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Today's
Stories
September 29,
2004
Chris Floyd
The
Deceivers: Chronicle of a Quagmire Foretold
Paul Craig
Roberts
Delusion
Rules: War, Outsourcing an Debt
September 28,
2004
Mike Whitney
Kerry's
Moral Compass
Fred Gardner
Pot
Shots: the Civics Teacher
Dan Meek
How Democrats Kicked Nader Off the Oregon Ballot
Greg Bates
Choking on Progressives for Kerry
Alan Farago
Jeanne in Haiti: Where is the World?
Lori Berenson
The Cajamarca Protest
Wayne Madsen
Where
is the Florida National Guard?
Robert Fisk
Why Have We Suddenly Forgotten Abu Ghraib?
September 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Expulsion of Cat Stevens
Patrick Cockburn
As British Muslims Plead for Bigley's Life, US Airstrikes Pound
Fallujah
Sam Husseini
The Problem with Public Opinion Polls
Lee Sustar
Putting Bosses First: Latter Day Democrats and Labor
Dave Lindorff
A Progressive Case for (Gag) Kerry?
Norman Madarasz
Talking International: Contra Kerry
Kevin Pina
The Tragedy of Gonaives, Haiti
September 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
C'mon
Ralph, You've Got Nothing to Lose
Dave Zirin
The Courage of the NBA's Etan Thomas:
"I Am Totally Against This War"
Saul Landau
The Reality of Empire and Campaign Rhetoric
Dave Lindorff
Our Heroic Baby-Killers
Brian J. Foley
Bush at the UN: the Sound of No Hands Clapping
William Blum
Progressives and the Election
Alan Maass
Why is Kerry Running Such a Lame Campaign? You Can't Blame It
All on Bob Shrum
Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Another Lost Story
Solange Echeverria
An Interview with Kevin Pina on the Floods in Haiti
Nicole Colson
What About the Supreme Court?
Justin Smith
The New Sparta
Joshua Frank
Iraq: From Clinton to Bush
Karyn Strickler
Momma, Don't Let Your Babides Grow Up to be Cannon Fodder
Michael Donnelly
Rather Disingenuous: "Remember in November"
Greg Bates
The Politics of Nader's Republican Support
Todd Chretien
Lesser Evilism: We Are Living in the Logical Conclusion
William Loren
Katz
Dire Warnings from the Past: From Wilson to Bush
Omar Barghouti
Americans, You've Lost Your Alibi!
Poets' Basement
Holt, Clarke, Albert, Laymon and Ford
Website of the Weekend
Carnival of Chaos
September 24,
2004
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Value of One Life: Keeping Up Appearances and Leaving Hostages
to the Wolves
William S.
Lind
Destroying
the National Guard
Mike Whitney
The Bush Tent Show
Nancy Welch
What's
at Stake for Women in 2004?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Logical Limbo
Joshua Frank
Fear Mongering 101
Victor Kattan
An Interview with Afif Safieh
Ben Terrall
Kerry and Haiti: Will He Stand Up?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
"Finally
It Broke My Heart": Random Impressions from Palestine
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 23,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Are They Still Holding "Mrs. Anthrax?"
Christopher Brauchli
Ashcroft's "Distressing Lack of Care": Hamdi and the
Phony War on Terrorism
Derek Seidman
Fighting for a Union at Starbucks: an Interview with Daniel Gross
Michael Neumann
Three
Years and Counting? How Time Flies
September 22,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Zarqawi's
War: the Mysterious Sadist from Jordan
Neve Gordon
The
Wall, the Court and Sharon
Joshua Frank
History Repeating: New York, 1832 and Now
Ron Jacobs
Stormy Seas on the Citizen Ship
Jack Random
Defending Dan? Rather Not
Tarif Abboushi
Kerry's Final Straw: Confessions of a Despairing Voter
Mickey Z
Stupid White Guy Quiz
John L. Hess
Faking the Difference: a Serious Debate?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: The House Rules
September 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
"We
Are Not Secure": Kerry's "Unwavering Commitment"
to Securing a Middle East Realm
Robert Jensen
Large
Dams in India: Temples or Burial Grounds?
Elaine Cassel
Fourth Circuit to Moussouai: Ask Your Questions; Prepare to Die
Stanley Heller
Reagan and the Killing Fields of Lebanon
Adam Federman
America Will Disappoint the World, Again
David Whitehouse
What's Behind the Horror in Darfur?
M. Junaid Alam
How to Avoid Becoming an Anti-American
Paul Craig
Roberts
Attention
Deficit America
Website of the Day
True American War Heroes: the Iraq Refuseniks
September 20,
2004
Cockburn /
Buncombe
Get
Fallujah
David Price
Relying
on Phonies: What If The Problem with Phone Polls is That They
Are Phone Polls
Dave Lindorff
How
Dems Fight: Tigers Against Nader, Pussycats Against Bush
Harry Browne
Pre-Nup at Leeds: Talked Out, But Does IRA Give Up?
Mark Wesibrot
Bush's
Ownership Society: No Taxes for Owners, Only Workers
Karyn Strickler
The Keys to the White House v. the Shrum Curse?
Uri Avnery
The Temple Mount Bombers
September 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
Septemeber
17, 2004
Ray McGovern
Gossing
Over the Record
Patrick Cockburn
The New Iraqi Economy: Baghdad's Thriving Kidnapping Industry
Lee Sustar
The State of Working America: an Autopsy of the American Dream
Mike Whitney
John Kerry: 195 Lbs. of Political Helium, Not an Ounce of Sincerity
Victor Kattan
Black September
Ray Hanania
Israel's Demographics
Greg Bates
Nader's Victories: a Mid-Campaign Assessment
Website of
the Day
The Road to Hell
September 16,
2004
Landau / Hassen
Meet
the New Villain: Syria
Joanne Mariner
Inside
Darfur: a Photo Essay
Patrick Cockburn
US
Offers Conflicting Accounts of Baghdad Bloodbath
Greg Moses
Four Million Children Might Be News
Joshua Frank
Nader in the Battleground States
Christopher Brauchli
The Bush Drug Lottery Flops
David Himmelstein
Folke Bernadotte: a Rosh Hashonah Remembrance
Website of the Day
The Abu Ghraib Index
September 15,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Hell
on Haifa Street
Ron Jacobs
Oppose War, Not Just Bush
David Lindorff
Blanking Out Dissent
Joanne Mariner
Talking About Darfur: Is Genocide Just a Word?
Angela Godfrey-Goldstein
An Open Letter to Madonna: Please Don't Support Israeli Apartheid
Dave Zirin
Is the NFL Ready for Us?
Yigal Bronner
"They
Are Building Walls Around Us"
September 14,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Problem of Chechnya
Jennifer van
Bergen
What's
Wrong with Torture?
Stan Goff
Wake Up and Smell the Jungle Rot
Patrick Cockburn
The
Punishment of Fallujah: US Precision Strickes...on Ambulances
Anis Memon
Nader
in Michigan
Michael Donnelly
The Nuance Comes Off: Former Naderites Beg for Kerry Votes
Werther
Zell Miller: the Peckerwood Pericles
Website of
the Day
Osama Bin Forgotten?
September 13,
2004
Gabriel Kolko
Elections,
Alliances and the American Empire
Phillip Cryan
How Do You Say "Death Squad?": Language in Colombia's
War
Patrick Cockburn
One of Baghdad's Bloodiest Days: "I'm a Journalist! I'm
Dying! I'm Dying"
Noah Leavitt
The War on Civil Liberties
Robert Jensen
Highjacking Catastrophe: Bush, the Neo-Cons and 9/11
Mike Whitney
Alan Greenspan: Fed-Master to the Wealthy
John Chuckman
Stop Talking About the "Election"
Mike Burke
Kerry/Edwards Website Censors Discussion of Israel/Palestine
Issues
CounterPunch
Wire
The Quotations of David Cobb: "I Don't Care How Many Votes
I Get"
Website of the Day
Keep It In Your Pants: the Bush Plan to Combat Teen Promiscuity
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
Fred Gardner
Yet Another Prozac Scandal
Saul Landau
When Our Assassins Go Free
Jennifer Van Bergen
How to Beat Bush: a Simple Strategy for the Average American
Roger Burbach
/ Jim Tarbell
The Real Dead Enders: Iraq and the Crisis of Empire
Christopher Reed
9/11 in an Historical Context: a Minor Event When Compared to
Worldwide War Casualties
Francisc Catalin
An ABC of American Interventions
Carl Estabrook
Big Science and Government Terror
Bernard Chazelle
Anti-Americanism: a Clinical Study
Sharon Smith
Third Party Blues
Dave Lindorff
Perhaps This Time We're the Silent Majority
Mike Whitney
Fallujah: an Iraqi Beslan?
Frederick B.
Hudson
Their Sons Perished in the Flames, But Not Their Faith
Mickey Z.
Round Up the Usual Suspects: a Look Back at 9/11
Ron Jacobs
Redneck Music for the New Century
Greg Moses
Soap Opera Moments in Texas School Funding Trial
Benjamin Dangl
/ Andrew Kennis
An Interview with Leslie Cagan
Poets Basement
Del Papa, Albert, Gelman
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
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.
|
September 29, 2004
Boundless and
Winless Wars
Disrupting
America's Fateful Non-Debate on the Roots of Terrorism
By
M. JUNAID ALAM
On September 11th, nineteen hijackers
commandeered four airliners and guided three of them into important
symbols of American power with lethal precision. An unsuspecting
citizenry, quite unaware of events outside the national purview,
suddenly found 3,000 of its countrymen killed at the hands of
a few fanatics from a far off part of the world. One would expect
that, in a democratic country which prides itself on freedom
of speech and press, wide-ranging diversity of opinions, and
quality of intellectual debate and scholarship, one of the responses
to the horrific attacks would be a rigorous and reflective discussion
of why they happened. Three years on, what we have instead is
the ceaseless, unchallenged mass production--and consumption--of
a core set of noxious lies about September 11th that form the
foundation of a perpetual, bloody, boundless, and winless war.
The right-wing answer as to
why the attacks happened was unequivocal: the problem is inherently
within Islam and Muslim society, which is warped and defected
in various ways. Thus one prominent conservative commentator,
Ann Coulter, called for invading all Muslim countries, murdering
their leaders, and converting the people to Christianity. The
notorious Bill O'Reilly brushed off civilian deaths resulting
from American bombs in Afghanistan by offering that they deserved
to die anyway since they failed to overthrow the Islamic fundamentalist
Taliban regime. The prestigious rightist journal National
Review mused that in the event of a "dirty bomb"
attack, America should drop the atomic bomb on Islam's holiest
site, Mecca. Upon further contemplation, they reconsidered and
offered up the more tasty idea of depositing a nuclear bomb on
the capital of every Arab country.
The other reason America was
targeted, the right argued, was its greatness. We were attacked
because we support freedom and democracy, because we are the
greatest nation in the world, all of which apparently inspired
jealous hatred among the attackers. Crazed and irrational, the
terrorists wanted to destroy modern civilization by striking
at its vanguard--the United States. The president intoned that
America was purely good and that the enemy was purely evil; he
further warned that anyone who diverged from this line was in
league with the terrorists: "You're either with us or you're
against us."
But what about the liberals?
What about their putative representative, to which they cling
so dearly, the Democratic Party? What was their stance in the
aftermath of September 11th? Their most salient action was to
fully and unconditionally support the administration's attacks
on Muslims wherever possible. Many white liberals and their party
supported the unconstitutional "PATRIOT" act, under
which thousands of Muslims were rounded up, detained, and deported
without any proper legal procedure; they also enthusiastically
backed the bombing and invasion of Afghanistan, the reign of
terror unleashed upon Iraq, and the subsequent military occupations
of both countries. Insofar as concrete action is a crucial index
of one's position, the mainstream "left" hardly distinguished
itself from the right.
And what was the liberal position
on the level of political discourse; on the level of theory,
analysis, and ideas? Their purported position has consistently
been that Islam itself is not the enemy, but rather that there
is a radical strain of Islam which is the source of the problem.
This much Bush himself has asserted, if only to placate certain
Arab leaders. Precisely how radical Islam must be eradicated,
however, has never been elaborated upon by the Democrats, beyond
the usual bravado about killing terrorists shared by the right.
On the foreign policy front, the mainstream liberals do not dare
hint that any American policies bear any connection to what happened
on September 11th, except at the most rudimentary level of criticizing
inadequate security or surveillance. At best, they may assert
that America, while undoubtedly harboring only the best of intentions,
is "not perfect", and is liable to make mistakes here
and there out of bumbling generosity or good-natured naiveté.
And that's it. The level of
explanation and analysis from the "opposition" party
and its intellectual coterie about the crucial events of September
11th--why the attacks happened, what the social context was,
what grievances motivated it, what history preceded it--is shallower
than a child's sandbox.
Small wonder, then, that many
Americans, mostly ignorant of their own country's past and even
present actions, have become entranced by the cowboy-crusader
stance of George Bush and the Republicans. Their right-wing vision
projects confidence, aggressiveness, and provides a satisfyingly
simple, self-righteous, and complete rationalization for the
war program: America is supremely good, uses its might to liberate
others, and is therefore hated only by evildoers. The liberals,
who cannot bring themselves to spout such nonsense quite as fervently,
nonetheless fail to fully repudiate it, and therefore fail to
present a coherent counter-argument to the right.
This point was pressed upon
me last year during the first session of a political science
class. The liberal professor prefaced his lecture by commenting
on the need for tolerance and respect for others during discussion,
warning against making ignorant and racist remarks about Arabs
and Muslims due to the "war on terror." He declared
that "Islam is not the enemy" that "Muslims were
basically good people"--fair enough, as far as all that
goes. But then, clearly much impressed with himself, he intoned
that we did in fact face an enemy: that enemy was Islamic fundamentalism,
and it needed to be fought and defeated. And then, with nothing
further, he moved on.
But is that all? Is there only
one enemy, one force of evil to be confronted?
Does the "we" who are supposed to fight against this
singular enemy include, then, our generals, our war planners,
our corporate profiteers, and our political leaders--all of whom
are apparently mere innocents having nothing to do with our present
predicament? The end logic of this framework is unmistakable:
"Not all Muslims are bad--just some."
It confines discussion about the status quo strictly to what
happened on September 11th, which apparently exists outside and
above history and politics. This allows one to posit only Muslims,
and no one else, as culprits, since there is only one
crime worth mentioning. Stepping out of this intellectual jail
cell and looking at our own crimes, we would be forced to note
that the vast majority of people who have been killed by political
violence have been victims not of Islamist terror, but
American terror. This would place our professor in the
rather uncomfortable position of having to ask foreign students
in the class to recall that "Americans are basically good
people," and keep in mind that "Christianity is not
the enemy."
The crux of the matter is that
the liberal alternative to the conservative narrative of September
11th is no alternative at all. In this miserable bipartisan
production, the Muslim is always featured as the eternal evildoer,
and finds himself, his history, his grievances, and his aspirations
all caricatured, ridiculed, and ripped apart by a crushing combination
of cruise missiles and callous arrogance. The difference between
the liberal and conservative views of the Muslim, then, is no
greater than the difference between the gallows and the guillotine.
When the Muslim tries to plead his case to America by citing
the injustices, the hypocrisy, and the brutality he has suffered
at its hands, he finds not executors, but only executioners.
This is a dangerous reality.
Whatever the comforts brought about by self-righteous denial
and delusion in regards to the real root causes of September
11th, they are transient and totally unsustainable. We have sent
teenagers and twenty-year olds into war in Iraq based on these
delusions: on the false and fantastic premise that Iraqis, as
infantile natives, would welcome us with open arms, because we
are virtuous liberators. And we have seen with what results.
Frustrated, frightened, and furious that many Iraqis resent their
presence - not to mention the death and mayhem caused by the
weapons accompanying their presence--not a few of these soldiers
have resorted to sadistic, cruel acts against their captives,
some of them children, including rape, torture, and humiliation.
Most of these captives were innocent; others were guilty only
of defending their country. This is merely a microcosm of a tragedy
that will intensify and envelop us on a much broader scale if
we continue to embrace the same self-serving eulogies we have
been singing about ourselves not only after but long before September
11th.
Demolishing the prevailing
dogma about the causes of September 11th is not a difficult task.
The organization that carried out the attacks and its various
offshoots have expressed time and time again what it is they
are avenging: America's bombing and sanctions imposed on Iraq,
which killed millions of women and children through disease and
starvation; unconditional support for Israel in its past efforts
to crush Arab nationalism and its present campaign to expropriate,
torture, and ethnically cleanse millions of Palestinian natives;
and backing of despotic puppet regimes that place oil resources
in foreign hands. It is impossible to deny that all these things
have happened: in each case, the evidence is overwhelming and
irrefutable.
When these root causes are
mentioned however, conservatives immediately begin foaming at
the mouth. First, they will exclaim that the terrorists are crazed
and nihilistic, rendering any discussion of root causes ridiculous.
This is both nonsensical and dishonest. Nonsensical, because
no one pretends that the problem of Islamist terrorism is one
of psychology on the individual level of the attackers; no one
has sent out an army of professional medical experts and psychiatrists
in response to the terrorist problem, nor have any alleged terrorists
appeared for counseling on Dr. Phil. Dishonest, because the right
does have its own idea of root causes, namely that Arab
society and the Islamic religion are intrinsically flawed and
must be destroyed and replaced with a new order. Such half-baked
hate speech masquerading as analysis is not a serious explanation
of anything. That the attackers are in fact responding out of
vengeance and in response to the humiliation, occupation, and
destruction of their own people is obviously far more plausible.
Vengeance is not a particularly
difficult motive to understand, yet our American rightists seem
to struggle with this explanation even though they now make a
posh living off promoting vengeance for September 11th. This
is because their understanding of vengeance is entirely one-sided:
advocating "retaliation" via the use of massively
disproportionate force - full-scale bombardment and invasion
with the most lethal weaponry--against people and countries bearing
no connection to September 11th requires them to assign zero
value to Muslim life, and as a result of this racist value judgment
they cannot fathom that anyone would be motivated to lash out
in revenge for Muslims, ie. non-entities, being killed.
The second, fallback, position
of the warmongers is that highlighting and criticizing American
foreign policy in the Middle East amounts to appeasing and justifying
terrorism. Insofar as the foreign policy in question has included
the use of missiles, bombs, bullets, shelling, starvation, extirpation,
beating, and torture against civilians, the truth of the matter
is that confronting it is the most principled stand against terrorism
possible. This is not a matter of mere polemics or rhetoric:
"terrorism", if it is to have any meaning at all, cannot
be allowed to become codeword for "any and all violence
committed by 'ragheads'."
We must also emphasize that
pointing out why were attacked is not a means of justifying the
attack, it is a means of learning how to prevent attacks in the
future. If a man runs up ten flights of stairs and drops a vase
from the top of a building, it is only rational to point out
that the vase broke because someone climbed up to the roof and
flung it down; it is decidedly less useful to mouth cheap slogans
against gravity and declare war upon it.
Yet this is precisely America's
present course: it rails in anger and strikes tough-man poses
against what is essentially a traditional tactic of the weak
against a stronger enemy. Aside from completely locking America
down and turning it into a police state, there is no way to eliminate
individual terror while maintaining an unjust foreign policy
that is based on massively terrorizing others.
To demand a state of affairs
in which the weak do not resort to terror is to demand a state
of affairs in which people are not terrorized into the position
of weakness. If we can make this message clear to the rest of
America, then we will have obtained for ourselves and others
a far brighter future than the dark, gloomy one offered by internecine
war.
M. Junaid Alam, 21, Boston, co-editor of radical
youth journal Left Hook (http://www.lefthook.org),
feedback:alam@lefthook.org
Weekend
Edition Features for September 18 / 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
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