The WPR Commentary Week in Review is posted every Friday. Drawing from more than two dozen English-language news outlets worldwide, the column highlights at least one notable op-ed from each day of the week. Jan. 15 through Jan. 19 was another week dominated by op-ed articles on crisis in the Mideast and Iraq and what the United States should do now, and how the whole mess is affecting the geopolitical strategies of countries across the world. But first, a couple of nuggety pieces about other parts of the world. For instance, Alexandra Starr argued in the Jan. 15 Los Angeles [...]
New to World Politics Review Jan. 18 is Shades of Justice: Scenes of Law, Order and Reality in Iraq, by Neil Shea, who has also covered the war in Iraq for National Geographic magazine. His reporting from Iraq for the magazine puts readers in the midst of the war in a way that far surpasses the average news article. Below are links to some of it, for those interesting in reading (and hearing) more of Shea’s work. His story “The Heroes and the Healing: Military Medicine From the Front Lines to the Home Front,” with photos by Jim Nachtwey, contains [...]
The above is good advice not only because skepticism is an intellectual virtue, but also because, if you read widely enough, it’s impossible to believe everything you read without getting tangled in a web of contradictions. “The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function,” F. Scott Fitzgerald reportedly said. That may be the case, but holding as true and valid two contradictory ideas at the same time is another matter. To help you avoid this pitfall, we highlight two recent [...]
