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August 22, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
Taking
Down McKinney
August 21, 2002
Gary Leupp
The Return
of Mani
Romi Mahajan
Bhopal
on $40 a Day
Jerre Skog
Bush and
Europe:
Fun, Profit & Betrayal
Tom Crumpacker
The
Politics of the Cuba Embargo
August 20, 2002
Michael Neumann
The American
Left
and Palestine
William Blum
Chemical
Weapons, Iraq and the US: What the Times Left Out of the Story
Ralph Nader
The Politics
of Bankruptcy
Robert Fisk
The Two
Deaths of Abu Nidal
Philip Farruggio
Junk
School Nation
Edward Said
Disunity
and Factionalism
Kathleen Christison
Israeli
Tilt: the NYT
and Palestine
August 19, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Advance
Draft of Bush's 9/11 Anniversary Speech
Gavin Keeney
Auteur-Driven
Vehicles
Kurt Nimmo
Son of
COINTELPRO
David Krieger
Peace
Declarations from Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 14 / 18, 2002
Susan Davis
Played
Out: a Journey to Central City, Colorado
CounterPunch Staff
Our Favorite
Films
Jeffrey St. Clair
Usonian
Utopia's:
Frank Lloyd Wright, Working Class Housing and the FBI
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon and the Iron Wall
Uri Avnery
A Phone
Call from Hell
Wendy Brinker
Racism
is Alive and Well in the South Carolina Death House
Hamit Dardagan
The
Unbearable Lightness of Bombing
Ahmad Faruqui
The Legacy
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Philip Farruggio
Leading
by Example
Anthony Gancarski
Union
Jackass: Richard Perle's UK Charm Offensive
Jeff Halper
Fortress
Israel: the Message of the Bulldozer
Robert Jensen
Our Failures
are Borne by the Palestinians
Gary Leupp
An Open
Letter to Bruce Springsteen about Bush's War on Terrorism
Dave Marsh
Sing a
Simple Song
Rashmi Mayur
To Johannesburg
in Search of Hope
Steve Perry
Another Fine Mess:
Martha Stewart and Paul Wellstone
Anis Shivani
What's
Next...Concentration Camps?
Edward Said
Punishment
by Detail
Jeff Taylor
Paul Wellstone's
Legacy
August 13, 2002
Robert Fisk
At the al--Qaeda
Cemetery
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporate
Crime Time
Andrew Cockburn
Bono
Betrays Ireland
August 12, 2002
Messier / Dreier
The IDF
in Nablus:
Shooting at Kites;
Bulldozing Schools
Brian J. Foley
No Iraqi
Surprise: Look Now
at the Dangers of War
Fran Shor
Psychic
and Political Numbing
in Preparations for War
Resources:
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About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
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Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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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 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
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Reviews of Gore:
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August
22, 2002
Right-Wing Ant-War Dissent
by Robert Johnson
There is a significant amount of dissenting noise
regarding Bush's mad rush to war coming from portions of the
American right-wing. Brent Scowcroft, George Sr.'s former National
Security Advisor, has recently come out and said that an attack
on Iraq could lead to "armageddon." This judgment is
based on a scenario where Saddam, not being able to attack
the U.S. directly, launches attacks against Tel Aviv like he
did in the first Gulf War. Last time, Poppa Bush was able to
restrain the Israelis from retaliating. However, Bush Jr. has
repeatedly given the green light for Israel to do whatever it
wants and Sharon (Bush's "man of peace" (sic! and
sick!)) may very well respond with nuclear weapons, thinks Scowcroft.
Shortly before Scowcroft aired his concerns, we had Dick Armey,
no longer worrying about reelection because of his retirement,
saying, "I don't believe America will justifiably make
an unprovoked attack on another nation," thus theoretically
reverting to a stance o! f conservative isolationism. Does anyone
remember the conservative isolationists? The vast majority of
them seem to have disappeared now that it is no longer a Democrat
bombing innocents.
It is certainly encouraging that some
of these folks are speaking out. Any hopes to stop this war
before it begins should be cheered. However, it shouldn't be
thought that any of these characters have a problem with military
adventurism or a deep concern for the rights of innocents. Scowcroft
was intimately involved with both the invasion of Panama and
the first Gulf War, which by conservative estimates resulted
in the deaths of one hundred thousand, and Armey recently called
for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people. What they
do seem to be concerned about is the possibility that Bush is
being driven by obsession over Saddam and isn't paying sufficient
attention to the promotion of "American interests,"
which, of course, we know to understand as corporate interests.
W! hile the individual interests of a number of American corporations
are quite likely to be furthered by the coming war (Boeing,
Raytheon, Dyncorp, and Halliburton immediately come to mind),
the general interests of American corporations is perceived
to be at some risk by Scowcroft and others. The extreme instability
that an attack on Iraq is likely to engender in the Middle East
and the consequent risks to "American interests" should
be seen as the driving force behind elite and mass media "dissent,"
certainly not any worries about a few tens of thousands of
murdered innocents or the continuing devolution of the economic
and political interests of the vast majority of the American
people; worries which we could be forgiven for thinking might
be sufficient for opposing Bush's aggressiveness. But these
latter reasons for opposing this war, moral reasons voiced by
many Americans, have been silenced by our "free and independent"
fourth estate.
Before we cheer Scowcro! ft, Armey, and
the others, we should recognize their motivations and understand
that they are untrustworthy allies. We should also recognize
that we have two major impediments to having even their right-wing
criticisms heeded in the Oval Office or at the Crawford photo-op
ranch. As Richard Perle (a man who was nicknamed the "Prince
of Darkness" by his colleagues during his tenure in the
Reagan Pentagon and who has been one of the most vocal individuals
calling for attacking Iraq) has observed recently, Bush has
painted himself into a corner with his bellicose rhetoric. Now,
of course Perle didn't put it in those terms. Instead he invoked
one of the major concepts that U.S. foreign policy is based
upon: the doctrine of "credibility." This basically
holds that other countries (including allies) should be made
to believe that the U.S. is always capable of acting like a
mad dog and destroying, with no concessions to rationality or
morality, anyone that gets in its way.! This was transformed
from unofficial to official U.S. policy by President Nixon and
his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger (who, not incidentally,
is another war criminal who has recently come out criticizing
W's Iraq plans) and has remained in place through all the following
Democratic and Republican administrations. Bush's handlers are
very concerned that Bush's credibility will be damaged by backing
down on Iraq and are determined not to let this happen. Their
worry about Bush's credibility gains urgency with every day
that he fails to capture Osama Bin Laden or Mullah Omar "dead
or alive."
A second hurdle exists that should have
all the members of Congress, with the sole exception of Barbara
Lee, hanging their heads in shame. The September 14th Joint
Resolution Authorizing the Use of Force empowered Bush to "use
all necessary and appropriate force against those nations,
organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized,
committed, or! aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on
September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons."
The key words here are "he determines." In the context
of this Congressional gift, Bush's recent comments that "America
needs to know I'll be making up my mind based upon the latest
intelligence and how best to protect our own country plus our
friends and allies," should make clear that he feels that
he has all the legal power necessary to attack Iraq, with no
checks from Congress, the international community or, for that
matter, the American people standing in his way. Barbara Lee,
in explaining her brave and lonely vote against the Sept. 14th
resolution, warned that "we must be careful not to embark
on an open-ended war with neither an exit strategy nor a focused
target." This warning is now appearing more and more prophetic.
It should be noted that White House officials were, until recently,
attempting to link Al Qaeda and the Colombian leftist guerillas,
the! FARC. This would be farcical (no pun intended) if it weren't
so dangerous. It should also give us pause in accepting any
of the Bush administration's efforts to link Saddam Hussein
with the 9-11 attacks. Although retracted, the White House
attempts to tie the FARC into 9-11 demonstrates the facile cynicism
of this criminal gang. If Bush were to "determine"
that the FARC and Al Qaeda were linked, he now has the legal
power to fully engage militarily in Colombia's 35-year-old
civil war, a power that differs from earlier cynical attempts
to link the so-called drug war to Colombian counterinsurgency
efforts substantially in its limiting of even a modicum of public
debate. Various factions within the White House and the civilian
Pentagon leadership (including the aforementioned "Prince
of Darkness," Richard Perle) have also been rhetorically
linking Al Qaeda to separatist movements in the Phillipines,
Indonesia, Georgia and Russia and to the governments of Iran
and Saudi Arabia.! This should have all of us deeply, deeply
worried.
Nor should it be considered a coincidence
that Bush, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld have been invoking language
of expediency and security similar to their justifications for
bombing whomever they feel like in their arguments that Bush
has the right to lock up forever, with no judicial or congressional
oversight, any individual (American citizen or not) that the
President "determines to be an enemy combatant." Reagan's
dirty wars in Central America and elsewhere were opposed by
domestic dissidents in organizations such as the Committee In
Support of the People of El Salvador (CISPES). How likely is
it that such activists will now be "determined" to
be "enemy combatants" by the White House? The fact
that Reagan's FBI repeatedly smeared CISPES, Earth First!, and
others as "terrorist" organizations should not give
us much comfort. The spineless Congress members that suggest
that they are troubled by Bush's warmongering and attacks on
civil l! iberties, but gave him unlimited warmongering power
last year and pilloried Lee as a traitor, should all resign
in shame for their role in having meekly handed over some of
the last tatters of democracy that remain in our deeply corrupted
polity. Additionally, all the media lapdogs that effusively
praised the manufactured "spirit of bipartisanship"
that is increasingly leading to a very real spirit of dictatorship
should never have the gall to grace the American airwaves with
their plasticene faces, spray-sculpted hair, or misologistic
voices ever again.
One last thing should be understood in
any and every discussion of Bush launching a war that is guaranteed
to result in thousands of dead. For all the comparisons of
Saddam Hussein with Hitler, the chattering minions of the corporate
media have failed to note that at the Nuremberg trials of the
Nazi leadership, one of the central counts in the war crimes
indictment was "Conspiracy to Commit Agress! ive War."
The Nuremberg prosecutors were right to consider this a primary
charge. For it is from this crime that the war crimes on both
sides originate. Now, if "conspiracy to commit aggressive
war" does not characterize the current machinations of
Richard Perle, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld,
Paul Wolfowitz, Otto Reich, and the rest of that "compassionate
conservative" cabal, I don't know what does. Which leads
us quite logically to the question: who is currently more deserving
of being compared to Hitler? (I should note here that a number
of commentators in the independent media have pointed this out
before me.)
To return to the topic that opened this
discussion, how should we view the increasing calls on the right
to slow down the march to war? We should welcome it, but with
our eyes open. It is evidence that there are major divisions
within the elites over Bush's course. Elites make their decisions
based on a cost/benefit analysis. Scowcroft, Kissinger, Armey
and others are worried that the costs to the general interests
of American capitalism of this adventure may be too high. It
is up to us to make those worries ever greater, with civil disobedience,
strikes, tax protests, and any other form of useful noncompliance
and nonviolent sabotage, while we remain cognizant of both the
cost of the Iraqi lives that hang in the balance and the benefits
that accrue everytime we demonstrate that the elites are vulnerable.
Robert Johnson lives in Portland, Oregon. He can be reached
at: rojo120@hotmail.com
Today's Features
Alexander Cockburn
Taking
Down Cynthia McKinney
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