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July 19, 2002
M. Shahid Alam
Through
Racist Eyes:
Is Eurocentrism Unique?
July 18, 2002
Mokhiber / Weissman
Business
As Usual
Jerre Skog
I Spy: Now
Let's be Fair,
the USA Ain't East Germany
Ralph Nader
The CEO
Crimewave:
Corporate Socialism
Mahbubul Karim (Sohel)
The Rising Tensions
Between Spain and Morocco
Alexander Cockburn
Drivel
and Squawk:
Can the Times' Jeff Gerth
Save the White House?
July 17, 2002
Philip Farruggio
The
New Role Model:
Remember Jesus, George?
Zara Gelsey
Who's
Reading Over
Your Shoulder?
Behzad Yaghmaian
9/11 and
Fotress Europe:
the Drama of the New
Moslem Diaspora
Mike Ferner
War, Incorporated
Gary Leupp
Bush, Burqas
and the Oppression of Afghan Women
July 16, 2002
Pierre Tristam
Faith-based
Capitalism in
the Ruins of the Market
Kurt Nimmo
How My
35mm Camera Almost Became a Tool of Treason
Robert Fisk
The Kashmir
Distraction
Salam al-Marayati
When
is Terrorism
Not Defined as Terrorism?
Kathleen Christison
The
Image Problem:
Anti-Palestinian Bias
from Wilson to Bush
July 15, 2002
Gavin Keeney
In One
of Safire's Ears,
Out the Other
CounterPunch Wire
Nader in
Cuba
Ralph Nader
The Secret
World of Banking
Dave Marsh
Vincible:
Michael Jackson, Racism and the Music Cartel
Rahul Mahajan
Justice
for Bhopal
Jeffrey St. Clair
Seduced
by a Legend
The Return of Jimmy T99 Nelson
July 14, 2002
Bill Christison
The
DOA (Poem)
David Vest
I'll Never
Get Out of This Band Alive
July 13, 2002
M. Junaid Alam
A Process
of Dehumanization
Gavin Keeney
Go Tell
Karl Rove!
Matt Vidal
Corporate
"Ethics" Red Herrings
Ed Whitfield
Lessons
from Independence Day
July 12, 2002
Sean Donahue
The Other
Harken Energy Scandal: Oil, Death Squads
and Colombia
Walt Brasch
Sin Tax
Scam
"Psst. Cigarettes. A Buck Each."
Steve Perry
A Tale
of Two Twits
Wall Street Burns, Bush Fiddles, But Where's Wellstone?
July 11, 2002
Lloyd Marbet
Arrested
by the Chamber
of Commerce
David Krieger
Law vs.
Force
David Vest
Fountain
of Foo:
Strike Three Called
Irit Katriel
A Deep
Ideological Crisis
Richard Glen Boire
Dangerous
Lessons:
Public School Drug Testing
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
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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 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:
a User's Manual
|
July
19, 2002
No
Need for War Against Iraq
by Jonathan Power
London. Of the three serious wars that the U.S. has
fought since 1945--Korea, Vietnam and the Gulf War, one ended
in defeat and two in draws--not exactly a glorious record.
An Iraq war likewise could end in stalemate.
Saddam Hussein is not the Taliban. A war would require a large-scale
land invasion of an American-British force that would undoubtedly
suffer significant casualties. It would also need staging grounds
and this time round Saudi Arabia, the main base for the Gulf
War, is unlikely to agree to offer its services. Moreover, what
does America do if Saddam decides to use the horrible weapons
he is said to possess? It's one thing for him to use them--the
entire world knows he is a rogue--but if the U.S. and Britain
uses them too they will be judged by a different standard.
The U.S. suffered immense opprobrium
in Vietnam for using napalm, which is nothing as compared with
modern day chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Besides,
Iraq presumably would be using its weapons against only troops.
If America and Britain retaliated it would be inevitable that
civilian Iraqis would be hit as hard as its military. And what
happens if the U.S. and Britain simply get bogged down? How do
they deal with the mounting distaste for casualties at home?
How do they cope with the bitter anti-American sentiments of
the Arab world? How does the U.S. fight a second front, if war
should open up elsewhere now that the Pentagon has recently abandoned
its goal of being able to fight two regional wars simultaneously?
Has President George Bush got better
nerves than President Lyndon Johnson, once a man of unbendable
purpose before his physical and moral degradation in the course
of the Vietnam War. Has Vice-President Dick Cheney got more iron
in his soul than the steely Robert McNamara, Johnson's Secretary
of Defence, who later confessed he was started on the road to
resignation by the brave decision of a protestor to immolate
himself close by the Secretary's office? Not least, how will
America stand at the end of such a war, particularly when much
of the world knows that it failed to answer those who have argued
for years that containment was working, more than less?
No wonder that there are well-founded
reports that both the Pentagon generals and the British General
Staff are arguing against this venture. Yet for the moment the
juggernaught appears unstoppable. Last week there were reports
that the British were withdrawing their troops from Bosnia so
that they can be readied for re-deployment in an Iraqi war. Moreover,
the very fact that America has not yet laid its hands on Osama
bin Laden--its ostensible purpose in going to war against the
Taliba- suggests that the political pressures on Bush to up the
ante and topple Saddam Hussein--who does have a fixed address
where he can be located--are mounting by the day. (It is at this
point that the civilian hawks and the military brass part company--the
brass maintain their jobs even if there is no war; the civilians
lose theirs if Bush loses his political credibility and goes
down to defeat.)
How then to head off what could be a
disastrous war followed by an even more disastrous stalemate
or perhaps an American humiliation? It is not enough to hope
that Bush and Cheney might be consumed by some Texan accountancy
scandal. Or to think that the resignation of Colin Powell, who
as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff opposed consideration
of the use of nuclear weapons during the first Gulf War, would
seriously disturb the White House once it had set its course.
Incredible as it may sound on first hearing
the road to avoiding war lies through Pyongyang. Not in the literal
sense, but the way that Jimmy Carter paved it with his historic
peacemaking trip to North Korea to parley with Kiml Sung. At
that moment North Korea and the U.S. appeared to be a collision
course over the evidence that the North was building nuclear
weapons. President Bill Clinton had on his desk an estimate that
war could lead to 50,000 American soldiers dead and the destruction
of much of Seoul. North Korea is now the recipient of more American
aid than any other Asian country and the Western allies are building
two light water nuclear power reactors for it. In return the
North has frozen its plutonium production. For all the bluster
over "the axis of evil" the Bush Administration has
not overturned this deal. What would entice Saddam Hussein to
cooperate? Number one must be a public announcement by Washington--one
that three successive administrations have refused to make--that
it no longer seeks the end of Saddam's regime before it will
consider ending sanctions. Second, a clear statement that sanctions
will be lifted if a new inspection team finds no evidence of
weapons of mass destruction. Third, a program for Iraq's re-integration
into the world economy. Fourth, a parallel speedy effort by Washington
to establish an independent Palestinian state according to the
principles enunciated by Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia.
None of this will get rid of Saddam Hussein,
or bring democracy and the better observance of human rights
to the oppressed Iraqi people. But it will conceivably avoid
a terrible war, the worst of all human wrongs.
Jonathan Power
is a columnist, film-maker and writer. M.Sc in economics, trained
as a geographer, and agricultural economist. For the first ten
years after graduate school community work in slum neighborhoods
in Chicago and London. Worked for Martin Luther King 1966-1967.
He is an associate at the Transnationl
Forum for Peace. Power can be reached at: jonatpower@aol.com
(C) TFF 2002
Today's Features
M. Shahid Alam
Through
Racist Eyes:
Is Eurocentrism Unique?
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