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February
28, 2002
M. Shahid
Alam
Samuel
Huntington:
Peddling Civilizational Wars
St. Clair
/ Cockburn
Rumble
from the Jungle:
Ecaudorian Farmers Fight
DynCorp's ChemWar
February
27, 2002
Eric Hobsbawm
The
Future of War and Peace
John Troyer
About
that WTC Memorial
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Wired
for Democracy
or Business?
Alexander
Cockburn
Daniel
Pearl: Should His
Editors Have Sent Him There?
February
26, 2002
Jonathan
Steele
Kabul's
Loss
Vasily
Streltsov
The
Pentagon in
the Transcaucusas
CounterPunch
Wire
How
Corporations Use Shadowy "527" Groups to Influence
Politicians
Lt. Col.
Robert Bowman
ABM
Treaty: Alive or Dead?
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
A
Prayer for America
February
25, 2002
John Clarke
Interrogated
at US Border
Blankfort,
Poirier, Zeltzer
ADL
Blinks, Settles Spying Case
Alex Lynch
Naked
from Sin:
The Ordeal of Nahla
and Sami Al-Arian
John Chuckman
Ashcroft
Speaks in Tongues
February
24, 2002
David
Vest
Skate
Date
February
23, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Axis
of Evil and
Media Monopolies
Bahour/Dahan
Cracks
in the Occupation
February
22, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
Axel
of Evil: Sex Crimes
and the Constitution
February
21, 2002
Gary Leupp
The
Philippines: Second Front in US's Global War
David
Vest
Reagan
Clone Project?
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Chicago
School and Corporate America: Rotten to the Core
February
20, 2002
Bernard
Weiner
The
Shallow Throat Document
Kay Lee
The
Prison Guard Who Never Owned Up to His Crimes
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
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
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Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
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
Search
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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February 28,
2002
Sharon Must Go
By Gideon Samet
It's time to start saying that the Sharon government
is irresponsibly cooperating in the slaughter of its citizens.
True, no statement can be more damning. But for some time now,
the prime minister has practically been inviting it. His guilt
for not preventing more casualties reached a new climax this
week. The Palestinians, of course, bear their own share of the
blame. But the Israeli leader makes their despicable work all
that much easier.
Since his unique resurrection from someone
who was banned from a decisive role in government to prime minister
of the country, Sharon has done everything in his power, over
and over again - and with determination - to miss every opportunity
to calm the situation. The list of proof of this is long, very
long, and meanwhile, as the old poem goes: our corpses are piling
up. There is no need to recollect the periods of sharp declines
in the violence that could have enabled Sharon, if he had only
wanted, to use the relative quiet to talk instead of shoot; nor
to remind anyone that even with a forgiving interpretation, if
his actions were not meant to preserve the tension, they nonetheless
certainly contributed to unnecessary bloodshed.
This week's new record was the response
to Arafat's acquiescence to Israel's demand that he arrest Rehavam
Ze'evi's murderers. From Sharon's point of view, it could have
been considered an achievement: his pressure on Arafat squeezed
the arrests out of the Palestinian leader. If only he had wanted
to, he could have carried the momentum into consolidating the
security talks. Nothing prevented him - as General Wellington
once recommended - from declaring victory and withdrawing from
his boom-boom line. That line, which he promised would put security
with peace just around the corner, has not brought either. More
unnecessary casualties have fallen on both sides.
Under European Union pressure (and disappointing
ongoing American apathy) it briefly seemed that the arrest of
the assassins could breathe life into the dying security committee.
But after a useful meeting of that committee, Sharon returned
to his Temple Mount Syndrome: at the critical moment always do
something that obstructs any chance for understanding, and guarantees
a riot instead.
So, he announced another humiliation
for Arafat. He can leave his prison cell, but only to walk around
in the yard. The movements of this irrelevant man are so relevant
in the eyes of Sharon that he is ready to endanger our lives
for them. Security intelligence experts agreed that the continuing
humiliation of Arafat serves no security purpose. Arafat, the
spiller of Jewish blood, may deserve it in a court headed by
his historical enemy, Sharon. But for a stunned nation, the prime
minister's moves have no result other than worsening the violence
and the killing. Under these circumstances, the historic conflict
with the Palestinians is reduced to some kind of personal obsession
between James Bond and the head of SMERSH.
Based on Sharon's behavior at the various
opportunities to reach at least partial calm, reasonable assumptions
can be made about his real position on wider developments that
might be able to change the situation. He has asked for clarifications
about the motives for the statement by Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.
Sharon has nothing but contempt for any chance for an agreement,
but he's no fool, heaven forbid. He's clever as a fox. Someone
who isn't ready to exploit any chance for calm can not be suspected
of readiness to genuinely discuss a much more far-reaching initiative.
He'll kill it with politeness. The blood will flow in the streets
and the prime minister will go on, accompanied by his entourage
of sycophants from the Labor Party.
He's apparently convinced that his wrong
way is the right way, but he is taking a huge political risk.
Over time, the Israelis who bear the burden of that risk will
not be ready to follow him. They will gradually reach the point
where they have to decide between fear for their lives and support
for a leader who seeks only to survive politically by satisfying
his extremist right-wing partners.
As crazy as the Israeli public can sometimes
be, it is not stupid. This week, the prime minister took a another
hasty step toward the signpost on the road to a bitter choice
for many of his citizens: between the political life of a leader
who fans the flames of a deadly conflict, and their fears for
the lives of their dear ones.
Gideon Samet
writes for the Israeli daily paper Ha'aretz.
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