Category: US politics

The New Orleans “unnatural disaster”

3rd September 2005


Image source: National Geographic, October 2004

Like everyone else I have been horrified at the events that have taken place in Louisiana these last few days. The extent of human suffering, the lawlessness, and the apparent inability of the richest country in the world to respond quickly enough to this disaster has been quite shocking. The amazing radio interview given by the Mayor of New Orleans, Ray Nagin, broadcast on CNN today was particularly scathing in its criticism of the federal government, and the transcript is well worth read. Once again, however, the term ‘natural disaster’ is being used by the media, when the truth of the matter is that it ain’t so natural. The area is prone to hurricanes and always has been, but as National Geographic Magazine pointed out last October, this terrible tragedy has been on the cards for a while, as the excerpt below reveals:

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Farenheit 9/11

18th July 2004

Finally got around to watching Farenheit 9/11 on Friday night. Michael Moore isn’t everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ (I was a little irritated by his style in Stupid White Men, for example) but he actually maintains quite a low profile in this film, leaving the limelight to the main character, President George W. Bush. It is a ‘must see’ movie although I did find the whole thing rather distressing. I watched it in a Dublin movie theatre and, needless to say, there was a very sympathetic audience (complete with a ripple of applause at the end!) The more important question, of course, will be how the film will be received in the US.

Global Covenant

12th June 2004

David Held’s new book Global Covenant looks like it will be well worth a read. An extended essay by Held in openDemocracy this week provides a good overview of his key arguments which essentially make the point that US-led neoliberalism and unilateralism has been a monumental failure. No surprises here. More importantly, he articulates his vision of a new model for globalisation that, funnily enough, is global, working for humankind rather a handful of wealthy people in the G8. Hopelessly optimistic? Maybe, but I think I’ll invest in a copy all the same.

P.S. IPE educators will find the charts at the end of the essay pretty useful if nothing else.

It’s official: prisoner abuse is OK

21st May 2004

As US Republicans and right-wing media outlets have been scrambling to eat humble pie over the last few weeks since the publication of the grotesque Abu Ghraib ‘holiday snaps’, the Wall Street Journal has managed to excel itself by bucking the trend with an editorial that, quite frankly, beggars belief.

According to the WSJ, ‘apart from Iraqi soldiers detained in uniform and certain members of Saddam Hussein’s chain of command–most Iraqi detainees are arrested as civilians and fall under the protection not of the Third Geneva Convention but of the Fourth.’ This apparently entitles the US, as an occupying power ‘to use its discretion within wide parameters to maintain law and order (Article 64), and contains no specific restriction on interrogation, other than saying that “protected persons” not be subjected to “physical or moral coercion” (Article 31). But–note well–protected persons are defined as “persons taking no active part in the hostilities” (Article 3).’ In other words, says the WSJ, ‘the Geneva Conventions do not speak specifically to the interrogation treatment of non-uniformed Baathist or jihadi guerrillas detained in connection with attacks on U.S. forces or Iraqi civilians … With that in mind, we’ll risk liberal censure and suggest that 45 minutes of uncomfortable posture (the guidelines’ limit) and the other techniques … are certainly appropriate. The U.S. holds some very dangerous people in Iraq, and it’s easy to forget that the point of interrogating them is to better protect both U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi civilians that the Geneva Conventions oblige us to safeguard.’

Damn, I feel so stupid now being utterly appalled and sickened by the photographs. If only the WSJ had pointed this out to us earlier we needn’t have worried. Seriously, though, as my good friend Vijay Srinivasan pointed out in his unpublished response to the Editor (see below), one minor oversight on the part of the WSJ is the notion of innocence until proven guilty.

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Digital photography and the spoils of war

9th May 2004

One of the great advantages of digital photography is that no longer do we need to stuff old photos in a plastic bag, store them in a bottom draw, and resolve to put them in albums some time soon.

Another advantage is that we can distribute these photos to family and friends so much more easily via websites and CDs. So, it seems, can the US militia in Iraq.

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The full Pentagon report

29th February 2004

I shouldn’t be too surprised, I suppose, that with the exception of The Observer, the mainstream media has paid little attention to the report commissioned by the Pentagon on the security risk associated with climate change. Neither the BBC nor CNN considered it worth reporting, and only today has it rated a mention in The New York Times, albeit in conjunction with reference to an upcoming Hollywood movie on the subject of environmental catastrophe (see The Sky is Falling! Say Hollywood and, Yes, the Pentagon). For those interested, the full Pentagon report is available here. If you choose to read it you will be doing what, according to the NYT, the powers-that-be in Washington won’t. Apparently a Pentagon spokesmen has said the report had not been passed on to the ‘top brass’ in the Defense Department or the Bush administration.

Bush and the Christian Coalition

31st January 2004

Some time ago, I blogged on Dubya’s religious beliefs, and a report on the BBC web site today, Christian foot soldiers battle for Bush, indicates that his evangelical stance is set to pay electoral dividends in the southern states. George Soros, meanwhile, has other ideas. In an article appearing in the The Age, Bursting the Bush bubble, Soros (described by the author as ‘probably the only US citizen with his own foreign policy’) is reported as saying that ‘ending the Bush presidency’s “supremacist ideology” has become a “matter of life and death” for the planet’s future’.

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Gas Guzzlers 1 – 0 Common Sense

31st October 2003

Just when I was getting excited about the prospect of a paradigm shift in the editorial policy of The Economist, I’ve been brought back down to earth with a bump.

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