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April 6, 2002
Bill Christison:
A Former CIA Official on
Oil and the Middle East
April 5, 2002
Charmaine
Seitz
In
Ramallah: The Grueling Reoccupation Grinds On
Nancy Stohlman
The Invasion of Bethlehem
and Our Tax Dollars at Work
Beth Daoud
The
Siege of Bethlehem:
"What Do You Mean God Is Punishing Me?"
Fareed Marjaee:
Demonizing Iran
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Philip
Morris to Canada:
"Drop Dead"
Alex Lynch
Tampa Campus Mirrors
Middle East Strife
Alexander
Cockburn
Sharon's
Wars: How the
News Gets Through
April 4, 2002
Ray Hanania
Sharon's Latest Lie About the Church
of the Nativity
Mike Leon
Rightwing
Assault on Madison Progressives Misfires
Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!
Nancy
Stohlman
An
American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp
Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?
M. Shahid
Alam
The
Lies of Thomas Friedman
April 3, 2002
Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks
Bernard
Weiner
An
American Jew Talks
About His Shame
David Vest
Sting of Stings
Tzaporah
Ryter
Under
Fire: an American Student in Ramallah
Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest
John Chuckman
Of
War, Islam and Israel
Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Sins of the Church
April 2, 2002
Uri Avnery
Murdering Arafat?
Jeff Chang
Is
Protest Music Dead?
Lev Grinberg
Israel's State Terrorism
Norman
Madarasz
Bullying
Brazil
Robert Fisk
Farce and Terror
in Ramallah
Steve
Perry
Let's
Roll! ®:
The Marketing of Lisa Beamer
April 1, 2002
Stanton / Madsen
America's War Inc.
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Peace
and Nuclear Disarmament: a Call to Action
Bahour / Dahan
Bloodshed in Palestine:
A Way Out
Molly
Secours
Tennessee's
Kangaroo Court
Phyllis Pollack
The Making of Exile
on Main Street
Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's
Top 10 CDs
Francis Boyle
The Big Lie:
Palestine, Palestinians
and International Law
March 31, 2002
Jordan
Flaherty
Last
Night the Israeli
Military Tried to Kill Me
Kristen Schurr
Live from Bethlehem
Maha Sbitani
The
Israeli Army Took Over My House
Robert Fisk
Lies Leaders Tell When
They Want to Go to War
March 24/30, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
The Year
of the Yellow Notepad:
Plagiarism and History
Rep. Ron Paul
Slavery and the Draft
Fidel
Castro
A
Better World is Possible
Edward Said
What Price Oslo?
José
Saramago
Justice
and Democracy Denied
Azmi Bishara
Talking to Tanks
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Clearcutting
Montana
Alexander Cockburn
50 Years of James Bond
Wilhelm
Reich
Gethsemane
Claud Cockburn
The Horror of It All
Dave Marsh
What's
Playing at My Houe
David Vest
Remembering Tammy Wynette
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Waylon
Jennings:
an Honest Outlaw
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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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
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Reviews of Gore:
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April 5, 2002
Who Really Killed Daniel Pearl?
The US is ignoring
evidence of links with Pakistan's secret service
By Tariq Ali
in Lahore,
Pakistan
It has been a stunningly beautiful spring in Pakistan.
But the surface calm is deceptive. When the war in Afghanistan
began, I suggested that the Taliban would be rapidly defeated
and that the "jihadi" organisations and their patrons
would regroup in Pakistan and, sooner or later, start punishing
General Musharraf's regime. This process is now under way.
In recent months, the jihadis have scored
three big hits: the kidnapping and brutal murder of the Wall
Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl; the assassination of
the interior minister's brother; and the
bombing of a church in the heart of Islamabad's tightly protected
diplomatic enclave. There have also been targeted killings of
professionals in Karachi: more than a dozen doctors belonging
to the Shi'a minority have been shot.
All these acts were designed as a warning
to Pakistan's military ruler: if you go too far in accommodating
Washington, your head will also roll. Some senior journalists
believe an attempt on Musharraf's life has already taken place.
Are these acts of terrorism actually carried out by hardline
groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkatul Ansar, which often
claim them? Probably, but these groups are only a shell. Turn
them upside down and the rational kernel is revealed in the
form of Pakistan's major intelligence agency - the Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI), whose manipulation of them has long been
clear.
Those sections of the ISI who patronised
and funded these organisations were livid at "the betrayal
of the Taliban". Being forced to unravel the only victory
they had ever scored - the Taliban takeover in Kabul - created
enormous tensions inside the army. Unless this background is
appreciated, the terrorism shaking the country today is inexplicable.
Colin Powell's statement of March 3,
exonerating the ISI from any responsibility for Pearl's disappearance
and murder, is shocking. Few in Pakistan believe such assurances.
Musharraf was not involved, but he must know what took place.
He has referred to Pearl as an "over- intrusive journalist"
caught up in "intelligence games". Has he told Washington
what he knows? And if so, why did Powell absolve the ISI?
The Pearl tragedy has shed some light
on the darker recesses of the intelligence networks. Pearl was
a gifted, independent-minded investigative journalist. On previous
assignments he had established that the Sudanese pharmaceutical
factory - bombed on Clinton's orders - was exactly that and
not a shady installation producing biological and chemical weapons,
as alleged by the White House. Subsequently, he wrote extensively
on Kosovo, questioning some of the atrocity stories dished out
by Nato spin-doctors to justify the war on Yugoslavia.
Pearl was never satisfied with official
briefings or chats with approved local journalists. Those he
was in touch with in Pakistan say he was working to uncover
links between the intelligence services and terrorism. His newspaper
has been remarkably coy, refusing to disclose the leads Pearl
was pursuing.
Any western journalist visiting Pakistan
is routinely watched and followed. The notion that Daniel Pearl,
setting up contacts with extremist groups, was not being carefully
monitored by the secret services is unbelievable - and nobody
in Pakistan believes it.
The group which claimed to have kidnapped
and killed Pearl - "The National Youth Movement for the
Sovereignty of Pakistan" - is a confection. One of its
demands was unique: the resumption of F-16 sales to Pakistan.
A terrorist, jihadi group which supposedly regards the current
regime as treacherous is putting forward a 20-year-old demand
of the military and state bureaucracy.
The principal kidnapper, the former LSE
student Omar Saeed Sheikh - whose trial begins in Karachi today
- has added to the mystery. He carelessly condemned himself
by surrendering to the provincial home secretary (a former ISI
operative) on February 5. Sheikh is widely believed in Pakistan
to be an experienced ISI "asset" with a history of
operations in Kashmir. If he was extradited to Washington and
decided to talk, the entire story would unravel. His family
are fearful. They think he might be tried by a summary court
and executed to prevent the identity of his confederates being
revealed.
So mysterious has this affair become
that one might wonder who is really running Pakistan. Official
power is exercised by General Musharraf. But it is clear that
his writ does not extend to the whole state apparatus, let alone
the country. If a military regime cannot guarantee law and order,
what can it hope to deliver? Meanwhile, Daniel Pearl's widow
is owed an explanation by her own state department and the
general in Islamabad.
Tariq Ali
is a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. HIs latest book, The
Clash of Fundamentalisms, is published by Verso.
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