War & Peace Archives - Page 334 of 673 - Foreign Policy In Focus

The Saudi Arms Deal: Congressional Opposition Grows

by Miriam Pemberton, Rachel Stohl | Aug 6, 2007

At the end of July, the Bush administration announced that members of the Gulf Cooperation Council – Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and Oman – would receive approximately $20 billon worth of U.S. arms sales. While neither the type amount of weapons, nor the timeframe for their delivery has yet been finalized, the list will likely include air-to-air guided missiles, Joint Direct Attack Munitions, upgrades for fighter aircraft, and new naval vessels – all weapons and systems desired by many countries around the world. Although many are calling this a Saudi arms deal, it remains unclear what each country will be getting. The administration has only said that the details of the sales will vary from country to country.

Hope in Darfur

by John Feffer, Stephen Heidt | Aug 3, 2007

On July 31, the UN Security Council (UNSC) passed resolution 1769 authorizing the creation of a 20,000-strong peacekeeping force to be deployed to the Darfur region of Sudan. This resolution has been hailed as a historic landmark on the way to fulfilling the “responsibility to protect” established in humanitarian law. Supporters of the resolution believe that this peacekeeping force will end the ongoing genocide, which has left 7,000 civilians dead each month.

Distrusting the Russians (Again)

by Anna Arutunyan, John Feffer | Aug 3, 2007

With elections in Russia fast approaching, relations with the West are deteriorating drastically. Three recent events highlight this downward trend. The most dramatic has been the failure of the United States and Russia to compromise on anti-missile defense (AMD). Reflecting months-long tensions, the latest round of talks in Maine between President George W. Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin ended with U.S. insistence on setting up a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic.

Gasoline for the Fire

by Matthew Duss, Erik Leaver | Aug 2, 2007

Like a gambling addict who has to keep betting more to cover his previous losses, the Bush administration’s recently announced plan to provide some $65 billion worth of advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel over the next 10 years represents a reckless, poorly considered attempt to mitigate the consequences of its ill considered invasion of Iraq. The deal also represents an admission of failure of several of the key elements of U.S. security policy in the Middle East, and, perhaps most significantly, it represents a clear abandonment of President Bush’s democratic reform agenda in the region.

AFRICOM: Wrong for Liberia, Disastrous for Africa

by John Feffer, Ezekiel Pajibo, Emira Woods | Jul 26, 2007

Just two months after U.S. aerial bombardments began in Somalia, the Bush administration solidified its militaristic engagement with Africa. In February 2007, the Department of Defense announced the creation of a new U.S. Africa Command infrastructure, code name AFRICOM, to “coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent.”

Article 9’s Global Impact

by John Feffer, Akira Kawasaki | Jul 26, 2007

The Japanese government is on the verge of abandoning its historic commitment to pacifism. The current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has made constitutional revision a major plank of his reform agenda. Coming to power in September 2006, Abe said that he would aim for a constitutional revision within five to six years. The central focus of attention is Article 9, in which Japan renounces the sovereign right to wage war. In May 2007, with relatively little fanfare, the Japanese Diet passed legislation to hold a national referendum to revise the constitution and amend Article 9.

Iraq: Finding the Diamonds?

by John Feffer, Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.) | Jul 25, 2007

Last week’s briefings for the press by U.S. civilian and military officials in Baghdad were uniformly upbeat, cautious, and predictable.

Enabling the Indonesian Military

by John Feffer, Conn Hallinan | Jul 18, 2007

This is a tale about politics, influence, money and murder. It began more than 40 years ago with a bloodletting so massive that no one quite knows how many people died. Half a million? A million? Through four decades, the story of the relationship between the United States and the Indonesian military has left a trail of misery and terror. Last month it claimed four peasants, one of them a 27-year-old mother. Unless Congress puts the brakes on the Bush administration’s plans to increase aid and training for the Indonesian army, there will be innumerable victims in the future as well.

Counting Troops in Iraq

by John Feffer, Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.) | Jul 17, 2007

This past week, both the House and the Senate debated and voted on legislation affecting the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq. In the Senate, the issue was the length of time soldiers and Marines would have at home between deployments to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. In the House, Ike Skelton (D-MO) introduced a bill requiring the secretary of defense to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 120 days of the legislation becoming law and complete the drawdown to a “limited presence” – a heretofore unknown parameter – by April 1, 2008.

Musharrafs Madrasa Muddle

by John Feffer, Najum Mushtaq | Jul 13, 2007

The storming of the Red Mosque is not the victory that General Pervez Musharraf and his supporters in Washington proclaim. Rather, it represents the abject failure of the Pakistani president’s policies. The shaky military junta seems to have few answers to the central question of containing religious extremism in the sect-ridden Pakistani society. With a growing number of citizens challenging the authoritarian system, U.S. support for Musharraf is more and more out of touch with Pakistani reality.