The strong showings by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois in the early contests for the Democratic presidential nomination don’t just mark a repudiation of the Bush administration’s Iraq policy and “war on terrorism.” They also indicate a rejection of the Democratic Party establishment, much of which supported the invasion of Iraq and other tragic elements of the administration’s foreign policy.
Pundits responded to news of the retirement of Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA) at the end of his current term with platitudes and praise. They have focused primarily on his heroic role as a Holocaust survivor and member of the anti-Nazi resistance in his native Hungary as well as his leadership on human rights issues in Congress, serving as the founder and longtime co-chair of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus.
It’s hard to fathom how a rigged election could produce such violence as burning women and children alive in a church. But that’s what happened in the Kenya Assemblies of God Church in Kiambaa, just outside the town of Eldoret in western Kenya. Unfortunately, it didn’t come as a surprise to me or others living in the region.
A sizable number of progressive activists, celebrities and unions who, for various reasons, are unwilling to support the underfunded long-shot bid of Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich are backing the presidential campaign of former North Carolina Senator John Edwards as their favorite among the top-tier candidates for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination. Indeed, the charismatic populist has staked out positions on important domestic policy issues, particularly addressing economic justice, that are more progressive than any serious contender for the nomination of either party in many years.
Perhaps the most terrible legacy of the administration of President George W. Bush has been its utter disregard for such basic international legal norms as the ban against aggressive war, respect for the UN Charter, and acceptance of international judicial review. Furthermore, under Bush’s leadership, the United States has cultivated a disrespect for basic human rights, a disdain for reputable international human rights monitoring groups, and a lack of concern for international humanitarian law.
In their recent Foreign Policy In Focus piece, “Divestment: Solution or Diversion?” activists Kevin Funk and Steve Fake criticize Sudan divestment as an ineffective diversion from the real bugaboo: Israel. If the “worst offending” companies bankrolling the Sudanese government’s genocide in Darfur are not based in the United States, Funk and Fake reason, the process of influencing companies and the Sudanese regime will inevitably be “convoluted.”
We would like to thank Daniel Millenson for his contribution to this dialogue on divesting from Sudan. Both the idea of linking investment decisions with human rights as well as the targeted nature of this campaign, reflecting a concern to avoid harming civilians, are commendable.
In the aftermath of the imposition of emergency in Pakistan, there’s a sense of acute anxiety about what’s happening there and its implications for U.S. security. Fears that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could fall into extremists’ hands, that anti-U.S. sentiments could ramp up, that there could be a regime change that leaves fundamentalists in power, and that there could be other fallout of instability, are being fanned by the media.
Recent and ongoing developments in Burma call for parallel editing—the filmmaking technique of
running two scenes concurrently to suggest that they are happening at the same time while ratcheting
up suspense.