Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
February 27, 2004
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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.
|
February
27, 2004
Americans Abroad
George
W. Bush: Persona Non Grata
By LAURA CARLSEN
Much of the world sees President George W. Bush
as a persona non grata. Unilateral actions, false intelligence
on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and scandals from Halliburton
to the president's National Guard service are giving America
and its president a bad name. A raft of offensive statements
by top diplomats have left the president with a major international
image problem.
President Bush's latest boast--"I'm
a war president"was apparently meant to demonstrate his
guts in an election year. But for many nations, his statement
constituted an outright threat. In the aftermath of the Kay report
on WMDs (or lack thereof) in Iraq, foreign editorials have railed
against a strategy of ends justifies the means in bringing about
regime changes that respond to U.S. interests. Given that the
United States is not currently involved in a formal war, the
president's bellicose language"I make decisions here in
the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind"has
set other nations, allies and foes alike, on edge. Around the
world, the administration's approach to international affairs
has governments and their citizens feeling alienated and apprehensive.
In the Americas, Bush policies have lately
provoked what must be a record number of diplomatic complaints.
Most recently, the trial of a British intelligence officer for
leaking a confidential memo has reopened wounds in Mexico and
Chile over a scheme in March to tap the phone lines of countries
that refused to condone military action in Iraq.
Bush's front man for Latin America and
the Caribbean, Roger Noriega , is hardly the diplomat to solve
this growing image problem. Noriega, Asst. Secretary of State
for Western Hemisphere Affairs, has ruffled feathers throughout
the region. In Mexico, he accused the country of playing "political
games" in its relationship with the U.S., drawing an indignant
response from the country's Minister of Foreign Affairs.
In Argentina, Noriega publicly criticized
the government's domestic policies and advocated that the Kirchner
government break ties with Cuba. President Kirchner retorted:
"We're through being used as a carpet... nobody can sit
us down, and much less challenge us, because we are an independent
country with dignity."
The Bush administration has suffered
a significant loss of leadership already as a result of snubbing
its nose in diplomatic relations. Treated as children by clumsy
and arrogant U.S. diplomats (Noriega also referred to Mexico's
refusal to back the Iraqi invasion as "a misunderstanding
of our common interests"), many nations are rebelling with
angry rhetoric and contrary policies.
International trade meetings reflect
this defiance. The failure of the World Trade Organization talks
in Cancun, the implosion of the FTAA in Miami, and the lack of
results at the Special Summit of the Americas in Monterrey are
evidence of the mounting resistance to <U.S.-tailored>
economic integration. They also reflect a widespread and deepening
rejection of the "our way or the highway" diplomacy
of the Bush administration.
All this may not matter too much to Bush
and his policy team. The neoconservative advisors charting this
path have never put much stock in alliances. In the short view,
animosity abroad can be seen as a small price to pay for global
hegemony.
The administration's philosophy is that
power is never negotiatedit is exercised. Belief in the unassailable
power of the U.S. comes coupled with the conviction of the nation's
divine mission in global affairs. As President Bush told the
country in his State of the Union Address last month: "America
acts in this cause with friends and allies at our side, yet we
understand our special calling..."
But what may seem sublime to some, appears
ridiculous to many abroadand dangerously so. As a result we are
seeing a resurgence of some of the ugliest stereotypes of American
bullying and hubris.
Worst of all, characteristics associated
with the "war president" are increasingly being applied
to common Americans as well. At the soccer match between Mexico
and the U.S., the Mexican crowd broke out in chants of "Osama,
Osama." Pro-terrorists? No, just anti-what the U.S. has
come to represent in the world.
The Mumbai World Social Forum in India
last month expressed similar, though somewhat more sophisticated,
anti-American sentiments. Speakers and participants frequently
crossed that delicate line between a criticism of U.S. foreign
policy and censure of U.S. society as a whole.
As U.S. citizens, we can point to the
polls that show Bush's popularity has dropped below 50 percent.
We can remind the world that the president was not even elected
by the majority of voters. But what we can't do is pretend that
anti-Americanism doesn't exist.
Among huge parts of the global population,
George W. Bush has become not only a reviled political leader
but also a symbol of U.S. aggression.
Sadly, as global hostility grows, we
could all be painted with the same brush.
Laura Carlsen
directs the Americas
Program of the Interhemispheric Resource Center. She can
be contacted at laura@irc-online.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|