FCNL - period ended 1.1.2006

FCNL/War/Iraq/Smith, Daniel/A Forensic Anatomy of the Strategy for “Victory”/Foreign Policy In Focus/Washington/DC/USA/21-Dec-05//…. The irony of this whole Iraq adventure is that in ostensibly endowing Iraqis with freedom, the freedoms of Americans have been curtailed with no indication of when--if ever--they will be restored. Unless the public presses for the full restoration of the freedoms abridged by the unconstitutional presidential proclamation of “war,” those who follow us will live in a more rigid and autocratic society.

If so, perhaps in 100 or so years, Iraqis will be willing to “liberate” North Americans.

Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org), a retired U.S. Army colonel, and a senior fellow on military affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation …..

FCNL/Human Rights//To Link or Not to Link: The Human Rights Question in North Korea/Foreign Policy In Focus/Washington/DC/USA/19-Dec-05//Nuancing the issue of North Korean human rights still further, a fourth category of NGOs has emerged. Representatives of humanitarian organizations, former government officials critical of Bush administration policy, and assorted academics, while acknowledging the extent of North Korea 's human rights abuses, have argued for a rigorous delinking of the issue from the current negotiations over the nuclear problem. Such groups include Mercy Corps, Friends Committee on National Legislation, and the Alliance of Scholars Concerned about Korea .