tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-168732762012-01-26T01:17:51.617-08:00Chronicles & DissentTerry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.comBlogger11801100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-53357527799421301032012-01-26T00:38:00.005-08:002012-01-26T01:17:51.628-08:00

Last August, the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China appointed the ambitious and aggressive Wang Tianpu as president of the Sinopec Group, the seventh-largest corporation on Earth and the absurdly corrupt and ravenous behemoth that is the main money, so far, behind the $6 billion Enbridge Inc. plan to punch a pipeline from Alberta's oilands to the

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-32819282154942320512012-01-21T01:27:00.009-08:002012-01-21T02:29:45.969-08:00

“We have paid a very high price for the revolution. Colleagues of ours are getting tortured and killed. It is a very dangerous situation now. But the revolution is for bread, for freedom, for social justice for all Egyptians, for minorities, for women. Until then, the revolution will continue. This is not the end of it. This is just the start," Mostafa Hussein told me during a telephone

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-57345511796012232742012-01-18T08:29:00.003-08:002012-01-18T09:07:28.822-08:00

Letter to the Editor, Ottawa Citizen:I believe Terry Glavin misinterpreted my comments in his column on Chinese investment in the oilsands. I called for urgent political leadership not on what he characterizes as "China's deepening influence in the Canadian economy" but on "a Canadian response to the shift in global power towards Asia."I think Glavin's assault on foreign investment in Canada

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-46949280897238650802012-01-17T01:04:00.003-08:002012-01-17T08:21:32.192-08:00

My piece in today's National Post:Canada is at the brink of what is probably the most radical shift in energy and foreign policy since Pierre Trudeau and Mitchell Sharp engineered the ultimately doomed "Third Option" 40 years ago, which was all about reducing our economic reliance on the United States. This time around, everything is happening quite suddenly. There has there been no debate

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-58891223653377581792012-01-04T23:16:00.003-08:002012-01-04T23:26:42.962-08:00

RCAF pilot, trilingual, warrant officer first class, very serious human rights activist, some kind of Persian rock star, international relations degree from UBC and an alumnus of the Institut d'Études Politiques in Paris, former Miss World Canada, and only 32. . . I hesitate to ask, 'all this and she can cook, too?' but I betcha that Nazanin Afshin-Jam could pinch-hit her groom's day job

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-4564182141827211292011-12-30T13:10:00.006-08:002011-12-30T16:15:54.206-08:00

Ten years after Beijing insinuated itself into the World Trade Organization, Chinese corporate monopolies and crony-capitalist empires still enjoy protectionist tariffs and anti-competition laws that have rendered the whole idea of liberalized global trade a sick joke. The racket has engorged Chinese industrial barons with the booty of a sixfold increase in Chinese exports that have cost

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-50059460369266817262011-12-16T14:09:00.019-08:002011-12-16T23:43:32.919-08:00

If there were a lament to be sung at his leaving, it would have to be somehow happy and unrepentant. The only one I know that might work is the Song of Mweenish. The concluding stanza: And as I go west by Inse Ghainimh, let the flag be on the mast. Oh, do not bury me in Leitir Calaidh, for it's not where my people are, But bring me west to Muínis, to the place where I will be mourned aloud; The

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-47589175777042635102011-12-15T13:33:00.004-08:002011-12-15T14:08:17.124-08:00

From my column in today's Ottawa Citizen:“On Kyoto, I agree wholeheartedly, as would almost anyone in the scientific community, that it will have zero effect on global warming.” Those are not the words of Lord Monckton, 3rd Viscount of Brenchley and archdruid of the climate-change denial cult. That’s Andrew Weaver talking, back in 2008. Weaver is one of the world’s eminent climate scientists

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-63368648462290130942011-12-14T05:56:00.002-08:002011-12-14T06:12:25.925-08:00

I went with "Absurdistan" for the first chapter of my book, but I like Graveyard of Empiricism. I covered the same points that Javid Ahmad and Dhruva Jaishankar cover in this essay in Foreign Policy. They just scratch the surface, and it's an excellent essay. Their main observation is that the "western" understanding of Afghanistan is enfeebled because "a number of questionable assumptions about

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-69913514804427187172011-12-06T08:47:00.004-08:002011-12-06T14:07:36.717-08:00

Dozens dead this morning in Kabul and Mazar-i Sharif. Lashkar-e-Jhanghvi claims responsibility.NYT: Lashkar-e-Jhanghvi is a Punjabi group with a long history of cooperation with Pakistani’s intelligence service, as well as close ties to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. It is made up of Sunni extremists who believe in the extermination of Shiites, and has helped drive the rampant sectarian violence

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-29287190638670275452011-12-04T20:42:00.004-08:002011-12-04T21:00:53.207-08:00

The Pakistani ISI and its parliamentary lapdogs are responsible for tens of thousands of Afghan and ISAF/NATO deaths over the past decade. Everybody knows now. But the depths of duplicity, mendacity and barbarism to which the Pakistani elites have stooped, and the enthusiasm with which they have devoted themselves to the care and feeding of some of the world's most savage and lumpen jihadi

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-20868771390156283682011-12-02T23:22:00.005-08:002011-12-04T08:52:02.402-08:00

Trail, British Columbia, is a smelter town. This is how they ski:JP Auclair Street Segment (from All.I.Can.) from Sherpas Cinema on Vimeo.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-58956937366413619382011-12-02T12:40:00.003-08:002011-12-02T13:09:56.007-08:00

Our friend Sohrab Ahmari, writing in World Affairs Journal:The birth pangs of Arab democracy thus risk the perverse and paradoxical effect of strengthening Iranian totalitarianism and making ideological and political containment of the Islamic Republic more of an uphill battle than it was prior to the self-immolation of a desperate Tunisian fruit vendor. To point this out is not to suggest

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-49517849724129745292011-12-01T09:48:00.004-08:002011-12-01T11:50:06.228-08:00

. . .Pakistan’s distemper is supposed to be about last weekend’s shootout between NATO helicopters and what turned out to be a Pakistani border post on the Kunar-Mohmand frontier. Afghan military sources say the Pakistanis shot first. Pakistani generals say it was an unprovoked American attack on Pakistan’s unblemished honour and integrity. In any event, 24 Pakistani soldiers ended up dead,

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-75362018412898154642011-11-26T09:33:00.011-08:002011-11-26T11:10:57.832-08:00

Pleased to see Ms. Magazine has flagged my book Come From The Shadows in its "Great Reads for Fall" thus: "[Glavin] provides an alternative to the usual Western media portrait, particularly of Afghan women, who rely on foreigners for security while boldly rebuilding their society." The British blog Harry's Place has been running a series of excerpts - my thanks to Gene for getting it going.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-52287845521168631412011-11-25T20:40:00.003-08:002011-11-25T20:55:02.355-08:00

From an important investigative essay by Amal Hanano, in Jadaliyya:"Bashar al-Assad seemed to realize that no news from his side is not necessarily good news. Perhaps in an effort to generate a more favorable narrative, a selective few have been granted access to Syria. These journalists, like Robert Fisk, Andrew Gilligan, and Nir Rosen, are vaguely not escorted, but not undercover. Their

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-38509825878399346252011-11-20T20:33:00.002-08:002011-11-20T20:36:14.536-08:00

A proper nationwide public conversation about Canada and Afghanistan, for a change, thanks to the generosity and curiosity of the host, Rex Murphy, a fellow tribesman, he of Carbonear, pride of Placentia Bay. The CBC people involved (thanks, Anna-Liza) were kind to me. Grand to hear from the soldiers who called in as well.You can listen to the whole thing here.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-64541824997923880292011-11-17T09:10:00.003-08:002011-11-17T10:24:08.446-08:00

From my column in today's Ottawa Citizen:. . . The aborted lunacy of Occupism is now descending into merely a Jonestown of the Imbecilities, with eviction notices and standoffs and arrests breaking up Occupy Wall Street, Occupy Oakland, Occupy Toronto, Occupy Halifax, Occupy Vancouver, Occupy Victoria, and on and on. And as usual, there is a celebrity with a conspiracy theory to explain why.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-4753661558399951492011-11-13T14:13:00.003-08:002011-11-13T17:34:36.004-08:00

Terry Glavin is dead.Not me, the other one. A really, really good man. His death came to my attention only today.Terence Michael Glavin was a committed, dedicated, hardworking and effective idealist. From his younger days teaching immigrant railroad workers how to speak English to a career in CUSO and then CIDA, his contributions made the world a better place. After his time in Jamaica he found

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-6415921214977732702011-11-13T12:19:00.003-08:002011-11-13T14:13:51.388-08:00

My preoccupation with Absurdistan, I mean.This past week: An except from Come From the Shadows in the National Post on Monday, another excerpt on Tuesday. Elsewhere, the fine British blog Harry's Place is running excerpts/snippets. Here, here, here and here.Tomorrow, this is going to be amusing.One of my concerns is the hysterical amnesia that animates the public debates about Afghanistan. I'm in

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-85170583393808597552011-11-11T22:42:00.002-08:002011-11-11T22:46:43.948-08:00

Farhat Taj: "His ideas are uncritically accepted by his urban supporters who have no clue about how FATA was ‘won’ by the Taliban. Imran Khan may win the next elections with the support of the military establishment whose strategic agenda he is religiously promoting, but he must remember that — as told to me by several tribesmen across FATA — ‘tribal memory dies very hard’. This implies that

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-52276109375837882382011-11-07T11:14:00.003-08:002011-11-07T11:41:52.115-08:00

There's an excerpt from Come From the Shadows in today's National Post. I'm pleased.I'm also pleased in a schadenfreude kind of way, I confess, because the excerpt the Post chose exposes the howler that masqueraded as a book review in the Winnipeg Free Press that I earlier noticed as a review of a book I did not write, which alludes to contents the book does not contain, attributes wild

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-81785602406214494992011-11-07T09:23:00.004-08:002011-11-07T10:51:53.260-08:00

“U.S. officials should stop talking to the Haqqani Network. It is the ISI that is important,” Abdul Rahim Ayoubi, an Afghan parliamentarian leading a ten-member delegation of Afghan lawmakers to Washington, has gently suggested. But this is the lesson the Americans still refuse to learn: “The Haqqani Network is just a name. It is really an ISI and Pakistani military network."It's going to be a

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-80426825595761809852011-11-04T17:11:00.004-07:002011-11-04T17:59:00.763-07:00

In the years to come, the history of the so-called "war in Afghanistan" will be little more than a footnote in a chapter about the lies successive American governments told themselves and the world about Pakistan - that American-subsidized, nuclear-armed, military-industrial crime syndicate with a bribe market for a parliament that masquerades as a UN member state. All we can hope is that

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-21918522526889002322011-11-03T08:37:00.005-07:002011-11-03T09:10:31.103-07:00

Best review of my book yet, and by a 20-year-old cub reporter, Brandon Rosario, in the UVic student newspaper, The Martlet, if you don't mind.Okay it's not really a book review, but still, it gets to the guts of it. He went through his notes from an hour-length interview and picked the sauciest quotes too, the wee beggar.“I could have interviewed [the Taliban] anytime I wanted . . . but that

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-18299967805581964462011-11-03T07:26:00.005-07:002011-11-03T07:43:17.161-07:00

From my column today in in the Ottawa Citizen:"As always during epochs of reaction and decay, quacks and charlatans appear on all sides." Rex Murphy didn't say that. Leon Trotsky did. Our pal irony will also record that CBC house redneck Kevin O'Leary couldn't even win an argument about it with that gruesome Occupist non-spokesman and Unitarian elder Chris Hedges. Imagine actually losing an

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-78980081792276710912011-10-25T10:26:00.002-07:002011-10-25T10:34:21.952-07:00

This just in from our buddy Peter Tatchell:Commonwealth Secretary General Kamalesh Sharma made history when he voiced his support for gay rights in his keynote address at the opening ceremony of the Commonwealth People‟s Forum (CPF) in Perth, Australia, today, reports Peter Tatchell, Director of the human rights organisation, the Peter Tatchell Foundation. Mr Sharma was addressing the NGO

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-50566438361278939342011-10-21T22:20:00.011-07:002011-10-22T10:52:47.482-07:00

. . . like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand."Eric Blair, the artist more commonly known as George Orwell, was dead right about that. But once the book's published a harder kind of work begins, and this can be happy work, too, renewing old friendships and roving about.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-30257664492993605112011-10-19T10:44:00.000-07:002011-10-19T10:46:20.501-07:00

At UVic, "a special public lecture from 7 to 9 p.m. on Wednesday, October 19, in room A240, Human & Social Development building."Journalist and author Terry Glavin—the University of Victoria’s fifth Harvey Stevenson Southam Lecturer in Journalism and Nonfiction—is sharing his personal experiences with Afghanistan and a shifting media landscape with UVic students this year. Glavin’s lecture

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-85586498025992202162011-10-15T17:29:00.006-07:002011-10-15T17:38:19.523-07:00

"Dear Americans: Afghanistan is one of the richest countries in minerals and natural resources. Yet the people are known for being some of the poorest in the world because our military, financial and political leaders have been serving their masters instead of their people.The Afghanistan people are grateful to the nations and their soldiers that have sacrificed their lives for over 10

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-76217621083778328942011-10-08T14:01:00.006-07:002011-10-08T14:58:53.582-07:00

The brave human rights campaigner Peter Tatchell, whose radical politics, tireless international solidarity work and campaigns for gender equality and gay rights have set the gold standard for principled and militant left-wing activism in Britain, struck a boldly dissenting note at today's stoppist jamboree in London.In recent days, Peter and I have engaged in an exchange of our differences on

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-52536880941268644192011-10-07T23:53:00.002-07:002011-10-08T00:45:57.126-07:00

Well, it seems the book I've just written is doing at least part of the job I'd hoped it would do. Reading Come From the Shadows so upset the delicate sensibilities of the Toronto Star's Jennifer Hunter - long-time journalist, member of the Star's editorial board and wife of Star publisher John Cruikshank - that she told me she wanted to throw the book at the wall.She says she felt I was being

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-52772604699139626532011-10-07T20:19:00.005-07:002011-10-07T22:27:25.523-07:00

When it came to my attention three weeks ago that the brave British human rights activist Peter Tatchell had agreed to lend his good name to the Saturday October 8 "Anti-War Mass Assembly" in Trafalgar Square, with its inane demands for a withdrawal of British troops from Afghanistan, my heart sank.An entire galaxy of retread counterculture celebrities and "anti-imperialist" zombies had

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-10181789465584925082011-10-06T09:50:00.003-07:002011-10-06T23:47:02.031-07:00

It is fitting that Terry Glavin begins his book Come from the Shadows: the Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan with a quote from George Orwell — who once said it is not enough to oppose fascism; one must stand against totalitarianism in all its forms. Orwell, a far-left anti-fascist who took a bullet in the throat while fighting Franco’s brutes during the Spanish Civil War, was

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-68685907438546196632011-10-06T09:06:00.002-07:002011-10-06T09:12:15.282-07:00

Journalist and author Terry Glavin—the University of Victoria’s fifth Harvey Stevenson Southam Lecturer in Journalism and Nonfiction—is sharing his personal experiences with Afghanistan and a shifting media landscape with UVic students this year. Glavin’s lecture and discussion course, “Orwell and Everything After,” explores what he deems “a disorienting time of social, geopolitical and

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-54348050426129899782011-10-05T20:27:00.004-07:002011-10-05T20:39:04.720-07:00

Further to these gigs in Toronto, Ottawa and Victoria, this:"An award-winning journalist overturns western stereotypes as he takes readers into the Afghanistan that exists “outside the wire” and introduces the people whose defiant courage offers hope for the future. On Sunday, October 23 at 2:00 p.m., Terry Glavin will be presenting Come from the Shadows at Tommy Douglas Library (7311 Kingsway

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-75151164336314010392011-10-03T20:56:00.009-07:002011-10-03T21:30:44.771-07:00

This is just how it starts:Solidarity: Calling all friends of Afghanistan in the GTA. COME FROM THE SHADOWS. "Join Terry Glavin and friends to celebrate the publication of his new book, Come from the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan," at Dora Keogh's Trad Irish Pub, 141 Danforth Ave, Toronto, Tuesday, October 11 · 7:00pm - 8:30pm, plus whatever happens afterwards

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-72256888738390282062011-09-27T15:02:00.003-07:002011-09-27T15:15:19.131-07:00

Shana Tova, Athbhliain faoi Mhaise Daoibh, Happy New Year to all my Hebrew homies.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-90548506141232306752011-09-26T07:50:00.006-07:002011-09-26T11:18:10.502-07:00

It wasn't Pakistan but the CIA that created the savage Haqqani Taliban network that US Joint Chiefs Chairman Mike Mullen has been belatedly fingering as the chief culprit in Afghanistan's agonies, the hideously corrupt gasbag Rehman Malik, Pakistan's Interior Minister, declared on Sunday.It is an outrageous lie, as anyone even vaguely familiar with the terrorist savageries visited upon the people

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-91833721607256883592011-09-25T22:22:00.005-07:002011-09-25T22:51:08.442-07:00

In recent days, Admiral Michael Mullen, the soon-to-retire chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has explicitly identified Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency as an active accomplice of al Qaeda's Waziristan landlord- the Haqqani network, led by Surajuddin Haqqani of the Taliban's Quetta Shura. The Haqqanis also form the main support system for Pakistan's Terik-e-Taliban,

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-69265423829659242122011-09-23T19:37:00.001-07:002011-09-23T19:39:03.693-07:00

Properly done:

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-85882981829467918532011-09-21T07:10:00.005-07:002011-09-21T09:01:44.113-07:00

. . . Were it not for the rivers of blood that have already flowed from the peace-talks folly, it would be almost comical.On August 18, British ambassador Sir William Patey, like a character straight out of a Monty Python upper-class twit sketch, tweeted a photograph of himself with Taliban envoy and former Guantanamo inmate Abdul Zaeef at an embassy dinner party, with this note: "Good to see

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-79091722901771221742011-09-09T18:44:00.002-07:002011-09-09T18:59:38.697-07:00

My contribution to the remembrance of the September 11 atrocity, in today's Ottawa Citizen. A lot of people will not like it:. . .It isn't a pleasant thing to say, and it will be badly out of tune with the sombre music we will all be hearing in commemoration of the Sept. 11 atrocity, but the thing about terrorism is that it works.It will seem callous to notice that even though fewer than 3,000

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-49402550703411914842011-09-08T09:07:00.004-07:002011-09-08T09:31:10.977-07:00

“We are ready to lay down our lives,” their chant went. “We are all Babak’s soldiers.”This is a very important story, co-authored by my pal Sohrab Ahmari and Peter Kohanloo, about a little-noticed "environmental" crisis in Iran. It's noteworthy that the mullahocracy reacts by insisting on a distinction between "the environment" and politics.This is a false distinction that routinely encumbers

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-30995852312794216492011-09-08T08:21:00.002-07:002011-09-08T08:33:53.999-07:00

I've been an optimist about the Libyan revolution and was pleased to see that the rebels' call for NATO help was heard over the crescendo of leftish mewling, anti-interventionist shouting and right-wing isolationist alarum-raising. My optimism has been borne out.But as my pal Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi quite rightly points out, not everything is so rosy, and if things go pear-shaped then NATO must be

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-65757625501300436902011-09-06T21:48:00.002-07:002011-09-07T11:11:47.443-07:00

Michael Petrou of Macleans magazine has very succinctly enumerated a few very simple questions about the proposition that Afghanistan's agony can be remedied by negotiating some sort of bargain with the Taliban - the "conventional wisdom" that Stephen Lewis was only the latest to admonish us to credit to the New Democrats' lately deceased party leader. Petrou also notices something flimsy about

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-8495737847621741902011-09-05T10:32:00.006-07:002011-09-05T13:30:58.882-07:00

The cause of labour is the thing we're supposed to celebrate on Labour Day but there is damned little to celebrate and much to give us pause to reflect on the sorry state of the international workers' movement, and on the low calibre of the trade union leadership.Canadian workers need look no further than labour's prospects within their own country to find an increasingly bleak scene. If such

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-14184081019216215642011-09-04T14:31:00.002-07:002011-09-04T15:01:11.038-07:00

Conniptions of umbrage have broken out across the Khomeinist punditocracy after a too-candid live television interview slipped onto Iran's national airwaves from Tehran, and on one of regime's most-watched propaganda stations no less. Fury followed the brave Afghan journalist Fazolrahman Oria's appearance, after the news program's producer had somehow mistaken Oria for a Khomeinist Afghan patsy.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-2805672253013010002011-09-04T10:21:00.006-07:002011-09-04T14:01:55.067-07:00

In Kabul today, the spectacle of armed soldiers barring nine MPs from taking their seats in the Wolesi Jirga marks the unseemly denouement of a protracted constitutional struggle between the presidential palace and the Afghan parliament, between Hamid Karzai and the Electoral Complaints Commission, between the rule of the khan and the rule of law. The khan won. Meanwhile, in Washington, a long

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-56165352027452721672011-09-03T19:59:00.003-07:002011-09-03T20:14:45.089-07:00

In Havana, the Cuban regime has announced that it is withdrawing its diplomatic mission in Libya and it will refuse to recognize the revolutionary government in Tripoli. In Paris, the 60-nation "Friends of Libya" group has released billions of dollars in frozen funds for humanitarian and reconstruction needs. Meanwhile, at the bottom of the sea, "Lenin waits for Islamists on the ashheap of

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-73953732688871335562011-09-03T09:08:00.008-07:002011-09-03T11:23:33.908-07:00

Julian Assange, the Wikileaks archgeek, radical-chic avatar, the Chinese Communist Party's nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, Michael Moore's joint-venturer, absconding debtor, American celebrity pornographer Larry Flynt's fair-haired boy, darling of Cindy Sheehan, Medea Benjamin, Bianca Jagger, and of Heather Mallick, for "lo, he hath made truthful information available unto citizens of the

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-88721003285316516582011-09-02T10:33:00.007-07:002011-09-02T16:26:31.712-07:00

Because the Baathist regime has closed Syria to the outside world, it has been nearly impossible to discern anything but the most opaque picture of the popular uprising underway in the country. All that can be said with any certainty is that the rebellion has been almost wholly non-violent, and the Baathist reaction has been savagely violent. At long last we have a first-hand account, in this

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-87269432428288762942011-09-01T18:58:00.006-07:002011-09-01T19:26:16.207-07:00

The progressive thinkers from Muslim backgrounds, the people who have chosen to retain their religious identity and the people who have chosen to foreswear it, the people who have experienced for themselves the atmosphere of the Muslim Brotherhood and its fraternal organizations, the jihadis who have contemplated their course in life and have elected to become thoughtful and articulate

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-49152893497894144822011-09-01T11:27:00.003-07:002011-09-02T16:05:05.997-07:00

This is going to be an interesting discussion. Good for Jacqueline Windh for kicking it off, and I should thank her for asking me to get it going. Another way to think about the contested boundaries between fiction and non-fiction is as fields and pastures separated by tangles and willow and blackthorn, such that the old stone walls are wholly occluded. You know the wall is in there somewhere,

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-27703338245008398402011-08-31T13:06:00.009-07:002011-08-31T18:41:39.598-07:00

In the more rarified corners of the interminable debates about Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Darfur, and on and on, the best conversations rarely bog down in antiquated drivel about imperialism or oil, but they do tend to get a bit hung up by routine invocations of the "responsibility to protect doctrine," the limited possibilities of "liberal interventionism," and on and on. To intervene or

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-37222265790654381772011-08-30T13:37:00.003-07:002011-08-30T13:50:03.472-07:00

When I first suggested filling Chicago airport with millions of bees, tended by former convicts, they all said I was mad. They said the same about Christopher Columbus. I refused to take no for an answer. Like Luther Vandross nailing a worm to a church door, I could do no other. I’m going to fill that airport with bees, I said, whatever the cost, whoever gets hurt. And today, my friends

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-51804045865701725832011-08-29T15:27:00.002-07:002011-08-29T15:37:38.284-07:00

Oh, look. Quill and Quire has just posted an exhaustive preview of this fall's non-fiction titles on offer from Canadian publishers, and if I'm not mistaken - yes, I'm quite right - my most recent book, Come From the Shadows, gets top billing. How too auspicious. But enough about me, how do you think my new book will fare? Am I impudent enough yet? Then carry on. Mind how you go. I'm going to

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-7516958154522065112011-08-29T13:17:00.004-07:002011-08-29T13:25:11.864-07:00

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-66901834998377232932011-08-29T08:51:00.009-07:002011-08-29T13:59:04.854-07:00

Because when the only alternative available to the poor is to overthrow the regime, that's exactly what the poor will attempt. In Syria: "The grossly uneven distribution of the national income has concentrated incomes and capital in the hands of a limited few. The share of wages from the national income was less than 33 percent in 2008-2009, compared to nearly 40.5 per cent in 2004, meaning

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-85210484823018682442011-08-28T21:37:00.003-07:002011-08-28T21:53:17.973-07:00

The Massoudist movement is leading the campaign against Karzai and the Yanks. They derive their political and moral legacy from the fallen Northern Alliance commander Ahmad Shah Massoud, known in life and death as the Lion of Panjshir because of his skillfulness in keeping Islamist riffraff out of a sensitive valley region 100 kilometres north of Kabul. Massoud was only killed by Al Qaeda

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-79443129490402036312011-08-28T10:22:00.005-07:002011-08-29T08:08:11.728-07:00

Mohammad Rahhal, leader of the Revolutionary Council of the Syrian Coordination Committees, announced today that the SCC has decided that Syria's non-violent uprising must now turned to armed struggle. "We made our decision to arm the revolution which will turn violent very soon because what we are being subjected to today is a global conspiracy that can only be faced by an armed uprising," he

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-50327887476692648202011-08-27T08:15:00.019-07:002011-08-27T20:39:45.168-07:00

Oh, the wind, the wind is blowing, through the graves the wind is blowing, freedom soon will come; then we'll come from the shadows. - “The Partisan,” Leonard Cohen, 1969. The wind blows through the graves, freedom will return. We will be forgotten. We will return to the shadows. - “Le Complainte du Partisan,” Emmanuel d‘Astier, 1943. Do notice the subtle difference. In the 1969 version, freedom

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-77822559929610749642011-08-26T22:47:00.002-07:002011-08-26T22:51:36.265-07:00

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-49830840615062899512011-08-26T08:38:00.003-07:002011-08-26T10:46:03.936-07:00

. . . Although there have been some intermittent noises from the International Criminal Court, it ought to be said in very unequivocal tones, by our government and others, that the Qaddafis and Assads and their accomplices are on notice. They should be told that the names of their military and security officers have been taken down, as have the names of their victims, and that prosecutions

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-50148768245675532582011-08-25T08:16:00.003-07:002011-08-25T08:48:49.671-07:00

"Given the record of the UN and other international powers in Afghanistan, Libyans could hardly do any worse than trust to themselves. Building on ‘lessons learnt’ in Afghanistan, we would advise the Libyans to say a polite ‘no’ to offers of expert advice. . ." Meanwhile, how's Obama's Afghanistan strategy coming along? "There is a real sense of despair in Afghanistan right now. Most Afghans

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-56775588070736576052011-08-24T17:46:00.007-07:002011-08-24T19:31:05.216-07:00

Imagine paying $33 for a bottle of Cheez Whiz, $13 for a pack of spaghetti noodles, $40 for a bottle of cranberry juice, and a stinging $77 for a bag of breaded chicken. That’s what some grocery stores in remote fly-in Arctic communities were offering early this year. Incriminating photos of sticker prices blazed across newspapers and social media sites across the North – reaching southern

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-78548103863478193902011-08-24T12:21:00.002-07:002011-08-24T12:33:26.623-07:00

Jonas Shandel belting it out on guitar with Matt Bryant singing and shredding a mandolin: Headwater, in Berlin, boys from the north shore of Burrard Inlet, been at it since they were kids:

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-34959333671541330172011-08-23T11:56:00.004-07:002011-08-23T12:49:26.897-07:00

Messing with Mo's stuff. Righteous: Here's a little fillum of a rebel with Old Mo's golden gun. Here's some of the lads riding in his golf buggy. Here's a cool thing the rebels used: Made in Canada. Meanwhile, in Syria, Michael Weiss reports: Maxim Gorky pays a visit to Homs. The UN delegation drove through in their fancy cars. As soon as they were gone, this is what happened: The entire

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-26868235208562401212011-08-22T11:36:00.017-07:002011-08-29T08:39:49.531-07:00

The Centre for Research on Globalization is - how to put it delicately- a Canadian clubhouse for crackpots of the anti-war, 911-truth, anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist variety. The Centre would not normally be worth noticing except for a laugh. But, today is not a normal day. Run by the loopy Michel Chossudovsky, economics professor emeritus at the University of Ottawa, the Centre has for some

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-26196979351148547392011-08-21T18:29:00.003-07:002011-08-21T18:48:34.572-07:00

"While post-modernist academics have infested national and international universities and are trying to popularise the radical right-wing narrative as representing the people’s popular instinct, the fact is that these academics base their analysis on elite ethnographies. . . . to top it all, the fashionable post-modernist narrative is inherently right-wing. The Pakistani post-modernist

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-20233757867728433422011-08-21T17:27:00.004-07:002011-08-21T19:04:54.602-07:00

You know what? I'm not going to say "I hate to say I told you so." I don't hate it at all this afternoon. I am raising a glass to the Libyan rebel front, to their bedraggled courage and persistence, to the crew of the HMCS Charlottetown, and to France. As for the frightwallah Robert Spencer, the red fascist anti-rebel George Galloway (Gaddafi "has the men, he has the money, he has the track

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-77707529754211307832011-08-20T22:21:00.003-07:002011-08-20T22:37:21.282-07:00

"The zero hour has started. The rebels in Tripoli have risen up," said Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, vice-chairman of the NTC, based in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi. "There is co-ordination with the rebels in Tripoli. This was a pre-set plan. They've been preparing for a while. There's coordination with the rebels approaching from the east, west and south." CONSTANT UPDATES HERE: Libyans Forever

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-65185431806788771022011-08-19T12:25:00.007-07:002011-08-19T23:12:47.208-07:00

While the White House continues to insist that its "surge" has reversed Taliban momentum, the Talibs are now killing more Afghans than at any time since they were chased out of Kabul a decade ago. This is the consequence of a perfectly straightforward equation. If the President of the United States declares that he has no intention of winning anything more than the means to force the Afghan

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-85962876489629646072011-08-18T16:34:00.003-07:002011-08-18T17:59:15.108-07:00

It is a despotism of the sort where you cannot meet with a gathering of friends without running the risk of being hauled up on charges of subversion. You cannot organize a book club - you will only rarely find an unofficial book of any kind anyway - and while you may avail yourself of a clandestine lending library you will risk imprisonment for doing so. You can get arrested for being in

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-77835748690693788772011-08-18T13:16:00.003-07:002011-08-18T13:43:39.199-07:00

Among Afghans, the great hope of an Obama presidency was that Donald Rumsfeld’s “we don’t do nation-building” approach was finally over and done with. The Bush administration came late to the realization that its so-called light footprint was precisely what had allowed the Taliban to regroup and reassert itself throughout Afghanistan’s southern provinces. It’s why there is still a war in

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-14136802001318320782011-08-17T13:08:00.005-07:002011-08-17T13:22:37.460-07:00

September 6 – December 2, 2011 CCFI 502 (3 credits): Cyborgs, Rhizomes & Margins: A Cross-cultural Conversation in Education Thursdays, 4:30 to 7:30 pm Dr. Pat O'Riley (EDCP). Drawing on a range of transdisciplinary and cross-cultural theoretical perspectives, this course examines the complicities, complexities, and potentialities of the dominant technology narratives in education in a time

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-59438789857357907732011-08-15T16:36:00.003-07:002011-08-15T16:52:29.697-07:00

McPhee is something of a God to me, I confess. On account of that, this was most heartening: . . . OK, it’s nine in the morning. All I’ve got to do is write. But I go hours before I’m able to write a word. I make tea. I mean, I used to make tea all day long. And exercise, I do that every other day. I sharpened pencils in the old days when pencils were sharpened. I just ran pencils down. Ten,

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-46217113718189471602011-08-14T13:01:00.003-07:002011-08-14T14:51:13.095-07:00

The town of Charikar is as lovely as Afghan towns get. It's a bustling, lively and friendly place, set in the lap of a range of hills that overlook the lush and vast Shomali Plains. For as long as anyone can remember, Kabuli families have been making the bumpy journey north for camping weekends on the hillsides above the town, in the springtime of the year, when the flowers are in bloom. Last

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-14579683368196202312011-08-13T13:43:00.001-07:002011-08-13T13:45:09.942-07:00

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-6718043988109146722011-08-12T09:57:00.007-07:002011-08-12T10:46:48.450-07:00

Google news headline IPCC "misled press over shooting" bungles BBC headline Mark Duggan death: IPCC 'may have misled journalists', which derives from a bungled Guardian headline: Mark Duggan death: IPCC says it inadvertently misled media, which is not true, and it's not even what the headline's story asserts. The story reports that the police watchdog said it may have "inadvertently" misled

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-77400674759076580682011-08-10T23:31:00.005-07:002011-08-11T06:39:48.524-07:00

Seumas Milne, the Grauniad's resident tanky jackeen: "But it's not as if rioting was unexpected when the government embarked on its reckless programme to shrink the state. Last autumn the Police Superintendents' Association warned of the dangers of slashing police numbers at a time when they were likely to be needed to deal with "social tensions" or "widespread disorder". Less than a fortnight

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-79776581782671337662011-08-09T20:20:00.006-07:002011-08-10T10:38:59.295-07:00

If the history of the 21st century's first decade is ever properly written, the words "the war in Afghanistan" could probably serve as little more than an index entry from a footnote in a prominent chapter about Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency. The ISI deserves at least a chapter of its own, if only for the spectacularly cunning confidence trick it managed to play, year after year

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-48849908481380445322011-08-09T18:48:00.006-07:002011-08-09T19:13:01.926-07:00

Is this from a letter written by the venerable Amnesty International protesting the Conservative government's mollycoddling of known war criminals? . . . You correctly note that these men have “been found ineligible for entry into Canada on the basis of these accusations, and have been ordered deported” (though the snide preface “apparently” is unnecessary and unworthy), but you object that “

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-19695478684748966222011-08-08T17:07:00.003-07:002011-08-08T17:19:44.587-07:00

Tottenham in cinders, Croydon a "war zone," buses set alight in Peckham, riots in Hackney, looting in Clapham, windows smashed in Ealing, bins on fire in Lewisham. Home secretary Theresa May returned from holiday early and convened a press conference to declare the disturbances "totally unacceptable." Thanks for clearing that up, Madam Secretary. Everybody's sitting round watching television.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-85474716546836787522011-08-04T19:44:00.005-07:002011-08-04T20:07:53.587-07:00

RFL reports: They weren't chanting opposition slogans or protesting against the government, but they were having a good time in public, which can be seen to challenge state-enforced codes of conduct. Their photos were shared on websites, blogs, and social media. Many praised them for their creativity, for managing to organize the event, and also for having fun, which is not always easy in Iran.

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-57128803147261203542011-08-04T14:35:00.002-07:002011-08-04T14:43:14.316-07:00

All day, every day: "People are being slaughtered like sheep while walking in the street. I saw with my own eyes one young boy on a motorcycle who was carrying vegetables being run over by a tank."

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-50886306746073345312011-08-02T10:38:00.004-07:002011-08-02T11:24:48.344-07:00

Nicholas Schmidle, in the New Yorker, has produced a work of utterly gripping narrative journalism in such a way that leaves little room for doubt, even though it is of the vaguely-sourced approved access variety, that almost all of it is absolutely true. Top marks.Jamie Kirchick, in the New York Daily News, presents what I could happily call a thoroughly reliable compass heading to get you

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-60433603943129790072011-08-01T18:21:00.000-07:002011-08-01T18:21:55.653-07:00

The Walrus Blog | Joanne Tod

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-71762268659676456522011-08-01T08:55:00.002-07:002011-08-01T09:00:48.224-07:00

. . .Is it wicked to take a pleasure in spring and other seasonal changes? To put it more precisely, is it politically reprehensible, while we are all groaning, or at any rate ought to be groaning, under the shackles of the capitalist system, to point out that life is frequently more worth living because of a blackbird's song, a yellow elm tree in October, or some other natural phenomenon which

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-1176432490653716552011-07-29T07:53:00.004-07:002011-07-29T08:06:18.105-07:00

Michael Weiss and Hussein Ibish:Conflicts Forum strongly advocates the narrative that the contemporary Arab world is the site of a macro-historical struggle between a “culture of resistance” and a “culture of accommodation,” meaning all moderate, secular and pro-Western forces in the region. Crooke’s attachment to Assad appears to be a function of the Syrian regime’s self-professed role as a

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-78033972836162548862011-07-24T23:27:00.002-07:002011-07-24T23:33:55.084-07:00

Off with the missus to the far side of Wickaninnish Island for the weekend and the CBC caught up with me regardless. Way out there with nothing but the North Pacific between us and Japan and we were still within cell phone range. Cross-Country Check-Up wanted to chat me up about my "worst summer job." With former PM Paul Martin, the National Post's Barbara Kay, Saskatchewanderer Andrew Konoff,

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-40196005143863339202011-07-18T11:15:00.002-07:002011-07-18T11:20:01.538-07:00

Van Morrison, proud son of Sandy Row, East Belfast. True Blue:

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-55358539361281921342011-07-13T16:59:00.006-07:002011-07-13T17:12:59.127-07:00

Come from The Shadows: In bookstores October 2011.“The Afghan people have friends around the world who have courageously joined us in our fight for our freedom and civil liberties, but few have been as devoted to our cause as Terry Glavin. His journalism gives our silenced voices the power to be heard in the West.”- Fawzia Koofi, Afghan MP and author of Letters to My Daughters."The best

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-86909909789254699582011-07-12T16:09:00.004-07:002011-07-12T16:25:18.046-07:00

An award-winning journalist overturns western stereotypes as he takes readers into the Afghanistan that exists “outside the wire” and introduces the people whose defiant courage offers hope for the future. Far from the Taliban’s grim desert strongholds, the country we visit with Terry Glavin is a surprisingly welcoming place, hidden away in alleys and narrow streets that bustle with

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-23704091975574727562011-06-29T09:43:00.005-07:002011-06-29T11:43:43.918-07:00

'I told you so' is an unbecoming political posture, but NDP leader Jack Layton could certainly be forgiven such thoughts when the subject turns to negotiating with the Taliban. That pretty well sums up the hubris of the troops-out and peace-talks lobby: Claim credit for what only the most casual or reactionary observers would think wise, but when the grisly consequences of such counsel become

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-34915863220847979952011-06-28T08:13:00.004-07:002011-06-28T08:47:59.534-07:00

The significance of Obama's surrender speech is starting to sink in. Brett Stephens notices: It emboldens the Taliban. It increases the risk to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. It strengthens already potent anti-American forces in Pakistan and weakens the hand of moderates. It strengthens the hand of Iran. It further weakens NATO. It gives Hamid Karzai opportunity and motive to reinvent himself as an

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-32495410466869110192011-06-27T07:54:00.008-07:002011-06-27T11:54:34.979-07:00

The Obama White House has happily adopted the Tea Party's foreign policy, and there is no internationalist or progressive element remaining in the Democratic Party to stop it from happening. By the time Obama was elected, there was no American Left worthy of the name. It was all Cindy Sheehan, Michael Moore, and Noam Chomsky. In the Republican Party, it was all Ron Paul, Donald Rumsfeld and

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-7381703894798335682011-06-26T10:11:00.006-07:002011-06-26T10:24:43.044-07:00

Doyle McManus: "Moneygall is the village to which Obama aides managed to trace the president's Irish ancestry, and Ollie's is the pub the president visited a month ago to meet his eighth cousins and embrace his Celtic heritage. That connection has produced a modest flow of tourists seeking out the spot where Obama found his Hibernian roots. 'We've had people coming at all hours,' the barman

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-20134899075067829582011-06-25T11:14:00.003-07:002011-06-25T11:32:10.878-07:00

"You owe Vancouver and the surrounding population more than mere words. Don’t you dare ask for our forgiveness without taking responsibility. You can’t fix life altering injuries with an 'I’m Sorry'. You can’t repay someone’s car loan with a YouTube video. You ask that people leave you and your family alone but you offer no way to replace priceless losses. "You’ll sleep soundly in your

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16873276.post-43708933291473069982011-06-24T17:29:00.004-07:002011-06-24T22:46:02.647-07:00

Martin Kettle: "The question facing Europeans is therefore this. Not to forge an ever closer union in which, for all the EU's successes, the word forge seems unhappily to be increasingly appropriate. But how to manage the now foreseeable breakup of the EU in a responsible and restrained way, preserving and strengthening such forms of co-operation as we can. The goal would be to minimise the

Terry Glavinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07888372152979226013noreply@blogger.com0