MARJORIE MAYO recommends an accessible and unsettling novel that uses a true incident of death in the Channel to raise questions of wider moral responsibility
Beyond the media agitation, finger pointing and fake incomprehension
Erudite and committed writings of Tariq Ali on Afghanistan, published at every stage of the calamity, are a illuminating read, suggests ANDREW MURRAY
EARLY WARNING: Stop the War coalition protest in Trafalgar Square in London in 2012
MIK SABIERS wallows in a night of political punk and funk that fires both barrels at Trump
Reasonable radicalism, death in Abu Dhabi, locked-room romance, and sleuthing in the Blitz
SIMON DUFF recommends a new album from renowned composer and oud player Anour Brahem.
JAMES WALSH has a great night in the company of basketball players, quantum physicists and the exquisite timing of Rosie Jones
A New Awakening: Adventures In British Jazz 1966 - 1971, G3, and Buck Owens
JAMES WALSH is moved by an exhibition of graphic art that relates horrors that would be much less immediate in other media
The Forty-Year War in Afghanistan – A Chronicle Foretold
by Tariq Ali
Verso £10.99
THE return of the Taliban to power in Afghanistan, amid a chaotic US military evacuation, constitutes the greatest humiliation imperialism has suffered in the 21st century.
One need be no friend of the social agenda of the Taliban — and few are — to recognise the enormity of its achievement and the reverse for the Nato powers, headed by the US.
Even in the bloody debacle of Iraq, the aggressors in the 2003 war have been able to organise something like a fighting retreat and retain the capacity for direct interference.
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STEVEN ANDREW recommends an informed and personable work that contains as many ommisions as it does analyses
WILL PODMORE recommends a book that spells out the ultimate futility of imperialist wars
DOC RITCHIE assesses an account of the disastrous evacuation by last British ambassador to Afghanistan
