|
Dear IRC Activists,
As of this writing, President Bush is traveling throughout
Africa, talking about AIDS prevention and poverty. Yet his budget
proposal will cut funding for international maternal and child
health by one-third. At the same time, the Lancet Journal
reports that 11 million children—nearly half of them in
Africa—die each year before their fifth birthday, primarily
due to malnutrition and preventable diseases.
“Every single day—365 days a year—an attack
against children occurs that is 10 times greater than the death
toll from the World Trade Center,” said Jean-Pierre Habicht,
a professor of epidemiology and nutritional sciences at Cornell
University.
Here at home, Head Start and the AmeriCorp Program, which President
Bush pledged to expand by 50%, instead will be cut by nearly
60%, leaving thousands of college grads unemployed and decimating
scores of vital, volunteer-driven services to underprivileged
Americans. All the while, we’re spending $8.9 billion on
a missile defense system that even members of the military say
will not work.
And now for some good news. Truth, or at least a bit of it,
is surfacing in mainstream media reports. It seems that the
president stretched the truth a little too far in his January
28 State of the Union address, when he said that Iraq had purchased
uranium from Africa. When asked why that information was included
in the speech, even after U.S. intelligence officials said the
facts were dubious, the simple response was that the speech
had cleared the CIA.
No intelligence information exists to support President Bush’s
assertions that Iraq was producing biological or chemical weapons.
The War on Terrorism is a ruse to feed an already bloated military,
control more oil reserves, deflect attention from the gasping
U.S. economy, and pursue the neoconservative, unilateral foreign
policy agenda. And yet our young men and women remain in harm’s
way, as an estimated 10 to 25 attacks occur each day against
U.S. soldiers in Iraq.
It is true that our nation is in crisis, both moral and political.
Yet crisis is the crucible for change. Rather than agonize,
we must organize and do all that we can to change the political
climate of our great country. The mission and objective of the
International Relations Center—to shift U.S. foreign
policy from global gendarme to global leader of conscience—is
needed more than ever.
The IRC’s thorough, independent analyses of U.S. foreign
policy and its interplay with domestic policy is serving a burgeoning
citizens’ movement to take back our nation from the neoconservative
minority and its radical, imperialist vision of the world. And
our vast network of progressive activists and grassroots organizations,
academicians, national thought leaders, media, and policymakers
relies on fact-based information to speak truth to power. Your
support of the IRC has never been more urgent.
So rather than agonize, organize your checkbook and help the
IRC shift our current political climate with your most generous
donation possible.
Sincerely,
Debra Preusch
|
Analyses in Action
Laura Carlsen, IRC’s Americas Program director, spoke
on the Agreement on Agriculture of the World Trade Organization
at a June 11 public hearing of the Committee on Industry, External
Trade, Research and Energy of the European Parliament. Pascal
Lamy, trade commissioner of the European Union (EU) spoke, and
other participants on Laura’s panel included Ricardo Melendez
of the International Center for Sustainable Development in Geneva,
the Brazilian and Eastern Caribbean ambassadors to the EU, and
a representative from the European Agriculture Association.
John Gershman, director of IRC’s Foreign Policy In Focus
initiative, our virtual think tank on U.S. foreign policy, is
in the midst of revising both our New Agenda to Combat Terrorism
and Our Fateful Choice: Global Cop or Global Leader statements
as part of our efforts to enhance the ongoing dialogues among
peace and justice activists and policymakers to craft alternatives
to the Bush administration’s dangerous and arrogant foreign
policy. One of our major goals for the next 16 months is to
make foreign policy an important issue in the upcoming presidential
and congressional elections. IRC supporters who would like to
work with us on that effort should please contact John Gershman
at <john@irc-online.org>.
Talli Nauman, of the America’s Program, joined 400 environmental
activists, researchers, local citizen groups, binational coalitions,
and journalists for the fourth, biennial “Meeting on the
Border Environment,” held May 15-17 in Tijuana. Talli presented
a workshop titled, “Right To Know Laws as Environmentalists’
Tool for Monitoring Toxic Substances.” In June, Talli attended
a symposium on globalization in North America, held in Washington,
DC, where the book, Confronting
Globalization: Economic Integration and Popular Resistance in
Mexico, co-edited by Americas Program Director Laura
Carlsen, was presented to the environmental and trade community.
Talli also distributed key Americas Program analyses and information
at a meeting of the Commission on Environmental Cooperation
(CEC) Joint Public Advisory Council.
Americas Program materials have also been reprinted for the
Social Change Across Borders project at the University of California-Santa
Cruz, which brings together grassroots leaders from both Latin
America and U.S. Latino communities.
IRC Interns
This summer the IRC is fortunate to have two marvelous interns.
Mike Overby, a junior at Furman University, with a double major
in Political Science and Spanish, works out of the IRC’s
Silver City office. Mike is researching the impact of the neoconservative
movement on U.S. foreign policy. Kristin Sampson is pursuing
a master’s degree in International Trade and Commercial
Policy at Tufts University. Based in Mexico City with Americas
Program Director Laura Carlsen, Krisitn is working on a profile
of citizen mobilizations against neoliberal policies in the
Americas, specifically in relation to the WTO and FTAA.
IRC in the Media
Our materials continue to be reprinted extensively on Commondreams.com,
TomPaine.com, AlterNet, CounterPunch, Third World Network, and
other key electronic publications. Other key IRC media hits
include:
Laura was invited to be a guest on the Voice of America radio
program, Hablemos con Washington, a popular, hour-long
weekly international call-in show, where she discussed agriculture
and trade.
John Gershman also appeared on Voice of America and
the popular Democracy Now! radio and television shows
to discuss the Bush administration’s war on terrorism in
Southeast Asia.
“Bombings Bring U.S. ‘Executive Mercenaries’
Into the Light,” a commentary by William Hartung, senior
research fellow at the World Policy Institute, frequent FPIF
analyst, and co-author of Power
Trip, appeared May 16 in the Los Angeles Times.
IRC Board Member Salih Booker, executive director of Africa
Action, authored an article in the May issue of Current History.
In the article titled, America and Africa, Booker writes,
“In a dangerous replay of the cold war, the United States
is likely to ignore Africa’s priorities, placing military
basing rights above human rights...”
|
