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Today's
Stories
January 12, 2004
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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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January
12, 2004
A Fox Called Lion
Syria's
Peace Proposal
By URI AVNERY
You really can't rely on these Arabs.
Take this fellow, Qaddafi. For decades
he played the clown. The whole world laughed at him (except when
he downed a French plane in Chad and the Pan-Am jet over
Lockerbie.) His Libya was a "rogue state", an international
pariah. He was working on Weapons of Mass Destruction. The Americans
hated him, and from time to time bombed him, killing his daughter
on one such occasions.
You could rely on good old Qaddafi. He
supplied us with an alibi for producing all kinds of interesting
weapons. Everybody understood that with such people around, Israel
needs the doomsday weapon, and that it's useless to talk about
peace.
And then, suddenly...
Suddenly Qaddafi becomes the darling
of the world. Look at him, in his Bedouin robes: a serious man,
a sober and pragmatic statesman. Pays a fortune to the families
of the victims in the planes he has downed. Invites the Americans
along to see for themselves how he destroys his stock of WMD.
Flatters President Bush. Makes advances to Israel. Tomorrow--God
forbid!--he may invite Bush to mediate between himself and his
dear colleague, Ariel Sharon.
If Bush starts to pamper Qaddafi, he
will coddle Sharon less. He might get the idea that Israel, too,
get rid of its Weapons of Mass Destruction. Perish the thought!
Or take Iran. Well, they aren't really
Arabs, but they are Muslims, and all Muslims are the same, aren't
they? Anti-Semites. Israel-haters. Plotting to destroy us.
One used to be able to rely on Iran.
There is always somebody there shouting "Death to America!
Death to Israel!" They are trying to produce nuclear bombs.
They vow to bury the Great Satan together with the Small Satan
(us). True, we did sell them some arms, quite quietly, with American
blessing (see: Irangate), but that doesn't count. President Bush
even included them in his "Axis of Evil". We were hoping
that after the occupation of Iraq, the Americans would de al
with them. Between Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran sits like an almond
between the jaws of a nutcracker.
And then, suddenly...
Suddenly Iran is dripping honey. They
thank the Americans for the generous assistance sent to the victims
of the big earthquake. They invite international inspectors to
check their nuclear installations.
And the Americans--who can believe it?--let
themselves be seduced. They emit conciliatory noises. And there
are already some people who expect us to behave like Libya and
Iran, to open our nuclear installations to inspection. Perish
the thought!
But all this is nothing compared to Syria.
If there was one Arab nation you could
rely on without reservation it was the Syrians. Born Israel-haters.
Tough. Uncompromising. Stockpiling chemical and biological weapons.
True, they respect the cease-fire line with Israel, but they
use the Hizbollah against us instead. And they play host to the
headquarters of the militant Palestinian organizations in Damascus.
The Bush administration has officially
labeled Syria a terrorist state. It has targeted them. Our friends
in the Pentagon, Wolfowitz and the other Neo-Zionists, promised
us that Syria would be the next candidate for an American invasion,
right after Iraq. Our good friends, the Turks, were also to join
in the party. After all, they have had an ongoing quarrel with
Syria since the late 1930s, when the French (who controlled Syria
at the time) gave them the Syrian Alexandretta region. And this
conflict deepened even more when Syria began supporting the Kurdish
revolt in Turkey and demanded a bigger share of the Euphrates
water.
And now, suddenly...
Suddenly this youngster, Bashar, changes
direction overnight. Suddenly al-Assad ("the Lion")
turns into al-Taleb ("the Fox"). Says he wants peace.
Wants to help the Americans. Invites Israel to renew negotiations.
Visits Turkey and forges an alliance with them against Kurdish
independence in northern Iraq.
That is dangerous. Terribly dangerous.
The American might pressure us to make peace with Syria and give
the Golan back to them. True, up to now, the Americans have reacted
coolly to the Syrian overtures, but that may change. As the American
elections draw nearer, and Bush's adversaries increasingly paint
the Iraq war as one big fiasco, Bush will be keen to demonstrate
that the war was actually an enormous success. To wit: It has
created a New Middle East (alas, without Shimon Peres). The wicked
states, Iran, Syria and Libya, have forsaken their bad old ways
and are basking in the Pax Americana. All the Weapons of Mass
Destruction in the region have been abolished, except for Israel's.
No wonder the Sharon government is in
a dilemma. They are doing what they can to foil this plot. They
publish Qaddafi's overtures, so as to embarrass him into denying
them. They reject Assad's peace stratagem. "Don't run and
jump!" Sharon admonished his ministers this week, commanding
them not to get excited about it. Assad is not serious. He only
wants to suck up to the Americans. He wants to use us in order
to reach Bush. For him, Israel is only "a stair of the White
House", as Sharon put it.
Defeatists might say: let's seize the
opportunity. Assad is weak? Assad is afraid? Assad want to appease
the Americans? All the better, that is the opportunity to make
peace. What have we got to lose? If Assad is serious, we can
put an end to our conflict with a dangerous enemy. And if he
isn't, we will unmask him.
(The same defeatists proposed in 1972,
too, that we should accept the peace offers sent by Anwar Sadat
via the UN emissary, Gunnar Jaring. But Israel had a tough leader,
Golda Meir, who rejected them "out of hand". True,
this led to the Yom-Kippur war and the deaths of some 2000 young
Israelis, not to mention the tens of thousands of Egyptians and
Syrians, but it certainly screwed the defeatists.)
Sharon will not accept the Syrian proposal,
because that might lead to peace. And peace with the Syrians
would mean the return of the Golan and the dismantling of all
the settlements there. That would be awful. It would also be
a dangerous precedent for the Palestinians.
Bashar Assad, the fox in lion's clothing,
wants to renew the negotiations at the point where they were
broken off by Ehud Barak. At the time, Barak just managed to
save himself from the threat of peace in the nick of time. Assad
Sr. would accept nothing less than regaining the shores of Lake
Tiberias (the June 4, 1967 line) instead of staying ten meters
short of it (the 1949 line). Barak couldn't stand the idea of
Assad dipping his long feet in the waters of this lake. Now Assad
Jr. is hinting that he is prepared to forgo the pleasure. He
can dip his long feet somewhere else. Perhaps in the waters of
the Euphrates.
Sharon will not repeat the mistake of
Barak, who barely extricated himself by the skin of his teeth.
He will not start negotiations at all. And indeed, if Assad is
weak, why negotiate with him?
Catch 23: If the Arabs are strong, you
can't make peace with them. You have to defeat them. And if the
Arabs are weak, there is no need to make peace with them. Why
offer them anything?
Catch 24: If the Arabs say they want
war, you have to believe them. But if the Arabs say they want
peace, they are clearly lying. And how can you make peace with
liars?
Uri Avnery
is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He
is one of the writers featured in The
Other Israel: Voices of Dissent and Refusal. He is also
a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. He can be reached at: avnery@counterpunch.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
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