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Today's
Stories
January 10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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
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for More Stories.
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January
10 / 11, 2004
CounterPunch Diary
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Beyond the shared enthusiasm of the Fuehrer and
all US presidents (with the possible exception of Warren Harding)
for mass murder as an appropriate expression of national policy,
I've never seen any particularly close affinity between Adolf
Hitler and the current White House incumbent but the Republican
National Committee seems peculiarly sensitive on the matter.
At the end of the first week in January
the RNC lashed out furiously at a Democratic website Move0n.org
for including in its featured entrants for robust campaign ads
for 2004 a couple that offered Bush/Hitler comparisons.
One features Hitler making a speech,
cross cut with footage of the Nazi blitzkrieg, while a voiceover
says "A nation warped by lieslies fuel fearfear fuels aggressioninvasionoccupation."
As the scene fades from Hitler giving a raised arm salute to
Bush with his hand raised at his inauguration, the voice-over
says, "What were war crimes in 1945 is foreign policy in
2003."
The second ad shows Hitler, speaking
in German, with a voiceover translating the lines as "We
have taken new measures to protect our homelandI believe I am
acting in accordance with the will of the Almighty Creator."
Then, as Hitler continues to speak, the voiceover says, "God
told me to strike Al-Qaeda, and I struck him." The visage
of A. Hitler becomes that of G. Bush and the voiceover continues,
"and then He instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I
did." "Sound familiar?" the voiceover sinisterly
proclaims.
As a way of enticing undecided voters
to vote against George Bush next November, both ads seem a trifle
heavy-handed, which is probably why MoveOn.org's audience didn't
include them in the 15 finalists. But this didn't stop the RNC
screaming. Somewhat cravenly, MoveOn's Eli Pariser then said
his group "regrets" the brief appearance of the two
ads on the MoveOn website. They've gone now, though as of January
6 you could find the scripts of the offending two on the RNC's
site.
Hitler/Bush comparisons began their current
vogue after an article by Dave Lindorff appeared last February,
here on CounterPunch.org, to which Lindorff is a regular and
valued contributor.
In a full bore attack on Bush-as-warmonger
Lindorff swept into an impassioned finale, declaring that "we
must begin exposing George W. Bush and his War Party for what
they are: craven usurpers aiming at nothing less than the undermining
of all those things that most of us hold dear.
"It's going a bit far to compare the Bush of 2003 to the
Hitler of 1933. Bush simply is not the orator that Hitler was.
But comparisons of the Bush Administration's fear mongering tactics
to those practiced so successfully and with such terrible results
by HItler and Goebbels on the German people and their Weimar
Republic are not at all out of line."
I thought Lindorff's measured assessment
of the two leaders' rhetorical talents indicated appropriate
objectivity, but our CounterPunch inbox was soon crammed with
furious denunciations of Lindorff from Bush supporters. Then
in July one of the Wall Street Journal's mad-dogs in residence,
James Taranto, did us a favor by taking a passing jab at CounterPunch
as "an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler".
There were other useful attacks in the National Review and Washington
Times.
Of course this allowed Lindorff to return
to the scene of the crime, with further measured comparisons
between the Bush administration and the Third Reich, such as
shared propensities to warmongering, melding of corporate and
political elites, recourse to the Big Lie, contempt for civil
liberties and due process. Such kinship notwithstanding, In that
spirit of fair play for which CounterPunch is justly renowned,
Lindorff judiciously reminded our readers that "we may not
yet have a dictatorship" and that "while he has rounded
up some Arab and Muslim men purely because of their ethnicity
or religion, Bush has not started gassing them--at least not
yet".
I don't think you'd sort that sort of
gentlemanly sense of fair play and politeness from the likes
of the ordure-encrusted Taranto or that fat, lying drug-addicted
hypocrite, Rush Limbaugh. Earlier this week Lindorff argued on
our site that the two ads dumped by MoveOn.org are pretty good.
My problem with the Hitler-Bush pairing
is not so much the comparison per se which is solidly in the
respectable mainstream of political abuse, but in the strange
hysteria of Democrats about Bush as a leader of such consummate
evil, so vile that any Democrat would be preferable. Any Democrat?
George Bush is by definition a warmonger, but Wesley Clark, one
of the contenders for the Democratic nomination, actually issued
an order that could have sparked Armageddon. Back in the war
on Yugoslavia, in his capacity as NATO's Supreme Commander, Clark
ordered the British general, Sir Michael Jackson, to block Russian
planes about to land at Pristina airport. Jackson refused to
obey, declaring in one furious exchange quoted in Newsweek, "I'm
not going to start the Third World War for you".
The central political issue this year
is the absolute corruption of the political system and of the
two parties that share the spoils. Wherever one looks, at the
gerrymandered districts, the balloting methods, the fund raising,
corruption steams like fumes from a vast swamp. To rail about
Bush as Hitler is to blur what should be the proper focus. If
you want to hear an American answer to Hitler-as-warmonger at
full tilt go and read the speeches John F Kennedy was making
and planning to make when he was shot.
Hitler, genocidal monster that he was,
was also the first practicing Keynesian leader. When he came
to power in 1933 unemployment stood at 40 per cent. Economic
recovery came without the stimulus of arms spending. Hitler wanted
a larger population, so construction subsidies produced a housing
boom. There were vast public works such as the autobahns. He
paid little attention to the deficit or to the protests of the
bankers about his policies. Interest rates were kept low and
though wages were pegged, family income increased by reason of
full employment. By 1936 unemployment had sunk to one per cent.
German military spending remained low until 1939.
Not just Bush but Howard Dean and the
Democrats could learn a few lessons in economic policy from that
early, Keynesian Hitler, whose hostility to unions they also
echo.) As for warmongering, American presidents and would-be
presidents don't need lessons from anyone. As Hitler freely acknowledged
in his campaign bio, Mein Kampf, the debt was the other way round.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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