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Today's
Stories
July
17, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
Weekend
Edition
July 17 / 18, 2004
Anti-Empire
Report
Bush
and Thucydides
By
WILLIAM BLUM
Ronnie forgot
all this, but we shouldn't
It's not too late is it, to
pay a few more respects to Ronald Reagan? Here are a few items
from my file. Reagan's excuses during L'affaire Contragate, also
known as L'affaire Irangate: I didn't know what was happening.
If I did know, I didn't know enough. If I knew enough, I didn't
know it in time. If I knew it in time, it wasn't illegal. If
it was illegal, the law didn't apply to me. If the law applied
to me, I didn't know what was happening. Margaret Thatcher had
this to say about her supposed great friend Ronnie: "Poor
dear, there's nothing between his ears."{1}
In 1984, Reagan spoke to a
group of American newspaper editors about possibly limiting a
nuclear war to Europe, without a single one of them regarding
it as newsworthy. The fuss about his remarks only came after
a European reporter had read the transcript. This of course says
as much about American newspaper editors as it does about Reagan.{2}
How can
we leave Iraq?
Those of us who call for the
withdrawal of American troops from Iraq are usually met with
some variation on the theme of "But we can't just leave!"
Or "How can we just leave?"
Which is what protesters were
asked repeatedly during the Vietnam War, and to which we replied:
"Well, you put some of them on ships and sail away, others
you put into planes and fly away. What could be simpler?"
... until American troops finally did leave, several years and
hundreds of thousands of deaths, American and Vietnamese, later.
Theodore H. White in his book
"In Search of History", believed that President Kennedy
would have pulled all American troops out of Vietnam after the
1964 election. He quotes a Kennedy aide who asked the president
how he would do that. "Easy," quipped JFK. "Put
a government in that will ask us to leave."
It appears that the Bush administration
has now installed a government in Iraq to ask the United States
to stay. Last month Iraq's new interim prime minister and former
CIA asset, Ayad Allawi, formally invited US troops to remain
in Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell then announced that
Allawi had sent a letter outlining the terms under which he would
agree to the presence of US-led coalition forces in Iraq. (Undoubtedly
driving a very hard bargain.) Powell said he would respond in
a letter "in a positive vein" to Allawi's proposal.
Boy, that
was a cliff-hanger.
Powell added that it was planned
that Allawi's letter and Powell's response to it would form annexes
to the UN resolution endorsing the transfer of sovereignty in
Iraq.{3} They make it all so neat, so nice and legal, so open
and spontaneous sounding. And it works. I would guess that most
Americans are impressed with such a show.
In the same vein, we have Hamid
Karzai, the Washington-appointed president of Afghanistan. The
conservative Washington Times, in a large page-one headline on
June 16, treated the world to this bit of astounding news: "Karzai
lauds US war on terrorism."
Tradition
ain't what it used to be
"This is a terrible thing,"
said Ali Hashim, 33, a shoe salesman in downtown Baghdad. "Hostage-taking,
beheading ... it's not our tradition. We have a tradition of
hospitality. This hurts the image of the Iraqi people."{4}
Imagine an American saying:
"This is a terrible thing. Bombings, invasions, overthrowing
governments, torture ... it's not our tradition. We have a tradition
of peaceful solutions to conflicts with other countries and respect
for international law. This hurts the image of the American people."
Our bodies,
ourselves
The upcoming Olympics has put
the testing of athletes for drugs in the spotlight once again.
And once again it raises this question in my mind: Presumably
"drugs" are banned because they give an athlete an
unfair advantage over athletes who are "clean". But
of all the things that athletes, and other people, put into their
bodies to improve their health, fitness and performance, why
are drugs singled out? Doesn't taking vitamins give an athlete
an unfair advantage over athletes who don't take them? Shouldn't
vitamins be banned from sport competition? How about various
food supplements, for the same reason? Vitamins and food supplements
are often not any more "natural" than drugs. Why not
ban those who follow a healthy diet because of the advantage
this may give them? My questions are serious and I'd welcome
some feedback.
I thought
it was all Greek to him
Maybe Georgie W. is not as
unlettered as he appears to be. Or perhaps it's one of his speech
writers who has read Thucydides' "The History of the Peloponnesian
War", and the words of the Corinthians: "Do not delay,
fellow-allies, but convinced of the necessity of the crisis,
and the wisdom of our advice, vote for the war, undeterred by
its immediate terrors, but looking beyond to the lasting peace
by which it will be succeeded. War makes peace more secure."
That was four centuries before Christ, the war lasting 27 years.
Imagine how the ancient defense contractors must have cleaned
up, like old Halliburtonakis led by Cheneyopoulos.
And one
on militarism?
The US State Department issues
annual reports on the countries of the world rating their performance
in various categories. There are separate reports dealing with
religious freedom, the war on terrorism, human rights, the war
on drugs, and trafficking in persons. What I'd like to see now
is some government in the world issue a report rating countries
on self-righteousness and arrogance.
Something
to keep in mind for a future US bombing
In April 1986, during the US
bombing of Libya, the French Embassy, located in a residential
district, was destroyed. This, after the French had refused to
grant flyover rights to American planes on their way to Libya.
In May 1999, during the US
bombing of Belgrade, the Chinese embassy was hit, causing considerable
damage and the death of two people inside the embassy. An investigation
by The Observer of London revealed that the bombing was deliberate.{5}
In April 2003, US bombs dropped
on Iraq found their way to the Soviet embassy in Baghdad several
times. The Russians were suspicious enough to summon the US ambassador
to the Foreign Ministry. The Soviet embassy was also located
in a residential district.{6}
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
{1} Peter Jenkins, "Mrs.
Thatcher's Revolution"
{2} The Guardian (London),
September 28, 1984, p.15
{3} Washington Post, June 6,
2004
{4} Ibid., July 1, 2004
{5} "Nato bombed Chinese
deliberately", The Observer (London), October 17, 1999;
and November 28, 1999. Also see Extra! Update (Fairness &
Accuracy in Reporting, New York), December 1999
{6} Interfax news agency, April
2, 2003
Weekend
Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
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