|
|
home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
|
The Democrats Bow to Bush on War: How the Anti-War Movement Failed
|
|
Today's Stories June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi June 7, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day
May 26 / 27, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Franklin Lamb Jean Bricmont Gary Leupp James Petras William Peace Judith and John Sharpe Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Democracy in Iraq, Tyranny at Home? Jonathan M.
Feldman Dave Lindorff Missy Beattie Mike Whitney Badruddin Khan Ron Jacobs Zoe Blunt Arjun Chowdhury, Heather Gray N. D. Jayaprakash Joe Allen Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
Robert Jensen David Vest John Stauber Evelyn Pringle Corporate Crime Reporter Susan Rosenthal,
MD Roberto Rodriguez Steve Fournier Patrick McElwee Robert Weissman Website of the Day
Franklin Lamb Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fantina Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Sen. Russell
Feingold Fred Gardner Mike Whitney Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury
and Mark Hoffman Caroline Paul Eva Liddell Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Rev. William
Alberts Joe DeRaymond Sudhanva Deshpande
Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Rannie Amiri China Hand Zoe Blunt Nivien Saleh Website of the Day
Robert Fisk Joshua Frank Harvey Wasserman David Mos Masumoto Sonja Karkar Conn Hallinan Dave Lindorff Jeffrey Kolakowski Evelyn Pringle Jim Baumer Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Nicole Colson John Ross Stephen Fleischman M. Shahid Alam Ron Jacobs Peter Rost, MD Alan Farago Paul Buchheit Website of
the Day
May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Uri Avnery Peter Gelderloos Saul Landau Robert Fantina Fred Gardner Ralph Nader Jean Daniels Reza Fiyouzat Missy Beattie Robert Alvarez Sonja Karkar Dave Lindorff Jeff Sher Julian C. Holmes Clancy Sigal Prairie Miller James Murren Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 18, 2007 Adam Jones Sharon Smith Christopher Brauchli Peter Rost,
MD Denise Maloney Pictou David Swanson Ali Khan Susan Rosenthal,
M.D. Samer Assad CP News Service Website of the Day
May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali Yifat Susskind Dave Zirin Brian J. Foley W. John Green Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Badruddin Khan Martha Rosenberg China Hand Dan Vojir Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Ashley Dawson Joshua Frank Corporate Crime
Reporter Ray McGovern Glen Ford Joe Bageant Sonja Karkar Mickey S. Huff John Chuckman Kaz Dziamka Website of
the Day
May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Patrick Cockburn Ashley Smith Marc Gardner Dave Lindorff Ben Terrall Ron Jacobs Harvey Wasserman Marcus Mabry Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Jeffrey St.
Clair George Bisharat Diane Wachtell Ramzy Baroud Rosemary and
Walter Brasch Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Roberto Rodriguez Jonathan Culp Website of
the Day
May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Diane Farsetta Ralph Nader Jean Bricmont Marcus Breen Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Juan Santos
Eve Bachrach Missy Comley
Beattie Ron Jacobs Niranjan Ramakrishnan Susie Day Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Kathleen Christison Mike Ferner John Holt Laurie Hasbrook Christopher
Brauchli Margaret Kimberley Dave Lindorff Nicole Colson John V. Walsh Website of the Day
May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Patrick Cockburn Neve Gordon Marjorie Cohn David Rosen Alan Farago John Hellman Kathy Rentenbach BANCO Richard Rhames Website of the Day
Jeff Leys Patrick Cockburn Glen Ford Paula Rothenberg Kathryn Weber John Chuckman Jordan Flaherty Dave Lindorff Stephen Lendman Website of
the Day
May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff Patrick Cockburn Corporate Crime Reporter Ralph Nader Malini Johar Schueller Juan Santos Dave Zirin Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Eamonn McCann Website of the Day
May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Monica Benderman Greg Moses Rannie Amiri Fitrakis / Wasserman Fred Wilhelms Ramzy Baroud Bruce K. Gagnon T. W. Croft Sonja Karkar Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn William Blum Uri Avnery Franklin Lamb Fred Gardner Lawrence R.
Velvel Missy Beattie Robert Fantina Carla Blank Linn Washington,
Jr. Stephen F. Jackson P. Sainath Anthony Papa James T. Phillips John Ross Stephen Lendman Ben Terrall CounterPunch
Newswire Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Azmi Bishara Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Bob Fitrakis Janet Kauffman Website of
the Day
May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper Christopher
Brauchli Dave Zirin Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fisk Mike Ferner Mike Whitney Pham Binh Dave Lindorff Michael A.
Johnson Website of the Day
May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Dr. Susan Block Carla Blank Margaret Kimberly Kevin Zeese Carlos Villareal Michael Dickinson Tim Shorrock Alevtina Rea William S.
Lind Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn Fred Gardner Chase Madar Ralph Nader John V. Walsh Joshua Frank Leslie Radford Shaun Harkin Dave Lindorff Peter Rost,
MD Peter Linebaugh Website of
the Day
Subscribe Online
|
June 8, 2007 Anti-Empire ReportWhat If NBC Cheered on a Military Coup Against Bush?By WILLIAM BLUM During the Cold War, if an American journalist or visitor to the Soviet Union reported seeing churches full of people, this was taken as a sign that the people were rejecting and escaping from communism. If the churches were empty, this clearly was proof of the suppression of religion. If consumer goods were scarce, this was seen as a failure of the communist system. If consumer goods appeared to be more plentiful, this gave rise to speculation about was happening in the Soviet Union that was prompting the authorities to try to buy off the citizenry. I'm reminded of this kind of thinking concerning Venezuela. The conservative anti-communist American mind sees things pertaining to Washington's newest bête noir in the worst possible light (to the extent they're even being sincere). If Chávez makes education more widely available to the masses of poor people, it's probably for the purpose of indoctrinating them. If Chávez invites a large number of Cuban doctors to Venezuela to treat the poor, it's a sign of a new and growing communist conspiracy in Latin America, which includes Evo Morales, president of Bolivia. If Chávez wins repeated democratic elections ... here's the recent Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld: "I mean, we've got Chávez in Venezuela with a lot of oil money. He's a person who was elected legally just as Adolf Hitler was elected legally and then consolidated power and now is, of course, working closely with Fidel Castro and Mr. Morales and others."[1] The latest manifestation of this mind-set is the condemnation of the Venezuelan government's refusal to renew the license of RCTV, a private television station. This has been denounced by the American government and media, and all other right-thinking people, as suppression of free speech, even though they all know very well that the main reason, the sine qua non, for the refusal of the license renewal has to do with RCTV's unqualified support for the 2002 coup that briefly overthrew Chávez. If there was a successful military coup in the United States and a particular TV station applauded the overthrow of the president (and the dissolving of Congress and the Supreme Court, as well as the suspension of the Constitution), and if then the coup was reversed by other military forces accompanied by mass demonstrations, and the same TV station did not report any of this while it was happening to avoid giving support to the counter-coup, and instead kept reporting that the president had voluntarily resigned ... how long would it be before the US government, back in power, shut down the station, arrested its executives, charging them under half a dozen terrorist laws, and throwing them into shackles and orange jumpsuits never to be seen again? How long? Five minutes? The Venezuelan government waited five years, until the station's license was due for renewal. And none of the executives have been arrested. And RCTV is still free to broadcast via cable and satellite. Is there a country in the entire world that would be as lenient?[2] It can be said that the media in Venezuela is a lot more free than in the United States. Can anyone name a single daily newspaper in the United States that is unequivocally opposed to US foreign policy? Can anyone name a single television network in the United States that is unequivocally opposed to US foreign policy? Is there a single daily newspaper or TV network in the entire United States that has earned the label "opposition media"? Venezuela has lots of opposition media. Don't Believe Everything You Think!
The point is well taken, but with all the talk about funding or not funding the war, with all the bills in Congress, and the veto of a funding bill by the idiot king, I keep looking for an explanation of what exactly would happen in real life if funding for the war were "cut off". Would an accountant or lawyer from the Treasury Department or the Office of Management and Budget suddenly show up in Iraq, walk into the Green Zone, blow a whistle, and announce "This war has been suspended for lack of funding! Please go home." Would war manufacturers (also known humorously as defense manufacturers) refuse to supply their goods on credit? Not if they want future business. Would the Pentagon soon run out of guns and bullets, tanks and helicopters? How likely is that? They must have huge supplies on hand of almost everything because they never know when there will be a sudden and urgent need to bring freedom and democracy to some god-forsaken country in need. They must also have huge supplies of money on hand. And who's to stop them from transferring money from one account to another? Does anyone believe that this administration -- which we've all come to know and love, and respect for its integrity -- does anyone believe that this gang of scoundrels would allow their hands to be tied? In 1984, Congress cut off funding for the Reagan administration's war in Nicaragua in support of the charming band of rapist-torturers known as the Contras. So what did the administration do? It raised money and arms covertly from foreign governments like Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, South Korea, apartheid South Africa, and Israel; as well as funding from domestic sources; and from extensive narcotics trafficking (sic). Would not the Busheviks be at least as resourceful? Halliburton, Bechtel, and Lockheed alone could finance the war. The stain on humankind that does not go away A report in the March issue of "Archives of General Psychiatry", a journal of the American Medical Association, based on interviews of hundreds of survivors of the 1990s conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, concludes that "aggressive interrogation techniques or detention procedures involving deprivation of basic needs, exposure to adverse environmental conditions, forced stress positions, hooding or blindfolding, isolation, restriction of movement, forced nudity, threats, humiliating treatment and other psychological manipulations do not appear to be substantially different from physical torture in terms of the extent of mental suffering they cause, the underlying mechanisms of traumatic stress, and their long-term traumatic effects." The report adds that these findings do not support the distinction between torture and "other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment" (an expression taken from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948), often used in international human rights conventions and declarations. Although these conventions prohibit both types of acts, the report points out that "such a distinction nevertheless reinforces the misconception that cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment causes lesser harm and might therefore be permissible under exceptional circumstances."[4] These conclusions directly counter the frequent declarations by George W., the Pentagon, et al, that "We don't torture". They would have the world believe that psychological torture isn't really torture; although they of course have often employed the physical kind as well, to a degree leading on a number of occasions to a prisoner's death. (Justice Andrew Collins of the British high court: "America's idea of what is torture is not the same as ours and does not appear to coincide with that of most civilized nations."[5]) The conclusions of the journal's report do not, however, counter the argument of those like Harvard Law School professor Alan Dershowitz who loves to pose the classic question: "What if a bomb has been set to go off, which will kill many people, and only your prisoner knows where it's located. Is it okay to torture him to elicit the information?" Humankind has been struggling for centuries to tame its worst behaviors; ridding itself of the affliction of torture is high on that list. Finally, an historic first step was taken by the United Nations General Assembly in 1984 with the drafting of the "Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment" (came into force in 1987, ratified by the United States in 1994). Article 2, section 2 of the Convention states: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture." Such marvelously clear, unambiguous and principled language, to set a single standard for a world that makes it increasingly difficult to feel proud of humanity. We cannot slide back. If torture is broached as a possibility, it will become a reality. If today it's deemed acceptable to torture the person who has the vital information, tomorrow it will be acceptable to torture his colleague who -- it's suspected -- may know almost as much. Would we allow slavery to resume for just a short while to serve some "national emergency" or some other "higher purpose"? "I would personally rather die than have anyone tortured to save my life." - Craig Murray, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan, who lost his job after he publicly condemned the Uzbek regime in 2003 for its systematic use of torture.[6] If you open the window of torture,
even just a crack, the cold air of the Dark Ages will fill the
whole room. A Cold Warrior's nightmare Jack Kubisch died on May 7 in North Carolina. You probably never heard of him. He was a State Department Foreign Service Officer who served in Mexico, France, and Brazil, and as ambassador to Greece. At the time of the September 11, 1973 military coup in Chile which overthrew the democratically-elected socialist government of Salvador Allende, he was Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs. In the wake of the coup, Kubisch was hard pressed to counter charges that the United States had been involved. "It was not in our interest to have the military take over in Chile," he insisted. "It would have been better had Allende served his entire term, taking the nation and the Chilean people into complete and total ruin. Only then would the full discrediting of socialism have taken place. Only then would people have gotten the message that socialism doesn't work. What has happened has confused this lesson."[7] Read that again. It's as concise and as clear a description of the ideological underpinnings of United States foreign policy as you're ever going to find publicly admitted to by a high-ranking American official. Though based on a falsehood made up for the occasion -- that Allende's polices were leading Chile to ruin, which was not the case at all -- Kubisch's words articulate a basic goal of US foreign policy: preventing the rise of any society that might serve as a successful example of an alternative to the capitalist model. Many underdeveloped countries were punished terribly during the Cold War by Washington for having such an aspiration; Cuba still is; better that such societies suffer "complete and total ruin" than achieve such a goal. Washington knows no heresy
in the Third World but genuine independence. In the case of Salvador
Allende, independence came clothed in an especially provocative
costume -- a Marxist constitutionally elected who continued to
honor the constitution. This would not do. It shook the very
foundation stones upon which the anti-communist tower was built:
the doctrine, painstakingly cultivated for decades, that "communists"
can take power only through force and deception, that they can
retain that power only through terrorizing and brainwashing the
population. For Washington ideologues, There could be only one
thing worse than a Marxist in power -- an elected Marxist
in power. If you sometimes think that the stupidity, lies, hypocrisy, cynicism, cruelty, and arrogance could never have been as bad as now ... Here is President George H.W. Bush, in a speech to the US Air Force Academy, May 29, 1991:
The next day, (that is to say, the VERY next day, May 30, 1991), Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney (Whatever happened to him?) announced that the United States would give Israel $65 million worth of US fighter planes and underwrite most of a new Israeli missile program.[8] In that same speech, Bush, Sr. declared: "Our service men and women in the Gulf, weary from months in the desert, now help suffering Kurds." The truth was that since the Gulf War fighting had ceased in February, the United States had been doing its best to suppress the Kurdish revolt against the rule of Saddam Hussein, a revolt which the Bush administration had openly encouraged for Kurds and Shiites in Washington's perennial professed role of democratic liberators; but when the heat of the moment had cooled down, the prospect of a Kurdish autonomous area next to US ally Turkey and/or an Iraq-Iran-Shiite coalition next to the Saudi allies made successful revolts appear unpalatable to the United States. Accordingly, the Kurds and Shiites were left to their [not very nice] fates. But hey, that's business. Seconds later in his talk, Daddy Bush succeeded in pushing the following words past his lips: "We do not dictate the courses nations follow."
Denis Diderot, 18th century French encylopedist and writer Christopher Hitchens has a new book out, "god is not GREAT". It's a compilation of the many terrible things done in the name of God by various religions over the centuries, far in excess, the book posits, of the terrible things done by the secular world. The holy horrors continue today of course, perhaps worse than ever. If the leaders and would-be leaders of Lebanon, Pakistan, the United States, Israel, Palestine, Afghanistan, Somalia, and some other countries were secular humanists our poor old world would not appear to be another planet's hell. Organized religion has a lot to answer for. I have no particular quarrel with the book's general theme. But when I first read a review of it I wondered how Hitchens dealt with Saddam Hussein and his secular government in Iraq. Here was a guy who was genuinely a baddie, but not a religious fanatic at all. The problem for Hitchens was compounded, for being an ardent supporter of the US war against Iraq he had to dispel the notion that the United States had overthrown a secular government. Hitchens, however, came up with a simple but elegant solution to both problems -- He made Saddam and his regime "religious"! Saddam, he writes, "had decked out his whole rule ... as one of piety and jihad" [against whom he doesn't say, and I can't either]. "Those who regarded his regime as a 'secular' one are deluding themselves."[9] There is now Islamic sharia law imposed in many parts of Iraq, with numerous horror stories of its enforcement against young men and women for their co-mingling, for their clothing, their music, dancing, etc. The number of family honor killings based on religion has jumped. Mosques and the buildings of other religions, including Christian Assyrians, have suffered many serious attacks. These things were rare to non-existent under Hussein, when Shias and Sunnis regularly intermarried and Muslims did not need to escape from Iraq by the thousands in fear of other Muslims; neither did Jews or Christians. (In his last year or so in power, Hussein spoke in religious terms more often than earlier, but this appeared to be little more than paying lip service to the anger stirred up in Iraq, as elsewhere in the Middle East, by Washington's War on Terror.) This, then, is what Hitchens' "Oh what a lovely war!" has given birth to. The irony for a person like him might be unbearable if he were not rescued by denial. It will not have passed unnoticed that Hussein's Iraq is not the only secular government overthrown by the United States which led to a very religious successor. In Afghanistan in the 1980s and early 90s, the US masterminded the overthrow of the "communist" government, which led to rule by Islamic fundamentalists, from which the Taliban emerged. Imperialist and capitalist fundamentalists also have a lot to answer for.
"Blessed are the peacemakers" ... though the FBI may conduct extensive surveillance of them. And fill up fat files. You can read many of the files -- peacemakers and others -- in the FBI Reading Room at http://foia.fbi.gov/foiaindex/foiaindex.htm Among those whose files are there: The Beatles, Bertolt Brecht, Steve Allen, the ACLU, Ty Cobb, American Friends Service Committee, Lucille Ball, the Pacifica Foundation, Cole Porter, Elvis Presley, Carl Sagan, Charles Schulz, Frank Sinatra, Mickey Mantle, Groucho Marx, HL Mencken, NAACP, Ian Fleming, Vincent Foster, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Henry Wallace, Weatherman Underground, and hundreds of others, as well as the FBI's Terrorist Photo Album (1973-89). Why, after all we know about his sordid career -- and his keeping a Grand Canyon of files is but a minor, relatively harmless part of it -- is the FBI Building still named after J. Edgar Hoover?
[1] Associated Press , February 4, 2006 [2] For further detail see: Bart Jones, op-ed, Los Angeles Times, May 30, 2007; http://www.venezuelanalysis.com; www.misionmiranda.com/rctv.htm [3] Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), June 1, 2007, http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3110 [4] From a March 5, 2007 press release by the journal. [5] The Guardian (London), February 17, 2006 [6] Testimony before the International Commission of Inquiry On Crimes Against Humanity Committed by the Bush Administration, session of January 21, 2006, New York [7] Washington Post, October 21, 1973 [8] Los Angeles Times, May 31, 1991 [9] "god is not GREAT: How Religion Poisons Everything", page 25
He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com  |
The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont             CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
