Articles

The blood of El Salvador’s massacres stains America

The blood of El Salvador’s massacres stains America

EARLY ONE AUTUMN morning in 1989, a death squad stormed through the gates of Central American University in El Salvador. When its work was finished, six Jesuit priests and their two housekeepers lay dead. One victim was my friend the Rev. Ignacio Ellacuria, the university rector. Finally one of the Salvadoran officers who allegedly organized this […]

Russia is not the enemy

Russia is not the enemy

REAL ENEMIES ARE a threat to any country, but imagined enemies can be even more dangerous. They sap resources, provoke needless conflicts, and divert attention from true challenges. The United States has constructed such a fantasy by turning Russia into an enemy. Our current campaign against Russia was set off by what some in Washington call […]

Stay out of war against ISIL: Opposing view

Stay out of war against ISIL: Opposing view

We should be more deeply involved in peacemaking efforts. Whenever war or upheaval shakes the Middle East, the U.S. feels compelled to intervene. The pattern is familiar: We see a force we dislike, we intervene to crush it, and then it returns in another form, more radical and more violent. Only if we break this […]

A new Guatemala slowly emerges

A new Guatemala slowly emerges

Few countries have suffered as much as Guatemala. The resignation of President Otto Perez Molina on Thursday, followed by his arrest on corruption charges, seems like just the latest episode in the long cascade of crimes, coups, revolutions, interventions, and massacres that shape Guatemalan history. In fact, it reflects something new. Political and social consciousness […]

Today’s refugee crisis is the price for yesterday’s interventions

Today’s refugee crisis is the price for yesterday’s interventions

REFUGEES ARE SURGING into Europe. More have come since the beginning of this year than in all of 2014. Scenes of their plight are as relentless as they are poignant. This is Europe’s new crisis. Immigration has also become a hot political issue in the United States, where an estimated 11 million people live without legal […]