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Today's
Stories
December
7, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
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.
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December 7, 2004
How Bush's War on Terror Has Helped to Silence Reformers
Across the Middle East
Lost
Muslim Voices of Dissent
By
BEHROOZ GHAMARI
In his recent book, Mahmood Mamdani
called Good Muslim-Bad Muslim a fictitious dichotomy that petrifies
Islam into a set of privatized beliefs without any relevance
to politics or a dogmatic ideology of violence. War-planners
and apologists for President Bush's "War on Terror"
accept this dichotomy, with the result that the voices of Muslim
critics who transcend the facile binary of good and evil are
effectively silenced. Dogmatic ideology brutalizes the men and
women who do not order their lives by its creeds. Those who inhabit
the incommensurable universes of the True Islam, the True Christianity,
the True Judaism of the Chosen People, believe in their Truths
with absolute certainty. The result is a world of threat and
obedience: a world that cannot recognize the actual complexities,
inconvenient exceptions, partial solutions, and humble compromises
of political reform.
Bush's War on Terror, with
all its Orwellian rhetoric of "fighting for peace"
and "killing to save lives," has moved the Muslim world
away from the real possibility of democracy in two ways. It has
given those who it had intended to obliterate new authority to
represent the legitimate grievances of Muslims around the world.
And, equally disturbing, it has generated a state of emergency
within the Muslim world that marginalizes those involved in the
painstaking work of social transformation. In a public sphere
ringing with screaming choruses of indignation and grief, it
is harder to focus on the long paragraphs and the complex sentences
of political analysis and interpretation. The reformers in the
Muslim world fight harder for an audience at home, and are essentially
eclipsed abroad.
Usama bin Laden's appearance
in the days preceding the American election shows the consequence
of a dogmatic rhetoric of good versus evil. Rather than representing
himself as a terrorist on the run, bin Laden tried out the guise
of a statesman with an agenda. He did not condemn Americans or
Christians as infidels who deserve to be annihilated, nor did
he intend to frighten Americans with his hatred. Rather, he conveyed
a message of hope and resistance for Muslims. He carefully cataloged
American policies in the Middle East and declared that "contrary
to Bush's claim that we hate freedom," "we fight because
we are free men who don't sleep under oppression." He condemned
the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982 and the ensuing massacres
of Palestinian women and children in refugee camps. America had
defended the legitimacy of Israel's atrocities. On that day,
he intoned "it was confirmed to me that Destruction is
freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance."
This is a fabrication. Bin
Laden is reinventing himself. In mid-1980s, after Israel's depredations
in Lebanon, he was a young wealthy businessman with close ties
to the Saudi royal family. He had found his religio-political
calling in the mujahedin resistance to the Soviet occupation
in Afghanistan, a joint operation of Reagan administration and
the Pakistani intelligence services who created and recruited
those "freedom fighters." When he joined them, bin
Laden expressed no special sympathy with families of the massacred
people in Beirut and Palestine. In his recent speech, bin Laden
called his task of confronting the Bush administration difficult
"in light of the resemblance it bears to the regimes in
our countries, half of which are ruled by the military and the
other half which are ruled by the sons of kings and presidents."
With his new rhetoric of social justice and anti-colonialism,
he is clearly positioning himself as the heir to movements with
whose founding ideas he had never identified.
The other political cost of
the War on Terror is the effect of damping down voices of dissent
within and outside Muslim countries. One of the first victims
of this war was the Iranian reformist president Mohammad Khatami.
President Bush's declaration of Iran as an axis of evil in his
State of the Union address in 2002 was delivered at a moment
when Islamic Republic had supported the American rout of the
Taliban in Afghanistan. Iran had thrown its full support behind
the transitional government of Hamid Karzai. But a reform movement
in Iran cannot survive when the Administration continually waves
the flag of regime change. The possibility of invasion offers
existing regimes throughout the region the best tool to silence
the opposition and treat them as agents of foreign powers. There
were many institutional reasons for President Khatami's failure
to realize his reformist agenda. But President Bush's messianic
militarism does not leave much room for political actors such
as the Iranian president to pursue the far more delicate business
of creating an avenue for a rapprochement between political adversaries,
for Khatami's humanistic dialogue of civilizations.
Bush's crusade obstructs genuine
democratic reform that springs from Muslim societies. Rather,
it equates reform with pro-Americanism, and therefore renders
ineffective the political authority of reformists and obscures
the role of those who wish to participate in their project. It
inhibits those who engage Muslim societies critically to submit
their critique freely without the fear of having their views
misappropriated by apologists for Bush's War on Terror. Critical
views will not flourish if they are to be used for justification
of war.
The War on Terror replicates
the logic of terrorism where intimidation and violence are considered
to be the supremely effective means for political engagement.
Both the War on Terror and terrorism eliminate the possibility
of public participation. They repress the very people on behalf
of whom they profess to speak. But Muslim societies will transform
in spite of these doctrines, not because of them.
The global networks of terrorism
and the administration's misguided policy against it together
have substituted violence for critique, bullets for words, and
destruction for change. The Polish social philosopher Zygmunt
Bauman once remarked that in order to avert murder a human being
needs to be augured towards words. Peoples whose voices are heard
and their grievances acknowledged will not resort to violence,
and will not submit to the authority of terrorists. Alas, the
voice of this author will not be heard in the policy rooms of
this Administration.
Behrooz Ghamari is a professor of sociology at Georgia
State University. He can be reached at: bghamari@gsu.edu
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
|