Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 14,
2005
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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
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February 14, 2005
Harsh and Dreadful Realities
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
By
ROBERT JENSEN
Ward Churchill has a right to speak
about 9/11.
And Ward Churchill is right about 9/11.
I state that bluntly, even though I disagree with some aspects
of the University of Colorado professor's now-infamous essay,
because so many (including some on the left) have defended his
First Amendment rights while either remaining silent about, or
condemning, the article's analysis.
So, for the record: The main thesis Churchill put forward in
"'Some People Push Back': On the Justice of Roosting Chickens"
is an accurate account of the depravity of U.S. foreign policy
and its relationship to terrorism. Later I'll return to my disagreements,
but at a moment when right-wing forces have targeted not only
Churchill but academic freedom and the left in general, it is
more important than ever to stand firm on that point.
Malcolm X was correct, and it was appropriate for Churchill to
quote him: Chickens do, indeed, come home to roost. And whether
U.S. citizens want to acknowledge it or not, there likely will
be chickens heading our way for years to come.
I take Churchill's central thesis to be that (1) U.S. crimes
against peace, crimes against humanity, and war crimes around
the world -- from the genocidal campaigns against indigenous
people on which this country was founded, through the post-World
War II assaults (both by the U.S. military and through proxy
forces) on the people of the Third World -- are crimes, in legal
and moral terms; (2) while contemporary non-state terrorism is
a complex phenomenon, U.S. policies aimed at domination and control
around the world are one of several key factors in spawning such
terrorism; and (3) we must study that history and those connections
if we want to prevent further crimes, whether committed by the
United States or against U.S. citizens.
I also take a core assertion of Churchill's essay to be that
we citizens of the U.S. empire bear some collective responsibility
for those crimes, depending on our level of power and privilege,
and our capacity for resistance. As Churchill explained recently,
he includes himself in that category, not as a perpetrator but
as a member of movements that have failed to stop the crimes
(just as I would include myself). Further, those people at the
top of the power pyramid must accept their responsibility for
those crimes, even if they are not directly involved in the planning
and execution of specific criminal acts. The technocrats "at
the very heart of America's global financial empire" which
U.S. policy serves, he wrote, are not innocent. (More later on
how to understand the boundaries of that category.)
All of those claims are supported by evidence, law, and basic
moral principles widely shared across philosophical and spiritual/religious
traditions. Churchill is correct in refusing to retract those
claims. Those of us who have sharply critiqued U.S. policy also
should stand our ground.
It would be particularly cowardly if I tried to distance myself
from Churchill and his ideas, given that I have made similar
arguments in print and in public speaking over the past decade,
especially since 9/11. I was the target of a much less intense
vilification campaign on my own university campus immediately
after 9/11, which blew over fairly quickly and never reached
the level of the attack on Churchill. I am fortunate to remain
employed at my university and engaged in the larger intellectual
and political world.
I also owe a larger intellectual and political debt to Churchill.
His books were influential on my thinking and were one gateway
to my exploration of issues involving the U.S. attacks on indigenous
people. It was by reading Churchill's work, particularly A
Little Matter of Genocide, that I finally acknowledged the
obvious: The European holocaust against indigenous people constitutes
genocide and should lead us to confront the barbarism at the
heart of the United States.
So, I don't hesitate to defend Churchill, his work, and the larger
political movement of which he is a part. But I also want to
articulate where I disagree with his analysis -- not to distance
myself from him but instead to demonstrate solidarity. Real colleagues
do not ignore differences; they engage them. And at the same
time, real political allies on the left keep their eyes on the
game that right-wing forces play -- divide-and-conquer strategies
designed to scare people away from supporting principles of justice
and each other.
So, to fellow leftists and scholars: This is the worst possible
time to duck and cover. It's an especially important moment to
step up in public and engage in open and honest dialogue, to
defend our intellectual and political positions and our right
to speak about them.
To right-wing forces: Feel free to take passages from this essay
out of context to "prove" that I am anti-American,
support terrorism, and use the classroom to indoctrinate helpless
students in my demonic left-wing ideology designed to destroy
our country. Of course you don't need my permission; you'll do
it anyway, as you've done it to Churchill and many others.
To Ward Churchill: There are points in the essay that I think
missed the mark, perhaps mostly out of a lack of sufficient time
and space for detail in argument. I offer this critique not in
condemnation but in support, in the hope that all of us working
on these issues can refine our arguments.
First, let's go to the passage that has received the most attention,
the labeling of the people described as a "technocratic
corps at the very heart of America's global financial empire"
as "little Eichmanns." Churchill has said that the
passage clearly wasn't intended to include the janitors, food-service
workers, children, rescue workers, or passers-by who were killed,
and there's no reason to doubt him about that, even if the construction
was ambiguous enough that many read it as a broader condemnation.
But even accepting that narrow construction, the statement is
still problematic. Are all the stock traders in the United States
really equivalent to Adolph Eichmann? It's true that Eichmann
was a technocrat who helped keep the Nazi machinery of death
running, not the person pulling the trigger, so to speak. But
Eichmann was a fairly high-level Gestapo bureaucrat, directly
involved in the planning of that holocaust. Is it accurate to
think of all stock traders -- even if marked as "little"
versions of Eichmann, implying a much lower scale -- as being
in an analogous position? Is there a difference between a run-of-the-mill
stock broker who manages people's retirement funds and high-level
traders who make deals that can change the value of a nation's
currency and destroy people's lives?
Certainly many people in this society do jobs that are disconnected
from real-world suffering caused by our economic and political
system, and it is easy to lose sight of one's role in that system,
and hence one's moral responsibility. Perhaps better than labeling
them Eichmanns would be to talk about the degree of Eichmann-ness
in various positions. Maybe stock traders aren't directly analogous
to Eichmann, but simply have more to answer for morally than
many others. Maybe a university professor who by uncritically
teaching the mythology of a benevolent U.S. empire provides support
for imperial crimes has more Eichmann-ness than a secretary at
the Pentagon. All are, in some sense, part of the system, but
all have different levels of privilege, power, and culpability.
Some directly contribute to the maintenance of the system but
are well below the level of responsibilities of an Eichmann.
By using the comparison so loosely, the term loses meaning. Ironically,
if so many people can be Eichmanns in some sense, then the actual
Eichmanns in our system -- the people in the military, government,
and corporations in charge of the actual institutions of war
and economic domination, the Pentagon planners and the bank officials
who squeeze crippling debt payments out of Third World countries
-- are off the hook. Collective responsibility cannot mean all
are responsible to exactly the same degree, as Churchill himself
has articulated. His formulation in his essay forces us to think,
and from there I think a more detailed discussion is necessary.
But whatever one's analysis of that Eichmann-ness quotient, there's
still a sentence in Churchill's piece that troubles me: "If
there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way
of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the
little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin
towers, I'd really be interested in hearing about it." It's
hard to read that as anything other than an endorsement of the
use of deadly force against all those involved in "the mighty
engine of profit' to which the military dimension of U.S. policy
has always been enslaved," apparently at the level of stock
traders and above. Many have condemned Churchill for this and
suggested this comment was obviously crazy. I do not think it's
that simple. If an economic and political system callously destroys
human life around the world -- as corporate capitalism and fanatical
U.S. nationalism do -- in a fashion not always visible to many
in the system, what will change that morally unacceptable state
of affairs? Is violence justified in the face of such a system?
If so, what kind of violence can actually bring a more just world?
I am not a pacifist; I believe there are times and places in
which the use of violence to prevent a greater violence or end
deeply rooted oppression is morally justified. Certainly many
of the revolutionary movements that struggled against colonialism
met that test. The decisions one makes in such situations are
neither simple nor easy.
But I think it is clear that the attacks of 9/11 don't meet the
test. Can anyone imagine a scenario in which such attacks have
a reasonable chance of leading to real justice in the world?
I cannot, which is why I continue to hope that a predominantly
non-violent (though not necessarily pacifist) global movement
can restrain the empire and eventually be a vehicle for real
peace and real justice. Certainly the massive worldwide protests
on Feb. 15, 2003, against the United States' planned attack on
Iraq indicated the potential, even if that movement failed to
stop that particular war at that moment. Can the global justice
movement that had begun to challenge corporate domination of
the planet and the anti-empire/anti-war movement focused on U.S.
military power come together to create new possibilities? I don't
know enough to know the answer, but I can continue to try to
be part of such a movement when there is no other viable option
on the horizon.
A related issue that requires careful analysis is the relationship
between the crimes of the United States and the motivations of
the people who planned and executed the attacks on 9/11. The
policies of the U.S. government in the Arab and Muslim world
-- not just those of the ideologically fanatical Bush administration,
but consistently across Republican and Democratic administrations
-- have created justified resentment of the United States. Among
those policies are unconditional U.S. support for Israel's illegal
and brutal occupation of Palestinian land, the ongoing presence
of U.S. troops in the Middle East and U.S. support for repressive
regimes throughout the region, and (before the illegal U.S. invasion
in 2003) the imposition of harsh economic sanctions on Iraq that
killed hundreds of thousands.
Osama bin Laden and others in networks like al-Qaeda criticize
those policies, but that does not mean they are the voice of
the dispossessed or constitute a national liberation movement.
Their own political program is grotesque, not just by the standards
of a secular leftist in the United States, but by the standards
of progressive movements around the world. While they attack
U.S. targets because they want to end U.S. domination of the
Muslim world -- a reasonable goal -- they don't seek the justice
denied to them by the United States. They seek to impose a different
kind of authority and control.
But people such as bin Laden can draw on the deep reservoirs
of legitimate resentment created by U.S. policy, especially when
so many other politicians in the region are unwilling to challenge
the United States. For the vast majority of the populace of the
Islamic world, that justified anger at U.S. foreign policy has
not translated to support for al-Qaeda's aims and methods, but
the shared anger at U.S. domination provides these terror networks
their only cover.
So, I agree completely with Churchill's assessment that "America's
indiscriminately lethal arrogance and psychotic sense of self-entitlement
have long since given the great majority of the world's peoples
ample cause to be at war with it," but I want to highlight
the regressive characteristics of some of the political programs
of people who go to war with it. As the title of Churchill's
essay reminds us, "some people push back." But some
of those people pushing back aren't pushing for justice. His
labeling of the events of 9/11 as "counterattacks"
is true in a descriptive sense, but not in a moral one.
Finally, I would suggest that Churchill's declaration that he's
"not backing up an inch" misses an opportunity. He
has said in an interview that he has "an abiding sorrow"
for the victims, and I believe him. But if the way in which some
of the loved ones of those innocent victims read his words left
them feeling hurt, why not reach out to them? Here's one possible
response:
"I told the truth about
U.S. history and policy, and I will not apologize for that. I
told the truth about the way in which many Americans avoid responsibility
for the crimes of their own government, and I will not apologize
for that. I do not owe Bill O'Reilly or the CU Board of Regents
or the general public an apology. But to those still grieving
their losses of 9/11, I offer solidarity, compassion, and my
regret for any deepening of that hurt that my words caused.
"Please accept that, but also accept my challenge. It is
the challenge posed by many people of faith, internationalists,
and radicals throughout time: The challenge to see all human
life as equally valuable. The challenge to act in a world in
which innocent people routinely die because of U.S. economic
and military policy. A world in which military planners talk
casually of "collateral damage" and political leaders
decide how many civilians will be incinerated by U.S. bombs in
a war to enhance their power. A world in which half the people
on the planet live on less than $2 a day. A world in which 11
million children under the age of 5 die each year -- that's 30,000
a day, 10 times the death toll on 9/11 -- most from a lack of
simple medicines, clean water, and adequate nutrition. A world
in which health experts estimate that 6 million of those children
could be saved by low-tech interventions costing about $7.5 billion,
less than 2 percent of the annual Pentagon budget.
"Someone you love was a victim of terrorism, but we should
not construct the United States as a victim. Please consider
the example set by members of September Eleventh Families for
Peaceful Tomorrows, who lost loved ones on 9/11 but rejected
the use of that tragedy as a pretext for further U.S. wars of
aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq. Please join the movement
to end the insanity of U.S. aggression and the violence that
it spawns."
Let me be clear: By suggesting such a response, I am not asking
Churchill to back down. Nor am I suggesting he should let go
of his anger, an aspect of his intellectual and political profile
that I have long admired. When Churchill sees injustice in the
world, he does not react as a cold, dispassionate scholar hidden
away in a protected office but as a human being outraged by the
injustice who wants it to end. There are too few scholars like
Churchill, who dedicate their work and lives to ending the suffering
that injustice brings. His 9/11 essay conveys that anger, and
whatever the differences in interpretation I've outlined here,
I cannot disagree with, nor discount, his anger. I remember feeling
a similar anger that day, mixed with the shock and sadness. And
the more I learn about the world, the more I feel it. None of
us should let go of that anger just because others are scared
of it.
For me, left politics -- resistance to unjust impositions of
authority and the struggle for a sustainable world that balances
a deep yearning for individual freedom and a deep sense of responsibility
for each other -- is fueled by anger at the world as it exists,
along with a love for people and an appreciation for the beauty
of the non-human world. That righteous anger is powerful, as
long as it does not slip into self-righteousness and stays in
balance with that love. We can be glib about that struggle, but
in reality the tension -- inside of each of us and inside our
movements -- is not always easy to cope with. I wrestle with
it every day.
Dorothy Day of the Catholic Worker Movement was fond of quoting
a line from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov: "Love
in action is a harsh and dreadful thing compared with love in
dreams." In the essay he wrote on 9/11, I believe Churchill
was facing those harsh and dreadful realities, and I believe
that essay was his attempt on that day to take love out of the
realm of dreams and make it real in the world, in action.
In that action, Churchill is angry. He is harsh. And in the central
themes of the 9/11 essay and his life's work, Ward Churchill
is right.
Robert Jensen is a journalism professor at the University
of Texas at Austin and the author of "Citizens of the Empire:
The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity" from City Lights Books.
He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.
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