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October
8, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn
Flashes
and Plumes of Fire
Zbigniew
Brzezinski
How
Jimmy Carter and
I Started the Muj
Philip Agee
The
USA and Terrorism
Mahajan
and Jensen
A
War of Lies
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance
Builds an Airport
October
7, 2001
John Pilger
Hitchens'
Slurs
Tariq
Ali
Who
Said History
Stopped Being Ironical?
October
6, 2001
Vijay
Prashad
US
War Aims
Kevin
Gray
The
Trap:
Blacks and 9/11
October
5, 2001
Ronnie
Gilbert
Déjà
Vu: The FBI's War
on Civil Liberties
Patrick
Cockburn
Taliban
Cluster Bombs
Dave
Marsh
John
Brown, Woody Guthrie
and the Secret Music of 9/11
Babak
Nahid
A
Suspect's Perspective
October
4, 2001
David
Vest
Send
in the Cons
Robin
Blackburn
Road
to Armageddon
Noam
Chomsky
Chatting
with Chomsky
Tony
Blair
The
Dossier on bin Laden
Norman
Madarasz
Canada
Kow-Tows to US
Lorenzo Ervin
No Palestinian
Ever
Called Me Nigger
October
3, 2001
Peter Bell
Hitchens
and Coulter:
Love at Last?
Patrick
Cockburn
Waiting
Is the Hardest Part
Jeff
Chang
Clear
Channel Fires
Davey D!
John Chuckman
War
on Terror:
Crusade Without a Definition
Mahajan/Jensen
Tough
Talk Won't Solve
Problems of Terrorism
Ariel
Dorfman:
America
the Wounded
Lennie
Brenner
Dr.
Watson in Afghanistan
Steve
Perry:
Ashcroft's
Scare Tactics
October
2, 2001
Patrick
Cockburn:
Inside
an Afghan Hospital
Richard
Manning:
A
Vietnam Vet on Patriotism
St. Clair/Cockburn:
Tarnished
Star,
Tom Ridge in Vietnam
October
1, 2001
Noam
Chomsky:
Memo
to Hitchens
Hizam
Bitar:
Refuting
Michael Kinsley
David Grenier:
The
Good, The Bad,
and the Ugly
Douglas
Valentine:
Homeland
Insecurity
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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Published Oct. 3, 2001
8-Page Special
Issue
Aftermath
Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
on
Civil Liberties
Ridge Long Groomed
for
Cheney's Job
Those CIA Killing
Bids
Never Stopped
The Not-So-Great
Mayor Giuliani
Crop Duster
Ban
Will Save Lives
Madeleine Albright's
Deadly Legacy
How the Bin
Laden Women
Fled Bel Air
Tom Ridge's
Vietnam
Same as Kerrey's?
A CounterPunch
Journey
to Ramallah
A Word About
God
Nostrodamus
Jam-maker
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CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
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
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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New Stories:
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October 8, 2001
It Begins
The first US air
strikes offer clues
as to how the war will unfold.
By Steve Perry
Sunday's first round of attacks against
Afghanistan was followed by the obligatory wave of backslapping
and press spin. Officials from the U.S. and U.K. proclaimed major
blows to the Taliban's offensive and defensive capabilities and
insisted the air raids had caused few if any civilian casualties.
They emphasized that humanitarian aid in the form of food and
medicine was being air-dropped even as the bombs fell; at a Sunday
press conference defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld skirted questions
concerning the scope and impact of these deliveries at a time
when the Taliban still controlled the areas in which aid supplies
were most needed. Meanwhile the U.S.-supported Northern Alliance
(aka the United Front), a minority force based in the Panjshir
Valley that controls roughly 5 percent of the northern territories,
launched strikes of its own. Desertion and defection were said
to be the rule of the day among Taliban forces. All in all it
was made to sound as though the Taliban would collapse in a matter
of days.
We shall see. The Taliban's
command and control apparatus is too diffuse and low-tech for
the U.S. to deal decisive blows from the air; the real crux is
what happens on the ground, and at present the U.S. still seems
to want the Northern Alliance to fight its battles there. Toward
that end, as
Patrick Cockburn reported on Sunday, U.S.-paid crews
are laboring mightily to construct an airstrip in the Panjshir
Valley town of Golbahar to lift supplies to Alliance forces.
This is a strategically critical move in view of the fact that
winter weather will soon preclude using ground supply lines to
reinforce the rebels.
The Northern Alliance has considerable
tactical advantages in the steady stream of military supplies
comings its way (not only from the Americans but Russia and Iran)
and its control of a key north-south ground route through Afghanistan,
but the fact remains that they are a force of 10,000 arrayed
against Taliban troops numbered at 40,000 or so. Any hopes of
a quick toppling of the Taliban government depend less on the
actions of the Northern Alliance than on the loyalty and staying
power of Taliban fighters. If they are in as much disarray as
U.S. propaganda suggests, the current government may indeed collapse
before long. But that may not spell the end of U.S. military
engagement, because the fall of the Pushtun-dominated Taliban
would create a political vacuum there is no easy way to resolve.
The Northern Alliance consists mainly of minority Shia Muslim
tribes; they cannot hope to head a new government. And there
is no assurance that efforts at forging a Pushtun coalition government
led by the 86-year-old former king would proceed smoothly. Laying
the Taliban low might only be the precursor to a long and bloody
civil war.
Or suppose the U.S. succeeds
in vanquishing the Taliban fairly quickly and installing, at
least for the near term, an Afghan government more to its liking.
In either case, the American decision to go after the Taliban
as a first resort rather than bin Laden specifically is a telling
one. It suggests a tilt toward the Rumsfeld/Wolfowitz position
that favors more hot war rather than less, and sooner rather
than later. Consider: If the U.S. prevails at little immediate
cost versus the Taliban, it will bolster calls for carrying the
war to other states that "harbor terrorists." Conversely,
if the Taliban proves capable of staying and fighting for a long
period, the ensuing conflict will mean more civilian casualties
in Afghanistan and inflame public sentiments in other countries
of the region, which likewise will augur for further U.S. military
engagements on other fronts.
Either scenario would be very
much to the liking of Osama bin Laden, whose wish all along has
been to involve the United States in as broad a war as possible.
On Sunday bin Laden proved himself as masterful at politics as
he is reputed to be in matters of coordinating terror. In a
videotaped statement broadcast throughout the Muslim world and
on U.S. television, he drew an express connection between his
cause and the Palestinian question. "America will never
taste security and safety," he pronounced, "unless
we feel security and safety in our lands and in Palestine."
Thus he struck at the U.S. where its vaunted international coalition
is weakest: with respect to its abiding support of Israel, whose
impulse since September 11 has been to press its advantage against
the Palestinians wherever possible.
Back to Bosnia?
As the administration weighs
its options for military action outside Afghanistan, Iraq remains
the presumptive favorite among secondary targets in Pentagon
planning circles. But there's a fresh entrant shooting up the
charts. Sunday's Los Angeles Times carried a long
analysis feature asserting that Bosnia may be the "common
cradle" of future terrorist actions against Europe and America.
The story points to Bosnia as the source of a foiled terror attack
on the Los Angeles International Airport during last year's millennium
celebrations, as well as a more recent plot to bomb the U.S.
embassy in Paris. The Times reporters further claim that al-Qaida
operatives have been fleeing Afghanistan for Bosnia en masse
since the September 11 attacks, and that numerous among them
carry Bosnian passports to deflect the suspicion of international
intelligence agencies.
The prospect of hitting Bosnia
is bound to appeal to those elements of the Bush administration
most obsessed with seeming tough and pro-active. A strike there
carries two potential advantages: It would likely cause little
tumult in U.S. public opinion, which is already conditioned to
U.S./U.N. military actions there, and it figures to engender
fewer immediate complications among precariously pro-U.S. Arab
regimes in the Middle East.
More Anthrax
in Florida:
Inquiring Minds Want to Know
One news item lost in the hubbub
of Monday's Afghan strike coverage was the CDC's confirmation
of a second case of anthrax in Florida. Like the first victim,
the second man diagnosed is an employee of the Sun tabloid newspaper
in Boca Raton. The Sun is based in a building that likewise serves
as home to American Media Inc.'s other tabloids, the Globe and
the National Enquirer; American Media reported that it voluntarily
evacuated the building on Sunday evening.
The anthrax strain in question
is a rare airborne variant that is not communicable person-to-person
and has not been seen in the United States since the mid-1970s.
After the first confirmed case late last week, some cable TV
reports speculated that the victim, a 63-year-old man named Bob
Stevens who worked as photo editor at the Sun, might have ingested
the anthrax bacterium by inhaling fumes from animal bone meal
he was using as fertilizer in his home garden. No word yet on
official speculation as to the cause of this second case. CP
Steve Perry writes frequently for CounterPunch
and is a contributor to the excellent cursor.org
website, which offers incisive coverage of the current crisis.
He lives in Minneapolis, MN.
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