Bibliography/Database of Articles

"ACLU Urges Congress to Leash New Military Tribunals, Reestablish Oversight"
American Civil Liberties Union
http://www.aclu.org/congress/l112901a.html
30 Nov. 2001
Since President Bush issued the tribunal order in mid-November the decision has provoked a firestorm of controversy both in this country and overseas. The ACLU has previously called thetribunals part of an ongoing erosion of the basic checks and balances that are “so central to our democracy.”

"Americans Want a War on Iraq, and We Can't Stop Them"
Hugo Young
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,606685,00.html
27 Nov. 2001
Hugo Young of the Guardian warns that Iraq may be next on Bush's war agenda. And what after Iraq? Could this be the harbinger of an Orwellian "war is peace"?

"Beyond Osama: The Pentagon's Battle with Powell Heats Up: Saddam in the Crosshairs"
Jason Vest
Village Voice
http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0147/vest.php
20 Nov. 2001
"Where to go next and how big it should be is what's being argued right now--and Baghdad is what's being debated at the moment," said a senior Pentagon official. "This is both an internal discussion at the Pentagon, and one between departments. Our policy guys are thinking Iraq. Our question is, do we make a move earlier than anyone expects?"

"Brainwashing War on Us"
Jim Hightower
Austin Chronicle
http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2001-11-23/pols_hight 23 Nov. 2001
Something as big as war -- where life and death are at stake ought to stand scrutiny in the light of day, without the artificial push of marketing gimmicks. Democracy requires truth ... not brainwashing.

"Brutality Smeared in Peanut Butter - Why America Must Stop the War Now"
Arundhati Roy
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,579196,00.html
23 Oct. 2001
Governments moult and regroup, hydra-headed. They use flags first to shrink-wrap people's minds and smother thought, and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury their willing dead. On both sides, in Afghanistan as well as America, civilians are now hostage to the actions of their own governments.

"Bush Orders Backing for Rebels to Topple Sadam"
Peter Beaumont, Ed Vulliarmy, Paul Beaver
Observer
http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,610461,00.hml
2 Dec. 2001
President Bush has ordered the CIA and his senior military commanders to draw up detailed plans for a military operation that could begin within months.

"In War, It's Power to the President: In Aftermath of Attacks, Bush White House Claims Authority Rivaling FDR's"
Dana Milbank
Washingtonpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55391- 2001Nov19.html
20 Nov. 2001
A single individual is going to decide whether the war is expanded to Iraq. A single individual is going to decide how much privacy American citizens are going to retain.

"Interview with Edward Said"
David Barsamian Progressive
http://www.progressive.org/0901/intv1101.html
Nov. 2001
This is why we need a much more precise, a much more defined, a much more patiently constructed campaign, as well as one that surveys not just the terrorists' presence but the root causes of terrorism, which as ascertainable.

"Islam and Stability in Saudi Arabia
Michael Donovan
Center for Defense Information
http://www.cdi.org/terrorism/saudi-pr.cfm
13 Nov. 2001
Al Saud rule is, for the time being, intact. But the quest for stability in Saudi Arabia is ongoing. History may not be on their side any longer. The Islamic values upon which they based their authority for so long are now, seemingly, in conflict with forces they could not control even if they chose to do so. The process of globalization will challenge Saudi society long after Osama bin Laden exits the stage.

"It's About Oil"
Ted Rall
San Francisco Chronicle
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi- bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/11/02/ED90804.DTL
2 Nov. 2001
Ted Rall is an editorial cartoonist, but in this article, there's not much to laugh at. If you thought the war was about the plight of Afghani women or refugees, or even terrorism, think again. It's about oil.

"Memo to George W. Bush from James Madison: 'No Nation Can Preserve its Freedom in the Midst of Continual Warfare'"
John Nichols
Nation
http://www.thenation.com/thebeat/
27 Nov. 2001
James Madison warns that "Of all the enemies of true liberty, was is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other."

"September 11 and the Struggle for Islam"
Robert W. Hefner
Social Science Research Council "After Sept. 11" Project
http://www.ssrc.org/sept11/essays/hefner.htm
19 Dec. 2001
Are we a powerful, yet blundering adolescent stumbling recklessly into an old world we barelyunderatand? How is it that a 13th century historian, Ibn Khaldun, speaks directly to the Islamic world or the 21st? Read Robert Hefner's article and find out.

"The British War Against the War"
Andrew Rowell
AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=11815
29 Oct. 2001
"What has struck me since I have started to speak out against the war is that I've been inundated by phone calls, emails and letters from all around the country. Voters are saying 'Thank God there are people who will say in Parliament what people like me feel inside,'" says Alan Simpson MP. "I think the public disquiet is far greater than Parliament admits."

"The War for Public Opinion"
Tamara Straus
AlterNet
http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12050
10 Dec. 2001
In 1922, social critic Walter Lippmann wrote, "Decisions in modern states tend to be made by the interaction, not of Congress and the executive, but of public opinion and the executive." Never has this been truer than in the war on terrorism. The Bush administration has justified its bombing campaign against Afghanistan not with a Congressional declaration of war, but with polls indicating that close to 90 percent of Americans want military action. How easy it must be to point at those numbers and claim, "The public made us do it!"

"The innocent Dead in a Coward's War"
Seumas Milne
Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,1284,622000,00.hml
20 Dec. 2001
This article estimates how many civilians have been killed in the bombing war. Does this figure add to your feeling of security?

"This Isn't the Speech I Expected to Give Today..."
Bill Moyers
CommonDreamsNewsCenter
http://www.commondreams.org/views01/1030-07.htm
30 Oct. 2001
What's at stake is democracy. Democracy wasn't cancelled on September 11, but democracy won't survive if citizens turn into lemming.

"US Patrols Off Somali Coast Point to Expansion of Campaign"
Kim Sengupta
Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=107750
1 Dec. 2001
Yemen, Sudan and the Philippines are in the firing line, along with Somalia. Reconnaissance has been undertaken in Yemen and Somalia and special forces have been sent to the Philippines. Several hundred Ethiopian troops are said to have crossed into the Somali province of Putland, an area US intelligence claims contains terrorist bases linked to Mr bin Laden.

"Women in War"
Gayle Forman
Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=special&s=forman20011115
3 Dec. 2001
The war lords are being invited to the negotiating table, but not women. Considering how women's subjugation in Afghanistan has become the political totem of the Taliban's repression, women's absence from these negotiations makes for bad symbolism--and even worse policy. Before the Taliban hid a nation full of females under house arrest and cover of the burqa, Afghan women were lawyers, judges, doctors, professors, and government ministers.

"World Opinion Opposes the Attack on Afghanistan"
David Miller
Media Research Institute
http://staff.stir.ac.uk/david.miller/publications/World-opinion.html
21 Nov. 2001
It comes as a surprise to many in the UK and US to discover that opinion is so markedly opposed to or ambivalent about the current action. One key reason is that the polls have been systematically misreported in the media.

US Law Chief "Throws Rights to the Wind"
Rupert Cornwell
Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=109156
9 Dec. 2001
Last week Mary Robinson, the United Nations human rights chief, became the latest high-profile figure to lay into Mr Ashcroft, a former senator from Missouri. She questioned the Bush administration's "trust me" attitude over the new measures, saying they circumvented the system of checks and balances of a democratic society.


Topics

  • Scope of the war
    • Human costs
    • What is the government's strategy?
    • Who is determining the strategy?
    • Spillover effects
    • Further radicalization of Islamic countries
  • Protection of civil liberties
  • Propaganda
  • Power of the Presidency
  • Rules of war
  • Legitimacy of the "war on terrorism"
  • How can justice be carried out?
  • Mass-terrorism
    • Biological
    • Nuclear
  • What changes do we need to make in our foreign policy?
    • Hegemony
    • U.S. relationship to Islamic countries
    • U.S. relationship with Israel
  • Education of the U.S. public

last rev. 1/1/02