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Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
April
24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
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
April 20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
April 19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
April 10 /
12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other
Delicacies
Robert Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview
with Lee Evans
Brandy Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website of
the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9, 2004
Robert Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L. Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8,
2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6,
2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher
Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez
del Solar
A
Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The
Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated
US and International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
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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Weekend
Edition
April 24 / 25, 2004
A Warning to
Those Who Dare to Criticize Israel in the Land of Free Speech
Another Case
Study: Mary Robinson
By ROBERT FISK
Behold Mary Robinson, former president
of Ireland, former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, would-be
graduation commencement speaker at Emory University in the United
States. She has made a big mistake. She dared to criticise Israel.
She suggested--horror of horrors--that "the root cause of
the Arab-Israeli conflict is the occupation". Now whoah
there a moment, Mary! "Occupation"? Isn't that a little
bit anti-Israeli?
Are you really suggesting that
the military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip by Israel,
its use of extrajudicial executions against Palestinian gunmen,
the Israeli gunning down of schoolboy stone-throwers, the wholesale
theft of Arab land to build homes for Jews, is in some way wrong?
Maybe I misheard you. Sure
I did. Because your response to these scurrilous libels, to these
slurs upon your right to free speech, to these slanderous attacks
on your integrity, was a pussy-cat's whimper. You were "very
hurt and dismayed". It is, you told The Irish Times, "distressing
that allegations are being made that are completely unfounded".
You should have threatened
your accusers with legal action. When I warn those who claim
in their vicious postcards that my mother was Eichmann's daughter
that they will receive a solicitor's letter--Peggy Fisk was in
the RAF in the Second World War, but no matter--they fall silent
at once.
But no, you are "hurt".
You are "dismayed". And you allow Professor Kenneth
Stein of Emory University to announce that he is "troubled
by the apparent absence of due diligence on the part of decision
makers who invited her [Mary Robinson] to speak". I love
the "due diligence" bit. But seriously, how can you
allow this twisted version of your integrity to go unpunished?
Dismayed. Ah, Mary, you poor
diddums.
I tried to check the spelling
of "diddums" in Webster's, America's inspiring, foremost
dictionary. No luck. But then, what's the point when Webster's
Third New International Dictionary defines "anti-Semitism"
as "opposition to Zionism: sympathy with opponents of the
state of Israel".
Come again? If you or I suggest--or,
indeed, if poor wee Mary suggests--that the Palestinians are
getting a raw deal under Israeli occupation, then we are "anti-Semitic".
It is only fair, of course, to quote the pitiful response of
the Webster's official publicist, Mr Arthur Bicknell, who was
asked to account for this grotesque definition.
"Our job," he responded,
"is to accurately reflect English as it is actually being
used. We don't make judgement calls; we're not political."
Even more hysterically funny and revolting, he says that the
dictionary's editors tabulate "citational evidence"
about anti-Semitism published in "carefully written prose-like
books and magazines". Preposterous as it is, this Janus-like
remark is worthy of the hollowest of laughs.
Even the Malaprops of American
English are now on their knees to those who will censor critics
of Israel's Middle East policy off the air.
And I mean "off the air".
I've just received a justifiably outraged note from Bathsheba
Ratskoff, a producer and editor at the American Media Education
Foundation (MEF), who says that their new documentary on "the
shutting-down of debate around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict"--in
reality a film about Israel's public relations outfits in America--has
been targeted by the "Jewish Action (sic) Task Force".
The movie Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land was to be shown
at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
So what happened? The "JAT"
demanded an apology to the Jewish community and a "pledge
(for) greater sensitivity (sic) when tackling Israel and the
Middle East conflict in the future". JAT members "may
want to consider threatening to cancel their memberships and
to withhold contributions".
In due course, a certain Susan
Longhenry of the Museum of Fine Arts wrote a creepy letter to
Sut Jhally of the MEF, referring to the concerns of "many
members of the Boston community"--otherwise, of course,
unidentified--suggesting a rescheduled screening (because the
original screening would have fallen on the Jewish Sabbath) and
a discussion that would have allowed critics to condemn the film.
The letter ended--and here I urge you to learn the weasel words
of power--that "we have gone to great lengths to avoid cancelling
altogether screenings of this film; however, if you are not able
to support the revised approach, then I'm afraid we'll have no
choice but to do just that".
Does Ms Longhenry want to be
a mouse? Or does she want to have the verb "to longhenry"
appear in Webster's? Or at least in the Oxford? Fear not, Ms
Longhenry's boss overrode her pusillanimous letter. For the moment,
at least.
But where does this end? Last
Sunday, I was invited to talk on Irish television's TV3 lunchtime
programme on Iraq and President Bush's support for Sharon's new
wall on the West Bank. Towards the end of the programme, Tom
Cooney, a law lecturer at University College, Dublin, suddenly
claimed that I had called an Israeli army unit a "rabble"
(absolutely correct--they are) and that I reported they had committed
a massacre in Jenin in 2002.
I did not say they committed
a massacre. But I should have. A subsequent investigation showed
that Israeli troops had knowingly shot down innocent civilians,
killed a female nurse and driven a vehicle over a paraplegic
in a wheelchair. "Blood libel!" Cooney screamed. TV3
immediately--and correctly--dissociated themselves from this
libel. Again, I noted the involvement of an eminent university--UCD
is one of the finest academic institutions in Ireland and I can
only hope that Cooney exercises a greater academic discipline
with his young students than he did on TV3--in this slander.
And of course, I got the message. Shut up. Don't criticise Israel.
So let me end on a positive
note. Just as Bathsheba is a Jewish American, British Jews are
also prominent in an organisation called Deir Yassin Remembered,
which commemorates the massacre of Arab Palestinians by Jewish
militiamen outside Jerusalem in 1948. This year, they remembered
the Arab victims of that massacre--9 April--on the same day that
Christians commemorated Good Friday.
The day also marked the fourth
day of the eight-day Jewish Passover. It also fell on the anniversary
of the 1945 execution by the Nazis of Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer
at Flossenburg concentration camp. Jewish liberation 3,000 years
ago, the death of a Palestinian Jew 2,000 years ago, the death
of a German Christian 59 years ago and the massacre of more than
100 Palestinian men, women and children 56 years ago. Alas, Deir
Yassin Remembered does not receive the publicity it merits.
Webster's dictionary would
meretriciously brand its supporters "anti-Semitic",
and "many members of the Boston community" would no
doubt object. "Blood libel," UCD's eminent law lecturer
would scream. We must wait to hear what UCD thinks. But let us
not be "hurt" or "dismayed". Let's just keep
on telling it how it is. Isn't that what American journalism
school was meant to teach us?
Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and
author of Pity
the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's
hot new book, The
Politics of Anti-Semitism.
Weekend
Edition Features for April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
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