The way Human Rights Watch (HRW) reported on Haiti and Venezuela in its 2008 World Report reveals an underlying assumption that the U.S. and its allies have the right to overthrow democratic governments.1 The Venezuela section of the report said nothing about ongoing attempts by the U.S. to overthrow the Chavez government. It is a […]
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Monthly Review Magazine
Why Another History of the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict?
James L. Gelvin. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. x + 294 pp. Illustrations, maps, notes, bibliographies, glossary, time line, biographical sketches, index. Those who have noted, but not read, James Gelvin‘s The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War may well ask themselves, “do we need another […]
The Christmas Pogrom in Orissa and the Growing Threat of Hindutva Fascism
Analytical Monthly Review, published in Kharagpur, West Bengal, India, is a sister edition of Monthly Review. Its February 2008 issue features the following editorial. — Ed. In the aftermath of the 2004 Lok Sabha elections, many of our friends persuaded themselves that the high tide of the danger of Sangh Parivar-BJP fascism had passed. […]
Kosovo and International Law
Here are two documents on the Kosovo question in light of international law: an appeal of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law and a diplomatic initiative of University of Belgrade law students. — Ed. APPEAL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF BELGRADE FACULTY OF LAW The Senate of the University of Belgrade Faculty of Law […]
Meeting Resistance: Iraqi Insurgents Speak for Themselves
Meeting Resistance: A film by Molly Bingham and Steve Connors. Now showing at various locations. For a schedule, go to: www.meetingresistance.com. Available soon on DVD. Meeting Resistance is that rarest of discourse in the contemporary world — the true voice of the victims of US imperialism — edited, of course, as any coherent documentary must […]
It’s the Empire, Stupid
The status of the border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt remains unsettled. Egypt is under heavy pressure from both Israel and the United States to reestablish control and seal the border. In an uncharacteristically blunt criticism of the regime of President Husni Mubarak, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice testified before the House Foreign Affairs […]
End of Japan’s National Development State for Higher Education
Introduction Japan’s vast higher education system has around 5,000 institutions. This includes a tertiary level of about 1,300 government-approved, degree-awarding colleges and universities. Seven hundred forty-five of these are designated as ‘daigaku,’ a term which refers to any institution that has received government sanction to award four-year degrees equivalent to a baccalaureate. These four-year […]
Higher Inflation Makes the Fed’s Job Far More Difficult
CPI Rises 0.4 Percent in January, Core Edges Higher Higher inflation is the cost of the high dollar policy of the last decade. The overall consumer price index rose by 0.4 percent for the second straight month in January, pushed up by 0.7 percent increases in both food and energy prices. The January increase brings […]
Reviving the Iranian Revolt
At the height of the Iranian revolution in the winter of 1979, French philosopher Michel Foucault described what he was seeing in Tehran as “perhaps the first great insurrection against global systems, the form of revolt that is the most modern and the most insane.” “Islam,” he wrote, “– which is not simply a religion, […]
Peter Hallward Untangles the Truth about Haiti from a Web of Lies
DAMMING THE FLOOD : Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment by Peter HallwardBUY THIS BOOK In Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment, Peter Hallward meticulously explains how, on February 29 of 2004, the U.S. managed to “topple one of the most popular governments in Latin America but it managed to […]
The US “War on Terror” Exported to Rwanda: A Threat to Peace in DRC
There is a common flaw in US foreign policy. In giving aid to foreign nations, the United States prioritizes its own foreign policy goals over any standards of good governance. Because this system of support ignores the realities on the ground, it ultimately backfires, undermining US long-term interests and fueling instability, conflict, and violations […]
East Timor’s Crisis The Strangest Yet
East Timor’s latest crisis is the strangest yet. The shoot-out that left president Jose Ramos Horta in intensive care, and killed the charismatic rebel Major Alfredo Reinado, is still unexplained. At first they told us it was a coup attempt by Reinado’s forces, disaffected ex-soldiers who had come from their hiding places in the hills […]
Interview with Shahla Lahiji on Women’s Presence in the Labor Market: No Vocation Must Be Prohibited for Women
Shahla Lahiji is the first Iranian woman who succeeded in getting a publisher’s license registered in her own name. She founded Roshangaran and Women’s Studies, a publishing house, 23 years ago. Lahiji sees herself in a kind of living history on the question of women’s labor, for her mother was the fifth woman who […]
Real Muslims, Real Lives: An Enchanted Modern by Lara Deeb
Lara Deeb. An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon. Princeton Studies in Muslim Politics Series. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006. ix + 263 pp. Illustrations, footnotes, glossary, bibliography, index. An Enchanted Modern by Lara Deeb is an important book that illustrates and explores the lives of real, modern, Muslim women. Published […]
Injustice at Guantanamo: Torture Evidence and the Military Commissions Act
The Bush administration has announced its intention to try six alleged al Qaeda members at Guantánamo under the Military Commissions Act. That Act forbids the admission of evidence extracted by torture, although it permits evidence obtained by cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment if it was secured before December 30, 2005. Thus, the administration would be forbidden […]
Walking Away: The Least Bad Option
Except for a hardy band of neo-con optimists and the official apologists of the Bush regime, almost everyone is agreed today that the United States has gotten itself into a nasty, self-wounding mess in Iraq where it is fighting a drawn-out guerrilla war it cannot win. At the same time, a very large number of […]
Algeria, the Return of the FIS [Algérie, le retour du FIS]
Dans le quotidien Le Monde (9 février), M. Ali Belhadj, l’ancien numéro 2 du Front islamique du salut (FIS) a donné un entretien à Florence Beaugé, « Il faut trouver, d’urgence, une solution politique en Algérie » 1. Cet important entretien appelle quelques commentaires. 1. Le moment choisi pour sa publication est important, marqué par […]
Race, Poverty, and the Neoliberal Agenda in the United States: Lessons from Katrina and Rita
Abstract The global economic system has come to be dominated de facto by institutions subscribing to and enforcing the neoliberal agenda. Since the end of World War II, these institutions have sought not only to regulate but, in a manner reminiscent of classical colonialism, to control global resources facilitated by the emergence of the neoliberal […]
As Rome Burned, the Emperor Fiddled
As global finance’s house of cards implodes, Bush and Congress fiddle and Bernanke Fedles. When sub-prime mortgages defaulted, debt-backed securities tanked, and credit everywhere contracted. Business investment then shrank as did consumer spending. Recession now looms in the US if it is not already here. Worry deepens that it might get very bad and last […]
Fear of the Left Cripples German Defense Chiefs
What a difference a party on the left can mean! US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, at the annual International Security Conference in Munich, stepped up pressure on Germany to send more troops to Afghanistan and commit them to active fighting there, not only in the currently more peaceful north but in the battle-ridden south […]
