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February
7, 2002
Tariq
Ali
Mullahs
and Heretics
February
6, 2002
Amira
Hass
On
the Edge of the
Non-Violent Demonstrations
Vivian
Berger
Sentenced
to Rape
Vladimir Georgiyev
Russian Intelligence:
War on Iraq Begins in Sept.
Tom Turnipseed
"Axis
of Evil" a Cover for Corporate Corruption?
David
Vest
The
Enron Creature
February
5, 2002
Norman
Madarasz
Dispatch
from Pôrto Alegre
Tom Malinowski
What
to do with
Our "Detainees"?
Dita Sari
Why
I Rejected the
Reebok Human Rights Award
February
4, 2002
Eric Miller/Beth
Daley
Five
Weapons Systems
That Bilk the Taxpayers
Kenneth
Roth
Dear
Condoleezza,
You've Misstated the
Geneva Convention
Robert
Jensen
The
Occupation Must End
Shahid
Alam
How
Different Are
Islamic Societies?
David
Vest
Everybody
Says I Loathe You
John Chuckman
American
Politics of Grief
February
3, 2002
Zoltan
Grossman
War
and New Military Bases
February
2, 2002
Francis
Schor
Carlucci's
Strange Career
February
1, 2002
Dr. Susan
Block
The
Great Ashcroft Cover Up
Jeremy
Voas
Why
We're Suing Ashcroft
David
Vest
10
Things I Know About Him
January
31, 2002
Rahul
Mahajan
The
State of the Union:
A New Cold War
Dave Marsh
Miles
Copeland, War
and the Future of Music
John Pilger
The
Colder War
Alexander
Cockburn
American
Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple
Dr. Susan
Block
Blowback
and Daniel Pearl
January
30, 2002
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Linda
Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown
Jack McCarthy
Free
Noelle Bush!
Michael
Ratner
Memo
to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention
Jay Moore
Proud
to be an American?
Susan
Block
The
Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn
January
29, 2002
Gary Leupp
Why
This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Birds of Kandahar
Patrick
Cockburn
Afghan
Opium Trade
Back in Business
January
28, 2002
Larry
Chin
Brosnahan
for the Defense
Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny
of the Bottom Line
George
E. Curry
Civil
Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"
Sen. Russ
Feingold
Campaign
Finance Reform?
Think Enron
John Chuckman
Liberal?
Media?
January
27, 2002
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Enron's
Drip, Drip, Drip
Tom Turnipseed
MLK
Jr.'s Dream Perverted
January
26, 2002
Norman
Madarsz
Adieu,
Bourdieu
January
25, 2002
National
Lawyers Guild
Know
Your Rights
Alexander
Cockburn
You
Call This Terrorism?
CounterPunch
Wire
Cal
Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown
Tariq
Ali
Kashmir,
Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky
Nadine
Strossen
Protecting
MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11
January
24, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Turkey
Targets Chomsky
Dean Baker
Lying
on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many
David
Vest
Idiot
Wind
January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
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
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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
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CounterPunch
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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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February 7,
2002
The Taliban's War on Chess
By Patrick Cockburn
in Kabul
When the Taliban caught Haji Shirullah, a Kabul
businessman, playing chess in his office with his brother they
burnt the chessboard and the pieces. "They put us in jail
for two days," he recalled with a rueful smile. "The
Taliban believed chess was a form of gambling and distracted
people from saying their prayers."
Mr Shirullah, a middle-aged man in a
white skull cap, was waiting impatiently to start playing in
the first chess tournament held in Kabul since the Taliban captured
the city in 1996. Some 138 players had turned up - far more
than expected - so some were using the floor because there were
not enough tables and chairs.
For five years, Afghanistan has been
the only place in the world where playing chess, always popular
in the country, has been illegal. Chess players, fearful of
denunciation, had to meet in secret.
Dr Qadratullah Andar, 26, became Afghan
chess champion when he was a medical student just a month before
the fall of Kabul to the Taliban.
He said: "At first we tried to play
secretly, but my friends were arrested by the Maroof [the much
feared religious police]. Some of them were well-known doctors
who were arrested when playing in a hospital, so I thought it
better not to play at all."
Chess playing, unlike kite flying, another
Taliban bete noire, seems well adapted to secrecy so it is surprising
that the authorities were so successful at detecting it and
punishing players. One reason is that Afghans, such as Mr Shirullah
and his brother, used to play chess in their offices. Dr Andar
said: "The religious police had nothing else to do but
pursue people like us."
Some chess players, suddenly forced to
behave like drinkers in the United States during Prohibition,
took stringent precautions.
The tournament taking place this week
in Kabul was organised largely by Mohammed Akbar Salam, a professor
of fine arts at Kabul University and a keen chess player. He
said that when he and friends were playing "we put a guard
in front of our gate so he could tell us if anybody from the
Taliban was coming". The tournament had not been easy to
arrange, even though Afghanistan has a long tradition of chess
playing. "Ordinary people used to play in the streets outside
their shops," said Dr Andar. "But even before the
Taliban came this was becoming dangerous to do because of the
shelling during the civil war."
When Mr Salam tried to buy additional
chess sets for this week's tournament "we found that there
were only seven or eight chess sets available in the bazaar
and they were all very expensive," he said. "We had
to ask players to bring their own chess sets."
The Taliban's campaign against chess
was so intense that it created real fear among even non-players
who owned chess sets.
I first became aware of the tribulations
of Afghan chess players when I tried to buy a chess set in a
Kabul antique shop as a Christmas present for my 14-year-old
son, Alexander. I had seen a fine-looking board in the shop,
but the owner, named Said, said that, unfortunately, he had
no pieces to go with it. I asked him what had happened to them.
Said explained: "Under the Taliban I became frightened
that they would come to my shop and find the pieces, so I took
them home and hid them. But unfortunately I hid them so well,
and it was several years ago, that now I can't find them."
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