Tag: critical theory

The security council has allowed unchecked power and brutality. To protect peace, we must reform the UN

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva Every violation of international law invites the next. From Afghanistan to Iran, and across Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Gaza and Venezuela, the line between what is permitted and what is prohibited has been steadily blurred by the complicit inaction of the UN security council. Wielding the veto as both a… Read More The security council has allowed unchecked power and brutality. To protect peace, we must reform the UN

Dilip

Wittgenstein’s Apocalypse

AI and the crisis of meaning Alexander Stern “It isn’t absurd,” the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in 1947, “to believe that the age of science and technology is the beginning of the end for humanity.” The proposition is looking less absurd by the day: AI may eventually turn on us; industrialization has turned the planet… Read More Wittgenstein’s Apocalypse

Dilip

Grotesque priorities

Mukul Kesavan NB: The irredeemable racism of the Anglo-American establishment is on full display in the observations of the Chief Editor of The Economist. They remind me of the phrase “life unworthy of life” (Lebensunwertes Leben), the Nazi designation for those human beings who, according to Hitler and Co., had no right to live. Well… Read More Grotesque priorities

Dilip

Vietnam, Afghanistan and the 2026 Iran meat grinder: Why owning the sky is a death trap – and how this war will end an Empire

You can own the roof, but the guy in the basement has the shotgun, and the house is made of solid rock. by Mark A. Shryock – Copyright © Mark A. Shryock The history of modern warfare is defined by a persistent, expensive, and often fatal misunderstanding: the belief that controlling the sky is equivalent… Read More Vietnam, Afghanistan and the 2026 Iran meat grinder: Why owning the sky is a death trap – and how this war will end an Empire

Dilip

Israel’s Enduring Colonial Project in Palestine

Mehmet Rakipoglu Exeter, UK (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Debates about Palestine in the Western academia often portray contemporary Israeli policies as exceptional responses to security ‘threats’ or regional instability. Yet a longer historical perspective suggests a deeper structural continuity: the persistence of colonial logic under evolving institutional and discursive forms. From the British… Read More Israel’s Enduring Colonial Project in Palestine

Dilip

A grey silence

Governments that mutely line up behind the US as it prosecutes a sinister, illegal war that threatens to destroy their citizens’ ability to cook and eat aren’t rational actors, they are lemmings… Narendra Modi and his partymen are attracted to Israel’s fanatical, anti-Muslim Zionism because it has achieved the disenfranchisement and apartheid that Hindutva aspires… Read More A grey silence

Dilip

Tearing up the map

NB: ‘Lebensraum’ as national policy; racism, genocidal complicity amongst vast sections of the Western population; total contempt for both morality and international law; limitless expansion of territory by force; the politics of permanent emergency (as per Carl Schmitt); the embrace of bloodlust and cruelty as markers of virtue rather than emblems of evil – all… Read More Tearing up the map

Dilip

Limits of spectacle: Modi’s foreign policy contradictions exposed

Under Modi, India has chosen dependence as a strategic choice. But from Nehru to Manmohan Singh, India displayed a fiercely independent foreign policy and autonomy. Bharat Bhushan As Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s global image erodes, he cannot as easily dodge accountability for domestic governance as he did earlier by projecting his larger-than-life capers on the world stage.… Read More Limits of spectacle: Modi’s foreign policy contradictions exposed

Dilip