Republicans, Democrats alike still level threats at Iran

National Catholic Reporter, August 15, 2016
(Also in the Huffington Post and Common Dreams)

The 2015 Iran nuclear deal should have curbed the longstanding bellicose rhetoric coming from Republican and Democratic political leaders toward the Muslim country. Signed by Iran, the U.S. and five other nations and ratified by the UN Security Council, the comprehensive agreement strictly  limits Iran’s nuclear capabilities and subjects Iran to the most rigorous inspection regime in history. The result has been dramatically reduced regional tensions and the elimination of any potential threat to U.S. national security.

The US role in the Honduras coup and subsequent violence

The National Catholic Reporter March 14, 2016: Thousands of indigenous activists, peasant leaders, trade unionists, journalists, environmentalists, judges, opposition political candidates, human rights activists, and others have been murdered since a 2009 military coup ousted the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya [who had] raised the minimum wage and provided free school lunches, milk for young children, pensions for the elderly, and additional scholarships for students. He built new schools, subsidized public transportation, and even distributed energy-saving light bulbs.

Hillary Clinton, phosphates, and the Western Sahara

National Catholic Reporter May 12, 2015 [Also by the Huffington Post]
For more than a half-century, a series of UN resolutions and rulings by the International Court of Justice have underscored the rights of inhabitants of countries under colonial rule or foreign military occupation. Among these is the right to “freely dispose of their natural wealth and resources,” which “must be based on the principles of equality and of the right of peoples and nations to self-determination”…

Egypt’s military government increases repression amid growing paranoia

Santa Cruz Sentinel & National Catholic Reporter February 28, 2014
Since the military coup in Egypt against the unpopular but democratically elected government of Mohammed Morsi last July, more than 1,000 regime opponents have been killed, thousands more have been hauled before military courts on political charges, and a repressive anti-protest law has been enacted, severely limiting the right of peaceful assembly.

The US role in Iraq’s upsurge in violence

The Santa Cruz Sentinel & Transnational.org January 25, 2014
[and by Common Dreams, Huffington Post, National Catholic Reporter]
The tragic upsurge of violence in Iraq in recent months, including the takeover of sections of two major Iraqi cities by al-Qaida affiliates, is a direct consequence of the repression of peaceful dissent by the U.S.-backed government in Baghdad and, ultimately, of the 2003 U.S. invasion and occupation…

10 years after the Iraq invasion, Washington still hasn’t learned

National Catholic Reporter, March 27, 2013
   This month marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which has resulted in the deaths of up to half a million Iraqis, mostly civilians, and the displacement of millions of others. Sectarian and ethnic tensions remain high and violence and terrorism — despite being less pervasive than a few years ago — are endemic. The current Iraqi government is notoriously corrupt and repressive, guilty of widespread torture and extrajudicial killings of opponents. A whole new generation of Islamist terrorists radicalized by the invasion and insurgency is now active worldwide. Almost 4,500 Americans were killed and thousands more received serious physical and emotional injuries…