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Today's
Stories
August 2, 2004
Gary Leupp
Beyond
Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions
July 31 / Aug.
1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Kerry:
He's the (Any) One
Merlin Chowkwanyun
Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of
a Narrow Policy Spectrum"
David Lindorff
The Shame of the DNC
John Chuckman
The
Disturbing Words of John Edwards
Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility
Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face
of Compassionate Conservatism
Fred Gardner
A World of Pain
Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly
David Nally
Genocide in Darfur?
Joshua Frank
Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon
Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Diane Farsetta
The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the
Voting Booth
Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?
Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater
Lee Sustar
A New Model for the Labor Movement?
Ron Jacobs
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik
Poets Basement
Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Cross Cultural Poetics
July 30, 2004
Kolhatkar /
Ingalls
Shattering
Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not
Wanted
Dave Lindorff
Murder
Not So Foul?
Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Fidel Castro
The
Pathology of George W. Bush
Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist
Saul Landau
Bush
Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave
Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
July 29, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Hail,
the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam
Frank Bardacke
What
Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11
Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan
Ron Jacobs
Kerry
and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture
Robert Fisk
The Unreported War
Lichtman /
Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)
William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure
CounterPunch
Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!
Website of
the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness
July 28, 2004
Robert Fisk
The
Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of
the Dead
Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine
Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root
Causes
United for
Peace & Justice
An
Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots
Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face
Impeachment Mvt."
Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter
Alexander Cockburn
Candidate
Kerry
Website of
the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War
July 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
the Democrats Deserve Nader
Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!
Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera
Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez
Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs
Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then
the Sweatshops
Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
The
9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine;
Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism
July 26, 2004
Todd Chretien
Green
Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin
Robert Fisk
Terror
by Video
Richard Forno
Security
Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing
Flaws at the Fleet Center
Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious
Richard Moreno
Rockers
for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian
Alexander Cockburn
Boston
Awaits a Dead Party
July
24 / 25, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions:
Part One
Dennis
Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush
Patrick
Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning
Josh
Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject
the Peace Movement
Justin
E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin
American Experience
Tariq
Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela
Fred
Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the
Antagonist
Mark
Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope
Ron
Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie
Fire Statement...35 Years On
July
23, 2004
Lee
Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years
On
Dave
Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters
0
Saul
Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush
Beats Reagan
Mike
Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No
One
Mickey
Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth
Jennings
Gary
Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming
War on Iran
July
22, 2004
M.
Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat
Brian
McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon
Jason
Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While
CEO of Halliburton
Chris
Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths
Uri
Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon
July
21, 2004
Paula
J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War:
Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage
Joshua
Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's
be Fair
Ron
Jacobs
American Exceptionalism
Reza
Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda
Amy
Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?
John
Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go
On and On
July
20, 2004
Stan
Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket
Chris
Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!
Forrest
Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular
Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Mark
Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the
Rest of California
Sam
Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door
George
Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb
John
Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush
John
L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.
Website
of the Day
This Land is Your Land
July
19, 2004
Uri
Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of
Paris
Col.
Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?
Mike
Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol
Karyn
Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage
Robert
Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad
David
Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition
to Iraq War
Jennifer
van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
July
17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything
Wrong with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
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.
|
August
2, 2004
Beyond
Good and Evil
Some
Thoughts on the History of Invasions
By
GARY LEUPP
And when you're trying to lead
the world in a war that I view as really between the forces of
good and the forces of evil, you got to speak clearly.
President George W. Bush, in
an interview with Christianity Today
Invasions
Happen
The study of history gives
you, if nothing else, a sense of perspective on human events.
Events like invasions. Invasions are of course a staple
in history. Some, like the Norman invasion of Britain, for some
reason have a noble ring to them; others, like the Japanese invasion
of Korea, an evil connotation. But countries invade one another,
regularly. It's historically normal. The fact that they do so
says nothing at all about the virtues of the people in the invading
or invaded country. In my lifetime the U.S., a country of people
good bad and in between, has invaded the Dominican Republic,
Grenada, Panama, Iraq. None of which is my American fault, and
probably not your fault either, but that of the Johnson, Reagan,
and Bush administrations.
Invasions can be good, or at
least sympathetically depicted. The Normandy Invasion hastened
the downfall of fascism in Europe, as did the Soviet invasion
of Germany following the Battle of Stalingrad. In the Bible,
Joshua's Israelites invade Canaan. This is usually seen in the
Judeo-Christian tradition as a fine thing. Why? Because God tells
Joshua that the Israelites will possess the whole land between
Lebanon and the Euphrates (Joshua 1:1-9). God Himself brings
down the walls of Jericho as His grand project begins. The "Lord
of the whole earth" personally promises Joshua that he will
expel the Canaanites, Hittites, Hivites, Perizzites, Girashites,
Amorites and Jebusites beyond the Jordan River (3:7-11), and
Joshua proceeds to slaughter these people. Here is a key western
literary narrative, contributing to the content, for example,
of Negro spirituals, which depict the crossing of the Jordan
River as a liberation (3:14-4:18). In the narrative, the good
Israelites destroy the above mentioned peoples because they are
evil and God wants them gone. So definitely a good invasion.
It's not surprising that the
U.S., which many Americans see as the Promised Land, and which
was settled by deeply religious people through incremental conquest,
invades other countries. Still, the invasion of Iraq was unusual.
Iraq is much larger and much farther away than the above-mentioned
Caribbean countries. Most of the world accepts the fact that
the U.S. will generally control its own hemisphere, but is shocked
when the U.S. invades the heart of the Arab world, apparently
intending to maintain a large military force there, forever.
It is shocked when the U.S. thus says to the world, "The
bottom line is: if you want dealings with this region and access
to its resources, in the New American Century, the Full Spectrum
Dominance Century, you'll have to cooperate with us. Even if
the insurgency is long, even if we have to resume the draft,
even if we wind up in a general war with Syria and Iran, we'll
be here. Because if we withdraw now there'll be chaos. The bad
guys will win." The world is both frightened and angered
when the U.S. insinuates that it itself is good (good virtually
by definition), and to be good all others must do what America
wants.
Two Invasions
Let us recall what (in a way)
started all this. On August 2,1990, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait
with two armored divisions, meeting with little military resistance.
The invaders committed atrocities; in detention centers in Kuwait
city, prisoners were raped and tortured. Troops, it has been
reported, had orders to burn down houses refusing to open their
doors. But as invasions go, it seemed a professional operation.
Amnesty International in a news release on October 2, 1990 reported
"scores" of civilians had been killed. The U.S. government
later
maintained that Iraqi forces killed 1,000 civilians during
the full six months of occupation.
The round figure suggests the
figure is likely lower. The U.S. military does not keep civilian
death counts in its own invasions, as a matter of policy,
always announcing, as a matter of policy, that all measures possible
have been taken to minimize collateral damage. But private scholarly
reports put the Panamanian
civilian death toll from the invasion of December 1989 at
about 300.
The Afghan civilian death toll
from the U.S. attack October 7, 2001 to March 2002 is estimated
at between
3,000 and 3,400.
The Iraq Body Count Project
reports that to date a minimum of 11,336
civilians have died as a result of the invasion and occupation
of Iraq. That's four or five 9-11s.
By the end of February 1991
Saddam's troops were fleeing Kuwait in disorder, in commandeered
milk trucks and school buses, under heavy bombardment by a U.S.-led
coalition. Tens of thousands of conscript Iraqi boys were incinerated
on the Highway
of Death leading to Basra.
Thus while the invasion was
relatively bloodless, the expulsion was in contrast was very
bloody. Some in the Bush administration then, and many in the
current administration, believe the U.S. should have moved on
to overthrow Saddam Hussein in 1991, in which case there would
have been far more bloodshed and a new American colony. But Bush
(41), in a decision he continues to defend, insisted that Saddam's
overthrow would destabilize Iraq and the region. So he did not
attempt it. He was content that the invasion of Kuwait had been
rolled back and the status quo restored to the autocratic Emir.
As an historian, I see the
Kuwait invasion as a pretty typical one. Not much special about
it. If Iraqi troops had behaved with special savagery,
and, say, torn 312 premature babies from their incubators left
them to die on the cold floors of Kuwaiti hospitals, such would
surely make this invasion memorable. (Actually, this transparently
bogus story was widely aired in 1990 in the U.S. press. Convincingly
discredited, it has been repeated again and again.
It's called disinformation,
and often accompanies invasions and wars.)
In fact, I say, a pretty pedestrian
invasion. It could, like all such normal invasions, be justified.
Iraq could say, first of all, that Kuwait was part of Basra Province,
one of the three Ottoman provinces (the others being Mosul and
Baghdad) that the British had during the Arab Revolt (1916-18)
promised to establish as a single Arab state. They could argue
that through most of the last 5000 years Kuwait and all or parts
of what is now Iraq were under common rule. Iraq could say that
a random
decision by a British general after World War I should not
determine the political map of the Middle East. They could point
out that Britain established Kuwait as a protectorate in order
to control the oil and make use of the harbor; and that when
Kuwait was granted independence in 1961, Iraq had asserted its
claim to sovereignty and almost seized its neighbor. (This was
long before Saddam Hussein was at the helm, and anti-Baathist
'Abd al-Karim Qasim was president.)
Iraq could condemn the chattel-slavery
prevailing in the harems of the Kuwaiti elite. Iraq could point
out that it had gone deeply into debt with Kuwait (since the
Kuwaiti emir had enthusiastically supplied funds for Iraq's war
on Shiite, Persian Iran) and that Kuwait's refusal to cancel
part of that debt damaged Iraq's credit rating with international
lenders. It could and did point to illegal Kuwaiti exploitation
of Iraqi oilfields. Iraq could argue that its system of social
services, its mainly secular law code (based on the Napoleonic)
including its marriage law would mean improvement for those living
in Kuwait. But none of these mundane reasons for this (again)
fairly routine invasion would have been discussed on CNN. No
commentator in the U.S. free press could possibly have played
devil's advocate and justified the invasion.
Instead, this second-rate invasion,
by a country of about 22 million of a country numbering (including
foreigners, half the total) one-tenth that figure, was treated
by the first President Bush as a threat to world peace rivaling
that presented by Adolph Hitler in the 1930s. He actually called
Saddam "a new Hitler," declared that the annexation
"will not stand," and may have provided bogus intelligence
to the Saudi rulers about a 250,000 strong Iraqi troop deployment
on the Saudi border in order to win Riyadh's terrified consent
for the establishment of U.S. military bases in Saudi Arabia.
Bush proclaimed a "New World Order" (eerily reminiscent,
actually, of Hitler's own "New Order in Europe" proclaimed
in 1940, or the "New Order in East Asia" proclaimed
by Japan's Tojo Hideki around the same time) as he prepared in
1990 to attack the Iraqis in Kuwait. Once committed to the attack,
he and his cabinet rejected any Iraqi withdrawal offer, the fulfillment
of which, to them, would constitute the "nightmare
scenario."
Simply put, that would have meant a neat end to the crisis with
Saddam's troops going home but remaining the most powerful military
in the Middle East (except for Israel). That's the thing
Bush couldn't allow to stand.
It was important to vilify
Saddam to the American people, and easy to do. But the dictator
who had done so many nasty things had, early in his career, made
contacts with the CIA, whose anti-communism he shared. There
was a time when the CIA promoted the (now vilified) Baath party
as an alternative to Iraq's Communist Party (the largest in the
Arab world in the 1950s, and for a time tolerated by Qasim, who
withdrew from the Baghdad anti-Soviet pact and courted the USSR).
There was a time when the Reagan administration, which had condemned
Iraq's support for Palestinian "terrorist organizations"
removed Iraq from the "terror-supporting"
list, and sent Donald Rumsfeld to negotiate an improvement
in ties.
This was because Saddam was
engaged in a terrible war with Iran (1980-88)-, a country Washington
wished to weaken. That explains the numerous Commerce
Department-approved sales to Iraq of war material, including
materials that could produce weapons of mass destruction.
Important to demonize this
man whose brutality you had in the past ignored or supported.
As the bombs fell on Baghdad in January 1991, many Americans
knew that Iraq had used chemical weapons against Kurds in 1988.
Fewer knew that the U.S. had publicly continued to side with
Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war after that. Fewer still knew that just
a month before the Kuwait invasion, Saddam had had a cordial,
formal meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie in which she
told him the Bush administration sought closer ties with his
government and officially had "no
opinion on the Arab-Arab conflicts, like your border dispute
with Kuwait."
But back to the invasion itself.
This rapid annexation could have produced a far wealthier Iraq,
with a very different distribution of wealth generally in the
region, and the spread of Baathist institutions to Kuwait. The
resident foreigners in Kuwait might have been given greater rights.
The dress code might have lightened up a lot; the clerics restrained;
liquor sales legalized, etc. Women probably would have enjoyed
greater freedom. On the other hand, if in the various "human
rights" categories the Iraqis performed worse that the emirate's
forces, any good done might be neutralized. Good or bad? You
decide. But without asking the American people to think and then
decide, the Bush administration decreed that Iraq must withdraw
from Kuwait, and that the emirate must be restored. The U.S.
was the boss.
And indeed, its will was done.
Thirteen years after Saddam stumbled in and out of Kuwait in
this historically unremarkable invasion, the U.S. invaded and
occupied Iraq. It did so having failed to procure United Nations
authorization, its case for war weak and not widely accepted,
rejected, indeed, by France, Germany, Russia, China, India, Canada,
Belgium, Mexico, Brazil, and so many others, including the papacy.
Now let us, just as an intellectual diversion, compare these
two events. In 1990 Iraq had invaded a neighboring country whose
sovereignty it hadn't acknowledged until the 1960s. A country
towards which it held public grievances. Hussein seems to have
thought his annexation of the neighbor state would not upset
his U.S. allies. Instead they labeled him "a new Hitler"
and executed a plan to greatly weaken him.
The Hitler analogy was really
a stretch. If you really wanted an apt analogy to the Hussein
regime, I'd suggest that of Suharto in Indonesia. It slaughtered
700,000 people in its anti-communist crackdown in the 1960s.
Later Suharto's troops invaded East Timor, in 1975, the day after
a meeting between Suharto and U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger.
East Timor had been a Portuguese colonial territory since the
sixteenth century but had been granted independence by Lisbon
after the recent leftwing military coup. Suharto preemptively
grabbed it---more brutally, surely, than Saddam later grabbed
Kuwait---but the U.S. did not protest, and the U.S. press was
silent. Again, invasions are just not that unusual.
Suharto's invasion of East
Timor resulted in the deaths of around 200,000 of its 700,000
inhabitants, an ethnic group very different from the invaders.
If you wanted to demonize this man, whom most Americans don't
know much about, and specifically demonize him as an invader,
perpetrator of genocide, fascist, how easily you could have done
so! If only you owned the press, back in 1975. Those who
did own the press were aware that the U.S. was continuing
arms shipments to Indonesia and that they were being deployed
in East Timor. They surely knew, in the 1980s, that the Reagan
administration maintained cordial military ties with Indonesia,
and that Reagan advisor Paul Wolfowitz, for a time U.S. ambassador
to the country, was particularly supportive of the hard line
on the former Portuguese colony. But they didn't find this particular
invasion, this ongoing East Timor atrocity, newsworthy.
Suharto stepped down in May
1998 in the face of a mass uprising and U.S. pressure, reminiscent
of the combination that brought down Ferdinand Marcos in the
Philippines, and East Timor has received a sort of U.N.-guaranteed
independence (in the amicable presence of U.N. peacekeepers disproportionately
Australian, that is, from the only country that had once---to
allow for some oil exploration contracts---officially accepted
Indonesia's sovereignty over East Timor). Madeleine Albright
praised his decision, saying it was an "historical act of
statesmanship" that would "preserve his legacy as a
man who not only led his country but also provided for its democratic
transition." Suharto lives well in declining health, spared
criminal prosecution while Saddam Hussein is subjected to treatment
many Arabs who hate him find demeaning to themselves and reflective
of American barbarism.
The Iraqi occupation of Kuwait
lasted from August 1990 to February 1991 and took, at most, a
thousands lives at the hands of Iraqis. The invasion of Iraq
in 2003 took tens of thousands of lives. It doesn't really matter
whether they were military or civilian. Since any Iraqi soldiers
were doing what soldiers minimally and most legitimately do---fight
against foreign invaders---they were no more guilty of crimes
than the civilians slaughtered with them. The invasion resulted
in the overthrow of an internationally recognized government,
the infliction of chaos and humiliation on a proud Muslim people,
and a large and variegated resistance movement fed daily by American
military tactics in the heart of the Arab world. It has produced
international outrage at U.S. policy on an unprecedented scale,
and polarized American society. In world history, of the two
invasions, this was the greater one, surely.
Justifying
the Greater Invasion
How does the die-hard supporter
of the invasion justify it today? "Well, at least,"
he will say, "we got rid of a dictator." Indeed Saddam
has fallen from power, and now a long-time CIA operative named
Iyad Allawi, accused of murder, is in there as the U.S.-backed
boss.
While threatening to impose
martial law, he defends himself from the charge of dictatorship
by allowing a "free press," even permitting a newspaper
linked to Muqtada al-Sadr to reappear. So the invasion remains,
for some, morally justified by its liberating results. By this
logic, an invasion of Myanmar (Burma) producing a marginally
more democratic system (conducted, let's say, not by the U.S.
but by Japan or India) would be justified. Indeed any toppling,
by anybody, of a dictator whom "the world is better off
without," would be reasonable, unless of course the dictator
were toppled by a bigger dictator, and dictatorship were to generally
increase in the world as a result. We may have differences of
opinion about who is, in fact, a dictator (and even differ
on the question of whether dictatorship can sometimes be good).
But international law, now fashionably dismissed, was supposed
to discourage the prospect that countries claiming to be good
would unilaterally invade countries they considered bad. It rather
encouraged them to observe basic rules and respect sovereignty,
however unsavory the regimes they must deal with.
The great irony here is that
one of the more routine and relatively defensible invasions of
modern times led so seamlessly into this most unusually preposterous
invasion. It's one thing to have Iraqi troops on Kuwaiti streets,
understanding the culture and giving orders in Arabic, endeavoring
to solidify an expanded Iraqi nation. It's another to have American
troops on Iraqi streets, clueless about the culture and giving
orders in English, endeavoring to stave off constant attacks
by the locals and establish a pro-U.S. regime---one that might
someday help reduce the level of hatred directed at the street
level towards your foreign, invading, occupying self. In fact,
the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, this "Arab-Arab" matter,
was less of an invasion than the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Less invasive culturally, less intrusive, offensive and humiliating.
Back to the main point: invasions
happen. They should generally be condemned, but they aren't
the worse things in the world, and when the leading imperialist
power uses some invasion somewhere to greatly augment its own
military posture in that region of the world, and then itself
invades the vilified invader on transparently concocted pretexts
(including, so damned righteously, "Iraq has attacked
its neighbors"), one should really revisit the real-world
history. One cannot repeat too often that the first Bush, as
vice president under Reagan, welcomed the Iraqi war on
Iran, another routine invasion spurred less by Evil than by a
very mundane, understandable conflict over water resources.
Good and
Evil Invasions
Think about the Norman invasion
of England, 1066. A force from Normandy led by aristocrats of
mixed Viking-French noble genealogy toppled the English king
Harold. The king's credentials were contested by the Norwegian
king Harald Hardrada and William of Normandy, both of whom claimed
to be the rightful heir to the English throne. They used logical
legal argument, as would be done today, stressing blood line
and promises uttered by the former monarch. (Some people at the
time might have applied some advanced logic, and wondered why
these factors should have anything to do with human governance.
These would have been revolutionaries.) Harald's invasion was
doomed at the Battle of Stamford Bridge, but the exhausted if
victorious English forces soon fell to the Normans at the Battle
of Hastings. En conséquence, a French-speaking
ruling class arrived in England, and half the words in our fine
English language are from Romance languages. There were all kinds
of good and evil repercussions for the Anglo-Saxons.
Should the world have said,
of this Norman Conquest: This will not stand? Should it have
demonized William, comparing him to, say, Attila the Hun?
(Digression on Attila the Hun.
There's a real evil aura around the name, don't you think? But
years ago I met a Hungarian scholar in Japan. He was married
to a Japanese and his son went to the same kindergarten as my
daughter. The five year old son's name was, you guessed it: Attila.
As someone who would probably not name my son Attila, I was interested
in his explanation. "Attila," the father told me, "was
one of our greatest kings." This king invaded the Eastern
Roman Empire in 441, then Germany and Gaul and Italy. He could
have sacked Rome in 452 but was bought off by Pope Leo I. Many
Hungarians think this invader was a hero, just as many Greeks
think Alexander was a hero, or French (among others) think Napoleon
was a hero.)
Questions for discussion. Was
William good or evil to invade England? Attila good or evil to
invade Gaul? Saddam good or evil to invade Kuwait? Hitler good
or evil to invade Poland? Bush good or evil to invade Iraq? Are
"good" and "evil" really adequate categories
to evaluate contemporary and historical events? If so, what are
the more evil invasions? Logically and morally, justify
your answer.
Remember you got to speak clearly.
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
Weekend
Edition Features for July 31 / August 1, 2004
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Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of
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The Shame of the DNC
John Chuckman
The
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Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility
Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face
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A World of Pain
Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly
David Nally
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Joshua Frank
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Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Diane Farsetta
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Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?
Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater
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Poets Basement
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