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March
18, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
Middle
East for Dummies
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
March
17, 2002
David
Vest
The
Politics of Packaging
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
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
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
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
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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March 18, 2002
Abdullah vs. Osama
By Gabriel Ash
Triangulation, the trick Dick Morris taught Bill
Clinton, is one of the most elegant jujitsu maneuvers in politics.
The leaders of the Arab world may need Morris's advice as they
plan their response to Cheney's Godfather charm offensive.
The Bush Administration wants to attack
Iraq. This is a potentially disastrous plan. It is quite likely
to harm U.S. long term interests. But when Bush wants to play
Rambo, it is not wise to stand in the way. The problem for Prince
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, King Abdullah of Jordan, and the rest
of the Arab leaders, is that their own hold of power may be lost
in the chaos.
The house of Saud is in the most precarious
position. So much so that many of the princes prudently hold
their vast personal wealth in foreign banks. Other Arab regimes
are also vulnerable, though not to the same extent.
The problem of these autocrats is a severe
lack of legitimacy, which the rise of fundamentalist Islam has
transformed into a concrete possibility of revolution. The rulers
are perceived as corrupt and irreligious servants of the Western
interests.
The most important indicator of this
challenge of legitimacy is the popularity of Osama bin Laden.
Rumor has it that Osama is a fashionable name today with many
Gulf parents. This is so even in Kuwait, the very country the
U.S. saved from the Iraqi invasion only a decade ago. The popularity
of bin Laden in Saudi Arabia is probably much higher.
That popularity is easy to misunderstand.
Gulf residents are not admiring the same aspect of bin Laden's
career that made him a symbol of evil in America. The most formidable
and noted proof is the curtain of refusal to accept bin Laden's
responsability to the attack on the twin towers.
While bin Laden is identified in the
West with fundamentalism, hatred and murder, Arabs identify with
his underdog status, and his firm stand against the United States.
The holding power of conspiracy theories that exonerate bin Laden
is evidence of a "cognitive dissonance." These theories
allow people to admire him while dissociating themselves from
the murder of thousands of innocent people. Bin Laden captured
the imagination of so many Arabs less for his religious beliefs
and criminal actions as for what he symbolizes; a proud Arab
stand against the United States.
The servile relation between Arab rulers
and the U.S., especially in the context of the boiling Palestinian
Intifada, is the lens that focuses the accumulating frustrations
of Arabs against their governments. After all other languages
and solutions have been denied and defeated, fundamentalism remains
the only successful model of resistance. Therein lies the danger,
as much to the West as to the Arab world itself.
There is a loud American chorus admonishing
Arabs, and Saudis in particular, to reform themselves. The common
prescriptions include keeping a tight lid on Islam, a more westernized
school curriculum, and other medications that one hopes the Arab
world would not rush to take, because they are likely to exacerbate
the disease.
If the root cause of Arab popular support
for fundamentalism is the servile relation between the Arab rulers
and the West, it is a folly to push more westernization as the
solution. This is the disastrous path the Shah of Iran took.
A medicine that works must begin with a change in this unhealthy
relation, and that change must come from within the Arab world
itself.
That is why the current situation, the
coincidence of the Intifada and the U.S. decision to attack Iraq,
presents the leaders of the Arab world with a unique opportunity.
They can triangulate fundamentalism.
The Sauds have so far seen Palestinian
independence as a threat. They have made periodic gestures of
halfhearted protest in defense of Arafat, but their heart was
not in it. Yet the Intifada has become a powerful source of pride
for Arabs everywhere. The Intifada has moved to the center of
Arab identity and is now the touchstone for evaluating Arab governments.
Meanwhile, the contradictions between
the traditional legitimacy of the Sauds, fundamentalist Wahabism,
and their international position as a U.S. client regime is reaching
its limits.
The solution is in plain sight: a quiet
retreat on the religious front, coupled with a noisy adoption
of the nationalist one.
Suppose Crown Prince Abdullah, backed
by a number of other Arab leaders, were to steal bin Laden's
core appeal without adopting his ideology. The Prince could challenge
the U.S. by adopting a tough nationalist stance: either the U.S.
controls Sharon and forces Israel to withdraw from the Occupied
Territories, or there will be zero cooperation on the Iraqi front
and everything else.
The longstanding U.S. support for Israel
would still create a contradiction, but that is a "good"
contradiction. On the one hand, adopting a confrontational tone
against the U.S. is the first and essential step in gaining legitimacy
at home. On the other hand, such confrontation can end well.
The U.S. will never accommodate Islamic fundamentalism, whereas
her antagonism towards an independent Palestinian state is merely
opportunistic.
Abdullah's cards are very good. His best
card is that Americans know they cannot afford to weaken him.
There are obstacles to such a strategy.
Creating a unified Arab front might be quite difficult. And the
fear of U.S. wrath can be debilitating. But the biggest obstacle
is the belief in the common fallacy that applying half the solution
can solve half the problem.
It seems Arabs leaders do recognize the
necessity to wrench some concessions from the U.S. on both the
handling of Israel and the plan to attack Iraq. The recently
proposed Saudi peace plan, as well as the cool reception Jordanian
Abdullah II gave Cheney, are proof of that. Earlier, Saudi Arabia
has also signaled that U.S. bases in the kingdom have become
a political liability and need to be trimmed.
Yet getting concessions is not enough,
and even reviving the defunct peace is not enough. Paradoxically,
a conciliatory and cooperative tone towards the U.S. might further
undermine the Saud's legitimacy even if it succeeds. The perception
would simply be that the Prince is appeasing the fundamentalists.
That will only increase the pressure on him.
In order to cash in on the Intifada,
Abdullah will need to find his voice as a leader of a proud nation.
He will have to walk a tightrope between confronting the U.S.
and alienating her, steering the Middle East towards peace not
as a supplicant, but as an essential power broker.
So far, it is not clear whether Abdullah
has the vision, the feel, or the stomach for such a gambit. Let's
hope he does, because nobody knows if there will be a second
chance.
Gabriel Ash
is a columnist for YellowTimes.
He encourages your comments: gash@YellowTimes.org
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