|
December 12, 2001
Shahid
Alam
Race
and Visibility
December 11, 2001
Joshua Orton
University
of Wisconsin
Won't Aid FBI Interviews
Philip
Farruggio
Cleansing
the Nation's Soul
Robert Fisk
Why I Was
Beaten
December 10, 2001
Robert
Dunham
Race
and the Death Penalty:
Partners in Injustice
Andy Kershaw
Chamber of
Horrors
Near the Garden of Eden
John Touchie
Isaac's
on Chomsky
December 9, 2001
Jo Dillon
Journalist:
The CIA Wanted
Me Killed
John Chuckman
High-Tech
Puritanism
December 8, 2001
Laurence Tribe
Military Tribunals
Undermine the Constitution
Patrick
Cockburn
The
End of a Strange War
December 7, 2001
John Troyer
Blacklist Me!
Sen. Edwards
v. Ashcroft
Military
Tribunals
George Naggiar
Occupation
as Terrorism
Hugo von
Sponek
and Denis Halliday
Iraq
the Hostage Nation
David Vest
The Coen
Brothers'
Minstrel Show
Alexander
Cockburn
Sharon
or Arafat:
Who's the Terrorist?
December 6, 2001
CounterPunch Wire
Hampshire
College the First
to Condemn the War
Robert
Jensen
University
Teaching After
September 11
Jack McCarthy
Does
Tom Friedman Read
the New York Times?
Sam and
Leila Bahour
The
Psychology of a Suicide Attacker
December 5, 2001
Edward Hammond
The Only
Real Way to
Prevent Biowarfare
Harvey
Wasserman
Atomic
Treason in the House
Carl Estabrook
America's
Israel
Don Williams
Questions
Barbara Walters Didn't Ask George Bush
Cockburn/St. Clair
Liberals
Hail War as
Return of Big Government
Robert
Fisk
The
Last Colonial War?
Bahour/Dahan
It's About
the Occupation
December 4, 2001
Dave Marsh
A
Plea for Byron Parker
Rep. Ron Paul
Keep Your
Eye on the Target
Susan
Herman
Ashcroft
and the Patriot Act
Tariq Ali
The Afghan
King and the Nazis
November 30, 2001
Jordan
Green
Disappeared
in the Southland
Willliam Blum
Rebuilding
Afghanistan?
November 29, 2001
Phillip
Cryan
Defining
Terrorism
Robert Fisk
We Are the
War Criminals Now
November 28, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
A
Continuum of Terror
Patrick Cockburn
Tribal
Council:
Don't Blame It All on Taliban
Robert
Fisk
At
Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres
Harry Browne
The Bill of
Rights:
They Threw It All Away
Sunil
Sharma
Suffer
Palestine's Children
November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
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
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
INSIDE
EXCLUSIVE
TO
COUNTERPUNCH
SUBSCRIBERS
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
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
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
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
|
December 13,
2001
Afghanistan and
the Ghosts of Zaire
Hunt for a Caveman
By Dr. A. Tajudeen
Human beings can get used to anything: pain or
pleasure. And in this day and age of globalized media culture
fed by saturation coverage and repetitive drudgery our attention
span has become even shorter. It is not just interest that dwindles
but even our understanding of the 'big' events may not be wiser.
It is like the magicians' abracadabra: the more you see the less
you understand.
And so it is with 'the war against terrorism'
that began , if my memory is still serving me well, as a search
for the perpetrators of the attacks on Washington and New York
on September 11. To the best of my knowledge, the actual culprits
died in the attacks along with their victims. Since they had
died attention shifted to those suspected (individuals and countries)
of instigating, facilitating or inspiring such 'terrorist' attacks.
Osama bin Laden became the main 'suspect' being sought for the
atrocities. As a 'guest' of the Taliban in Afghanistan it was
to be expected that pressures would be brought to bear on them
to hand over their guest. Like them or loathe them, the Taliban
did have initial 'reasonable' demands. Like many they demanded
for 'proof' especially when those accusing him were also those
judging him and most likely be the executors of their own verdict.
They had another point, which because of their pariah status,
most people did not take continence of. They said bin Laden was
their guest and both culturally and spiritually they could not,
without incontrovertible evidence, hand over their guest, to
his accusers. Who cares for fine details of cultural restraint
and sensitivity in the face of the atrocities?
The search for bin Laden slowly became
a deadline for the Taliban to hand him over or be crushed and
pushed out of power. Now they have been pushed out of power but
the Americans and their allies are nowhere near catching the
Caveman.
The UN is now desperately trying to install
a government of National Unity among the disparate Afghani groups
after weeks of dog fights in Germany. The language of nation-building
reminiscent of the 1950s and 1960s has regained a new currency
that would make the dying specie of former colonial officials
wallow in nostalgia.
Has the Al-Qaeda network been destroyed
or at least cowed? Would the Northern Alliance and their new
allies put in charge by external forces be able to do better
than before and bring the suffering of their peoples to an end?
Somehow I cannot help drawing parallels
with the exit of Mobutu in former Zaire by an essentially regional
military alliance in which the Zaireois played second fiddle
or were onlookers, in their own liberation. We are living with
the tragic consequences of that with no immediate respite in
sight. As they rode to power on US military might, the Northern
Alliance forces in their fresh-from-factory army uniforms reminded
me of Kabila's so-called troops and their crisp uniforms soon
after the capture of Kinshasa became a distinct possibility as
one major city or the other began to fall under the onslaught
of Rwandese and Ugandan armies in 1997.
As with Kabila the new groupings in Kabul
will have to show and be seen to be Afghani government rather
than a government beholden to its foreign sponsors. On the other
hand the US and her allies will only tolerate a government that
does not ask why when it wants it to jump. If it asks any question
at all they are prepared for only: how high?
The alliance of convenience that has
made Russia, India, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and all
the other 'stans' in the region to collude with the US in Afghanistan
may soon unravel as their individual regional, economic and other
strategic interests are brought to bear on the unwieldy alliance.
Like the Congo, Afghanistan has many neighbours and all of them
would like to have a say in how the country is governed. A government
based disproportionately on regional strategic considerations
may not be able to hold the country together. It could be very
weak and successively weakened by these interests as is the case
with DRC today.
Then there is the added problem of US's
overbearing presence. Can you imagine the US allowing a new 'broad
based' government in Kabul to have jurisdiction (let alone Sovereign
powers) over the course of the continuing war against Osama?
For how long would this war continue with US veto especially
now that the Hawks in the US establishment seem to be winning
the push for escalation of the war beyond Afghanistan? The new
Kabul leaders may have the benefit of President Bush remembering
their names. In this alone, they will be luckier than his new
'great ally' in the region, General Musharaf of Pakistan whose
name he could not even recall on life television during his presidential
campaign last year. Somehow one cannot shake off the foreboding
that it is not yet Uhuru for the ordinary Afghanis in spite of
all appearances and promises to the contrary.
|