Podcasts, videos, books and tweets of the week 73

Sorry, I had a birthday last weekend.

No drinking, but I was busy doing nothing.

Then I had work.

Phil is finishing another book. Literally this month.

So…

Reading this book:

• Offers a new global history of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, exploring the conflict both within and beyond the framework of the Cold War
• Based on extensive, multilingual research in archives across South Asia, Europe, and North America
• Draws on recently declassified US documents

No offense

From history - Yakuza

Speaking of Yakuza

I’ll be playing this today

Maybe America should leave the region the fuck alone - does anybody want it there?

On this edition of Parallax Views, retired diplomat Patrick Theros, who served as the United States Ambassador to Qatar from 1995 to 1998 and is currently a Strategic Adviser for Gulf International Forum, joins the show to discuss Israel/Palestine and the war in Gaza from a diplomat's perspective and his Responsible Statecraft piece "Who’s the superpower around here?". We discuss what Biden must do in this situation not just for the sake of Palestinians, but also Israelis. Theros argues that if a President isn't willing to take the risk of making difficult decisions then what is the point of being President. He also laments the lack of diplomatic thought in approaching the Middle East arguing that you have to understand the perspective of the various players in the region and in many cases people do not do this. We also discuss how the GCC Gulf states have responded to the Gaza war, Iran in relation to the Gaza war, actions of past presidents like Eisenhower and HW Bush in regard to Israel/Palestine, Bill Clinton and Camp David 2000 (and the often repeated but contested claim that Arafat turned down a fair and generous offer), and much, much more.

No offense, but fuck this book and its Nazi authors

From Wiki - The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung published a scathingly negative review by Dietmar Dath. Summing up the novel's attitude as "cool retro-fascism from the future", the reviewer wrote that the authors' main aim (apart from propagating crude stereotypes about European countries) seemed to be to pontificate about the perceived failings of Western society, such as pacifism and environmentalism, to which the rejuvenated Waffen-SS appear intended to provide a positive contrast

And this book is also about Nazis!

Its about Russian Nazis and fascists and Russian Nazis and fascists.