Now
Available!
Dime's
Worth of Difference:
Beyond the
Lesser of Two Evils
Order Here!
Today's
Stories
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
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.
|
Weekend Edition
September 11 / 12, 2004
A Minor Event
in Terms of War Casualties Worldwide
9/11:
an Historical Context
By
CHRISTOPHER REED
On this day three years ago a total
of 2,973 people died in America at the hands of 19 Islamic terrorists
in the most devastating domestic attack the US had ever experienced
(the War of 1812 only killed 2,260 Americans, even although the
Brits burned down the White House).
The 9/11 event was immediately
denounced as an act of war, which it was (though by whom?), and
the Bush administration quickly promised constant war against
terrorist "evil" in reply, a notion the president continues
to re-iterate.
But Americans have yet to be
offered 9/11 in any historical context. Indeed, any discussion
of terrorism as acts of war that is not 100% condemnatory is
branded as unpatriotic. Because of this, U.S. citizens are missing
important truths and cannot weight the attack of three years
ago in any sensible way.
It is curious, too, that trying
to find a detailed analysis of the 9/11 deaths is a difficult
task. On the world wide web, the most recent breakdown of the
figures come from an article in a newspaper in Iowa. Is there
a reluctance because the total, almost never stated precisely
but at 3000, does not quite blend with the hysterical invective
that still blurs discussion about its implications?
In historical terms of war
casualties worldwide, 9/11 was a relatively minor event. But
because for two centuries Americans have lived invulnerably,
protected by two vast oceans and confident no foreigners could
invade or even bomb them, the Sept 11 carnage was psychologically
catastrophic. Americans said it changed the world, but in fact
Americans, or the US government, are making the most changes.
Some comparisons: From September
to May 1941-42, the Nazi bombing blitz on Britain killed 40,000,
all civilians and 5,000 of them children. At that rate Americans
would have to experience identical 9/11s once a week for over
three months to equal Britain's suffering.
America's worst losses of its
own were in the Civil War (1861-65), when a total of 214,938
on both sides died in combat. But in the early hours of one day,
March 10, 1945, more than 300 US B-29 planes fire-bombed Tokyo
in a meticulously planned air-raid that incinerated 108,000 Japanese
in their homes. Of those, 88,000 were never identified and all
were civilians, many children.
Turning to larger statistics
of World War II (some of which do vary), we find megadeath. The
number of Chinese civilians who died was 7.75 million; Soviet
Union, 7 million; Germany, 2.75 million; Japan, 672,000. Then
there is a zero -- the United States lost no civilians, say some
statistics. Others put it at 6,000, but those were non-military
citizens killed abroad, not at home.
World War I was the notorious
charnel house. On July 1, 1916 on the first day of the battle
of the Somme, opver 20,000 British soldiers were killed, mostly
by German machine guns. It was the worst disaster in British
military history. In the navy battle of Jutland on May 31, 1916,
the Brits lost 6,097 sailors and 14 ships, with the Germans suffering
"only" 2,551 deaths and 11 ships for a day's total
of 8,648 dead.
But what about those sissy
French? Between August 4, 1914, the first day of the war, and
the 29th of that month, 260,000 French soldiers had perished.
By the autumn the French had lost more men than the whole of
the US army's deaths in the entire 20th century.
The US lost 47,752 military
personnel in the Vietnam war (1964-73) and another 33,629 in
Korea (1950-53). Its total killed in combat in World War II was
292,000, more than Britain, which lost 264,000. But 2.05 million
Chinese military were killed and 1.3 million Japanese.
These were set wars, it may
be said, and the "war" against terror is not so formalised.
True, but again no statistics are offered. For instance, although
the terrorist "Troubles" in Northern Ireland lasted
from 1969 to 1998, the total killed on all sides exceeded 9/11
by 495, for a total of 3,468 in a part of the UK with only a
population of 1.5 million, about the same as Manhattan, during
that time.
If we are seeking civilian
deaths on 9/11 we should exclude the Pentagon's 125 deaths. Not
all of them were in uniform, but official web sites are poor
on any breakdown. Removing them all drops the total to 2,848,
a shocking number to be sure, and one which offers for the bereaved
no comfort in comparison.
But that is not the point.
It is that the world is a shockingly violent place and Americans
should be advised of this.
Professor Rudolph Rummel, of
the University of Hawaii and formerly Yale, is the acknowledged
expert on what he calls "domicide" or death by government.
These are killings brought about by official orders or policies
of governments whether or not elected democratically (and the
worst are usually not).
In his book called Death
by Government (1994 Transaction Publishers, NJ), Dr Rummel
estimates that the world domicide total from 1945 to the end
of the last century was over 80 million. That figure may include
acts of genocide, but does not take in deaths by famine. It exceeds
by five times the international total killed in World War II,
and in that war far more civilians perished than people in uniform.
Meanwhile President Bush is
claiming that his wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have made not
only the US, but the world "a safer place" from terrorism.
Unfortunately this is not true.
The world total for 2002 was
about 750 people killed. Last year it was around 650. This year
it already exceeds 1,000, including the recent deaths in the
Russian school, the 191 killed in Madrid in March, and the 271
in the Shiite festival in Iraq the same month.
None of this should detract
from the solemnity of today's anniversary. But the figures offered
above should be marked, as well as the 9/11 dead mourned.
Christopher Reed can be reached at: christopherreed@earthlink.net
[Editors' Note: We have some minor quibbles with a few of Christopher
Reed's numbers, in an otherwise edifying column. Military
deaths during the Civil War are generally recorded at being somewhere
between 620,000 and 700,000, a figure which rightly includes
deaths of the wounded, prisoners-of-war and by disease. Add
in civilian casualties and the Civil War death toll probably
exceeds 1.25 million. By one estimate, one-in-ten American families
suffered a casualty in that bloodfest. On one September day alone,
more than 22,000 fell on a field in Maryland called Antietam--8
times the number of casualties of 9/11. Pearl Harbor also deserves
mention in any tally of attacks on America. On that December
day in 1942, 2,403
Americans died, including 68 civilians. The death count was
slightly less than the 9/11 attacks, but the American population
was then roughly half of its present size. The events of 1812,
lost in the misty corridors of history to many, remain fresh
in the minds of both the Cockburn and St. Clair households. Cockburn's
relative, Rear
Admiral George Cockburn, sacked Washington and feasted off
of Dolly Madison's china, while the relatives of Kimberly Willson-St.
Clair hosted Little Jimmy Madison and Dolly in the Maryland countryside
(now buried under subdivisions) on their flight from Washington,
set aflame by Cpt. Cockburn's torch-wielding terrorists/liberators.
AC/JSC]
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept 4 / 5, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
Keep
CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home
/ subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|