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Read Cockburn and St. Clair's Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press and discover how the CIA gave a helping hand to the opium lords who took over Afghanistan, thus ushering the Taliban into power.


CounterPunch: Complete Coverage of 9/11 and the War on Afghanistan

New Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: Occupied Ramallah Close Up: Large and Small Change in a State of Siege; Feed Your Goats, Maybe Get Shot; Snipers on Main Street; Hiding in Your Back Room for Three Days; Humor, Heroism and Bravado Amid Bullets; Occupied DC: Legislators' Daily Gauntlet of Searches; Only in America: His Dad Was CIA; He Hated Blacks; He Robbed Banks, and Liked to Dress Up Like a Woman; A Tribute to Billy Wilder. Remember, the CounterPunch website is supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

April 9, 2002

Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable

April 8, 2002

David Vest
From Birmingham to Nashville:
The Making of Tammy Wynette

Rick Giombetti
Paxil, Suicide and Science

Dr. Neve Gordon
Letter to an IDF Colonel:
How Did You Become
a War Criminal?

Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's Top 10 CDs

Jordy Cummings
Not in My Name Anymore

Gavin Keeney
Bush and the Middle East:
Mouth Wide Shut

Edward Said
The Future of Palestine

April 7, 2002

Beth Daoud
Accompanying Ambulances
in Bethlehem

Nancy Stohlman
After the Invasion:
The Search for Bread
Among the Ruins

Thomas Mountain
"Yellow Peril" In Hawai'i:
Judge Orders Chains and Shackles for Chinese Witnesses

Tariq Ali
Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

April 6, 2002

Philip Farruggio
War, Snake Oil and Circuses

Viktor Litovkin
Russian Generals Raise Questions About Pentagon Victories in Afghanistan

Patrick Cockburn
CIA Survey of Iraqi Airfields
May Herald Attack

Walt Brasch
Oil Slick George:
Bush-whacking the Environment

Ralph Nader
Campaign Finance Sham

Sam Bahour
The Blind Leading the Criminal

Bill Christison:
A Former CIA Official on
Oil and the Middle East

April 5, 2002

Charmaine Seitz
In Ramallah: The Grueling Reoccupation Grinds On

Nancy Stohlman
The Invasion of Bethlehem
and Our Tax Dollars at Work

Beth Daoud
The Siege of Bethlehem:
"What Do You Mean God Is Punishing Me?"

Fareed Marjaee:
Demonizing Iran

Mokhiber / Weissman
Philip Morris to Canada:
"Drop Dead"

Alex Lynch
Tampa Campus Mirrors
Middle East Strife

Alexander Cockburn
Sharon's Wars: How the
News Gets Through

April 4, 2002

Ray Hanania
Sharon's Latest Lie About the Church of the Nativity

Mike Leon
Rightwing Assault on Madison Progressives Misfires

Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!

Nancy Stohlman
An American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp

Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?

M. Shahid Alam
The Lies of Thomas Friedman

April 3, 2002

Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks

Bernard Weiner
An American Jew Talks
About His Shame

David Vest
Sting of Stings

Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest

John Chuckman
Of War, Islam and Israel

Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem

Alexander Cockburn
The Sins of the Church

April 2, 2002

Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?

Jeff Chang
Is Protest Music Dead?

Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism

Norman Madarasz
Bullying Brazil

Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah

Steve Perry
Let's Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer

April 1, 2002

Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich
Peace and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action

Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out

Molly Secours
Tennessee's Kangaroo Court

Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street

Dave Marsh
DeskScan: This Week's
Top 10 CDs

Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law

March 31, 2002

Jordan Flaherty
Last Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me

Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem

Maha Sbitani
The Israeli Army Took Over My House

Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War

Resources:
100s of Links About 9/11


CounterPunch:
Complete Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath


Five Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond

By Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula

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Published March 15, 2002

  • Facing Down Rehnquist and Scalia:
  • Jennifer Harbury at the Supreme Court;
  • ADL Throws in Towel, Pays Up:
  • How They Worked for Apartheid Regime and Spied on NAACP:
  • Cockburn on America the Bully:
  • From Teddy Roosevelt to George W.
  • St. Clair on Musicians Against the Death Penalty & The Legacy of the Mekons.


    Search CounterPunch

Read Whiteout and Find Out How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden

Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the Press

by Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism

By Rahul Mahajan

The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff

The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid

Edited by Roane Carey

 

A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine

Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair

Buy This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
 

Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual


Private Warriors
by Ken Silverstein

CounterPunch's Booktalk

April 9, 2002

I Helped Kill a Palestinian Today

By Robert Jensen

I helped kill a Palestinian today.

If you pay taxes to the U.S. government, so did you.

And unless the policies of the U.S. government change, tomorrow will be no different.

It is easy for Americans to decry the "cycle of violence" in Palestine, but until we acknowledge our own part in that violence, there is little hope for a just peace in Palestine or the Middle East.

The first step is to abandon the mythology that the United States is a "neutral broker for peace" in the conflict. A new report by the Institute for Southern Studies shows that in the one-year period after the Sharm el-Sheikh peace agreement in September 1999, the U.S. government pumped $3.6 billion worth of arms into Israel -- an odd policy for a country playing a supposedly neutral role.

So, when we hear on the news that Israeli tanks are rolling through the cities and refugee camps of the West Bank, we should remember those tanks were made in the United States and purchased by Israel with U.S. aid. The Israeli jets and helicopters used in the assault are American F-16s, Blackhawks and Apaches. Machine guns, grenade launchers, missiles and bombs -- made in the USA, paid for with our tax dollars -- are being used to crush the Palestinian people. That means we must face two realties:

First, the current Israeli attack on West Bank towns is not a war on terrorism, but part of a long and brutal war against the Palestinian people for land and resources. If Israel is serious about ending terrorism, it would end its 35-year illegal military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. Until it demonstrates a willingness to do that, Israeli calls for peace ring hollow and its attempts to achieve security through force will only make it less secure.

Second, Israel's war against the Palestinians would not be possible without U.S. military and economic support -- $3 billion a year in direct aid. While the whole world stands against Israel's occupation, our government provides the political and diplomatic cover that allows Israel to flout international law. Specific Israeli policies sometimes draw mild criticisms from U.S. leaders, and those criticisms have grown stronger in recent days as Israel has ignored calls for a pullback of forces. But Israel can continue to ignore the international consensus -- and the U.N. Security Council resolutions calling on it to end the occupation -- because of U.S. support.

U.S. officials recently have distanced themselves from the extreme violence of the Sharon government and the Likud Party, but it is folly to think all would be fine if only a Labor Party government were in power. The differences between the two major parties in Israel are more of style than substance. Take the question of settlements in the occupied territories.

We are told repeatedly that Israel desperately wants peace. If that is true, why has the number of Israeli settlers living in the West Bank and Gaza almost doubled since the Oslo peace process began nearly a decade ago? Given that those settlements are one of the most serious obstacles to a peaceful solution, why would the Israeli governments -- Labor and Likud alike -- expand settlements in territory it illegally occupies during a so-called peace process?

The ultimate solution to the conflict in the Middle East is a regional peace conference under an international banner that takes seriously international law. There must be regional arms control, which should be part of a movement to reduce the insane levels of armaments globally (of which the United States is the leading salesperson). The most important contribution the United States could make is to stop blocking that process.

But right now, the United States can help defuse the immediate crisis by using the leverage its aid to Israel provides. We the American people should pressure our government to make a clear statement: Israel must not only end its current brutal offensive but also must take meaningful steps to end the occupation, and the United States must withdraw support from Israel until it agrees to do so.

If we fail to do that, then we cannot escape the knowledge that Americans are partly responsible for the next missile fired into a Palestinian town, the next shell lobbed into a Palestinian home, the next Israeli bullet that cuts down an innocent Palestinian.

Robert Jensen is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin, a member of the Nowar Collective, and author of the book Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream. His pamphlet, "Citizens of the Empire," is available online here. He can be reached at rjensen@uts.cc.utexas.edu.