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Hezbollah's Rise, Israel's Fall |
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Today's Stories September 12, 2006 John Walsh Kathleen Christison
Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Col Dan Smith Dr. Susan Block Anthony Alessandrini Dave Lindorff Niranjan Ramakrishnan Joshua Frank Jean Bricmont Sprague / Emesberger Website of
the Day
September 9/10,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair Greg Grandin Peter
Stone Brown Ralph
Nader Brian
Cloughley Col.
Chet Richards David
Model Dave
Himmelstein Ron
Jacobs Fred
Gardner Mike
Whitney Josh
Gryniewicz Daniel
Gross / Joe
Bageant Nicole
Colson Alexander
Billet Poets'
Basement
September 8, 2006 Uri
Avnery Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Quigley Robert
Jensen Norman
Solomon Keith
Bolin
September 8, 2006 Uri
Avnery Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Quigley Robert
Jensen Norman
Solomon Keith
Bolin Kristin
S. Schafer Jeffrey
St. Clair Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Sharon
Smith René
Drucker Colín Michael
Donnelly John
Borowski Lucinda
Marshall Charles
Sullivan Jeffrey
St. Clair Jonathan
Cook Website
of the Day
September 6, 2006 Stephen
Soldz Dave
Zirin Ramzy
Baroud Noel
Ignatiev Dave
Lindorff Norman
Solomon Binoy
Kampmark Jeffrey
St. Clair John
Ross Website
of the Day
September 5, 2006 Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney
Roland Sheppard James Petras Alexander Cockburn
September 4, 2006 Clancy Sigal Jeffrey St.
Clair Anthony Alessandrini Dennis Perrin
Daniel Cassidy
Paul Craig
Roberts
September 2 / 3, 2006 Uri Avnery Jeffrey St.
Clair Ralph Nader Noam Chomsky Allan Lichtman Stanley Heller Rana el-Khatib Peter Montague Laura Carlsen Dr. Susan Block Joe Bageant Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf Gary Leupp Stephen Fleischman Paul Balles Ingmar Lee Jane Stillwater Ron Jacobs St. Clair /
Bossert Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
September 1, 2006 Uri Avnery Paul Craig
Roberts Bill Ayers Kevin Zeese Xochitl Bervera Norman Solomon Alexander Cockburn Richard Neville Website of the Day
August 31, 2006 David MacMichael John Ross Edward Said Amira Hass Missy Comley
Beattie Lee Sustar Jonathan Cook Website of the Day
August 30, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts George Salzman Dave Lindorff Leigh Davis Alan Maass Mike Whitney Eliza Ernshire Website of
the Day
Saul Landau Jeffrey Buchanan Dave Lindorff James Brooks John F. Burnett Walter A. Davis Rich Gibson Amira Hass Paul Craig
Roberts
August 28, 2006 John Walsh Sibel Edmonds
/ William Weaver Ramzy Kysia Ron Jacobs Gideon Levy Missy Beattie Virginia Tilley
Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn Jordan Green Azmi Bishara Ray Close Gary Leupp Ralph Nader Joe Allen Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff David Krieger Stephen Fleischman Mary Turck Walter Brasch Jim Scharplaz Israel Shamir Alexander Cockburn Charles Henderson Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
August 25, 2006 Elena Everett Juan Cole Chris Moore James Marc Leas Salah Obeid Claudio Albertani Tom Barry Website of
the Day
CounterPunch
News Service Uri Avnery Nermeen al-Mufti Norman Solomon Megan Wiles Laura Santina Mike Whitney Seth Sandronsky Christopher
Brauchli
August 23, 2006 Dr. Trudy Bond Ramzy Baroud Ron Jacobs Heather Gray Amira Hass Mavis Anderson Ingmar Lee Francis Boyle John Ross
Gilad Atzmon Jack Heyman Eamon McCann Sharon Smith Edward S. Herman Ramzi Kysia Bill Quigley August 21, 2006 Jonathan Cook Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly Mike Roselle Lenni Brenner Maher Osseiran
August 19 /
20, 2006 Uri Avnery Eliza Ernshire Virginia Tilley Kathy Kelly Marc Levy Stephen Bradberry / Barbara Rose
Johnston William Blum Stephen Fleischman Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner David Krieger Dan La Botz Poets' Basement
August 18, 2006 Brian M. Downing John Blair Alan Hart Craig Murray Chris Dols Emily Kirksey Joaquín Bustelo William S.
Lind Podcast of the Day Website of
the Day
August 17, 2006 CounterPunch
News Service Barucha Peller Ramzy Baroud Rothem Shtarkman Craig Murray Samar Assad Mike Ferner Arnold Kohen Kevin Zeese Missy Comley Beattie Uri Avnery Video of the Day Website of
the Day
August 16, 2006 Merav Yudilovitch Robert Fisk Mark Williams John Ross Christopher
Brauchli John Walsh Ron Jacobs Rachard Itani Felice Pace Niranjan Ramakrishnan Frank, Sharma
and Peterson Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
August 15, 2006 Andrew Ford
Lyons Binoy Kampmark Robert Fisk Ralph Nader Todd Chretien Chris Floyd Mark Engler George Galloway Laray Polk Trish Schuh Website of the Day
Uri Avnery Karim Makdisi Kathy Kelly Robert Fisk Norman Solomon Sunsara Taylor Robert Jensen Mike Whitney P. Sainath Goretti Horgan Christopher
Reed
August 12 /
13, 2006 Jean Bricmont Norman Finkelstein Robert Fisk Adrian Grima Barucha Peller Omar Barghouti Adam Engel Conn Hallinan John Stauber Rev. William
Alberts Fred Gardner Lucinda Marshall Ron Jacobs CounterPunch
News Service Poets' Basement
Col. Dan Smith John Ross Michael Donnelly William S.
Lind Linda Milazzo Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Azmi Bishara Henri Picciotto CounterPunch News Wire Dave Lindorff Jonathan Cook
Uri Avnery Dave Marsh Gabriel Kolko Arthur Versluis Jennifer Loewenstein
Linda Schade Jackie Mason Jonathan Cook Gilad Atzmon
Charles Hirschkind
Tom Barry Cockburn &
St. Clair
August 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Paul Larudee Joan Roelofs Dimi Reider John A. Murphy Tim Llewellyn Website of the Day
August 7, 2006 Uri Avnery Karim Makdisi Nadia Hijab Sharon Smith Magan Wiles George Beres Rachard Itani Norman Solomon Stan Cox Mickey Z. Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
August 5 / 6, 2006 Virginia Tilley Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Sgt. Martin Smith Gary Leupp Neve Gordon Ralph Nader Peter Bouckaert Peter Montague David Krieger Michael Donnelly Fred Gardner Catherine Norris Imraan Siddiqi Missy Comley
Beattie Ira Kay Dave Lindorff Pratyush Chandra Ron Jacobs St. Clair / Donnelly Poets' Basement Website of the Day Video of the
Weekend
August 4, 2006 Ralph Nader Brian Cloughley Eliza Ernshire Roger Assaf George Bisharat Remi Kanazi Laura Carlsen Niranjan Ramakrishnan Derrick O'Keefe Mickey Z. Col. Dan Smith Website of the Day
Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Saree Makdisi Robert Fisk Farrah Hassen Nicola Nasser Ron Jacobs Mitchel Cohen Seth Sandronsky Bruce K. Gagnon Alexander Cockburn
John Ross Chip Mitchell Saul Landau Naseer Aruri Winslow T.
Wheeler Matthias Gebauer Joshua Frank Bill Quigley Manuel Yang Shamai Leibowitz David Himmelstein Lara Marlowe Website of
the Day
August 1, 2006 Michael Neumann Robert Fisk Omar Barghouti Marc Levy Diana Barahona / Jeb Sprague Claud Cockburn Ross Eisenbrey Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Francis Boyle Phil Doe Stephen Soldz Website of the Day
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September 12, 2006 Islamic FascismThe New HysteriaBy ALAN MAASS THE CHIEFTAINS of the never-ending "war on terror" are peddling a newly updated enemy: "Islamic fascism." After British officials claimed in August to have foiled an al-Qaeda plot to blow up transatlantic air flights, George Bush said the arrests were "a stark reminder that this nation is at war with Islamic fascists." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went a step further, citing Adolph Hitler's rise to power in the 1930s and accusing administration critics of appeasing "a new type of fascism." Likewise, Bush's loyal British ally Tony Blair talked about an "arc of extremism"--in a "specifically Muslim version"--stretching across the Middle East. Bush and Co. don't bother with any evidence to back up these sound bites--for good reason. The notion of "Islamic fascism" depends on lumping together all Islamist organizations--from Lebanon's Hezbollah, which, like the government of Iran, is based among Shia Muslims, to the ultra-Wahhabist Sunnis of al-Qaeda, which regards Shiites as enemies and infidels to be exterminated. No one seriously attempts to equate the tenants of the Muslim religion with the political phenomenon of fascism--historically, an extreme right-wing movement of the middle class that aims to smash all working-class organization and eliminate democracy. Fascism is nationalist and usually virulently racist--with the Nazis' genocidal policies the classic example. Even right-wing ideologue Daniel Pipes cautions against equating this with Islam. "I applaud the increasing willingness to focus on some form of Islam as the enemy," he pontificated on the ultra-conservative Front Page magazine Web site, "but find the word fascist misleading. Few historic or philosophic connections exist between fascism and radical Islam." Pipes went on to make the case for joining the war on Islam to his pet cause--the Cold War crusade against Communism. But none of the warriors-on-terror can answer his objection. The rhetoric about "Islamic fascism" is a pack of lies--another attempt to repackage the increasingly unpopular "war on terror" by identifying a current enemy of the U.S. government with something that everyone can be counted on to oppose. Identifying latter-day enemies with the Nazis a longstanding public relations tool of the U.S. government. Washington politicians claimed that Saddam Hussein--whose secular Baathist Party was a sworn enemy of the Islamists--was the "new Hitler" before both the 1991 and 2003 wars on Iraq. Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic became a Hitler shortly before Bill Clinton launched the NATO war over Kosovo. Even the radical populist Jean-Bertrand Aristide of Haiti, toppled in a U.S.-engineered coup in 2004, was branded a "new Hitler"--by none other than former Sen. Jesse Helms, the arch-racist who kept up close ties with Aristide's enemies in Haiti, the FRAPH death squads, which actually do resemble fascism. Indeed, no U.S. political leader ever used the Hitler slur against the U.S.-supported right-wing regimes that really did embrace elements of Nazism--for example, the racist apartheid regime in South Africa or the Indonesian military dictatorship under Gen. Suharto. And it's worth noting that when U.S. ideologues need to hark back to a war that was popular to demonize a current enemy, they have to go back more than 60 years to the Nazis and the Second World War. THE HISTORY of Islam doesn't set it apart as more oppressive or violent than other religions. On the contrary, the message preached by Mohammed bore many similarities to Christianity and Judaism, the other religions that predominated when Islam was founded and began to flourish in the towns and cities on the Arabian Peninsula (today dominated by Saudi Arabia) at the beginning of the 7th century. In contrast to the rival deities of the nomadic herders, Mohammed and his followers looked to a single god (Allah in Arabic) and put forward a broad code of beliefs and obligations for believers, many of which accorded with Christianity and Judaism. Like other major religions, Islam stresses a respect for order, but also social justice--the poor are to be protected against oppression, but the rich are embraced, too, so long as they show charity. Islam's early history does differ in one respect. The early Jews and early Christians were persecuted victims of empire, but within the lifetime of Mohammed, armies marching under the banner of Islam began a military campaign that quickly spread the religion across a huge area of the Middle East and beyond, eventually stretching from Spain in the west to South Asia in the east. Right-wingers point to this to claim that Islam is uniquely militaristic. But the successes of Mohammed's followers were, first and foremost, political conquests against outposts of the two great empires bordering Arabia--Byzantium and Persia. Jews and Christians, who often made up the majority of the urban populations, welcomed the Arab armies, since the Muslim conquerors respected their religious beliefs. For centuries to come--while Western Europe remained stuck in what historians call the "Dark Ages"--the Islamic world, though far from egalitarian, was the center of intellectual inquiry, preserving and advancing the scientific breakthroughs of the ancient world. Against this backdrop, the claim that Islam is more prone to violence than other religions is obviously false. The history of Christianity appears especially grim by comparison--from its bloody "crusades" in the Middle East; to the Catholic Church's sanction for the Spanish Inquisition to use torture to convert Muslims and other "heretics"; to its hand-in-glove relationship to all kinds of political tyrannies, including the fascist regimes in Italy, Germany and especially Franco's Spain. Bush's hypocrisy in condemning Islamist "extremism" stands out in especially sharp relief, too. This is the man who has continually invoked his own God in defense of the "war on terror" launched after September 11--including using the word "crusade," surely a calculated insult to Muslims. "Freedom and fear, justice and cruelty, have always been at war, and we know that God is not neutral between them," Bush said in his first post-9/11 speech to Congress. As Socialist Worker pointed out at the time, had Osama bin Laden uttered those words, he would have been denounced for inciting terrorism. UNFORTUNATELY, A number of radicals have accepted elements of the Washington-sponsored campaign against Islam. One especially potent issue is Islam's treatment of women. Islamic doctrine does maintain that women are the inferiors of men--and mandates codes of behavior and conditions for women that, especially under certain currents, range to the barbaric. This is one of the most obviously backward aspects of Islam. But there should be no debate about the fact that Christianity--in whose name women were burned at the stake as witches not so long ago--is not fundamentally different in its attitude toward women. If the position of women in Western countries today is more advanced, this is not because of the influence of Christianity, but in spite of it--the result of political struggles that won new rights for women and contributed to a growing secularization of society. The political and social gains achieved by women were always in opposition to the hierarchy of the Catholic Church and other brands of Christianity. And by the same token, the rollback of women's rights over the last several decades is a direct consequence of the growing power of a self-identified Christian Right, for which enforcement of women's inferior status is a high priority. Thus, when conservatives like George Bush complain about Islam's treatment of women, no one should forget their attacks on women's rights at home, or their real motives in "supporting" them abroad. Liberating women from the tyranny of the Taliban government in Afghanistan became one of the chief ideological justifications for the first stop in the U.S. "war on terror" following September 11. But the new regime installed by the U.S.--dominated by the warlords of the Northern Alliance notorious for their record of mass rape and murder of women--enforced conditions that are little changed, if at all, for women. Such hypocrisy didn't start with the Bush administration. As Socialist Worker columnist Sharon Smith wrote in her book Women and Socialism, "Imperialists and their apologists have claimed European cultural superiority as a justification for dominating Muslim societies since colonialism began... "During the British occupation of Egypt, British Consul General Lord Cromer declared that Egyptians should 'be persuaded or forced into imbibing the true spirit of Western civilization.' Cromer targeted, 'first and foremost,' Islam's 'degradation of women'..." But this champion of women's rights in Egypt was, back in England, a "founding member and sometimes president of the Men's League for Opposing Women's Suffrage." In the face of such double standards, past and present, it is understandable that Muslim organizations--supported by men and women--would embrace and defend Islamic religious practices, viewing this as an act of resistance to imperialism. IT IS also important to distinguish between different developments in Islam and how the currents known today as "fundamentalism" first arose. The first "fundamentalist" Islamic state didn't appear until the 20th century, when Saudi Arabia was established, with the backing of Britain, after the First World War. The Wahhabi sect unified warring tribal leaders behind a religious movement that claimed to be "purifying" Islam. Its interpretation of Islamic law, imposed under the new state, included stoning women who commit adultery, amputating the limbs of thieves and public beheadings for other crimes. Wahhabism became the inspiration for Afghanistan's Taliban, a favorite target of the Islam-bashers. But Saudi rulers often escape criticism--since they are crucial allies of the West. Likewise, when the USSR invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the U.S. armed, trained and supported the Islamists of the mujahadeen--among them, a Saudi businessman named Osama bin Laden. Another example of Western support for Islamist forces is Palestine. Israel backed the Islamist predecessor groups that gave rise to the militant Hamas organization--as a hoped-for counterweight to the secular nationalist Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Obviously, that relationship has changed. With the failure and decline of Arab nationalist organizations--symbolized by the PLO's commitment to the Oslo negotiations that conceded on many Palestinian demands and by the corruption and authoritarianism of nationalist forces where they did attain power--Islamist movements have gained support for their willingness to organize a resistance to U.S. and Israeli power in the region. Thus, Hamas' wide support among Palestinians is not primarily a product of its commitment to Islamic religious tenants, but because Hamas represents a political alternative that has been willing to stand up for Palestinians' national aspirations. Likewise, Hezbollah in Lebanon--another U.S. and Israeli scapegoat--has growing support beyond its base among Shia Muslims because of its role in driving out the Israeli occupation in 2000 and its success in resisting a renewed assault this summer. Another case in point is Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won election last year as a representative of the conservative Shia Islam establishment. Ahmadinejad is bitterly denounced by Western political leaders as a reactionary, especially because of his fiery denunciations of Israel, which have included anti-Semitic slurs such as questioning whether the Nazi Holocaust of Jews took place. Middle East experts Juan Cole and Michael Schwartz warn that the U.S. media coverage is regularly distorted to make Ahmadinejad's speeches seem for more anti-Semitic than they actually are. But whether or not this is the case, it is clear that Ahmadinejad's support within Iran rests on his willingness to challenge the U.S. and Israel. His campaign promised some populist reforms, but attacks on workers and a crackdown on political opponents after his election sent his popularity plunging. He has only rebounded somewhat by talking tougher about the U.S. and Israeli wars in the Middle East. Thus, the support for this representative of conservative Islamist orthodoxy in Iran is based on his opposition to imperialism, not popular enthusiasm for the right-wing aspects of his political program. There are many other examples of Islamist political forces and the varying degrees of their dual character. But even a brief look is enough to dispel the myths about "Islamic fascism." When the rulers of the American political establishment start denouncing fascism, don't be deceived--they're out to promote an agenda of imperial conquest. No one who opposes U.S. wars and occupations should concede an inch to this lie. Alan Maass is the editor of the Socialist Worker. He can be reached at: alanmaass@sbcglobal.net
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                     |
