Author: Dilip

I'm a scholar, writer and teacher; and my blog is designed for intellectual exploration. It carries no advertisements and requires no cash subscription

Reuters Analysis-One week into Iran war, the dangers for the US and Trump multiply

By Matt Spetalnick and Andrea Shalal WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) – One week into the U.S.-Israeli war against Iran that has plunged the Middle East into turmoil, President Donald Trump faces a growing list of risks and challenges that raise questions about whether he will be able to translate military successes into a clear geopolitical… Read More Reuters Analysis-One week into Iran war, the dangers for the US and Trump multiply

Dilip

Literary Celebrity, Mussolini’s Mouthpiece, and American Traitor: Who Was Ezra Pound?

Stephen Harding on the Modernist Poet and His Fascist Politics By the spring of 1939, the widely acknowledged dean of Anglo-American Modernist poetry, fifty-three-year-old Ezra Pound, had lived in Europe for three decades. After leaving the United States in 1908 at the age of twenty- three, the poet had initially settled in London, then moved… Read More Literary Celebrity, Mussolini’s Mouthpiece, and American Traitor: Who Was Ezra Pound?

Dilip

It’s Astonishing How Israelis Can Identify Cruel, Evil Regimes, but Just Not Their Own

Hanin Majadli Israelis believe that Israel and the U.S. are fighting for democracy, freedom and human rights in Iran, but if human rights were their guiding principle, the state of affairs would not be as it is in the West Bank, and the Gaza war would not have reached the dimensions of genocide. There are… Read More It’s Astonishing How Israelis Can Identify Cruel, Evil Regimes, but Just Not Their Own

Dilip

India’s strategic autonomy faces its acid test in West Asia / ये विषगुरू ने अमेरिका से इजाजत मांगी ही क्यों

NB: The BJP/RSS rulers shout from the rooftops about their ‘deshbhakti’ (nation-worship); and the iron will of their leaders. But their foreign policy – unlike Nehruvian non-alignment – has always been guided by a hatred of socialism coupled with pro-Western alliances. They supported the American imperialist aggression in Vietnam as a ‘dharm-yuddha‘ or holy war.… Read More India’s strategic autonomy faces its acid test in West Asia / ये विषगुरू ने अमेरिका से इजाजत मांगी ही क्यों

Dilip

The Banal Acts of a Nation That Citizens Have Grown to Fear / ‘You are making me an outsider’: Bishop’s College principal questions EC roll revision

What lakhs of citizens of India are undergoing with SIR is, to borrow from the political theorist Hannah Arendt, “fearsome, word-and-thought-defying.” Suraj Gogoi Sitting at the edge of the Arabian Sea, I, like many others who were gathered on the warm afternoon at the Kozhikode Literature Festival on January 24, 2026, had the good fortune… Read More The Banal Acts of a Nation That Citizens Have Grown to Fear / ‘You are making me an outsider’: Bishop’s College principal questions EC roll revision

Dilip

Domination and chaos: India’s radical conservatism

By Dilip Simeon Ideology is the most devilish variation of the lie: Hannah Arendt To speak of reaction is to counterpose it with progress. This terminology is not helpful. Stable issues of political life, such as legitimate authority, justice, transparent government, clarity on the means vs ends problem; along with issues of character such as… Read More Domination and chaos: India’s radical conservatism

Dilip

An Aesthete at War

Ernst Junger (1895-1998): Jünger found his countrymen’s discriminatory treatment of French Jews unacceptable. In his Parisian diaries, the writer wrote on 7 June 1942 that he had encountered for the first time the yellow star carried by three little girls who were passing by in the Rue Royale, and that he considered that day as fundamental in his personal history,… Read More An Aesthete at War

Dilip

How many countries has the US bombed since 2001, and how much has it cost?

Since 9/11, the US has engaged in three full-scale wars, bombing at least 10 countries under four presidents By Marium Ali Despite promising to end United States involvement in costly and destructive foreign wars, President Donald Trump, together with Israel, has launched a massive military assault on Iran, targeting its leadership and nuclear and missile infrastructure.… Read More How many countries has the US bombed since 2001, and how much has it cost?

Dilip

America’s Abyss of Uselessness

The ‘indispensble nation‘ marches on, toward a sinkhole of crashed empires, killing and maiming along the way ++++++++++++++++++++ Self-shafting America Homeland Empire Unsolicited thoughts from an elder citizen Natalia Ginzburg: Our Monstrous Ideas Biblical Archaeology and the Judeo-Christian legends / The Deconstruction of the Walls of Jericho Zionism Breaks Hundreds of prominent Jews and Israelis urge world powers to… Read More America’s Abyss of Uselessness

Dilip