News Abroad

Column: Letters from Japan (Part 3)

by William Thompson

This spring Mr. Thompson is a visiting professor at Osaka University of Commerce. This is the second of his three letters. Click here to read his first letter. Click here to read his second. Last week I had two invitations. I was invited to be the guest speaker in an English language class, and I was invited for a weekend car tour of Nara and Kyoto. The English class was held at Osak

Gunboat Diplomacy Worked in Japan 150 Years Ago ... But Today?

by Joseph M. Henning

The president of the United States dispatches a heavily armed military force to a despotic country, described by the State Department as “the common enemy of mankind.” With advanced technology and weaponry, the expedition plans to shock and awe its adversary into submission, and, in doing so, to expand American access to important energy resources. Does this sound familiar? It should if you're thinking of the year 1853. With nine ships, including three steam frigates, 1,50

How Can We Know for Sure When a Country Has Succeeded in Becoming a Democracy?

by Jonathan Dresner

There's been a lot of talk lately about creating democratic societies and systems, most prominently in Afghanistan and Iraq . But aside from the basic definitions -- popular sovereignty, voting processes, fair representation, individual rights -- how can we tell if the democracies being built are healthy, successful ones, or failures? A quick look at one of the oldest democracies, and two of the newest, is revealing: democracy is not institutions, but process. One of the greatest days

Probably Nothing Could Have Stopped the Bush Crowd from War with Iraq

by Ruth Rosen

Was the War in Iraq inevitable? That was the question that panels of distinguished journalists and media critics implicitly addressed when they gathered at UC Berkeley last week for an international conference titled"The Media at War: The U.S. Invasion & Occupation of Iraq." Joining them were Joseph C. Wilson, former ambassador to several African countries, and Hans Blix, former U.N. weapons inspector. All the participants seemed to agree that the Bush adm

Excerpts from The Iraq War and Its Consequences: Thoughts of Nobel Peace Laureates and Eminent Scholars

by Irwin Abrams and Wang Gungwu

Excerpts from The Iraq War and Its Consequences: Thoughts of Nobel Peace Laureates and Eminent Scholars, ed. by Irwin Abrams, Wang Gungwu (New Jersey, London, Singapore: World Scientific, 2003). From the Foreword by Wang Gungwu, Director of East Asian

Democracy Can Flourish in the Islamic World

by Paul Sullivan

Democracy and Islam have the potential to be very flexible and mobile concepts, as Noah Feldman would put it. Islam has shown a great deal of flexibility and mobility in its application within many different cultures and societies from Morocco, to Egypt, to Saudi Arabia, to Indonesia and sub-Saharan Africa. Democracy has flourished in many different parts of the world. There is no particular problem with democracy that should not allow it to also flourish in the Arab world. As a matter

Why Bush Is Making Nuclear Proliferation More Likely

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Despite George W. Bush's repeated warnings about nuclear proliferation, he and his fellow Republicans deserve much of the blame for their increase. Ever since the advent of the Bush administration, it has charged that other nations are acquiring nuclear weapons. Justifying war with Iraq, the administration hammered away at that nation's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction. It has also assailed North Korea and Iran for their nuclear programs.  On Feb. 11, in a major policy addr

Is Libya Really Changing?

by Paul Sullivan

We have seen many changes coming out of Libya lately. Their leadership has opened many doors to the U.S. to information on, and equipment and parts related to, their WMD programs. About 50,000 pounds of these are in Tennessee being analyzed. Weapons inspectors are now combing the country. Libya has been helping the U.S. out on the war on terrorism with intelligence and, possibly, in other ways. Libya was not part of the"Axis of Evil" speech by the president for the latter reason. The country

Who Kidnapped Najam Sethi?

by Irfan Khawaja

The letters section of The New York Review of Books for February 12, 2004 contains a heated exchange between Bernard-Henry Levy, author of Who Killed Daniel Pearl? ( Hoboken , NJ : Melville House, 2003) and William Dalrymple, who reviewed Levy's book in the December 4 issue of the NYRB (“Murder in Karachi ”). As it happens, I have a document that settles a contentious issue between them. I reproduce it below. First, some context: Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

Iraq: One Year Later

by Jonathan Schell

The first anniversary of the American invasion of Iraq has arrived. By now, we were told by the Bush Administration before the war, the flower-throwing celebrations of our troops' arrival would have long ended; their numbers would have been reduced to the low tens of thousands, if not to zero; Iraq's large stores of weapons of mass destruction would have been found and dismantled; the institutions of democracy would be flourishing; Kurd and Shiite and Sunni would be working happily together i

How Should Iraq Remember Its Nightmare History?

by Robert G. Rabil

“In order to have a future, and lay the foundations of justice for the future, the people of Iraq must come to terms with the atrocities perpetrated in their name during three decades of Ba'thist rule. The ultimate rationale behind the Iraq Memory Foundation is that the truth can help heal a society that has been politically brutalized on a large scale.” This is the mission statement of the Iraq Memory Foundation, the brainchild of Iraqi writer, and my former professor, Kanan Makiya. This pla

Nukes on the Loose: What Can Be Done?

by William Lambers

A"secret and sudden" attack with nuclear weapons is the most horrific threat facing the United States today.  But nuclear fears are nothing new. They have been with us since World War II. A former Massachusetts Institute of Technology president, Dr. James Killian, became a key part of the fight to control nuclear weapons during the Cold War. His work holds much relevance to today's struggle against nuclear proliferation.  Dr. Killian became Dwight Eisenhower's science advisor in 1

Daniel Pipes Is Wrong ... People Should Read the Koran to Learn About Muslim Terrorism

by Irfan Khawaja

In a brief but controversial column in the New York Sun (Jan. 20, 2004), the Middle East scholar Daniel Pipes argues that we ought not to read the Koran [i] to understand Islamic terrorism. “[R]eading the Koran,” he writes, “is precisely the wrong way to go about understanding ‘what's happening in our world'…. Instead of the Koran , I urge anyone wanting to study militant Islam and the violence it inspires to understand such p

And the Apologists for the Iraq War Think Their Critics Are Living in the Past?

by Paul W.Schroeder

The comparison is often made between the current American venture in Iraq and the Middle East and British imperialism a century ago. Advocates of an American-led empire of liberty, however, reject the comparison, particularly the suggestion that a Pax Americana today will meet the fate of the so-called Pax Britannica then. The world, they argue, is entirely different, especially since 9/11. Today's threats were unknown then--international terrorist organizations and movements, fanatical ideol

Why South Koreans Think of the United States as a Global Bully

by James I. Matray

Anti-Americanism became a powerful force in the Republic of Korea (ROK) during the 1980s. It has reached new levels of intensity since the terrorist attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center on 11 September 2001. A major catalyst was President George W. Bush's State of the Union address four months later when he named North Korea a member of an “Axis of Evil” that included Iran and Iraq . His inflammatory remarks infuriated many South Koreans because Bush's public statem

Why Sharon's Wall Is a Civilized Response to Terrorism

by Diana Muir

In A.D. 122, the Roman Emperor Hadrian ordered construction of a wall that would run 73 miles across the width of England, from the River Tyne to Solway Firth. The idea was to keep barbarians from making trouble for the civilized people of Roman Britain. In the Third Century BCE, the Chin Emperor ordered that a series of walls erected by sundry border states be linked into a Great Wall that ran from the Gulf of Chihli to the edge of Tibet, about 22 times the length of Hadrian's barrier

Why We Are Partly Responsible for the Mess that is Haiti

by Thomas Fleming

As Haiti reels toward civil war, my mind is gripped by an historical memory. The story opens the book I published last year on the Louisiana Purchase. A smiling President Thomas Jefferson, barely ensconced in the White House, invited Louis Andre Pichon, the French charge d'affaires, for a visit and cheerfully informed him that if the French wanted to regain the island of St. Domingue, the Americans were ready and eager to cooperate. Then as now St. Domingue was divided into a French-speaking

This Time It's the Democrats Who Mistakenly Want to Return to Normalcy

by Judith Apter Klinghoffer

History may not repeat itself but the 1920 Republican election slogan “Back to Normalcy” seems awfully apt as a 2004 Democratic one. Then the question was the American commitment to making Europe safe for democracy. Now, the question is the American commitment to making the Middle East safe for democracy. Then as now, the stakes are nothing less than an unknowable number of lives. Then as now, partisan politics prevents opinion makers from articulating the stakes in a forthright manner. Then

Are Nuclear Weapons Out of Control?

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Is Guantanamo a Big Mistake?

by Max Paul Friedman

Missing from the debate over the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are the lessons of this country's only previous attempt to imprison foreign suspected subversives, captured overseas, in special camps beyond the reach of the courts. Then, as now, casting aside legal principles led to injustices while weakening support for the United States abroad. As the Supreme Court joins the dispute, recalling the mistakes of the past provides insight into the present. Last time, the targets were