War & Peace Archives - Page 368 of 729 - Foreign Policy In Focus

Gasoline for the Fire

by Matthew Duss, Erik Leaver | Aug 2, 2007

Like a gambling addict who has to keep betting more to cover his previous losses, the Bush administration’s recently announced plan to provide some $65 billion worth of advanced weapons to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel over the next 10 years represents a reckless, poorly considered attempt to mitigate the consequences of its ill considered invasion of Iraq. The deal also represents an admission of failure of several of the key elements of U.S. security policy in the Middle East, and, perhaps most significantly, it represents a clear abandonment of President Bush’s democratic reform agenda in the region.

AFRICOM: Wrong for Liberia, Disastrous for Africa

by John Feffer, Ezekiel Pajibo, Emira Woods | Jul 26, 2007

Just two months after U.S. aerial bombardments began in Somalia, the Bush administration solidified its militaristic engagement with Africa. In February 2007, the Department of Defense announced the creation of a new U.S. Africa Command infrastructure, code name AFRICOM, to “coordinate all U.S. military and security interests throughout the continent.”

Article 9’s Global Impact

by John Feffer, Akira Kawasaki | Jul 26, 2007

The Japanese government is on the verge of abandoning its historic commitment to pacifism. The current prime minister, Shinzo Abe, has made constitutional revision a major plank of his reform agenda. Coming to power in September 2006, Abe said that he would aim for a constitutional revision within five to six years. The central focus of attention is Article 9, in which Japan renounces the sovereign right to wage war. In May 2007, with relatively little fanfare, the Japanese Diet passed legislation to hold a national referendum to revise the constitution and amend Article 9.

Iraq: Finding the Diamonds?

by John Feffer, Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.) | Jul 25, 2007

Last week’s briefings for the press by U.S. civilian and military officials in Baghdad were uniformly upbeat, cautious, and predictable.

Enabling the Indonesian Military

by John Feffer, Conn Hallinan | Jul 18, 2007

This is a tale about politics, influence, money and murder. It began more than 40 years ago with a bloodletting so massive that no one quite knows how many people died. Half a million? A million? Through four decades, the story of the relationship between the United States and the Indonesian military has left a trail of misery and terror. Last month it claimed four peasants, one of them a 27-year-old mother. Unless Congress puts the brakes on the Bush administration’s plans to increase aid and training for the Indonesian army, there will be innumerable victims in the future as well.

Counting Troops in Iraq

by John Feffer, Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.) | Jul 17, 2007

This past week, both the House and the Senate debated and voted on legislation affecting the deployment of U.S. troops in Iraq. In the Senate, the issue was the length of time soldiers and Marines would have at home between deployments to the war zones of Iraq and Afghanistan. In the House, Ike Skelton (D-MO) introduced a bill requiring the secretary of defense to begin withdrawing troops from Iraq within 120 days of the legislation becoming law and complete the drawdown to a “limited presence” – a heretofore unknown parameter – by April 1, 2008.

Musharrafs Madrasa Muddle

by John Feffer, Najum Mushtaq | Jul 13, 2007

The storming of the Red Mosque is not the victory that General Pervez Musharraf and his supporters in Washington proclaim. Rather, it represents the abject failure of the Pakistani president’s policies. The shaky military junta seems to have few answers to the central question of containing religious extremism in the sect-ridden Pakistani society. With a growing number of citizens challenging the authoritarian system, U.S. support for Musharraf is more and more out of touch with Pakistani reality.

Turkey vs. Iraq?

by John Feffer, Richard May | Jul 12, 2007

While Capitol Hill battles the White House over Iraq, another battle is brewing in the Middle East. In the last week the Turkish military has moved 140,000 troops from across its country to the southern border with Iraq. These troops represent an invasion force meant to prevent the continued terrorist activities of the Kurdish minority that use northern Iraq as a safe haven. Turkey has previously voiced its intent to attack elements of the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) after repeated bombings and recent attacks on civilians in the south of Turkey. If Ankara chooses to use military force in the north of Iraq now, the results would be dire for the future security and stability of Iraq.
The effects of Turkey conducting military operations in northern Iraq would undermine the fragile security environment that currently exists in two major ways. First, the Kurdish soldiers that are operating in Baghdad as part of the U. S. military “surge” would be tempted to abandon their posts in order to protect their homeland in the north. Second, because Turkish troops would not likely remain for long in the north of Iraq, the remaining PKK fighters could regroup and continue to use northern Iraq as a base of operations for its recent offensive attacks in Turkey. Iraq would have difficulty meeting either of these challenges. To face both simultaneously would only exasperate and quicken the destabilization of Iraq and the region.

Militarizing Mexico: The New War on Drugs

by Laura Carlsen, John Feffer | Jul 11, 2007

President Richard Nixon invented the phrase “war on drugs” and used it in a political context similar in many ways to today’s. Bogged down in an unwinnable war abroad, with a growing deficit and rising inflation, Nixon declared illegal drugs “public enemy number one” on June 17, 1971.
Nixon took office promising to crack down on crime. Due to the characteristics of the problem and the division of powers that placed crime-fighting largely in the hands of state and local governments, he soon realized the difficulties of showing concrete results through a federal program. So Nixon devised a major, executive-led counternarcotics offensive to increase presidential powers and galvanize support from conservatives for his presidency and re-election.

Just Security: Conclusion

by John Feffer | Jul 9, 2007

Albert Beveridge was a promising politician in his thirties when he stood up to speak in favor of war and the promotion of democracy to his peers in the U.S. Senate. A historian, Beveridge unabashedly called for the United States to remake the globe. “We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization of the world,” Beveridge proclaimed. “And we will move forward to our work, not howling out regrets like slaves whipped to their burdens but with gratitude for a task worthy of our strength and thanksgiving to Almighty God that He has marked us as His chosen people, henceforth to lead in the regeneration of the world.”