In response to the Palestinian bid for statehood, the US House, against the wishes of the White House, has frozen some $200 million dollars worth aid to Palestine. The funds were targeted towards food aid, healthcare and infrastructure devel…
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Progressive Proselytizing: The role of public relations in the military
Canada’s top military figure, Chief of Defense Staff Gen. Walt Natynczyk has gotten media attention recently since it was revealed that he spent over a million dollars on government aircraft to fly to such things as “Military Appreciation Nights” at NH…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Iran’s overstated military capacities
Iranian Missile Test
With the main thrust of the Libyan intervention dieing down – and with it the need to justify it by villainizing Qaddafi – Iran has firmly regained its place as public enemy number one. Ahmadenijad makes it easy to draw attention…
Progressive Proselytizing: Nuclear weapons and motivations for Libya and Iran
Perhaps one of the greatest triumphs of the non-proliferation movement was the 2003 decision by Colonel Qaddafi of Libya to entirely abandon his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons program, throwing open the doors to inspectors and allowing the pr…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The left’s opinion change on Pakistan and the drone war
The issue of the drone war and the public reception to it, particularly among progressives, demonstrates both the strength and failings of that movement. The hallmark test of legitimacy for any body that espouses political opinion is and must be consis…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Libya Rebel Leader Underscores Our Deep Hypocricy
When it first became clear that NATO actions in Libya were going to far exceed the UN mandate of a no-fly zone to protect civilians and would instead be a massive and sustained bombing campaign on all kinds of military targets in support of the rebels …
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Israel/Palestine Overview
The Israel/Palestine issue is a particularly difficult topic to talk and write about simply because it is such a poignant, polarizing and established issue. Within a few sentences, western commentators on the issue quickly get lumped as either “pro-Isr…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The Debt Deal and Defense Spending
Defense spending factors into the recent deal to avert the entirely political debt “crisis” in a couple of ways. Firstly, amazingly, the deal actually increases defense spending in a certain sense. Given the wind down in Iraq and proposed end of Afghan…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Middle powers, Great Powers, and incentives in war
Many, but certainly not all, US led military campaigns share a common element: a widespread international coalition that supports and participates in the campaigns. We will see that it is two motivations – the need for legitimacy among the leaders an…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Incentives in Prosecuting Dictators
The International Criminal Court has recently sought the arrest of Qaddafi, and others in the Libyan regime, for crimes against humanity. Justified, surely, but is this move wise? To answer the broader questions about charging dictators in internationa…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Afghan public opinion and it’s consequences
If we care about the Afghan people, and if we believe in democracy as a normative system for determining what is best for a people, it becomes imperative when conducting a unilateral action such as war that we learn what the Afghan people actually thin…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Right to Exist: An Inflated Conflict
If one follows the negotiation process over the years between Israel and Palestine, one finds an asymmetry between the issues raised and argued for in the negotiation process and the the political and media rhetoric. One of the issues that is largely a…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Canada dutifully fulfills the US’s role towards Israel
Canadian policy and rhetoric has been staunchly pro-Israel for a long a time. It is a stance which, especially with Harper at the helm, arguably resulted in Canada’s inability to win a security council seat last year. However, despite adopting a positi…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: The relationship between public goods and sovereignty
As our world modernizes, the relationships of self determination and sovereignty flex and change. Technological and sociological changes have made the provision of a wide variety of public goods possible at much larger scales. There is a trade off, ho…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Egypt’s Shifting Geopolitical Policies: A Consequence of Democracy
The recent democratization of Egypt has resulted in a series of distinct policy changes with regards to Israel, Palestine and Iran. These changes ultimately represent a shift in Egyptian policy towards the popular opinion of many Egyptians that are bec…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Reassessing the Libyan Intervention
As the NATO bombing campaign in Libya nears the one month mark, we can – and indeed must – reassess our previous opinions on the Libyan intervention with the new information that has become available. There is a caveat that we should keep in mind befo…
Continue readingProgressive Proselytizing: Private security is a moral hazard when there is no rule of law
The rise of private security personal and war contractors – embodied by the since rebranded Blackwater – is a moral hazard that has, predictably, led to significant consequences. The profit motivation provides incentive distinct from minimizing human s…
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