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Today's
Stories
January 17 / 18, 2003
Joe Quandt
Suicide
Bombers: The Clash of Absurdities
January 16, 2004
Kathy Kelly
A Visit
to Umm Qasr Prison
William S. Lind
More
Thoughts on 4th Generation Warfare
Gillian Russom
So.
Cal Grocery Strikers Speak Out: "We Need Action!"
Ari Shavit
Survival
of the Fittest? An Interview with Benny Morris
Adi Ophir
Genocide Hides Behind Expulsion: a Response to Benny Morris
Dave Lindorff
The General's Henchman: Michael Moore Smears Kucinich
Steve Perry
Iowa Death Trip 2
January 15, 2004
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo
to the President: Your State of the Union Address
John Chuckman
Dry
Hole in the Oval Office: President from Podunk Drilling, Inc
Chris Floyd
Mind Over Matter
Gil-Scott Heron
Whitey on the Moon
Gary Leupp
The
Silk Road: Random Thoughts on the Bam Earthquake and Satan
January 14, 2004
Greg Moses
Happy
Birthday, Dr. King: To Write Off the South is to Surrender to
Bigots
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Supremes: Amputating the Bill of Rights
Dave Lindorff
Preview of Iowa? Pennsylvania Straw Poll Spells Trouble for Traditional
Dems (and Dean)
Jason Leopold
O'Neill Claims Backed by Rumsfeld / Wolfowitz War Letters to
Clinton
Alexander Cockburn
Bush,
Oil and Iraq: Some Truth at Last
January 13, 2004
William S. Lind
How 2004
Looks from Potsdam
M. Junaid Alam
Do Iraqis Have a Right to Resist?
Mickey Z
Snipers:
No Nuts in Iraq
Adolfo Gilly
Chonchocoro:
The Prisoner and the Presidents
Steve Perry
You Love God, Right?
January 12, 2004
Ben Tripp
No Stan
for the Kurds
Norman Solomon
The
Dixie Trap: Democrats and the South
Mike Whitney
O'Neill's Revenge
Jason Leopold
From the Very First Instant It Was About Iraq
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
January 17 / 18, 2004
Meet Our New Saddam
Introducing
Islam Karimov of Uzbekistan
By SADIK H. KASSIM
Introducing Islam Karimov, one of Washington's
most recent allies in the War on Terror. The neo-Stalinist autocrat
presides over Uzbekistan, a vast mineral and oil rich country
strategically located in central Asia. A country where dissidents
are boiled alive (1); where having an Islamically sanctioned
beard can get you arrested (2); where torture is widespread.
In short, a country where human rights abuses are occurring
on "a massive scale," (3) financed in part by the American
taxpayer.
Slightly larger than the state of California
and home to the fabled Silk Road cities of Samarqand and Bukhara,
Uzbekistan today is a prime theater in the "War on Terror".
After the September 11 attacks, Uzbekistan granted American
troops permission to use its Khanbad military base located just
north of Afghanistan.
The establishment of Khanbad, along with
other bases in neighboring Kyrgyzstan, enabled the American government
to achieve three major strategic goals. In addition to providing
a center from which the American military could pursue the Taliban
in Afghanistan, the bases more importantly, improved "American
access to Kazakh and Turkmen oil and gas," and extended
"US influence to a region hitherto dominated by Russia and
of constant concern to China (4)." The bases in essence
paved the way for America to gain a foothold in a globally strategic
region thereby putting it in a better position to compete with
Russia and China for the great oil treasures of the Caspian Sea.
In addition to being the world's largest
lake, the Caspian sea is believed to hold vast oil reserves comparable
to those of the Middle East. Yet, unlike the Middle East, transport
of the extracted black gold from the landlocked lake to the open
sea is a major hurdle. Therefore, the primary issue guiding
the politics of the region revolve around not ownership of oil,
rather control of the proposed pipelines by which the oil is
transported5. It is within this context that Uzbekistan has
emerged as "the key strategic state in the area (5)."
Uzbekistan's cooperation with Washington
has not gone unrewarded. In March 2002, Messrs Bush and Karimov
formally met for 45 minutes in the White House. The meeting
produced a five point strategic partnership between the two countries.
Among other things, in exchange for continued use of Khanbad,
the agreement granted Uzbekistan $500 million in aid and credit
guarantees (6), $25 million for military assistance, $18 million
for "border security assistance", and $1 million in
policing assistance (7). These concessions were made to one
of America's "foremost partners in the fight against terrorism
(8)" despite the State Department's own declaration that,
"Uzbekistan is an authoritarian state with a very poor human
rights record (9)."
According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) 2003 World Report3,
the Karimov led government violates, on a systematic level, basic
rights "to freedom of religion, expression, association
and assembly." HRW notes that Karimov has used the pretext
of the "War on Terror", to pursue a campaign whose
aim is to squelch opposition. Specifically, the government has
arrested and tortured thousands of independent Muslims, including
minors. HRW and other human rights organizations estimate that
there are between 7,000 and 10,000 prisoners held on religious
and political charges. Most recently, forensic evidence has
been revealed suggesting that Karimov's government boiled to
death two Muslim prisoners after they refused to stop praying.
The only major critique of Karimov's
government by a western government official has come from Britain's
Ambassador to Uzbekistan, Craig Murray (10). "Uzbekistan
is not a functioning democracy, nor does it appear to be moving
in the direction of democracy," said Murray at the opening
of the Freedom House human rights center in Tashkent, Uzbekistan
in October 2002. Murray continued by exclaiming that, "The
major political parties are banned; parliament is not subject
to democratic election; and checks and balances on the authority
of the electorate are lacking." Murray concluded by noting
that, "no government has the right to use the war against
terrorism as an excuse for the persecution of those with a deep
personal commitment to the Islamic religion, and who pursue their
views by peaceful means."
Murray's speech did not sit well with
either the American or the Uzbek governments, the latter calling
on Murray to apologize for his remarks. Murray did not relent
and continued his critiques. In May 2003 he decried, "the
intense repression here [in Uzbekistan] combined with the inequality
of wealth and absence of reform." While in August 2003
he restated that there was, "no freedom of speech, mass
media, movement and so forth." Furthermore, he called
on the Uzbek interior and national security ministries to publicly
criticize themselves for using torture.
Murray's blunt manner "was causing
alarm in London and Washington, where he was regarded as too
undiplomaticsome influential figures in the diplomatic service
felt he had gone too far10." For his troubles, Murray was
subject to a spurious internal British Foreign Office investigation
for alleged misconduct. The pressures got to Murray, who eventually
returned to London in October of this year for "medical
reasons".
According to James McGrory, a British
development consultant based in Tashkent, "The common belief
is that Mr. Murray is being sacrificed to the AmericansThey certainly
loathed him...the US Embassy makes no effort to conceal its dislike
of the way he repeatedly and unequivocally slams (the country's)
human rights record."
Clare Short, former International Development
Secretary who resigned from the Blair cabinet over the war in
Iraq, is a purported supporter of Murray's critiques. Of Murray,
Short said the following (11), "He is an individual who
was taking a stand on human rights issues where there is terrible,
terrible repressionif he has been smeared and belittled for standing
up for fundamental human rights--this is not just a few honorable
political dissidents but really horrible repression--that would
be outrageous."
The case of Uzbekistan and Craig Murray
prove that once again political expediency takes priority over
human rights issues in a globally strategic region. The final
word belongs to the St. Louis Post Dispatch, the only major American
periodical to significantly condemn American policy in Uzbekistan.
In an editorial dated November 8, 2003, it was noted that, "If
U.S. policy is to have any credibility in the Muslim world--indeed
in the world at large--it must be based not on convenience, but
on principle. It will be recalled that in the 1980s, the United
States made a similar deal of convenience with another Central
Asian tyrant. His name was Saddam Hussein."
Sadik Kassim
is a graduate student. He may be reached at shkassim81@yahoo.com.
Notes:
1. Fielding, F. and Nick Meo. "Mystery
Grows Over Recall of 'ill' Ambassador." Sunday Times 12
October 2003, 4.
2. Barry, E. "Fighting Terror/
UZBEKISTAN; Religious Fervor Sparks a Fearful Leader's
Crackdown." The Boston Globe 2 November 2001, third ed.:
sec. A: 32.
3. Human Rights Watch World Report 2003.
Uzbekistan. 2003.
4. "Not Just an Airbase: The US
Must Tread Carefully in Central Asia." The Financial Times
[London] 25 August 2003, first ed.: pg. 16.
5. Glenny, M. "To Hell and Baku:
The Vast Scale and Bloody Price of the Rush for Oil in the Caspian
has Been Little Noticed. Now a Powerful New Study Reveals All."
The Observer 2 November 2003.: Observer Review Pages, 16.
6. "Dealing With the Devil."
St. Louis Post-Dispatch [St. Louis] 8 November 2003, Editorial.
7. Amnesty International. A Catalogue
of Failures: G8 Arms Exports and Human Rights Violations. 2003.
8. United States Government, "Uzbekistan
Military Assistance" and "Uzbekistan Exchanges and
Law Enforcement Assistance"--US Government, undated, 2002.
9. "UZBEKISTAN: Leader to Meet Bush."
The New York Times [New York] 12 March 2002, final ed.: sec.
A pg. 10.
10. Beeston R., and James Kilner. "Outspoken
Envoy to Uzbekistan Comes Home." The Times 1 October 2003,
pg. 18.
11. Bright, M. "Short Backs Envoy
Who Criticized US: Repression in Uzbekistan is 'Terrible' ".
The Observer 19 October 2003, pg. 12.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
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