Cockeyed views

Geopolitically, the world is stabilising and returning to its usual axis with the Mega-civilisations , once again, rising to the top their natural position. We ve been through 2-3 centuries where ruthless barbarians have controlled the world and at a time where humans had developed just enough to have a reach across the whole globe. Most previous empires have had regional influence unlike the Europeans, who had global influence. Over 40 years ago, I recall discussing the rise and fall of empires and civilisations with a history academic who argued that empires were cyclical and whilst the West was powerful, power would transition to the East, in time. When analysing this argument, my assessment was that, at the time of older civilisations, their sphere of military influence was constrained by technology and distance. Due to the global reach of empires of our time, it was increasingly difficult for civilisations to rise as the dominant powers would suppress them. The Y...

I can barely remember a time where Hamas and Hezbollah didn't exist nor when they were considered anything but vile terrorists, even worse than the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organisation - or mostly irrelevant Palestinian Authority). That would be the case to many of my age and younger. Having said that, most would be surprised to hear that neither for these organisations are classified as terrorists by the United Nations. Now, why is that? How is it even possible? Answering that question turns out to be not that difficult. But before doing that, let's have a brief overview of who they really are. This is brief, as this information is easily accessible, mostly demonising them as it is the West that has needed to promote this evil narrative and so, as usual, flood the information sources with their version. Hamas - the warriors of Palestine Founded 1987 as an offshoot of the Muslim brotherhood (Egypt) during the occupation of the West bank and Gaza by the European Je...