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New Edition of CounterPunch Ebb-Tide for the Occupation: a Journey to Najaf with the Mahdi Army by Patrick Cockburn; State Terror, Oregon Division: Killer Cops by Kristian Williams; Torture in America by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. In April, CounterPunch Online was read by 16.1 million viewers by far our biggest month ever. 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 (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Now Available: Hot New CounterPunch T-Shirts! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Cockburn / St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War Now Available! Today's Stories June 1, 2004 Kathy Kelly Voices in the Wilderness v. the US Government May 29 / 31, 2004 Lee Ballinger / Dave Marsh The Origins of Memorial Day Janine Pommy Vega Memo for Memorial Day Mike Ferner On Their Way to Abu Ghraib Alfred W. McCoy The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research Douglas Valentine An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions Chris White First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto Bruce Anderson The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu David Vest Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire Saul Landau Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy? Kurt Nimmo Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA Elaine Cassel The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders Will Potter The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps; Get Arrested as a "Terrorist" Ben Tripp They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches Dr. Susan Block Save Abu Ghraib! Kia Kojouri Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh Mickey Z D-Day: 60 Years is Enough! Jon Brown Correcting the Correction at the Times Patrick B. Barr Pre-emptive War Insurance Stephen Gowans Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel Tom Gorman Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly New Dave Zirin Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa Muhammad Gregory Weiher Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy" Erik Cummings Jung Meets Bush Poets' Basement Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert   May 28, 2004 Rafael Rodriguez Cruz Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5 Greg Moses Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib Dave Lindorff Dissing Independent Contractors: Those Who Do the Dirty Work Norman Solomon Leaping for Lies at the Times Rep. Bill Delahunt Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba Paul McGeough Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves Niranjan Ramakrishnan India and Nehru: 40 Years After Alexander Cockburn NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a Little" May 27, 2004 Amy Goodman / David Goodman Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times Douglas Valentine Ragging the Dogs of War at the NYTs John L. Hess The Times Confesses...Kind Of Stew Albert Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist Dave Dellinger a 1993 Interview Christopher Brauchli Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids Rampton / Stauber Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony May 26, 2004 Ron Jacobs Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a Friend of Ours Robert Fisk The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech Zeynep Toufe New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation Conn Hallinan Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection Tom Stephens 2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons and War Crimes Derek Medley Protesting Gov. Bigot CounterPunch Wire FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art Andrew Cockburn The Trail to Tehran   May 25, 2004 Joe Bageant The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It is in Texas Col. Dan Smith A Question of Human Dignity Gary Handschumacher Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home Toni Solo A Developing War in the Andes Marc Estrin September Song: Disturbing Questions About 9/11 Stephen Banko, III A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the Troops" Website of the Day The Wizard of Whimsy May 24, 2004 Ron Jacobs Dan Senor is Safe! Kurt Nimmo Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the Missing Taguba Pages Sam Hamod Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong Place, Wrong Time" Mike Whitney The Wedding was a Bomb Stan Goff Open Season on MAMs Image of the Day A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the NYTs   May 22 / 23, 2004 Paul de Rooij Colin Powell, a Political Obituary Jeffrey St. Clair When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview with Sue Niederer Brian Cloughley America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq Saul Landau Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good for People Brandy Baker Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry Randall Robinson Bushwhacked in the Caribbean Uri Avnery The Rape of Rafah Ben Tripp Assume the Worst Bruce Anderson News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business Josh Ruebner Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers Peter Wolson, Ph. D. Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib Chloe Cockburn In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy Linda Burnham Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value Adrien Rain Burke War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse David Krieger Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy Ron Jacobs Turnaround Poets' Basement Ford, Albert & LaMorticella   May 21, 2004 Ray Close The Canards of the Apologists Christopher Brauchli "The Object of Torture is Torture" Amira Hass Darkness at Noon Jack McCarthy Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from the US Army? Bill Kauffman Nader v. Bush Omar Barghouti No More Tears for America Ghali Hassan Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza Christopher Reed How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to Torture Website of the Day Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much   May 20, 2004 Andrew Cockburn The Truth About Chalabi Kathy Kelly A Visit from the FBI Niranjan Ramakrishnan Brown and Bored of Education in India Tom Stephens & John Philo The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co. Sam Bahour / Michael Dahan Genocide by Public Policy Robert Ovetz Ending the Race for the Last Turtle Billy Wilson The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year Website of the Day Rafah Today 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.     Subscribe Online

June 1, 2004 Violence Disemboweled of Law Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in Rafah By WILLIAM A. COOK "Violence, less and less restricted by a system of laws built up over centuries, strides naked and victorious over the earth, caring not one jot that its sterility has been demonstrated and proved many times before in history. It is not just coarse violence itself that is triumphant, but also its shrieks of self-justification. The world is overrun by the brazen conviction that force can do everything." Alexander Solzhenitsyn, Nobel Speech, 1970 Does anyone deny, in the deepest recesses of his or her heart, the barbaric behavior of Sharon's hordes as they devastate the defenseless inhabitants of the Rafah refugee camp? Are we all blind and mute, silent witnesses to murder and mayhem, cowed by fear of the inevitable Israeli stamp--Anti-Semitic -- should we condemn Sharon's atrocities? What have we to fear but the realization that we are complicit in the slaughter should we do nothing to halt it and suffer that acid to fester in our soul? Silence is a two edged sword: it cuts out the moral guts of the citizen even as it gives license to those who inflict this shame on the defenseless in our name. No, we need a deafening, earsplitting call to moral arms that condemns without equivocation the near genocidal eradication of the Palestinian people from the last vestiges of their homeland. Enough is enough! Condemn Sharon as an Anti-Semite; he has destroyed the values that sustain and nourish the Jews not those who condemn Sharon's savagery. We need to join the 150,000 Jews who marched in Rabin Square against Sharon making clear that fear has not muffled all in Israel. We must extol the moral courage of Gideon Levy and Uri Avnery who keep alive the true values of the Jewish people despite the overpowering forces that control their country. We must support the Jews for Peace in Palestine and the TIKKUN Community as they rouse the ire of the American Jew to condemn the brutality of Sharon who brought such worldwide shame on Israel. Uri Avnery calls it "The Rape of Rafah," a fitting analogy since it is being waged by the three old goats that guide Israel's bloody rampage in the prison that is Gaza, Ariel Sharon, the architect of the massacre of Sabra and Chatila, Shaul Mofaz, his Defense Minister, and Moshe Ya'alon, the IOF Chief of Staff. These three carrions of death and slaughter must "bear responsibility," in the words of Gideon Levy, "for the virtual imprisonment of the Palestinian people, the prevention of medical care, the mass arrests, the assassinations, the needless killing, the bombing of residential neighborhoods." Some 56 years have passed, Meron Benvenisti writes in Ha'aretz, since Moshe Dayan and his crew drove the Palestinians from 418 towns and villages so they could be demolished and replaced with Israeli settlements. Now "The sights of Rafah are too difficult to bear--trails of refugees alongside carts laden with bedding and the meager contents of their homes; children dragging suitcases larger than themselves; women draped in black kneeling in mourning on piles of rubble. And in the memories of some of us arise similar scenes that have been a part of our lives, as a sort of refrain that stabs at the heart and gnaws at the conscience the procession of refugees from Lod to Ramallah in the heat of July 1948." The ethnic cleansing continues, decade after decade, month after month, day after day, a forced colonization of the Palestinian homeland by an immigrant population done in broad daylight in this modern age of communication and electronic media. What do our world leaders do? They pass yet another resolution condemning Israel! Count them if you can, 157 or 158 or do we count only those not vetoed by the US? What difference does it make? Will the UN enforce any one of them? Will George W. Bush appear before the UNSC arrayed in full indignation at the reprehensible behavior of this rogue state that defies the UN turning its deliberations into irrelevant gibberish? Will he demand that this latest resolution be obeyed, number 1544 (passed by the UNSC 20 days after this massacre began!), that Israel "respect its obligations under International Humanitarian Law not to undertake further home demolitions (191 homes in Gaza alone by May 20)," not to continue the slaughter of innocent children (28 killed by the time the UN passed its resolution), and not to shamelessly ignore the hapless plight of the 2500 made homeless by this wanton destruction. Will George W. Bush accept responsibility for using American citizens money to pay for this massacre? Will he recognize his responsibility for aligning America behind a sadistic regime ruled by a demonic madman that takes advantage of the world's preoccupation with the crimes perpetrated by American forces at the Abu Ghraib prison to rampage through the squalid and cramped quarters of Rafah? Does he understand that Sharon perpetrated this massacre to remove from the front pages further news of his illegal laundering of money and his loss in the polls of his "Gaza initiative," an act of political retaliation that has cost the lives of more than 125 Palestinians and hundreds wounded? Does he unquestioningly accept Sharon's lies that this massive invasion has been done for "security reasons" when Gaza is responsible for only 12 of the 116 attacks perpetrated on the Jews since September 2000? What heinous and heartless immorality do we support! How does one convey the unjustifiable vileness of this ravaging of Rafah, this "military incursion" euphemistically cloaked as "operation rainbow" that covers, no doubt, Israel's "pot of gold" -- the land that Rafah and Gaza occupy; it need only be cleansed of its rabble! Should operation rainbow have been inflicted on my hometown atop the San Bernardino Mountains where 8700 residents live, every resident would now be homeless and that number would represent only half of those homeless in Gaza! Mercifully, the residents of Crestline have homes scattered over miles of treed hills and valleys; they are not crammed into concrete and wooden structures erected 50 years ago when they were first driven from their villages by the advancing Israeli forces. This is their second "ethnic cleansing" that has left a mile long "swath of broken concrete, splintered wood and twisted metal," the ignominious detritus left in the wake of American Caterpillars. Certainly they deserve their fate, after all Israel only targets "terrorists and the structures they use." One might hope that this mile long swath has destroyed all terrorists and the buildings they use. Israeli intelligence must be as accurate as our CIA information stream to identify 17,594 terrorists, all conveniently located in this section of Rafah and now all homeless, thank God. But let's drop the facetiousness and address the reality. Let's move all of Crestline's residents downtown, clustered in bungalows jammed wall to wall. Now, awaken them at 2AM as the Caterpillars rumble into the streets, crushing the first home on the block, shoving it into the next, mothers and fathers with children in their arms rush screaming from the houses lest they be buried beneath the twisted wood and stone. Floodlights scatter the early morning darkness casting eerie green-black shadows across the streets as masses of people crowd into the alleys; the whirl of helicopter blades vibrate overhead as tank turrets point threateningly down the streets; a clash of sounds erupts on every side, the thunder of tank treads, the piercing cry of splitting steel, the shrill screech of wind twisting through alleys, and the wail of weeping children that falls from shattered walls. Suddenly, from the belly of the copter, flashes of lightening appear as missiles scream through the air exploding into walls and the crowds scatter leaving behind on the rubble the bodies of the dead. Fear explodes in the streets bursting from the body's pores like sweat, and loathing for the tormenters swells in the heart as hot as bread that rises in the oven. This is the rainbow that rises above the blackened remains of Rafah portending the prophecy the Jews know well: "God gave Noah the rainbow sign, no more water, the fire next time." That conflagration burns now beneath the loathing and the hate fueled by the inequity so visibly evident in the massive military Israel thrusts against a helpless population. It drives the insanity that finds recourse in suicide and the fantasy of martyrdom; it is the mythical seed that finds ultimate justice in an unknown, unseen, all just God. It alone dispels the depression that comes with the isolation and abandonment, the complete absence of sympathy from the people of the world. Nothing changes. For fifty years they have waited for the world to respond to their plight. For fifty years they have witnessed the impotence of the UN to enforce any of its resolutions that demand Israel's compliance with its rules and international law. Two years ago they listened as the UNSC Resolution 1435 reaffirmed resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 1397 (2002), 1402 (2002), and 1403 (2003) reiterating its "grave concern for recent tragic and violent events carried out by Israel and the continuing deterioration of the situation in Palestine " specifically, the bombing of a Palestinian school at Hebron, the bombing of Palestinian civilians on September 18 - 19, 2002, the reoccupation of Palestinian cities and towns by Israeli troops, imposing restrictions on the freedom of movement of citizens and goods, the need to respect International Humanitarian Law including the 4th schedule of the Geneva Convention for the protection of civilians in time of war, and the destruction of Palestinian civilian infrastructures, to name a few. They listened May 20th, 2004 as the UNSC issued Resolution 1539 concerning the responsibility for the safety of children where violence and armed conflict takes place. These resolutions, including 1544, require that Israel respect its humanitarian obligations, immediately implement its obligations under the Road Map, and withdraw from ALL Palestinian territory beyond the 1967 border line, documents signed by all 15 members of the UNSC including the US (Gains, Swindon, UK). They listened and they wait. They wait in Rafah, all 120,000, the poorest of all Palestinian cities, and they wait in the Shaboura district, the poorest section of Rafah where whole families "live together in one-room shacks made of corrugated iron with dirt floors and sheet metal, cardboard and tarpaulin roofs Nowhere in Palestine will one find conditions as miserable and destitute as they are in Rafah, approximately 80% of whose citizens are refugees sometimes two and three times over." (Jennifer Loewenstein, Counterpunch 1/04) Who will listen to their plea for justice? Who will offer them the freedom promised to the Iraqis? Who will plead before the United Nations that their resolutions must be attended to, all 156 of them, that peace might at last reign over the Hell that is Palestine? Embedded in Solzhenitsyn's cautionary observation, violence disemboweled of laws is sterile, is the truth it foretold, not only about the implosion of the Soviet Union, but the inevitable erosion of the values inherent in Judaism and the destruction of America's Democracy as it seeks dominance of the world by force. As Sharon and Bush isolate Israel and America from the community of nations, as they instill fear in the hearts of their people, made real by the arrival of unspecified threats against unspecified targets at unspecified locations; as they undertake an ever more obvious crusade against Muslim peoples using lies upon lies to justify their actions against Palestine, Iraq, Syria, and Iran, the Israeli and American people witness the intrusion of their respective regimes into their daily lives and the erosion of their freedoms as they are forced into bunkers built of fear. Two forces propel these administrations, both fueled by the realization that fear obliterates sense and commands allegiance to those who promise security for all: the Zionist zealots in Israel and those in the Evangelical Christian ranks and the Neo-Con Likud sympathizers who yoke Israel's interests to those of America. Fear destroys reason leaving the individual's conscience in the hands of those who instill the fear. The Christian right deploys Satan (read fear) against God's believers while the Neo-Cons raise the specter of "terrorists" that threaten free men everywhere. Thus does violence and force ride naked over the earth. William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His new book, Psalms for the 21st Century, was just published by Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU Weekend Edition Features for May 29 / 31, 2004 Mike Ferner On Their Way to Abu Ghraib Alfred W. McCoy The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research Douglas Valentine An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions Chris White First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto Bruce Anderson The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu David Vest Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire Saul Landau Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy? Kurt Nimmo Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA Elaine Cassel The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders Will Potter The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps; Get Arrested as a "Terrorist" Ben Tripp They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches Dr. Susan Block Save Abu Ghraib! Kia Kojouri Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh Mickey Z D-Day: 60 Years is Enough! Jon Brown Correcting the Correction at the Times Patrick B. Barr Pre-emptive War Insurance Stephen Gowans Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel Tom Gorman Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly New Dave Zirin Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa Muhammad Gregory Weiher Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy" Erik Cummings Jung Meets Bush Poets' Basement Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /