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Today's
Stories
March 30, 2004
Bill Christison
The 9/11 Commission: Dangerous
Harbringer for the Future
March 29, 2004
John Maxwell
Crisis
in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold
J. Michael Springmann
Email
Spying & Attorney Client Privilege
Robert Fisk / Severin
Carrell
Coalition
of the Mercenaries
The Black Commentator
Haiti's Troika of Terror
Doug Giebel
Candide in the Wilderness:
How Bush Policy Was Made
David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Bargain
Mike Whitney
Rejecting the Language of Terrorism
Richard Oxman
The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American
Family
Kim Scipes
The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again
Michael Donnelly
End Game for Northwest Forests
Norman Solomon
The Media Politics of 9/11
Kathy Kelly
Last Lines Before Vanishing
Website of the Day
Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A
Journey to Rafah
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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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March
29, 2004
Hate Mail Over an Assassination
"Justice
Cannot Be For One Side Alone, But Must Be for Both"
By RON JACOBS
My email box is full of hate messages again.
It usually happens to anyone who writes an article that opposes
the Israeli occupation of the Territories and the consequent
oppression of the Palestinians. If the piece written actually
considers a member of Hamas or one of the other resistance groups
as something other than lower than a dog, than the emails are
particularly hateful. So, of course, after my piece on the assassination
of Sheikh Yassin was published, I received many emails calling
me every name in the book and questioning my intelligence (since
I must be stupid if I consider Israel's attacks to be anything
other than just).
Those were easy to dismiss. It is the
other, more reasoned letters that are harder to deal with. These
messages seem to be from intelligent and thoughtful people who
honestly wonder how I can consider Israel to be in the wrong.
How, they wonder, can I see Yassin as anything other than a
man who deserves to be dead? How can I equate his calls for
resistance in the form of attacks on Israelis with Ariel Sharon's
calls for the defense of Israel in the form of attacks on Palestinians?
After all, Hamas is not interested in peace, they tell me, only
the destruction of Israel. If I attempt to point out that Israel's
very existence is the result of the destruction of Palestine,
these individuals either trivialize the Palestinian culture and
sense of nation or sidestep the issue by narrowing the argument
to one about the morality of suicide bombing. (I share their
disgust for this type of action, but they usually choose not
to hear my disgust).
Some of my friends just tell me to ignore
these folks, stating that they are no different than the letter
writers who attack my humanity, intelligence and mother. I disagree.
Most of these folks seem to be humane thinkers, yet blind when
it comes to Israel. This only confirms my contempt for public
religion and nationalism, especially when the two are combined,
but that confirmation does not an argument make. How can these
people be so blind, I wonder, when history tells us that Israel
is not some oasis of liberal democracy and justice? Indeed,
it is a nation founded on ethnic cleansing by other humans who
were ethnically cleansed and murdered en masse by one of the
West's most heinous regimes. Since it's founding, Israel has
not moved towards an ideal state of liberty and justice but has
consistently backed away from such a role, choosing instead to
deny rights to its Arab residents and align itself with some
of the world's worst regimes.
For example, Israel sold weapons and
provided other forms of arms assistance to the apartheid government
of South Africa for many years even though there was an arms
embargo against that regime. During this same period, Israel
also armed various CIA-sponsored mercenary forces in Mozambique
and Angola. Another African government that existed with the
help of Israeli arms and advisors was the racist government of
Rhodesia. For those who don't know, Rhodesia was a white-ruled
British colony in Africa that became Zimbabwe after anti-colonial
forces succeeded in ridding the country of Ian Smith and his
regime. Other countries that received Israeli arms included
such human rights violators as Somoza's Nicaragua, El Salvador
under the death squad government of the ARENA party, Pinochet's
Chile, Marcos' Philippines, Duvalier's Haiti, Colombia, and Suharto's
Indonesia (to name just a few).
Not only does Israel sell its own weaponry,
it also is used by US weapons manufacturers as a transfer point
for their merchandise. Occasionally, Washington will block the
transfer of certain planes and weaponry to some of Israel's clients,
but this then leaves the way open for Israel to sell some of
its locally produced weaponry. Like other nations that are deeply
involved in the manufacture and sales of weapons of mass destruction,
Israel's foreign policy came to reflect the nature of its customers.
In short, there was no regime whose money was not good enough
to buy the weapons Israel had for sale. This policy has not
only diminished Israel's claim to be a government that cares
about human rights, it has revealed itself in Israel's daily
dealings with the Palestinians in the Territories and those Israelis
who openly oppose that policy. Of course, some of the regimes
mentioned above have met their just fate, but that doesn't mean
that Israel no longer sells arms to regimes considered to be
despotically brutal.
But Israel is a democracy that protects
human rights, right? Everyone who lives there has the right
to vote, to own property, to move wherever they want and associate
freely with whomever they want, correct? Let's go to the website
of the Israel Democracy Institute's website to see what this
organization tells us. First, let me quote from their mission
statement:
The Israel Democracy Institute (IDI)
is an independent non-partisan research institute. It was founded
in 1991 as a center for policy studies, straddling the spheres
of politics and academia, the world of decision-makers and the
world of thinkers in Israel. The Institute serves as an address
for politicians and government officials who are searching for
independent, professional partners, to examine various ideas
and propose practical ways to implement them. The Institute is
careful to maintain its independent, non-partisan status, and
for this reason enjoys the trust and esteem of all sides of the
political spectrum in Israel.
Now that we know their purpose, what
does their most recent report on the state of democracy in Israel
reveal? Briefly, these are the conclusions of the report's authors.
The Institutional
Aspect
Israel does fairly well in this aspect.
The two areas in which Israel is strongest, compared to other
democracies, are in representation and checks and balances (number
6 out of 36 countries in the sample). Israel does less well with
regard to political participation, as opposed to what has commonly
been thought: there has been a downward trend since 1996, and
the country now ranks 22nd.
* The Rights Aspect
Israel's ranking in this aspect is worrisome.
For nearly every indicator, Israel places in the lower half of
the list. Protection of human rights in Israel is poor; there
is serious political and economic discrimination against the
Arab minority; there is much less freedom of religion than in
other democracies; and the socioeconomic inequality indicator
is among the highest in the sample.
* The Stability and
Social Cohesion Aspect
Here Israel ranks at the bottom of the
list in all indicators. The turnover in governments is more frequent
than in other democracies, and only India ranks lower in social
tensions and rifts between the various segments of society.
It is of course quite possible for Israel
to remedy this situation if it so desires. Just like the current
situation in the United States that tends toward authoritarianism
can be changed if enough residents demand it, so can the drift
towards authoritarianism in Israel be reversed. Unfortunately,
these findings apply primarily to the Jewish citizens of Israel
and say nothing about the situation of the Palestinians in the
Territories. Given this, and the relationship between Israel
and the Palestinians, the likelihood of Israel becoming more
democratic and protective of its minority citizens' rights grows
more remote with each IDF attack on Gaza or the West Bank and
each Palestinian attack on Israeli civilians. The waging of
what is essentially a war precludes the furtherance of both democracy
and human rights. Especially, if one accepts some of the other
conclusions reached by the IDI. Namely, that over the past few
years "there has been a significant decline in the Jewish
population's support of democratic norms on all levels: general
support of the democratic system, support of specific democratic
values, and support for equal rights for the Arab minority."
If the will for democracy does not exist, than there can be
no democracy, since it is a form of government that requires
the will of the people to exist and thrive.
What does this all have to do with
those letter writers who can't understand how I can equate the
perpetrators and planners of the oppression and daily attacks
on the Palestinians with the perpetrators and planners of the
suicide attacks? Simply this, Israel holds no special virtue
that exempts it from practicing human rights. Indeed, given
its claim to some higher moral authority than its opponents (a
claim that stems from the persecution of the Jewish people throughout
much of their history), it seems to me that the state of Israel
should make absolutely certain that its practices adhere to commonly
held beliefs regarding those rights. Those who support Israel
in its occupation of Palestinian lands, its detention without
charges of thousands of Palestinians, its discriminatory practices
against its non-Jewish citizens, and its killing of civilians
without apology really should have no problem with those Palestinians
who operate as if their ends justify any means. After all, isn't
this what they are saying when it comes to Israel and its goals?
(The title is a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt)
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is being republished by Verso.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A
Journey to Rafah
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
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