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Today's
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January 3 / 4, 2004
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
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
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Weekend
Edition
January 3 / 4, 2004
"Shock and Awe!"
Failing
to Respond to 9/11
By WILLIAM A. COOK
Writers and pundits exercise a hallowed tradition
in January, they ruminate on the past year's exploits and offer
resolutions for the coming year. As we consider the horrific
failures done in our name by this administration this past year
and contemplate the impending election year, reviews and resolutions
become ominous declarations for needed actions based on principles
that can "change things and relations," as Henry Thoreau
put it. Thirteen months ago, December 23rd, 2002, almost three
months before Bush introduced the world to "shock and awe,"
I wrote an article for Counterpunch, "US
vs Iraq the Tale of the Tape: the Road to Basra and Back,"
contrasting the combatants in a vain effort to demonstrate the
consequences of the impending slaughter threatened by the Neo-cons
as they deceitfully offered the UNSC a second resolution seeking
its blessing on their invasion of a sovereign nation that posed
no threat to the US. Let's begin our review at this point.
Cheney, Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice,
Wolfowitz and all the members of the Neo-con Cabal that rule
in this administration sold the American people on the impending
threat Iraq posed for the security of the US because it possessed
WMD, biological and chemical weapons, and supported the 9/11
terrorists. None of these allegations were true; we knew this
to be so then and we know it to be true now. Yet they took America
to war. Now, as American soldiers die daily in Iraq, as Iraqi
civilians die daily in Iraq, as the number of terrorists increases
daily in Iraq and around the globe, we must ask how this administration
has made America more secure following the 9/11 attacks. By linking
Iraq to 9/11, the Neo-cons duped Americans into believing that
their invasion of that nation continued the administration's
"war against terror" thus insuring greater security
for the United States. It did the opposite. Even the President
has told us that Iraq is the new center of terrorism in the world.
He created it.
But the deception that brought us to
this state blanketed a reality that the American people knew
nothing about, but a reality that was well-known to this administration.
Let me quote a paragraph from that December 2002 article: "Before
and during the brief war (the 1991 Gulf War), the US flew more
than 116,000 air sorties losing 75 aircraft. Iraq on the other
hand lost 36 fixed wing aircraft, 6 helicopters, 87 aircraft
lost on the ground, 3,700 tanks, 2,400 assorted armored vehicles,
19 naval ships sunk, 42 divisions made combat-ineffective, and
2,600 artillery pieces destroyed.... Since the Iraqi forces consisted,
at the time, of 4,280 tanks reduced to 471, and 3,110 artillery
pieces reduced to 510, the available hardware for this upcoming
war (the present war against Iraq) appears rather thin.... However
one looks at it, Iraq has about 10-15% of its former ordinance
to hurl against the current US forces, almost 90% of its ordinance
having been destroyed." Add to this accounting the fact
that America's sanctions since the Gulf War prevented Iraq from
rebuilding its infrastructure that was destroyed as well and
it's obvious that the second Iraq war was a "turkey shoot"
for the American military. For the administration to present
Iraq as a threat to the US, given the reality of its devastated
military forces and its current population that consists of more
than 50% under the age of 15, is more than deception of the American
people, it is pure barbaric inhumanity that cost the lives of
approximately 9,000 innocent civilians (IBC), three times the
number of Americans lost on 9/11. Americans are not a bloodthirsty
people; if they had known the hoax perpetrated upon them by the
administration and the resulting slaughter and devastation wrought
as a consequence, they would be shocked indeed, and, no doubt,
stand in awe of the gall that pulses through the veins of those
who speak for this administration. What does Bush have to show
for his "revenge against the perpetrators of 9/11"
but a reverse "turkey shoot" where American boys pop
up like targets before the disaffected, the deprived, and the
deranged. He created it.
The Bush misadventure in Iraq caused
America to lose track of its true purpose following 9/11: what
caused that catastrophe and how can further atrocities of like
kind be prevented? Consider Bush's sole explanation for the atrocity
of 9/11: "They hate our freedoms." Who are the "they"?
What "freedoms" do they hate? "Why do they "hate"?
We have no answers but the ubiquitous "al Quaeda."
But who are the al Quaeda? Where are they? How many are there?
How do we know they caused 9/11? What evidence exists that they
are responsible? Did their leader, Osama bin Laden, direct the
attack? How do we know? What freedoms do they hate? Freedom of
speech? Have they not proven to the world that they can speak
their mind whenever they wish? Freedom of movement? Have they
not freely moved throughout the world? Freedom of assembly? Do
they not meet when and where they desire, in whatever country
they desire? Freedom of religion? Have they not practiced their
religion wherever they assemble, in whatever country they live?
How then do they hate our freedoms? Is the answer so simple that
they desire to prevent Americans from having the freedoms they
enjoy so readily? What does that accomplish but to prevent them
from freely moving within the United States as they become victims
of their own ends?
Consider further the actual events of
9/11. Nineteen men, according to the FBI, hijacked four commercial
airliners, crashed two of them into the North and South towers
of the Twin Trade Center in NYC, one into the Pentagon, and a
fourth, destined for an unknown target, destroyed in a field
in Pennsylvania. Why did these nineteen men undertake such a
suicidal mission? What mentality would allow a person to guide
an airliner, including innocent passengers, into a tower knowing
full well the ineluctable carnage that would ensue? Did they
anticipate the collapse of the towers? Did they know that thousands
would perish or did they expect that only a couple hundred would
die on the floors hit by the plane? Were they connected to the
six Israelis who filmed the planes striking the towers as they
danced on top of a van in a Jersey parking lot? Can they be traced
directly to Osama bin Laden and hence to the Royal family in
Saudi Arabia? If so, why were the family members allowed to leave
the US the day after 9/11 on the only aircraft permitted to fly
through the US air space? Why, if fifteen of the nineteen came
from Saudi Arabia, did the US attack Afghanistan before it determined
any connections to 9/11 of the Saudi state? So many unanswered
questions; so much havoc and devastation as answer to the unknown.
Now consider what the man accused of
these atrocities has actually offered as reasons for attacking
America. In his letter to America, November 24, 2002, Osama provided
three categories of concerns that propel people to "hate"
America: 50 years of oppression in Palestine, US support of Arab
and non-Arab countries that bow before American power thereby
suppressing and humiliating their own people and/or capitulating
to American interests that exploit their people and their natural
resources, and the need for Americans to submit to his understanding
of the Quran since he "cannot fail." Now ask if this
administration ever considered addressing these issues?
Indeed, instead of addressing 50 years
of oppression in Palestine, this administration initially disengaged
itself from the conflict there (although it continued its monetary
and military support) until Sharon's savagery became so blatant
the world community forced it to reconsider. Reconsideration
amounted to mimicking Sharon's condemnation of Arafat as irrelevant,
an action bound to ingratiate America to the Arab world! The
administration followed that action by acquiescing to Sharon's
increased building of the settlements, illegal assassination
of individuals without arrest or trial, continued terrorist attacks
of innocent civilians from F-16s and helicopters in overcrowded
ghettos, destruction of homes without provision for the people
so displaced, murder of international dissidents like Rachel
Corrie, and construction of a "Berlin" wall around
the indigenous population the better to ensure an almost total
theft of Palestinian land. This cynical reaction to just demands
made by Palestinians and Arabs over decades against the occupying
forces of Israel guarantees the continuation of terrorism against
America and its interests at home and around the world. Bush's
shame-faced cow-towing to Sharon's demands, including his willingness
to invade Iraq on behalf of Israel and his obsequious acceptance
of Sharon's commands that he curtail US engagement with Syria,
only infuriates those snubbed and degraded. His more than cynical
demand to the UN that it force Iraq to abide by resolutions directed
against it by the Security Council when no mention is made of
resolutions directed at Israel over 50 years, all defied by that
state, mocks the very demand being made even as it makes obvious
the administration's bias against an Arab state.
Add to Osama's condemnation of Palestinians
by Jews (with America's 3 billion per year fiscal support) the
invasion by the US of Iraq and its continued occupation of that
country, and it's graphically clear to all in the Arab world
that the US intends to control all of the mid-east and its natural
resources. Consider as well the US military's use of Israeli
forces as consultants (Julian Borger, The Guardian, 12/9/03)
to fight the indigenous population in Iraq - the surrounding
of towns with barbed wire, the check points and ID cards, the
searches, breaking in of homes with dogs, and the assassination
of individuals "suspected" of acts against the US -
and the hatred grows deeper as America is seen as an Israeli-type
occupier with no concern for Iraqis as individuals, but as "terrorists"
that must be hunted down like dogs. Israel becomes a US puppet
regime operating in the area secured by American military might
controlled by a predominantly Jewish Neo-con Cabal that has a
decided conflict of interest in its policies toward the mid-east.
Nothing could be more corrosive to America's security than this
Cabal's desire to yoke America's mid-east policy to that of the
Sharon regime. This failure to address the primary causes of
the 9/11 attacks ensures the continuation of terrorist acts against
the US. To use an appropriate Bush analogy, strike one against
the administration.
Now consider Osama's second issue, America's
control of other nation states, especially Arab nations like
Saudi Arabia and Egypt, and its infliction of Capitalism across
the globe as a minority of wealthy industrialists exploit and
humiliate populations in the under-developed nations. What has
this administration done to address this issue? Nothing! Indeed,
once again, the administration has supported the oppressing powers
- the trans-nationals that impose their bottom-line efficiency
on exploited people in Mexico, the Carribean Islands, Malaysia,
Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Bangladesh, and China, the corporate
agreements that steal local control from the people like NAFTA,
GATT, the IMF and WTO - demonstrating no awareness of the consequences
of the disparity of income, the joblessness, the hazardous working
conditions, the poverty wages, the unsanitary conditions, the
overcrowded housing, the debt burden on the populations. Add
to this America's control of the oil in Iraq, its control of
gas pipe lines in Afghanistan, its desire to rehabilitate the
oil lines through Iraq and Jordan to Israel, its control of the
government in Saudi Arabia through its control of the House of
Saud, its control of Jordan, Egypt, Berain, Qatar through its
infusion of wealth to those who serve its interests, and one
can understand how Osama gathers to his cause the disaffected
and deprived.
Roger Altman put it succinctly when he
cited the dichotomy that exists between the "haves"
and the "have nots": " ... half of the world's
population is increasingly threatened with economic oblivion.
... That is dangerous for world stability, and we should not
resign ourselves to it." What happens if the West does not
address a redistribution of wealth and the utilization of the
world's resources? "The Fourth World, the least developed
parts of Africa and Asia, will become even more fertile territory
for brutality, state sponsored terrorism and mass tragedy."
Strike two for the administration!
Now we turn to Osama's last concern,
the need for America to accept his interpretation of the Quran.
No one would suggest that Bush should accept his interpretation,
but to ignore the implications of this demand is to court doom.
We have seen its demented spirit as the Twin Towers slid into
oblivion. Yet no one in this administration has addressed this
issue; no one has called together the principal religious figures
of the various faiths to condemn the fanatical interpretations
that propel these movements, the Islamic Jihadists, the Christian
Zionists, the Jewish Zionists, any and all who abuse religious
teachings, the purpose of which is to bring people together,
not to slaughter them. And, yes, it must be the fanatics of the
Christian and Jewish right as well as the fanatics of the Islamic
faith. All are guilty of inciting to riot, of support of terrorism,
of manipulation and control of beliefs that foster devastation.
For Tele-evangelists to harangue their congregations by condemning
Osama and his cohorts for believing that Allah has demanded obedience
to Him and destruction of those opposed to His teaching is no
different from the Christian right exhorting their masses to
heed the word of the only true God, Jesus Christ, who commands
allegiance in the Book of Revelation and condemns to Hell all
who oppose His inevitable rule following Armageddon. The Christian
right's support of the Jewish settlements to the tune of millions
of dollars screams to the Islamic world the truth of the Islamic
fanatics that they are at war with enemies who would destroy
Islam.
This administration must condemn the
Christian Zionists, break allegiance with the Likud Party and
the right-wing Israeli Zionist parties that support it, bring
together religious leaders from across the globe seeking from
them their active commitment to stem the influence of these fanatical
sects as a primary responsibility of their positions, and declare
their serious support for separation of church and state with
tolerance of all religions as a fundamental right. Only then
will the preaching of the fanatics be quelled and the lie given
to those who claim the martyr rises before the Almighty's throne
bringing him immediate gratification in eternal life even as
he receives the adulation of those in his congregation as one
committed to god's revelations. Unless and until this administration
addresses this issue and makes moot the belief that certain clerics
can read the "word of god," the havoc of 9/11, the
firing of terrorist missiles into masses of civilians by a state
driven by fanatics, and the "Christianizing" of the
mid-east will ensure continued decades of terrorism against America
and its Capitalistic interests at home and around the world.
By doing nothing, this administration has struck out!
What resolution can be offered in light
of this review of our administration's failures to address the
primary issues that caused 9/11? Only one: remove it from power,
by impeachment preferably, by ballot if required. One can only
hope that a year from now, when reflecting on what our government
has done in our name, the review will be of a different administration,
one concerned with America's role within the community of nations,
not concerned, as this administration is, with ruling the world
community.
William Cook
is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern
California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was just published by
Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 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
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