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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Report From the Afghan Front
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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Report From the Afghan Front
It's Obama's War and It's Going Very BadlyExclusively for CounterPunch subcribers, Patrick Cockburn files a special report from Kabul: the Taliban's tightening grip on most of the country; plumetting US popularity in a bankrupt country rotted by corruption. For fifty years, Seymour Melman waged intellectual war on Pentagon capitalism, making the case for peaceful conversion. David Price brings to light decades of FBI secret surveillance. Senator Jim Webb is launching the first determined bid in forty years to overhaul the US criminal justice system at whose call is the American gulag. Alexander Cockburn reports on the prospects for his success. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories June 26-28, 2009 Jeffrey St. Clair June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 18, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Sandels / Anthony DiMaggio Robert Weissman Joshua Frank Jonathan Cook Reza Fiyouzat Norman Solomon Ali Jawad James Ridgeway Website of the Day June 17, 2009 Carl Boggs Dr. Bryant Welch Winslow T. Wheeler Liaquat Ali Khan Jonathan Cook Binoy Kampmark Karim Makdisi Dave Lindorff David Swanson Gene Marx Website of the Day June 16, 2009 Patrick Cockburn John Ross Afshin Rattansi Marc Levy Paul Craig Roberts Behzad Yaghmaian Brian M. Downing Merle Lefkoff David Macaray Robert Jensen David Swanson Website of the Day June 15, 2009 Michael Hudson Reza Fiyouzat Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway Marjorie Cohn Rannie Amiri Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Leonard Schwartz Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day June 12-14, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Gareth Porter Mike Whitney Mark Ames Esam Al-Amin Franklin Lamb Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Heather Gray Felice Pace Ron Jacobs George Wuerthner Jeffrey Buchanan / David Ker Thomson Renaud Lambert Kevin Zeese David Macaray Evelyn Pringle Chris Genovali David Michael Green Brian J. Foley Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 11, 2009 Kathy Kelly / James Bovard Tristan de Bourbon Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Ralph Nader Harvey Wasserman Nicole Colson Mark Weisbrot Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 10, 2009 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine Kathy Kelly Paul Craig Roberts Rev. William E. Alberts Peter Lee Carol Miller Emily Ratner Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 9, 2009 Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Stan Cox Sibel Edmonds Jonathan Cook David Macaray Robert Jensen Nadia Hijab Mark Weisbrot Website of the Day June 8, 2009 John Ross Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney Franklin Lamb Uri Avnery Jonathan Cook Eric Toussaint Jim Goodman Norman Solomon Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day June 5 -7, 200 Alexander Cockburn George Galloway Paul Craig Roberts Jennifer Loewenstein Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Missy Comley Beattie Farzana Versey Stanley Heller John V. Whitbeck Robert Weissman Lee Sustar Dave Lindorff William Blum Ernest Callenbach / Greg Moses Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Tim Stelloh Belén Fernández David Ker Thomson Karyn Strickler Christopher Brauchli Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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Weekend Edition Memo to the "Do Something" BrigadeThe Rift in IranBy NADIA HIJAB The Guardian Council's conclusion that there were "discrepancies" but no major fraud in the June 12 Iranian presidential elections reaffirms Mahmoud Ahmadinejad as the winner but does little to heal the bitter rift over the election conduct and results. The only clarity in this non-transparent process is that the people of Iran need support to withstand the post-election crackdown -- and that America and Europe are ill-placed to provide it. If they really want to help the citizens of Iran, Western leaders and governments have two options: to respect Iran's sovereignty while speaking up for human rights, and to take steps to restore the moral authority of the United Nations. In walking the fine line of respect for sovereignty as well as for human rights, president Barack Obama has -- so far -- shown himself more mindful than Congress (and Europe) of the West's terrible track record in the Middle East. The "do something" brigade should take note that fine-sounding words can have devastating repercussions. One has only to think back to the spring of 1991 when Iraq's Shia and Kurds rebelled against Saddam Hussein. They thought he had been greatly weakened by his expulsion from Kuwait. And they responded to George W. Bush's call to rise up and force "the dictator to step aside." Saddam, ruthless as ever, crushed the rebellions, killing tens of thousands of Iraqis and displacing hundreds of thousands. America and its allies didn't do much about it. Worse, they maintained a harsh sanctions campaign that de-developed Iraq for 12 long years. The Iranians don't need this kind of help. What they do need is a forceful emphasis on human rights, including freedom of speech and assembly, and, even more urgently now, fair trials. Unfortunately, here, too, Western governments lack credibility not just because of their past colonial adventures, but also because they violate human rights in the region today. Britain, for example, backed America's illegal war in Iraq that has so far led to over a million dead and four million displaced Iraqis. Former prime minister Tony Blair, who led Britain into that war, may finally be held to account now that he has to testify publicly in his country's war inquiry. The West's credibility is also seriously undermined because of its inaction regarding Israel's daily violations of the most basic Palestinian human rights in full public view. Given their checkered history and double standards, America and Europe will find that their selective support of human rights does not carry weight in most of the world. Thus, the second and, really, the only option to help Iranians -- and other peoples trapped in situations where rights are trampled -- is to begin to restore the United Nations to the more neutral stature it had before America's war on Iraq. As an inter-governmental organization, the United Nations has never been free of manipulation by its now 192 member states, especially the five veto-wielders. But the organization still had moral authority until the Bush administration pulled it into Iraq after his March 2003 invasion. In a terrible travesty, the United Nations was tasked to provide developmental and political support for a war that was a clear violation of its very own charter. It not only lost credibility but became a target for attack. Its Baghdad offices were blown up in August 2003 and some of its best staff were killed. Today, in many parts of the world, it hunkers down behind the same kinds of barricades needed to protect United States embassies. The United Nations' moral authority has also been drained by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Already weak in this sphere after nearly six decades of unimplemented resolutions, it was further diminished when the Bush administration made it just one party in the Quartet, alongside the United States, the European Union, and Russia. In a damning confidential end-of-mission report in 2007, which was leaked to the media, Alvaro de Soto (the United Nations Special Coordinator for the Middle East peace process) provides a clear analysis of the failures of the process itself as well as the deliberate erosion of the role of the secretary general and the way by which this jeopardizes the United Nations' capacity to uphold international law -- and the safety of its staff. De Soto's report should be required reading for all students of international affairs. The restoration of the organization's moral authority is long overdue. A more neutral and respected United Nations has far more credibility than individual world leaders. Bringing the organization back from the brink will be a slow process, but the sooner it starts, the sooner the world can play a meaningful role in supporting human rights in Iran, in the rest of the battered Middle East, and in other parts of the globe. Nadia Hijab is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies. |
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