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July
25, 2003
Francis
A. Boyle
Impeaching Bush
David
Krieger
15 Questions
Harvey
Wasserman
Pat Robertson's Supreme Fatwah
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Seize the Airwaves!
Dan
Bacher
Federal Judge Throws Out Bush Salmon Plan for Klamath River
Kurt Nimmo
Bread, Circuses, Uday and Qusay
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Stop the Wall!
July
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses...Again
Robert
Fisk
The Ugly Story of Camp Cropper: The
US Torture Camp in Iraq
David
Lindorff
Dumb and Dumber in Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Ashcroft Demands Death Penalty in
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David
Vest
Dylan in Bend
Tom Turnipseed
Killing Saddam & His Family Won't Stop Killing of US Troops
Douglas
Valentine
A Nation of Assassins
Stew Albert
Contract Killing
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Report on Palestinian Child Prisoners
July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
David
Lindorff
Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft
Rebuked
Mano
Singham
Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists
Steve
Perry
Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies
John Stanton
Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope?
Patrick
Bond
Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission
Harry Browne
A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman
Paul
Beaulieu
When the WTO Comes to Montreal
Robert
Fisk
The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance
Will Grow
William
Witherup
Georgie Porgie
Website
of the Day
Lieberman & Falwell:
True Love at Last
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
July
21, 2003
Edward
Said
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping
of Arabs
Ron
Jacobs
Shut Up and Shoot
Allan J.
Lichtman
Why is George Bush President?
Elaine
Cassel
How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment
Camps
Bruce
Jackson
Third and Arizona, Santa Monica
Website
of the Day
John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim
by Claim
July
19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
July
18, 2003
David
Vest
Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo
Rahul
Mahajan
Deceit Runs Deep
John Chuckman
Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World
Harold
A. Gould
The Bush-Musharraf Conclave
Alvaro
Angarita
In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists
David
Grenier
Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island
Dave Lindorff
Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal
Website
of the Day
Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair
July
17, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Sometimes Even the President of the
United States Has to Stand Naked
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance
Martin
Schwarz
Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation
Watchdogs
Heidi
Lypps
Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced
Drugging and the Supreme Court
Norman
Madarasz
Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance
Conference
Pankaj
Mehta
Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the
Boy Who Cried Wolf
Hammond
Guthrie
(Dis) Intelligence Revisited
Website
of the Day
No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism
July
16, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype
Dubious Uranium Claims
William
Cook
Defining Terrorism from the Top Down
Elaine
Cassel
Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom
Must Not Be Obeyed
Jason
Leopold
How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found?
Linda Heard
Bondage or Freedom?
Raymond
Barrett
From Detroit to Basra
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Back to the Future in Guatemala:
The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt
July
15, 2003
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Why We Resigned from VIPS
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers:
the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack
Chris
Floyd
Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries
Jason
Leopold
CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries
Gaius Publius
Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please
John
Troyer
The Niger Syndrome
Becky Gillette
No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David
Orrr
Uri
Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall
Dwell with the Lamb
Website
of the Day
Cost of Iraq War
July
14, 2003
Lisa
Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah
Walter
Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain
SOA
Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US
Dan Bacher
Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Unglued
Website
of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties
July 12 / 13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
Interview with Michael Hudson
John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
July
11, 2003
Conn
Hallinan
The Coin of Empire
Tim
Wise
God Responds to Bush
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa
Edward
S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor
David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?
David
Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
Website
of the Day
Dead Malls
July
10, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody
Profits of General Dynamics
Sean
Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia
Yemi
Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview
with Wes Jackson
Ali
Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
Website
of the Day
Electronic Iraq
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
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The Lipstick Librarian
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Wendell
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Small Destructions Add Up
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WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
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A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
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Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
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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
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July
26, 2003
A Report from Syria
Between
Israel and Iraq...a Hard Place
By SAUL LANDAU
Father Tofiq, an Arabic speaking Roman Catholic
priest from Lebanon, recites the Lord s Prayer in Aramaic in
the Convent of St. Serge in Maaloula, a town about thirty miles
north of Damascus.
He affirms that Jesus, his disciples
and contemporaries spoke and wrote in Aramaic, which derives
from Aram, Noah s grandson. The Apostles used this language to
spread the Christian message to Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia
(Iraq). The priest learned English at the Vatican and insists
that piety and justice go hand in hand, referring critically
to US behavior, especially in the Middle East.
"Pontius Pilate wanted to free Jesus.
He didn't find evidence against him and asked why they wanted
to crucify him. `If you free him, you're not a friend of Caesar,
they said, so Pontius had to crucify Jesus even if he didn't
want to. Maybe Bush didn't want this [Iraq] war but to save his
position, he had to abide by some economic interests like oil.
Also don t forget the Zionist lobby in the US."
Syrians of all ages echo Tofiq s sentiments.
In Bosra, just north of the Jordanian border, the site of a Fourth
Century 4,000 seat Roman amphitheater in which you can sit at
the top hear a whisper from the stage with its carved stone seats
in  miraculous condition, a youngster of
about 11 made a hissing sound and sneered when I asked him what
he thought of George W. Bush. Bush bad, his pre-adolescent companion
offered. Then, as an afterthought, perhaps not to insult me:
American people good.
The tour guide grinned.
So, I asked him, what do you think of
Bush?
He fucked us, he snorted in his accented
English. Americans and English tourists hardly show up. Bush
is the terrorist. Not us. Look what he did in Iraq! And look
how the cowards who run Arab countries don t stand up to him.
He shrugged his shoulders.
The old and older Syria form a backdrop
for a smattering of the new. An antique three-wheel motorized
vehicle clanks past the horse drawn cart on the crumbling street
that leads to the modern well-paved highway. Even in Damascus,
Syria s mushrooming capital of five plus million, ancient edifices
(not only the monuments) serve as foreground for the crumbling
concrete high rise in the background old Damascus. In New Damascus
the Sheraton and other five star hotels share real estate with
the homes and apartments of the rich. It looks like a wealthy
neighborhood in scores of cities throughout the world.
But God placed Syria, modern and ancient,
in a region where politics make hornets' nests seem peaceful.
Bordered between Iraq and a truly hard place Israel -- along
with Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, Syrians logically understand
that geography and their colonial past have defined their current
political possibilities.
Because of their geography they play
a pivotal role. But what s in the US-endorsed Road Map for them?
Anti-Israeli sentiment burns brightly in the minds of adult Syrians,
not just because Syria lost the Golan Heights in the 1967 war
and failed to win it back in the 1973 war. Syria claims that
Israel systematically bulldozed and dynamited every edifice in
the city of Kuneitra. Israel claims that during the 1973 war,
the buildings were victims of artillery and tank battles. A US
diplomatic source in Damascus dismissed the Israeli claims and
confirmed the Syrian version of events.
Once a metropolis with more than 50,000
inhabitants, Kuneitra today is a ghost town. I looked out over
the barbed wire onto the acres of no-man s land, filled with
mines and weeds. Beyond this strip, Israeli settlers have filled
the fields with neat rows of crops. Atop the fields is an Israeli
military post. UN vehicles drive back and forth along the barbed
wire line to insure the uneasy ceasefire between the two countries.
Mohamed Malas was born in Kuneitra. He
returned there after the Israeli devastation to film Memory (1974)
for Syrian TV. Joining us in early July, he walked down the rubble-littered
street and talked about his love affair with Kuneitra s movie
theater, the one that turned him on to cinema.
He stands inside the shell of that theater
that faces the barbed wire. The Israelis see the world as a movie,
Malas opines, with themselves as conquering heroes and others
as villains worthy of death and destruction. Maybe the people
of Kuneitra were just extras. The Americans produce the films
for them, he concluded bitterly.
Syrians I met refused to talk about their
own politics, at least not on the record. I don t talk politics,
a silk merchant tells me, definitively, as he tries to sell me
a tablecloth in the Aleppo souk, reputedly the largest and oldest
market in the Middle East. Covered by stone archways, this vibrant
market weaves for some 18 miles through a maze of alley-like
cobbled streets. I shocked one vendor by buying a shawl and tablecloth
for the asking price without the customary bargaining; even then,
he refused to tell me how he felt about his President, Bashar
Assad.
Like many post World War II era third
world governments that originally won power on nationalist and
socialist tracks, the Ba'ath-led Syrian regime became encrusted
and corrupted. Under Hafez Assad, Bashar s father, who died in
2000, the government delivered health care and education. But
a Syrian engineer insists that the systems cry out for reform.
Compare the private clinics with the public ones, he dared me.
If you have money, you don t go to the public medical facilities.
Given the constant Israeli threat --
a real one -- Syria must maintain a large and very costly military,
which in turn, adds to the amount of corruption and also becomes
a serious obstacle to change. When military officers institutionalize
skimming from the state pot few dare challenge them especially
with the reputation of the Mukhabarat, or secret police. It s
nowhere near the level of brutality reached in Iraq, but every
Syrian knows about it.
Single party and family rule permeates
the nation: the Ba ath Party and the Assad dynasty. Their photos
and statues dot the streets, roads, windows, cars and every other
place in Syria where poster hangers can find a place for the
Assads. Indeed, the ubiquitous faces of the ruling son and his
dead father outdoes in number at least picture-wise albeit not
in intensity -- even Saddam Hussein's personality cult. The region
has not shaken the concept of royalty.
Non-regime connected Syrian intellectuals
had high hopes for Hafez s youngest son when the man who ruled
from 1971 died three years ago. Bashar studied ophthalmology
in England, married a Brit and understood the West and the Internet.
He promised to free political prisoners, open the country to
the Internet and reform the banking system to help modernize
Syrian trade and commerce.
But Bashar discovered that you don t
just inherit power and then blithely fight corruption, change
policy toward Israel and cut back on state control of the economy.
The political machinery, the military and civil institutions
and officials at all levels have major stakes in keeping the
status quo. Bashar did release some political prisoners shortly
after his ascension to the presidency, but Human Rights Watch
still estimates that the government holds more than 1,000 political
prisoners, ten times less than Israel, snaps Dr. Bouthaina Chaban,
the director of media for the Foreign Ministry.
Whatever ideas Assad had about changing
policy toward Israel evaporated and, writes Chris Suellentrop
in the <MSN.com> opinion space on Wednesday, April 16,
2003, anti-American and anti-Israel rhetoric has endeared him
to both Arab nationalists and Islamic radicals in his country
and in the region.
Bashar understood very quickly the implications
of maintaining a hostile Golan border with Israel and harboring
as many as 1.5 million Palestinians. The Israel-Palestine debacle
remains a major leitmotif in the daily politics and life of Syrians
as it does for many in the Middle East. Neither it, nor the hostile
Israeli presence will disappear. Unlike most of the Arab countries,
Syria has offered Palestinians equal opportunities to jobs and
services.
Syria s population meanwhile grows faster
than its economy. It cannot afford acts of generosity without
poor Syrians paying a price. From Bosra in the south to Aleppo
in the North, I saw a rich agriculture: wheat, fruit, olives
and vegetables. I saw Bedouins and Christians of several varieties
living alongside Muslims of different stripes. I even met a Jewish
antique dealer who returned to Damascus because I like it here
better than Brooklyn. He can go to Israel but says he s happy
in the place where he was born and grew up and feels no fear
or discrimination.
Bouthaina Shaaban, an articulate Foreign
Ministry spokeswoman, insists, We are open to modernization,
the Internet, globalization in the sense of using what the human
mind has reached. But what we have seen in Iraq during and after
the war is really the attempt to eliminate an indigenous culture
and install a different culture instead that has nothing to do
with Iraqi people or Arab people. So, this is the dilemma Syria
is facing at the moment. Syria is a major force in the region
that understands the importance of our language, culture and
identity and we would like to keep that. In the meantime, we
are open to all good things in the world, but I think this nuance
is not appreciated by some.
I appreciated it as I watched a guy who
looked like a model for the standard portrait of Jesus getting
a haircut in Maaloula and speaking Aramaic with the barber. I
wonder if he sounded like Jesus or was he just telling the barber
not to take too much off the top?
Saul Landau
is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at
Cal Poly Pomona University. His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE
EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, will be published in September
by Pluto Books.
Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
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