A major battle in the “War on Terror” was lost last month and not a shot was fired.
A Debacle in the Battle for Hearts and Minds
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Commentaries
Bush’s AIDS Relief Plan Will Delay Drugs, Reward Big Pharma
Africa and AIDS activists say the Bush Administration’s pledge to expedite its approval process for low-cost, generic anti-retroviral drugs by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration will really slow delivery of drugs to those suffering while undermining the authority of the United Nations and World Health Organization.
Bush & Sharon: The Oil Connection
On its face, President George Bush’s recent endorsement of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s land grab in the occupied territories makes little sense. The plan, under which Israel would abandon Gaza while permanently annexing most of the West Bank, has met with almost universal condemnation.
The Real "Scary Movie" Won’t Be on Elm Street this Summer
“Scary Movie 3” may be hitting U.S. theaters this month but the real nightmare won’t be on Elm Street, but on the streets of Fallujah, Baghdad, and Cairo. U.S. public diplomacy is “a disaster,” according to former U.S. Information Agency (USIA) director Joseph Duffey, under whom I served as an educational exchange and cultural affairs specialist from 1993-1994.
The Yugoslavian Fairy Tale
It is always fascinating to watch the eagerness with which so-called progressives unquestioningly accept an official history full of virtuous U.S. officials and villainous savages trying the patience of the peaceful, law-abiding Great Powers. Case in point: the wars in the former Yugoslavia, and Stacy Sullivan’s recent account of them in Foreign Policy In Focus (http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402milosevic.html). The actual sequence of events that caused those wars is very different from the reporting of the establishment media and, unfortunately, much of the progressive media. According to this story, the wars of the past decade were all started by the Serbs, who sought to destroy Yugoslavia and turn it into a mono-ethnic Greater Serbia.
Stacy Sullivan on Milosevic and Genocide
Liberals and much of the left have been badly bamboozled on recent Yugoslav history and the role of the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, with former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic having been hyper-demonized and the history of the Balkans rewritten to fit what Lenard Cohen calls the “paradise lost/loathsome leaders” paradigm. But numerous serious scholars have rejected this history and regard the U.S. and other NATO powers as heavily responsible for the disasters since 1990. Lord David Owen’s Balkan Odyssey, and his testimony before the Tribunal, make it very clear that Milosevic was eager for a settlement of the Bosnian wars well before the Dayton agreement in 1995, and that he regularly had major conflicts of interest with the Bosnian Serbs. It is clear from Owens, as well as from other experts that the U.S. government played a key role in the failure of the 1991 Vance plan, the 1992 Cutileiro plan, and the 1993-94 Vance-Owen and Owen Stoltenberg plans, as the Clinton administration armed the Bosnian Muslims, and later the KLA in Kosovo, while encouraging them both to hope (and work) for U.S.-NATO military intervention on their behalf.
Don’t Credit Reagan for Ending the Cold War
Perhaps the most dangerous myth regarding the legacy of the late President Ronald Reagan is that he was somehow responsible for the end of the Cold War.
Democracy Endangered
Pakistan’s position as a key U.S. ally in the campaign against al-Qaeda has been particularly beneficial to the military-led government of General Pervez Musharraf, whose support is seen by the Bush administration as indispensable to U.S. “anti-terrorism” efforts in the region. Despite the country’s anti-democratic credentials and the army’s continued dominance of the political scene, U.S. economic and diplomatic support has provided Musharraf much needed international legitimacy—and funds.
Guatemala and the Forgotten Anniversary
Democracy has been much in the news of late. At the G-8 Summit in Georgia, one of the main items on the agenda was the democratization of the Middle East, and the recent commemoration of the D-Day anniversary and the passing of President Reagan both generated discussion concerning the defense and spread of democracy.
Law of the Sea Being Delayed by Far Right Cadre
The mining industry and environmentalists are onboard. As are liberals and conservatives in the U.S. Senate, but ratification of the 1982 Law of the Sea Treaty is being held up by half a dozen right-wing Republican senators backed by a coalition of national groups who see the agreement as another step toward world government.