|
June 14, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
The Fear
Factor to Promote
War and Trample Truth
Steve Perry
How the Bush Adminstration Buried
Coleen Rowley
June 13, 2002
Amira Hass
Indefinite
Siege
Mokhiber / Weissman
Time to Put Lives Over Patents
Robert Fisk
Bush's Weird
War
Stanton / Madsen
Democracy
in Crisis:
What is to be Done?
Roldan Tomasz Suárez
Venezuela:
Five Facts
About the Coup
June 12, 2002
Fran Shor
Dirty Bombs, Blowback
and Imperial Projections
Dave Marsh
Shelley
Stewart, Radio and the Birmingham Civil Rights Movement
Chris Floyd
Murder, Inc.
June 11, 2002
Omar Barghouti
On Dance, Identity and War
Robert Fisk
The Bush
Afghan Gang:
Murderers, Gangsters, Stooges
Minerva Wright
The Donkeys of the Holy Land
David Krieger
Stopping
a Nuclear War
in South Asia
June 10, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
Executioner's Last Songs
June 8/9, 2002
Gavin Keeney
Mademoiselle
M.
Or Getting Screwed in Paris
Susan Davis
Sleepless
in the Suburbs
Curing Insomnia: a new use for The Nation?
George Sunderland
"Send
in the Weekly
Standard": The Screaming Pundits Assault Corps
June 7, 2002
Michael Colby
Bush to the Nation:
You're All Cops Now
Tanweer Akram
Howard
Zinn's "Terrorism
and War": a review
David Krieger
New Security Challenges
Sam Bahour
The Palestinian
Intifada:
A Very American Struggle
Tom Turnipseed
A Crisis of Confidence
in US Leadership
June 6, 2002
Michael Colby
White House
vs. EPA:
Political Hot Air and
Global Warming
Ron Jacobs
The Indo-Pakistan Conflict:
It's Just a Shot Away
Francis Boyle
Take Sharon
to The Hague:
Prosecute Israeli War Crimes
at Jenin
CounterPunch Bulletin
60 Minutes and President Chavez's
Censored F-Word
Mark Weisbrot
Spying
and Lying:
The FBI's Shameful Past
June 5, 2002
Robert Fisk
Berlusconi the Censor
Danielle Brian
Nuclear
Plants and Terrorism
Ardeshir Cowasjee
For What Do We Fight?
George Monbiot
Kashmir
on the Brink
Michael Neumann
What is Antisemitism?
June 4, 2002
Dave Marsh
Bono the Useful Idiot
William Evan / Francis
Boyle
Kashmir:
Invoking Intl. Law to Avoid Nuclear War
Cockburn / St. Clair
The Future Wellstone Deserves
June 3, 2002
Ramdas / Makhijani
India,
Pakistan and Nukes:
A Road Map to Peace
Fran Shor
Meanwhile, Back in Afghanistan
Neve Gordon
The Caterpillar
Effect
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
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published March 15, 2002
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 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
|
June 14,
2002
Farewell to the ABM Treaty
by David Krieger
Without a vote of the United States Congress and
over the objections of Russia and most US allies, George W. Bush
has unilaterally withdrawn the US from the Anti-Ballistic Missile
(ABM) Treaty, rendering it void. His withdrawal from this solemn
treaty obligation became effective today, June 13, 2002.
Bush's action is being challenged in
US federal court by 32 members of Congress, led by Rep. Dennis
Kucinich (D-OH) and Senator Russell Feingold (D-WI). We should
be thankful that there are still members of Congress with the
courage and belief in democracy to challenge such abuse of presidential
power.
Since becoming president, Bush has waged
a campaign against international law. Withdrawal from the ABM
Treaty is but one of a series of assaults he has made, including
pulling out of the Kyoto Accords on Climate Change, withdrawal
of the US from the treaty creating an International Criminal
Court, opposing a Protocol to the Biological Weapons Convention
that would allow for inspections and verification, and failing
to fulfill US obligations related to the Nuclear Non-proliferation
Treaty.
Bush told the American people that he
was withdrawing from the ABM Treaty so that the US could proceed
with the deployment of missile defenses defenses that most independent
experts believe are incapable of actually providing defense.
The president has traded a long-standing and important arms control
treaty for the possibility that there might be a technological
fix for nuclear dangers that would allow the US to threaten,
but not be threatened by, nuclear weapons. In doing so, he has
pulled another brick from the foundation of international law
and created conditions that will undoubtedly make the US and
the rest of the world less secure. He has also moved toward establishing
an imperial presidency, unfettered by such constitutional restraints
as the separation of powers.
In 1972, when the US and USSR agreed
to a treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems, they
did so for good reasons, which are described below in the Preamble
to the treaty to which I have added some comments.
Proceeding from the premise that nuclear
war would have devastating consequences for all mankind, [Nothing
has changed here, except that 30 years later we might better
use the term "humankind."]
Considering that effective measures to
limit anti-ballistic missile systems would be a substantial factor
in curbing the race in strategic offensive arms and would lead
to a decrease in the risk of outbreak of war involving nuclear
weapons, [This relationship between offensive and defensive systems
still holds true.]
Proceeding from the premise that the
limitation of anti-ballistic missile systems, as well as certain
agreed measures with respect to the limitation of strategic offensive
arms, would contribute to the creation of more favorable conditions
for further negotiations on limiting strategic arms, [The recent
treaty signed by Bush and Putin only applies limits to actively
deployed nuclear weapons and at levels high enough to still destroy
civilization and most life on the planet.]
Mindful of their obligations under Article
VI of the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons,
[The United States under the Bush administration has been contemptuous
of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its Article VI obligations
to achieve nuclear disarmament.]
Declaring their intention to achieve
at the earliest possible date the cessation of the nuclear arms
race and to take effective measures toward reductions in strategic
arms, nuclear disarmament, and general and complete disarmament,
[These promises remain largely unfulfilled 30 years later.]
Desiring to contribute to the relaxation
of international tension and the strengthening of trust between
States.... [The US missile defense program and related US plans
to weaponize outer space have the potential to again send the
level of international tensions skyrocketing, particularly in
Asia.]
The ABM Treaty was meant to be for an
"unlimited duration," but allowed for withdrawal if
a country should decide "that extraordinary events related
to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme
interests." Bush never bothered to explain to the American
people or to the Russians how the treaty jeopardized the supreme
interests of the Untied States. It is clear, though, that withdrawal
from the treaty as a unilateral act of the president has undermined
our true "supreme interests" in upholding democracy
and international law.
David Krieger
is president of the Nuclear
Age Peace Foundation. He can be contacted at dkrieger@napf.org.
Today's
Features
Tom Turnipseed
The Fear
Factor to Promote
War and Trample Truth
Steve Perry
How the Bush Adminstration Buried
Coleen Rowley
home / subscribe
/ about us
/ books
/ archives
/ search
/ links
/
|