TOP 100 NEWS SITES
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| World quiz Have you been paying attention to world events? news.bbc.co.uk |
CIA exposed by frontline role along Afghanistan and Pakistan border Suicide bombing of mountain base highlights agency's increasingly militaristic role in the region The suicide bombing of a CIA base in a remote mountain region of Afghanistan this week highlights the agency's increasingly militaristic role in the region.The base was a key part of the secret US mission to kill militant leaders across the border with Pakistan using unmanned drone aircraft. Seven CIA operatives were killed in the bombing and several more seriously injured.The blast on Wednesday in Khost province is the second most deadly in the CIA's history, eclipsed only by the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut in which eight employees died.Among the dead was the head of the CIA team, a woman described as a veteran of the agency's secret intelligence operations. The team was based at Forward Operating Base Chapman, a camp once used by the Afghan army but now a central planning point for the US drone war.Remote-controlled aircraft are a crucial element of the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban hiding along the Afghanistan and Pakistan border.Although Barack Obama has scaled back on some of the more controversial aspects of the CIA's engagement in counter-terrorism, including its involvement in interrogations, he has quietly increased airstrikes by drones which are thought to have killed more than 300 people in the past year.In particular, the Obama administration has approved an expansion of the CIA's drone attacks in Baluchistan, the area of Pakistan where many of the Taliban leadership are thought to be hiding.The planes frequently steered to their targets with intelligence gathered by CIA operatives based on a network of informants on the ground.It is one such network that is believed to have been the cause of Wednesday's attack. It is understood that the bomber, wearing explosives on his body, was brought inside the CIA base by operatives who saw him as a potential new informant and who may have lowered their guard.Informants are regularly briefed on bases before being sent out to the border zone to pinpoint militant targets. It is not known whether the bomber was searched before he entered the base.According to the New York Times, the CIA team at Base Chapman had been homing in on one radical group, run by Sirajuddin Haqqani who is implicated in the deaths of many American soldiers on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border.Obama wrote a message to the CIA in honour of those who had died. He said: "You have served in the shadows, and your sacrifices have sometimes been unknown to your fellow citizens, your friends, and even your families."The Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide bombing, telling Reuters: "This deadly attack was carried out by a valorous Afghan army member."The suggestion that the bomber may have been a member of the Afghan forces was denied, but it is likely to heighten anxieties. American and Afghan military personnel often intermingle.Former US officials said that the man had been invited on to the base and had not been searched.One of the officials, a former senior intelligence employee, said the man was being courted as an informant and that it was the first time he had been brought into the camp.AfghanistanCIAUnited StatesUS militaryPakistanUS foreign policyAl-QaidaTalibanObama administrationEd Pilkingtonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Eagleton the apologist | Theo Hobson Terry Eagleton is not prepared to come out as a Christian. Yet his most recent book shows he is closer to Christianity than MarxismI'm sorry to be slow in responding to a book that's been out for most of a year, but I only recently got round to reading Terry Eagleton's Reason, Faith and Revolution. I consider it one of the most important works of Christian apologetics to have emerged in recent years – despite the fact that its author is not quite willing to wear the "Christian" label.The book is largely concerned to rebut Dawkins and Hitchens; there are many polemical thrusts against a narrow bourgeois version of rationality, and a faith in Progress that thinks it is just enlightened neutrality. This is all good stuff, but what I find really interesting is Eagleton's thoughts on revolution and Christianity.He is of course sympathetic to Jesus's message of the kingdom of God, in which the poor will finally have justice. But he resists the normal Marxist response: that instead of fetishising the dead Jesus, we must do what Jesus failed to do. Instead he argues that the myth of Christ's death and resurrection is no escapist illusion: Jesus's "death and descent into hell is a voyage into madness, terror, absurdity, and self-dispossession, since only a revolution that cuts that deep can answer to our dismal condition." This is the sort of revolution that a normal Marxist would angrily dismiss as illusory, for "our dismal condition" can be politically mended. For Eagleton, the idea of the Fall cannot be brushed aside. This is confirmed later on, when he notes that Dawkins and Hitchens "have no use for such embarrassingly old-fashioned ideas as depravity and redemption. Even after Auschwitz there is nothing in their view to be redeemed from."They have, he complains, have a two-dimensional idea of history: it can get well through the spread of rationality. They arrogantly gloss over a huge and profound paradox: yes, there is progress in modernity, but it is unstable, prone to error of the worst sort. The Christian view of history might rely on miraculous intervention, but on one level it makes more sense: "Christian theology believes in the possibility of transforming history without the hubris of the idea of Progress."He concludes that the key blindness of Dawkins and Hitchens is their refusal to see that true humanism must have a "tragic" dimension: "Tragic humanism, whether in its socialist, Christian, or psychoanalytic varieties, holds that only by a process of self-dispossession and radical remaking can humanity come into its own." This begs big questions: what sort of "process" is adequate? Is it enough to see the occasional tragedy at the theatre? Or see a shrink? Or vote Labour? Or does the Christian myth of fall and redemption have special authority? If so, how can it be accessed, and inhabited, without the bossy downside of religion intruding?What is valuable about this book is that Eagleton is not defending a stable position. Instead he is admitting that, though he is not exactly a Christian, the Christian myth seems to underlie the very best form of socialist radicalism. For a famous intellectual, he is startlingly open-minded, humbly admitting he is still not sure, almost as if he is still a student. I think the book can be seen as a very cagey "coming out". To my mind, he shows himself to be closer to Christianity than to Marxism. For the fact is that Marxism is not compatible with the idea of fallenness. It holds that a form of human agency can be trusted to put life right; this is the only "salvation" worth talking about. Eagleton clearly does not believe this. Why is he so cagey about his Christian sympathy? I just said that he is like a student, in a good sense, of being still a sort of seeker. But perhaps he also resembles a student in that he can't quite bear the uncoolness of allowing the Christian label to stick to him.ReligionAtheismChristianityRichard DawkinsTheo Hobsonguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
Don't give Haitians a penny, says rightwing US shock jock Amid the rash of appeals for Haiti donations has come a call from one of the most prominent voices on the American right for people to hang on to their cash because Barack Obama might steal it.Rush Limbaugh, the most popular radio talkshow host, who is sometimes described as the real leader of the Republican party, says Americans should not give a penny to a population struggling for survival after the earthquake.Limbaugh agreed with a caller suspicious that the White House website was being used to direct funds to the American Red Cross. "Would you trust the money's gonna go to Haiti?" the caller asked. Limbaugh then said Obama was exploiting the disaster for political ends."This [the earthquake] will play right into Obama's hands," said Limbaugh. "He's humanitarian, compassionate. They'll use this to burnish their, shall we say, credibility with the black community – both light-skinned and dark-skinned black community in this country. This is made to order for them."Limbaugh also warned Americans against donating money. "Besides, we've already donated to Haiti. It's called the US income tax," he said. The movie critic Roger Ebert responded with an open letter to Limbaugh: "Tens of thousands are believed still alive beneath the rubble. You twisted their suffering into an opportunity to demean the character of the president."The evangelical leader Pat Robertson has also drawn criticism for suggesting Haiti had brought decades of torment on itself by making a pact with the devil to end French rule. The White House press secretary, Robert Gibbs, described Robertson's remarks as "utterly stupid".He also condemned Limbaugh: "I think to use the power of your pulpit to try to convince those not to help their brothers and sisters is sad," he said.Crass remarks were not restricted to rightwing Americans. A senior Haitian diplomat was caught on camera claiming the earthquake would be good for his country and appearing to blame the catastrophe on "witchcraft".Speaking before an interview on Brazilian TV, Haiti's consul in São Paulo, George Samuel Antoine, said: "This catastrophe is good for us here, it will make us known."HaitiBarack ObamaUnited StatesRadio industryUS televisionRadioChris McGrealTom Phillipsguardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010 | Use of this content is subject to our Terms & Conditions | More Feeds guardian.co.uk |
In Broad Crackdown, Vietnam Democracy Activists Sentenced to Jail Time A prominent human rights lawyer and three other pro-democracy activists were found guilty of trying to overthrow the government in a courtroom in Ho Chi Minh on Wednesday feedproxy.google.com |