Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
August 20, 2003
Robert Fisk
Now No
One Is Safe in Iraq
Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?
Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark
Ramzi Kysia
Peace
is not an Abstract Idea
Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway
John L. Hess
A Downside Day
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake
Up Call"
Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype
Recent
Stories
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!
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
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
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
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.
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August
21, 2003
Sergio Vieira de Mello
Victim
of Terror or US Foreign Policy?
By MARJORIE COHN
But for George W. Bush's illegal and misguided
war on Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights, would be alive today. Mr. de Mello
devoted most of his life to the U.N.'s mission to protect human
rights and achieve international peace and security. He served
in some of the toughest trouble spots in the world, including
Lebanon, East Timor, Yugoslavia, Peru, Bangladesh, Cyprus, Sudan,
Cambodia and Mozambique.
Sergio Vieira de Mello went to Iraq at
the request of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan for a four-month
humanitarian commitment. One month short of his return to Geneva,
Mr. de Mello was buried alive in rubble from a suicide truck
bomber who targeted the United Nations in Baghdad.
Ignoring the pleas of millions of people
around the world and most of the United Nations members, Bush
had persisted in his march to war. Contrary to Bush's assertions,
Saddam Hussein never posed an imminent threat to the United States.
Until Bush unleashed "almost biblical" firepower on
Iraq, al Qaeda was not operating there. Yet since the U.S./U.K.
became the occupying power, Iraq has become fertile ground for
outside jihadis.
Many Saudi Arabian Islamists have crossed
the border into Iraq to prepare for a holy war against the U.S./U.K.
forces, according to The Financial Times. The Arab satellite
television channel al-Arabiya broadcast a statement purportedly
from al Qaeda, which urged Muslims around the world to travel
to Iraq to fight the U.S. occupation, and claimed that recent
attacks on U.S. forces had been carried out by jihadis.
The blast that killed Mr. de Mello and
19 others, and wounded more than 100 in the U.N. compound in
Baghdad Tuesday, was likely the handiwork of the same forces
that bombed the Jordanian embassy in Baghdad 12 days before,
killing 11 people. Osama bin Laden has long decried the United
States' role in the first Gulf War, the punishing sanctions against
the people of Iraq, and the United Nations for "supporting
the oppressive, tyrannical and arrogant America [in Afghanistan]
against those oppressed who have emerged from a ferocious war
at the hands of the Soviet Union."
In the twisted minds of the terrorists
who likely executed the worst attack on a U.N. civilian operation
in its 58-year history, the United States and the United Nations
are linked. Yet Bush's new doctrine of "preemptive war"
is a clear violation of the U.N. Charter. And in spite of intense
pressure by Bush, including threats and bribes, the members of
the Security Council refused to hand him a resolution sanctioning
his war on Iraq. Bush accused the United Nations of becoming
"irrelevant."
When he was sent to Baghdad, it was Sergio
de Mello's dream "to assist the Iraqi people and those responsible
for the administration of this land to achieve freedom, the
possibility of managing their own destiny and determining their
own future." He empathized with the Iraqi people who resented
the foreign occupiers. "It is traumatic," he said.
"It must be one of the most humiliating periods in their
history. Who would like to see their country occupied?"
He wanted "to make sure that the interests of the Iraqi
people come first" as they rebuild their country.
Sergio de Mello's death is an unspeakable
tragedy for the cause of world peace. "I can think of no
one we could less afford to spare," observed Kofi Annan.
And Salim Lone, Mr. de Mello's spokesman in Baghdad, said, "He
was a wonderful guy. He was the U.N. in a way." Mr. Lone
added, "I grieve most of all for the people of Iraq because
he was really the man who could have helped bring about an end
to the occupation. An end to the trauma the people of Iraq have
suffered for so long."
We must emerge from this tragedy by redoubling
our support for the United Nations. As Iraqis, Americans, and
many from other countries continue to die in Iraq, Bush must
relinquish control of Iraq to the United Nations. It is the arrogance
of occupation that creates roiling hatred against the occupier.
Mr. de Mello was confident that Iraqis distinguished between
the U.N. and the foreign occupiers. The end of the occupation
would empower the people of Iraq to take control of their own
destiny. Then Sergio Vieira de Mello will not have died in vain.
Marjorie Cohn,
a professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego,
is executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild.
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
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