Randy David | PUBLIC LIVES

Because of jet travel and mass migration, the world has become quite literally a melting pot of microbes.  But because of global communication, it has also accelerated the transmission of a panic more lethal in its consequences than microbes. The unprecedented movement of large numbers of people across continents has multiplied the risk of transferring … Read more

It would be a gross misrepresentation of the character and long history of the Iraqi people, I think, if our portrait of them were summed up only by images of a nation that marked its freedom by unbridled looting and lawlessness.  There is surely more to Saddam’s Iraq than a people kept docile by a … Read more

That the United States would eventually subdue Iraq has never been in question.  This was not a war; this was a mugging.  Of the three countries that George W. Bush named as the Axis of Evil, Iraq had the weakest and most exhausted army.  The 1991 Gulf War and the economic sanctions imposed by the … Read more

Of the real motives that prompted the US-led invasion of Iraq, economic gain and political control are at the top of the list of many analysts. These motives are not legitimate reasons for going to war. The reasons that nations usually give for going to war have to do with self-defense and self-image. Fictitious and … Read more

Knowledge is power, it is often said.  But power also begets knowledge.  Thus a new logic has come into being appropriate to America’s status as the world’s lone superpower.  It is important for the rest of us who are weak to learn how and when to break these axioms of the powerful if we are … Read more

“The Philippines is part of the coalition of the willing.” So declared President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in her speech before the graduating class of the Philippine Military Academy.  Her statement came almost at the same hour the United States began its attack on Iraq.  As President of the Republic, she speaks for the Filipino nation. It … Read more

People have viewed Sept. 11 in various ways.  Many think it awakened America to a vulnerability it did not recognize before. Others believe it made America look into itself.  I think Sept. 11 closed the American mind when it put patriotism above reason. Nothing can be more dangerous for any nation than to place its … Read more

We do not equate the American people with George W. Bush, a man Nelson Mandela described as someone who “cannot think properly.” For we know there are many thoughtful Americans who spend a lifetime critically examining the impact of their country’s institutions and policies on their citizens and on other nations.  So too we cannot … Read more

Both wars project American military presence, and the recent past gives us sound reasons to doubt the United States government’s motives, and not to allow ourselves ever again to be drawn into America’s wars.  American presidents, from Kennedy to Johnson to Nixon, all lied to their own people to justify the invasion of Vietnam. Books … Read more

What the government is doing in Mindanao and the rest of the country is finally becoming clear. To put it bluntly, the Philippine government is trying to put an end to the Moro rebellion, the communist insurgency, and the mass poverty that breeds them, by riding piggyback on the American war on global terrorism.  We … Read more