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January
9, 2002
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
January
6, 2002
Ralph
Nader
Students
Put the Heat on Foreign Sweatshops
Tariq
Ali
Battleground
Kashmir
January
5, 2002
Mark Schneider
Kifah:
The Movie Star
Israel Killed
Edward
Said
Is
Israel More Secure Now?
January
4, 2002
CG Estabrook
Anti-War
= Anti-Globalization
Jordan
Green
What's
Changed in New York
January
3, 2002
Walt Brasch
Exit
Cheney, Enter Ridge
Mokhiber
and Weissman
The
10 Worst Corporations
of 2001
Robert
Hunter Wade
America's
Empire Rules an Unbalanced World
Shahid
Alam
Is
There an Islamic Problem?
January
2, 2002
Ross Regnart
Patriot
Act Redefines the Mob as "Terrorist Associates"
John Chuckman
The
Republicans' Secret Plan X
David
Vest
Turn,
Turn, Turn
January
1, 2002
Kathy
Kelly
Iraq's
New Year
December
31, 2001
John Absood
An
Alternative to War in Iraq
Ramzi
Kysia
Iraq
Goes Radioactive
December
28, 2001
John Chuckman
Observing
George Bush
Suren
Pillay
Civilian
Bodies
Aaron
Lehmer
Inviting
Future Terrorism
December
27, 2001
Patrick
McNamara
Palestinian
Children Bear Brunt of Mideast Violence
Nelson
Valdés
A
Possible Scenario on the Location of bin Laden
Jensen
and Mahajan
Remember
the Afghan Dead
Philip
Farruggio
A
New Year's Resolution
Ramzi
Kysia
The
People of the Valley
December 26, 2001
John Chuckman
In
Praise of the Unspeakable
Sam Bahour
2002:
Year of the Twos
December 25, 2001
Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's
Human Rights Record
December 24, 2001
Sam Bahour
It
Happened One Morning
Yair Khilou
Why I Resisted
Being Drafted into the Israeli Army
Michael
Chisari
War
as Diversionary Tactic
Cockburn/St. Clair
Enron
and the Green Seal
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
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About 9/11
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Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
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Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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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
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CounterPunch
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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 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
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Reviews of Gore:
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January
9, 2002
The Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
By David Vest
In Afghanistan, as of this writing, women have
not yet been bombed out of their burqas. It is risky to be the
first in one's village to shed the uniform of anonymity.
At The Dancing Bare establishment, in
Portland, Oregon, no one wears a burqa. There are no "women
of cover" at the Dancing Bare. (Is there a "cover charge"?)
Yet it is equally hard to discard the uniform of anonymity.
The sign outside The Dancing Bare tonight
says, "Proud to be Americans." Whether the sentiment
refers to the management or to the live nude dancers, or to all
of them, is left to the imagination.
That nude dancing could be construed
as an act of patriotism has not perhaps occurred to everyone.
What exactly is the patriotic message of nude dancing? "We
must uphold men's unlimited sexual access to women (and children?),
otherwise the terrorists win"? Is that it? That can't be
right. I must be tired.
On the Internet, too, the smut merchants
love their country, to such an extent that to distinguish between
pornography and patriotism can seem difficult if not pointless.
Obscene depictions of Osama bin Laden and George W. Bush have
turned up on Usenet newsgroups where people upload and download
what were once called "dirty pictures."
What are we not seeing while we look
at these ubiquitous pictures where everything, literally everything,
is visible? The humanity of the participants? Besides that. Photos
of civilian casualties? Acknowledgement of civilian casualties?
Accountability for civilian casualties?
Photos would be "too disturbing."
We must remember our "objectives."
Here is the operative principle: "War
is Hell. Knowing that, we do not need to know it."
Just get it done and spare us the details.
Comes down to cases, what's worse? Knowing or not knowing? Therefore
we leave all that to the Three 'R's -- Rather, O'Reilly and Rivera
-- and place the entire American people inside a super-burqa.
This is the Big Tent, for sure.
"Son this ain't a dream no more,
it's the real thing," as the poet, our only reliable source
of news, tells us.
It feels safe inside the national super-burqa,
sort of. We have dirty pictures and football to look at under
our "cover." We've got hymns and handguns and Paul
McCartney to sing about "Freedom." It's a little weird
that we can't see out, at least not clearly, and sometimes we
have to fight back a panic reflex when they come and take somebody
out of the Big Tent, like the poor Enron people or that Arab-American
Secret Service agent, but we'll get used to it.
We'll have to. What's the alternative?
After all, it's risky to be the first
to take off an invisible burqa. We might see what's going on
under all this "cover."
And where could that lead? Next thing we know, somebody next
to us might be saying, "Let's roll."
David Vest
is a regular writer for CounterPunch, a poet and piano-player
for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs.
Visit his website at http://www.mindspring.com/~dcqv
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