Americas.org, October 30, 2007, by Stephen Zunes.
Also by America Latina en Movimiento, and Scoop New Zealand
[scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0711/S00220/ScoopNew.htm]
Much to the chagrin of the Bush administration, Bolivian president Evo Morales has been going to great lengths to separate his country from its economic dependence on the United States. His efforts to strengthen the Andean Community of Nations and the recent signing of a “People’s Trade Treaty” with Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba indicate the desire of Bolivia’s Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party government to stand up to Washington by strengthening working economic and political alliances other than direct U.S. influence…
Category: Source
The United States and the Kurds: a brief history
October 25, 2007: To add to the tragic violence unleashed throughout Iraq as a result of the U.S. invasion of that country, the armed forces of Turkey have launched attacks into the Kurdish-populated region in northern Iraq to fight guerrillas of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). Taking advantage of the establishment of an autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government in Iraq, the PKK has been escalating their raids into Turkey, prompting the October 17 decision by the Turkish parliament to authorize military action within Iraq.
U.S. Denial of the Armenian Genocide
Common Dreams, October 22, 2007 [Source link is no longer available]
It continues to boggle the mind what the Democratic leadership in Congress will do whenever the Republicans raise the specter of labeling them “soft on terrorism.” They approve wiretapping without a court order. They allow for indefinite detention of suspects without charge. They authorize the invasion and occupation of a country on the far side of the world that was no threat to us, and then provide unconditional funding for the bloody and unwinnable counter-insurgency war that inevitably followed…
Iraq: Five Years Later, We Can’t Forgive or Forget
Alternet and Foreign Policy In Focus October 16. 2007
Last week marked the fifth anniversary of the congressional vote granting President George W. Bush unprecedented war-making authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own choosing. Had a majority of either the Republican-controlled House or the Democratic-controlled Senate voted against the resolution or had they passed an alternative resolution conditioning such authority on an authorization from the United Nations Security Council, all the tragic events that have unfolded as a consequence of the March 2003 invasion would have never occurred…
Support for Iraq Partition: Cynical and Dangerous
National Catholic Reporter, Nov. 2, 2007
and Foreign Policy In Focus, Oct. 12, 2007
The Senate is marking the fifth anniversary of its lamentable vote authorizing the U.S. invasion of Iraq by advocating a path that would only increase that country’s enormous suffering. On September 26, the Democratic-controlled U.S. Senate voted 75–23 in support of an amendment that calls for a “federal” solution to the internal conflicts in their country, which has been widely interpreted as a call for the de facto partition of the country. The resolution, sponsored by Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and Democratic presidential candidate Joseph Biden of Delaware, was backed by every Democratic senator except Russell Feingold (who voted against it) and Barack Obama (who wasn’t present for the vote.)
Five Years Later, We Can’t Forgive or Forget
Foreign Policy In Focus, October 11, 2007
By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
This week marks the fifth anniversary of the congressional vote granting President George W. Bush unprecedented war-making authority to invade Iraq at the time and circumstances of his own choosing. Had a majority of either the Republican-controlled House or the Democratic-controlled Senate voted against the resolution or had they passed an alternative resolution conditioning such authority on an authorization from the United Nations Security Council, all the tragic events that have unfolded as a consequence of the March 2003 invasion would have never occurred…
My Meeting with Ahmadinejad
Foreign Policy In Focus, September 28, 2007, by Stephen Zunes.
I was among a group of American religious leaders and scholars who met with Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in New York. In what was billed as an inter-faith dialogue, we frankly shared our strong opposition to certain Iranian government policies and provocative statements made by the Iranian president. At the same time, we avoided the insulting language employed by Columbia University president Lee Bollinger before a public audience two days earlier. The Iranian president was quite unimpressive. Indeed, with his ramblings and the superficiality of his analysis, he came across as more pathetic than evil…
Annotate This… President Bush’s Sept 13 Speech to the Nation on Iraq
Foreign Policy In Focus | September 14, 2007
By Erik Leaver, Stephen Zunes
Instead of charting a new direction for U.S. policy in Iraq, President Bush’s speech to the nation last evening was an impassioned plea to the American public to stay the course. But much of Bush’s argument for staying the course was based on spin instead of reality. In this edition of Annotate This… Stephen Zunes and Erik Leaver analyze Bush’s statements and offer an alternative interpretation of the situation on the ground. [source]
The Future of Western Sahara
Foreign Policy In Focus | July 21, 2007
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes
Morocco’s ongoing refusal to allow for the long-planned UN-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara to move forward, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign in the occupied territory against Moroccan occupation authorities, has led Morocco to propose granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom. [source]
More harm than good
Open Democracy.net, July 18, 2007, by Stephen Zunes.
The failure of the Kingdom of Morocco and the Polisario Front [8] to agree on the modalities of the long-planned United Nations-sponsored referendum on the fate of Western Sahara, combined with a growing nonviolent resistance campaign in the occupied territory against Morocco’s 31-year occupation, has led Morocco to propose [9] granting the former Spanish colony special autonomous status within the kingdom…
The U.S. Role in the Gaza Tragedy
Foreign Policy In Focus | June 26, 2007
By Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
There is much blame to go around regarding the tragic turn of events in the Gaza Strip. While Hamas is the most immediate culprit, responsibility also rests with Fatah, Israel – and the United States… [source]
The Peace Movement Addresses Israel-Palestine (Finally)
Foreign Policy In Focus | June 14, 2007
In my Inbox last Friday was an email from Peace Action, the country’s largest peace group, encouraging its members to join the thousands of peace and human rights activists from across the country in the June 10 march in Washington against the Israeli occupation. This otherwise unremarkable letter served as an important reminder that U.S. support for the Israeli occupation is finally becoming an issue for the mainstream of the peace movement… [source]
Jerusalem: Endorsing the Right of Conquest
Foreign Policy In Focus, June 8, 2007, By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes
Also at Antiwar.com, lucistrust.org, and TheSaker.si
In a flagrant attack on the longstanding international legal principle that it is illegitimate for any country to expand its territory by military means, the U.S. House of Representatives, by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, passed House Concurrent Resolution 152 congratulating Israel for its forcible “reunification of Jerusalem” and its victory in the June 1967 war…
The Democrats’ Support for Bush’s War
Foreign Policy In Focus | May 31, 2007, By Erik Leaver, Stephen Zunes
The capitulation of the Democratic Party’s congressional leadership to the Bush administration’s request for nearly $100 billion of unconditional supplementary government spending, primarily to support the war in Iraq, has led to outrage throughout the country. In the Senate, 37 of 49 Democrats voted on May 24 to support the measure. In the House, while only 86 of the 231 Democratic House members voted for the supplemental funding, 216 of them voted in favor of an earlier procedural vote designed to move the funding bill forward… [source]
U.S. Role in Lebanon Debacle
Foreign Policy In Focus | May 18, 2007, by Stephen Zunes
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert continues to resist pressure that he resign following the publication late last month of the interim report by a special Israeli commission on Israel’s war on Lebanon last summer. Military chief Dan Halutz has already been forced to step down and Defense Minister Amir Peretz has announced he will also be resigning shortly…
The Democrats and the “Human Shields” Myth
Foreign Policy In Focus, May 17, 2007, by Stephen Zunes
Also at Common Dreams and TheFreeLibrary.com.
Israelis from across the political spectrum, emboldened by the interim report from the government’s Winograd Commission, which investigated Israel’s ill-fated assault on Lebanon, are expressing regrets over last summer’s conflict with their northern neighbor. Uproar over the way a relatively minor border incident managed to escalate into a full-scale war is leading to demands for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s resignation…
Bring ‘Em Home, Bring ‘Em Home
Foreign Policy In Focus, May 14, 2007
by Emily Schwartz Greco, Stephen Zunes
Bruce Springsteen belts out an old peace movement standard. I first heard it while driving home from work on a college FM station. It was a song I had forgotten about but had known, with slightly different opening lyrics, in my childhood…
Washington Takes Aim at Syria
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, May 2, 2007
While Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s willingness to meet with Syrian foreign minister Walid al-Muallim during last week’s conference on Iraq is a welcome sign, most signals coming out of Washington in recent months are far more ominous. Indeed, the strident opposition by the Bush administration of the visit by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic members of Congress to Syria last month is not just another indication of the administration’s pathological opposition to engaging in dialogue with governments it doesn’t like. It may be a sign that the Bush administration is considering military action against Syria, either directly or through its proxy Israel.
U.S. Blocks Israel-Syria Talks
Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, May 1, 2007
By John Feffer, Stephen Zunes [source].
Even as American officials reluctantly agreed last month to include Syrian representatives in multiparty talks on Iraqi security issues, the Bush administration continues to block Israel from resuming negotiations with Syria over its security concerns. In 2003, President Bashar al-Assad offered to resume peace talks with Israel where they had left off three years earlier, but Israel, backed by the Bush administration, refused. Assad eventually agreed to reenter peace negotiations without preconditions, but even these overtures were rejected…
Iraq: The Failures of Democratization
Foreign Policy In Focus | March 9, 2007,
by John Feffer, Stephen Zunes [source]
The failures of Iraqi democratization as advocated by the Bush administration should not be blamed primarily on the Iraqis. Nor should they be used, to reinforce racist notions that Arabs or Muslims are somehow incapable of building democratic institutions and living in a democratic society. Rather, democracy from the outset has been more of a self-serving rationalization for American strategic and economic interests in the region than a genuine concern for the right of the Iraq people to democratic self-governance…