New films, reports, and media coverage are finally giving the American public a taste of the personal tragedies involved in the U.S. drone war.
Drone Victims Come Out of the Shadows
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Africa
Are War Crimes Too Grievous to Be Forgiven?
Many Christians believe that any sin they commit, no matter how great, will be forgiven if they repent. But, like the Second Amendment supposedly guaranteeing the right to bear arms, that may be one of those precepts that time has passed by. For example, if Hitler...
Perpetual War: How Does the Global War on Terror Ever End?
This epilogue to Scahill’s bestselling book, Dirty Wars: The World Is a Battlefield, is posted with the kind permission of its publisher, Nation Books. On January 21, 2013, Barack Obama was inaugurated for his second term as president of the United States. Just as he...
Europe’s Deadly Borders
Because its members have managed not to mangle each other for a few decades, the European Union received the Nobel Peace Prize last year. But all is not pacific in peaceful Europe. If you look at Europe's borders, it’s hard to conclude that Europe much cares about the...
GMO Wars: The Global Battlefield
This article is a joint publication of Foreign Policy In Focus and TheNation.com. The GMO wars escalated earlier this month when the 2013 World Food Prize was awarded to three chemical company executives, including Monsanto executive vice president and chief...
Increased American Military Presence May Undermine Good Governance Efforts in Africa
Last weekend, Kenya’s preeminent newspaper The Nation, reported that CCTV footage showed Kenyan soldiers looting during the terrorist attack in Westgate Mall. The “Shame of Soldiers Looting Westgate,” as The Nation dubbed the footage, may be allegorical for increased...
Al-Shabaab’s Savage Coming of Age (and How to Respond)
September 21 began like any other Saturday morning at the upscale Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. Parents brought their excited youngsters to a children’s party; Kenyan elites patronized the gourmet restaurants; customers perused the merchandise in the mall’s...
Perilous Times for Kenya’s Somalis
In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent fell victim to a wave of racially and religiously motivated hate crimes in the United States. In one of the most egregious cases, a Sikh man in Mesa, Arizona—who was neither Muslim nor...
The Pentagon’s Italian Job
The Pentagon has spent the last two decades plowing hundreds of millions of tax dollars into military bases in Italy, turning the country into an increasingly important center for U.S. military power. Especially since the start of the Global War on Terror in 2001, the...
Ghana’s Chinese Gold Rush
Compared to the West’s neoliberalism, China’s approach to investment in Africa has often been somewhat idealized as more of a “partnership” with the host country, with less moralizing by the Chinese over human rights practices and fewer strings attached economically....