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April 11, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
From the West Bank to BBQ
to Old Sparky, And Beyond
April 10, 2002
M. Juniad Alam
Blaming the Victims:
Hating the Palestinians
George
Monbiot
World
Bank to West Bank
Fran Schor
US-Sponsored State Terror
David
Vest
Political
Color Schemes
Jack McCarthy
Florida State Radicals:
The Berkeley of the South
Rises Again
Doreen
Miller
A
Tale of Two Warring Tribes
Michael Neumann
Israelis and Indians
April 9, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
Colin
Powell's Table Talk
Matt Vidal
Thomas Friedman,
Another Wasted Pulitzer
Ron Jacobs
Buyer
Beware
Robert Jensen
I Helped Kill a Palestinian
Vijay
Prashad
Memories
of Barbarity:
Sharonism and September
Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable
April 8, 2002
David
Vest
From
Birmingham to Nashville:
The Making of Tammy Wynette
Rick Giombetti
Paxil, Suicide and Science
Dr. Neve
Gordon
Letter
to an IDF Colonel:
How Did You Become
a War Criminal?
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's Top 10 CDs
Jordy
Cummings
Not
in My Name Anymore
Gavin Keeney
Bush and the Middle East:
Mouth Wide Shut
Edward
Said
The
Future of Palestine
April 7, 2002
Beth Daoud
Accompanying Ambulances
in Bethlehem
Nancy
Stohlman
After
the Invasion:
The Search for Bread
Among the Ruins
Thomas Mountain
"Yellow Peril" In Hawai'i:
Judge Orders Chains and Shackles for Chinese Witnesses
Tariq
Ali
Who
Killed Daniel Pearl?
April 6, 2002
Philip Farruggio
War, Snake Oil and Circuses
Viktor
Litovkin
Russian
Generals Raise Questions About Pentagon Victories in Afghanistan
Patrick Cockburn
CIA Survey of Iraqi Airfields
May Herald Attack
Walt Brasch
Oil
Slick George:
Bush-whacking the Environment
Ralph Nader
Campaign Finance Sham
Sam Bahour
The
Blind Leading the Criminal
Bill Christison:
A Former CIA Official on
Oil and the Middle East
April 5, 2002
Charmaine
Seitz
In
Ramallah: The Grueling Reoccupation Grinds On
Nancy Stohlman
The Invasion of Bethlehem
and Our Tax Dollars at Work
Beth Daoud
The
Siege of Bethlehem:
"What Do You Mean God Is Punishing Me?"
Fareed Marjaee:
Demonizing Iran
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Philip
Morris to Canada:
"Drop Dead"
Alex Lynch
Tampa Campus Mirrors
Middle East Strife
Alexander
Cockburn
Sharon's
Wars: How the
News Gets Through
April 4, 2002
Ray Hanania
Sharon's Latest Lie About the Church
of the Nativity
Mike Leon
Rightwing
Assault on Madison Progressives Misfires
Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!
Nancy
Stohlman
An
American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp
Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?
M. Shahid
Alam
The
Lies of Thomas Friedman
April 3, 2002
Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks
Bernard
Weiner
An
American Jew Talks
About His Shame
David Vest
Sting of Stings
Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest
John Chuckman
Of
War, Islam and Israel
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
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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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
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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April 11, 2002
Taming the Nuclear Monster
By Richard Falk and David
Krieger
Not since the dawn of the nuclear age at the end
of World War II has the danger of nuclear war been greater. And
what is as troubling, this danger is not widely understood. Several
developments account for this most disturbing situation.
The US Government has apparently adopted
contingency plans that look for the use of nuclear weapons against
specific countries and in a wide range of circumstances. Terrorist
networks with genocidal agendas have been making strenuous efforts
to acquire nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. The
spread of biological and chemical weapons increase political
incentives to threaten nuclear retaliation. The American push
for missile defense is likely to lead other nuclear weapons states
to increase their arsenals. India and Pakistan, hostile neighbors,
continue their conflict over Kashmir with their nuclear arsenals
lurking in the background. And, in addition, the atmosphere created
by the September 11 attacks has given rise to a good and evil
worldview that seems less inhibited with respect to nuclear weaponry.
It is against such a background that
the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) will
meet from April 8-19 to review progress on the treaty and, most
important, on its Article VI commitment to nuclear disarmament.
The recent revelations of the classified US Nuclear Posture Review
(NPR), which was first released in partially unclassified form
in January 2002, indicated contingency plans for the potential
use of nuclear weapons against at least seven named states. These
revelations are sure to have alarmed these governments, and hopefully
awakened the international community generally to an atmosphere
of mounting risk.
Any US plans to use or threaten to use
nuclear weapons would be contrary to international law as well
as to long-standing US assurances not to use nuclear weapons
against non-nuclear weapons states. It also constitutes a provocative
threat to the named states and others as well as to international
peace and security overall.
This US approach to planning nuclear
weapons use, as well as other developments that increase the
risk of nuclear war, will undoubtedly adversely affect the approach
taken to non-proliferation by all countries. It is likely to
induce further nuclear proliferation and to weaken seriously
the non-proliferation regime. US policy toward nuclear weapons
use, combined with its plans to develop and deploy missile defenses,
is almost certain to encourage the expansion of nuclear weapons
programs by Russia and China as well as the development of nuclear
and other weapons of mass destruction by other countries. It
is also likely to give rise to destructive new arms races.
The fact that the US is developing contingency
plans to use nuclear weapons is viewed by most of the world as
a dangerous expression of bad faith. In the past, nuclear weapons
have been reluctantly tolerated, but only as a deterrent against
the use of nuclear weapons by other states. The US Nuclear Posture
Review reveals that nuclear weapons are apparently being integrated
into a full spectrum of potential war fighting situations.
US policy seems to make nuclear weapons
no longer weapons of last resort, but rather instruments that
may be used in fighting wars, even against non-nuclear weapons
states. Detrimental steps have already been taken following the
US lead. The UK announced that it is also prepared to use nuclear
weapons against any state that may attack it with any weapon
of mass destruction. Such an expanded role for nuclear weapons
is bound to have other destabilizing effects.
In the post-September 11 world it is
vital that the US and other nuclear weapons states assume full
responsibility for assuring that nuclear weapons and weapons
grade materials, particularly in the former Soviet Union, do
not fall into the hands of terrorists. It is also crucial that
leading nations do their utmost diplomatically and by way of
the United Nations to defuse war-prone tensions in South Asia
and the Middle East.
The most urgent challenge at this time
involves steps that should be taken to restore the restraints
on this most menacing of all weaponry. Just as it is accepted
that it is essential to establish reliable regimes of prohibition
for biological and chemical weapons, it is long overdue to give
the highest priority to establishing a comparable regime for
nuclear weapons. Non-nuclear states should insist that nuclear
weapons states at least adhere to the declared Chinese position
of no-first use, thereby retaining nuclear weapons only for nuclear
deterrence purposes until they can be eliminated altogether.
In this vein, the US and the UK should
retract their dangerous and destabilizing plans for nuclear war
fighting and, in their own interests as well as those of the
rest of the world, provide leadership toward eliminating nuclear
weapons and ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity and
all life. The states that are parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty cannot afford to remain passive, but should use their
leverage to remind the world that we are all facing an unprecedented
and growing danger that nuclear weapons will be somehow used
for the first time since 1945.
Richard Falk
is professor emeritus of international law and practice at Princeton
University, and visiting distinguished professor at the University
of California, Santa Barbara. David Krieger is president
of the Nuclear Age Peace
Foundation.
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