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Read Cockburn and St. Clair's Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press and discover how the CIA gave a helping hand to the opium lords who took over Afghanistan, thus ushering the Taliban into power.


CounterPunch: Complete Coverage of 9/11 and the War on Afghanistan

 New Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: Under the White Robe: Bush's Judges; Trent Lott's and the Segregationists Frat Boys; From Bluster to Bombs: Will Bush Whack Iraq?; The Lord's Avenger: When Billy Graham Wanted to Kill One Million People; A Holiday in Aruba? Best Go Elsewhere; Air Force Censors Heavy Metal Grunts. Subscribe Now!

March 13, 2002

Alexander Cockburn
When Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People

March 12, 2002

Kay Lee
Dangerous Changes in
California's Prisons

John Patrick Leary
The Return of Otto Reich

Wole Akande
US is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa

March 11, 2002

Hani Shukrallah
This is the Way the World Ends

Tommy Ates
Bush's New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies

Lidia Andrusenko
The Great Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin

Dave Marsh
10 CDs Playing On My Desk

John Chuckman
Footprints in the Dust

Norman Madarasz
Max Steel in a Time of Chaos

March 10, 2002

Thomas Croft
Year of Living Dangerously

March 9, 2002

Bill Cook
Sharon's Bulldozer

Alexander Cockburn
The Nightmare in Israel

March 8, 2002

Mokhiber / Weissman
When Business Men
Make Boo-Boos

CounterPunch Exclusive
Enron's Spooky
Image Consultant

Rep. Ron Paul
Stop the War on Colombia

Andre Achong
The Failed War on Drugs

John B. Kelly
Michael Moore and Me:
Disability Rights and
a Big Stupid White Guy

March 7, 2002

CounterPunch Wire
Congressman McInnis Equates Enviros to al-Qaeda

Mike Rogers
Will the Battle of Shah-i-Kot Become the Taliban's Alamo

Walt Brasch
Patriot Act and Free Speech

John Jonik
Insurance Scams:
Who Are the Scofflaws?

Cockburn / St. Clair
Bumper Crop: The Politics
of Afghan Opium

March 6, 2002

CounterPunch Wire
A Beautiful Mind:
Another Dangerous Lie?

Tom Turnipseed
War Is Wrong

David Vest
Billy Graham and Nixon:
Tangled Up in Tape

Patrick Cockburn
The Bombings That
Made Putin a Hero

CounterPunch Wire
Berezovsky Fingers Putin
in Bombings

Edward Said
Thoughts About America

March 5, 2002

CounterPunch Wire
Ann Coulter At It Again:
Race-Baiting Norm Mineta

Bill Christison
A Former CIA Officer
Explains Why the War
on Terror Won't Work

Delkhasteh and Wright
What Should We be Fighting For? An Open Letter
to Pro-War Academics

Mariya Tsvekova
Putin's Georgian Gambit

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

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

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and Jeffrey St. Clair

The New Crusade:
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By Rahul Mahajan

The Memphis Blues Again:
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Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff

The New Intifada:
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Edited by Roane Carey

 

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by Ken Silverstein

CounterPunch's Booktalk

March 13, 2002

Arabs Don't Want War on Iraq:
They Want US to Change Its Policy

By Robert Fisk
in Beirut
The Independent

US Vice-President Dick Cheney arrived yesterday in a Middle East far more concerned with the firestorm between the Palestinians and the Israelis than with Washington's plans for a war with Iraq.

President George Bush may believe Iraq is part of an "axis of evil" but it was clear from their reactions to Mr Cheney's mission that there will be no chance of an Arab "coalition" against Saddam Hussein of the kind that Mr Bush's father rallied 12 years ago. Most Arabs would prefer Mr Cheney to deal with the Arab-Israeli war so Mr Bush's ineffective envoy, General Anthony Zinni, could burn up his energies encouraging a war that no one here wants.

Turkey was among the first to warn of the effects of an attack on Iraq. Bulent Ecevit, Turkey's Prime Minister, talked of the "very sensitive balances" of the Turkish economy, adding that an Iraqi war would seriously affect his country. "While the Iraq issue hangs over us like a nightmare, you can't expect much new investment to come to Turkey," he said.

Jordan was far more pointed in its remarks. King Abdullah, whose father, Hussain, was forced by public opinion to stay away from the last anti-Iraqi coalition, said a war against Saddam would have a "catastrophic effect" on the Middle East. "Striking Iraq represents a catastrophe for Iraq, and threatens the security and stability of the region," he said. The Saudis are just as unenthusiastic and even Kuwait, rescued by America and its allies in 1991, has serious reservations.

Most Middle East nations opposed the bombardment of Afghanistan but insisted that even if the Americans struck the Taliban, an assault on Iraq would be met with Arab hostility. Privately, pro-western leaders in the Arab world have grave concerns about the Bush theory of "regime change". For if Iraqis were helped to overthrow their dictatorial government, what if Egyptian or Saudi citizens also decided on a little "regime change" of their own?

President Hosni Mubarak, for example, is known to be fearful of the effect of an anti-Iraqi strike. The Egyptians, slow to anger in the best of days and virtually silent during the bombardment of Afghanistan, may not be able to stomach both an American war against Iraq and the bloody attempt to suppress the Palestinian intifada by America's only real ally in the region.

The Saudis, who flew their odd little "peace plan" this month, courtesy of Crown Prince Abdullah and Tom Friedman of The New York Times (Lebanese journalists suspect the prince's personal adviser, Adel al-Jubair, dreamt it all up) will not want American planes flying to bomb Iraq from bases in the country of Islam's holiest shrines. But they did just that in 1991 and it is still possible - just - that the Saudis might close their eyes if US jets operated out of the kingdom for a short time.

Mr Cheney's mission appears in the Middle East to be more a symptom of Washington's myopia than any long-term US strategy. "They already have one war on their hands out here," one Lebanese commentator said. "Why do the Americans need another?"

It's not that the Arabs like Saddam. They know he is a cruel dictator. But listening to Tony Blair remind the world for the umpteenth time that Saddam used chemical weapons "against his own people" only reminds Arabs that Saddam also used chemical weapons - in far greater quantities - against Iran when the West was enthusiastically backing Iraq's aggression against the Islamic Republic.

Put simply, the Arabs don't want the Americans to package a new war for them; they want Washington to re-examine its entire policy in the Middle East. They want Mr Cheney to glance over his shoulder at the bloodbath in Israel and "Palestine".

And that is what they will politely tell him in Amman and Riyadh and Kuwait. Only in Israel, whose Prime Minister thinks he is fighting a "war on terror", will he hear what he wants to hear. Will that be enough?