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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories July 17, 2003 Ron Jacobs Sometimes Even the President of the United States Has to Stand Naked Lisa Walsh Thomas Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance Martin Schwarz Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs Heidi Lypps Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced Drugging and the Supreme Court Norman Madarasz Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance Conference Pankaj Mehta Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Marjorie Cohn Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the Boy Who Cried Wolf Hammond Guthrie (Dis) Intelligence Revisited Website of the Day No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism July 16, 2003 Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype Dubious Uranium Claims William Cook Defining Terrorism from the Top Down Elaine Cassel Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom Must Not Be Obeyed Jason Leopold How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found? Linda Heard Bondage or Freedom? Raymond Barrett From Detroit to Basra Jeffrey St. Clair Back to the Future in Guatemala: The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt   July 15, 2003 Kathleen and Bill Christison Why We Resigned from VIPS Elaine Cassel Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers: the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack Chris Floyd Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries Jason Leopold CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries Gaius Publius Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please John Troyer The Niger Syndrome Becky Gillette No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David Orrr Uri Avnery The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb Website of the Day Cost of Iraq War   July 14, 2003 Lisa Taraki Hot Days in Ramallah Walter Brasch Bush: the Pretend Captain SOA Watch Training Colombia's Killers in the US Dan Bacher Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Unglued Website of the Day Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties July 12 / 13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   July 11, 2003 Conn Hallinan The Coin of Empire Tim Wise God Responds to Bush Mokhiber / Weissman The Two Faces of Bush in Africa Edward S. Herman Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor David Orr Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation? David Lindorff An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary Website of the Day Dead Malls   July 10, 2003 Ron Jacobs Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics Sean Donahue Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia Yemi Toure Who Outted Bush in Afrika? Robert Jensen Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson Ali Abunimah US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated Joanne Mariner Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions Website of the Day Electronic Iraq   July 9, 2003 David Lindorff Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush? David Krieger and Angela McCracken 10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons Mickey Z. Why Speak Out? Lee Sustar The Great Medicare Fraud John Chuckman The Worst Kind of Lie Gary Leupp "Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq Website of the Day Hail to the Thief: Songs for the Bush Years   July 8, 2003 Elaine Cassel Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia Alan Maass Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor Chris Floyd Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag Linda S. Heard America's Kangaroo Justice Brian Cloughley They Tell Lies to Nodders Charles Sullivan Bush the Christian? Saul Landau The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age Website of the Day Occupation Watch   July 7, 2003 William Blum The Anti-Empire Report Harvey Wasserman The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head Ramzy Baroud Peace for All the Wrong Reasons Simon Jones What Progressives Should Think About Iran Lesley McCulloch Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh Uri Avnery The Draw Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3   July 4 / 6, 2003 Patrick Cockburn Dead on the Fourth of July Frederick Douglass What is Freedom to a Slave? Martha Honey Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect Jeffrey St. Clair The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture Standard Schaefer Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004 Lenni Brenner Jefferson is for Today Elaine Cassel Fucking Furious on the Fourth Ben Tripp How Free Are We? Wayne Madsen A Sad Independence Day John Stanton Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War Jim Lobe Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment John Blair Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke Lisa Walsh Thomas Heavy Reckoning at Qaim David Vest Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite Adam Engel Queer as Grass Poets' Basement Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair Website of the Weekend The Lipstick Librarian   July 3, 2003 Patrick W. Gavin The Meaning of Gettysburg Thomas W. Croft There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy David Lindorff Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong and the US John Chuckman Lessons from the American Revolution Jackson Thoreau New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices Stan Goff "Bring 'Em On?": a Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3 July 2, 2003 Diane Christian Good Killing and Bad Killing Richard Falk After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future? Mokhiber / Weissman Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress Justin Podur Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia Reuven Kaviner Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2 July 1, 2003 Sasan Fayamanesh Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and Iran Elaine Cassel Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia and the Sodomy Cops Susan Block A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong to Ourselves Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: No, No Bono David Lindorff Weapons in Search of a Name Gary Leupp Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1   June 30, 2003 Karyn Strickler The Do-Nothings: an Exposé of Progressive Politics in America Col. Dan Smith The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire Tim Wise Race and Destruction in Black and White Neve Gordon The Roadmap and the Wall Chris Floyd The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam" Elaine Cassel Kentucky Woman Uri Avnery Hope in Dark Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30 Website of the Day Bush El Hombre   June 28 / 29, 2003 M. Shahid Alam Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry? Jeffrey St. Clair Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside Man Laura Carlsen Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace? Alan Maass You Call These Democrats an Alternative? C.Y. Gopinath Bush and Kindergarten Noah Leavitt Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law Joanne Mariner Rehnquist Family Values Ignacio Chapela Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley Bob Scowcroft Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers Jon Brown Tom Delay: "I am the Government" Kam Zarrabi Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please! Ron Jacobs Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues Julie Hilden Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment Adrien Rain Burke The Anarchists' Wedding Guide Adam Engel US Troops Outta Times Square Poets' Basement Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod   June 27, 2003 Jason Leopold CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq Posed No Threat to US David Vest Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker David Lindorff The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali" Ray McGovern Cheney, Forgery and the CIA Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26 Website of the Day John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy June 26, 2003 Sen. Robert Byrd The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate Hans Blix Paul de Rooij Ambient Death in Palestine Chris Floyd Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq Elaine Cassel Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner CounterPunch Wire Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops Sheldon Hull Squatting in Mansions Ben Tripp A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone Uri Avnery The Best Show in Town Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day Ordinary Vistas: The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo   June 25, 2003 Bruce Jackson Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers Mickey Z. The New Dark Ages David Lindorff Indonesia's War on Journalists Dan Bacher Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops Adam Federman "Success is Not the Issue Here" Elaine Cassel "Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing Guidelines Bill Kauffman My America vs. the Empire Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25 Website of the Day You Are Being Watched: Elevator Moods   June 24, 2003 Elaine Cassel Supreme Indemnity Holocaust Denial at the High Court Roya Monajem A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth It to Risk One's Life? John Chuckman The Real Clash of Civilizations David Lindorff WMD Damage Control at the Times Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24   June 23, 2003 Marc Pritzke Washington Lied: an Interview with Ray McGovern Conn Hallinan The Consistency of Sharon Wayne Madsen Commercials, Disney & Amistad Edward Said The Meaning of Rachel Corrie Steve Perry Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23 June 21 / 22, 2003 Alexander Cockburn My Life as a Rabbi William A. Cook The Scourge of Hopelessness Standard Schaefer The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor Ron Jacobs US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets Harry Browne The Pitstop Ploughshares Lawrence Magnuson WMD: The Most Dangerous Game Harold Gould Saddam and the WMD Mystery David Krieger 10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons Avia Pasternak The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories CounterPunch Summer Reading: Our Favorite Novels Todd Chretien Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension Maria Tomchick Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids Adam Engel The Fat Man in Little Boy Poets' Basement Guthrie, Albert & Hamod June 20, 2003 Walter Brasch Down on Our Knees Robert Meeropol The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman Grannies and Baby Bells Norman Madarasz Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a Quebec Radical Gary Leupp Bush on "Revisionist Historians" Steve Perry Bush's Lies Marathon: the Finale   Hot Stories 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 Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

July 19, 2003 Editorial Anxiety in Washington Whipping the Post By JON BROWN The Washington Post editorial of Wed., July 16, is too profound a work of art to consign to the parrot's cage without proper salute. Let us gaze upon it (head tilted upward, of course, toward the executive suites) a moment longer to fully appreciate the severe beauty of its well-wrought earnings statement. A couple of questions have crystallized about the Bush administration's handling of intelligence information on Iraq. We begin quietly, in the common tongue, with "a couple of questions." Not dozens of glaring inconsistencies, nugatory equivocations, incredible improbabilities. Just "a couple of questions." First, were U.S. and allied intelligence agencies wrong when they reported that Saddam Hussein continued to possess weapons of mass destruction and the means to produce them? Lists are helpful. Otherwise the complexities of argumentation easily overwhelm the fragile reader. Only the carping partisan might interrupt the stately progression of thought to interject that the Bush and Blair administrations, not "U.S. and allied intelligence agencies," unambiguously reported what the first item claims they did. Second, did the Bush administration deliberately distort the intelligence reports to convince Americans that war was necessary? The intelligence, according to reporting in the Post and elsewhere, was never, ever indisputable. Since the administration pretended no reservation, doubt, or hesitation, the interrogative is nonsensical. In that it masterfully subordinates reason to the Post editorial board's subtler logic and greater end, the appearance of judicious probity. A yes to the first of those questions would confirm a major failure by U.S. intelligence, one that would cause serious damage to U.S. foreign policy and demand a strict accounting of what went wrong. Hmmph, hmmph, harumph. These are serious matters. Hmmph. They may cause temporary impediments to digestion. The text draws upon our empathy, and like all the classics, humanizes us. We would spare the editorial board its suffering by pointing a column inch above and shouting, "Look, look! The first question is inoperative! Trouble yourself no further!" If only the tiny group of insiders could hear! But they can't! That is dramatic irony. If the second supposition proved true, those war opponents and Democratic presidential candidates who claim a major presidential scandal is unfolding might find some traction. And only war opponents and Democratic presidential candidates. Not people appalled by, say, intellectual dishonesty, political corruption, subversion of democracy, blatant violation of international law, military occupation, white-collar theft, and murder for political gain. No. Just war opponents, with their tired, naive slogans, and selfish, unfair Democratic presidential candidates. For the moment, however, the answer to the first question is not yet known, though the failure of U.S. forces to find banned weapons is disturbing. Ah, the madeleine! A flash of the reader as a child, hand straining upward, waving eagerly. "I know, I know! Call on me!" Teacher never does. How vulnerable we are, how small. We bomb. We litter foreign earth with uranium. We imprison. We kill. We then occupy bases built with no-bid contracts. We extract resources to recompense ourselves for our trouble. All with discredited evidence. Is that a crime? An unspeakable outrage were the offices of the Washington Post rather than Iraq the victim? No. It is disturbing. Be patient. Evidence may turn up. Someday. Let's not jump to conclusions. Here is a lesson only great literature can teach. Abandon your notions of right and wrong. Among states and national newspapers like the Post, the laws of little men cease to apply. And so far there is no hard evidence that President Bush or his top aides knowingly falsified the case for war. Here the paragraph ends, and rightly so. The reader must pause to take in the full majesty of this assertion. They thundered of how much, what, where, when, who: toxins, tubes, chemicals, installations, drones, labs. They made headlines. They set the debate. It was conclusive. But they knew not what they did! Citizen, forgive them. Judge not lest ye be judged. If they had hearts, could you see into them? People, learn humility. If President Bush or his top aides never spoke of oil, of empire, of midterm elections, but only of the imminent danger of Iraq's vast arsenal of deadly weapons, is that a knowing falsification? Certainly not. No hard evidence exists that such factors encroached upon the judgment of our leaders. If they had, they would have said so. Unless they didn't know about them. Or forgot to tell us. A new paragraph begins, and the tempo quickens. In the absence of evidence, there has been an extraordinary amount of attention paid to marginal issues most recently, those 16 words in President Bush's State of the Union speech that said, accurately, that British intelligence believed Iraq had been seeking to obtain uranium in Africa. The word in the speech was "learned," not "believed," but quibbling over words, how petty, especially when addressing accuracy. How very nonexecutive. Inescapable is the reader's smallness of mind, triviality of purpose. It embarrasses her to again nigglingly point out that it is not British intelligence's belief that is indisputable, but Tony Blair's, and that however that may be, it is generally evidence, not belief, that is called upon to account for theft and murder. Where is the evidence? Reader, shuffle off the burdens of thought and it is there, like an imaginary friend. Words work magic. They make you young again. In fact, British intelligence did believe that and still does, even though one set of documents purporting to show an Iraqi procurement mission in Niger proved to be forgeries. Just close your eyes, and click your heels together three times and say, "There's not only Niger. There's not only Niger. There's not only Niger." You see how easy it is? You need no documents, no piddling proof like a store-bought centrifuge. Your mind is your toy. Last week the White House announced that the sentence should not have been included in the speech, because the CIA knew of the Niger forgery and had not been able to confirm the broader British report. Because the Internet was down, darn those techies! Otherwise the government, all-knowing except when it knows nothing, would have learned and confirmed, as opposed to believed, the provenance of British reports, with a little assistance from Glen Rangwala. But that would have been cheating. Ignorance is the higher morality. The claim was deleted from other administration statements, but some White House officials, banking on the British, apparently pressed for its inclusion in spite of the CIA's doubts. I confess I grow misty each time I read this touching line. How trusting our officials are! They need no testimony, no documents, no satellite photos from cousins across the pond, especially for a little war. They know how hard evidence is to find! All those drawers. The inefficiency of the bureaucracy. And don't forget the postage! It is in the details that literature draws back the curtain on truth. If so, that would represent one of several instances in which administration statements on Iraq were stretched to reflect the most aggressive interpretation of the intelligence. An ominous note intoned, the paragraph ends. Our chewed nails are the objective correlative of our anxiety. George, Dick, Donald, Condi, Colin, Paul, Richard aggressive? Surely extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice? And it is in defense of liberty. Everyone at the Post agrees on that. It is absurd, ridiculous, insulting, scandalous, partisan, unpatriotic, base, and unfounded to think otherwise. And now our vigilant Virgils will show us why. Yet that does not mean the decision for war was based on false information. Of course not. It is too early to say. Tens of billions too early. Hundreds and thousands of lives too early. How restless we are as a people. It is a telling sign of indiscipline, of moral and intellectual decline. Lucky we are that the Washington Post editorial board is ready to set us right. The Africa nugget, after all, formed a small part of the president's argument and like other questionable parts of the administration's case, it was widely disputed before the war. Savor the allusiveness of the language. "The Africa nugget." Like a nugget of gold or fool's gold. So small, so insignificant it is. And what, after all, can we truly know? Is not all human knowledge vain conceit, disputable, mutable, beyond cold proof? We must not expect certainty, for if we did, how could we protect ourselves from imaginary weapons through unprovoked attack? Know thyself, the philosopher said. Do not undertake to know the world, for much is classified. The heart of the argument that Iraq had repeatedly defied disarmament orders from the United Nations was endorsed in December by all 15 members of the U.N. Security Council, and remains indisputable. Is not artifice above nature? Indisputably, so too is an artificial heart: The U.N. endorsed the argument. If evidence for the endorsement was trumped up, that matters not. If bribery and coercion extracted it, that matters not. If the administration dared not call for a second vote to legitimize the war it howled for, in the name of peace, because even after the trumpery, bribery, and extortion, it stood no chance whatever of Security Council authorization, that matters not. We got it, and we1re keeping it. So what if we defy the United Nations. We1re bigger that they are. Nyah! Cryyy-baby. Cryyyy-baby! Similarly, the conclusion that Saddam Hussein had retained chemical and biological weapons was one shared by the Clinton administration as well as every major Western intelligence service. Thousands of gallons, or a mason jar on a dusty shelf, it's all the same in the Platonic realm. But wait, is that an expiration date on the mason jar? November 1992? I don't see what more evidence we need. That's why the Iraqi dictator wouldn't let inspectors in. That's why the eagerly endorsing nations couldn't wait to take on the tyrant. All texts intertwine. All roads lead to Baghdad. The Post editorial board is our trusty native guide. That conclusion is now being challenged, but it hasn't yet been disproved; nor has it been established that Iraq did not have a nuclear weapons program. Ah, but not too trusty! Only the initiate will grasp the nuances of Post logic, which flows in an unbroken stream from the Inquisition, the Starr chamber, and the Stalinist show trial. Prove that you are not guilty, sir. Show us the evidence that you do not own a duck. You cannot? You convict yourself, sir, with your own words. And did you not once, 12 years past, look up the definition of "duck"? Clearly you had a duck program. Your life and property are forfeit, sir. And your little dog's too. Indeed, the recent unearthing of designs and machinery for producing bomb-grade material in a scientist's garden seems more suggestive than the discrediting of the report on Niger. It is suggestive! Oh, your servant grows excited! Also found were an arrowhead and the alternator from a 1962 Ford Galaxy 500. Clearly Iraq has much to hide. With those parts, after a good cleaning with a wire brush, and only several million others, Iraq could have posed an imminent threat to the United States, someday. Imagine! Let the mind roam. That's what reading is for. The third paragraph ends there, with the snake in the garden. We survived the encounter, and we are purified. Now are we worthy to receive the ultimate wisdom from the elevator bank that leads on high. The excessive heat generated by this secondary issue reflects the troubling but, for the moment, unresolvable uncertainty about why Iraq's WMD have not been found. From the ancient to the postmodern. Our moment is of "unresolvable uncertainty." That is our burden. What good can come of questioning authority, of piling doubt upon doubt? Trust. Believe. Let other minds and bodies chase phantoms in the equatorial heat. A better world is coming. It is all around us. We have only to close our eyes to see. Just as the White House need not credit the professionals of its bureaucracy, the editorial board need not read the reporting that emanates like a nauseous vapor from the lower floors. They have ascended. What use have they for facts, for intellectual honesty, for truth? Truth is vexed by "unresolvable uncertainty"; power is all. According to senior administration sources. Run next to the full-page ad to reelect the president. Mounting anxiety in Congress and among the public about how the postwar occupation is going feeds this surrogate debate as well. It is surrogate, hence it is trivial. At last the Washington Post is itself remade. Its reputation rests on what it now, older and wiser, knows to be trivial: the abuse of government power. Ah, it was younger then. Now it is powerful, secure in its former virtue. It has ripened. It is what it once fought. It covers up what it once sought to expose. So the wheel turns. It is vital that a debate go forward, and that the Bush administration be prepared to respond to it constructively. Life in the old girl yet, eh? Let the show go on! Let us debate what we are given to debate. The time to investigate is past. The Post teaches us what it is to grow old. It takes us from venturesome youth to the armchair at the end of life's journey. There we await the Bush administration's constructive contribution. And it is sure to arrive. Look at all the editorial board has given: credulity to the incredible, probity to the corrupt, respect to the disreputable. Now it sleepily nods, lulled by fanciful dreams of constructive contributions from killers, liars, whores, and thieves. Good night, sweet Post. If intelligence assessments were wrong, Congress must probe why they were, and whether political pressures had any influence. Hmmph, hmmph. "If" they were wrong. Even now. "If." "Whether" the books were cooked. "Whether." How unreal the world seems. Like a dream. Yes S like a S dream. Zzzzzz. But first it is necessary to determine the facts. We'd wake you to see them, but your gaze is as blank as paper that signifies nothing so much as its own dead wood. Word is, Washington Post, you died in your sleep. Any comment? Don't be embarrassed. The dead are always the last to know of their own demise. Not even a no comment? Then best not to keep the parrot waiting. He always asks for the editorial page. A role model. Despite what some of the rhetoric from both sides might suggest, that job has not yet been done. To entertain us while we wait, the administration and its loyal page pledge to trot out more mushroom clouds a-blooming because of lack, not surfeit, of evidence. Because this time it's for real. Into these truth-loving hands we commend thee, O American soil. And there the story ends. But don't despair, gentle reader. Tomorrow is another day, with another story. And another after that. And another. And... The novel is dead; long live the editorial page. Jon Brown can be reached at: dogen@mindspring.com Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003 Arthur Mitzman The Double Wall Before the Future Standard Schaefer The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson John Feffer A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang Ron Jacobs Shades of Gray in Iran Elaine Cassel Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights Tom Stephens Civil Liberties After 9/11 David Lindorff New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On" Jason Leopold The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11 Lee Sustar What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia? Mickey Z. AIDS Dissent and Africa Sam Hamod Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group Ramzy Baroud Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket Jeffrey St. Clair Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller Adam Engel Parable of the Lobbyist Robert Sanders A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream Poets' Basement Albert, Witherup, Guthrie   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /