Gulf war

Saturday

Mike Coté

Trump plays battleships

From our US edition

The US Navy retired its last battleship 19 years ago, the grand warship’s devastating firepower deemed surplus to requirements in the new war on terror. But the era of Great Power conflict has now returned with storm clouds gathering between the US and China. And with them the old warhorse bristling with guns, the battleship, is facing a call back to action. President Trump has said the battleship will come back as the centerpiece of his new Golden Fleet – a cadre of warships designed to equip our navy to face the challenges of the future, not the past.In a speech to the nation’s top military brass, Trump said:“I think we should maybe start thinking about battleships, by the way.

Trump battleships

Thursday

Christopher Bray

Revelling in illusion: the French sociologist-cum-philosopher who hit peak absurdity back in 1991

‘What is he talking about?’ Marine Baudrillard would sigh whenever she read her husband’s work. Anyone who has studied for an arts or a social-science degree over the past few decades will know what irked her. A sociologist-cum-philosopher’s prose is to thought what mud is to a windscreen. ‘There is no more hope for meaning,’ Jean Baudrillard wrote with unconscious exactitude in Simulacra and Simulation. ‘This is a good thing: meaning is mortal. Appearances, though, are immortal, invulnerable to nihilism. This is where seduction begins.’ In their admirably brief critical biography, Emmanuelle Fantin and Brian Nicol praise Baudrillard’s writing for its ‘enigmatic verve’. One might as well commend Bruckner’s 8th for its enervating brevity.

Sunday

Clement Knox

An impressive examination of the conjoined fates of Iraq and the United States

From our US edition

In July 4, 1821, secretary of state John Quincy Adams gave a speech to Congress on American foreign policy. He said of the United States that “wherever the standard of freedom and independence has been or shall be unfurled, there will her heart, her benedictions and her prayers be. But she goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy.” For the first 150 years of the republic, its leaders dutifully observed Adams’s counsel. But after Woodrow Wilson’s intervention in World War One, American policy has tacked in the opposite direction. For over a century America has indeed been going abroad, searching for monsters to destroy.

Iraq

Wednesday

Adrian Brune

The shock and awe-inspiring art of Iraq

From our US edition

The road from Erbil consists of one large, tarmacked lane, no separation marks, no shoulder, despite seemingly never-ending ascents and descents and a barrage of trucks carrying huge oil tanks. As soon as the mountains of the Iranian border appear, the cars form a bottleneck into Sulaymaniyah, the “cultural capital of Kurdistan.” It leads to a maze of circular streets, where finding anything — let alone an old tobacco factory turned arts center — becomes a challenge, even for two journalists armed with Google Maps and a local fixer. Yet after some circling, a phone call, a bit of translating and the opening of two twelve-foot, light-beige metal gates, the artist Tara Abdulla appears, smoking a cigarette.

Monday

Sam Kriss

War games do something seriously unpleasant to our brains

Three years ago, I killed several thousand people over the course of a single weekend. Late into the night, I ran around butchering everyone I saw, until by the end I didn’t even feel anything any more. Just methodically powering through it all, through the wet sounds of splattering heads, bodies crumpling, shiny slicks of blood. I thought I was past caring. But when I finally went to bed, I couldn’t sleep, and in my dreams I was haunted by all the men I’d killed. I saw their brains exploding, again and again and again. In my defence, I’d had a bad week. It was December: a grotty English winter, not particularly cold but still utterly grim. The kind of winter that seems to stick to everything, like a layer of congealed grease. I was worried about money.

joe biden endless wars
Daniel McCarthy

Joe Biden’s endless wars

From our US edition

In just over a week, the Empire hopes to strike back. Joe Biden personifies the foreign policy of endless war that Democrats and neoconservatives pursued for 25 years, from the end of the Cold War until the election of Donald Trump in 2016. Biden voted for the biggest and most foolish intervention of that era, the Iraq War of 2003. He has not so much repudiated this act as tried to exculpate himself for it, claiming that in voting to authorize military force he didn’t think military force would be used. This is not credible on its face, and not the way anyone understood the vote at the time. It was as clear a vote for war as any vote has been since World War Two.

Friday

Cockburn

When the Queen addressed Congress

From our US edition

Cockburn has always been an ardent republican — or at least he prefers Sam Adams beer — yet even his flags are at half mast this morning over the death of Elizabeth II. The Queen's passing yesterday also served to remind this old Washington hand of a transatlantic moment: when Her Majesty addressed a joint session of Congress back in 1991. It was the first time a British monarch had ever spoken in the Capitol building. And while you'd there might have been some tension over that whole War for Independence thing, the queen expertly diffused it right off the bat with a joke about her height. “I do hope you can see me today from where you are,” she said, drawing roars of laughter and a standing ovation from the congressman and senators.