Foreign Policy Blogs

Topics

Apology for Vietnam-era Killings: My Lai

Apology for Vietnam-era Killings: My Lai

The only US Army Officer convicted for involvement in the 1968 “My Lai massacre” has publicly apologized for his role in the Vietnam War-era killings.

read more

The US & The ICC: The Argument Against

The United States should not join the International Criminal Court (ICC), as it “lacks prudent safeguards against political manipulation, possesses sweeping authority without accountability … and violates national sovereignty” says the Heritage Foundation, a conservative public policy research institute. The ICC was officially established in 2002 as a forum to prosecute serious international crimes–war crimes, […]

read more

The dangers you may not see your teen in…

The dangers you may not see your teen in…

I really don’t watch much TV, especially during the day, however today I happened to be home, when a friend told me to tune into DR Phil.  The episode was Dangerous Teen Trends, the episode had a number of stories, but one that stood out was the story of a 12 year-old girl who had […]

read more

Fomer U.S. Officials Speak on Mideast Peace

Fomer U.S. Officials Speak on Mideast Peace

Here is an interesting roundup of critical commentary on the Mideast peace process from former U.S. statesmen by the Voice of America news service. The report was inspired by President Obama’s meeting with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in the Oval Office last Tuesday and contains excerpts of interviews showcased in a 20-minute film titled New […]

read more

Massacre at Ashraf

There is something else when you watch American military Humvees plow down unarmed refugees.  Like in so many conflicts and wars, the remnants of disaster and chaos never simply disappear. They remain bred in the souls of those who have had to endure eight years of war – day in and day out.  So that […]

read more

Chimerica’s Divorce?

Back in 2007, Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick wrote about “Chimerica” or the “symbiotic economic relationship” developing between China and the United States in International Finance. “Not only has plentiful Chinese and Asian labor increased global returns to capital; Chinese excess savings have also depressed US and global interest rates.” China did the saving and […]

read more

The Return of Declinism

The Return of Declinism

America’s decline is a false prophecy. Writing in the latest issue of Foreign Affairs and yesterday’s International Herald Tribune, Josef Joffe, co-editor of Die Zeit and a fellow at the Hoover Institution, argues that even though it is fashionable again to speak of America’s fall and the rise of others, the United States will remain […]

read more

Just Say No

For Pete’s sake, even the last US President, a man not highly praised for his environmentalism, said America was addicted to fossil fuels.  If fossil fuels are an addiction, then Canadian tar sands oil are crack.  Put it another way, using the same metaphor:  the US causes the massive drug violence and corruption in Mexico […]

read more

A Pakistani Woman on Journalism

Masooma Haq is a foreign correspondent for The Epoch Times, based in Islamabad, Pakistan. She writes on foreign affairs and human interest. Haq is ethnically Pakistani, but was raised in the west, mostly in the U.S. A few years ago, she moved back to Pakistan to live and work. Why did you start writing for […]

read more

In the Land of Astroturf

A Gallup poll done two weeks ago reveals that of all industries, Americans rated the oil and gas worst, even worse than banking, GM and lawyers. There have been some annoyed, defensive responses from workers in the oil and gas field — understandable since most people in the industry are hard-working, honest and understandably offended at […]

read more

Sovereignty vs. Security

Public opinion is often hard to measure, but it’s a safe bet that assaults on a country’s sovereignty — real or perceived — can quickly inflame that nation’s public opinion.    We see it in a whole range of issues this summer, from the health reform debate in the United States, where opponents raise the […]

read more

The pain behind child pornography

The pain behind child pornography

No matter where you stand on the debate of the commercial sex industry and pornography, children are not willing participants to sex, or sexual advances, nor are children ever anything less than innocent victims.  The images of child porn are never truly recovered, the are left to float in the virtual world and continue to […]

read more

U.S. Shows Restraint in Baghdad Bombings

U.S. Shows Restraint in Baghdad Bombings

I think the U.S. role in the coordinated bombing attacks in Iraq is noteworthy. As this report in The New York Times notes, the U.S. role was remarkable not because the U.S. did too much, but because U.S. troops did nothing, as per our agreement with the Iraqi government: Insurgents struck at the heart of […]

read more

Swifter Justice or a Way to Silence Dissidents? China Bans Traveling to the Capital to File a Legal Petition

In an unusual and unprecedented move, the Chinese government sent a strong message to its citizens seeking legal redress in Beijing: stay home, or be seriously penalized. Petitioners routinely travel to the capital to seek assistance regarding what they see as the failure of their local system, such as corruption in the courts, land-grabbing by […]

read more

Swiss Gov't Earns $938Mn in UBS Bailout

Swiss Gov't Earns $938Mn in UBS Bailout

Switzerland’s government said Thursday that it was in the process of selling its stake in the giant bank U.B.S., a transaction that it expects will generate about one billion Swiss francs, or $938 million, in profit for taxpayers.

read more