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Today's
Stories
August 13,
2004
Stan Goff
There
He Goes Again: Kerry's "Energy" Plan
CounterPunch Wire
Fighting the Backdoor Draft: Military Families File "Stop
Loss" Suit
Milan Rai
Najaf: Bush Started It
August 12,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
How
Bush Got (and Lost) His Wings
Lenni Brenner
Take
It on Faith: Kerry's See-Through-Monk's Robe
Lee Ballinger
The Coors and the Kerrys: Drink Up, Kids!
Tariq Ali
The
Handover Fiction
Yves Engler
What's at Stake in Venezuela
William S.
Lind
Seeing
Through the Other Side's Eyes
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Bush's Goat
Website of
the Day
The Sucker Puncher
August 11,
2004
Ceylon Mooney
Who
Woke Up Sen. Joe?: Watchers of the NJ Turnpike
Voices in the
Wilderness
Hands
Off Najaf
Ray McGovern
Porter
Goss as CIA Director?
Robert Jensen
US
Supports Anti-Democratic Forces in Venezuelan Recall
Annie Higgins
In Memory of Nick Pretzlik: As Good as It Gets
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
v. Kerry: Not Even a Dime's Worth of Difference
Website of the Day
Nick Pretzlik
August 10,
2004
William A.
Cook
Silencing
the Voice of the People
Todd Chretien
California Greens at the Crossroads: Will It Be Nader or Cobb?
Dave Lindorff
Chicago on the Hudson?
Richard Gott
Loathed
by the Rich: Why Chavez is Headed for a Big Win
Toni Solo
Bluebeard's
Castle: Disappearing the Right to Development
Dave Zirin
Carl Eller's Plea
Rep. Ron Paul
Police State, USA
Patrick Cockburn
If the Chalabis Were Corrupt, They Weren't Alone
Website of
the Day
The Surveillance-Industrial Complex
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
August 9, 2004
Tito Tricot
Pinochet
Must Still be Tried: a Murderer and a Thief on the Loose
Ron Jacobs
In
Memory of Deep Throat: the Day Nixon Was Gone
Norm Dixon
Crisis in Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West's Tears for Darfur
Kurt Nimmo
The Politics of Entrapment
Elaine Cassel
Welcome to Bush's America
Gary Leupp
Why
Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria
August 7 /
8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
August 6, 2004
Joshua Frank
David
Cobb's Soft Charade: the Greens and the Politics of Mendacity
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Stan Goff
Mike Whitney
The
Arbitrary Imprisonment of Jose Padilla
William S. Lind
Corruption in the Marine Corps
David Price
In
the Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 5, 2004
Mike Ferner
The Kerry Show: When Peace is Off
Message
Bruce Anderson
Two
Rejections
Robert Fisk
The Tale of Saddam's Cameraman
Todd Chretien
Florida
Comes to California: the Democrats' Plot Against Nader
Peter Linebaugh
Doing Time for Political Crime:
Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail
August 4, 2004
Mickey Z.
Two
Traditions: WMD and Disinformation
Justin Huggler
The Hunt for Bin Laden
John Ross
Mexico's
Dirty War Never Ended: Inside Puente Grande Prison
August 3, 2004
Uri Avnery
The
Oligarchs
Ray McGovern
The 9/11 Commission Chimera
Jack McCarthy
Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida
Eric Ruder
Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star
John L. Hess
Crying Wolf: Orange Alert!
Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004
Jules Rabin
The Man Who Didn't Walk By
Website of the Day
No Wall
August 2, 2004
Robert Jensen
Kerry's
Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War
Joshua Frank
Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity
Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American
Police State"
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
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
13, 2004
Thoughts
on Najaf
How
Could the US Ever Be Considered a "Terrorist" State?
By
NORMAN MADARASZ
Rio de Janeiro.
For many weeks, the United States Armed
Forces in Iraq have been preparing what they were stopped from
doing five months ago, invading the holiest city of Shiite Islam,
al-Najaf, site of the Imam Ali shrine. The decision to start
pummeling the city from the air and now invade on the ground,
alongside Iraqi forces, surely ranks among the most short-sighted
and dangerous, indeed the stupidest, thus made during the entire
invasion and occupation. We are all at risk as a result.
In a typically cynical ploy
played out by the Bush administration, the American army has
invaded Najaf with Iraqi police forces to cover its unilateral
aims and buffer American troops. The police forces are filled
predominantly with Sunnite Muslims, i.e. the re-trained staff
of the former Baathist terror police once under Saddam Hussein's
command. In addition and as usual, the US campaign has been waged
on the battlefield of Anglo-American minds as well. It has been
so successful in fact that even last week the Guardian, the British
daily famed for its objectivity, reported that many of the Najaf
resistance fighters were supporters of Saddam Hussein.
Nothing could be further from
the truth. Iraq's Shiites, despite often being on the front lines
in the 1980-88 war against Iran the majority of whose population
is also Shiite, saw thousands of their own brutally massacred
by Saddam Hussein after rising up against his rule in 1991. They
were prompted to do so by the US in return for a promise of military
assistance that never came. The Shiites are Iraq's ethnic majority,
and their refusal to join with the United States occupation has
always depended, in the eyes of their field leader, Moktada al-Sadr,
the second most influential Shiite leader in Iraq, on one thing
and one thing alone: the United States army leaving Iraq.
Deep disrespect for religious
concerns, cruel cynicism, to say nothing of sheer stupidity,
are what rule the day at Bush&Blair Inc. As every month passes,
the United States is exposing its troops and its population back
home to an increased threat of terror attacks--real ones this
time. The violent campaign it has led in Iraq ever since its
air attack and invasion a year and a half ago has led even Anglo-American
capitalism's billboard, The Economist to recently avow that "
well-intentioned or not, [Messes. Bush and Blair's] salesmanship
of the war has made us all less safe, and more vulnerable to
terrorists."
Worse. On the verge of defeat,
like in Vietnam, the American army has explicitly turned to waging
a war of terror. Gone are the claims of WMDs, exporting democracy,
protecting human rights and vouching for the rights of women.
All that remains is coercion, torture and massacres--ordinary
facts in the history of illegally occupying foreign countries.
One of the stated reasons for
al-Qaeda's declaration of war on the United States was its military
bases in Saudi Arabia. Given that the desert kingdom is home
to Mecca and Medina, the two holiest cities in Islam apart from
Jerusalem, foreign troops on its soil are very much akin to the
offense Christians might have experienced had a Muslim army been
stationed in Italy to conduct air strikes against Spain when
under the rule of the dictator Franco. In the neoconservatives'
strategy, openly acknowledged by President Bush in his speech
to the Senate in July, the United States army would have left
Saudi Arabia due to its failure of "containing" Saddam
Hussein, despite regular air strikes and a trade embargo enforced
since 1991. In his Vanity Fair interview in the spring of 2003,
Paul Wolfowitz went as far as avowing that leaving the Arabian
Peninsula was necessary for security reasons--which have since
become even more pressing considering the six million foreign
professionals working there and vulnerable to an exploding revolt.
As a national energy strategy,
and the dwindling state of long-term petroleum reserves, another
matter was at stake. The US would invade and occupy Iraq in order
to guarantee both its supply of petroleum as well as control
petroleum distribution to Europe and China.
Instead of doing so in a profit-sharing
scheme with Iraqis, former vice-consul Paul Brenner's occupation
administration ultimately made Iraq an extension of US plans
for global hegemony. It sold off industry, commodities and restructuring
contracts mainly to American corporations, often at inflated
prices, with the exception of a few others run by the minions
serving in the so-called Coalition forces.
In political realist terms,
global hegemony is tantamount to controlling "oil",
no matter the price in human lives or diplomacy. Yet for those
who have to sacrifice their lives for the prosperity of wealthy
CEOs and political lords, denial cannot be an option. The terror
the US army is now instilling amongst Iraqi Shiites must be denounced
far and wide by those whose lives are most at risk in the retaliation
that will surely come one day, which means ordinary Americans.
A week after this latest phase
began, hundreds have been reported dead, the wounded are mounting
into the thousands. One day, the Americans will have to answer
to how it claimed to support the Shiite rebellion against Saddam
Hussein in 1991, which led to thousands of deaths at the hands
of Saddam's henchmen, only to then itself commit the same gruesome
atrocity. Where does the difference lie? Americans can't even
claim any more than torture is not part of their panoply of weapons,
especially since the one man who should have resigned for accountability's
sake, Donald Rumsfeld, is still spreading death and destruction.
One day, the U.S. will be bound to the terms of the International
Criminal Court.
There is an erroneous idea
amongst non-Muslim Westerners that Shiites represent a more fanatical
wing of Islam. This sect of Islam is rooted in a terrible historical
drama. The word "Shiite" comes from "shiat Ali",
meaning the party of Ali, the Prophet Muhammad's son-in-law,
whom its followers consider as the rightful heir to Muhammad.
Ali chose not to take the claim, but passed it on to his youngest
son, Husayn. But upon taking over the leadership of the Islamic
State, Husayn was assassinated with his entire guard by those
who became known as the Sunnites, i.e. the followers of the Sunnah,
the second source of the Prophet's guidance and rulings.
Ever since Husayn's martyrdom,
Shiites have been at odds with Sunnites in various parts of the
Islamic world. The scenes of flagellation seen again as of last
year--until then the ceremonies had been banned by Saddam Hussein--are
only remarkable for Christians who know nothing of their own
history, and the physical means by which to heal bodily longings.
Not that the public self-flagellation performed by Shiites has
anything to do with Christians' closet sadomasochism. Here we
have an entire people suffering their disenfranchisement from
ruling what went on to become the most glorious civilization
on the planet for several centuries.
As for modern times, the Shiites
have gone through much to make them very angry. The American
and British orchestrated coup in Iran in 1953 against the democratically
elected secular-nationalist leader Mohammad Mossadegh led to
imposing the Shah of Iran onto an unwilling population, which
in turn was made to bear the brunt of his secret police. Back
home in the US, what viewers were graced with were not the dungeons
of Tehran but only the elegance of the mild mannered Reza and
his wife interviewed ad nauseum by Barbara Walters. Meanwhile
intellectuals, artists and activists correctly identified the
United States as a collaborating culprit to their striving for
independence, which first took shape as a Marxist-inspired revolution
and then shifted grounds to the theocratic regime that certainly
never hid its contempt for Iran's former lords.
As in Iran, so also in Iraq.
The Shiites seek to establish their regime, which means imposing
their own--and not a western--legal code. After all, the latter
is already dysfunctional enough in the United States when it
comes to protecting the rights of the poor and underprivileged,
and the ethnically undesirable. At least in Shiite Islam there
are signs of economic solidarity that have long left our capitalist
shores. That democracy is not yet a keyword there should be irrelevant,
then. The only Persian Gulf state that is experiencing democracy
anyway, Iran, is on the US's hit list. The rest of the region's
states are either monarchies, with more or less degrees of enlightenment,
or theocratic regimes.
The legal system that Iraqi
Shiites as well as Sunnites strive to see applied in their homeland
is the Shari`ah (sacred law) and the Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence).
Unlike what Western pundits want us to believe, the Shariah does
not necessarily mean that all women will be stripped of their
civil rights and that men be subject to the reign of orthodox
Wahhabism as it rules in Saudi Arabia, despite the fact that
we know next to nothing of how this system actually works apart
from the most sensational acts of retribution gleefully reported
by the Western media. But for a country like the US that, in
2003, executed 65 inmates in 11 states and sentenced twice as
many to death, an eye for an eye should be kid's stuff. Certainly,
the Bush administration has no problems with it. It is led by
the former governor of a state where, in the words of some, execution
is a business. The only condition is that the Saudi kettle not
boil over into popular revolt.
Fiqh is built upon premises
of jurisprudence and oriented by the religious faith and convictions
of Islam, though not explicitly covered in the texts of the Koran
and Sunnah. With the United States spreading terror in Iraq,
no American can credibly maintain that Muslims are essentially
fanatical and violent, willing to impose their system of beliefs
on others. They are the victims of an illegal foreign occupation.
The words Americans speak apply only to their own nation and
civilization.
Yet all this blood and terror
is rendered even more gruesome, ever more pathetic, as it is
really just a big show for the American public back home in a
bid to strengthen popularity for the fall election. What do a
few thousand deaths of poor Arabs mean when trillions of dollars
are at stake? The criminal injustice that allows such a sentence
to be written, let alone thought and acted upon, underscores
the reality of class difference, economic disparity, and the
reign of capitalism as ever more Americans are disenfranchised
and distanced from the political decision-making that claims
to speak in their name.
This is the meaning of the
poor having to die for the rich, no matter their nationality,
religion or ethnic background. Invading al-Najaf has now completed
Osama bin Laden's wish, a religious war to top things off. Stupidity
has never seen so feeble a word to describe such a dramatic situation.
Norman Madarasz is editor and translator of Alain
Badiou's Briefings on Existence, forthcoming from SUNY
Press. He writes from Rio de Janeiro.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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