Category: Human Rights

Alice Walker Fights Anti-Palestinian Bias

Pulitzer-winning author Alice Walker sees a reflection of the injustice done to African-Americans in today’s treatment of the Palestinians, leading her to object when the artwork of Palestinian children is barred from U.S. museums and to join a flotilla that challenged…

Obama’s Hollow Words on Palestine

President Barack Obama struggled to explain his planned veto of UN recognition of a Palestinian state just a year after he welcomed the idea. His speech was a painful example of a leader knowing what is right and calculating that…

America’s Post-9/11 Catastrophe

President George W. Bush’s response to the 9/11 attacks by launching two open-ended wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, plus the sustained Republican assault on government domestic spending, have contributed to a decline in safety and health at home and abroad,…

Inside US Counterinsurgency

From the Archive: Stan Goff, the ex-U.S. Special Forces soldier who helped Pat Tillman’s family expose the Army’s cover-up of the former NFL star’s friendly fire death in Afghanistan, wrote this story about his own military experience. It was published at…

Obama’s Double Talk on Palestine

At the United Nations, President Barack Obama tried to square the circle of U.S. support for democracy and freedom across the Middle East with his threat to veto statehood for the Palestinians, a cause he championed just last year. In an open…

Goodbye to International Law

Though the World War II victors promised that the Nuremberg principles would apply not just to the Nazis but to everyone, today’s reality is that international law follows two standards: a lenient one for the West and its friends and a stringent…

‘Pro-Life’ Government Kills Troy Davis

People around the world were gripped by the grim drama of Troy Davis’s execution by authorities in Georgia, after the state clemency board brushed aside grave doubts about his murder conviction and the U.S. Supreme Court rebuffed his final appeal.…

Running from Right-Wing Clowns

By the late 1970s, there was a serious national debate about the blood-soaked Vietnam War, but then came Ronald Reagan rebranding it a “noble cause” and right-wing accusations against critics who “blame America first,” followed by the panicked retreat of…

Afghan Raids Target Taliban Families

As the Afghan War drags on and surviving Taliban commanders prove elusive U.S. forces are targeting friends and families, according to a new study, Gareth Porter reports for Inter Press Service.

A Death-Row Drama in Georgia

Georgia’s planned execution of Troy Davis, set for Wednesday, is drawing protests from around the world because of grave doubts that he actually committed the murder of an off-duty policeman 22 years ago. Dennis Bernstein explores the case in an…