Harry's Place

Harry’s Place is pleased to report some joyous news about Azad Ali, the civil servant who says of al Qaeda preacher Anwar al Awlaki “I really do love him for the sake of Allah, he has an uncanny way of explaining things to people which is endearing”.
Azad has stepped down from the presidency [...]

From The Telegraph:
On the eve of today’s summit in London on the future of Afghanistan, sources told The Daily Telegraph that they hoped to be able to “reintegrate” half the estimated 25,000 Taliban fighters with promises of new jobs. The aim is to “divide the insurgency” with the military continuing to pursue the “hard-core [...]

Professor John Newsinger is a senior lecturer in history at the School of Humanities and Cultural Industries, Bath Spa University.
The following is what he has said in a  review that was published in the journal Race & Class (Vol 50. No. 4, April 2009, p.107):
The starting point for any serious consideration of terrorism as a [...]

This is a cross-post from Z-Word
On February 1st, France assumes the Presidency of the UN Security Council with Iran likely to be the dominant issue. This morning, I interviewed Gérard Araud, France’s Ambassador to the United Nations, for AJC’s new internet TV show, Reality Check. He was refreshingly candid. Watch the video below for the [...]

There are an awful lot of oddballs and nutters at Ken Livingstone’s “Progressive London” conference.
But of all the sessions, here’s one which really leaps out.
THERE IS NO PROGRESSIVE IMPERIALISM
• Bairbre de Brún MEP, Sinn Féin
• Samuel Moncada, Venezuelan Ambassador
• Richard Gott, author
• Azad Ali, Community Affairs Co-ordinator, Islamic Forum Europe
• Mark Weisbrot, Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy [...]

It is quite telling how some people’s politics change, but their obsessions remain the same. Take the strange case of Anthony McRoy. In his response to Joe Weissman, Dr McRoy admits, cryptically:
“we have all done things when we were young that we later regret, myself included, although I was not a Born-again Christian at [...]

“Iran has executed two men arrested during the period of widespread unrest that erupted after June’s disputed presidential election, reports say.” The BBC has the rest of the story.

In a thoughtful piece at The Wardman Wire, Carl Gardner puts forward a case that the Iraq war was lawful, and that even if you believe the opposite, the case isn’t strong enough to justify the ‘wild, overblown and rhetorical claims that Tony Blair is a “war criminal”’. Indeed, he argues that the enforcement of [...]

Via John Rentoul

Online petition – Ban Blair-Baiting

This is a guest post by Joseph Weissman
The police visit to my house last November to tell me to delete my blog took place at the request of the Reverent Sizer and Dr Anthony McRoy.  Dr Anthony McRoy has explained why he asked the police to talk to me. He writes:
This brings me to the point of [...]