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Recent
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April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
Ron
Jacobs
Bush and Rummy's Drunken Drive-by
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
April
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
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Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
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America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
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Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
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Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
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Lindorff
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Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
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Brown
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Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
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FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
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Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
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Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
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Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
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Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
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Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
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David
N. Gibbs
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War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
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Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
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Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
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Robert
Fisk
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Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
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Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
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War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
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Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
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William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
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A Busy Day for Bulldozers
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Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
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Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
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Mahajan
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Aluf Benn
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April
4, 2003
Anthony
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Colin Powell's Shame
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David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
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The Mantra of the Troops: Support
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There Are No More Arguments
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The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
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Tristam
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Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
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War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
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David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
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Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
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Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
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Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
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Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
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Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
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War Web Log 04/03
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April 15,
2003
A
Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation
Misadventures
of the NeoCons
by
ALI ABUNIMAH and HUSSEIN IBISH
As the war in Iraq moves toward its conclusion,
neoconservatives in and around the Bush administration are beginning
to aggressively push a chilling agenda for a generalized war
against much of the Arab and Islamic worlds.
This program to deliberately unleash
a calamitous "clash of civilizations" must be urgently
confronted before it succeeds in plunging us into a cycle of
uncontrolled chaos and confrontation.
Former CIA Director James Woolsey illustrated
how extreme this vision really is when he recently told a group
of California college students that the United States is engaged
in fighting "World War IV," which will "last
considerably longer than either World Wars I or II," but
hopefully not as long as the Cold War.
The enemies in this war, which he unconvincingly
presented as a campaign for democracy, are the rulers of Iran,
the "fascist" rulers of Iraq and Syria and groups
like Al Qaeda.
Woolsey also singled out the pro-American
rulers of Egypt and Saudi Arabia, declaring "We want you
nervous. We want you to realize now, for the fourth time in
100 years, this country and its allies are on the march and that
we are on the side of those whom you--the [Egyptian President
Hosni] Mubaraks, the Saudi royal family--most fear. We're on
the side of your people."
Norman Podhoretz, editor-at-large of
Commentary magazine, who was the first to dub the project World
War IV, and other neoconservatives, openly call for "regime
change" in a whole list of Middle Eastern states, governed
by both pro- and anti-American regimes.
For Podhoretz, the global extremism,
chaos and violence that the war on Iraq may provoke are not
the undesirable side effects of a noble mission, but the necessary
pretext for more aggressive American intervention. He says that
the U.S. can "win" this war and "reform"
Islam provided that America has "the stomach to impose
a new political culture on the defeated parties."
Neoconservatives long have been demanding
an attack on Iraq as the first step in a far more ambitious
regional and global agenda, but for the past decade made little
headway with the rest of the foreign policy establishment.
A 2000 report from the neocon think tank,
the Project for a New American Century, co-authored by several
key members of the Bush administration, laid out the vision
of a world order completely dominated by unilateral American
power. It also lamented that, due to opposition from more responsible
elements in government, their hyper-aggressive agenda would
have to be advanced slowly, "absent some catastrophic and
catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor."
Playing exactly that role, the Sept.
11 attacks opened the political space necessary for the attack
on Iraq, promoted mainly through the theory that Iraq might
one day supply chemical or biological weapons to terrorists.
Many Americans reluctantly supported
the attack on Iraq because they truly believed that it would
make America safer and Iraqis freer.
Precious few have willingly signed up
for a new, catastrophic and completely unnecessary global confrontation
with Islam.
An increasing number of more sober voices
are speaking out against this recklessness.
A full scale civil war on the right over
foreign policy has broken out in the press, with conservative
icons such as columnist Robert Novak trading bitter accusations
with overwrought neocons like David Frum, author of the irresponsible
"axis of evil" speech.
Stalwarts of the first Bush administration
such as former Seretary of State James Baker, former National
Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft and former Secretary of State
Lawrence Eagleburger have been openly trying to steer President
Bush away from what one unnamed former senior official called
"this bum advice he has been getting" from neocons.
Another observed that "The only one who can reach the president
is his father but it is not timely yet to talk to him,"
indicating a plan for a protracted campaign. They have obvious
potential allies in the Cabinet such as Secretary of State Colin
Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.
Liberals are also joining the fray, with
Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) leading the call for "a vision
of the world that is very different from what these excessively
ideological unilateralists want to thrust on us."
These voices of reason need to be encouraged
and emboldened.
President Bush has insisted that U.S.
troops will not stay in Iraq any longer than necessary. The
question is, necessary for what? The Pentagon intends to rule
Iraq directly for the meanwhile, and no plans exist for any
election or representative government.
Among those slated for senior positions
in Iraq is James Woolsey. Woolsey's latest statements, and continued
ambiguity about long-term American intentions in the region,
can only fuel fears that neoconservatives in the administration
intend not to give Iraq back to its people as soon as possible,
but to use it as a launching pad for further adventures that
may truly plunge us all into World War IV.
Ali Abunimah
is co-founder of electronicIraq.net
and Hussein Ibish is communications director for the
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee
Yesterday's
Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
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