Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 7,
2005
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
February 7, 2005
"Democracy Promotion" and Resistance
Imperial
Delusions
By
TARIQ ALI
The United States, unlike the Empires
of old Europe has always preferred to excersize its hegemony
indirectly. It has relied on local relays--uniformed despots,
corrupt oligarchs, pliant politicians and obedient monarchs--rather
than lengthy occupations and nation-building with carefully-controlled
forms of elite, low-intensity democracy. It was only when rebellions
from below threatened to disrupt this order that the Marines
were dispatched and wars were fought.
Despite the changed world that
came into existence during the Nineties necessitating a shift
in US priorities and the establishment of the Washington consensus,
the imperial elite is still allergic to long-term occupations.
If, during the Cold War, money was indiscriminately supplied
to all anti-communist forces (including the current leadership
of al-Qaeda) the 21st century recipients are more carefully targeted.
The aim is to slowly replace the traditional elites in the old
satrapies with a new breed of genetically programmed neo-liberal
politicians, who have been trained and educated in the United
States. This is the primary function of the money allocated to
´democracy promotion´ programmes in the US. Loyalty,
being a commodity, can be purchased from politicians, parties
and trades unions. And the result, it is hoped, is to create
a new layer of janissary politicians who serve Washington.
Why is this necessary? Because
in the absence of a system whereby the financial benefits of
foreign investment accrue directly to the US treasury, the costs
of maintaining the Empire must be largely funded by the satrapies.
Already the US military budget has reached astronomical heights.
The US spends more money on arms then the next fifteen nations
combined. Iraqi oil is vital to help maintain the US military
bases that now exist in 138 countries all over the globe.
This is what ´democracy
promotion´ is all about. Its most recent variant has now
been applied in Afghanistan and Iraq and it will hit Haiti (another
occupied country) in November this year. Create a new elite,
give it funds and weaponry to build a new army and let them make
the country safe for the corporations. The Afghan elections of
2004, even according to some pro-US commentators, were a complete
farce and the much vaunted 73 percent turnout was a fraud. If this were not
the case the US pro-consul would not be engaged in re-building
a new alliance with Taliban factions close to Pakistani military
intelligence.
In Iraq the turnout (according
to DEBKA the totally loyal Israeli intelligence website) was
closer to forty percent and in Basra (subcontracted to Tony Blair)
was no more than 32 percent. Sistani´s followers voted
to please their Ayotallah, but if he is unable to deliver peace
and an end to the occupation, they too might defect. The only
force which can be relied on at the moment are the Kurdish tribes.
The Kurdish 36th command batallion fought alongside the US marines
in Fallujah, but the tribal chiefs want some form of independence
(even as a US-Israeli protectorate) and some oil. If loyal NATO
ally and EU aspirant, Turkey, vetoes any such possibility, then
the Kurds too, might accept money from elsewhere. The battle
for Iraq is far from over. It has merely entered a new stage.
Despite strong disagreements on the boycott of the elections,
the majority of Iraqis will not willingly hand over their oil
or their country to the West. Politicians, bearded or otherwise,
who try and force this through will lose all support and become
totally dependent on the foreign armies encamped in their country.
The popular resistance will continue. Times have changed. Many
in the North find it difficult to support this resistance. The
arguments for and against are old ones. In the last decades of
the 19th century, the English socialist William Morris celebrated
the defeat of General Gordon by the Mahdi: "Khartoum fallen-into
the hands of the people it belongs to". Morris argued that
the duty of English internationalists was to support all those
being oppressed by the British Empire despite one's disagreements
with nationalism or fanaticism.
The triumphalist chorus of
the corporate and state media of the West reflects a single fact:
the Iraqi elections were designed not so much to preserve the
unity of Iraq but to re-establish the unity of the West. Already
after Bush´s re-election the French and Germans were looking
for a bridge back to Washington. The French had collaborated
in the occupation of Haiti without any dissent from the French
media. The Germans can now re-join the pack. Will French and
German troops now join their battered British, American and privatized
mercenary colleagues in the war zones of Iraq to seal this unity?
And if they do will their citizens object or will they accept
the propaganda that sees the illegitimate election (the Carter
Centre that monitors elections worldwide refused to send observers)
as justifying the occupation. And if French and German troops
are dispatched will they be forbidden the use of digital cameras
to record the torture that still goes on in open defiance of
the Geneva Convention?
The occupation of Iraq involved
both a military and an economic invasion as envisaged by Hayek,
the father of neo-liberalism. The essential vision of imperial
power was firmly embedded in the original doctrine. It was Hayek,
after all who pioneered the notion of lightning air strikes against
Iran in 1979 and Argentina in 1982. The re-colonisation of Iraq
would have greatly pleased him. He despised pieties. Politicians
masking their true aims with weasel words about ´humanity´
would have greatly irritated him.
Hayek's followers in Washington, however, did not predict a resistance
in Iraq. Nor did most of the Western world, where a majority
of intellectuals, TV journalists and web-site afficinados are
so disillusioned, bitter and cynical that they assume the bulk
of the world is like them. They don't like to be reminded of
cases to the contrary. They forget that the graph of history
is always twisted. There is never a line of uninterrupted progress.
And so it happened that the occupation of Iraq produced a resistance.
Contrary to the bulf of reports in the western press, this resistance
is NOT dominated by Zarqawwi or his tiny band. If it were it
would have been crushed long ago.
There is a popular resistance
in Iraq, both armed and non-violent. The bulk of the armed resistance
consists of demobilised soldiers and officers, many of whom were
disgusted by Saddam's corruption and cruelty and his failure
to defend the country. To these one must add both secular nationalist
and religious groups who hate the occupation. The left is weak
in Iraq because the Iraqi Communist Part backed the occupation
and served in the puppet government.
The size and scale of the Iraqi
resistance (and, incidentally, it exists also in the Shia south
and resistance cells are numerous in Basra) took the world by
surprise. The Iraqis were like lightning, compared to the European
resistance against the Third Reich. In France, the Vichy regime
was popular with a large majority. Not so in Iraq. In occupied
Holland the resistance was tiny and very dependent on British
support. Not so in Iraq where the resistance receives nil support
from its Arab neighbours. In Vietnam, the nationalist resistance
to the French, Japanese and American Empires was led by the Communist
Party. In Iraq it is completely decentralized. In all the above
cases there were collaborators who worked closely with the occupying
power. Here Iraq is no different.
Is it a perfect resistance?
No. How could a resistance be pretty when the occupation is so
brutal and ugly. The senseless violence inflicted upon the Iraqi
people by the occupation results in a violent response. It was
no different when the Algerians fought the French to a standstill
in the early Sixties of the last century. When a leader of the
Algerian resistance was asked why they often bombed cafes and
killed civilians, he replied: 'Give us planes and helicopters
and then we will only target French troops.'
During an early stage of the
occupation, US papers reported young kids in Baghdad shaking
hands with the Marines. What these newspapers did not report
(because the journalists did not speak Arabic) was what the kids
with a smile said to the marines; 'We hate you, motherfucker.'
These photographs stopped a long time ago. Many smiling children
have been shot dead.
And what of the media, the propaganda pillar of the new order?
In ´Control Room´, a Canadian documentary on al-Jazeera,
one of the more telling and disgusting images is that of embedded
Western journalists jumping and whooping with joy as the capture
of Baghdad was announced. The coverage of élections´
in Afghanistan and Iraq is little more than empty propaganda.
This symbiosis of neo-liberal
politics and a neo-liberal media helps to reinforce the collective
memory loss from which the West suffers today. The insistence
that the totality of contemporary politics is encompassed by
the essential categories of ´friend´ and `´enemy´´
has a long pedigree. It was Carl Schmitt, a gifted legal theorist
of the Third Reich, who first developed this view to justify
Hitler´s preemptive strikes against neighbouring states.
Schmitt´s writing were adapted by local conservatives to
the needs of the United States after the Second World war and
are currently the bedrock of neo-con thinking. Their message
is straightforward: if your country does not serve our needs
it is an enemy state. It will be occupied, its leaders removed
and pliant satraps placed on the throne. But when the troops
withdraw the satrapies often crumble. Occupation, rebellion,
withdrawal, occupation, self-emancipation is a pattern in world
history.
Only in the North is the death
of over 100,000 Iraqi civilians ignored by the mainstream politico-media
complex. Iraqi lives don't matter to the human rights brigades
in the West. It is this that helps fuel an anger against the
West as a whole. The demonisation of Islam has reached such heights
that dead Muslims don't have to be counted. And the fount of
this demonisation is the government of the United States, a country
awash with religion: 95 percent of Americans believe in God,
70 percent in angels, 67 percent in the devil. 'Who believes
in the Devil', wrote Thomas Mann in Doctor Faustus, 'already
belongs to him.' Against the terrorism of tiny Islamist cells
is deployed the almighty terrorism of the American state and
its allies. But David was always more popular than Goliath. This
is what I attempted to explain in my book, Clash
of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads, Modernity. For
most of the 20th century, conservative Islam was, more often
than not, supportive of the British Empire and its American successor.
Islam was seen as a conservative social force, rattling the chains
of superstiton and fanaticism to stifle even the most fragile
tremors of social revolution. The West was delighted to have
such an ally. Times change.
I was in Brazil last week for
the World Social Forum. In this time of frustration and defeats,
when social advance appears marooned on the shoals of the Washington
consensus, it was heartening to hear a Latin American leader--Hugo
Chavez of Venezuela--address a large crowd of 15,000 participants
and defending the resistance in Iraq. The United States had made
three attempts to topple him. They had failed. 'If they try by
force, we will resist just like the Iraqis', he declared. He
called for the establishment of a worldwide Anti-Imperialist
Front. The curtain is still down on the main acts of the drama
that is history, but the breaks and intervals are also full of
tension and conflict.
At the Nurnberg War Crimes
trials the German Foreign Minister, Von Ribbentrop, was also
charged with war crimes. Why? Because he had provided the political
and ideological justification for the pre-emptive strike against
Norway.
If this precedent were to be
followed in an imaginary dock of some future tribunal, then Colin
Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Tony Blair and their big boss in the
White House could face a similar indictment. Unlikely, but desirable.
Tariq Ali's latest book, Bush
in Babylon: The Re-colonisation of Iraq, is published by
Verso.
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