Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
Recent Stories
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
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.
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September
13, 2003
One
Miscalculation After Another
Up
to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
US defence secretary Rumsfeld, as imperious, bullying,
sneering, abrasive and unlovely a zealot as ever disgraced the
pages of American history, has announced "There should be
a debate and discussion on [the shambles in Iraq]. We can live
with that. We can live with a healthy debate as long as it is
as elevated as possible, and as civil as possible."
Oh my. As civil as possible, eh? This
from the man whose approach to commonsense advice is to treat
the person offering it with all the charm and benign dignity
usually associated with a psychotic rottweiler.
He openly expressed scorn and contempt
for (selected) countries that warned that the US foray into Iraq
would have detrimental and long-lasting effects. It is now forgotten
that a joint declaration in February by France, Germany and Russia
cautioned the US concerning the likely consequences of war. They
were supported by China's President Jiang Zemin who stated "Warfare
is good for no one, and it is our responsibility to take various
measures to avoid war". For these sagacious words the countries
of 'Old Europe' were treated with insolent arrogance by Rumsfeld
and his clique. (US investment in Russia and China is too sensitive
to be hazarded even by Rumsfeld.) Of course Rumsfeld was wrong,
and in nothing has he been quite so disastrously amiss as in
his decisions concerning troop strengths in Iraq. And make no
mistake, they were HIS decisions.
Rumsfeld and his crew are now trying
to tap dance away from responsibility about the paucity of troops
in Iraq who are capable of performing counter-insurgency and
policing operations. (And not killing Iraqi policemen while they
are about it.) This belongs to the generals, they say. To an
extent they are right. It is up to commanders to request more
troops if they need them. This they are reluctant to do, even
when it is obvious that increases are required, because Rumsfeld
would then revile them with spiteful ferocity. Look at what happened
to General Shinseki, the former Army Chief, who was foolhardy
enough to proffer wise counsel. It would take several hundred
thousand troops to pacify Iraq, he said before the conflict.
Thereafter he was a non-person, attacked by Rumsfeld and his
deputy pup, Wolfowitz, and every other lickspittle gofer who
cared to give the media a poisonous off-the-record briefing concerning
the alleged shortcomings of an honourable man whose was loyal
to his soldiers and his Service. Pentagon civilians and, regrettably,
some military officers, expressed contempt for him, and it was
made clear by a deliberate leak from Rumsfeld's office that his
replacement had been selected eighteen months before he was due
to leave his post, thus rendering him ineffective. This was deliberate,
official, humiliation of a military patriot. Rumsfeld didn't
even attend his farewell ceremony, a public insult that was as
unnecessary as it was malevolent. The message was brutally clear
: don't disagree with Rumsfeld if you want to survive.
But Rumsfeld is finding it difficult
to maintain even a veneer of calm about his egregious errors,
and requests for straight answers on the question of troop numbers
in Iraq are making him increasingly peevish, shifty and devious.
Let's look at the facts, so far as his reported words are concerned.
God knows what goes on inside his mind, but he can't deny what
he said. (Although deputy pup Wolfowitz denied his lies on 11
September about supposed al Qaida involvement in the uprising
against occupation troops in Iraq.)
Here is a definitive Rumsfeld statement
about adequacy of troop numbers in occupied Iraq : "If [the
force commander] believes additional troops are needed, he will
have additional troops, let there be no doubt about it."
He did not give his own opinion about troop levels. In the past
he has been eager to give opinions on everything, but is now
skittering round the subject like a flighty horse refusing a
jump. Most media representatives are ludicrously servile and
fail to ask him questions of any depth, and my heart sank when
I heard Dan Rather of CBS begin his interview with him by saying
"Mr. Secretary, I do not know of any American who doesn't
admire what you did in helping secure the battlefield victory
that resulted in the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. I don't
know of anybody who doesn't appreciate your service." This
seemed to be grim, but then he dropped any pretence of even mock
deference and got stuck in.
Rumsfeld had no option but to agree that
the point of Washington's draft UN resolution was to "bring
additional countries' troops into Iraq . . . 10,000 to 15,000
troops," but he couldn't give an answer as to how these
troops would be used, he did not know when they might arrive,
and had no idea what would be done, in Rather's words, "between
now and whenever they can arrive". This, said Rumsfeld,
the ultimate dabbler in detail (to the despair and frustration
of planners who actually know what they are doing), is the responsibility
of "General Sanchez . . the senior coalition military person
in Iraq."
So on behalf of the Pentagon, the State
Department is going to the UN to ask for large numbers of foreign
troops without knowing what tasks they would have (if any nation
is unwise enough to provide them). In the words of Rumsfeld,
"The implication that the 15,000 plus or minus that might
come if there is a second resolution would leave a gap if they
didn't come, or would leave a gap if it came two or three or
four months later than someone thought, I think is a misunderstanding
of the situation." Don't bother to reread that; you will
be just as confused as was the gibbering defense secretary, who
in another statement said "Simply flooding [Iraq] with two
or three times the number of foreign forces that are here, it
would increase the number of targets for the handfuls of criminals
and the handfuls of terrorists . . . " I have never heard
this particular Principle of War before. It appears Pentagon
policy, now, to avoid committing troops to tasks in case they
get shot at. And how fascinating that mere "handfuls"
of criminals and terrorists can be so dextrous and efficient
as to immediately multiply to present an instant threat to increased
numbers of troops. The man is a piffling prat.
But it was elsewhere in the interview
that Rumsfeld displayed furthest detachment from reality. He
was asked "Are you worried about what's happening here [in
Iraq]?" and replied "Worried isn't the right word.
I'm impressed with the accomplishment that's taken place. The
23 million Iraqi people are free . . . " OK. Here is an
example of freedom, Rumsfeld style, described by one victim of
his accomplishments : " "I shouted at them [US soldiers]
with all my strength to stop shooting" said Al Sayeed, 62.
"I will open the door. Please give me a chance." Eventually,
Al Sayeed said, the commanding officer told him he was sorry:
they had raided the wrong house. But not before a soldier had
burst in and struck Al Sayeed with a rifle butt, knocking him
down. The soldier kicked him in the ribs-an X-ray later showed
they were cracked-and others bound his hands with plastic cuffs
as his wife and young nieces cowered in the next room. They also
took his three grown sons in for questioning, and they remain
in a military jail . . . " Some freedom.
But Rumsfeld doesn't hear any of these
stories. People tell him what he wants to listen to and believe,
as is obvious from this minor but revealing exchange: Rumsfeld:
"I haven't been back into Iraq or Afghanistan I guess since
April. Is that correct, Larry?" Larry [de Rita]: That's
right. Or May." One is reminded of Evelyn Waugh's surreal
and megalomaniacal London newspaper proprietor, Lord Copper,
whose editor in the 1930s treated him obsequiously : "When
Lord Copper was right he said 'Definitely, Lord Copper'; when
he was wrong : 'Up to a point' . . . . "Let me see, what's
the name of the place? Capital of Japan? Yokohama, isn't it?'
'Up to a point Lord Copper.' 'And Hong Kong belongs to us?' 'Definitely,
Lord Copper'."
"I don't believe it's our job to
reconstruct [Iraq]," said Rumsfeld last week. "The
Iraqi people will have to reconstruct the country over a period
of time." He couldn't have known that Bush was about to
say "we will help them to restore basic services, such as
electricity and water . . . ", with some 12 billion dollars
of reconstruction cash (if it ever comes). And he forgot that
he himself had said "Over 50 countries have pledged almost
$4 billion for reconstruction . . .", which is complete
rubbish, as the figure is nowhere near that; but what do mere
facts matter? Then Rumsfeld, in a truly amazing declaration betraying
total ignorance of the situation, announced that Baghdad's electricity
supply was splendid. "For a city that's not supposed to
have power, it has so many lights it's unbelievable. It looks
like Chicago." The man is a raving idiot who fantasises
about what is going on in the country he has destroyed.
Are we impressed? Up to a point, Lord
Rumsfeld.
Brian Cloughley
writes about defense issues for CounterPunch, the Nation (Pakistan),
the Daily Times of Pakistan and other international publications.
His writings are collected on his website: www.briancloughley.com.
He can be reached at: beecluff@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
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