Recommended Sunday Reading—April 9

From Ground Zero: At the site of the nerve gas attack in Syria

Witnesses said the air raids began shortly after 6.30am on Tuesday, with four bombings around the town. Initially they thought it was just another airstrike, until the first responders who arrived at the scene began falling to the ground. Khutainy said: “They told us ‘HQ, we are losing control’. We had no idea what they were trying to say. Then they said, ‘come save us, we can no longer walk’. So the second and third teams went with just face masks. We could smell it from 500 metres away.” People described a scene of utter horror at the attack site . The wounded were shaking and convulsing on the ground, foaming at the mouth, their lips blue, passing in and out of consciousness. In The Guardian.

Discovering a poet after her death

Aquil lived in Allahabad, where she was born, and taught English Literature at Allahabad University, where Mehrotra too taught. When she died in 2012, at age 57, she had three slim volumes of poetry to her name. Aquil gave Mehrotra her work to read, but it turns out he did not really look at it while she was alive. It is tempting to see the compact form that Aquil uses - her epigrammatic sentences; short incisive words; imagery that borrows constantly but delicately from nature; and most of all, her reticence - as belonging to a long line of women who wrote poetry without revealing themselves. Emily Dickinson comes to mind readily. In The Telegraph.

Dogs of war in Afghanistan: A heart rending story

The military teaches us how to put the uniform on, but it doesn't teach us how to take it off, metaphorically speaking. I've lost count of how many friends I've lost now, who've taken their lives - four just last year alone. I couldn't even think about talking about what I saw in Afghanistan four or five years ago, but slowly, by opening up to other veterans, by putting myself out there and airing everything that happened it's becoming so much easier. On BBC.com.

Does Bilderberg mean anything to you?

What was curious was that my informant (this visiting professor) is greatly respected as a left-wing economist and yet he was asked to share his views with a group that takes pride in its right-wing orientations and credentials. Perhaps, the group is not as hidebound in its right-wing orthodoxy. At least, it seemed inclined to grant audience to an unorthodox voice.

In recent years, a few Chinese and Russian invitees have also attended the gathering, as an acknowledgement of the changing global realities. No Indian has yet made it to this super-exclusive club. In The Tribune.

Is Trump’s war on Syria legal?

Since 2001, there have been attacks on Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and Libya, among others, using various legal means. George W. Bush used a congressional authorization to justify the invasion of Iraq, though he had no United Nations mandate to go to war. Barack Obama used a United Nations resolution to justify the invasion of Libya, though he had no congressional mandate. In New Yorker.