|
Recent
Stories
April
21, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
An Administration in Contempt
Edward
Said
Give Us Back Our Democracy
Gary
Leupp
Easter Thoughts on Liberation, Jesus
and Kanaka WaiWai
Roger
Witherspoon
Why Michigan Needs Affirmative Action
Uri Avnery
At Midnight, a Knock on the Door
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/19
April
19, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Rape of History
Saul
Landau
Shop, Go to Church, Support Bush's
War, Wait for Armageddon
Michael
J. Fellows
Off With Their Heads: the Constitution According to Scalia
Pablo
Mukherjee
Roadmap to Resistance
Omar
Barghouti
Sharon's Bloody Beat
Anthony
Gancarski
Tony Blair: the Most Powerful Man in the World
Mickey
Z.
Animals: the Other Collateral Damage
Will
Potter
When Police Attack Journalists
William
MacDougall
America's In-Bedded Journalism
Neve
Gordon
Haunted by History
Adam
Engel
Wal-Mart and Peace
Dr.
Susan Block
Art Bombs: American Libertines for Peace
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Buono, Guthrie
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/19
Song of
the Weekend
Baghdad to Basra
April
18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Operation "Syrian Freedom":
This One's Not About Oil
Jorge
Mariscal
"They Died Trying to Become
Students": the Future of Latinos in an Era of War and Occupation
Mickey
Z:
Coalition of the Unindicted: Only Losers Get Tried for War Crimes
Hussein
Ibish
Syria and the Road to World War IV
Reza Ladjevardian
Tarqeting Iran? Do It With TV, Not Cruise Missiles
Matania
Ben-Artzi
You Are Not Protecting My Son's Rights: a Letter to the President
of Israel's Supreme Court
Bruce Jackson
Jews Like Us
Joe
Allen
My Lai Revisited
Carl Estabrook
Support Our Euphemism
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/18
Website
of the Day
Meet the Victims of War
April
17, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Patriot Gore: the Fatal Flaws in
the Patriot Missile System
Joanne
Mariner
Looting Antiquity: the Legal Implications
for the Pentagon
Issam
Nashashibi
Zalmay Khalilzad: the Neocon's Bagman
to Baghdad
Wayne Madsen
Another Sign of the "End Times" for American Journalism
Robert
Fisk
The Army of Occupation
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Virtual Saddam Takes Aim
Biljana
Vankovska
A Personal View of Iraq: Where
is the Truth?
Dan Brook
Oil War: Fueling the Empire
Stanley
Heller
Bomb and Steal: This is What Privatization Looks Like
Tim Robbins
A Chill Wind is Blowing Through This Nation
Harold
A. Gould
Iraq After the War
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/17
April
16, 2003
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Jason
Leopold
Halliburton's Bloody History: They'll
Work for Anyone
Kurt
Nimmo
The Destruction of Iraq: Hey, It's
Good for Business
Stephen
Green
Dancing to Sharon's Beat: the Road
to Unilateral Pre-emption
Diane
Christian
The Devil in Bush's Details
Carol
Norris
Mourning Iraq
Anthony
Gancarski
They Call Themselves Economists?
Michael
Sells
Nero in Baghdad
Alexander
Cockburn
Contract with Iraq
Ninan Koshy
India's Devious Middle Path Through the Iraq War
Brenda
Norrell
Lakota Leader: World Must Resist
American Empire
Wallace
Gagne
End of History; More in a Moment
Stew
Albert
On the Road Again
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/16
April
15, 2003
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Robert
Jensen
Self-Determination in Iraq? Then the
US Must Leave
Dr.
Susan Block
The Rape of Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Aiming at Syria: Stop Them Before They Kill Again
Robert
Fisk
The Final Sacking of Baghdad
Col. Dan
Smith
Post-War Iraq: Asking the Right Questions
Ali
Abunimah and Hussein Ibish
A Cycle of Chaos and Confrontation: Misadventures of the NeoCons
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/15
April
14, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush's War Without End
Uri Avnery
Gunboat Democracy: This is Only the Beginning
Wayne
Madsen
Americans: The New Mongols of the Mideast?
Shahid
Alam
Iqra: Iraq is Free
Hani
Shukrallah
Day of the Chicken Hawks
Terry
Jones
The Iraq Gravy Train
John
Chuckman
The Iraq War's Trashiest Piece of Propaganda
Patrick
Cockburn
US has a Lot to Answer For: Violence,
Misery and Poverty in Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/14
April
12 / 13, 2003
Carol
Lipton
Wag the Kennel: the Kenneth Joseph
Story
Wayne
Madsen
Meet the New Butcher of Baghdad: Maj.
Gen. Buford Blount III
John
Brown
"They Got It Down": the Toppling
of the Saddam Statue
Kathy and
Bill Christison
Final Thoughts from Palestine
William
Blum
Our Vulnerable Warmongers' Rush to Justify Devastation
Wallace
Gagne
Let the Stealing Begin
Ann
Harrison
Rosenthal Update: Judge Delays Ruling in Medical Pot Mistrial
Case
Henry Miller
What is the Greatest Treason?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Render Unto Cesar
Zeljko
Cipris
Mocking Militarism: On Ishikawa Jun's Song of Mars
Ishikawa
Jun
The Song of Mars
Jamey Hecht
Chairman of the Sandwich Board
Adam
Engel
Hell of a Town: Mayor Bloomberg and
the News
Poets'
Basement
Chang Yang-Hao, Adam Engel and Hammond Guthrie
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/12
April
11, 2003
Omar
Barghouti
From Saddam to Uncle Sam
Ron
Jacobs
Greed is Rewarded
David
Vest
The Corporate War on Iraq
Paul
de Rooij
Propaganda Stinkers: Fresh Samples from the Field
Anthony
Gancarski
Foreign Aid: Embezzlement as Public Policy
Mas'ood
Cajee
Franklin Graham: Spiritual Carpetbagger
Michael
Neumann
Now What?
Michael
Berry
The Neo-Cons Have a Dream
Stew Albert
Oh Freedom
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/11
Website
of the Day
About Those Dancing Crowds
April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
April
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
Todd
Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
Other Mideast Regimes
Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
Hot Stories
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
Burn Your Sweatshop Clothes!
Buy Union Made Apparel!
|
April 21,
2003
The Friedman Absurdities
Aggressive Engagement
by MICHAEL BERRY
In an article on April 16 titled "Roto-Rooter"-a
title that lends expression to his desire to sodomize the non-Israeli
Middle East- Thomas Friedman offered up a concept that is worth
consideration. The concept, sub-titled "the third natural
way," is called Aggressive Engagement. Friedman reaches
this useful notion at the end of the article, by way of an exposition
as to its necessary invocation:
The Friedman Absurdities
Syria is allegedly providing sanctuary
to some of Hussein's men and is equal in evil-do to Syria providing
weopons to Hussein's men. Providing those weopons when Hussein's
men were presumably in Iraq defending themselves from invading
US forces. In the weeks leading up to the invasion the Bush administration
repeatedly claimed Iraq could avoid invasion if Hussein and his
men left Iraq. The offer would not have had the genuine sincerity
to it typical of the administration had Rumsfeld indicated that
any regime that allowed Hussein such an exit would be accused
of harboring terrorists, vis-a-vis Hussein's well documented
association with Al-Qaeda, and threatened with extinction.
The US now has no legal basis to force
a regime change in Syria. That is, compared to the overwhelming
legal precedent set in Iraq, an invasion that rests steadfastly
upon international law.
Mr. de Villepin of France said that properly
restructuring Iraq and advancing the Arab-Israeli peace should
come before pressuring Syria. Mr. de Villepin has become my moral
compass, in that whatever he claims should be the case I claim
the opposite should be the case. Since that is the case, Friedman
is against properly restructuring Iraq and advancing the Arab-Israeli
peace, and he for immediately pressuring Syria. Friedman goes
on to say that he is also, like de Villepin, for rebuilding Iraq
and for advancing the Arab-Israeli peace process. Therefore,
some of the time Friedman is against whatever de Villepin is
for, and some of the time Friedman is for whatever de Villepin
is against. Makes for a rather relative moral compass.
I favor "triple self-determination."
If Lebanon, Iraq and a Palestinian state could all be made into
functioning, decent, free-market, self-governing societies, it
would be enough to tilt the entire Arab world onto a modernizing
trac. The stunning principle of "triple self-determination"
is introduced: Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine to be "determined"
the way we want them to be determined, that is, in a fashion
conforming to free-market principles-presumably American style,
whereby the newly determined big businesses receive government
bailouts while the non-corporatized masses have varieties of
social programs retracted or demolished, and whereby a functioning
democracy is that democracy which maintains all local (and global)
US interests.
Syria should be pressured to stop it's
occupation of Lebanon. This coming of course from a chief sycophant
and lapdog, Friedman, who has produced more propaganda for the
current US invasion of Syria's neighbor to the east than anyone
short of the owners producers reporters and talking heads of
the major television stations. If say, France were to pressure
the US to stop its occupation of Iraq, its diplomats such as
de Villepin would be made into US moral compasses, sold to proper
US patriots in the back editorial pages of hefty US newspapers.
Syria must get out of Lebanon, and Israel
also needs to get out of Syria (the Golan); but that is going
to happen only if there is a reformed Syrian government that
no longer needs the conflict with Israel to justify its militarization
of Syrian society. For Syria, ending occupation is a must, for
Israel, it's a need that can be gone without. And will be gone
without, now that Friedman has issued the same fraudulent circular
genius issued to the disingenuous road-mapping for Arab-Israeli
peace-Israel will withdraw when Syria ceases its militarization,
yet Syria has militarized to defend against further occupation
by Israel. Not the other way around. That would be ridiculous
and unfair. And might just work.
Bush-style military engagement with Syria
is not in the cards right now and French-style constructive engagemen
that is dancing with dictatrst is a fraud. A not-right-now filled
with hopeful portent. Friedman qualifies "military engagement"
as Bush-style and "constructive engagement" as French-style,
ironically suggesting there are no current alternatives to those
relative styles-and he's right there are none. The Bush administration
is incapable of legal military engagement and, as US diplomacy
showed in the months before the invasion of Iraq, the administration
is utterly incapable of constructive engagement of any style.
Such a lack of style in an administration is fraudulent to the
point of shock and awe.
What lies between military and constructive
engagement is the third natural way.
Our Aggressive Engagement
We who find the invasion of Iraq palpably
ludicrous may find ourselves in a similar quandry as Friedman
as to how to proceed with our actions. Military engagement is
not in our cards. None of us are in possession of sufficient
weoponry to forcibly remove our corporate media and government
dictators, and I believe even if we did we'd find the hardware
sufficiently absurd to be disposed of. We are more than capable
of constructive engagement. Our trouble is not that we don't
make that attempt at constructive engagement, but that we are
not allowed to. We are not even allowed to dance with our dictators.
In the holy empire, the media, we are closed out, shut up, ignored
or otherwise spun into irrelevance. There never was a debate.
Constructive engagement in our homeland is the security of military-men
proselytizing fellow denizens with pro-war rhetoric. And those
fellow denizens are good and proper patriots for it. It is not
that we are not patriotic, not that we are not patriots. It is
that were are not proper patriots, not properly patriotic. We
find value in applying Friedman's "third natural way,"
aggressive engagement, to our own homegrown dictators.
According to Friedman, what aggressive
engagement means is "getting in the face of" a person
or group of people "every day," and "reminding
the world" of that person or group of people actions or
deeds.
Friedman wants everyday for the US to
get in the face of Syria and remind the world "how much
it has held that country back, and remind the Syrian people of
how much they've been deprived of a better future by their own
thuggish regime."
This is what we want to do. We want everyday
to remind the world how much the US has held this country back,
and remind the American people how of much we've been deprived
of a better future by our own thuggish regime.
Michael Berry
can be reached at: michael.berry@jacobs.com
Yesterday's
Features
Uri
Avnery
Operation "Syrian Freedom":
This One's Not About Oil
Jorge
Mariscal
"They Died Trying to Become
Students": the Future of Latinos in an Era of War and Occupation
Mickey
Z:
Coalition of the Unindicted: Only Losers Get Tried for War Crimes
Hussein
Ibish
Syria and the Road to World War IV
Reza Ladjevardian
Tarqeting Iran? Do It With TV, Not Cruise Missiles
Matania
Ben-Artzi
You Are Not Protecting My Son's Rights: a Letter to the President
of Israel's Supreme Court
Bruce Jackson
Jews Like Us
Joe
Allen
My Lai Revisited
Carl Estabrook
Support Our Euphemism
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/18
Website
of the Day
Meet the Victims of War
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|