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Today's
Stories
November
11, 2004
Mark
Scaramella
Kerry's Enablers: the Clinton
Cult Factor
November
10, 2004
Joshua
Frank
The Bright Side of Bush's Reelection
Mickey
Z.
The Worst President Ever?: Bush +
Clinton = Bubya
Stan
Goff
Debating a Neo-Con
Mike
Whitney
Exit Ashcroft
Dave
Lindorff
Taking a Leak on the Bush Bulge
Ghada
Karmi
After Arafat
Fr.
Gerard Jean-Juste
Letter from a Haitian Jail
Rev.
Bob Jones, III
A Letter to President Bush: "God Has Granted America a Reprieve"
Bernestine
Singley
Tampa Vote: Dispatches from the Ground
Website
of the Day
Free Camilo Mejia
November
9, 2004
Meredeth
Kolodner
Rebuilding the Anti-War Movement
Saul
Landau
The Appeal of George W. Bush: a Mystery for the World to Solve
Brian
Cloughley
Diego Garcia and Freedom, Bush-Style
Charles
Glass
US is Failing the Test of History in
Iraq
Robert
Fisk
Arafat Died Years Ago
Paul
Craig Roberts
The American Century is Over
Adam
Federman
Witch Hunt at Columbia: Middle East Profs Smeared as Anti-Semites
M.
Junaid Alam
The Discredited Logic of ABB
Tony
Kevin
Fallujah and the Making of a War Crime
Pierre
Tristam
Zealots on the Mount: Get Voltaire on Speed Dial!
Patrick
Cockburn
Crushing Fallujah Will Not End the
Iraq War
Website
of the Day
Don't Blame the Voters!
November
8, 2004
Roger
Burbach
Out of the Ashes: Bush Win is a Defeat
for Democrats, Not the Left
Dave
Lindorff
Lessons from a Quagmire: Fallujah, the Hue of Iraq
Greg
Moses
After the Morning After: On the Homefront of the Civil War
Greg
Bates
Nader's Election Legacy: Something to Stand On
Michael
Donnelly
The Hit-and-Run Left: From ABB to CYA
Nick
Schwellenbach
Gutting FOIA: the Harm of Too Much Secrecy
Adam
Jones
Men vs. Civilians in Fallujah
Amelia
Peltz
Note from Palestine: This Is Not the Time for Despair
David
Swanson
The Media Black Out on Vote Fraud
Brian
Rainey
The Devil Made Them Do It? Elections, Religion and the American
People
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Landau, Hamod
Website
of the Day
A Report on the US Supply of Toxic Weapons to Iraq
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
November
5, 2004
David
Vest
The Not-Bush Brothers: a Fond Farewell
Elizabeth
Boylan
The Dems and Faith-Based Politics
Conn
Hallinan
War Crimes and Iraq
David
Zonsheine
Poetry and the Courage to Refuse
Cynthia
McKinney
It's a New Day!
Elaine
Cassel
Running from the Religious Right
Chris
Geovanis
First Protect Your Vote: Lessons for Democrats on Fixing Elections
from Chicago
Rob
Ritchie
Election 2004 by the Numbers
Jo
Guldi
The Beast of History is In
November
4, 2004
Sharon
Smith
The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Lesser-Evilism
CounterPunch
Wire
Bush Voters: 2000 v. 2004
Ben
Tripp
My Fellow Americans...Get Stuffed!
Michael
Donnelly
Why Not Blame Rosie?
Vijay
Prashad
An Election of Homophobia and Misogyny
Jules
Rabin
De Profundis: the Morning After
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Professions of Faith:
"Your Rich Men are Full of Violence"
Zoltan
Grossman
Blue State Secession: the Only Solution?
Jonah
Birch
1968 and Today
Dave
Lindorff
What Went Wrong?
Jack
McCarthy
I Knew It Was Over When Michael Moore Showed Up: He Was For Nader...Before
He Was Against Him
Donna
J. Volatile
Ahoy Kerrycrats! Welcome to Our Nightmare
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bright Side of Black Tuesday
November
3, 2004
James
Hodge / Linda Cooper
The CIA and Abu Ghraib: 50 Years of
Training Torturers
Ann
Harrison
The Ghost Votes in the Machine: Voting Snafus Across the Nation
Greg
Moses
Blues for Fallujah
Anis
Memon
The Moral (Values) of This Election
Mickey
Z.
Post Mortem
Josh
Frank
The Dems Should be Ashamed
Chris
Floyd
No Ways Tired: Defeat, Dissent and the Bush Machine
spArk
Smoke Signals from Portland: Karmic Blowback and the Democrats
Friedrich
von Schiller
Folly, Thou Conquerest
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Democrats in End Time: Who to Blame
Now?
November
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Democratic Elections in Historical
Perspective: The Wrong Side Wins
Lance
Selfa
Selling the War on Terror
Laura
Carlsen
The US Elections and Latin America: Can the US Ever be a Good
Neighbor?
James
Davis
To Control the Event: Attention Bicyclists
Richard
Oxman
Getting Up with Osama
Dr.
Ira Kay
A Mental Map of the Bush Presidency
Jesse
Walker
Frankenstein v. Chucky: the Halloween Election
Thomas
C. Mountain
Election '24, Deja Vu?: LaFollette, Nader, & the "Most
Important Election of Our Lifetimes"
November
1, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and
Blew It
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate Confirmed; Press Yawns
Greg
Bates
Nader Voter Survey Results
Roger
Morris
Novel Politics: Only Fiction Can Do
This Election Justice
Diane
Christian
Death Tolls
Lenni
Brenner
Secularists Be Warned: Christlike Kerry Roams Spiritual Universe
Christopher
C. Conway
Can the Left Sink Any Lower?
Francis
Boyle
Legal Elites and the Iraq War: the Nazis Had Their Law Professors,
Too
Jason
Leopold
Rummy's Failed War Plan
Website
of the Day
Dylan Resurrects "Masters of War"
October
30 / 31, 2004
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Long March and the Million Worker
March
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells All
Bruce
Anderson
Notes from the Big Empty: When the Hippies Invaded NoCal
Vicente
Navarro
They Worked for Franco: How Sec. of State Cordell Hull and Nobel
Laureate Camilo Jose Cela Collaborated with the Fascist Regime
Robin
Blackburn
How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security
Greg
Bates
A Question of Character: What Makes Nader Tick?
Nancy
Welch
The American Health Care Crisis: an Interview with Dr. David
Himmelstein
William
Lind
Election Day: Which Menendez Brother Will You Vote For?
Brian
Cloughley
Uzbekistan and Bush Hypocrisies
Suzan
Mazur
Oops They Did It Again: the NYTs the Paper of Record and Rip-Offs
Greg
Moses
Standing at the Graves of Iraq
John
Chuckman
Osama's Endorsement
Richard
Oxman
Why Not Accept Osama's Offer?
Ken
Avidor
Landscape of Fear: When Ugly is Suspicious
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Bush, Ba'ath and Beyond
Hope
Bastian
Strangling Cuba's Economy
P.
Sainath
Tower of Gabble: Toward a Sustainable Rhetoric
Dave
Zirin
Bush League: Why MLB Owners Support the Prez
Jon
Swift
The Dry Drunk Thang: Put a Cork in It
Ron
Jacobs
The Joke's on Me: a Review of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1
Alexander
Billet
Taking Theatre Back: Are the States Ready for "Stuff Happens"?
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Laymon, Norris, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Weekend
The Origins of Halloween
October
29, 2004
Harry
Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County
Clare
October
28, 2004
Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's
Ghosts of October
Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion
in the Ranks
Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits
Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy
in Red Sox Nation
Alexander
Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War
October
27, 2004
Jules
Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue
Katherine
Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties
Ignore Working Parents
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
October 26,
2004
Brian Cloughley
Three
Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
William Blum
Fear
Factors
Lenni Brenner
The
1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004
Ben Tripp
The
Chicken Salad Election
Fidel Castro
After the Fall
Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus
Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan
Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo
Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories
Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry
Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
|
November 11, 2004
A Reminiscence
Encounters
with Arafat
By
PEGGY THOMSON
Yasser Arafat has been so thoroughly
marginalized for so long by the U.S. and Israeli governments
that I found myself reacting with surprise a couple of weeks
ago when his instantly recognizable face suddenly appeared on
the evening news. I don't know why but I didn't immediately think
his health was the issue. The sound was down on all six TV monitors
at the gym and I guess I thought he was being allowed to give
his reaction to Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's unilateral
Gaza disengagement plan.
Still, the moment I saw that
familiar grizzled countenance, I began traveling in my mind across
the vast distance that lies both geographically and in
every other respect between my own little world in a relatively
safe and affluent American suburb and Arafat's ruined compound
in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
After years of reporting on
the Middle East, I finally met Arafat two years ago, while on
a fact-finding mission to Israel and Palestine sponsored in part
by the World Council of Churches. Our group met with parties
on all sides in the conflict from Israeli peace activists
and Jewish religious leaders to Palestinian notables, both Muslim
and Christian. Our only disappointment was that our requests
for interviews with Sharon and his top lieutenants were flatly
refused.
On our way to the Palestinian
city of Ramallah, our group passed through the Qalandia checkpoint,
one of more than four hundred Israeli army checkpoints located
throughout the West Bank. Making our way through the traffic-clogged
streets of Ramallah, which were predictably plastered with posters
of Arafat, we traveled up into the hills to the Mukata, as Arafat's
compound is called, to a meeting I had doubted would ever take
place. (I had been in exactly the same place only two months
earlier for another confirmed interview with Arafat, which was
cancelled at the last moment because the Palestinian leader was
tired, I was told, and needed to rest.)
On this occasion, I remember
feeling shocked at how much more damage had been done to the
compound since my previous visit. The Israeli army had decimated
the compound in March 2002 during Operation Defensive Shield,
its major reinvasion of West Bank towns and cities, following
a string of Palestinian suicide bombings.
In the two months since my
visit in August 2002, there had been still more suicide bombings
against Israeli targets. Predictably, Israel had responded with
retaliatory attacks which had further damaged the compound, specifically
obliterating an enclosed bridge between the compound's two remaining
buildings.
Walking past burnt out cars
and huge slabs of broken concrete, I was quite simply awed by
the extent of the destruction and by the extent of Israel's formidable
military might. Once again, as I surveyed the compound I pondered
a question I had asked myself many times before: How could any
people's so-called elected leader have ended up like this, holed
up in a heap of rubble?
Once we had squeezed past the
sandbags and oil drums partially blocking the entrance to Arafat's
living quarters, my skepticism about the interview dropped away,
and I realized that this time the long-awaited meeting was actually
going to take place as promised. It was even going to take place
on time.
Cameras were examined and possessions
put through a battered old x-ray machine. Then, almost before
we knew what was happening, we knew we were being hustled up
a narrow staircase and into a drab, windowless conference room.
Arafat greeted each of us at
the door with a soft handshake and a weak, yet surprisingly warm
smile. As soon as we were seated, the usual tiny cups of strong
Arabic coffee appeared.
For the average person Arafat's
living conditions would have seemed unbearably claustrophobic.
I had heard that when the Israeli onslaught was particularly
fierce, Arafat had slept under the conference table where we
now sat.
Clad in his trademark black-and-white
checked keffiyeh and olive-green military jacket, Arafat had
the pallor of a man who rarely saw the sun. (Later, when he grasped
my hand like Prince Charming about to kiss it, I noticed that
even his hand had an ashen color to it which almost matched his
face.) To emphasize his rapport with Christian visitors, I had
heard that Arafat sometimes proudly pulled a crucifix on a chain
out from under the portion of the keffiyeh he kept wrapped around
his neck. We were not, however, treated to this display.
It was almost as if he were
a precious artifact, preserved as well as possible under the
difficult circumstances and only brought out occasionally to
be put on display for those and admittedly there weren't
many of us left who wanted to meet with him.
Fully aware that he was speaking
to a delegation representing several major Christian organizations,
Arafat began by reminiscing about how he used to travel to Bethlehem
every Christmas until the Israelis placed him under virtual house
arrest in 2001. The PLO chairman's words were muffled by the
steady hum of an oxygen machine in a corner of the room, an audible
reminder of Arafat's visibly frail condition.
A faded image of his former
self, Arafat spoke hesitantly, bulbous lips trembling. At first
his breathing seemed labored and his voice was little more than
a whisper. Perhaps the oxygen helped, because as the briefing
wore on his voice became noticeably stronger.
Peering through his thick,
oversize glasses, Arafat selected a photograph from a foot-high
stack of documents resting beside him on the long conference
table. The picture was of a shell-pocked statue of Mary, Jesus's
mother, atop a church. Holding the photo in front of his wizened
face, Arafat said he could not understand why Christians in the
West ignored assaults by the Israeli army on Christian institutions
throughout the Holy Land. (A sentiment I had already heard from
ordinary Muslim residents of Bethlehem, who still mention what
they perceive as a lack of response on the part of western Christians
in April 2002, when the Israeli army besieged the Church of the
Nativity to try to flush out Palestinian militants who had taken
refuge inside.)
Arafat and I were both in Beirut
during the early 1980s. Although we never met, to me it sometimes
seemed like we had. I knew his henchmen and his lackeys and the
young PLO guys who had established themselves in the Palestinian
refugee camps dotted around Lebanon. Although I'd never felt
it was essential to meet Arafat in order to report on the Middle
East, this interview more than twenty years later somehow put
a check in a certain box.
Still, I knew that in meeting
with Arafat I was running the risk of being seen as a sympathizer
or apologist. I remembered certain journalists who covered the
1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon. Young and female and usually
from the European press corps, they were sometimes derisively
referred to as "Arafat groupies."
At the risk of being consigned
to such a category, I have nevertheless pursued interviews with
various Arab leaders, both well known and lesser known, in the
hope that my ensuing reports would do something, however limited,
to foster a greater understanding of the Middle East in general
and of the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in particular. (But I would
never have gone as far as one journalist I know, who emerged
from the compound, Arafat by his side, the two of them flashing
victory signs for the cameras. If nothing else, this would be
the kiss of death to most American journalists' careers.)
Although most of the time little
of any substance emerges from such "celebrity" interviews,
my hope has always been that, with any luck, the ensuing reports
will help to further the notion that the individuals involved,
no matter despicable they may seem to us, are multifaceted and
sometimes even God forbid rather charismatic personalities.
At the very least these leaders are invariably far more complex
than our media's presentation of them (which is usually as caricatures
-- the various bogeymen of the moment that we can all love to
hate.)
Unfortunately, focusing on
middle eastern "personalities" can also have the undesirable
effect of obfuscating the issues surrounding the Middle East
crisis, the principal one being the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian
conflict. After all, no matter who the bogeyman -- or, as some
Christian Zionists might say, the Antichrist -- of the moment
is, the problems of the Middle East will remain unchanged until
the Palestinian issue, that festering sore - or rather cancer
-- on the body of the region is somehow cured or excised. (The
Israeli option of "transfer" or ethnic cleansing may
be what Dr. Sharon and others want, but this kind of "surgery"
is of course -- morally, ethically and legally -- a totally unacceptable
"cure.") But until a truly satisfactory solution is
reached, despots small and large, plus various other middle eastern
"personalities" (including stateless ones like Osama
bin Laden and, more recently, Abu Musab al-Zarkawi) will keep
emerging to frighten us.
While in Gaza, I visited the
PLO shop, as it's called, which sells souvenir items (although
needless to say tourists are nonexistent in Gaza.) There I purchased
an item called an Arafat whoopie cushion it's really just
an inflatable balloon with a likeness of Arafat's beaming face.
Not surprisingly, the thing is poorly made and will not stay
inflated. But when will any other Palestinian leader be marketable
enough to have his face printed on balloons? Although hardly
a male model, Arafat's famous and infamous visage has had incalculable
value -- at least symbolically -- for the often faceless Palestinians.
It may be a very long time
before another face is identified in the same way as Arafat's
with the Palestinian cause. Of course there's always a possibility
that another charismatic personality, perhaps one even more charismatic
than Arafat, will eventually emerge to champion the Palestinian
cause. For the Israelis, having a specific Palestinian leader
to blame or demonize is useful, but having no recognizable Palestinian
leader who commands the allegiance of the people is a situation
which also has its advantages.) Nevertheless, with or without
a Palestinian leader of Arafat's stature, the central issue remains
stubbornly unchanged there will be no Middle East peace
until the Israelis end their occupation of the Palestinian territories.
Arafat's death must be a relief
in some ways for U.S. officials in particular, who have worried
out loud for some time that Israel might provoke a crisis by
assassinating or deporting him. Until the time of Arafat's departure,
these options were being openly discussed, both in the Knesset
and even among ordinary Israelis, as if both were perfectly reasonable
courses of action and in no way a flagrant violation of international
law.
It is obvious that Arafat would
like to see the Oslo peace process as the crowning achievement
of his long and rather dubious career. I intentionally gave him
an opening to reminisce about what he clearly regards as his
glory days on the White House lawn when I asked him whether he
thought the Israeli-Palestinian situation would be different
today had Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin not been assassinated
in 1995 by a Jewish extremist.
"Definitely," Arafat
replied. "He was my partner. My partner in peace."
The peace of the brave, Arafat used to call it. Rabin paid for
that peace with his life, while "the cat with nine lives,"
as I so often think of Arafat, escaped many close calls, but
escaped nonetheless.
When I asked whether there
were other Israeli politicians he might be able to work with,
Arafat responded emphatically that there were a number of such
leaders, although he, perhaps pointedly, did not name his known
arch-nemesis Sharon.
In the search for Arafat's
positive contributions, his greatest achievement and yes,
there were some -- may have been his 1988 declaration at a special
session of the UN scarcely remembered today it seems --
formally accepting Israel's right to exist.
This milestone has been thoroughly
eclipsed by the myth of the "generous offer" Arafat
rejected twelve years later at Camp David. Arafat's rejection
of the Camp David offer is often portrayed as an effort to save
himself from Rabin's fate, when the reality is that he rejected
the Camp David offer because Israel would concede nothing on
the issue of settlements, Jerusalem or the rights of the Palestinian
refugees.
A church representative who
met Arafat shortly after I did acted as dazzled as if she'd just
met a movie star. " He was kind and gentle, someone who
truly seems to care about his people," she enthused. Certainly
Arafat's demeanor in recent years had done much to belie his
earlier reputation as one of the world's most dangerous terrorists.
Along with Arafat's alleged
failure to stop terrorism, perhaps the possibility of him being
seen as an almost kindly grandfather figure is one of the reasons
the U.S. Administration and the Israelis have worked so hard
in recent years to marginalize the late PLO leader. Indeed, portraying
a genuinely feeble (although still mentally alert) Arafat as
a terror mastermind was becoming an increasingly hard sell, especially
when he continued to say as forcefully as he could to anyone
who would listen that he and his people accepted Israel's right
to exist and desired nothing more than a modest state on less
than a quarter of historic Palestine.
Peggy Thomson is an American journalist who worked
in London for twelve years for a number of news organizations,
including the London-based magazine Middle East International.
She has also reported from the Middle East for newspapers and
radio. She can be reached at: thomson@counterpunch.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for October 30 / 31, 2004
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
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