Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
May
24, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
May
27, 2003
The Terrorism Trap
Terror,
Bush and Joseph Conrad
By PATRICK COCKBURN
The terrorist attacks attributed to al-Qaida are
succeeding better than Osama bin Laden can ever have expected,
thanks to the co-operation of the US administration.
Whether it comes in the form of bomb
attacks or assassinations the aim of terrorism is most obviously
to intimidate, and to advertise a cause, but it only really succeeds
if it can provoke an over-reaction by the victim.
The Provisional IRA used to be expert
in this in the early 1970s. A few bombs or particularly gruesome
killings carried out by a few Provisionals provoked collective
punishment of Catholic districts in Northern Ireland which in
turn increased support for the Provisionals. The attacks fostered
the delusion that the back of the problem would be broken if
the British army was able to eliminate a hard core of Provisional
leaders.
President Bush clearly has a very similar
idea of how to deal with al-Qaida in the wake of the suicide
bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco. He declared earlier this
week that the US  would "hunt the terrorists in every
dark corner of the earth." As a token of his success since
the September 11 attacks he claimed that "nearly half of
al-Qa'ida's senior operatives have been captured or killed."
It is a curious conception of a terrorist
organisation. It carries the implication al-Qa'ida is organised
along the lines of the Pentagon or IBM and when the remaining
50 per cent of its senior officials are dead or imprisoned terrorism
will automatically cease. Terrorists certainly do need co-ordination
and money, but above all they require fanatical recruits willing
to get killed. After the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq there
is no shortage of these across the Muslim world.
There is no doubt that Mr Bush is a true
believer when it comes to waging his war on terrorism. European
jibes about his stupidity are also off the mark. What he has
done may be foolish in terms of suppressing terrorism and has
weakened America's relationship with the rest of the world. But
it is not foolish in terms of domestic American politics. The
Republican right, on the back of opposing the terrorist threat,
is able to implement its political agenda even more effectively
than under President Reagan.
It is this which makes the terrorist
trap so effective. In the wake of terrorist attacks it is difficult
for any government not to go along with popular demands for retaliation
by striking back blindly, even if it knows in its heart that
this will be ineffective or counter-productive.
But what is so menacing about the present
atmosphere in Washington is a willingness to exaggerate, manipulate
or manufacture external threats. When evidence was needed linking
al-Qaida to Saddam Hussein the unlikely story of a gunman imprisoned
by the Kurds, who provided dubious evidence of the connection,
is treated as gospel truth by The New Yorker. Documents showing
that Iraq was importing uranium from Africa were proved by a
painstaking UN investigation to be forged but the revelation
made no impact.
I spent the first six weeks of the year
in a Washington think tank and I was struck by how little the
intense private scepticism about Iraq and the war on terror,
expressed even by the most establishment figures at dinner parties,
ever made it into the papers and almost never onto television.
Washington has always been notoriously inward looking. But the
cumulative picture created by this mass of misinformation and
disinformation about Iraq, al-Qa'ida and the terrorist threat
in general has produced a picture of the outside world close
to fantasy.
I was reminded at times listening to
Mr Bush or Donald Rumsfeld of the famous scene in Joseph Conrad's
The Secret Agent when Mr Verloc, a revolutionary in the pay of
a foreign embassy, listens with consternation as a diplomat called
Mr Vladimir, for whom he is working, gives his confused and ignorant
vision of the terrorist world.
"He confounded causes with effects
more than was excusable; the most distinguished propagandists
with impulsive bomb throwers; assumed organisation where in the
nature of things it could not exist," writes Conrad in words
which could be applied to many a speech by Mr Bush. The diplomat
spoke of the revolutionaries "one moment as of a perfectly
disciplined army, where the word of chiefs was supreme, and at
another as if it was the loosest association of desperate brigands
that ever camped in a mountain gorge."
In some ways it would be comforting if
the US administration was cynically manipulating the external
threat--like Italian politicians during the 'crisi continua'
in Italy in 1960s and 1970s.
But there is every sign that Mr Bush,
with a tunnel vision which is worse than mere stupidity, believes
that the world can be divided into supporters and opponents of
his war on terror.
Nor is he alone. Kenneth Adelman, a member
of the Defence Policy Board, recently produced a magnificent
piece of double-think to explain why his prediction that Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction would be discovered within five days
of the end of the war had proved false. He said he suspected
that Saddam Hussein had "launched a massive disinformation
campaign to make the world think he was violating international
norms, and he may not have been."
There is a simple danger in this systematic
exaggeration of the external threat to the US. No country ever
became more democratic and less authoritarian in order to confront
a serious threat, real, imaginary or exaggerated. An immensely
powerful reaction to the slaughter of so many Americans on 9/11
was inevitable, but with it was very much Mr Bush's decision
that al- Qa'ida would be allowed to set then agenda for America's
relations with the rest of the world.
Patrick Cockburn
is the co-author with Andrew Cockburn of 'Out
of the Ashes: the Resurrection of Saddam Hussein.'
Yesterday's
Features
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|