Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
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Marcos
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Hitchens
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Israel's
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|
Weekend Edition
February 26 / 27, 2005
Democracy, Lip Service and Bigotry
Rhetoric
in the Air; Reality on the Ground
By
Rev. WILLIAM E. ALBERTS
President Bush inaugurated his second
term with these words: "By our efforts, we have lit a fire
. . . and one day this untamed fire of freedom will reach the
darkest corners of our world." (Transcript of President
Bush's Inaugural Address, The New York Times, Jan. 21,
2005). Bush's "fire of freedom" could not even reach
the brightest corners of Washington, D.C., never mind
"the darkest corners our world."
The Inauguration was marked
by unprecedented security in the nation's capital. The New
York Times reported, "As the capital prepared to celebrate
President Bush's inauguration, the city appeared on Tuesday more
like a place under siege." (Jan. 19, 2005) It was not about
"freedom" and "liberty" but about controlling
and monitoring the movements of celebrants and protesters. It
was about security fences; concrete barriers; street-closings;
security check points; metal detectors; pat-down searches; designated
zones for protesters; a no-fly zone for private aircraft; bomb-sniffing
dogs; sharpshooters on rooftops; surveillance aircraft overhead;
Coast Guard cutters on the Potomac River; security teams sweeping
hotels and office buildings fronting the parade route; some 10,000
law enforcement personnel surrounding the White House and Capital,
and, at points, four deep lining the 1.7-mile parade route; secret
service agents trotting alongside the President's armored limousine
with its "darkly tinted windows . . . within which his and
Mrs. Bush's hands could be seen waving languidly." (The
Boston Globe, Jan 21, 2005) The contradiction between President
Bush's rhetoric (uttering "freedom" 27 times and "liberty"
15 times) and the reality on the ground provides its own commentary.
Iraq contains a similar commentary.
President Bush hailed the January 30 election there as a "
'resounding success'," and "saw the vote as a victory
for his larger vision of bringing democracy to the Arab world."
He declared, "Today, the people of Iraq have spoken to
the world, and the world is hearing the voice of freedom from
the center of the Middle East" (The Boston Globe,
Jan. 31, 2005).
"The people of Iraq
have spoken to the world"? Not all of them. What the
world did not hear-or see-were the cries of Iraqi people on the
ground being "softened" up for "election day"
by a campaign of increased deadly American air strikes against
assumed "terrorist targets"-Fallujah-like flattening
"campaigning." Never mind the earlier screaming and
moaning voices of some 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians, mostly women
and children, who happened to be in the way of President Bush's
"larger vision of bringing democracy to the Arab world."
Like the Inauguration in Washington,
D.C., security was the order of the day for the election in Iraq.
The military power of 150,000 American soldiers was on the ground
and Apache choppers in the air, with about 15,000 more US troops
deployed during the run-up to the election. If a fraction of
such security had been provided in Florida to insure fairness
during the 2000 presidential election, thousands of voters, especially
Black Americans, would not have been disenfranchised. George
Bush would not have been installed president by a Republican-favored
U.S. Supreme Court. And there would not have been a manufactured
need for a pre-emptive war against Iraq.
It did not matter that armed
Iraqi resistance to the American occupation and its arranged
election prevented many voters from knowing the names of the
candidates and their policies before entering the voting booth.
Nor did it matter that the Sunni Arabs, over 30% of the population,
planned to boycott the election. What evidently mattered was
getting large numbers of the Shias majority to the election booth-and
of having television and other cameras film and photograph their
long lines and voting for American consumption.
Journalist Robert Fisk, writing
from Baghdad, called this occupation-imposed and orchestrated
"election" a "bloody charade." He writes,
"The big television networks have been given a list of five
polling stations where they will be 'allowed' to film . . . four
of the five are in Shiite Muslim areas where the polling will
probably be high." How will it play out? Fisk says, "Iraqis
bravely vote despite the bloodcurdling threats of the enemies
of democracy. At last, the US and British policies have reached
fruition," with "a real functioning democracy in place
. . . so the occupiers can leave soon. Or next year. Or in
a decade or so." A "democracy" dependent on US
force not Iraqi freedom.
The "bloody charade,"
Robert Fisk states, is that the courageous Iraqis who participated
in the election will form a parliament and write a constitution,
but they "will have no power," i.e., "no control
over their own oil . . . over the streets of Baghdad, let alone
the rest of the country, no workable army or loyal police force.
Their only power," Fisk writes of the reality on the ground,
"is that of a American military and its 150,000 soldiers
whom we could see on the main intersections of Baghdad yesterday."
(The Sunday Independent, Jan. 31, 2005)
President Bush began his State
of the Union address before Congress with rhetoric that filled
the air and elicited sustained, enthusiastic applause: "Members
of Congress, fellow citizens. As the new Congress gathers, all
of us in the elected branches of government share a great privilege.
We've been placed in office by the votes of the people we serve.
And tonight that is a privilege we share with newly elected
leaders of Afghanistan, the Palestinian territories, Ukraine
and a free and sovereign Iraq." (Transcript of State
of the Union Address and cleared by the White House, The New
York Times, Feb. 3, 2005; tape of Address)
Hidden was the reality on the
ground: US control of the reality under the ground-oil! And
new military bases to dominate the energy resources and alliances
in the whole Middle East region to speed the advance of Bush's
"larger vision of bringing democracy to the Arab world."
President Bush ended his State
of the Union address with the same rhetoric with which he began:
"The road of Providence is uneven and unpredictable. Yet
we know where it leads. It leads to freedom. . . . freedom's
power to change the world. We are part of a great venture: .
. . to spread the peace that freedom brings." (Ibid)
Bush
repeatedly says, "Freedom
is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to every
man and woman in the world." Substitute Christ for "freedom"
and one sees the underlying missionary zeal and evangelizing
dynamic of domination at work. What better way to disguise domination
than by doing it in the name of the very opposite of motives,
"freedom."
"In the name of Exxon"
or "Halliburton" obviously would not summon working
class mothers and fathers to offer up their sons and daughters
for global corporate domination and profit. Nor would they readily
sacrifice precious loved ones "in the name of Christ"
as "god's gift to the world." "Freedom,"
a revered, universal value, and fear provide the necessary
patriotic and providential appeal to seduce Christian people
especially into killing rather than loving their neighbor as
themselves as Jesus commanded.
The Bush administration is
believed to have made the reality on the ground disappear with
a hug. In his State of the Union address, the President introduced,
to enthusiastic applause, a member of the audience: "one
of Iraq's leading democracy and human rights advocates . . .
Sofia Taleb al-Suhail" who "says of her country, 'we
were occupied for 35 years by Saddam Hussein. That was the real
occupation. Thank you to the American people who paid the cost,
but most of all to the soldiers.'" (Ibid)
Sofia Taleb al-Suhail was seated
beside Mrs. Bush, right above the mother and father of a slain
US soldier to whom President Bush shortly thereafter paid tribute:
"One name we honor is Marine Corps Sergeant Byron Norwood
of Pflugerville, Tex., who was killed during the assault on Fallujah.
His mother, Janet," Bush continued, "sent me a letter
and told me . . . how proud he was to be on the front line against
terror. She wrote,
'. . . He just hugged me and
said: You've done your job, Mom. Now it's my turn to protect
you.'" With that, Bush said, "Ladies and gentlemen,
with grateful hearts, we honor freedom's defenders, and our military
families represented here this evening by Sgt. Norwood's mom
and dad, Janet and Bill Norwood." (Ibid)
Mr. and Mrs. Norwood stood
to enthusiastic and sustained applause. The applause became
thunderous when Sofia Taleb al-Suhail reached over and hugged
Mrs. Norwood. The proximity
of the two being seated directly above and below each other created
Sofia Taleb's unique opportunity to publicly hug and "thank"
a grieving American mother "who paid the cost" along
with her dead Marine son and his father.
The Boston Globe reported that "Sofia Taleb al-Suhail
. . . seated in Laura Bush's box . . . hugged the mother of a
slain US Marine who clutched her late son's dog tags, punctuating
the close of Bush's speech with an emotional and apparently spontaneous
embrace." (Feb. 3, 2005)
Much was made of that hug by
the ABC television network's commentators. Cokie Roberts said,
"The Iraqi woman turning around and completely, spontaneously
hugging the mother of the marine. It was such a moment. And
it really, in a lot of ways, it spoke of what the president is
trying to say: that the Iraqi people want us there and that we
have liberated them." Roberts continued, "And to have
that just completely spontaneous . . . something [that] gives
us goosebumps, and I think will have more resonance than any
words he said." (Transcript) An accommodating corporate
and state-controlled mainstream media at work.
Cokie Roberts evidently knows
little of "the assault on Fallujah," where Sergeant
Norwood was killed, or she would not have allowed that hug to
make her gush with, "The people of Iraq want us there .
. . and we have liberated them." "The assault on Fallujah"
was an atrocity: the US military dropped 2000 pound bombs on
the homes of civilians, attacking them also with air-to-surface
missiles, cluster bombs, deadly bursts of tank fire, and UN-banned
napalm. This city of approximately 300,000 Iraqi civilians was
literally wasted, with countless families crushed under the rubble
of their roofs. Those fleeing were forced back into the attack
zone by US soldiers. ("The siege of Fallujah: America on
a killing spree," by Bill Van Auken, Nov. 18, 2004, wsws.org;
"Fallujah Napalmed," by Paul Gilfeather, Political
Editor, Nov. 28, 2004, SundayMirror.co.uk)
Numerous eyewitness horror
stories of the siege of Fallujah produce a different kind of
"goosebumps": children and women being shot in their
homes and on sight in the streets. Anything that moved was an
"insurgent" and fair game. The attacks also against
medical facilities and staff and patients and ambulances-all
in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Tens of thousands
made refugees. ("Human Rights Day 2004: Women's Organization
Accuses U.S. of War Crimes in Iraq," Dec. 10, 2004, commondreams.org;
"US Military Obstructing Medical Care in Iraq," by
Dahr Jamail, Dec. 14, 2004, antiwar.com; "Stories from Fallujah,"
by Dahr Jamail, Feb. 9, 2005, zmag.org). But Cokie Roberts and
many of her "embedded" media colleagues probably remain
oblivious to "the assault on Fallujah" because it would
expose the obscenity of the Bush administration behind the hug.
"The voice of freedom" in Fallujah cannot be heard
because of a US military blackout.
The deeply moving embrace of
two emotionally involved women helped to hide and smother the
reality on the ground. Saddam Hussein had no "mushroom
cloud,"-threatening weapons of mass destruction and no ties
to Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attack against America. Those knowingly
false premises to justify invading Iraq were later contradicted
by the reality on the ground. Thus the rhetoric changed to the
lofty motive of removing a brutal dictator from power and bringing
"freedom" to the oppressed Iraqi people.
The rhetoric ignored the reality
on the ground. As the Bush administration was laying the rhetorical
groundwork for war by demonizing Saddam Hussein, Robert Fisk
wrote a column in The Independent called "what the
U.S. President wants us to forget." Fisk stated, "In
1988, as Saddam Hussein destroyed the people of Halabja with
gas, along with tens of thousands of other Kurds . . . President
Bush senior provided him with $500m in U.S. government subsidies
to buy American farm products. . . We must forget," Fisk
continued, "that the following year, after Saddam's genocide
was complete, President Bush senior doubled this subsidy to $1bn,
along with germ seed for anthrax, helicopters, and the notorious
'dual-use' material that could be used for chemical and biological
weapons." (Oct. 9, 2002)
As the Bush administration
was paving the pathway to war with "good intentions,"
a front-page New York Times story reported that during
the 1981-88 Iraqi-Iranian war, U.S. intelligence agencies provided
Iraq with satellite photographs of the positions of Iranian forces,
aware that Iraqi commanders would use chemical weapons in the
decisive battles of the war. The story said, "The United
States decided it was imperative that Iran be thwarted so it
could not overrun the important oil-producing states in the Persian
Gulf." (Aug. 18, 2002)
America's "aiding and
abetting" of Saddam Hussein's atrocities against Iraqi Kurds
and the Iranians is detailed in a current Boston Globe
guest column piece by Kevin McKiernan. Having studied the Kurds
and covered the war in Iraq for ABC News, McKiernan not only
substantiates the reporting of Robert Fisk and the New York
Times, he digs even deeper into the reality on the ground:
"When Hussein and his henchmen finally appear in an Iraqi
courtroom to answer for their war crimes," he writes, "the
Halabja massacre will be Exhibit A for the prosecution. . . .
The question," McKiernan continues, "is whether the
long-awaited trials will also expose key American and European
officials who played a role in arming the Iraqi regime with industrial
insecticides and a variety of other deadly components that the
West knew were being used against the Kurds. . . . It appears,"
McKiernan says, "that Iraq's use of weapons of mass destruction
was known at the highest levels in Washington."
McKiernan reminds us of what
President Bush junior evidently needed to forget about his father's
administration in the run-up to his own war of choice. "Some
of the broad outlines of Hussein's US support are known,"
McKiernan states: "the courting of the Iraqi regime by the
Reagan-Bush administration in the early 1980's as a foil against
the Islamic Republic of Iran; Reagan's handwritten letter to
Saddam Hussein soliciting better relations; multiple visits by
special White House envoy Donald Rumsfeld, who also represented
the Bechtel corporate efforts to build an oil pipeline across
Iraq; the administration's decision to remove the regime of Saddam
Hussein-who was known in these days as the 'Butcher of Baghdad'-from
the list of sponsors of terror. . ." (Feb. 9, 2005)
During the run-up to the Bush
administration's falsely-based and costly pre-emptive war, we
actually read little in mainstream media of our own government's
complicity in Saddam Hussein's brutal rule. Instead, these media
mostly "aided and abetted" the Bush administration's
interpretation of the reality on the ground.
Typical of Boston Globe
editorials were: "In reality, Saddam already has large quantities
of chemical and biological weapons" (Mar. 15, 2002); "mass
murderers," like
Saddam Hussein, "have
many collaborators," such as Arab leaders if they "keep
their shameful silence about Saddam's genocidal regime"
(Mar. 25, 2002); "if U.S. action in coming months leads
to Saddam Hussein's overthrow, there will be jubilation in Iraq
that the monster who murdered and tortured so many people and
ruined the life of entire generations is finally gone."
(Oct. 21, 2002) Boston Globe editorials "kept their
shameful silence" about the U.S. government being one of
the "collaborators" of "Saddam's genocidal regime."
Lip service is required for
discrimination and domination to flourish in a democracy. In
his Inaugural speech, President Bush touched all of the bases
of America's diversity: "In America's ideal of freedom,
the public interest depends on private character . . . on integrity
and tolerance toward others . . . That edifice of character is.
. . sustained in our national life by the truths of Sinai, the
Sermon on the Mount, the word of the Koran and the varied faiths
of our people." (The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005)
The reality on the ground is
that President Bush won re-election by cultivating an evangelical
Christian base that is not about respecting "the varied
faiths of our people," but about imposing their one true
faith in Christ-and biblically-based "moral values"-on
other people. Bush did not appeal for tolerance, understanding
and love of one's neighbor as oneself, but to people's fears
and phobias and hatred of those who are different. He fanned
the homophobic vote and the pro-heterosexual life vote and the
so-called "war on terror" vote. The very nature of
evangelical Christians' assumed superior belief prevents them
from acknowledging "the truths of Sinai" and "the
words of the Koran."
As missionaries past followed
in the wake of conquering armies, the reality on the ground will
apparently see fundamentalist Christians attempting to evangelize
"false-God" believing Muslims in "the dark corners"
of "the Arab world." Their own salvation demands it,
depends on it. Evangelical and fundamentalist Christians especially
are driven by the belief that Jesus is "the true light"
that "shines in the darkness" and "enlightens
every man." (John 1:1-14) Their insecurity and related
need for certitude drives them to possess the one true superior
belief, which automatically prevents them from recognizing "the
truths" of differing Christian beliefs-let alone "the
truths of . . . the varied faiths of our people."
President Bush's "larger
vision of bringing [italics added] democracy to the Arab
world"-by pre-emptive war and threat of military force-is
breeding a growing intolerance toward Arab and Muslim Americans.
He says the obvious for public consumption: "American's
ideal of freedom . . . depends on integrity and tolerance toward
others." ("The Inaugural Address," The New
York Times, Jan. 21, 2005) But his lumping of God and country
and military aggression and threat together in a providential
and patriotic mission of spreading freedom to "the darkest
corners of our world," blessed and colored by his own underlying
unspoken "Christocentric" belief, is eliciting nationalistic
and sectarian feelings of superiority-and related fear, hatred
and intolerance of those from "the darkest corners of our
world."
Arab and Muslim professors,
businesses and community leaders are regularly attacked by right
wing media organizations such as Fox News, groups like Campus
Watch, and reactionary websites. In Boston, those attacks are
increasing. For example, Professor M. Shahid Alam, a well-respected
teacher at Northeastern University for 16 years, is a most recent
target. In late December, he and the University began receiving
numerous e-mails calling for his firing, threatening to withhold
donations, and some containing death threats against him and
his family. Why? Because Professor Alam exercised his right
of free speech.
In December and January, Counterpunch
published two articles written by Professor Alam: "America
and Islam: Seeking Parallels" (Dec. 29, 2004) and "Testing
Free Speech in America" (Jan. 1/2, 2005) His evidently
unpardonable critique of America's rhetoric and the reality on
the ground included this penetrating statement:
"Americans have been
trained to see only their greatness, not the human costs that
others have been made to pay, and continue to pay, for their
successes." (Jan. 1/2, 2005)
Sadly, the 9/11 atrocities
committed against America elicited knee-jerk patriotism rather
than national soul searching. Instead of self-examination about
our country's foreign policy and whether it may have contributed
to such violent aggression, our president, who himself cannot
admit mistakes, declared a global "war on terror,"
and in a September 22, 2001 radio address said, "I want
to remind the people of America, we're still the greatest nation
on the face of the Earth, and no terrorist will ever be able
to decide our fate." With "God" on his side and
"freedom" in his heart, his administration is turning
America into a super nation similar to Hitler's super race with
its fascist ideology of superiority. Professor Alam's articles
reveal a truth that Americans need to hear: global justice and
peace depend on us experiencing other people's reality on the
ground not interpreting it with unreflective patriotism.
The Northeastern professor
reveals something of the reality on the ground in saying, "For
three years now, ever since I entered the public discourse, various
organized right-wing groups have been trying to silence me with
threats. Unless more Americans become aware of the growing erosion
of free speech, I am afraid that our voices may be silenced."
(personal communication, Feb. 8, 2005) One way to continue hearing
Professor Alam's voice is to write a letter supporting his academic
freedom to Northeastern University President, Richard Freeland
(r.freeland@neu.edu).
The issue of "tolerance"
toward "the truths" of others extends beyond "the
varied faiths of our people." President Bush began his
second term in office promising healing but exploiting division.
His inaugural rhetoric was lofty: "And our country must
abandon all the habits of racism, because we cannot carry the
message of freedom and the baggage of bigotry at the same time."
Bush himself carries both quite well.
Five days after the Inauguration,
the reality on the ground saw the President open his "baggage
of bigotry" at a meeting with a group of 24 African American
religious and community leaders. Bush reportedly "told
black leaders yesterday that his plan to add private accounts
to Social Security would benefit blacks because they tend to
have shorter lives than some other Americans and end up paying
more than they get out." (The Boston Globe, Jan.
26, 2005)
Why Black people do not live
as long as White people evidently was not discussed. What an
apparently glaring commentary on all who were present at that
meeting.
Why do White persons live longer
than Black persons? There remains in America an historic, institutionalized
White-controlled hierarchy of access to political and economic
power, with George W. Bush as its CEO. This hierarchy has enabled
White persons to sow far more educational and economic opportunities
than people of color-and thus reap far greater health and healthcare-and
longer life.
At the heart of America's "lingering
racial divide" is a job gap that creates a health gap.
Black people especially continue to reap an unhealthy, discriminatory,
White-favored political and
economic order sown for them at the bottom of the racial hierarchy.
Those who suffer from lack of adequate paying jobs, insufficient
diet, polluted air, an indifferent and often hostile environment,
and a tokenistic power structure are more likely to reap hypertension,
anxiety, high blood pressure, diabetes, kidney failure, asthma,
stroke, cancer, heart disease, mental illness, HIV/AIDS, implosive
physical violence, and lower life expectancy. ("Patients
With H.I.V. Seen as Separated by a Racial Divide," The
New York Times. Aug. 7, 2004; "Disparities found in
health care for blacks," The Boston Globe, Aug. 5,
2004; "Report finds minorities get poorer healthcare,"
by Ron Blakely, Mar. 20, 2002, 222.cnn.com; "Mental Health
Problems Among Minorities," by Richard A. Sherer, www.healthy
places.com.)
President Bush's own "soft
bigotry of low expectations" [italics added] is obviously
at work here. At the moment, his administration's "baggage
of bigotry" is carrying over a $300 billion price tag and
counting for his administration's "wars on terrorism"
at the expense of adequate healthcare for some 43 million Black
and White persons alike. Wars being fought by a disproportionate
number of Black Americans because the Army is actually the only
place they can "be all you can be."
The meeting between President
Bush and these selective Black leaders evidently was not about
an inequitable, life-shortening, White-favored hierarchical
structure over which President Bush presides, but how to get
from him a little piece of the pie. "Many people at the
meeting with Bush yesterday were the president's political supporters,"
it was reported. They stated, "Bush promised more trade
with Africa and support for home and business ownership by blacks."
And his supporters were said to have "praised Bush for
opening federal dollars to churches and religious organizations
and encouraged him to push for a constitutional ban on gay marriage."
(The Boston Globe, Jan. 26, 2005) There is a similarity
between paying off columnists to write stories favoring Bush
administration policies and buying loyalty with faith-based initiatives.
A divisive dynamic is assumed
to be at work here. Black leaders who accommodate the racial
hierarchy are rewarded with acceptance, recognition, advancement
and support for their causes. Here are White-approved Black
leaders. The
dynamic is believed to be "Black
Gloves/White Hands." Those Black leaders-and organizations--
who "get out of hand" and challenge the inequities
of the racial order are ignored, portrayed as controversial and,
if they become too powerful, run the risk of being discredited
and marginalized-even editorially lynched. White-approved Black
leaders make excellent spokespersons-and camouflage-for the racial
hierarchy-even when they are not speaking.
The Bush administration is
assumed to use rhetoric to disguise rather than disclose reality.
The administration has perfected the art of doing "evil"
and calling it "good." "Liberation" actually
means occupation. "Operation Iraqi Freedom" means
creating a puppet regime to exploit Iraq's vast energy resources,
and use its strategic location to militarily fan "this untamed
fire of freedom [to] the darkest corners of our world."
Bringing "democracy to the Arab world" is about domination.
"The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion
of freedom in all the world"? (The Inaugural
Address," The New York
Times, Jan. 21, 2005) Translation: that is the best hope
for all the Bill and Janet Norwoods of our country to offer up
their sons and daughters for the expansion of American imperialism.
When President Bush says, "My job is to protect
the American people from the
terrorists," he really means his aim is to provoke fear
of the "terrorists" in the American people so that
he can keep his job.
One of President Bush's repeated
fear-mongering statements is, "Our men and women in uniform
are fighting terrorists in Iraq, so we do not have to fight them
here at home." ("State of the Union Address,"
The New York Times, Feb. 3, 2005) Will "our men
and women in uniform [be] fighting terrorists in" Iran next,
"so we do not have to fight them here at home"? The
"terrorists" in North Korea? In Syria? In Libya?
How many "terrorists" around the world will "our
men and women in uniform [be] fighting" until they "have
to fight them here at home"? It is not about "fighting
terrorists in Iraq, so we don't have to fight them here at home,"
but about a brutalizing war of choice that has created enemies
in Iraq and beyond who may well have to be fought here at home.
The reality on the ground is
seen in a global poll showing "anti-Bush feelings."
Conducted by the British Broadcasting Company, the poll found
that "a majority of people [58% of 122,000] surveyed . .
. think that the re-election of George W. Bush as US president
has made the world more dangerous; and many view Americans negatively
as well." The survey revealed that "residents in only
three countries . . . out of 21 polled thought the world was
safer following Bush's election. And 47% of those questioned
now see US influence in the world as largely negative."
(The Boston Globe, Jan. 20, 2005)
As if in denial of the divisions
he has sown on the ground in America and globally, President
Bush began his second term with, "We have known divisions
which must be healed to move forward in great purposes, and I
will strive in good faith to heal them." ("The Inaugural
Address," The New York Times, Jan. 21, 2005). Words
have no real meaning to Bush. They come easy and often to deny,
distort and do violence to reality.
President Bush "will strive
in good faith to heal [our] divisions"? "Physician,
heal thyself." (Luke 4:23) Since Bush prides himself on
being a president of prayer and piety, religious leaders seem
to be especially suited to speak truth to power: about Bush understanding
and overcoming his and America's own "evil," so that
the humanness and good in so-called "terrorists" may
be seen and revered not demonized and destroyed. Any steeple
worth its salt points downward to the reality of all people on
the ground. "The best hope for peace in our world"
is experiencing other people's reality, not burning beyond recognition
their grievances and aspirations in an "untamed fire of
freedom reach[ing] the darkest corners of our world."
Rev. William E. Alberts, Ph.D. is a hospital chaplain. Both
a Unitarian Universalist and a United Methodist minister, he
has written research reports, essays and articles on racism,
war, politics and religion. He can be reached at william.alberts@bmc.org.
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