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April 13, 2002
Anne Winkler-Morey
Why
I Didn't Organize
a Passover Seder This Year
April 12, 2002
Nancy Stohlman
Live from East Jerusalem:
International Nonviolence
Brian
J. Foley
Defeating
Evil
Olivier Audeoud
Did the US Break
the Laws of War?
Rep. Ron
Paul
The
Middle East Quagmire
Michael Colby
Republican Porn:
Oiling Up the Caribou
John Chuckman
Tom
Friedman's Fabrications
April 11, 2002
Patrick Cockburn
Battle of St. Petersburg Zoo
Jeff Halper
After
the Invasion:
Now What?
Falk / Krieger
Taming the Nuclear Monster
Steve
Perry
The
Good Life of
Nellie Stone Johnson
Nick Ring
Efficiency and Occupation:
Terrorism vs. Taylorism
Alexander
Cockburn
From
the West Bank to BBQ
to Old Sparky, And Beyond
April 10, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
Blaming the Victims:
Hating the Palestinians
George
Monbiot
World
Bank to West Bank
Fran Schor
US-Sponsored State Terror
David
Vest
Political
Color Schemes
Jack McCarthy
Florida State Radicals:
The Berkeley of the South
Rises Again
Doreen
Miller
A
Tale of Two Warring Tribes
Michael Neumann
Israelis and Indians
April 9, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
Colin
Powell's Table Talk
Matt Vidal
Thomas Friedman,
Another Wasted Pulitzer
Ron Jacobs
Buyer
Beware
Robert Jensen
I Helped Kill a Palestinian
Vijay
Prashad
Memories
of Barbarity:
Sharonism and September
Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
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Reviews of Gore:
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April 13, 2002
Thoughts On Our War Against
Terrorism
By Rep. Cynthia A. McKinney
Authorities tell us that the world changed on
September 11. As a result, university professors must watch what
they say in class or be turned in to the "speech" police.
Elected officials must censor themselves or be censured by the
media. Citizens now report behavior of suspicious-looking people
to the police. Laws now exist that erode our civil liberties.
Americans now accept these infringements as necessary to win
America's New War.
America, the world's only superpower,
is stifled in its ability to defend human rights and democracy
abroad because it has failed the fundamental test at home. Our
combination of money and military might, and our willingness
to use them, did not make us a superpower. We are the most powerful
nation on the face of the planet because we have combined raw
power with American ideals such as dignity, freedom, justice,
and peace. These ideas and ideals are admired around the world
and are more important, in my view, to our position of global
strength than our ability to shoot a missile down a chimney.
We might be feared because of our military, but we are loved
because of our ideals.
Sadly, we have put American goodwill
at risk around the world because of an imbalance in our foreign
policy that is palpable to even the most disinterested observer.
In 1994, after an act of terrorism killed two sitting presidents,
the Clinton Administration purposely failed to prevent the genocide
of one million Rwandans in order to install favorable regimes
in the region. In 1999 Madeleine Albright OK'd a Sierra Leone
peace plan that positioned Foday Sankoh as Chairman of the Commission
for the Management of Strategic Resources, a position that placed
him answerable only to the President despite the fact that his
terrorist organization raped little girls and chopped off their
hands as it financed its way to power with illegal diamond sales.
Jonas Savimbi, recently killed on the battlefield, helped the
US protect the minority rule of racists in South Africa and his
organization continues to rampage across southern Africa in Angola,
Namibia, parts of Congo-Kinshasha, and Rwanda without restriction,
financed by illegal diamond sales. The continued plunder of Africa's
rich resources without penalty and sadly with the knowledge and
support of powerful people in the US, serves as the foundation
of the particular terrorism that victimizes Africans.
And now, as Africans grapple with the
fundamental right to control their own resources and despite
United Nations reports making no such links, Bush Administration
experts seem prepared to link African diamonds with anti-US terrorism,
thus "necessitating" tightened US control over Africa's
resources.
And so, with no concern at all for the
effects on others of US-supported terrorism, the US, with its
bombs and military, embarks on a worldwide crusade against terrorism
that Bush says likely will last as many as twenty years. The
list of target countries is long with Afghanistan, Somalia, Tanzania,
Kenya, Sudan, the Philippines, and Iraq offering the starters.
But what of the fact that Henry Kissinger and the current new
US Ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, both once lobbied
Washington, DC on behalf of a US oil company, Unocal, and a softer
policy toward the Taliban?
Whose war is
this really?
In November 2000, Republicans stole from
America our most precious right of all: the right to free and
fair elections. In an organized manner, Florida Governor Jeb
Bush and his Secretary of State Katherine Harris created a list
of convicted felons--57, 700 to be exact--to "scrub"
from the state's voter rolls. The names were created from Florida
records and from lists provided by 11 other states, the largest
list coming from Texas. We now know that most of the people on
that list were innocent of crimes. The list was a phony. And
worse, the majority of these rightful voters were people of color
and likely Democratic voters. Of the thousands who ultimately
lost their vote through this scrub of voters, 80% are African-American.
Had they voted, the course of history would have changed: Harris
declared Bush the victor by only 537 votes. President Carter
has said that the Carter Center would not certify the US 2000
Presidential elections had they had been asked to do so.
Consequently, an Administration of questionable
legitimacy has been given unprecedented power to fight America's
new war against terrorism.
Before September 11, two million Americans
found themselves behind bars: 80% of them people of color. Millions
of Americans are sleeping on the streets of American cities.
All over America, unarmed black men are targeted by rogue police
officers, who shoot first and ask questions later. While 52%
of all black men feel they have been victims of racial profiling,
the Supreme Court declines to hear an important case on racial
profiling. The Bush Administration totally "disses"
the World Conference Against Racism and the people around the
world who care about eliminating racism. In February 2001, The
United States Commission on National Security, including Newt
Gingrich, recommended that the National Homeland Security Agency
be established with a hefty price tag. Most people chuckled at
the suggestion.
After September 11, we have OK'd the
targeting and profiling of certain groups of people in America
while not arresting in any way the racial profiling and discrimination
that existed prior to September 11. Mass arrests, detention without
charge, military tribunals, and infringements on due process
rights are now realities in America. Even more alarming are the
calls in some circles to allow the use of torture and other brutal
methods in pursuit of "justice." Sadly, US administration
of justice will be conducted by an Administration incapable of
it. Interestingly, prominent officials explain to us that September
11 happened because we are free. And "they" hate us
because we are free.
Moreover, persons close to this Administration
are poised to make huge profits off America's new war. Former
President Bush sits on the board of the Carlyle Group. The Los
Angeles Times reports that on a single day last month, Carlyle
earned $237 million selling shares in United Defense Industries,
the Army's fifth-largest contractor. The stock offering was well
timed: Carlyle officials say they decided to take the company
public only after the Sept. 11 attacks. The stock sale cashed
in on increased congressional support for hefty defense spending,
including one of United Defense's cornerstone weapon programs.
Now is the time for our elected officials
to be held accountable. Now is the time for the media to be held
accountable. Why aren't the hard questions being asked. We know
there were numerous warnings of the events to come on September
11. Vladimir Putin, President of Russia, delivered one such warning.
Those engaged in unusual stock trades immediately before September
11 knew enough to make millions of dollars from United and American
airlines, certain insurance and brokerage firms' stocks. What
did this Administration know, and when did it know it about the
events of September 11? Who else knew and why did they not warn
the innocent people of New York who were needlessly murdered?
September 11 erased the line between
"over there" and "over here." The American
people can longer afford to be detached from the world, as our
actions abroad will have a direct impact on our lives at home.
In Washington, DC, decisions affecting home and abroad are made
and too many of us leave the responsibility of protecting our
freedoms to other people whose interests are not our own. From
Durban to Kabul to Atlanta to Washington, what our government
does in our name is important. It is now also clear that our
future, our security, and our rights depend on our vigilance.
Cynthia McKinney
represents the fifth congressional congressional district of
Georgia. She can be reached at: cymck@mail.house.gov
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