Month: March 2004

"Big events like last year’s antiwar demonstrations on February 15 would exist even without the Internet, but they would be much smaller," says Lorenzo Mosca, a researcher from the University of Florence on civil society’s use of new technologies. "New technologies like e-mail and short text messages (SMS) radically changed the way to mobilize people," … Continue reading “A Click Becomes a Political Tool”

It is Déjà vu in Kosovo, back to 1999. After four years of creeping secession and covert ethnic cleansing, the Albanians have taken the next step and begun a war on UNMIK, KFOR, and whatever Serbs remained after the 1999 war. Throughout the occupied province, Serb houses and churches are burning, UN offices and KFOR … Continue reading “Kosovo Burning”

Despite a rash of suicide attacks and roadside bombings directed at US troops and foreigners in Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is preparing to send a team of UN officials back to Baghdad to help Iraqis hold elections and form a new civilian government. “We are all very conscious of the security conditions (in Iraq), and … Continue reading “US Arm-Twists Iraqis to Seek UN Help Before June 30”

Following the March 11, 2004 terrorist attacks in Madrid, Secretary of State Colin Powell told ABC TV’s “This Week” that he hoped Europeans, recognizing that no one is immune, would dedicate themselves to “going after” terrorist organizations with military force, intelligence, and law enforcement. He said that all of us have to get together to … Continue reading “Defeating Terrorism, Step One: Look in the Mirror”

In two major speeches at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) in 2003, President Bush sketched the outlines of what he called “a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East”: in short, a militantly interventionist foreign policy in the Middle East. This new paradigm, according to the President, … Continue reading “One Year After the Invasion: Baghdad and Beyond”

One year after the U.S.-led attack on Iraq, civilians are seeing some improvements in human rights but violence is endemic and many people live in fear for their safety, says a report by Amnesty International (AI). Based on a series of visits to Iraq over the past year, as well as media accounts, the report, … Continue reading “Rights Group Slams US Actions in Iraq”

The United States is moving to freeze millions of dollars in accounts held by relatives of Saddam Hussein and other senior officials in his fallen regime, months after Washington seized billions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets overseas. The US Treasury Department in a statement Thursday urged other countries to follow suit and transfer the … Continue reading “US Moves to Seize More Iraqi Assets”

American and other “coalition” forces try to keep order, but outbursts of ethno-religious violence break through the façade with dismaying regularity and increasing intensity. As of Thursday, 22 civilians were dead, and hundreds wounded, in the latest wave of rioting, with 35 occupation troops injured – and immediate reinforcements totaling some 2,000 rushed to the … Continue reading “The Déjà Vu War”

The growing gap between the United States and its European allies over the Iraq war – most recently highlighted by last weekend’s Spanish elections – belies deeper strains that date to the end of the Cold War, according to a report released Friday by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). But tensions produced by … Continue reading “Euro-US Rift Over Iraq Belies Much Deeper Strains”

Political aphorisms don’t get any more cogent: "Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past." George Orwell’s famous observation goes a long way toward explaining why – a full year after the invasion of Iraq – the media battles over prewar lies are so ferocious in the United States. … Continue reading “Spinning the Past, Threatening the Future”