All Commentaries
Unlocking the Conflict in Western Sahara
At the end of April, the UN Security Council will have the opportunity to make the right choice or the safe choice when it renews the authorization for the UN Mission for the Referendum in Western Sahara (MINURSO). The right choice would be to give the new UN envoy a mandate for peace. To do this, the Security Council would have to secure the commitment of both sides of the conflict, Morocco and the pro-independence Polisario Front, to power-sharing and self-determination. The safe choice, meanwhile, would be to continue under the weak mandate that contributed to the failure of the previous UN envoy.
AFRICOM’s Ugandan Blunder
In early February, The New York Times released information detailing the involvement of the U.S. military in the bungled Ugandan mission to oust the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) from northeastern DR Congo. Seventeen military advisors from AFRICOM worked closely with the Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) to plan the attack, which the United States further subsidized through the donation of satellite phones and $1 million worth of fuel. Although the United States has been training the Ugandan military for years, this is the first time it has directly assisted in carrying out an operation.
U.S.-Trained Human Rights Abusers
President Barack Obama has reversed a few of the Bush administration’s most egregious policies violating human rights and international law, such as the announced closure of the detention center in Guantánamo. But it remains to be seen to what extent he will lead the military toward respect for human rights, and change the institutional impunity to which American commanders and U.S. military allies have become accustomed.
North Korea’s Sunshine Policy
North Korea’s recent rocket launch received few congratulations and many condemnations, including the recent UN censure. Although Pyongyang did not manage to put a satellite into orbit, it did succeed in getting the world’s attention. It has sustained this attention by kicking out nuclear inspectors, vowing to restart its plutonium processing program, and declaring an end to its participation in the six-party talks.
Haiku to the President
Dear President Obama, You ask for patience we ask you “how much longer?” Iraq is still burning. Rosalie Yelen
Global Food Security Act
Editor’s Note: This commentary was adapted from the report "Why the Lugar-Casey Global Food Security Act will Fail to Curb Hunger," by Annie Shattuck and Eric Holt-Giménez. (Food First Policy Brief No. 18. Institute for Food and Development Policy. Oakland, California.)
Empire Foreclosed?
Not long ago, excitement over American imperialism reached levels not seen in a century. "People are coming out of the closet on the word ’empire,’" the right-wing columnist Charles Krauthammer told The New York Times in early 2002. Neoconservatives were on the rise in Washington, and their leading propagandists were not shy in making the case for aggressive expansionism.
Veterans and Poetry
Dayl S. Wise was drafted into the US Army in 1969 and served in Vietnam and Cambodia in 1970 with the First Air Cavalry Division. After six months in country, he was wounded while on a reconnaissance team. Upon his discharge he studied engineering and worked as a draftsperson and design engineer for many years. Wise is a member of Vietnam Veterans Against the War and Veterans for Peace, and recently returned to school to become a teacher. He has self-published two collections of poems by veterans,The Best of Post Traumatic Press 2000 and Post Traumatic Press 2007.
Poem: ‘Walking my Dog While at War’
For Molly
Seeing Things
Trevor Paglen is a writer and “experimental geographer” holding a Ph.D. in geography from Berkeley. His thought-provoking visual artworks deliberately blur the lines between social science, contemporary art, political theory, and activism. Constructing unusual but meticulously researched reinterpretations of our world, Paglen is an artist whose work is so radically new that it forces viewers to redefine what constitutes art.