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Special Issue: the Collapse of America Paul Craig Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class, white collar jobs. Roberts' stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead. Plus Mike Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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Today's Stories July 29 / 30, 2006 Michael
Neuman July 28, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Uri Avnery Renee Bowyer Robert
Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ramzy
Baroud Don Fitz Elaine
Cassel David Price Mike Whitney Mickey Z. Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Charles
Glass Website
of the Day
July 27, 2006 Tanya
Reinhart Saul Landau Ramzi
Kysia Tom Barry Joseph
Grosso Sharon Smith Gale Courey
Toensing Christopher Reed Werther Yusuf Mansur Richard
Harth Website of the Day
Norman
Solomon Barbara
Olshanksy David
Nally Jonathan
Cook Patrick
Cockburn William
Blum Joshua
Frank Gabriel
Kolko Daniel
Cassidy Michael
Dickinson Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Website
of the Day
July 25, 2006 Harry
Browne Marjorie
Cohn Robert
Bryce Sharat
G. Lin George
Bisharat CounterPunch
News Desk Zena
El-Khalil Larry
Lack Mike
Mejia Ashraf
Isma'il Website
of the Day
July 24, 2006 Mark
Levy Robert
Fisk Maher
Osseiran Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Paul
Craig Roberts Gilad
Atzmon Robert
Fisk Ralph
Nader Fred
Gardner Christopher
Reed Dr.
Susan Block Najla
Said Uri
Avnery July 21, 2006 George
Galloway P.
Sainath Aseem
Shrivastava Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day July 20, 2006 William
S. Lind Robert
Jensen John
Ross Tom
Hayden Paul
Craig Roberts July 19, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Trish
Schuh Jonathan
Cook Vicente
Navarro July 17 / 18 2006 Mike
Whitney Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land
July 14 / 15,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Tanya Reinhart Robert Fisk Daniel Cassidy Winslow Wheeler Hugh O'Shaughnessy M. Shahid Alam William S. Lind Ramzy Baroud Gilad Atzmon Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Samar Assad Ron Jacobs Lee Ballinger Walter Brasch Dave Lindorff Clifton Ross Tom Crumpacker Ricardo Alarcon William Hughes Susie Day Farrah Hassen Poets' Basement
July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
the Day
July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin Mokhiber / Weissman Amira Hass Clare Hanrahan Brian Cloughey Felice Pace Raed Jarrar Website of the Day
July 10, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn
Stephen Green Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Conn Hallinan John Chuckman Fred Gardner Dr. Tod Mikuriya Pierre Tristam Lucinda Marshall David Swanson Heather Gray Dave Zirin
/ John Cox Mark Engler Michael Lettieri Ron Jacobs Jamal Juma' Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
July 7, 2006 John Ross July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden John Stanton Ralph Nader Laray Polk Saul Landau Joshua Frank William S. Lind Adelman / Lindorff Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
Mike Whitney Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Missy Comley Beattie Arthur Neslen Vincent Maruffi Paul Cantor Paul D. Johnson David Price
Col. Dan Smith Chris Floyd Marjorie Cohn James Brooks Medea Benjamin Matt Reichel Elisa Salasin Rick Wilhelm Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Dr. Bouthaina Shaban Julia Olmstead Dave Lindorff Andres Gomez Alan Singer Alexander Cockburn
Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen T.
Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
Smith Brian Cloughley Anthony Papa Mike Ferner Jerry Tucker Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Phyllis Pollack Poets' Basement
June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Heather Williams Burbach / Cantor Nick Dearden Michael J.
Smith Brian Concannon Virginia Tilley
Bill Quigley Ron Jacobs Paul Craig
Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
Lind Mike Ferner Zoltan Grossman
Marjorie Cohn Benjamin /
Jarrar William Hughes Doug Giebel Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn
June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
Wheeler Tanya Reinhart Mike Marqusee William Blum
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Weekend
Edition Humanitarian InterventionThe White Man's Burden?By MICHAEL NEUMANN If we look at the world through the eyes of a nouveau-imperialist, few things are more certain than that humanitarian intervention is the special and last prerogative of the white race (known in polite circles as The West). When the Americans, Canadians, British, French, Germans, Norwegians, Danes, Belgians, Spanish and Dutch go into Afghanistan(*), we can rest assured that the few dark faces will not spoil the party: the commanders, the decision-makers will be white, as will the the bulk of the crackers - crackers of every nation - who make up the rank and file. These are blessed circumstances. Killing, racial supremacy and morality - how often do we see these enjoyable items so closely, so irreproachably bound together? This is why the humanitarian imperialist is so deeply offended when non-whites insolently usurp the humanitarian prerogative. Perhaps it is worse when there is an Iranian connection, because then it is necessary to ignore the fact that Iranians are not only white but (if the term has any legitimate meaning) Aryan. But ignorance conquers all, and these subtleties are lost on the good ole boys of the West (and the pseudo-West, i.e., Israel): The Iranians wear funny turbans. Hizballah leaders wear funny turbans. People who wear funny turbans aren't really white. So these guys aren't really white. Such are the joys of redneck logic. Yet the White Man's humanitarian burden could be Hizballah's burden as well. Hizballah's raid on Israel may have sparked the current conflict in Lebanon, but it is also a very plausible case of humanitarian intervention. In the first place, it was apparently intended to help the Palestinians in the occupied territories, who certainly could use some help. For over thirty years they have been under Israel's tyranny - there is no other word for a government which holds (and generously exercises) the power of life and death over a population which has no voice whatever in that government. They are brutalized; they are malnourished; they are continually threatened by a settler movement resolved to take every inch of land from them. This bloody occupation is, according to many Israeli military men, of no strategic value, and it is clear that Israel would do much better to mind its own borders than to spread its forces all over the landscape in order to defend settler enclaves. So this is just plain tyranny, not self-defense, and Palestinian resistance is justified. If it is justified, so is Hizballah's attempt to support it. In the second place, Hizballah fights to keep Israel out of Lebanon. That it sometimes initiates attacks on Israel in no way undermines this claim: sometimes the best defense is offense. And here too, the strategy certainly seems to incorporate humanitarian aims. Hizballah came into existence
as a response to Israel's earlier invasion of "From September 16 to
19 [1982], the Maronite Phalangist militia rampaged through Sabra
and Shatilla. The camps were sealed off by Israeli soldiers who
remained outside. Some later reported unease at the noises they
heard, but no sound emanating from the camps could have betrayed
the horror that was taking place inside them. When it was all
over, the number of dead was estimated by Israel at between 700
and 800, the Lebanese government issued over 1,200 death certificates
in the camps and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society put the
death toll at over 2,000. Subsequent attempts at estimating the
dead ranged from the Israeli figure to as many as 3,500. But
in the end, the number is not what is most important. Even if
it were the low figure, which seems unlikely, this would not
diminish the horrifying nature of the atrocity. Thousands of
men, women and children were killed, beaten, raped and tortured.
The stories that emerged from survivors of Sabra and Shatilla
were as chilling as those from any war or atrocity in history." There is no proof but every reason to suspect that Israel's commander Ariel Sharon - and the much-admired Israeli intelligence services - knew very well what was happening. Certainly Israel had demonstrated, by its exuberant bombing of Lebanese civilians, that no decency would restrain it from such collusion. So the Lebanese can reasonably expect Israel to invade when it likes, and to usher in a legion of atrocities: it is not as if Israel has subsequently found compassion or indeed anything else to restrain it in its treatment of 'Arabs'. The Lebanese army has again and again proven utterly incapable of defending the country. Only Hizballah has proven its ability to deal with the Israelis, and only by the sort of aggressive defence for which it is known. So here too, Hizballah fights on behalf of a helpless, threatened population; its insertion of military forces into South Lebanon can plausibly count as humanitarian intervention. To some this may seem laughable. How can unprovoked attacks on a sovereign nation, one which made no obvious move to attack across its Northern border, count as humanitarian intervention? Whoever asks this is unfamiliar with the concept's wonderful elasticity. In terms of (how old-fashioned!) international law, humanitarian intervention is almost always aggressive and almost always contemptuous of sovereignty: it is not as if Afghanistan ever dreamed of attacking anyone, yet my Canadian newspaper is full of heart-warming stories about the fine young men and women who are travelling thousands of miles to kill as many inhumane Afghans as possible. In fact the lessons of Rwanda and Srebrenica, countlessly reiterated by large white people such as Michael Ignatieff, are that 'we're too fussy' about borders and sovereignty, too wimpy about shedding blood, too passive when we should be, not only aggressive, but pre-emptively so. Now it may be true that Hizballah is also acting in its own interests and/or those of other countries seeking to extend their influence. Under the new rules of humanitarian intervention, as articulated by Ignatieff and others, that's just fine. Ignatieff mocks unmanly whiners who protest that America, in its humanitarian interventions, is following its own agenda - of course it is. Self-interest is part of what makes humanitarian intervention such great fun. It may also be true that Hizballah's actions have led to a disaster for the Lebanese; perhaps for the Palestinians as well. (This may be the case even if it's odd to blame Hizballah for Israel's murderous excesses.) But failure doesn't seem to matter much for the humanitarian imperialist - only robotic ideologues would claim success for their humanitarian interventions in Afghanistan, Somalia or Rwanda. The response to failure is to 'stay the course', i.e., persist whatever the military and civilian losses, and Hizballah certainly seems ready to make just such a response. Finally it must be stressed that, against humanitarian intervention, a country has absolutely no right of self-defense. Israel's correct response to the raid, according to this doctrine, would be to free the Palestinians and respect the sovereignty of its neighbors. A criminal has no active right of self-defense and neither, it seems, does a criminal state. Not everyone would agree that Israel is indeed such a state, but according to the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, it doesn't take much to fit the bill. Thus Serbia became a criminal state because of (i) uncertain connections to poorly understood massacres outside its borders, and (ii) concerns about its treatment of civilians in Kosovo, part of its territory but claimed by some to be occupied. The parallel with Israel in Lebanon and the occupied territories is unmistakable. Indeed the case against Israel is quite as strong as against other stigmatized nations: human rights organizations have held Israel guilty of crimes against humanity and war crimes; international jurists have added violations of international law and defiance of UN resolutions. The doctrine of humanitarian intervention is certainly flawed and certainly dubious. It is well on the way, however, to becoming an international article of faith, and it rests on the fateful precedents set by idiotic American ideologues and their spineless European catamites. Properly interpreted, it may have some merit: few can applaud the caution of Western powers in Rwanda. This must be borne in mind when it is said that, after all, Israel has a right to defend itself. --- Michael Neumann is a professor of philosophy at Trent
University in Ontario, Canada. Professor Neumann's views are
not to be taken as those of his university. His book What's
Left: Radical Politics and the Radical Psyche has just
been republished by Broadview Press. He contributed the essay,
"What is Anti-Semitism", to CounterPunch's book, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. His latest book is The
Case Against Israel. He can be reached at: mneumann@trentu.ca.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
