Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
August 20, 2003
Robert Fisk
Now No
One Is Safe in Iraq
Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?
Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark
Ramzi Kysia
Peace
is not an Abstract Idea
Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway
John L. Hess
A Downside Day
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake
Up Call"
Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype
Recent
Stories
August 19, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen
Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South
Pacific
Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism
Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense
Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna
John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting
August 12, 2003
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
Hot Stories
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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August
21, 2003
What Osama Might Learn
from UN Bombing
Why
the US Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals
By ROBERT FISK
It was always the same story. If it wasn't the
enemy you were fighting, it was the enemy you knew you'd have
to fight in the future.
So when the killers of Baghdad on Tuesday
slaughtered 20 UN staff, with the UN's local proconsul, Sergio
Vieira de Mello, the Americans embarked on one of their familiar
flights into fancy. If it wasn't Saddam's "diehard remnants"
who were tormenting them, it must be al-Qa'ida's "remnants"
who are destroying America's best efforts to produce democracy
in Iraq (though not Afghanistan); "foreign Arab" fighters
were creeping over the border from Iran or Syria.
This was the line from the "Coalition
Provisional Authority" yesterday: don't, for God's sake,
produce proof of home-grown opposition, or the whole "liberation"
of Iraq might look rather dodgy. Blame it on al-Qa'ida, on "Ansar
al-Islam", on "terrorists" coming from Saudi Arabia
or Syria or Afghanistan. But, during the war against the American
invasion of Iraq, weren't there two suicide bombings in Nasariyah,
one by a man, the second by two women? Weren't they Iraqis? And
isn't it possible an Iraqi Sunni resistance movement--for let
us be frank and accept that the Shia have not yet joined the
resistance war, though they will--destroyed the UN headquarters on Tuesday? Only yesterday
did it emerge that the bomber was probably a suicider.
Months ago, when Donald Rumsfeld, the
US Defence Secretary who in a previous incarnation pleaded with
Saddam (circa 1983) to reopen the US embassy in Baghdad, arrived
in the Iraqi capital to address his troops, he warned of "terrorist"
organisations at large in Iraq. Some of us wondered what he was
talking about. Hadn't the US just defeated Iraq?
But then we realised he was spinning
a narrative for journalists to grasp if the "Saddam remnants"
line wore out. There would be other evildoers to blame, other
antagonists in the "war on terror" to single out.
Sure enough, the "outside"
guerrillas have now been brought centre-stage, whether or not
they exist, to explain why US rule in Iraq is coming undone.
The US can crush Saddam. It can kill his sons. But still it cannot
control Iraq.
This, in a sense, is the last heirloom
that Saddam has handed to President George Bush: you can occupy
this country, he is saying, but you can't rule it. Saddam created
enough pseudo-Wahabist groups to let off steam during his reign.
Talk about Islam, they were told, but not about politics. But
the moment the regime collapsed, these organisations, which had
always been hostile to Saddam, were left to their own devices,
and immediately opposed US rule in Iraq. They, not al-Qa'ida,
or anyone else, are running this butchery of a war against America
and its friends in Iraq.
When the resistance to the Americans
began in Lebanon in 1982-83, it started with stone-throwing after
six months. Yet the assaults on the Americans in Baghdad are
coming at a speed six times as fast. Six months ago, it would
have been impossible to imagine such a scenario. Certainly, al-Qa'ida
could not have organised its legions so quickly. So even Osama
bin Laden may have something to learn from this debacle.
Robert Fisk is
a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity
the Nation. He is also a contributor to Cockburn and
St. Clair's forthcoming book, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
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