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May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
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
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May
24, 2003
The US is not a Neutral Party
The Road to
Nowhere
By WILLIAM A. COOK
As Colin Powell shuttles from place to place and
person to person around the mid-east, as he qualifies more and
more the details and purpose of the touted roadmap to peace in
Israel and Palestine, as he runs into ruts and berms, snubbing
and insults, it becomes obvious that the roadmap is flawed, the
touted peace a mirage, and its true purpose a rouse to make evident
the need for total military control of the area.
The cartographer's craft exists to provide
a clear rendering of a geographic area that enables users to
find their way. A roadmap makes movement from one point to another
obvious; it removes uncertainty, avoids obstacles to progress,
and identifies the final goal. The roadmap Colin Powell carries
in his pocket, coffee stained, wrinkled and torn, does none of
these things. No end goal is identified; no obstacle is avoided;
no certainty exists. It unfolds a road to nowhere.
The Bush roadmap makes two things very
clear (and it makes this clear to Arab and European countries
if not to the US): solving the crisis in Palestine must take
priority over all other foreign policy matters, and all attempts
to solve the crisis through the current Israeli government and
the Palestinian Authority are doomed to failure.
The current crisis in Palestine exists
because of events that transpired in 1947 and prior to that date
leading to the partitioning of Palestine by UN Resolution and
the failure of the British Mandate. One could argue that the
crisis can be traced to the political Zionist movement created
in 1897, an effort to design and implement a Jewish State in
all of Palestine, South Lebanon and the Golan Heights. To affect
this goal an ethnic cleansing would have to be undertaken. The
first serious effort to achieve that goal happened in 1947/8
when more than 700,000 Palestinians had to flee their homes;
that group and their descendants, now numbering over a million,
have yet to return.
For Arabs, this Palestinian Diaspora
and the subsequent homelessness for the people for over fifty
years, the lopsided financial and military support of the United
States for Israel, averaging (according to Richard Curtiss in
"Washington Reports on Middle East Affairs") approximately
$23,240.00 dollars per American taxpayer each year, the invasion
of Afghanistan and Iraq, the storage of US military hardware
in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the American armed forces presence
in these Arab countries, the presence of Sharon who is remembered
for his  massacre
of the inhabitants of Kibbya in 1953 and subsequent atrocities
against Arabs, and the threats implicit in the "New American
Century Project Report" and "The National Security
Strategy Policy Report" of September 2002, both of which
contain implied invasions of Syria and Iran and the forceful
removal of Hamas and Hizballah from Palestine and Lebanon, the
potential control of the mid-east, through the domination of
US forces and Israeli presence, is inevitable and ultimately
destructive of their existence.
The European community of nations, observing
this same scenario, sees the control of energy sources that will
fuel their economy in the future under the jurisdiction of America
and Israel. That threatens not only their independence economically,
but puts the dollar and the euro on a collision course. The disequilibria
created by the American presence in the mid-east and the aggressive
nature of the Sharon government towards Syria and Iran as that
government, through its Ambassador Daniel Ayalon in Washington
last month, asserts the need for regime change in these countries
because they are a threat to Israel, causes Europeans to find
the resulting uncertainty unacceptable to their future interests.
Add to this the Asian perspective that sees the American and
Israeli dominance in the mid-east a threat to their hegemony
and future growth, and the need to immediately address the Israeli/Palestinian
crisis is evident.
But the roadmap calls for Israel and
the Palestinian Authority to work out the solution despite the
reality that Israel distrusts the Europeans and the Palestinians
distrust the Americans. The roadmap avoids all reference to the
causes of the conflict and thereby avoids solving them; in that
reality lie its deception and its demise. Consider the causes:
55% of the land occupied by an indigenous population of Arabs
for over a thousand years given by an external organization,
the UN through a non-binding General Assembly Resolution, to
a predominantly immigrant group belonging to the same religion
and, purportedly descendents of Abraham, without the acceptance
of that resolution by the indigenous population; the forceful
eviction by fear or arms of more than 700,000 of that population
in 1947/8 making them refugees in other lands; the non-payment
of recompense to those so deposed or acknowledgement of their
rights of return which are guaranteed by the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights and Resolution 194; and the forceful occupation
of all but 22% of the indigenous population land area after the
1967 war and the confinement of the majority of the population
into two areas, the West Bank and Gaza, where they must live
under the occupation of the Israeli military.
If these are the reasons why the roadmap
is doomed to fail from the perspective of the Palestinians, and
these reasons do not include the devastation and havoc that has
been the hallmark of these last two years of invasion and occupation
by the Sharon government, then the recent remarks by Benyamin
Elon, a minister in Ariel Sharon's government, speaking in Washington
and reported in the New York Times May 18, arguing that
Palestinians must be convinced that the proper place for a Palestinian
State is in Jordan and that all of Palestine properly belongs
to the Jews because they were given the land by God, should make
clear that Israel has no intentions of abiding by the roadmap.
Considering that Sharon's current government hinges on two religious
parties that proclaim openly their refusal to permit the existence
of a Palestinian State, and it does not take a genius to understand
that this is not the government that can bring peace to Palestine.
It should be evident that peace cannot
come through the roadmap or through the control of the process
by the Bush administration or through the cooperative efforts
of Sharon and a shill appointed for the Palestinian Authority
acceptable to Sharon.
The recent spurt of terrorist activity
in Israel, Morocco, Chechnya, and Iraq suggests not only the
resurrection of an active Al-Qaeda but the intensification of
the forces allied against the touted roadmap for peace fabricated
by a coalition of outsiders that have no ostensible authority
to hobble together a plan for those under the boot of an occupying
force or the occupiers. Putting aside the mythological rationale
that has emerged from the Christian and Jewish Zionists that
grants all of Judea and Samaria to the Jews through a covenant
with Yahweh, the reality of the current Jewish State is a creation
of the United Nations in consort with the United States principally,
and, politically through Harry Truman who could count on Jewish
votes but had no expectation of Palestinian ones. In short, it
is the UN's responsibility to address the crisis; it is not the
responsibility of the United States or Russia or Europe.
On what basis can this be done? We have
the precedent: nation states that defy UN resolutions must be
brought before the UNSC to account for their defiance. An action
proposed and acted upon by the US. Both Israel and Palestine,
through UN recognition of the Palestinian Authority, have defied
UN resolutions, many of them, including the most recent passed
50-1 in April of this year, and more than the number defied by
Iraq. Indeed, many of the UNSC and UNGA resolutions call upon
Israel to return to the pre-1967 borders and for the Palestinians
to recognize the rights of Israelis. Many of these resolutions
require that both sides accept the Human Rights provisions of
the Geneva Accords that they have flaunted for many years. Many
condemn the incessant mass killings of innocent civilians by
both sides.
In short, the proper authority and the
appropriate process already exist to bring this crisis to a halt.
The introduction of UN forces between the antagonists would be
the first step. It would remove the US as the dominant but flawed
power because it is aligned with one of the antagonists and seen,
by Palestinians and Arabs alike, as an enemy of the other. It
would remove both competing powers, the Sharon government and
the administration of Arafat, from futile attempts to determine
who goes first, who determines when violence has ceased, who
ratifies that step one has been completed and its time to move
on to step two, and what compromises need to be cobbled together
to create an impossible peace.
The Sharon government has adamantly refused
to let the UN become involved. One can understand why: Sharon
has no desire or intent to return any of the land taken by Israel
in the '67 war; indeed, it would seem from the remarks made by
Elon that Israel's intent is to take all the lands identified
by the Bible as belonging to the Jews, and, hence extra judicial
and "accidental" killings of innocent Palestinians
will continue indefinitely. Israel, for example, continues its
aggressive pace against the Palestinians, especially in its demolition
program that has displaced more than 12,737 people since September
of 2000 while the killing rate has increased to 2350. Recognizing
the political power that the Christian Zionists hold over the
Bush administration and their alignment with the Jewish Zionists,
the probability that the Bush administration could force the
divestment of these lands or stop the military occupation and
slaughter of the Palestinians is beyond credibility.
Conversely, any expectation that Hamas
or Hizballah will relinquish their embedded desires to reclaim
the lands of their forefathers and, consequently, force the removal
of the Israeli State, is equally remote. The continued harassment
and wanton slaughter of innocent Israeli citizens will continue
indefinitely. The struggle seen from the eyes of the Palestinian
fanatic turns on the same spit as that which drives the fanatical
right in Israel, a righteous and violent interpretation of their
respective scriptures. Mustapha Mohammed quotes the Qur'an 5:82,
"You will surely find that the people with the most hatred
and enmity toward the believers are the Jews and the Polytheists"
And he goes on to say, "Don't you realize what Allah is
telling you? Don't you realize that our struggle against the
Zionist is a struggle of religious identity?" Here is a
call to arms to aid the helpless brothers and sisters and children
"buried under the rubble of their demolished homes with
American weapons." How can an "Authority" stop
this insane drive to destruction?
If the primary causes of this prolonged
and agonizing crisis are to be addressed, the nations of the
world through the UN must step in and assert control. This effort
must begin with all the nations of the world in the General Assembly,
then to France and China with the support of the EU and the Arab
states in the Security Council. The United States must be removed
from the process as a principal because it lacks credibility
as a disinterested party. Additionally, the United States is
currently under the control of a few men who have hijacked its
democracy. They seek nothing less than universal control of the
world that will be governed according to the dictates of this
"cabal." They have no desire to bring an end to their
"age of endless war." The means to accomplish this
goal resides in "The National Security Strategy Policy Report,"
the guiding foreign policy document of the Bush administration.
Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority, acting on behalf of
the Palestinian people, must also be removed as parties responsible
for bringing about a solution because both have defied UN resolutions
and both have and continue to demonstrate no desire to relinquish
their destructive ends toward each other.
Only the principal power that brought
the crisis to a head, then subsequently removed itself from engagement
in the area, can alleviate the causes that have devastated so
many lives and threaten the continued destruction of many more.
Only the UN is in a position to bring stability to this area
of the world and bring the "peace that passeth understanding"
to those who worship the one god who, in their mythical stories,
gives meaning to this land. Only the UN can prevent the powerful
and divisive special interests from selfishly devastating a land
so vital to all nations and to all peoples.
William Cook
is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern
California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was just published by
Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
Today's
Features
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
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