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January
31, 2002
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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Reviews of Gore:
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January 31,
2002
The State of the Union
and the New Cold War
By Rahul Mahajan
Any who doubted the characterization of the war
on terrorism as a new Cold War had only to listen to the State
of the Union address, Bush's most depressing speech since he
launched his unlimited war with his address to a joint session
of Congress on September 20, 2001.
The following points, all stunningly
reminiscent of the 1950's and early 1960's, are easily discerned
from the text of the speech:
We are once again a beacon of civilization,
on a higher moral plane than others, opposing absolute evil
-- not only did Bush refer twice to the "civilized world,"
meaning us and our close allies, we also
learn that Iran, Iraq, and North Korea, along with their "terrorist
allies" constitute an "axis of evil." In a stunning
display of hypocrisy, Bush even indicted Iraq for attempting
to weaponize anthrax, something the United States has been doing
itself. Although couched in universalist terms -- "the rule
of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women,
private property, free speech, equal justice and religious tolerance"
-- this renewed, over cultural supremacism is no less odious
than that of the supposedly bygone colonial era.
We assert as forcefully as we did in
the days of fighting the "international Communist conspiracy,"
that the war on terrorism allows us to intervene wherever we
like, if we so choose -- "some governments will be timid
in the face of terror. And make no mistake: If they do not act,
America will." Once again, any development anywhere is
a threat to our national security, and "all nations should
know: America will do what is necessary to ensure our nation's
security."
We need permanently higher military budgets
in order to "defend" ourselves (with useless and expensive
high-tech programs like missile defense and the joint-strike
fighter, not with ways to defend against realistic terrorist
attacks) -- "My budget includes the largest increase in
defense spending in two decades, because while the price of
freedom and security is high, it is never too high: whatever
it costs to defend our country, we will pay it." Bush's
proposed new military budget is $379 billion, an increase of
$48 billion over the already unexpectedly high 2001 budget --
the increase alone is larger than any other nation's military
budget.
We are once again beset by internal enemies
-- "And as government works to better secure our homeland,
America will continue to depend on the eyes and ears of alert
citizens." This is not yet at the level of the House Un-American
Activities Committee hearings and pamphlets on how to tell if
your neighbor is a communist that characterized the 1950's,
but it is a significant step closer.
Our "economic security" is
essential to our national security, so disagreements on economic
policy and on how high corporate profit should be must be submerged
to an artificial national unity. Congress must pass an energy
policy that involves more drilling for oil in the United States,
must give the president Trade Promotion Authority (popularly
known as fast-track) in concluding "free trade" agreements,
and must make the Bush tax cut permanent -- all in the name
of security.
We are called once again to sacrifice
for a very particularly conceived "national good"
-- "My call tonight is for every American to commit at
least two years 4,000 hours over the rest of your lifetime
to the service of your neighbors and your nation." The
newly created USA Freedom Corps needs volunteers to help preserve
our "homeland security." The call for citizens to
do some form of public service, in itself, is not a bad thing,
but the choice to ask them to prepare for possible terrorist
attacks instead of trying to provide education, housing, and
social services to people who need them is about attempting
to mobilize the time and energy of the people in the service
of the existing power structure and about co-opting other kinds
of popular mobilization.
In sum, the war on terrorism will involve
more frequent military interventions, with less of an attempt
to placate international sensibilities, and with the constant
excuse of protecting American security. It will involve more
overt appeals to Western cultural supremacy, although couched
in universalist terms. It will involve more arms proliferation
and a growth of military spending, and a lessening of democracy
in this country, both in terms of the public's ability to affect
decisions and in terms of individual freedom to dissent from
the course advocated by dominant institutions.
If this were the whole story, it would
be a very depressing one. But excess inevitably produces a reaction
and empires sooner or later overreach themselves.
This country has already seen an antiwar
movement spring up with unprecedented speed, in the aftermath
of September 11. Twin upcoming events, the planned protests
at the World Economic Forum in New York, and the gathering of
an estimated 50,000 people at the "alternative" World
Social Forum (in its second year already far larger than the
WEF) will signify the depth and breadth of resistance to the
renewed projects of American imperial domination and domestic
social control articulated in Bush's speech.
If the power fantasies of the Bush administration
are met with renewed and increased popular mobilization, the
frightening world envisioned in the State of the Union address
may not come to pass.
Rahul Mahajan
serves on the National Boards of Peace Action and the Education
for Peace in Iraq Center, and is a member of the Nowar
Collective. He is the author of the forthcoming The
New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism, out in March from
Monthly Review Press. He can be reached at rahul@tao.ca
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