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News Releases

  • The Anti-War Origins of Mother’s Day

    Each year the president issues a Mother’s Day Proclamation. The original Mother’s Day Proclamation was made in 1870. Written by Julia Ward Howe, perhaps best known today for having written the words to “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” in 1862 when she was an antislavery activist, the original Proclamation was an impassioned call for peace and disarmament. In the years following the Civil War her political activism increased, as did her condemnation of war. Here are the words to the original Mother’s Day Proclamation: “Arise then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism…

  • * Torture * Geneva Convention * Former Diplomats’ Letter * Praying for Peace

    LISA HAJJAR Hajjar wrote the article “Torture and the Future.” She said today: “Bush has finally issued statements apologizing for the treatment of Iraqis, for the ‘humiliation’ and ‘abuse’ that have shocked many. But he is not accurately describing what has been happening. It was torture; we are now finding that it has been systemic and rampant, according to an investigative report by U.S. Army General Antonio Taguba … Torture has a legal definition and consequences, and Bush is attempting to shield his administration from those consequences.” Hajjar, who teaches in the Law and Society Program at the University of…

  • Torture and War Crimes: Crucial Context

    CLIFF KINDY Kindy has spent two five-month stints over the last year and a half in Iraq with the Christian Peacemaker Team, which released a document entitled “Report and Recommendations on Iraqi Detainees” in January. Kindy has had substantial contact with Iraqi detainees and their families and with U.S. soldiers and higher-ups. More Information DAHR JAMAIL Baghdad correspondent for the Internet journal The NewStandard, Jamail has written several articles (one of them in January) about U.S. military torture of Iraqis. His most recent piece, “Telltale Signs of Torture Lead Family to Demand Answers,” is available at the above web page.…

  • WMDs: * U.S. Public Opinion * Solutions

    STEVEN KULL Kull is director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes which has recently released two studies: “U.S. Public Beliefs on Iraq and the Presidential Election” and “Americans on WMD Proliferation.” He said today: “Sixty percent of Americans believe that just before the war Iraq either had weapons of mass destruction or a major program for developing them. Few Americans perceive most experts as saying the contrary. Perceptions of what the experts are saying are highly correlated with intentions to vote for the president in the upcoming election. Among those who perceived experts as saying that Iraq had WMDs,…

  • “Global Democratic Revolution”

    GEORGE MONBIOT Monbiot, author of the new book Manifesto for a New World Order and winner of the 1995 United Nations Global 500 Award, is in New York City until Wednesday. He said today: “Many of the most important issues facing us — climate change, international debt, nuclear proliferation, war, the balance of trade between nations — can be resolved only at the global or the international level…. Our task is not to overthrow globalization, but to capture it, and to use it as a vehicle for humanity’s first global democratic revolution. “There is already a global governance system in…

  • Al-Jazeera: Blaming the Messenger?

    Secretary Rumsfeld: “I can definitively say that what al-Jazeera is doing is vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable.” Q: “Do you have a civilian casualty count?” Secretary Rumsfeld: “Of course not, we’re not in the city [Fallujah]. But you know what our forces do; they don’t go around killing hundreds of civilians. That’s just outrageous nonsense! It’s disgraceful what that station is doing.” — Donald Rumsfeld at Pentagon news conference, April 15 **** “Last week Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. defense secretary, accused the Arabic television station al-Jazeera of ‘vicious, inaccurate and inexcusable’ reporting for suggesting hundreds of civilians had died there. ‘It’s…

  • * Iraq * Bush and Cheney Before 9-11 Commission * Syria

    PHYLLIS BENNIS A fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of several recent papers on Iraq at the above web page, Bennis said today: “Having a little sovereignty is like being a little pregnant. Either a country has sovereignty or it doesn’t. Under the U.S. plans, Iraq will not have real sovereignty.” More Information DENIS HALLIDAY Former head of the U.N. oil-for-food program in Iraq and assistant secretary general of the U.N., Halliday resigned in protest in 1998. Currently in New York, he is available until Friday for interviews on developments in Iraq. On the oil-for-food program, he…

  • Iraq: On-the-Ground Realities

    RAHUL MAHAJAN Just back from a three-week stay in Baghdad, Mahajan was in Fallujah on April 11. He is author of the book Full Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond. Mahajan said today: “As the tense standoff over Fallujah and Najaf continues, we need to be clear about some things. U.S. actions include the occupation and deliberate closure of at least two hospitals and numerous cases of sniping at clearly-marked ambulances, including ambulances that had no fighters or weapons. The killing of likely well over 600 people following the killing of four Blackwater Security mercenaries is a heinous…

  • Interviews Available on Negroponte: * Meaning of “Sovereignty” * Support for Death Squads

    ANDRES THOMAS CONTERIS Conteris is a Latin America human rights activist. He was detained and released in the Capitol after speaking up Tuesday at U.N. Ambassador John Negroponte’s Senate confirmation hearing on his nomination to be ambassador to Iraq. Negroponte was U.S. ambassador to Honduras during the Nicaragua Contra war in the early 1980s. At the hearing Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) asked Negroponte if “the sovereign Iraqi government of July 1 would not have veto authority over military involvement in [a situation like] Fallujah? … If they have sovereignty, Mr. Ambassador, what does that mean? …” Negroponte: “That is why…

  • “A Politics for Reproductive Justice”

    GWENDOLYN MINK Mink is the author of the book Welfare’s End and is scheduled as a speaker at the March for Women’s Lives on April 25 in Washington. She said today: “On Sunday, women of color of all classes and low income women of all races will raise new voices in the struggle for reproductive liberty. The March for Women’s Lives will transform the politics of ‘choice’ into a politics for reproductive justice. The struggle for reproductive justice is about more than Roe v. Wade. It’s about securing both rights and resources that assure every woman equality as a reproductive…

  • Rubio-Trump “Starving the Cuban People,” Creating “Ludicrous Pretext” for Invasion

    “’Cuba is the country under attack,’ said the Cuban embassy in a statement, months into a ramped-up oil blockade by the U.S. that has left the island’s electric grid in a ‘critical state’ and forced frequent rolling blackouts as well as causing a healthcare crisis, with tens of thousands of people waiting for surgeries.”

  • What the West Can Learn from Islamic Environmental Thought

    A new book, The Cambridge Handbook of Islam and Environmental Law, brings together 24 authors across 14 countries––including Egypt, Pakistan, Nigeria, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Qatar––to map out the history and promises of Islamic environmental thought. Dan Danielsen writes in the text’s foreword that the book “doesn’t add Islamic perspectives to existing frameworks” but “exposes…

  • Fertilizer Crisis: An Argument for Organic Farming

    “It’s not true that crops can’t be grown without synthetic, fossil fuel derived fertilizers as some claim. Organic farms don’t use these, but it is true that U.S. industrial farms rely on them. Many industrial farms using the most synthetic fertilizer don’t grow food. They grow field corn that is inedible and is used primarily…

  • Rape and Torture in Palestine: What Nicholas Kristof Left Out of The New York Times

    “The documentation of this is clear. This existed before October 7th. I think that’s one thing I’m upset with Kristof about, Kristof did not make that clear in his column. You could read it almost as if this is a recent development. It’s not. The systematic torture, including rape and sexual assault on Palestinian prisoners,…

  • Netanyahu Complains About Outlets Which Hire Israeli Operatives

    Adam Johnson writes about the CBS “60 Minutes” interview with Netanyahu on Sunday night: “It’s even more softball than you can imagine: No mention of Netanyahu’s ICC warrant, no mention of the 20,000+ dead children, no mention of 200+ journalists killed, 60 Mins props up conspiracy theory outrage over Gaza is driven by foreign bots;…

  • “Patent Thickets” Continue to Drive Up Global Drug Prices

    In a new article, Swiss pharmaceutical industry and healthcare reporter Jessica Davis Plüss argues that an under-discussed driver of high drug prices worldwide––including the cancer drug Keytruda––is the industry’s use of “patent thickets” that extend monopolies long after original patents should expire.  TAHIR AMIN; [email protected]      Amin is the founder and CEO of the Initiative for…

  • Rubio Claims U.S. Only Defensive, Then U.S. Attacks Civilian Ship, Violating International Law

    “The incident marks at least the second time the U.S. military fired on a civilian ship in the Gulf of Oman while enforcing the blockade.”

  • Washington Post Quotes Official About “Fresh Scrutiny” Over Israel’s Nuclear Threat

    He wrote the in-depth article “The Israeli Nuclear Weapons Program,” which makes numerous points including: “During the 1973 war, Israel used nuclear blackmail to force Kissinger and Nixon to airlift massive amounts of military hardware to Israel.” He stresses that Israel’s nuclear weapons program should not be compared with the North Korean, Indian or Pakistani programs.…

  • Israeli Targeting of Flotilla Part of Continued Attack on Gaza

    Al Jazeera reports: “Two activists from a Gaza-bound humanitarian flotilla have been presented before an Israeli court days after they were abducted following their detention with 175 other campaigners by Israel in international waters near Greece.”

  • The Role of Democrats in Iran Policy

    Some experts say that Democratic lawmakers and the Biden administration missed key opportunities to shift course on Iran, with the result of a deepening crisis shaped by a longstanding reluctance or refusal to prioritize diplomacy. In 2024, Sina Toossi wrote that President Biden’s approach to Iran was “particularly self-defeating.” 

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