City of Brass

City of Brass

City of Brass Archives

9-11 as an outlier

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

Earlier, I posted my thoughts about whether terrorism was still a threat, noting that in one sense the answer was obviously yes, but asking whether 9-11 was the outlier it seemed to be. My post was intended to provoke a [...]

Losing Afghanistan: the McChrystal report

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

One of the major problems with the Bush Administration and its conservative Republican stalwarts regarding the Iraq War was the “stay the course” dogma which seemed immune to any attempt at an honest evaluation of the war’s goals or purpose. [...]

linking Afghanistan and Pakistan?

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

I am engaged in some rethinking of our Afghanistan policy, and trying to look at Obama’s proposed strategy with a fresh outlook. This is more challenging because I am generally a fan of Obama’s policies rather than a critic. As [...]

The Myth of Secular Inevitability: Iran, Islam, America, Israel and Palestine

posted by Aziz Poonawalla

This is a guest post by Haroon Moghul. Not surprisingly, in the days since Iran’s election fiasco, Western media have attempted to fit the events inside the Islamic Republic into a convenient framework. I call this the myth of secular [...]

Previous Posts

American barbarism, civilization, and decadence (and Star Trek)
I came across a lengthy excerpt online from the book, "The Next Hundred Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century" by George Friedman and found it quite insightful. I say this as someone who probably is indeed an American barbarian by the definition of the passage; I do believe that there do exist u

posted 3:11:36pm May. 15, 2013 | read full post »

Bishnu Shrestha and the 40 thieves (and one khukuri)
This is a khukuri, a curved Nepalese-style blade issued as standard equipment to members of the Gurkha, which are famed Nepali units of the Indian Army (and the British Army of India before Independence): [caption id="attachment_1982" align="aligncenter" width="600"] khukuri knife of the Gurkha[/

posted 9:56:17am May. 08, 2013 | read full post »

Muslims in Bradford, UK rally to save synagogue
This is one of those great stories that often gets overlooked by the mainstream press and deliberately ignored by the Islamophobes: With only just over thirty members and an extravagant Grade II listed Moorish building, the tiny Jewish community of Bradford have for many years been in despair abo

posted 11:47:45am May. 04, 2013 | read full post »

Obama still wants to close Guantanamo #Gitmo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vy-fsgXR4jw From today's press conference: 8:15 AM PT: Bill Plante of CBS asks about the Guantanamo hunger strike. Obama says he still wants to close it. "It's not necessary to keep America safe. It's expensive. It's inefficient. It hu

posted 11:44:18am Apr. 30, 2013 | read full post »

open-source, lone wolf terrorism: different ideologies, shared methodologies
To summarize what is known at this time, the main suspects for the Boston marathon bombing are two brothers who immigrated from Chechnya to America years ago and have gro

posted 1:34:11pm Apr. 19, 2013 | read full post »


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