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Today's
Stories
January
27 / 28, 2007
Ralph Nader
Democracy
in Crisis
January
26, 2007
Charlotte Laws
Are
You the Terrorist Next Door?: AETA and the New Green Scare
Mike Ely /
Linda Flores
The
Workers at Smithfield
Joe DeRaymond
Paying
for Health Care and Not Getting It
Phil Donahue
Get Sarah Olson!
Zia Mian
The Three US Armies in Iraq: Grunts, Contractors and Laborers
Jeb Sprague
Haiti Struggles to Defend Justice
Evelyn Pringle
Eli Lilly, the Habitual Offender
Missy Beattie
Inside the Criminal Mind of George Bush: He Thinks; Therefore,
It is So
Martha Rosenberg
Cloned Food: From Designer Hens to the Transgenic Omega-3 Pig
Website of
the Day
Save Grand Canyon from Glen Canyon Dam!
January 25, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
What's
Really Going on in Baghdad
John Ross
Mexico
Under Calderon: Fake Left, Rule Right
Jeremy Scahill
Our Mercenaries: Blackwater, Inc and the Privatization of Bush's
War Machine
Frida Berrigan
"Hearts Ruptured with Sadness:" Protesting Gitmo
Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's State of Deception
Jason Yossef
Ben-Meir
Iraq Reconstruction Failure
Christopher Brauchli
Why Bush is Arming Fatah: When in Doubt, Start Another Civil
War
Holger W. Henke
Cuba at the Crossroads?
Dave Lindorff
Falling Dominos and Failing Presidencies
Julia Landau
From Your Young Cousin
Website of the Day
The Mighty Edwards Sisters
January
24, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
a Filmed Interview with Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry
Lt. Gen. William Odom
What Can be Done in Iraq?
Sharon Smith
Health Care Reform for the Insurance Industry
Brian M. Downing
Two Americas: the Grunts and the War Profiteers
Heather Gray
Surviving War
Ron Jacobs
SOTUS Quo
James Brooks
Out of Europe, Out of Time
Robert Day
Translating Snow
Website of
the Day
Defend Sarah Olsen
January 23, 2007
Trish Schuh
Lebanon
on the Brink of Civil War, Again
Robert Bryce
The
Politics of Cheap Oil
Stephen Soldz
Aliens in an Alien Land
John Blair
King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean
Gloria La Riva
Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists
Joshua Frank
Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby
Patrick Cockburn
In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets
Ralph Nader
Questions for Bush on Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason?
Uri Avnery
Israel and Apartheid
Website of the Day
Down By the River
January
22, 2007
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
China's
New Chip in Space War Poker
Jen Marlowe
Trapped
in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous
George McGovern
War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War
Norman Solomon
The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom
Amira Hass
Life Under Prohibition in Palestine
Mike Whitney
A Fool's Errand in Baghdad
Ramzy Baroud
The Things We Take for Granted
John Walsh
Support Jimmy Carter in Boston!
Website of
the Day
The Hagelian Dialectic
January
20/21 2007
Alexander Cockburn
First
Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
Gail Dines
I
Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn
Newton Garver
Evo
Morales' First Year
Gilad Atzmon
100
Years of Jewish Solitude
Seth Sandronksy
New
Push For Social Security "Reform"
Raphaelle Bail
Where
Nicaraguans Go to Work
Jim Goodman
Round
Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day
Larry Portis
Chouraki's
Oh Jerusalem
Website of
the Weekend
Press
Poodles Play it Safe
January
19, 2007
Jonathan Cook
Jimmy
Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It
Glen Ford
Barack
Obama: The Mania and the Mirage
Dave Lindorff
Bush
Blinks on Illegal Spying - Don't let him off the hook
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part Two
Website of
the Day
For
Whistleblowers
January
18, 2007
William Peace
Protest
From a Bad Cripple
Virginia Tilley
The
Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It
Michael Donnelly
The
Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama
B.R. Gowani
Democracy:
Everywhere and Nowhere
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part One
Jason Hribal
A
Horse is Worth More than Riches
Website of
the Day
Baghdad
Clampdown
January 17, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Why
Time is not on Bush's Side
John Ross
Oaxaca's
Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls
Susan George
Can
World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes!
Paul Craig
Roberts
Attacking
Iran: What's In It For Bush
Joshua Frank
Obama
and the Middle East
David Lindorff
Towards
Oil at $200 a Barrel
January 16, 2007
Col. Sam Gardiner
Escalation
Against Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Stimson's
Outrageous Threat
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal in Havana: Part 2
Ron Jacobs
Welcome
Back to 1965
Susan Block
From
Snowjob to Blowjob
Ken Couesbouck
Year
of the Pig
Website of
the Day
Amazon's
Hit on Jimmy Carter
January 15, 2007
Roger Morris
Another
War the Voters Hoped to End
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Must Go
Kathy Kelly
Umm
Heyder's Story
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report
Ralph Nader
The
Class War's New Map
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal In Havana
January 12
/ 14, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
"21,500
More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq?
David Rosen
Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade
William S.
Lind
Less Than Zero
Laith al-Saud
The
Ironies of Bush and Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said
John Ross
Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech
Christopher Brauchli
How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire!
Robert Buzzanco
Rogue State, Redux
Evelyn Pringle
The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet
Peter Rost,
MD.
Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation
Mike Whitney
Baghdad Crackdown
Yifat Susskind
Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars
Saul Cohen
Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig
Missy Beattie
A Day of Action and Questions
Stephen Lendman
Holiday Hypocrisy
Website of
the Weekend
Bruegel on Bush War Plan
January 11,
2007
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The
Profits of Escalation
Paul Craig
Roberts
Carter's Inconvenient Truths
Kathy Kelly
Refugee Dreams
Dave Lindorff
Blood for Face
Jeff Leys
The War Widens
Richard W.
Behan
Barrels and Bodies
Col. Douglas MacGregor
Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands
Website of
the Day
An Explanation from Google
Speech of the Day
Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech?
January 10, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
Walk in Oaxaca
Robert Fantina
Punishing
Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution?
Patrick Cockburn
Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Why U.S. Policy is Failing
Ben Tripp
The Politics of Bad Karma
Evelyn Pringle
How the FDA Protects Big Pharma
Ron Jacobs
Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War
Mike Ferner
If Not Now, When?
Dave Zirin
Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall
of Fame
Website of
the Day
Revolting Students!
Bootleg of the Day
Bob
Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place
January 9, 2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Somalian Labyrinth
Jonathan Cook
Israel's
Purging of Palestinian Christians
Mike Ely and Linda Flores
The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer
Hidden, No Longer Hiding
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush
Norman Solomon
The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse
Sen. Russell
Feingold
An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through
Our Mail?
Joe Allen
Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO
in the Heartland
James T. Phillips
"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell
That is Iraq
Brian Concannon
Resolutions for Haiti
Leonard Peltier
When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and
Misconduct
Website of the Day
Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC
January 8,
2007
Werther
Why
We Fight
Jeff Leys
The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End
Iraq War Funding
Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking Iran
Shulamit Aloni
Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only
Dave Lindorff
The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form
Sunsara Taylor
The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was
Seth Sandronsky
Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage
Dr. Susan Block
Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film
Website of the Day
Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly!
January 6 / 7, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
War and the NYT
Franklin C.
Spinney
Stalingrad
on the Tigris
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Urge to Surge
Ralph Nader
Democrats in the Spotlight
Walden Bello
Globalization in Retreat?
Marleen Martin
The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber
Brian Cloughley
We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ...
Uri Avnery
The Kiss of Death
Saul Landau
Fidel Castro in the Fields
Ron Jacobs
From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture
Joseph Nevins
Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam
William S. Lind
A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW
Gary Leupp
Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President!
Elisa Salasin
Bringing Life to Numbers
George Ciccariello-Maher
Beyond
Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution
Stefan Wray
Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders
Michael Leonardi
Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the
Death Penalty
Richard Rhames
Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Two Poems
Website of the Weekend
FBI Witch Hunts
Song of the
Weekend
End Times: a Soundtrack
January 5, 2007
Jorge Mariscal
Growing
the Military: Who Will Serve?
John Walsh
Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons!
Christopher Brauchli
The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations
Travis Sharpe
No More New Nukes, Please
Tom Barry
Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig
Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese
Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them
Down?
Tiffany Ten Eyck
Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
A Challenge to Pelosi
Lucinda Marshall
3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!"
Website of
the Day
Van the Man: Warm Love
January 4, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein
Winslow T.
Wheeler
A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything
to Curb Pork Barrel Spending?
M. Shahid Alam
Has Regime Change Boomeranged?
Raed Jarrar
So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters
Bert Sacks
Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme
Court
Kathy Rentenbach
Report from Oaxaca
Stephen Fleischman
The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now
George Bisharat
Carter's Truths
Peter Rost, MD
Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman!
Evelyn Pringle
Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa?
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
January 3,
2007
Kathy Kelly
Wrapped
Around a Bullet
Paul Craig
Roberts
His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason
William Johnson
No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change
Its Policy on Immigration
Stan Cox
Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon
Trita Parsi
A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran
Declan McKenna
Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba
Joe Bageant
Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill
Nicola Nasser
Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism
Missy Beattie
Dead Wrong
Website of
the Day
Pharmed Out
January 2, 2007
Michael Watts
Oil
Inferno
Amina Mire
Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis
James Brooks
Pushing the Wedge in Palestine
Alevtina Rea
The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ?
Al Krebs
Global Food Security: a Call to Action
Peter Rost
Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Deadly December
John Stanton
Appetites for Destruction
Website of the Day
Out Now: Petition
January 1,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iron
Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein
Uri Avnery
What
Makes Sammy Run?
Joshua Frank
Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's
Patriot Act
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Weekend
Edition
January 27 / 28, 2007
You Can't Believe a Word They Say
Dying
for Lies
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
Staff Sergeant Charles D Allen of Wasilla,
Alaska, was killed in Iraq last week. I happened to click on
the internet news item and saw photographs of him with his wife
and son. Now I'm an old and hardened former soldier. A cynic,
some say, although I would dispute that. But fairly tough, emotionally.
Tough? In a pig's valise.
The photographs pierced my heart like a red-hot needle through
a candle. The tears welled in my eyes for the loss of a good
man--one of over 3000 men and women in uniform who have died
in this insane war in Iraq. The tears were for the grief of his
widow and for their son who will never again be taken fishing
by his dad. Charles Allen was midway through his second tour
in Bush's war when a sniper got him. He died because he was a
loyal soldier who did his duty in harm's way.
And, like all his dead comrades,
he died for lies.
If you Google "Bush Lies"
you come up with over 18 million items. Sure, not all of them
are relevant, possibly only 10 million or so, but it's still
an interesting figure. Because the lie-telling example set by
the White House is followed by everyone else in the administration
-- or everyone else, that is, who wants to keep his or her job.
Well, they've got mortgages and great kids (just like Staff Sergeant
Charles Allen), so what's a few lies if they keep the salary
coming in? Who of us can blame those in such a situation? But
many of them are True Believers who lie because they know, deep
in their murky souls, that lying is permissible and even laudable
when the man at the top considers it right.
No action can be taken against
the liars for the reason that the whole house of cards would
come tumbling down were there to be admission that lies have
been told deliberately, with malice aforethought. The structure
and direction of government in the United States and Britain
is now built on keeping citizens in the dark about what the president
and the prime minister and their sinister supporters and manipulators
are doing and how they are doing it. It's the sort of dictatorial
behavior we expect in China, Burma, Turkmenistan and Saudi Arabia,
but not from western democracies.
Bush is a compulsive liar.
He lies, like the disgraced President Nixon of evil memory,
because it is instinctive in his nature to prefer lies to truth
in spite of being aware of the difference. In the words of the
historian John Morton Blum, "[Nixon] believed, as did Kissinger,
that . . . those who wielded power could behave with deceit and
criminality. He believed that power and those who used it were
not accountable--not accountable to the people, not accountable
to the law." Blum could have written that today, describing
present circumstances.
Bush uses deceit and carefully
crafted mendacity to try to convince the world that his policies
are inspired by God and are for the benefit of all mankind, even
if this means killing thousands of harmless human beings who
happen to get in the way of his bombs and his gunships' cannon
and rockets.
When things go wrong, the Bush-imposed
policy is flat denial that any mistake was made, be that slaughtering
civilians in a war zone or in cases of illegal detention and
torture. The script after that, if denial fails and the public
manage to find out some of the facts, is to attack the media
for daring to reveal the truth. This Cheney-Bush tactic is slavishly
followed by Britain's prime minister, Tony Blair, whose legacy
to his country is establishment of a racist surveillance state.
He and Cheney followed the script recently when both of them
snarled and bleated to the world that everything was really all
right everywhere and that the only problem was caused by the
media giving the wrong impression to gullible citizens.
But some honorable people actually
speak out. Senator Bill Nelson (D-Fla) told the lying Condoleezza
Rice last week that he didn't believe what he was being told.
"Madam Secretary," he said, "I have supported
you and the administration on the war, and I cannot continue
to support the administration's position. I have not been told
the truth over and over again by administration witnesses, and
the American people have not been told the truth."
Nobody paid any attention.
Why should they? Rice tells lies, Bush tells lies, Cheney tells
lies--who cares? -- None except those who are honest, inclined
to morality and, of course, powerless to do anything about it.
One of the most outrageous
deliberate lies was told by Cheney (who else?). Here is part
of an interview with him about Iraq:
Question: Are you saying that
you believe fighting in Iraq has prevented terrorist attacks
on American soil? And if so, why, since there has not been a
direct connection between al Qaeda and Iraq established?
Cheney: Well, the fact of the
matter is there are connections. Mr. Zarqawi, who was the lead
terrorist in Iraq for three years, fled there after we went into
Afghanistan. He was there before we ever went into Iraq.
A month before Cheney's denial
of truth the Intelligence Committee of the Senate of the United
States of America recorded (page 109 of its Report) that "Saddam
Hussein attempted, unsuccessfully, to locate and capture al-Zarqawi
and . . . the regime did not have a relationship with, harbor,
or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi."
It is a disturbing commentary
on the governance of the world's most powerful country that its
joint supreme leader can tell a lie, knowing that it is a lie,
in confident expectation that many millions of Americans will
accept it as truth. (Nobody else does, all round the world,
but that's irrelevant.)
Bush himself, in his psychotic
diatribe on January 11, 2007, declared that:
"On September the 11th,
2001, we saw what a refuge for extremists on the other side of
the world could bring to the streets of our own cities. For the
safety of our people, America must succeed in Iraq."
He referred to al Qaeda ten times in his continuing attempts
to persuade the American people that he went to war on Iraq because
there was a terrorist threat against them, fostered by Baghdad.
He had announced on June 17, 2004 that "The reason I keep
insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam
and al Qaeda: because there was a relationship between Iraq and
al Qaeda."
Two years later, in August
2006, Bush tried to weasel his way out of his lies by lying that:
"Nobody has ever suggested
that the attacks of September the 11th were ordered by Iraq.
I have suggested, however, that resentment and the lack of hope
create the breeding grounds for terrorists who are willing to
use suiciders to kill to achieve an objective."
The 9/11 Commission report
made it clear there was no evidence that any of the supposed
contacts between Iraq and al Qaeda "ever developed into
a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence
indicating that Iraq cooperated with Al Qaeda in developing or
carrying out any attacks against the United States."
But according to Angus Reid
Global Monitor on January 7, "32 per cent of respondents
[to a poll in December 2006] think Iraq gave substantial support
to al-Qaeda, and 18 per cent think the Iraqi government was directly
involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks."
The lies have worked. And
Staff Sergeant Charles Allen and over 3000 of his comrades have
been killed because the White House deliberately spread the fabricated
message that America had been attacked with Iraqi connivance.
It wasn't enough for Bush and Cheney to have lied deliberately
about non-existent weapons of mass destruction. The fall-back
position to that lie was another lie. It was doing what comes
naturally. And it isn't what American soldiers, or anyone else,
should have to die for. That's the state of the nation.
Brian Cloughley spent five weeks in October-December
in Pakistan, with a visit to Afghanistan. He can be reached through
his website at www.briancloughley.com.
|
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"The Case Against Israel"
Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
WHAT'S
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Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror
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The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
Bruce Springsteen On Tour
By Dave Marsh
The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"
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