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U.S. Foreign Policy
The Decommissioners - Update
| James Bargent July 9, 2010 |
The trial of the Decommissioners lasted three weeks, in which time the jury heard not only from the Decommissioners but also detailed evidence of war crimes committed in Palestine and testimony from EDO managing director Paul Hills, who faced questions about his company’s dealings with Israel. All the defendants were acquitted by unanimous jury decisions. One of the defendants, Chris Osmond, said: "It was the right verdict. Our action was because nobody else was willing to take action.
The Gaza Flotilla
| Steve Shalom June 12, 2010 |
Alan Dershowitz has suggested that to be effective Israeli propaganda should support 80 percent of what Israel does, and be critical of the other 20 percent. So I expected that Dershowitz would only approve 80% of the Israeli killings on the Gaza flotilla, while expressing some mild criticism regarding the IDF's other victims. Silly me.
Max Lane on Indonesia: A review
| Dan La Botz June 11, 2010 |
Max Lane. Unfinished Revolution: Indonesia Before and After Suharto. New York: Verso, 2008. 312 pages. Notes, index. $29.95
The World in Crisis
Summer 2010The world is in crisis.
New Politics is pleased to publish a set of articles that offer insights into some of the world’s major conflicts.
Iran: Reform and Revolution
| by Yassamine Mather | Summer 2010 |
Recent news about Iran has been dominated by U.S. attempts to increase sanctions, and one could be forgiven for thinking the world hegemonic capitalist power is preparing war against a major nuclear power. The reality is far different: all the fuss is about a country where nine months of mass protests have not only weakened the state but also divided the ruling circles, making reconciliation at the top impossible.
Revolutionary Prefigurations: The Green Movement, Critical Solidarity, and the Struggle for Iran's Future
| by Danny Postel | Summer 2010 |
A year has now passed since the explosive appearance of Iran’s Green movement in June 2009. Suspecting malfeasance in the official tally of the country’s June 12 presidential election, millions of Iranians took to the streets. The historian Ervand Abrahamian, author of the classic Iran Between Two Revolutions, described the silent rally of June 15 at Azadi (Freedom) Square in Tehran (London Review of Books, 7/23/09):
Foosball with the Devil: Haiti, Honduras, and Democracy in the Neoliberal Era
| by Adrienne Pine | Summer 2010 |
From the perspective of Honduran and Honduranist scholars, the most common reference to Haiti is as a point of hemispheric comparison. Whether measuring GDP per capita, state legitimacy and citizens’ political tolerance, or corruption, the phrase “Honduras ranks last…after Haiti” seems to be de rigueur. This is no coincidence: the policies and structures that have effected extreme poverty and highly concentrated wealth in both places are very much connected.
Darfur: The World's Most Famous Humanitarian Disaster
| by Steven Fake and Kevin Funk | Summer 2010 |
The emergence of Darfur as a cause célèbre in the West has been one of the more notable propaganda achievements in recent memory. Though the Darfur region of Sudan has been the scene of great human suffering, a death toll of perhaps 300,000 and a population of displaced persons numbering well over 2 million qualifies Darfur as serious but — regrettably — hardly unique for the scale of its violence in the first decade of the 21st century.
Palling Around with Terrorists: Obama and the Israel-Palestine Conflict
| by Stephen R. Shalom | Summer 2010 |
During the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama was accused of palling around with terrorists.
This Republican canard was focused on the former Weatherperson, Bill Ayers, but also on Rashid Khalidi, the respected Palestinian-American scholar who had been a friend of Obama’s in Chicago.
Pakistan: The Myth of Civilizing War
| by Adaner Usmani | Summer 2010 |
It would hardly be an exaggeration to suggest that, today, in the baleful shadow of the Great War on Terror, one central site of intra-progressive discord has been the question of the broad Left’s relation to political and militant Islam.