Bobby Ghosh has a piece in Time magazine celebrating the eradication of jihad from Saudi Arabia. I am inclined to think it's a little short-sighted. His evidence of the decline of Islamic extremism is, primarily, the relative absence of police checkpoints in the city of Riyadh. His treatment of the human rights violations that go along with the Saudi's aggressive crackdown on terrorism is cursory:
How did the Saudis do it? They used a combination of brute force and subtle persuasion. Few details are available on the crackdown on terrorist groups, because the authorities here don't much like talking about it. So it's a fair guess that many of the means they used wouldn't pass any Western human rights test. Riyadhis speak in whispers about midnight raids, arrests, torture and summary executions.
He acknowledges at the end that there may still be an extremist presence in the country. But there seems to be no connection, at least in Ghosh's rendering, between human rights violations and extremism. Perhaps a sentence on the ways that the so-called crackdown may have negative consequences would have been … helpful.
A few months ago, I wrote about the early stages of the conflict in Ukraine through the lens of Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While it appears likely that the war will carry on into the foreseeable future, enough time has passed for us to make an honest assessment of each side’s relative […]
The Ukrainian Army has made dramatic strides in the last few weeks. Ukraine’s tactical commanders have outfoxed their Russian counterparts, and by issuing a feint towards the south the UA has been able to earn substantial gains in the north of their country. The impact of these efforts have been compounded by the steady stream […]
In mid-May the Irish political party, Sinn Féin, won the plurality of seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly. Many American readers might not fully understand the significance of Sinn Féin’s political victory- but rest assured that subjects of the United Kingdom and a wide range of political movements the world over have heard the message […]
The first wave of the Russian offensive in Ukraine has fallen short of Russian autocrat Vladmir Putin’s ambitions. Most analysts deduced that Putin had hoped to achieve a decapitation strike of the Ukrainian government- taking Kiev and replacing Ukrainian President Vladimir Zolinski with a pro-Kremlin voice. Kiev has been threatened repeatedly through the course of […]
On the weekend of March 26th, the notorious MS-13 gang went on a massive killing spree in El Salvador which left more than 70 people dead by Sunday. Even for a country where powerful gangs hold massive sway, this recent tragedy stands out considering that it was the bloodiest day on record since the civil […]
