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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! General Petraeus' Fake War
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
General Petraeus' Fake War
How the Press and Congress Eagerly Swallowed It
EXCLUSIVE to subscribers in our latest newsletter, Gareth Porter dissects two years’ worth of successful lying by Gen Petraeus and his propaganda team. Guess what? The FBI AND DOJ didn’t specially target Muhammad Ali. Those G-men were just following normal procedures! Alexander Cockburn reviews the latest effort to “revise” the Sixties. Dick Cheney “didn’t understand the legalities.” James Abourezk describes his efforts to close down the lethal liquor operators that prey on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Whatever happened to the class war? Read Serge Halimi and find out. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 10, 2008 Brian McKenna Saul Landau Ron Jacobs July 9, 2008 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Luis Rodriguez Sheldon Richman Fatemeh Keshavarz Chad Hanson Sen. Russ Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Dave Lindorff Stanley Heller Philip Rizk Website of the Day July 8, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Laura Carlsen Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Patrick Irelan Chellis Glendinning David Macaray Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Phillip Doe Website of the Day July 7, 2008 Patrick Bond Kathy Kelly Andy Worthington Clifton Ross Elizabeth Schulte Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Binoy Kampmark Stephen Fleischman Website of the Day July 5 / 6, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair / Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Binoy Kampmark Rannie Amiri Eric Ruder Brian Cloughley William Blum Frank Barat Christopher Brauchli David Yearsley Ron Jacobs Karim Makdisi Wendy Thompson / N.D. Jayaprakash Ramzy Baroud Kelly Overton Richard Neville Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
July 4, 2008 Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Paul Krassner Jackie Corr Laray Polk Dan Bacher Walter Brasch Charles Modiano Website of the Day July 3, 2008 Sharon Smith Andy Worthington Laura Carlsen Peter Morici Ramzi Kysia Martha Rosenberg Anne Landman Dave Zirin Kristin Bricker Website of the Day
July 2, 2008 Patrick Irelan Vijay Prashad Brian Cloughley Ralph Nader Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff Parvez Ahmed Robert Bryce Website of the Day July 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Mike Whitney Douglas Macgregor Steven Higgs Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark Dave Lindorff Roger Burbach Richard W. Behan Gary Leupp Website of the Day June 30, 2008 Peter Lee Jeff Sommers David Macaray Martha Rosenberg David Price Alexandra Early June 28 / 29, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Joan P. Mencher Nikolas Kozloff Jason Hribal Alan Maass Robert Fantina Bill Moyers / Mike Whitney Justin E. H. Smith Pham Binh David Yearsley Christopher Ketcham Jeremy R. Hammond Kathleen M. Barry Walter Brasch Brett Drugge Susie Day Website of the Day June 27, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Jonathan Cook Brian Cloughley Saree Makdisi Liliana Segura Paul Krassner William S. Lind Candace Cohn Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day June 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff William P. O'Connor Saul Landau Ashley Smith Dave Lindorff David Macaray Binoy Kampmark Matt Reichel Remi Kenazi Website of the Day
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July 10, 2008 It Was a MAD, MAD WorldDr. StrangeloveBy WILLIAM BLUM There have been numerous books published on the 1962 Cuban missile crisis. I have not read one of them. There's another one just out: "One Minute to Midnight," by Washington Post writer Michael Dobbs. I will not be reading it. The reason authors keep writing these books and publishers keep publishing them is obvious: How close the world came to a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union! Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., historian and adviser to President Kennedy, termed it "the most dangerous moment in human history."[14] But I've never believed that. Such a fear is based on the belief that either or both of the countries was ready and willing to unleash their nuclear weapons against the other. However, this was never in the cards because of MAD -- Mutually Assured Destruction. By 1962, the nuclear arsenals of the United States and the Soviet Union had grown so large and sophisticated that neither superpower could entirely destroy the other's retaliatory force by launching a missile first, even with a surprise attack. Retaliation was certain, or certain enough. Starting a nuclear war was committing suicide. If the Japanese had had nuclear bombs, Hiroshima and Nagasaki would not have been destroyed. Russian leader Nikita Khrushchev was only looking for equality. The United States had missiles and bomber bases already in place in Turkey and other missiles in Western Europe pointed toward the Soviet Union. Khrushchev later wrote:
Virtually every president from Truman on has been exhorted by one Dr. Strangelove or another, military or civilian, to use The Bomb when things were going badly, such as in Korea or Vietnam or Cuba, or to use it against the Soviets directly, unprovoked, to once and for all get rid of those commie bastards that were causing so much trouble in so many countries. And not one president gave in to this pressure. They would have been MAD to do so. Which is why all the scary talk of recent years about Saddam Hussein and Iran and all their alleged and potential weapons of mass destruction was just that -- scary talk. Hussein was not, and the Iranians are not, MAD. The only modern-day leaders I would not make this assumption about are Osama bin Laden and Dick Cheney. The latter is a genuine Dr. Strangelove. In a few weeks we'll once again be marking the anniversary of the two nuclear bombings of Japan. Remarkably, the bombings are still highly controversial. I believe that the evidence clearly shows that the Japanese were already defeated and trying to surrender, thus obviating the need for the bombings. My essay on this can be found at http://members.aol.com/essays6/abomb.htm The Cold War was a marvelous era for Armageddon humor. Here is US General Thomas Power speaking in December 1960 about things like nuclear war and a first strike by the United States: "The whole idea is to kill the bastards! At the end of the war, if there are two Americans and one Russian, we win!" The response from one of those present was: "Well, you'd better make sure that they're a man and a woman."[16] 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 Notes [14] Washington Post Book World, June 24, 2008, review of "One Minute to Midnight" [15] "Khrushchev Remembers" (London, 1971) pages 494, 496 [16] Fred Kaplan, "The Wizards of Armageddon" (1983), p.246. For many other examples of Cold War absurdity, see William Blum, "Freeing the World to Death: Essays on the American Empire", chapter 12: "Before there were terrorists, there were communists and the Wonderful World of Anti-Communism"
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