ANSELM ELDERGILL looks at the legality of the wars in the Middle East and the means used to fight them. It is said that truth is the first casualty of war, so what is the truth with regard to the legality of America’s and Israel’s wars in Iran, Palestine and Lebanon?
Latest editorial
Beware the anti-democratic liberal centre
Far from being the moderates they portray themselves as, ‘centrists’ are frequently elitists with a vehement opposition to public participation in a political realm they believe should be theirs alone, argues IAN SINCLAIR
PHIL KATZ explains how ‘Cultures in Resistance’ is forging a new cultural manifesto
As world leaders posture and local politicians bore, voters are left with a grim choice: despair, disengage — or start imagining something better, says MATT KERR
CARLOS MARTINEZ reports on China’s role in helping Cuba develop self-sufficiency in renewable energy, which would shield it from the sort of pain Donald Trump is inflicting with his oil blockade
JAYNE FISHER on why the government’s latest amendments to the Crime & Policing Bill, which returns to the Commons on Tuesday, is a serious threat to our freedoms
A surge in futures activity minutes before news of US–Iran talks has led to questions about insider trading and oversight gaps, writes CJ ATKINS
IF YOU have read the seemingly endless work of US dissident Noam Chomsky you’ll know he regularly cites 20th century US intellectuals to highlight the elitist, anti-democratic thinking of the so-called liberal centre.
The public are “ignorant and meddlesome outsiders” who should be “spectators, not participants in action,” while the “responsible men” govern. Therefore, the “bewildered herd” must be “put in their place” by “necessary illusions” and “emotionally potent oversimplifications.”
These quotes, Chomsky notes in the 2021 book The Precipice, are from influential progressive US thinkers like Walter Lippmann, Harold Laswell and Reinhold Niebuhr.
Similar stories
Outrage greeted Donald Trump’s suggestion earlier this year that Britain stayed off the front lines. But evidence suggests our forces were at times pulled from the most dangerous fighting — not by military failure, but by pressure at home, says IAN SINCLAIR
On January 2 2014, PJ Harvey used her turn as guest editor of the Today programme to expose the realities of war, arms dealing and media complicity. The fury that followed showed how rare – and how threatening – such honesty is within Britain’s most Establishment broadcaster, says IAN SINCLAIR
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
Despite liberal whining that Trump threatens the ‘international rules-based order,’ the historical record shows Western nations have repeatedly overthrown democracies, backed genocides and violated sovereignty, writes IAN SINCLAIR