Listen to the interview with Jerica Arents and Mary Dean: Jerica Arents: What’s interesting, we heard many people who are in higher echelons of society [in Bamiyan Province in Afghanistan] say that “US forces need to stay, they are protecting us,” but ordinary people, ordinary Afghans, whom we talked to said, “We want the […]
Subjects Archives: War
Occupation of the Territories: Israeli Soldier Testimonies 2000-2010
Excerpt: From the descriptions given by the soldiers, one comes to grasp the logic of Israeli operations overall. The testimonies leave no room for doubt: while it is true that the Israeli security apparatus has had to deal with concrete threats in the past decade, including terrorist attacks on Israeli citizens, Israeli operations are not […]
West Sea Crisis in Korea
Contested Waters: Background to a Crisis 1. On November 23, 2010, military troops from the Republic of Korea (ROK, or South Korea) and the United States conducted war-simulation exercises, dubbed “Hoguk” [“Defend the State”], a massive joint endeavor involving 70,000 soldiers, 600 tanks, 500 warplanes, 90 helicopters, and 50 warships. It was slated to […]
Israel’s War on Children of Jerusalem
Israeli police have been criticized over their treatment of hundreds of Palestinian children, some as young as seven, arrested and interrogated on suspicion of stone throwing in East Jerusalem. In the past year, criminal investigations have been opened against more than 1,200 Palestinian minors in Jerusalem on stone-throwing charges, according to police statistics gathered by […]
Nut-bag Letter to Jon Stewart from the Mad Peace Activist
Dear Mr. Stewart, Remember your “Rally to Restore Sanity” in DC last October? I’m sorry, but my sanity remains unrestored. In fact, I’ve been feeling increasingly deranged. It’s like I’m speeding down Life’s superhighway at 666 miles per hour, headed for Nut City, where I am due to give my inaugural speech as Mayor. At […]
Korea: Still an Unknown War
Bruce Cumings. The Korean War: A History. New York: Modern Library, 2010. Cloth, $24.00, pp 288. Any time that a book appears by Bruce Cumings, one of our foremost scholars on Korea, it merits attention. His latest book, The Korean War, is particularly welcome given the recent sharp increase in tensions on the Korean Peninsula. […]
A Letter from Tel Aviv: The Right in Israel Is Playing with Fire
I am in Tel Aviv. 70 km away from the fires, I cannot even see the smoke cloud above the Haifa area, which is moving into the sea and may reach Cyprus before it comes to me. The pictures on my plasma TV are, however, very saddening. You see tens of thousands evacuated from […]
Currency War and US Imperialism: Interview with Samir Amin
There has been much publicity about the so-called “currency war” arising from the discussions at the recent G20 meeting. Can you explain what is meant by currency war? The discourse, the rhetoric, on the currency war is very superficial and even misleading. As everybody knows, what is being said is that the Chinese yuan is […]
The War on the Resistance in Lebanon Enters Its Fifth Phase
“We have overcome four phases [Resolution 1559, sponsored by France and the United States, imposing the Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon; the French temptation, i.e. Jacques Chirac’s offer of power in exchange for disarmament; Israel’s July War, backed by the United States, against Lebanon in 2006; the 5 May 2008 decision of the Lebanese government, prodded […]
Take a Stand for Peace
This letter invites you to join what will be the largest veteran-led civil resistance to U.S. wars and occupations in recent history, Washington, D.C., December 16: <www.stopthesewars.org>. During the Vietnam War, Martin Luther King called our government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today.” That was true then — and is even […]
David Broder Calls for War with Iran to Boost the Economy
This is not a joke (at least not on my part). David Broder, the longtime columnist and reporter at a formerly respectable newspaper, quite explicitly suggested that fighting a war with Iran could be an effective way to boost the economy. Ignoring the idea that anyone should undertake war as an economic policy, Broder’s economics […]
The Currency War
Everyone is talking now of the “currency war” that seems to be breaking out among the world’s leading economies, each working for a depreciation of its currency vis-à-vis the others. The effect of a currency depreciation is to enlarge the exports of the country undertaking such a depreciation and to reduce its imports, since its […]
Iran War Talk: “Once the Military Option Is on the Table, It Never Goes Away”
October 28, 2010 Today, Marc Lynch — a professor at George Washington University who blogs at Foreign Policy — published a timely piece entitled “Keep the Iran War Talk Quiet.” As Marc notes, “there’s some hope that Iran will return to nuclear talks with the P-5+1 in Geneva on Nov.15, even if they probably will […]
Currency Wars and Global Rebalancing
Guido Mantega, the Brazilian Finance Minister, said recently that Brazil is in the middle of a currency war. His preoccupation with exchange rate appreciation is not directed to global imbalances, in general, or China, in particular. A more depreciated currency provides protection for domestic production and makes domestic goods and services cheaper for foreigners. […]
Contingent in Oct. 2 Jobs Rally to Demand: “Money for Jobs, Not War or Sanctions against Iran!”
On Oct. 2, tens of thousands of people from across the United States — members of civil rights organizations, labor unions, community groups and religious institutions — will rally at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., to demand “Jobs, Justice and Education!” (See www.onenationworkingtogether.org.) As part of this effort, the peace movement is mobilizing […]
Iran and Iraq: War Anniversary Focused on Youth Friendship
27 September 2010 Iranian and Iraqi youth were the stars at a 24 September ceremony to celebrate peace between their countries. On this date thirty years ago began the eight-year Iran‐Iraq war that killed and injured hundreds of thousands of both sides. With a whole generation of orphans wishing to prevent future conflicts, the focus […]
Venezuela: In Transition towards Socialism?
Nationalization and Workers’ Control: Achievements and Limitations The economic, social and political situation in Venezuela has changed a lot since the failure of the constitutional reform in December 2007, which acted as a warning to the Chávez government.1 This failure had the effect however of reviving the debate on the need to have a socialist […]
Loyalism and Mau Mau
Daniel Branch. Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009. xx + 250 pp. $80.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-521-11382-3; $24.99 (paper), ISBN 978-0-521-13090-5. The two related themes in Kenya’s history that have drawn the most debate and interpretations are land and the Mau Mau war. Daniel Branch’s study […]
“Combat Troop Withdrawal” from Iraq and the Threat of Another War: Interview with Arshin Adib-Moghaddam
In your view, does the combat troop withdrawal mean that the mission has been completed successfully? Viewed from all conceivable angles the war must be considered a strategic failure and a humanitarian disaster. True, the US government, together with its allies primarily the United Kingdom, managed to oust Saddam Hussein who was, by all […]
War by Other Means
Phillip J. Cooper. The War against Regulation: From Jimmy Carter to George W. Bush. Studies in Government and Public Policy Series. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2009. 288 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-7006-1681-7. Phillip J. Cooper is an accomplished scholar of the executive branch of the U.S. government and its interaction with the courts. […]
