...in a dual system of morality – one for their friends and one for their foes. Rationalizing their actions, both sides uncritically accept their actions’ validity. There are two important factors influencing both: a revenge and retaliation component that is mutual and an ideological component specific to each. Creating a depressing view of the conflict, these two factors offer slim prospects for peace. It is in this episode, this microcosm of the...
...tly criticized and change freely called for. Free speech ensures that all ideas (even ones that are contradictory to a country’s values, as in the case of “The Innocence of Muslims”) can be expressed without fear of injurious retaliation, physical or otherwise. Whether or not these types of protesters represent the majority (they almost assuredly do not), they have unfortunately become the most vocal segment in their region, and as long as they r...
Historically, the Olympics have been a hotbed of diplomatic hostilities. In response to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, Jimmy Carter announced that the U.S. would be boycotting the Moscow Olympics in 1980. Four years later, the Soviets announced their retaliation-boycott of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, on the allegation that the U.S. government would not sufficiently protect U.S.S.R. athletes and may even actively harm them. Both...
...f Israel. Unfortunately, after seeing campus’s reaction to the conflict, I gained only a resigned acceptance of divisive human conflict, and the futility of self-indulgent activism. Soon after the onset of contentious Israeli retaliation against Hamas, Students for Justice in Palestine assembled in a line at the feet of Low Steps, holding posters and chanting about apartheid in Israel, human rights abuses, and Palestine’s right to sovereignty. Sm...
...oing on, but they were not being read on. Ambassador Stevens and the rest of the State Department, as well as the CIA paramilitary personnel at the Benghazi annex, never could have seen that there would be this blowback, this retaliation, because they didn’t know these operations were going on. To make a long story short, [the JSOC covert operations] were what inspired the attack. There was a JSOC raid in early September, just before the consulat...
...lation of around 70,000 people. The country, strategically located just south of Japan, played an important role in World War II, and the United States officially wrested control of it from the Japanese in 1944 as part of its retaliation to the Pearl Harbor attack. In the aftermath of the conflict, the Marshall Islands was admitted to the United Nations as a Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, along with most of Micronesia. But the fate of th...
...o a strike on its nuclear facilities. This would be a very dangerous proposition, because a successful and deadly Al-Qaeda strike, especially on US civilians, traced back to Iranian support, would result in an even heavier US retaliation. Iran is playing a very dangerous game in supporting both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, but Bruce Riedel at Brookings suggests that, despite this, “Tehran may consider the price worth paying in the face of Western ag...
...he term for that is “racial profiling.” Defenders of police might say, “Police are just doing their job.” And they are, but their job isn’t to protect us, it’s to protect the state and themselves. That explains the bare-faced retaliation that activist Jazz Hayden is suffering at the hands of the NYPD. Another article I wrote goes into detail, so I’ll give you the short version here. Hayden has been videotaping police conduct in Harlem for 4 years...
...rocket. More with a fizzle than with a bang, the rocket broke apart less than two minutes after launch. As a result of their defiance, the United States promised to withdraw food aid to the country, and the DPRK has promised retaliation — although after displaying how spectacularly bad the North Korean military is at building rockets, the president can only hope they’re as bad at following through with their threats. Colombian Eye Candy Current...
...USSR] for a much longer time, and that is through deterrence,” said Richard Betts, Professor of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. “We make it clear to Iran that if they use those weapons against us or our friends, retaliation will be devastating and they will wish they hadn’t.” A comprehensive policy of deterrence would include extensive multilateral diplomacy, a clear articulation of what actions would trigger an American military re...
Follow us at
Like us on
Recent Comments