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March 15, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Render
Unto Caesar:
Ashcroft's Secret Snatches
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
March
10, 2002
Thomas
Croft
Year
of Living Dangerously
March
9, 2002
Bill Cook
Sharon's
Bulldozer
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Nightmare in Israel
March
8, 2002
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
When
Business Men
Make Boo-Boos
CounterPunch
Exclusive
Enron's
Spooky
Image Consultant
Rep. Ron
Paul
Stop
the War on Colombia
Andre
Achong
The
Failed War on Drugs
John B.
Kelly
Michael
Moore and Me:
Disability Rights and
a Big Stupid White Guy
March
7, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Congressman
McInnis Equates Enviros to al-Qaeda
Mike Rogers
Will
the Battle of Shah-i-Kot Become the Taliban's Alamo
Walt Brasch
Patriot
Act and Free Speech
John Jonik
Insurance
Scams:
Who Are the Scofflaws?
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Bumper
Crop: The Politics
of Afghan Opium
March
6, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
A
Beautiful Mind:
Another Dangerous Lie?
Tom Turnipseed
War
Is Wrong
David
Vest
Billy
Graham and Nixon:
Tangled Up in Tape
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Bombings That
Made Putin a Hero
CounterPunch
Wire
Berezovsky
Fingers Putin
in Bombings
Edward
Said
Thoughts
About America
March
5, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Ann
Coulter At It Again:
Race-Baiting Norm Mineta
Bill Christison
A
Former CIA Officer
Explains Why the War
on Terror Won't Work
Delkhasteh and Wright
What
Should We be Fighting For? An Open Letter
to Pro-War Academics
Mariya
Tsvekova
Putin's
Georgian Gambit
March
4, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Dick
Cheney: A Dinosaur
in the Age of Mammals
Uri Avnery
How
Israel Will Torpedo
the Saudi Peace Plan
Southern
/ Kubrick
Stangelove
Scenario
for Shadow Govt. Bunker
David
Vest
Grammy's
of Constant Sorrow
March
3, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
War
on Terrorism for Dummies
Paul Cox
Boycott
Mel Gibson's
"We Were Soldiers"
Frederick
Hudson
Toward
a Nonviolent Africa:
Bill Sutherland's Quest
Eric Schaeffer
Dear
Christie Whitman:
Take This Job and Shove It
John Chuckman
Why
the Rest of Planet is Unnerved by America
March
2, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sweat,
Sex, Feet and
the Working Class
March
1, 2002
Brendan
Sexton III
What's
Wrong With Black Hawk Down: an Actor Speaks Out
David
Krieger
Nuclear
Terrorism
and US Nuclear Policy
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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Reviews of Gore:
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March 15, 2002
The Rhetorical Attack on Iraq
By Alex Lynch
As much as dissent has been under attack here
in the United States since Sept. 11, a reasonable amount rational
thinking by the American people should prevail when the question
of whether to attack Iraq is put on the table.
No other periodical went after dissenters
than did The New Republic magazine when it published an article
by its editor-in-chief and chairman, Martin Peretz who equated
detractors of war and sympathizers of peace as a "fifth
column."
Comparing libertarians to a new fifth
column as a group or faction of subversive agents undermining
a nation's solidarity and who supports an enemy while engaging
in espionage or sabotage within national borders seems a little
ridiculous.
But when looked at closely, this perspective
doesn't stray much further than the words of our own Attorney
General John Ashcroft who, speaking to the Senate Judiciary
Committee in December 2001 referring to critics of the Bush
administration's policies including military tribunals, "Your
tactics only aid terrorists-for they erode our national unity
and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's
enemies"
These statements coupled with continued
national support of the Bush administration's policies through
gallop polls seem to point to the fact Americans must resign
to the idea that Iraq is the next target in the war on terrorism.
The next front to be won over is the
Europeans as well as Arab and Muslim countries that have spoken
out for months against a unilateral attack on Iraq. Vice President
Dick Cheney's main purpose for his 10-day 12-country tour is
to whip up support for future strikes against Iraq, not so much
as a coalition, but to justify an American unilateral attack
if others aren't willing to partake in the fun.
Since Sept. 11, the US has done everything
in its power to justify an attack on Iraq. A typical tactic
of good power-mongering politics is to 'talk up' an enemy so
as to legitimize an attack just as Hitler 'talked up' an invisible
communist revolution in Germany to consolidate power for himself.
In this sense, the U.S. government and
conservative media pundits first claimed Iraq had Al-Qaeda links.
European governments stood up and corrected the Americans stating
there was no evidence linking Osama bin Laden to Baghdad and
Saddam Hussein.
After that failed the course was changed
instead relying on a smear campaign emphasizing the possible
possession of chemical or biological weapons of mass destruction.
Scott Ritter, former chief of the Concealment
Investigations Unit for the UN Special Commission on Iraq, has
said the opposite though. "It was possible as early as
1997 to determine that, from a qualitative standpoint, Iraq
had been disarmed. Iraq no longer possessed any meaningful quantities
of chemical or biological agent." Ritter said. Now, the
newest version is the notion that Iraq will have nuclear capabilities
soon when in fact that statement is nothing more than convenient
speculation and scare tactics aimed at elbowing out detractors.
What seems a little more rational is
that the Bush administration is thinking more along the lines
of a future Iraqi attack on Israel or Saudi Arabia, two of the
main concerns of the Bush Sr. administration during the Gulf
War.
Yet, Iraq is a crippled nation and has
the dubious distinction of being the country with the highest
increase in child mortality during the period 1990-99 of all
the 188 countries surveyed according to a UNICEF report released
in December 2000.
As Hans von Sponeck and Denis Halliday,
two former UN Humanitarian Coordinators for Iraq have pointed
out, "At the end of World War II, a Marshall Plan came
to the rescue of a civilian population in Germany devastated
and traumatized by six years of war. At the end of Operation
Desert Storm in 1991 following the earlier Iran-Iraq war of
eight years, Iraqis were sentenced to the most comprehensive
sanctions ever extended by the international community to a
country."
Still, the American government will not
compromise or even consider the notion of engaging in self-examination
and possible changes to a foreign policy that is much more
closely aligned with dictatorial power and abuse than democracy.
Our administration must consider how
much the world could change if it altered its policy in the
Isreali-Palestinian conflict to an objective stance instead
of justifying anything the Israelis want. Also, Start spending
money at universities like USF on research into alternative
sources of fuel for our cars such as solar power, electric and
hydrogen powered cars so as to avoid a national addiction to
cheap Middle East oil.
Iraq is not a terrorist threat therefore,
if the U.S. attacks Iraq, this new military development should
be distinctly separated from the "War on Terrorism."
Or, the name "War on Terrorism" should be changed
to "War on Dissenters." A much more open policy would
be appreciated since Iraq's main problem to the US seems only
to be its denial of UN weapons inspectors. Of course, "War
on Dissenters" can be shortened to "War on Dissent"
just as, "War on Terror" has been adopted by the mainstream
media.
Alex Lynch
is founder and editor of THE SHANACHIE Alternative Campus Newspaper
at the University of South Florida. He can be contacted at shanachie51@hotmail.com
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