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Coming in August! Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils Order Now! Today's Stories August 9, 2004 Tito Tricot Pinochet Must Still be Tried: a Murderer and a Thief on the Loose Ron Jacobs In Memory of Deep Throat: the Day Nixon Was Gone Norm Dixon Crisis in Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West's Tears for Darfur Kurt Nimmo The Politics of Entrapment Elaine Cassel Welcome to Bush's America Gary Leupp Why Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria   August 7 / 8, 2004 James Petras The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib Fred Gardner Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain Justin Delacour Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela Brian Cloughley Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd? Joshua Frank The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader Iain A. Boal On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection Chris Floyd All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome Andrew Fenton Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti Aseem Shrivastava Saga of an Anguished Afghan Neil Corbett See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush Carol Miller / Forrest Hill Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote Tarek Milleron Breaking the Principled Voter Donald Macintyre The Battle of Najaf Ron Jacobs Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies Mickey Z. Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO Poets' Basement Adler, Ford and Albert   Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase   August 6, 2004 Joshua Frank David Cobb's Soft Charade: the Greens and the Politics of Mendacity Derek Seidman An Interview with Stan Goff Mike Whitney The Arbitrary Imprisonment of Jose Padilla William S. Lind Corruption in the Marine Corps David Price In the Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki   August 5, 2004 Mike Ferner The Kerry Show: When Peace is Off Message Bruce Anderson Two Rejections Robert Fisk The Tale of Saddam's Cameraman Todd Chretien Florida Comes to California: the Democrats' Plot Against Nader Peter Linebaugh Doing Time for Political Crime: Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail   August 4, 2004 Mickey Z. Two Traditions: WMD and Disinformation Justin Huggler The Hunt for Bin Laden John Ross Mexico's Dirty War Never Ended: Inside Puente Grande Prison   August 3, 2004 Uri Avnery The Oligarchs Ray McGovern The 9/11 Commission Chimera Jack McCarthy Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida Eric Ruder Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star John L. Hess Crying Wolf: Orange Alert! Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004 Jules Rabin The Man Who Didn't Walk By Website of the Day No Wall   August 2, 2004 Robert Jensen Kerry's Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War Joshua Frank Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity Mike Whitney The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American Police State" Gary Leupp Beyond Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions July 31 / Aug. 1, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Kerry: He's the (Any) One Merlin Chowkwanyun Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of a Narrow Policy Spectrum" David Lindorff The Shame of the DNC John Chuckman The Disturbing Words of John Edwards Brian Cloughley All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility Christopher Brauchli "Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face of Compassionate Conservatism Fred Gardner A World of Pain Michael Donnelly How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly David Nally Genocide in Darfur? Joshua Frank Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon Sam Bahour Colin Powell and My Grandmother Diane Farsetta The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the Voting Booth Harold Gould Was Iraq a Mutual Charade? Van Bergen / Stephens Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater Lee Sustar A New Model for the Labor Movement? Ron Jacobs The Lost Art of Hitchhiking M. Junaid Alam An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik Poets Basement Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Cross Cultural Poetics   July 30, 2004 Kolhatkar / Ingalls Shattering Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not Wanted Dave Lindorff Murder Not So Foul? Bruce Jackson Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice Fidel Castro The Pathology of George W. Bush Maximilien Robespierre Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist Saul Landau Bush Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave   July 29, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair Hail, the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam Frank Bardacke What Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11 Tom Barry Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan Ron Jacobs Kerry and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture Robert Fisk The Unreported War Lichtman / Kellis-Borok What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't) William S. Lind The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure CounterPunch Wire Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971! Website of the Day Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness       July 28, 2004 Robert Fisk The Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of the Dead Kevin Mink Kerry's Misperception of Palestine Ray McGovern Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root Causes United for Peace & Justice An Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots Mike Ferner Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face Impeachment Mvt." Imraan Siddiqi Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter Alexander Cockburn Candidate Kerry Website of the Day Iraq Vets Against the War   July 27, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Why the Democrats Deserve Nader Dave Lindorff Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming! Mike Whitney Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al. If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez Stefan Wray Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs Louis Proyect Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then the Sweatshops Rick Giombetti Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz Bill and Kathleen Christison The 9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine; Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism     July 26, 2004 Todd Chretien Green Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin Robert Fisk Terror by Video Richard Forno Security Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing Flaws at the Fleet Center Mitchel Cohen Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious Richard Moreno Rockers for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian Alexander Cockburn Boston Awaits a Dead Party     July 24 / 25, 2004 Alexander Cockburn The Democrats and Their Conventions: Part One Dennis Hans Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush Patrick Cockburn The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning Josh Frank The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject the Peace Movement Justin E.H. Smith Christianity and the Left: the Latin American Experience Tariq Ali What's at Stake in Venezuela Fred Gardner The Politics of Pot: Year of the Antagonist Mark Scaramella There's Dope and There's Dope Ron Jacobs The Weather Underground's Prairie Fire Statement...35 Years On     July 23, 2004 Lee Sustar Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years On Dave Lindorff Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters 0 Saul Landau Zaniest President in US History: Bush Beats Reagan Mike Whitney The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No One Mickey Z Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth Jennings Gary Leupp The 9/11 Commission and the Looming War on Iran   July 22, 2004 M. Junaid Alam Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat Brian McKinlay Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon Jason Leopold Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While CEO of Halliburton Chris Floyd Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths Uri Avnery Chirac v. Sharon   July 21, 2004 Paula J. Caplan The Emotional Casualities of War: Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage Joshua Frank Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's be Fair Ron Jacobs American Exceptionalism Reza Ghorashi The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda Amy Martin Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals? John Ross Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go On and On   July 20, 2004 Stan Cox The Bush / Kerry War Ticket Chris Randolph An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb! Forrest Hylton The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum Mark Scaramella It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the Rest of California Sam Bahour The World is Knocking on Israel's Door George Reiter A Defense of David Cobb John Ross Burying Iraq, Burying Bush John L. Hess Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co. Website of the Day This Land is Your Land     July 19, 2004 Uri Avnery Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of Paris Col. Dan Smith What Has Been Accomplished? Mike Whitney Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol Karyn Strickler Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage Robert Fisk The Crisis of Information in Baghdad David Swanson Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition to Iraq War Jennifer van Bergen The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty   July 17 / 18, 2004 Gary Leupp Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is Must Reading Ghada Karmi Vanishing the Palestinians Lenni Brenner When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader Ben Tripp Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story Brandy Baker What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry? M. Shahid Alam Israel Builds Another Wall Sasan Fayazmanesh Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA Patrick Bond The George Bush of Africa Fred Gardner Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics William Blum Bush and Thucydides Ben Terrall Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong with a General Running the Country" Tom Barry John Lehman on the War Path David Vest Dylan Without the Music Phyllis Pollack Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons Ron Jacobs Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out Joshua Frank Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!" David Nally A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot Toni Solo Bolivia's Gas Referendum Landau, Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff Three Reviews of Moore's F911 Poets's Basement Ford, Smith and Albert     July 16, 2004 Dave Zirin Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up Shervan Sardar Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws Ron Jacobs The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War Plank Robert Fisk Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Coffin Bombs in Baghdad Greg Moses The Forts of Iraq Mickey Z. Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV Dan Bacher A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes Dave Lindorff The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP, But a Movement in Shambles Paul McGeough Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood? Website of the Day 10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)       July 15, 2004 Heather Williams McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message Werther Iraq: Follow the Money Tom Crumpacker The Birds of Guantanamo Brian Cloughley What Does the Bush Regime Object To? Bill Christison Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But...   July 14, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers Neve Gordon Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall Diane Christian The Priesthood of Death Stefan Wray Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab? Josh Frank The Nader / Dean Debate Conn Hallinan Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education Website of the Day Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire     July 13, 2004 Ray McGovern The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse Mark Donham The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney Ben Tripp Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates? Mark Gaffney Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq Dave Lindorff Osama Wins! Election Postponed! Chris White Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination     July 10 / 12, 2004 Kathleen Christison The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel Janine Pommy Vega Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War Sherry Wolf From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen A Transfer of Power, Sort Of Michael Donnelly How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004 Stanton / Madsen Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda? Richard Lichtman The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology Gila Svirsky Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall Kurt Nimmo Clinton's Life Toni Solo Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers and the Rest Camelo Ruiz Marrero Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize Omar Barghouti Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance Poets' Basement Curtis and Albert   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                       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.     Subscribe Online

August 9, 2004 The Attraction of the Ba'athist State Why Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria By GARY LEUPP 4000 Families The recent spate of attacks on Christian churches in Iraq is symptomatic of the general insecurity that Christians (about three percent of the population, around 800,000 people) face in the occupied country. The interim constitution states that "Islam is the official religion of the State and is to be considered a source of legislation" and while recognizing religious freedom "respects the Islamic identity of the majority of the Iraqi people." For some, Islamic identity means the imposition of Muslim morality. In Sadr City, the Mahdi militia is shutting down Christian-owned liquor shops. Some shop owners have been killed, some Christian women attacked for appearing in public inappropriately attired. Others have been attacked because of a widespread belief that Christians are abetting the occupation. The irony here, of course, is that Saddam's Iraq was a secular state, ruled by the Baath Party. The Iraqi regime, although suspicious of and sometimes brutal towards the Shiite majority, supported Shiite and Sunni mosques, Assyrian and Chaldean Christian churches, and even the sparsely attended Baghdad synagogue, while forbidding proselytization in general. Saddam appointed Tariq Aziz, a Christian, to top posts; in response, enraged Islamists tried to assassinate Aziz in 1980. Osama bin Laden hated Saddam's Iraq for its specifically non-Islamic character. Now with the fall of the Baath regime, Islamic fundamentalists (of various types) have been unleashed to redefine the role of religion in the country. The U.S. occupation officially dissolved the huge Baath Party, purged Baathists from their posts (including those in medicine and education) and officially approved the wording of the constitution, while creating the power vacuum in which numerous Islamic militias now thrive. Here's a second irony. According to the New York Times (August 5) some 4,000 Iraqi Christian families have taken refuge in Syria. Others go to Jordan or Lebanon, but Syria is the favored destination. Ruled by a branch of the Baath Party at odds since the 1960s with its Iraqi counterpart, Syria remains a secular republic. Ten percent of the population (about 1.8 million) is Christian, and Iraqi Christians reportedly feel little discrimination in the country. There is no rigid dress code such as one finds in Saudi Arabia and some other Arab nations; the liquor stores are open. "We are safe here, and so we feel free," says Abdulkhalek Sharif Nuamansaid, who has brought his family to Damascus from Baghdad. "The Syrians are brothers to us. There is no discrimination here. That is the truth, and not a compliment." According to a 2002 report by International Christian Concern, a group that monitors persecution of Christians globally, "No government acts of religious persecution have been witnessed" recently, and "There is no evidence that prisoners are being held for their Christian beliefs at this time." But Syria is vilified by the Bush administration, just like Iraq, and for the same (ostensible) reasons: weapons of mass destruction (chemical weapons Syria acknowledges it possesses---as a deterrent from an attack by nuclear-armed Israel), and terrorist connections (to anti-Israel groups). Add to these charges the fact that Syria occupies parts of Lebanon (where it has with Arab League authorization stationed troops, now numbering 16,000, since 1976). Add the charge that, in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Syria has harbored fleeing Iraqi officials (an action which would, if it occurred, seem perfectly legal), that Iraqi funds in Syrian banks have facilitated resistance activities, that Iraq accepted WMD from Iraq prior to the invasion (which would explain why none have been found), and that Syria actively supports the passage of Arab fighters across its border with Iraq. And of course the built-in charge of rule by a dictator, which a Washington intimate with Musharraf, Mubarak, Karimov etc. applies with straight-faced selectivity whenever useful. (The "we overthrew a dictator" claim is all they really have now, after all, on Iraq). The neocons have targeted Syria for regime change for a long time, for reasons they cannot discuss openly: acquisition of U.S. hegemony over Southwest Asia. providing geopolitical advantage vis-à-vis Europe, Japan, China, etc. well into what they call the New American Century; and the imagined enhanced security of Israel). They are doggedly building their case, with help from Israel's Likud government---the origin of the WMD transfer report. But to successfully press the case for regime change in Syria, its advocates must try to establish some link between the trauma of 9-11 and this next targeted nation. This they do through the sleight-of-hand of linking Islamic Jihad, Hamas, and Hezbollah (with offices of some sort in Damascus) with al-Qaeda, not because they actually work together, but because they're all on the State Department's official list of foreign terrorist organizations (along with various nationalist and communist and other groups unrelated except for their putative terrorism). This terrorism is understood by President Bush to constitute a single, simple Evil that God has appointed him to smite. The administration has not accused Syria of direct support for al-Qaeda, and Syria has in fact been helpful in the fight against it. But Bush can exploit confusion and the willingness of many Americans to conflate all Arabs targeted by the administration as components of that looming Evil. The confusion troubling Dubya's mind so obviously in any unrehearsed public situation has long been this administration's forté; the useful confusion spreads, at a frighteningly rapid pace, from the inarticulate presidential podium to the pulpits and editorial pages of Middle America and the barking anchors of Fox News, NBC and CNN. As early as 2002, CNN's influentially insufferable Lou Dobbs proclaimed that the "War on Terrorism" was in fact a "War on Islamism." Then, following protests by rational people that targeting "Islamism" would produce animosity towards Islam in general, he changed that to war on "fundamentalist Islamic extremism" or "radical Islamism." In at least one broadcast, he referred to Iraq as a radical Islamist nation, making no sense whatsoever but eagerly abetting the confusion-capitalizing warmongers' cause. Small wonder, given the disinformation spread by authoritative-looking captains of the free corporate press, that the majority of Americans might still believe that Saddam had something to do with 9-11. Disinformation surrounds reportage on Syria as well, so one ought to stress again and again that Syria is in fact a secular rather than "Islamist" society. One in which Christians, after fleeing the ruin of their lives in the New (increasingly intolerant) Iraq, somehow feel comfortable. The U.S. and the Ba'ath Party What is the Baath Party, which so emphasizes secularism and seeks to curb the influence of the Muslim clerics? And why does the Bush administration hate it so much? The press has generally avoided these questions, while making it clear that the Baathists (variously termed "Stalinists" and "fascists"---these being very different, irreconcilable things) are really bad. So let's explore them briefly. Baath means "Resurrection" or "Renaissance" in Arabic. During the 1930s, middle-class intellectuals in Syria began to organize a movement against foreign domination (France had colonized Syria in 1916, and Syria remained under French or British control to the 1940s). Movement leaders Zaki al-Arsuzi, Salah al-Din al-Bitar, and Michel Aflaq opposed such colonialism, but were also influenced by trends in political thought in the colonizers' countries. They were emphatically opposed to Islamic fundamentalism and the application of Sharia law; Aflaq was an Orthodox Christian. For the Arab world to enjoy a renaissance, they felt, it must reject religious bigotry, and commit itself to secularism, and western-style law and constitutional structures. In 1947 the Baath Arab Socialist Party was formally inaugurated in Damascus as an organization espousing pan-Arab nationalism, anti-colonialism, and "socialism" (the latter understood to mean a strong government role in steering economic development, but clearly distinguished from and opposed to socialism in the Marxist-Leninist sense). Factions of this party have subsequently not only governed Syria and Iraq, but been influential in Jordan and elsewhere. The Baathists have met strong opposition, both from Communists (who were once the best-organized and largest party in Iraq) and Islamists, both of whom the U.S. and its intelligence community have traditionally opposed. Thus, according to Roger Morris, a former National Security Council staffer in the 1970s, the CIA chose the Baath Party "as its instrument" in the 1950s. Intimate ties between the Agency and Saddam Hussein date to 1959 when Saddam botched an assassination attempt on then President Abd al-Karim Qasim. Qasim, a military officer who had seized power in a coup overthrowing the Iraqi monarch, had alienated the U.S. by withdrawing from the anti-Soviet Central Treaty Organization (Baghdad Pact), developing cordial relations with the USSR, and tolerating (although he cracked down on it hard sometimes) the strongest communist party in the Arab world. The CIA and Egyptian intelligence skirted him out of the country to Lebanon, where the CIA paid for his Beirut apartment, and then to Cairo, where according to UPI intelligence correspondence Richard Sale, he met with CIA operative Miles Copeland and station chief Jim Eichelberger. Qasim was overthrown in a Baath coup in 1963. Under the new government headed by President 'Abd as-Salam 'Arif, Saddam (age 26) was placed in charge of the interrogation and execution of communists whose names the CIA happily provided to the new regime. 'Arif turned on his erstwhile supporters, provoking a split in the Baathist Party, while the above-mentioned Christian Baathist Aflaq promoted Saddam to become a member of the Baath regional Command. Jailed between 1964 and 1966, Saddam rose within the Baathist ranks. His cousin and mentor, General Ahmad Hassan al-Bakr, seized power in 1968, and Saddam became the number two man in the Iraqi government, in charge of internal security. Engineering al-Bakr's resignation in 1979, Saddam took power, invading Iran the following year and soon acquiring U.S. support and approval. During his rule, the Baath Party maintained the longstanding discrimination against the Shiites. In 1991, following the expulsion of Iraqi forces from Kuwait, Shiites rose up against the regime, encouraged by the first Bush administration (which failed to provide promised assistance). They were crushed brutally. In 1999, the Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Muhammad Sadiq al-Sadr, spiritual leader of the Shiites, was assassinated in Najaf, reportedly on Saddam's orders. Truly, Saddam's was an irreligious regime. In Syria, meanwhile, the Baath Party experienced ups and downs and factional struggles. It was dissolved along with all other political parties during the period of union with Nasser's Egypt (1958-61), but was the ruling party throughout the presidency of Hafez al-Assad (1970-2000) and remains such under his son Bashir al-Assad. In 1973 al-Assad (a member of a minority Alawi Muslim sect) revised the Syrian constitution, omitting the requirement that the president be a Muslim. This occasioned riots by those accusing al-Assad of atheism; they were suppressed by the army, but the requirement was reinstated. In 1980, members of the Muslim Brotherhood attempted to assassinate the president, and in February 1982 this group rose up in rebellion in the town of Hama. Again they were suppressed by the army, while al-Assad sought to strengthen his legitimacy among Syria's Sunni majority my espousing popular Islam. "But," according to Ray J. Mouawad, writing in the Middle East Quarterly in 1991, "that did not negatively affect the status of Christians in Syria nor their attitudes toward the regime; indeed Christians in Syria perceive the actual regime as their protector. Accordingly, Christians find it easy to obtain authorization to repair or build new churches and to pray or have processions in public without harassment. They enjoy more religious freedom than they did under the Ottoman Empire before 1918. Their religion is not mentioned on identity cards. Legislation is entirely secular with the exception of personal status laws that are applied by specific tribunals and vary according to the differing communities. Friday is the official day off, but in consideration for the Christian population, work starts at 10 a.m. on Sunday. All the Christian holidays are official state holidays and members of the clergy are excused from military service. Christians are united behind the regime, particularly since the events in Hama, conscious that it is their protection against a possible Islamic drift." http://www.meforum.org/article/17 In 1983 the Mufti of Jerusalem issued a fatwa against al-Assad (for his hostile treatment of the Palestinian Liberation Organization). Plainly the Syrian government has acquired its share of Muslim enemies. Targeting the Least "Islamist" Regimes in the Arab World So ironically, Iraq and Syria, led by two of the least Muslim regimes in the Arab world, are the two most targeted by the Bush administration in the aftermath of the attacks on the U.S. by an Islamic terrorist group intimate with neither. Again ironically, these two have been particularly tolerant of their Christian communities whose existence dates back nearly 2000 years. But the targeting makes sense when you recognize that any modern society featuring a coeducational free education system, with a rational bureaucracy, national health care system, and separation of religion and state, is likely to develop more rapidly and become stronger than medieval monarchies and mullocracies. And any Arab state reaching European levels of economic and military attainment while not swearing allegiance to the hyper-power is, in the neocon perspective, a valid candidate for regime change. Lands governed by kings, sultans emirs in concert with the Muslim clergy may nurture in their madrasses Islamist extremism, and hence become a threat (as Donald Rumsfeld in his famous leaked October 2003 memo suggests). But these have been the historical favorites, good business partners disinclined to threaten Israel; indeed Morocco, Tunisia, Oman, Bahrain and Qatar all now have some level of diplomatic and trade relations with Israel. The fact that al-Qaeda-type ideology might appeal to many in such countries, resulting in terrorist attacks on U.S. targets, causes some neocons to contemplate their ultimate replacement with American-guided "democracies" and de-Islamicized education systems. But for the time being, an officially Muslim state supportive of U.S. goals in the region, even if its citizenry rejects those goals, is far more palatable than a secular state defying and obstructing them. Hence the 1991 expulsion of Iraq from Kuwait, resulting in the return of a loyal, non-threatening monarch. The Baathists' positives do not mitigate their horrific human rights records, of course (not that the Bush administration is in any position to judge such matters). But this issue of the fate of Arab Christians might perhaps influence the way that Bush's Christian fundamentalist social base sees the evolving situation in the Middle East. Franklin Graham, who says Islam is "a very evil and wicked religion" is chomping at the bit to bring the Truth to the benighted Iraqi people. His flock should know what Bush policy actually entails for the existing Iraqi Christian community. (Of course, I don't know whether Graham acknowledges that the Assyrian and Vatican-recognizing Chaldean churches are "really" Christian in his fundamentalist understanding of the term.) One wants to visit Bush-friendly Christian churches and stand at those pulpits and cry out: "Brothers and sisters, the problem is not 'forces of good' versus 'forces of evil,' but secularism vs. religious fundamentalism, all over the world! Bin Laden's fundamentalism produced 9-11; Bush's, the bleeding sore of Iraq. The problem is Bush's extremist Christian fundamentalism, versus not just Muslim fundamentalism, but even the most religiously tolerant regimes in Muslim nations! Why are Christians fleeing 'liberated' Iraq? Because, brothers and sisters, the illegal war toppling the Baathists in Iraq has produced terrible suffering among Christian believers, and Baathist Syria bad though it may be provides succor. If secular, religiously tolerant Syria is next on the 'War on Terror' attack list, even though it's got nothing to do with al-Qaeda and 9-11, is there not something very wrong (even evil) in the administration's whole approach to the region?" I'm not optimistic the message would resonate, but Christians who agree might give it a try. Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu   Weekend Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004 James Petras The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib Fred Gardner Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain Justin Delacour Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela Brian Cloughley Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd? Joshua Frank The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader Iain A. 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