Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 10, 2003
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
Recent
Stories
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
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
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
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.
|
September
10, 2003
The
General Who Would Be President
Was
Wesley Clark Also Unprepared for the Post-War Bloodbath?
By ZOLTAN GROSSMAN
In his apparent quest for the Democratic Presidential
nomination, General Wesley Clark rightly criticizes President
Bush for waging a "pre-emptive" invasion of Iraq, and
in particular for being "unprepared" for the post-invasion
occupation of the country. Some Democrats are being drawn to
the former NATO Supreme Commander as an authoritative voice against
the Iraq debacle, and a "pragmatic" alternative to
the disastrous Bush Presidency.
Yet these Democrats apparently have short
memories. It was only four years ago that General Clark waged
a war against Yugoslavia that had similarly shaky motives and
spiraling postwar consequences. Clark has whitewashed the 1999
Kosovo intervention as a "humanitarian" campaign to
rescue Kosovar Albanians from Serbian "ethnic cleansing,"
even though it actually helped fuel the forced explusions. The
General credits NATO bombing of Serbian cities for bringing about
the fall of Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic, even though
Serbian democrats loudly objected that it undermined and delayed
their ultimate victory. Clark claims that the postwar NATO occupation
brought "peace" to Kosovo, but he was clearly unprepared
for the violent "ethnic cleansing" that took place
on his watch, largely facilitated by his decisions, under the
noses of his troops.
First, the NATO intervention made a bad
situation worse in Kosovo. The nasty civil war between Milosevic's
Serbian nationalist government and the Kosovo Liberation Army
(KLA) militia in the Albanian-majority province had heated up
in 1998-99. About 2,000 people had been killed, including civilians
on both sides. Voices within the Clinton Administration clamored
not only for "punishing" Milosevic, but for (pre-emptively)
ejecting Serbian forces from Kosovo to prevent him from carrying
out ethnic cleansing. Under Western pressure, Milosevic offered
to withdraw from Kosovo, but the peace talks broke down.
Hours after the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia
began on March 24, 1999, the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaign
began, expelling hundreds of thousands of Albanians, and creating
an enormous refugee crisis. CIA director George Tenet had predicted
in February that a NATO "stick in the nest" could provoke
just such ethnic cleansing. Accused of being "unprepared,"
General Clark defended the war as "coercive diplomacy,"
saying "This is the way the NATO leaders wanted it."
The bombing was not in response to the ethnic explusions, but
gave Milosevic the excuse and justification for them. The Kosovo
disaster was a self-fulfilling prophecy, much like President
Bush invading Iraq to eject phantom "terrorists," and
in the process creating a new cause and battleground for them.
Second, the NATO bombing alienated Serbian
civilians who had led the opposition to Milosevic. Cities that
had voted heavily against Milosevic were among those targeted
with bombing. U.S. jets dropped cluster bombs on a crowded marketplace
in Nis. Civilian infrastructure, such as trains, busses, bridges,
TV stations, civilian factories, hospitals and power plants,
were repeatedly hit by NATO bombs. Depleted Uranium munitions
left behind radioactive dust around targets, and bombed chemical
plants released clouds of poisonous smoke. Estimates of civilian
deaths in the bombing range from 500 to 2,000, with the Washington
Post estimating 1,600 (a tally is at <www.counterpunch.org/dead.html>
) These civilian casualties are largely forgotten by those who
feel that bombs dropped by a Democratic president are somehow
more noble than those dropped by a Republican president.
The Serbian democratic opposition strongly
condemned the bombing as undermining and delaying their efforts
to oust President Milosevic, and as strengthening his police
state. It was not the NATO bombing but Serbs' largely nonviolent
revolution that overthrew Milosevic in October 2000, and replaced
him with democratic leader Vojislav Kostunica, who had opposed
NATO's war. In much the same way, many Iraqis who hated Saddam
Hussein have criticized U.S. betrayals and sanctions--under both
Bush and Clinton administrations--for strengthening Saddam's
hand. Many of these same Sunnis and Shi'ites repressed by Saddam
are today calling for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq, in order
to regain their sovereignty.
Third, as NATO troops occupied Kosovo
in June 1999, Albanian nationalists unleashed their own program
of ethnic cleansing. They attacked and expelled not only thousands
of Serbs from communities that had survived in Kosovo for centuries,
but also Roma (Gypsies), Turks, Jews, and any other non-Albanians.
The Western media defined these attacks as "revenge"
or "retaliation" for Serbian ethnic cleansing. But
the KLA militia, like its right-wing nationalist counterparts
in Bosnia, had long had the goal of an ethnically pure state.
Instead of cracking down on the KLA fighters, NATO invited them
to join its new Kosovo Protection Corps police force. In the
months after the NATO occupation began, Kosovo became far more
ethnically "pure" than Milosevic had ever made it,
with the percentage of ethnic minorities lower than ever in its
history. Amnesty International observed that General Clark's
NATO was "unprepared for the massive abuses of human rights"
under the postwar occupation.
Most U.S. media reviews of the wars in
former Yugoslavia describe U.S. and NATO interventions as well-intentioned
efforts to halt "ethnic cleansing." Yet the perception
in the Balkan region is far different. The U.S. never dropped
a single bomb to stop Croatian forces from ethnic cleansing of
Serbs or Bosnian Muslims (in fact, U.S. bombing backed up Croatian
forces hours before they forcibly expelled Serbs from Croatia
in 1995). The memory of NATO in former Yugoslavia is not of a
neutral "peacekeeper," but of a military that took
sides with Croatian and Albanian ethnic cleansers against Serbian
ethnic cleansers. Postwar agreements (with Clark's involvement)
merely rubberstamped the de facto ethnic partitions of Bosnia
and Kosovo that had long been sought by their nationalist militias.
Like in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S.
interventions in ex-Yugoslavia left behind a new cluster of U.S.
military bases, including the sprawling Camp Bondsteel in U.S.
Sector Kosovo. Together, this string of permanent U.S. bases
stretching from Hungary to Pakistan is creating a new U.S. "sphere
of influence" in the strtegic region between the European
Union and East Asia. General Clark was surely aware that the
U.S. presence in Kosovo would not be temporary, and uses the
prospect of ethnic instability to justify it, much as President
Bush does to justify a long-term presence in Iraq. Earlier this
year, as one of the slew of cable news "armchair generals"
coldly assessed the advance of the Iraq invasion, Clark never
challenged the underlying premise that the U.S. military should
oust Saddam, rather than the Iraqi people, or that the U.S. should
have a permanent presence in the Gulf region.
The 1999 Kosovo War had similar origins
and outcomes as the 2003 Iraq War. In the 2004 election, do we
face the hideous prospect of voting for one flawed war over another?
Far from posing a "pragmatic" alternative to President
Bush, Clark's ascendancy would be a failure for the peace movement
that has made such advances in community organizing over the
past year. In order not to alienate the large segment of the
electorate energized by the movement, Democrats are well advised
not to nominate a leader with blood on his hands.
Dr. Zoltan Grossman is an Assistant Professor of Geography at the
University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire. His peace writings can
be seen at www.uwec.edu/grossmzc/peace.html
and he can be reached at zoltan@igc.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
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