Jul 24, 2014
As John recounts in his latest missive. The old Dickens quote “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” is pretty much always applicable to a world as big and complex as this one. But lately, as the disparity between financial markets (best of times) and geopolitics (worst) has grown to almost comical proportions, Dickens has been sounding even more apropos than usual. To take just a few “worst of times” examples:
- Palestinians are shooting rockets at Israel, which is responding with a full-scale invasion that will end up killing many hundreds, including an appalling number of kids.
- A coalition of Islamic radical groups called Islamic State for Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is grinding towards Iraq’s capital, home of the small city that is the US embassy. What we’ll do should it be taken is anybody’s guess, but odds are it won’t be pretty. Meanwhile, Iraq’s Christians are the largely-unnoticed victims of the fundamentalist resurgence.
- Someone using advanced anti-aircraft missiles shot down a civilian passenger jet over Ukraine, and Russia, Europe and the US are making all kinds of threats and counter-threats as they try to apportion blame. There are an awful lot of soldiers in a small space, and the press is now full of “Archduke Ferdinand moment” kinds of analysis.