Romesh Ratnesar
is Deputy Editor of Bloomberg Businessweek and a Bernard L. Schwartz Fellow at the New America Foundation. A former Time deputy managing editor and foreign editor, he has reported from many countries around the world, including Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel and the Palestinian territories.
read more »
-
Click to buy from:
-
-
-
Writing
In Defense of Inconsistency
Time, March 28th, 2011
Ten days ago, a besieged Arab leader decided to crush his country's democracy movement. First, he called in 2,000 foreign troops to suppress the uprising. Then he declared martial law and cut off phone and Internet services. At dawn he deployed tanks to clear the streets and ordered his forces to arrest or shoot anyone who tried to resist. Government troops surrounded and seized a hospital used by demonstrators to treat their wounded. Medical personnel were prevented even from taking away the dead bodies. "Shocking and illegal conduct" is how the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights described reports of the regime's "arbitrary arrests, killings [and] beatings of protestors."