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Today's
Stories
October
8, 2003
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
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
9, 2003
Inspecting the Obvious
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
By RAMZY BAROUD
A highly distinguished and carefully selected
team of American scientists just concluded a thorough and consequential
mission in Iraq. The declared objective was finding Iraq's arsenals
of weapons of mass destruction. But hidden within such a declaration,
was the hope of unearthing a pretext for a calamitous war on
Iraq that cost billions of dollars and the irreplaceable lives
of thousands.
Shortly after David Kay, who headed the
scientific crusade to Baghdad, briefed the US Senate and House
of Representatives of his findings, or lack thereof, a declassified
version of his report was released. Not only were no weapons
found in Iraq, but the disposed Iraqi government, according to
Kay, had no capacity to produce chemical warfare agents before
the war. So much for the British government scare campaign alleging
Iraq's readiness to launch a global attack using its supposed
weapons within 45 minutes upon order.
But as if the war party's lack of sense
was not enough, the response to Kay's report has displayed a
greater lack of shame. Australia's Prime Minister, John Howard,
responded by saying he had no regrets. "You make judgments
on the basis of the information available at the time you are
required to make those judgments, and the judgment was valid,"
he said, arrogantly and in startling defiance of the facts, and
with no remorse for thousands of Iraqis who perished by the war
allies' weapons, which, ironically were the closest in nature
to the alleged weapons of mass destruction that Iraq did not
even possess.
British Foreign Minister, Jack Straw's
statement appeared as if the man was referring to a completely
different report than that of Kay, saying that the American group's
report "confirms how dangerous and deceitful the (Iraqi)
regime was, and how the military action was indeed both justified
and essential to remove the danger."
US President George Bush, who was struck
by the nightmarish, although imperative findings that most Americans
- 53 percent according to a new CBS News-New York Times poll
- are now doubtful of his Iraq war, too, continued to defy common
sense. "This administration will deal with gathering dangers
where we find them." Although the ambiguity, albeit arrogance
of Bush's words compels no comment, they certainly raise an important
subject. If what genuinely concerns Bush is "gathering dangers"
then why not go after the big guns, who, in fact do possess such
weapons, for example, Israel. Of course, most readers, whether
opponents or proponents of US foreign policy in the Middle East
understand the irony, needless to say, the impossibility of such
a demand. And that is because deep within, most of us are convinced
that the US foreign policy doesn't follow a moral code, rather
an immoral, imperial and self-sustaining ideology only aimed
at rewarding its followers and crudely punishing its antagonists.
Those living outside this immoral dogma
understand that well. One is Nelson Mandela. In an interview
with the American Newsweek magazine back in September, Mandela
raised a seemingly simple concern. He introduced that concern
by stating that Bush's objectives behind the war were motivated
by the President's desire to "please the arms and oil industries
in the United States of America." Then, he added, "but
what we know is that Israel has weapons of mass destruction.
Nobody mentions that."
At the time of Mandela's statement, some
were still functioning based on the premise that Iraq did indeed
have such weapons. Kay just told us in his report that no weapons
were found. But Kay's report, or any other for that matter, leaves
intact the solid and palpable fact that Israel has weapons of
mass destruction.
Israel's possession of such weapons is
so well known a fact, it's dubbed: "the world's most well-known
secret." In a BBC report that was aired twice, first in
March and then again on June, 2003, the show host begins his
communiqué by asking fear-provoking questions: "Which
country in the Middle East has undeclared Nuclear weaponry? ..
Which country in the  Middle
East has no outside inspections? .. Which country jailed its
nuclear whistleblower for 18 years? .." The dramatic introduction
was followed by an enlarged title page: "ISRAEL'S SECRET
WEAPON."
Israel's refusal to approve the Nuclear
Non-Proliferation Treaty, in addition to strong speculations
that Israel owns up to 300 nuclear warheads and the Arab League's
most recent assertion to the International Atomic Energy Agency
that Israel now has the capability of producing a hydrogen bomb,
are all not enough to convince the United States and its war
'coalition' that Iran and Iraq aren't the real 'imminent' danger.
The present hierarchy of power in the
West, the neo-imperialism, of which Israel is an essential part,
seems little concerned with logic and rationale when one of its
members is the wrongdoer. Aside from that, it makes perfect since
for Bush, Blair and Howard to chase after the phantoms of Iraq's
alleged weapons, not leaving an orchard near Baghdad thoroughly
excavated, while Israel amasses a wealth of banned weapons, unscathed.
While the rational response to Israel's
heedlessness is as stern a demand to allow unhindered access
to weapons inspectors and unconditional signing of the NPT, the
exact opposite is taking place. The IAEA is ambushing Iran, who
is a potential war target for the US, demanding "full disclosure"
of its nuclear program. The agency has set October 31 as the
"decisive" and "non-negotiable" deadline.
In the United States, in a mid-September
press conference, White House spokesman Scott McClellan sounded
the drums of war once more when he threatened to hold Syria "accountable"
if it doesn't cease harboring terrorists (or simply giving a
safe haven for anti-Israeli Palestinian factions, who merely
operate politically in Damascus). McClellan's threat 'coincided'
with a more blatant threat by John Bolton, the US under-secretary
of State for Arms and Control and International Security, when
he briefed a Congress Committee regarding Syria, saying, "In
short, if the language of persuasion fails, these states (starting
with Syria) must see and feel the logic of adverse consequences."
Of course, Israel is not one of "these states."
Israel, whose level of comfort in the
United States and its war allies' unconditional patronage is
at an all time high, too, had its own, time-honored method of
responding to nit-picking media reports, like that of the occasionally,
yet not always honest, BBC. Israel officially declared boycotting
the British Broadcasting Company.
The production or use of weapons of mass
destruction should be vehemently rejected, regardless of any
rationalization, no matter how merited they might appear. When
a nuclear bomb is dropped, or when nerve gas is discharge, neither
the identity of the attacker nor the victim should be of essence.
Equally, we should lend no sympathy to whether the pilot dropping
the bomb is a citizen of a democratically elected government
or assigned by a religious cleric. Not one should be allowed
to produce or attain such massive killing agents, not Iran, not
India and certainly not Israel.
One can strongly make the case that if
one or more Middle Eastern countries are indeed pondering the
probabilities of attaining weapons of mass destruction, it is,
in part, because of the fear that its lack of such weapons can
place it on the list of most vulnerable countries. It is not
easy to scold or kick around a country with a fully functioning
nuclear weapons system. The Pakistani response to India's weaponry,
and the North Korean admission to the possession of such weapons
are all cases in point. By granting Israel the right to produce
weapons that can be used for one purpose only, mass killing,
then demanding Iran to cease the mere desire to produce them
is the ultimate hypocrisy.
In the past, much of Israel's actions
were justified on the basis of the racist premise of Israel's
progressiveness and the Arab's backwardness. The right to mass
killing should not be equally justified according to the same
premise, not by any stretch of the imagination, no matter how
racist such an imagination may be.
Ramzy Baroud is
a Palestinian-American journalist and editor-in-chief of The Palestine Chronicle
online newspaper. He is the editor of the anthology: "Searching
Jenin: Eyewitness Accounts of the Israeli Invasion."
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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