Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
Website
of the Day
Rafah Today
May
19, 2004
Elizabeth
W. Corrie
Caterpillar Should Do the Right Thing,
Now
Bill
and Kathleen Christison
The US Can't Win
Vijay
Prashad
For Whom the Polls Toll: the Indian Elections of 2004
Ray
Hanania
Israeli War Crimes: Who to Believe, AIPAC or Amnesty Intl.?
Greg
Moses
Man President Kisses Up at AIPAC
Michael
Gillespie
Who is Kenneth deGraffenried?
Josh
Frank
Homes Destroyed; Death Toll Mounts: But Where's John Kerry?
Gary
Corseri
Out of Iraq and Plato's Cave
Kevin
Alexander Gray
If Malcolm Were Alive
May
18, 2004
Neve
Gordon
The Gaza Debacle
Doug
Stokes
Imperial Policing: Why Abu Ghraib
Shouldn't Surprise Us
Bob
Wing
The Color of Abu Ghraib
Vanessa
Jones
Man on a Leash
Thomas
P. Healy
Chemical Trespass: the Body Burden
Zeynep
Toufe
Torture and Moral Agency: the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
Kenneth
Roth
Mistreatment of Detainees in US Custody: a Letter to Bush
Elaine
Cassel
Pre-empting the Bill of Rights: The Other War, One Year Later
Website
of the Day
Truth Against Truth
May
17, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The John-John Ticket: Kerry Woos McCain
Laura
Santina
Military Conditioning and Abu Ghraib
Mickey
Z.
With Friends Like These: More Election 2004 Madness
Frederick
B. Hudson
Police Terror: Three Mothers Search for Justice
Shakirah
Esmail-Hudani
Inside Abu Ghraib: the Violence of the Camera
Boris
Leonardo Caro
The Revelations of Mr. W.
Alex
Dawoody
Iraq: From Saddam to Occupation
Victor
Kattan
On Watching the Execution of Nick Berg
Ron
Jacobs
Rumsfeld's Sovereignty Shell Game
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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May
21, 2004
A Policy of
Silence Amid Slaughter
Moral Failure
of the "Free World" in Gaza
By GHALI HASSAN
"Yes, they suffered the
holocaust, and yes, they are the victims of anti-Semitism. But
no, they cannot use those facts to continue, or initiate, the
dispossession of another people that bears no responsibility
for either of those prior facts"
Edward Said (1).
Fifty-six years passed since Palestinian
lands were usurped and the ethnic cleansing of hundred of thousands
of Palestinians began. Most of these Palestinians are now living
in refugee camps scattered in neighbouring Arab countries. The
Palestinians who stayed on their lands in Palestine are living
in ghettos, and their lands constantly expropriated by the Israeli
military.
Gaza is an extremely densely
populated place. It is surrounded by barbed wires and security
fence on three sides and the Mediterranean Sea on the fourth.
Gaza is a large prison for most of the 1.3 million Palestinian
refugees, ethnically cleansed by Jewish terrorists in 1948. Israel
allows no industry to provide employment in Gaza. Over 60% of
Gazans are unemployed. Very few Gazans have been able to obtain
permits to leave in search of work. The majority (85%) of the
Palestinian residents in Gaza live in poverty, and rely on aids
to survive. According to many sources, including Amnesty International
and independent NGO's, Gaza is on the brink of a humanitarian
disaster.
No more than 7,500 armed Jewish
settlers also live in Gaza and control over one third of the
land, and they are well known for their violence against the
Palestinians. The settlers live in big houses with green lawns
and play grounds, and use most of the water available while Palestinians
have barely enough water for drinking.
Gaza is regularly invaded by
the Israeli Army (the IDF) and regularly bombed from the sky
by Israeli Air Force to assassinate Palestinian politicians and
innocent Palestinians children. The recent murder of Sheikh Yassin,
the spiritual leader of Hamas, was an example. This criminal
policy is condoned by the American Administration as "self-defence"
against unarmed defenceless Palestinians. The U.S. is Israel's
unquestioned backer and financier, and Israeli military is only
comparable to the U.S. military.
The Western world and the U.S.,
champions of human rights and freedom, regularly witnessing with
silence Israeli bulldozers, tanks and helicopter gunships tearing
Palestinian houses and Palestinian bodies. The West and the U.S.
are happy to produce fewer fake concerns to go with these criminal
atrocities. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Israel's
actions were harming peace efforts. What peace Mr. Powell was
talking about? The EU Chief begging Israel to "exercise
maximum restraints". Furthermore, these acts of violence
are called incursions in mainstream Western media for fear it
will be labelled anti-Semitism. Western media are obliged to
copy Israel's fabricated excuses for this ethnic cleansing.
The Arab-Israeli writer and
member of the Knesset, Dr. Azmi Bishara pointed out one of the
reasons for this silence, "[e]urope could only feel relief
at the opportunity to shift the burden of guilt onto the Arabs,
and Israel is only too glad to oblige by helping Europe avoid
facing its past seriously and draw the connection between its
Jewish problem then and its racism and xenophobia today. The
Palestinians, unable to perceive this context, imagine that the
interest Europe is displaying towards them reflects actual concern
for them instead of the continued playing out of the Jewish question"(2).
Many Europeans are happy to agree with their government's policy.
This week, the world is witnessing
another massacre of Palestinian children in Gaza. Israeli tanks
and aircrafts firing and killing innocent civilians demonstrating
against the destruction of their village. In one of these attacks,
Israeli media said at least 22 bodies, most of them school children,
had been counted after the strike in the Rafah camp in Gaza,
which some witnesses said was carried out by helicopter gunships
and others blamed on firing by tanks. These Israeli crimes have
been confirmed by Amy Goodman of www.democracynow.org broadcasting
on 19 May 2004 in direct telephone contact with Amira Hass of
Haaretz News and Palestinian resident Mohammed Omar in Rafah.
Sources quoted Moshe Yaalon,
Israeli army chief of staff, telling a weekly cabinet meeting,
"Hundreds of houses have been marked for destruction".
Israel's Supreme Court gave its approval to the plan, which is
expected to leave thousands of people homeless, by lifting a
temporary injunction on the demolition of homes in the Rafah
refugee camp.
Amnesty International courageously
likened Israeli actions to "war crimes". The report
said: "demolition and destruction are "grave breaches
of the Fourth Geneva Convention and are "war crimes".
Amnesty International called on Israel to halt the practices
immediately, and said the house demolitions are linked to Israeli
intentions to confiscate Palestinian lands in the West Bank and
Gaza.
In a commentary on genocide,
Edward Herman, a renowned economist and media analyst wrote;
"n the Genocide Convention of 1948, the word genocide was
defined loosely, as any act 'committed with the intent to destroy,
in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious
group as such'. Genocidal acts included causing serious 'mental
harm' or inflicting 'conditions of life' aimed at such destruction.
Can anything be clearer than that the Sharon government is trying
to destroy the Palestinians as a national group by creating intolerable
'conditions of life'? Under 'Operation Defensive Shield' Israel
carried out a 'systematic process of demolition of Palestinian
public and private property, and mass expropriation of Palestinian
land on behalf of settlers' (Appeal by 153 Israeli academics);
'the Israeli army deliberately trashed the inside of every Palestinian
institution that it did not entirely destroy-schools, charities,
health organizations, banks, radio and TV stations, even a puppet
theatre' (Gila Svirsky). As Rania Awwad has said, 'Sharon's solution
is to depopulate as much as possible the Occupied Palestinian
Territories by making life for its citizens unbearable. And what
could be more unbearable than watching your children cry themselves
to sleep from hunger, night after night'? The Israeli leadership
is not trying to exterminate all Palestinians, but they are prepared
to kill them freely, take away their land, and make life so harsh
that they will die off or leave. That this is a genocidal process
is sometimes suggested in the Israeli media, but not in the Free
Press"(3).
The Israeli journalist and
author Amira Hass described in detail the horror of the IDF-forced
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza. Hass wrote; "the
streets of Rafah were filled yesterday evening with horse-drawn
carts, trucks and pick-ups, all laden to the brim with any and
every item that the town's residents could remove from their
homes - mattresses, water tanks taken down from roofs, clothes,
blankets, doors and windows removed from their hinges, dismantled
beds and closets, school books, tin and asbestos sheeting, baby
carriages, refrigerators, gas canisters and more" (4). Ariel
Sharon is repeating the same crimes of 1948 ethnic cleansing
of Palestinians.
A friend of mine who is Jewish
wrote an e-mail from France; "believe me", he wrote,
"what is happening in Gaza are not the actions of Jews,
these are the actions of the IDF". But who is the IDF? Isn't
the IDF a collection of Jews? Who finances and commands the IDF?
Who is in charge of Israel's Supreme Court? Who elected Sharon
and his thugs? Isn't Israel a Jewish state? Israeli propaganda
is far more deadly than Israeli war machine.
I am very admirer of those
decent and honest Israelis and Jews who are courageous enough
to dissociate themselves from their government's crimes against
the Palestinians. Some Israeli journalists are far more honest
than those in Australia, the U.S and Britain to some extents.
The ABC news' twisting and dishonest language is typical of media
bias against the Palestinian victims. Only after large numbers
of innocent civilians are killed, the morality of the Western
world obliged to see the Palestinians as humans.
The policy of silence has been
around for quite some times, and it is very effective in destroying
Palestinian aspirations.
It is time for those with supreme
military power to apply their human morality impartially. The
people of Gaza are waiting.
[1] Edward Said, Israel-Palestine:
a third way, Le Monde Diplomatique, September 1998.
[2] Azmi Bishara, Searching
for meaning, Al-Ahram Weekly, No. 690, 13-19 May 2004.
[3] Edward Herman, The Cruise
Missile Left (part 5): ZNet Commentary, 18 May 2004.
[4] Amira Hass, Gazans Pile
Up Their Belongings And Flee, Haaretz, May 18, 2004.
Ghali Hassan is in the Science and Mathematics
Education Centre, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia.
Email: G.
Hassan@exchange.curtin.edu.au
Weekend Edition
Features for May 15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
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