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Recent
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May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
May
28, 2003
David
Vest
DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More
Dave
Lindorff
My Grandfather's Medal
John
Stanton
America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key
Bernard
Weiner
A PNAC Primer
Robert
Jensen
Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party
Ahmad Faruqui
The Oil Business of Regime Change:
the CIA and Iran
Hammond
Guthrie
Disarming Conundrums
Steve Perry
What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
Sam
Hamod
When Trained Killers Return Home
Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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May
30, 2003
Don't Look to the
UN for Resistance
Re-Colonizing
Iraq
By TARIQ ALI
Unsurprisingly, the Security Council has capitulated
completely, recognised the occupation of Iraq and approved its
re-colonisation by the United States and its bloodshot British
adjutant. The timing of the mea culpa by the 'international
community' was perfect. Yesterday, senior executives from over
a 1000 companies gathered in London to bask in the sunshine of
the re-established consensus under the giant umbrella of Bechtel,
the American Empire's most favoured construction company. A tiny
proportion of the loot will be shared.
So what happened to the over-heated rhetoric
of Europe versus America? Berlusconi in Italy and Aznar in Spain--the
two most right-wing governments in Europe--were fitting partners
for Blair while the East European states, giving a new meaning
to the term 'satellite', which they had previously so long enjoyed,
fell as one into line behind Bush.
France and Germany, on the other hand, protested for months that
they were utterly opposed to a US attack on Iraq. Schroeder had
owed his narrow re-election to a pledge not to support a war
on Baghdad, even were it authorized by the UN. Chirac, armed
with a veto in the Security Council, was even more voluble with
declarations that any unauthorized assault on Iraq would never
be accepted by France.
Together, Paris and Berlin coaxed Moscow
into expressing its disagreement too with American plans. Even
Beijing emitted a few cautious sounds of demurral. The Franco-German
initiatives aroused tremendous excitement and consternation among
diplomatic commentators. Here, surely, was an unprecedented rift
in the Atlantic Alliance. What was to become of European unity,
of NATO, of the 'international community' itself if such a  disastrous split persisted?
Could the very concept of the West survive? Such apprehensions
were quickly to be allayed. No sooner were Tomahawk missiles
lighting up the nocturnal skyline in Baghdad, and the first Iraqi
civilians cut down by the Marines, than Chirac rushed to explain
that France would assure smooth passage of US bombers across
its airspace (as it had not done, under his own Premiership,
when Reagan attacked Libya), and wished 'swift success' to American
arms in Iraq. Germany's cadaver-green Foreign Minister Joschka
Fischer announced that his government too sincerely hoped for
the 'rapid collapse' of resistance to the Anglo-American attack.
Putin, not to be outdone, explained to his compatriots that 'for
economic and political reasons', Russia could only desire a decisive
victory of the United States in Iraq.
Washington is still not satisfied. It
wants to punish France further. Why not a ritual public flogging
broadcast live by Murdoch TV? A humbled petty chieftain (Chirac)
bending over while an imperial princess (Condeleeza Rice) adminsters
the whip. Then the leaders of a re-united North could all relax
and get on with the business they know best: plundering the South.
The expedition to Baghdad was planned
as the first flexing of a new imperial stance. What better demonstration
of the shift to a more offensive strategy than to make an example
of Iraq. If no single reason explains the targeting of Iraq,
there is little mystery about the range of calculations that
lay behind it. Economically, Iraq possesses the second largest
reserves of cheap oil in the world; Baghdad's decision in 2000
to invoice its exports in euros rather than dollars risked imitation
by Chávez in Venezuela and the Iranian mullahs. Privatization
of the Iraqi wells under US control would help to weaken OPEC.
Strategically, the existence of an independent
Arab regime in Baghdad had always been an irritation to the Israeli
military-even when Saddam was an ally of the West, the IDF supplied
spare parts to Tehran during the IranIraq war. With the
installation of Republican zealots close to Likud in key positions
in Washington, the elimination of a traditional adversary became
an attractive immediate goal for Jerusalem. Lastly, just as the
use of nuclear weapons in Hiroshima and Nagasaki had once been
a pointed demonstration of American might to the Soviet Union,
so today a blitzkrieg rolling swiftly across Iraq would serve
to show the world at large that if the chips are down, the United
States has, in the last resort, the means to enforce its will.
The UN has now provided retrospective sanction to a pre-emptive
strike. Its ill-fated predecessor, the League of Nations, at
least had the decency to collapse after its Charter was serially
raped.
Analogies with Hitler's blitzkrieg of
1940 are drawn without compunction by cheerleaders for the war.
Thus Max Boot in the Financial Times (2 April, 2003): 'The French
fought hard in 1940-at first. But eventually the speed and ferocity
of the German advance led to a total collapse. The same thing
will happen in Iraq.' What took place in France after 1940 might
give pause to these enthusiasts.
The lack of any spontaneous welcome from
Shi'ites and the fierce early resistance of armed irregulars
prompted the theory that the Iraqis are a 'sick people' who will
need protracted treatment before they can be entrusted with their
own fate (if ever). Such was the line taken by David Aaronovitch
in the Observer. Likewise, George Mellon in the Wall
Street Journal warns: 'Iraq Won't Easily Recover From Saddam's
Terror': 'after three decades of rule of the Arab equivalent
of Murder Inc, Iraq is a very sick society'. To develop an 'orderly
society' and re-energize (privatize) the economy will take time,
he insists. On the front page of the Sunday Times(30 March,
2003), its reporter Mark Franchetti quoted an American NCO:
'"The Iraqis are a sick people and we are the chemotherapy",
said Corporal Ryan Dupre. "I am starting to hate this country.
Wait till I get hold of a friggin' Iraqi. No I won't get hold
of one. I'll just kill him."' No doubt the 'sick society'
theory will acquire greater sophistication, but it is clear the
pretexts are to hand for a mixture of Guantanamo and Gaza in
these newly Occupied Territories.
If it is futile to look to the United
Nations or Euroland, let alone Russia or China, for any serious
obstacle to American designs in the Middle East, where should
resistance start? First of all, naturally, in the region itself.
There, it is to be hoped that the invaders of Iraq will eventually
be harried out of the country by a growing national reaction
to the occupation regime they install, and that their collaborators
may meet the fate of Nuri Said before them. Sooner or later,
the ring of corrupt and brutal tyrannies around Iraq will be
broken. If there is one area where the cliché that classical
revolutions are a thing of the past is likely to be proved wrong,
it is the Arab world. The day the Mubarak, Hashemite, Saudi and
other dynasties are swept away by popular wrath, American-and
Israeli-arrogance in the region will be over.
Tariq Ali
is an editor of New Left Review and a frequent contributor to
CounterPunch. He is the author of The
Clash Of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads And Modernity,
published by Verso. His new book, 'Bush in Babylon: Re-colonising
Iraq' will be published by Verso in the autumn.
Today's
Features
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
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