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Today's
Stories
October
7, 2003
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
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.
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October
7, 2003
Israel's Bush-Backed
Attack on Syria:
Who's
on the "Wrong Side of History"?
By GARY LEUPP
"What I said to [Syrian President
Bashar al-Assad] very clearly is that there are things we believe
he should do if he wants a better relationship with the United
States, if he wants to play a helpful role in solving the crisis
in the region. So if President Assad chooses not to respond,
if he chooses to dissemble, if he chooses to find excuses, then
he will find that he is on the wrong side of history."
Secretary of State Colin Powell, following
a visit to Syria, reporting on his talks with Syrian leader,
and his side of history, to the press in Jerusalem, May 11.
Five months after Powell laid down the law to
Bashar al-Assad, Ariel Sharon struck at Syria, targeting (as
he explains it) a terrorist training facility for members
of Islamic Jihad in retaliation for the bombing of a restaurant
in the Israeli town of Haifa that killed 19. Islamic Jihad says
the camp was not in use; Syria says the attack was on a civilian
area. In any case, the Israeli action (like the restaurant attack)
has been pretty much universally condemned. The German Chancellor
says it "cannot be accepted." Britain agrees it is
"unacceptable." "The Israeli operation... constituted
an unacceptable violation of international law and sovereignty
rules," declares the French Foreign Ministry. The Spanish
UN Ambassador Inocencio Arias calls it an attack of "extreme
gravity" and "a clear violation of international law."
But Washington responds to the Israeli attack on Syria by blaming
the targeted nation: "Syria," declares U.S. UN Ambassador
John Negroponte, "is on the wrong side in the war
on terrorism." (This,
despite all Syria's help in the war against al-Qaeda.) President
Bush says that on Sunday he
spoke with Ariel Sharon, and "made it very clear to
the prime minister that... Israel's got a right to defend herself,
[and] Israel must not feel constrained in terms of defending
the homeland."
(Notice how, although burdened with a
muddled brain, Bush is always announcing how he's made things
clear. I'm trying to imagine what comment by Sharon occasioned
this particular pontifical clarification. Did the butcher of
Sabra and Shatilla, smitten by self-doubt, ask Dubya over the
phone, "Mr. President, do you really think I was
right to conduct an air strike against Syria, the first time
Israel's done this in 30 years?" And did Dubya, who in his
historical-revisionist mind knows that President Sharon
is a "man
of peace," in his sweetest pastoral manner reply, "Gentle
Ariel, let me be clear: you have the right to defend yourself
by bombing Syria"? And what's with this "in terms of
defending the homeland" bit? Not "your homeland,"
but the homeland, as though the U.S.A. homeland and the
Israeli homeland are one?)
Bushite acceptance of the unacceptable
is not surprising. Syria, long vilified by the neocons in charge
of the White House, was bound to come under either U.S. or proxy
attack. Paul
Wolfowitz and Richard Perle are determined to bring down the
Baathist regime. In July, Undersecretary of State John Bolton,
who wants to expand the "Axis of Evil" to include Syria,
and who has a
history of making asinine accusations about Third World countries
designed to justify preemptive U.S. attacks, was supposed to
tell members of a House of Representatives International Relations
subcommittee that "Syria's
development of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons had progressed
to such a point that they posed a threat to stability in the
region." The CIA, by that time professionally embarrassed
by the egregious sewing of disinformation by the neocons in pursuit
of their endless war, submitted over 35 pages of objections to
Bolton's proposed testimony, so Bolton's appearance was postponed.
But he presented his revised condemnatory report September 16.
That report, which still depicted Syria as a grave threat (and
likely the recipient of some of those missing Iraqi WMPs), was
leaked in advance to New York Times veteran disinformation
specialist and War
Party groupie stooge Judith Miller. The Vilify Syria Propaganda
Machine is now in full swing.
For months the Syrians have been accused
by Washington of "allowing" "Arab" and "foreign"
volunteers to cross the Syria-Iraq border to assist Iraqis fighting
back against the foreign occupation. As though there were something
wrong about that in principle, and as though a poor weak regime
could, even if it really wanted to cooperate with a hostile occupation
regime next door, better police its 400 mile border with Iraq
than California can police its 150 mile border with Mexico. Anyway
it's clear the neocons want regime
change in Syria , not so much because of the above-mentioned
reasons, but because Damascus supports Hizbollah and Hamas, neither
of which attack the U.S. outside their own turf, or have any
appreciable ties with al-Qaeda, but who oppose Israeli occupation
of Lebanese and Palestinian territory.
The neocons are weakened by the fiasco
they've created in Iraq and Afghanistan, and may take a body
blow (and greater mainstream media scrutiny) if
Lewis "Scooter" Libby falls due to the "Plame
Affair". But they may still desperately attempt Syrian
regime change while still in power. (Never mind that Powell has
said the U.S. won't attack. Never mind that former Secretary
of State Lawrence
Eagleburger has stated Bush should be impeached if he attacks
Syria. Or that Former Secretary of State James Baker agrees
with Eagleburger. The neocons are hot to trot to remake
the Middle East. They are prone to recklessness, and if they
sense some resistance to their agenda in Washington, they
might well try to coordinate
with their close partners---in the regime which just attacked
Syria---to keep the ball rolling.
Colin Powell (not a neocon, but their
sometimes reluctant spokesman) told Syria's President Assad in
May that Syria would be "on the wrong side of history"
unless he took action against Palestinian militant groups in
Syria, and prevented volunteers from crossing the 400 mile-long
Syria-Iraq border to assist the Iraqi resistance to occupation.
Being "on the right side of history," you see,
means being on the side of those whose roadmap for peace simply
requires Arab governments, like the one in Damascus, to ally
with the U.S., recognize Israel, collaborate in the suppression
of Palestinian militancy, close down Palestinian news media,
accept a noncontiguous Palestinian Bantustan state, acknowledge
the demographic inconvenience to Israel of the Palestinian right
to return, absorb the Palestinian refugee population at their
own expense, eliminate any weapons of mass destruction which
might threaten nuclear Israel, actively suppress elements of
Islam objectionable to Israel and the U.S., and accept the U.S.
occupation of Iraq. It would be helpful, too, if they fully open
their markets, place their banks, industries and utilities under
foreign control, and host U.S. military bases. That's how to
board the historical bandwagon and help implement inevitability.
But getting real As an historian, I'm
always leery about politicians' statements about History with
a capital H. They are just soHegelian. The German philosopher
Georg Hegel believed that the Absolute Idea (something like "God,"
only without a personality, evolving over time, unloading into
human events) constituted the historical process; that is, History
is a thing outside of what you and I do. It has its own logic,
which you can side with (to help supersede what's gone before---to
be part of progress) or oppose (and thus be historically
irrelevant, as the Bushites, when they don't need it, sometimes
paint the UN). But the far more brilliant Karl Marx disagreed:
"History," he wrote, "does nothing, possesses
no enormous wealth, fights no battles. It is rather man, the
real, living man, who does everything, possesses, fights. It
is not History, as if she were a person apart, who uses
men as a means to work out her purposes, but history itself is
nothing but the activity of men pursuing their purposes."
History is merely the movement of people through time, and time,
like space, has no "sides" you can be on, whether to
advance or impede it.
The Bush administration is pursuing its
own historical purposes, insisting in doing so that it is fulfilling God's will. Top administration
officials believe they're implementing an inevitable, predetermined
historical course, foretold by the Old Testament prophets and
the Book of Revelation. Not that their curious historicism is
specifically religious in the narrow sense. The neocons include
Francis Fukuyama, who in fine Hegelian fashion has declared "the
end of history" with the putative triumph of western political
institutions and (more importantly) capitalism over the colossal
20th century challenge of Marxist socialism. These people wield
their imagined capital-H History like a club, and integrate "history"
into their gibberish to smugly announce the end of what is in
fact an ongoing fight between ongoing cross-purposes.
Syria on the wrong side? Who's
on the right side of this bogus History? History as such
chooses no side. People, responding to the conditions
of their lives, do that, in certain predictable patterns. "Lives
there who loves his pain?" wrote Milton, in the wake of
the English Revolution. "Who would not, finding way, break
loose from Hell, though thither doomed?" He puts the words
in the mouth of Satan, and there can be great evil in the acts
of the oppressed breaking loose as well as the oppressor. But
that doesn't mean that the former challenge any valid van of
rightful progress.
As Marx writes in Capital, referring
to the struggle over wage levels between employers and employees:
"There is here, therefore, an antinomy, right against right,
both equally bearing the seal of the law of exchanges. Between
equal rights force decides." So far imperialist force has
imposed imperialist right in the Middle East and most everywhere.
But it's not over until it's over, and the news out of Iraq (and
some other parts of the world) isn't good for the Bushites, who
will soon (pardon the expression) be history.
Gary Leupp
is a professor of History at Tufts University and coordinator
of the Asian Studies Program.
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 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
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