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Today's
Stories
April
16 / 18, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the World:
Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes Reporting
in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion Story: We Rule; You
Die
April
13, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Ill, Old and Young of Fallujah Ask:
"Do We Look Like Fighters?"
Stan
Goff
The Bridge: a Rant
Dave
Lindorff
The Real Lessons of Vietnam
April 10
/ 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick
Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other Delicacies
Robert
Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview with Lee
Evans
Brandy
Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon
Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website
of the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9,
2004
Robert
Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L.
Hess
The
Non--Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8, 2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick
Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid
Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas
Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7,
2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick
Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali
Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert
Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William
Blum
The
Anti--Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan
Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al--Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert
Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
|
Weekend
Edition
April 16 / 18, 2004
Sharon's "Courageous" Plan
Bush
Legitimizes Terrorism
By ROBERT FISK
The Independent
So
President George Bush tears up the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and
that's okay. Israeli settlements for Jews and Jews only on the West
Bank. That's okay. Taking land from Palestinians who have owned that
land for generations, that's okay. UN Security Council Resolution 242
says that land cannot be acquired by war. Forget it. That's okay.
Does
President George Bush actually work for al-Qa'ida? What does this mean?
That George Bush cares more about his re-election than he does about
the Middle East? Or that George Bush is more frightened of the Israeli
lobby than he is of his own electorate. Fear not, it is the latter.
His
language, his narrative, his discourse on history, has been such a lie
these past three weeks that I wonder why we bother to listen to his
boring press conferences. Ariel Sharon, the perpetrator of the Sabra
and Shatila massacre (1,700 Palestinian civilians dead) is a "man
of peace" - even though the official 1993 Israeli report on the
massacre said he was "personally responsible" for it. Now,
Mr Bush is praising Mr Sharon's plan to steal yet more Palestinian land
as a "historic and courageous act".
Heaven
spare us all. Give up the puny illegal Jewish settlements in Gaza and
everything's okay: the theft of land by colonial settlers, the denial
of any right of return to Israel by those Palestinians who lived there,
that's okay. Mr Bush, who claimed he changed the Middle East by invading
Iraq, says he is now changing the world by invading Iraq! Okay! Is there
no one to cry "Stop! Enough!"?
Two
nights ago, this most dangerous man, George Bush, talked about "freedom
in Iraq". Not "democracy" in Iraq. No, "democracy"
was no longer mentioned. "Democracy" was simply left out of
the equation. Now it was just "freedom"--freedom from Saddam
rather than freedom to have elections. And what is this "freedom"
supposed to involve? One group of American-appointed Iraqis will cede
power to another group of American-appointed Iraqis. That will be the
"historic handover" of Iraqi "sovereignty". Yes,
I can well see why George Bush wants to witness a "handover"
of sovereignty. "Our boys" must be out of the firing line--let
the Iraqis be the sandbags.
Iraqi
history is already being written. In revenge for the brutal killing
of four American mercenaries - for that is what they were - US Marines
carried out a massacre of hundreds of women and children and guerillas
in the Sunni Muslim city of Fallujah. The US military says that the
vast majority of the dead were militants. Untrue, say the doctors. But
the hundreds of dead, many of whom were indeed civilians, were a shameful
reflection on the rabble of American soldiery who conducted these undisciplined
attacks on Fallujah. Many Baghdadi Sunnis say that in the "New
Iraq"--the Iraqi version, not the Paul Bremer version - Fallujah
should be given the status of a new Iraqi capital.
Vast
areas of the Palestinian West Bank will now become Israel, courtesy
of President Bush. Land which belongs to people other than Israelis
must now be stolen by Israelis because it is "unrealistic"
to accept otherwise. Is Mr Bush a thief? Is he a criminal? Can he be
charged with abetting a criminal act? Can Iraq now claim to Kuwait that
it is "unrealistic" that the Ottoman borders can be changed?
Palestinian land once included all of what is now Israel. It is not,
apparently, "realistic" to change this, even to two per cent?
Is
Saddam Hussein to be re-bottled and put back in charge of Iraq on the
basis that his 1990 invasion of Kuwait was "realistic"? Or
that his invasion of Iran--when we helped him try to destroy Ayatollah
Khomeini's revolution--was "realistic" because he initially
attacked only the Arabic-speaking (and thus "Iraqi") parts
of Iran?
Or, since President Bush now seems to be a history buff, are the Germans
to be given back Danzig or the Sudetenland? Or Austria? Or should we
perhaps recreate the colonial possessions of the past 100 years? Is
it not "realistic" that the French should retake Algeria -
or part of Algeria - on the basis that the people all speak French,
on the basis that this was once part of the French nation? Or should
the British retake Cyprus? Or Aden? Or Egypt? Shouldn't the French be
allowed to take back Lebanon and Syria? Why shouldn't the British re-take
America and boot out those pesky "terrorists" who oppose the
rule of King George's democracy well over 200 years ago?
Because
this is what George Bush's lunacy and weakness can lead to. We all have
lands that "God" gave us. Didn't Queen Mary die with "Calais"
engraved on her heart? Doesn't Spain have a legitimate right to the
Netherlands? Or Sweden the right to Norway and Denmark? Every colonial
power, including Israel can put forward these preposterous demands.
What
Bush has actually done is give way to the crazed world of Christian
Zionism. The fundamentalist Christians who support Israel's theft of
the West Bank on the grounds that the state of Israel must exist there
according to God's law until the second coming, believe that Jesus will
return to earth and the Israelis--for this is the Bush "Christian
Sundie" belief--will then have to convert to Christianity or die
in the battle of Amargeddon.
I
kid thee not. This is the Christian fundamentalist belief, which even
the Israeli embassy in Washington go along with--without comment, of
course--in their weekly Christian Zionist prayer meetings. Every claim
by Osama bin Laden, every statement that the United States represents
Zionism and supports the theft of Arab lands will now have been proved
true to millions of Arabs, even those who had no time for Bin Laden.
What better recruiting sergeant could Bin Laden have than George Bush.
Doesn't he realise what this means for young American soldiers in Iraq
or are Israelis more important than American lives in Mesopotamia?
Everything
the US government has done to preserve its name as a "middle-man"
in the Middle East has now been thrown away by this gutless, cowardly
US President, George W Bush. That it will place his soldiers at greater
risk doesn't worry him--anyway, he doesn't do funerals. That it goes
against natural justice doesn't worry him. That his statements are against
international law is of no consequence.
And
still we have to cow-tow to this man. If we are struck by al-Qa'ida
it is our fault. And if 90 per cent of the population of Spain point
out that they opposed the war, then they are pro-terrorists to complain
that 200 of their civilians were killed by al-Qa'ida. First the Spanish
complain about the war, then they are made to suffer for it--and then
they are condemned as "appeasers" by the Bush regime and its
craven journalists when they complain that their husbands and wives
and sons did not deserve to die.
If
this is to be their fate, excuse me, but I would like to have a Spanish
passport so that I can share the Spanish people's "cowardice"!
If Mr Sharon is "historic" and "courageous", then
the murderers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad will be able to claim the same.
Mr Bush legitimised "terrorism" this week--and everyone who
loses a limb or a life can thank him for his yellow streak. And, I fear,
they can thank Mr Blair for his cowardice too.
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