Contributing Writers

As we continue to look back on the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we’re joined by Sami Rasouli, an Iraqi native who immigrated to the United States over 35 years ago and became a successful restaurateur and beloved member of the community in Minneapolis. After the U.S. invasion of his home country in 2003, he moved back to Iraq, where he founded the Muslim Peacemakers, a group that works to promote and practice nonviolent conflict resolution and intervention.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin have declared a “new era” in Chinese-Russian relations after meeting in Moscow earlier this week. The two leaders reportedly discussed China’s 12-point proposal to end the war in Ukraine, with Putin stating that China’s plan could be the basis for a peace agreement.

As we continue to mark the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we look at how the corporate U.S. media helped pave the way for war by uncritically amplifying lies and misrepresentations from the Bush administration while silencing voices of dissent. Longtime media critic Norman Solomon says many of the same media personalities and news outlets that pushed aggressively for the invasion then are now helping to solidify an elite consensus around the Ukraine war.

We speak with Dipti Bhatnagar, climate justice activist based in Mozambique, about the recent death on March 9 of the popular rapper and cultural icon Azagaia. He was just 38 years old. He inspired many with his music and sang about injustice, including mistreatment of people by the authorities, as well as about poverty and social injustice. Azagaia’s death has sparked protests in Mozambique which authorities have violently suppressed.

In a major new report released Monday, the United Nations is calling for immediate and drastic cuts to greenhouse gas emissions in order to stop global warming. The “final warning” by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change comes as the death toll from Cyclone Freddy just swept through southeast Africa, killing hundreds of people and displacing hundreds of thousands more.

We speak with Third Act founder Bill McKibben and Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous about protests they’ve organized today across the United States to demand the four biggest banks — Chase, Citi, Wells Fargo and Bank of America — stop financing the expansion of fossil fuel projects.

With the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20, we speak with Oxford University international relations professor Neta Crawford, who says the region is still reeling from the impact of the war. “The story continues. It’s not over,” she says. Crawford is co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, where her latest report pegs the cost of U.S. wars in Iraq and Syria since 2003 at nearly $2.9 trillion. Since the U.S.

We continue our coverage of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by looking at the imprisonment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been jailed for exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. One video released by WikiLeaks showed a U.S. helicopter gunship in Baghdad slaughtering a dozen civilians, including a Reuters journalist. Assange has been held in London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019 as he fights the U.S.

This week nearly 400 human rights groups urged the Biden administration not to revive the controversial practice of migrant family detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Biden ended family detention when he took office two years ago but is now reportedly reconsidering it as part of a wider crackdown as his administration prepares to phase out the contested Trump-era Title 42 pandemic policy used to expel over 2 million migrants without due process at the southern border.

At around 5:30 a.m. local time in Baghdad on March 20, 2003, air raid sirens were heard in Baghdad as the U.S. invasion began. Within the hour, President George W. Bush gave a nationally televised speech from the Oval Office announcing the war had begun. The attack came on the false pretext that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was hiding weapons of mass destruction, and despite worldwide protest and a lack of authorization from the United Nations Security Council.

With the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq on March 20, we speak with Oxford University international relations professor Neta Crawford, who says the region is still reeling from the impact of the war. “The story continues. It’s not over,” she says. Crawford is co-director of the Costs of War Project at Brown University, where her latest report pegs the cost of U.S. wars in Iraq and Syria since 2003 at nearly $2.9 trillion. Since the U.S.

We continue our coverage of the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq by looking at the imprisonment of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who has been jailed for exposing U.S. war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan. One video released by WikiLeaks showed a U.S. helicopter gunship in Baghdad slaughtering a dozen civilians, including a Reuters journalist. Assange has been held in London’s Belmarsh prison since 2019 as he fights the U.S.

This week nearly 400 human rights groups urged the Biden administration not to revive the controversial practice of migrant family detention by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Biden ended family detention when he took office two years ago but is now reportedly reconsidering it as part of a wider crackdown as his administration prepares to phase out the contested Trump-era Title 42 pandemic policy used to expel over 2 million migrants without due process at the southern border.

As the 20th anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq approaches next week, Democracy Now! begins our look at the Iraq War’s lasting after-effects on Iraqi society and the shape of global politics today. “The story of the past 20 years is a story of destruction, devastation, corruption, incompetence, but also a story of resilience,” says Nadje Al-Ali, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at Brown University and author of several award-winning books on the U.S.