Z Nightly Commentaries
There are no commentaries for today.
Recent Z Nightly Commentaries
Cook: Israel's Other ‘Peace’ Plan
Oct 12, 2010
A ghost haunted the meeting of the Arab League in Libya at the weekend, as its foreign ministers decided to give a little more time to the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
Chomsky: Security and Control I
Sep 16, 2010
A Pentagon study released on August 13 expressed government concerns that China is expanding its military forces in ways that “could deny the ability of American warships to operate in international waters off the coast,” Thom Shanker reports in the New York Times. Off the coast of China, that is; it has yet to be proposed that that the US eliminate military forces that could deny the ability of Chinese warships to operate off American coasts.
Cohn: Business as Usual in Iraq
Sep 14, 2010
Last week, President Obama ceremoniously announced that U.S. combat operations had ended in Iraq. As Democrats face an uphill battle in the upcoming midterm elections, Obama felt he had to make good on his campaign promise to move the fighting from Iraq to Afghanistan. But while he has escalated the killing in Afghanistan, it’s business as usual in Iraq.
Cohn: California Human Rights
Aug 22, 2010
On August 9, the California Assembly took the historic step of becoming the first state to agree to publicize the text of three ratified U.N. human rights treaties, and to submit the required reports to the State Department for consideration by the U.N. treaty committees. The State Assembly voted to pass ACR120, the Human Rights Reporting legislation, by a vote of 52 to 11, with 16 abstentions. The legislation will now move to the state Senate.
Chomsky: WikiLeaks & the War
Aug 13, 2010
The War Logs—a six-year archive of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, released on the Internet by the organization WikiLeaks—documents a grim struggle becoming grimmer, from the U.S. perspective. And for the Afghans, a mounting horror.
Cohn: Prop 8 Unconstitutional
Aug 09, 2010
In a stunning, carefully crafted 136-page opinion, U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn Walker held in Perry v. Schwarzenegger that California’s Proposition 8, which outlaws same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional.
Cohn: John McCain
Jul 27, 2010
On July 15, I attended a reception in Washington DC to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the normalization of relations between the United States and Vietnam. Geoff Millard and I spoke to Sen. John McCain. When Geoff introduced himself as chairman of the board of Iraq Veterans against the War, McCain retorted, “You’re too late. We already won that one.”
Cook: One-State Debate
Jul 21, 2010
A fascinating debate is entering Israel’s political mainstream on a once-taboo subject: the establishment of a single state as a resolution of the conflict, one in which Jews and Palestinians might potentially live as equal citizens. Surprisingly, those advocating such a solution are to be found chiefly on Israel’s political right.
Cromwell: Bin & Bypass Complaints
Jul 10, 2010
Robert Fisk wrote last week in the Independent of how an unnamed friend of his, "a Very Senior Correspondent of the BBC", responded to a recent challenge. Fisk could no longer recall whether it "was about the BBC's grovelling coverage of Israel or its refusal to show a film seeking help for wounded Palestinian children after the 2008-09 Gaza slaughter (on the grounds that this would damage the BBC's 'neutrality')".
Chatterjee: Argentina & Maradona
Jul 09, 2010
The four German goals that destroyed Argentina’s dream of winning the football World Cup this year rekindled another: that of the Argentine Right and its sinister pointsman, Mauricio Macri. The real target of the Argentine Right and its allied “media generals”, as President Cristina Fernándes calls them, is Diego Maradona, revered in Argentina for his football achievements and for his political journey to the Left.
Cohn: Losing in Afghanistan
Jul 07, 2010
Last week, the House of Representatives voted 215-210 for $33 billion to fund Barack Obama’s troop increase in Afghanistan. But there was considerable opposition to giving the President a blank check...
Chomsky: The Iranian Threat
Jun 28, 2010
The dire threat of Iran is widely recognized to be the most serious foreign policy crisis facing the Obama administration. Congress has just strengthened the sanctions against Iran, with even more severe penalties against foreign companies.
Chatterjee: Hatched From Uribe
Jun 25, 2010
In the upside down world of Colombia, the more things remain the same, the more they change. Juan Manuel Santos has been elected President, approvingly described by the BBC and other western news media as a “safe pair of hands” to continue with the policies of the current regime of the notorious President Alvaro Uribe. Santos won almost 70% of the votes cast but it turns out that almost 60% of the Colombians did not vote and that many of them did not turn out, or cast almost half a million blank votes, as a form of protest. Coming in the week that Jose Saramago, the Portuguese novelist died, it was somewhat ironic since his novel ‘Seeing’ charts out how a well-set regime begins to tumble after citizens spontaneously put in blank votes.
Chomsky: The Real Flotilla Threat
Jun 11, 2010
Israel’s violent attack on the Freedom Flotilla carrying humanitarian aid to Gaza shocked the world.
Cohn: Israel Murders Human Rights Workers
Jun 01, 2010
On Sunday, Israel murdered human rights workers who were attempting to deliver 10,000 tons of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza, because Gaza has been virtually cut off from the outside world by Israel. At least 19 people were reportedly killed and dozens injured when Israeli troops boarded the 6-ship Freedom Flotilla convoy in international waters and immediately fired live ammunition at the people on board the ships.
Cohn: Rwandan Arrest of U.S. Lawyer
May 30, 2010
Professor Peter Erlinder, noted criminal defense lawyer and past president of the National Lawyers Guild, was arrested Friday morning in Rwanda for “genocide ideology.”
Cooke: Global Attack on Public Workers
May 24, 2010
In the state of Oregon, the most widely distributed paper, the Oregonian, announced on its front page that the state should expect “Ten Years of Pain.” The perpetrator: the budget crisis — $2.5 billion in the coming two-year budget cycle, with $2 billion projected deficits until 2019. Sadly, these depressing numbers assume that the economy will recover, a belief lacking any credible evidence.
Cohn: Stevens’ Mighty Shoes
May 09, 2010
As the Rehnquist court continued to eviscerate the right of the people to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures, Associate Justice John Paul Stevens filed principled and courageous dissents.
Cohn: Arizona Legalizes Racial Profiling
Apr 29, 2010
The conservative "states' rights" mantra sweeping our country has led to one of the most egregious wrongs in recent U.S. history. New legislation in Arizona requires law enforcement officers to stop everyone whom they have "reasonable suspicion" to believe is an undocumented immigrant and arrest them if they fail to produce their papers. What constitutes "reasonable suspicion"? When asked what an undocumented person looks like, Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, who signed SB 1070 into law last week, said, "I don't know what an undocumented person looks like." The bill does not prohibit police from relying on race or ethnicity in deciding who to stop. It is unlikely that officers will detain Irish or German immigrants to check their documents. This law unconstitutionally criminalizes "walking while brown" in Arizona.
Oct 16, 2010
JURIST Contributing Editor Marjorie Cohn of Thomas Jefferson School of Law says despite United Nations Human Rights Council findings that Israel clearly broke international law in its raid of the Gaza Strip Flotilla, the US has yet to condemn the action...