4 January 2004 Georgia: A Question of Legitimacy By Gwynne Dyer “Doing good may be noble, but fighting evil can be fun,” wrote billionaire financier George Soros in 1989, and he’s been at it ever since. He had considerable influence on events in Eastern Europe during the fall of Communism in 1989-91, he had a …
29 September 2003 Russia and Kyoto By Gwynne Dyer President George W. Bush did not instantly kill the Kyoto Protocol on global climate change just by pulling the United States out of the treaty in March, 2001, but it did mean that every other major industrial country on the planet had to ratify it before …
7 July 2003 The Chechen Quagmire By Gwynne Dyer “All terror acts committed on Chechen territory are financed by international terrorist organisations, including al-Qaida,” claimed Colonel Ilya Shabalkin, head of the Russian FSB security service’s operations in Chechnya, in May. Yes, indeed, said Russian President Vladimir Putin, and everything Russia does in Chechnya is “a …
25 March 2003 ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’: The New Barbarossa? By Gwynne Dyer Historical analogies are often misleading, but have you noticed that Saddam Hussein, in recent TV broadcasts, looks more and more like Joseph Stalin? That’s how he’s positioning himself politically, too. Like Stalin during the Second World War, he is effectively telling Iraqis to …
27 October 2002 How To Cover Terrorism: The New Media Rules By Gwynne Dyer Rule One: When covering terrorist attacks, do not discuss the political contex of the attacks or the terrorists’ motives and strategy. Two generations of comic books and cartoons have accustomed the general audience to villains who are evil just for the …