CounterPunch's
Scorching New Book on a Decade of War
Order Now / Available in April
Today's
Stories
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A Journey to Rafah
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
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
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.
|
Weekend
Edition
March 27 / 28, 2004
Prelude to an Attack on Syria?
The
Yassin Assassination
By GARY LEUPP
Everyone is predicting a spate of horrific suicide
bombings in Israel as Hamas and other Palestinian groups respond
to the "targeted assassination" of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin
(and killing of seven other people) by an Apache helicopter air
strike a few days ago. According to MSNBC, Israel's army chief
has stated that Yassir Arafat and the Lebanese Hezbollah chief
Hassan Nasrallah will also be assassinated. I take it for granted
that the assassins, proud of their work, convinced of its necessity
and goodness, know exactly what they're doing. They have factored
in ghastly reprisals, and have plans about how to follow up.
Some observations and predictions:
1. The foreign policy of the Bush administration
has since 9-11 been steered by officials who have a well thought
out and clearly articulated plan to affect regime change throughout
the Middle East. Such change in Iraq, Syria, Iran, and a number
of other Muslim countries is central to the neocons' world-transforming
project. While Israel's security is not the key issue in Bush
Middle East policy, it is a very important secondary one, and
U.S. and Israeli policies are closely coordinated.
2. Last October 5, Israel responded to
an Islamic Jihad suicide bombing in Haifa by staging an air strike
on Syria, the first time it had bombed Syria in 30 years. Ariel
Sharon argued that Damascus "sponsors" Islamic Jihad
and "Palestinian terrorism" in general and so Israel
was acting in self-defense.
3. While condemned by European leaders,
including the British foreign minister, and almost everybody
else, the attack was justified by President Bush as necessary
to "defend the homeland." (Note: not "your homeland"
but "the homeland." Bush seems not to distinguish.)
It was praised by leading neocon Richard Perle (then still on
the Defense Policy Board), who declared, "I am happy to
see the message was delivered to Syria by the Israeli air force,
and I hope it is the first of many such messages." Deputy
Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stated, "There will have
to be change in Syria, plainly."
(This makes me recall the fifth chapter
of the Book of Daniel---an interesting novelette written around
160 BCE, and incorporated into the Old Testament. The neocons
are, in effect, saying: "The handwriting is on the wall;
Bashir Assad's days are numbered; his kingdom will be divided---not
between the Medes and the Persians, but--- between the Americans
and the Israelis." http://www.inisrael.com/golan/
)
4. Undersecretary of State for Arms Control
and International Security John Bolton, administration point
man on Syria, argued last fall in Congress for the "Syria
Accountability Act," which was passed, 398-5, by the House
of Representatives Oct. 16. (99% approval. Isn't it great to
live in a democracy where well-informed elected officials can
express varied views about the Middle East?) Then it sailed through
the Senate.
Officially vilifying Syria (which has
actually been an ally against al-Qaeda), it accuses Damascus
of sponsoring terrorism, amassing weapons of mass destruction,
and occupying Lebanon, and applies economic sanctions against
the Arab nation. Bolton accuses Syria of allowing "terrorists"
to cross its border to abet the resistance in Iraq, receiving
some of those elusive WMD from Iraq, and providing banking services
for the Iraqi resistance. So there is a long list of charges
against Syria, as there was against Iraq, and as there is against
Iran---enough to persuade the sufficiently impressionable that
Syria should be attacked and occupied.
5. The assassination of the wheelchair-bound
paraplegic 75 year old Yassin was condemned by Kofi Annan, and
by European leaders, including British foreign minister Jack
Straw, but Condoleeza Rice, speaking for the Bush administration,
refused to criticize it, merely appealing for everybody in the
region to keep calm. While the Bush administration denies any
foreknowledge of the attack, it will of course stand by Mr. Sharon,
whom Bush with his characteristic distance from the real world
has dubbed "a man of peace."
6. The neocons have suffered a series
of setbacks, including the highly embarrassing revelations of
Bush's former top anti-terrorism advisor Richard Clarke, who
charges that Bush demanded intelligence forces concoct links
between 9-11 and Iraq to justify an invasion. Anyone paying attention
now knows that the Iraq stage of the Terror War was based on
lies. The bleeding sore of the occupation saps Bush's political
support, and he and his world-transforming ideologues may be
out of jobs come November. That prospect doesn't make the neocons
more humble, but rather more desperate to achieve such pieces
of their ambitious program as they might in the next seven months.
7. This month has seen a "human
rights" demonstration in Damascus and a couple days of Arab-Kurdish
ethnic rioting following a soccer game. These are unusual events
in tightly-controlled Syria. There may be an outside hand in
them, endeavoring to destabilize the Syrian regime preparatory
to some major, externally organized action.
8. A major Hamas suicide bombing would
provide a fine pretext for an attack on Syria, perfectly legitimate
to anyone predisposed to think Hamas=international terrorism=Syria.
9. At least one Hamas leaflet has suggested
that the U.S. bears partial responsibility for Yassin's assassination:
"The Zionists didn't carry out their operation without
getting the consent of the terrorist American administration
and it must take responsibility for this crime."
Let's think about this statement. If
the U.S. government can say "you're for us or against us,"
and make no distinction between "terrorist organizations"
and those who "sponsor" them, surely your good, decent,
normal Palestinian on the street can draw a connection between
an assassination conducted on the explicit orders of Ariel Sharon
(whose government is, as the number one recipient of U.S. foreign
aid, subsidized by the U.S. to a mind-boggling $ 3 billion---some
say $ 6 billion---per year and enjoys about the most intimate
relationship with Washington that any foreign government has
ever had) and the American administration. Condoleeza Rice has
said the U.S. had no prior knowledge of the assassination, but
then she also says honest Richard Clarke's recent charges about
Bush's handling of the al-Qaeda issue are "ridiculous."
The sad fact is that Condi is ridiculous, and her job
absolutely requires that she deny U.S. links to assassinations
if such occur.
Is the Hamas statement implausible? It
seems in fact unlikely that Sharon would undertake his extremely
newsworthy action without consulting with the government which
subsidizes his own. So Hamas could say: "We make no distinction
between those defying international law and assassinating our
leaders, and those who sponsor them." Still, it is unlikely
that they would undertake an attack on Americans on U.S. soil,
however much either al-Qaeda or the neocons might want that
(and even be inclined to stage it) in order to exacerbate
the confrontation between Islam and the west that they both relish,
for their different reasons.
In any case, the statement about "responsibility
for this crime" cited above was immediately trumpeted in
the U.S. media as a Hamas threat to attack the U.S., something
it has never done, would be stupid to do, and probably has no
intention of doing. Hamas is not al-Qaeda, however much the Bushites
want to conflate all opponents of the U.S. and Israel into a
single, simple terroristic Evil. Homeland Security Director Tom
Ridge immediately indicated that Washington takes "quite
seriously" a threat never explicitly made. But Hamas, as
it mourns the loss of its founder, and speculates about what
forces produced his murder, becomes demonized, al-Qaeda-ized,
another object of American fear.
Start worrying now, everybody, that
terrorist Hamas, angry about the death of their terrorist founder
at the hands of our Israeli friends---a death we support---is
going to attack us, because they blame us for it! That's the message.
Hamas having been hit by a strike condemned
by the entire world (except the U.S. and Israel) and having,
in perfectly rational response, expressed outrage, now in its
injured state becomes more targeted by the U.S. than ever. Henceforth
whatever Sharon does against Hamas, he will be able to depict
as an effort to defend not merely his country but the American
Homeland threatened by these angry anti-American Palestinians.
And whatever measures the Bushites take against "Palestinian
terrorism" will be undertaken as "Homeland Defense"
measures as well, the Israeli and American homeland boundaries
having been thoroughly blurred long since.
10. Let us say Perle's dream comes true
and the Israeli air force does attack pro-Hamas Syria. Let's
say it does so big-time, Sharon-style, and does major damage.
Enough to cause enough disorder for the U.S. to argue that a
deteriorating situation requires international intervention.
The Iraq attack required months of preparation, but intervention
in Syria will happen very quickly, coming like a thief in the
night as it did in Haiti. Perle has suggested that there
are troops to spare in Iraq that can occupy "weak"
Syria in short order. Even if Israeli action provides the context,
Israeli forces won't be needed, and U.S. action will be lent
some thin international legitimacy if a few hundred "coalition"
troops participate. Thus a second Arab nation will become Americanizedly
"free," while Palestinians infuriated by these events
will commit acts that will justify the "ethnic cleansing"
of the West Bank.
I truly hope my imagination has gotten
the better of me, that I am a false prophet, and that what I
describe will not come to pass.
Hands off Syria!
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
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|