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Today's
Stories
January 24,
2006
Kathy Kelly
Liberation
and Deliverance
Jorge Mariscal
Bush's War Viewed from the South
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Smoke
and Mirrors in the Defense Budget
Noam Chomsky
The Terrorist in the Mirror
January 23,
2006
Uri Avnery
Pity
the Orphan: Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Elections
Susan Pynchon
Diebold in Florida: "I Saw It Hacked"
William Loren
Katz
Harry Belafonte Reaffirms a Proud Tradition
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's IRS: Squeezing the Poor
Chris Floyd
The Goon Show
Joshua Frank
Tre Arrow and ELF: Environmentalism on Death Row
Norman Solomon
The Other Shoe Drops: Classified Leaks and Journalists
Jackie Corr
Working for the Railroad: Racicot and the Burlington Northern
Paul Craig
Roberts
Inside
Cheney's War Workshop
Website of the Day
Arms Against War
January 21/22,
2006
Tim Shorrock
Why
the Buses Didn't Come: Bush-Linked Florida Company and the Katrina
Evacuation Fiasco
Ralph Nader
Congressional
Ethics After Abramoff
Peter Feng
Casualties of War: Neoliberalism, Katrina and the Asian Tsunami
Brian Cloughley
CIA Bombs Pakistan, Hits America
Michael Donnelly
Tapes and Snitches: Feds Hand Down Eco-Sabotage Indictments
Tom Kerr
Crackdown in San Quentin: Why are They Rounding Up Tookie Williams'
Friends?
Tim Matson
Best Not Drive While Black on I-91
(But Walk Tall With the Bloody Chainsaw You Just Topped Your
Neighbor With)
Dave Lindorff
Rumsfeld: Venezuela "Overspending" on Military
Daniel Wolff
Hour of Reckoning: the Gospel Roots of Wilson Pickett
Fred Gardner
"Metabolic Syndrome" is to "Clinical Depression"
as Acomplia is Prozac
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Used the NSA to Spy on Americans Prior to 9/11
Matthew Koehler
Betting on Biscuit: Does Post-Fire Logging Make Ecological (or
Economic) Sense?
John Bomar
The Emperor's Clothes: from Bonaparte to Bush
Ron Jacobs
When Miners March: Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win!
Becky Akers
Debunking Democracy
Joanne Mariner
Security, Terrorism and Human Rights
St. Clair / Walker / Pollack
CounterPunch Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Holt, Engel and Davies
Website of the Day
Osama's Book Club: Featured Selection
January 20, 2006
Brian J. Foley
What
Kind of War Doesn't Allow for a Truce?
Richard Gott
Revolution in the Andes
Joshua Frank
Israel and US Threats Against Iran
Pierre Tristam
Imperial Mongers: From Gladstone to "King George"
Bernstein /
Allegretto
Hourly Wages Have Fallen in 18 of the Last 20 Months
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion
Before Roe
Website of
the Day
This Dog Bites
January 19,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Political
Machines: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Bill Simpich
Those Damn Democrats: To End War, Don't Ask for What You Don't
Want
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Reclaiming King Day (From the NAACP)
Sam Husseini
Rot at the Top: If the Democrats Really Want to Stop Bush, They
Need New Leadership
Sam Smith
The Real Chocolate City
Monica Benderman
Dare to Make a Stand
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Just
How Big is the Defense Budget?
Website of the Day
Leave My Child Alone
January 18,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Gore's
Speech: a Challenge That Cannot be Ignored
Norman Solomon
The Crime of Giving the Orders: Executing Clarence Ray Allen
Jonathan M.
Feldman
The System Doesn't Work Anymore
Michael Carmichael
"Extraordinary Circumstances": the Case Against Alito
Paul D'Amato
The Crimes of Jimmy Carter
Cynthia McKinney
King's Mission Endures
Norman Finkelstein
Why
an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified
Website of the Day
The Planetary Movement
January 17,
2006
M. Shahid Alam
"Real
Men Go to Tehran": Has al-Qaeda's Gambit Paid Off?
John Ross
Latin
America's Indians on the Move--in Different Directions
Tariq Ali
God, Blood, Oil and Iraq
Michael Donnelly
Killing Anna Mae Aquash, Smearing John Trudell
Amira Hass
No Child Left Unharassed: the Obstacle Course to School in Palestine
Doug Giebel
Alito's CAP: Either He Lied on His Resumé or There's a
Cover-Up
Bill Quigley
MLK Day in a Haitian Prison
Ron Jacobs
Meet the Son of Jim Crow: MLK Day Below the Mason/Dixon Line
Mike Stark
Governor on a Killling Spree
Werther
The Liberties of the Subject
January 16, 2006
John Walsh
Tears
of a Neocon: The Good News from Daniel Pipes
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Black
Students Under Fire: Racial Profiling in Public Schools
Roger Burbach
Bachelet's
Victory: Leftward Drift in Chile?
Norman Solomon
Ted Koppel, NPR and Henry Kissinger: a Natural Fit?
Robert Jensen
Dreams and Nightmares: How Would King Judge America?
Sam Husseini
Martin Luther King and the Deeper Malady
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Crosses the Rubicon
Website of the Day
MLK: Beyond Vietnam
January 14
/ 15, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
What
the FBI Repairman Wore When He Tried to Bug Edward Said
JoAnn Wypijewski
What
is an Antiwar Movement?
James Petras
The State of the Empire, 2006
Ron Jacobs
Fifteen Years of War: Who's Better Off?
Brian Cloughley
Fly Boys and Lie Boys: Smart-Bombing Iraqi Families While They
Sleep
Marianne McDonald
The Madness of Ajax: a Play for Our Time
Bruce Tyler Wick
Bush on Torture Echoes Charles I on Arbitrary Imprisonment
Fred Gardner
A Last, Desperate Plea to Stay in Canada
Flavia Alaya
Victory at Passaic County Jail
Gary Leupp
A Neocon Plan to Plant WMDs?
Dr. Susan Block
Peeping Tom in the Bush: Nonconsenual Voyeurism and the NSA
Nicole Colson
The House Jack Built: The Abramoff Giude to Buying Friends and
Influencing Politics
Jeffrey Kolakowski
Senator as Illusionist: the Hypocrisies of John McCain
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Stepford Hearings of Samuel Alito: The Senator, the Weepy
Wife and a Secret Annoiting
Charles Thomson
Is Serota Dead in the Water?: the Ofili Scandal at the Tate
St. Clair /
Walker / Vest
Playlsts: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Historians Against the War
January 13,
2006
Ralph Nader
The
Two Questions the Senate Should Have Asked Alito
Leonard Weinglass
The
Singular Story of the Cuban Five
Amira Hass
Prisoners in Their Own Land: 800,000 Palestinians Sealed Off
by IDF in West Bank
Chris Kutalik
/ Jennifer Biddle
Airline Workers Fight Back
Lawrence R. Velvel
Alito and the Democrats
Dave Lindorff
Eight Who Dared: a (Short) Congressional Honor Roll
Mike Whitney
Countdown to War with Iran?
David Price
How
the FBI Spied on Edward Said
January 12,
2006
Jennifer Van
Bergen
The
Unitary Executive: Why the Bush Doctrine Violates the Constitution
Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith
Command Responsibility: Torture and Legal Accountability
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Alito
Refuses to Answer Fundamental Questions
Ralph Nader / Robert Weissman
Corporations, Originalism and the Bill of Rights: an Open Letter
to Justice Scalia
Jackie Corr
Killing the Big Sky's Golden Goose: Marc Racicot and the Deregulation
of Montana Power
Jared Bernstein
The Wage Doldrums
Russell D.
Hoffman
New Horizons in Space, New Lows in Government
Aubrey Streit
I Was Born in a Small Town: the Fate of Rural America
Clancy Sigal
Hugh
Thompson and My Lai: He Broke Ranks; He Did the Right Thing
Website of the Day
Nukes in Space
January 11,
2006
Kevin Zeese
NSA
Spied on Baltimore Peace Group (And They've Got the Documents
That Prove It)
Ray McGovern
The
Big Wiretap
Allan Maass
/ Joe Allen
Schwarzenegger's
Hit List: Smearing Mandela, Killing Tookie
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Snatching at King's Legacy: Mythmaking, Profiteering & Outright
Distortions
Annie Murphy
Evo Morales' Sweater
Allan Lichtman
Abramoff's
Kind of Big Government
Ramzy Baroud
Politics of Chaos: Gaza's Turmoil in Context
Joshua Frank
MoveOn Surrenders to Hillary
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
"Eating
Palestine for Breakfast": the Real Sharon
Website of
the Day
Memoirs of Rummy's Geisha
January 10,
2006
Uri Avnery
The
Post-Sharon Landscape: Three Fingers, No Fist
Saul Landau
Different
Americas
Noam Chomsky
Beyond the Ballot: Iraq, Iran and China
Brian J. Foley
Playing with Fire: Congress and Executive Power
Lenni Brenner
The War Within the Antiwar Movement
Ronan Sheehan
Sheehan to Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan's Irish Interview
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Con Jobs
January 9,
2006
Behzad Yaghmaian
Who
is to Blame for the Deaths of the Sudanese Refugees?
George Bisharat
US
Aid to Israel is Out of Hand
Dave Lindorff
How the US Press Squelches Bush Impeachment Drive
Norman Solomon
Smoke a Marlboro, Then an Iraqi: How Media War Images Distort
Not Inform
Christopher Brauchli
The Generosity of Credit Card Companies
Aharon Shabtai
A Poet's Letter on the Occupation
Andrew Cockburn
How
Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
January 7 /
8, 2006
Lawrence Velvel
The
NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year
James Petras
AIPAC on Trial: Them or US
J.L. Chestnut
Racism and Injustice in Alabama's Courts
Mike Ely
The Dead Miners in Sago
Andrew Wilson
The Dying of Ariel Sharon
Lila Rajiva
Two Moms Go to Capitol Hill
William Cook
The Rape of Palestine
Ramor Ryan
The Sub Motorcycle Diaries: On the Road with the Zapatistas
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
An Interview with Michael Scheuer on the CIA's Rendition Program
Peter Montague
Inherit the Wind: the Global Spread of GMO Crops
Ron Jacobs
Would Ethan Allen Pay to Protest?
Neve Gordon
Images of Real Eco-Terrorism in Twaneh
Fred Gardner
Business as Usual in San Diego
Josh Mahon
Idaho Timber Industry Leader Advocates Violence Against Green's
Mom
Dr. Susan Block
Abramoff Family Values: the Lobbyist Who Screwed Us All
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of the Weekend
Bush Crimes Commission
January 6,
2006
José
Pertierra
Posada
Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets
Joe Allen
Gary Freeman's Struggle: a Black Radical from the 1960s Fights
Extradition to the US
Winslow T. Wheeler
Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment
John Bomar
A Former NSA Officer on Snoopgate: the Squawkers Should be Congratulated
Jason Leopold
Snoop and Shred
Norman Solomon
Axis of Fanatics: Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad
Robert Pollin
Remembering
Harry Magdoff: the Man Who Explained the Empire
January 5,
2006
Scott Boehm
Big
Profits, Buried Lives: Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
Zoltan Grossman
New
Challenges for the Antiwar Movement
Heather Gray
Whistling
Dixie Yet Again
Haninah Levine
Simple
is Dangerous: the Pentagon's Plan for a Manhattan Project on
IEDs
Pierre Tristam
The Sham of Homeland Security: a West Virginia Parable
Remi Kanazi
Stroke of Luck?: Political Hemorrhage in Israel
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon
Meets His Maker
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine
January 4,
2006
Ron Jacobs
Pity
the Miner: A-Diggin' My Bones
Lila Rajiva
Terror
Hits Bangalore
Huibin Amee
Chew
Why
the War is Sexist
Pat Williams
How the West Turned: Biting the Hands That Steal
Linda Milazzo
The House That George and Jack Built: Ownership Society Meets
the Entrepreneurial Style
Nick Dearden
The Fantasy of "Even-Handedness": Blair's Cynical Policy
on Palestine
James Petras
Evo
Morales: All Growl, No Claws?
Website of
the Day
Rat Out a Lobbyist for Jesus
January 3,
2006
James Ridgeway
Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: How Much Did the Bush Administration Know?
Laith al-Saud
Iraqi
Intellectuals and the Occupation: an Interview with Dr. Saad
Jawad
Dick J. Reavis
Border
Walls: the View from Mexico
Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
Rochelle Gause
Inside Rafah: Collective Punishment as Normalcy
Missy Comley
Beattie
How My Mother Went from a Republican to a Screaming Progressive
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary of Dispossession
January 2,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Gestapo Administration
Clancy Sigal
A Trip to the Far Side of Madness
Cindy Sheehan
A Tour of Europe: Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes
Alexander Cockburn
A
NYT Editorial Contemplates Iraq
Dec. 31 / Jan.
1, 2005/6
Patrick Cockburn
The
Year in Iraq
Alexander Cockburn
Who Are We to Complain?: a Diary of 2005
Ralph Nader
Rumsfeld vs. the Military: a Pentagon of Loyalists and Enforcers
James Petras
The Politics of Language: "Escalation" or "Retaliation"
in Israeli Attacks on Palestinians
Peter Montague
A Darker Bioweapons Future
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Black Forever: Race, Class and Activism in the South
Vijay Prashad
My California Vacation: Conversations with Indian Americans
P. Sainath
Farm Suicides in Vidharbha
James Brooks
The Spoils of War: Israel's Corruption was Inevitable
Eileen E. Schell
The Farmer Wants a Wife: Hayseeds and Hickxploitation in the
Land of Reality TV
Christopher
Brauchli
Birds of a Feather: George and Vlad
Jo Guldi
Politics, Gay Marriage and Christianity
Fred Gardner
America's Only Legal Grower
Ben Tripp
A Hapless New Year
St. Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening To This Week
Poets Basement
Engel, Albert, LaMorticella, Buknatski, Davies, Ford and Bear
Dog
Website of
the Weekend
Commit Bloggamy with Dr. Suzy
December 30,2005
Evo Morales
I
Believe Only in the Power of the People
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
The
Toxic Air in Black America
Dave Lindorff
Bush's NSA Spying Jeopardizes National Security
Gary Leupp
Targeting Iran and Syria: Goss Builds Case for Turkey-Based Attacks
Ron Jacobs
A
Dead New Year's Eve
Brian Concannon
Down
in Haiti, the Chickens are Coming Home to Roost
Sandra Lucas
Inside TeenScreen: the Making of Mental Patients
T.W. Croft
The
Wind Has Changed: Gulf Storms, Fables of Reconstruction and Hard
Times for the Big Easy
Website of
the Day
Images
of Mass Consumption
December 29,
2005
Norman Solomon
Journalists
Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them
Missy Comley
Beattie
Christmas
Without Chase
Dave Zirin
Over the Edge: the Year in Sports
Kevin Zeese
Top
10 Antiwar Stories of 2005
Derrick O'Keefe
Bolivia and Venezuela Offer an Alternative to Neo-Liberalism
Sam Bahour
Turning the Page in Palestine, Again
Macdonald Stainsby
What's Behind Paul Martin's Broadside Against Bush?
Bill &
Kathleen Christison
Let's Stop a US/Israel War on Iran
Website of the Day
Deconstructing the Democrats
December 28,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life?
Lila Rajiva
Operation Romeo: Lessons on Terror Laws from India
Amira Hass
The Humanitarian Lie
Joshua Frank
Let the Drilling Begin: Iraq's IMF Loan
David Swanson
Leaking Top Secret Lies
Richard Thieme
High Time for Torture
Paul Craig
Roberts
Three
Books to Wake You Up
Website of the Day
Conyers Report: "Constitution in Crisis"
December 27,
2005
Evan Jones
Whither
the National Guard?
Uri Avnery
The Peretz Shuffle
Mike Whitney
Pop Goes the Bubble!
Gideon Levy
Dusty Trail to Death
David Swanson
Kurt Vonnegut: a Man Without a Country
Norman Solomon
NSA Spied on UN Diplomats During Push for Invasion of Iraq
December 26,
2005
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The
Usurpers of Our Freedoms
Lance Olsen
The Toughest Challenge for Intelligent Design
Ben Terrall
No Holiday Compassion for Haiti's Political Prisoners
Scott Boehm
Santa Drove a Bulldozer
Charlie Ehlen
A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Bush
Tom Kerr
The Atheist Dad at Christmas
December 24/25,
2005
Aleander Cockburn
The
Year of Vanished Credibility
James Petras
Iran in the Crosshairs: Israel's Deadline
Ralph Nader
Talkin'
About the "I"-Word
Lila Rajiva
Horowitz's New Project: Begging for Brownshirts
Fred Gardner
Dialogue with the DEA
Ron Jacobs
When Impeachment was Taken Seriously
Dave Lindorff
Xmas Games for a Gitmo World
Gary Leupp
Happy Birthday Mithras!: the True Meaning of December 25th
Saul Landau
Bush's Year in Review: a Report Card from Santa
John Chuckman
A Christmas Tale for Bushtime
Dr. Susan Block
Merry XXX-mas!
St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Holt, Jones, Landau, Ross and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Merry Xmas, From the Beatles
December 23,
2005
John Ross
The
Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty
Chris Floyd
Gospel
Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie
Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey
The
Economy in a Nutshell
Joanne Mariner
Bringing
Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill
Eric Johnson-Debaufre
The Trew Law of Free Democracies?
Ray McGovern
Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward
J. L. Chestnut,
Jr.
What
White America Doesn't Hear
Website of
the Day
BB King: What I've Learned This Year
December 22,
2005
Ingmar Lee
The
Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion
Elisa Salasin
Classrooms
in Cages
Christopher
Brauchli
Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution
of the United States"
Robin Blackburn
Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist
Evelyn Pringle
Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal
Amira Hass
A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me"
Francis A.
Boyle
Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant"
Stew Albert
The
Spies Who Thought We Were Messy
Website of
the Day
How to Reach a Human Voice
December 21,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
One
Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty
Lila Rajiva
A Short History of Radio Free Iraq
Joshua Frank
Nancy Pelosi's Truth
Dave Zirin
The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano
Ramzy Baroud
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
Sonia Nettnin
Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo
Ben Saul
Torture as Calculated Policy
Jonathan Cronin
Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Election Spells Total Defeat for US
Website of
the Day
Nixon on Presidential Power
December 20,
2005
Jackie Corr
Natural
Gas: a Montana Tragedy
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Nothing
New About NSA Spying on Americans
Michael Donnelly
"Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono?
Gian Paulo
Accardo
Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler
Pierre Tristam
Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution
Norman Solomon
The Foulest Media Performances of the Year
Sen. Robert Byrd
No President is Above the Law
Dave Lindorff
Missing
Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by
NTSB, Concealed by FBI
Website of the Day
FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?
December 19,
2005
Mike Marqusee
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Gary Leupp
Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"
Ron Jacobs
The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld
John Blair
Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience
Gideon Levy
Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint
Kevin Zeese
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Missy Comley Beattie
Warnings from a Military Man and Dad
Don Santina
Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency
Website of the Day
A Call for Justice in Palestine
December 17
/ 18, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Time-Delayed
Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation
Gabriel Kolko
The
Decline of the American Empire
Susan Alcorn
Texas: Three Days and Two Nights
Werther
The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party
Ralph Nader
The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin
Patrick Cockburn
Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad
Fred Gardner
When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis?
Dave Lindorff
Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA
Ned Sublette
Essence is Gasoline
Lee Sustar
The Class War Economy
Jason Leopold
Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case?
Laura Carlsen
Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization
Jeff White
Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace?
Ray McGovern
Torture Between the Lines
Chris Floyd
Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah
William Loren Katz
Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs.
the Seminoles
Rose Miriam
Elizalde
Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time
Greg Moses
Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America
Heather Gray
Privatizing the Social Contract
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel
St Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau, Engel and Albert
Website of
the Day
At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters
December 16,
2005
Tom Kerr
CNN's
Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace?
Mark Engler
The
WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty?
John Bomar
When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Votes; Now What?
Pierre Tristam
Iraq, Ourselves
William S. Lind
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
Cyril Neville
Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans
Robert Jensen
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design
Saul Landau
Bolivian
Democracy and the US: a History Lesson
Website
CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies
December 15,
2005
Oren Ben-Dor
The
Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine
Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists"
Needn't Bother
Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics
Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals
Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad
Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs
Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quentin
Vijay Prashad
Our
Torture Problem
Website of
the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"
December 14, 2005
Patrick Cockburn
Iran
Poised to Win Iraqi Elections
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lethal
Developments
Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward
Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami
John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors
Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment
Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker
April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America
December 13,
2005
Stephen T.
Banko, III
Heroes
Patrick Cockburn
America's
War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong
Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO
Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin
Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London
Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin
Michael G.
Smith
Ending the Death Penalty
Stew Albert
California Killers
Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson
Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin
Website of
the Day
Boot Hill
December 12,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Defenders of Torture
Lawrence R.
Velvel
George the Disconnected
Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo
George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds
Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does
It Make a Sound?
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience
Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq:
the Beginning of the End
Website of
the Day
Wrestling for Peace
December 10 / 11, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
All
the News That's Fit to Buy
Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus
Ralph Nader
The
Widening Wasteland of American Media
Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore
Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day
Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court
Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem
Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd
Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest
Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice
John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice
John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and
US Foreign Policy
Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens
Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union
Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984
John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White
Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?
St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel
Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush
December 9,
2005
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Roots
of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home
Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark
On
Seeing Wesley Baker Die
Patrick Cockburn
Blair
Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush
Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill
Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive
Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?
Andrew Cockburn
Meet
Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"
December 8,
2005
Kathy Kelly
Blessed
are the Merciful in Baghdad
James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)
William S.
Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory
Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico
Justin Akers
Bush's Border War
Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?
Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam
Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn
The
Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War
December 7,
2005
John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate
Gary Leupp
Suicide
Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq
Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas
Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith
Bush
War Crimes: the Posse Gathers
Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary
William W.
Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy
Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Website of
the Day
Witnesses to Torture
December 6,
2005
Ron Jacobs
No
One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel
Patrick Cockburn
Inside
Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder
Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's
AIDS Policy
Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America
Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
to Europe: Trust Us
Website of
the Day
Debunking Woodward
December 5,
2005
John Walsh
The
Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did
They Know It?
Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative
Value of Human Lives
Mokhiber /
Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz
Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment
Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated
Federal Laws When They Fired Me
Lila Rajiva
The
Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment
December 3 / 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig
Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s
St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play
Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show
Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla
Website of
the Day
Rare Erotica
|
January
24, 2006
Grievances and Consequences
The Terrorist in the
Mirror
By NOAM CHOMSKY
"Terror" is a term that rightly arouses strong
emotions and deep concerns. The primary concern should, naturally,
be to take measures to alleviate the threat, which has been severe
in the past, and will be even more so in the future. To proceed
in a serious way, we have to establish some guidelines. Here
are a few simple ones:
(1) Facts matter, even if we
do not like them.
(2) Elementary moral principles
matter, even if they have consequences that we would prefer not
to face.
(3) Relative clarity matters.
It is pointless to seek a truly precise definition of "terror,"
or of any other concept outside of the hard sciences and mathematics,
often even there. But we should seek enough clarity at least
to distinguish terror from two notions that lie uneasily at its
borders: aggression and legitimate resistance.
If we accept these guidelines,
there are quite constructive ways to deal with the problems of
terrorism, which are quite severe. It's commonly claimed that
critics of ongoing policies do not present solutions. Check the
record, and I think you will find that there is an accurate translation
for that charge: "They present solutions, but I don't like
them."
Suppose, then, that we accept
these simple guidelines. Let's turn to the "War on Terror."
Since facts matter, it matters that the War was not declared
by George W. Bush on 9/11, but by the Reagan administration 20
years earlier.
They came into office declaring
that their foreign policy would confront what the President called
"the evil scourge of terrorism," a plague spread by
"depraved opponents of civilization itself" in "a
return to barbarism in the modern age" (Secretary of State
George Shultz). The campaign was directed to a particularly virulent
form of the plague: state-directed international terrorism. The
main focus was Central America and the Middle East, but it reached
to southern Africa and Southeast Asia and beyond.
A second fact is that the war was declared and implemented by
pretty much the same people who are conducting the re-declared
war on terrorism. The civilian component of the re-declared War
on Terror is led by John Negroponte, appointed last year to supervise
all counterterror operations. As Ambassador in Honduras, he was
the hands-on director of the major operation of the first War
on Terror, the contra war against Nicaragua launched mainly from
US bases in Honduras. I'll return to some of his tasks. The military
component of the re-declared War led by Donald Rumsfeld. During
the first phase of the War on Terror, Rumsfeld was Reagan's special
representative to the Middle East. There, his main task was to
establish close relations with Saddam Hussein so that the US
could provide him with large-scale aid, including means to develop
WMD, continuing long after the huge atrocities against the Kurds
and the end of the war with Iran. The official purpose, not concealed,
was Washington's responsibility to aid American exporters and
"the strikingly unanimous view" of Washington and its
allies Britain and Saudi Arabia that "whatever the sins
of the Iraqi leader, he offered the West and the region a better
hope for his country's stability than did those who have suffered
his repression" -- New York Times Middle East correspondent
Alan Cowell, describing Washington's judgment as George Bush
I authorized Saddam to crush the Shi'ite rebellion in 1991, which
probably would have overthrown the tyrant.
Saddam is at last on trial for his crimes. The first trial, now
underway, is for crimes he committed in 1982. 1982 happens to
be an important year in US-Iraq relations. It was in 1982 that
Reagan removed Iraq from the list of states supporting terror
so that aid could flow to his friend in Baghdad. Rumsfeld then
visited Baghdad to confirm the arrangements. Judging by reports
and commentary, it would be impolite to mention any of these
facts, let alone to suggest that some others might be standing
alongside Saddam before the bar of justice. Removing Saddam from
the list of states supporting terrorism left a gap. It was at
once filled by Cuba, perhaps in recognition of the fact that
the US terrorist wars against Cuba from 1961 had just peaked,
including events that would be on the front pages right now in
societies that valued their freedom, to which I'll briefly return.
Again, that tells us something about the real elite attitudes
towards the plague of the modern age.
Since the first War on Terror was waged by those now carrying
out the redeclared war, or their immediate mentors, it follows
that anyone seriously interested in the re-declared War on Terror
should ask at once how it was carried out in the 1980s. The topic,
however, is under a virtual ban. That becomes understandable
as soon as we investigate the facts: the first War on Terror
quickly became a murderous and brutal terrorist war, in every
corner of the world where it reached, leaving traumatized  societies
that may never recover. What happened is hardly obscure, but
doctrinally unacceptable, therefore protected from inspection.
Unearthing the record is an enlightening exercise, with enormous
implications for the future.
These are a few of the relevant facts, and they definitely do
matter. Let's turn to the second of the guidelines: elementary
moral principles. The most elementary is a virtual truism: decent
people apply to themselves the same standards that they apply
to others, if not more stringent ones. Adherence to this principle
of universality would have many useful consequences. For one
thing, it would save a lot of trees. The principle would radically
reduce published reporting and commentary on social and political
affairs. It would virtually eliminate the newly fashionable discipline
of Just War theory. And it would wipe the slate almost clean
with regard to the War on Terror. The reason is the same in all
cases: the principle of universality is rejected, for the most
part tacitly, though sometimes explicitly. Those are very sweeping
statements. I purposely put them in a stark form to invite you
to challenge them, and I hope you do. You will find, I think,
that although the statements are somewhat overdrawn--purposely
-- they nevertheless are uncomfortably close to accurate, and
in fact very fully documented. But try for yourselves and see.
This most elementary of moral truisms is sometimes upheld at
least in words. One example, of critical importance today, is
the Nuremberg Tribunal. In sentencing Nazi war criminals to death,
Justice Robert Jackson, Chief of Counsel for the United States,
spoke eloquently, and memorably, on the principle of universality.
"If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes,"
he said, "they are crimes whether the United States does
them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to
lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would
not be willing to have invoked against us....We must never forget
that the record on which we judge these defendants is the record
on which history will judge us tomorrow. To pass these defendants
a poisoned chalice is to put it to our own lips as well."
That is a clear and honorable statement of the principle of universality.
But the judgment at Nuremberg itself crucially violated this
principle. The Tribunal had to define "war crime" and
"crimes against humanity." It crafted these definition
very carefully so that crimes are criminal only if they were
not committed by the allies. Urban bombing of civilian concentrations
was excluded, because the allies carried it out more barbarically
than the Nazis. And Nazi war criminals, like Admiral Doenitz,
were able to plead successfully that their British and US counterparts
had carried out the same practices. The reasoning was outlined
by Telford Taylor, a distinguished international lawyer who was
Jackson's Chief Counsel for War Crimes. He explained that "to
punish the foe--especially the vanquished foe--for conduct in
which the enforcing nation has engaged, would be so grossly inequitable
as to discredit the laws themselves." That is correct, but
the operative definition of "crime" also discredits
the laws themselves. Subsequent Tribunals are discredited by
the same moral flaw, but the self-exemption of the powerful from
international law and elementary moral principle goes far beyond
this illustration, and reaches to just about every aspect of
the two phases of the War on Terror.
Let's turn to the third background issue: defining "terror"
and distinguishing it from aggression and legitimate resistance.
I have been writing about terror for 25 years, ever since the
Reagan administration declared its War on Terror. I've been using
definitions that seem to be doubly appropriate: first, they make
sense; and second, they are the official definitions of those
waging the war. To take one of these official definitions, terrorism
is "the calculated use of violence or threat of violence
to attain goals that are political, religious, or ideological
in nature...through intimidation, coercion, or instilling fear,"
typically targeting civilians. The British government's definition
is about the same: "Terrorism is the use, or threat, of
action which is violent, damaging or disrupting, and is intended
to influence the government or intimidate the public and is for
the purpose of advancing a political, religious, or ideological
cause." These definitions seem fairly clear and close to
ordinary usage. There also seems to be general agreement that
they are appropriate when discussing the terrorism of enemies.
But a problem at once arises. These definitions yield an entirely
unacceptable consequence: it follows that the US is a leading
terrorist state, dramatically so during the Reaganite war on
terror. Merely to take the most uncontroversial case, Reagan's
state-directed terrorist war against Nicaragua was condemned
by the World Court, backed by two Security Council resolutions
(vetoed by the US, with Britain politely abstaining). Another
completely clear case is Cuba, where the record by now is voluminous,
and not controversial. And there is a long list beyond them.
We may ask, however, whether such crimes as the state-directed
attack against Nicaragua are really terrorism, or whether they
rise to the level of the much higher crime of aggression. The
concept of aggression was defined clearly enough by Justice Jackson
at Nuremberg in terms that were basically reiterated in an authoritative
General Assembly resolution. An "aggressor," Jackson
proposed to the Tribunal, is a state that is the first to commit
such actions as "Invasion of its armed forces, with or without
a declaration of war, of the territory of another State,"
or "Provision of support to armed bands formed in the territory
of another State, or refusal, notwithstanding the request of
the invaded State, to take in its own territory, all the measures
in its power to deprive those bands of all assistance or protection."
The first provision unambiguously applies to the US-UK invasion
of Iraq. The second, just as clearly, applies to the US war against
Nicaragua. However, we might give the current incumbents in Washington
and their mentors the benefit of the doubt, considering them
guilty only of the lesser crime of international terrorism, on
a huge and unprecedented scale.
It may also be recalled the aggression was defined at Nuremberg
as "the supreme international crime differing only from
other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated
evil of the whole"--all the evil in the tortured land of
Iraq that flowed from the US-UK invasion, for example, and in
Nicaragua too, if the charge is not reduced to international
terrorism. And in Lebanon, and all too many other victims who
are easily dismissed on grounds of wrong agency--right to the
present. A week ago (January 13), a CIA predator drone attacked
a village in Pakistan, murdering dozens of civilians, entire
families, who just happened to live in a suspected al-Qaeda hideout.
Such routine actions elicit little notice, a legacy of the poisoning
of the moral culture by centuries of imperial thuggery.
The World Court did not take up the charge of aggression in the
Nicaragua case. The reasons are instructive, and of quite considerable
contemporary relevance. Nicaragua's case was presented by the
distinguished Harvard University law professor Abram Chayes,
former legal adviser to the State Department. The Court rejected
a large part of his case on the grounds that in accepting World
Court jurisdiction in 1946, the US had entered a reservation
excluding itself from prosecution under multilateral treaties,
including the UN Charter. The Court therefore restricted its
deliberations to customary international law and a bilateral
US-Nicaragua treaty, so that the more serious charges were excluded.
Even on these very narrow grounds, the Court charged Washington
with "unlawful use of force"--in lay language, international
terrorism--and ordered it to terminate the crimes and pay substantial
reparations. The Reaganites reacted by escalating the war, also
officially endorsing attacks by their terrorist forces against
"soft targets," undefended civilian targets. The terrorist
war left the country in ruins, with a death toll equivalent to
2.25 million in US per capita terms, more than the total of all
wartime casualties in US history combined. After the shattered
country fell back under US control, it declined to further misery.
It is now the second poorest country in Latin America after Haiti--and
by accident, also second after Haiti in intensity of US intervention
in the past century. The standard way to lament these tragedies
is to say that Haiti and Nicaragua are "battered by storms
of their own making," to quote the Boston Globe,
at the liberal extreme of American journalism. Guatemala ranks
third both in misery and intervention, more storms of their own
making.
In the Western canon, none of this exists. All is excluded not
only from general history and commentary, but also quite tellingly
from the huge literature on the War on Terror re-declared in
2001, though its relevance can hardly be in doubt.
These considerations have to do with the boundary between terror
and aggression. What about the boundary between terror and resistance?
One question that arises is the legitimacy of actions to realize
"the right to self-determination, freedom, and independence,
as derived from the Charter of the United Nations, of people
forcibly deprived of that right..., particularly peoples under
colonial and racist regimes and foreign occupation..." Do
such actions fall under terror or resistance? The quoted word
are from the most forceful denunciation of the crime of terrorism
by the UN General Assembly; in December 1987, taken up under
Reaganite pressure. Hence it is obviously an important resolution,
even more so because of the near-unanimity of support for it.
The resolution passed 153-2 (Honduras alone abstaining). It stated
that "nothing in the present resolution could in any way
prejudice the right to self-determination, freedom, and independence,"
as characterized in the quoted words.
The two countries that voted against the resolution explained
their reasons at the UN session. They were based on the paragraph
just quoted. The phrase "colonial and racist regimes"
was understood to refer to their ally apartheid South Africa,
then consummating its massacres in the neighboring countries
and continuing its brutal repression within. Evidently, the US
and Israel could not condone resistance to the apartheid regime,
particularly when it was led by Nelson Mandela's ANC, one of
the world's "more notorious terrorist groups," as
Washington determined at the same time. Granting legitimacy to
resistance against "foreign occupation" was also unacceptable.
The phrase was understood to refer to Israel's US-backed military
occupation, then in its 20 th year. Evidently, resistance to
that occupation could not be condoned either, even though at
the time of the resolution it scarcely existed: despite extensive
torture, degradation, brutality, robbery of land and resources,
and other familiar concomitants of military occupation, Palestinians
under occupation still remained "Samidin," those who
quietly endured.
Technically, there are no vetoes at the General Assembly. In
the real world, a negative US vote is a veto, in fact a double
veto: the resolution is not implemented, and is vetoed from reporting
and history. It should be added that the voting pattern is quite
common at the General Assembly, and also at the Security Council,
on a wide range of issues. Ever since the mid-1960s, when the
world fell pretty much out of control, the US is far in the lead
in Security Council vetoes, Britain second, with no one else
even close. It is also of some interest to note that a majority
of the American public favors abandonment of the veto, and following
the will of the majority even if Washington disapproves, facts
virtually unknown in the US, or I suppose elsewhere. That suggests
another conservative way to deal with some of the problems of
the world: pay attention to public opinion.
Terrorism directed or supported by the most powerful states continues
to the present, often in shocking ways. These facts offer one
useful suggestion as to how to mitigate the plague spread by
"depraved opponents of civilization itself" in "a
return to barbarism in the modern age": Stop participating
in terror and supporting it. That would certainly contribute
to the proclaimed objections. But that suggestion too is off
the agenda, for the usual reasons. When it is occasionally voiced,
the reaction is reflexive: a tantrum about how those who make
this rather conservative proposal are blaming everything on the
US.
Even with careful sanitization of discussion, dilemmas constantly
arise. One just arose very recently, when Luis Posada Carriles
entered the US illegally. Even by the narrow operative definition
of "terror," he is clearly one of the most notorious
international terrorists, from the 1960s to the present. Venezuela
requested that he be extradited to face charges for the bombing
of a Cubana airliner in Venezuela, killing 73 people. The charges
are admittedly credible, but there is a real difficulty. After
Posada miraculously escaped from a Venezuelan prison, the liberal
Boston Globe reports, he "was hired by US covert
operatives to direct the resupply operation for the Nicaraguan
contras from El Salvador"--that is, to play a prominent
role in terrorist atrocities that are incomparably worse than
blowing up the Cubana airliner. Hence the dilemma. To quote the
press: "Extraditing him for trial could send a worrisome
signal to covert foreign agents that they cannot count on unconditional
protection from the US government, and it could expose the CIA
to embarrassing public disclosures from a former operative."
Evidently, a difficult problem.
The Posada dilemma was, thankfully, resolved by the courts, which
rejected Venezuela's appeal for his extradition, in violation
of the US-Venezuela extradition treaty. A day later, the head
of the FBI, Robert Mueller, urged Europe to speed US demands
for extradition: "We are always looking to see how we can
make the extradition process go faster," he said. "We
think we owe it to the victims of terrorism to see to it that
justice is done efficiently and effectively." At the Ibero-American
Summit shortly after, the leaders of Spain and the Latin American
countries "backed Venezuela's efforts to have [Posada] extradited
from the United States to face trial" for the Cubana airliner
bombing, and again condemned the "blockade" of Cuba
by the US, endorsing regular near-unanimous UN resolutions, the
most recent with a vote of 179-4 (US, Israel, Marshall Islands,
Palau). After strong protests from the US Embassy, the Summit
withdrew the call for extradition, but refused to yield on the
demand for an end to the economic warfare. Posada is therefore
free to join his colleague Orlando Bosch in Miami. Bosch is
implicated in dozens of terrorist crimes, including the Cubana
airliner bombing, many on US soil. The FBI and Justice Department
wanted him deported as a threat to national security, but Bush
I took care of that by granting him a presidential pardon.
There are other such examples. We might want to bear them in
mind when we read Bush II's impassioned pronouncement that "the
United States makes no distinction between those who commit acts
of terror and those who support them, because they're equally
as guilty of murder," and "the civilized world must
hold those regimes to account." This was proclaimed to great
applause at the National Endowment for Democracy, a few days
after Venezuela's extradition request had been refused. Bush's
remarks pose another dilemma. Either the US is part of the civilized
world, and must send the US air force to bomb Washington; or
it declares itself to be outside the civilized world. The logic
is impeccable, but fortunately, logic has been dispatched as
deep into the memory hole as moral truisms.
The Bush doctrine that "those who harbor terrorists are
as guilty as the terrorists themselves" was promulgated
when the Taliban asked for evidence before handing over people
the US suspected of terrorism--without credible evidence, as
the FBI conceded many months later. The doctrine is taken very
seriously. Harvard international relations specialist Graham
Allison writes that it has "already become a de facto rule
of international relations," revoking "the sovereignty
of states that provide sanctuary to terrorists." Some states,
that is, thanks to the rejection of the principle of universality.
One might also have thought that a dilemma would have arisen
when John Negroponte was appointed to the position of head of
counter-terrorism. As Ambassador to Honduras in the 1980s, he
was running the world's largest CIA station, not because of the
grand role of Honduras in world affairs, but because Honduras
was the primary US base for the international terrorist war for
which Washington was condemned by the ICJ and Security Council
(absent the veto). Known in Honduras as "the Proconsul,"
Negroponte had the task of ensuring that the international terrorist
operations, which reached remarkable levels of savagery, would
proceed efficiently. His responsibilities in managing the war
on the scene took a new turn after official funding was barred
in 1983, and he had to implement White House orders to bribe
and pressure senior Honduran Generals to step up their support
for the terrorist war using funds from other sources, later funds
illegally transferred from US arms sales to Iran. The most vicious
of the Honduran killers and torturers was General Alvarez Martínez,
the chief of the Honduran armed forces at the time, who had informed
the US that "he intended to use the Argentine method of
eliminating suspected subversives." Negroponte regularly
denied gruesome state crimes in Honduras to ensure that military
aid would continue to flow for international terrorism. Knowing
all about Alvarez, the Reagan administration awarded him the
Legion of Merit medal for "encouraging the success of democratic
processes in Honduras." The elite unit responsible for the
worst crimes in Honduras was Battalion 3-16, organized and trained
by Washington and its Argentine neo-Nazi associates. Honduran
military officers in charge of the Battalion were on the CIA
payroll. When the government of Honduras finally tried to deal
with these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice, the
Reagan-Bush administration refused to allow Negroponte to testify,
as the courts requested.
There was virtually no reaction to the appointment of a leading
international terrorist to the top counter-terrorism position
in the world. Nor to the fact that at the very same time, the
heroine of the popular struggle that overthrew the vicious Somoza
regime in Nicaragua, Dora María Téllez, was denied
a visa to teach at the Harvard Divinity School, as a terrorist.
Her crime was to have helped overthrow a US-backed tyrant and
mass murderer. Orwell would no |
