Axis of Intervention
The Bush administration has not attacked any countries recently. But in President George W. Bush’s first five years in office, the United States has established a dangerous precedent in international affairs. The attack on Afghanistan launched a war against not only a state (the Taliban-led government) but also a paramilitary organization (al-Qaida). The intervention into… Continue reading Axis of Intervention
All Talk
Before the recent nuclear test and the famine of the mid-1990s, North Korea engaged in a form of public diplomacy. It promoted juche, its home-grown philosophy of self-reliance. Juche societies sprang up in dozens of countries around the world, especially in the global south where the rhetoric of self-reliance appealed to post-colonial sensibilities. At the… Continue reading All Talk
Political Football
Imagine Iraq as a football game. It’s late in the fourth quarter. Coach George W. Bush is looking at a grim situation on the field. He has just told quarterback Don Rumsfeld to hit the showers, and now he is sending in the new boy, Bob Gates. Several other team members have been sidelined. The… Continue reading Political Football