Tag: United States

To End Forever War, End the Dollar’s Global Dominance

August 12, 2021

In its laser focus on military restraint, the present debate about endless war overlooks the financial architecture of U.S. empire.

To keep Iraq amenable to a U.S. presence, the State Department turned to the United States’ “dollar power”—its vast control over the supply and distribution of the dollar, the global reserve currency—and threatened to cut off Iraq’s access to its Federal Reserve account, which would effectively paralyze the government’s ability to provide basic services. Faced with this threat, which according to one Baghdad official “would mean collapse for Iraq,” Iraqis have backed away from their call to banish U.S. troops. The American military looks set to remain in the country indefinitely.

https://newrepublic.com/article/156325/end-forever-war-end-dollars-global-dominance

Are drone strikes ever ethical?

August 12, 2021

The US, which deploys more drones than any other country, has exploited the gaps in international law to fight its war on terror.

The principle of humanity requires avoiding unnecessary harm to civilians. The fundamental rationale for drone use relies on this principle: drone capacity for precise targeting can save civilian lives. US Air Force General T Michael Moseley calls this the “true hunter-killer role” of drones. Given that there were, for example, two million civilian deaths in the Korean War alone, the precision of drone strikes offers a persuasive moral argument in favour of their use

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/north-america/2019/11/are-drone-strikes-ever-ethical

If Germany Atoned for the Holocaust, the U.S. Can Pay Reparations for Slavery

August 12, 2021

Calls for reparations in the U.S. are generally met with skepticism: What would reparations achieve? Who should receive them, and under what conditions?

Other countries have tackled these questions. In 1995, South Africa established its Truth and Reconciliation Commission and paid reparations to the victims of apartheid. Eight years before, the United States apologized to 82,000 Japanese Americans unduly imprisoned during World War II and paid them US$20,000 each to compensate for their suffering.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/if-germany-atoned-holocaust-us-can-pay-reparations-slavery-82526

What the Tributes to George H. W. Bush Are Missing

August 11, 2021

The 41st president was the last person to occupy the Oval Office whose opponents saw him as fully legitimate.

Since George H. W. Bush’s death, many observers have noted that he embodied a less rancorous, less polarized political era. But underlying that civility was something deeper: Bush was the last person to occupy the Oval Office whose opponents saw him as a fully legitimate president.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2018/12/bush-race/577150/

The American Economy Is Rigged

August 11, 2021

Economists have put forward a range of explanations for why inequality has in fact been increasing in many developed countries. Some argue that advances in technology have spurred the demand for skilled labor relative to unskilled labor, thereby depressing the wages of the latter. Yet that alone cannot explain why even skilled labor has done so poorly over the past two decades, why average wages have done so badly and why matters are so much worse in the U.S. than in other developed nations. Changes in technology are global and should affect all advanced economies in the same way. Other economists blame globalization itself, which has weakened the power of workers. Firms can and do move abroad unless demands for higher wages are curtailed. But again, globalization has been integral to all advanced economies. Why is its impact so much worse in the U.S.?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-american-economy-is-rigged/

Border Insecurity: The Border Patrol’s sweeping powers inside the U.S. lack accountability and perpetuate racial profiling.

August 10, 2021

At dozens of internal checkpoints across the country, Border Patrol agents stop and question passing motorists on their citizenship. Elsewhere, officers engage in roving traffic stops aimed at interdicting illegal immigration inside the United States. Agents at checkpoints require neither a warrant nor individualized suspicion to stop passing motorists and inquire about the occupants’ citizenship, or to inspect private lands within twenty-five miles of the border. Taken together, these “defense in depth” measures amount to an extraordinarily expansive law enforcement effort carried deep into the U.S. interior.

https://www.persuasion.community/p/border-insecurity