2009

In a statement that buttresses so-called Tory “modernisation,” David Cameron recently called for the ‘day of reckoning’ against bankers who triggered the economic crisis, saying that the nation’s modest earners – “nurses and cleaners and [sic] teachers” – should not have to fund the “multi-billion pound taxpayer bail-out of the banks” adding “[t]here cannot be one law for the rich and another for everyone else.” (continue)