Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
Recent
Stories
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
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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September
6, 2003
Who Benefits?
Pakistan
"Recognizes" Israel
By M. SHAHID ALAM
In June 2003, Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's self-appointed
President and strongman, was summoned to Washington. He returned
with two errands from President George Bush. Pakistan must recognize
Israel and dispatch its troops to police America's illegal occupation
of Iraq. There was money in it for Pakistani rulers: three billion
dollars over the next five years.
Still in Washington, Musharraf told Pakistani
reporters that he had made no "deal" with the United
States. "Whatever we are doing, we are doing in our national
interest, and fortunately our national interest coincides with
those of the United States, which is the beauty of our relationship."
At the least, one must thank the strongman for his frankness.
Here is his public confession that his government, unreservedly,
accepts the new American contract in the Islamic world. Pakistan
is fighting--and will fight--America's war against terrorism,
which many Muslims see as a cover for America's emasculation
of Islamic societies.
Is there "beauty" in this relationship?
It is a relationship that was cemented within minutes of Colin
Powell's call to the strongman on the night of September 11.
Instantly, Pakistan offered not only its airspace to American
warplanes and missiles; it invited Americans to launch their
invasion of Afghanistan from half a dozen bases within Pakistan.
Soon, American operatives were stationed in Pakistani cities
and making arrests on Pakistani territory. It would be difficult
to come up with another example of a country which surrendered
its sovereignty more precipitously. And the strongman sees "beauty"
in this surrender.
Now the strongman has a new charge from
America's Likudniks. "Recognize the state of Israel,"
they demand. This Israeli state had its origin in a brilliant
conspiracy that leveraged the power of the very peoples who hated
the Jews. The Zionists made a compact with their ancient tormentors:
We will rid you of your Jews if you help us to establish a Jewish
colonial-settler state in Palestine. In addition, the Jewish
state could serve as imperialist Europe's outpost in the Arab
world. Western anti-Semites found the offer irresistible. Britain
first signed the compact in 1917, but when it wavered, the United
States stepped in to establish Israel, and since the mid-1960s
it has been its chief protagonist, softening the Islamic world
for Israeli hegemony with wars and bribes.
In order to establish a lasting hegemony,
Israel demanded unconditional recognition from its Arab neighbors.
The first break-through came in 1978 when Egypt recognized Israel
in return for an annual US payment of two billion dollars. The
second break-through came in 1993, after the end of the Cold
War, when Arafat and his aging cronies bartered the Palestinian's
historic claims to 78 percent of historic Palestine1 for the
right to police Occupied West Bank and Gaza. Most Arab states
would have happily followed suit--and a few did -- but for the
growing Islamist opposition at home.
The American pressure on the Pakistani
junta to recognize Israel could not have come at a worse time.
There are precious few in the Islamic world who believe any of
the lies used to justify America's illegal invasion of Iraq;
they are convinced that this was the action of a Likudnik American
administration acting at the behest of Israel. The grand deception
of a "peace process," inaugurated by the Oslo Accords
in 1993, is now in complete tatters. Israel continues to strengthen
the foundations of an apartheid state, completing the separation
of "unequal races" with a wall that reaches twenty
feet high. Under the circumstances, the US pressure can only
be seen as more evidence of the Israeli tail wagging the American
dog. The United States is pressing an Israeli demand on the Pakistani
junta.
Incredibly, the Pakistani strongman has
the chutzpah to argue the case for recognition. "In my view
if the Palestinians themselves undertake discussions and go for
friendship with Israel then what's the problem with us? What
is our enmity with Israel?" Is the strongman willing to
wait until the Palestinians have made their peace with Israel;
until they have their own sovereign state on a mere 22 percent
of historic Palestine; until the four million Palestinian refugees--ethnically
cleansed in 1948 and 1967--can return to their homes inside Israel?
It is clear that the strongman is in no mood to wait for these
results, or that he has any interest in helping to advance these
results. He must do the bidding of Washington: and he wants to
do it now.
The General asks: "What is our enmity
with Israel?" Has he forgotten that Pakistan is the only
Muslim country to possess nuclear weapons, and although these
weapons are pointed at India, Israel cannot regard Pakistan's
nuclear asset with equanimity, with or without Pakistani recognition
of Israel? As the military chief, Musharraf should know that
the Pakistan military expects and prepares against a pre-emptive
strike on its nuclear facilities from India as well as Israel,
or a coordinated strike by both. India and Israel form a natural
axis against Pakistan: and that is a hard geopolitical reality
that will scarcely be altered by recognition.
Several commentators in Pakistan--with
a naïveté that must be rare for self-proclaimed realists--have
offered a list of advantages which recognition will bring to
Pakistan. The list includes reduced risk of a strike against
Pakistan's nuclear assets, access to Israel's military technology,
and throwing a spanner in Israel's growing special relationship
with India. These realists forget that recognition is a one-time
act, and once accomplished it carries little or no leverage.
What did the Palestinians get from their recognition of
Israel?
On the other hand, let the realists be
warned of some real liabilities that are likely to flow from
recognition. Nearly all Pakistanis will see this as another treasonous
sell-out, a costly concession extracted from their spineless
rulers in exchange for loans that will only deepen Pakistan's
foreign debt; and, this can only strengthen the Islamist cause
that the United States wants to keep at bay. Normal relations
with Israel will improve Israel's intelligence gathering in Pakistan,
making Pakistan's nuclear assets even more vulnerable to an Israeli
or Indian strike. We should not discount the disquiet this will
cause to our Iranian neighbor; this may push them even closer
to India. Finally, the realists--who can scarcely afford to ignore
the probability of some real events--should ask if the recognition
will be allowed to stand, even if the Islamists never manage
to take power in Pakistan. Can Pakistan guarantee that the Israeli
embassy and consulates in Pakistan will not become the target
of violent attacks from Islamic extremists?
There is a reasonable chance, then, that
this American move may backfire. It could backfire because it
ignores--like nearly all the elements of American policy towards
the Muslim countries--the force of Newtonian dynamics. Just because
every action does not have an instant reaction in the world of
social and political dynamics, short-sighted US policy makers
rarely work through the long-term implications of their policy.
If they do, they are convinced they have the cluster bombs to
handle any adverse consequences. For fifty years, American policy
has been building the grass-root forces in the Islamic world
that have now begun to challenge American hegemony in their societies.
It is tragic that as these forces become visible, the United
States responds with more of the same. Perhaps, this is the only
logic that makes sense to an imperialist elite, which has come
to believe in the invincible power of cluster bombs and daisy
cutters.
If Pakistan's rulers had attended to
their country's national interest--and did not imagine that these
interests were best served by doing America's bidding--they would
have responded to US pressures by stating firmly that Pakistan
and Pakistanis do recognize Israel--and they always have
recognized Israel--for what it is.
Pakistanis recognize that Israel is a
colonial-settler state; they recognize that this racist state
was--and is--founded on terror and violence; they recognize that
Israel was founded on the ruined foundations of a living Palestinian
society; they recognize that Israel created a Jewish majority
by ethnically cleansing more than a million Palestinians in 1948
and 1967; they recognize that Israel has a massive arsenal of
nuclear weapons aimed at Islamic capitals; they recognize that
Israel has armed and supported the most reactionary regimes since
its creation, including apartheid South Africa and Idi Amin's
Uganda; they recognize that Israel seeks to deepen its hegemonic
dominance over the Arabs with American men, money and arms.
And yet, even today, I expect and hope
that most Pakistanis would be glad to extend recognition to a
country (by whatever name)--between the River Jordan and the
Mediterranean--if it could grant equal rights to all its peoples,
Jewish and Arab alike, and grant Palestinian refugees the right
of return to return to their homes. But a colonialist, racist,
and hegemonic Israel is another matter. And, if Zengi, Nur al-Din,
Salahuddin and the Egyptian Mamluks refused to recognize the
Crusader states, can Muslims today be expected to choose differently?
M. Shahid Alam
is professor of economics at Northeastern University and a contributor
to The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. His last book, Poverty from
the Wealth of Nations, was published by Palgrave in 2000.
He may be reached at m.alam@neu.edu.
Visit his webpage at http://msalam.net.
© M. Shahid Alam
Weekend
Edition Features for August 30 / Sept. 1, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
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