Human Rights Archives - Page 191 of 394

Israel-Iran War: Not Inevitable

by Rex Wingerter | Sep 13, 2010

A chorus of pundits has lately been arguing that an Israeli attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities is either inevitable or commendable. Recently, Jeffery Goldberg predicts in The Atlantic that Israeli will strike by next July. Reuel Marc Gerecht, an editor for the Weekly Standard, urges that regional stability calls for Israel wasting no more time in launching a pre-emptive hit. These arguments predictably come from the neoconservative crowd who urged the United States to topple Saddam Hussein as an avenue toward reaching regime change in Iran.

Fahrenheit 451, Park 51, and Mainstreaming Hate

by M. Junaid Levesque-Alam | Sep 12, 2010

The right pulled off a neat trick by conflating burning the Koran with building an Islamic center near Ground Zero.

Review: ‘Oceania’

by Greg Chaffin | Sep 10, 2010

The word Oceania typically conjures up images of reclining with a fruity cocktail under a canopy of palm trees while gazing out at the blue waters of the Pacific, whose waves softly embrace the pristine white sand beaches of what surely is paradise. However, this paradise is an illusion that hides a dark truth: villagers evicted from their ancestral homes after nuclear fallout, whole nations slowly sinking due to global warming, staggering unemployment and material deprivation. Unfortunately the rest of the world, which is quite content to continue policies of exploitation, ignores these problems and many others that plague the islands of the Pacific.

“Tolerating” the Ground Zero Muslim Center Is Damning It With Faint Praise

by Hannah Gurman | Sep 3, 2010

Since the U.S. is a secular, not a Judaeo-Christian state, there is no need for Muslims to be “tolerated” because they’re already as much a part of the state as any group.

Review: ‘The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon’

by Aurora Ellis | Aug 30, 2010

“Many will take offense to this book — on both the defense side and the humanitarian side,” write Mary Kaldor and Shannon D. Beebe in the concluding paragraphs of their latest book The Ultimate Weapon is No Weapon. Indeed, throughout their book Kaldor and Beebe try to find a common ground between what are often thought of as innate opposites: the military and civilian agencies. Their book is an attempt to provide a viable human security alternative to the conventional military responses to warfare.

Postcard From…Tolemaida

by Margaret Knapke | Aug 27, 2010

On August 3 and 4, eight U.S. human-rights activists demonstrated at the Tolemaida military base in Colombia. They were denouncing the U.S.-Colombia Defense Cooperation Agreement (DCA) signed last October, through which the United States plans to lease seven Colombian military bases for 10 years, including the one at Tolemaida.

The Shameless Cynicism of Zeroing in on the Ground Zero Islamic Center

by Russ Wellen | Aug 26, 2010

By attacking the Ground Zero Islamic Center, conservatives are both inciting attacks on American Muslims and undermining the Afghan strategy of General Petraeus.

Wrestling with the Khmer Rouge Legacy

by Tom Fawthrop | Aug 20, 2010

The Khmer Rouge Tribunal delivered its first verdict in July against Kaing Guek Euv, alias “Duch,” the director of the notorious S-21 prison, a torture and extermination center under the rule of Cambodian dictator Pol Pot. After a 77-day trial, the five judges — two international and three Cambodian — unanimously convicted Duch of committing crimes against humanity. He was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

What You Will Not Hear About Iraq

by Adil E. Shamoo | Aug 20, 2010

Iraq has between 25 and 50 percent unemployment, a dysfunctional parliament, rampant disease, an epidemic of mental illness, and sprawling slums. The killing of innocent people has become part of daily life. What a havoc the United States has wreaked in Iraq.

Beating Swords Into Ploughshares

by Hannah Gurman | Aug 16, 2010

In last month’s blitzkrieg tour of Central and Southeast Asia, two of the four stops Secretary Clinton made share the unfortunate bond of enduring an invasion by U.S. air and ground forces. In the space of a few days, Clinton visited both Vietnam and Afghanistan, thus physically linking what had once been, and then what has now become the United States’ longest war. One of the more insidious links that tie these conflicts together was highlighted in a few of the news stories about Clinton’s trip. That link, in a word, is agribusiness.