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October 29, 2001
Alexander Cockburn
The Left
and the Just War
John Pilger
Hidden
Agenda
of the War on Terror
David Krieger
Nukes on
the Loose
Jack McCarthy
Neo-Nazis
and 9/11
Marina Kalashnikova
The Brzezinski
Interview
Richard
Manning
Terrorism:
a definitive history
October 27, 2001
Edward
Said
A
Vision to Lift the Spririt
October 26, 2001
CounterPunch
Wire
Genocide
Scholar Gagged
Over Comments on the
Bombing of Afghanistan
Rahul
Mahajan
Poisoning
the Well
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why I Opposed
the
Anti-Terrorism Bill
John Troyer
Put
the War to a Vote
Norman Madarasz
What It
Means to be
Against the War
Patrick
Cockburn
Northern
Alliance Attacks
US Bombing Strategy
Richard Lloyd Parry
Terrible Images
of a "Just" War
October 25, 2001
Ghassan
Andoni
Raid
on Bethlehem
N.D. Jayaprakash
From
Hiroshima to NYC
Evan Schultz
Memo
to Ashcroft:
Read Marbury
The Sunshine
Project
Assault
on the BioWeapons
Convention
Sarah
Turner
Cashing
In on Patriotism
Latin American Colloquium
on Systemology
The Meridia Manifesto
Noam Chomsky
The
New War on Terror
October 24, 2001
Michael Colby
Radioactive
Mail?
Lori Allen
Life
in an Occupied Land
During Wartime
Peter
Swire
New
Anti-Terrorism Bill
Poses Old Risks
Irina
Malenko
A
Non-Western Voice
David
Vest
Welcome
to Web Hell
Patrick Cockburn
Battle
of Mazar Gets Nasty
October 23, 2001
Steve
Perry
Anthrax,
Cipro and the Bailout of Bayer
Carl Estabrook
Just War
or
The Rule of Lawlessness?
Patrick
Cockburn
Errant
Bombs at Bagram
George
Monbiot
War
and Oil
Robert
Jensen
Crushing
Academic Dissent
October 22, 2001
Hamit
Dardagan
The
New Newspeak
Tom Turnipseed
War
on the Poor
Patrick Cockburn
Killing
Mullah Omar's Child
David
Vest
The
War on Women
Shepherd
Bliss
Advice
from a Vietnam Vet
Hani Shukrallah
Capital
Strikes Back
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
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Diary
Ashcroft's Onslaught
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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
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Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
Responses to 9/11:
Chomsky, Russell Banks,
Zinn, and Alice Walker
A Free ebook from
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A Pocket Guide to
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The
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Al Gore:
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October 29,
2001
Germany's Green
Police State
Busted in Munich
By Tariq Ali
At 7am, on 29 October I was arrested at the Munich
airport. After a day of interviews and book-signings and another
two spent at a Goethe Institute seminar (on 'Islam and the Crisis'),
I was exhausted and desperate for a cup of coffee. I checked
in. Soon my hand-luggage was wending its way through the security
machine. No metal objects were detected, but they insisted on
dumping its contents on a table.
Newspapers, dirty underpants, shirts,
magazines and books tumbled out in full view. Since news always
reaches Germany a day after it has appeared in the US press,
I thought the locals might be unaware of FBI and CIA briefings
to the effect that Bin Laden or Iraqi complicity in the anthrax
scare was extremely unlikely and were on the look-out for envelopes
containing powder. There were no envelopes of any sort in my
bag.
The machine-minder brushed aside the
copies of the Sud-Deutsche Zeitung (SDZ), the International Herald
Tribune and Le Monde Diplomatique. He appeared to be very interested
in the Times Literary Supplement and was inspecting my scribbled
notes on the margin of a particular book review.
I suggested that if he wanted my views
on the present crisis he could read them in German in the SDZ
which had published an article of mine. I pointed it out to him.
He grasped the text eagerly and then,
in a state of some excitement, rushed it over to the armed policeman.
Then his eyes fell on a slim volume in
German which had been handed to me by a local publisher. Since
there had been no time to flip through the volume, it was still
wrapped in cellophane.
The offending book was an essay by Karl
Marx, 'On Suicide'. It was the reference to suicide that had
got the policemen really excited. They barely registered the
author, though when they did real panic set in and there were
agitated exchanges.
I was slightly bemused by the spectacle,
waiting for them to finish so I could read the morning papers.
This was not to be. The way they began to watch me was an indication
of their state of mind. They really thought they had got someone.
My passport and boarding card were taken
from me. I was rudely instructed to re-pack my bag, minus the
crucial 'evidence' (SDZ, the TLS and the offending text by Marx),
after which I was escorted out of the departure area and taken
to the police HQ at the airport.
On the way there, the arresting officer
gave me a triumphant smile. 'After September 11, you can't travel
with books like this', he said.
'In that case', I replied, 'perhaps you
should stop publishing them in Germany or better still burn them
in public view.'
Inside the HQ another officer informed
me that it was unlikely I'd be boarding the BA flight and they
would make inquiries about later departures. At this point my
patience evaporated and I demanded to use a phone.
'Who do you want to ring?'
'The Mayor of Munich', I replied. 'His
name is Christian Ude. He interviewed me about my books and the
present crisis on Friday evening at the Hugundubel bookshop.
I wish to inform him of what is taking place.'
The police officer disappeared.
A few minutes later another officer (this
one sported a beard) appeared and beckoned me to follow him.
He escorted me to the flight which had virtually finished boarding.
We did not exchange words.
On the plane a German fellow-passenger
came and expressed his dismay at the police behaviour. He told
me how the policeman who had detained me had returned to boast
to other passengers of how his vigilance had led to my arrest.
It was a trivial enough episode, but
indicative of the mood of the Social Democrat-Green alliance
that rules Germany today. It is almost as if many of those currently
in power are trying desperately to exorcise their own pasts.
While Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder was
in Pakistan insisting that there could be no pause in the bombing
and that the war of attrition would continue, his Minister for
Interior, Otto Schilly, was busy masterminding the new security
laws, which threaten traditional civil liberties. Schilly, once
a radical lawyer and a friend of the generation of '68, first
acquired public notoriety when he became the defense lawyer for
the Red Army Faction, an urban terrorist network active in the
Seventies. It was said at the time that he also supported their
activities.
In 1980 Schilly joined the Greens and
was their key spokesman in the fight against the stationing of
Cruise and Pershing missiles in Germany. In 1989 he moved further
by joining the Social Democrats. Today he is busy justifying
extra powers to the police and infusing a sense of 'realism'
in his Green coalition partners. One of the realist proposals
being discussed is granting jurisdiction to the Federal Office
for the Protection of the Constitution (the German equivalent
of the FBI) so that it has the right to spy on individuals it
suspects of working against the 'causes of international understanding
or the peaceful coexistence of nations.'
And since in the debased coinage of the
present 'peaceful coexistence of nations' includes waging war
against some of them, I suppose that my experience was a tiny
dress-rehearsal for what is yet to come.
It was a tiny enough scratch, but if
untreated these can sometimes lead to gangrene. CP
Tariq Ali,
a frequent CounterPunch contributor, is the author of The
Stone Woman.
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