Foreign Policy in Focus articles from March 2004

Foreign Policy in Focus archives from March 2004

Lessons in state building in the post-September 11 era.(Afghanistan's Problematic Path to Peace)
March 1, 2004... Introduction Afghanistan's state-building process has reached a crossroads. With a constitution ratified and the country's first elections in decades scheduled for June-July 2004--although the continued deterioration of security conditions...

The peace movement one year later.
March 1, 2004... One year after the start of war in Iraq, the peace movement in the United States faces an unusual predicament. Critic the invasion had many of their key arguments vindicated in the past year, as President Bush's case for war has collapse...

Haiti: dangerous muddle.(FPIF Policy Report)
March 2, 2004... In 1994, when President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 American troops into Haiti to restore Jean-Bernard Aristide to the presidency, there was widespread support for a mission aimed at restoring democracy and relieving the misery of the Haitian...

Iraq and the costs of war.(FPIF Policy Report)
March 3, 2004... Halliburton's role in Iraq has been deeply scrutinized in the past few months but its implications go far beyond one company or one conflict. The real issue at hand is determining how to best provide effective support for our men and women in...

Human rights and U.S. foreign policy.(Bait and Switch?)
March 4, 2004... In the aftermath of the failure to find Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, human rights have become the most prominent justification for the Iraq War in statements by President George W. Bush and other administration officials. This represents...

Afghan women continue to fend for themselves.(FPIF Special Report)
March 5, 2004... Bombed into Liberation A recent New York Times article accurately portrayed two Afghan women from the poor farming village of Haji Bai Nazar, as "heroines" for de-mining their village. (1) Khairulnisah and Nasreen have the United States...

A Unified Security Budget for the United States.
March 8, 2004... Executive Summary Since September 11, 2001, the question of how to provide for our security has loomed large over our national life. Many of the Bush administration's answers to this question have come under intense challenge---from the...

When the coffee crisis hits home.(Voices of Coffee Growers in Chiapas)
March 8, 2004... Coffee is not native to Mexico, yet since it arrived on Mexican shores in 1796, it has evolved into a central aspect of social, economic, and cultural life. Today 320,000 growers produce coffee in twelve states of the republic. From bush to...

Chiapas coffee growers speak out.(Voices of Coffee Growers in Chiapas)
March 8, 2004... For many members of the Majomut Cooperative, organic coffee growing has meant not only financial salvation but a new (or rediscovered) ethos of ecological farming: "We had lost our respect for nature instead of feeding and caring for the...

The militarization of U.S. foreign policy.
March 8, 2004... February 2004 The fall of the Soviet Union handed the U.S. a unique opportunity, as the surviving superpower, to lead the world toward a period of greater cooperation and conflict resolution through the use of diplomacy, global...

Problems with current U.S. policy.(increasing role of military, particularly in intelligence)
March 8, 2004... The Bush administration has placed the Pentagon atop the national security policy decisionmaking ladder, thus weakening the role of the State Department and other agencies dealing with foreign policy. As a result, the long-term security...

Toward a new foreign policy.(Bush administration's policies)
March 8, 2004... U.S. foreign policy under the stewardship of Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld has been based on unilateralism and militarism. The condition of continuous, worldwide war has created an operational tempo for the military that the U.S. cannot afford and...

Standing up for workers' rights.
March 8, 2004... February 13, 2004 "The boss said he would sell the company or burn it down before he would see a union at Sterling." To the cheers of a responsive Washington, DC audience on December 10, 2003, Sterling Laundry worker Evelyn Thomas vowed to...

The more things change: foreign aid budget looks like a retread from the cold war.
March 8, 2004... February 19, 2004 If the "war on terror" is beginning to look increasingly like the cold war, then President George W. Bush's fiscal year (FY) 2005 foreign-aid request will not change that impression. While Bush is proposing to...

George W. Bush is persona non grata: Americans abroad.(The Americas This Week)
March 8, 2004... February 20, 2004 Much of the world sees President George W. Bush as a persona non grata. Unilateral actions, false intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and scandals from Halliburton to the president's National Guard service...

Haiti: dangerous muddle.(IRC Americas Program Policy Report)(Interhemispheric Resource Center )
March 8, 2004... March 1, 2004 In 1994, when President Bill Clinton sent 20,000 American troops into Haiti to restore Jean-Bernard Aristide to the presidency, there was widespread support for a mission aimed at restoring democracy and relieving the misery...

The need for a secular state.(Women's Health in Nicaragua)
March 9, 2004... Nicaragua's population policy has been set out in two documents prepared by two successive governments. The first of these two documents, the "national population policy" was issued in September 1996, toward the end of Violeta Chamorro's...

Rendering an account on Iraq.(on first anniversary)
March 18, 2004... The first anniversary of the beginning of the 2003 war against Iraq is upon us. Like good and faithful stewards, it is time for the Bush administration to give an accounting to its employer, the U.S. public. Some questions relative to the...

The environmental right-to-know movement: role and agenda of organized civil society in the Americas: learning from experience.(IRC Americas Program Discussion Paper)(Interhemispheric Resource Center)
March 23, 2004... If Mexican President Vicente Fox stands behind his promise to increase access to government information and also behind his Environmental and Natural Resources Secretariat (Semarnat), he will sign regulations this March enabling mandatory,...