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Today's
Stories
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack
McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal?
Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diana Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June
19 / 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation
on Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother
Nature
Col.
Dan Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis
in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a
Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June
18, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave
Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player
& Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American
Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
18, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron
Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They
Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
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Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
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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.
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True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
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Berry
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Weekend
Edition
July 10 / 12, 2004
Wither
the Empire
The
Rise of Global Resistance
By
OMAR BARGHOUTI
Mahmoud Darwish, arguably the Arab world's
leading contemporary poet, wrote in his recent poem, Nothing
but Iraq, the following
Dead blacksmiths awaken from
their graves to make our shackles
but we never dreamt of more than a life like life
and of dying our own way
One doesn't have to be endowed
with the eloquence of Darwish to identify with his quest. When
a "life like life" becomes too much to dream of, humanity
as such is essentially defied.
The tens of millions of war-protesters
who blossomed on the world's Main Streets like belated spring
flowers, days before the war on Iraq, did not look alike, speak
the same language, belong to the same culture or religion, read
the same papers, watch the same TV news or hold the same political
thought. But, they were all motivated by a far grander and more
noble cause than mere opposition to yet another war on a battered
nation of the South: they shared the ideal of resisting empire.
Perhaps the fervor and intensity
of protest have relatively waned since the images of the "sweeping
victory" over Iraq, carried by not-so-free western media,
inundated us. But after the US war crimes in Falluja, the racist
torture orgy at Abu Ghraib and the wedding massacre were revealed,
the motivation for resisting empire is on the rise again, globally.
This essay goes back and explores the formative stage of this
resistance: the critical period before and right after the start
of the war on Iraq, arguing that such a resistance is not just
ethically laudable, but also practically winnable.
Empire
We are witnessing the ominous
rise of the most powerful empire ever to exist. Judging from
consistent media reports and opinion polls, the rest of the world
seems to view it as a menacing rogue state that is arrogantly
bullying other nations, east and west, north and south, into
unqualified submission to its self-declared designs for world
domination and incontestable economic supremacy.
Perceiving the United States
under Bush as a "fearful giant throwing its weight around,"
George Soros summarizes in the Financial Times [March 12, 2003]
what has become common knowledge nowadays: "The [Bush] doctrine
is built on two pillars: first, the US will do everything in
its power to maintain unquestioned military supremacy; second,
it arrogates the right to pre-emptive action." The U.S.,
according to this argument, maintains two classes of sovereignty:
"American sovereignty, which takes precedence over international
treaties; and the sovereignty of all other states."
That much is old news. It is
lavishly published in respectable editorials, books and throughout
the internet. What's new is that there is opportunity in the
midst of the bleakest of disasters, as capitalist entrepreneurs
have always held, albeit a different type of opportunity than
the profit-obsessed one they've often eyed. With the United
States' shocking and awful projection of the closest human approximation
to absolute power to date, there is an equal but opposite global
force of deep resentment, revulsion, dissidence and resistance
that is fast developing.
And for the first time in decades,
there is no simple dichotomy to conveniently divide the world
into.
If the fall of the Berlin Wall
signaled the decisive beginning of the end of the East-West opposition,
the illegal, immoral and criminal war on Iraq, waged by the new
Rome of our time, might well announce the baptism of a new world
community opposed to empire, any empire, and based on the precepts
of evolving international law, human rights and the common principles
of universal morality that are emerging.
Almost everyone with conscience
fears and resents the megalomaniac cult sitting on the throne
in Washington. It is the product of a strategic alliance between
the omnipotent military-industrial complex (with a lion's share
for the oil industry), the fundamentalist-Christian and the Zionist
ideologies. It is a cult that has amassed colossal financial,
political and media power, enough to rekindle its deep-rooted
disposition and ambition to become the master of the universe.
A century and a half after officially abolishing slavery in the
U.S., the new-old masters have a diabolic agenda to resurrect
it, except this time on a worldwide scale.
Being able to detect this phenomenon,
a great majority of nations, including an impressively increasing
number of conscientious and mentally-liberated Americans, wish
to see this cult of "neo-conservatives" and its agenda
humbled, at the very least, if not altogether defeated.
Around the world, many feel
threatened, and indeed enraged, by the new Washington talk of
setting new norms in international relations, based on might,
and on the sole interests--and whims--of the current emperors
who wield that might. Far from apologizing for this raw proclivity
to dominate, with all the lawlessness that is bound to result
from it on the world stage, Robert Kagan, a leading neo-conservative
ideologue, justifies it as the prerogative of the mightiest:
"The United States remains
mired in history, exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian
world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where
true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order
still depend on the possession and use of military might."
["Power and Weakness," Policy Review, No. 113,
June 2002]
According to Kagan's argument,
only the weak whine and moan about the sanctity of international
law. The powerful, on the contrary, have a "propensity to
use [their] strength" to achieve their political objectives.
And there is nothing anyone can do to stop them from so doing.
At the very heart of this strategy
is control over oil supplies. Robert E. Ebel, director of the
energy program at the Center for Strategic and International
Studies (CSIS), a Washington think tank whose advisers include
Kissinger and Brzezinski, among other dignitaries, explains:
"Oil fuels military power, national treasuries, and international
politics. It is no longer a commodity to be bought and sold within
the confines of traditional energy supply and demand balances.
Rather, it has been transformed into a determinant of well-being,
of national security, and of international power." [Robert
Dreyfus, Oil: The Thirty-Year Itch, Mother Jones, March/April
2003]
Thus, Iraq.
Iraq has the second--perhaps
the first, according to some experts--largest oil reserves in
the world. More than 400 billion barrels of easily-accessible
fossil fuel, to be exact.
"Controlling Iraq,"
says Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies
at Hampshire College, "is about oil as power, rather than
oil as fuel. Control over the Persian Gulf translates into control
over Europe, Japan, and China. It's having our hand on the spigot."
[Ibid]
If this concern figured prominently
on the geo-political agenda during the cold war, it has evolved
to a full-fledged obsession after it. Monopolizing control over
the Gulf area has become far more realistic and daunting in a
mono-polar world. The disintegration of the formidable Soviet
deterrent has made the red lines surrounding the Gulf region
far more porous, and rendered the previously off-limits area
wide-open to American hegemonic ambitions. The reaction of the
smaller world powers has varied from grudging acquiescence, represented
by a much weakened Russia, to an if-you-can't-beat-them-join-them
attitude, exemplified by the United Kingdom, to composed protestation,
best shown in the French position. Everyone knew that once Uncle
Sam dips his eager toes in that magnificent pool of black gold,
no force on Earth can make him retreat or share the spoils fairly.
Achilles'
Heel
But just like any other cult,
this one too has a fatal weakness, which people from within cannot
visualize. It is blinded by a single dimension, power, whereas
the "game" is far more complex. Ultimately, it takes
a willing slave to sustain a ruthless master. If a slave refuses
to be, a master ceases to exist. Power is a beast that feeds
on fear and submission and dies without them.
Hence, beyond fear and rage,
the will to resist subjugation and the praxis (reflective action)
towards a more just and peaceful world remain not only the strongest
bonds that unite us, humans with conscience, but also the most
potent weapons of resistance available to us. For such a unity
to mature, nevertheless, international law must itself evolve
beyond the constraints set by the former East-West divide. If
peace and security--the current two pillars of the United Nations--were
the indispensable principles that have bridged the gulf between
East and West after World War II, they have essentially ignored
the currently far more enormous gap between North and South.
Justice, sustainable development and the environment are the
necessary ingredients that can assure us all that no one nation,
or a small band of nations, will ignore, circumvent, or otherwise
abuse international legitimacy to establish a new master-slave
relationship. Nurturing a universal community that respects justice
and peace can, and indeed should, become our response to the
challenge posed by empire.
This vision is not motivated
by naive optimism, seeing the half-full part of the cup, but
rather by a conviction that one has to shatter the damned cup
altogether in order to see beyond the confining choices offered
by the master holding that cup: you're either with us or against
us. We simply cannot accept being boxed in such confines. There
is no monolithic "you" or "us" here; there
are shades and gradations of every color of the human spectrum,
coexisting and mutually influencing one another. It is not as
deceivingly simplistic as "Anglo-Americans against Arabs,"
or "Judeo-Christians against Muslims," or even "whites
against browns." The spreading anti-war movement has become
the Baghdad curse that is gradually shattering the Bush-bin Laden
fundamentalist worldview of good-v-evil, bringing together Christians,
Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, atheists, Europeans, Arabs,
Latin Americans, North Americans, Asians, Africans, Australians,
among others, all shocked and awed by the ability of a small
gang of bigoted, fanatical, lawless but extremely powerful ideologues
to drag the world to the rim of annihilation, as Fidel Castro
has alarmingly warned. [Guardian, March 6, 2003]
Dissent
in Empire
But more Americans are realizing what their government is up
to. America was "late for the last two world wars. Now it
seeks to be early for the next. It is not an easy sell,"
argues Mathew Engel [The Guardian, February 25, 2003] Even some
mainstream print media outlets in the U.S. were alarmed enough
by the irrational militarism taking Washington by storm that
they allowed a wider margin of dissent than usual.
The courageous Maureen Dowd
of the New York Times -- yes, even the Times allowed for dissent
at some stage-- for example, analyzed the failure of American
diplomacy to sell the war to the UN differently from most other
less-daring American journalists. In an opinion column tellingly
titled, Mashing Our Monster, she wrote: "Everyone
thinks the Bush diplomacy on Iraq is a wreck. It isn't. It's
a success because it was never meant to succeed." She further
argued that the neo-conservatives (or neo-cons, as Americans
call them) "never intended to give peace a chance.
They intended to give pre-emption a chance. The hawks despise
the U.N. and if they'd gotten its support, they never would have
been able to establish the principle that the U.S. can act wherever
and whenever it wants to." [New York Times, March
16, 2003] Instead of garnering multilateral support, Dowd argues,
"Bush officials believe that making the world more scared
of us is the best way to make us safer and less scared."
[New York Times, March 9, 2003]
The New York Times also carried
excerpts from the public resignation letter of John Brady Kiesling
(a career diplomat who was the first to leave the Foreign Service
in protest against Bush's policy), where he wrote: "Why
does our president condone the swaggering and contemptuous approach
to our friends and allies this administration is fostering, including
among its most senior officials? Has 'oderint dum metuant' ('let
them hate as long as they fear') really become our motto?"
[March 7, 2003]
Another New York Times columnist
evoked the lessons of Troy, warning against "the intoxicating
pride and overweening arrogance that sometimes clouds the minds
of the strong." [March 18, 2003]
In the same paper, former U.S.
president Jimmy Carter, who has prominently attacked the war
on Iraq as unjust, brought into the debate another dimension
saying: "The heartfelt sympathy and friendship offered to
America after the 9/11 attacks, even from formerly antagonistic
regimes, has been largely dissipated; increasingly unilateral
and domineering policies have brought international trust in
our country to its lowest level in memory." [New York
Times, March 9, 2003]
Being accustomed to reading
the New York Times almost every day for many years now, I can
attest that this trend of tolerating such eloquent and sharp
dissent was never in style in the paper, especially when covering
a conflict related to the Middle East.
Keeping in mind the hyper-influence
this paper has on decision makers in Washington and beyond, one
cannot but consider the above trend another sign of this pregnant
new era.
Even an unrelenting right-wing
conservative, who is a Nixon and Reagan White House aide and
three-time presidential candidate, like Patrick Buchanan rebuked
the Bush Administration saying: "Not in our lifetimes has
America been so isolated from old friends." In a fervent
attack against the neo-cons, whom Buchanan holds responsible
for pursuing a "new crusade," he describes them as
a "cabal of polemicists and public officials seek[ing] to
ensnare our country in a series of wars that are not in America's
interests," charging them with deliberately alienating "friends
and allies all over the Islamic and Western world through their
arrogance, hubris, and bellicosity." [American Conservative,
March 24, 2003]
Europe:
The Revolt of the Former Masters
A new environment of international
solidarity is already in its formative stage. And, of all the
peoples on Earth, Europeans, most of whom are citizens of former
empires themselves, were notably the first to usher in this new
era, weeks before the war was launched. Clearly, the US cannot
but take this crucial dimension into consideration. Some, as
Charles A. Kupchan, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations, go as far as predicting that the escalating conflict
between Europe and the United States among is one of several
important factors that will cause the "End of the American
Empire." [New York Times, March 23, 2003]
Europeans were undeniably the
most resolute in voicing their utter opposition to the empire's
new designs. Granted, they were not just actively opposing the
planned war, but also shouting out loud that they were no longer
content with "doing the dishes" while America cooks
the dinner and eats it too. But, they were also defending the
primacy of international law in dealing with conflicts. In fact,
by burying the malicious theories of clash of civilizations,
the millions of anti-war protesters who flooded the streets of
Western capitals announced the initiation of a virtual global
community upholding resisting empire, or any rogue nation, for
that matter.
"Europeans think America
does more harm than good," roared a headline in the Guardian,
reflecting the results of a recent European Commission poll conducted
in 15 European states gauging attitudes towards the United States
in various areas, especially in the promotion of world peace.
Just two days before the Anglo-American military aggression against
Iraq started, a survey by the Pew Research Center found that,
"Since last year the proportion with a favourable view of
the US has dropped from 75% to 48% in Britain, 76% to 34% in
Italy, 50% to 14% in Spain, and 86% to 50% in Poland. In countries
with governments opposed to the war the drop is steeper - from
63% to 31% in France, 61% to 25% in Germany, 61% to 28% in Russia
." [Guardian, March 19, 2003]
Neal Ascherson of the Observer
describes the intra-European brawl concerning the war on Iraq
as a debate "about uncontrolled [U.S.] military might flinging
itself at a frightened and embittered world." [March 16,
2003]
Capturing this new spirit (expediently
and erroneously branded as "anti-Americanism," although
it really should be accurately termed: anti-imperialism) that
has swept Europe, José Saramago, the Portuguese writer
and Nobel laureate, told hundreds of thousands of anti-war demonstrators
in Madrid: "We are marching against the law of the jungle
that the United States and its acolytes old and new want to impose
on the world." [New York Times, March 16, 2003]
If that was the case before
the war, polls conducted after gory footage of the invading forces'
atrocities had been aired to millions around the world showed
an even steeper decline in support for U.S. policies. Soon after
the war had started, a solid majority of Europeans (more than
80%, actually) viewed the US as the most serious threat to world
peace, when compared to Iraq and North Korea. In Spain, where
more than 90% of the people opposed the Anglo-American war (enthusiastically
endorsed by their pathetically isolated government then), a typical
editorial in the El Pais daily declared, "At the
moment, American politics is dominated by a messianic clan that
wishes to govern by itself, and through extremism." [March
29, 2003, quoted in The Guardian, April 3, 2003]
A representative German columnist
further protested, "Every day conservative US ideologues
deepen the rift by accusing Europeans alternatively of being
arrogant, incompetent or simply stupid. In this situation there
remains nothing for the Europeans to do than to free themselves
once and for all from the US. Politically and morally it will
not be a problem - but militarily, things are much more difficult."
[Die Tageszeitung, Germany, April 2, 2003]
This seething antipathy has
already engendered across Europe an effective "Boycott Brand
America" campaign. "If people all around the world
boycott American products it might influence their policies,"
explained one restaurateur in Germany. Another was more blunt:
"We want to hit America where it hurts -- in their wallets."
[Reuters, March 25, 2003]
Former Slaves
-- Will Take no More
The obvious question that comes to mind is: if this is what Europeans
think of the U.S., can you imagine what most Arabs, Africans,
Latin Americans and most Asians have on their minds?
To give but a hint, this is
what a Nigerian journalist wrote: "Iraq was already the
cradle of the first civilisation on earth at a time when Americans
were living in caves," adding, "Iraqis need no lesson
in democracy and freedom from the bloody mobs... of their age."
[The Nigerian Guardian, cited in The Guardian,
April 3, 2003]
The compelling Indian writer,
Arundhati Roy, expressively revealed, "In most parts of
the world, the invasion of Iraq is being seen as a racist war.
The real danger of a racist war unleashed by racist regimes is
that it engenders racism in everybody - perpetrators, victims,
spectators. It sets the parameters for the debate, it lays out
a grid for a particular way of thinking. There is a tidal wave
of hatred for the US rising from the ancient heart of the world."
[The Guardian, April 2003]
Summing up what seems to be
close to a consensus among developing nations, a Kenyan journalist
quite unambiguously insisted, "The new age of global dictatorship
that America is unravelling must be condemned." [Sunday
Standard, quoted in The Guardian, April 3, 2003]
Empire v.
Heaven: Demise of the Idea of America
While the vast majority of
humans around the world bear witness in anger, grief and disbelief
to America's thrashing of international law in its feverish execution
of its so-called "pre-emptive war" (which Chomsky properly
terms, "preventive") against Iraq and its atrocious
ascension to uncontested world domination, one cannot but ironically
wonder whether this "crusade"--to borrow Bush's diction--might
go down in history as the war that unraveled the new empire.
Empires, history tells us,
start to disintegrate when are they are perceived as such by
their victims, and resisted accordingly. Although the left around
the world has always viewed the United States as the embodiment
of modern imperialism, the quintessential attribute most associated
with the nascent--by Arab and "old" Europe's standards,
any how--American nation was not raw power, military superiority,
or colonialism, but rather its almost miraculous ability to win
over the hearts and minds of diverse nations across the globe.
The United States has until recently managed to convince Indians,
Mexicans, Arabs, Brazilians, Russians, Philippinos and Nigerians
alike of the vigor of its culture, of its freedoms they so desire,
of its recipe for economic progress they wish to emulate, and
its respect for the individual and citizens' rights they wish
their governments would adopt.
Regardless how many of these
attributes are mere illusions or myths, as leftists would argue,
they seem to have captured the imagination of world populations,
especially the young. Youths everywhere, from Beijing to Caracas,
and from Stockholm to Durban fell under the spell of a glittering
idea called America.
Of course the socialists had
good reasons for their skepticism: the U.S., after all, is a
nation that was established by means of genocide of the native
Indians. And let's not forget the immoral slavery era, which
was responsible for generating a substantial chunk of the nation's
wealth. Even in the last century alone, successive U.S. governments
have committed numerous crimes against the peoples of Japan,
Vietnam, Cuba, Chile, Nicaragua, East Timor, El-Salvador, Panama,
Colombia, Angola, South Africa, Somalia and, of course, Palestine.
Needless to say, this list is by no means exhaustive. In fact,
if the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Perle-Rumsfeld cult is not stopped, this
list might in the foreseeable future overlap with the UN roster
of member states, give or take a few.
But, those wicked deeds have
been effectively outweighed in the collective memory of most
nations by the prevalent image of America as an almost benevolent
superpower that spreads McDonald's, Starbucks, Microsoft, Nike
and Madonna, when compared with the death and destruction wrought
by European colonial regimes in their former colonies for centuries.
It was a popular dream for youths the world over to immigrate
to America: the Earthly paradise. The power of America was most
formidably embodied in the exquisitely marketed idea of
America.
Not any longer!
The bewitching ideal behind
the image of America is virtually dead. With the current hurricane
of fundamentalism, neo-McCarthyism, hyper-nationalism (which
is slightly reminiscent of the rise of European fascism less
than a century ago), brute force, unabashed bullying, contempt
for most other nations, unprecedented imperial arrogance and
patent militarism, the leaders of America have assassinated the
idea of America.
"Under the present situation,
I cannot think of defending the United States," said Ahmed
Kamal Aboulmagd, a leading establishment intellectual in Egypt,
adding, "To most people in this area, the United States
is the source of evil on planet earth. And whether we like it
or not, it is the Bush administration that is to blame."
[The New York Times, April 8, 2003]
Shedding further light on this
phenomenon, the Washington Post reported, "A generation
of Arabs wooed by the United States and persuaded by its principles
has become among the most vociferous critics of America's world
view," [February 26, 2003]. And the Arabs are no exception
in this regard.
Americans:
Subjects of Empire or Citizens of the World
Perhaps absolute power does
corrupt absolutely, after all.
We're seeing it before our
own eyes. But it does not only corrupt those who possess it,
but everyone else around them as well. How else could a nation
that has largely abandoned its old ways of genocide and slavery
and has prided itself of its unique freedoms and civil rights
suddenly turn into a third world-like plutocracy, governed by
a rabid--though sort of elected--junta that shamelessly, even
proudly, represents the interests of the oil and military industries
above everything and anyone else? How could such an enlightened
nation fall into such an abyss of religious fanaticism, suppression
of rights, and herd-like faith in the Great Leader? How could
a significant majority of Americans suddenly suspend their collective
faculty of reason and kneel before the new Caesar so sheepishly?
Surely, the ruling cult could
not have dreamt of such an achievement without September 11th.
But those criminal attacks, as shocking, immoral and traumatic
as they were, and still are, cannot alone explain the current
state of the Union. The credit goes to decades of complacent
American media, apathy and detachment from the world, as many
liberal and progressive American intellectuals have always warned.
It is no coincidence that in
the eyes of most American political elites Germany and France
are considered pariah states that might face sanctions or worse
if they fail to comply; that Arab oil is considered rightfully
belonging to Americans, albeit lying under the sands of Arabia
by mere coincidence, that even the United Nations is viewed as
just another mischievous third world country that needs a whipping
every once in a while to properly toe the line.
Going beyond any former American
government in disdain and aversion towards the international
organization, the current US Administration had the audacity
to declare that since the UN "failed to" endorse or
legitimize its campaign of pre-meditated pillage and carnage
against Iraq, it--that is the UN--has lost its "relevance."
Boutros Ghali, the former UN Secretary General, addresses this
dimension of empire saying, "Multilateralism and unilateralism
are just methods for the United States: they use them a la carte,
as it suits them. The United Nations is just an instrument at
the service of American policy." [The Guardian, March
1, 2003]
So, the American rulers, "whose ignorance is matched only
by their greed," as a former World Bank official describes
them, get to indulge for a moment in sheer power and all the
profits that come with it. But, their short-sightedness may prove
to be their fatal undoing. Even in the likely event of a decisive
American military victory in Iraq, whatever that really means,
David Von Drehle of the Washington Post warns, "a successful
result contains risks in the eyes of those who have pondered
the recurring cycle in human history in which power leads to
hubris, hubris leads to overreaching, and overreaching leads
to collapse. Victory could tempt the United States to overreach."
[March 16, 2003]
Putting it more gloomily, a
veteran French diplomat, Regis de Bray, writes: "Provoking
chaos in the name of order, and resentment instead of gratitude,
is something to which all empires are accustomed. And thus it
is that they coast, from military victory to victory, to their
final decline." [New York Times, February 23, 2003]
Stunned and angered to a boiling
point by footage of the latest Anglo-American remote-control
massacres in Iraq, my 72-year-old father shouted from his revolted
guts: "The worst catastrophe that has ever hit the human
race was Columbus' 'discovery' of America." And my father,
I should remind you, is not a native American.
While I can fully understand
my father's anger, as I am sure many would, I am more inclined
to concern myself with what to do and where to go from here.
In that light, it seems each one of us will have to choose between
empire and freedom. Even Americans will see these paths as mutually
exclusive, for while empire will further aggrandize the wealth
and power of the plutocracy and its cohorts, most Americans will
lose their precious--exemplary, I would venture--civil rights,
and, perhaps more importantly, their claim to morality. Recent
polls of American public opinion reflect that a considerable
and very committed minority is perturbed by the government's
crimes around the world. Many are doing something about it.
Indeed, Americans with conscience
opposing their government's bloody war are at the forefront of
this international struggle. As Arundhati Roy writes:
"Most courageous of all,
are the hundreds of thousands of American people on the streets
of America's great cities - Washington, New York, Chicago, San
Francisco. The fact is that the only institution in the world
today that is more powerful than the American government, is
American civil society. How can we not salute and support those
who not only acknowledge but act upon that responsibility? They
are our allies, our friends." [The Guardian, April
2, 2003]
They are also our hope. The
rest of the world truly hopes that Americans may themselves rise
up to the occasion and renounce the empire from within; that
they may opt for the status of relatively less privileged citizens
of a more just and peaceful world, rather than the loathed masters
of a bludgeoned, bullied, and oppressed world; that they may
shed their role as uncritical, even submissive, subjects of a
reviled, racist and morally bankrupt empire. With conscientious
Americans on board, the world has a chance to defeat the mad
beast with nuclear fangs, before it takes us all under. With
concerted mobilization and global activism, we may well celebrate
one day the withering away of empire.
Omar Barghouti is an independent Palestinian political
analyst. His article "9.11 Putting the Moment on Human Terms"
was chosen among the "Best of 2002" by the Guardian.
He can be reached at: jenna@palnet.com
Weekend
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A Joke Called "Justice"
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