Last February, former President Jimmy Carter said on the Larry King show, “Some of our top leaders never intend to withdraw military forces from Iraq and they are looking for [staying] ten, 20, 50 years.” He continued, “I have never heard our leaders say that …ten years from now there will be no military bases of the United States in Iraq.”
The heart of American Democracy is the principle that sovereignty resides in “We the People.” For more than 200 years immigrants seeking American citizenship have taken an oath renouncing prior allegiances and transferring sole political allegiance to the United States. In the political sense, naturalized immigrants have left a previous “people” and joined the “American people.” This is the main reason for America’s great immigration success. The concept of “dual allegiance,” where some Americans have political allegiance to both the U.S. and a foreign state, is inconsistent with the moral foundation of American democracy. Dual allegiance citizens belong to another “we the people” (in the civic, not ethnic sense). Dual allegiance citizens exist in a political space beyond the American constitutional community and as members of another “people,” (i.e., a foreign political community) they have different (and in some cases, competing and conflicting) responsibilities, rights, interests, and commitments. These foreign interests and commitments–of objective practical necessity, as well as moral obligation–dilute their commitment, attachment and allegiance to the United States.
Charles Taylor finally faces justice. The UN-backed Special Court in Sierra Leone stands ready to prosecute the former president of Liberia on 11 counts of war crimes and crimes against humanity, stemming from his role in Sierra Leone’s 1991-2002 civil war.
Americans concerned about global hunger, disease, and deprivation have long argued that our country should take leadership in providing development assistance to impoverished populations abroad. After 9/11, even more citizens pointed to foreign aid as a means to create strong international ties, promote democratic institutions, and build a safer world. That the U.S. should catch up with European countries, which provide much larger infusions of foreign aid relative to the size of their economies, seemed like a reasonable and timely demand.
The Bush Agenda is the first book to expose the Bush Administration’s radical economic agenda for global domination, a plan more extreme, unilateral and audacious than any of his predecessors, a plan that has created the greatest level of violent opposition to America and Americans in recent history.
This book addresses the history of U.S. economic relations throughout the world over the past 25 years, the key role of U.S. corporations, and the larger Bush economic agenda and what the potential impact of this agenda will be on the United States and the world. It concludes with specific alternatives to guide the U.S. on a more peaceful and sustainable course in the future. Using Naomi Klein’s No Logo and Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation as models, The Bush Agenda is based on hard analytic fact and presented so that it will not only be persuasive, but highly engaging and entertaining to a broad audience.
Liberian President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf will address a joint session of the U.S. Congress today. This historic honor, bestowed sparingly on international dignitaries, is a fitting tribute for Africa’s first democratically elected female president. But Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is not an anomaly.
2006 will help clarify whether the compassionate concern for the African continent, worn like a badge by western leaders last year, is a true determinant of Africa policy, or whether it merely masked other, more “strategic” and less “benevolent” impulses and interests.
Since the bombing of the golden-domed Askariya Shi’a mosque in Samarra on February 22, Iraq has been close to the outbreak of open civil war. While Iraqi leaders tried to bring calm it was clear that the masses behind them were not marching in step. As in the case of the nationalist Shi’ite leader Moqtadah al-Sadr’s movement, elites and militants pulled in opposite directions: while some of the most violent reprisals were apparently undertaken by his followers, al-Sadr and his top leaders sought to defuse tensions with the Sunnis throughout the conflict. Similarly, the legal political parties of the Sunnis and Shi’ites tried to limit the conflict while their followers were in the streets. The only thing common on all sides was placing blame on the American occupiers.
Amid all the talk of training Iraqi soldiers, heading off a civil war, and protecting a fledging democracy, one overriding agenda has been ignored in the debate over the timetable for bringing U.S. troops home. President George W. Bush will not withdraw our forces until U.S. oil companies have secure access to Iraq’s resources.
Dear Friends,