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Alexander Cockburn

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This article is about the journalist. For the English jurist, see Sir Alexander Cockburn, 12th Baronet.
Alexander Cockburn
Born
Alexander Claud Cockburn

(1941-06-06) June 6, 1941 (age 83)
Scotland
Notable credit(s)CounterPunch, The Nation, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times
RelativesAndrew Cockburn, Patrick Cockburn
FamilyClaud Cockburn

Alexander Claud Cockburn (Template:PronEng, "co-burn"), born June 6, 1941, is a self-described radical Irish-born journalist who has lived and worked in the United States since 1973. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch. He also writes the "Beat the Devil" column for The Nation and a weekly syndicated column for the Los Angeles Times. Cockburn was also a regular contributor to the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

Background

Born in Scotland, Cockburn grew up in Youghal, County Cork, Ireland, eldest son of the well-known socialist author and journalist, Claud Cockburn. He has two younger brothers, Andrew Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, who are also journalists. In addition, journalists Laura Flanders and Stephanie Flanders, and actress Olivia Wilde, are his nieces. After studying at University of Oxford (Keble), Alexander worked in London as a reporter and commentator.

Career

After moving to the United States, Cockburn wrote extensively for numerous publications, including The New York Review of Books, Esquire, and Harper's. Until 1983 he was a writer with The Village Voice, originating its longstanding "Press Clips" column, but he was suspended, the Voice said, "for accepting a $10,000 grant from an Arab studies organization in 1982."[1][2] He left the publication upon being offered a regular column in The Nation, called "Beat the Devil" (after the title of a novel by his father). Since leaving the Voice he has also written columns for the Wall Street Journal, New York Press and the New Statesman.

Over the years, Cockburn's writings have consistently displayed certain themes, including:

At times acerbic, Cockburn can also be gently ironic, once declaring Gerald Ford America's greatest president for doing the least damage and praising the Lewinsky scandal's entertainment value.[7] In the same vein, he has also expressed his admiration for the beauty of both Tipper Gore and Laura Bush.

Cockburn has a flair for over-the-top flamboyance. His nudge-nudge, wink-wink brand of humor is demonstrated in his response to a question asking for a comparison between George Bush and Napoleon Bonaparte. He replied that he wasn't sure about Bush as Napoleon, "though surely Josephine's heart beats beneath Laura's delicious bosom."[8]

Alan Dershowitz claimed that Cockburn was one of three leaders (along with Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky) who are engaged in an attempt to discredit and malign him.[9][10]

Controversial opinions

In addition to arousing controversy in some quarters for his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Cockburn has also generated controversy on a variety of other subjects.

One of these subjects is his opinion about the activities of the Church of Scientology (CoS). In a Los Angeles Times column published in the late 1990s, Cockburn criticized the attempt by the German government to inhibit the growth of Scientology through restrictive laws, and invoked several comparisons to Nazi Germany in order to illustrate what he views as a threat to the rights enjoyed by Scientologists to worship in a manner they see fit. Although he conceded that the aggressive posture of the CoS deserved scrutiny, he also maintained that the demonization of any particular unpopular group—even one that might be cultish in nature—presented a far more imminent danger than the activities of Scientologists, or the organization they belong to.[1]

Another frequent source of contention between Cockburn and his political adversaries is his contrarian position on Iraq, both during and after the rule of Saddam Hussein. Although many on the left denounced the economic and political sanctions imposed upon the Iraqi government by the United Nations, he was particularly strident in his criticism of American and British actions during the twelve year interim between the formal resolution of the Persian Gulf War and the 2003 invasion, and subsequent occupation, of Iraq by American, British and other national military forces comprising the self-described Coalition of the Willing.

In a blistering column published in 2000 Cockburn averred that the economic embargo imposed upon Iraq in order to sanction the Hussein regime was "demonically designed to prompt gnawing, endless suffering throughout Iraq's social economy." In the same column, Cockburn went on to conclude that every prospective nominee running in that year's presidential election was supportive of Iraq sanctions, and was therefore complicit in mass murder. [2]

Several years later, in the wake of the capture of Saddam Hussein, Cockburn penned a column entitled "How to kill Saddam," in which he argued that the ensuing trial of Hussein would be a mock tribunal, conducted by a "kangaroo court," and that Hussein's conviction and ultimate execution were foregone conclusions. [3]

Cockburn also does not think that global warming is primarily caused by humans [11], citing the claims of Dr. Martin Hertzberg that rising CO2 levels are a symptom, not a cause, of global warming, which he asserts is the result of natural, predictable changes in the earth's elliptic orbit.[12] In fact, Dr. Hertzberg is a semi-retired explosives expert who does not claim to be a climatologist.[13] This has prompted accusations that Cockburn is not consulting with and deferring to the appropriate experts, much as he complains the 9/11 conspiracy theorists don't defer to the NIST. [4]

In an attack in the Nation on Al Gore's 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, Cockburn also made this statement Norman Borlaug's 1971 prize: "Line up some of the more notorious Nobel Peace Prize recipients, such as Kissinger, and if you had to identify the biggest killer of all it was probably Norman Borlaug, one of the architects of the Green Revolution, which unleashed displacement, malnutrition and death across the Third World." Cockburn has criticized Borlaug before on this issue. [5]

Allegations of anti-Semitism

Cockburn has been accused by some of anti-Semitism, although he strongly denies these allegations, calling them a means to cover up Israel's bad behavior.

One of these charges has come from Alan Dershowitz, a long-time critic of Cockburn. In November of 2005, Dershowitz wrote a letter to the National Catholic Reporter calling Cockburn's Counterpunch.org web site "anti-Semitic,"[14] in response to a review of Norman Finkelstein's book Beyond Chutzpah by Counterpunch contributor Neve Gordon. Cockburn had previously accused Dershowitz of various charges including plagiarism in 2003,[15] and of supporting torture in an exchange one month prior to Dershowitz' accusation.[16] Both Cockburn and Dershowitz have denied their respective charges.

Controversy over Cockburn's Billy Graham article

In 2002, Cockburn published an article in Counterpunch,[17] reprinted elsewhere,[18] discussing the furor over recently released tape recorded conversations between the Reverend Billy Graham and President Richard Nixon. Cockburn contrasted the response to revelations in 1989 that Graham had "put his imprimatur" on the idea of destroying Vietnam's irrigation infrastructure, potentially killing a million civilians, as an acceptable resolution to the Vietnam War, which had gained, in Cockburn's view, little press coverage, with the taped anti-Semitic remarks, which caused a media firestorm.[19][20][21] Taking issue with what he argued was the media's selective shock, Cockburn wrote: "Don’t they know that this sort of stuff is consonant with the standard conversational bill of fare at 75 percent of the country clubs in America... ? But they didn't say they wanted to kill a million Jews. That's what Graham said about the Vietnamese and no one raised a bleat."

Following publication, Cockburn was accused of spreading anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, based on the summation of the article:[22][23]

It's supposedly the third rail in journalism even to have a discussion of how much the Jews do control the media.… Certainly, there are a number of stories sloshing around the news now that have raised discussions of Israel and of the posture of American Jews to an acrid level. The purveyor of anthrax may have been a former government scientist, Jewish, with a record of baiting a colleague of Arab origins, and with the intent to blame the anthrax on Muslim terrorists. Rocketing around the web and spilling into the press are many stories about Israeli spies in America at the time of 9/11. On various accounts, they were trailing (Mohammed) Atta and his associates, knew what was going to happen but did nothing about it, or were simply spying on US facilities.

One of these criticisms came from Franklin Foer of The New Republic, which first noted Cockburn's response:

To be fair, Cockburn doesn't exactly endorse these theories. Rather, by noting that all of these Jewish conspiracy stories are "sloshing around the news," Cockburn seems merely to be pointing out that, hey, anti-Semitic ideas are still out there today--so why the shock that Graham endorsed them 30 years ago? Indeed, when I reached Cockburn to ask him about these conspiracies, he insisted he was just reporting what was already in circulation. "I don't think I said they are true. I don't know there's enough exterior evidence to determine whether they are true or not."

Foer stated that this last statement was a "giveaway," however, alleging that each of the stories mentioned by Cockburn had been discredited, and had not been reported in any prominent media outlet.

Responses to criticism

In his ironically entitled essay My Life as an "Anti-Semite", from his co-authored book The Politics of Anti-Semitism, Cockburn wrote that "these days it's clear evidence of anti-Semitism to have written an item that pisses off someone at The New Republic."[24]

Cockburn also wrote in the essay that:

Over the past 20 years I've learned there's a quick way of figuring out just how badly Israel is behaving. You see a brisk uptick in the number of articles here accusing the left of anti-Semitism. ... Back in the 1970s when muteness on the topic of how Israel was treating Palestinians was near-total in the United States, I'd get the anti-Semite slur hurled at me once in a while for writing about such no-no stuff as Begin's fascist roots in Betar, or the torture of Palestinians by Israel's security forces. I minded then, as I mind now, but overuse has drained the term of much clout. The other day I even got accused of anti-Semitism for mentioning that the Jews founded Hollywood, which they most certainly did, as Neil Gabler recently recounted in a very funny, pro-Semitic book.[25]

Relationship with Christopher Hitchens

Christopher Hitchens is often mentioned in connection with Cockburn because of their shared origin in the British Isles, similar educational background, both being columnists at The Nation, and one-time friendship. Hitchens' ideological shift on various issues has caused a bitter falling out between the two. Beyond issues such as the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq, the split also involves personal issues regarding writers such as Sidney Blumenthal and friends such as Edward Said.

In a Counterpunch article in August 2005, Cockburn wrote:

What a truly disgusting sack of shit Hitchens is. A guy who called Sid Blumenthal one of his best friends and then tried to have him thrown into prison for perjury; a guy who waited til his friend Edward Said was on his death bed before attacking him in the Atlantic Monthly; a guy who knows perfectly well the role Israel plays in US policy but who does not scruple to flail Cindy Sheehan as a LaRouchie and anti-Semite because, maybe, she dared mention the word Israel.[26]

Apparently soon after, Hitchens replied (quoted in the same Counterpunch article)

[Cockburn] is welcome to describe me as a "sack of shit", as well as to smear excrement all over the walls of his nursery.

A little over a year later in September 2006, Hitchens wrote in a Slate.com piece (in response to an article by David Corn that criticized Hitchens' position on Iraq but praised his early career):

Incidentally, I begin to tire of this sickly idea that I used to be a great guy until I became fed up with excuses for dictators and psychopathic murderers (let alone for mediocre CIA fantasists). Alexander Cockburn is surely nearer the mark when he says that I was a complete shit and traitor all along.[27]

Bibliography

  • Incompatibles (1967) (co-edited with Robin Blackburn)
  • Student Power (1970) (co-edited with Robin Blackburn)
  • Idle Passion: Chess and the Dance of Death (1975)
  • Smoke: Another Jimmy Carter Adventure (1978) (with James Ridgeway)
  • Political Ecology (1979) (co-edited with James Ridgeway)
  • Corruptions of Empire (1988) ISBN 0-86091-940-4
  • The Fate of the Forest: Developers, Destroyers and Defenders of the Amazon (1989) (with Susanna Hecht) ISBN 0-06-097322-6
  • The Golden Age Is in Us: Journeys and Encounters (1995) ISBN 0-86091-664-2
  • Washington Babylon (1995) (with Ken Silverstein) ISBN 1-85984-092-2
  • Whiteout: The CIA, Drugs and the Press (1998) (with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-85984-258-5
  • 5 Days That Shook The World: The Battle for Seattle and Beyond (2000) (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-85984-779-X
  • Al Gore: A User's Manual (2000) (with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-85984-803-6
  • CounterPunch: The Journalism That Rediscovers America (2002) (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-85984-455-3
  • The Politics of Anti-Semitism (2003) (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-902593-77-4
  • Serpents in the Garden (2004) (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-902593-94-4
  • Imperial Crusades (2004) (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-84467-506-8
  • Dime's Worth of Difference (2004) (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) ISBN 1-904859-03-8
  • End Times: Death of the Fourth Estate (2006) (with Jeffrey St. Clair

Compact disc

  • Beating the Devil: The Incendiary Rants of Alexander Cockburn

References

  1. ^ "Village Voice Suspends Alexander Cockburn Over $10,000 Grant". Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones. January 18 1984. p. 12. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  2. ^ ""This Year in New York History: A Voice Timeline"". The Village Voice 50th Anniversary Special. Village Voice. 2006. Retrieved 2006-08-22.
  3. ^ The Anti-War Movement and Its Critics, Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch, November 14 2002, accessed April 29 2006
  4. ^ Hitch the Snitch, Editorial, CounterPunch, 1999, accessed April 29 2006
  5. ^ Debunking the Myths of 9/11, by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair, Counterpunch, November 28, 2006
  6. ^ *Template:En icon Distractions from awful reality - US: the conspiracy that wasn’t, by Alexander Cockburn in Le Monde diplomatique, December 2006 *Template:Fr iconScepticisme ou occultisme? Le complot du 11-Septembre n’aura pas lieu, by Alexander Cockburn in Le Monde diplomatique, December 2006 *Iranian translation *Template:Pt icon PODERES IMAGINÁRIOS - A "conspiração" das Torres Gêmeas
  7. ^ Prostration before reaction, David Walsh, World Socialist Web Site, 2 September 1998, accessed April 29 2006
  8. ^ The extreme sport of insult, Reported by John Leo, 22 December 2003, in US News and World Report online
  9. ^ The Hazards of Making The Case for Israel, Alan Dershowitz, JBooks.Com Promotional Interview, accessed April 29 2006
  10. ^ Nutty Professor Screams About "Plot" Against Him, Cites Troika of Evil, Alexander Cockburn, 28-30 May 2005, Norman Finkelstein website, accessed April 29 2006
  11. ^ Is Global Warming a Sin? http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn04282007.html
  12. ^ "ZNet presents a debate about Global Warming between Alexander Cockburn and George Monbiot". Znet. 2007.
  13. ^ http://www.explosionexpert.com/pages/1/index.htm
  14. ^ Dershowitz, Alan (11 November). "Letters". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ Cockburn, Alexander (26 September). "Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist?". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ Cockburn, Alexander (26 September). "When Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller". {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ Cockburn, Alexander (12 March). "When Billy Graham Planned To Kill One Million People". Counterpunch. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help)
  18. ^ Cockburn, Alexander (13 March). "Billy Graham: War Criminal". New York Press. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  19. ^ Warren, James (28 February). [? "Nixon, Billy Graham make derogatory comments about Jews on tapes"]. Chicago Tribune. {{cite web}}: Check |url= value (help); Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  20. ^ "Nixon, Billy Graham target Jews on tape". St. Petersburg Times. 2 March. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ Greenberg, David (12 March). "Nixon and the Jews. Again". Slate. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= and |year= / |date= mismatch (help); Unknown parameter |accessmonthday= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Waters, Clay (16 July 2003). "Kristof's Conspiratorial Sources". TimesWatch. Media Research Center. Retrieved 2006-07-20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  23. ^ Fields, Suzanne (25 June 2002). "The multiple faces of anti-Semitism". Jewish World Review. Retrieved 2006-11-24. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); line feed character in |title= at position 19 (help)
  24. ^ Alexander Cockburn, "My Life as an 'Anti-Semite'", The Politics of Anti-Semitism (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) AK Press, 2003, Oakland, CA, p.38
  25. ^ Alexander Cockburn, "My Life as an 'Anti-Semite'", The Politics of Anti-Semitism (co-edited with Jeffrey St. Clair) AK Press, 2003, Oakland, CA, pp. 21-22
  26. ^ "Hitchens Backs Down". Counterpunch. August 24 2005. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  27. ^ "Christopher Hitchens Responds to David Corn". Slate.com. September 26 2006. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

External links

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