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May 20, 2002
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
May 17, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Fox News Flashback:
Defending McKinney
James T. Phillips
Ceasefires
and Terrorists
Phillipe Dambournet
The Truth at Last:
Bush as the Energizer Bunny
Lori Berenson
In Defense
of Political Prisoners
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Terrorist Warnings
Hussein Ibish
Clarifying
the Obstacles
to Peace in Palestine
Alexander Cockburn
Israel and "Anti-Semitism"
May 16, 2002
Marylin Robinson
A Garden
in Tent City, But Where Do You Bathe?
Paul de Rooij
Worse than CNN?
The BBC and Israel
David Krieger
The Bush/Putin
Agreement:
Nuclear Dangers Remain
Steve Perry
Unsafe at Any Speed:
Youth, Sex and the Heresies
of Judith Levine
May 15, 2002
Ahmad Faruqui
Revisiting
Camp David
Rick Giombetti
Spiderman v. Pentagon:
Working Class Hero Battles Corrupt Defense Contractors
Stanton / Madsen
When the
War Hits Home:
Planning for Martial Law, Telegovernance and Suspension of Elections
May 14, 2002
Jacob Levich
Leaving the Truth Out?
Alternative Online Publication
Tells the Big Lie about Palestine
Michael Colby
Bush's
Cuba Blunder
Dave Marsh
Scapegoats: the Music Industry's War
on Cassettes
Jensen / Mahajan
US Power
Mideast Power Plays
May 13, 2002
Robert Fisk
Why Does John Malkovich
Want to Kill Me?
Mokhiber / Weissman
IMF
and World Bank:
Out of Control
Dean Baker
Will Darth Vader do Time?
The Enron Saga Continues
Nelson Valdés
American
Democracy:
A Lesson for Cubans
May 12, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Why Is America Acting Like This? A
Letter to European Friends
John Patrick Leary
Aiding Colombia
Kathleen Christison
Israel
and Ethics
May 11, 2002
Joady Guthrie
The Holy Lands:
A Peace Vision
Patrick Cockburn
Bombing
Iraq:
the Pentagon Prepares a Prolonged Campaign
George Sunderland
CounterPunch Special
Our
Vichy Congress: Israel's Stranglehold on Capitol Hill
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Five
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By Alexander
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
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May
21, 2002
Confusing the Face of the Enemy
by Ron Jacobs
During America's war against the Vietnamese, one
of the common plaints of the soldiers in the jungle was that
one couldn't tell the "enemy" from a "friend".
Eventually, this inability to differentiate turned to a frustration
that changed the rules of engagement, at least unofficially.
No longer were there enemies and friends among the Vietnamese.
They all became the enemy to the GI in the field. It was this
type of consciousness that led to atrocities like the one that
happened in My Lai, where hundreds of women and children were
massacred by Lt. Calley and his soldiers. Of course, many soldiers
were never personally involved in slaughter on the scale of My
Lai, but virtually every GI who fired a weapon in the jungle
in Vietnam lives with the uncertainty of who he really killed-innocent
or enemy.
As the war in Afghanistan continues,
the likelihood of a similar scenario developing grows ever more
likely. Already, US forces have mistakenly killed Afghanis involved
in smuggling (a common way of making a living in the mountains
of the region), thinking they were Taliban fighters intent on
killing US soldiers. Other so-called mistakes have been made
when villages were bombed because Taliban and Al-Queda fighters
were believed to be residing there. When the dust had settled,
however, it was discovered that only civilians had been killed
by the US bombs. An American GI was recently quoted in the Washington
Post when asked about his mission "That's one of the frustrating
parts of being over here," Eddy said later with a sigh.
"You can't tell who's who."(5/18/02)
Besides a confusion based on the inability
of foreign troops being unable to distinguish friend from foe
due to the fact that they all seem to dress the same, there is
the lack of understanding of local customs. A recent US helicopter
attack on an Afghani wedding that killed several of the celebrants
is one example. When asked about this action, the US military
spokesman first tried to defend the action as a legitimate target
because there had been gunfire and " That kind of behavior
is not indicative of a wedding." When I was a kid in Pakistan,
I went to a wedding of a Pakistani friend of the family and after
the couple was married and the celebration begun, most of the
men in attendance fired their weapons in the air several times.
Indeed, it seemed that shooting weapons into the air was part
of many a celebration in this part of the world.
Instead of acknowledging this, however,
the US military is insisting that the target was legitimate and
that "Taliban or Al-Queda" were killed. This uncertainty
itself as to who was killed only emphasizes the potential of
intentional mistakes such as these killings and others like it.
Of course, in what can only appear even more callous than an
admission that a mistake was made, the Pentagon stated that the
military meant to kill the Afghanis identified as wedding celebrants
by their relatives and friends. When one is on the ground in
a war zone, the logic becomes one of survival. Politics do not
matter much to a human who believes their life is in danger no
matter what uniform s/he is wearing. The only thing that matters
is killing the person who wants to kill you. Killer or corpse-neither
is a desirable option.
If for this reason and no other, the
US-led foreign forces must leave Afghanistan and every other
place they currently roam in their attempt to keep the "natives
in their place." When US troops are not in foreign countries,
they don't get killed by fighters opposed to their presence there.
It's as simple as that. Similarily, if the United States stopped
supporting the occupation of the Palestinian territories, the
likelihood of a terror attack on the US by groups or individuals
supporting the liberation of Palestine would decrease to virtually
nothing. This is not a difficult dynamic, nor is it lacking in
sense. Indeed, the current dynamic which insists on maintaining
(and in some cases expanding) the US military presence around
the globe and backing Israeli expansionist policies both morally
and financially is the policy which lacks sense. There is little
doubt that it is this imperial approach to the world that endangers
us regular folks, whether we wear a uniform or not.
Ron Jacobs
can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
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