Over 4,000,000 Iraqi people displaced as a result of the war, is the largest number of refugees worldwide after Palestine. Between Iraq and Afghanistan, there are 1.6 million U.S. troops (young people) fighting the Bush Administration’s "wars on terror," all subject to PTSD, maiming, and death. Join SALSA for a critical examination of what has happened since the 30,000-troop surge in Iraq just over a year ago with Phyllis Bennis and Farrah Hassen of the Institute for Policy Studies. Their talk will be preceded by a screening of the award-winning news program Democracy Now! hosted by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez.
Europe and the U.S. should back the beleaguered Turkish government because of the role a democratic Turkey can play in both stabilizing and liberalizing the Middle East.
Here’s a tip on how to sound smart on foreign policy. When your friends are talking about the Iraq War, shake your head and look very somber. “The real problem,” you inform them, “is Iran.”
The vehemence of the hard-line opposition to the Bush administration’s North Korea policy suggests that, after seven years of blunders and miscues and outright war crimes, Washington has finally done the right thing on a foreign policy issue.
When, one by one, civil movements dislodged the communist governments in the region and ecstatic East Berliners tore down the Berlin Wall, we rejoiced too.
Part of getting beyond the worst foreign policy disaster in U.S. history will involve agreeing on its lessons.
IPS Research Fellow Miriam Pemberton has teamed with New America Foundation Fellow William Hartung to produce a short, affordable compilation of best thinking on the policies this war should allow us to put permanently behind us. (Read Pemberton’s introduction to the book.)
Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes on war cost accounting tricks. Michael Klare on wars for oil. Hans Blix, the man who told the world the truth about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, on international action to avoid the next such war. Busboy’s owner Andy Shallal on wars to spread democracy. And a dozen others.
Join Pemberton, Hartung and Shallal, to celebrate the publication of this book and debate its lessons.
The Iraq War may have an upside, of sorts. It should allow us to take quite a few discredited policies permanently off our table of options. Preventive war. Politicized intelligence. Coalitions of the coerced. New frontiers of media manipulation. To name a few.
In a new book, Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War, Institute for Policy Studies Research Fellow Miriam Pemberton and New America Foundation Fellow William D. Hartung have asked the experts to boil the lessons of the war down for the rest of us. The authors include The Three Trillion Dollar War co-authors Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes, Aziz Huq, Jeffrey Laurenti, pre-war UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, and National Book Award winner Frances Fitzgerald.
As Barbara Ehrenreich put it: "Read this compelling set of essays and join the movement to prevent the next war."
Hartung, Fitzgerald, Huq, and Laurenti will lead the discussion of these lessons, and how to make sure they are permanently learned.
If the Iraq War disaster has an upside, it’s this: the conflict should permanently discredit many awful policies and practices, allowing the nation to declare them off-limits for the future. Preventive war. Politicized intelligence. Coalitions of the coerced. New frontiers of media manipulation.
That’s what Lessons From Iraq: Avoiding the Next War is about. This remarkable new book, co-edited by IPS research fellow Miriam Pemberton, who is also the Foreign Policy In Focus peace and security editor, and William Hartung, Director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, is now available online and at bookstores. Please read the introduction, by Miriam Pemberton, on our site.
Pemberton and Hartung drew up a list of what lessons the United States should learn from the Iraq War and asked the experts on each to boil down what they know for the rest of us. The authors include Ivan Eland, The Three Trillion Dollar War co-authors Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes; pre-war UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, and Pultizer Prize and National Book Award winner Frances Fitzgerald.
As Barbara Ehrenreich put it: "Read this compelling set of essays and join the movement to prevent the next war."
