How does one argue with pure, abstracted irrationality? Facts. Logic. Consistency. By definition they all fail. Emotion? Anger, sarcasm, tears: all may help you get your points across. But the very fact that you are displaying emotion amounts to a concession to irrationality – a surrender to illogic. A realisation that you […]
The text of the Libya UNSCR is here. Key point as Sir J Greenstock has just pointed out on Radio Four is this (emphasis added): Authorizes Member States that have notified the Secretary-General, acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements, and acting in cooperation with the Secretary-General, to take […]
Here’s something I sent to the Evening Standard – not sure if they used any of it: Perhaps the most difficult moral and legal question of our time is this one: “who is my neighbour?” Domestic law has moved a long way from an earlier tradition that what went […]
“Where the Americans?” That’s the sixty-four-dollar question. Chaos in Egypt: “Where are the Americans?” Gadaffi in Libya: “Where are the Americans?” Devastation in Japan: “Where are the Americans?” I am in London for a few days. At a dinner party last night, that was once again the question: “Where are […]
Back from Belgrade. Mixed feelings. The city has stagnated since I was last there a few years ago. Some snazzy new buildings, but most of the place looks to be gloomy, poor and crumbling. The authorities have utterly failed to mobilise national business energy and SMEs, and instead are busy squeezing anything which still […]
The agonies continue at the LSE over the fact that it took Libyan money. Here is the sensible memo which an unhappy Fred Halliday wrote on the subject in October 2009. It reads quite well now. Here briskly defending what New Labour did by way of opening up to Libya is […]
My old classmate from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Jay Pollard, is still well and truly locked up for espionage. Mention his name at Fletcher and everyone looks away, nervously. What, was he here? Surely not. He never graduated? So how can he have been here? Yet there […]
The Guardian gives us a handy reminder on Uprising Etiquette: A senior member of Benghazi’s revolutionary council told Martin: "they were carrying espionage equipment, reconnaissance equipment, multiple passports and weapons. This is no way to conduct yourself during an uprising. Gaddafi is bringing in thousands of mercenaries to kill us, most […]
Here is Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski yesterday in Washington: Events in the Middle East show that we are fast entering a new phase in the spread of democracy, or at least a new pluralism. People living under dictatorships are finding out who they are. They are realising that the […]
Just back from being interviewed by BBC TV for the News at 2200 tonight (and for the BBC News Channel) on the Libyan drama, and in particular what options exist for Western policy-makers. The BBC had picked up my piece here yesterday giving a range of policy options. My formal claim […]
