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/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's Stories
June 25, 2004
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| June
25, 2004
Depravity
and Barbarity in Iraq
The Deadly
Embrace
By
AMIR BUTLER
The
photos of decapitated hostages and the detainees in Abu Ghraib are in
many ways the flip-sides of the same imperial coin: on the one side
is the barbarity of the occupied and on the other is the barbarity of
the occupier. They are both hideous examples of the capability of humans
for cruelty but yet they are neither surprising nor are they isolated
examples of depravity. Rather, these images depict in sickening clarity
the natural result of one nation imposing its will on another. This
is the price that always has been and always will be paid for Empire.
A
society, such as ours, that defines itself by its humanity, respect
for justice and recognition of human rights does not begin an occupation
with such bestial cruelty but history teaches that, regardless of our
piety at home, if we are to maintain an occupation abroad we must jettison
some of those same principles by which we define ourselves. The domestic
outrage that the Abu Ghraib images elicited in both America and her
allies suggests that we, as a people, are neither prepared nor willing
to accept the New American Century envisioned by the war's architects
in Washington.
There
is an awful pattern apparent in recent events: "insurgents"
kidnap a civilian member of the occupation; the kidnappers demand the
withdrawal of troops from Iraq or the release of prisoners; when the
demands are not met, the victim is killed -- usually decapitated --
and his killing video-taped or photographed for the benefit of their
supporters and the rest of the world.
As
the insurgency escalates -- and with it attacks on American soldiers
and civilians -- so will demands for better intelligence about the resistance.
As the insurgency grows so to does the demand that intelligence be forthcoming
-- and with it comes the pressure to use torture to extract this information.
The more torture is employed against the civilian population, the more
it builds resentment; and the more that popular resentment grows, the
greater the resistance to occupation.
It's
a cycle of violence that has played out in human history for as long
as one power has sought to impose its will by military force on another.
The US used torture -- water torture, maiming, dragging suspects by
horses and setting alight -- to maintain its occupation of the Philippines.
The British used torture when faced by the Mau Mau insurrection in Kenya.
In the 1950s, the French became trapped in this same cycle as they struggled
to retain control of Algeria. When faced with a popular resistance,
they turned to torture to produce the intelligence that was needed to
counter the uprising. Whatever cognitive dissonance may have existed
in the heart of a nation that had signed the Geneva Convention and avowed
a belief in human rights was salved by defining the government’s
actions in Algeria as outside the usual strictures of international
law.
That
the murders in Saudi Arabia of American expatriates and the murders
of foreign workers in Iraq are inextricably linked to American conduct
in the region is undeniable. Nick Berg, Paul Johnson and Kim Sun-il
were all dressed in the same orange jump-suits prior to being murdered.
It is no coincidence that the outfits and colours chosen for their murders
were the same colour and style as clothes worn by detainees in Guantanomo
Bay and Abu Ghraib.
Throughout
history, violence of the occupier begets more violence from the occupied.
Once locked in this deadly embrace, it becomes impossible for either
occupier or occupied to end the killing. In a world made smaller by
the digital media and when faced with a people who identify themselves
first and foremost as a religious community, America's difficulties
in Iraq do not stop at the borders -- as the murder of Americans in
Saudi Arabia shows.
Our
outrage at the treatment of detainees in US-run prisons and our disgust
at the sight of murdered civilians demonstrate our moral unprepardness
for the horrors of extending American hegemony. History shows only two
exit strategies: leave willingly or leave unwillingly. Until then, when
confronted by the next example of torture or the next murdered Westerner,
we should recall the words of the poet, W.H. Auden: "I and the
public know, what all school children learn. Those to whom evil is done,
do evil in return".
Amir
Butler is executive director of the Australian Muslim Public
Affairs Committee (AMPAC). He can be contacted at abutler@muslimaffairs.com.au.
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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