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January
24, 2002
Alexander
Cockburn
This
is Terrorism?
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
January
22, 2002
Brendan
Cooney
Moby-Dick
and the Hunt
for Osama bin Laden
Rick Giombetti
Progressive
Pols for Enron?
Judith
Resnik
Invading
the Courts?
Kevin
Alexander Gray
The
Crisis in Black Leadership
January
21, 2002
Marjorie
Cohn
Will
Walker's Words
Be Used Against Him?
Ahmad
Faruqui
MLK
Jr. and the Palestinians
January
19. 2002
Jordan
Green
Enron
Stole Our Future
January
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
The
Enron Model
Walt Brasch
Enron
at the White House
CounterPunch
Wire
Human
Rights Groups Says Guantanamo Prisoners Must
Be Treated as POWs
January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
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!)
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TO
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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
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
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January 25,
2002
Kurds are Freedom Fighters in Iraq,
Terrorists in Turkey. The Political Status of Iranian Kurds Is
Unclear...
By Tariq Ali
The last round of Indo-Pak fighting over Kashmir
in the Himalayan snowlands around Kargil coincided with the Nato
bombing of Yugoslavia. On that occasion, Indian jets crossed
the border and bombed positions inside Pakistan. If Nato could,
why not India?
Now again, as the border tension increases,
voices in Delhi are asking a similar question: if the United
States can bomb a country and change its government in response
to terrorist attacks, why not India? It is an apposite question,
as Washington knows. The Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jaish-e-Mohammad
have carried out appalling acts of terrorism in Kashmir. The
attack on the Indian parliament was an open provocation, designed
to encourage a full-scale war between the two states. Which is
one very good reason why it shouldn't happen.
It's true that Pakistan's military intelligence
created these groups and infiltrated them into Kashmir, just
as they did with the Taliban in Afghanistan. It is also true
that, like the Taliban, these groups have acquired a relative
autonomy and can't be switched off like a light bulb. Washington
knows that well. It couldn't switch off Osama. London knows that,
too; it couldn't switch off the IRA.
The real question is what to do about
Kashmir, and the simple answer is to ask the Kashmiris. Neither
Islamabad nor Delhi wants to know, because they already know:
Kashmir would like to be independent.
Another reason for the sabre-rattling
by Delhi is that it is desperate to become a permanent member
of the UN Security Council. An Indian friend in Delhi tells me
that Tony Blair's visits only feed this frenzy. Why? Because
if the leader of a medium-sized northern European country can
prance around and posture in this fashion because his country
sits on the Security Council, the only way to stop his visits
is for India to join the council.
It's difficult not to sympathise.
Bad news from
Sudan. I'm a bit reluctant to publicise
the facts in case they become an excuse for bombing that country
again, but help is needed.
Abok Alfa Akok, an 18-year-old Christian
from Nyala, in southern Darfur, has been sentenced to death by
stoning for the 'crime of adultery'. The authorities claim that
the sentence is legal because it is based on Article 146 of the
1991 Penal Code, under which adultery is punishable with:
1) Execution by stoning when the offender
is married (muhsan);
2) One hundred lashes when the offender
is not married (non-muhsan);
3) Male, non-married offenders may be
punished, in addition to whipping, with expatriation for a year.
This is a version of the sharia, or Koranic
law, though disputed by many scholars. It should never be used,
and certainly not against those who don't believe in it in the
first place.
Letters of protest against this proposed
barbarism should be sent to: His Excellency Lieutenant General
Omar Hassan el-Bashir, President of the Republic of Sudan, People's
Palace, PO Box 281, Khartoum, Sudan (telex: 22385 PEPLC SD or
22411 KAID SD; fax: +249 11 771 724).
Some good news. This month, the BBC Symphony Orchestra at the
Barbican is performing a Peter Sellars collaboration, the opera
The Death of Klinghoffer, which became 'controversial' after
11 September.
The Boston Symphony Orchestra cancelled
its scheduled performances of choruses that re-enact the events
that took place on the cruise ship Achille Lauro in 1985: Palestinian
guerrillas took hostages and killed an American Jew. The Boston
Symphony said that 'sensitivity' dictated that it should not
perform this particular work.
The composer, John Adams, and the librettist,
Alice Goodman, responded by saying that the opera offered the
'solace of truth'.
The opera's critics, who defended the
cancellation, included the distinguished musicologist Richard
Taruskin. He wrote: ' The contrast set the vastly unequal terms
on which the conflict of Palestinians and Jews would be perceived
throughout the opera. The portrayal of suffering Palestinians
in the musical language of myth and ritual was immediately juxtaposed
with a musically trivial portrayal of contented, materialistic
American Jews.'
In other words, Taruskin was opposed
to the politics of the opera, and used 11 September to defend
censorship. As news of the Barbican's decision spreads, tickets
are likely to be in short supply. I've booked mine.
Back to bad
news. Noam Chomsky's Kurdish publisher
in Istanbul, Aram Publishing House, is being prosecuted by the
state for including a ferocious essay on the condition of Turkish
Kurds in a collection entitled American Interventionism.
As we know, Kurds in Turkey are 'terrorists',
but Kurds in Iraq are 'freedom fighters' and we're not quite
sure about the present status of the Iranian Kurds. As the Turkish
government is really keen to be admitted to the EU, it must assume
that publishing Chomsky is providing succour to 'terrorism' and
that it will win wide support.
One hopes that the country closest to
Turkey will make its voice heard loud and clear. Step forward
Joschka Fischer: pentito extraordinaire and foreign minister
of Germany.
Tariq Ali,
a frequent CounterPunch contributor, is the author of The
Stone Woman, just published in paperback by Verso.
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