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Today's
Stories
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
October 14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
October
18 / 19, 2003
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
The
Age of Sacred Apologies
By
TOM GORMAN
In a well-publicized flap at the Los Angeles BookExpo
last May, satirist Al Franken accused Bill O'Reilly of lying
about, among other things, the tabloid show Inside Edition--which
O'Reilly hosted before moving to Fox News--winning Peabody awards.
O'Reilly claimed that he had merely "misspoke" when
he said "Peabody" (the program had actually won a Polk
Award, over a year after O'Reilly left the show). When Franken
challenged O'Reilly that the Fox News host didn't simply misspeak
(O'Reilly had claimed that "we" won Peabodys, and then
said there was "no transcript" where he had said that
"he" won the award), O'Reilly shouted "Shut up!"
(This was reminiscent of his February attack on Jeremy Glick,
the son of a Port Authority worker killed on 9/11, whom O'Reilly
specifically invited on his show and then berated for his opposition
to the "war on terrorism.")
This exchange, along with the lawsuit
brought by Fox News claiming that Franken's latest book, "Lies
and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them: A Fair and Balanced Look at
the Right," was an infringement on the trademark "Fair
and Balanced," has propelled Franken to the forefront as
a "liberal" defender of "the left" against
the attack dogs of the right-wing media. (Fox News dropped the
suit after a judge termed their case "wholly without merit.")
During the BookExpo, Franken proudly claimed the label of "liberal."
After fellow panelist Molly Ivins disabused O'Reilly's claims
that she was a "liberal," Franken declared, "Unlike
Molly, I am a liberal," adding curiously "I'm a DLC
Democrat." Curious, because anyone who knows the centrist,
pro-business Democratic Leadership Council knows that it has
nothing to do with being "liberal" (in the generally
accepted definition of that word; if Franken were to say he was
a neoliberal, his identification with the DLC would make perfect
sense).
Before I launch into a critique of Al
Franken, I would like to point out that this is by no means a
defense of Bill O'Reilly. I would refer any who doubt this to
two articles I wrote for CounterPunch earlier this year, "'s
Bill O'ReillyFascism, Parts I
and II ." Unfortunately,
it has been my experience that people almost invariably look
at the political world as a binary series of zeros and ones--it
is assumed that if one criticizes an Al Franken or Bill Clinton,
they must be a supporter of Bill O'Reilly or George W. Bush,
and vice versa. Several times during the build up to the Iraq
War, I would be criticized by people I'd never met as a hypocrite
for decrying the proposed attack on Iraq while "not protesting
the bombing of Kosovo" in 1999. (I've seen this charge leveled
at many others who opposed the Iraq War). These opponents usually
take on the deer-caught-in-the-headlights look when I tell them
that not only did I strongly oppose the Kosovo War, I believe
that Bill Clinton is a war criminal who deserves the same (if
not more severe) punishment that is due former Yugoslavian President
Slobodan Milosevic or Saddam Hussein.
Another example of this narrow thinking
is evident every time I write an article in any way critical
of Zionism. I wrote an article last
year decrying the hypocrisy of Trent Lott's critics, pointing
out that those who criticized the Senator's praise of Strom Thurmond's
segregationist 1948 presidential campaign are often the same
people who support the apartheid regime of Israel. Aside from
the typical flood of emails from Zionists calling me an "anti-Semite,"
a "Nazi," and a "terrorist," and the occasional
death threat ("I only wish you and your whole family could
have been in the World Trade Center on 9/11" was a particularly
pleasant observation), I also received email from racist whites
who believed that by criticizing his critics I was supporting
Lott's comments. It was simply inconceivable to them that I was
opposed to ALL racism, whether it came from Trent Lott or AIPAC.
That said, I find myself, for the most
part, enjoying Al Franken's confrontations with the right. I
keep in mind, however, Franken's description, in his book "Rush
Limbaugh is a Big, Fat Idiot," of Bill Clinton as the greatest
president of the 20th century. Franken's knee-jerk defense of
Clinton is evident in the transcript of his appearance on the
September 10 edition of "The Flipside" on CNN Financial
News. A caller to the program challenged Franken's assertion
that Bush lied to start a war, whereas Clinton lied about "small
things," supposedly a reference to the Lewinsky scandal.
The caller pointed out that Clinton lied about the production
of chemical weapons agents at a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory.
The cruise-missile bombing of this factory in 1998 led to the
deaths of untold thousands in that impoverished nation, as the
sole source for the production of medicine was eliminated. "I
think that's a little bit more serious a lie than lying about
his sex life," argued the caller.
Franken responded, "OK. Well, that
wasn't a lie. [Clinton] bombed a factory in Sudan. They had soil
samples that had--that showed that this was a factory making
a precursor to weapons of mass destruction. It was--al Qaeda
was in the Sudan. This factory had been financed by al Qaeda.
So you just got to get your facts straight. I mean this is--if
you read 'The Age of Sacred Terror' by Daniel Benjamin and Steve
Simon this is covered, chapter and verse."
Critical observers of the Clinton Administration's
war crimes know well the cruise-missile bombing of the al-Shifa
Pharmaceutical Plant in Sudan in 1998. Franken is correct; the
apologetics for this crime can be found in Benjamin and Simon's
book. The Clinton Administration justified the attack because
a soil sample supposedly taken from the plant had traces of O-ethyl
methylphosphonothioic acid (EMPTA), a chemical precursor to the
production of deadly VX nerve gas. "The Central Intelligence
Agency concluded that there was no other reason, including accident,
for this precursor to be present in the quantities demonstrated
in the soil sample" except for the production of VX, write
Benjamin and Simon (p. 259).
They argue that the Sudanese government
unduly influenced the press. The media "heard charges that
Clinton was a 'war criminal' leveled by Sudanese strongman Omar
Bashir, who had presided over years of fighting in southern Sudan
that claimed hundreds of thousands of lives" (p. 354). Benjamin
and Simon do not mention that, according to a September 21, 1998
front-page New York Times article, "In February 1997, [Bashir]
sent President Clinton a personal letter. It offered, among other
things, to allow United States intelligence, law-enforcement
and counterterrorism personnel to enter the Sudan, and to go
anywhere and see anything, to help stamp out terrorism."
Even if we take Benjamin and Simon at their word that Bashir
is a terrorist-sympathizing mass murderer, and that his accusation
against Clinton is self-serving hypocrisy, that doesn't mean
that the Sudanese strongman is wrong. The authors conclude that
these accusations from Bashir, along with other "contradictory
descriptions of al-Shifa" supposedly caused journalists
to relay "the account presented by [US] government officials
as less than credible" (p. 354).
The implications of this supposedly hypercritical
press were that the Clinton Administration "decided to reveal
some of the supporting intelligence despite strong reservations
about exposing the sources and methods involved" in establishing,
among other things, the connection of Osama bin-Laden to the
ownership of Al-Shifa (p. 354). Unfortunately, though, declare
Benjamin and Simon, "Intelligence is always incomplete,"
and the nebulous connections between bin-Laden and Al-Shifa could
not be firmly established (at least to the satisfaction of the
dogged press), and that the Administration "simply could
not afford to reveal more." (We have to put aside, of course,
the fact that a connection between the pharmaceutical plant and
bin-Laden is irrelevant if the plant were only producing medicine.
Surely bin-Laden, born to a wealthy Saudi family, had connections
to numerous factories and industries, including, most likely,
many mainstream US companies; this does not mean that each of
these enterprises is involved with terrorism.)
Then Benjamin and Simon turn to the "famous
soil sample." They concede that it is impossible to prove
that the sample was not somehow doctored; indeed, "intelligence
operations typically are not and cannot be conducted according
to the standards of judicial proof." But the authors persist:
"[T]he CIA's analysis . . . showed that EMPTA [the VX precursor
alleged to have been found in the soil sample] had no commercial
use anywhere in the world. This conclusion was never refuted;
it was also widely ignored" (p. 355) Here Benjamin and Simon
attempt to shift the burden of proof from those making the justification
for an act of war (i.e., the CIA) to those challenging that justification
(supposedly the press). The fact that a statement is not refuted
does not establish its veracity; only supporting evidence does
that. But since, as Benjamin and Simon concede, "Intelligence
is always incomplete," and "cannot be [gathered] according
to the standards of judicial proof," we must assume they
had little choice but to try and shift responsibility.
An article in the Winter 1999 issue of
Covert Action Quarterly, "Sudan: Diversionary Bombing,"
claims that discovery of EMPTA in the soil sample is problematic
on three counts. First, "the presence of EMPTA at a given
location obviously does not necessarily imply its production
at that location," i.e., al-Shifa could merely have been
one of many storage sites for the precursor. Second, EMPTA, while
a by-product of VX production, is also a by-product of pesticide
production. Third, and perhaps most telling as to the authenticity
of the "soil sample," the article quotes an international
weapons inspector interviewed by the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh:
"[T]he chemical was unlikely to have been found, unaltered,
in the ground, as the CIA had told journalists, for the simple
reason that it is highly reactive and, once in the earth, would
react with other chemicals and begin to break down. . . . Given
EMPTA's reactive nature, . . . the possibility of isolating it
from a sample taken from the soil outside [al] Shifa didn't seem
credible. . . . The only way this material could be in the ground
is if somebody had emptied a flask . . . and then taken a sample.
That's credible."
The authors then try to establish an
Iraqi connection to al-Shifa. "Officials who spoke with
reporters also noted that Iraqi weapons scientists had been linked
to al-Shifa, and that this Iraqi connection was independently
underscored by UN weapons inspectors" (p. 355). Note the
passive voice in the first clause: "had been linked."
By whom, one might ask? Perhaps the "intelligence is always
incomplete" folks at Langley? But as before, let's accept
at face value the conclusion that Iraq weapons scientists were
involved with al-Shifa. Does a "weapons scientist"
in Iraq work solely on weapons research? Given the nexus between
chemical and biological weapons research, and agricultural and
medical research, could they have been researching the production
of medicines and pesticides for the people of Iraq who were victims
of slow-motion genocide under the US/UK led UN sanctions during
the 1990s? Again, though, let's grant that the Iraqis were connected
with al-Shifa for the purpose of developing chemical or biological
weapons. What would this have to do with bin-Laden and al-Qaeda,
fundamentalist Islamists who are the sworn enemy of the secular
Ba'athist regime of Iraq? The reader is reminded here of the
not-so-subtle implications made by Bush Administration officials
attempting to link Iraq to al-Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks. (Though
the Bush Administration has now publicly admitted that there
is no proof of a link between Hussein and 9/11, a wide majority
of Americans believes that there is.) Much like the Bush Administration's
claims in the build-up to the Iraq War, Benjamin and Simon ask
that we simply trust government officials to possess knowledge
that, were it disseminated, it would endanger us, and assume
that the powers that be have our best interests at heart.
And let's assume just that. Let's say
that Clinton had information that, were it revealed, would prove
that chemical precursors were being produced at al-Shifa. Does
this justify an attack on a factory that produced nearly all
the medicine for the impoverished nation of Sudan (as well as
for other nations in the Middle East, including Iraq)? Benjamin
and Simon tell us that one of Clinton's advisors had her doubts:
" Attorney General Janet Reno expressed concern about whether
the strikes were proportional and met the requirements of self-defense
under Article 51 of the UN Charter" (p. 260). Simply put,
"proportionality" is the legal requirement that the
"punishment fit the crime," that the "cure"
not be worse than the "disease." Intrinsic to this
notion is that civilian populations receive special protection
during war. The Geneva Convention forbids attacks "which
may be expected to cause incidental loss of civilian life, injury
to civilians, damage to civilian objects, or a combination thereof,
which would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct
military advantage anticipated."
One might argue that the al-Shifa attack
would be justified because the tragedy of the few civilians who
would be killed around the factory would be offset by the lives
that could be saved by preventing the production of the VX gas
precursor. However, the US would be legally obliged to consider
not only the direct casualties of the bombing, but also the indirect
casualties who would die from the lack of medicine, a number
that is possibly in the tens of thousands, but remains unknown
because no serious investigation has been attempted. Even if
the apologists for the US strike concede that the loss of medicine
most likely led to the deaths of thousands of Sudanese and others
in the region, the attack would still be allowed because this
loss of life would not be "excessive in relation to"
the benefit of preventing a terrorist attack with chemical weapons,
which could arguably kill thousands as well. This, however, will
not satisfy the requirements of the Convention, for the benefit
of an attack must have a "concrete and direct military advantage."
Not only could the presence of chemical weapons precursors not
be established in the case of al-Shifa, but even if we assume
that they were, the destruction of al-Shifa does not meet the
emphatic descriptions of "concrete," "direct"
and "military." The presence of the precursors was
not "concrete"; if the precursors did exist, it seems
reasonable that they could be produced someplace else, so the
advantage of bombing the factory was not "direct";
and, since the precursor allegedly being produced was but one
of several components of VX weapons--when we consider production,
assembly, and delivery--the "military" advantage was
severely limited.
When Al Franken positions himself as
a lonely voice on the left exposing the lies of the right, we
must be very wary of whom we are siding in such confrontations.
I'm glad that Franken takes on the Bush Administration, its policies,
and its lapdogs in the media. However, because I'm glad that
he took on Hitler and won doesn't mean I think Josef Stalin was
a paragon of humanity.
Franken, as well as his fans, need to
be extremely careful of falling into the "enemy of my enemy
is my friend" mentality that can ally good people with the
lesser of two evils. Witness this Fox News-worthy Franken quote
from the August 25 edition of CNN's Crossfire: "I think
the American armed services did a damned good job in Iraq and
a damned good job in Afghanistan, frankly."
Oh, if only it could have been Bill Clinton
leading those immoral attacks.
Tom Gorman
is a writer and activist living in Glendale, California. He welcomes
comments at tgorman222@hotmail.com.
You can join his email list by sending
an email to tgorman222-subscribe@topica.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
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