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Recent Stories

April 10, 2003

Zoltan Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier the Victory, the Harder the Peace

Uri Avnery
The Night After

Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire

Ron Jacobs
Bush and Rummy's Drunken Drive-by

David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel Abbas

Jeremy Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?

Robert Jensen
The Unseen War

Geoffrey Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution: A Patriot Attack on America

Jeffrey St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad

Hammond Guthrie
Rumors of War

Joseph Heller
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War Web Log 4/10

Website of the Day
The Third Page

 

April 9, 2003

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Doug Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and War

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The New York Times and the Peace Movement

David Vest
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John Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do as It Damn Well Pleases

Akiva Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance with the Christian Right

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Steve Perry
War Web Log 4/9

 

April 8, 2003

David Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental

Richard Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches

John Brown
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Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"

Ahmad Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy

Wallace Gagne
Baghdad Babble

Harry Browne
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Larry Kearney
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Steve Perry
War Web Log 4/8

M. Shahid Alam
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April 7, 2003

Todd Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers

David N. Gibbs
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Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce

Gideon Levy
America is Not a Role Model

Diane Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War

Jules Rabin
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James Davis
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Robert Fisk
The Twisted Language of War

Patrick Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah

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War and Art

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War Web Log 4/7

 

April 5, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is in Shambles

Anne Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem

Uri Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere

Chris Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush

William Cook
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Gila Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers

Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?

Joanne Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies

John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders from the Lord

Romi Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead

Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with Other Mideast Regimes

Mary Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight

William MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism

Ron Jacobs
War and Occupation

Bernie Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God

Mark Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo

Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini

Poets' Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz

Jeffrey St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud

Norman Madarasz
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April 4, 2003

Anthony Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame

John Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?

David Krieger
The Meaning of Victory

Tom Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support or Treason?

Adam Federman
The Absence of War

Vijay Prashad
There Are No More Arguments

Tom Stephens
The End of the Innocence

Mickey Z.
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Pierre Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality Show

Hammond Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab

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War Web Log 04/04

 

April 3, 2003

Uri Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and the Theater of Operations

David Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?

Anthony Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer

David Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused to Fight

Michael Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits

Ramzy Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?

Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears

Anton Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon

Alison Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie

Bruce Jackson
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War Web Log 04/03

 

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April 12, 2003

Our Vulnerable Warmongers

The Rush to Justify the Devastation

by WILLIAM BLUM

When you wage a war that is strongly opposed by the great majority of those on the planet who are aware of such things, when your own people are becoming increasingly militant against your unilateral waging of that war, when you know well that your war is palpably and embarrassingly illegal, immoral, illogical and unjust, when you can't admit the real reasons for the war ... then you have a consuming need to find a moral-sounding and credible selling point -- "Regime change", to remove the evil Saddam, the Iraqi people will welcome us with flowers and music!

Thus was it mortifying for the warmongers that for more than the first two weeks of the war the Iraqi images shown to the world were largely of the dead, the wounded, the grief-stricken, the immense piles of rubble, the bombing-produced homeless, those bitterly angry at the US. How could it be otherwise? What kind of people like their loved ones torn apart by missiles, their children without a limb, their homes, hospitals, schools and jobs destroyed? The US military told its cannon fodder and its embedded media that any negative reaction, or lack of a positive one, was all because the people were afraid of Saddam, as if one of his agents was standing behind each Iraqi citizen. Why did a million people fight and resist to the death instead of surrendering, defecting, anything to show their gratitude for their "liberation"?

Now, any teenager flashing a victory sign or anyone climbing upon a toppled statue of Saddam is an American media star. But what portion of the Iraqi people are happy about the invasion -- happy about all its effects? What are they happy about other than the removal of Saddam? And many Iraqis supported him. Of those "celebrating", how many have been touched by the death and destruction? How many even know about it? The US bombed Iraqi and Arabic TV off the air fairly early on for much of the country. Much of the telephone system was another early victim.

As an American, I might also celebrate if the cruel and ignorant tyrant occupying the White House were overthrown. But not if my house were demolished and my city were bombed. In any event, I'd keep most of my joy in reserve until I saw who and what replaced the tyrant. Like in Iraq, it would likely be a conservative Republican.

However, I'm being light here. No changes in Iraq justify the American onslaught. What kind of world would we have if any country could invade any other country because it didn't like the leader of that country? And in this case, the United States was not motivated at all by Saddam Hussein, or his evilness, or his alleged weapons of mass destruction, or his alleged threat to the US.

William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, Rogue State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and West-Bloc Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir. He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com


Yesterday's Features

Zoltan Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier the Victory, the Harder the Peace

Uri Avnery
The Night After

Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire

David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel Abbas

Jeremy Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?

Robert Jensen
The Unseen War

Geoffrey Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution: A Patriot Attack on America

Jeffrey St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad

Hammond Guthrie
Rumors of War

Joseph Heller
Nately's Old Man

Steve Perry
War Web Log 4/10

Website of the Day
The Third Page

 

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