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Today's
Stories
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
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.
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Weekend Edition
September 11 / 12, 2004
The True Dead
Enders
Iraq
and the Crisis of Empire
By
ROGER BURBACH and JIM TARBELL
Bush declared in his acceptance speech
at the Republican convention that he is fighting terrorism abroad
"not for pride, not for power," but to protect American
lives. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Bush's wars in
Afghanistan and Iraq are wars of empire.
The Kerry campaign is floundering
in part because it buys into Bush's rational for conflict abroad.
Instead of recognizing that the United States is embroiled in
an ever-deepening morass in the Gulf because it is acting as
a neo-colonial power, Kerry asserts that Bush has bungled the
war due to incompetence, mismanagement and arrogance. The situation
can be righted if only the United States involves the United
Nations and its Europeans allies in a more astute application
of military force.
What is not discussed or recognized
is that the occupation of Iraq is rooted in a long history of
US imperial exploits and atrocities. The very founding of the
modern American empire began with the Open Door policy enunciated
in the aftermath of the War of 1898. Designed to advance US commercial
and corporate interests abroad, military force was often used
to break open markets that resisted diplomatic and economic pressures.
To take over the Philippines in the first decade of the twentieth
century, the United States  waged a brutal war against
the Filipino independence movement, destroying entire villages
and summarily executing captured insurgents. At least half a
million people died while the American Sugar Trust led the corporate
takeover by staking out enormous plantation holdings.
The use of indiscriminate air
power and the infliction of heavy "collateral damage"
has a long history in the annals of the US Empire. In the late
1920s in Nicaragua a rag tag band of rebels lead by Augusto Cesar
Sandino waged a guerrilla war against the US marines who occupied
the country. Frustrated in their efforts to track down the rebels
in the rural areas, the United States began using airplanes to
bomb villages suspected of harboring Sandino supporters. The
US backed ruler, Anastasio Somoza, after negotiating a peace
accord with Sandino, had him assassinated, inaugurating a family
dictatorship that lasted over four decades. Marine Corps officer
Smedley Butler who led many of the American assaults in these
years openly admitted that he was in effect a "racketeer"
for Wall Street.
The 1960s and 1970s were particularly
brutal decades in Latin America due to US intervention to stop
the spread of national liberation movements that threatened US
interests throughout the region. Repressive dictatorial regimes
backed by the United States murdered tens of thousands of civilians
in Guatemala, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Haiti, Chile, Argentina,
Uruguay, Paraguay and Brazil. The horrors of the Abu Ghraib prison
in Iraq were anticipated in many of these countries as torture
chambers were set up, often under the tutelage of the CIA.
Then in the 1980s the United
States funded surrogate armies to destabilize nationalist governments
in Asia, Africa and Latin America. In rhetoric similar to Bush's
claim that he is bringing "freedom" and "democracy"
to Iraq, Ronald Reagan called the CIA backed contras who murdered
thousands of Nicaraguan peasants "freedom fighters,"
while the warlords in Afghanistan were likened to "our founding
fathers."
The first bold move to secure
the US empire in the Middle East and the Gulf States occurred
in 1953 when the CIA staged a coup against the democratically
elected government of Mohammed Mossadegh after he moved to nationalize
the Iranian oil fields. President Eisenhower placed the autocratic
Shah of Iran in power. For the next quarter century Republican
and Democratic administrations viewed the Shah as one of the
most dependable leaders in the region.
In 1978 the Shah fell in a
popular uprising led by the Ayatollah Khomeini. Vehemently anti-American,
the new Islamic government seized foreign oil interests and took
US embassy personnel hostage. In his State of the Union address
in January 1980, Carter proclaimed: "An attempt by an outside
force to gain control of the Persian Gulf region will be regarded
as an assault on the vital interests of the United States of
America, and such an assault will be repelled by any means necessary,
including military force." The Carter Doctrine, as it became
known, made it clear the United States would use military power
in the Gulf to secure and maintain the oil resources needed to
turn the wheels of empire.
This policy explains the US
sale of heavy weaponry to Saddam Hussein in the early 1980s when
war broke out between Iraq and Iran. Donald Rumsfeld, Reagan's
special envoy at the time, made several visits to Baghdad to
normalize diplomatic relations. Despite Saddam's use of chemical
weapons against Iran and the Kurdish population in northern Iraq,
the United States continued to back Iraq. Emboldened by these
signs of support for his regime, Saddam invaded Kuwait in 1990.
The first Bush administration however quickly came to view the
invasion as a threat to US supremacy in the region and launched
the first Gulf War.
Bill Clinton pursued a similar
policy of belligerence towards Iraq, imposing crippling economic
sanctions, undertaking the most sustained bombing campaign since
the Vietnam war, and making "regime change" in Iraq
official US policy. Madeline Albright, the US ambassador to the
United Nations in 1996, when asked if she thought the sanctions
were justified in light of a UN report estimating that more than
500,000 children had died because of a lack of adequate nutrition
and medical care, replied: "I think this is a very hard
choice, but the price -- we think the price is worth it."
To impose its imperial fiats
on the world the United States has over 730 military bases in
132 countries. The military deploys over half a million soldiers,
spies, technicians, teachers, dependents and civilian contractors
abroad. Thirteen carrier task forces ply the oceans, constituting
floating military bases. Of the money spent on foreign affairs,
93 percent goes through the Pentagon while the State Department
spends the remainder.
But this military complex is
overstretched. Bogged down in Iraq, the American empire is facing
its most severe crisis since the Vietnam War. It is unable to
carry out the regime change it wants in Iran, North Korea and
Syria. In its historic backyard, Latin America, the populist
government of Hugo Chavez thwarted a US backed coup in 2002,
and has just won a recall election that will insure the continuance
of Chavez' independent foreign policy stance and the redistribution
of the country's oil revenues on behalf of the poor. In Argentina,
President Nestor Kirchner is defying the International Monetary
Fund, refusing to fully reimburse creditors who took advantage
of the country in the 1990's during the halcyon days of the "free
market." And under Luis Inacio "Lula" da Siliva,
Brazil is challenging US economic prerogatives in the region
while criticizing the US invasion and occupation of Iraq. This
is the time for the anti-war movement in the United States to
question the foundations of the US imperial order. The advocates
of empire are the true "dead enders." Violence, extremism
and terrorism will only deepen as long as the occupation of Iraq
continues. The sooner the United States is compelled to curtail
its imperial ambitions, the more likely it is that both the Iraqi
and the American people will be able to live in a more harmonious
and peaceful world.
Roger Burbach and Jim Tarbell are the authors
of "Imperial
Overstretch: George W. Bush and the Hubris of Empire"
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept 4 / 5, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
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