Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
August 20, 2003
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
August 19, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen
Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South
Pacific
Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism
Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense
Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna
John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
Recent
Stories
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting
August 12, 2003
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
August
11, 2003
Douglas
Valentine
Homeland Security for Whom?
Mickey
Z.
Bush's Progress
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Meet the New Bitch, Same
as the Old
Elaine
Cassel
Indicting DNA
Dr. Mohammad
Omar Farooq
Civil Liberties and Uncivil Super-Patriotism
Uri
Avnery
Who Will Save Abu Mazen?
Website
of the Day
RIAA Subpoena Clearinghouse
August
9 / 10, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
California's Glorious Recall!
Saul
Landau
Bush and King Henry
Gary
Leupp
On Terrorism, Methodism, "Wahhabism"
and the Censored 9/11 Report
Paul de
Rooij
The Parade of the Body Bags
Michael
Egan
History and the Tragedy of American Diplomacy
Rob Eshelman
A Home of Our Own
Daoud
Kuttab
Life as an ID Card
Philip
Agee
Terror and Civil Society: Instruments of US Policy in Cuba
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Marc Racicot: Bush's Main Man
Walt Brasch
Schwarzenegger, "Hollyweird"
and the Rigtheous Right
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush, Bribery and Berlusconi
Josh Frank
Mean, Mean Howard Dean
Elaine
Cassel
Will the Death Penalty Ever Die?
Sean Carter
Total Recall
Poets'
Basement
Hamod, Engel, Albert
August
8, 2003
John
Chuckman
What the US Says Goes
Roberto
Barreto
Defend the Vieques 12!
Bruce Gagnon
Iraq War Emboldens Bush Space Plans
Elaine
Cassel
The Reign of John Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Snoops Night Out
Website
of the Day
Zero Boy
August
7, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
It the US a "Terrorist Magnet?"
Toni
Solo
Neo-liberal Nicaragua: a New Banana
Republic
Adam Lebowitz
Hiroshima Commemorated: the View from Japan
Hanan
Ashrawi
When the Bully Whines
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Conscience Takes a Holiday
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Lets Slip: Iraq Not Behind 9/11; No Ties to Al-Qaeda
Mike Kimaid
What's the Score?
Elaine
Cassel
The Smell of VICTORY: Ashcroft's Latest Stinkbomb
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
August 6, 2003
Steve
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause: It's Not
Easy Confronting King Coal
David
Krieger
Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Robert
Fisk
The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's War on the National Forests
Elaine
Cassel
No Fly Lists
Stan
Goff
Military Equipment and Pneumonia
Hugh Sansom
An Open Letter to Nicholas Kristof on the Nuking of Japan
August
5, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at
74
Forrest
Hylton
Terrorism and Political Trials: the
View from Bolivia
Ray
McGovern
"We Cook Estimates to Go"
David
Morse
Poindexter's Gambit
Edward
Said
Orientallism: 25 Years Later
George
W. Bush
My Darn Good Resumé
Hammond
Guthrie
It's Incremental, Watson!
Website
of the Day
National Prayer Day
August 4, 2003
Bruce
K. Gagnon
Another Peace Activist Detained by
Airport Cops: My Story
David
Lindorff
Fear-Mongering About Social Security
Mark
Zepezauer
George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody
James
Plummer
Tracking You Through the Mail
Mickey
Z.
Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush
Bruce
Jackson
News that Isn't News: How the NYT's
Pimps for the White House
August
2 / 3, 2003
Tamara
R. Piety
Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down
Francis
Boyle
My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool
David
Vest
Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side
Neve Gordon
Nightlife in Jerusalem
Uri
Avnery
Their Master's Voice:
Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus
Robert
Fisk
Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq
Jerry
Kroth
Israel, Yellowcake and the Media
Noah Leavitt
What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to
Intervene?
Saul
Landau
The Film Industry: Business and Ideology
Ron Jacobs
One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson
Thomas
Croft
In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta
Amadi Ajamu
Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader?
Poets'
Basement
Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming
August
1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Stopping Prison Rape
Alex Coolman
Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing
Prison Rape
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Stan Goff
Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq
Wayne
Madsen
Europe Unplugs from the Matrix
Robert
Fisk
Wolfowitz the Censor
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico
Website
of the Day
Stop Prisoner Rape
July
31, 2003
Ray
McGovern
The Prostitution of Intelligence
Brian
Cloughley
Wolfowitz's Operative Statement
Sheldon
Hull
The RIAA's Jihad:
The Devil's Music (Industry)
Elaine
Cassel
The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys
Sheldon
Rampton
and John Stauber
True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's
Wars
Hammond
Guthrie
Speculation Blues
Website
of the Day
Army of One?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
July
30, 2003
David
Lindorff
Poindexter the Terror Bookie
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About
the Oil
Elaine
Cassel
How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas
in Terror Cases
Zvi
Bar'el
The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War
Lisa Walsh
Thomas
Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend?
Sean
Carter
Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes
ND Jayaprakash
India and Ariel Sharon
Steve
Perry
Bush's Top 40 Lies
Standard
Schaefer
Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing
Website
of the Day
Bring Them Home Now!
Hot Stories
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
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
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
August
20, 2003
Peace is not an Abstract
Idea
Building
Tomorrow's House
By RAMZI KYSIA
Having spent a year in Iraq, I remain continuously
startled by the things I see and feel here. Perhaps I shouldn't
still be surprised by the resilience of these people. Perhaps
I shouldn't still wonder at their ability to absorb incredible
amounts of suffering and go on with their lives. Or marvel at
their determination, in the midst of suffering, to maintain a
spirit of hospitality and generosity--with strangers and within
their common lives--that is unsurpassed in any of my travels.
But I am surprised. I remain in a state of perpetual amazement.
To my shame, I cannot imagine my fellow
Americans being able to cope with even a fraction of what Iraqis
have had to cope with over the last 30 years. How would America
meet brutal dictatorship, 3 terrible wars resulting in the deaths
of hundreds of thousands of human beings, the devastating impoverishment
and isolation of 13 years of sanctions resulting in the deaths
of hundreds of thousands more, military occupation, massive unemployment,
out-of-control crime, and months without electricity or sanitation
in 120+ degree heat? September 11 was only a flirting shadow
of what Iraqis have experienced, and only time--and our active
resistance to the Bush Crusade--will demonstrate if our democracy
can manage to survive its aftermath.
People sometimes ask me how I feel about
our "failure:" the failure of the anti-sanctions movement
over long years of struggle, the failure of the anti-war movement
over short months of protest. But that question is itself a lie.
It can be overwhelming to stare, wide-eyed,
into the crushing weight of a $400 billion-a-year killing machine
fed by fear-mongering politicians, headed by a fool, protected
by a captive media, only existing to protect an entrenched corporate-capitalist
system that is eating our world alive. But if we would wonder
at our inability as yet to fully overcome the death sellers and
fear merchants, let us also wonder at how hard they have to work
to keep their system running.
There is always enough money for war,
and never enough for peace. We are always scrambling to fund
our projects, or--on a larger scale--to fund schools and public
transportation, health care, child care, job training and other
human-centered needs-- while the Pentagon builds all the million-dollar
cruise missiles its black heart desires.
We cry, "O Lord, when will we have
peace?" And the answer is always tomorrow: after this war,
we'll have peace; this killing spree will be the last and then
we'll finally be free to succor the creative energies of all
of God's children, instead of simply killing them off. Today
is always for war, and tomorrow never comes.
Since the end of this most recent war,
the U.S. government has imposed a $20,000 fine on Voices in the
Wilderness for illegally taking medicine and toys to children's
hospitals in Iraq before the war. We will never pay this fine,
and we will never stop resisting violence.
Since the war, Voices has been continuing
our educational work in the U.S., and we've been building a home
in Baghdad. In the U.S., the "Wheels of Justice" bus
tour may soon be coming to an area near you--come out and join
us. Speakers who have been to Iraq, and who can give presentations
against war and violence are available for venues large and small--invite
us to come out and join you.
In Iraq, we're renting a modest place
from which to base our work. We've named it "Beit Al-Bacher"--Iraqi
slang for Tomorrow's House. Here, we're helping a group of young
Iraqis start their own newspaper, called "Al-Muajaha,"
and publicly tell their own stories, in their own words, for
the first time in their lives. We're helping Palestinian families,
made refugees in the aftermath of war, to secure permanent housing.
We're helping Iraqis who've had family members killed by U.S.
forces to seek justice and compensation for their losses. We're
accompanying non-violent Iraqi activists, such as the Union of
the Unemployed, as they struggle for their rights beneath an
indifferent and increasingly violent Occupation that's seemingly
only here to loot the country blind. And we're continuing the
work we did before the war, visiting schools and hospitals and
families, fostering friendships and practicing love--and it needs
practice--which can stand in the wake of violence and killing.
Let us cherish our victories, large and
small, and live our lives informed with the knowledge--proven
true time and again--that the greatest of tyrannies can crumble
in the blink of an eye.
Outspent and out-shouted a-million-to-one
by the killers and their apologists, we persevere. This isn't
testament to some special talents or condition unique to us--peace
workers suffer from, and struggle through, all the same faults
and challenges that all people face. Our victories are testament
to the fact that war and killings, despite being with us from
our birth, are not the natural state of humankind.
Peace work isn't naïve or ineffective--it's
very effective, and it's informed by the spirit of what it truly
means to be human. Its only problem is that not enough people
are doing it.
The war against Iraq brought out the
biggest protests in world history. More than 30 million people
worldwide publicly demonstrated against war, and hundreds of
millions more silently opposed it. But protest isn't enough.
Instead of letting the killing machine disempower and devour
us, we must strike back in peace against the killers.
What might be created if the countless
millions who dream of peace stopped paying their taxes, defunded
and broke the back of the military-industrial complex? What might
be created if millions risked arrest in non-violent civil disobedience,
and broke the back of the prison-industrial complex? What might
be born if we disengaged from our culture of materialism, ignored
the fear merchants, and began to build direct connections with
our brothers and sisters around the globe?
How many Arabs and Muslims do you know
personally? How many Iraqis can you call, "friend?"
Peace is not an abstract idea--it is
a living and tangible reality that takes practice, that must
be practiced, to be real.
Beit Al-Bacher, Tomorrow's House, doesn't
really make sense in Arabic. It's a nonsense phrase. And in helping
to build this house, the one word I've come to truly hate is
"bacher"--tomorrow--because in Iraq "bacher"
is a way of saying that something will never happen.
When will we have electricity? Bacher.
When will we have water? Bacher. When will we have safety, and
peace--an end to a thousand consecutive humiliations and the
million lies that sustain them? When will the killing be done?
Bacher, bacher--we'll practice peace in a tomorrow that never
comes.
And yet, blessings be, there crumbles
the true lie-- for here we are, in the wake of war and killing,
in the midst of continuing violence and pain, living in and building
tomorrow's house.
Ramzi Kysia
is a Muslim-American peace activist and writer who has worked
in Iraq for over a year with Voices
in the Wilderness. Since April 2003, Kysia has been helping
a group of young Iraqis establish their own independent newspaper:
Al-Muajaha, The Iraqi
Witness. Kysia can be reached at: rrkysia@yahoo.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|