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Today's
Stories
December 19, 2003
Gary Leupp
The
Neocon's Dream Memo
December 18, 2003
Ann Harrison
A
Landmark Victory for Medical Pot
John L. Hess
Catfish
Blues: The SOB's from Out of Town
Karyn Strickler
Ebola
is Good for You!
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Duryodhana
Dies
Harry Browne
Hail
Jim Hickey, the "Irish Hero" of the Colonial Occupation
of Iraq
Hammond Guthrie
Captured in Abasement
December 17, 2003
Robert Fisk
Saddam's
Cold Comforts
Gideon Levy
"Don't
Even Think About the Children"
Marjorie Cohn
The Fortuitous
Arrest of Saddam: a Pyrrhic Victory?
Andrew Cockburn
Saddam's
Last Act
December 16, 2003
Robert Fisk
Getting
Saddam...15 Years Too Late
Mahajan / Jensen
Saddam
in Irons: The Hard Truths Remain
John Halle
Matt
Gonzalez and Me
Josh Frank
The
Democrats and Saddam
Tariq Ali
Saddam
on Parade: the New Model of Imperialism
December 15, 2003
Robert Fisk
The Capture
of Saddam Won't Stop the Guerrilla War
Dave Lindorff
The
Saddam Dilemma
Abu Spinoza
Blowback on the Stand: The Trial of Saddam Hussein
Norman Solomon
For
Telling the Truth: the Strange Case of Katharine Gun
Patrick Cockburn
The
Capture of Saddam
Stew Albert
Joy to the World
December 13 / 14, 2003
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
Stan Goff
Jessica Lynch, Plural
Tariq Ali
The Same Old Racket in Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Map is not the Territory
Marty Bender / Stan Cox
Dr. Atkins vs. the Planet
Christopher Brauchli
Mercury Rising: the EPA's Presents to Industry
Gary Leupp
On Marriage in "Recorded History", an Open Letter to
Gov. Mitt Romney
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Saga of Iran's Alleged WMD
Larry Everest
Saddam, Oil and Empire: Supply v. Demand
William S. Lind
How to Fight a 4th Generation War
Fran Shor
From Vietnam to Iraq: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency
Ron Jacobs
Child Abuse as Public Policy
Omar Barghouti
Relative Humanity and a Just Peace in the Middle East
Adam Engel
Pretty Damn Evil: an Interview with Ed Herman
Kristin Van Tassel
Breastfeeding Compromised
Ben Tripp
On Getting Stabbed
Susan Davis
"The Secret Lives of Dentists", a Review
Dave Zirin
Does Dylan Still Matter? an Interview with Mike Marqusee
Norman Madarasz
Searching for the Barbarians
Poets' Basement
Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Dean on Race
December 12, 2003
Josh Frank
Halliburton,
Timber and Dean
Chris Floyd
The
Inhuman Stain
Dave Lindorff
Infanticide
as Liberation: Hiding the Dead Babies
Benjamin Dangl
Another Two Worlds Are Possible?
Jean-Paul Barrois
Two States or One? an Interview with Sami Al-Deeb on the Geneva
Accords
David Vest
Bush
Drops the Mask: They Died for Halliburton
December 11, 2003
Siegfried Sassoon
A
Soldier's Declaration Against War
Douglas Valentine
Preemptive
Manhunting: the CIA's New Assassination Program
John Chuckman
The Parable of Samarra
Peter Phillips
US Hypocrisy on War Crimes: Corp Media Goes Along for the Ride
James M. Carter
The
Merchants of Blood: War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq
December 10, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
The
War According to Newt Gingrich
Pat Youngblood / Robert
Jensen
Workers
Rights are Human Rights
Jeff Guntzel
On Killing Children
CounterPunch Wire
Ashcroft Threatens to Subpoena Journalist's Notes in Stewart
Case
Dave Lindorff
Gore's
Judas Kiss
December 9, 2003
Michael Donnelly
A
Gentle Warrior Passes: Craig Beneville's Quiet Thunder
Chris White
A Glitch
in the Matrix: Where is East Timor Today?
Abu Spinoza
The Occupation Concertina: Pentagon Punishes Iraqis Israeli Style
Laura Carlsen
The FTAA: a Broken Consensus
Richard Trainor
Process and Profits: the California Bullet Train, Then and Now
Josh Frank
Politicians as Usual: Gore Dean and the Greens
Ron Jacobs
Remembering
John Lennon
December 8, 2003
Newton Garver
Bolivia
at a Crossroads
John Borowski
The
Fall of a Forest Defender: the Exemplary Life of Craig Beneville
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Revised Inspirations for War
Tess Harper
When Christians Kill
Thom Rutledge
My Next Step
Carol Wolman, MD
Nuclear
Terror and Psychic Numbing
Michael Neumann
Ignatieff:
Apostle of He-manitariansim
Website of the Day
Bust Bob Novak
December 6 / 7, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
December 5, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
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
19, 2003
Has It Really Worked?
The
Grand Strategy of Radical Arabs
By HAROLD GOULD
For two generations the world has witnessed a
mounting confrontation between so-called Western modernism and
what in recent years has been termed the "Arab street."
The latter refers to the state of disgruntlement and social malaise
that allegedly afflicts Islamic societies, particularly in the
Middle East, South Asia and adjacent regions of Northern Africa.
The failure of most of the societies in these regions to attain
full economic development, to overcome mass poverty, to evolve
secular political institutions, and establish constructive relationships
with the advanced industrial societies, whom they accuse of being
the cause of all their social woes, has resulted in perpetual
political turmoil and escalating patterns of domestic violence,
international conflict and terrorism, and, in the end, full-scale
war. The bringing down of the Twin Towers on 9/11 by Muslim hijackers
acting in the name of Islamic fundamentalism brought this crisis
of political despair to a frightening climax. War with Afghanistan
and Iraq followed in quick succession. Terrorism in Palestine
and Kashmir continue exacting their tragic toll of innocent lives.
There have been numberless analyses on
both sides of the political divide concerning the causes of this
deep cleavage between two competing versions of right and wrong.
Here I do not mean merely the often asserted Huntintonesque sweeping
distinction between Islam and Christendom but instead the more
purely sociological distinction between the secular-modernizing
synthesis that has been driving the advanced industrial societies,
embodied by NATO and the EU, plus Japan, and most recently China
and India, on the one hand, and the backward-looking revivalistic
religiosity that pervades much of the grass-roots radical leadership
in the Muslim world, on the other.
When viewed from this standpoint, one
need not enter into ethnocentric judgemental questions about
the rightness or wrongness per se of any particular version of
"civilization". It requires rather some conclusions
regarding the qualitative consequences of actions taken. Did
the means employed, however much they may have been influenced
or legitimized by cultural norms, achieve results that advanced
the collective well-being of the society write large..
There has been no dearth of criticism
leveled against America's political conduct in dealing with the
non-Western world in general and the Muslim world in particular.
Much of this criticism is well deserved. The United States indeed
has been rightly faulted for pursuing double-standards toward
the Arab-Israeli conflict, for propping up feudalistic Arab regimes
with few redeeming social or political virtues, like Saudi Arabia,
in order to keep the oil flowing and military bases intact, for
winking at Saddam Hussain's Stalinism as long as it served American
strategic interests in the Middle East, and for winking at Pakistan's
state-sponsored terrorism against India as long as General Musharraf
played ball in combating the versions of terrorism that America
chooses to find reprehensible - i.e., Al Qaeda and the Taliban.
Clearly, there has been the Devil to pay for American expediency,
and a misguided propensity to disdain world opinion in its employment
of massive military power on a unilateral basis.
Yet, in all fairness, America has been
far less a monolith than has the Islamic world when it comes
to public debate over the political and moral efficacy of their
country's dominant credo for addressing the world's problems.
There has been an abundance of domestic political dissent concerning
the courses the country's neo-conservative faction has embarked
upon following 9/11. There has been much agonizing, even breast-beating,
over the reasons why things have gone so wrong. There is widely
held acknowledgment that the US's seeming excessive partiality
toward Israel in the Palestinian dispute has been misguided and
has played a significant role in intensifying and justifying
anti-Americanism throughout the Arab world. There has been abundant
criticism of America's tolerance of the double standard which
Pakistan practices toward terrorism-- allegedly combating it
vis-a-vis Afghanistan while obviously encouraging it vis a vis
India. Even after 9/11, strong voices have been raised over blanket
prejudice manifested against Muslims at home and abroad.
This contrasts vividly with the pervasive
Nazi-style anti-Semitism currently being propagated by Islamic
radicals, voiced not only by rabble on the Arab street but by
purportedly responsible government officials and the media in
leading Muslim countries. Behind this, as has been pointed out
by many commentators, lies a mentality of un-self-critical denial
that tends to blame the outsider for social and political ills
that are ascribable to and should be responsibly debated and
dealt with by the current ruling classes in these countries.
Had there been greater concern and inner
reflection on the part of moderate elements in these countries
about the wisdom of the tactics advocated by the Islamic radicals
to right the wrongs that allegedly reduced Islamic civilization
to its present state of despair, one wonders whether they would
have so readily gone along with the violent remedies advocated
by men like Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein, movements like
Wahabism, and terrorist organizations like Hizbollah, Jaish-i-Mohammed,
and Islamic Jihad.
Thomas Freedman recently has attributed
the moral and political plight of the Muslim world to the state
of "humiliation" that pervades it. He quotes a Pakistani
friend who says that what the US needs most in Iraq (and by implication
generally in the underdeveloped world ) is "a strategy of
dehumiliation and re-dignification." (NYT, Nov 10th). Two
cheers for that! But is this really enough, especially when it
has become obvious, precisely as a result of what is taking place
in Iraq, that even the world's only superpower lacks the capacity
to accomplish this on its own.
Some things just have to come from within.
In this case, the great need is for the middle-classes, who thrive
on secularism, free markets, civil society, female emancipation
and peace, to rise up and slay the fundamentalist totalitarian
demons in their midst. Easier said than done, you say. Agreed.
But history demonstrates that it can and indeed has been done.
The entire history of the West, as well as more recent entrants
into the brotherhood of modern secular nations, like India and
Japan, epitomize the successful struggle of the emerging middle-classes
to separate church from state, curb the capacity of fanatics
and fundamentalists to control the political process, and establish
constitutional government. Without this indigenous dimension,
all the efforts by outsiders to ameliorate the sense of collective
humiliation will come to nought because by itself this will not
sufficiently promote the growth of the basic institutions which
a successful struggle of the Muslim middle-classes with the anti-democratic
forces in their midst alone can and must bring about.
If the United States, the Western Coalition,
and the United Nations are to make a difference in this contest
over the very idea of Civilization, it will have to take the
form not only of waging war against "terrorism" and
encouraging "friendly regimes" in the Islamic world.
It will have to find the means and the will to strengthen and
amplify the power of the Islamic middle-classes to de-humiliate
and re-dignify themselves by taking control of their own institutional
destiny. Certainly there are many things that can be done that
stop short of paternalism and the aroma of colonialism to reinforce
this process. Greater cultural sensitivity and more direct interaction
with indigenous social groups would help, as blundering, culturally
ignorant American policies in Iraq makes painfully evident. A
more dynamic infusion of basic material resources (a kind of
mini-Martial Plan) would certainly strengthen the hand of Islamic
moderates. But in the end, the civilized elements in Muslim societies
must stand up and be counted. That is the most crucial ingredient.
Harold A. Gould
is visiting scholar in the Center for South Asian Studies at
the University of Virginia. He can be reached at: Harold.gould4@verizon.net.
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 13 / 14, 2003
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
Stan Goff
Jessica Lynch, Plural
Tariq Ali
The Same Old Racket in Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Map is not the Territory
Marty Bender / Stan Cox
Dr. Atkins vs. the Planet
Christopher Brauchli
Mercury Rising: the EPA's Presents to Industry
Gary Leupp
On Marriage in "Recorded History", an Open Letter to
Gov. Mitt Romney
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Saga of Iran's Alleged WMD
Larry Everest
Saddam, Oil and Empire: Supply v. Demand
William S. Lind
How to Fight a 4th Generation War
Fran Shor
From Vietnam to Iraq: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency
Ron Jacobs
Child Abuse as Public Policy
Omar Barghouti
Relative Humanity and a Just Peace in the Middle East
Adam Engel
Pretty Damn Evil: an Interview with Ed Herman
Kristin Van Tassel
Breastfeeding Compromised
Ben Tripp
On Getting Stabbed
Susan Davis
"The Secret Lives of Dentists", a Review
Dave Zirin
Does Dylan Still Matter? an Interview with Mike Marqusee
Norman Madarasz
Searching for the Barbarians
Poets' Basement
Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Dean on Race
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