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July 4, 2002
S. Brian Willson
What
the Flag Means to Me
Philip Farruggio
Independence Day and
the Working Poor
Tom Gorman
The Uncommon
Pledge
of Allegiance
Chris Floyd
Jungle
Fever:
Bush's Bolivian Mercenaries
July 3, 2002
Francis Boyle
The Death
of the Oslo Accords
Mokhiber / Weissman
Cracking
Down on Corp. Crime
Robert Jensen
Lynne
Cheney's Primer
Behzad Yaghmaian
An Alternative
to the G-8s Africa Initiative
Toward a Global AIDS Fund and a Living Wage
John Borowski
Public
Schools Under Seige
Norman Madarasz
Brazil,
the Workers' Party and the Financial Times
July 2, 2002
Leah Wells
The Wedding
Was a Bomb
CounterPunch Wire
Trial of
the SOA 37
Edward Hammond
Bombing
the Mind:
The Pentagon's Drug Warfare
Sam Bahour
Ramallah
Occupied:
Uninvited Guests Become Neighbors
July 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Brazil's
Triumph
June 28/30, 2002
Kathleen Christison
The True Story of Resolution
242 or How the US Sold Out
the Palestinians
Cockburn / St. Clair
Death,
Juries and Scalia
Tarif Abboushi
Bush's
Double Standard
on Israel
N.D. Jayaprakash
Seething
with Rage:
The Palestinian Saga
Michael Yates
Taking
the Pledge:
Teachers and the Flag
Stephen Zunes
Bush's
Speech a Setback
for Peace
Walt Brasch
The Pledge
v. The Constitution
Cockburn / St. Clair
Strikers
as Terrorists?
Tom Ridge Calls Longshoremen
June 27, 2002
Ralph Nader
Reclaiming
Our Commons
Neve Gordon
Jerusalem
Under Attack
Robert Jensen
Alternative
Futures
David Vest
Darryl Kile's
Great Day
Gary Leupp
The Loya
Jirga Joke
Rahul Mahajan
Arafat
Says US Needs New Leadership; Calls for Fair Elections
June 26, 2002
Robert Fisk
Sharon as
Bush Speechwriter
Mokhiber / Weissman
Brokerman
June 25, 2002
Dave Marsh
The RIAA,
Library of Congress and the Web Pirates
Uri Avnery
Reform
Now!
Bahour / Dahan
Bush:
Off with Arafat's Head
Walt Brasch
Bush:
the Compassionate Exerciser
June 24, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Talkin'
About the F-Word
David Bates
Portland
Gets Dicked:
Cheney Does Oregon
Jo Freeman
Will
the War on Terror Follow the Path of the Cold War?
Tom Gorman
The Only
Thing "Generous" is the Propaganda
Bezhad Yaghmaian
Caught
Between Borders
in a Borderless World
Ben Sonnenberg
Ted
Hughes' Spell
June 22/23, 2002
Douglas Valentine
Sex,
Drugs & the CIA
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
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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COUNTERPUNCH
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Published March 15, 2002
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 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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July
5, 2002
Bush Freezes
Peace Process
by Ahmad Faruqui
Much of the world expected President Bush to use
his long-awaited speech to announce a peace conference and articulate
a vision of how a Palestinian state would be created. He would
lay out a time table for Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders,
eliminate the illegal settlements that had been forbidden under
the Oslo Accords of 1993, and turn over East Jerusalem to the
Palestinians. Of course, they also expected that the US would
ask for Arab cooperation in the fight against terrorism, and
insist that Arab states normalize relations with Israel.
What came on June 24 was the "dampest
of damp squibs," according to The Economist. Bush waxed
eloquent on the need for Palestinians to reform not only their
institutions, but also to remove their leadership. He made no
similar demands of Israel. Warm praise for the plan came from
Avignor Lieberman, an extreme right-wing politician. Israeli
commentator Nahum Barnea wrote, "The voice was Bush's, but
the hand that wrote the speech was Sharon's."
The one-sided nature of the speech caused
the Israeli foreign minister, Shimon Peres, to turn off his television.
Peres, who had listened to the speech "with restrained anger
and deep sorrow," concluded that it would unleash a bloodbath.
Another writer argued that the unbalanced nature of the speech
was a huge step forward for Sharon and a step backward for peace.
While grateful for the President's support, Israelis are mindful
of the fact that changing the Palestinian leadership will not
eliminate terrorist attacks.
Bush has never met Arafat, and this may
explain why there is no positive chemistry between them. He has
met Sharon on numerous occasions, going back to the time when
he was Governor of Texas. This may explain why he chose to call
Sharon a "man of peace" at the height of the March
incursions, and why he did not impose any sanctions on Israel
for not letting in a team of UN inspectors find out what happened
in the Jenin refugee camp. Bush has embraced Sharon's strategic
objectives. First, dismantle the Oslo peace process, and with
it all talk of returning to the 1967 borders. Second, evict Arafat,
since he is single handedly responsible for the violence and
terrorism that has hit Israeli cities during the past 20 months.
With a straight face, Bush asked the
Palestinians to remove their existing leaders, create a functional
democracy with separation of powers, write a constitution, and
implement a market economy. No state in world history, and certainly
not one under foreign occupation, has ever done this in three
years. After a half-century of independence, none of the Arab
states satisfy the Bush criteria. According to the cynics, Bush
knows that the Palestinians can never meet these criteria, and
thus a Palestinian state will never be created.
Just as important as what the president
said is what he left unsaid. He did not mention the plight of
four million Palestinians, since "their leaders have failed
them." He did not talk of a peace conference, because "there
can be no peace without security." He did not ask Israel
to go back to the 1967 borders-the lynchpin of the Saudi Peace
Plan-since these "borders are indefensible."
Why did Bush decide to put the prestige
of the White House behind Sharon's policies? He has his eyes
on the November elections, where the control of Congress and
the fate of his brother Jeb in Florida hang in the balance. In
the aftermath of 9/11, US public opinion is solidly behind Israel.
Citing Biblical prophecy, no less than 55 million evangelical
Christians are calling on Washington to make Israel a cornerstone
of US foreign policy.
According to Georgia's Republican state
chairman, Ralph Reed, "There is an undeniable and powerful
spiritual connection between Israel and the Christian faith.
It is where Jesus was born and where he conducted his ministry."
Onetime Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer goes further:
"The Bible is pretty clear that the land is what is called
covenant land, that God made a covenant with the Jews that that
would be their land forever." This land includes all of
Jordan, the Sinai, and chunks of Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and Syria,
in addition to the current state of Israel, the West Bank and
Gaza. The Cato Institute's Doug Bandow questions whether "crackpot
theology" should be allowed to guide US foreign policy.
The president is not known for his nuanced
approach to public policy. There is no room for ambiguity, whether
in his foreign policy or his energy policy. Such a worldview
creates polarization and makes confrontation inevitable. It glides
over Sharon's numerous acts of terrorism in Southern Lebanon
during the eighties, and former Prime Minister Begin's acts of
terrorism against the British.
The official Arab response to the Bush
plan was surprisingly mealy-mouthed. According to Brookings'
Fellow Shibley Telmani, moderate Arab leaders did not want to
be on Bush's bad side because "they remain tethered to the
United States-and the military, economic and political support
it provides." Public scorn of US-friendly governments in
the region has increased significantly over the past several
months, as Arabs have watched Palestinian blood being shed by
Israeli tanks and F-16s. Arabs are unhappy with their leaders'
inability to stop the Israeli onslaught. That is why Crown Prince
Abdullah floated his peace plan, and subsequently visited Bush
at his Texas ranch, emphasizing the need for the US to pull the
region back from the precipice of certain disaster.
Instead of moving the warring parties
toward peace, the plan strengthens the hardliners on both sides.
Sharon has already used the Carte Blanc implicit in the plan
to escalate his military campaign in the West Bank. All major
cities are under military occupation, and more than a million
people are experiencing collective punishment for the acts of
a few. At the same time, those who carry guns in the Palestinian
Authority have been vindicated. They will continue to inflict
terror and suffering on the Israelis in order to force an Israeli
withdrawal, like they did from southern Lebanon.
The G-8 communique failed to endorse
the position that Arafat should be replaced as a precondition
for the creation of a Palestinian state. In the first sign of
dissent with Washington, Tony Blair said that the Palestinians
have the right to elect their own leader. The peace plan has
no takers, outside of the US and Israel.
Ahmad Faruqui,
an economist, is a fellow of the American Institute of International
Studies. He can be reached at faruqui@pacbell.net
Today's
Feature
Rahul Mahajan
Why I
Won't Celebrate the Fourth of July This Year
S. Brian Willson
What
the Flag Means to Me
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