We focus this quarter on three issues central to the upcoming election, though they haven’t been getting the attention they deserve. The first is the foreign policy of the United States over the next four years-not just, what should be …
It is always difficult to cover a presidential election in a quarterly magazine, and it hasn’t gotten easier as the election campaign has been steadily extended in time. Still, this is probably the most important election in many decades, and …
How is postwar justice related to the justice of the war itself and the conduct of its battles? Iraq poses this question in an especially urgent way, but the question would be compelling even without Iraq. It seems clear that …
The war in Iraq has given new urgency to the debate about “American imperialism.” In fact, there hasn’t been anywhere near enough of a debate; the term is used routinely by critics of the war and routinely rejected by its …
For the first time since the fall of the Soviet Union, we are engaged in a serious debate about the shape and character of global politics. What produced the debate was, first of all, the growing arrogance and recklessness of …
Sometime soon, the forty-nine years of Dissent will be available online—every article in every issue. Right now, we post a number of key articles on our Web site as soon as the “real” issue—paper, ink, and glue—appears; and after a …
It is hard to know what to say. At this moment, it looks as if our country is headed into a “war of choice” that we should not have chosen. When you read this issue of Dissent, we will be …
How Should the Left Respond to a U.S. War Against Iraq?
Slowly, an intelligent opposition to the Bush administration’s domestic and foreign policies is taking shape. Not only from leftists: some thoughtful conservatives have begun to worry out loud about the ideological stridency and rigidity of their own leaders. There was …
The great simplifiers are hard at work, but Israel/Palestine has never been a friendly environment for them, and it is especially unfriendly today. They are bound to get it wrong, morally and politically, and that is a very bad thing …
Around the world, right now, leftists of all sorts are engaged in arguments about the use of force. In our last issue, we focused on the question of humanitarian intervention, and all our writers, though they were a very diverse …
Leftist opposition to the war in Afghanistan faded in November and December of last year, not only because of the success of the war but also because of the enthusiasm with which so many Afghans greeted that success. The pictures …
There is nothing new about human disasters caused by human beings. We have always been, if not our own, certainly each other’s worst enemies. From the Assyrians in ancient Israel and the Romans in Carthage to the Belgians in the …
I have no serious disagreements with Leo Casey or Michael Kazin. Casey’s description of religious totalitarianism as the real enemy is persuasive. I will continue to argue for the condemnation of terrorism, whoever uses it, and for a general “war” …
This is not going to be a straightforward and entirely coherent argument. I am still reeling from the attacks of September 11, and I don’t have all my responses in order. I will try to answer five questions about terrorism. …
