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Coming in September From AK Press Featuring Essays by: Edward Said, Robert Fisk, Michael Neumann, Shahid Alam, Alexander Cockburn, Uri Avnery, Bill and Kathy Christison and More Recent Stories August 6, 2003 David Krieger Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki Stan Goff Military Equipment and Pneumonia August 5, 2003 Uri Avnery The Prisoner of Ramallah: Arafat at 74 Forrest Hylton Terrorism and Political Trials: the View from Bolivia Ray McGovern "We Cook Estimates to Go" David Morse Poindexter's Gambit Edward Said Orientallism: 25 Years Later George W. Bush My Resumé So Far Hammond Guthrie It's Incremental, Watson! Website of the Day National Prayer Day August 4, 2003 Bruce K. Gagnon Another Peace Activist Detained by Airport Cops: My Story David Lindorff Fear-Mongering About Social Security Mark Zepezauer George F. Will: Descent into Self-Parody James Plummer Tracking You Through the Mail Mickey Z. Marriage Insecurity from Sharon to Bush Bruce Jackson News that Isn't News: How the NYT's Pimps for the White House August 2 / 3, 2003 Tamara R. Piety Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down Francis Boyle My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool David Vest Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side Neve Gordon Nightlife in Jerusalem Uri Avnery Their Master's Voice: Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus Robert Fisk Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq Jerry Kroth Israel, Yellowcake and the Media Noah Leavitt What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene? Saul Landau The Film Industry: Business and Ideology Ron Jacobs One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson Thomas Croft In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta Amadi Ajamu Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader? Poets' Basement Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming   August 1, 2003 Joanne Mariner Stopping Prison Rape Alex Coolman Who Moved My Soap: Trivializing Prison Rape Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Stan Goff Injury and Decorum: The Missing Wounded in Iraq Wayne Madsen Europe Unplugs from the Matrix Robert Fisk Wolfowitz the Censor Elaine Cassel Ashcroft Loses Big in Puerto Rico Website of the Day Stop Prisoner Rape     July 31, 2003 Ray McGovern The Prostitution of Intelligence Brian Cloughley Wolfowitz's Operative Statement Sheldon Hull The RIAA's Jihad: The Devil's Music (Industry) Elaine Cassel The Next Time You Crack a Lawyer Joke, Think of These Attorneys Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: Propaganda and Bush's Wars Hammond Guthrie Speculation Blues Website of the Day Army of One?   July 30, 2003 David Lindorff Poindexter the Terror Bookie Marjorie Cohn Why Iraq and Afghanistan? It's About the Oil Elaine Cassel How Ashcroft Coerces Guilty Pleas in Terror Cases Zvi Bar'el The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War Lisa Walsh Thomas Killing Mustafa Hussein: Death of a Child, Birth of a Legend? Sean Carter Pat Robertson's Prayer Jihad: God, Sodomy and the Supremes ND Jayaprakash India and Ariel Sharon Steve Perry Bush's Top 40 Lies Standard Schaefer Correction about Bloomberg and Outscourcing Website of the Day Bring Them Home Now! Congratulations to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD July 29, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair "Journalist Spotted! Journalist Dead!" Guatemala Bleeds; US Press Yawns Thomas J. Nagy The Belligerent Dr. Pipes Kurt Nimmo Tom Delay Goes to Jerusalem Chris Floyd Dead Reckoning: Bush Warriors Sign Off on War Crimes Robert Fisk Another Botched Raid; Another Massacre Jason Leopold Did Chalabi Help Write Bush's State of the Union Address? Conn Hallinan Food Bully: Bush's Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign Dan Bacher Sacramento's War on Free Speech Ray McGovern Cheney Chicanery Website of the Day Julie Hilden Caught on Tape July 26 / 27, 2003 Alexander Cockburn NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front Gary Leupp Faith-Based Intelligence Saul Landau A Report from Syria Stan Goff Bring 'Em On Home, Now! Jeffrey St. Clair Book Cooking at Boeing Andrew Cockburn The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud Begins Jason Leopold CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans Robert Fisk The Power of Death Joanne Mariner Monsieur Moussaoui Standard Schaefer Joblessness and the Invisible Hand M. Shahid Alam The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History Harry Browne Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process Fidel Castro Moncada, 50 Years Later Lula Democracy Requires Social Justice Edward S. Herman Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky Ron Jacobs Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company You Keep Julie Hilden A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos Adam Engel Man Talk Poets' Basement Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert   Hot Stories 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 Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

August 5, 2003 Still Haunting US Troops The Ghosts of Uday and Qusay By ROBERT FISK The Americans have stripped the Iraqi flags from the graves of Uday and Qusay Hussein. The red, white and black banners were laid on the mounds of clay above their bodies at their funeral on Saturday, alongside the grave of Mustafa Hussein, Qusay's 14-year-old son, who also died when 200 American troops attacked the Mosul villa in which they were hiding two weeks ago. But the Americans have allowed only the child's remains to be honoured with his country's flag. Uday and Qusay have no memorial save for the footprints of US Army boots. Even 34-year-old Felah Shemari who dug the graves was shocked, and he has no reason to love the brothers; he spent 10 years in prison on the orders of Saddam's half-brother for a murder he says he did not commit. "When we dug the graves, we were told they were just for the brothers," he says. "But when the two ambulances arrived escorted by American Humvees, they took young Mustafa's body out of the second ambulance and we had to dig another grave in a hurry. Of course, we put our Iraqi flags over all three. This is a sign that they were martyred." But the Americans thought differently. "At sunset, when all the people had gone, the soldiers came back and took the two flags off the graves of Saddam's sons. Then they stayed on to watch anyone who came here afterwards. They only allowed 20 cars at a time, and only if they were members of the family. No one else. Now they watch this place all the time. They think Saddam will come here to see his sons and they can capture him, but Saddam is more clever than this." The last resting place of Saddam's notorious sons is a glade of burnt grass, rustling bushes and silver birch trees, an ironically tranquil passage into the afterlife for two young men who caused so much pain and anguish and grief. "They are the sons of the president, and this is his land and so we are sad for them," Mr Shemari says. "They died fighting so they were martyrs. Qusay was not so bad, I think, people respected him. Uday, maybe not. After 40 days, it is the tradition to cover the grave with stones and put the gravestone in place, but we do not know what the family will do." Mr Shemari's explanation for the vicious state run by Saddam's family was grotesquely mundane. "When I was in prison, I met diplomats, educated people, academics, even the Minister of Agriculture. If Saddam had known all this, he would never have allowed it." So Uday and Qusay and their father get a clean bill of health. Even without the graves of Uday and Qusay, the family cemetery provides a bleak enough footnote to the violent history of modern Iraq. A few metres to the west is the tomb of Saddam's mother, Subha al-Tulfah, who lived for years with a second husband - Saddam's stepfather - who treated the family with great cruelty. And then, a little further away, lies the evidence of another slaughter of the innocents during the Anglo-American invasion; two local families, most of them children, 21 in all, blasted to pieces in the village of Awja when the Americans bombed their homes on 2 April in the hope of killing Saddam. They were supposedly distant cousins of the dictator. We never heard of this bloodbath during the war, of course. Nor was it reported afterwards. But here are the victims. The child martyr Reem Mohamed Abdullah, aged five; Lawza, her two-month-old sister; their mother, Fatma; her brother, Faez; their father, Mohamed, and Jassim Mohamed Turki and his family, two of them babies. Mr Shemari says: "All their graves are covered with the Iraqi flag because they too were martyrs. I think each martyr will go to paradise. For what did this child do to suffer a fate like this?" And what of Uday, I asked? Will he go to heaven or hell? "Yes, Uday will also go to paradise," Mr Shemari replies. "For Muslims in general, each hero who confronts the occupation forces, he will be given respect and will be a hero for a long time. I am a schoolmaster and I tell my children that this is like the war between the early Muslims and those who worshipped idols. "Now the future of Iraq is in the hands of foreigners. They promised us freedom. Where is that freedom? They said they would liberate us. Where is that liberation?" And where, I asked him, were the Americans? "They will find you," he replied. And they did. Four hundred metres from the graves, a squad of US soldiers holding automatic weapons and bent double came running from ambush positions behind bushes and trees. My floppy hat and English accent - cheerily calling out "Good morning, gentlemen" is always an enjoyable experience though they had The Independent's driver standing by his car with his hands on his head - had the soldiers slowing to a walk before they even had a chance to see if I was Saddam. But for the soldiers of the 22/4th Infantry Division, it was a serious matter. What was the purpose of my visit? What was my identification? Hidden behind the trees was a Bradley Fighting Vehicle and another unit of troops. "Did you know we were here?" a sergeant asked. I kind of guessed, I replied. Because the bodies of Uday and Qusay never seem to lose their fascination for the Americans. Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to Cockburn and St. Clair's forthcoming book, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. Weekend Edition Features for August 2/3, 2003 Tamara R. Piety Nike's Full Court Press Breaks Down Francis Boyle My Alma Mater, the University of Chicago, is a Moral Cesspool David Vest Sons of Paleface: Pictures from Death's Other Side Neve Gordon Nightlife in Jerusalem Uri Avnery Their Master's Voice: Bush, Blair and Intelligence Snafus Robert Fisk Paternalistic Democracy for Iraq Jerry Kroth Israel, Yellowcake and the Media Noah Leavitt What's Driving the Liberian Bloodbath: Is the US Obligated to Intervene? Saul Landau The Film Industry: Business and Ideology Ron Jacobs One Big Prison Yard: the Meaning of George Jackson Thomas Croft In the Deep, Deep Rough: Reflections on Augusta Amadi Ajamu Def Sham: Russell Simmons New Black Leader? Poets' Basement Vega, Witherup, Albert and Fleming       Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /