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Today's
Stories
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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
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for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
March 20 / 21, 2004
An Obligation to Resign
Tony
Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
By TED HONDERICH
What is it to have a moral responsibility for
an atrocity finally performed by others? First, it is to have
done something else freely that was a necessary condition of
the atrocity the atrocity could not have happened without
it. Second, that earlier thing was wrong. If such wrongfulness
is not such a matter of fact as the first consideration, truth
certainly gets into it. Third, to have such a moral responsibility
for the atrocity, the person has to have seen the nature of the
earlier thing, including its wrongfulness, or anyway been able
to see it.
There is no doubt that people who supply
necessary conditions of an atrocity, other than the final agents,
can share the moral responsibility for it. It is common to apportion
legal responsibility in courts in such cases as war crimes. So
it is common to share out what is more fundamental, which is
moral responsibility. In the end judgements of moral responsibility
take authority over judgements of legal responsibility.
Essential to the procedure of apportioning
moral responsibility is a question of power, relations of power
between individuals. This makes it possible that someone other
than the final perpetrators of an atrocity is more responsible
for it.  Something like this has been
the case with war crimes.
To what extent was the departed Spanish
Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar morally responsible for the deaths
in Madrid? Certainly his action in leading Spain into the American
war in Iraq was a significant necessary condition of the Madrid
atrocity. Since his country was 90% against the war, there is
no room for dispute about this.
Was his action of leadership in joining
the war wrong? That is the main question in both his case and
others. In fact it can be considered independently of the question
of moral responsibility. It is the question of whether Mr Aznar's
action, as best judged at the time, whether or not by him, would
have certain consequences. With respect to the possible consequences
by which actions are judged, consequences for humanity, there
is actually quite wide agreement about them among disinterested
people.
With respect to Mr Aznar's moral responsibility,
there is also the question of the extent to which he saw the
nature of his action. It is possible to be too quick in thinking
about this question. He may have successfully deceived himself.
Self-deception is not looking into questions that may have answers
you do not want. It is possible, to some extent, unintentionally
or in confusion to be unaware of your own strategy.
The case of Mr. Blair is now more urgent.
He too in taking his country into the
Iraq war provided a necessary condition for a possible atrocity.
He provided a necessary condition for a possible atrocity now
to come in Britain. It could be yet more unspeakable. It could
be of an order different from that of Madrid, and indeed of September
11. It is this which we are now forced to consider.
The wrongfulness of his taking us into
the war is to some of us as good as a moral fact. But this is
disputed. What is not properly disputed, however, is that he
lied in several respects, and in effect lied to the House of
Commons. It may well be that he did enough lying to count as
a liar. Admittedly this is not a perfectly simple issue, however,
even putting aside the complications of self-deception.
It is not simple because leaders and
others can rightly lie. No one disputes this after considering
examples of telling the truth to someone who will as a result
be able to murder or rape someone or destroy a country. But Mr.
Blair's purposes were not of such an exculpating kind. His purposes
were not so clear to anyone, seemingly including himself.
They included what can be called an ideological
war, a war to assert an ideology that certainly is not universally
accepted in his country or elsewhere. Most certainly it is not
adequately described as 'democracy'. Nor is the continuing conflict
adequately described as between 'democracy' and 'terrorism'.
There is a connection between his moral
standing, his lying in particular, and the right or wrong of
his taking us to war. Someone can do the right thing, serve the
right consequences, for a reason that discredits him, or the
wrong thing for a misguided reason that in fact does him credit.
Still, there are possible connections between the rightness of
an action and the standing of an agent.
In the real world, the recommendation
of an action may at least be touched by the moral standing of
the agent. Consequences are looked at differently if a question
of trust arises about he who claims to be most privy to knowledge
of them. Mr. Blair himself, maybe in blindness, raises an additional
question about his action.
That is not all.
As continuing Prime Minister, as continuing
leader of this nation, he will have a unique share of moral responsibility
in a possible atrocity against British people in the coming days
or months. However, he is in a position to remove from the world
a necessary condition of that possible atrocity. He can in fact
prevent the atrocity. He can do so by resigning now. He is morally
obliged to do so. In the present circumstance, no response about
political or any other realism reduces this obligation. Nor does
any theory of parliamentary government, or piece of political
philosophy, or anything about past practice or about setting
a precedent.
Mr Blair's leadership is not worth a
great deal to some of us. Is there anyone to whom it is worth
a thousand deaths?
Ted Honderich
is Great Britain's outstanding progressive philosopher, recently
interviewed for CounterPunch by Paul de Rooij. One of his past
books was Punishment, The Supposed Justifications. Another
was the funny and deadly examination of a political tradition,
Conservatism, and a third Violence for Equality: Inquiries
in Political Philosophy. His new book is After
the Terror (Edinburgh University Press, Columbia University
Press). He can be reached at: honderich@counterpunch.org
Weekend
Edition Features for March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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