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Coming in October
From AK Press

Today's Stories

September 5, 2003

Brian Cloughley
Bush's Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?

Col. Dan Smith
Iraq as Black Hole

Phyllis Bennis
A Return to the UN?

Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft

Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats

Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill

Robert Fisk
We Were Warned About This Chaos

Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum

 

Recent Stories

September 4, 2003

Stan Goff
The Bush Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place

John Ross
Mexico's Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End

Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead

Adam Federman
McCain's Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost

Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace

W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War

Joanne Mariner
Truth, Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America

Website of the Day
Califoracle

 

 

September 3, 2003

Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower in a Sinkhole

Davey D
A Hip Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall

Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted

John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super

Brian Cloughley
The Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan

Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill

Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences

Uri Avnery
First of All This Wall Must Fall

Website of the Day
Art Attack!

 


September 2, 2003

Robert Fisk
Bush's Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War

Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing

Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style

Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong

Jason Leopold
Ghosts in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes

Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?

Paul de Rooij
Predictable Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation

Website of the Day
Laughing Squid


 

August 30 / Sept. 1, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall of the UN

Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger and Cuban Migration

Standard Schaefer
Who Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial

William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad

Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey

Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante

John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power

Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler

Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts

Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun

Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day

Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY

Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine

Susan Davis
Northfork, an Accidental Review

Nicholas Rowe
Dance and the Occupation

Mark Zepezauer
Operation Candor

Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod

Website of the Weekend
Downhill Battle

 

 

August 29, 2003

Lenni Brenner
God and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party

Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off

Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity

David Krieger
What Victory?

Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International Law

Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!

Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters Give Their Views

Website of the Day
DirtyBush

 

 

August 28, 2003

Gilad Atzmon
The Most Common Mistakes of Israelis

David Vest
Moore's Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution

David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed

Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War

Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"

Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago

Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark

Tariq Ali
Occupied Iraq Will Never Know Peace

Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package

Website of the Day
Palestinian Artists


August 27, 2003

Bruce Jackson
Little Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq

John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution

Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War

Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests

Steve Niva
Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?

Website of the Day
The Dean Deception



August 26, 2003

Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead

David Lindorff
The Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate

Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner

Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists

Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints and a Palestinian Madonna

Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala

Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!

Saul Landau
Bush: a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?

Congratulations to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD

 

August 25, 2003

Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America

David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime

Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out

Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the Iraq Invasion

Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups

Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?

Uri Avnery
A Drug for the Addict

 

August 23/24, 2003

Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld Does Bogota

Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Insults to Intelligence

Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor

Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful Fungus

Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon

Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!

David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary of 9/11

Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield

Dave Lindorff
Marketplace Medicine

Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and Free Speech

Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy

José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?

Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America

Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine

Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations

William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films

Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable

Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam

Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry

 

August 22, 2003

Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista Nicaragua

John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity

Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited

Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?

Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey

Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids

Ron Jacobs
The Darkening Tunnel

Website of the Day
Current Energy


August 21, 2003

Robert Fisk
The US Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing

Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?

Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq

Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps on the Wrists

Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show

Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks

Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?

Vicente Navarro
Media Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush

Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad

Hot Stories

Steve Niva
Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?

Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians

Steve J.B.
Prison Bitch

Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War

Wendell Berry
Small Destructions Add Up

CounterPunch Wire
WMD: Who Said What When

Cindy Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From

William Blum
Myth and Denial in the War on Terrorism

Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy

Uzma Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go

Paul de Rooij
Arrogant Propaganda

Gore Vidal
The Erosion of the American Dream

Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution

Click Here for More Stories.

 

 

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September 6, 2003

Of Sanctions and Bombings

The UN Failed the Iraqi People

By DENIS HALLIDAY

I was initially shocked and horrified at the attack on the compound, which is, after all, the place I worked myself. The corner of the building where the bomb went off is where my office was--probably the same office that Sergio de Mello [the UN envoy killed in the bombing] occupied, in fact. So it came home in a very real sense, given my own role in Iraq.

But the more I think about it, why am I surprised? Maybe some of us here try to envisage the UN in a benign light--as a positive force for good in the world. But of course, in the Middle East, this simply is not the perception that most people have of the United Nations.

In terms of Israel and Palestine, the UN is seen as an instrument of the U.S. and negligent of the resolutions that have been passed but neglected by Israel. The UN is seen as responsible for neglecting the Palestinians, failing to put in peacekeeping forces between Israel and the Palestinians.

In regard to Iraq, it's even more immediate--in that it was the UN that sustained sanctions on the Iraqi people for 13 years. Yes, we know that sanctions were driven by the Security Council, which is made up of member states, and those member states were, I think, coerced, corrupted and abused by the U.S. in particular into supporting sanctions for 13 years.

But those of us who worked in Iraq reported--along with UNICEF and others--the impact of those sanctions on the Iraqi people. And I would say that we, the United Nations, killed more Iraqis through UN sanctions--probably a million people, particularly children--in those 13 years than Mr. Bush the First, Mr. Clinton and then Mr. Bush the Second did with bombs.

We all have to remember this--that the UN is a legitimate target under those circumstances. It is an organization that has failed the Iraqi people--that has committed genocide in Iraq for many years, in keeping with the definition of genocide in the UN convention on genocide.

The other issue in Iraq is the collaboration between the UN and the U.S. in the country. And given the fact that the aggression, invasion and occupation of Iraq is illegal, outside international law, incompatible with the UN Charter and not approved by the Security Council, any collaboration between the UN and the U.S. in Iraq is wrong...

There wasn't a family in Iraq that wasn't hurt by the sanctions. Many if not all families lost a child, cousin, father or mother prematurely and unnecessarily from bad water, lack of health care--all of the problems that the sanctions brought and sustained in Iraq for the last 13 years.

It's so easy for people like Blair and Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney to blame Saddam Hussein for everything. But the fact is that it's actually the sanctions that destroyed the economy and the social services of this country.

The UN can only work in Iraq if invited to do so by the Iraqis--not the Americans, not the British, but only by the Iraqis. The terms of that participation has got to be determined by Iraq.

The Iraqis will want massive capital assistance to rebuild the damage of the first Gulf War, the second Gulf War and the 13 years of sanctions. They're going to need tremendous assistance, but they must determine who does that, how and when. That is their sovereign right as a proud and dignified people with an extraordinary history that we in the West--in this Judeo-Christian community particularly--have stomped all over in a manner that in my mind is grossly unacceptable.

Denis Halliday is the former United Nations (UN) coordinator of humanitarian aid for Iraq. After 30 years working at the UN, Halliday resigned in 1998 to protest the impact of UN-imposed sanctions, which each month killed 5,000 Iraqi children under the age of five, by the UN's own statistics. Halliday talked to Socialist Worker's Elizabeth Schulte after the bombing of the UN's headquarters in Baghdad.


Weekend Edition Features for August 30 / Sept. 1, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall of the UN

Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger and Cuban Migration

Standard Schaefer
Who Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial

William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad

Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey

Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante

John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power

Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler

Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts

Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun

Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day

Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY

Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine

Susan Davis
Northfork, an Accidental Review

Nicholas Rowe
Dance and the Occupation

Mark Zepezauer
Operation Candor

Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod

Website of the Weekend
Downhill Battle

 

 

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