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Today's
Stories
December 6 / 7, 2003
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
December 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
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
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
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
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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December
6 / 7, 2003
The Hollow Charter
of the UN
Shredding
the Owner's Manual
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
The Charter of the United Nations is considered
an old-fashioned and inconvenient document by the Bush people
in Washington. Nevertheless it is the nearest thing to an owners'
manual the world possesses because it is We the Peoples of the
World, and not the imperial 'We' of the dominant political party
in one particular country, who have inherited the planet. All
of us have part-ownership of this earth in which we have our
being. And we don't want personal or national freedoms to be
taken from us by a bunch of zealots who insist they know what
is best for all of us.
The major declaration in the UN Charter
is that "We the Peoples of the United Nations [are] determined
to ensure by the acceptance of principles and the institution
of methods that armed force shall not be used, save in the common
interest." That is, the commercial, moral, religious, territorial
or generally bloody-minded ambitions of any one state are not
valid reasons for war on another. They never were, of course,
but it is made clear in Chapter VII of the Charter that if efforts
to encourage "pacific settlement of disputes" (under
Chapter VI) have failed, then "the Security Council . .
. may take such action by air, sea or land forces as may be necessary
to maintain or restore international peace and security."
There is no reference in the Charter to military action against
a country because it might possibly at some future time perhaps
pose a threat to another country. The doctrine of the pre-emptive
strike is not only bizarre but has no legality. "Maintain
or restore" are the watchwords as regards international
peace and stability. There is no mention of 'impose' for the
good reason that powerful states could use such a provision at
their whim or fancy. And of some importance in terms of internationalism
is Article 46 of Chapter VII which lays down that "Plans
for the application of armed force shall be made by the Security
Council with the assistance of the Military Staff Committee."
Bush claims his invasion of Iraq had
a legal basis in UN Security Council Resolution 1441. This is
absurd, because that resolution did not make provision for military
action against Iraq. But even if it had, just where would the
US stand in regard to "plans for the application of armed
force"? If the Bush war had been legal in international
terms, as he claims, then the Security Council and the Military
Staff Committee should have been involved in planning it. In
fact there is an entire Article (47) devoted to procedures, including
precise instructions about responsibilities.
The UN Charter, our Owners' Manual, goes
further in its attempts to protect the interests of We the Peoples
of the United Nations against assaults by imperialist powers
with massive military forces. (Alas largely unsuccessful, when
one remembers the former USSR's forays into Hungary, Czechoslovakia
and Afghanistan and the democratic military operations of the
US against Panama, Sudan, Cuba, Grenada, Haiti and Nicaragua.)
Nevertheless it is agreed by the Charter's
signatories that "All members shall refrain in their international
relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial
integrity or political independence of any state . . ."
What they were trying to ensure was that that powerful states
could never again threaten, bully, invade and crush weak ones
with impunity, as Hitler's Germany did. They might try it on,
but, by golly, they would quickly pay for their military arrogance
because the UN would combine to thump them, as happened in terms
of legal application of international military force when North
Korea invaded the South and Iraq invaded Kuwait.
In 1945 the Charter's originators had
in mind Germany's pre-war ambitions concerning Europe as well
as Japan's invasion of China and many Asia-Pacific countries,
and obviously there were memories of Turkish dominance in the
Middle East. Certainly President Roosevelt was also thinking
of British and French colonialism and how to persuade Paris and
London to give freedom to their subjects. He believed that never
again should there be imperial conquest, and that all peoples
should be free, and thus their nations should be free, too, to
decide their destiny. But of course we are not perfect. Far from
it. Our elected governments make mistakes, horrendous ones at
times, in conducting our affairs; but that is their prerogative,
and if we have domestic problems we would rather sort them out
ourselves than have foreigners order us about.
For a powerful country's ruler to lecture
us, hector us, impose unilateral tariffs on us, bribe us, sanction
us, bomb us, invade us, suborn or bully our governments or otherwise
interfere grossly with our lives is the acme of arrogant militaristic
colonialism. We are, the whole lot of us, from inhabitants of
the most highly developed nations to the poorest citizens of
the most squalid and chaotic failing states, entitled to conduct
our affairs as national entities. We might not do it well, and
of course victims of violence would welcome intervention by UN
forces to help them (the Tutsi-Hutu massacres are a case in point),
but outside influence should be in accordance with the Owners'
Manual. We welcome civilised diplomacy and well-intended advice
but are in imminent danger of having our sovereignty ignored
or even removed at the whim of a regime intent on imposing its
will on the entire world. Arrogance has replaced negotiation,
and the Bush administration does not recognise the courtesy or
importance of compromise.
Afghanistan was host to an evil man who
directed atrocities against the United States. When the Kabul
government failed to take action to bring him to trial the country
was invaded in a military campaign agreed by the UN. This was
perfectly proper, because Osama bin Laden and his followers should
have been detained by the national government and handed over
to international jurisdiction. There is a well-established international
system for administration of justice in such cases. The fact
that Afghanistan is still a barbaric medieval shambles (and the
person responsible for the atrocities appears to be still functioning)
is evidence only that the affair was incompetently handled. But
at least it was legal.
On the other hand, Iraq presented not
the slightest threat to the United States. Not one American citizen
had been killed or even menaced by an Iraqi, other than pilots
of US aircraft that cavorted illegally throughout Iraq's sovereign
airspace for ten years on coat-trailing missions. (And not one
was shot down, which is an interesting aspect of the invasion.
If the Iraqis could not shoot down intruders, how could they
shoot down invaders? All the aircraft lost were downed by US
planes or US missiles.) But the Charter of the UN was flagrantly
violated by the attack on Iraq, and this precedent gravely threatens
internationalism, as it was intended to do.
The UN passes resolutions but these are
ignored by the Bush administration when they are deemed inconvenient.
When the whim or fancy pleases, international treaties can be
'unsigned', as, for example, in the case of the Rome Statute
that established the International Criminal Court.
Article VI of the US Constitution specifies
that "all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the
Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the
land . . ." but naturally did not cater for instances in
which a president might direct abrogation of a treaty. It was
considered by the Founding Fathers that treaties were treaties,
and that if they were entered into by the President and Congress
their decision would have been made for good reasons in domestic
and international terms.
The world has seen dictators reject treaties
entered into by elected representatives whom they have overthrown,
but it is important for us all that treaties signed and ratified
by democratic governments should continue to bind their successors
until such time as they might be modified or ended through civilised
negotiation. There is no point in any country or group of countries
concluding an accord of any sort with the United States if it
is to be unilaterally cancelled (for whatever reason) by the
next administration. But this is what is happening, and many
of us unfortunate foreigners consider treaties with the US to
be entirely one-sided. This point is not made lightly. All we
have is the Owners' Manual, and that Charter is being destroyed
by an imperial president. The world has become a more dangerous
place because of his antics, and We The Peoples of the United
Nations have no alternative but to accept the reality of brute
force, be that military or economic, in his increasingly bizarre
machinations.
Brian Cloughley
writes about defense issues for CounterPunch, the Nation (Pakistan),
the Daily Times of Pakistan and other international publications.
His writings are collected on his website: www.briancloughley.com.
He can be reached at: beecluff@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
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