oil Archives - Page 16 of 35 - Foreign Policy In Focus

Winning Round Two of American Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim Worlds

by R.S. Zaharna | Jun 13, 2003

According to a poll released early last week by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press (http://people-press.org/), America’s image has become “dangerously” negative throughout the Arab and Muslim world. Ironically, this follows an intensive public diplomacy initiative aimed specifically at the region. How did America’s battle for the hearts and minds of the Arabs and Muslims wind up alienating the very people Washington was trying to reach?

Pentagon Moving Swiftly to Become “Globocop”

by Jim Lobe | Jun 12, 2003

Much like its successful military campaign in Iraq, the Pentagon is moving at breakneck speed to redeploy U.S. forces and equipment around the world in ways that will permit Washington to play “Globocop,” according to a number of statements by top officials and defense planners. While preparing sharp reductions in forces in Germany, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia, military planners are talking about establishing semi-permanent or permanent bases along a giant swathe of global territory–increasingly referred to as “the arc of instability,” from the Caribbean Basin through Africa to South and Central Asia and across to the North Korea.

U.S. Weapons Aid Repression in Aceh

by Frida Berrigan | Jun 11, 2003

Far from the spotlight and far from Baghdad, another shock and awe campaign is underway. On May 19th, Indonesia launched a military campaign to “strike and paralyze” a small band of separatist rebels in the Aceh province. In a made-for-TV photo op, 458 soldiers parachuted onto the island from six C-130 Hercules transport aircraft manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the United States’ largest defense contractor. As many as 40,000 Indonesian troops and a police force of 10,000 followed close behind, backed up by warships, fighter planes, and other high-tech military equipment, declaring war on 5,000 separatist guerillas armed with automatic weapons, mortars, and rocket-propelled grenades.

Departure of Key Aide Marks New Powell Setback

by Jim Lobe | Jun 6, 2003

The announcement on June 5 that the State Department’s director for policy planning, Richard Haass, is leaving to become the next president of the New York-based Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), marks the latest sign of the eclipse of Secretary of State Colin Powell’s influence in the Bush administration.

Recycling Wars

by Col. Daniel Smith (Ret.) | Jun 6, 2003

Tell it to the troops on the ground, not to mention the indigenous population. They know that war can go on even after it has “ended.”

The Need for UN Police

by Don Kraus | Jun 5, 2003

The aftermath of the Iraq War has shown us that good soldiers are not always good cops. They cannot replace a professional international police force able to rapidly deploy and reestablish the rule of law in post-conflict hot spots. Most Iraqis would tell you the world needs such a force right now. The United Nations should be tasked with making this a reality.

Credibility Gap over Iraq WMD Looms Larger

by Jim Lobe | Jun 3, 2003

When all three major U.S. newsweeklies–Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report–run major features on the same day on possible government lying, you can bet you have the makings of a major scandal. And when the two most important outlets of neoconservative opinion–The Weekly Standard and The Wall Street Journal–come out on the same day with lead editorials spluttering outrage about suggestions of government lying, you can bet that things are going to get very hot as summer approaches in Washington.

Debt, Africa and Global Economic Governance: Very Little from Evian

by Aldo Caliari | Jun 2, 2003

This year’s meeting of the Group of 8 (G-8) leaders is being held from June 1-3 in Evian (France). But the preparatory work leading up to the G-8 meeting had already shown that very little would emerge on three key crises that affect global development today–the Third World debt crisis, the African crisis, and the crisis of legitimacy of the global arrangements that drive the globalization process, including the G-8 itself.

Iraq: The Challenge of Humanitarian Response

by Kevin Murray | Jun 2, 2003

The new world order on display in Iraq places new demands on the U.S. humanitarian community. The Wolfowitz-Perle doctrine of pre-emptive action against perceived external threats preserves a role for humanitarian intervention. In fact, it may make humanitarian response a growth industry. The role of relief organizations in Iraq raises many questions, however, and these questions deserve the continuing attention of the movement that sought to avoid this war in the first place.

A Threadbare Emperor

by Jim Lobe | Jun 2, 2003

President George W. Bush recently completed his first tour of major world capitals since the war in Iraq, en route to the Group of 8 (G-8) meeting of the world’s wealthy countries and Russia in Evian, France. His handlers are predictably depicting his stature as something akin to Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar “bestrid[ing] the world like a Colossus.” After all, the notion that the new world order most closely resembles Caesar’s Pax Romana has become a commonplace. History, so its advocates argue, is now witnessing a Pax Americana.