The Duck of Minerva

Photo: Bahraini women chant anti-government slogans during a mourning procession for Qassim Habib, 8, in Manama, Bahrain on Jan. 30, 2013. Clashes erupted after the procession for the boy, who opposition groups say died from respiratory problems triggered by heavy tear gas. [Credit : Hasan Jamali/AP] Good mornin' here's your linkage... West Asia style: Manama: Sheikh Ali Salman, the leader of the Al-Wefaq opposition party, is "hopeful" about the appointment of John Kerry as Secretary of State.  Salman was optimistic that Kerry would "do more than his predecessor."  Could he do less? Doha: So...

North Korea Bruce Cumings' 2005 LRB article "We Look at It and See Ourselves" surely remains one of the best short articles on the Korean peninsula ever written.  It is probably worth a revisit as tensions ramp up again. Paul Gottinger provided a good background piece on "South Korea's New Boss" in Counterpunch. Charles Armstrong, the Director of the Center for Korean Research at Columbia, blogs at CNN's GPS on "Why Sticks Don't Work With North Korea" Afghanistan A US Marine Captain reflects: "I killed people in Afghanistan. Was I right or wrong?" A review of Dalrymple's Return of a King:...

In honor of the drum major for peace, here's your (rather abbreviated) MLK Holiday edition of Monday morning linkage: Some reactions to Zero Dark Thirty are, well ... rather predictable... since Islamophobia has become the tolerated form of bigotry in the West and particularly in 'Merica. Novelist, Teju Cole, writes Seven [Really, Really] Short Stories about Drones on Twitter.  Zack Beauchamp doesn't really get it.  Not boring and nuanced enough.  FFS it's a series of tweets! .... By the way don't tell him about Daisy Rockwell's Little Book of Terror. Hamid Dabashi asks "Can Non-Europeans...

Good mornin', here's your morning linkage... Mali Pascal Fletcher provides a good analysis of the challenges ahead for the French-led intervention in Mali. Angelique Chrisafis also examines the domestic stakes and neo-colonial implications of Mr. Hollande's War. Saudi Arabia The Saudi government beheaded a maid, who was a minor employed for two weeks when a child in her care died.  She was tried without legal representation.  Executing a minor is a violation of the Convention on the Rights of the Child to which Saudi Arabia is a signatory. Forty-five other maids are on death row, some for...

Now that your holiday shopping is (hopefully) all done, relax, and enjoy these thoughts on our global capitalist society... Development/capitalism and its discontents... Ever the drum-major for capitalism, the World Bank's End Poverty in South Asia blog tells us the miraculous story of how Japanese consumers helped bring elephants back to an Indian forest. The Private Sector Development blog discusses the role of angel investors in the developing world. [So venture capitalists call themselves angels now?] Margaret Wente argues that consumerism is good for the soul, while buying a scarf that...

Good morning... here's your Monday roundup... US & Europe The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) found that Macedonian officials handed an (innocent) German citizen over to American officials who sodomized and tortured him in the presence of Macedonian officials and on Macedonian soil.  Something to ponder as you watch Zero Dark Thirty. Central/South Asia Afghanistan: The AAN Network's S. Reza Kazemi discusses whether threats of a spillover of armed conflict into Central Asia are being exaggerated by Afghanistan's northern neighbors. Ajai Shukla's Broadsword Blog provides an excellent...

Morning Ducks! Here's your Monday morning round-up: South Asia: The US has informed the UN, in compliance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, that the US military detained more than 200 teens for about a year at a time on average in a military prison next to Bagram Airfield.  Most of the children were around age 16 but some were as young as 11.  The youth were kept in the general facility for "enemy combatants" population.  Under the Bush administration, 2,500 youth were detained by the US military in Iraq. In related troubling news, a US military official contended that "Some...

Good morning, Happy Veteran's Day. In this 100% Petraeus-free edition of morning linkage, we note: Paul Atwood, author of War and Empire: The American Way of Life, meditates critically on the meaning of Veteran's Day 2012. The Article 32 evidentiary hearing on Staff Sgt. Robert Bales revisits the horrific details of the five hour killing spree/alleged war crime that left 15 civilians dead including nine children.  Witnesses, survivors, and family members in Afghanistan have been testifying via video-link.  Prosecutors have failed to explain why Afghans have not been permitted to testify in...