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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories June 2, 2003 Arundhati Roy Day of the Jackals Norman Madarasz Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato, Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom Alain Frachon and Daniel Vernet The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter Anthony Gancarski Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now Standard Schaefer Wasted at the Pentagon Jason Leopold Rocky's Advice to the Dems Guthrie & Albert HUAC 58 Years Letter Steve Perry The Politics of Terror Alerts   May 31, 2003 Alexander Cockburn A Whiner Called Horowitz Gary Leupp The Frauds of War Dave Lindorff Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment Tom Stephens Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied? Sasan Fayazmanesh Who Is Next? Joanne Mariner Trivializing Terrorism Wayne Madsen Ayatollah Rumseld's Busy Week Larry Magnuson Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard? Elaine Cassel Wake Up, America! Gila Svirsky Waiting for the Lament to End Susan Davis Kitchen Dreams Chris Clarke Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite Chris Floyd Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God Adam Engel Gravity's End Zone Poets' Basement Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert   May 30, 2003 Ben Tripp Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda Neve Gordon The Bad Fence Todd Steiner Endangered Ocean Robert Freeman Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity Sean Carter Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions Daniel Bacher How Bush's War Violated International Laws Tariq Ali Re-Colonizing Iraq Steve Perry Bush Wars Web Log   May 29, 2003 CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Jason Leopold Despite Thin Intelligence Reports, US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime Ron Jacobs Popular Uprising, Inc. Michelle Ciaccorra Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do Yves Engler The Economics of Health Care in America: Pay More to Die Sooner Kimberly Blaker Vouchers for Jesus Harry Browne Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at the Top of the IRA Stew Albert Cops of the World Steve Perry Greens 04: In or Out?   May 28, 2003 David Vest DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More Dave Lindorff My Grandfather's Medal John Stanton America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key Bernard Weiner A PNAC Primer Robert Jensen Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party Ahmad Faruqui The Oil Business of Regime Change: the CIA and Iran Hammond Guthrie Disarming Conundrums Steve Perry What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?   May 27, 2003 Kurt Nimmo Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli Myths Anthony Gancarski Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love? Patrick Cockburn Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad John Chuckman an Interpretation of Bush's Character Kathleen Christison What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets Jeffrey Blankfort AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap Steve Perry Trouble in the Hinterlands   May 26, 2003 Franklin C. Spinney Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism Elaine Cassel Supreme Sacrifice Sam Hamod When Trained Killers Return Home Stew Albert The Final Conflict   May 24 / 25, 2003 Gary Leupp The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss and the Neo-Cons Uri Avnery The Hannibal Procedure Diane Christian Who's the Real Enemy? "Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards" Alexander Cockburn Derrida's Double Life William S. Lind Is Saddam Really Out of the Game? William Cook Road to Nowhere David Krieger Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice Ilan Pappe Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel Wayne Madsen American Idle Noah Leavitt Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields Walt Brasch Americans are Liars Lenni Brenner John Brown and Dutch Bill Mickey Z. Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda Michael Ortiz Hill Grievous Harm Here and Abroad Adam Engel Towers of Babel Poets' Basement Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski   May 23, 2003 Standard Schaefer Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits? Ron Jacobs Long Live People's Park! Michael Greger, MD Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply at Risk Elaine Cassel Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt." Sam Hamod The Shi'a of Iraq Christopher Greeder After the Layoffs (poem) Steve Perry Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23         Hot Stories CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.   Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

June 3, 2003 Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq Of Time and the Rivers By WILLIAM S. LIND A recent article in The American Conservative is titled, "God's Time: The Afghan war is over when the Afghans say so." The author, Jim Pittaway, makes the point that Fourth Generation, non-state Islamic forces have a wholly different view of time than does America. Of Afghan guerillas fighting the Soviets in the 1980s, he writes, For more than a decade, they had been enduring the privations of life in the bush, organizing defenses, and preparing strategies that would ultimately lead them to success against the overwhelmingly superior forces of a global superpower... this idea of being on "God's time" led to an extraordinary degree of patience... The same is true now that many of these same Fourth Generation fighters face American opponents: As surely as the American soldiers and society will want to win and go home, these men do not need victory or closure in any comparable sense in order to justify their ongoing fight...Adversity, discouragement, and setbacks are never defeat; defeat is an epis - temological impossibility except in the event that one ceases to believe...It is not his job to drive the "coalition" out; his job is to make them pay. Allah will see that they are driven out when it is his will to do so. War on "God's time" has already fought us to a stalemate in Afghanistan, with very little fighting. Our puppet government in Kabul has failed to extend its authority beyond that city. Indeed, last week's mob assault on the American embassy, sparked by the mistaken killing of four Afghan Army soldiers by Marine embassy guards, shows that its ability to control its capital is shaky at best. The promised American "rebuilding" of Afghanistan has become a stale joke, because without security, nothing can be rebuilt. And America hasn't a clue on how to provide security in Afghanistan. Or Baghdad, for that matter. Now, having found that M-1 tanks make poor police patrol cars, we are proposing to put a lot more American troops on Baghdad streets, in Humvees and on foot. Welcome to my parlor, say the Baathist and Shiite spiders to the fly. One RPG round will incinerate any Humvee, and foot patrols will be even easier game. When that happens, we will be back in the tanks, and someone else will control the streets. We could have used Iraq's own army for that purpose, but instead we have sent it home, without pay, providing a vast reservoir of fighters for our enemies. America's "plan" for occupying Iraq seems to have been to identify every possible mistake, then make it. The American authorities in Baghdad claim to be restoring order, getting the economy moving, fixing the infrastructure, etc., but the Iraqi people don't seem to see any of it. We begin to sound like Saddam's Minister of Information. In fact, if he's still around, perhaps we should hire him. Already, American casualties are rising. Instead of bringing the troops home, we are sending in more. Those are not the usual signs of a war won. In the land between the Tigris and the Euphrates, time belongs to our opponents, not to us. We, not they, need closure. Our time is determined by American election cycles. They operate on "God's time." If they do not win today, or even fight today, there are many tomorrows -- for them, but not for us. If Iraq is still a mess and there is no end in sight a year from now, George Bush is in trouble. The fly has occupied the flypaper. And time is always on the flypaper's side. William S. Lind is Director of the Center for Cultural Conservatism at the Free Congress Foundation. Today's Features Arundhati Roy Day of the Jackals Norman Madarasz Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato, Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom Alain Frachon and Daniel Vernet The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter Anthony Gancarski Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now Standard Schaefer Wasted at the Pentagon Jason Leopold Rocky's Advice to the Dems Guthrie & Albert HUAC 58 Years Letter Steve Perry The Politics of Terror Alerts   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /