About this blog
Welcome to my blog - I'm Charles Reed and I advise the Church of England on foreign policy issues.
This blog covers a variety of topics from US foreign policy to European politics and the Middle East - and whatever else happens to be in the news or catch my attention.
This is a conversational blog so please join in as your comments are an essential part of making the whole thing work.
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Tag Archives: Afghanistan
Europe and its future(s)
Ecumenical visits to Helsinki, Finland and then to Novi Saad, Serbia, followed by the debate on the Queen’s Speech has meant there has been little time to blog. There has certainly been no shortage of issues to write about –Chicago … Continue reading
Posted in Ecumenism, Europe
Tagged Afghanistan, Bishop of Guildford, Bishop of Lichfield, Bishop of Wakefield, CEC, EU, European Ecumenism, Greece, International Development, O.7%, Queen's Speech
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Staying the Distance in Afghanistan
Which ever way you look at it it’s been a perilously bad few months for NATO operations in Afghanistan. The Quran burning incident allied to video footage of US soldiers urinating on the dead bodies of Taliban fighters followed by … Continue reading
Posted in Afghanistan
Tagged Afghanistan, David Cameron, ISAF, NATO, President Karzai, President Obama, Taliban
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Negotiating with the Taleban
The video of four Marines urinating on Taleban corpses has rightly been condemned by relevant US authorities. Indecent and inappropriate acts like this inevitably and rightly shock public sensitivities. Perhaps the most surprising element in this story, however, has been … Continue reading
Posted in Afghanistan
Tagged Hilary Clinton, Afghanistan, Taleban, President Karzai, Urinating Marines
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Afghanistan: To 2015 and Beyond
Rather than face the inevitable tsunami of emails that arises from being holiday, I decided to escape the office today for the relative sanctuary of the IISS where resident scholars were launching the results of their research project on the … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, Uncategorized
Tagged Afghanistan, Haqqani, IISS, Iran, Middle East, nuclear proliferation, Taleban
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Christianity, Diplomacy and War – Talking to The Taliban
By some strange coincidence, which I won’t bore you with, the decision to re-read some of the documents produced by the Church in response to 9/11 has led me to revisit Herbert Butterfield’s 1953 essay Christianity, Diplomacy and War. For … Continue reading
Posted in Afghanistan
Tagged 9/11, Afghanistan, Herbert Butterfield, James Dobbins, James Shinn, post 9/11, President George Bush, Rand Corporation, Taliban
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Richard Holbrooke – The Death of a Raging Bull
I was really saddened to hear that Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, died yesterday at the age of 69. I was a great fan of this raging bull of a US diplomat – hence this brief obituary. … Continue reading
