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/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's Stories
June 25, 2004
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| June
25, 2004
US to North
Korea
Noam Chomsky
and Howard Zinn Plan to Vote for Ralph Nader
By
STEPHEN GOWANS
Picture
this: Al-Qaeda offers Washington a "provisional" guarantee
not to attack the country or seek to target US interests abroad in return
for the US dismantling its military. The agreement would depend on the
US giving international inspectors access to US military sites and meeting
a series of deadlines for disabling and dismantling its military facilities,
and then shipping them out of the country.
Would
Washington agree?
Never.
No
country would deliberately leave itself defenseless, simply because
an enemy promised not to attack, and then only provisionally.
Yet
absurd as the proposal is, this is what Washington is offering North
Korea.
Under
the plan, China, Russia, Japan and South Korea would furnish the Communist
country with heavy fuel oil and Washington would offer a "provisional''
commitment not to attack or try to topple the North Korean government,
in return for North Korea dismantling its nuclear weapons program, giving
international inspectors access to nuclear sites and meeting a series
of deadlines for disabling and dismantling its nuclear facilities, and
then shipping them out of the country.
But
once the North Koreans had irreversibly dismantled their nuclear weapons
capability, leaving themselves effectively defenseless, what would stop
the US from rescinding its "provisional" agreement not to
attack?
Nothing.
And
it's not as if US governments have a great record when its comes to
trustworthiness.
Washington
has already proved itself perfectly willing to break agreements where
North Korea is concerned. Under the 1994 Agreed Framework, negotiated
by the Clinton administration, North Korea agreed to shut down its nuclear
facilities at Yongbyon in return for fuel oil shipments, the construction
of two light-water reactors, and normalization of relations.
The
nuclear facilities were closed, fuel oil shipments began, and so did
construction of the light-water reactors. But Washington did little
to normalize relations and construction of the reactors proceeded at
a snail's pace. By 2003, the scheduled completion date, construction
work was still in its preliminary stages.
If
the Clinton administration had dragged its heels on holding up its end
of the agreement, the Bush administration was openly hostile.
Soon enough, Washington was claiming North Korea had admitted to breaking
the agreement by secretly pursuing the development of nuclear weapons,
an admission the North Koreans denied they had ever made.
Nevertheless,
the Bush administration had its justification for cancelling the agreement,
one it seems, it manufactured out of whole cloth -- an administration
speciality. Fuel oil shipments were halted.
Meanwhile,
North Korea was included in the list of axis of evil countries. Bush
speech writer David Frum, who boasted he'd coined the phrase, said the
Communist country was included because it needed to feel a heavy hand.
How
much heavier could it get?
North
Korea had already struggled through 50 years of US economic sanctions.
Its markets and sources of raw materials had disappeared with the collapse
of Communism in Russia and Eastern Europe. And the Korean War -- never
officially ended, a reality attesting to by the 37,000 US troops that
remained in the south -- forced the country to divert scarce resources
to its military.
It was a miracle a Communist North Korea continued to survive -- though
barely, mired in poverty, the screws turning tighter.
John
R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms control, let it be
known the US intended to play hardball. Asked to clarify US policy toward
North Korea, Bolton "strode over to a bookshelf, pulled off a volume
and slapped it on the table. It was called 'The End of North Korea,'
by an American Enterprise Institute colleague. 'That,' he said, 'is
our policy.'" ("Absent from the Korea Talks: Bush's Hard-Liner,"
The New York Times, September 2, 2003.)
Critically
short of energy, and under a growing threat, North Korea kicked inspectors
out of the country, re-opened its nuclear facilities, and withdrew from
the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
Soon after, US forces marched on a defenseless Iraq, which had disarmed
in compliance with UN -- and US -- demands. The lesson was clear: Disarm
and be invaded.
The
lesson wasn't lost on the North Korean leadership. Nor should it be
lost on anyone else. Whoever thinks the US would leave an effectively
defenseless North Korea in peace, its Communist system intact, is suffering
from a severe delusion.
Washington
has never been tolerant of Communist, socialist or economic nationalist
regimes, and has always worked to replace them with dependent governments
that can guarantee corporate America access to markets, raw materials
and low-wage labor. There's nothing, it seems, more repugnant to Washington
policy-makers than a closed economy.
In
their book "An End to Evil: How to Win the War of Terror,"
Frum and Pentagon-advisor Richard Perle argue that a Communist regime
in North Korea would be perfectly acceptable, so long as it allowed
the country to be integrated into Western capitalism. The duo's preference
seems to be fit perfectly with preferences expressed in decades of US
foreign policy.
So
it is that it's a near certainty that if North Korea disarmed (assuming
it has nuclear weapons -- no one knows for sure, and North Korea denies
it has the uranium weapons program the US insists it has), the "provisional"
character of Washington's nonaggression commitment would soon become
evident.
At
that point, North Korea would be faced with an ultimatum: Become a satellite
of the US, open your economy fully to penetration by US capital, or
face the same consequences as Iraq.
Either
way, the picture isn't pretty.
Stephen
Gowans is a writer and political activist who lives in Ottawa,
Canada. He can be reached at: sr.gowans@sympatico.ca
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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