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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
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Five
Days That
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Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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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
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Reviews of Gore:
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February 22,
2002
Occupation Begins to Crack
By Sam Bahour and Michael
Dahan
To date, 272 officers and soldiers of the Israeli
army have signed the initiative to refuse to serve the illegal
Israeli occupation of Palestinians, while thousands of other
Israeli citizens have expressed their support. Those that have
signed are not pacifists nor are they particularly radical. They
are well- trained combat officers and soldiers who are no longer
willing to take part in the crimes being committed against the
Palestinians.
In their letter, which has raised a great
deal of public debate within Israel and beyond, the soliders
state that:
"We, combat officers and soldiers
who have served the State of Israel for long weeks every year,
in spite of the dear cost to our personal lives, have been on
reserve duty all over the Occupied Territories, and were issued
commands and directives that had nothing to do with the security
of our country, and that had the sole purpose of perpetuating
our control over the Palestinian people. We, whose eyes have
seen the bloody toll this Occupation exacts from both sides...
We, who sensed how the commands issued to us in the Territories,
destroy all the values we had absorbed while growing up in this
country... We, who understand now that the price of Occupation
is the loss of IDF's [Israeli Army] human character and the corruption
of the entire Israeli society... We shall not continue to fight
beyond the 1967 borders in order to dominate, expel, starve and
humiliate an entire people." [The full text of the letter
is available at http://www.seruv.org.il].
While critics claim that these soldiers
are only a small fraction of those serving in the army reserves,
the initiative of these brave reservists has succeeded in bringing
the horrors of the Occupation to the front pages of the newspapers,
radio and TV talk shows, as well as in the street and in living
rooms all over Israel. The chilling personal accounts of the
reservists have served to shatter the silence and the ignorance
of the Israeli public. This is even more crucial considering
that Sharon has been quoted as saying that Israel is restricted
in its response to Palestinian violence because "The world
today is not the same as as it was 50 years ago. It is another
world. The media is everywhere. Every event is seen around the
globe within seconds." Perhaps around the globe, but not
necessarily within Israel, and in this lies the importance of
those that have decided to refuse to serve in the territories.
No longer can people claim that they
were not aware of what is happening: the daily humiliation of
the Palestinian civilian population, the senseless deaths of
infants, children and teenagers, the daily abuse of basic human
rights, the indignities that Palestinian civilians face at the
hands of Israeli soldiers at the various checkpoints and blockades
throughout the Occupied Territories. No longer can the actions
of the IDF be swept under the carpet or ignored as "isolated
incidents". For too long, the majority of the press in Israel
has supported the official positions of the government and the
army, thus maintaining the status quo, and neglecting their role
as watchdogs of society. Indeed, these reservists have succeeded
in providing a wake up call for the Israeli public in general,
and the Israeli left in particular. Over the past few weeks,
tens of thousands of Israelis have taken to the streets to protest
against the Occupation, to speak out against the violence and
to call for a return to the negotiating table with the purpose
of ending the Israeli Occuption, once and for all.
As was clearly shown by his address to
the nation last night, Sharon and his cabinet are incapable of
drafting any kind of clear and positive political strategy, nor
are they capable of seeing beyond the next few hours. With an
unprecedented 10.2% unemployment within Israel, a 17% redcution
of immigration to Israel and a drastic decrease in foreign direct
investment in 2001, the government must realize that it has to
choose between "Occupation and Prosperity" as noted
in a recent editorial in Ha'aretz newspaper (http://www.haaretzdaily.com).
The Occupation is not only corrupting Israeli society and values
but it is also pushing Israel towards economic disaster.
The only way to move forward is for Israel
to rid itself of the Occupation, to withdraw to 1967 borders,
to dismantle the illegal settlements and to wholeheartedly support
a free, sovereign and independent Palestinian state. This will
guarantee the prosperity of both Israelis and Palestinians alike.
Sam Bahour
is a Palestinian-American living in the besieged Palestinian
City of Al-Bireh in the West Bank and can be reached at sbahour@palnet.com.
Michael Dahan is an Israeli-American political scientist
living in Jerusalem and can be reached at mdahan@attglobal.net.
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