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Ramzy Baroud
At first, the employee at the Iraq National Museum was reluctant to let me in, saying that the building was closed due to constant bombings by American warplanes. Eventually, however, I was allowed to gaze for a few moments at segments of history so unequaled with lessons beyond astute. I witnessed the making and remaking of history set in stone. Every giant block seemed to testify to one unmistakable end: Invaders never prevail. The likeness of history as narrated by images was startling: Invaders, giant and powerful, local inhabitants, tormented and enslaved, a rebellion, rivers of blood, decapitations, screams of agony, joy and victory. Then, a new cycle of history begins, hidden under another white sheet, dusty and battered.
Renato Redentor Constantino
Daybreak. The opening verse. The first week of the first month of a new year. What will the rest of it bring? Another epidemic of hostilities on top of the current plague? Who’s to know? Governments holding the mightiest of arsenals quake in the face of the potential power of one dissenter. A power discovered by 100,000 deserters in the USA army during its war on Vietnam. A power wielded last month by over 30 Israeli refuseniks who denounced the Palestinian occupation as eating at the moral fabric of Israel. The refuseniks who said they would no longer carry out illegal orders to bomb Palestinian cities.
Geov Parrish
Remember those quaint, nostalgic times when this season was associated with the phrase “Peace On Earth”? That is, way back in the days before our born-again leader with the proclaimed personal ear of God started ordering up wars the way other politicians ask for planning studies? Before our nation became so drunken with manufactured bogeymen and antiseptic media invasions and patriotic warmongering fever that war?s unpleasantness made it something people wished absolutely to avoid? When peace was considered a good thing, not the way of cowards?
Scott Burchill
Sections of a leaked memo, sent to CIA Director George Tenet some time after the capture of Saddam Hussein, have been surfacing in the Australian press and on the internet. Much of it has been kept back from public eye, but the World Crisis can now provide for the first time its full text. The memo discusses matters concerning the history of USA foreign policy. For “Doubting Thomas’”, and those of you with short memories, it serves as a useful reminder of the extents to which the Washington establishment will go to foster democracy in other parts of the world.
Gwynne Dyer
Two years after American troops arrived in Kabul, how is the Bush administration’s project for a democratic and prosperous Afghanistan coming along? Well, the opium crop is booming: 3,600 metric tons this year, almost back up to the peak production of 4,600 metric tons that was reached before the Taliban banned the crop in 1999. Most of Zabul and Oruzgan provinces and half of the Qandahar region are once again Taliban-controlled by night, and USA troops and those of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) have come under fire more often in the past three months than in all of the previous fifteen.
Hani Shukrallah
Year one of the “new American century” seemed to end on a propitious note. Saddam Hussein, embodiment of history’s first truly global empire’s demonic other, was captured and, in the best imperial traditions, put on public display. Haggard, dazed and dishevelled, he was the star of the televised medical examination that was made to substitute for the parade of manacled barbarian chieftains and booty that once drew the crowds.
M. Shahid Alam
We might glean a few insights about the semantics of the global order ? and the reality it tries to mask ? from the way in which the United States has framed the moral case against Saddam. Saddam’s unspeakable crime is that he has “tortured his own people.” He has “killed his own people.” He has “gassed his own people.” He has “poison-gassed his own people.” In all the accusations, Saddam stands inseparable from his own people. Rarely do his accusers charge that Saddam “tortured people,” “gassed people,” “gassed Iraqis,” or “killed Iraqis.” A google search for “gassed his own people” and “Saddam” produced 5980 hits. Another search for “gassed people” and Saddam produced only 276 hits.
George Monbiot
Tomorrow at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, George Bush will deliver a eulogy to aviation, while a number of men with more money than sense will seek to recreate the Wrights’ first flight. Well, they can keep their anniversary. Tomorrow should be a day of international mourning. Dec 17th 2003 is the centenary of the world’s most effective killing machine.
Muzaffar Iqbal
A quick glance at the map of Iran and the surrounding region shows that Iran is now effectively a besieged land. This encircling of Islamic Iran is not a chance development. Unlike Iraq, where the recent invasion had a fast track pre-attack strategy, the USA is still moving carefully against Iran. But this must not be taken as a sign of reluctance by the USA administration to implement its overall strategy.
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