All Commentaries
World Social Forum Retrospective
Porto Alegre, Brazil — The second annual World Social Forum (WSF) is now over, and the intention is to make it an annual event. But the questions being discussed among participants as they exchange hugs and business cards and board planes to various parts of the globe is, what shape should this gathering take in the future?
Extending the War on Terrorism to Colombia: A Bad Idea Whose Time Has Come
The world’s third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid is the South American nation of Colombia, the focus of our never-ending war on drugs. Before September 11, this made a lot of people in Washington nervous. Now there is even more reason to worry. President Bush’s fiscal 2003 budget is requesting $98 million in new Pentagon training and equipment for the Colombian military, in a new initiative to transform the war on drugs into part of our global war on terror.
Porto Alegre: A Competing Vision
Porto Alegre, Brazil As the sixth and final full day of the World Social Forum dawns here on southern tip of Brazil, delegates prepare for a now-familiar routine of dawn to dusk forums, side meetings over meals, and impromptu protests in the foyer of the main campus building. Today’s events culminate with a mass march opposing the FTAA (Free Trade Area of the Americas), the United States’ main proposal for integrating the hemisphere under a single trade and investment regime.
Challenges for Peace Movement in Time of War
The tragic events of September 11 have created unprecedented challenges for the peace movement, anti-interventionist forces, and other progressive activists. For the first time in the lives of most Americans, the U.S. has found itself under attack.
Get Out of the Territories
As war raged in the occupied territories, peace flowered in Tel Aviv. On Saturday, February 16, 14,000 Israelis marched, sang peace anthems, lit candles, and demanded Israel “Get out of the territories, get back to ourselves!”
An Enron War on Terrorism
If former Enron boss Kenneth Lay were put in charge of the U.S. war on terrorism, he would probably conduct it much the same way his fellow Texas oilman and beneficiary of Enron largesse, George W. Bush, has.
Bush’s Hot Air Plan
Having rejected the Kyoto Protocol on climate change soon after taking office, the Bush administration has finally released its alternative plan for addressing the threat of climate change. Unfortunately, the administration seems to have taken a page from Enron’s operating procedures on accounting tricks. Although it promises to reduce pollution, it will actually lead to increased emissions. This is partly because the plan requires only voluntary compliance, and partly because the Bush administration is promoting the plan with some artful wordsmithing.
Korea: U.S. Policy Casting a Long Shadow over the Sunshine Policy
Immediately after the September 11 attacks in New York, South Korean and U.S. forces went into a state of heightened security alert that the North claimed was “threatening,” leading Pyongyang to break off ongoing negotiations on family reunions that remain stalled even today. Despite this reversal in negotiations, North Korea reacted to September 11 by unilaterally moving to sign two UN antiterrorism treaties and later expressing its willingness to sign an additional five.
Diplomacy by Dereliction: U.S. Policy Toward Korea is in Disarray
President George W. Bush will visit Seoul for the first time in mid-February, as part of a major East Asian trip that includes visits to Tokyo and Beijing. Republic of Korea President Kim Dae Jung is urging Bush to give support to his “Sunshine Policy” toward North Korea and return to the policy of “engaging” Pyongyang pursued by the Clinton administration. A year after taking office, Bush has presided over a cacophony of mixed signals and diplomatic backsliding that has left U.S. policy toward Korea in disarray. But there is still a chance to revive crucial negotiations with North Korea that are deeply in the interest of American and Northeast Asian peace and security.
Second Day in Porto Alegre
Porto Alegre, Brazil – The World Social Forum (WSF) officially began Thursday evening (Jan 31) with a march through the heart of this city’s main business district by some 10,000 delegates waving a sea of mostly red banners, chanting political slogans, and beating pots and pans, a Latin American symbol of protest. They gathered in a lakeside park for a 4-hour cultural performance by a variety of Brazilian bands and dance groups and a satellite hook-up via a giant television screen with worker and labor groups protesting outside the World Economic Summit in New York City.