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Today's
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July
17, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
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
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Weekend
Edition
July 17 / 18, 2004
A
Call for Sudan
Our
Geographical Blindspot
By
DAVID NALLY
The concept of progress is
to be grounded in the Idea of the catastrophe. That things 'just
go on' is the catastrophe.
Walter Benjamin.
Scanning through the mainstream press
and digesting the fairly erratic and mostly insipid news on the
continuing murders in Sudan, one is gripped by the horrible thought
that maybe it is true that nobody cares. After all Bush and his
cronies--who were so quick to ignore the United Nations in their
dealings with Iraq--now seem only too content to evoke the selfsame
authority in order to legitimise their policy of enforced abandonment
in regard to Sudan [1]. This selective disengagement seems to
prove well enough that the people of Sudan are today's "unworthy
victims."
Now, as I write these words,
Sudan is facing a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions and
to say that this situation has offered little pause for scrutiny
is being way too charitable. Even the independent press seems
gripped by the violence in Iraq--not to mention the Israeli effort
to block all the daylight out of Palestine. In the midst of all
this the people of Sudan are being raped, pillaged, and starved
to death. The truly tragic in all of this is that these atrocities
are not even tabled for serious discussion.
Since its independence from
Britain in 1956 Africa's largest state has been racked by violence
and unrest. With the exception of 1972-82 the country has been
embroiled in civil war stemming from the government's hostile
takeover of non-Arab regions to secure oil fields and control
more land. In fact the current conflict in the southern region
of Darfur follows on the heels of a 21 year civil war--which
cost two million lives and created over four million refugees--between
the Arab-dominated regime in Khartoum and the largely African
Christian and animist Sudan Peoples Liberation Army (SPLA) [2].
The rebellion in Darfur broke
out in February 2003 when the regions two Christian and animist
opposition groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA)--not to be
confused with the SPLA--and the Justice and Equality Movement
(JEM) launched a rebellion against what they saw as the government's
wilful failure to protect Darfur from marauding Arab tribes as
well as the region's severe (and they feel deliberate) underdevelopment.
In response to such insolence
the government dispatched its own lethal version of blitzkrieg:
"ageing Russian Arnovs sweep over the remote Sudanese villages,
dispatching their crude payload of barrel bombs [spent oil drums
now packed with explosives and metal shards] next come the Janjaweed,
a fearsome Arab militia [which the government insists on calling
"soldiers"] mounted on camels and horses, and armed
with AK-47 rifles and whips. They murder the men and boys of
fighting age, gang-rape the women--sometimes in front of their
families--and burn the houses" [3]. These are the words
of reporter Declan Walsh and they correspond very closely to
eyewitness reports. In August 2003 a villager told Amnesty International
delegates about an attack on Murli, near al-Jeneina: "It
was early in the morning, people were sleeping. About 400 armed
people cordoned the village, with military uniforms, the same
ones worn by the army, with vehicles and guns. A plane came later,
to see if the operation was successful. At least 82 people were
killed during the first attack. Some were shot and others, such
as children and elderly, were burnt alive in their houses"
[4]. Horror stories abound. At the Kounoungo refugee camp,
Zenaba Ismail told a reporter how Janjaweed fighters burst into
their home early one morning and shot her sister--who was then
heavily pregnant--in the stomach. The shooting induced labour,
and she died while giving birth. "He [the newborn infant]
cries all the time, but I have no milk to give him," she
said [5].
Those not murdered on-sight
are reported to have been sold into slavery. To date an estimated
30,000 people (primarily from the Fur, Masalit, and Zaghawa tribes)
have been killed and further 1.5 million have been sent packing
from their homes (mainly across the border into mine-strewn Chad
where blood-thirsty militia men have been known to pursue them.
As a result 31,000 Sudanese refugees have been moved deeper into
eastern Chad) [6]. The Christian Science Monitor estimates
that 350,000 will die before the end of this year and according
to the International Crisis Group, Darfur represents the "potential
horror story of 2004" [7]. However, these estimates could
be on the conservative side. Andrew Natsios of the US Agency
for International Development has warned that if relief is not
forthcoming diseases like cholera, meningitis and polio will
reach epidemic proportions and the death toll could be as high
as one million by the end of this year. The July 5 issue of Newsweek
carried appalling images of emaciated children, the innocent
victims of the militias "scorched earth campaign" [8].
However, after his meeting with US Secretary of State Colin Powell,
Mustafa Osman Ismail (the Sudanese Foreign Minister) declared
that while there were "problems" in Darfur "there
is no Famine, no epidemic diseases" [9].
The recent visits by Colin
Powell (the highest ranking US official to have visited Sudan
since 1978) and UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan proved farcical.
Powell was provided with satellite images of burning villages
prior to his visit (these maps can be viewed on Amnesty International's
website); however when the US Secretary of State attempted to
visit certain carefully selected refugee camps "whip wielding
government soldiers" drove Darfur residents away from Powell's
entourage. In a similar run of events Mr. Annan was reported
to be visibly annoyed when 1,000 residents of the squatter camp
at Meshtel suddenly vanished. It seems that the evening prior
to Mr. Annan's proposed visit the government had "relocated"
the wretched inhabitants [10]. (I am reminded here of Orwell's
angry critique of the politics of language and the numbing effect
of euphemism: "Defenceless villages are bombarded from the
air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle
machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets:
this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are
robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with
no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of populations
or rectification of frontiers." "Relocation"
is a similar linguistic smokescreen for crimes against humanity).
Al Noor Muhammad, the Minister for Social Affairs in North Darfur,
excused this cynical act saying: "We did not like seeing
people living like that" which really meant that the government
did not like the outside world seeing people living like that.
Unsurprisingly, government
aides encouraged Mr. Annan to visit another settlement--Abushouk--widely
known as a "tourist camp" because of its relatively
good condition [11]. Such barefaced strategising and backhandedness
has a worrying precedent. The Nazi's used Theresienstadt--a showcase
ghetto were "privileged" Jews were detained--to hoodwink
representatives of the International Red Cross [12]. As we know
their ploy worked. Today the cover-ups continue. During Mr. Annan's
same visit a group of university students attempted to deliver
a petition on Darfur to the UN Secretary-General. They were rounded
up and shot by government security forces in Khartoum.
The analogy with the Holocaust
is neither casual nor superficial--especially by those who know
something about these things. While members of the international
community agonise over whether terms such as "genocide"
and "ethnic-cleansing" (or the more self-congratulatory
phrase "democide") are suitable for the mass murders
in Darfur, the Holocaust centres in London and Washington briefly
closed in late June to indicate their solidarity with the victims
[13]. "They say they don't want to see black skin on this
land again," said Issa Bushara, whose brother and cousin
were murdered in front of their families during an attack by
the Janjaweed militia. [14]
We hardly need reminding that
the history of genocide stretches well beyond Rwanda, the former
Yugolslavia, and the "Final Solution" making a mockery
of what we commonly call 'progress.' Indeed, Walter Benjamin
understood this well when he stated that the great catastrophe
of our age is that 'things just go on.' In an attempt to demonstrate
the seriousness of Benjamin's claim Italian philosopher Giorgio
Agamben has argued that today a radical form of politics exists
which concentrates on producing what he calls "bare life."
The term "bare life" in itself is not easily explained,
but perhaps Hannah Arendt comes closest when she writes of "the
abstract nakedness of being human and nothing but human"
[15]. In other words, "bare life" is that life which
is stripped of all its positive relations and hence a life which
is expendable. "It seems that a man who is nothing but a
man has lost the every qualities which make it possible for other
people to treat him as a fellow-man," observed Arendt [16].
The main point in all of this is that in order to exert power
over life human beings are brought under the law at the same
time they are excluded from its protection. Indeed, as Arendt
explains a "condition of complete rightlessness was created
before the right to life was challenged" [17]. This is "not
the loss of specific rights but the loss of a community willing
and able to guarantee any rights whatsoever [emphasis added]"--a
catastrophe which has "befallen ever-increasing numbers
of people" [18]. Genocide is an obvious case in point, but
history is replete with other horrific examples: the slave worker,
the concentration camp detainee, the refugee--these are the fateful
figures of a modern expulsion from humanity that takes place
from within the law in a relationship of "inclusive exclusion."
Agamben names these people homines sacri [19]
There is no mistaking that
the victims of systematic violence in Sudan are also homines
sacri. They crop up in our newspapers and magazines as emaciated
bodies, in our political and legal system as slap-on-the-wrist
sanctions, and on our TV sets as photo-ops for smirking politicians.
Arendt was right to argue against Mao Tse-tung's dictum "power
grows out of the barrel of a gun" [20]. For surely today,
the supreme exercise of power is to make human life (and all
its horrific sufferings) completely visible and--at the very
same moment--utterly expendable. The power to make exceptions
the rule and catastrophes the norm is being played out to disastrous
effect in Sudan.
In a press statement toward
the end of his fly-by visit Colin Powell made this point absolutely
explicit: "Unless we see more moves soon in all these areas,
it may be necessary for the international community to begin
considering other actions, to include UN Security Council action"
[21]. The word "soon" here seems innocent enough, whereas
in fact hundreds of thousands of lives hinge on its interpretation.
As Hannah Arendt recognised: "It is no doubt possible to
create conditions under which men are dehumanized--such as concentration
camps, torture, famine under such conditions, not rage and violence,
but their conspicuous absence is the clearest sign of dehumanization"
[22]. Things 'just go on' in Sudan.
David Nally is working on his PhD in Geography
at the University of British Columbia. He can be reached at:
dpnally@yahoo.ie
1. Scott Stearns, "Bush
Calls on Sudan to Respect Cease-Fire in Darfur" Voice
of America 13 July 2004
2. For a good background to
the conflict see, Dan Smith, "The Crisis in Sudan"
Counterpunch 19/20 June 2004.
3. Declan Walsh, "Atrocities
in Sudan" ZNet 27 April 2004
4. Amnesty International, "Sudan:
The UN Security Council Should Stop Arms Transfers to Sudan and
the Janjawid Militia" 2 July 2004 [AI Index: AFR 54/074/2004]
5. Alexander Zavis, "As
World Focuses Elsewhere, a Systematic Slaughter Unfolds in Sudan"
Canadian Press 10 July 2004
6. Walsh, op.cit.
7. Abbey Morrow, "Sudan's
Scorched-Earth Campaign" Insight on the News 6 July
2004
8. Tom Masland, The Living
and the Dead" Newsweek 5 July 2004
9. Barbara Slavin, "Powell
tells Sudan to aid afflicted region" USA Today 29
June 2004
10. Marc Lacey "Sudan
Camp is Moved before UN Visit" New York Times 2 July
2004
11. Ibid.
12. Hannah Arendt Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality
of Evil (Penguin Books: London) 1994 p. 82
13. Morrow, op. cit.
14. Zavis, op. cit.
15. Hannah Arendt, The
Origins of Totalitarianism (Harcourt: New York) 1976 p. 297
16. Ibid. p. 300.
17. Ibid. p. 296.
18. Ibid. p. 297.
19. Giorgio Agamben, Homo
Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare life (Stanford University
Press: Stanford) 1995
20. Hannah Arendt, On Violence
(Harvest Book: New York) 1970.
21. Matthew Lee, "Powell
delivers stern warning to Sudan on Darfur," Middle East
Online June 30 2004
22. Arendt, op. cit. p. 63.
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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