Category: Human Rights

America’s Upside-Down Morality

Exclusive: Pvt. Bradley Manning has prostrated himself before his court-martial judge, apologizing for leaking documents on U.S. government wrongdoing and referencing his psychological problems as reasons for mercy. The sad spectacle underscores how upside-down American morality now is, says Robert…

A Method to Egypt’s Madness

The bloody assault on Egyptians protesting the ouster of democratically elected President Mohamed Morsi has the look of madness as the military pushes Islamists toward more violence but there is a sick logic if the generals see more Islamic extremism…

Blaming Obama for Syrian Mess

Exclusive: As the Syrian civil war drags on, al-Qaeda and other Islamic extremists are emerging as the fiercest fighters in the rebel coalition and complicating how the conflict can be resolved. So, U.S. neocons are trying to pin the blame…

’42’ and 44

From the Archive: American rightists and many Republicans continue to treat President Obama with a personal disrespect that reeks of racism: hoisting signs about his “Kenyan birth,” laughing at him as a rodeo clown, wishing for his impeachment hostility that recalls…

Who Benefits from the Various ‘Wars’?

P.R. experts are skilled at framing policy debates in favorable though misleading ways, like the “war on terror” or the “war on drugs.” What gets shielded by this packaging are the unstated goals, interests and outcomes that would draw popular opposition if…

Struggling for Peace in Colombia

Exclusive: Normally, peace negotiators end a conflict first and then examine the war crimes later. But the long-running civil war in Colombia has such a secretive and brutal history that efforts to cease the fighting began with an investigation of the slaughter,  writes Andrés…

The Moral Imperative of Activism

Exclusive:  Today’s crises endless war, environmental catastrophe, desperate poverty and more can seem so daunting that they paralyze action rather than inspire activism. But the imperative to do something in the face of injustice defines one’s moral place in the…

No Reckoning over Agent Orange

Official Washington often lectures other countries on the need for accountability, especially when governments have engaged in war crimes. Yet, one of the clearest cases of a U.S. war crime the mass spraying of Vietnam with Agent Orange has escaped…

How US Hubris Baited Afghan Trap

From the Archive: Even today more than two decades after the Soviet Union disappeared the Washington press corps views U.S.-Russian disputes through a one-way Cold War lens, with Moscow always at fault. But the reality is more complicated, as Robert…

Would Jesus Drop the Nagasaki Bomb?

The second and hopefully last nuclear bomb was dropped on Nagasaki, Japan, on Aug. 9, 1945. Among the bitter ironies of that day, the U.S. plane was flown by an all-Christian crew that picked for its target the landmark of…