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March
11, 2002
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time 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
February
28, 2002
James
T. Phillips
Baghdad,
Spring 1992
Gideon
Samet
Sharon
Must Go
Rep. Ron
Paul
Before
We Bomb Iraq
M. Shahid
Alam
Samuel
Huntington:
Peddling Civilizational Wars
St. Clair
/ Cockburn
Rumble
from the Jungle:
Ecuadorian Farmers Fight
DynCorp's ChemWar
February
27, 2002
Eric Hobsbawm
The
Future of War and Peace
John Troyer
About
that WTC Memorial
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Wired
for Democracy
or Business?
Alexander
Cockburn
Daniel
Pearl: Should His
Editors Have Sent Him There?
February
26, 2002
Jonathan
Steele
Kabul's
Loss
Vasily
Streltsov
The
Pentagon in
the Transcaucusas
CounterPunch
Wire
How
Corporations Use Shadowy "527" Groups to Influence
Politicians
Lt. Col.
Robert Bowman
ABM
Treaty: Alive or Dead?
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
A
Prayer for America
February
25, 2002
John Clarke
Interrogated
at US Border
Blankfort,
Poirier, Zeltzer
ADL
Blinks, Settles Spying Case
Alex Lynch
Naked
from Sin:
The Ordeal of Nahla
and Sami Al-Arian
John Chuckman
Ashcroft
Speaks in Tongues
February
24, 2002
David
Vest
Skate
Date
February
23, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Axis
of Evil and
Media Monopolies
Bahour/Dahan
Cracks
in the Occupation
February
22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Axel
of Evil: Sex Crimes
and the Constitution
February
21, 2002
Gary Leupp
The
Philippines: Second Front in US's Global War
David
Vest
Reagan
Clone Project?
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Chicago
School and Corporate America: Rotten to the Core
February
20, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
The
Shallow Throat Document
Kay Lee
The
Prison Guard Who Never Owned Up to His Crimes
February
19, 2002
David
Orr
Waylon
Jennings, the Duke,
and the Navajo
John Chuckman
The
Devil and Georgie Bush
Prudence
Crowther
Giblet
Gravitas
Ramzi
Kysia
Caught
in the Iraq DMZ
February
18, 2002
Ron Jacobs
The
US and Iran
George
Lewandowski
Empire
in Declline
Lenni
Brenner
Life
and Death of a Folk Hero
February
17, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Lost
in a Pit of Desperation
February
16, 2002
Phillip
Cryan
Colombia
in War Time
February
15, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
From
New York to Porto Alegre
Robert
O'Brien
The
View from Porto Alegre
Mokhiber/Weissman
Resisting
the Assassins
February
14, 2002
Levy and
Easton
Ante
Pavelic
Real Butcher of the Balkans
Joan Claybrook
Dear
Jeb Bush,
About You and Enron
John Chuckman
Time
for a Woman Prez
Alexander
Cockburn
Banning
the Koran
February
13, 2002
Sen. Russ
Feingold
War
Powers and
the War on Terror
Tom Turnipseed
Bush's
Folly
George
Monbiot
American
Imperialism
February
12, 2002
Uri Avnery
The
Great Game:
Oil, Sharon and Iran
Tommy
Ates
Black
Land Loss
February
11, 2002
Walt Brasch
The
Synergizing of America
John Troyer
Enron's
Deep Throat?
February
9, 2002
John Blair
Criticize
Cheney, Go to Jail
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
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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 11, 2002
Bush Nuke Policy Will Scare
Both Friends And Enemies
By Tommy Ates
"With friends like these, who needs
enemies?" That is probably one of the many thoughts going
through the minds of some the leaders of countries mentioned
as nuclear threats (or targets) as well as some of the American
people, who didn't realize that 'pushing the button' could occur
even if nuclear weapons were not being used.
The leaked Pentagon report, called The
Nuclear Posture Review (regarding American nuclear weapon contingencies),
offers a frightening, possible 'end-game' solution for the war
on terror from rogue nation states. According the policy review,
the United States has identified those nations as Iraq, Iran,
Libya, North Korea, and Syria. However, in that same leaked
report, there are countries among which we have normalized relations
(Russia and China). The question then is, who are our friends
and who are our enemies?
In the Bush administration, there seems
an unyielding motto (ala The X-Files): "Trust, no one."
Late in the week, apparently an officer(s) at the Pentagon leaked
the mostly unclassified report to the press by giving a partial
copy to The Los Angeles Times and a full one to The New York
Times (both left of center news institutions), but as the New
York Times, with the full document, noted key portions were
kept secret. Unfortunately for President Bush and Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the world now knows of our nuclear
strategic policy.
And what is the significance of this
leak? It is the apparent willingness of President Bush to steer
the United States away from a Clinton-derived, coalition-driven,
foreign policy and to an isolationist posture (i.e. the Cold
War), acting only in response to threats that may jeopardize
our strategic self-interests. In the military document, the
Pentagon goes on to point out the three scenario in which nuclear
weapons may be used: an Iraqi attack on Israel, a North Korean
attack on South Korea, and a Chinese attack on Taiwan.
In the case of Iraq and North Korea,
it has not been proven (probably not) that they even have nuclear
weapons. It is also a confusing signal for China after receiving
'favorite nation' trading status (despite continued human rights
violations).
On its face, such a plan appears to
go against the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in which the
United States vowed not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear
weapons states. The strategic threats the Pentagon identifies
say simply 'attacks,' not of what origin.
As with breaking the ABM treaty with
Russia, President Bush appears to have no qualms of re-establishing
American imperialist objectives on contracts or agreements that
do not suit his administration's goals. The only problem is
what will the global, political atmosphere be when the President
leaves office? In the eyes of the mainstream news media, the
answer appears to be any nation that can solve the nation's
insecurity about terrorism in place of not being able to capture
Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.
With this secret plan revealed, we risk
the developing world and our 'former enemies' wondering whether
our intentions are genuine or simply strategic in the war on
terror (especially since the focus has moved on to a non-terrorist
Saddam Hussein).
There are three reasons why the Bush
administration should not implement this plan: #1, its announcement
will undercut Vice President Cheney's diplomatic mission to
the Middle East, in preparation of a possible military conflict
with Iraq over the United Nations weapons inspections; #2, the
plan will bring distrust among our European allies of American
foreign objectives, precisely when the E.U. is formulating their
own military strategy; #3, the document will raise doubts within
Russia and China as to whether the U.S. has acted in good faith
with current nuclear nonproliferation agreements.
In short, the Nuclear Posture Review
will lead to an unraveling of the notion of American goodwill
in foreign policy, hampering our efforts to forge alliances
with the Arab states in the war on terror, and asking Russia,
China and (most importantly) the emerging European Union, to
reevaluate strategic military posture in regards in the U.S.
If the leaking of this Pentagon brief was to justify the President's
"axis of evil" gaffe, the intention has backfired.
Whoever leaked this report wanted the
American people to know that our strategic nuclear interests
have changed, not only do we distrust our new 'friends,' but
we are willing to annihilate our perceived enemies if it suits
our best interests. For the first time, there may be fear of
the unthinkable--again (Hiroshima). Let's hope that doesn't
occur.
Tommy Ates
lives in Austin, Texas. He has for The Houston Chronicle, Fort
Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, The Wichita Eagle, The Macon Telegraph,
and Global Black News.
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