The coincidence that the presidential inauguration should fall on Martin Luther King Day provides much food for thought. But beyond simply castigating the years behind us or prognosticating about the years to come, there is a broader, riper opportunity in this coincidence. Let’s challenge our society to look at how well we are addressing what King called the “giant triplets” of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism.
Just two countries — South Africa and Nigeria — currently account for over 33 percent of the continent’s economic output.
It’s the rare retired general to whom the national security establishment will listen.
For at least the past two decades, political leaders in the United States and Israel have warned that Iran was on the threshold of building a nuclear weapon. From what we’ve been hearing lately from the media, ‘Iran is once again…still on that threshold.
“The time has come for us to voice our rage,” the Hawaiian artist Makana sang as he gently strummed his slack-key guitar. “Against the ones who’ve trapped us in a cage, to steal from us the value of our wage.”
Makana wasn’t serenading the Occupy movement; rather his audience included over a dozen of the world’s most powerful leaders, including President Obama and China’s Premier Hu Jintao, at the world’s most secure, policed, and fortified event: the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) dinner in Hawaii.
The 10th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks is sure to bring televised images of somber reflection. Looking back is, in some ways, easier for commentators and pundits than wrestling with the current state of Washington’s so-called “war on terror.”
We have, once again, played right into Osama bin Laden’s hands. This might seem like an odd assertion, since the al-Qaeda mastermind is finally dead at the hands of U.S. Special Forces, most heads of state have voiced their congratulations, and practically the entire U.S. citizenry is unified in celebration. But Osama bin Laden always understood that the weak use the weapons of the powerful against them, such as U.S. airplanes against U.S. skyscrapers.
Muammar Gaddafi is the undead chicken. Bashar al-Assad of Syria and King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa of Bahrain are the unscared monkeys. The United States has shaped its policy toward the evolving situation in the Middle East according to the Chinese proverb of “killing the chicken to scare the monkey.” The Obama administration has intervened in the conflict in Libya with the apparent goal of punishing Gaddafi for cracking down on the emerging protest movement back in February. This intervention was designed to send a message to other autocrats in the region: don’t fire on your unarmed opposition — or else. But the United States and its allies are having problems with the “or else” part of the equation.
Now we know why the House voted to kill emergency funding for PBS — it linked to Right Web.
When George W. Bush left the White House, the rest of the world breathed a sigh of relief. The National Security Doctrine of unilateral attacks, the invasion of Iraq under the false pretext of weapons of mass destruction, and the abandonment of multilateral forums had opened up a new phase of U.S. aggression. Despite the focus on the Middle East, the increased threat of U.S. military intervention cast a long shadow over many parts of the world.