The
Powell Trap
By Norman Solomon, San Francisco Bay
Guardian, September 11, 2002
How the secretary of state is helping
lead the U.S. into war: There's something
pathetic – and dangerous –
about the crush of liberal commentators
now pinning their hopes on Colin Powell.
Yes, the secretary of state is a "moderate"
– compared with the likes of
Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld. But
that's not saying much. And history
tells us, even if the press won't,
that Powell does not have a record
as a man of conscience. Media coverage
is portraying Powell as a steady impediment
to a huge assault on Iraq. But closer
scrutiny would lead us to different
conclusions.
W.'s
Conflicts of Interest
By MAaureen Dowd, New York Times,
September 15, 2002
When George W. Bush ran for president,
he mocked Bill Clinton's addiction
to pollsters and promised to tear
down the cynical White House trellis
of politics and policy. As it turned
out, Mr. Bush didn't need the permanent
campaign. He has something far more
potent: the permanent war. Karl Rove
and W. have designed a mirror-image
presidency. They take everything Poppy
did that conservatives regard as a
mistake and reverse it.
The
world according to Sharon
By Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly,
September 12 - 18, 2002
Sharon has apparently abrogated Oslo,
doing so unilaterally: Israeli Prime
Minister Ariel Sharon has declared
the Oslo agreement with the PLO "dead"
and "non-existent". In an interview
with the Israeli newspaper Ma'ariv
on 6 September, Sharon declared that
"Oslo doesn't exist, Camp David doesn't
exist, Taba doesn't exist; we are
not going back to those places." On
the same day, he told the Israeli
state- run radio that "no settlements,
even the rogue ones, will be dismantled,"
arguing that this would be seen by
the Palestinians as a sign of weakness.
Our
strength is in the camps
By Karma Nabulsi, The Guardian, September
17, 2002
In the first of a series, a PLO representative
turned academic argues that the refugees
remain at the core of Palestinian
national identity: This morning exactly
20 years ago a terrible massacre was
unfolding in the Palestinian refugee
camps of Sabra and Shatila in Beirut.
Some of us lost friends there, some
relatives, but all Palestinians come
together annually to commemorate those
who died, as well as the thousands
killed at the Tal al-Za'atar camp
in 1976 and the many massacres that
made us refugees in 1948 - such as
Deir Yassin, Abu Shusha, Tantura,
Eilaboun, and Husnaynia. How many
Palestinians became refugees, and
where are they now? The story of the
Palestinian refugees is not simply
unknown, it is concealed.
The
politics of graves
By Avirama Golan, Ha'aretz, september
17, 2002
Taking the naive approach, it is difficult
to understand how, in a country where
every interchange that is built in
a residential area generates objections
and demonstrations by local residents
complaining about the noise, it is
possible to seal off an entire neighborhood
with one annexationist swish. But
the annexation of Rachel's Tomb in
Bethlehem, however infuriating and
foolish, should not come as a surprise
to anyone who has followed the changes
in the new religious culture in Israel.
The
mantra that means this time it's serious
By Robert Fisk. The Independent, September
13, 2002
How small he looked in the high-backed
chair. You had to sit in the auditorium
of the UN General Assembly yesterday
to realise that George Bush Jnr –
threatening war in what was built
as a house of peace – could
appear such a little man. But then
again Julius Caesar was a little man
and so was Napoleon Bonaparte. So
were other more modern, less mentionable
world leaders. Come to think of it
so was General Douglas MacArthur,
who had his own axis of evil, which
took him all the way to the Yalu river.
