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Calling the Shots

How Washington Dominates Today's UN

Published by Olive Branch Press
Distributed by Simon & Schuster

About The Book

New revised & updated edition with a new preface by Denis Halliday. The United Nations remains a favorite scapegoat for U.S. and allied failures in places like Rwanda, Iraq, Kosovo, and East Timor. Few look beyond the headlines to the primary responsibility of the United States for what are all too often called "UN failures." Filled with tales of UN intrigue and diplomatic carrots and sticks, Calling the Shots exposes how U.S. financial and political bribes are backed by threats and punishments for recalcitrant nations who refuse to toe the U.S. line. The new edition examines U.S.-UN relations at the close of the 20th century: now $1.6 billion in debt to the UN, Washington increasingly undermines or even ignores the world organization, seeking to replace the UN's authority with that of favored military alliances such as NATO. Hopes rise for a new internationalism, as citizens organizations join with the UN to create the International Criminal Court, to ban anti-personnel land mines, to protect children from the ravages of war, but the U.S. stands aloof.

About The Author

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, and Director of its New Internationalism Program. Her areas include U.S. unilateralism and empire, the Middle East (particularly Israel-Palestine and Iraq), and US-United Nations relations. She is the author of Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, Ending the Iraq War, Challenging Empire: How People, Governments and the UN Defy US Power, Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today's UN, and Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the War on Terrorism. Bennis appears frequently as a commentator/analyst on U.S. and international television and radio programs, including "The News Hour with Jim Lehrer" on PBS, the CBS "Morning Show," NPR's "Diane Rehm Show," and many others on CNN, BBC, Fox, CBC, and al-Jazeera TV. Her work has appeared in the Baltimore Sun, Christian Science Monitor, Le Monde Diplomatique (Paris), TomPaine.com, New York Newsday, The Philadelphia Enquirer, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, Mother Jones, and many other publications.

Product Details

  • Publisher: Olive Branch Press (July 15, 2000)
  • Length: 372 pages
  • ISBN13: 9781566563536

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