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Today's
Stories
July
7, 2004
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
June
29, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover
Robert
Fisk
Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland
Troy
Selvaratnam
New York Times Boosts Pet Developer
Harry
Browne
Bush in Ireland
Ray
McGovern
The CIA According to Anonymous
Elaine
Cassel
Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really
Won?
June
28, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
Amira
Hass
Confronting Myths and Deadly Power
June
26 / 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge
in Iraq
Dennis
Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney,
the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave
Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism
Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali
Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating
in the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June
25, 2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul
Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege:
Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
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
Diana 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
18, 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
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.
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July
7, 2004
Do
the Rulers Benefit the People?
Sovereignty
and Freedom in Iraq
By
DIANE CHRISTIAN
Sovereignty means ruling over others,
being in charge. The US, invaders and occupiers of Iraq, who
called themselves liberators and democracy builders, returned
sovereignty to chosen Iraqis on June 28th, 2004. The US military
remained to protect the appointed government, assist security
and continue rebuilding.
Sovereignty in Iraq is an instructive
history.
The first ruler of Iraq whose
deeds are recorded is king Etana of Kish who reigned 5,000 years
ago at the beginning of the third millennium B.C. He is described
as "the man who brought stability to all the lands."
It's believed that he held sway not only over Sumer-now southern
Iraq from modern Baghdad to the Persian Gulf-but also over its
neighbors. The first great urban centers we know of rose in Sumer
and in these city-states like Kish the cuneiform writing system
was developed and spread all over the ancient Near East. Sumer
is justifiably designated the "cradle of civilization."
Five thousand years ago Sumer had great political power and economic
wealth and great achievements in art, monumental architecture,
religious and ethical thought, oral myths, epics, and hymns.
The Sumerian language (agglutinative, like that of Turkic peoples)
was the prevailing tongue and the cuneiform writing an effective
broad communication tool. The Sumerians also instituted a formal
system of education.
Samuel Noah Kramer, the great
Sumerian scholar, sees Sumerian political history dominated by
the institution of kingship though originally more democratic.
[See Inanna. Wolkstein & Kramer, 1983]. Kramer asserts
that originally political power lay in the hands of the
free citizens and a city governor know as the ensi, who
was no more than a peer among peers. In vital community decisions
the free citizens met in bicameral assembly consisting of an
upper house of "elders" and a lower house of younger
fighting men. When struggle between the various Sumerian city-states
grew more bitter and violent and pressures from 'barbaric' peoples
to the east and west intensified, military leadership became
an urgent need, and the king-or as he is known in Sumerian, the
lugal, "the big man"-came to the fore. Kramer
says the king was probably appointed and selected by the assembly
for specific military tasks at critical moments, but gradually
kingship with all its privileges and prerogatives became an hereditary
institution.
The power of Kish, King Etana's
city-state, waned in time and Uruk dominated in a kind of heroic
era with king figures like Gilgamesh. Uruk too was vanquished,
by Ur a city in southern Sumer that in biblical times came to
be known as Ur of the Chaldees. Ur is the city which biblical
Abram was called to leave to go to the land of Canaan (c.2000
B.C.). At the end of the third millennium B.C. Sumer was defeated
by a Semitic ruler named Sargon who  conquered most of western Asia and
established his capital in Agade (biblical Akkad), a city not
far from Kish. Sumer became known by the hyphenated name Sumer-Akkad
and the Semitic language Akkadian began to rival Sumerian as
the living language of the land.
Sargon's grandson Naram-Sin
attacked Nippur, Sumer's most holy city and desecrated and plundered
its most sacred shrine. This led to Sumer's second catastrophic
disaster-being overrun by the Gutians a barbarous people inhabiting
the mountains of western Iran.
Sumer freed itself from the
Gutian yoke and a king named Ur-Nammu founded a dynasty at the
city of Ur, the so-called Third Dynasty of Ur (c.2050-1950 B.C.)
Ur-Nammu was a capable military leader and an outstanding social
reformer and lawgiver. He promulgated the first law code in recorded
history. The document's preamble boasts that he, Ur-Nammu, removed
the "chiselers" and grafters from the land. He established
honest weights and measures and saw to it "that the orphan
did not fall prey to the wealthy, that the widow did not fall
prey to the powerful, that the man of one shekel did not fall
prey to the man of one mina [sixty shekels]."
Ur-Nammu was succeeded on the
throne by his son Shulgi, one of the most distinguished and illustrious
kings of ancient times who reigned for almost half a century.
Shulgi was followed by his two sons who ruled nine years each
and barely held the kingdom together. Shulgi's grandson Ibbi-Sin,
pious and trusted, was attacked by the Elamites and Amorites
and was betrayed by his own governors and generals. He was finally
carried off into captivity and Ur was destroyed. There was again
struggle among the cities for dominance and in about 1750 B .C.
Hammurabi, King of Babylon , defeated Rin-Sin, King of Larsa,
and became the sole ruler of Sumer-Akkad. The date marks the
end of ancient Sumer and the beginning of Babylonia. By this
time the people who spoke Sumerian were virtually extinct and
the Semites were in full control; the spoken language was now
Semitic Akkadian. The culture remained predominantly Sumerian
in form and content, however; the schools and academies continued
to use Sumerian language and literature as the curriculum basis
for another millennium.
Samuel Noah Kramer notes that
the literary texts-one of the major 20th century contributions
to the humanities- mark a terrible irony. "As the Sumerian
literary documents make amply manifest, it was the competitive
drive for superiority and preeminence, for victory, prestige,
and glory, that provided the psychological motivation sparking
the material and cultural advances for which the Sumerians are
justifiably noted: large-scale irrigation, technological invention,
monumental architecture, writing, education, and literature.
Sad to say, this very passion for competition and success carried
within it the seed of destruction and decay." Kramer writes
that over the centuries Sumer became a "sick society"-yearning
for peace and constantly at war, professing ideals of justice,
equity and compassion, but abounding in injustice, inequality
and oppression. Kramer quotes a melancholy Sumerian poet who
laments that law and order ceased to exist; cities, houses, stalls,
and sheepfolds were destroyed; rivers and canals flowed with
bitter waters; fields and steppes grew nothing but weeds and
"wailing plants." The mother cared not for her children,
nor the father for his spouse, and nursemaids chanted no lullabies
at the crib. The cities were ravaged and their people killed-a
calamity "undescribable and unknown to man."
The poet mourns the loss of
civilization and human society, not imperium. One of the enormous
attractions of Sumerian culture seen in its art and poetry is
the human scale, the valuing of happy life and wisdom.
Sovereignty is valued and regarded
as good if the king or big man brings security and justice. Etana,
"brought stability to all the lands." Ur-Nammu, a millennium
later, promulgated the first law code and defended the poor and
weak against the rich and predatory. Sovereignty is problematical
if the lugal, "the big man" does not bring security
and justice or is seen himself as a predator. Gilgamesh, a great
king and builder of cities, was criticized for fighting and taking
women as he wished. Saddam Hussein was hated for brutalizing
his own people. The kings' stories become their judgments and
Gilgamesh's are far better than Saddam's.
But in Sumerian perspective
kings' stories are not the chronicles of king lists or great
men. They are always about how the ruler benefits his city, brings
stability and justice. The criterion is not power and domination
but social efficacy. In a wonderful myth about Inanna the great
Sumerian goddess of heaven and earth, Inanna journeys down the
Euphrates river from her city Uruk to Eridu, city of Enki, the
God of wisdom and her maternal grandfather. There she is received
in the holy shrine and is given the great me, the powers
of civilization-kingship, truth, lovemaking, judgments, decisions,
the dark and light powers of ruling. She takes them and keeps
them when Enki the next morning tries to take them back. Inanna
brings them home to Uruk and presents them to the people of Sumer.
All the powers of sovereignty are for her people and the powers,
the me, are the wisdom to know how to act and live and
deal. They bring prosperity and joy. The most ancient Iraqi concept
of sovereignty is richer and more human and ideal than any other
I know in human history.
Present sovereignty is poorer
and cruder. The Baghdad Museum which housed the 5000-year-old
alabaster Uruk Vase was ravaged while the Oil Ministry was protected.
Present sovereignty has the rush of crushing, triumph, being
on top. It's marked by guns and bragging. It is not stable or
just or kind to the weak.
On June 28th, 2004 at the NATO
summit meeting in Istanbul, Condi Rice passed President Bush
a note stating that the US had handed over the sovereignty of
Iraq to Iraq. He wrote on the message which was quickly televised
"Let freedom reign."
Sovereignty is not freedom's
reign unless you can live there.
Diane Christian is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor
at University at Buffalo and author of the new book Blood
Sacrifice. She can be reached at: engdc@acsu.buffalo.edu
Weekend Edition
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