House of Representatives Finally Recognizes Armenian Genocide
It is shocking that it has taken this long for even one house of the U.S. Congress to recognize this historic tragedy. Somehow it is always a “bad time” to upset the government of Turkey.
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Biden’s Support of Iraq War Shows How He Would Run the White House
Supporters of presidential candidate and former Vice President Joe Biden are probably hoping that Democratic voters will see his key role in pushing through the Iraq War authorization as simply a “mistake” which should not be a factor in the 2020 presidential race. Indeed, Biden now claims that, “From the moment [the invasion] started … I was opposed to the effort, and I was outspoken as much as anyone at all in the Congress” despite his statements at the time and subsequently that he supported Bush’s decision to invade even after inspectors returned and no “weapons of mass destruction” were found.
Not only was Biden one of the most important Democratic supporters of the Iraq War, but that support says much about the kind of president he would be.
Biden Has Defended US Allies’ Use of Lethal Force Against Civilians
On an October evening in 2002, while quietly embroidering on the porch of her home in Nablus in the West Bank, 60-year-old Shaden Abu Hijleh was shot and killed by Israeli occupation forces. A grandmother and community activist involved in promoting the arts, women’s and children’s advocacy, serving the needy and nonviolent resistance to the occupation, she had no links to any violent or extremist organizations. No protests or other violent disturbances were taking place nearby, and her killing is widely believed to have been a targeted assassination.
This Isn’t the First Time the US Has Abandoned the Kurds
President Trump’s decision to give a green light for a Turkish invasion of Kurdish-populated regions of northern Syria has been faced with swift bipartisan opposition
Biden Is Doubling Down on Iraq War Lies
For the second consecutive Democratic debate, Joe Biden has failed to come to terms about his critical role in supporting the illegal, unnecessary, and predictably disastrous U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq….
Trump’s Threats towards Iran Aren’t Working. Here’s Why.
The Trump Administration has imposed sanctions against more than 1,000 Iranian entities, including Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, targeting almost every significant sector of that nation’s economy. But recently it reversed course, backing off its threat to sanction a top Iranian diplomat, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, in response to concerns that it would foreclose any diplomatic recourse…..
The Threat of War with Iran
The White House has ordered an aircraft carrier strike group off the coast of Iran and a fleet of bombers have flown to U.S. air bases near that country, while preliminary plans are apparently underway to send 120,000 U.S. troops to the region.
How Sudan’s Pro-Democracy Uprising Challenges Prevailing Myths about Civil Resistance
A powerful pro-democracy civil insurrection in Sudan which has ousted a longstanding dictator and his successor is still in progress, but Sudanese are hopeful for a full democratic transition.
Trump’s Controversial Decision on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
There is little question that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) is bad news. Some of its units have engaged in severe repression of nonviolent dissidents, supported Assad’s brutal counter-insurgency operations in Syria, backed hardline Islamist militia in several foreign countries, and more.
The Other Reason Biden Shouldn’t Run
Anyone wondering about former Vice-President Joe Biden’s fitness for the presidency ought to be concerned about the recent allegations of inappropriate touching. But there is another issue that deserves consideration: his key role in making possible an inappropriate and utterly disastrous war.
U.S. Recognition of Israel’s Golan Annexation a Threat to World Order
The Trump Administration’s decision to recognize Israel’s illegal annexation of the Golan Heights—Syrian territory seized in the June 1967 war—marks a serious violation of fundamental principles of international law.
‘More AIPAC Than J Street’: Kamala Harris Runs to the Right on Foreign Policy
Harris is being embraced by many progressive Democrats, and she’s branding herself as a progressive. Yet in the course of her little more than two years in the U.S. Senate, she’s taken some foreign policy positions that should give pause to supporters of human rights and international law.
Rescinding a Human Rights Award to Angela Davis Was Cowardly and Unfair
This past October, the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute announced that activist, author, and scholar Angela Davis would be presented with the Fred Shuttlesworth Human Rights Award at the group’s annual gala event next month. The announcement described Davis as “one of the most globally recognized champions of human rights, giving voice to those who are powerless to speak.”
Politicians Are Not Going to Hold Saudi Arabia Accountable
Sojourners January 2019: Despite manifold horrors inflicted by the Saudi regime over the years, it was not until the grisly murder of a well-connected exiled journalist in early October that public attention has finally been given to the monarchy’s savagery…
Despite Everything, U.S. Troops Should Leave Syria
Z Network, January 4, 2019: Donald Trump’s sudden decision to remove U.S. forces from Syria appears to have been impetuous and ill-considered — apparently a result of a conversation with Turkey’s autocratic president Recep Erdogan. That doesn’t mean, however, that the United…
Dems Eye Hawkish Eliot Engel to Chair House Foreign Affairs Committee
The Progressive November 14, 2018
The Power of Nonviolent Action in Conflict Zones
American Friends of Combatants for Peace, 15 October 2018 By Professor Stephen Zunes, for the conference “Beyond Dialogue—Nonviolence and Social Action” Neve Shalom/Wahat Al Salam, Israel [source]
Impeach Away! Thoughts on a Possible President Pence
August 22, 2018 in The Progressive, and Common Dreams: While many express concern that Vice-President Mike Pence, a Christian supremacist with more consistently hard right wing views than Trump, could replace him, Zunes argues Trump will likely be forced from office and…
The Role of Civil Resistance in Bolivia’s 1977-1982 Pro-Democracy Struggle
July 2018 Middle Atlantic Review of Latin American Studies, V.2(1), and International Center on Nonviolent Conflict and Research Gate: Despite being the poorest and least developed country in South America, Bolivia was the first to emerge from the period of…
Under Trump U.S. Contempt for International Law Intensifies
Truthout, June 5, 2018, by Stephen Zunes: What is Gaza’s hope for the future after the fallout over the US embassy move and the Iran deal exit?