Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Human Rights

How and Why to Support Religion Overseas

by , | Oct 29, 2007

Since September 11, in spite of the rhetoric on how the world has been transformed, U.S. foreign policy has approached the Islamic world and the war on terrorism as little more than old wine in new wine skins. During the Cold War, U.S. scholars and policymakers asked why people become communists. Now they ask why people become religious terrorists, extremists, and fundamentalists. What is so striking is that the solutions scholars give to this national security problem today is similar to the ones they proposed a half-century ago – more foreign aid to promote liberal democracy and free market capitalism. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) has been bold enough to call this policy “funding virtue,” even though scholars and policymakers have largely ignored the role of virtue or religion in sustaining democracy and development. The closest the United States has come to recognizing the role of virtue and religion in foreign policy is to promote religious freedom through the Office of International Religious Freedom created in the State Department during the Clinton administration.

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Annotate This: The UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples

by , | Oct 5, 2007

Last month, after 30 years of advocacy by Indigenous Peoples, the United Nations finally passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This Declaration is more than a hard-won victory for Indigenous rights. It embodies a progressive global approach to issues that confront us all, including the environmental crisis that is poised to spiral into ecological collapse if we do not slow global warming.

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The GWOT Effect of Arms for Dictators

by , | Oct 3, 2007

In July 2007 the General Accountability Office (GAO) found that nearly 200,000 U.S. weapons were unaccounted for in Iraq. The GAO blames poor accounting and distribution records for the missing weapons, and other reports have revealed that U.S. weapons have turned up in the hands of Iraqi insurgents and criminals. A month later, U.S. General David Petraeus urged the United States to increase U.S. weapons sales as soon as possible. For the Bush administration, this illogical policy makes sense as a piece of its larger strategy for the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Since Sept. 11, 2001, the administration has supplied billions of dollars worth of weapons and military assistance to countries it is calling its allies in the “war on terror.

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Monks Versus the Military

by , | Sep 26, 2007

In Rangoon and other cities of Burma, Buddhist monks have confronted the military dictatorship with an unusual technique: they refused to accept alms. In Buddhist tradition, this boycott is the ultimate insult monks can deploy. On September 26, the government finally responded to the monks’ boycott by cracking down on the protests, which attracted as many as 100,000 people at their height. Police reportedly killed one protestor, and arrested as many as 200 monks. The future of the democracy movement in Burma remains unclear.

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Divestment: Ending the Genocide in Darfur

Divestment: Ending the Genocide in Darfur

by , | Sep 26, 2007

When confronted by the crime of genocide, human rights activists do not typically dash to state capitols. Since 1787, foreign policy has remained outside states’ bailiwick, with Congress and the President serving as more appropriate venues for foreign policymaking. So when the United States declared the atrocities unfolding in Sudan’s vast Darfur region to constitute genocide in 2004, activists rightly responded by flooding Congressional mailboxes and crowding the Washington Mall, demanding an end to the violence.

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How to be a Good Friend (When You are 4,000 Miles Away)

How to be a Good Friend (When You are 4,000 Miles Away)

by | Sep 21, 2007

Coming from small towns throughout the country-side, with stars overhead and veiled by the cover of darkness, Tania and 149 other families made their way in pick-up trucks and small vehicles, to a fazenda (farm) on the outskirts of Chatuba, a small town two hour’s drive from downtown Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. “Everyone was both […]

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The Post-Washington Dissensus

The Post-Washington Dissensus

by , | Sep 21, 2007

Development circles were not shocked last year when two studies detailed how the World Bank’s research unit had been systematically manipulating data to show that neoliberal market reforms were promoting growth and reducing poverty in developing countries. They merely saw these devastating findings, one by American University Professor Robin Broad, the other by Princeton University […]

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Inside Pakistan’s Struggle for Democracy

by , | Sep 10, 2007

The current democratic surge in Pakistan has shaken the government of Gen. Pervez Musharraf to its core. This surge was sparked in March when Musharraf fired the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Ninety thousand Pakistani barristers, drawn from more than 120 districts, took to the streets. This in turn converted the country’s pent up passion for democracy into a revolt against Musharraf.

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