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Remembering George McGovern

Truthout October 22, 2012. Also see Zunes’ article in Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies and 1993 interview with McGovern in The Progressive.
Getting to know George McGovern – who died Sunday morning at age 90 – as a friend, collaborator, co-author and co-teacher has been among my proudest, and most fulfilling experiences. As a 15-year-old high school sophomore, I volunteered for his 1972 presidential campaign. McGovern won my county (one of the few in the South that went Democratic that year), but lost the state and the nation in a near-record landslide, thanks in large part to attacks by the right wing of the Democratic Party during the primaries and the dirty tricks by the campaign of incumbent President Richard Nixon during the fall campaign. These illegal acts, along with the resulting cover-ups, eventually led to impeachment procedures that forced Nixon’s resignation…

Embassy Protests and Middle East Unrest in Context

Foreign Policy in Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, September 17, 2012
Republished by: Arthur’s Peace Blog, Eurasia Review, Huffington Post, Middle East Spectator, Transnational.org
It seems bizarre… some media pundits are criticizing Arabs as being “ungrateful” for U.S. support of pro-democracy movements when, in reality, the U.S. initially opposed the popular movements that deposed Western-backed despots in Tunisia, Egypt, and Yemen, and remains a preeminent backer of dictatorships in the region today…

Occupy fizzled, but made 99% a force

CNN September 17, 2012 | Updated Nov 18, 2012
Republished by Huffington Post, LittleGreenFootballs.com,
Hartford Business, Occupy Feeds, Transnational.org
Until last year, mainstream political discourse did not include nearly as much emphasis on such populist concerns as rising income inequality, tax policies that favor the rich, growing influence by large corporate interests in elections and the reckless deregulation of financial institutions that resulted in the 2008 crisis [that] still impact 99% of Americans…

The Case Against War: Ten Years Later

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, Sept. 11, 2012.
By Stephen Zunes. Republished by: Common Dreams, Transnational.org, The American Bear, and Promised Land Museum.
“Ten years ago, I wrote a series of articles for the Foreign Policy in Focus website, in which I put forth a series of arguments against the Bush administration’s push for a U.S. invasion of Iraq prior to the fateful congressional vote authorizing the illegal, unnecessary, and ultimately disastrous war. At the request of the editors of The Nation – the oldest continually published weekly magazine in the United States – I wrote a version entitled “The Case Against War,” which appeared on their website September 12, 2002, and as the cover story of the September 30 issue. It became one of the most widely circulated articles in the magazine’s 147-year-old history. Every congressional office received multiple copies. In the articles, I correctly predicted that an invasion would result in sectarian violence, terrorism, Islamist extremism, and a bloody counterinsurgency war that would be the most elaborate and expensive deployment of U.S. forces since the Second World War…”

Democratic Leaders Undermine Israeli-Palestinian Peace and Their Own Procedures

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, Sept. 6, 2012.
By Stephen Zunes. Also by Antiwar.com, Reddit and Transnational.org.
In a stunning violation of its own rules, the wishes of the majority of delegates at its national convention, and positions taken by the UN and virtually every other country, Democratic Party leadership pushed through a platform amendment with barely half the delegates present and, allowing for no discussion or debate, stating, Jerusalem “is and will remain the capital of Israel,” and should be “undivided”…

California State Assembly Seeks to Stifle Debate on Israel

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, August 30, 2012. Republished by Huffington Post, Transnational.org, et al. The California State Assembly has just passed a bipartisan resolution (HR 35) by voice vote, which constitutes a serious attack on academic freedom and the rights of students and faculty to raise awareness about human rights abuses by U.S.-backed governments. While purporting to put the legislature on record in opposition to anti-Semitism on state university campuses, it defines anti-Semitism so widely as to include legitimate political activities in opposition to Israeli government policies.

U.S. Shares Responsibility for Rachel Corrie’s Death

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies, August 30, 2012. by Stephen Zunes; Republished by Antiwar.com, Common Dreams, Eurasia Review, Transnational.org, and others. On August 28, an Israeli court rejected a civil lawsuit against Israeli occupation forces for the 2003 murder of Rachel Corrie, a 23-year-old American peace activist killed in the Gaza Strip, upholding a severely flawed internal Israeli military investigation. Amnesty International strongly condemned the decision…

The Reality of Western Sahara

Global Post August 2, 2012, by Stephen Zunes Earlier this year, Global Post ran an article by Jordan Paul, executive director of the Moroccan American Center for Policy, a registered foreign agent for the Moroccan government, which funds, supervises, and coordinates the group’s activities. The article contained a series of demonstrably false claims attempting to rationalize for Morocco’s illegal occupation of its southern neighbor, the country of Western Sahara. In 1975, the kingdom of Morocco conquered Western Sahara on the eve of its anticipated independence from Spain in defiance of a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a landmark 1975 decision by the International Court of Justice…

Divesting from All Occupations

Foreign Policy In Focus/Institute for Policy Studies July 25, 2012.
Republished by Transnational.org et al.
In response to ongoing violations of international law and basic human rights by the rightist Israeli government of Benyamin Netanyahu in the occupied West Bank and elsewhere, there has been a growing call for divestment of stocks in corporations supporting the occupation… Still, the campaign has scored notable successes…