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November 22, 2001
The Truth About The First Thanksgiving
by James W. Loewen
Over the last few years, I have asked hundreds of college students, "When was the country we now know as the United States first settled?"
That is a generous way of putting the question. Surely "we now know as" implies that the original settlement happened before the United States. I had hoped that students would suggest 30,000 BC, or some other pre-Columbian date. They did not. Their consensus answer was "1620." Full Article
Will tears ever stop?
By John Gerassi
I can't help crying. As soon as I see a person on TV telling the heart rending story of the tragic fate of their loved-one in the World Trade Center disaster, I can't control my tears.
But then I wonder why didn't I cry when our troops wiped out some 5,000 poor people in Panama's El Chorillo neighborhood on the excuse of looking for Noriega.
Our leaders knew he was hiding elsewhere but we destroyed El Chorillo because the folks living there were nationalists who wanted the U.S. out of Panama completely. Full Article
Glass case that invites every form of indecency
By Ghifari al Mukhtar
To listen to much of the Western commentary, however, you might have thought that the liberation of Afghanistan's women boiled down to one thing: liberation from the burqa. There has been a widespread assumption that once women had been freed from the requirement to wear this all-concealing garment, their troubles were at an end. They would be free to work, enjoy themselves and be protected by the law. This is a misnomer. Burqa burning will not automatically generate rights for women where they exist only on paper "statutes". Women can be far more powerless uncovered than they were covered, and in societies of overt male dominance, more vulnerable.
At the same time a token female occupying powerful post within the society does not show any proof that western women are empowered much secure than their counterpart elsewhere. Full Article
Oil and the war on terrorism
By Gwynne Dyer
"WE hear that Iraq may be targeted," said Sheikh Ahmed Zaki al-Yamani, oil minister of Saudi Arabia during the 70s and 80s heyday of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and now chairman of the London-based Centre for Global Energy Studies. "Now, if that is a fact, the attacks will remove Iraqi production (from the marketplace). There could be knock-on effects." By which he meant very expensive oil.
Yamani made his remarks six weeks ago, just before the United States began bombing Afghanistan. Now, with the Taliban regime near collapse and the first phase of President George W Bush’s "war on terrorism" seemingly close to success, speculation in Washington about a follow-on strike against Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq is growing daily more heated. But if an attack on Iraq means soaring oil prices, and that in turn means a longer and deeper recession in the US, then Saddam is probably safe. Full Article
A Hollow Victory
By Seumas Milne
Ten days after victory was declared in the Afghan war, real life continues to make a mockery of such triumphalism in the cruellest way. As American B-52 bombers pound Taliban diehards around Kandahar and Kunduz, tens of thousands of refugees are streaming towards the Pakistani border and chaotic insecurity across the country is hampering attempts to tackle a fast-deteriorating humanitarian crisis.
Aid agencies confirm that six weeks of US bombing - which even the British government concedes has killed hundreds of civilians - has sharply exacerbated what was already a dire situation and Oxfam warned yesterday they were "operating on a precipice". More than 100,000 people are now living in tents in the Kandahar area alone and the charity has been asked by Pakistan to gear up camps across the border to receive similar numbers in the next few days. After an aid convoy was hijacked by local warlords on the Kabul-Bamiyan road on Tuesday, Oxfam and and other agencies argue that only a UN protection force can now prevent widespread starvation outside the main towns and distribution centres. Full Article
