Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Least We Can Do, Susan E. Waltz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In the early months of 2003, when the U.S. was only threatening war, humanitarian relief organizations expected thousands of refugees to flee from Iraq into neighboring countries of Jordan and Syria. They were surprised when it did not happen. Four years later, the anticipated wave has at last arrived—and in tsunami proportions.

Iraqi Resettlement: Why Congress Will Act, David A. Weinberg

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I would like to commend Human Rights & Human Welfare for their recent roundtable on the Iraqi refugee crisis. The Roundtable rightly draws attention to the United States government’s woefully inadequate efforts thus far to address a major humanitarian crisis of its own making.

However, I do not agree with Professor Daniel Whelan’s assessment of “why Congress won’t act” on Iraqi resettlement. Dr. Whelan argues that the new Congress appears reluctant to resettle a reasonable number of Iraqi refugees in danger because Democrats fear that doing so would precipitate Iraqi state failure by means of “brain drain.” Instead, I would …

Fleeing From Violence Versus Fleeing From Poverty, Michael Goodhart

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Nour al Khal worked as a translator for New York Times reporter Steven Vincent, who was murdered by Shiite militants in Iraq. Vincent’s widow has been trying to help al Khal (who was kidnapped and shot by the same group who killed Vincent) win asylum in the United States. So far political and bureaucratic obstacles have proven insurmountable.

October Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“No Refuge Here: Iraqis Flee, but Where?” by Joseph Huff-Hannon. Dissent. Summer 2007.

Would Iraqi Refugees Please Disappear, Richard A. Falk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

I am grateful to Joseph Huff-Hannon for drawing our attention vividly and movingly to the plight of Iraqi refugees, its magnitude and cruelty. There are more than two million Iraqi refugees, with an estimated 50,000 per month added to the total. Many are languishing in terrible conditions in such neighboring countries as Syria and Jordan. These states, neither of which are notable as places of refuge, lack the capabilities for humane treatment even if their governments were altruistically inclined. Many Iraqis cannot even find such refuge, and remain hapless nomads in search of a sanctuary country. The U.S. refusal to …

Will Refuge Continue To Be Elusive, Katherine Gockel

Human Rights & Human Welfare

According to U.N. estimates, if current trends continue, the number of Iraqi asylum seekers by year-end could reach between 40,000 to 50,000. The influx of Iraqis into states such as Syria and Jordan also threatens to be a destabilizing force in those countries. Therefore, it is unreasonable to expect these states to individually cope with migration flows of this magnitude.

Iraqi Resettlement: Why Congress Won't Act, Daniel J. Whelan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

After making an excellent case for the plight of Iraqi asylum seekers who have served as valuable allies to the United States in Iraq, Joseph Huff-Hannon’s article suggests that Congress should play a stronger role in developing a resettlement policy to allow Iraqis, who have been on “our side,” to come to the U.S. Given the current political climate on Iraq—and with Congressional Democrats desperate to score some kind of victory in its battle with the Bush White House—what exactly is holding them back?

Wars Against Civilians Are Unjust Wars, Richard A. Falk

Human Rights & Human Welfare

For those of us old enough to recall the anti-war testimony of Vietnam vets during the early 1970s, reading the chilling report by Hedges and Al-Arian on the attitudes of Iraq war vets is shocking, and yet not surprising. It is shocking because of the eyewitness confirmation of cruelty and lethal brutality on a regular basis in the interactions between the coalition army of occupation and Iraqi civilian society. Sadly, it is not shocking because of the nature of the violent resistance to occupation being encountered by American forces in Iraq, giving rise to a Vietnam-style mentality of counterinsurgency in …

Facing Up To The Truth, Susan E. Waltz

Human Rights & Human Welfare

American GIs who liberated Dachau from the Nazis in April 1945 exist in our collective memory as iconic representations of the American soldier-hero: competent and capable, disciplined, principled and fundamentally good. From their collective example, we expect American soldiers to reveal, report, and excoriate war crimes. This makes it difficult to acknowledge that Americans may also commit war crimes—and on a regular basis.

September Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness” by Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian. The Nation, July 30, 2007.

Occupational Hazard, Michael Goodhart

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“The Other War” describes how the patrols, supply convoys, checkpoints, raids, and arrests, which make up the daily routines of U.S. soldiers in Iraq, sometimes involve degrading and abusive treatment of Iraqi civilians. Through interviews with some of those soldiers, the article portrays the everyday tragedy of the Iraq war and demonstrates how the very policies used to “secure” the country are creating greater insecurity and sparking Iraqi resentment of the occupation. The authors’ main point is that such abuses are inevitable under what they call “misguided and brutal colonial wars and occupations” like Iraq, “the French occupation of Algeria… …

Bad Apples Or Bad Policies?, Daniel J. Whelan

Human Rights & Human Welfare

In a scene from the Woody Allen film Hannah and Her Sisters, the haughty and cantankerous character Frederick (Max von Sydow) is telling his girlfriend (Barbara Hershey) how he spent the evening flipping through channels on television. Ever the arrogant social critic, Frederick remarks,

You missed a very dull TV show on Auschwitz. More gruesome film clips. And more puzzled intellectuals declaring their mystification over the systematic murder of millions. The reason they can never answer the question: “How could it possibly happen?” is that it’s the wrong question. Given what people are, the question is: “Why doesn't it happen …

The Mine-Action Process In Iraqi Kurdistan, Jamal Jalal Hussein

The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction

The Iraqi Kurdistan Mine Action Agency has been working to clear Kurdistan of landmines and unexploded ordnance that were placed by the former Iraqi government over the past 40 years and the Iranian Army during the Iran-Iraq War from 1980–1988. The Agency is overcoming many challenges and has cleared a vast number of minefields so the land can be handed back to the owners. Casualties from explosive remnants of war are extremely high but a new mine-risk-education program will inform people who live in dangerous areas how to minimize the threat of explosive remnants of war.

Mercenaries And Other Ways Of Breaking The Law: Why Our Blood Should Boil, Judith Blau

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Among the many consequences of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the absence of investigative journalism and critical reflection in the U.S. is, perhaps, the most troubling; though we are now seeing a reversal of this trend. Jeremy Scahill has been one of the brightest and best examples of this reversal, relentlessly pursuing a trail of wrongdoing involving the U.S. government and private corporations.

Oil. The Geopolitics Of Oil And Iraq, Issam Al-Chalabi

New England Journal of Public Policy

The author deals only with the recent developments that will shape the destiny of Iraq and determine whether it will remain a unified country or disintegrate. He is not optimistic.

Can The Next American President Switch The Tracks?, Harry Kreisler

Human Rights & Human Welfare

For decades the Washington mantra has been privatization. As Secretary of Defense in Bush 41’s administration and as CEO of Haliburton, Dick Cheney was influential in the application of this idea to defense policy. Now as Vice President of the United States, he and his coterie of followers have taken the idea to a new level. According to Jeremy Scahill, the United States has reached a tipping point in waging the Iraq war, with dire consequences for defense policy, democratic accountability, and the global perception of who we are and what we stand for.

July Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“Outsourcing the War ” by Jeremy Schaill. The Nation. May 28, 2007.

Private Military Industry And The Laws Of War, Mahmood Monshipouri

Human Rights & Human Welfare

The “war on terrorism,” according to Jeremy Scahill, has led to the most privatized war in the history of the United States of America: the war in Iraq, waged partially by private security contractors who are, for the most part, accountable to no higher legal-political authority. This brings us to an obvious question: Is this type of warfare an imperative part of counterterrorism?

Rooting The Privatization Of War In A Broader Political Context, Ali Wyne

Human Rights & Human Welfare

On the issue of military outsourcing, I think that it would be valuable to place Jeremy Scahill’s research and critique in a broader context.

May Roundtable: Introduction

Human Rights & Human Welfare

An annotation of:

“The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency” by Mahmood Mamdani. London Review of Books. March 8, 2007.

Politics Of Naming And Politics Of Responsibility, Rhoda Howard-Hassmann

Human Rights & Human Welfare

Mahmood Mamdani is right to complain that the American—and international—public is unaware of the political complexity of the Darfur conflict. He is also right to point out that selective or inconsistent uses of the terms “genocide,” “civil war,” and “insurgency” can mask covert, or even overt, political agendas. His comparison of Darfur to Iraq is telling. And he is right to point out that even with the best of humanitarian intentions, the presentation of a simplified version of Darfur, in which “Arabs” persecute “Africans,” can play into the “war on terror,” insofar as, in the minds of at least some …

The Return Of Moral Equivalence, J. Peter Pham

Human Rights & Human Welfare

During the latter stages of the Cold War, one school of ethical analysis, ultimately labeled as “moral equivalence” by the late Jeane Kirkpatrick, measured Western liberal democracies against utopian standards in a radical critique which redefined the political discourse, erasing distinctions between the Soviet Union and its satellites on the one hand and the United States and its allies on the other.

Missing The Point, Colin Thomas-Jensen

Human Rights & Human Welfare

“What would happen if we thought of Darfur as we do of Iraq, as a place with a history and politics—a messy politics of insurgency and counterinsurgency?” (§4). This is the most telling question posed by Professor Mahmood Mamdani in “The Politics of Naming: Genocide, Civil War, Insurgency.” The implication is that the growing public demand for strong international action—military or otherwise—to halt the atrocities in Darfur is somehow unwarranted because people have failed to understand that the systematic crimes against humanity committed against civilians in Darfur (and indeed Iraq) are an inevitability of “the messy politics of insurgency and …

The Moral Vocabulary Of Violence, David L. G. Rice

Human Rights & Human Welfare

What is at stake in labeling a particular incidence of large-scale violence “genocide”? Mahmood Mamdani rightly argues that “genocide” is an insufficient description of the conflict in Darfur. I would suggest that the problematic nature of that terminology goes back to its inception after World War II. Activists have inherited the concept of “genocide” from a particular historical moment. Now, “ genocide” carries unique moral weight in the discourse of international politics. When violence against civilians has been widely accepted as a necessary outcome of the preservation of peace, activists find it necessary to imagine a worse evil than the …

The Assassins' Gate By George Packer, John Deniston

Global Tides

A book review of The Assassins' Gate (2005) by George Packer.

Fiasco: The American Military Adventure In Iraq By Thomas E. Ricks, Kevin Mills

Global Tides

A book review of Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (2006) by Thomas E. Ricks.