News Abroad

Who Was Stepan Bandera?

by Norman J.W. Goda

On January 22, 2010 Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko honored Stepan Bandera by posthumously bestowing on him the state honor, “Hero of Ukraine.&rdqu

“Confucius” and “Avatar” at the Chinese Multiplex

by Jeffrey Wasserstrom

The contrasts between the two movies fighting for box office supremacy in China are obvious.  “Avatar,”

The Smallest Army Imaginable

by C. Douglas Lummis

In 1931, on his way to the London Round Table Conference, Mahatma Gandhi was asked by a Reuters correspondent what his program was.  He responded by writi

Missteps on Afghanistan

by William R. Polk

In his final report on January 6, 2009 to the Security Council, the senior UN representative to Afghanistan, Ambassador Kai Eide of Norway, hi

Charter 08: A New Beginning for Chinese Liberalism

by Feng Chongyi

The publication of Charter 08 in China at the end of 2008 was a major event generating headlines all over the world. It was widely recognized as the Chinese human rights manifesto and a landmark document in China’s quest for democracy. However, if Charter 08 was a clarion call for the new march to democracy in China, its political impact has been disappointing. Its primary drafter Liu Xiaobo, after being kept in police custody over one year, was sentenced on Christmas Day of 2009 to

Replacing International Oppression with International Aid

by Lawrence S. Wittner

The outpouring of humanitarian aid from numerous nations for the suffering people of Haiti is truly extraordinary -- particularly when set against

Haiti's Curse

by Claire Robertson

Much has been made of Pat Robertson’s claims that the earthquake is punishment for Haitians’ sins, but despite widespread refutat

Haiti's Troubled History with the U.S. and France

by Marc Becker

I returned from Haiti just a couple of days before a powerful earthquake rocked the country on January 12.  I was in Haiti on a solidarity de

Too Hard for the White Folks? Americans and the Haitian Revolution

by Jacqueline Bacon

Scholars as well as religious and political leaders have rightly condemned Pat Robertson’s racist and absurd claim that the recent earthquake in Haiti was punishment because the Haitian people “

Lawrence

by Daniel Pipes

A fine article by Bertram Wyatt-Brown, "Lawrence of Arabia: Image and Reality," in The Journal of the Historical Society, December 2009, pp, 515-48, traces the reputation of T. E. Lawrence

Many Church Leaders Remain Silent While Palestinian Arabs Suffer At The Hands of Muslims

by Alex Grobman

On December 11, 2009, a group of Palestinian Christian leaders issued a 13 page document known

U.S. Military Escalation in Afghanistan: A Response to President Obama

by Richard Drake

Mr. President, in your speech at West Point on 1 December you spoke about the benign intentions of American foreign policy. You said that since the days of FDR, “our country has borne a special burden,” fighting all over the world for freedom and the betterment of peoples. You also said, “For unlike the great powers of old, we have not sought domination….We do not seek to occupy other nations’ resources or target other peoples because their faith or ethnicity is di

How to Teach All Sides of the Arab-Israeli Conflict Without Taking Sides

by Donna Robinson Divine

The feelings stirred up by the conflict between Palestinians and Israelis are so volatile that it is difficult to examine it without taking sides even within the halls of the academy.  But in the classroom,

Obama Follows Reagan-era Blueprint After Earthquake in Haiti

by Alexander Poster

In response to the Haitian earthquake, one of the costliest natural disasters ever to strike the Caribbean, President Obama took immediate action.  After promising an initial commitment of $100 million to earthquake relief, the President insisted that further U.S. action in Haiti would be necessary, stating “this investment will grow over the coming year”.  Not surprisingly, right-wing pundit Rush Limbaugh voiced his disapproval of the President’s decision.&nb

Nuclear Terrorism: How It Can Be Prevented

by Lawrence S. Wittner

The recent furor over an unsuccessful terrorist attempt to blow up an airliner is distracting us from considering the possibility of a vastly more d

How an Ancient Act of Terror Brought Down a Republic

by Adrienne Mayor

Mozart’s once-obscure opera “Mitridate” has been touring Europe since 2007. Instead of the 18th century French court costumes, the stag

Divide and Confound—or Divide and Empower? The Opportunities and Dangers of Strategic PSYOP against the Alawi Rulers of Syria

by Timothy R. Furnish

At times it has been the policy of the United States to appeal directly to foreign populaces, rather than  to the tyrannical elites or unresponsive dictators who rule over them. This approach is applicable throughout the entire range of operations from peace through conflict to war. PSYOP can be not only a powerful arm of this strategy but also the only appropriate weapons system in the preconflict environment .1 I. Introduction: A Brief History of Strategic Ideological-based PSYOP

Obama, Diplomat-in-Chief

by Kenneth Weisbrode

“2010” graced the titles of so many forecasting reports in the 1990s—“China 2010,” “Global Finance 2010,&rdqu

Threads of Hope Glimmer in the Middle East

by Jonathan Goldstein

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- When the Roman Catholic Patriarch of the Holy Land, Fouad Tual, celebrates Mass in the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem this Christmas Eve, events in the town and region over this past year give more and more indication that regional peace may yet be in the cards.Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, which abuts Israel, elected an Islamic fundamentalist Hamas government, which a year ago launched daily missile attacks against the farms and villages of central and s

In War, Winners Can Be Losers

by Lawrence S. Wittner

Thus far, most of the supporters and opponents of escalating the U.S. war in Afghanistan have focused on whether or not it is possible to secure a military victory in that conflict.  But they neglect considering the fact that, in war, even a winner can be a loser.The most obvious way in which military success can turn in