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Today's
Stories
October 26,
2004
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
|
October 26, 2004
Atrocities
in Iraq and Afghanistan
Three
Weddings and Lots of Funerals
By
BRIAN CLOUGLEY
George Bush, the Commander-in-Chief,
tells lies.
Dick Cheney, the man who runs
the Commander-in-Chief, tells lies.
Donald Rumsfeld, the man responsible
for US defense except when things go wrong, tells lies.
So why should the US military
do any different?
Here is a Reuters' report of
20 October :
"FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
US warplanes killed a family of six in raids against rebels
led by Al-Qaeda ally Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi . . . A witness saw
a man and a woman and four children, two boys and two girls,
being pulled out of the rubble of a razed home in the rebel-held
city of Falluja. The US military denied a family of six was
killed, saying it launched four strikes against safehouses used
by Zarqawi's fighters.
"Intelligence sources
indicate a known Zarqawi propagandist is passing false reports
to the media," it said in a statement."
So the Reuters' witness and
Reuters' television pictures and the dead kids are all part of
a deep dark conspiracy to pass false reports to the world about
US airstrikes in Iraq. The bodies of the kids don't exist and
the pictures must have been faked, because the US military tells
us so. Dead boys and girls weren't pulled from the debris of
a building flattened by US bombs, in spite of the evidence of
a witness, because the US military tells us so. And they are
honorable people. So we believe them, don't we?
The US military would do well
to take heed of Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet', when Friar
John adjures Romeo to :
"come forth; come forth
thou fearful man ;
Affliction is enamored of thy parts,
And thou art wedded to calamity."
For the US military is now
bound by fetters of misplaced loyalty to the blatant lies of
squalid politicians and has indeed become "wedded to calamity".
And while on the subject of marriages, let us reflect on some
of the weddings that the military has terminally and bloodily
disrupted in the recent past.
***
"Four Weddings and
a Funeral" is
a British movie made a decade ago with a pretty weak story line
and a lot of laughs if you understand the British sense of humor.
"Three Weddings and Lots
of Funerals" is different. The story line in what I write
here is strong enough, but there are no laughs whatever. It
concerns the willful massacre of over a hundred innocent people
by US aircraft at two wedding gatherings in Iraq and one in Afghanistan
in the past 15 months.
These war crimes have not attracted
publicity because the mainstream US media is not interested in
following up even well-documented and irrefutable stories of
US atrocities. (If these incidents had involved a British aircraft
killing civilians the UK's print media would have gone berserk
and the defense minister would have been forced to resign.)
The people slaughtered at the
wedding celebrations in Iraq and Afghanistan weren't terrorists.
They weren't anything much, really, because they were just ordinary
people ; wedding guests who had been enjoying themselves in their
traditional way until the rockets and 50 cal rounds and 105 millimeter
shells and monster bombs slammed explosively into them, ripping
them apart in gouts of blood and gobbets of flesh.
For two main reasons the scores
of wedding party dead have not excited the slightest interest
or caused even the smallest concern in the US. First, those
who were cut to ribbons were Islamic foreigners and therefore
without doubt guilty of being associated with someone who might
possibly have lived near somebody who was almost certainly linked
to a person who knew how to spell 'al Qaeda' ; and, second,
it is considered offensively and unforgivably unpatriotic to
publicize US atrocities until it becomes obvious that the story
is going to break, anyway, after which it becomes essential to
moralize pompously and make sure the blame doesn't become attached
to anyone of importance. (A sergeant got eight years jail for
torturing helpless prisoners at Abu Ghraib, but the man who authorized
and encouraged torture, Donald Rumsfeld, walks free : that's
Bush administration justice.)
The main consequence of the
non-happenings (for the wedding massacres were non-happenings
so far as Washington and the American military, media and public
are concerned) has been intensification of international loathing
for the US and all it stands for. And this appalling outcome
is evident not just in the immediate areas of the atrocities,
and among the many hundreds of people to whom the victims were
relations or friends, but very much wider. While there was little
publicity about the wedding deaths in the US, there was a great
deal elsewhere, and although some reaction was confined to shrugs
and the comment "Well, what do you expect of Bush?",
the main result was that existing fierce resentment against
America in the Middle East, the Gulf and all round the Muslim
world was made even more intense by the killings and especially
by the cavalier attitude of the US military and the Bush administration
to the horrific suffering inflicted on innocents by their weapons.
Ordinary Americans, the decent people of America, are being held
to blame for what has been done in their name.
When presented with evidence
of war crimes, the neocon warniks always shriek "But what
about . . ."?, meaning "What about the American soldiers
who are being killed?" ; "What about the savage and
disgusting beheading of hostages?" ; "What about the
car bombs that destroy Iraqi children? ; and so on. Quite
so : what about them indeed? Because nobody can believe that
in some way these atrocities make it acceptable, justifiable
or laudable for a United States AC-130s or helicopter gunships
or B-52s (for God's sake) to spray bullets, rockets, bombs and
shells at groups of people who are celebrating weddings and have
done no wrong. Nobody in their right mind could possibly approve
of the killing of an American soldier. And nobody in their right
mind would approve of the slaughter of innocent people, either.
Let us begin with the attack
on the wedding party in Afghanistan at 1 AM on Monday July 1,
2002. This wasn't just an AC-130 bloodbath, although one of
these came along to have a yippee shoot. It involved the military
application of force to the extent of a B-52 bomber plastering
the area with seven 2,000 pound bombs.
It is the custom in Afghanistan
and all over the region for people attending celebrations to
fire guns in the air. This caused me a certain amount of concern
when first I experienced it twenty-five years ago, but you get
used to it. Anyone with the least knowledge of Afghanistan and
Iraq knows that firing in the air is a commonplace event, and
even the military spokesman at the Bagram US air base knew of
this. But he disputed the fact that the firing was high-spirited
and celebratory. No. It was "not consistent" with
a celebration, said the colonel. "Normally, when you think
of celebratory fire, it's random, it's sprayed, it's not directed
at a specific target. In this instance the people on board the
aircraft felt that the weapons were tracking them and were trying
to engage them." So the attack helicopters were being "tracked"
by a raggy-baggy tribesman firing his AK-47, just like an aircraft
is tracked by the radar of a surface-to-air missile system. How
fascinating. Then the official line changed to claiming that
the aircraft had come under "sustained and hostile fire".
Rumsfeld said "I read in the paper there was a wedding.
I just don't know the facts."
Anyway, it doesn't matter,
because nothing was done about the butchery. It was all covered
up, the innocent dead were buried, and it has all been forgotten.
Who cares?
Nobody.
Just as nobody cares about
the two wedding groups that were slaughtered in Iraq. The first
one was in May this year, near the border with Syria. There
was irrefutable television evidence of the bodies of young children
being carried away from the village, which was flattened by US
aircraft. This cannot be questioned, unless, of course, it
was also part of the devilish plot against the US military by
"A Zarqawi propagandist", who is so skilled that he
can conjure up instant television film of dead kids. The BBC
reported that "A US spokesman confirmed that about 40 people
had been killed, but said the US forces had targeted a safe house
used by foreign fighters." One of the survivors said "They
hit two homes where the wedding was being held and then they
leveled the whole village". The military deny there was
a wedding. "We don't believe there was a wedding or a wedding
party going on" declared an honorable member of the US military.
So the videos of the celebrations must have been faked by the
ubiquitous "Zarqawi propagandist." They were very
well done, and Associated Press showed the film of children larking
around and general happy wedding scenes, including a man playing
an electric organ. Later, the organist's body was shown in a
shroud. Clever stuff by the "Zarqawi propagandist".
There was no inquiry. There
never will be an inquiry. The dead were only rag-heads, anyway.
Who cares?
The most recent wedding carnage
dealt by US airstrikes was on 8 October in Fallujah. It is approximately
the same story : the groom was killed and the bride wounded.
A total of 12 people were murdered in the onslaught. Yawn.
Who cares? It must have been Zarqawi propaganda again.
The American public is told
that this butchery is part of keeping up pressure in the war
on terror. All these terrorist brides and grooms and terrorist
kids rushing round in party clothes ; all the terrorist musicians
and the terrorist wedding guests, by God, they have to pay for
9/11 because (as millions of Americans still believe), the Iraqis
were responsible for 9/11. Well, they have paid. They died,
horribly, and there have been lots of post-wedding funerals.
And the dead have left a potent legacy, because for every
one that was killed by US shells or bullets or rockets or bombs,
there will be countless more recruits for the uprising in Iraq
against America. Associated Press reported on 23 October that
a little boy in Baghdad exclaimed "I want to be a pilot
to fly an Iraqi warplane and fight the Americans", and this
is but one tiny example of the overwhelming hatred for US forces
felt by millions in Iraq and even more millions around the world.
This feeling will endure forever. Well done, guys.
Official tactics are to make
a stout denial that there were any innocent people killed by
US bombs, coupled with righteous indignation that anyone could
suggest that this could happen. Then comes the admission that
maybe some kids were killed, and maybe a bridegroom or two, but,
hell, they were in a safe house used by terrorists. And, mind
you, the clincher on this one is now given as "Credible
intelligence sources confirmed" that there were terrorists
there. Then comes the flat proclamation that nothing happened
to civilians ; nothing whatever. And their houses weren't reduced
to dust, either. Because it was all made up by "A Zarqawi
propagandist".
And it works. It all works
like a charm. It is amazing how it works so well. Nobody cares.
The self-muzzled US media puts its hand on its collective heart
and says "We can't show this sort of stuff because it is
unpatriotic to show US war crimes", and over ninety per
cent of US citizens do not know what is going on.
George Bush, the Commander-in-Chief,
tells lies.
Dick Cheney, the man who runs
the Commander-in-Chief, tells lies.
Donald Rumsfeld, the man responsible
for US defense (except when things go wrong), tells lies.
So why should the US military
do any different? Especially when they receive such a helping
hand from the media.
Brian Cloughley writes on military and political affairs.
He can be reached through his website www.briancloughley.com
Weekend
Edition Features for October 16 / 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
/
|