Saturday marked the tragic anniversary of the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., but also the anniversary of his “Beyond Vietnam” speech one year earlier.
We know that elements in the military and Congress exerted great pressure on President Obama to ratchet up the war on Afghanistan. To achieve a more rational and peaceful outcome, we need to exert a counter-pressure. MADRE calls on the Obama administration to chart a whole new course in US-Afghan relations, based on the understanding that the US needs to engage with the rest of the world, not just occupy it.
Seven Reasons to Oppose a Troop Surge
1. More troops will mean more civilian casualties.
In
a recent article, the fair and objective "International Crisis Group"
(ICG) laid out the problem of the continuing war in Sri Lanka and its
devastating consequences for civilians trapped by both sides in the
fighting. (Please review this article by Lakhdar Brahimi. For a recent "Conflict Risk Alert" on the Sri Lanka humanitarian crisis by ICG, click here.)
Jody Williams is an emotional, strong-willed and determined woman. She
is also passionate and not averse to yelling, swearing or pounding on
the podium when it comes to creating a peaceful world.
“We can only be secure when justice and the sharing of resources in the
world are present,” said the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize recipient to an
audience of nearly 400 at the annual Great Lakes PeaceJam held last
weekend at Western Michigan University.
“Human security, not national security will bring security to everyone
in the world.”
It seems that the Palestinian-Israeli ‘peace process' is in serious jeopardy. At least, this is the immediate impression one gleans from media reports from Israel. Unlike, Israel's Kadima and Labor party ‘moderates', Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu is largely considered to be a possible impairment to the negotiations aimed at facilitating a two-state solution.
When exactly did it happen - that "blinding flash of the obvious"?
It may have been during lunch - outside, in a park in the nation's capital on a beautiful, cherry-blossom afternoon - as public health theorist Ari Cowan held forth about working with maximum security prisoners in Washington state. Having described a program that treats "violent" as a temporary condition, like "has a headache," Cowan said he tells these guys, as they start to grasp the idea that they aren't scumbags and monsters, "You're the ones who will save humanity."
With reduced violence in Iraq and a new president at the helm, the U.S. anti-war movement isn't as fervent as it was two or three years ago.
But that didn't stop about 300 people from gathering in downtown Fresno for the eighth annual Rally in the Valley for Peace and Justice on Sunday, just three days after the six-year anniversary of the Iraq war.
JOHANNESBURG - South Africa barred the Dalai Lama from a peace conference in Johannesburg this week, saying Monday it did not want to endanger the government's relationship with China. The move prompted sharp criticism from the Nobel Committee, among others.
Thabo Masebe, spokesman for President Kgalema Motlanthe, said now was not the time for such a high-profile visit from the Tibetan spiritual leader and added that South Africa hoped to avoid being "the source of negative publicity about China."
With the economic crisis worsening and anxiety growing, people are
beginning to speculate about what things might look like in the event
of societal collapse. Previously, this line of inquiry was more the
domain of science fiction, and indeed there are critical lessons to be
gleaned from these genre works that oftentimes display some truly
amazing predictive capacities. But now, with the twin challenges of
climate change and financial instability taking center stage, reality
seems to be catching up with speculation.
