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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
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
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8-Page Special
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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
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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
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James
Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas
Valentine
Al
Gore:
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by Cockburn
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October 10,
2001
Earth Is Our Homeland
Expanding
Secret Military Actions Won't Protect It
By Tom Turnipseed
Continuous television news hypes the
"War on Terrorism" like it's a big ball game we can
win if we can only destroy enough of "the enemy" and
their "targets" as we unleash our sophisticated, hi-tech,
destroy-and-kill military machine on one of the poorest countries
in the world. CBS's Mark Phillips stands on the deck of a U.S.
aircraft carrier with cruise missiles streaking away toward
some cave in Afghanistan and enthusiastically quotes a sailor
who says, "We are going to terrorize the terrorists."
Funky cheerleader hosts like Geraldo Rivera exclaim, "Don't
it feel good to hit back," as his General Electric-owned
cable channel boosts the battle for their defense contracting
parent company. Retired generals and admirals appear on camera
as analysts of the bomb-by-bomb, play-by-play action. Beyond
the flag-waving and getting-even- feels-good that keeps the
score in the game of death and destruction dominating television,
there are increasingly sobering stories in newspapers of daunting
doomsday danger.
On October 8, the U.S. Ambassador
to the United Nations, John Negroponte, sent a letter to the
U.N. Security Council that claimed the right under Article 51
to launch military attacks in self-defense and, after singling
out Osama bin Laden's al-Queda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan,
said, "We may find that our self-defense requires further
actions with respect to other organizations and other states."
U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said he and diplomats in the
world body were "disturbed" by the U.S. statement
claiming a right to extend military attacks beyond Afghanistan.
Negroponte's nomination for U.N. Ambassador was opposed by human
rights advocates because of his support for the murderous Honduran
military and their CIA trained death squads in the Contra War
when he was the U.S. ambassador in Honduras from 1981 to 1985.
On October 10, the N.Y. Times reported that U.S. officials said
terrorists tied to al-Queda in the Phillippines, Indonesia and
Malaysia are among the "likely" targets of future
covert and overt American actions. The Wall Street Journal gave
in-depth coverage to a "simmering debate within the Bush
administration over whether any 'war' on terrorism could be
complete without a strike at Iraq."
The N.Y. Times also reported
on October 10 that Pakistan's President, General Musharraf,
said he had received "definite assurances" from the
U.S. that the military operation in Afghanistan would be short,
but the White House contradicted him with Bush commenting, "I
don't know who told the Pakistani president that." In nuclear-armed
Pakistan, the N.Y. Times reported that military officers close
to Musharraf said the U.S. should not take for granted that
Musharraf can indefinitely hold the loyalties of the army and
Washington needed to understand how tenuous General Musharraf's
position might be if the bombings continued, additional Afghan
civilians were killed, and the Islamic protests grew. As the
war planners expand the conflict, their need for more secrecy
grows.
On October 9, President Bush
lashed out at members of Congress for "leaks" of classified
information about the war against terrorism. Bush received bi-partisan
criticism for his "order" limiting Congressional access
to classified information about war making activities and plans.
Senator Hagel (Rep. Neb.) complained that "this thing exploded"
and Senator Stevens from Alaska, who is the senior Republican
on the Appropriations Committee, said "I'm not going to
vote for money for intelligence matters that I don't know where
it's going to." Senate Majority Leader Daschle said "Congress
has a constitutional role involving oversight." The secrecy
"leak" issue caused the House Appropriations Committee
to cancel a scheduled mark-up of a $369 billion Pentagon spending
bill that includes the CIA budget. According to the Wall Street
Journal, a committee spokesman said, "It won't be rescheduled
until this is fixed." The greatest threat to democracy
in nation states like ours is government secrecy, particularly
in "national security" matters. President Eisenhower
warned us about the military/industrial complex that contrives
secret war plans to make "defense" contractors lots
of money and can get a lot of people killed. We must demand
openness in our government and especially the most lethal part
of it. The American people need to hear why and how the United
States is going to kill people and why so many people in the
world hate us enough to kill us. The Bush Administration must
not continue the secrecy in war planning and the media censorship
they are now demanding.
President Bush's newly appointed
head of "Homeland Security," Tom Ridge, declared this
week that "the only turf we should be worried about protecting
is the turf we stand on". I believe the earth, the-whole-wide-world,
is our homeland and "terrorizing the terrorists" continues
the cycle of killing. CP
Tom Turnipseed is an attorney, writer and civil rights
activist in Columbia, South Carolina. http://www.turnipseed.net
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