home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events
|
|
|
How a Tiny Alaskan Indian Tribe Got Billions in Pentagon Contracts by Jeffrey St. Clair; Dems and Dives by Alexander Cockburn; Spooky Grants: More on the CIA's Recruitment of Campus Professors by David Price. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
|
Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories March 30, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair March 29, 2005 Ralph Nader Gary Leupp Sonia Cardenas Stew Albert Mark Weisbrot Dave Lindorff Carl G. Estabrook
March 28, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Sonali Kolhatkar Sasha Kramer Kevin Zeese Tom Stephens Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Newton Garver Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
March 26 / 27, 2005 Gary Leupp Peter Linebaugh Marc Robert Laura Carlsen Saul Landau
/ Puja Patel Dave Foreman Fred Gardner Jennifer Matsui Dave Lindorff Dharma Adhikari Joshua Frank Patrick Barr Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy Baroud Jackie Corr Ben Tripp Dr. Susan Block Mickey Z. Justin Taylor Richard Joseph Poets' Basement
March 25, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons Yoshie Furuhashi Pat Williams Mark Engler Rahul Mahajan Lance Selfa Ralph Nader John R. Llewellyn Jo Guldi
March 24, 2005 Joshua Frank Talli Nauman Martin Espada Dave Lindorff Elaine Cassel Jack McCarthy Jack Random Barbara Ferguson Suzan Mazur Dorreen Yellow Bird Andrew Wimmer
and Mark Chmiel
Patrick Bond Mike Whitney Becky White Michael Donnelly Niranjan Ramakrishnan Ashley Smith David Swanson Derrick O'Keefe Paul A. Moore Dalton Walker Patrick Cockburn
March 22, 2005 William Blum Jim Vallette Greg Moses John Farley Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Alam Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Dave Lindorff James Petras
March 21, 2005 John Walsh Werther Mike Stark David Swanson James T. Phillips Mike Ferner Robert Jensen Paul Craig
Roberts Stew Albert Website of
the Day
March 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Tom Reeves Saul Landau Alan Maass Ron Jacobs David Green John Blair Steve Greenfield Ben Tripp Mike Roselle Joshua Frank Mark Weisbrot Dave Lindorff Sarah Schaffer Warren Hastings Poets' Basement
March 18, 2005 Dave Zirin Richard Thieme John Walsh David Swanson Ben Terrall David Boyle Dorreen Yellow Bird Mokhiber /
Weissman Greg Moses Website of
the Day
March 17, 2005 Christopher
Brauchli Bill Quigley Brian Cloughley Gary Bass / Adam Hughes Dave Lindorff Jude Wanniski Alexander Billet John Ross Website of the Day
March 16, 2005 Ralph Nader William Cook Kevin Zeese Jackie Corr Alan Maass David R. Kolker Cindy Ellen
Hill Paul Craig
Roberts
March 15, 2005 Gary Leupp Dave Lindorff Greg Moses Hadas Their
/ Katrina Yeaw Alison Weir Matt Koehler Evelyn Pringle Harry Browne
March 14, 2005 Ralph Nader David Miller Stan Cox Mike Roselle David Swanson Simona Sharoni Dave Lindorff Dorreen Yellow Bird Tom Barry Website of the Day
March 12 / 13, 2005 David H. Price Noam Chomsky Laura Carlsen Stan Goff Valentina Nicoli Michael Leonardi Saul Landau
/ Sarah Anderson Joe Bageant Manuel Garc'a,
Jr. Greg Moses James J. Brittain Ben Tripp Joshua Frank Fred Gardner Walter Brasch Ramzy Baroud Christopher
Brauchli Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Richard Oxman Poets' Basement
March 11, 2005 Jerry Fresia Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff William James
Martin Muqtedar Khan Kathryn Ledebur Mike Whitney Dave Zirin Website of the Day
March 10, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin
and Ashley Smith Larry Birns Michael Donnelly Luis Gomez Jackie Corr Uri Avnery Website of the Day
March 9, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Ward Churchill Robert Fisk Bernice Powell Jackson Mickey Z. Dave Zirin Michael Donnelly James Reiss Vijay Prashad
March 8, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Robert Fisk Kurt Nimmo Suzan Mazur Evelyn Pringle Giuliana Sgrena Elaine Cassel
March 7, 2005 Dave Zirin Brian Cloughley John Chuckman Mike Whitney Mark Weisbrot Fred Gardner Richard Neville Uri Avnery
March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Tom Reeves Jenna Orkin Tom Barry Joshua Frank Moshe Adler Jane Stillwater Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir Christopher
Brauchli John Pilger Raúl
Zibechi David Krieger Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Bhishma Karki Joseph Pietri Ben Tripp Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson
March 3, 2005 Pat Williams Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Greg Moses Lynne Landes Nelson P. Valdés John Ross
March 2, 2005 Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen Mike Roselle M. Junaid Alam Suzan Mazur Jackson Thoreau Michael Donnelly Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
March 1, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons David Lindorff Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders Ron Jacobs Tanya Garcia Joseph Pietri Kona Lowell Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Subcomandante
Marcos Norman Finkelstein Steve Niva Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams Steve
J.B. Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber Wendell
Berry CounterPunch
Wire Cindy
Corrie Gore Vidal Francis Boyle
Subscribe Online
|
March 30, 2005 Bin Laden, Not Bush, may be the Change Agent in the Middle EastAmerica's Gunboat DiplomacyBy JUDE WANNISKI In the last three decades, there always has been little doubt in my mind that democratic institutions would soon replace or subsume the world's last remaining monarchies, including those in the Middle East. Monarchs could rule effectively when the world moved at a snail`s pace, but with the accelerated pace of change in the global political economy, the monarchical form of government simply can`t keep up. In my 1978 book, The Way the World Works, I wrote:
Like all Americans, President Bush believes in "democracy", because it has worked so well for the United States. But also like most Americans, he has never thought much about "democracy" other than that it means popular elections of political leaders--as opposed to inherited political power. Bush and his team are now taking the elections in Iraq and signs of democratic political change elsewhere in the Mideast as justification for his taking the United States to war, although no mention of spreading the gospel of democracy was mentioned at the time. Where is this leading? Mr Bush`s pro-war supporters in Congress and in the news media are already trumpeting a prediction that he will go down in history for forcing change upon those elites who have long resisted freedom and democracy for their people. Thomas L Friedman of The New York Times sees him perhaps as a new Napoleon, a populist who rose out of the common clay to change the world in many positive ways, even while using force of arms as the battering ram for change. On the other hand, there is Pat Buchanan, the conservative political commentator who worked for presidents Nixon and Reagan during the Cold War and twice ran for president. In his 14 February 14 column, Buchanan notes that Bush says "democracy and freedom" are on the march. But instead, it may be that revolution is on the march. If Bush turns out to be right, he "will be viewed by history as a Reaganite visionary who, seeing deeper into the Islamic soul than critics, understood that an invasion of Iraq would unleash the liberating force of freedom, not the demonic force of Islamic revolution". An opponent of the war with Iraq, Buchanan clearly expects that when the dust settles a bit, the Middle East will not look the way President Bush expected it to. It is already clear that Iraq may form a government that will not only be much less secular than the regime that Bush overturned, but also may invite the United States to pull stakes and leave completely. Even with the interim government practically installed by the United States, democratic principles of free press and free speech were shelved, with Al Jazeera itself barred from reporting while news outlets supportive of the Allawi regime were favoured. The events in Lebanon are even less likely to satisfy the Bush administration, stunned into silence by Hizb Allah`s show of political power that surprised all American observers. Bush seemed to believe the Lebanese people would dance in the streets singing his praises for demanding an end to the Syrian presence. And 70,000 did. But the following day, 500,000 Lebanese showed up at the same square to denounce America. They represented the forces that originally invited Syria`s military presence to end the military clashes between Maronite Christians and Palestinians in Southern Lebanon. It was a conflict that could not be avoided by Lebanon`s concessionary democracy--which allocates power by percentages to the Christians, Sunnis, Shia and Druse. They clearly wish Syria to play a role until the elections next month. The turnabout was so quick that it did not leave President Bush time to change his celebration of the first Beirut demonstration and in a speech the following day, he behaved as if the outpouring of 500,000 Lebanese was another sure sign of democracy on the march. Shaikh Hasan Nasr Allah, Hizb Allah`s leader, could make the obvious point that a majority clearly favours Syria`s presence, and if that isn`t democratic, what is? What happens next? The US, now backed by a UN resolution, demands Syria`s retreat behind its borders before the spring elections in Lebanon, but UN officials prefer to hold the elections before the Syrian withdrawal. It`s not at all clear how this will play out. Buchanan observes that "almost every revolution demands the expulsion of foreign troops. The Syrian army may leave Lebanon, but this presages a demand that the US army get out of Iraq and the Israelis get off the Golan Heights and out of the West Bank". To appreciate the ironies of the moment, we can recollect that the outlines of President Bush`s call for a worldwide democratic crusade were hatched a dozen years ago by the intellectuals around him These were the young men chosen by president Nixon for his foreign-policy team: Donald Rumsfeld, Richard Cheney, the elder George Bush; and the "neo-cons" who were nominally Democrats: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey. In his 1992 book, Seize the Moment, Nixon wrote that "the death of Soviet communism and the disintegration of the Soviet empire in 1991 revolutionised the global landscape. I believe that it is imperative that the US seize this moment to secure peace and advance freedom around the world." In that sense, US foreign policy is still the design of an American president who died soon after writing his book. As an admirer of Nixon`s world-view, I`ve often believed that he would not have followed the course plotted by the neo-cons in subsequent years, which has left us with such a mess today. Earlier in the same book, in fact, Nixon had this to day about a march of democracy at the end of a gun, what I call "gunboat democracy", with the neo-cons actually having as one of their heroes Teddy Roosevelt, who practised what came to be called "gunboat diplomacy":
Nixon`s followers obviously ignored the old man`s counsel when they devised their Project for a New American Century in 1994, which was an explicit design for a New World Order based on the exercise of America`s economic and military might. But they were fully in accord with his view that the sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1991 after the Gulf War should not be lifted until Saddam was gone from power, no matter how much he cooperated with the United Nations. Nixon clearly believed Saddam would be overthrown by his own people in a year or two. When he wasn`t, and the murderous sanctions wound up causing the deaths of at least 500,000 Iraqi civilians, it was Usama bid Ladin and al-Qaida who came into the picture at 9/11. Indeed, Eric Margolis, an astute columnist for the Toronto Sun, recently wrote that bin Ladin, not Bush, is "the man most responsible for pushing the Arab world towards political change ..." "For over a decade, bin Ladin has agitated for the overthrow of the corrupt, despotic Arab regimes supported by the US, and their replacement by a traditional Islamic democratic consensus. "As bin Ladin`s anti-American insurgency gathers strength and resonates among the restive Arab masses, the Bush administration has urged the frightened kings and generals running Washington`s client Arab regimes to make a show of democratic reforms to head off popular uprisings." We will have to patiently wait and watch to see how it all comes out. History seems to be moving faster than ever, but still it happens one day at a time. Jude Wanniski is a former associate editor of The
Wall Street Journal, expert on supply-side economics and founder
of Polyconomics, which helps
to interpret the impact of political events on financial markets.
|
