Ehrenfeld, Narcoterrorism

by Jonathan Marshall
published in MER172

Rachel Ehrenfeld, Narcoterrorism (Basic Books, 1990).

Ever since the Reagan administration elevated “narco-terrorism” to the status of a national security threat, ideologists of left and right have staked out predictable positions. [1] Foes of Cuba, Nicaragua and other leftist regimes or movements condemn them as primary purveyors of mind-warping drugs; some champions of “progressive” politics in the Third World in turn denounce any suggestion that such regimes could depart from the straight and narrow.

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"I Am Living in a Foreign Country Here"

A Conversation with an Algerian "Hittiste"

by Meriem Verges
published in MER192

A friend introduced me to ‘Abd al-Haq during the elections in Algeria in December 1991. I was surveying the electoral behavior of youths of the poorer quarters of Algiers (the casbah), the suburbs (Bachdjarah) and a mixed neighborhood (El-Biar). At the time I was trying to meet pietistes (devout ones) and “Afghans” to test my thesis about the rise of “neo-communitarianism” in Algeria. [1]

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Salih’s Road to Reelection

by Gregory Johnsen | published January 13, 2006

Following six months of rumor and speculation in Yemen, President Ali Abdallah Salih did the expected and announced that he would stand for reelection in the presidential contest scheduled for September 2006. Salih accepted the nomination of his ruling General People’s Congress party on December 17, 2005, during its three-day conference in the southern port city of Aden. The conference, which had been postponed twice to allow Salih to return from state visits abroad, was largely a scripted affair, with few surprises, save for when the president tried and failed to catch a pigeon that landed at his table.

Networks of Discontent in Northern Morocco

Drugs, Opposition and Urban Unrest

by James Ketterer
published in MER218

What are kingdoms but gangs of criminals on a large scale? What are criminal gangs but petty kingdoms? A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues people, it openly arrogates itself the title of kingdom.

-- Saint Augustine