Information firehose

It’s stating the obvious, and hardly unprecedented, but the information firehose around the invasion of Ukraine makes it profoundly difficult to find what is significant and what is not, at least on news websites like that of the Guardian. Aside from the never-ending op-eds (‘The cold war terrors are back and generation X finally has […]

Stormy weather

This morning Russia invaded Ukraine. Is this the start of something new? In the past years of growing fragility and certainties shaken, it has felt as though we are ratchetting up to catastrophic breakdown. It this it? Or is it a story and actually history just keeps going and there is no cataclysmic moment? Two […]

American obcenity

The day after I read the impassioned, clear and very rational testimony from David Miliband and Graeme Smith at the US Senate about the necessity of allowing Afghanistan’s economy to restart, not least by releasing its central bank funds with appropriate conditionalities, I saw the news that the White House had decided to release its […]

Sick at heart

Afghanistan continues to leave one sick at heart. Today, aside from everything else that has happened in the past days, is the news that a British man got out with scores of animals from his animal shelter, on what must have been one of the last few flights. Aside from leaving countless journalists, working women, […]

The Fall

So, the fall, more quickly than anyone seems to have expected, even the Taliban. Their return feels unbelievable, the end of an era that began on 9/11 and that for those of our age defined our understanding of the world. Certainly without 9/11 my life would have been different as I doubt the GF would […]

Watching history

Watching Afghanistan gives a true sense of history unfolding, even in my lifetime. I was born around the time the Soviets entered Afghanistan. In my earliest memories the war next door was a fact of life and its effects were barely noticed because they just were. Then there are the memories of the Soviets leaving, […]

Horrors returning

Afghanistan falls, bit by bit to the Taliban. What was the point of the past 20 years? Pakistan bears so much guilt which will never be acknowledged or accepted. It was a bad situation, yes, but I can’t believe the decisions made were the right ones for anyone – not Pakistan, not Afghanistan. There is […]