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Today's
Stories
March 24, 2004
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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"
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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March
24, 2004
Who Will Pay?
General
Musharraf's IOU
By GARY LEUPP
Paul Wolfowitz, in an interview with the Far
Eastern Economic Review, calls it an "IOU." Pakistan
owes the U.S. something. What's the debt? A debt of gratitude
that the U.S. isn't making a big deal out of the Abdul Qadeer
Khan affair. Khan is the father of Pakistan's nuclear weapons
program, a national hero and icon, and, it was recently revealed,
the biggest trafficker in nuclear secrets in history. I mean,
he is so much what little Saddam was not, but his friend, Pakistan's
President Pervez Musharraf, lets him off scot-free, knowing
that to punish him would be to enrage the Pakistani people who
are already outraged by Musharraf's close cooperation with the
U.S.
According to Wolfowitz, "The international
community" (this is a euphemism for "the United States,"
comparable to the papal "we" in lieu of "I")
"is prepared to accept [Musharraf's] pardon of A.Q. Khan
for all he's done, but it's clearly a kind of IOU that, in return
for that, there has to be a full accounting of everything that's
happened." This suggests that Bush's agreement not to make
a big deal out of the sale of Pakistani nuclear secrets to Libya,
Iran and North Korea merely requires in return detailed information
about what information was shared.
But no, there's more. Musharraf has been
downplaying all along the presence of Taliban and al-Qaeda forces
in Pakistan, at one point declaring confidently that Osama bin
Laden was dead. The U.S. on the other hand believes that bin
Laden and remaining al-Qaeda forces move back and forth across
the Afghan-Pakistani border. Bush administration officials have
repeatedly stated that Pakistan "could do more" to
engage the enemy. This includes allowing U.S. forces into South
Waziristan to direct operations. They don't push Musharraf too
hard, because they worry that if he becomes too closely associated
with themselves, his people will topple him. But they welcome
what Wolfowitz calls "leverage" to get Musharraf to
move, and the Khan affair provides more leverage.
Musharraf's a military dictator who seized
power in a coup in 1999. It wasn't the first military coup in
Pakistan's short history. Musharraf overthrew the democratically-elected
president, Nawaz Sharif, whom he accused of trying to destabilize
and politicize the army. His power-base is weak, and he must
court, among others, tribesmen sympathetic to the Taliban. He
hasn't delivered on promises to end corruption and provide stability
and prosperity. Bin Laden probably has more support in Pakistan
than he does. The dictator's military is riddled with pro-Taliban
officers; the Taliban was, after all, largely a creation of Pakistan's
Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), and there seem to be enduring
ties between some folks in the Pakistani military and the Talibs.
Musharraf under enormous U.S. pressure cut ties with the Taliban
after 9-11 and allowed his country to be used as a base of operations
against Afghanistan. He had no choice; he had to be either with
or against the U.S. But longstanding ties between the Taliban
and Pakistan's military surely persist, along with the possibility
of yet another coup---this time targeting Musharraf.
The "IOU" to which Wolfowitz
alludes is Musharraf's obligation to risk his own political career
in order to enhance the prospects for the capture or killing
of bin Laden---or at least to produce some major trophy---before
the U.S. November elections. The problem is, of course, that
while bowing to U.S. pressure he might expose his neck to some
disgruntled commanders, who might just decide to hack it off
to preserve the dignity of the Islamic state. It's been reported
that some officers recently plotted a coup that would have brought
A. Q. Khan to the presidency. This would have met with ecstatic
popular approval. Uneasily positioned between his people and
general staff on the one hand, and the dictates of the Bush administration
on the other, Musharraf doesn't have the highest credit rating.
Let us say he can't pay his IOU. Let's say another dictator,
or junta, emerges to affect regime change, and with the current
U.S. favorite dead or behind bars, tells the world:
"In the Name of God, the Merciful
and Compassionate.
"We continue to feel sorry for the
suffering the U.S. experienced on 9-11. We understand why the
U.S. found it necessary to attack our neighbor, Afghanistan,
and change the regime there. But we only agreed, under enormous
U.S. pressure, to cut off our ties with the Taliban, which had
been friendly. We recommended that the Americans negotiate the
handover of Osama bin Laden, but they insisted on invading and
occupying our neighbor. They have re-established the warlord
regime that ruled from 1992 to 1996, a regime so brutal that
Afghans rallied to the Taliban cause.
"We Pakistanis supported the Talibs,
thinking they would bring peace and stability, and allow us access
to trade routes into Central Asia. They did these things. They
allowed al-Qaeda to operate, using camps the Americans established
in the 1980s when the U.S., the Saudis and ourselves were all
working together to topple the pro-Soviet government. The Americans
themselves allowed bin Laden to settle in Afghanistan after
arranging his flight from Sudan in 1996. Their State Department
didn't think he would pose a threat from Afghanistan. He arrived
before the Taliban took power, but he forged an alliance with
them while Washington was discussing pipelines and opium eradication
with them, and Zalmay Khalilzad was treating them to dinner on
his Texas ranch.
"We think the Taliban made a big
mistake treating al-Qaeda so cordially. But we don't think the
Talibs were all bad, especially when compared to the Northern
Alliance warlords like Ismail Khan and Ahmad Rashid Dostum, the
men they replaced and who are now back in power. We have no evidence
that the Taliban even knew of plans for the 9-11 attacks. The
Taliban is resurgent; and has regained control over some Pashtun
areas. President Karzai, a U.S. puppet surrounded by American
bodyguards, now even talks about including some of them in his
government. So if some of them enter our territory, and receive
local hospitality, we are not overly concerned.
"We will continue watching for al-Qaeda.
We've already turned 500 captured al-Qaeda over to the U.S. But
we will be less aggressive in the hunt. Our troops have killed
innocent civilians in these border operations the Americans demanded
we undertake. They have not been popular, and we cannot continue
them indefinitely. Other matters, such as Kashmir, are more important
to us.
"Mr. bin Laden could be in Pakistan,
Uzbekistan, China or elsewhere. We have no information that he
is in Pakistan. If we find him, we will turn him over to the
U.S., even though there will be riots in our streets. He is very
popular in Pakistan. We suggest the Americans ask themselves
why.
"We have decided to deny foreign
forces access to our Pasni and Jacobabad military bases. This
is in deference to popular opinion in our country. The masses
are offended that our Islamic state cooperates militarily with
a nation that has bombed and occupied two Muslim countries and
threatens to attack more.
"Pakistan is an independent country,
with an independent foreign policy. We are a nuclear power, and
demand respect. The former president humiliated the nation and
offended our religion by accepting all U.S. demands. For such
offenses, he has been removed."
Now, this is all in my imagination, of
course, and you might say it's unlikely. But so far Musharraf's
compliance has been bought with carrots (the lifting of sanctions
imposed when Pakistan went nuclear in 1998, generous economic
and military aid, the designation "major non-NATO ally"
which allows for expanded arms purchases, avoidance of criticism
of the dictatorship) and sticks (the threat of being designated
"against us," the threat of greater U.S. cooperation
with arch-rival India). As we speak I just bet you that there
are Pakistani officers weighing the carrots and sticks and thinking:
"Aside from the F-16s, we're not
getting that much out of this. The damage to our economy of the
U.S. alliance far outweighs the aid they give, and the people
really want the U.S. troops out of the region. If we start saying
'No' to the Americans, there really isn't that much they can
do. We have other friends, like China. If the Americans attack
Syria, they'll confirm what we suspect: they want to attack all
Islam. If Musharraf won't stand up to them then, we will have
to move forward and stage the coup."
Then who will pay Musharraf's IOU?
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 can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
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