Tuesday, August 28, 2007

Articles worth reading

Unfortunately due to work pressure, I have not had much opportunity to blog over the Summer, but here are some "must read" articles....

1. Three decades after American left Vietnam, some historians (and George W Bush) have argued that America's withdrawal unleashed a bloodbath across South East Asia. William Shawcross argues that the same will happen in Iraq.

2. Following Channel 4's documentary, Undercover Mosque (which investigated supposedly moderate mosques peddling extremism), the police and crown prosecution service (CPS) took it upon themselves to investigate the programme for incitement to religious hatred. When they could find no evidence, they referred the programme to OfCom instead. Even the liberal press were appalled by this blatant attempt at thought control. There were several outstanding articles on the subject, including ones by Andrew Anthony in the Observer, and by Charles Moore in the Telegraph.

3. The police seem to have an awful lot of time on their hands when it comes to investigating Channel 4 documentaries, but when there's violent crime in your neighbourhood, they never seem to have the manpower available. This was tragically apparent in the case of Rhys Jones' murder. The police's lack of priorities is something that Philip Johnston has written about in the Telegraph.