The real heroes of Afghanistan are its women, who over decades of oppression and brutality continue to struggle for peace and freedom. Their goals are the simple human ones of obtaining medical help, education, and freedom from religious fundamentalism. Their enemies...

In a protest against the US's continued presence in Iraq and the continuing Russian aggression and human rights abuses in Chechnya, prominent human right's activist Said-Emin Ibragimov began a hunger strike to raise awareness on November 16. His condition has grown...

Mercy Corps is a reputable aid agency that has swiftly begun providing assistance to Tsunami-damaged areas in Asia, and accepts online donations (I just donated and they acknowledged immediately and it was painless). Here is some info on what they are doing now, from...

I've got to admit it -- RAWA has always had the most respect from me as a group of women who, at the risk of their own lives, did what they could to bring education and medicine to the children and women of Afghanistan during the reign of the Taliban. Now, since the...

"Heroes are essential to the improvement of society" – and the 20thCentury had such a hero in Andrei Sakharov, famed Soviet physicist and much, much more – fighter for human rights and democracy in the midst of that lethally minded and cold-souled tyrant,...

Once again Ron Paul is totally on the mark re the lurid, uncivil possibilities posed by the potential imposition of a US ID card – and called to mind the battle already going on in Japan over Juki Net, launched in 2003, and causing a ruckus there (e.g, Japanese...

War photographers have added much immediate, undeniable information to our understanding of the way wars are promulgated. Carl Mydans was one such dedicated soul. He died Monday. His are some of the most famous WWII photos, including McArthur in ’45, and many, many...

Virtually all long-time Libertarians in the Bay Area knew Mike -- I knew him for, good lord, almost 20 years, starting with working on the Russell Means' libertarian presidential campaign, of all things. What I loved about Mike was how endlessly enthusiastic he was:...

Dr. Massouda Jalal's quest to be Afghanistan's president sounds even more improbable than Sean Connery's in The Man Who Would Be King (a great movie). But her ideas are admirable, and she is an actual Afghani, not one remodeled in America. Imagine that: an Afghani who...

Recently, a reader, Bill Kelsey, sent me a nicely considered discussion of why Intervention for Good Reasons is still trouble. Here are his thoughts: "Here in the States it is illegal for a political party or campaign to accept foreign money. When this happens it is...