Patrick Cockburn

Profile: Full name: Patrick Cockburn Area of interest: Journals/Organisation: The Independent | The Independent on Sunday Email: p.cockburn@independent.co.uk Personal website: Website: http://www.independent.co.uk/biography/patrick-cockburn Blog: Representation: Networks:

Biography: About: Education: Glenalmond College, Perthshire; Trinity College, Oxford Career: Current position/role: Middle East correspondent also writes/written for: Other roles/Main role: Other activities: Disclosures: Viewpoints/Insight: Broadcast media: Video: Controversy/Criticism: Awards/Honours: For on-the-ground reporting on the Iraq War won: Martha Gellhorn Prize, 2005; James Cameron Prize, 2006; Awarded the Orwell Prize 2009 for work published by the London Review of Books and The Independet Scoops: Other: Son of journalist Claud Cockburn

Books & Debate: Getting Russia wrong: the end of Kremlinology OCLC 20264705, 1989 Out of the ashes: the resurrection of Saddam Hussein OCLC 40510501, 1999 Saddam Hussein: an American obsession OCLC 50176504, 2002 (with Andrew Cockburn) Broken Boy OCLC 60641818, 2005 (a memoir) The Occupation OCLC 70114610, 2006 Muqtada al-Sadr and the fall of Iraq OCLC 219974566, 2008 Latest work: Henry's demons: living with schizophrenia, a father and son's story OCLC 663446004, Simon & Schuster, 2011. Reviewed here by Nina Lakhani Speaking/Appearances: Debate:

The Independent: Column name: World View Remit/Info: Section: Role: Pen-name: Email: Website: p.cockburn@independent.co.uk Commissioning editor: Day published: Regularity: Column format: Average length:

Articles: 2013 Syria has no reason to use chemical weapons - After the fiasco over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, people around the world are rightly sceptical about claims of gas attacks - 19th May History lessons the West refuses to learn - After the Great War, Britain and France carved up the Middle East between them. Now, plans for Syria have the same potential for disaster - 12th May How my ancestor, James Ramsay, helped end slavery - Seven years ago, Patrick Cockburn found he was descended from 'the single most important influence in the abolition of the slave trade' - 5th May The Boston bombs roused a monster - An overreaction to the attacks could result in massive, self-important bodies wielding excessive powers and hounding the wrong people - 21st April North Korea: Why the media needs a sausage maker in Seoul - Any source is a good source when desperate journalists can't dig up the most basic of facts - 14th April Libya's future looks bleak as media focus turns elsewhere - Two years after Nato's intervention, the militias are still terrorising the country - 7th April Adventurers and lotus-eaters in the land of the expatriate - Cyprus's foreign residents are only the latest to watch their dreams of a better life turn sour - 30th March Thanks to Leveson the job of journalists has become that little bit harder - Foreign experience shows harsher press rules in the UK will play into the hands of the rich and powerful - 24th March Erdogan should pursue lasting truce with the PKK - The conflict between Turkey's government and its Kurdish population will only get worse if no agreement is reached. A ceasefire might last this time - 22nd March Western meddling in Syria will only fuel the Sunni insurgency - British efforts to arm 'moderate' rebels reveal a lack of understanding of this complex civil war - 17th March Want to know what Iraq is like now? Check out 'Henry VI', parts I, II and III - Ten years after the invasion, Shakespeare's depiction of the War of the Roses echoes the fight for supremacy in Baghdad - 10th March Iraq: a history that must not be repeated - (6/6): The US and Britain are seen as conquerors rather than liberators. Their perceived support now for al-Qa’ida fighters in Syria, while condemning them in Iraq, has raised the political temperature - 9th March Iraq 10 years on: from death to dollars - how Kurds struck it rich - (5/6): Iraqi Kurdistan was the scene of Saddam’s greatest crime. It is also the home of the country’s newest oil fields, which present both an opportunity – and a threat – to its people - 8th March How the Shia are in power in Iraq – but not in control - (4/6): On paper Iraq's religious majority also runs the country. In reality, sectarian divisions make it virtually ungovernable - 7th March The Sunni rise again: Uprising in Syria emboldens Iraq's minority community - Iraq: The Legacy (3/6): When Saddam fell, his people fell with him. But events in Syria have emboldened Iraq’s Sunni minority to fight for a greater share of power - 6th March Iraq ten years on: How Baghdad became a city of corruption - Iraq: The Legacy (2/6): Money talks - how bribery became the dominant currency in Baghdad - 5th March Ten years on from the war, how the world forgot about Iraq - Iraq: The Legacy (1/6): A nation in crisis - 4th March Polio must be eradicated. It's a crippling disease but it can be beaten. I know - Bill Gates's campaign against the virus prompts our columnist to recall his own battle with it almost 60 years ago - 24th February A decade after the invasion of Iraq, the Kurds emerge as surprise winners - Troubles in surrounding countries may puncture Iraqi Kurdistan's boom but, for now, new hotels and malls are mushrooming - 17th February Saddam and the US failed, so why should Maliki think he can control Iraq by force? - The Prime Minister may have electoral legitimacy, but the Sunni revolt against his government is growing in strength - 10th February As murder rate drops, flood levels rise and inundate Baghdad with raw sewage - Ten years after the invasion of Iraq, an incompetent and corrupt government is unable to improve life for most citizens - 3rd February If you want the truth during a war, don't ask a pundit - On TV, informed commentators are too often ignored in favour of 'experts' with their own political agendas - 27th January 'War on terror' is a tempting defence, but it isn't that simple - We must understand the strange alliances in Mali to unravel its complex, conflicting loyalties - 20th January The war against the Shia catches all in its crossfire - Sunni attacks on their Muslim neighbours have left the West with strange bedfellows - 13th January At this rate, Syrian president Bashar al-Assad could still hold power in Damascus a year from now - In his World View column, our correspondent find links between the conflict in Syria today and the Algerian civil war of the 1990s - 11th January

Articles: 2012 Syria is many conflicts rolled into one. It is also at the centre of two regional struggles - A military stalemate between the government and rebels will make a negotiated settlement inevitable – but not for a long time - 30th December The descent into Holy War - The world decided to back the rebels last week, but this is no fight between goodies and baddies - 16th December Syria's rebels reach Damascus suburbs, but cannot break the civil-war deadlock - In a special dispatch, our reporter files from amid the 'vicious and unrelenting fighting' that is tearing the country apart - 9th December Shame on the UN for creating the deadly cholera epidemic that's killed 7,500 in Haiti - World View: Nepalese blue-beret troops brought the disease to the stricken country after the 2010 quake, but report implies the islanders are to blame - 2nd December Despite the sabre-rattling, an attack on Iran is now unlikely - If the Israelis wanted to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities, they have probably left it too late - 25th November Jane Austen made those long nights in Tripoli bearable - There's more to being a reporter than knowing your way around: you need to pass the time - 18th November Middle Eastern snakes exceed ladders for the US - Obama wasn't challenged over America's plans in Syria and Iran in the election. But conflicts in the region could proliferate in his second term - 11th November Whatever the weather, the US cries wolf - Hysterical reporting puts Americans in danger – as does the lack of an east-west mountain range - 4th November How US drones forge as many foes as they kill - The enhanced use of unmanned attack planes is at the heart of American foreign policy - 27th October Weasel words that politicians use to obscure terrible truths - Beware 'robust', 'remnants' and 'anecdotal' – just three of the terms deployed to hide or mislead Syria's suffering opens a door for Washington - As sanctions bite in Iran and Turkish shells fall, US is well placed to broker regional peace talks - 7th October American influence on the Middle East is past its peak – someone should tell them - Is the US now in the same position as the Soviet Union in 1989, when it had to allow its satellites to collapse around it? - 30th September Romney and the royals? They all know better - Those in the public eye should realise that the days when they could control or manipulate the news are gone - 23rd September As the Chinese so wisely say: Don't tie your shoelaces in a melon field - Humour and proverbs offer quirky insights into the wider world, but you have to work hard to uncover the gems - 16th September The murder of US ambassador Christopher Stevens proves the Arab Spring was never what it seemed - Bloody violence in Libya and protests in Egypt should dispel any notion that these revolutions were a vote in favour of Western ideals - 13th September Across the globe, neglect of the mentally ill is one of the great scandal of our times - Our writer, whose son Henry has schizophrenia, says the desire to save money has left mentally ill people to fend for themselve - 9th September The day a Cockburn set the White House aflame - Two hundred years after the US was humbled by Britain, our leaders still pass off defeat as victory - 2nd September As the violence intensifies in Syria, there can be only one winner - the Kurds - Ankara is watching events unfold with growing anxiety as Assad withdraws his forces from the Turkish border area - 26th August Libyans have voted, but will the new rulers be able to curb violent militias? - The armed groups who helped depose Gaddafi are now committing human rights abuses of their own, Amnesty warns - 8th July How Julian Assange's private life helped conceal the real triumph of WikiLeaks - Without the access to the US secret cables, the world would have no insight into how their governments behave - 1st July Why the Arab Spring has not been followed by the expected summer - History has gone into reverse as military governments clamber back into the saddle or slaughter their people - 24th June Greece's day of reckoning dawns in a climate of anger and uncertainty - Unless there is a decisive result in today's election, the country faces a political as well as an economic crisis - 17th June America is deluded by its drone-warfare propaganda - The use of unmanned aircraft to assassinate its enemies is guaranteed to backfire on Washington - 10th June Why war is marching on the road to Damascus - A special dispatch from the Syrian capital reveals why the city's residents expect the worst - 3rd June Move pushes Syria – and Russia – further out into the cold - It was in Assad's interests to avoid any atrocities. But the regime could not restrain its forces - 30th May As the bodies continue to mount up, a people on edge prepare for civil war - Many in Damascus know first-hand about the physical destruction wrought by the fighting - 28th May I fear this terrible massacre will be the beginning of a long civil war in Syria - The chances of compromise were never great, but they now seem to have been killed along with Houla's children - 27th May Goodbye to recent delusions - the age of nationalism is back with a vengeance - Intervention was meant to produce democracy in the Middle East and stability in Europe. Now we know it was a con - 20th May Netanyahu's threats to bomb Iran have served Israel – and the US – very well - With no one willing to call the belligerent PM's bluff, the fate of the Palestinians has dropped off the agenda - 13th May The last months of Bin Laden - Most of the interviews given by US officials to mark the anniversary of the al-Qa'ida leader's killing were fantasy - 6th May Al-Qa'ida opens a new front line - How did al-Qa'ida survived the intense pressure placed on it by security services after 9/11 and will it be able to do so in future? - 3rd May One year after death of Osama bin Laden, what next for al-Qa'ida? - The network Bin Laden led may be fragmented – but it has not been eliminated - 2nd May Hitchens made a cogent case for war – but he was still wrong - The late journalist insisted removing Saddam and the Taliban from power was paramount. But what about Syria? - 29th April The West practises double standards in the Middle East - World View: While Barack Obama and David Cameron vigorously oppose the atrocities against protesters in Syria, they handle Bahrain with kid gloves - 16th April Syria is too far steeped in blood for resolution by negotiation - The government's use of brutal tactics means that it is always creating fresh enemies - 10th April Galloway won for some very good reasons - Commentators who portray him as a self-serving demagogue are only showing their own biases - 8th April Corruption fills the air as Egypt prepares to vote - World View: Citizens here expect their leaders and officials to want bribes, and they're almost never wrong - 1st April The attempt to topple President Assad has failed - The EU travel ban serves to show how impotent the outside world is in its dealings with Syria - 25th March The strange forgettability of some civilian massacres - It is too soon to know if the deaths of an Afghan family last week will alter things in Afghanistan, but some atrocities have the power to shape history - 18th March Greece sells its independence to escape the burden of debt - Special Dispatch: In the birthplace of democracy, self-determination has lost out to economic dictats from abroad. And, as ever, it's the poor who suffer the most - 19th February All the evidence points to sectarian civil war in Syria, but no one wants to admit it - World View: Arming the resistance can only increase the blood-letting - 12th February The death of the American dream in Afghanistan - A devastating leaked Nato report shows the extent of US failure, as the Taliban prepare for the occupying forces to leave - 5th February Sanctions can only deepen the Iran crisis - Israeli and US hawks are more interested in regime change than the country's nuclear programme - 29th January Is Turkey's economic miracle about to fade away? - While its neighbours stumble, the country that is a role model for Islamic democracy could become a victim of overconfidence - 22nd January Whose hands are behind those dramatic YouTube pictures? - World View: Disinformation and black propaganda are as old as armed conflict itself, and the internet has only increased the opportunities to spread the fog of war - 15th January The day the checkpoint goons thought I was an American spy - In much of the world, you can tell who's really in charge from who is running the roadblocks – often manned by brutish extortionists armed to the teeth - 8th January Are we witnessing the final disintegration of Iraq? - World View: Its three main communities – Shia, Sunni and Kurd – cannot seem to run the country together, and yet none can run it alone - 1st January

Articles: 2011 Some say Maliki is paranoid. And it's no wonder given the violence of Iraqi politics - But his unexpected decision to provoke a political crisis immediately by ordering the arrest his own Vice-President on terrorism charges may weaken his rule and destabilise Iraq - 23rd December This is just the start of the struggle - The past year has shaken the Middle East from top to bottom, but the final results of the Arab Spring are far from clear - 18th December A superpower not strong enough to set Iraq on course - The US invaded Iraq in 2003 in a show of strength after 9/11 to prove it was the world's sole superpower - 16th December Focus on torture hides deeper discrimination in Bahrain - Shia leaders warn that a sense that they are being denied promotion will inevitably provoke a crisis - 13th December Wars without victory equal an America without influence - For all its military might, the US has failed to get its way in Afghanistan and Iraq, severely denting the prestige of the world's only superpower - 11th December Fragile Iraq threatened by the return of civil war - While the country is less dangerous, it is still plagued by sectarian divisions – which could increase as the last American soldiers withdraw this week - 4th December They act tough in Tehran because they don't think the US or Israel will attack them - Iran's leaders are nervous because of the likely fall of the Syrian government, its main ally in the Arab world - 1st December Iran is not the monster it's made out to be – yet - World View: By blaming the street protests at home on their Shia neighbour, Sunni-dominated Saudi Arabia and Bahrain are playing with fire - 27th November Making the rich pay tax they owe is one way to achieve fairness - The millionaire, who when his fortune is made, moves to the Isle of Man, is a tax dodger - 24th November Bullying intrusion is now a routine experience - At some point, we must be prepared to take a risk rather than throw away civilised standards - 24th November This was always a civil war, and the victors are not merciful - The purge of Gaddafi supporters is made more dangerous by infighting between the militias - 24th November Abdullah shows that neighbours believe regime cannot survive - The Syrian government looks ever more isolated. The latest blow came yesterday when King Abdullah of Jordan became the first Arab ruler to call for Bashar al-Assad to give up power - 15th November Greece and Ireland's dreams of equality go as quickly as the money - Perception of the crisis in Europe over the past month has been less concentrated in time and place compared with Black Thursday in New York, but in other ways the reaction is similar - 13th November My friend, the fixer - Feature: Reporting on the uprising in Libya, Patrick Cockburn recruited an idealistic Tripoli hotel worker as his guide. Shortly before Gaddafi's fall, Ahmed Abdullah al-Ghadamsi was killed. This is his tribute - 5th November The Army won't face the truth about Afghanistan and Iraq - Both British campaigns were ill-conceived and poorly executed: military defeats dressed up as victory. And much of the blame lies with the generals - 30th October Iran had better watch its step now Obama's chasing votes - A fumbling Tehran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador was dismissed as bizarre by the rest of the world. But the White House is taking it very seriously - 16th October This bizarre plot goes against all that is known of Iran's intelligence service - The claim that Iran employed a used-car salesman with a conviction for cheque fraud to hire Mexican gangsters to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington goes against all that is known of Iran's highly sophisticated intelligence service - 13th October Beware, an apparent victory can come back to bite you - The Taliban were defeated in 2001, but they are back in business – mainly because the Coalition has no partner to consolidate expensively won gains - 9th October Muslim sectarianism will halt democracy in its tracks - The ancient hatreds of the Sunni and Shia communities, exploited by rulers clinging to power, means the Arab Awakening won't succeed east of Egypt - 2nd October America celebrates the silencing of a crucial and fluent propagandist - The killing of Anwar al-Awlaki by a US drone is significant, unlike that of other al-Qa'ida operatives, because he was one the few effective propagandists in the group - 1st October President's return moves Yemen nearer to all-out war - World View: Ali Abdullah Saleh's call for a truce after his reappearance in Sanaa is likely to fall on deaf ears, unless he rapidly begins to transfer power - 25th September Turkey's bid to lead the Arab world meets Israel head on - World Vew: Prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, a strong advocate of secularism, is feted in Egypt, and now he is promoting the Palestinian cause - 18th September Whatever happens, a strong government is unlikely - Damage to oil facilities is not severe, but it will take time to again export 1.3m barrels of oil a day - 16th September Al-Qa'ida, and the myth behind the war on terrorism - The atrocities against America created the image of Osama bin Laden as the leader of a global jihad upon the West. It was a fantasy that governments willingly, and disastrously, helped to perpetuate - 11th September The tide may be turning against systematic abuses of prisoners - The close co-operation amounted to farming out torture by the CIA and MI6 to Gaddafi and his interrogators - 5th September A clean victory in Libya, but the peace will be rather messier - The swift end to the six-month conflict took many by surprise. The power switch is a different matter, with rebel leaders struggling to impose themselves - 4th September Hatred of Gaddafi brought Libyans together. What can unify them now? - View From Tripoli: Nato planes are bombing Muammar Gaddafi's home town of Sirte, underlining the degree to which Nato fully joined the war against him over the past month - 27th August No longer in opposition, rebels must start again - Nobody quite knows who is in charge in the capital, unlike in the Nafusa mountains to the south - 26th August No one doubts that Gaddafi has lost. The question is: who has won? - Precedents in Afghanistan and Iraq are not encouraging and serve as a warning - 23rd August Libya's ragtag rebels are dubious allies - Rebels, from the Wars of the Roses up to the present civil war in Libya, usually try to postpone splitting into factions and murdering each other until after they have seized power and are in full control. However deep their divisions, they keep them secret from the outside world - 11th August Bahrain: The divided kingdom - Brutal crackdowns on Bahraini protesters have revealed a bloody rift between the country's Sunni rulers and the Shia majority. Sectarian violence could tear the nation apart – as it has done elsewhere - 8th August Why the West is committed to the murderous rebels in Libya - Foreign governments rush to recognise the Transitional National Councilin the hope of commercial concessions and a carve-up of the oilfields - 30th July Nato in Libya has failed to learn costly lessons of Afghanistan - For too long, Western governments have believed they could earn a cheap victory by using air power alone. But experience shows this is not enough - 24th July Why must Britain always try to 'punch above her weight'? - Getting sucked into America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq was the result of our delusions of influence. Now we're repeating the mistakes in Libya - 17th July Attacks show Taliban are not as weak as the US claims - The killing of Ahmed Wali Karzai, the most powerful Afghan in the south of the country, will reinforce the feeling among Afghans that the Taliban can strike anywhere at any time and are not weakening as American military commanders have claimed - 13th July Don't expect top room service, or information, in a war zone - Hotels in strife-torn countries are obviously difficult to make secure, even the most foolhardy, ill-paid guard is unlikely to want to tackle a suspect bomber - 3rd July Don't believe everything you see and read about Gaddafi - Both sides in this conflict are guilty of spreading propaganda – and foreign journalists have on occasion been all too eager to help - 26th June Hopes for democracy fade as civil wars grip the Arab world - The anti-regime demonstrations that worked so rapidly and unexpectedly in Tunisia and Egypt are faltering elsewhere as rulers fight to hold on to power - 12th June Crumbling power base will struggle to survive this crisis - Pundits ask if the power vacuum will lead to civil war, but there has always been a vacuum of power in Yemen - 6th June We must cut politics out of the debate on cannabis - The 'war on drugs' may amount to a form of US imperialism, but advocates of decriminalisation must also acknowledge the real dangers of marijuana - 5th June Only winners from brutal repression of Shia majority will be Saudi Arabia - How to explain the ferocity of the Bahraini al-Khalifa royal family's assault on the majority of its own people? - 3rd June How Nato's blunders have prolonged Libya's suffering - Air strikes will defeat Gaddafi. But unless regional partners help force his departure, he will fight to the finish – ushering in years of chaos and crisis - 22nd May Violence 'used to force Shia out' of Sunni kingdom - Island state's ruling elite are set on a campaign of persecution, say religious leaders. Our writer on a nation divided - 20th May Bahrain is trying to drown the protests in Shia blood - World View: Claiming that the opposition is being orchestrated by Iran, the al-Khalifa regime has unleashed a vicious sectarian clampdown - 15th May Wasn't Bin Laden the reason we went to war? - The killing of the al-Qa'ida leader offers an opportunity to make long overdue progress on Afghanistan - 8th May The night I shot Donald Trump - The US media's downgrading of their foreign reporting teams has created an information vacuum which images from mobiles and satellite phones cannot fill - 8th May Even with al-Qa'ida's face of fear gone, can we ever be truly safe from terrorism? - Of course, there will be jihadi groups who will want to restore the balance of terror by making new attacks, but none is likely to have the same impact as 9/11 - 3rd May The double threat that hangs over the poor of Kabul - World View: As popular uprisings convulse the Middle East and North Africa, governments across the world wait nervously to see if any other country will experience an explosion of popular rage against despotic rule. In the wake of the Japanese earthquake there is also a more general curiosity about which places are most vulnerable to a similar calamity - 1st May Western intervention in Syria would make matters worse - There are good reasons why Britain and other foreign states should limit their involvement in the conflicts now raging in the Arab world - 27th April Ghosts will haunt Libya for decades - World View: Whatever Nato may say, the country is in the grip of a civil war that will resound for years to come - 24th April The regimes are rallying their forces. Is the tide turning against Arab freedom? - In Bahrain, Libya, Yemen and Syria leaders are no longer caught by surprise; their defeat no longer seems inevitable - 22nd April They denied it was about Iraq's resources. But it never rang true - The supposed disinterest expressed by international oil companies in the outcome of the invasion of Iraq in the year before it was launched never quite made sense - 19th April So the Arab landscape shifts – and confusion reigns - The great political awakening in North Africa and the Middle East brings change, but some things – torture of suspects among them – remain the same - 17th April Libya's parallels with Iraq under Saddam are truly ominous - Opposition leaders hope that time is on their side. Possibly they are right. But Iraqi opponents of Saddam Hussein thought much the same 20 years ago - 13th April The problem for Nato: how to tell rebels from loyalists - With the anti-Gaddafi forces ill-trained and totally dependent on the West, Britain and France are going to find themselves sucked into a long conflict - 10th April The shady men backed bythe West to displace Gaddafi - World View: We seem to have learnt little from recent history. Trying to impose a no-fly zone in Libya looks like a mistake and the rebels' credentials to rule are thin - 3rd April Every tyrant makes the same mistake in the Arab uprisings - The despots who have ruled the Arab world for half a century are not giving up without a fight - 27th March Israel may have squandered its last best chance for peace - Amid all the optimism, the Jerusalem bombing and the increased violence in Gaza are a reminder that the struggle remains at the centre of Middle East politics - 25th March A crucial US ally against Middle East terrorism or a safe haven for al-Qa'ida? - The US is expressing worry that the struggle for power in Yemen will give opportunities to al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula, which is based in Yemen - 23rd March Saleh has followed the Mubarak route to alienating his people - There is always potential for violence in Yemen – the state is weak and one in five people pledge their allegiance to their tribe - 22nd March Gaddafi cannot hold out. But who will replace him? - The rebels have shown that they are politically and militarily weak - 21st March To have an impact, this kind of intervention needs clear objectives - Western nations will soon be engaged in a war in Libya with the noble aim of protecting civilians. But the course of such a conflict is impossible to predict - 18th March Saudi response reveals fear that Sunni power is fading - There is growing anger in the Shia community, estimated to number at least 250 million world-wide, at the intervention of troops from Saudi Arabia and United Arab Emirates in Bahrain to help repress the Shia majority which has been demanding political and civil rights - 17th March Arab League call for a no-fly zone may be too little, too late - A call for action from the Arab League sounds like a contradiction in terms, given the 22-member organisation's reputation for ineffectiveness - 14th March France has clearly not learnt lesson of history - There is something frivolous and absurd about France's sudden recognition of the Libyan rebel leadership in Benghazi - 11th March Mubarak: a leader on the brink - The world watches and waits to see how the 30-year reign of Egypt's corrupt, incompetent President will end – whether the man who has reduced his country to a political slum will fight or take flight - 1st February The real scandal is Blair's ignorance - Worth watching will be the extent to which he continues his tirades against Iran, in much the same way as he spoke of Iraq - 21st January Catastrophe on camera: Why media coverage of natural disasters is flawed - When a natural disaster happens, we watch from afar, transfixed by dramatic news reports. But how accurate is the picture? - 20th January Middle East is brewing troubles like these - A striking feature of the Middle East has been the unpopularity of the regimes combined with their ability to stay in power - 15th January Beware your enemy's stupidity - History is full of examples of experts being dumbfounded by countries acting contrary to their own best interests - 5th January

Articles: 2010 The virtue of speaking truth to power - Opponents of Assange, like those of my father, downplay his revelations while demanding his arrest for high crimes - 29th December Nixon adopted this tactic in Vietnam. It won't work any better now than it did then - Could US Special Forces make a lunge across the Pakistan border in pursuit of the Taliban just as American and South Vietnamese troops briefly invaded Cambodia in pursuit of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces in 1970? - 22nd December History is repeating itself in Afghanistan - One hears again and again Afghans say that the Taliban may not be liked but that the US is distrusted, even hated - 18th December What Afghans will do to get friends out of jail - The main prison is Kabul is Pol-i-Charkhi, a forbidding-looking place off the Jalalabad road in the east of the capital, which was shrouded in smog yesterday. It has a grim reputation, built in the 1970s and used by the communist government as a place of torture and execution - 2nd December America should be glad anyone is paying attention to its inconsequential messages - To regain its old influence the Foreign Office should send a sizeable chunk of its cable traffic, firmly marked secret, to Wikileaks for further distribution - 30th November Embedded journalism: A distorted view of war - what makes a good story might not be the right story - 23rd November Be under no illusion, Nato is in no shape to make progress in this graveyard of empires - If Iraq was bad, Afghanistan is going to be worse. Nothing said or done at the Lisbon conference, which is largely an exercise in self-deception, is going to make this better and it may well make it worse - 20th November He may be weak, but President Karzai knows the US has no alternative - The main American complaint against President Hamid Karzai over the past year has been that he and his government are so weak that the US has no effective local partner in Afghanistan - 16th November If al-Qa'ida really want to hit the West, they can - International Studies: The original al-Qai'da led by Osama bin Laden did not controlits franchisees post-9/11 - 4th November Echoes of El Salvador in tales of US-approved death squads - The Iraqi documents released by Wikileaks produce significantly more detail on US actions in the war in Iraq , but do they produce anything that we did not know already? - 23rd October Pakistan won't act against the Taliban - Most Pakistani soldiers see the Afghan Taliban as Pashtun freedom fighters combating a foreign occupation - 2nd October The fires of religious fury are easily lit but hard to put out - Christian communities in the Muslim world that date back 2,000 years are finally being extinguished - 10th September Grim stability is the US legacy in Iraq - The civil war had winners and losers and it was the Shia who emerged as the victors - 28th August The battle to justify this war just got a lot harder - The people of Afghanistan keep losing their trust in government because of corruption - 27th July As Sangin shows, British troops were never geared up to make a lasting difference - The area, where a tenth of the British troops in Afghanistan suffered one third of total casualties, is symbolic of Britain's involvement in Afghanistan, as a bit player whose contribution was always going to have little effect on the outcome of the whole campaign - 8th July The chronic failure of Israeli leadership - Israeli leaders remain protected by an all-purpose American insurance shielding them from the results of their mistakes - 8th July American politicians face domestic constraints to talking tough with Israel - US strength in the Middle East has been reduced by the failures in Iraq and Afghanistan - 7th July Their mineral wealth is impressive, but it won't benefit Afghans any time soon - A smudge of blue paint decorating a letter in the Book of Kells may have come originally from the lapis lazuli mines in the heart of the Afghan mountains. The country's mineral wealth has been known about for a long time – but its full exploitation has been prevented by chronic insecurity - 15th June PR dangerously distorts the Israeli sense of reality - An old Israeli saying describing various less-than-esteemed military leaders says: "He was so stupid that even the other generals noticed." - 2nd June A blow to relations with its key ally in the Middle East - Israel's relations with its most powerful Muslim ally have plunged to a historic low - 1st June A stable Iraq is still a very long way off - The communal divisions and political paralysis lead some to fear that the country is turning into another Lebanon - 29th May Where US and Russian interests collid - Kyrgyzstan Analysis - 10th April Iraq – violent, divided, but hopeful - The election result marks another stumbling step towards an independent and, ultimately, peaceful existence - 28th March War need not figure in Iraq's future - Is this period of continuing emergency and conflict now coming to an end? - 6th March These rapid apologies only emphasise waning support - No Nato power contributing forces can keep itself on the margins of the escalating conflict - 23rd February Help from Pakistan is more significant than military action - The support of Pakistani military intelligence has always been crucial for the Taliban, which is why the arrest of several of their senior leaders in Pakistan is so important -20th February Where war goes, propaganda follows - Manipulation of news by government is easy when insurgents start targeting journalists - 11th February The Evidence of Witness 69: Blair has shown himself more a fool than a liar - The most revealing thing about the former PM's evidence was how little he understood about the situation on the ground - 31st January (Iraq war inquiry) The US is failing Haiti – again - US-run aid effort for Haiti is beginning to look chillingly similar to the disorganised government support for New Orleans in 2005 - 16th January This ugly embassy proves the US does not expect affection - The US and Britain may regret intervening in Yemen, which is very much an Arab Afghanistan - 4th January

Articles: 2009 Kidnapping was targeted to secure freedom of Iranian-backed militants - Peter Moore was treated differently and may at one stage have been held in Iran - 31st December Threats to Yemen prove America hasn't learned the lesson of history - Extraordinarily, the US is making exactly the same mistake as in Iraq and Afghanistan - 31st December Some in the US already see Arab state as 'tomorrow's target' - Washington has quietly been supplying military equipment, intelligence and training to Yemeni forces - 29th December Sunni bombers will not restart the war - The slaughter by car bombers of over 100 civilians in Baghdad proves that al-Qa'ida in Iraq still has the capability to launch devastating multiple attacks on soft targets - 9th December US surge will only prolong Afghan war - Analysis: Just as in Iraq, more Western troops on the ground will deepen an ongoing civil conflict and drive ordinary Afghans into the arms of the insurgents - 6th December Britain's ignorance of Iraq is already apparent - Ever since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 senior British officials have gently hinted that what went wrong was the fault of the Americans and, if there is any blame left over, it belongs to Tony Blair - 25th November The general is right. Liam Fox is wrong - Just when it looked like Obama might send more troops to Afghanistan, the US envoy to Kabul has warned him not to - 13th November Deaths bring Afghan strategy into question - In a long tradition of carefully calculated treachery, the shooting dead of five British soldiers by an Afghan policeman operating with them is hardly surprising - 5th November Iraq is safer – but by no means safe - Police know bombers are difficult to stop, and awards are likely to be posthumous - 26th October Baghdad life is improving, but it's far from safe' - Security in Baghdad is better than the slaughter of two or three years ago, but this still leaves it as perhaps the most dangerous city in the world after Mogadishu. It is certainly worse than Kabul - 14th October To say this war must be won in a year is nonsense - Eight years ago I was standing on a hill 50 miles north of Kabul watching the flashes in the night sky as the US air strikes started against the Taliban front line. There were a few ineffective puffs of fire from Taliban anti-aircraft guns which could do nothing against the bombs and missiles raining down on them - 8th October An act born from the burning hatred of foreign occupation - Mr Zaidi's words demonstrate how occupation provokes instability and violence - 16th September Democracy and occupation don't mix - Afghans and Iraqis see their governments as rackets run by political gangsters - 22nd August Only time can heal some Iraqi wounds - Horrendous violence has never really abated, despite propaganda lauding the ‘surge’ - 14th August A man of brutality and arrogance who knew how to play to American suspicions - The Saddam Hussein interviews are interesting for what they reveal and what they conceal. Probably right up to the end, Saddam was talking up the Iranian threat to Iraq, knowing that this would confirm American suspicions of Iran. The Iraqi leader would recall that a joint front against Iran had been the basis of Iraqi-American co-operation in the 1980s - 5th July I hoped my son would recover soon. He did not - The illness struck with terrifying rapidity over the course of a few weeks - 2nd July Disunity will damage but not destroy Iran - Is the revolution in Iran over before it began? Was it ever going to be a revolution? Will it leave the Iranian state permanently divided and weakened? - 25th June (See: Iran: summary) Decoding the President: what Obama's words really mean - the highlights of the much-anticipated – and carefully constructed – Cairo speech - 5th June These killings will only strengthen the Taliban - It is astonishing to discover that the same small American unit, the US Marine Corps' Special Operations or MarSOC, has been responsible for all three of the worst incidents in Afghanistan in which civilians have been killed. Its members refer to themselves as "Taskforce Violence" and the Marines' own newspaper scathingly refers to the unit as "cowboys" - 16th May To achieve peace, we must break the Taliban's support base in Pakistan - Afghans wonder if we are really prepared to do anything effective about Pakistan - 28th April How well was the Iraq war reported? - The winner of the Orwell Prize for his coverage of the most fiercely debated conflict of modern times, reflects on the task he and his colleagues faced - 25th April Can Obama turn rhetoric into the reality of peace with the Muslim world? - The President's bridge-building is welcome. But it will take more than words to erase the damage done by his predecessor - 8th April My day with the terror 'charity' working 15 miles from Lahore - 5th March Warning to the US: beware treating Afghanistan like Iraq - It's a mistake to think that 'failed states' won't put up strong resistance - 26th February Bush's 'puppet in Kabul' will not go quietly - the Pentagon has increasingly seen him as an obstacle to its plans for a "surge" to try to turn the corner in the Afghan war - 23rd January In Israel, detachment from reality is now the norm - All these years on from Sabra and Chatila, has anything changed? - 22nd January

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Links: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Cockburn