Scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the U.S. a more responsible global partner.
Iraq

Five Reasons Why I’ll March on Jan. 27 (and You Should Too)

by | Jan 18, 2007

A few times a year, thousands of people break out their tied-dyed t-shirts, collect all of their peace buttons, make snarky yet provocative posters, and hop on a bus to what has become a political and social ritual: the protest. On January 27, United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) is holding a massive protest against the Iraq War in Washington. We (I’m a member of the coalition’s steering committee) will once again not be silent. Buses and vans are coming from at least 30 states and 111 cities packed with people who will bestow a historic welcome to the new Congress that we just helped elect and aim to change the trajectory of this war.

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Bush Skimps on Communal Rights and Responsibilities

by , | Jan 10, 2007

President George W. Bush will address the nation Wednesday night on his “new” strategy for his same-old goal of ““victory” in Iraq. Most of the plan has been leaked — —in this case probably the expression “”handed to”” would be more accurate — to the press with the approval and encouragement of the White House. The most carefully guarded secret, as of this writing, seems to be the venue: The Oval Office; the White House Map Room; or Vice-President Cheney’s last “undisclosed location.

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Nuking Iran

by | Jan 8, 2007

The headlines this week will be all Iraq, all the time. President Bush will unveil his not-so-secret plan of a military “surge” to rescue Iraq from all its other disastrous surges—in civilian deaths, pervasive violence, and unemployment. FPIF analyst Dan Smith, in Bush to Iraq: More War, argues instead that “Congress needs to act as a surge suppressor and carefully look at what Bush as commander-in-chief threatens to decree.” And, indeed, the Democrats have decided to shift from the largely domestic focus of their 100-hours plan, having realized that 45% of the American electorate wants action on the Iraq War versus only 7% who wants Congress to focus on the U.S. economy or health care reform.

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Bush to Iraq: More War

by , | Jan 5, 2007

In his popular weekly radio and subsequent television quiz show, “You Bet Your Life,” Groucho Marx featured the ““magic word.”” If a contestant happened to utter it during the course of the show, he or she would instantly receive $25 or $50 or some other, inflation-adjusted amount.

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The Making of Another Iraq

by , | Jan 3, 2007

A new front in the “global war on terror” has emerged with its center in war-torn Somalia. The target of the new front, the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), both brought back normalcy to seemingly untamable southern Somalia and anxiously legislated morality to the point of social suffocation. According to the U.S. State Department, its greatest sin was its purported link to al-Qaida.

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All Talk

by | Dec 18, 2006

Before the recent nuclear test and the famine of the mid-1990s, North Korea engaged in a form of public diplomacy. It promoted juche, its home-grown philosophy of self-reliance. Juche societies sprang up in dozens of countries around the world, especially in the global south where the rhetoric of self-reliance appealed to post-colonial sensibilities. At the Tower of the Juche Ideal in Pyongyang, plaques donated from these juche societies cover the base of the monument.

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Response to Public Diplomacy Dialogue

by , | Dec 13, 2006

Public diplomacy includes the government-sponsored cultural, educational, and informational programs, citizen exchanges, and broadcasts used to promote the national interest of a country through understanding, informing, and influencing foreign audiences. My view of the field, similar to what we are doing at the USC Center on Public Diplomacy, is to broaden that definition. While I recognize that “track two” diplomacy will never replace official diplomatic efforts, we’ve barely tapped the possibilities of what the United States might accomplish in gaining credibility if we shifted focus away from foreign policy lectures to international understanding.

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