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March
19, 2002
Fran Shor
Child-Murderers
and Madmen
March
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Crazy
is Cool
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
What's Playing At My House
Armen
Khanbabyan
The
Pentagon in the Caucasus:
Georgia Is Only the Beginning
Gabriel
Ash
Abdullah
v. Osama
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
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
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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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This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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March 19, 2002
Bomber Blair
By Ben White
It is a fact that when a politician says something
you must carefully analyze why it was said. The grander the statement
the closer the scrutiny must be. This is because messianic visions
and courageous vows are not usually followed by accompanying
actions. Unfortunately, in the happy coincidence that deed matches
rhetoric, it is often when implementing xenophobic immigration
policies, proclaiming new infringements on civil liberties or
trumpeting new crusades against the oppressed.
Tony Blair is, perhaps, more prone than
most to discrepancies in promise and delivery. But his recent
war mongering towards Iraq has the ring of sincerity and there
is a sad inevitability about Blair's involvement in Bush's war.
The press statements from Downing Street,
the diplomatic language and the direct message from Blair himself
all point in one direction: Baghdad. In this, the honest Tommy
is merely running after the advancing US forces, such is the
certainty that Bush will launch war against Iraq before the year
is out. Of course, the attack will not have anything to do with
tackling the issue of terrorism, in spite of the best efforts
of the US and UK administrations to seamlessly extend the 'war'
on Al-Qaeda to 'rogue states'.
Ideological opposition, geopolitics,
oil and extension of the US Empire are the real driving forces
behind the belligerence and eventual attack. It should be understood
within the context of world history since World War II, where
the US has fought 'evil' enemies ('communism', 'rogue states',
and 'terrorism') as a thin veil to cover its imperial ambition.
So where does Tony fit in?
It appears that Mr Blair has decided
to throw his lot in with the US in their mission to "save
western civilisation". Blair's actual beliefs are hard to
pinpoint, if they exist at all. However, for British critics
of the war, Blair's motivations are largely irrelevant. The 18th
century philosopher Helvétius thought that it did not
matter whether those who prevented happiness where actually malicious,
ignorant or idealistic fools. Maybe, Blair genuinely believes
that war on Iraq will benefit its citizens and the region as
a whole. Maybe, Blair is simply doing the Empire's bidding. Whatever,
the results would be the same; innocent civilians will die, and
stability in the Middle East threatened.
Now is the time for Members of Parliament
and the general public in Britain to make their opposition very
clear to Tony Blair. It is pointless to appeal to his humanity;
a Damascene conversion from the ideology of 'destroying the village
to save it'/ 'bombing them out of their burqas' is unlikely.
Rather, let us remind him that he is
actually an elected representative of the British people. Bombing
Iraq will cost him votes and allegiances. The prospect of orphaned
Iraqi children will not change Blair's mind. But losing an election
might.
Ben White
is a student from Derby, England. He can be reached at: benwhite1983@yahoo.com
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