Gerald Caplan
Death was the Gipper's co-pilot
Only the ideologically twisted would deny Ronald Reagan his due. He was a wildly successful president, accomplishing a remarkable amount of his agenda.
Negotiating with the devil
Although a good number of Canadians seem to agree with his new position on Afghanistan, the chattering classes have been hammering Jack Layton. As it happens, I myself have some reservations about immediately pulling out Canadian forces from Afghanistan, although I increasingly believe it's now a quagmire on the road to becoming a Vietnam or Iraq-like debacle.
The conspiracy against Africa
(First in a three-part series) — Africa is a mess and it's not going to get better any time soon. That's the awful truth that's so hard to face — or to state publicly — for those of us who have had a long, intimate relationship with the continent.
Mine has lasted for almost 45 years. But from the very start, my experiences in Africa began conflicting with my hopes, indicating trouble afoot, foretelling that our utopian dreams were going to lead to crushing disappointments.
The West is complicit in the crises in Africa
(Second in a three-part series) — How do we account for Africa's plight and what should be done? The conventional wisdom is that the problem is African and the solution is for the rich, white Western world to save Africa from itself, its leaders, its appetites and its apparent incapacity for civilization.
We give, they take. We're active and entrepreneurial, they're passive and dependent. We help, they're helpless. There is in this neat equation more than a hint of centuries-old racist attitudes toward Africans, our era's version of the white man's burden.
West must give back what it's plundered and looted
(Third in a three part series) — Both Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher had soft spots for the apartheid rulers of South Africa, who were, after all, passionate fellow anti-Communists; it was Bob Woodward who exposed the close personal working relations between Bill Casey, Reagan's CIA director, and key South African government officials, including its intelligence service.
In Angola and Mozambique, the U.S. came in behind Portugal and South Africa to train and arm rebel groups against African governments.