The United States – hell bent on removing global risks to its economic and social security – is aggressively intervening in the Middle East and Latin America. The cost can be immense. So why do it? Two passionate advocates against war and for human rights – one from a country that promotes war and another that is a victim of it – join Chris Richards to explore the unseen politics propping up war and international interventions. They unravel the complexities of the Iraq and Colombian conflicts along the way.
The unseen politics propping up war…
Unquestionably, the greatest violations of human rights occur in times of war; not just because of the mass slaughter, unspeakable rapes and torture. Everything that we value is under attack: homes and schools; family, friends, and food; political debate, participation in government, protection by the rule of law. And as we probed in the last program, these effects reverberate for decades, even centuries later as the legacy of violence is inherited from one generation to the next. The good news is that major armed conflict – conflict causing at least 1,000 deaths within a year – is falling. The bad news is that it doesn’t seem that way.
The United States – hell bent on removing global risks to its economic and social security – is aggressively intervening in the Middle East and Latin America. And – in the case of Iraq – a collection of Rich World countries that are gloriously free from internal conflict have armed their troops to join the fight. The cost can be immense. So why do it? Two passionate advocates against war and for human rights – one from a country that promotes war and another that is a victim of it – join Chris Richards to explore the unseen politics propping up war and international interventions. They unravel the complexities of the Iraq and Colombian conflicts along the way:
• Kathy Black – a convenor of the US Labor Against the War – explains how military intelligence, fundamentalist religion, education, and the American psyche have helped build and maintain US war-mongering;
• Alirio Uribe Muñoz – a member of a death-defying human rights lawyers’ collective, the Corporación Colectivo de Abogados ’José Alvear Restrepo’ in Bogotá – takes us inside Colombian conflict to find out why the United States is pouring money and troops into it, and the interests it seeks to protect.
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