“Piety or Rage? On the Charlie Hebdo Massacres”
What the attacks mean to the West’s negotiation with Islam in the modern world.
By Seyla Benhabib, Hannah Arendt Center. Benhabib is the Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science and Philosophy at Yale University.
http://www.hannaharendtcenter.org/?p=15178
“Can the West Stand up for Free Speech?”
False moral equivalence and blatant cowardice threaten our tradition of free expression.
By Victor Davis Hanson, National Review. Hanson is a classicist and historian at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, and the author, most recently, of The Savior Generals.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/396394/can-west-stand-free-speech-victor-davis-hanson
“Trivializing Freedom at Its Source”
The slogan “Je suis Charlie” illustrates a hollowness in the soul of France, Europe, and the West. It trivializes something that is not trivial – freedom of speech.
By Robert R. Reilly, Library of Law and Liberty. Reilly is the Senior Fellow for Strategic Communication at the American Foreign Policy Council. He is the author of The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis.
http://www.libertylawsite.org/2015/01/14/trivializing-freedom-at-its-source/
“Limits to Freedom of Speech? When Legalism Replaces Humanism”
Treasuring our precious individual freedoms means we are free to be rude to anyone about anything, but is it helpful to go around provoking everyone? Maximizing lawful but anti-social behavior is in fact minimizing ethical care and respect for fellow human beings.
By Nejm Benessaiah, Truthout. Benessaiah is a doctoral candidate in anthropology, specializing in power, religion, and ecology in the North African region.
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/28532-limits-to-freedom-of-speech-when-legalism-replaces-humanism
“Opinion: Je Suis Ahmed”
“It is not enough to say that Islam has nothing to do with these events,” writes this Arab intellectual, “and that the terrorists do not represent Islam. The fight against terrorism is not the job of security forces or the education system alone.“
By Salman Aldossary, Asharq Al-Aswat. Aldossary is the editor-in-chief of Asharq Al-Aswat, the international Arabic daily published in London.
http://www.aawsat.net/2015/01/article55340327
“Special Dispatch: Reactions in Arab Media to Paris Terror Wave”
A compilation of excerpts in English from three major Arab columnists calling on Arabs and Muslims to demonstrate against terror like they demonstrated against Muhammad cartoons.
Middle East Research Institute.
http://www.memri.org/report/en/0/0/0/0/0/0/8375.htm
“The Geopolitics of U.S.- Cuba Relations”
President Obama may want a legacy, but the logic of the situation is that the Cubans need this more than the Americans, and the American price for normalization will be higher than it appears at this moment.
By George Friedman, Forbes. Friedman is the chairman of Stratfor, a global intelligence company he founded in 1996. His forthcoming book is Flashpoints: The Emerging Crisis in Europe.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/stratfor/2014/12/23/the-geopolitics-of-u-s-cuba-relations/
“Has D-Day Arrived?”
“Under the leadership of Fidel Castro we would have never even reached an outline of an agreement of this nature, “ writes Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez, “because the Cuban system is supported by the existence of a permanent rival. David can’t live without Goliath and the ideological apparatus has depended too long on this dispute.”
By Yoani Sanchez, Generacion Y. For years Sanchez has blogged from inside Cuba to a worldwide audience.
https://generacionyen.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/has-d-day-arrived/
“A New ‘Political Imaginary’ ”
Reestablishing diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States will be a positive event for Cuban families, for peaceful coexistence in a globalized world and, most of all, for the individual and collective freedom of each Cuban.
By Tania Bruguera. Huff Post: 90 Miles Blog. Bruguera is a political and performance artist living in Cuba.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tania-bruguera/a-new-political-imaginary_b_6463272.html
“The Tragedy of the American Military”
The American public and its political leadership will do anything for the military except take it seriously. The result is a chickenhawk nation in which careless spending and strategic folly combine to lure America into endless wars it can’t win.
By James Fallows, The Atlantic. Fallows is a national correspondent for The Atlantic and has written for the magazine since the late 1970s. He has reported extensively from outside the United States.
http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/12/the-tragedy-of-the-american-military/383516/
“Q&A with Christopher Hill: In Defense of Diplomacy”
Former Ambassador Hill discusses Iraq.
By Vincent Carroll, Denver Post. Carroll is the newspaper’s Editorial Page Editor. Christopher Hill’s new memoir is Outpost: Life on the Frontlines of American Diplomacy.
http://www.denverpost.com/carroll/ci_27029604/living-history
“The Quiet German”
The astonishing rise of Angela Merkel, the most powerful woman in the world.
By George Packer, The New Yorker. Packer is a staff writer with The New Yorker magazine. He has covered the Iraq War, and has also written about the atrocities committed in Sierra Leone, civil unrest in the Ivory Coast, the megacity of Lagos, and the global counterinsurgency.
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2014/12/01/quiet-german
“The U.S. Sanctions the Moscow-Budapest Axis”
Why Hungary’s Orban Regime must either shift its ground or go.
By Dan Dungaciu. Stratfor’s The Hub: International Perspectives. Dungaciu is a professor in the Department of Sociology, University of Bucharest. He is Director of the Institute of Political Science and International Relations of the Romanian Academy and President of the Black Sea University Foundation.
http://www.stratfor.com/the-hub/us-sanctions-moscow-budapest-axis-orban-regime-either-shifts-its-ground-or-goes#axzz3LQOmNmbQ
XXXX Leftovers
english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2015/01/10/A-world-in-the-shadows-of-terrorism.html
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/120754/hollande-visits-grande-synagogue-after-charlie-hebdo-attacks
http://www.theglobalist.com/islam-and-the-west-clash-of-civilizations/
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/journalist-slams-cnn-msnbc-and-fox-for-pushing-terrorism-expert-industrial-complex/
https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-01-09/why-making-french-muslims-more-french-such-challenge