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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Calling All CounterPunchers!
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Today's Stories October 31, 2008 Alexander Cockburn October 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Stanley Heller William Loren Katz Joshua Frank James McEnteer Felice Pace Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
October 29, 2008 Arno J. Mayer Eric Toussaint Matt Gonzalez Steven Conn Jonathan Cook Patrick Bond Ramzi Kysia Douglas Valentine Stephen Martin Margaret Dooley-Sammuli Amee Chew Website of the Day
October 28, 2008 James G. Abourezk Andy Worthington Gary Leupp Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader P. Sainath Martha Rosenberg Charles R. Larson Website of the Day October 27, 2008 Michael Hudson Barbara Rose Johnston John Dinges Mike Whitney Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power Alan Farago David Michael Green Andy Worthington George Wuerthner Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day October 24 / 26, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Mike Whitney Don Santina Scott Boehm Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Linn Washington Jr. Nicole Colson Bernard Chazelle Brian Jones Christopher Brauchli Benjamin Dangl Val Strange Steve Early David Macaray Allison Kilkenny Richard Rhames Jim Bell Kris De Welde Barry Clemson Adam Engel Mark Scaramella Tuli Kupferberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend October 23, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Todd Chretien John Ross Peter Morici Mats Svensson Marlene Martin Robert Jensen / Margaret Kimberley Deepak Tripathi David Morris Website of the Day October 22, 2008 Brian Cloughley Heather Gray Jeff Birkenstein Ralph Nader DC Larson David Swanson Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth Larry Everest Robert Fantina Martha Rosenberg Stephen Martin Website of the Day October 21, 2008 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig Roberts Corey D. B. Walker Steve Breyman Eric Toussaint Wajahat Ali Robert Weitzel Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing Patrick B. Barr Omar Barghouti Website of the Day October 20, 2008 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio Tariq Ali Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Ben Rosenfeld David Michael Green William S. Lind Chris Genovali Stephen Martin Howard Lisnoff David Yearsley Website of the Day October 17 / 19, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whtney Michael D. Yates Suzanne Smith Carl Boggs Ralph Nader Fidel Castro Dave Marsh Saul Landau Jo Guldi Kevin Zeese Larry Everest Steve Early David Macaray Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Helen Redmond Dan Bacher Wajahat Ali Farzana Versey Vladimir Frolov Kim Nicolini Poets Basement Website of the Day
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October 31, 2008 The Law of the JungleInto Syria We WentBy BINOY KAMPMARK The Bush doctrine continues to live a charmed life less than a week before the US Presidential elections. It has made sovereignty nigh redundant – attacks on the soil of Washington’s close ally Pakistan, and now, Syria. The Sunday attack on the village of Sukkariyeh near Abu Kamal, ostensibly to capture or eliminate the insurgent leader, Abu Ghadiya, is causing more problems than its worth. Curiously for a country so addicted to such moral categories as ‘rogue’ states and outlaw regimes, the United States has maintained the Damascus Community School (in operation since 1950), and a culture centre at the embassy. Presumably, hope still burned brightly that locals might desist in disliking the great power and ultimately embrace the virtues of Americana in droves. In the end, such centers simply provided a base for US expatriates. That won’t be an issue now: the centers have been closed by the Syrian authorities in retaliation for the American incursion as Washington contemplates its next move. Given that Syria remains one of the key powers in brokering settlements on various fronts in the Middle East (the problems of Iraq, hostilities with Israel), such raids do little in the way of making any headway. The mission had been authorized by the Central Intelligence Agency, using four specially fitted helicopters with special forces. The target was, as ever, members of that ubiquitous yet amorphous network Al Qaeda. Some people specialize in funnelling undocumented immigrants past porous borders; others prefer moving foreign fighters to such Iraqi cities such as Mosul where frontline forces can stage strikes on the Great Satan. The latter cottage industry has proven particularly successful since US-led forces decided to beef up the reserves of terrorists by attacking Iraq, effectively creating a market Ghadiyah supposedly specializes in. The success of the operation, like so many CIA operations on the ground, is questionable. We do know that eight people were killed, including four children and a married couple. A man may have been bundled into one of the helicopters to be whisked away to an uncertain fate. It is questionable whether slaying four children in the course of an ‘elite’ raid raises expectations in military effectiveness, but that is something US authorities remain mute about. The Syrians are very clear about the situation. ‘Killing civilians in international law means terrorist aggression,’ said foreign minister Waleed Moualem. ‘We consider this criminal and terrorist aggression.’ Syria’s press attaché in London, Jihad Makdissi, told the BBC that Damascus should have been approached first instead of ‘applying the law of the jungle and penetrating, unprovoked, a sovereign country’. Maura Connelly, US charge d’affaires in Damascus, has been saddled with a demarche. The Iraqis have commenced an investigation into the raid, which is only fitting, given that Iraqi territory was used as the staging ground for the assault. Iraqi government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh, whose utterings are often more confusing than anything else, released a statement condemning the attack. ‘The constitution does not allow Iraq to be used as a staging ground to attack neighbouring countries.’ But al-Dabbagh has also made it clear that Syria had to hand over combatants responsible for the deaths of Iraqi policemen from the Ministry of Interior. Such is the price of impotence. There has been condemnation by a host of countries, fearful that the hand of US unilateralism has again shown itself. Predictably Iran has weighed in, as has North Korea. Many European states aren’t particularly comfortable with it either. Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa suggests that the incursion ‘should not pass by without clear condemnation.’ The mess the US and its allies in the Middle East find themselves in seems intractable. But an inability to appreciate the very concept of sovereignty (the current crisis over the status of US forces in Iraq being one such example) dooms the operation further. And we still remain in the dark as to what actually happened to Ghadiyah. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, University of Cambridge. He can be reached at bkampmark@gmail.com
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