Characterized by fragile political and economic systems together with a weak military, the Central African Republic has repeatedly fallen victim to takeovers.
Fearing the disruption of gun exports, the National Rifle Association vociferously opposed the Arms Trade Treaty that was approved on April 2 by the UN General Assembly. The joke, though, is not just on the NRA. While the treaty doesn’t do anything to affect American gun-owners, it’s so weak that it doesn’t seem to affect anybody at all.
Washington has vociferously denounced Afghan corruption as a major obstacle to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. This has been widely reported. Only one crucial element is missing from this routine censure: a credible explanation of why American nation-building failed there. No wonder. To do so, the U.S. would have to denounce itself.
Israel’s apology to Turkey over the 2010 Mavi Marmara killings might lay the groundwork for direct intervention in Syria by NATO and Israel.
To get out of the echo chamber, we need to present a vision of a democratic foreign and security policy that would tie our many campaigns together into a coherent whole, from the local to the global. Such a platform would provide hope to the many who sense that something is wrong with corporate capitalism, with U.S. foreign policy, and with the military-industrial complex. It would set the basis for a principled alliance between the peace movement and the labor, immigrant rights, women’s, economic, social, and racial justice movements that are its natural allies.
The carelessness with which King Abdullah conducted his Atlantic interview was a disaster that could easily have been prevented.
Although the breathtaking violence that attended Iraq’s descent into sectarian nightmare has been well documented in many retrospectives on the 10-year-old war, what’s often overlooked is that by far more mundane standards, the United States did a spectacularly poor job of governing Iraq.
Security officials stood by during the attacks without intervening.
Emphasis, as always, added.
On top of everything else, workers across Egypt have been on strike.