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Today's
Stories
November 29 / 30, 2003
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
November 13, 2003
Jack McCarthy
Veterans
for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade
Adam Keller
Report
on the Ben Artzi Verdict
Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time
Vijay Prashad
Confronting
the Evangelical Imperialists
November 12, 2003
Elaine Cassel
The
Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?
Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited
Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo
Jonathan Cook
Facility
1391: Israel's Guantanamo
Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home
Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike
John Chuckman
Forty
Years of Lies
Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency
Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left
Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops
November 11, 2003
David Lindorff
Bush's
War on Veterans
Stan Goff
Honoring
Real Vets; Remembering Real War
Earnest McBride
"His
Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched?
Derek Seidman
Imperialism
Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff
David Krieger
Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide
Sen. Ernest Hollings
My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War
Dan Bacher
The Invisible Man Resigns
Kam Zarrabi
Hypocrisy at the Top
John Eskow
Born on Veteran's Day
Website of the Day
Left Hook
November 10, 2003
Robert Fisk
Looney
Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East
Elaine Cassel
Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar
Laws Across Globe
James Brooks
Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss
Thom Rutledge
The Lost Gospel of Rummy
Stew Albert
Call Him Al
Gary Leupp
"They
Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals
November 8/9, 2003
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism
as Racist Ideology
Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence
for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered
Saul Landau
The
Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz
Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police
William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?
David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War
Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens
Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring
Hollow
Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"
Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?
Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum
Disorder
Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy
Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post
Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet
Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder
November 7, 2003
Nelson Valdes
Latin
America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance
David Vest
Surely
It Can't Get Any Worse?
Chris Floyd
An Inspector
Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment
William S. Lind
Indicators:
Where This War is Headed
Elaine Cassel
FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You"
Maria Tomchick
When Public Transit Gets Privatized
Uri Avnery
Israeli
Roulette
November 6, 2003
Ron Jacobs
With
a Peace Like This...
Conn Hallinan
Rumsfeld's
New Model Army
Maher Arar
This
is What They Did to Me
Elaine Cassel
A Bad
Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar
Neve Gordon
Captives
Behind Sharon's Wall
Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime
November 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Just
a Match Away:
Fire Sale in So Cal
Dave Lindorff
A Draft in the Forecast?
Robert Jensen
How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List
Joanne Mariner
Prisons as Mental Institutions
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Centaurs
from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections
Josh Frank
Silencing "the Reagans"
Website of the Day
Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid
to Ask
November 4, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing
Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word?
Ray McGovern
Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam
Woodruff / Wypijewski
Debating
the New Unity Partnership
Karyn Strickler
When
Opponents of Abortion Dream
Norman Solomon
The
Steady Theft of Our Time
Tariq Ali
Resistance
and Independence in Iraq
November 3, 2003
Patrick Cockburn
The
Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah
Dave Lindorff
Philly's
Buggy Election
Janine Pommy Vega
Sarajevo Hands 2003
Bernie Dwyer
An
Interview with Chomsky on Cuba
November 1 / 2,
2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality
Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver
Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"
John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines
William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit
Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes
Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred
Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos
Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle
Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action
Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon
Strickler / Hermach
Liar, Liar Forests on Fire
David Vest
Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him
Famous
Adam Engel
America, What It Is
Dr. Susan Block
Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Albert & Guthrie
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
October 31, 2003
Lee Ballinger
Making
a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs
Wayne Madsen
The
GOP's Racist Trifecta
Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"
Elaine Cassel
Coming
to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)
Linda Heard
An Arab View of Masonry
October 30, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Popular
Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia
Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military
Families
Dave Lindorff
Big
Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"
Philip Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of
Israel
Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak
Robert Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?
Alexander Cockburn
Paul
Krugman: Part of the Problem
October 29, 2003
Chris Floyd
Thieves
Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton
Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans
Rick Giombetti
Let
Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy
The Intelligence Squad
Dark
Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors
as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists
Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October 28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
Chris White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October 27,
2003
William A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October 25 / 26,
2003
Robert Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets' Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October 24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
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.
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Weekend
Edition
November 29 / 30, 2003
Don't Think Twice
Bush
Does Bali
By BEN TERRALL
George W. Bush's late October visit to Indonesia
was heavy on the superficial, upbeat sloganeering that characterizes
his Administration's explanations of U.S. foreign policy. For
this trip, the line seemed to be "message: we don't hate
Muslims." Bush explained that in his brief travels in Southeast
Asia he wanted "to make sure that people who are suspicious
of our country finally understand our motivation is pure."
Given this stated goal of placating testy
Islamic sensibilities, it's ironic that Bush (or Karl Rove) chose
to limit the three hours in Indonesia to a stopover on Bali,
the one island in the archipelago that is overwhelmingly Hindu.
But then in the rush to commemorate the anniversary of the 2002
Bali bombings which killed more than 200 people, mostly Australians,
perhaps there just wasn't enough time to take such details into
consideration. As a senior White House official told the New
York Times regarding Bush's lack of insight into widespread Indonesian
disgust for his foreign policy, "when you are moving at
warp speed, there isn't a lot of time to think about what you
are hearing."
Warp speed surely precluded seeing protestors'
banners, which read "hang Bush, he is a terrorist"
along the road to the ocean front resort photo op. Bush apparently
also didn't have time for a briefing on Congressional support
for "re-engagement" with the Indonesian military: in
an interview with Indonesian TV before departing for his whirlwind
tour of Asia, Bush claimed, "Congress has changed their
attitude" about support for the Indonesian Armed Forces
"because of the cooperation of the government on the killings
of two U.S. citizens."
This was news to Patsy Spier, a feisty
Colorado resident who has been working virtually non-stop to
keep military aid from flowing to Jakarta since surviving the
August 2002 attack Bush referred to with characteristic brevity.
Spier, who worked with her husband at an international school
run by mining giant Freeport-McMoRan Copper and Gold, was driving
on a road in West Papua controlled by the Indonesian military
(TNI) when men firing at least three types of automatic weapons
which are standard issue for the TNI opened fire, killing three
teachers, one Indonesian and two (including Spier's husband)
from the U.S. The Sydney Morning Herald later reported that "United
States intelligence agencies have intercepted messages between
Indonesian army commanders indicating that they were involved"
in the attack.
Since 1996, Freeport has paid the TNI
$35 million, in part to "secure" West Papua against
pro-independence fighters. Ed McWilliams, political counselor
for the U.S. Embassy in Jakarta from 1996 to 1999 and now a human
rights activist who works closely with the East Timor Action
Network (www.etan.org) and is on the board of the Indonesia Human
Rights Network, notes, "the Indonesian military has relied
on and profited hugely from their relationship with Freeport.
But TNI theft of heavy equipment and gold and copper concentrate
grew to a level that suggested senior military involvement in
the systematic larceny. This created major tensions with Freeport."
Representatives Joel Hefley (R-CO) and
Tom Tancredo (R-CO) recently sent a letter to all 100 members
of the Senate detailing their reasons for successfully advancing
an amendment to limit the officer training program IMET (International
Military Education and Training) for Indonesia in the House version
of the Foreign Operations Appropriations bill. In it, they noted,
"the two senior Indonesian police officers who uncovered
evidence of the army's involvement have been transferred to new
posts, and the investigation has now been handed over to a joint
military police team. Not surprisingly, the Indonesian military
has exonerated itself. American investigative teams, including
the FBI, have not been able to complete their investigations
due mainly to the Indonesian military's refusal to cooperate
and its tampering of evidence. The evasions and obstructions
of the Indonesian military are wholly unacceptable, and it is
incumbent upon this Congress to see that a thorough investigation
is conducted."
As Ed McWilliams points out, "the
attack that killed Patsy's husband, another American and an Indonesian
is unusual only insofar as its victims were foreigners. Amnesty
International, Human Rights Watch and the State Department's
annual country human rights reports have recorded decades of
Indonesian military assaults against Papuans. During the spring
and summer there was a military crackdown in Papua's central
highlands, where the military drove thousands of villagers into
the jungle. Papuan clergy and human rights activists working
to provide humanitarian assistance to victims of famine and to
document extra-judicial killings and torture have routinely been
targeted by the military. Government restrictions on access to
the afflicted regions, have effectively limited coverage of the
crackdownswhile we constantly read stories about the threat of
fundamentalist terrorism in Indonesia, the reality of military
terror is barely discussed."
Nor has their been much coverage of the
environmental and human devastation wreaked by Freeport and other
Western corporations in Indonesia. As Bush breezed through Bali,
the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) issued a press
statement calling for an investigation of an October 9 landslide
at Freeport's Grasberg gold and copper mine that killed eight
workers. Walhi charged Freeport with operating beyond the carrying
capacity of the environment and pointed to the company's complicity
in the killings of "thousands" of others. The Indonesian
weekly Tempo ran the story, quoting a native Papuan who pointed
to the thousands of acres of land contaminated by Freeport tailings
and lamented, "people who used to live off products from
the rivers and forests now can no longer do so," but the
Western press was disinterested.
Relentless lobbying by the East Timor
Action Network also led to inclusion of provisions limiting IMET
in the Senate's version of the Foreign Operations Appropriations
bill. "Many past Congressional conditions, including accountability
for rights violations in East Timor and Indonesia and transparency
in the military budget, have never been met," said Karen
Orenstein, the organization's Washington coordinator. "
A massive military assault is now being perpetrated against the
people of Aceh--replete with extra-judicial executions, torture,
rape and displacement--utilizing U.S.-supplied weapons."
George W. Bush told the Indonesian press
that "it's very important not to let a splinter group of
murderers determine Indonesia's (direction)... we do not want
Indonesia determined by a small group of hate-filled people (sic)."
Unfortunately, he was not referring to the coterie of generals
who hold sway over President Megawati Sukarnoputri.
One of the most influential of those
generals is chief security minister Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,
who met with Deputy Secretary of Defense and former ambassador
to Jakarta (under Ronald Reagan) Paul Wolfowitz in late September.
Yudhoyono spelled out why he is a favorite of the Bush Administration
while visiting New York, where he told an audience of institutional
investors and representatives of large mining and energy companies
that "my role is to create an environment that is more conducive
to business. Indonesia must continue to foster tolerance, harmony,
and security in its regions."
In Aceh, the resource-rich region of
Northern Sumatra where the military maintains a mutually beneficial
relationship with ExxonMobil and has been waging a war on pro-independence
guerrillas for more than two decades, that pursuit of "security"
led to the recent extension of martial law. And though Bush conceded
that the war there "ought to be solved through peaceful
negotiations" he has said nothing about the high command
in Aceh consisting of state killers who have not been forced
to answer for crimes they oversaw during the 1999 destruction
of East Timor.
Despite Wolfowitz's claim that "exposure
of Indonesian officers to U.S. [military personnel] has been
a way to promote reform efforts in the military," since
the mass slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Indonesians that
brought the former dictator Suharto to power in 1965-66, U.S.
executive policy has always condoned military atrocities in the
archipelago. As Ed McWilliams points out, "For over three
decades, the U.S. and Indonesian militaries were extremely close
and we saw no move to reformthe TNI's worst abuses took place
when we were most engaged."
In Aceh the Washington influence took
a perverse new twist this year as the TNI "embedded"
reporters with its troops in imitation of the Bush Administration's
Iraq war tactic. The TNI also launched an "invasion"
(troops were actually already present en masse in the region)
of paratroopers jumping from U.S.-made C-130 transport planes
for the benefit of conveniently placed news cameras. And in what
could have been a nod to Fox News, Maj. Gen. Endang Suwarya,
the military commanders in the region, announced, "I want
all news published to contain the spirit of nationalism. Put
the interests of the unitary state of Indonesia first."
While Bush intoned, "Americans hold
a deep respect for the Islamic faith, which is professed by a
growing number of my own citizens," few observers expect
Indonesian public opinion to be swayed by his disingenuous lecture.
Three years ago, 75% of those Indonesians surveyed by the Pew
Charitable Trust looked favorably upon the U.S.; this year that
figure dropped to 15%. And though Bush also claimed, "we
know that Islam is fully compatible with liberty and tolerance
and progress because we see the proof in your country and in
our own," it has been widely reported that Franklin Graham,
who blessed Bush's inauguration and quadrupled the number of
missionaries in occupied Iraq, called Islam a "very evil,
wicked religion."
Further Christian right nonsense has
been spouted by special forces veteran Lt. General William G.
Boykin, recently named by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
to a new position as deputy undersecretary of Defense for intelligence
(where he will be in charge of tracking down Bin Laden, Hussein,
Mullah Omar and other big name "evildoers"). Boykin
explained that Islamists resent the U.S. "because we're
a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are
Judeo-Christian and the enemy is a guy called Satan," and
bragged that he defeated a Muslim warlord in Somalia because
"I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my
God was a real God and his was an idol." Rumsfeld later
told reporters that "it doesn't look like any rules were
broken" by these statements.
In addition to popular disgust with the
Iraq war (which Megawati called in an "act of aggression
which is in contravention of international law"), most Indonesians
are repelled by Bush's lockstep support for rightist Israeli
policies in occupied Palestine. As the Jakarta Post, a moderate
paper read mostly by expatriates and local elites, editorialized,
"how can the U.S. preach to the world about justice when
it permits Israel's efforts to subjugate the Palestinians by
whatever means it deems fit to continue?"
After meeting with Islamic leaders in
Bali (along with the last minute addition of Christian and Hindu
figureheads, included after the country's most popular TV Muslim
preacher refused to attend), Bush told reporters on Air Force
One that "they said the United States' policy is tilted
toward Israel, and I said our policy is tilted toward peace."
But as the Jakarta Post wrote of Bush's
"reiteration of his stance on Islam and his high regard
for Indonesia," [what Indonesians] "want to see from
the president is concrete action to back up what he says, not
just lip service and empty statements."
Ben Terrall
is a San Francisco-based writer and activist who co-edits the
journal Indonesia Alert!
(www.indonesiaalert.org); he can be reached at bterrall@igc.org
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
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