Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 16,
2005
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
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
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
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
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February 16, 2005
Maoism on the March?
Meanwhile,
in Nepal...
By
GARY LEUPP
While the U.S. is absorbed in building
an empire in the "Greater Middle East," which will
strengthen its position vis-a-vis other imperialist powers throught
the "New American Century," a revived specter of communism
emerges throughout South Asia. And there's not much the U.S.
can do about it.
U.S. Preoccupied
with Southwest Asia
The official rationale of Bush
foreign policy (aka "the War on Terror") is simultaneously
crystal clear and highly, even ridiculously unclear. To the minds
most inclined to find satisfaction in simple concepts, the war
is between Good and Evil, conducted by a very good president
against whomever God instructs him to smite in this world filled
with evil-doers. The administration encourages this conception,
especially in its Christian fundamentalist base. The U.S. government
official will sometimes even articulate this mindset (which the
French early on labeled simplisme or "simple-ism")
to foreign counterparts; Wolfowitz shocked the Europeans in February
2002 when, asked what the administration meant by the term "axis
of evil," that Bush had just uttered in his state of the
union address, merely responded: "Countries must make a
choice." Bush, echoing Matthew 12:30, had declared, "You're
either for us or against us." So the War on Terror is a
war of good Christian America against all opposition, which is
evil. Wolfowitz is not a Christian fundamentalist and does not
think in such terms himself, but the Bush administration uses
the religious language and simple concepts to explain and exalt
its policies.
To some, the War on Terror
is a war on Islam. Many Americans are highly influenced by Christian
evangelicals like Franklin Graham, who calls Islam a "very
wicked and evil religion" with a different god than that
of Christianity. Gen. William Boykin, holding a senior Defense
Department post, has addressed church gatherings and asserted
not only that Bush was chosen by God but that the Muslim god
is not his god, and that U.S. forces confront Satan in the Iraqi
resistance. On the one hand, Bush has stated all along that he
regards Islam as a religion of peace, and that the war is not
against Islam. He has expressed perplexity that Muslims would
actually think that. He may in fact privately share Graham's
views. Franklin's father Billy, best known of U.S. evangelists,
met Dubya in 1985 and according to the president's official bio
helped wean him from alcoholism in 1986.
So when pious Muslims around
the world learn that the president of the United States' religious
mentor, who raised him up from sin, believes their religion "wicked
and evil" you can imagine why they'd actually think he's
anti-Muslim. (Ask yourself why the president, educated at Yale,
where he performed poorly, and Harvard, where one professor recalls
him saying people were poor because they were lazy and that the
Civil Rights Movement was communist, would be perplexed. The
professor in question, Yoshi Tsurumi, has also recalled that
Bush would say things in class and thereafter deny ever saying
them. It may be that this president can say insulting things
once, then forget or deny them, or just smirk and wonder why
the hell it should matter.) Meanwhile there are within the administration
some true Islamophobes, such as neocon Elliott Abrams, the Reagan-era
official convicted of lying to Congress about Iran-Contra and
now in charge of promoting democracy around the world.
To the dispassionate reporter
or academic trying to analyze administrative motives, the war
is often interpreted as primarily one against "Islamist"
extremism, in the aftermath of al-Qaeda's attack on the U.S.
But this is a hard category to define, and to distinguish from
mere Islamic fundamentalism, which is prevalent in many places,
as is Christian fundamentalism. The U.S. continues to work with
lots of Islamic fundamentalists, and indeed, it has often maintained
closer ties with regimes that promote fundamentalism, such as
Saudi Arabia or the new Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, than
those that enforce secularism, like Syria or Saddam's Iraq. The
CIA happily recruited Muslim extremists from all over the world
to wage jihad against the pro-Soviet regime in Afghanistan in
the 1980s. Plainly the administration would like to see a sort
of Islamic reformation that would reduce anti-American feelings
in the Muslim world, but officials must realize that the U.S.
was generally admired by that world before Washington set out
on its "war on terror." A Zogby International poll,
released June 11, 2002, showed that in nine Muslim countries
the most admired foreign country was the U.S. That was before
the U.S. conquered two Muslim countries, killing tens of thousands,
embraced Sharon as "a man of peace," isolated Arafat,
endorsed an Israeli strike against Syria, tortured Muslims in
Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, threatened Iran, sought to oust ElBaradei
as IAEA head, etc. Intelligence reports now state baldly that
U.S. actions are fomenting more and more Muslim hostility.
The current targets most closely
in the crosshairs are Syria, a secular nation, and officially
Shiite Iran. The U.S. alleges that both harbor Islamic terrorists.
Specifically, they harbor members of Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and
Hizbollah. The first two of these are Palestinian organizations
whose beef is with Israel, not the U.S., while the latter is
a major Lebanese political party that in its early years attacked
U.S. troops only when they set up camp on Lebanese soil. 9-11
has been used to legitimate efforts at "regime change"
in Syria and Iran, partly on the grounds that they have ties
with these Islamic "terror" groups, even though the
latter are quite different from al-Qaeda and had no connection
to the 9-11 attacks. Iran stands accused of al-Qaeda links, but
the accusation smacks of disinformation. Anyway the "war
on terror" could be viewed as essentially an effort to eradicate
organizations violently hostile to Israel, to topple regimes
that harbor them, and to prevent Iran from ever acquiring a nuclear
weapon. It that sense it's presented as a war on "Islamist
terrorism."
But lest the Muslim should
suppose that Bush is only picking on them, the administration
targets "evil" North Korea and Cuba, and might in theory
expand the terror war to target any of the "terror sponsoring"
nations or "international terrorist organizations"
on its lists. The latter include everybody from Irish nationalists
to Tamil separatists to communist parties. The "terror war"
concept, like most simple concepts, is flexible. Nevertheless
it seems clear to me that the game plan is to gain strategic
control over all of Southwest Asia, a region that produces 70%
of the world's oil. Having done that, the U.S. could face Europe,
Japan and China well into this century from a position of greatly
enhanced strength, controlling the flow of oil and maintaining
a vast network of military bases from Central Asia to the Persian
Gulf. Some believe this necessarily for the continued primacy
of the U.S. economy in the face of global competition.
This, I think, is the real
essence of the "war on terror." It reflects the needs
of the military- industrial complex, and if it has the additional
advantage of providing a final solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict
(by defeating anti-Israel "terror" and generating Israel-friendly
Muslim regimes) this will please them as well as the other props
of the Bush administration, the neocons and the Christian fundamentalist
right. The first of this triad may feel a certain necessity to
pursue the Project for a New American Century scenario (regime
change in Iraq, Iran, Syria) but differ from the neocons on the
matter of urgency. One sees this in the Weekly Standard's repeated
calls for Rumsfeld's resignation and for a dramatic increase
in the size of the U.S. military over the next few years. You
see it too in the PNAC's
veiled call for a draft. The ideologically-driven neocons
want to seize the time, and have the whole conquest done during
the second Bush administration, no matter how creatively messy.
Others in the administration seem inclined to proceed more slowly,
projecting hostility to the targeted nations while declaring,
as Condoleezza Rice recently did, that attacks are not on the
agenda.
In any case, the "war
on terror" is practically speaking primarily a war to transform
Southwest Asia or what the neocons like to call "the Greater
Middle East." The inclusion of North Korea in the "axis
of evil" in Bush's shocking 2002 state of the union address
was probably an effort to obfuscate this fact and make the evolving
terror war, then in its initial stage, seem less specifically
aimed at the Muslim world. The attention of the administration
is, I believe, quite concentrated on Middle Eastern real estate.
Meanwhile,
in Nepal...
The Bushites are preoccupied
with creating their empire, fighting against governments which
actually mount no challenge to U.S. imperialism (in the Leninist
sense), governments willing to work out accommodations with the
U.S., and normalize diplomatic and trade relations. In early
2003, Saddam Hussein, fearing invasion, offered the U.S. unlimited
weapons inspection rights, oil concessions, and Iraqi support
for any U.S. Middle East peace plan, in exchange for calling
off the planned attack. In March 2003, Richard Perle rejected
the proposal as a "no-starter,"
demanding instead that as the price of peace Saddam should leave
Iraq and his army surrender to U.S. forces. Saddam, with a history
of CIA ties, wasn't opposed to the U.S. system. Nor are the Iranian
mullahs, really, who preside over a capitalist economy largely
dependent on foreign capital.
But while the administration
with long-term inter-imperialist relationships in mind proceeds
down its road to Damascus, far off in the Himalayan foothills
revolutionaries dead-serious about overthrowing capitalism and
imperialism are making steady progress. The People's Liberation
Army of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist), which has been
waging a People's War since 1996, might actually soon seize state
power. They had already gained control of much of the Nepali
countryside when popular King Birendra and other members of the
royal family died in a mysterious shooting rampage in 2001. Birendra's
brother Gyanendra succeeded him and has been an unpopular monarch
from the outset. Maoists stepped up their military campaign after
he took the throne, prompting the prime minister to step down.
The next prime minister announced a truce with the rebels, and
peace talks began in June. The Maoists demanded an end to the
monarchy and the convening of a convention to write a new constitution,
eventually dropping the first demand. But no progress was made,
and the Maoists resumed fighting in November. Gyanendra proclaimed
a state of emergency. In January 2002 Colin Powell paid a visit
to Nepal, the first ever visit by a U.S. secretary of state,
denounced the Maoists as "terrorists," called the war
against them part of the war on terror, and offered military
aid. Gyanendra officially designated the rebels "terrorists"
as well.
But since then the CPN(M) has
steadily consolidated control over the countryside, following
Mao's strategy of encircling the cities. In the capital of Kathmandu,
it repeatedly demonstrated its ability to shut the city down
by calling general strikes (bandh). Its student and women's organizations
held large demonstrations, pressing demands, wielding much clout
in the city. The government held a second round of talks beginning
in May 2003, having bowed to a rebel demand that the "terrorist"
label be removed. These too broke down. In recent months the
rebels have shown their ability to shut down all roads leading
to the capital. Last month the king of neighboring Bhutan told
reporters in India, "today the Maoists have total control
more or less of the whole country."
That was before Gyanendra,
on Feb. 1, sacked the prime minister and his cabinet, declared
martial law, cut phone and internet lines to Kathmandu, arrested
dozens of political leaders and announced he was assuming direct
rule for three years. Nearly all political commentators believe
this move will only strengthen the insurgency.
For several years the king,
parliamentary parties, and the Maoists have engaged in a triangular
power struggle. The parties support the constitutional monarchy
and deplore Maoist violence, but want talks. The Maoists express
contempt for the parties, including the several ostensibly "communist"
ones, and insist, with Mao, that "political power grows
out of the barrel of the gun." But they unite with the parties
in protesting policies of the king. After the breakdown of the
second round of talks, they stated that they would only be interested
in direct talks with the monarch himself. Now Gyanendra has called
for such talks, and indicated he's even willing to discuss a
constituent assembly. But it may be too late for the king. The
Maoists have declined his offer. "Gyanendra has pushed the
country into darkness _ there is no justification for immediate
talks," stated CPN(M) leader Prachanda. Meanwhile, on Feb.
9, the Maoists busted out 145 prisoners, including comrades,
from a jail in the western district of Kailaliat.
The king of Bhutan is worried,
because Bhutan has its own embryonic Maoist insurgency. India
has a huge Maoist movement with an increasing degree of organizational
unity. Attacking police and landlords, the Maoists have taken
control of much of the region around Hyderbad and for some years
have been able to shut the city down when they call a bandh.
The Maoists of Nepal and India make no bones about the fact that
they are coordinating actions and envision People's Wars enveloping
much of South Asia, including Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
One scenario is Indian military
intervention in Nepal, producing a Maoist-led nationalistic response,
accompanied by protests from the Indian masses and stepped-up
guerrilla war within India. But China, however unhappy with a
Maoist regime on the Tibetan border (a real Maoist regime to
shame the capitalist-roaders in Beijing), would be even less
happy with Indian troops in Nepal. The Maoists' victory may come
at a time when the U.S. is bogged down in a broadened war against
"Islamic terrorism" and has few resources to fight
the old bugaboo, communism. Which after all was pronounced dead,
with some fanfare, after the collapse of the USSR.
The revival of communism as
a global challenge would be the Bush administration's worst nightmare.
Maoists aren't likely to hijack planes and crash them into American
skyscrapers. But they're likely to strive to build egalitarian
societies free of foreign domination, inspiring others in the
process, including many in the imperialist countries. It has
happened before (think 1968). Back in October 2002 I wrote an article in which I cited a British
officer's statement to the Telegraph that the Maoists would "continue
to gain ground. Unless something dramatic happens, it's only
a matter of time before they win." I suggested then some
of the possible international consequences:
The radical left throughout
the world would be heartened by a victory, somewhere; impressed
to see the red flag planted, as the secretary-general of the
CPN(M), Prachanda, likes to put it, atop Mt. Everest, the roof
of the world. (I think particularly of the Maoists in the Philippines,
and their 14,000-strong New People's Army, who are also engaged
in a people's war and have control over 8,000 villages throughout
the Filipino archipelago; and of the Senderistas in Peru, who
show some signs of revival.) The governments of the world---virtually
all of them---would be very highly displeased, and mainstream
intellectuals puzzled. The victory would, after all, constitute
a challenge to the Fukuyama thesis (about the "and of history"
as a clash of ideologies) and the Huntington thesis (about the
"clash of civilizations"). We'd be back to the old
capitalism vs. communism discussion, which was supposed to be
behind us, all settled, and consigned to the rubbish heap of
history!
Let the discussion begin.
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University,
and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author
of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan;
Male
Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan;
and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.
He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle
of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial
Crusades.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
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