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Today's
Stories
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The Coming Elections and the Future
of American Global Power
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
March 5, 2004
Chris Floyd
Uncle
Sugar: How the WMD Scam Put Money in Bush Family Pockets
Ron Jacobs
Chaos
Reigns: Haiti and Iraq
Lisa Viscidi
Guatemalan
Refugees: a Difficult Return
Yves Engler
Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Mike Legro
Those Bush Ads: Some Dead Bodies Are Worth More Than Others
Javier Armas
A Night of Inspiration: Oakland Benefit for Grocery Workers Strike
Bennett Hoffman
"Who Cares About Haiti, Anyway?"
Bill Christison
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous
Website of the Day
Haiti Support Group
March 4, 2004
Diane Christian
Sex
and Ideals
Sen. Robert Byrd
Stop the Stonewalling, Mr. President: Fairy Tales, Bush and the
9/11 Commission
Norman Solomon
Assuming the Right to Intervene: The US Press and Haiti
Jack Brown
A Fragrant Saga of Mexico's Greens
Hal Cranmer
The
John Kerry Experience
David Lindorff
Greenspan's Pension
Sam Smith
The Election is Over, We Lost
Christopher Brauchli
Goin'
to the Chapel: The Gay and the Dead
Brian D. Barry
The "Perfect" World of E-Voting: A Computer Scientist
Reports from the Polling Booth
Richard Oxman
Arsonists for Haiti?
Peter Phillips
Haitian
Fantasies: Mainstream Media Fails Itself, Again
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
Website of the Day
What If Boeing Ads Told the Truth?
March 3, 2004
Heather Williams / Karl
Laraque
Marines
Retake Haiti
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
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
March 12 / 14, 2004
The US Must be Isolated and Constrained
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
By GABRIEL KOLKO
We are now experiencing fundamental changes in
the international system whose implications and consequences
may ultimately be as far-reaching as the dissolution of the Soviet
bloc.
The United States' strength, to a crucial
extent, has rested on its ability to convince other nations that
it is to their vital interests to see America prevail in its
global role. But the scope and ultimate consequences of its
world mission, including its extraordinarily vague doctrine of
"preemptive wars," is today far more dangerous and
open-ended than when Communism existed. Enemies have disappeared
and new ones--many once former allies and even congenial friends--have
taken their places. The United States, to a degree to which
it is itself uncertain, needs alliances, but these allies will
be bound into uncritical "coalitions of the willing."
So long as the future is to a large degree--to
paraphrase Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld--"unknowable,"
it is not to the national interest of its traditional allies
to perpetuate the relationships created from 1945 to 1990.
The Bush Administration, through ineptness and a vague ideology
of American power that acknowledges no limits on its global
ambitions, and a preference for unilateralist initiatives which
 discounts consultations with its friends
much less the United Nations, has seriously eroded the alliance
system upon which U. S. foreign policy from 1947 onwards was
based. With the proliferation of all sorts of destructive weaponry,
the world will become increasingly dangerous.
If Bush is reelected then the international
order may be very different in 2008 than it is today, much less
in 1999, but there is no reason to believe that objective assessments
of the costs and consequences of its actions will significantly
alter his foreign policy priorities over the next four years.
If the Democrats win they will attempt
in the name of internationalism to reconstruct the alliance system
as it existed before the Yugoslav war of 1999, when even the
Clinton Administration turned against the veto powers built into
the NATO system. America's power to act on the world scene
would therefore be greater. John Kerry's foreign policy adviser,
Rand Beers, worked for Bush's National Security Council until
a year ago. More important, Kerry himself voted for many of
Bush's key foreign and domestic measures and he is, at best,
an indifferent candidate. His statements and interviews over
the past weeks dealing with foreign affairs have been both vague
and incoherent. Kerry is neither articulate nor impressive as
a candidate or as someone who is likely to formulate an alternative
to Bush's foreign and defense policies, which have much more
in common with Clinton's than they have differences. To be critical
of Bush is scarcely justification for wishful thinking about
Kerry. Since 1947, the foreign policies of the Democrats and
Republicans have been essentially consensual on crucial issues--"bipartisan"
as both parties phrase it--but they often utilize quite different
rhetoric.
Critics of the existing foreign or domestic
order will not take over Washington this November. As dangerous
as it is, Bush's reelection may be a lesser evil because he is
much more likely to continue the destruction of the alliance
system that is so crucial to American power. One does not have
to believe that the worse the better but we have to consider
candidly the foreign policy consequences of a renewal of Bush's
mandate.
Bush's policies have managed to alienate,
in varying degrees, innumerable nations, and even its firmest
allies--such as Britain, Australia, and Canada--are being compelled
to ask if giving Washington a blank check is to their national
interest or if it undermines the tenure of parties in power.
The way the war in Iraq was justified compelled France and Germany
to become far more independent, much earlier, than they had intended,
and NATO's future role is now questioned in a way that was inconceivable
two years ago. Europe's future defense arrangements are today
an open question but there will be some sort of European military
force independent of NATO and American control. Germany, with
French support, strongly opposes the Bush doctrine of preemption.
Tony Blair, however much he intends acting as a proxy for the
U.S. on military questions, must return Britain to the European
project, and his willingness since late 2003 to emphasize his
nation's role in Europe reflects political necessities. To do
otherwise is to alienate his increasingly powerful neighbors
and risk losing elections. His domestic credibility is already
at its nadir due to his slavish support for the war in Iraq.
In a word, politicians who place America's
imperious demands over national interest have less future than
those who are responsive to domestic opinion and needs.
This process of alienating traditional
close friends is best seen in Australia, but in different ways
and for quite distinctive reasons it is also true elsewhere--especially
Canada and Mexico, the U.S.' two neighbors. In the case of
Australia, Washington is willing to allow it to do the onerous
chores of policing the vast South Pacific and even take greater
initiatives, at least to a point, on Indonesia. But the Bush
Administration passed along to it false intelligence on Iraq's
alleged weapons of mass destruction, which many of Australia's
own experts disputed, and Bush even telephoned Prime Minister
John Howard to convince him to support America's efforts in innumerable
ways. As Alexander Downer, the foreign minister, admitted earlier
this month, "it wasn't a time in our history to have a
great and historic breach with the United States," and the
desire to preserve the alliance became paramount. (1) But
true alliances are based on consultation and an element of reciprocity
is possible, and the Bush Administration prefers "coalitions
of the willing" that raise no substantive questions about
American actions--in effect, a blank check. Giving it produced
strong criticism of the Howard government's reliance on Washington's
false information on WMD and it has been compelled to endorse
a joint parliamentary committee to investigate the intelligence
system--sure to play into opposition hands this election year.
Even more dangerous, the Bush Administration
has managed to turn what was in the mid-1990s a budding cordial
friendship with the former Soviet Union into an increasingly
tense relationship. Despite a 1997 non-binding American pledge
not to station substantial numbers of combat troops in the territories
of new members, Washington plans to extend NATO to Russia's
very borders--Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania especially concern
Moscow--and it is in the process of establishing a vague number
of bases in the Caucasus and Central Asia. Russia has stated
that the U.S. encircling it warrants its retaining and modernizing
its nuclear arsenal--to remain a military superpower--that will
be more than a match for the increasingly expensive and ambitious
missile defense system the Pentagon is now building. It has
over 4,600 strategic nuclear warheads and over 1,000 ballistic
missiles to deliver them. Last month Russia threatened to pull
out of the crucial Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, which
has yet to enter into force, because it regards America's ambitions
in the former Soviet bloc as provocation. "I would like
to remind the representatives of [NATO]," Defense Minister
Sergei Ivanov told a security conference in Munich last February,
"that with its expansion they are beginning to operate in
the zone of vitally important interests of our country."
(2) The question Washington's allies will ask themselves is
whether their traditional alliances have far more risks than
benefits--and if they are necessary.
In the case of China, Bush's key advisers
were publicly committed to constraining its burgeoning military
and geopolitical power the moment they took office. But China's
military budget is growing rapidly--12 percent this coming year--and
the European Union wants to lift its 15-year old arms embargo
and get a share of the enticingly large market. The Bush Administration,
of course, is strongly resisting any relaxation of the export
ban. Establishing bases on China's western borders is the logic
of its ambitions.
The United States is not so much engaged
in "power projection" against an amorphously defined
terrorism by installing bases in small or weak Eastern European
and Central Asian nations as again confronting Russia and China
in an open-ended context which may have profound and protracted
consequences neither America's allies nor its own people have
any interest or inclination to support. Even some Pentagon analysts
have warned against this strategy because any American attempt
to save failed states in the Caucasus or Central Asia, implicit
in its new obligations, will risk exhausting what are ultimately
its finite military resources. (3)
There is no way to predict what emergencies
will arise or what these commitments entail, either for the U.
S. or its allies, not the least because--as Iraq proved last
year and Vietnam long before it--its intelligence on the capabilities
and intentions of possible enemies against which it is ready
to preempt is so completely faulty. Without accurate information
a nation can believe and do anything, and this is the predicament
the Bush Administration's allies are in. It is simply not to
their national interest to pursue foreign policies based on
a blind, uncritical faith in fictions or flamboyant adventurism
premised on false premises and information. It is far too open-ended
both in terms of time and costs. If Bush is reelected, America's
allies and friends will have to confront such stark choices,
a painful process that will redefine and perhaps shatter existing
alliances.
But America will be more prudent and
the world will be far safer only if the Bush Administration is
constrained by a lack of allies and isolated.
Gabriel Kolko
is the leading historian of modern warfare. He is the author
of the classic Century
of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914 and
Another
Century of War?. He can be reached at: kolko@counterpunch.org.
Notes
1. Australian Broadcasting Company Online
interview with Downer, March 2, 2004.
2. Wade Boese, "Russia, NATO at
Loggerheads Over Military Bases," Arms Control Today, March
2004.
3. Dr. Stephen J. Blank, "Toward
a New U.S. Strategy in Asia," U.S. Army Strategic Studies
Institute, February 24, 2004.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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