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	<title>Stephen Zunes</title>
	<link>http://stephenzunes.org</link>
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	<lastBuildDate>Mon, 30 Jan 2012 01:00:03 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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		<title>Unarmed resistance still Syria&#8217;s best hope</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Syrian pro-democracy struggle has been both an enormous tragedy and a powerful inspiration. Indeed, as someone who has studied mass nonviolent civil insurrections in dozens of countries in recent decades, I know of no people who have demonstrated such courage and tenacity in the face of such savage repression as have the people of Syria these past 10 months.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2012/01/26/unarmed-resistance-still-syrias-best-hope/</link>
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		<title>Protesters persist despite crackdown</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Of the popular pro-democracy civil insurrections that have swept the Middle East over the past year, none were as large -- relative to the size of the country -- as the one that took place in the island kingdom of Bahrain. And while scattered resistance continues, none were so thoroughly suppressed.

The crackdown against the overwhelmingly nonviolent pro-democracy struggle launched in mid-February was brutal. More 40 people have been killed, including a number in custody, and more than 1,600 have been arrested. Those targeted were not just human rights activists, but journalists who covered the protests and medical personnel who treated victims. In October, a military court sentenced 20 doctors and nurses to up to 15 years in jail for assisting the wounded.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/12/22/protesters-persist-despite-crackdown/</link>
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		<title>Obama Ad Condemns Israel Aid Opponents</title>
		<description><![CDATA[An ad on my Facebook page from barackobama.com reads, "Mitt Romney, Rick Perry, and Newt Gingrich say they would start foreign aid to Israel at zero. Reject their extreme plan now!"

This struck me as odd for two reasons:

First, it is disingenuous and misleading. The actual position taken by these Republican presidential candidates is that all foreign aid should initially start at zero as means of reducing the deficit, to be immediately followed by the resumption of aid on a case-by-case basis. As they themselves have acknowledged, they would immediately resume aid to Israel and perhaps even increase it. Ironically, U.S. "aid for Israel" goes almost exclusively to U.S. arms manufacturers, with which the Republican candidates have a close relationship.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/12/14/obama-ad-condemns-israel-aid-opponents/</link>
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		<title>Iran Threat Reduction Act Actually Enhances Threat of War</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Congress is taking up dangerous legislation which appears to be designed to pave the way for war by taking the unprecedented step of effectively preventing any kind of U.S. diplomatic contact with Iran. ]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/11/14/iran-threat-reduction-act-actually-enhances-threat-of-war-2/</link>
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		<title>Obama to Aid Uzbek Dictatorship</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee, in a move initiated by the Obama administration, has voted to waive Bush-era human rights restrictions on military aid to the Islam Karimov dictatorship in Uzbekistan, one of the most brutal and repressive regimes on the planet. The lifting of the restrictions, now part of the Foreign Operations bill, is before the full Senate and appears to have bipartisan support. The Obama administration has indicated that it intends to provide taxpayer-funded military assistance to Uzbekistan once the legislation passes both houses of Congress.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/11/09/obama-to-aid-uzbek-dictatorship/</link>
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		<title>U.S. policy undermines moderate Palestinians</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The Palestinians declared an independent state back in 1988, which has been recognized by more than 130 of the world’s nations. The Obama administration, however, insists that it is still too early for Palestine to be admitted into the United Nations.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/10/28/u-s-policy-undermines-moderate-palestinians/</link>
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		<title>Protests Alone Are Not a Movement</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It is hard to work for economic justice within the system when corporate-financed elections and a corporate-dominated legislative process make such reforms impossible. As a result, millions of Americans are recognizing that the system is the problem, and thousands are now taking to the streets. With inequality in the United States reaching Third World proportions, the biggest surprise may be that it has taken this long.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/10/07/protests-alone-are-not-a-movement/</link>
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		<title>Answering Obama&#8217;s UN Address</title>
		<description><![CDATA[During the Bush administration, I wrote more than a dozen annotated critiques of presidential speeches. I have refrained from doing so under President Barack Obama, however, because – despite a number of disappointments with his administration’s policies -- I found his speeches to be relatively reasonable. Although his September 21 address before the UN General Assembly contained a number of positive elements, in many ways it also contained many of the same kind of duplicitous and misleading statements one would have expected from his predecessor.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/09/30/answering-obamas-un-address/</link>
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		<title>The Legacy of 9/11 and the War on Intellectuals</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Ten years after 9/11, for the first time, a plurality of Americans recognizes that US policy in the Middle East played a major role in the attacks. It was not, as George W. Bush famously put it, simply because, "They hate our freedom."]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/09/10/the-legacy-of-911-and-the-war-on-intellectuals/</link>
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		<title>Lessons and False Lessons From Libya</title>
		<description><![CDATA[The downfall of Muammar Qaddafi's regime is very good news, particularly for the people of Libya. However, it is critically important that the world not learn the wrong lessons from the dictator's overthrow.]]></description>
		<link>http://stephenzunes.org/2011/08/30/lessons-and-false-lessons-from-libya/</link>
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