Morning Report: 2008-04-21

Roundup from ThreatsWatch. I'm just going to let ThreatsWatch do all the work this morning:

1. Al-Qaeda in Iraq announces a new wave of operations celebrating 4,000 US dead milestone as Sadr openly talks of “open war” with Iraqi government.

2. A Japanese oil tanker took fire from an unidentified ship off the coast of Yemen.

3. After Hamas suicide car bombers attacked the Rafah Israel-Gaza crossing, injuring 13 IDF soldiers, Israel is bracing for more border attacks following Carter talks with Hamas.

4. Two pro-government officials were killed in Lebanon when gunmen attacked new Phalange Party center in a drive by shooting attack just after it was inaugurated.

5. As intelligence gained in Iraq reveals more al-Qaeda suicide bombers in Iraq hail from Libya - mostly from the city of Darnah - Russia is looking to ‘rebuild ties’ with Libya.

6. A Jamaat-i-Islami official has asked the government to commence impeachment proceedings against President Musharraf.

Go to the link for details.

The Euston moment: Toward a post-post-Left liberalism. Alan Johnson at Comment Is Free (Guardian):

Two years ago a 3,000-word political statement, the Euston manifesto, argued that much of the left had suffered a theoretical collapse and a collapse of sensibility. In the words of Nick Cohen's bestseller, the left had "lost its way". We called for a realignment of progressive politics.

By reducing the complexity of the post-cold war world to a single great contest in which "imperialism" or "empire" faced "anti-imperialism" or "the resistance", parts of the left had transformed themselves into a reactionary post-left that took its enemy's enemy for its friend. We were "all Hizbullah now"as the placards had it. Listen to John Rees, a leader of the Stop the War Coalition and Respect:

"Socialists should unconditionally stand with the oppressed against the oppressor, even if the people who run the oppressed country are undemocratic and persecute minorities, like Saddam Hussein."

America was the global oppressor and Bush was the "No 1 terrorist". Anyone shooting at Americans became, by that act, the resistance to empire. A collapse of sensibility followed. The reductionism in the theory licensed habits of mind and structures of feeling well-known among the older fellow travellers of Stalinism - apologia, denial, grossly simplifying tendencies of thought, moral relativism.

The consequence was profound political disorientation. Tony Benn sat in front of the mass murderer, Saddam Hussein, and asked him, "I wonder whether you could say something yourself directly through this interview to the peace movement of the world that might help to advance the cause they have in mind?" Days later Benn was less kind to an Iraqi oppositionist, spitting the words "CIA stooge!"

The Euston manifesto was a warning cry. Post-leftists, we said, were living in what Paul Berman called "foggy zones of half-believed beliefs, freed of any responsibility to subject any given opinion to the simplest of common-sense tests".

What were these half-believed beliefs? ...

Read the article at the link to find out.

Commentary. Dreams Into Lightning celebrates its fourth anniversary of blogging and its second anniversary on TypePad today. This week also marks the second anniversary of the Euston Manifesto, to which I'm proud to be a signatory.