Despite President George W. Bush’s rhetoric about withdrawing our forces from the Balkans, we can expect a strong continuing U.S. presence there. Why? It’s all about the transportation of massive oil resources from the Caspian Sea through the Balkans, and maintaining U.S. hegemony in the region. Although NATO ostensibly bombed Yugoslavia to stop ethnic cleansing,… Read more »
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The Crime of Aggression: What Is It and Why Doesn’t the U.S. Want the International Criminal Court to Punish It?
From February 26 through March 8, the Preparatory Commission for the International Criminal Court met in an attempt to forge agreement on defining and punishing the crime of aggression. The Rome Statute for the ICC, written in 1998, will take effect after ratification by 60 states. It specifies the Court will hear charges of genocide,… Read more »
Bush Continues Illegal and Inhumane U.S. Persian Gulf Policy
President George W. Bush’s “routine” bombing attack on Iraq should come as no surprise. It is a conscious and systematic continuation of the Bush I-Cheney-Powell-Clinton policy of keeping steady pressure on Saddam Hussein to sustain U.S. hegemony in the Persian Gulf. Iraq has the second largest oil supply in the world. Humanitarian rhetoric notwithstanding, the… Read more »
States Rights When the End Justifies the Means
At first blush, the five justices who decided to name George W. Bush the 43rd president appear to be hypocritical. How could these staunch “states rightists” now decry federalism in order to quash the Florida Supreme Court’s interpretation of Florida’s election statutes? While admitting that the court “generally defers to state courts on the interpretation… Read more »
High Court Hides From Camera in Bush v. Gore
When the Supreme Court entertained arguments last Friday that could determine who will be the 43rd president of the United States, it worked virtually in private. Unlike the Florida Supreme Court, which let the sunshine (and television cameras) into the hearing that gave the green light to hand-counted ballots, the highest court in the land… Read more »
Marching Against U.S. Punishment Politics in Cuba
None of the demonstrations I attended in the 60s prepared me for the experience of marching with one million Cubans last month to protest the United States’ blockade against Cuba. More than 100 U.S. lawyers from the National Lawyers Guild joined the march. Absent was the tension always present in U.S. marches, which usually protest… Read more »
Cheney’s “Black Gold”: Corporate Oil Interests to Drive U.S. Foreign Policy in Bush-Cheney Administration
What do the Persian Gulf, the Caspian Sea and the Balkans have in common? U.S. domination in these areas serves the interests of corporate multi-millionaires such as Dick Cheney. As George Bush’s Secretary of Defense, Cheney was chief prosecutor of Operation Desert Storm in 1991. Humanitarian rhetoric notwithstanding, the bombing of Iraq – which continues… Read more »
Milosevic Empowered by Punishment Politics
One year after NATO’s bombs devastated Yugoslavia, Slobodan Milosevic remains firmly entrenched as the nation’s leader. Although he was previously prevented from seeking another term, a “constitutional coup” by the Serbian-controlled parliament earlier this month resulted in constitutional amendments allowing Milosevic to run for re-election, and changing the requirements for election of president and Parliament…. Read more »
The WTO: A New World Government Dedicated to the Principle That Property Interests Are More Sacred Than Human Rights
What brought more than 50,000 trade unionists, environmentalists, human rights and social justice activists from all over the world into the streets of Seattle in late November and early December of last year to protest the World Trade Organization? They all understood: “Economic globalization is the number one threat to the survival of the natural… Read more »
Lethal Law: America Must Follow International Lead, Abolish Death Penalty
“The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality,” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Arthur J. Goldberg wrote in a 1976 article in the Boston Globe. Echoed by all Western democracies except the United States, Goldberg’s words aptly describe the tragedy promised if… Read more »