International Herald Tribune/Daily News 10/04/2006 By Michael Shank Book Review: Conservatives without Conscience John W. Dean; Penguin Group; 186 pages; $25.95. Given the opportunity to correct President Bush’s political blunder wherein he stated that “this nation is at war with Islamic fascists,” John Dean, author of best-selling Worse than Watergate, […]
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE / DAILY NEWS EGYPT 08/23/2006 By Michael Shank The Bush Administration’s policies in the Middle East were originally sold as a means of encouraging democracy. What they’re actually doing is fostering a growing pan-Islamicism. The Bush administration calls it the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), a frighteningly […]
JAKARTA POST 08/14/2006 By Michael Shank and Hasballah Saad The United States Congress recently passed a contentious bill that allocates over US$6 million to Indonesia for military equipment and training in 2007. Two checks will be issued: $4.5 million under Congress’ Foreign Military Financing program and $1.28 million under Congress’ […]
ARAB NEWS 08/13/2006 By Michael Shank & Khadija Ali From Afghanistan to Latin America, recent history suggests that the US policy of funding militias that operate outside a national government structure has negative long- and short-term consequences. The militias are difficult to control and they do not have a vested […]
INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE / DAILY STAR EGYPT 08/11/2006 By Michael Shank and Khadija Ali A perpetual landmine for interventionists, Somalia has witnessed its share of inept approaches. Early in the conflict, the United States precluded any possible mediator role by denigrating the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) with Al-Qaeda and […]
THE DAILY STAR 07/13/2006 By Michael Shank Broadcasting its message throughout the Middle East, the US government’s communications campaign is extensive, strategic and extremely well financed. From Radio Farda in Iran to television’s Al-Iraqiyya in Iraq, the US government operates a multi-million dollar marketing campaign most intensively in Iraq and […]
PEACE NEWS No. 2450, March-May 03 By Michael Shank “So how was Pakistan?” Friends eager to know more about my recent work in the Islamic Republic have had to wait patiently as I search my vocabulary for the appropriate words. My silence surprises me as well. Usually words do not […]
HIMAL MAGAZINE 02/03 By Michael Shank Michael Shank is a theatre artist who served as a conference facilitator at Focus on South Asia, a ‘youth peace conference’ organised by the Youth Initiative for Peace in Lahore in mid-December 2002. The conference was attended by 35 girls and boys from all […]