home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events
|
|
|
First the Wedding; Now the Wake: Big Labor's New Unity Partnership by JoAnn Wypijewski; Report from Baghdad: How Did the Votes Add Up: by Patrick Cockburn. Tsunamis of Blood: Wolfowitz in Indonesia: by Joseph Nevins; ALSO Alexander Cockburn on Tsunami Aid: How the People Scored. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
|
Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories March 7, 2005 Uri Avnery March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Tom Reeves Jenna Orkin Tom Barry Joshua Frank Moshe Adler Jane Stillwater Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir Christopher
Brauchli John Pilger Raúl
Zibechi David Krieger Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Bhishma Karki Joseph Pietri Ben Tripp Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson
March 3, 2005 Pat Williams Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Greg Moses Lynne Landes Nelson P. Valdés John Ross
March 2, 2005 Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen Mike Roselle M. Junaid Alam Suzan Mazur Jackson Thoreau Michael Donnelly Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
March 1, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons David Lindorff Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders Ron Jacobs Tanya Garcia Joseph Pietri Kona Lowell Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
February 28, 2005 Gary Leupp Bill Quigley Paul de Rooij David Swanson Mario Lamo
Jimenez Emma Perez Diana Johnstone Website of the Day
February 26 / 27, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Noam Chomsky Rev. William E. Alberts Fred Gardner Gary Leupp Saul Landau Robin Philpot Yitkhak Laor Ben Tripp Justin Taylor Jack Random Rafael Renteria Jim B. Seth DeLong John Chuckman Alison Weir Richard Oxman Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement
February 25, 2005 Roger Burbach Behzad Yaghmaian Kurt Nimmo Joshua Frank John Farley Lawrence Reichard Pratyush Chandra David Smith-Ferri Website of
the Day
February 24, 2005 Omar Waraich Brian Cloughley Tom Wright Sharon Smith Dave Lindorff Fred Feldman James Reiss
Diane Christian Website of
the Day
February 23, 2005 Werther W. John Green James Petras Conn Hallinan Joe Pietri Louis Proyect Alexander Cockburn Website of
the Day
February 22, 2005 Naseer Aruri Richard Manning William A.
Cook Paul Craig Roberts Ken Krayeske Dave Zirin Kirkpatrick
Sale
February 21, 2005 Hunter S. Thompson John Ross Ward Churchill Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst David Swanson Dave Lindorff Stew Albert Michael Neumann
February 19 / 20, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Kathleen Christison Ted Honderich Gary Leupp Don Santina Jennifer Roesch Scott Richard
Lyons Chris Clarke George Beres Harry Browne Manuel García,
Jr. Mark Scaramella Michael Donnelly John Pilger Norman Madarasz Surendra Devkota Deborah Rich Fred Gardner CounterPunch
News Service Richard Oxman Poets' Basement
February 18, 2005 Ben Moxham Dave Lindorff Larry Birns Gregory Elich Samuel Logan / John Meyers Nicole Colson Suzan Mazur Mickey Z.
February 17, 2005 Joshua Frank Paul Craig
Roberts Robert Fisk Christopher
Brauchli Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst Alison Weir Ahrar Ahmad Saul Landau Website of the Day
February 16, 2005 Robert Fisk Kevin Zeese Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Jessica Leight Greg Moses Mark Engler Jack McCarthy Bill Christison Website of the Day
February 15, 2005 CounterPunch
News Service Robert Fisk Uri Avnery Stan Cox Mickey Z. Dave Zirin Nadia Martinez Lila Rajiva Paul Craig
Roberts
February 14, 2005 Robert Jensen Brian Cloughley Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Michael Donnelly Dave Lindorff Elaine Cassel
February 12 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Paul Craig
Roberts Patrick Cockburn John Feffer Mickey Z. Kurt Nimmo Fred Gardner Dave Zirin John Chuckman Ben Tripp Carol Norris Robert Fisk Frank / Chowkwanyun Mike Whitney Deborah Frisch Niranjan Ramakrishnan Christine TenBarge Ron Jacobs Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 11, 20055 Manuel Garcia,
Jr Kurt Nimmo Dave Lindorff Larry Birns Bill Quigley Tom Barry Jennifer Van
Bergen
February 10, 2005 Dave Lindorff Christopher Brauchli Patrick Cockburn Nicole Colson Suzan Mazur Michael Donnelly Mike Stark Greg Moses Website of
the Day
February 9, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Mickey Z. John Ross Tom Barry Conn Hallinan Patrick Cockburn Steen Sohn Tim Wise Website of
the Day
February 8, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Brian Cloughley Steve Breyman Harry Browne Doug Giebel Nate Collins Dave Lindorff David Smith-Ferri
February 7, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Carolyn Baker Joshua Frank Mickey Z. Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Stacie Jonas Dave Zirin Tariq Ali
February 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Kurt Nimmo Joshua Frank P. Sainath Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen Dave Lindorff Pamela Olson Behzad Yaghmaian Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Roger Burbach Robert Fisk David Swanson Justin E.H. Smith Cacie Hart Ron Jacobs Mickey Z. Ben Tripp Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
February 4, 2005 Brian Cloughley Bill Christison Elaine Cassel Jacob Levich Kanak Mani Dixit Ron Jacobs
February 3, 2005 Ward Churchill Sharon Smith Mickey Z. Mike Whitney Jenna Orkin Saul Landau Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff
February 2, 2005 David Domke
/ Kevin Coe Noam Chomsky M. Shahid Alam Richard Oxman Joshua Frank Dave Lindorff Nina Hartley Website of the Day
February 1, 2005 Joshua L. Dratel Patrick Cockburn Robert Fisk Uri Avnery Col. Dan Smith Alison Weir Alan Farago Ray Hanania Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
December 22, 2004 James Petras Omar Barghouti Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond Harry Browne Richard Oxman Kathleen Christison Website of the Day
December 21, 2004 Greg Moses Dave Lindorff Chad Nagle Dragon Pierces
Truth* Patrick Cockburn Seth DeLong Ahmad Faruqui Paul Craig
Roberts
Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Subcomandante
Marcos Norman Finkelstein Steve Niva Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams Steve
J.B. Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber Wendell
Berry CounterPunch
Wire Cindy
Corrie Gore Vidal Francis Boyle
Subscribe Online
|
March 7, 2005 Lebanon and the Avaricious SuperpowerThe Next CrusadesBy URI AVNERY Many years ago, I read a book called "The Quiet American" by Graham Greene. Its central character is a high-minded, naive young American operative in Vietnam. He has no idea about the complexities of that country but is determined to right its wrongs and create order. The results are disastrous. I have the feeling that this is happening now in Lebanon. The Americans are not so high-minded and no so naive. Far from it. But they are quite prepared to go into a foreign country, disregard its complexities, and use force to impose on it order, democracy and freedom. Civil war: Lebanon. Lebanon is a country with a peculiar topography: a small country of high mountain ranges and isolated valleys. As a result, it has attracted throughout the centuries communities of persecuted minorities, who found refuge there. Today there are, side by side and one against the other, four ethno-religious communities: Christians, Sunnis, Shiites and Druse. Within the Christian community, there are several sub-communities, such as Maronites and other ancient sects, mostly hostile to each other. The history of Lebanon abounds in mutual massacres. Such a situation invites, of course, interference by neighbors and foreign powers, each wanting to stir the pot for its own advantage. Syria, Israel, the United States and France, the former colonial master, are all involved. Exactly 50 years ago a secret, heated debate took place among the leaders of Israel. David Ben-Gurion (then Minister of Defense) and Moshe Dayan (the army Chief-of-Staff) had a brilliant idea: to invade Lebanon, impose on it a "Christian major" as dictator and turn it into an Israeli protectorate. Moshe Sharett, the then Prime Minister, attacked this idea fervently. In a lengthy, closely argued letter, which has been preserved for history, he ridiculed the total ignorance of the proponents of this idea in face of the incredibly fragile complexity of the Lebanese social structure. Any adventure, he warned, would end in disaster. At the time, Sharett won. But 27 years later, Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon did exactly what Ben-Gurion and Dayan had proposed. The result was exactly as foreseen by Sharett. Anyone who follows the American and Israeli (there is no difference) media, gets the impression that the present situation in Lebanon is simple: there are two camps, "the supporters of Syria" on the one side, the "opposition" on the other. There is a "Beirut Spring". The opposition is a twin sister of yesterday's Ukrainian opposition, and loyally imitates all its methods: demonstrations opposite the government building, a sea of waving flags, colorful shawls, and, most importantly, beautiful girls in the front row. But between the Ukraine and Lebanon there exists not the slightest similarity. The Ukraine is a "simple" country: the east tends towards Russia, the west towards Europe. With American help, the west won. In Lebanon, all the diverse communities are in action. Each for its own interest, each plotting to outfox the others, perhaps to attack them at a given opportunity. Some of the leaders are connected with Syria, some with Israel, all are trying to use the Americans for their ends. The jolly pictures of young demonstrators, so prominent in the media, have no meaning if one does not know the community which stands behind them. Only thirty years ago these communities started a terrible civil war and all of them massacred each other. The Christian Maronites wanted to take over the country with the help of Israel, but were defeated by a coalition of the Sunnis and Druze (the Shiites played no significant role at that time). The Palestinian refugees, led by the PLO, who formed a kind of fifth "community", joined the battle. When the Christians were in danger of being overrun, they called on the Syrians for help. Six years later, Israel invaded, with the aim of evicting both the Syrians and the Palestinians and imposing a Christian strongman (Basheer Jumail). It took us 18 years to get out of that morass. Our only achievement was to turn the Shiites into a dominant force. When we entered Lebanon, the Shiites received us with showers of rice and candies, hoping that we would throw out the Palestinians, who had been lording it over them. A few months later, when they realized that we did not intend to leave, they started to shoot at us. Sharon is the midwife of Hizbullah. It is difficult to foresee what will happen if the Syrians accede to the American ultimatum and leave Lebanon. There is no indication that the Americans are concerned with the creation of a new fabric of life for the Lebanese communities. They are satisfied with babbling about "freedom" and "democracy", as if a majority vote could create a regime acceptable to all. They do not understand that "Lebanon" is an abstract notion, since for almost all Lebanese, belonging to their own community is vastly more important than loyalty to the state. In such a situation, even an international force will be of no help. The re-ignition of the bloody civil war is a distinct possibility. Civil war: Iraq. If a civil war breaks out in Lebanon, it will not be the only one in the region. In Iraq, such a war if almost secret - is already in full swing. The only effective military forces in Iraq, apart from the occupation army, are the Kurdish "Peshmerga" ("Those who face death"). The Americans use them whenever they are fighting the Sunnis. They played an important role in the battle of Faluja, a big town that was totally destroyed, its inhabitants killed or driven out. Now the Kurdish forces are waging a war against the Sunnis and Turkmens in the north of the country, in order to take hold of the oil-rich areas and the town of Kirkuk, and also to drive out the Sunni settlers who were implanted there by Saddam Hussein. How can such a war be practically ignored by the media? Simple: everything is swept under the carpet of the "war against terrorism". But this small war is nothing compared to what may happen in Iraq, once the time comes for deciding the future of the country. The Kurds want complete autonomy, or independence by another name. The Sunni would not dream of accepting the rule of the Shiite majority, which they despise, even if came about in the name of "democracy". The outbreak of a full-fledged civil war may only be a question of time. Civil war: Syria. If the Americans succeed, with Israel's discreet help, in breaking the ruling Syrian dictatorship, there is no assurance at all that it will be replaced by "freedom" and "democracy". Syria is almost as splintered as Lebanon. There is a strong Druze community in the south, a rebellious Kurdish community in the north, an Alawite community (to which the Assad family belongs) in the west. The Sunni majority is traditionally divided between Damascus in the south and Aleppo in the north. The people have resigned themselves to the Assad dictatorship out of fear of what may happen if the regime collapses. It is not likely that a full-scale civil war will break out there. But a prolonged situation of total chaos is quite likely. Sharon would be happy, though I am not sure that it would be good for Israel. Religious fervor: Iran. The main American objective is, of course, the overthrow of the Ayatollahs in Iran. (It is a little bit ironic that at the same time the Americans are helping to install the Shiites in power in neighboring Iraq, where they insist on introducing Islamic law.) Iran is a much harder nut to crack. Unlike to Iraq, Syria and Lebanon, this is a homogenous society. Israel is now openly threatening to bomb the Iranian nuclear installations. Every few days we see on our TV screens the digitally blurred faces of pilots boasting of their readiness to do this at a moment's notice. The religious fervor of the Ayatollahs has been flagging lately, as happens with every victorious revolution after some time. But a military attack by the "Big Satan" (the US) or the "Little Satan" (us) may set fire to the whole Shiite crescent: Iran, South Iraq and South Lebanon. And here, too. Israel, too, has recently witnessed a tiny civil war. In the Galilean village Marrar, where a Druze and an Arab Christian community have been living side by side for generations, a bloody incident suddenly erupted. It was a full-fledged pogrom: the Druze fell upon the Christians, attacking, burning and destroying. By a miracle, nobody was killed. The Christians say that the Israeli police (many of whose members are Druze) stood aside. The immediate reason for the outbreak: some doctored nude pictures on the Internet.) It is easy to ignite a civil war, whether out of fanaticism or out of intolerable naivete. George Bush, the (not-so-) Quiet American, runs around the world hawking his patent medicines, "freedom" and "democracy", in total ignorance of hundreds of years of history. Hard to believe, but he draws his inspiration from a book by our own Nathan Sharansky, a very small genius, to say the least. Every human being and every people has a right to freedom. Many of us have shed their blood for this aim. Democracy is an ideal that every people has to realize for itself. But when the banners of "freedom" and "democracy" are hoisted over a crusade by an avaricious and irresponsible super-power, the results can be catastrophic. Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is one of the writers featured in The Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org. |
