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William Fisher

  • RUSSIA’S NEW NGO LAW: A CONTRARY VIEW
    25 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)

    By William Fisher
    Virtually all human rights groups have condemned Russia’s new law governing non-governmental organizations, but the leader of one major NGO disagrees.
    “Although the parliament has softened somewhat its original draconian bill, the legislation still obliges offices of foreign NGOs to inform the government registration office about their projects for the upcoming year, and about the money allotted for every specific project. Russian government officials would have an (…)

  • WHO SAYS GOVERNMENT CAN’T HUSTLE?
    23 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By William Fisher
    Since Hurricane Katrina smashed into the Mississippi Gulf Coast last December, the U.S. Government has come under scathing criticism for being slow to respond.
    But the Administration of President George W. Bush has recently showed it is more than capable of hustling on issues it considers top priorities.
    Little more than a month after the Senate voted to ban appeals to the Supreme Court by suspected terrorists detained by the U.S., the Department of Justice (DOJ) (…)

  • WHY SHOULD WE BE SURPRISED?
    22 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    By William Fisher
    Iran’s president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, launched a media tsunami when he declared the Holocaust a myth.
    But we shouldn’t be all that surprised. The Middle East is chockablock with Holocaust-deniers and Holocaust-minimizers. And it is not only the so-called Arab Street that has been infected. The disease has spread to many members of the Arab intelligentsia and to some of the area’s privileged elite.
    I learned just how deeply embedded this attitude is during a (…)

  • BUSH’S NEW MULTILATERALISM
    20 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    by William Fisher
    With the billions of dollars appropriated by the U.S. for Iraqi reconstruction almost all spent, Japan, Australia and other nations in President George W. Bush’s “coalition of the willing” are likely to be asked to shoulder much of the burden for funding the large number of unfinished projects.
    Getting others to take up the slack is reportedly high on Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice’s agenda when she visits the Far East in March. Her trip, originally scheduled for (…)

  • BUSH AT YEAR-END
    4 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    By William Fisher
    My editors, as well as many friends around the world, have been urging me to write something about how I think about George W. Bush as 2005 ends and a new year begins.
    I was reluctant because I have been reading dozens of year-enders on this subject, and wondering if I had anything to add.
    What I have to add is not exactly new. Many others have expressed similar views. To which I will now add my own perspective.
    As I thought about our president, I wondered: Do I (…)

  • THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S MIXED MESSAGES
    2 January 2006 par (Open-Publishing)
    2 comments

    By William Fisher
    Amidst undenied charges that the Pentagon is paying Iraqi journalists to write “good news” stories about the country’s progress, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has announced a new international exchange program for journalists named for famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and emphasizing “the democratic principles that guided Mr. Murrow’s practice of his craft: integrity and ethics and courage and social responsibility”.
    Rice added, “We all know that the bedrock (…)

  • By God, another awful Bush appointment
    3 December 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By William Fisher
    Washington is a town where the best and the brightest usually coexist with well-connected political hacks. However, the Bush administration has taken promotion of the latter to embarrassing extremes, selecting unqualified people for posts because of their political loyalty and ideological persuasion. The most recent example of this was the appointment of Paul Bonicelli to be deputy director of the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), which is in (…)

  • ROSA PARKS: WHY ONE PERSON MATTERS
    13 November 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    3 comments

    by William Fisher
    Ask any non-American to name three leaders of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s, and chances are they’ll stop after one: Martin Luther King.
    But in fact the movement had many leaders.
    Malcolm X went from being a street-wise Boston hoodlum to one of America’s most influential black nationalist leaders, advocating black pride, economic self-reliance, and identity politics. He was assassinated in New York City in 1965.
    Stokely Carmichael saw nonviolence as (…)

  • THE FOX AT THE HENHOUSE
    24 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    1 comment

    By William Fisher
    Either President Bush just doesn’t get it, or he just doesn’t care, or he thinks the people he serves are all gullible morons.
    He’s appointed his own Homeland Security Advisor, Ms. Frances Townsend, to lead the White House investigation into how the government screwed up with Hurricane Katrina ? and what to do about it.
    Does the president really believe the American people will find such an investigation credible?
    I’m sure Ms. Townsend is a very smart lady. She has (…)

  • FBI AND DHS SCHIZOPHRENIA
    22 September 2005 par (Open-Publishing)
    5 comments

    By William Fisher
    Ten years after the Oklahoma City bombing left 168 people dead, one U.S. national security agency believes the domestic radical right does not pose a substantial threat to Americans while another labels white supremacists as “terrorists” ? along with anti-war groups, affirmmative action organizations and animal rights activists.
    The apparent inconsistencies arise from documents recently made public from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of (…)