Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
May
19, 2004
Elizabeth
W. Corrie
Caterpillar Should Do the Right Thing,
Now
Bill
and Kathleen Christison
The US Can't Win
Vijay
Prashad
For Whom the Polls Toll: the Indian Elections of 2004
Ray
Hanania
Israeli War Crimes: Who to Believe, AIPAC or Amnesty Intl.?
Greg
Moses
Man President Kisses Up at AIPAC
Michael
Gillespie
Who is Kenneth deGraffenried?
Josh
Frank
Homes Destroyed; Death Toll Mounts: But Where's John Kerry?
Gary
Corseri
Out of Iraq and Plato's Cave
Kevin
Alexander Gray
If Malcolm Were Alive
May
18, 2004
Neve
Gordon
The Gaza Debacle
Doug
Stokes
Imperial Policing: Why Abu Ghraib
Shouldn't Surprise Us
Bob
Wing
The Color of Abu Ghraib
Vanessa
Jones
Man on a Leash
Thomas
P. Healy
Chemical Trespass: the Body Burden
Zeynep
Toufe
Torture and Moral Agency: the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
Kenneth
Roth
Mistreatment of Detainees in US Custody: a Letter to Bush
Elaine
Cassel
Pre-empting the Bill of Rights: The Other War, One Year Later
Website
of the Day
Truth Against Truth
May
17, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The John-John Ticket: Kerry Woos McCain
Laura
Santina
Military Conditioning and Abu Ghraib
Mickey
Z.
With Friends Like These: More Election 2004 Madness
Frederick
B. Hudson
Police Terror: Three Mothers Search for Justice
Shakirah
Esmail-Hudani
Inside Abu Ghraib: the Violence of the Camera
Boris
Leonardo Caro
The Revelations of Mr. W.
Alex
Dawoody
Iraq: From Saddam to Occupation
Victor
Kattan
On Watching the Execution of Nick Berg
Ron
Jacobs
Rumsfeld's Sovereignty Shell Game
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
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.
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May
20, 2004
Breaking the
Taboo
Genocide by
Public Policy
By SAM BAHOUR and MICHAEL DAHAN
Many words are taboo when used to describe
Israel's actions against Palestinians. One word in specific,
genocide, sparks emotions that echo across Israel, Europe and
America. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines genocide as "the
deliberate and systematic destruction of a racial, political,
or cultural group." What is happening in the West Bank,
East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip today is dangerously encroaching
on genocide, close enough so that the pictures of Palestinians
in Rafah loading their meager belongings on carts and evacuating
their homes are too reminiscent of another time, another place
and another people. These very same images should be setting
off alarms in the hearts and minds of Israelis. Unfortunately,
at stake is not the lexicon of conflict but rather, our children,
and we refuse to sit still to watch a deaf, dumb and blind world
steal their future from them.
A few weeks ago, Israeli Professor
and Political Sociologist at Ben Gurion University Lev Grinberg
wrote an article that created an uproar in Israel titled, Symbolic
Genocide1. In it Professor Grinberg wrote, "Unable to recover
from the Holocaust trauma and the insecurity it caused, the Jewish
people, the ultimate victim of genocide, is currently inflicting
a symbolic genocide upon the Palestinian peopleWhat is symbolic
genocide? Every people has its symbols, national leaders and
political institutions, a home land, past and future generations,
and hopes. All these symbolically represent a people. Israel
is systematically damaging, destroying and eradicating all of
these, with unbelievable bureaucratic jargon."
During the last few years and
weeks, in specific, the situation can no longer be accurately
defined as "symbolic." In the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
Palestinian cities and refugee camps are being battered beyond
recognition. This is the same fate that today's very same Israeli
leaders already forced on Palestinians in Lebanon over 20 years
ago and on Palestinians inside Israel proper over 56 years ago.
The Israeli targets have been many, most recently, as we write,
Rafah City and the Rafah refugee camp in the Southern tip of
the Gaza Strip. This isolated poverty-stricken community is facing
the same brute force of the Israeli military occupation that
the Jenin refugee camp, in the North of the West Bank, faced
less than two years ago, if not worse. The Palestinian death
toll has been mounting so steadily that the media does not even
bother anymore to mention the five to six Palestinian deaths
that occur almost daily from Israeli firepower.
Nevertheless, "deliberate
and systematic destruction," as the definition of genocide
illustrates, does not necessarily mean physical killing of people,
albeit Israel is having no problem, and is facing no international
outcry, in doing just that. Destruction, Israeli- occupation
style, is equally focused on demolishing Palestinian homes under
the false pretext of "security." If so many Palestinians
were not being killed and even more being made homeless, this
outdated Israeli-manufactured pretext called "security"
would be laughable.
Israeli newspapers routinely
publish headlines like the following which appeared earlier this
week, "[Israeli] High Court allows Gaza demolitions"
(Ha'aretz, By Yuval Yoaz and Gideon Alon) and the article's lead
was, "[Israeli] Army's `operational necessity' takes precedence."
This High Court is the same that several years ago allowed for
Palestinian political prisoners to be to tortured while under
Israeli detention. Indeed, the Israeli High Court has a long
history of providing legal justification for the heinous actions
of the Israeli military and the security services. This judicial
carte blanche for Israel's illegal occupation is worse than Israeli
politicians publicly discussing which Palestinian is next on
their assassination list or how Palestinians should be "transferred"
out of homes and cities all together. What Israel is doing is
planned, organized, systematic and illegal. It is a wicked policy
being discussed in full view of the public eye. On the other
hand, Amnesty International, which historically has water-downed
the injustices afflicted on Palestinians, has released a report
today stating that by destroying these homes (over 3,000 and
causing damage to 16,000 more homes) and displacing thousands
of Palestinians, making them refugees again for the umpteenth
time, "are war crimes2." Yet the world remains silent.
As Professor Grinberg stated,
"This is a dangerous policy. It poses an existential threat
to the Palestinian people, but also to the state of Israel and
its citizens, thereby endangering the entire Middle East."
Nothing could be closer to
the truth. With every Palestinian assassinated from Israeli helicopter
gunships, with every Palestinian home demolished, with every
Palestinian illegally detained in Israeli prisons, ten times
as many children are witnessing their ill fate before their very
own eyes. Palestinian children now routinely climb on top of
Israeli tanks invading their cities. Sadly, young Palestinians
who have equated their life the only life they know
under this brutal military occupation to death are being recruited
to take innocent Israeli lives along with them while committing
suicide themselves. Victims of a naked aggression, Palestinians
are slowly losing control of their society and being blamed for
it as well. Israelis too are beginning to glorify death rather
than life, as Israeli psychologist, Yoram Yovel recently noted
in an editorial in Ha'aretz newspaper (May 17, 2004). He notes
that what is happening in Gaza reflects a deep psychological
process that Israeli society is undergoing, making it more and
more similar to Hamas and the Islamic Jihad.
As the world powers watch the
Palestinians being destroyed as a people, they have the arrogance
and audacity to demand that a caged people develop and align
their society's institutions for inclusion in a globalized world.
While the world's sole superpower watches, funds and provides
political cover for the maze of Israeli military checkpoints
and cement walls being erected to encircle Palestinian cities,
they have the nerve to preach to Palestinians about necessary
governmental and economic reforms and WTO accession. As if economic
liberalization is a solution for the humanitarian and political
disaster facing the Palestinian people, the world's organizations,
including the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan himself, are acknowledging
Israeli war crimes while casually sending more teams of foreign
consultants to document the gravity of the situation and suggest
boilerplate reforms.
Knowing Palestinians ability
to remain steadfast in the face of earthshaking odds, we would
venture to bet that Palestinians will continue to sustain the
damages being systematically inflicted upon them. Palestinian
students will continue their studies, even in makeshift schools
if necessary. Palestinian investors and businesspersons will
continue to invest and over extend themselves to maintain even
the minimal level of jobs possible. Palestinian women, the real
unknown soldiers, will continue to be the thread of steel that
hold together the strongest Palestinian institution yet, the
family. All of this can be expected, not because President Bush
has some kind of blurry vision that keeps getting repeated like
a broken record, but rather because Palestinians are the owners
of a just cause and have been programmed to survive, despite
all odds, and will continue to juggle two extraordinary struggles,
one to free themselves from military occupation and the other
to build for statehood.
Why does the community of nations
refuse the screaming calls for an international peace-keeping
presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, especially
and immediately in the Gaza Strip, to prevent further escalation
and destruction. The least the world could do is to stand between
our two peoples, for both of our people's sake, and theirs.
If, to use Professor Grinberg's
words again, "Silence under the present circumstances means
acquiescence," then what does one call the United States'
blatant arming, financial support and political cover for Israel's
or its own in Iraq for that matter -- current policy of
destruction and self-destruction?
Indeed, "genocide"
seems too accommodating for such arrogance of power.
1 http://www.amin.org/eng/lev_grinberg/2004/mar23.html
2 http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150502004
Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman
living in the besieged Palestinian City of Al-Bireh in the West
Bank and can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
Dr. Michael Dahan is an Israeli-American political scientist
living in Jerusalem and teaching at Ben Gurion University. He
can be reached at mdahan@attglobal.net.
First published in News from
Within, http://www.newsfromwithin.org
Feel free to distribute/republish with credit to News from Within.
Weekend
Edition Features for May 15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
|