Obama’s Broken Resolutions
Unfulfilled promises may come back to haunt Obama this election year.
Month: March 2012
Hungary’s Right-Wing Threat
The European Union is confronting a Hungarian government that some say is bringing the country dangerously close to the fascism Europe has been striving to bury in the history books.
Obama Breaks New Ground When It Comes to War With Iran
Source: Tom Dispatch
When I was young, the Philadelphia Bulletin ran cartoon ads that usually featured a man in trouble — dangling by his fingers, say, from an outdoor clock. There would always be people all around him, but far too engrossed in the daily paper to notice. The tagline was: “In Philadelphia, nearly everybody reads the Bulletin.”
Those ads came to mind recently when President Obama commented forcefully on war, American-style, in ways that were remarkably radical. Although he was trying to ward off a threatened Israeli preemptive air strike against Iran, his comments should have shocked Americans — but just about nobody noticed.
The Slide Toward War
Source: Foreign Policy in Focus
Wars are fought because some people decide it is in their interests to fight them. World War I was not started over the Archduke Ferdinand’s assassination, nor was it triggered by the alliance system. An “incident” may set the stage for war, but no one keeps shooting unless they think it’s a good idea. The Great War started because the countries involved decided they would profit by it, delusional as that conclusion was.
It is useful to keep this idea in mind when trying to figure out whether the United States or Israel will go to war with Iran. In short, what are the interests of the protagonists, and are they important enough for those nations to take the fateful step into the chaos of battle?
The Politics of Security: Policing, Dictatorships and Resistance
The book Anti-Security represents a frontal attack on the concept of security, its internal logic, the politics surrounding it, and the institutions that employ it as a rationale.
Back to Basics in Palestine: Redefining Our Relationship to a People’s Struggle
Where do we stand in relation to this conflict? Are we on the side of the US-armed Israeli soldier? Or are we on the side of the bearded old man holding tightly to his broken olive branches, conveying a profound mix of despair and hope?