The other America
By Edward Said, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line,  20 - 26 March 2003
The United States is not the monolith many Arabs presume it to be. It is more accurate to apprehend America as embroiled in a serious clash of identities whose counterparts are visible as similar contests throughout the rest of the world -- A small item in the press a few days ago reported that Prince Ibn Al-Walid of Saudi Arabia had donated 10 million dollars to the American University in Cairo to establish a department or centre of American Studies there. It should be recalled that the young billionaire had contributed an unsolicited 10 million dollars to New York City shortly after the 11 September bombings, with an accompanying letter that, aside from describing the handsome sum as a tribute to New York, also suggested that the United States might reconsider its policy towards the Middle East. Obviously he had total and unquestioning American support for Israel in mind, but his politely stated proposition seemed also to cover the general American policy of denigrating, or at least showing disrespect, for Islam. In a fit of petulant rage, the then Mayor of New York (which also has the largest Jewish population of any city in the world), Rudolph Guiliani, returned the check to Al-Walid, rather unceremoniously and with an extreme and I would say racist contempt that was meant to be insulting as well as gloating. On behalf of a certain image of New York, he personally was upholding the city's demonstrated bravery and its principled resistance to outside interference. And of course pleasing, rather than trying to educate, a purportedly unified Jewish constituency.

Misleading roads
By Azmi Bishara, Al-Ahram Weekly On-line,  20 - 26 March 2003
The US has just brushed off its roadmap for Palestine, but somehow made its initiative conditional on the war against Iraq. Azmi Bishara read the map and found its lines rather blurry --  Just before announcing his plans to attack Iraq, and prior to his meeting with some of his European allies, George W Bush suddenly rediscovered commitment to the so-called roadmap for resolving the Palestinian issue, a roadmap that remains to this day a blurry, intangible concept. UK Prime Minister Tony Blair, who remains sensitive to the Palestinian issue by virtue of his being European -- and as such aware of public opinion pressures and able to separate national interest considerations from US colonial exigencies -- must have advised Bush to reaffirm commitment to the roadmap in order to encourage the Palestinian Authority -- or those Palestinian officials calling for curbing Arafat's powers -- to take a firmer stand against so- called Palestinian violence. George W Bush must have also listened to the whispered pleas of European leaders, including those who support the war against Iraq. Certainly, these whispers are more effective than the pleadings of Arab leaders who have, since the Beirut summit, approached Bush repeatedly with overtures, most of which diminishing the scope of the Arab peace initiative.

Shame Upon These Pygmies and Their Lies
By Robert Fisk, Arab News, March 21, 2003
BAGHDAD, 21 March 2003 — World War II was an obscenity. It ended in 1945. Yet you would think, listening to British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President Bush who have launched a war in the Middle East, that Hitler was still alive in his Berlin bunker. You would think, too, that our leaders and journalists and — let us be frank — the Arab dictators too, have not understood this. The Luftwaffe, if you listen to Messers Blair and Bush, is still taking off from Cap Gris Nez, ready to bombard London after years of appeasement of Nazi Germany. Saddam, of course, is Hitler. Yet it is our air forces that are about to strike from Iraq’s ‘Cap Gris Nez’’; Kuwait and Qatar and Turkey and assorted aircraft carriers — to pulverize not London but Baghdad. What is it about our Lilliputian leaders who dare to manipulate our massive sacrifice in World War II for their squalid conflict against Iraq, elevating the tinpot dictatorship of Saddam Hussein into the epic historical tragedy of the 1939-1945 war?

Depleted Uranium
Editorial, Arab News, March 21, 2003
A part of the terrible legacy of the last Gulf war are the lasting effects of a weapon — then new — which proved highly effective in the fight against Iraq. Depleted uranium is radioactive, and it is a heavy metal. It is very dense, about 1.7 times heavier than lead. It is not only very hard but, unlike other materials, it has the added advantage to those who deploy it that it is self-sharpening when it penetrates armor. When it is used as defensive armor, it can make ordinary munitions bounce off. Yet while it involves no nuclear fusion or fission, its effects continue to manifest themselves to this day. They manifest themselves among US war veterans and their families, many of whom believe that there is a link between depleted uranium and the symptoms known as Gulf War syndrome. It has also been blamed for cases of leukemia in former Balkans peacekeepers. Medical experts believe that there is a strong connection between depleted uranium and leukemia and other cancers. The likelihood of absorbing it is increased significantly if a weapon has struck a target and exploded because the DU vaporizes into a fine dust and can be inhaled. Figures from southern Iraq, where depleted uranium was extensively deployed during the 1991 war, show a 100 percent increase in leukemia in the decade up to 1999 in children under 15 years of age, while overall cancers in these children increased by almost 250 percent.

Bubbles of Fire Tore Into the Sky Above Baghdad
By Robert Fisk, Dissident Voice, March 21, 2003
It was like a door slamming deep beneath the surface of the earth; a pulsating, minute-long roar of sound that brought President George Bush's supposed crusade against "terrorism" to Baghdad last night. There was a thrashing of tracer on the horizon from the Baghdad air defences – the Second World War-era firepower of old Soviet anti-aircraft guns – and then a series of tremendous vibrations that had the ground shaking under our feet. Bubbles of fire tore into the sky around the Iraqi capital, dark red at the base, golden at the top. Saddam Hussein, of course, has vowed to fight to the end but in Baghdad last night, there was a truly Valhalla quality about the violence. Within minutes, looking out across the Tigris river I could see pin-pricks of fire as bombs and cruise missiles exploded on to Iraq's military and communications centres and, no doubt, upon the innocent as well. The first of the latter, a taxi driver, was blown to pieces in the first American raid on Baghdad yesterday morning. No one here doubted that the dead would include civilians. Tony Blair said just that in the Commons debate this week but I wondered, listening to this storm of fire across Baghdad last night, if he has any conception of what it looks like, what it feels like, or of the fear of those innocent Iraqis who are, as I write this, cowering in their homes and basements.

Antiwar thinking: Acknowledge despair, highlight progress on 'moral preemption'
By Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina, Christian Science Monitor, March 20, 2003
JACKSONVILLE, FLA., AND WASHINGTON – It is difficult not to feel despair and powerlessness at this awful juncture. Millions in the world fought with all their hearts and minds to avoid violencein Iraq. Inevitably, when bombs fall, there is a deep and emotional void that is opened.
Many will pray. Others will simply reflect. Countless numbers will continue to take to the streets. But all will worry over the extent of destruction to come and the scope of its repercussions. We have seen dark moments before. Slavery, the holocaust, the Vietnam War - man's inhumanity to man is not to be underestimated. In the fight against apartheid, we saw times that seemed the world had come to an end. The nation wept in 1993 with the assassination of Chris Hani, the widely popular leader who many thought would succeed Nelson Mandela as head of the African National Congress (ANC). Violence clenched South Africa. The constitutional negotiations between the ANC and the whites-only National Party were broken nearly beyond repair. This was the lowest point of our struggle. But faith prevailed, as did the moral fortitude of average people to do what is right. With it, apartheid ended. In today's moment of deep anguish over the war, it is important to recognize the reasons for hope and pride, both in the United States and across the globe. Never in history has there been such an outpouring of resistance from average people all around the world before a war had even begun. Millions took a stand. This doctrine of moral and popular preemption must be sustained.

A History of War
By Mark Twain, CounterPunch, March 19, 2003
Excerpts from The Mysterious Stranger (Harper & Brothers, 1916). -- [Published in 1916, The Mysterious Stranger was billed as the first major work by Mark Twain published after his death. Albert Bigelow Paine, Twain's literary executor, claimed to have found the complete manuscript among his papers. In fact, The Mysterious Stranger was pieced together from three unfinished manuscripts, heavily censored and substantially rewritten by Paine and Frederick Duneka, an editor at Harper & Brothers. The two passages from the book included here were part of a manuscript called The Chronicle of Young Satan that Mark Twain worked on intermitantly from November 1897 through August 1900. These excerpts are from chapters eight and nine, which he wrote in London from June through August of 1900 while he was preoccupied with the Boer War in South Africa, the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion in China, and the Philippine-American War. Two months later, in mid-October, Mark Twain returned to the United States and announced himself an anti-imperialist in dockside interviews.]  ---  One day, a little while after this, Satan appeared again. We were always watching out for him, for life was never very stagnant when he was by. He came upon us at that place in the woods where we had first met him. Being boys, we wanted to be entertained; we asked him to do a show for us. "Very well," he said; "would you like to see a history of the progress of the human race? -- its development of that product which it calls civilization?" We said we should.

Confronting Iraq: Might doesn't make right
By Desmond Tutu and Ian Urbina, MIFTAH, March 20, 2003  
People of faith belong on the side of peace. But it is more than just those of all religions who stand against an attack on Iraq. It is also those who put their trust in law. The current moment confronts the world with a terrible decision: will we stand by reason and law or act in force and aggression? There has never been a more important test of the values of average people around the globe. At stake is whether might makes right. The United States is indeed a mighty country. But its real strength resides in its proud history of standing for what is just. In figures such as Martin Luther King, the world draws moral fortitude and an example of the effectiveness of non-violent struggle. With the grassroots boycotting efforts of everyday Americans, and the eventual diplomatic pressure of their government, South African apartheid was ended. The prison doors would still be shut around Nelson Mandela were it not for the help of the United States. These traditions have spoken recently on the streets. Never has there been such a popular and peaceful outpouring of opposition, even before the act war has taken place. This is truly the moral meaning of preemption.