There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Has the West tried to build liberal democracy in Afghanistan?
Although the US and British governments and their cheerleaders in the media often claim benign intentions, actual foreign policy decisions tell a different story, writes IAN SINCLAIR
Tony Blair pictured with Hamid Karzai in Afghanistan
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
AS THE Taliban approached Kabul in mid-August, Channel 4 News’s chief correspondent Alex Thomson noted on Twitter that the West has been “obsessed about trying to turn Afghanistan into Sweden with sand, fetishising democracy and educating women” but “Afghans outside Kabul kept telling me the Taliban ended corruption and brought security which they want first and foremost.”
The idea the West is sincerely interested in spreading democracy in Afghanistan is widely believed across the political spectrum.
For example, in the recent House of Commons session devoted to the Afghan crisis, the brilliant Labour MP Zarah Sultana warned: “The West cannot build liberal democracies with bombs and bullets.”
More from this author
At the very moment Britain faces poverty, housing and climate crises requiring radical solutions, the liberal press promotes ideologically narrow books while marginalising authors who offer the most accurate understanding of change, writes IAN SINCLAIR
New releases from Allo Darlin’, Loyle Carner and Mike Polizze
New releases from Toby Hay, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Dobson & The Hanging Stars
As the cover-ups collapse, IAN SINCLAIR looks at the shocking testimony from British forces who would ‘go in and shoot everyone sleeping there’ during night raids — illegal, systematic murder spawned by an illegal invasion
