Indiscriminate Bombing Research Articles

Are hospitals collateral damage? Assessing geospatial proximity of 2000 lb bomb detonations to hospital facilities in the Gaza Strip from October 7 to November 17, 2023.

After attacks in Israel led by Hamas militants on October 7, 2023, Israel launched a major military campaign in the Gaza Strip that has featured an unprecedented scale of destruction. This has included the use of highly destructive weapons in a densely populated area. Mark-84 bombs (M-84s) are 2000 lb air-dropped explosive munitions with the capacity to damage infrastructure and kill or cause severe injury hundreds of meters away. This study examines the proximity of M-84 bomb detonations to hospital infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. We combined geospatial data on hospital locations across the Gaza Strip with maps of the locations of M-84 bomb craters between October 7 and November 17, 2023, published by CNN and New York Times. We then measured and summarized the proximity of the bomb craters to hospitals across the territory. We identified 592 M-84 bomb craters. Of the 36 hospitals across the Gaza Strip, 25% (n = 9) had at least one bomb crater within the lethal range (360 m) and 83.3% (n = 30) within the infrastructure damage and injury range (800 m) of their facilities. The shortest distance of a bomb crater from a hospital was 14.7 m. Two hospitals had as many as 23 and 21 bomb craters within 800 m of their facilities and one hospital had seven bomb craters within 360 m. Thirty-eight M-84 bombs were detonated within 800 m of hospitals in the Israeli military defined evacuation zone. Given the known blast effect of these M-84 bombs, the impact from the bomb detonations near hospitals likely killed and injured people in and around the hospital area, which could include civilians and hospital staff, and likely damaged hospital infrastructure. The results of this study suggest indiscriminate bombing in dangerous proximities to hospital infrastructure, which is afforded special protection under international humanitarian law (IHL).

ЗАЯВА НА ПІДТРИМКУ АКАДЕМІЧНОЇ СПІЛЬНОТИ УКРАЇНИ

In 2017, I was invited by Dr. Zayachkivska, Chair of the Physiology Department in Danylo Halytsky Lviv National Medical University, to participate in a scientifi c conference at your institution in Lviv. I had the pleasure of discussing the neurobiology of PTSD, evaluating the work of your young scientists, and, of course, meeting many of you, I very fondly recall our time together in your beautiful city. Since then, we have maintained contact. I’m honored to be editor and reviewer for the Proceedings of the Shevchenko Scientifi c Society nowadays. Today I would like to express my unequivocal solidarity with you and with all Ukrainians, who are resisting the unprovoked, totally unjustified and brutal war being waged against you by the Russian Federation. Along with the rest of the civilized world, I recoil in horror at the indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools, and homes and the murder of so many innocents, including women and children. Know that I, and countless others like me, are with you in our thoughts and in our actions. We condemn the brutal and illegal acts of Putin’s regime. I call on members of the global academic community to recognize that, as scientists, we cannot sit idly in our laboratories or offices while war crimes are being committed in front of our eyes. We have a moral obligation to end this wanton killing and destruction. Let us urge our respective governments to continuously increase economic and political pressure on the Russian Federation to immediately stop the war. In the interim, we need to demand a no fly zone to allow those who wish to leave safe passage and allow humanitarian aid to reach those living under siege in basements and bunkers, often without food, water, and medical assistance. In parallel, our countries need to be prepared to receive refugees and to provide financial support to Ukraine as she fights for her existence. In addition, I call on all my colleagues to personally and through their institutions suspend all academic activity with scientists and institutions in the Russian Federation, with two exceptions. We should continue collaborations that impact direct clinical care. We cannot descend to the abject evil practiced by those who have lost their humanity. We should also recognize and reward those colleagues in the Russian Federation who declare their opposition to the systematic and wide-ranging violence their government is engaged in. The suspension of academic contacts must continue until the killing stops and the armed forces of the Russian Federation leave every part of Ukraine’s territory. I also have this appeal to academics and scientists in the Russian Federation. We know that Russia’s descent into its present autocracy has been gradual. We also know that many of you are quietly opposed to the ongoing crimes against humanity. There is no animus towards Russians as a people. There is, however, revulsion and righteous anger at the actions of the Russian Federation, which is supported actively or tacitly by many. Yes, I recognize that if one or two scientists or academics voice an objection, they may be demoted, fired, or even imprisoned. However, if thousands of you stand up at the same time, nothing will happen. Putin’s regime knows that Russia cannot function without its scientists and academics. Today, everything is transparent. When this nightmare Russia is trying to impose on the world ends, as it inevitably will, it will be apparent to all who profited and actively supported a criminal regime, who sat on their hands and waited, and who spoke out boldly against a totally unnecessary but increasingly brutal war that is being waged ostensibly in their name. If you all speak in a mighty voice together, Putin and his regime will be paralyzed. They need you. You do not need them. Let all of us, in academic institutions, hospitals and laboratories around the world work together for the cause of truth and justice and demand respect for the rights accorded to each person on our earth. In closing, I speak again to you, my dear Ukrainian colleagues. I pray that the war ends swiftly and that all of you, along with family, friends, and the entire Ukrainian nation, prevail. May the day soon arrive when we can meet, discuss science, plan possible collaborations, linger over a coffee, and just enjoy each other’s collegiality in your most wonderful country. March is the month of commemoration of the poet Taras Shevchenko. It is fitting to recall his words. “Fight – you’ll win the fight.” Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Herous! Slava Ukraini! Heroyam Slava! https://youtu.be/Q_f-aKUtAEY

The Tokyo Tribunal: Precedent for Victor’s Justice II

Besides, previous publication of Nuremberg Tribunal: A Precedent for Victor’s Justice (2020), the study is named as The Tokyo Tribunal: Precedent for Victor’s Justice II. The bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were heinous crimes against humankind that caused physical, material, socio-cultural, and emotional losses. The bombings violated humanitarian law. This paper aims to find out the situations of the investigation, prosecution and punishment, and analyse the preference for justice: victor’s justice or victim’s justice. During World War II, anti-communist Emperor Hirohito actively led Japan decorated by the Army’s uniform but pretended to be a ceremonial Emperor making scapegoats to his opponents. Former Prime Ministers Konoe and Tojo were conspiratorially assassinated. Hirohito bribed callous US Army General Douglas MacArthur. MacArthur ordered to gather testimonies to prove Hirohito as innocent. The Tokyo Tribunal was biased since it did not speak a word against the indiscriminate bombings and mass killings in Chinese cities, among others. The Tribunal had a pseudo justice body, highly influenced by the US military and retributive justice doctrines. Judges were appointed from each allied victor excluding from Japan. Five of the 11 Judges submitted separate opinions on their judgment. Justice had been elusive for the innocent, weak, and poor victims. Most crimes committed went unpunished. The Tribunal ironically ensured the victor’s justice, further limiting the victim’s justice. Thus, the Tribunal appeared as a sword in a judge's toupee.

The morality of substitution intervention: The case of Yemen

Throughout the Yemeni Civil War, western states have supplied weapons used in the indiscriminate bombing campaign conducted by the Saudis. In defence of their actions, British politicians have argued that they are exchanging weapons for influence, and using the influence obtained to encourage compliance with humanitarian law. An additional premise in the argument is that Britain is using its influence more benignly than alternative suppliers would use theirs if Britain were not on the scene. The idea is that Britain is substituting itself for other, less scrupulous, interveners. I argue that, regardless of whether British substitution intervention could be justified in this way…, it is not in fact justified, because Britain has not plausibly used its influence to secure an amount of good sufficient to offset the various harms that its actions have created (or to discharge the expanded duties of rescue that greater influence entails). In addition, the article identifies the various forms that substitution intervention can take, and shows how the concept reveals hitherto neglected reasons to both support and oppose intervention in foreign conflicts.

For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition by Ernest Hemingway

Reviewed by: For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition by Ernest Hemingway Stacey Guill For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition. By Ernest Hemingway. Foreword by Patrick Hemingway. Edited with an Introduction by Seán Hemingway. Scribner, 2019. 576 pp. Paperback $16.99. 16 July 2019 marked the publication date of Ernest Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Hemingway Library Edition. This new edition of the novel includes a foreword by Hemingway’s son Patrick Hemingway and an introduction by grandson Séan Hemingway, who also serves as the volume’s editor. This publication is the sixth in The Hemingway Library Edition series which began with A Moveable Feast (2009), followed by A Farewell to Arms (2012), The Sun Also Rises (2014), Green Hills of Africa (2015), and The Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway (2018). This new release of For Whom the Bell Tolls includes a trove of supplementary material pertinent to the novel. Appendix I features the text of Ernest Hemingway’s speech to the American Writers Congress at Carnegie Hall on 23 June 1937 before the premiere screening of the Joris Ivens/Ernest Hemingway propaganda film, The Spanish Earth. In the speech, which was later published in New Masses with the title “Fascism is a Lie,” Hemingway scathingly condemns fascism, exposes the murder of innocent civilians by Francisco Franco’s forces, and warns his audience: “The totalitarian fascist states believe in the totalitarian war” (FWBT-HLE 480). Appendix II presents a four-page untitled manuscript, written by Hemingway, circa 1938, (“Unpublished Account of the Spanish Civil War”). As in his speech to the American Writers Congress, Hemingway rails against the indiscriminate bombing of civilians by the fascists and includes gruesome first-hand accounts of bombing victims, along with accounts of his own personal near-death experiences while covering the war and during the filming of The Spanish Earth. Both of these texts enhance the reader’s appreciation of Hemingway’s deep devotion to the Spanish people and his support in their fight to retain their democratically elected government. Moreover, many of the themes in these texts echo similar themes in the novel. Tragically, despite Hemingway’s efforts and all those who championed the Loyalist cause, Franco and his fascist regime were victorious. In Appendix III, we have the opportunity to witness Hemingway’s genius in the wake of this defeat as he channels the Republic’s heartbreaking three-year struggle into a [End Page 106] magnificent work of fiction. In numerous examples of his early drafts, previously only accessible by visiting the Hemingway Collection housed at the JFK Library, we see Hemingway inventing and then meticulously revising lines, passages, and some very well-known scenes from the novel. In one of the manuscript passages, for example, we see the author struggling over a highly sexualized scene between Pilar and Maria that occurs in Chapter 12. It is a fascinating example and a reminder of the richness contained in these archives. The other interesting element of this edition is the inclusion of three rarely seen short stories by Hemingway written about his experiences in World War II. Those who attended the 2018 International Hemingway Conference in Paris will recognize “A Room on the Garden Side,” first published in Strand Magazine in 2018, which was included in our conference packet. “Indian Country and the White Army” and “The Monument” comprise the other two stories. In the Foreword, Patrick Hemingway compares these WWII stories to his father’s novel Across the River and Into the Trees and concludes that they “present a very different view of WWII . . . [and] are much more personal and closer to [Hemingway’s] own experience” (FWBT-HLE xii). For this very reason, however, I wonder if these stories would have served a better purpose in a future Hemingway Library Edition of Across the River and Into the Trees rather than this edition. In my opinion, there are perfectly excellent Spanish Civil War stories which could have been included instead. That being said, these three stories have a general resonance with the novel in that they are not just about WWII but about war in general. To that end, they share many...

Refurnishing Homes in a Bombed City: Moral Geographies of the Utility Furniture Scheme in London

The London Blitz was a catalyst for national state control of the entire commodity network for furniture; the only wartime commodity for which this was done. The Utility furniture scheme sought to manage material shortages and combat profiteering in the markets for new and second-hand furniture. It also responded to the vulnerability of the nation’s furniture producers, which were disproportionately concentrated in and around London. Set against the immorality of indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations and illegal practices on the ‘black market’, the Utility scheme prescribed new moral geographies of equitable distribution based on need, of consumer rights protection, and of improvements to labour conditions and wages. The paper intervenes into debates about the social construction of moral geographies by examining the collective institutional response of the Utility scheme and the manner in which it sought to provision wartime homes.

Religion as Resistance: Negotiating Authority in Italian Libya

Religion as Resistance: Negotiating Authority in Italian Libya

Flying and bombing: the contributions of air power to security and crisis management in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria

ABSTRACT There is a growing resort to air power in Nigeria’s military and security engagements in the oil producing region of Niger Delta. However, most literatures on security engagements in the region overlook air power, or reduce it to unnecessary flying and indiscriminate bombing of civilians. Air power plays a considerable role in surveillance and coercion against the menace of kidnapping, sabotage, oil theft and illegal oil refining, militancy, and armed robbery against ships in the Niger Delta and associated piracy off the coasts of Nigeria, its neighbours and the Gulf of Guinea. It is also involved in strategic transportation, search and rescue/relieve of endangered civilians (e.g. hostages) and to an extent victims of natural disasters (e.g. floods). This article seeks to examine the threats to security in Nigeria’s Niger Delta, and the relevance of air power in the arrangement of security responses and disaster management in the region. Abbreviations: ABV: Adaka Boro Avengers; AU: African Union; ACLED: Armed Conflict Location and Event Database; BSDF: Bakassi Self Determination Front; CNC: Central Naval Command; CAF: Chief of Air Force; COMA: Coalition of Militant Action; CDF: Coastal Defence Force; DSS: Department of State Service; ENC: Eastern Naval Command; ECOWAS: Economic Community of West African States; EBA: Egbesu Boys of Africa; FOBs: Forward Operational Bases; GWVSL: Global West Vessel Specialist Limited; GoG: Gulf of Guinea; GGC: Gulf of Guinea Commission; HQ: headquarters; IVF: Iduwini Volunteer Force; IYC: Ijaw Youth Council; ISR: intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance; IDPs: Internally Displaced Persons; JNDLF: Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force; JTF: Joint Task Force; LIMUP: Liberation Movement of the Urhobo People; MANPADS: man-portable air-defence systems; MOWCA: Maritime Organisation of West and Central Africa; mcm: million cubic meters; MEND: Movement for the Emancipation of Niger Delta; MOSOP: Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People; NEMA: National Emergency Management Agency; NIA: National Intelligence Agency; NOSDRA: National Oil Spill Detection and Response Agency; NSO: National Security Organisation; NASRDA: National Space Research and Development Agency; NDA: Niger Delta Avenger; NDGJM: Niger Delta Greenland Justice Movement; NDLF: Niger Delta Liberation Force; NDPVF: Niger Delta Peoples Volunteers Force; NDRC: Niger Delta Revolutionary Crusaders; NDV: Niger Delta Vigilant; NDVF: Niger Delta Volunteer Force; NPF: Nigeria Police Force; NSCDC: Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps; NAF: Nigerian Air Force; NA: Nigerian Army; NFS: Nigerian Fire Service; NIS: Nigerian Immigration Service; NMN: Nigerian Marchant Navy; NIMASA: Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency; NN: Nigerian Navy; NPS: Nigerian Prison Service; PICOMSS: Presidential Implementation Committee on Maritime Safety and Security; REBND: Reformed Egbesu Boys of the Niger Delta; SARS: Special Anti-Robbery Squad; UAVs: Unmanned Aerial Vehicles; UYBF: Ughievwen Youth Body Fighters; URA: Urhobo Revolutionary Army; WNC: Western Naval Command

Dehumanization, lesser evil and the supreme emergency exemption

Many believe that if the indiscriminate bombings of German cities at the beginning of World War II were necessary for preventing unlimited spread of Nazism, then the bombings were justified. For, the outcome, in which innocent Germans living in Nazi Germany are killed, was not as bad as the outcome in which the Nazis inflict ethnic cleansing and enslavement on a massive scale. Recently, however, Daniel Statman has advanced a powerful case against this type of justification. I aim in this paper to develop an enriched version of consequentialism which rescues the lesser evil elucidation of the Exemption.

Border Gothic - history, violence and the border in the writings of Eugene McCabe

As well as producing a rich body of novels, novellas, short-stories and plays spanning throughout seventy years of the century of partition, Eugene McCabe charts the broad trajectory of Irish history and politics from the Elizabethan Conquest and Ulster Plantation of the 16th and 17th centuries to the recent 'Troubles' which spanned the thirty years between the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement (1968) and the signing of the Belfast/Good Friday Agreement (1998). They positively seethe with gruesome assassinations, indiscriminate bombings and deliberate shootings, while resonating with a veritable cacophony of deep-seeded ethnic rivalries and genocidal, religious hatreds, which are interlaced with poverty, social deprivation and dis-function, migration and emigration.

Israel’s Human Shields Defense

Israel’s Human Shields Defense

“ Los Aviónes! ”: The Interpretation of a New Warscape in The Spanish Earth , Picasso’s Guernica , and Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls

During the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) the fascist powers, led by Hitler and Mussolini, saw an opportunity to test a new kind of war tactic—the indiscriminate bombing of civilian populations in order to demoralize the enemy. This paper examines the important and thought-provoking commonalities that exist between Picasso’s Guernica , Joris Ivens and Ernest Hemingway’s The Spanish Earth , and Hemingway’s For Whom the Bell Tolls in their exploration of the physical and psychological impact of this new warscape on the Spanish people.

The Siege Mentality with Blinkers and Denial of South African Jews in Respect to the Palestinian Question for Liberation from Colonial Occupation , Genocide and Ethnic Cleansing

The paper argues that there is a “siege mentality” among South African Jews in respect to the question of Palestine, as exemplified by the actions of the Netanyahu government in Israel. The state of Israel is committing crimes against humanity and against the people of Gaza and Palestine for decades, without any repercussions from the free world and in flagrant violation of international law. It is nothing short of genocide and ethnic cleansing against the legitimate demands of a people’s aspirations for a free and independent Palestine. A demand on the basis of colonialization and occupation by people (Zionists and Israelis worldwide and with the assistance of a host of Western nations including Great Britain, and the United States and the European Union) who stole the land through the processes of British colonialism and, under the Balfour Declaration of 1924. The irony of Israeli, self – righteousness and superiority because of the unprecedented support, it receives from the United States government and powerful European nations and allies, including the tyrannical governments of some of the Arab countries, are based on this so – called “superiority” it espouses on the world stage. The state of Israel is a single island of a Western imagined culture and value system amidst a sea of Arabs and Arab nations. Astoundingly it espouses this Western culture and value system in the heart of the Arab Middle East, and that to amidst an Arab culture, which is completely different in orientation to the Western way of life, in terms of its social system, its world view, and its values. A people that share equally with Jews, the Judeo – Christian ethic and religious beliefs, grounded and formulated tacitly in the Abrahamic faiths. It is an indictment to the United Nations, to the United States under Barak Obama, successive United States Presidents and the entire world; they have all played a pivotal role, in aiding Israel to oppress the Palestinian people, for decades. It is an indictment to peace, morality and justice as, indiscriminate bombings by the Israeli military escalates with impunity, against men women and defenceless children, with a death toll of over 2000 people in a space of just over a month from, the beginning of July of 2014. This figure rises as each day passes. It’s a question of disproportionate use of power, by the use of superior modern war technology, against the almost harmless and insignificant “homemade rockets” being fired into Israel by Hamas on behalf of the Ghazzans (Palestinians). Legitimate demands for

Optimization of Nigerian Satellites and Geo-Spatial Intelligence on National Security.

Nigeria as a nation is experiencing a tremor in its National security based on the indiscriminate bombings and killings in the country which is attributed to religious, political and/ or ethnic fight. The United States defense has used geospatial intelligence to manage its national security in the past years and it has yielded by the cracking down of the big terrorist and terrorist organization in the world. This was achieved by its massive investment and commitment in its space programs. In bid to emulate the US, this study aimed to promote geospatial intelligence amongst the Nigerian Security Agencies towards achieving a stable National Security. Also, the study identified the relevant agencies to collaborate with the security agencies to promote synergy towards a stable national security in Nigeria; and provides a framework for improving and managing National Security using geospatial intelligence approach. The approach employed was a combination of satellite imagery, imagery intelligence and geospatial information with the help of ICT to tackle the identified sectors that makes up national security (micro (internal), macro (regional) and strategic (world at large)). The incorporation of geospatial intelligence in the micro, macro and strategic security sectors will strengthen our National Security provided there is synergy, commitment and information sharing among relevant agencies.

Presidential Power, the Panay Incident, and the Defeat of the Ludlow Amendment

Presidential Power, the Panay Incident, and the Defeat of the Ludlow Amendment

Karl Heinzen and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Terror

Scholars have long recognized the importance of Karl Heinzen's Mord und Freiheit in the history of terrorist thought. Yet the translation most scholars have relied on—1881s Murder and Liberty—is incomplete. Our new translation reveals four elements omitted from the 1881 translation. First, Heinzen conceived of terrorism as a transnational phenomenon. Second, he provided a material justification for terrorist tactics. Third, Heinzen viewed terrorism as both a tool to impel human society to progress and as a “progressive” tool of violence. Finally, he argued in favor of the primary modern tactic of terrorism—the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

Death from the Heavens: A History of Strategic Bombing

Reviewed by: Death from the Heavens: A History of Strategic Bombing Harold Dorn (bio) Death from the Heavens: A History of Strategic Bombing. By Kenneth P. Werrell. Annapolis, Md.: Naval Institute Press, 2009. Pp. xv+332. $44.95. The history of military aviation is packed into the 105 years from the Wright brothers' wood-and-canvas contrivance to today's astonishing technological innovations—missiles fired from submarines, pilotless aircraft, and "smart" bombs. Kenneth Werrell has chosen to write an account of one dimension of this dismal history: strategic bombing. It is fraught with moral and political issues and controversies. Many millions of civilians have been killed or injured, sometimes accidentally ("collateral damage"), sometimes as victims of indiscriminate bombing, and sometimes as deliberate targets. Most of these civilian casualties were the result of American operations, a circumstance that muddies the moral and political waters. Werrell skirts these issues and devotes most of his text to the aircraft used to carry out the operations and to the strategic principles that guided them. Strategic bombing, which means the bombing of the enemy's rear areas, including cities, rather than auxiliary operations like the support of ground forces, was conducted extensively by the American, British, and German air forces during World War II. Werrell's knowledge of the technical specifications of the aircraft that carried out the attacks is impressive: "The manufacturer modified the aircraft by moving the fuel tanks from the nacelles into the fuselage, substituting props rotating in the same direction for opposite rotation, and using high power engines, which merited its redesignation as the O/400" (p. 17). He also gives clear accounts of the strategic bombing doctrines of its early advocates, who expected the bomber to bring about short wars, albeit with high civilian casualties. He quotes British prime minister Stanley Baldwin, who reported to Parliament in 1932 that "there is no power on earth that can protect [the civilian] from bombing.… The only defense is the offense, which means you have to kill more women and children than the enemy if you want to save yourselves" (p. 32). In his final chapter, Werrell offers a sober assessment of strategic bombing in the twentieth century, asking whether it has "delivered on the promises of its advocates." His provisional answer is negative—it did not break civilian morale, and while the attacks disrupted the enemy's war effort, they were not decisive: "The record during its first century reveals that strategic bombardment is a case study of promises unfulfilled" (p. 300). On the moral, political, and legal controversies surrounding strategic bombing, Werrell is disappointingly brief, in contrast to his extensive discussion of the technical and doctrinal dimensions of the subject. The ongoing controversy over the decision to use the atomic bomb is dismissed in a few sentences with the common opinion that it was justified by "the desire to win the war as quickly as possible, with the fewest American casualties" [End Page 1035] (p. 148). The book would have more to ponder and chew on if Werrell had at least referred to some of the political factors that may have influenced the decision to use the bomb (see e.g. Gar Alperovitz, The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb [1995]). And on the legality of strategic bombing, Werrell turns a blind eye. There are some grounds to believe that strategic bombing overlapped the doctrine of war crimes. Telford Taylor, who was chief U.S. prosecutor at the Nuremberg war-crimes trials, believed that American pilots shot down in North Vietnam should have been tried as war criminals because their actions violated the Geneva Conventions that forbid indiscriminate bombing. And Robert McNamara, secretary of defense at the time, later estimated that between 1965 and 1968 American bombardment of North Vietnam caused more than a million deaths and injuries each year (Robert Richter, "War Hero or War Criminal?" Counterpunch, 14 October 2008, http://www.counterpunch.org/richter10142008.html [accessed 18 May 2010]). A few untidy facts such as these could have found their place in a historical study of aerial bombardment. They would have given the book the provocative quality that the subject calls for. As it stands, this book is long...

Terrorism in Colombia: Logic and Sources of a Multidimensional and Ubiquitous Phenomenon

This article examines contemporary uses of terrorism in Colombia. Combining an historical analysis with the most complete database available on political violence, we illustrate how terrorism in Colombia constitutes a specific strategy that can be distinguished from other manifestations of violence. We argue that Colombia's non-state armed groups have turned terrorism into a pivotal element of their repertoires of action. These parties have not only increased their reliance on this strategy and introduced more refined forms such as de-territorialized terrorism, but also have specialized in particular terrorist attacks that suit their general objectives. While paramilitary groups rely mostly on massacres and forced disappearance, guerrillas concentrate on agitational terrorism including kidnappings and indiscriminate bombings.

Humanitarian Intervention

In recent years Canadian government has promoted concept of an international responsibility (R2P) populations from genocide, ethnic cleansing, and other similar politically induced humanitarian catastrophes. This political effort seemed meet success at 2005 world summit, where community of states affirmed in outcome document a commitment to take collective action, in a timely and decisive manner, through security council, in accordance with charter, including chapter VII, on a case-by-case basis and in cooperation with relevant regional organizations as appropriate, should peaceful means be inadequate and national authorities manifestly fail protect their populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing, and crimes against humanity.1 While this adoption of R2P has been hailed by UN officials, some governments, international lawyers, and human rights organizations as a landmark development in international society, responsibility doctrine continues generate debate, scepticism, and anxiety from several perspectives. The most controversial implication of R2P is its potential broaden justifications for use of force by states, beyond self-defence and maintenance of international peace and security, include protection of vulnerable populations.Why should concept and practice of humanitarian intervention-defined narrowly here as use of force by states for purpose of human protection-remain so controversial? The United Nations, founded in shadow of two world wars, considered its highest priority be maintenance of international peace and security, a mandate that required strict prohibitions against use of force between states. During Cold War, states offered humanitarian reasons as official justifications for uses of force, even in those cases where use of force succeeded in stemming mass atrocities.2 With end of Cold War, some western leaders began embrace idea of humanitarian intervention, partly as a way convey a transformed, more cooperative, and purposive international society no longer constrained by geopolitical struggles of Cold War. Humanitarian interventions would constitute global law enforcement, implying disinterested and impartial use of force in service of universal humanitarian interests. The appeal of idea, however, was not confined western leaders. In supporting United Nations security council resolution 794 authorizing use of force in Somalia in 1992, for example, various African ambassadors talked of the universal being aroused by desperate plight of Somalis.3Unfortunately, having a conscience does not automatically translate into having a sound political or military strategy; UN's and US's mistakes and failures in Somalia generated disillusionment and wrong lessons that would haunt international community's dismal response 1994 Rwandan genocide. More than a decade after that particular failure of humanity, we live in a world in which mass atrocities can continue essentially unabated for years.4 It is disturbing think that instead of a world in which crimes against humanity never again occur, we have a world that is resigned indiscriminate bombing, burning, organized raping, and killing as ever again features of global background, not mention millions of deaths that result from severe global poverty. The persistence of inhumanity unfolding in places such as Darfur region in Sudan means that practice of humanitarian intervention is sure remain a live debate among intellectuals, activists, policymakers, and various publics.Given contemporary global conditions, what constitutes moral and political significance, potential, and limits of R2P doctrine? In what follows, I aim examine realist and idealist critiques of R2P and of humanitarian intervention as they have developed since early 1990s. …

From Civil Rights to Hip Hop: Toward a Nexus of Ideas

Previous articleNext article No AccessFrom Civil Rights to Hip Hop: Toward a Nexus of IdeasDerrick P. AlridgeDerrick P. Alridge Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Journal of African American History Volume 90, Number 3Summer 2005The History of Hip Hop A journal of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/JAAHv90n3p226 Views: 673Total views on this site PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.