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May 21, 2002
George Monbiot
Riddle
of the Spores:
The FBI and Anthrax
Yulie Khromchenko
Displaced Reality:
Impressions from Jenin
Bernard Weiner
Kenny
Boy to Bush:
"Welcome to the Club"
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
May 17, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Fox News Flashback:
Defending McKinney
James T. Phillips
Ceasefires
and Terrorists
Phillipe Dambournet
The Truth at Last:
Bush as the Energizer Bunny
Lori Berenson
In Defense
of Political Prisoners
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Terrorist Warnings
Hussein Ibish
Clarifying
the Obstacles
to Peace in Palestine
Alexander Cockburn
Israel and "Anti-Semitism"
May 16, 2002
Marylin Robinson
A Garden
in Tent City, But Where Do You Bathe?
Paul de Rooij
Worse than CNN?
The BBC and Israel
David Krieger
The Bush/Putin
Agreement:
Nuclear Dangers Remain
Steve Perry
Unsafe at Any Speed:
Youth, Sex and the Heresies
of Judith Levine
May 15, 2002
Ahmad Faruqui
Revisiting
Camp David
Rick Giombetti
Spiderman v. Pentagon:
Working Class Hero Battles Corrupt Defense Contractors
Stanton / Madsen
When the
War Hits Home:
Planning for Martial Law, Telegovernance and Suspension of Elections
Resources:
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About 9/11
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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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Reviews of Gore:
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May
22, 2002
Dick Cheney's Obscenity
by Brian J. Foley
Here's an obscenity even greater than the bare
breast of a statue for Attorney General Ashcroft to cover up:
the U.S. war against Afghanistan.
That's the implication of Vice President
Dick Cheney's damage control efforts on the Sunday talking heads
news shows earlier this week. On NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS, the
Vice President purported that the U.S. has made some progress
in the war on terrorism but warned, "the prospect of another
attack against the United States is very, very real. It's just
as real, in my opinion, as it was September 12."
It is? Even after seven-and-a-half months
of war against Afghanistan? At more than $1 billion per month?
A war that has killed and maimed and shattered the lives of thousands
of people?
Last Fall a group founded by Dick Cheney's
wife attacked college professors and students who cautioned restraint
in response to September 11, or who sought to learn why terrorists
might want to attack the most powerful nation on earth. Lynne
Cheney's right wing, not-for-profit, tax-exempt organization,
the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, collected these
"unpatriotic" utterances and issued its report, DEFENDING
CIVILIZATION: HOW OUR UNIVERSITIES ARE FAILING AMERICA AND WHAT
CAN BE DONE ABOUT IT. Here are a few statements ACTA found so
scandalous, so uncivilized:
"We have to learn to use courage
for peace instead of war."
- Jerry Irish, Professor of Religious Studies, Pomona College.
"The question we should explore
is not who we should bomb or where we should bomb, but why we
were targeted. When we have the answer to why, then we will have
the ability to prevent terrorist attacks tomorrow."
- Rania Masri, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
"Stop the violence, stop the hate."
- Chant at University of California-Berkeley.
"If Osama Bin Laden is confirmed
to be behind the attacks, the United States should bring him
before an international tribunal on charges of crimes against
humanity." --Joel Beinin, Stanford professor.
"[We should] build bridges and relationships,
not simply bombs and walls." - Jesse Jackson, at Harvard
Law School.
Despite our bombs and brave troops in
Afghanistan, "the prospect of another attack against the
United States is very, very real ... just as real, in my opinion,
as it was September 12."
- Dick Cheney, U.S. Vice President.
OK, save that one for the revised version.
Many pundits, politicians and regular
citizens likewise challenged (to put it politely) the patriotism
of Americans who questioned whether war would work against an
elusive, transnational terrorist group. Whether it would decrease
the threat. Whether improving our intelligence and police efforts
might prove more effective.
Some Americans who spoke up were even
libeled and slandered as "helping the terrorists."
No one was immune: Even Dan Rather admitted in a BBC interview
last week that he feared being labeled "unpatriotic"
last Fall, and that this fear kept journalists from asking tough,
necessary questions.
Such as whether the threat to Americans
is actually GREATER than on September 12. We have not destroyed
Al Qaeda by waging war against Afghanistan (And how could we?
Al Qaeda is an elusive, transnational terrorist group!), but
we may have increased the murderous motivation of its survivors
-- and of other transnational terrorist groups.
Questions such as whether threats worldwide
have increased as well. Following the U.S. example, Israel pumped
up its "war on terrorism." Suicide bombings and military
incursions volley back and forth, like a deadly tennis ball.
India and Pakistan veered, and are veering again, toward war.
Both countries wield atomic bombs.
As Colonel Kurtz famously observed in
the 1979 film APOCALYPSE NOW, "We train young men to drop
fire on people. But their commanders won't allow them to write
'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene! " Last Fall,
as we dropped fire on people in Afghanistan, "peace"
was deemed obscene.
But Dick Cheney uttered an even darker
obscenity on MEET THE PRESS: At his behest, Americans have killed
and died to protect us, but we are no safer.
I hope it was just political duck and
cover, that the Vice President sought merely to scare us, to
distract us from recent revelations about the massive intelligence
and security failure that helped terrorists murder innocent people
on September 11. I hope the Vice President doesn't plan to trick
us into throwing good money after bad: "Hey, maybe this
war didn't work, but I have a great one to sell you in Iraq ...."
BRIAN J. FOLEY
is a professor at Widener University School of Law in Wilmington,
Delaware. He can be reached at Brian.J.Foley@law.widener.edu
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