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March
5, 2002
Bill Christison
A
Former CIA Officer
Explains Why the War
on Terror Won't Work
March
4, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Dick
Cheney: A Dinosaur
in the Age of Mammals
Uri Avnery
How
Israel Will Torpedo
the Saudi Peace Plan
Southern
/ Kubrick
Stangelove
Scenario
for Shadow Govt. Bunker
David
Vest
Grammy's
of Constant Sorrow
March
3, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
War
on Terrorism for Dummies
Paul Cox
Boycott
Mel Gibson's
"We Were Soldiers"
Frederick
Hudson
Toward
a Nonviolent Africa:
Bill Sutherland's Quest
Eric Schaeffer
Dear
Christie Whitman:
Take This Job and Shove It
John Chuckman
Why
the Rest of Planet is Unnerved by America
March
2, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sweat,
Sex, Feet and
the Working Class
March
1, 2002
Brendan
Sexton III
What's
Wrong With Black Hawk Down: an Actor Speaks Out
Terry
Diggs
Why
Twain's Pudd'nhead
Wilson Still Matters
David
Krieger
Nuclear
Terrorism
and US Nuclear Policy
February
28, 2002
James
T. Phillips
Baghdad,
Spring 1992
Gideon
Samet
Sharon
Must Go
Rep. Ron
Paul
Before
We Bomb Iraq
M. Shahid
Alam
Samuel
Huntington:
Peddling Civilizational Wars
St. Clair
/ Cockburn
Rumble
from the Jungle:
Ecuadorian Farmers Fight
DynCorp's ChemWar
February
27, 2002
Eric Hobsbawm
The
Future of War and Peace
John Troyer
About
that WTC Memorial
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Wired
for Democracy
or Business?
Alexander
Cockburn
Daniel
Pearl: Should His
Editors Have Sent Him There?
February
26, 2002
Jonathan
Steele
Kabul's
Loss
Vasily
Streltsov
The
Pentagon in
the Transcaucusas
CounterPunch
Wire
How
Corporations Use Shadowy "527" Groups to Influence
Politicians
Lt. Col.
Robert Bowman
ABM
Treaty: Alive or Dead?
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
A
Prayer for America
February
25, 2002
John Clarke
Interrogated
at US Border
Blankfort,
Poirier, Zeltzer
ADL
Blinks, Settles Spying Case
Alex Lynch
Naked
from Sin:
The Ordeal of Nahla
and Sami Al-Arian
John Chuckman
Ashcroft
Speaks in Tongues
February
24, 2002
David
Vest
Skate
Date
February
23, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Axis
of Evil and
Media Monopolies
Bahour/Dahan
Cracks
in the Occupation
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
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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March 5, 2002
What Should We Be Fighting
For?
An Open
Letter to the Signatories of a Statement in Favor of American
Aggression
By Mahmood Delkhasteh
and Simone Wright
When sixty American intellectuals signed their
names to a letter entitled 'what
we are fighting for,' published by the Institute for
American Values, some readers hoped to hear a voice of reason,
some alternative to the American government's newest foreign
policies following Bush's invention of an 'axis of evil' in
his union address. Instead they found that these intellectuals
not only neglected to formulate alternatives to these aggressive
strategies, but in fact gave the US administration their total
support for the 'war against terrorism.' Many of the academics
who signed this letter -Huntington, Fukuyama, Etzioni, Skocpol
- are considered 'public intellectuals' in the United States,
and are held in high regard as examples of how prominent individuals
can combine intellectual and political activity. All of them,
have, however, at the very least utterly failed to fulfill this
important responsibility by signing this letter. For what is
an intellectual if not someone who produces real alternatives
to the current state of affairs and to official policies which
have created the disastrous status quo at first place?
The signatories of this letter have not
only failed to fulfill their social responsibilities in this
regard. Despite their many references to human rights, they
have also exposed their fundamental lack of faith in the universality
of human rights by refusing to condemn the violation of human
rights of those who must suffer in what they call a 'just war.'
This basic hypocrisy raises doubts about whether these academics
should be seen as intellectuals after all. Jean Paul Sartre
once wrote that the world, seen from the perspective of the
western ruling class, is divided into half a billion citizens
and one and half billion indigenous people. The explanation
of 'why we are fighting' unfortunately demonstrates that this
world view is still very much alive and kicking; the only difference
being that though the number of citizens, or those with the
power to interpret the world, has remained constant while the
number of indigenous has quadrupled. This letter fails to address
the grievances of people exhausted by oppression; it fails to
argue, propose and advocate the adoption of socio-economical
and political policies which aim at tackling the causes of terrorism
by reducing the ever-increasing level of world poverty. In fails
to challenge discriminatory political and social policies in
concrete terms.
The most striking disappointment of the
letter is the signatories' total failure contextualize the heinous
terrorist acts of September 11th within the realities of America's
discriminatorily foreign policy in the Middle East. They have
instead actively followed the dominant discourse of the government
and media, which deliberately isolates the two issues.
The most shocking oversight of this letter
is that its signatories fail to question the sincerity of the
American government's mission to 'fight terrorism,' even though
it is obvious that the goals and means of this so-called war
on terrorism are completely incompatible. This is naive, at
best. One does not need to be an expert in politics, terrorism,
or revolution (as many of the people are) to realize that the
war against terrorism does not require a a staggering annual
budget of $380 billion, or to know that spending $10 billion
to inseminate lies into the media is not aimed at fighting terrorism,
but at manipulating public opinion into supporting the idea.
It does not take an expert analyst to realize that the US government,
devoid of real solutions to the chronic and worsening socio-economical
problems of American society, has used the war to legitimize
and detract attention away from itself. It has every interest
in continuing to do so. No wonder there is so little public
debate that addresses the actual context and causes of terrorism
within and against the US today.
We cannot defend freedoms by suppressing
them, nor can we defend human rights by violating them. The
American government has aggressively violated many rights of
many humans in its war against terrorism. This is most clearly
illustrated by its treatment of its prisoners of war in Guantanamo
Bay. Despite a public outcry against their brutal treatment
and arguments by scores of international human rights organizations
and the International Red Cross that these detainees are prisoners
of war, the American government has stubbornly defined them
as criminals. Even if, for the sake of argument, we assume that
these prisoners are criminals, according to the American legal
maxim of 'innocent until proven guilty,' they are innocent and
should receive treatment in accordance with their human dignity.
Shackling them, shaving their beards and keeping them in open
cages is in total violation of their human and legal rights.
The American legal code is based on a belief that no human being
should ever be treated in such an inhumane manner, no matter
what the crime is. But perhaps this code is meant only for Americans?
If so, then we should not talk about civilizing codes of behaviour.
Europe knows this, and has declared its condemnation of the
inhumane treatment of prisoners at the Cuba camp. The signatories
of this letter claim to believe in the universality of human
rights. Why should we not wonder about the sincerity of their
claims?
Perhaps their belief is based on the
traditional American ideology of human rights, which is in essence
a discriminatory understanding of both human and right because
it holds double standards for Americans and 'others.' The signatories
of this letter claim that to become American is easy; that 'people
from everywhere in the world come to our country with what a
statue in New York's harbor calls a yearning to breathe free,
and soon enough, they are Americans...'. True, if we define
the act of becoming American solely by receiving a work permit
and an American passport. There is, however, another side of
the coin which the signatories have failed to point out: it
is also easy to become non-American and to be stripped off of
the rights which American citizens are allegedly entitled to.
Within hours after the terrorist attacks on September 11, almost
the entire Moslem population of America became suspect. Within
days, hundreds of Moslems were illegally arrested, thousands
were attacked and millions began to live with fear in the land
of freedom. Overt discrimination against anyone with a Moslem
name or even a Middle Eastern look became justifiable. This
rampant discrimination has also infected academic institutions
across America, and it is hard to imagine how the signatories
of this letter can fail to see that American citizens of Middle
Eastern descent - and those who advocate for their rights -
are facing widespread injustices regarding scholarships, loan,
and intellectual freedom.
Perhaps the most disturbing aspect of
this letter is that its signatories consciously legitimize the
murder of innocents, so long as it is accompanied by the murder
of combatants. They argue that 'within strict limits, it can
be morally justifiable to undertake military actions that may
result in the unintended but foreseeable death or injury of
some non-combatants.' In practice, this translates into a green
light for the murder of innocent people. Here again we observe
that despite their claim to struggle for justice, the signatories
do not believe in the universality of human rights. Such a statement
indicates that they are far more faithful to the principle that
the "goal justifies the means". This principle, however,
is in total violation of the spirit and principle of the sanctity
of human life. It also reveals that power, and not freedom,
form the core of their guiding principles. We must ask, in light
of Satre's argument about the world of 'men' [sic] and 'others,'
whether any of the signatories would support the bombing and
killing of American citizens (inside or outside of America)
if a few suspected terrorists hiding among them could also
being killed? Would they call the massacre of Americans as justifiable
'collateral damage'?
When these signatories give their total
support to government in its war against terrorism, they also
support new draconian legislation that emerged in the wake of
11 September to provide the government with legal means to
fight terrorism, such as the 'Patriot Act' and a slew of other
ad hoc rulings. It is well known that these laws were ratified
in order to increase security at the price of liming citizens'
freedoms. The articles of universal human rights, however, were
written to be in harmony with one another. There is no zero-sum
relation between them, and the extension of one right does not
contradict the others. In other words, we should be able to
see all human rights within any single right, as they are intertwined
expressions of the total right of the total human. To prioritize
one right over another, or invoke it at the expense of others,
is nothing but sophistry - the very same sophistry which authoritarian
and totalitarian states have always used in order to legitimize
the oppression.
The language of this letter is eclectic
and ambiguous. Criticisms of American foreign policy or negative
aspects of the American way of life are clouded in ambiguous
and non-committal terms. This not only allows for multiple
interpretations; furthermore, it does not define who is responsible
for carrying out this commitment, or what resources they can
draw on to do so. There is only the pledge of sixty 'intellectuals.'
However, when it comes to supporting the government in its war
against terrorism, the writing becomes vivid, clear and uncompromising.
Most importantly, it names a specific guarantor for carrying
out these policies: the American state, a state that boasts
of the strongest military and economical might in the world.
If the signatories of this proposition
really want to propose effective ways to combat terrorism, they
must not support the American government's line on terrorism.
They, as intellectuals, could focus on analyzing the causes
of terrorism today. They could try to communicate this with
the American people. They could explain the context in which
terrorism emerges and spreads: the consequences of domination
and exploitation; the fact that small islands of affluence are
surrounded by vast seas of poverty; the endless perpetuation
of discrimination and despotism. They could argue that the dictatorship
of capital in the form of multi-nationals and the failure of
western democracies to control the incursion of these institutions
into less powerful nations has meant that the common people
of these countries have effectively lost control over their
natural and human resources. In another word, they could argue
that terrorism is a blind and hateful reaction to a type of
relation, dominant in our world today, which produces great
inequalities between people, which divides the world into dominator
and dominated, and which leaves the latter with, as Fanon argues,
nothing more than their rage.
It is misleading for these intellectuals
to explain the contemporary anger among non- western people
against the American government by resorting to theories such
as the 'clash of civilizations.' Civilizations do not clash
but interact, exchanging knowledge and information. It is only
the uncivilized elements of civilizations that clash with each
other. Neither does it make sense to attribute this anger to
the envy of the poor because, if the information about the terrorists
is correct, they were all from well-off families. Both explanations
discredited, what is left? Only to make suggestions for how
America could move out of its hegemonic position and make a
real attempt to remove world poverty and set an example for
the democratization of the world. It would, of course, be difficult
to make such a proposal. It is much easier to support sending
planes and to massacre innocent people in the Islamic world,
praising those within it who also support this, and condemning
as terrorist-lovers those who do not.
At the moment it is easy to win popular
support for this populist position since most Americans, deprived
of hearing the truth about their country's foreign policy, support
such actions. Sooner or later, though, the war will be over,
and the people will know that they have been betrayed not only
by their government, media and institutions, but by the very
intellectuals whose legitimacy was based on the values of freedom.
Because more than any other time in America's history, the main
casualty of this war against terrorism has been the very freedom
which the government is waging a war to defend. Someday, when
the hysteria has died down, the signatories of this letter will
be called on to answer for and justify their position, both
to themselves and to the general public, when it emerges that
they have dismantled all the institutions which were designed
to defend and extend human freedom - most importantly, the institution
of the critical American intellectual. They would be wise now
to reconsider what it is they are really fighting for, and
what, in the end, is worth it.
Mahmood Delkhasteh and Simone Wright are working on their
doctorates in sociology at the London School of Economics. They
can be reached at: M.Delkhasteh@lse.ac.uk
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