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March
17, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Tipping
in America
Tariq
Ali
The
Left's New Empire Loyalists
March
16, 2002
Chris
Floyd
Ashcroft's
Secret Snatches
March 15, 2002
Doron Rosenblum
Israel's Settler Warlords
Alex Lynch
Rhetorical
Attacks On Iraq
Norman Madarasz
Neo-Con Propaganda
and the National Review
Paul-Marie
de La Gorce
Making
Enemies
March
14, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
RIP
Danny Pearl
Francis
Boyle
Bush
Nuke Plan Violates International Law, Again
Wayne
Saunders
Memo
to Paul McCartney:
There Are Two Kinds
of Freedom, Sir
H.P. Albarelli
Anthrax
Cover-up?
March
13, 2002
Amira
Hass
Are
the Occupied Protecting the Occupier?
CounterPunch
Wire
National
Review Editors Suggest Nuking Mecca
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Personal
Responsibility
for Corporate Elites?
Robert
Fisk
Arabs
Don't Want US
to Strike Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
When
Billy Graham Wanted
to Kill One Million People
March
12, 2002
Kay Lee
Dangerous
Changes in
California's Prisons
John Patrick
Leary
The
Return of Otto Reich
Wole Akande
US
is Being Discredited
in the Eyes of Africa
March
11, 2002
Hani Shukrallah
This
is the Way the World Ends
Tommy
Ates
Bush's
New Nuke Policy:
Target Allies and Enemies
Lidia Andrusenko
The Great
Chicken War:
Bush v. Putin
Dave Marsh
10
CDs Playing On My Desk
John Chuckman
Footprints
in the Dust
Norman
Madarasz
Max
Steel in a Time of Chaos
March
10, 2002
Thomas
Croft
Year
of Living Dangerously
March
9, 2002
Bill Cook
Sharon's
Bulldozer
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Nightmare in Israel
March
8, 2002
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
When
Business Men
Make Boo-Boos
CounterPunch
Exclusive
Enron's
Spooky
Image Consultant
Rep. Ron
Paul
Stop
the War on Colombia
Andre
Achong
The
Failed War on Drugs
John B.
Kelly
Michael
Moore and Me:
Disability Rights and
a Big Stupid White Guy
March
7, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Congressman
McInnis Equates Enviros to al-Qaeda
Mike Rogers
Will
the Battle of Shah-i-Kot Become the Taliban's Alamo
Walt Brasch
Patriot
Act and Free Speech
John Jonik
Insurance
Scams:
Who Are the Scofflaws?
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Bumper
Crop: The Politics
of Afghan Opium
March
6, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
A
Beautiful Mind:
Another Dangerous Lie?
Tom Turnipseed
War
Is Wrong
David
Vest
Billy
Graham and Nixon:
Tangled Up in Tape
Patrick
Cockburn
The
Bombings That
Made Putin a Hero
CounterPunch
Wire
Berezovsky
Fingers Putin
in Bombings
Edward
Said
Thoughts
About America
March
5, 2002
CounterPunch
Wire
Ann
Coulter At It Again:
Race-Baiting Norm Mineta
Bill Christison
A
Former CIA Officer
Explains Why the War
on Terror Won't Work
Delkhasteh and Wright
What
Should We be Fighting For? An Open Letter
to Pro-War Academics
Mariya
Tsvekova
Putin's
Georgian Gambit
March
4, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Dick
Cheney: A Dinosaur
in the Age of Mammals
Uri Avnery
How
Israel Will Torpedo
the Saudi Peace Plan
Southern
/ Kubrick
Stangelove
Scenario
for Shadow Govt. Bunker
David
Vest
Grammy's
of Constant Sorrow
March
3, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
War
on Terrorism for Dummies
Paul Cox
Boycott
Mel Gibson's
"We Were Soldiers"
Frederick
Hudson
Toward
a Nonviolent Africa:
Bill Sutherland's Quest
Eric Schaeffer
Dear
Christie Whitman:
Take This Job and Shove It
John Chuckman
Why
the Rest of Planet is Unnerved by America
March
2, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Sweat,
Sex, Feet and
the Working Class
March
1, 2002
Brendan
Sexton III
What's
Wrong With Black Hawk Down: an Actor Speaks Out
David
Krieger
Nuclear
Terrorism
and US Nuclear Policy
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
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
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
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
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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March 18, 2002
The Middle East for Dummies
By Bernard Weiner
Confounded and dumbfounded by recent Bush Administration
moves, once again I consult that invaluable reference series,
this one titled "The Middle East for Dummies." I find
their concise, no-BS answers help me through the confusing morass.
Q. Why does Bush keep moving toward attacking
Iraq, when nearly everyone except his tight circle of advisors
(we'll call them the Wolfpack, named for superhawk Deputy Defense
Secretary Paul Wolfowitz), keeps warning him against such a military
adventure?
A. Those who oppose Bush policy here,
or Bush policy anywhere, must be fellow-travelers with evil terrorists,
the Wolfpack reasoning goes. Bush & his advisors believe
they know what's best for the world, what's best for the U.S.,
no need for Congress to get involved with all that messy democracy
stuff like debates and hearings and suchlike. Oh, Bush "consults"
with U.S. allies, in the region and elsewhere, but when they
express doubts as to the wisdom of the Iraq operation, he just
ignores them. Bush will do what he wants to do anyway, maybe
even postpone the Iraq attack for awhile and come at Saddam Hussein
a little later.
As for why Bush wants to attack Iraq:
- Saddam Hussein is a VERY bad character
and there are few in the Middle East, or elswhere in the world,
who would mourn his demise. (That's said in private; in public,
Arab leaders think he serves a political function and, as a secular
leader, may even be a buffer between their countries and a more
Islamicist Iran.)
- Poppa Bush didn't remove Saddam when
he had the chance at the conclusion of the Persian Gulf War,
and it's been a sore point in the Bush family, and in U.S. military
circles, ever since.
- Iraq, which was hiding weapons programs
from the U.N., finally engineered the inspectors' departure,
so nobody knows what Saddam's been up to for the past several
years. It would be folly to think he's just been playing pinochle.
He's most likely developed more weapons of mass destruction (WMD)
-- biological, chemical and maybe even nuclear -- and might well
be provoked into using them at some point down the road, especially
against Israel. Might as well take him out now, the reasoning
goes, before he gets the chance to set them off.
- Suppose the U.S. doesn't attack now,
the reasoning goes, and a year or two from now, Saddam dispatches
nuclear- or biologically-tipped missiles at us or our friends?
We could have taken them out at the time, we didn't, goodbye
Bush.
- Oil. Did you really expect something
else? There's Iraq's oil, which, presumably would be in friendlier
hands, but there's also the warning, delivered not so subtly,
to other oil-producing countries in the region.
So something will be going down, probably
sooner than later. So what if Arab & Muslim support for the
U.S. "war on terrorism" evaporates? So what if Iraq
sends scores of SCUD missiles, armed with biological or chemical
weapons, at Israel or U.S. troops? The Wolfpack wants to attack
Iraq and that's that -- maybe even testing out some of its tactical
nuclear weaponry in the process -- and there's no force in the
world strong enough to stop them.
Q. Speaking of Israel, why hasn't
the U.S. been more involved in trying to arrange a peace between
the Jews and the Palestinians?
A. Bush watched the previous administration
devote so much time and energy in trying to arrange a peace there,
only to see it blow up in Clinton's face. Bush is convinced that
this is one hot potato to stay away from, let the parties kill
each other until they're so demoralized and wasted that a younger
generation of leaders will come to the fore and demand peace
negotiations and invite the U.S. in to help them arrange it.
In addition, Bush was more interested in the war he started (the
one supposedly against 9/11terrorists) and not someone else's,
and figured he could get away with doing nothing about Palestine/Israel.
Let Sharon bloody the nose of the PLO and other groups; the U.S.
will make noises every now and again about Israel going too far,
but essentially keep American hands off.
Now Bush is learning that unless that
Mideast problem is solved, the Arab/Muslim coaliton supporting
the early phase of the "war on terrorism" will break
apart -- which translates to no Arab support for the coming attack
on Iraq. Now Bush and his Wolfpack have no problems with going
it alone, but they risk too much -- endangering the very concept
of perpetual war, the concept that, they feel, will keep Bush
and the conservative hard-right in power -- and so have at least
to pretend to be doing something about the Israelis and Palestinians.
Q. OK, suppose the Arab world and
even Arafat and Sharon buy into the Saudi prince's peace plan:
a viable Palestinian independent state, Israel returns to pre-1967
borders (including abandoning its settlements in Palestinian
land), Arab neighbors recognize Israel's right to exist. Wouldn't
this work?
A. No. The whole plan is based on two
incorrect foundations: 1) that the parties really want peace;
and 2) that determinative power rests in the nation-state.
If we've learned anything in the past
several years, it is that real power is often found outside nation-state
governmental institutions. Examples: transnational corporations
often have more power than traditional government structures;
terrorists often have more power than political institutions.
Suppose all the Arab neighbors and Arafat agree to the Saudi
plan, so what? The real power on the ground belongs to Hamas,
Hizbollah, rightwing Israeli settlers, etc. -- i.e., non-governmental
forces -- and they just want to see the other side disappear.
Their veto is violence.
The Palestinian extremists won't agree
for a moment to any arrangement that limits Palestinian plans
to drive Israel into the sea. Add to that Ariel Sharon's bloodlust
on the other side -- his desire to destroy the Palestinian political
and actual infrastructure -- and it's clear that there can be
no meaningful negotiations right now because neither side really
wants peace. They simply want their enemy to vanish in a puff
of smoke. The Wolfpack may be right: the insane revenge-violence
may continue until, after many tens of thousands are slaughtered,
a new generation of leaders says enough is enough and begins
to think about heading toward the peace table.
But there may be one more chance. If
the U.S., as the only world superpower, were to work with the
U.N. and/or organize a global coalition for Mideast peace, and
help arrange a way for both sides to back down, with armed peace
monitors inbetween the warring parties, maybe, just maybe, there
might be reason to hope. But it's clear that Bush & the Wolfpack
have no vision on this matter, no desire to come up with a vision
(which must include altering U.S. policy in the region to lower
the level of tensions), and instead continue their meaningless
sending of envoys to the area to arrange...what? another piece
of paper signed, another set of promises made. As soon as the
envoys depart, the violence ratchets up another notch, because
both sides know that America is not seriously engaged and therefore
there are no unbearable penalties to acting irresponsibly.
There's no guarantee that deep and serious
U.S. engagement right now would send both sides moving, however
slowly and vaguely, toward an eventual peace treaty. But if the
U.S. continues to do the little or the nothing that passes for
American Mideast policy these days, Bush & the Wolfpack are
going to have a lot of blood on their hands as the Israeli/Palestinian
war grows in intensity.
Q. But how can Jews and Arabs ever
sit down at the same table and talk peace after the decades of
slaughter, suspicion and hatred?
A. One way might be to lower everyone's
expectations. The object is not to get the enemies to trust each
other, or like each other, or to revise their opinion that they're
dealing with anything other than bloodthirsty zealots. (If peace
is ever achieved, those attitudinal changes might come later,
as byproducts of a treaty.) The object here is to get each side
to say to the other:
"We're here, we're not going away,
you're here, you're not going away; we wish you would disappear,
or that we could make you disappear, but we realize realistically
that it's not going to happen. Military slaughter simply doesn't
get either of us to where we want to be. Each of us wants security,
and to raise our children and grandchildren in peace. So, what
can we do to bring that security and peace about? What compromises
might you have to make, what compromises might we have to make,
to begin to bring us to that point?"
If both sides can come to a public realization
-- as they almost did a decade ago -- that the other side is
here to stay and their just demands must be taken into account,
and that military slaughter does not lead to what they want,
then they can move on to the necessary-compromises stage. Israel
withdraws from the Occupied Territories, abandons its settlements,
recognizes a viable Palestinian state, reins in its extremist,
Arab-hating terrorists; the Palestinians formally recognize Israel,
rein in their extremist, Jew-hating terrorists. Both sides, probably
under some international arrangement, share jurisdiction over
Jerusalem.
Is this THE solution? Probably not. But
it's a starting point, and the U.S. simply must take the lead
in making sure something like these ideas begins to alter the
agenda and discussion in the Middle East. To do nothing serious,
to simply let bombers and tanks and suicide-diplomacy rule the
day, is to condone utter madness.
Q. But isn't Bush trying to do something
like you're suggesting in the Middle East? Why not give the guy
some credit?
A. To Bush, the Middle East is a sideshow,
and is liable to suck in the U.S. dangerously; the real war is
the one against terrorists around the globe, because that one
can, and will, go on forever -- or at least for the next seven
years, which coincides, in Bush's mind, with the length of his
imperial term. But since the Middle East seems to be of great
concern to everyone else, he's going through the motions of serious
diplomacy. But there will be no changes in essential U.S. policy,
and, most likely, in a few days the combatants will be back slaughtering
each other at a record pace.
Q. You're not really part of the "Dummies"
publishing operation, are you?
A. Clearly, you're no dummy. You realize
what needs to be done to change the existing policies of the
Bush Administration, and thus help bring peace and progress to
the Middle East. But none of that will happen unless you organize,
organize, organize to send Bush and his advisors the Big Message
in November.
When the Republicans lose the House and
the Senate, and thus have their far-right domestic agenda blocked,
they may see the electoral handwriting on the wall for 2004 and
begin pulling in their horns in both domestic and foreign areas,
behaving like more rational, moderate politicians.
In short, in addition to whatever else
you're doing, join the call for an Independent Prosecutor in
the Enron influence-peddling scandal and support Democrat candidates,
even if sometimes you have to hold your nose to do so. Everything
-- peace in the Middle East, the conduct of the "war on
terrorism," the future of Constitutional democracy and civil
liberties in this country -- depends on the election results
in November. We all can have a part in determining America's
political future by our action, or inaction.
Bernard Weiner,
Ph.D., has taught politics and international relations at various
U.S. universities; a poet and playwright, he was with the San
Francisco Chronicle for nearly two decades.
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