The Battle For Haiti: W...

On March 31, speaking before the International Donors’ Conference for Haiti, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed the United States’ commitment to “help Haiti and to help the leaders of Haiti lead a recovery effort worthy of their highest hopes.” At the conclusion of the...

Health Care Reform Redu...

Like many present-day lawmakers in the United States, the ancient Babylonian king Hammurabi gave at least some thought to the question of how to pay for health care. One section of the famous Code of Hammurabi detailed what the fall 2009 issue of Lapham’s Quarterly cheekily referred to...
Tea Party Politics: Flirting with Fascism

Tea Party Politics: Fli...

The rapid national organization of the Tea Party has become one of the most extraordinary developments in American politics since the election of Barack Obama. Depending on one’s perspective, it is either a diverse movement or a confused one. In truth it is both, but only because it is...
Future Still Uncertain for Kurdish Iraq

Future Still Uncertain ...

"Christians and other minority groups have also been the targets of choice in Kirkuk of late. While the violence there has not exhibited the same characteristics of systematized execution as in Mosul, the results have been no less horrific. Most recently, insurgent groups have carried out attacks on Christian businessmen, and have continued their practice of assassinating municipal security forces, routine violence which has claimed the lives of hundreds of police officers over the past few years."

The Militarization of Crowd Control

The Militarization of C...

The Group of 20 (G-20) Summit protests in Pittsburgh this past September were a threshold event. Not only were protestors detained and beaten by the police, but they were also subjected to new military-grade technologies that have pushed the boundaries of what kinds of actions are...
Defending the UN

Defending the UN

Like beauty, the value of the United Nations lies in the eye of the beholder. Case in point, David Rothkopf’s recent screed on Foreign Policy.com (“You Can’t Spell Unproductive Without the Letters U and N”) against the world’s largest multilateral organization, the latest in a...