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Today's Stories April 7 / 8, 2007 Alexander Cockburn April 6, 2007 Franklin Lamb Gloria La Riva Corporate Crime Reporter Ron Jacobs Felice Pace Walter Brasch David Swanson Sylvia Syracuse
Patrick Cockburn Tom Barry Richard W. Behan Nicola Nasser Bernadine Dohrn Laray Polk Helen Redmond
April 4, 2007 Col. Dan Smith Joshua Frank Margaret Kimberly Sharon Smith Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon Martin Luther
King,Jr. Bill Quigley Dave Zirin Evelyn Pringle Peter Rost,
MD Website of the Day
April 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Marjorie Cohn Brian M. Downing Corporate Crime
Reporter Carol Norris Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Scott Bontz Thomas Dolby Website of
the Day
Gary Leupp Uri Avnery James Petras Norman Solomon Robert Fisk Stanley Heller Sherwood Ross Monica Benderman Stephen Fleischman Anne McElroy
Dachel Website of the Day
Cockburn /
St. Clair Fred Gardner Greg Moses Gary Leupp Robert Fisk Roger Morris Conn Hallinan Kristin J.
Anderson Jason Hribal John Ross Christopher Brauchli David Underhill Elizabeth Schulte Ben Terrall Missy Beattie Sonja Karkar Daniel Wolff David Vest Ron Jacobs Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Alan Maass Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity Richard W. Behan Gabriel Kolko William S. Lind Stedjan / Weis Kevin Zeese David Busch Fidel Castro CounterPunch
News Service Website of the Day
Saul Landau Patrick Cockburn Dave Lindorff Arthur Neslen Michael Dickinson Ingmar Lee Aseem Shrivastava Marlene Martin Mahmoud El-Yousseph Michael Foley Website of the Day
March 28, 2007 Nicole Colson Harry Clark Larry Everest Jonathan M.
Feldman Dave Zirin Jane Stillwater Ayesha Ijaz Khan Jim Wilfong Hawra Karama Website of
the Day
Iain Boal /
Patrick Cockburn Monica Benderman Corporate Crime
Reporter Joshua Frank Harvey Wasserman Sen. Russell Feingold Tillman Family Patrick Bond David Judd Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Greg Moses Bill Hatch John V. Walsh Diane Christian Dan La Botz Frederico Fuentes Sunsara Taylor Mickey Z. Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair David Rosen Ron Jacobs Robert Fantina Alan Maass Atul Gawande Marianne McDonald China Hand Kaz Dziamka Andrew Wimmer Don Monkerud Anthony Papa Matthew Provonsha Missy Beattie Stephen Fleischman Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend Song of the Weekend
March 23, 2007 Saul Landau Patrick Cockburn Greg Moses Rep. Ron Paul Franklin Lamb Stephen Gowans Roger Burbach Dave Lindorff William S. Lind Alan Mammoser Russell Hoffman Website of
the Day
March 22, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Robin Blackburn Michael Donnelly Uzma Aslam
Khan Lee Sustar Robert D. Skeels Rev. William Alberts Anne McElroy
Dachel Mickey Z. Website of
the Day
Tao Ruspoli James Petras Fred Gardner Corporate Crime
Reporter Faisal Kutty Robert Fantina Isabella Kenfield and Roger
Burbach Lucinda Marshall Winslow Wheeler Website of
the Day
March 20, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Winslow T.
Wheeler Sharon Smith Uri Avnery Stan Cox Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Alan Farago Richard W.
Behan Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On David Krieger Peter Rost, MD Mickey Z. Website of
the Day Webclip of
the Day
March 19, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Patrick Cockburn Stauber / Rampton Werther Noam Chomsky Jeff Leys Richard May Ron Jacobs Mike Whitney Website of
the Day
March 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn John Scagliotti Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Harry Clark Brian Cloughley Mehran Ghassemi William Loren Katz John Ross Ralph Nader Walter Brasch Samer Assad Dave Zirin Ron Jacobs Missy Beattie Don Santina Sami Adwan Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
March 16, 2007 R. T. Naylor Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank Diane Farsetta Tom Barry Stephen Lendman Al Krebs Jackie Corr Ramzy Baroud Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day
March 15, 2007 Alison Weir Patrick Cockburn Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity Franklin Spinney Standard Schaefer Conn Hallinan Maureen Webb Sonja Karkar Margaret Kimberly Anthony Papa Katherine Hancy Wheeler Bush's Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost Video of the Day Website of
the Day
March 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Philip Agee Bruce Dixon John Walsh Sunsara Taylor William Johnson Richard Thieme Jeffrey Klein Nicola Nasser Dave Lindorff Website of
the Day
March 13, 2007 Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D. Jonathan Cook Robert Bryce Corporate Crime
Reporter Pierre Rimbert Dave Lindorff Elizabeth Schulte Norman Solomon Kevin Zeese Jeff Conant Website of the Day
March 12, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Paul Craig Roberts Ingmar Lee Fred Gardner Ron Jacobs Ralph Nader John Ross Stephen Fleischman Eva Carazo Vargas Website of
the Day
March 9 / 11, 2007 Sameer Dossani Jeffrey St.
Clair Dave Marsh Patrick Cockburn Jennifer Van Bergen James P. Stevenson Arthur J. Versluis Corporate Crime
Reporter Missy Beattie Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese David Swanson John A. Murphy Dave Lindorff Nikolas Kozloff Christopher
Fons Mike Roselle Mike Mejia Susie Day Michael Donnelly Tao Ruspoli Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
March 8, 2007 Elaine Cassel Yifat Susskind Corporate Crime Reporter Col. Dan Smith William S. Lind Mark Engler Roger Burbach Dana Cloud Isabella Kenfield Lucinda Marshall Tao Ruspoli Website of
the Day
Christopher Ketcham Christopher
Ketcham Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair Winslow T.
Wheeler Sean Donahue Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Tao Ruspoli Website of the Day
March 6, 2007 Gary Leupp Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Corporate Crime Reporter Ron Jacobs Mike Roselle P. Sainath Joshua Frank Aniket Alam Dave Zirin Website of
the Day
March 5, 2007 Greg Moses Patrick Cockburn James Petras Frida Berrigan Marjorie Cohn Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati Sen. Barack Obama Michael Young Dave Lindorff Sonja Karkar Website of the Day
March 3 / 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Corporate Crime
Reporter Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader M. Shahid Alam Gilad Atzmon Fred Gardner George Ciccariello-Maher Rock &
Rap Confidential Gillian Russom Michael McPhearson Kevin Zeese Sunsara Taylor Wendy Thompson Kenneth Rexroth Missy Beattie Don Monkerud Tina Louise Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
March 2, 2007 Roger Morris Phil Gasper Mike Roselle Robert Bryce John V. Walsh Sherwood Ross China Hand David Rosen Chris Genovali Peter Harley Website of the Day
March 1, 2007 Laura Carlsen Paul Craig
Roberts Ray McGovern Christopher
Brauchli Najum Mustaq Brent Bowden Tina Richards Ethan Nadelman Mike Stark Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague Mike Whitney Website of
the Day
February 28, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Tao Ruspoli China Hand Marjorie Cohn Sarah Olson Susan Van Haitsma Nicole Colson Harvey Wasserman William S. Lind Nicola Nasser Website of the Day
February 27, 2007 Tariq Ali Tom Barry Uri Avnery Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar Jeff Nygaard Hugh O'Shaughnessy Mitchell Kaidy Carl Finamore Anne McElroy
Dachel Ramzy Baroud Andrew Rouse Website of the Day
February 26, 2007 Franklin Lamb Bill Quigley Greg Moses Col. Dan Smith Ralph Nader Paul Buchheit Jeff Leys Dave Zirin Mike Whitney Michael Dickinson Website of the Day
February 24 / 25, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair R. T. Naylor Gary Leupp Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Jeffrey Blankfort Chris Sands Gary Freeman Larry Portis P. Sainath Lee Sustar Kevin Wehr Ken Couesbouc Soffiyah Elijah Kathlyn Stone Dave Lindorff Jason Kunin Kevin Zeese Remi Kanazi Missy Beattie Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 23, 2007 Franklin Spinney Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Kathy Kelly Chris Dols Evelyn Pringle Stephen Pearcy Dan Brook Yifat Susskind Website of
the Day
February 22, 2007 Robert Fantina Tariq Ali Michael Shank John Ross Christopher Brauchli Cindy Litman Niranjan Ramakrishnan Kevin Zeese Aseem Shrivastava Reza Fiyouzat Illinois Students Against the
War Website of
the Day
February 21, 2007 Maass / St.
Clair Sharon Smith Greg Moses Margaret Kimberly Ralph Nader Nicola Nasser Mike Whitney Tao Ruspoli Byeong Jeongpil Corporate Crime
Reporter Josh Mahan Website of
the Day
February 20, 2007 Sgt. Martin
Smith Werther Corporate Crime Reporter Carl G. Estabrook China Hand Joshua Frank Megan Boler John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Alan Gregory Website of the Day
February 19, 2007 Paul Craig
Roberts Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Michael F.
Brown Robert Jensen Roger Burbach Monica Benderman Sonja Karkar John Walsh Talli Nauman Website of the Day
Feburary 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Gary Leupp Jeffrey St.
Clair Roger Morris Uri Avnery James Brooks Sen. Russell
Feingold Linn Washington, Jr. Michele Brand Fred Gardner Mitchel Cohen Mike Ferner David Swanson P. Sainath Mike Stark Missy Beattie Jonathan Franklin Website of the Weekend
Marc Levy Andrew Cockburn Glen Ford Greg Moses Ron Jacobs John W. Farley James Marc Leas Tim Rinne Albert Wan Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Stephen Lendman Evelyn Pringle Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese Dave Lindorff Pete Shanks Peter Rost Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day
February 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Dick J. Reavis Margaret Kimberly Christopher Brauchli Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross Michael F.
Brown Dave Lindorff J.L. Chestunut,
Jr. Don Fitz Michael Donnelly Dr. Susan Block Website of
the Day
February 13, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Col. Douglas
MacGreagor Thomas Power Nicola Nasser David Swanson Columbia Coalition
Against the War Website of the Day
February 12, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts John Walsh Dr. John Carroll,
MD Greg Moses Nicole Colson Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Doug Giebel David Swanson Website of the Day
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Weekend
Edition Conflict or Alliance of Civilization vs. the Unspoken Worldwide Class StruggleWhy Huntington and Beck Are WrongBy VICENTE NAVARRO In recent years, a public debate has been underway in the Western world, both in academic journals and in the mainstream press, between Samuel Huntington, Professor of Political Science at Harvard University, and Ulrich Beck, Professor of Sociology at Munich University, Germany. The topic is the historical relationship between Christian and Muslim civilizations. While they disagree on some components of this relationship -- Huntington emphasizes the territoriality of the conflict, but Beck questions this aspect -- they agree that there is a continuing conflict between the two civilizations. Huntington attributes this to a conflict of values and a desire for territorial and demographic expansion by both civilizations; Beck attributes it to the frequent humiliation of the Muslim countries caused by the Christian civilizations. This debate has achieved enormous visibility in the popular press. The problem with Huntington's and Beck's interpretations is that both assume the two civilizations have been in conflict for the past 50 years. But this assumption is wrong. A historical and political analysis of Christian and Muslim civilizations and their interactions shows that political, intellectual, religious, and cultural leaders of both civilizations have collaborated extensively, forging an alliance of civilizations against a common enemy: lay progressive forces, whether socialists, communists, or Arab secular nationalists, that threaten the class interests of the alliance. Thus, the alliance between Christian and Muslim civilizations was actually an alliance among the dominant classes (of both civilizations) that were threatened by progressive movements. The Alliance of Christian and Muslim Civilizations An analysis of our recent past--the second half of the twentieth century--shows there has been no conflict, but rather an alliance, between Christian and Muslim civilizations. One indicator of this alliance is that the vast majority of radical Islamic fundamentalist organizations, now considered terrorists, were once actively supported by the leaders of Christian civilizations. While the mainstream Western media have failed to inform their readers about this, the empirical evidence for such support exists. In his book Devil's Game: How the United States Helped Unleash Fundamentalist Islam, Robert Dreyfus documents extensively how the U.S. and U.K. governments supported the majority of Muslim fundamentalist associations (again, now defined as terrorists), and in fact played a key role in establishing and developing these groups. Dreyfus shows, for example, how both governments actively supported the establishment of the Muslim Brotherhood in the 1950s. This extremely violent group was started in Egypt and, with the support of Saudi Arabia, expanded throughout the Arab world. In the 1980s, the Muslim Brotherhood helped to establish the Movement of Islamic Resistance, known as Hamas, the radical Muslim Palestinian group that today governs the Palestinian people. Again in the 1950s, the U.S. and U.K. governments also supported the Mullahs (fundamentalist Muslim clerics) in Iran, led by Khomeini, who later became the leaders of that country. And the U.S. and U.K. governments also actively supported (with the assistance of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) the Taliban in Afghanistan. In all these supportive efforts by the U.S. and U.K. governments, the religious and cultural values of Islamic fundamentalists were not seen as an obstacle; quite the contrary. Religious fundamentalism in both Christian and Muslim civilizations was crucial to the development of the alliance between civilizations. As stated by an official document of the U.S. State Department, "the attractiveness of such Muslim movements is their messianic character, similar to the born-again Christians of the South in the U.S. Moreover, they are profoundly anti-communist" (The World Situation, 1978). Thus there was no conflict but rather a religious and cultural affinity between the leaders of the Christian and Muslim civilizations. This affinity of values, however, was not enough to establish an alliance. Why would the leaders of Christian civilizations support Islamic fundamentalists clearly oriented toward the use of violence in pursuing their objectives? The question posed by Huntington and Beck should have been, not so much what divides, but what unites the two civilizations. The answer is clear: What united the leaders of the two civilizations was class interests. These interests determined their objectives, their alliances, and their enemies. This is the reality behind the erroneous slogan "a conflict of civilizations." The alliance was forged on the basis of not just a commonality of religious values, but also -- and above all -- a commonality of class interests. The alliance was established
to defeat and eliminate progressive lay movements led by socialists,
communists, or Arab nationalists who were successfully mobilizing
the Muslim masses (working classes, peasantry, and sectors of
the professional middle classes) against the dominant classes
of the Muslim countries that were enjoying the support of the
governments of the Christian civilizations. The alliance between
the governing elites of the Christian and Muslim civilizations
was based on threats to their common economic interests (primarily,
but not exclusively, oil) by the burgeoning progressive forces.
Given the extreme poverty of the vast majority of people in the
midst of enormous wealth in many of the Muslim countries, an
eruption was inevitable. In their own interests, the dominant
classes of Christian and Muslim civilizations needed to channel
the frustrations of the masses of people away from the progressive
movements. The great challenge for the dominant classes was to
eliminate the threat of a class mobilization against them, and
the method at hand was to demobilize political impulses and
replace them with a multi-class mobilization based on religious
fervor. A multi-class religious fundamentalism could channel
the energy of a mass mobilization, not against the dominant classes,
but in support of a religious identity--a commonality of interests
and identity among dominated and dominant classes. This strategy
is not new. In Southern Europe, the dominant landowners and oligarchy,
in collaboration with the Catholic Church, established the Christian
Democratic Party in response to peasants' and workers' parties
that were threatening their interests. Class struggle was replaced
by social cohesion, with Christianity as the multi-class glue
that would keep classes together--under, of course, the dominion
and hegemony of the dominant classes. The intention of this project,
based on a religious fundamentalism, was to channel the energy
and frustration of the popular classes toward an external agent:
to promote a defense of religion threatened by unchristian progressive
forces. The same dynamics operated in the Muslim countries, with
dominant classes promoting Islamic fundamentalism among the disenfranchised
majorities. Let's look at some historical details, case by case.
Support
of Islamic Fundamentalism by the Governing Elites of the Christian
Civilizations President Nasser's socialist
program in Egypt threatened the dominant classes of the entire
Arab world. Under the leadership of the House of Saud, the royal
family of Saudi Arabia, an international association was established
in 1962--the International Islamic League--that funded and supported
Islamic fundamentalists worldwide. The League is still very active,
supporting these fundamentalist groups in all parts of the world,
including Europe. The League's European hq is in Brussels.
Its main objective is stated quite clearly in its main charter:
to "eliminate and eradicate from the world the atheistic
and lay forces well-represented in communism, which denies God's
existence and distances men from Islam." By "communism"
it means any force that challenges class power relations in
the Muslim world. In response to this call, fundamentalist forces
have killed left-wing leaders in all Muslim and Arab countries,
including the general secretary of the socialist party of Morocco,
leaders of the left in Lebanon (assassinated by the Muslim fundamentalist
group Hezbollah), and a long list of other progressive figures.
In Palestine, Saudi Arabia and the International Islamic League (and the U.S. and U.K. governments) at one time supported Hamas against the progressive Palestinian forces. In Iran, the enemy of the dominant classes (and the U.S. and U.K. governments) was Mossadegh's government--supported by the Communist Party--whose reforms adversely affected dominant-class interests. Khomeini led the anti-Mossadegh movement that culminated with the coup of 1953. The much hated Shah's dictatorship, established by the coup, proved very unstable (and later collapsed), which explains why the governments of the Christian civilizations supported the establishment of the Islamic Republic in Iran--as an alternative to a secular republic, a progressive republic, led by the Communist Party. And, again, something similar occurred in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda were actively supported with funds and guns by the Christian leaders of the U.S. and U.K. governments to stop the reforms led by the Afghan Communist Party. Other supporters of the Taliban were Saudi Arabia, the Vatican of the Muslim world, and the Pakistan military regime, which in 1979 had killed the socialist President Bhutto, head of a democratically elected socialist government. In all these cases, support by the political leaders of the Christian civilizations for Islamic fundamentalists has been explained and justified with geopolitical arguments--that is, by the need to oppose expansion of the Soviet Union, and presenting progressive forces anywhere as being mere puppets of the Soviet Union. This argument is easily dismissed: Christian leaders' support for the Islamic fundamentalists continued after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Geopolitical arguments for the class alliance between Christian civilizations and Islamic fundamentalists simply do not hold up. Interestingly, the only country where Islamic fundamentalists were not instruments of the dominant classes was Iraq. In that country, the dominant classes saw the collapse of the monarchy as a consequence of popular mobilizations led by the Iraqi Communist Party, allied to sectors of lay, anti-imperialist Arab nationalists in the Iraqi Army. Opposition to these progressive movements came from the Army itself, led by Saddam Hussein. Supported by the U.S. and U.K. governments, Saddam Hussein established an extremely repressive dictatorship, and this dictatorship continued to receive support from those governments, for most of its mandate, until its last few years. Final Observations All these documented facts show a reality that is not reported by the mainstream media: behind a supposed "conflict" between Christian and Muslim civilizations there has been a class alliance. An alliance of this type first existed in Spain in the 1930s. Muslim Moroccan troops fought with the Catholic-supported fascists in the military coup of 1936, led by General Franco, against a democratically elected progressive government--in what the Spanish Catholic Church defined as a Crusade. The Muslim troops supported a Crusade against the infidels who denied God. And just as the Spanish Civil War was a prologue for World War II, introducing the cast of characters that would take the stage in that war, so the Afghan War in the 1980s--with Christian troops supporting Muslim fundamentalists--prefigured World War III, which we are engaged in today. All the forces at war in this new conflict were already there, in Afghanistan in the 1980s. Progressive lay forces (led by a Communist Party), with the support of the Soviet Union, carried out a series of reforms in Afghanistan--introducing land reform, a secular public school system, and gender equality, with extensive participation of women in the schools and universities). All of these moves were opposed by the dominant classes of Afghanistan, which supported Islamic fundamentalist groups funded by Saudi Arabia (among the most oppressive regimes in the Arab world), the government of Pakistan, and the U.S. government (led by President Carter, who, paradoxically, presented himself as the great defender of human rights). It was at that time that the U.S. government supported Osama bin Laden in a holy war against communism, which in fact was a crude defense of the class interests of dominant groups whose privileges were threatened by social reforms. As it turned out, the Islamic fundamentalist forces, armed by the U.S. and other governments, developed a dynamic of their own that the U.S. government could not control. But the conflict that now exists between the U.S., U.K., and other governments and the Islamic fundamentalist terrorist groups should not obscure the origins of these terrorist movements and the class interests they have served and continue to serve. Vicente Navarro is Professor of Public Policy at the
Johns Hopkins University, U.S.A., and of Political Sciences in
the Pompeu Fabra University, Spain. His acclaimed essay on Salvador
Dali and Franco's Spain is included in Serpents
in the Garden edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St.
Clair. |
The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn          CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
