home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events
|
|
|
How a Tiny Alaskan Indian Tribe Got Billions in Pentagon Contracts by Jeffrey St. Clair; Dems and Dives by Alexander Cockburn; Spooky Grants: More on the CIA's Recruitment of Campus Professors by David Price. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
|
Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories March 30, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair March 29, 2005 Ralph Nader Gary Leupp Sonia Cardenas Stew Albert Mark Weisbrot Dave Lindorff Carl G. Estabrook
March 28, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Sonali Kolhatkar Sasha Kramer Kevin Zeese Tom Stephens Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Newton Garver Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
March 26 / 27, 2005 Gary Leupp Peter Linebaugh Marc Robert Laura Carlsen Saul Landau
/ Puja Patel Dave Foreman Fred Gardner Jennifer Matsui Dave Lindorff Dharma Adhikari Joshua Frank Patrick Barr Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy Baroud Jackie Corr Ben Tripp Dr. Susan Block Mickey Z. Justin Taylor Richard Joseph Poets' Basement
March 25, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons Yoshie Furuhashi Pat Williams Mark Engler Rahul Mahajan Lance Selfa Ralph Nader John R. Llewellyn Jo Guldi
March 24, 2005 Joshua Frank Talli Nauman Martin Espada Dave Lindorff Elaine Cassel Jack McCarthy Jack Random Barbara Ferguson Suzan Mazur Dorreen Yellow Bird Andrew Wimmer
and Mark Chmiel
Patrick Bond Mike Whitney Becky White Michael Donnelly Niranjan Ramakrishnan Ashley Smith David Swanson Derrick O'Keefe Paul A. Moore Dalton Walker Patrick Cockburn
March 22, 2005 William Blum Jim Vallette Greg Moses John Farley Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Alam Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Dave Lindorff James Petras
March 21, 2005 John Walsh Werther Mike Stark David Swanson James T. Phillips Mike Ferner Robert Jensen Paul Craig
Roberts Stew Albert Website of
the Day
March 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Tom Reeves Saul Landau Alan Maass Ron Jacobs David Green John Blair Steve Greenfield Ben Tripp Mike Roselle Joshua Frank Mark Weisbrot Dave Lindorff Sarah Schaffer Warren Hastings Poets' Basement
March 18, 2005 Dave Zirin Richard Thieme John Walsh David Swanson Ben Terrall David Boyle Dorreen Yellow Bird Mokhiber /
Weissman Greg Moses Website of
the Day
March 17, 2005 Christopher
Brauchli Bill Quigley Brian Cloughley Gary Bass / Adam Hughes Dave Lindorff Jude Wanniski Alexander Billet John Ross Website of the Day
March 16, 2005 Ralph Nader William Cook Kevin Zeese Jackie Corr Alan Maass David R. Kolker Cindy Ellen
Hill Paul Craig
Roberts
March 15, 2005 Gary Leupp Dave Lindorff Greg Moses Hadas Their
/ Katrina Yeaw Alison Weir Matt Koehler Evelyn Pringle Harry Browne
March 14, 2005 Ralph Nader David Miller Stan Cox Mike Roselle David Swanson Simona Sharoni Dave Lindorff Dorreen Yellow Bird Tom Barry Website of the Day
March 12 / 13, 2005 David H. Price Noam Chomsky Laura Carlsen Stan Goff Valentina Nicoli Michael Leonardi Saul Landau
/ Sarah Anderson Joe Bageant Manuel García,
Jr. Greg Moses James J. Brittain Ben Tripp Joshua Frank Fred Gardner Walter Brasch Ramzy Baroud Christopher
Brauchli Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Richard Oxman Poets' Basement
March 11, 2005 Jerry Fresia Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff William James
Martin Muqtedar Khan Kathryn Ledebur Mike Whitney Dave Zirin Website of the Day
March 10, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin
and Ashley Smith Larry Birns Michael Donnelly Luis Gomez Jackie Corr Uri Avnery Website of the Day
March 9, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Ward Churchill Robert Fisk Bernice Powell Jackson Mickey Z. Dave Zirin Michael Donnelly James Reiss Vijay Prashad
March 8, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Robert Fisk Kurt Nimmo Suzan Mazur Evelyn Pringle Giuliana Sgrena Elaine Cassel
March 7, 2005 Dave Zirin Brian Cloughley John Chuckman Mike Whitney Mark Weisbrot Fred Gardner Richard Neville Uri Avnery
March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Tom Reeves Jenna Orkin Tom Barry Joshua Frank Moshe Adler Jane Stillwater Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir Christopher
Brauchli John Pilger Raúl
Zibechi David Krieger Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Bhishma Karki Joseph Pietri Ben Tripp Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson
March 3, 2005 Pat Williams Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Greg Moses Lynne Landes Nelson P. Valdés John Ross
March 2, 2005 Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen Mike Roselle M. Junaid Alam Suzan Mazur Jackson Thoreau Michael Donnelly Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
March 1, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons David Lindorff Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders Ron Jacobs Tanya Garcia Joseph Pietri Kona Lowell Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Subcomandante
Marcos Norman Finkelstein Steve Niva Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams Steve
J.B. Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber Wendell
Berry CounterPunch
Wire Cindy
Corrie Gore Vidal Francis Boyle
Subscribe Online
|
March 30, 2005 Curing Those People of Their HatredCondi's Pitch for a "Different Kind" of Middle EastBy GARY LEUPP
Straight from the horse's mouth (although some find in it echoes of the Old Testament Book of Isaiah, Chapter 65), this pithy remark expresses the State Department's attitude towards a large chunk of the planet. It cries out for translation and dissection. "We" of course means the United States, "coalitions of the willing" with shifting compositions, and most of all the GIs who comprised Rice's Afghan audience. "Broader Middle East" (also known as "Greater Middle East") is not a term often used by geographers but is applied idiosyncratically by the administration to North Africa, the Horn of Africa, Southwest Asia and parts of Central Asia. Geographers do not consider Afghanistan a Middle East nation; the fact that Bush and Rice do is significant for reasons that will become apparent. A "broader Middle East that is going to be stable and democratic," Condi declared as the worst bomb blast in 8 months killed 5 Afghans and injured over 30 in Kandahar. The resurgent Taliban vies for power with the Karzai puppet regime and the antidemocratic warlords in unstable Afghanistan, and as, two months after a supposedly democratic election, there is still no government in wobbly Iraq. The secretary would perhaps agree that neither of these "liberated" countries is stable yet, but Bush has repeatedly called them "democracies." This merely means they have governments resulting from some sort of consultative or electoral procedure, surrounded by American money and manipulation, that can be depicted as somehow "free." Elections have been shaped by U.S. operations in Georgia and Ukraine, and there will likely be U.S. input in the upcoming one in Lebanon. But Rice is talking to soldiers, talking about war that produces "regime change" and elections under U.S. guns. These regime changes will, says Rice, ensure that "our children will one day not have to be worried about the kind of ideologies of hatred that led those people to fly those planes into those buildings on Sept. 11." This is a clever conflation of a whole range of ideologies supposedly menacing the wee ones. One of them is of course that of al-Qaeda. But al-Qaeda's ideology of hatred wasn't brewing among the people of Iraq before the U.S. invasion, and to the extent that it exerts some minority appeal today is---as various intelligence reports frankly concede---a result of that invasion. There is hatred for the U.S. among the various communities and political forces in Iraq and for that matter for U.S. policy throughout Europe, Latin America, pretty much everywhere. Is all this hatred based on "ideologies of hatred" or mere human revulsion at crimes like the Iraq War? What do the various countries of the "broader Middle East" have in common that makes them collectively targeted for U.S.-imposed "democracy and stability"? Afghanistan, the first target, was ruled by the Taliban who applied a very harsh version of Islamic law. The Taliban ran a bare-bones government that sought cordial ties with the U.S., and while Washington didn't recognize the Taliban regime some of its leaders were entertained in the late nineties by Zalmay Khalilzad (former State Department official, Afghan-American and now ambassador to Afghanistan) on his Texas ranch while discussing an oil pipeline. Kabul received U.S. aid to successfully eradicate opium production in 2000. It's not at all clear that Mullah Omar was even in on 9-11 although his primitive, unsophisticated regime did indeed host Osama bin Laden after he left Sudan in 1996. At the time the U.S. State Department felt that its former ally wouldn't be able to do much harm from Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban soon after bin Laden's arrival. In neighboring Iran, there is what State Department official Richard Armitage once acknowledged to be a "democracy," managed by the Shiite mullahs who prune the electoral lists. It's a very different regime (with a very different ideology) from the Taliban, and it almost went to war with Afghanistan five or six years ago. Bordering it, Iraq was under Saddam a secular Baathist state. The mullahs oppose Baathist ideology, although they maintain an alliance with secular Baathist Syria. Lebanon is probably the most democratic country in the Arab Middle East, although the political system gives Christians disproportionate power. Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy that applies Sunni religious law. Jordan is a constitutional monarchy with a weak parliament. We can continue this list but let us just notice that there is much political and ideological diversity among even the countries of this limited swath of the "broader Middle East." Let us note too that Americans are generally weak on geography, not much concerned with foreign affairs until their family members are sent to kill and be killed out there in that wide foreign world where 95% of humans live, and would be hard-pressed to define "ideology." Furthermore many are inclined to believe the government. So what do the countries of that broad geographic category have in common that instills "ideologies of hatred" and inclines people to fly planes into buildings? Maybe all "those people" from Morocco to Afghanistan enjoy peanuts, chickpeas, figs, olives, chicken and mutton, but no one to my knowledge suggests that diet is a factor. Really the only thing they have in common is that they're predominantly Muslim! So Rice is hinting that broader Middle East countries currently tend to generate hatred for the U.S. because Islam itself is the problem. Surely you have people in government who are true Islamophobes. Elliott Abrams, for example, is director of the National Security Council's Office for Democracy and Human Rights and charged with promoting "democracy" throughout the world. His efforts to strengthen fundamentalist Christian support for Israel (in the name of America's "Judeo-Christian tradition"), and disrespect for Muslim countries and people caused Muslim-Americans to bitterly oppose his appointment. Daniel Pipes, who has sat on the board of the presidentially-appointed "U.S. Institute for Peace" has stated, "The Muslim population in this country is not like any other group, for it includes within it a substantial body of people..who share with the suicide hijackers a hatred of the United States." He has warmly welcomed Michelle Markin's recent defense of the World War II Japanese internment camps and hinted that similar facilities may be appropriate for this suspect population. Of course Condi doesn't say Islam is the problem. Secretaries of state in today's world, which is 20% Muslim, can't say such things. But her implication is clear. Unless the U.S. installs its allies in broader Middle East (Muslim) capitals and works with them to change the "hearts and minds" of their Muslim populations, so that they get it into their heads that (as Bush insists) "the American people are a good people" (and their government also good by definition) our children here in the U.S. will have to worry about their safety. The "different kind of Middle East" the administration envisions is one in which Islamic belief itself undergoes a kind of reformation induced from without. The concept of jihad (in the sense of religious war) so enthusiastically promoted by Zbigniew Brzezinski when the U.S. made common cause with the anti-Soviet jihadis in Afghanistan, now needs to be castrated. Education needs to be reformed and secularized, even as the opposite trend occurs in the U.S. Networks like al-Jazeera, portrayed by U.S. officials (and Fox News) as "anti-American" need to be closed down. Then shall your children be able to sleep soundly. But the proposition that the U.S. can through the efforts of its troops reduce the level of rage in the Muslim world against U.S. policies, particularly pertaining to Israel, is as absurd as the notion that you can quench fire with gasoline. I'll bet that the learned Dr. Rice recognizes this, in which case she won't be the first secretary of state to say things she doesn't really believe. So peeling the onion just a little more, we get to the core. The U.S., which wants to establish its hegemony over a region producing 40% of the world's oil, through conquests, convert actions and other interference, knows such actions will inevitably generate more antipathy towards the U.S. It blames and will continue to blame perfectly reasonable resistance to oppression on "ideologies of hatred." While publicly insisting that it respects Islam as "a religion of peace," the administration will continue to do what American politicians have done for years. "I'm for racial equality, equality of opportunity," they'll say, then use nuance and symbols and subtly play the race card. The administration exploits anti-Muslim bigotry and irrational fear of "those people" to justify to the American public an ongoing campaign, currently honing in on Syria and Iran, to "build" a "stable" Muslim world. Parents dispatched to fight the imperialist wars will be told that to defend the Homeland they must force those people of the broader Middle Eastern people to cower naked, like Abu Ghraib detainees, in front of the Empire's gaping canine jaws. While doing so they can take comfort in the belief that their children won't have nightmares about airplanes, hijacked by those jihad-crazed Muslims, hitting their upright American homes. That's the plan anyway. Use fear, racism, feelings of victimhood, knee-jerk "support our troops" nationalism, Christian millenarianism and Islamophobia to build domestic support for this project to "build a different kind of Middle East" in this New American Century. I have no doubt it will generate different kinds of outrage, different kinds of hatred, different ideological responses, different kinds of instability, and different kinds of resistance in the targeted region. Nor do I doubt that in those Middle Eastern homes, for years to come, some good children will dream of avenging the death of their own loved ones by actions some people, with some selectivity, label "terrorism." Just for reference, here's what God, according to the Bible, says to the prophet Isaiah, way back when, concerning "a different Middle East" in the future, after God through fire and brimstone executes his righteous judgment on the region. Children have no worries, buildings are secure, all conflict ends, all worship the True God, and there is rejoicing in Jerusalem.
Question for discussion: Does such material influence administration thinking? 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
|
