Alternet by Stephen Zunes, February 12, 2002
[Source] The tragic events of September 11 have created unprecedented challenges for the peace movement, anti-interventionist forces, and other progressive activists. For the first time in the lives of most Americans, the U.S. has found itself under attack. After more than fifty years of fabricated and exaggerated threats to national security put forward by the U.S. government, academia, and the media to justify military interventionism abroad…
Category: Peace and War
Why the U.S. Did Not Overthrow Saddam Hussein
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, November 1, 2001
[Source] There has been a curious bout of revisionist history in recent weeks criticizing the U.S. decision not to “finish the job” during the 1991 Gulf War and overthrow the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. With such a lopsided victory in the six-week military campaign, these right-wing critics argue the U.S. could have easily marched into the capital of Baghdad and ousted the dictator…
UN Betrayal of Western Sahara
Foreign Policy In Focus, June 1, by Stephen Zunes [Source & Global Policy Forum]
When a country violates fundamental principles of international law and when the UN Security Council demands that it cease its illegal behavior, one might expect that the world body would impose sanctions or other measures to foster compliance. This has been the case with Iraq, Libya, and other international outlaws in recent years. One would not expect for the United Nations to respond to such violations by passing a series of new and weaker resolutions that essentially allow for the transgressions to stand…
U.S. Must Insist Israel Return to the Peace Talks and Withdraw from Lebanon
Foreign Policy In Focus by Stephen Zunes, February 1, 2000
[Source] Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s decision to pull out of the peace talks with Syria is a shameless capitulation to Israel’s far right and raises serious questions as to whether the Israeli government is seriously interested in peace. President Clinton must demand that Israel return immediately to the negotiation table and come into full compliance with UN Security Council resolutions or risk an immediate cutoff of U.S. military and economic aid. The Israeli government broke off the talks following an attack by Lebanese guerrillas against Israeli occupation forces inside Lebanon…
NATO’s Rush to War in Yugoslavia
Peace Review 11:3 (Fall 1999): 447-454. By Stephen Zunes.
The United States-led war against Yugoslavia continued for more than ten weeks despite the many ways it could have been avoided or ended sooner, and despite the opposition and uneasiness it generated even among its initial supporters. This essay outlines some of the reasons why the war was wrong from a moral, legal and utilitarian perspective…
A Tragic Miscalculation
Common Dreams by Stephen Zunes, April 13, 1999
[Source is no longer available]
There is little hope that Yugoslavian president Slobodan Milosevic’s cease fire overtures mount to anything significant. Indeed, he has largely won the war on the ground. By contrast, NATO bombs have done a lot of damage, but have little more to show. Indeed, NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia tragically illustrates the limits of air power, however massive and well-coordinated, in achieving political goals…
Bombing Is Not The Answer
Common Dreams by Stephen Zunes, March 24, 1999
[Source is no longer available]
The ongoing threats of NATO air strikes against Serbia to end the Milosevic regime’s repression against Kosovo’s Albanian majority is a prime example of the wrong policy at the wrong time. The cause is certainly just: The Serbian authorities have imposed an apartheid-style system on the country’s ethnic Albanian majority and have severely suppressed cultural and political rights. However, this suppression has been ongoing since Milosevic revoked Kosovo’s autonomy in 1989…
Arms Sales Ironies
Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 14, 1992, By Stephen Zunes
[source] The timid opposition in Congress to the Bush Administration’s announced sale of 72 highly sophisticated F-15E jet fighters to Saudi Arabia shouldn’t have come as a surprise to anyone. Congressional support for Israel may require opposing the Palestinians’ right to self-determination, underwriting Israeli settlements and occupation forces in the West Bank and Gaza, and even banning the Palestinians from operating an information office in Washington. But selling sophisticated weapons to a hostile neighbor of Israel’s has rarely been considered problematic…