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Today's
Stories
March 2, 2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Uncle
Bucky Makes a Killing
March 1, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Million
Dollar Bigotry
David Lindorff
Stealing Workers' Pensions
Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders
Bloodbath in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
The Last Poets Recalled
Tanya Garcia
USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security
Joseph Pietri
The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black
Prince
Kona Lowell
Woody: Broken in Vietnam
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
Website of
the Day
Petition: No US Intervention in Iran
Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
February 28,
2005
Gary Leupp
Year
4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran?
Bill Quigley
Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers
Mickey Z.
The
Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter
Thompson and the "Right to Die"
Paul de Rooij
Why
Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel
David Swanson
Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media
Mario Lamo
Jimenez
Maria
Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars
Emma Perez
The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge
of Academia
Diana Johnstone
Censorship
and the Empire
Website of the Day
Stop the War Campaign!
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
An
American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
Rev. William E. Alberts
Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground
Fred Gardner
AARP Gets Pot-Baited
Gary Leupp
Bush and Camus on Freedom
Saul Landau
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami
Mafia
Robin Philpot
Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda
Yitkhak Laor
In Praise of the Facts
Ben Tripp
Out of Sight; Out of Mind
Justin Taylor
Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars
Jack Random
The Wounds from Wounded Knee
Rafael Renteria
Ward Churchill and White America
Jim B.
Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood
Seth DeLong
Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
John Chuckman
A Season of Depressing Political Reruns
Alison Weir
Relativity, LA Times Style
Richard Oxman
Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace
Dr. Susan Block
It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation
Poets' Basement
Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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.
|
March 2, 2005
How the White House Stage Managed the "Get Syria"
Movement
The
"Noble Liars" Attack Syria
By
SAUL LANDAU and FARRAH HASSEN
After 9/11, Administration neo-cons
offered a "noble lie" to sell the public on the need
to invade and occupy Iraq (The Iraqis will shower our troops
with flowers and kisses). The same group has invented a new "virtuous
prevarication" to build support for an attack on Syria.
Ignoring recent testimony by CIA Director Porter J. Goss that
"Islamic extremists are exploiting the Iraqi conflict to
recruit new anti-U.S. jihadists" (Washington Post,
February 17, 2005), this group of high US officials in Defense,
State and the Vice President's office have organized a "get
Syria" movement.
Without evidence, US officials accused Damascus of responsibility
for the February 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri in Beirut, and of sponsoring terrorism in Iraq as
well.
Anti-Syria rhetoric followed from the Iraq precedent. Following
the 9/11 attacks, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and
then-Defense Policy Board Chair Richard Perle found they could
convince President Bush to switch from traditionalist (do little)
policy to aggressively asserting naked military power.
Altering Teddy Roosevelt's policy advice by speaking loudly and
also carrying a big stick, these neo-cons replaced truth with
"myth-making." The neo-cons shared a common guru, former
University of Chicago political philosopher Leo Strauss. Under
Strauss' neo-platonic model, a governing elite wields power and
utilizes the "noble lie" to guide imperial ideology.
Beyond sharing a common understanding of the Straussian fundamentals
of political rule, the neo-cons also share enthusiasm for aggressive
Israeli policies.
In the early 1990s, they sold Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfled
on this strategy. After 9/11, Cheney and Rumsfeld used their
positions as Vice President and Defense Secretary to sell Bush
on the new approach. From that time on, official statements utilized
the neo-con "noble lie": Saddam Hussein backed the
9/11 terrorists and possessed WMDs and planned to share them
with terrorists; thus, the US had to stop him. Repeat it and
report it in the press and the public will believe it. Pro-Israel
media acolytes like the NY Times' Judith Miller obliged
the neo-cons in manufacturing "evidence" of an "enemy"
that the public could effortlessly hate.
By late 2004, the White House admitted that Saddam had neither
WMDs nor links to the 9/11 fiends. Logically, Bush should have
fired this gang for involving the country in the Iraqi morass.
Instead, their disastrous Iraqi performance brought the neo-cons
even more clout in the second Bush Administration. Using their
spin-mastery to inflame opinion, the neo-cons invented new "black
hats" Iran and Syria.
The neo-cons also stage-managed facts in the aftermath of the
February 14 assassination of Hariri, who had demanded that Syrian
troops leave Lebanon, so as to point the accusatory finger at
the Bashar al-Assad government. Even after Assad condemned the
murder as a "horrible crime," Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice recalled the US Ambassador to Syria for "consultations,"
while threats of possible US military action emanated from neo-con
offices in Washington.
Spun properly, Hariri's murder transcended the commonplace assassinations
in the Middle East and became an international cause célèbre.
The neo-cons correctly counted on the media to maintain "temporal
atrophy." The press neither commented on how assassinating
one's "enemies" impacted the rule of law, nor on how
routine extra-judicial assassinations by Israel and the United
States had become.
Bush revealed in his 2003 State of the Union address that "more
than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries.
Many others have met a different fate. Let's put it this way--
they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends
and allies." What a lesson to teach!
Had the media reported Hariri's assassination as just another
probable state-sponsored execution, it would have stripped both
shock value and the veneer of moral indignation from Bush's reaction.
But it didn't. So, the anti-Syria theme escalated. Bush had already
used his February 2005 State of the Union address to confront
"regimes that continue to harbor terrorists and pursue weapons
of mass murder. Syria still allows its territory, and parts of
Lebanon, to be used by terrorists who seek to destroy every chance
of peace in the region."
The next day, Wolfowitz told Senate Armed Services Committee
members that Syria should stop "destabilize[ing] Iraq"
as if Syria, not the United States, invaded Iraq in March 2003
without UN Security Council authorization.
The Senate panel's curiosity did not extend to asking Wolfowitz
about Israeli destabilization of Lebanon during the 1980s or
how Israeli-backed Phalangist militias massacred thousands of
Palestinian refugees in 1982 at Sabra and Shatila.
Indeed, historical amnesia after Hariri's murder permitted Bush
officials to sanctimoniously demand that Congress warn Syria
to end her "occupation" of Lebanon and support Lebanese
"sovereignty." Even Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon,
who commanded Israeli military operations in Lebanon in 1982,
made such a demand.
What Chutzpah! Sharon demands Syrian withdrawal while Israel
continues its 38-year occupation of Palestinian territories,
in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338. Indeed,
Israel still occupies Syria's Golan Heights in violation of UN
Security Council resolution 497.
Another part of the "noble lie" relates to the threat
Syria's 14,000 troops poses to Lebanese "sovereignty."
In fact, the bilateral agreement between Lebanon and Syria to
station troops resulted directly from the prior destabilization
of Lebanon by Israel, the United States, France and to a lesser
extent Syria whose interests are directly affected by Lebanese
instability.
But who benefits? Without a context, official US language makes
it seem as if Lebanon and the United States would gain from hostility
toward evil Syria. On February 8, Secretary of State Rice called
Syria "unhelpful in a number ways." Did she mean to
include Syria's post 9/11 assistance in providing US intelligence
with information that saved American lives by preventing an Al
Qaeda attack on the US Fleet in Bahrain?
Did she refer to Syria's help in arresting Mohammed Haydar Zammar,
a Syrian-born German citizen accused of recruiting some 9/11
hijackers in Hamburg? Indeed, did Rice also suffer terminal forgetfulness?
The State Department affirmed on April 30, 2003: "The Government
of Syria has cooperated significantly with the United States
and other foreign governments against al-Qaida, the Taliban,
and other terrorist organizations and individuals." More
recently, Damascus cooperated by closing holes in the porous
Iraqi-Syrian border.
Syria learned: no good deed goes unpunished. Syria still remains
on the State Department's list of countries sponsoring terrorism.
In November 2003, Congress passed without debate the Syria Accountability
Act. No Member publicly referred to Syria's anti-terrorist efforts.
Yet, the bill charged Syria without citing evidence --
with "harboring terrorists," "developing weapons
of mass destruction" and "occupying Lebanon."
On May 12, 2004, Bush banned US exports to Syria and Syrian aircraft
from US territory.
Following Hariri's murder, anti-Syria rhetoric escalated. Senator
George Allen (R-VA) and Representative Eliot Engel (D-NY) called
for sending "a message" by imposing "tough"
new measures banning US business in Syria -- on Damascus.
The verbal attacks coincided
with demands to install "democracy." Indeed, "democracy"
had already served to cover previous US aggression. A month after
the 9/11 events, Bush bombed Afghanistan "they hate
us because we're free"--despite the fact that most
of the 9/11 hijackers came from oily Saudi Arabia, the
US ally. Similarly, Bush "liberated Iraq" by making
war the most profound violation of human rights -- against
the human rights abusing Hussein.
The democracy beat continues because the major media doesn't
question it. David Frum and Richard Perle (January 7, 2004 Wall
St. Journal) contended in reference to Syria that,
"When the door [to democracy] is locked shut by a totalitarian
deadbolt, American power may be the only way to open it up."
In their 2003 book An End to Evil, Frum and Perle advocated
regime change in Syria, Cuba, North Korea and Iran. In 1996,
Perle and fellow neo-con Douglas Feith had projected a policy
to facilitate Israel's shaping of "its strategic environment...by
weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria." In
their report, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing
the Realm," Perle and Feith argued for the removal of "Saddam
Hussein from power in Iraq, an important Israeli strategic objective
as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions."
If rogue elements in Syrian did the Beirut murder, it was what
Israeli journalist Uri Avnery's called "an act of supreme
folly, since it was obvious that it would help the Americans
build up the Lebanese opposition and arouse a storm of anti-Syrian
sentiment."
Regardless of who assassinated Hariri, the deed focused world
attention on a problematic Lebanese-Syrian relationship. Hariri's
death may indeed serve to catalyze a new round of US and even
some European intervention in Arab affairs. The very threat of
such a move has pushed Syria to talk of withdrawing its forces
from Lebanon.
But as Bush descended upon Europe last week to forgive France
and Germany for being right about Iraq, Europeans indicated they
would proceed "cautiously in blood," as Edmund Burke
once advised.
The neo-cons awaited Bush's return to Washington so as to proceed
with their foreign policy script, oozing with "sound and
fury" (Shakespeare's "Macbeth"), which calls for
burying judicious voices and replacing them with "noble
lies."
Farrah Hassen recently spent 2 months working for
the United Nations Development Programme in Syria. She
can be reached at: FHuisClos1944@aol.com
Saul Landau directs Digital Media at Cal Poly
Pomona University. He and Farrah Hassen made the 2004 film: SYRIA:
BETWEEN IRAQ AND A HARD PLACE.
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