Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
May 1 / 3, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Watching Niagra: Stupid Leaders, Useless
Spies, Angry World
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome Death
of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the Banality
of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the Ultimate
Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
April
28, 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
Meet Congressman Know-Nothing:
Tom Tancredo
Wendy
Brinker
The Politics of the Numb
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
John
Chuckman
Seeking the Evil One
Mike
Whitney
Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times
Tom
Mountain
Rwanda and the F***** Word
Graeme
Greenback
The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production
Tracy
McLellan
The War Comes Home
M.
Junaid Alam
We are the Barbarians
William
Loren Katz
Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson
April 27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
| Weekend
Edition
May 1 / 3, 2004
Osama, Bush and Sharon Speak the Same
Language
Blood
Spilling
By DIANE CHRISTIAN
“Stop
spilling our blood so we can stop spilling your blood.”
Osama
bin Laden offering a truce to Europeans
Osama bin Laden released a taped message offering
to stop his jihad against European nations if they will stop “onslaughts
against Muslims and interference in their affairs as part of the big
American conspiracy against the Islamic world.”
It’s a noteworthy vengeance text,
with a new peace-making twist. Bin Laden first claims his war is not
terrorism but righteous revenge for brutality against his people and
sacred places. He rejects the label of terrorist and returns it:
By describing us and our actions
as terrorism, you are necessarily describing yourself and your actions.
...Our actions are reactions to your actions that destroy and kill
our people in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.
Bin Laden claims he wages not fanatical
terrorism but just war—“reactions to your actions that destroy.”
He says the US lies when it charges him with killing for the sake of
killing. “Reality shows that they lie,” he argues. “When
we killed the Russians, it was after their invasion of Afghanistan and
Chechnya; the killing of the Europeans was after the invasion of Iraq
and Afghanistan;...the killing of Americans was after their support
for Jews in Palestine and their invasion of the Arabian peninsula; killing
them (US soldiers) in Somalia was after their invasion in a peacekeeping
mission.”
He also argues that he who initiates
injustice is more unjust. He casts himself and his cause as reactive,
not proactive or preemptive.
Two things are new in the message:
the offer of truce (“the door to a truce is open for three months”)
and his intensified battle for righteous just war ground. Bin Laden
has regularly asserted his religious cause as just and vowed enmity
with the infidel invaders and destroyers. He often sounded his call
against the evil great Satan US. This is different. He doesn’t
say his opponents are infidels or decadents, he accuses them of being
war-mongerers. Why should they enjoy safety and prosperity when his
people live in fear of attack, he asks. “Security is a need for
all humans, and we could not let you have a monopoly on it for yourselves.”
He also makes a democratic appeal beyond the politicians: “People
who are aware would not let their politicians jeopardize their security.”
He uses the moral arguments his accusers
employ, and he claims his actions are only proper vengeance against
anti-Islamic conspiracy.
“What happened on September 11
and March 11 was your goods delivered back to you.”
This is exactly Bush’s rationale.
The war in Afghanistan was September 11 delivered back. The war in Iraq
was preemptively justified as avoiding a mushroom cloud 9/11. The great
fact was we were attacked and therefore we are in a righteous holy war.
Who is right? Does time tell? Who is righteous? Is that a silly question?
From a humane perspective, yes. From a political or moral one, no.
A humane perspective subordinates righteousness
to human life. ‘A bad peace is better than a good war.’
Politics and morality are willing to sacrifice human life to nationalism
and righteousness; they are warrior modes, fixed on winning. Bin Laden
says Bush is the great deceiver; Bush says Bin Laden is the incarnation
of terrorist evil. Both bomb. Both assert the same justification: we
were attacked by the evil other, we are righteous in vengeance.
Blood demands blood. Bin Laden’s
appeal is “stop spilling our blood so we can stop spilling your
blood.” Sharon’s is the same.
This casts the moral hand against first
blood. Who spilled first? Vengeance is seen as righteous self-defense
or retribution. Bin Laden’s message is carefully crafted. He says
all his attacks are reactions to others’ actions and so are just:
Russians are killed for invading Afghanistan and Chechyna, Europeans
are killed for invading Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans are killed for
supporting Jews in Palestine and invading the Arab peninsula, and in
Somalia they were killed after invading in a peacekeeping mission.
The recurrent US linking of the Iraq
invasion to 9/11 is the same argument: we were invaded and so are righteously
vengeful. Invasion attack, not religious ideology, is the key, and religious
ideology foments the righteousness. Bush first proudly argued we were
on a Crusade; the Spanish terrorists spitefully referenced Spain’s
old Crusading position. In the Islamic and Jewish views, the Christians
are the bad guys in the Crusades. Muslims and Jews were invaded and
slaughtered, a point the present Christian warriors don’t get.
The political responses to Bin Laden’s
message have been pro forma: ‘we don’t negotiate with terrorists.’
Leaders have sneered that he’s naively trying to drive a wedge
between American and European allies. Leaders perform their bizarre
public ballets making friendship over hatred of the common terrorist
enemy, ignoring their serious disagreements over the Iraq invasion.
When the Spanish electorate blamed their leaders for the Madrid attack
and voted them out, other elected leaders reproached them for giving
in to terrorism. But Europe popularly opposed the war in Iraq, even
in the coalition countries Britain and Spain and Italy. Bin Laden is
asserting he isn’t a mad dog killer but a righteous Muslim redresser
of wrongs and if he’s left alone he’ll leave alone.
He’s arguing he’s rational,
a servant of Islamic vengeance. When the first bombs fell on Afghanistan
in October 2001 he vowed “I swear to God that America will not
live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine and before all the army
of infidels depart the land of Muhammed, peace be upon him.”
Osama bin Laden is of course a stateless
mass murderer and he may not long be able to make offers people can’t
refuse. But he poses real questions. “In which religion are your
killed innocent and our specks of dust? In which sect is your blood
(real) blood and ours, water? It is justice to be treated in the same
way, and he who initiates injustice is more unjust.” He argues
they are human and religious beings. He scapegoats war profiteers who
benefit from war and bloodshed. He says they are ‘war traders
and vampires who administer world politics from behind the curtain.’
Bin Laden is our enemy because he hates
us (there’s no three month truce door for the US) and killed us.
We have said he’s a mad dog cowardly monster, killing innocents
and loving killing for the sake of killing. We have said he isn’t
a real peace-loving Muslim but a jihadist war-loving fanatic. We have
said he’s vicious because he doesn’t care if he kills innocents.
We have also killed many innocents but we say we’re sorry and
didn’t mean to where he says see what it feels like.
Bin Laden may not be hypocritical or
sentimental like Sharon and Bush but he speaks the same language of
righteous violence and vengeance: “Our actions are reactions to
your actions that destroy and kill our people. . . .”
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