In a flagrant attack on the longstanding international legal principle that it is illegitimate for any country to expand its territory by military means, the U.S. House of Representatives, by an overwhelming bipartisan majority, passed House Concurrent Resolution 152 congratulating Israel for its forcible “reunification of Jerusalem” and its victory in the June 1967 war.
In Iraq, after more than four years, President George W. Bush may be about to get what he has been hoping for: a clear reading on the Iraq situation that is free of U.S. politics.
Remember January 10, 2007? That was the night that President Bush told the American public, in effect, to stop complaining about the fighting in Iraq. As the “decider-in-chief,” he was “surging” an additional 21,500 troops – five army combat brigades and four Marine regimental combat teams – to cut the high daily death totals and provide stability and security in Baghdad and al-Anbar province.
Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert continues to resist pressure that he resign following the publication late last month of the interim report by a special Israeli commission on Israel’s war on Lebanon last summer. Military chief Dan Halutz has already been forced to step down and Defense Minister Amir Peretz has announced he will also be resigning shortly.
Noam Chomsky is a noted linguist, author, and foreign policy expert. On April 26, Michael Shank interviewed him about the conflict between Congress and the U.S. president over Iraq and Syria, the scandal enveloping World Bank head Paul Wolfowitz, and the nature of foreign debt.
On May 2, President George W. Bush addressed the Associated General Contractors of America at the Willard Hotel in Washington. An appropriate venue: in the 19th century, favor-seekers waited in the hotel’s lobby for politicians to drop by after work. Thereafter, they were known as lobbyists.
In the face of furious opposition from the White House, the U.S. Congress recently voted to end the U.S. war in Iraq. The bill required U.S. troops to begin leaving Iraq before October 1 and an end to combat operations by March 2008. The White House dubbed it “defeatist legislation” that set a “date for surrender.” President Bush vetoed the bill, and Democrats do not have the two-thirds majority in both the House and the Senate to overturn the veto.
The existence of the World Social Forum is already a historic achievement. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and the crisis of the alternative movements and theories that opposed the current system, the fact that there was again a place stating that there is an alternative was an important step.
Just a few years ago, the United States could hold its head high for the freedoms enjoyed by those residing within its borders as well as its energy, leadership, and openness and compassion. Today we are fast becoming a closed society, suspicious not only of “outsiders” but of many within our borders who are in some way “not like us.” The lists of our freedoms have turned into lists of our enemies, giving them an unmerited significance that in turn diminishes the country’s international standing. Persuasion has been replaced by coercion, honor sacrificed to a corrupted “duty,” and morality to expediency.
Even as American officials reluctantly agreed last month to include Syrian representatives in multiparty talks on Iraqi security issues, the Bush administration continues to block Israel from resuming negotiations with Syria over its security concerns. In 2003, President Bashar al-Assad offered to resume peace talks with Israel where they had left off three years earlier, but Israel, backed by the Bush administration, refused. Assad eventually agreed to reenter peace negotiations without preconditions, but even these overtures were rejected.