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May 14, 2002
Jensen / Mahajan
US Power
Mideast Power Plays
May 13, 2002
Robert Fisk
Why Does John Malkovich
Want to Kill Me?
Mokhiber / Weissman
IMF
and World Bank:
Out of Control
Dean Baker
Will Darth Vader do Time?
The Enron Saga Continues
Nelson Valdés
American
Democracy:
A Lesson for Cubans
May 12, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Why Is America Acting Like This? A
Letter to European Friends
John Patrick Leary
Aiding Colombia
Kathleen Christison
Israel
and Ethics
May 11, 2002
Joady Guthrie
The Holy Lands:
A Peace Vision
Patrick Cockburn
Bombing
Iraq:
the Pentagon Prepares a Prolonged Campaign
George Sunderland
CounterPunch Special
Our
Vichy Congress: Israel's Stranglehold on Capitol Hill
May 10, 2002
Lisa Taraki
In Defense
of Sanctions
Against Israel
Jack McCarthy
Snitch Envy: Hitchens, Brock and
Whitaker Chambers
John Jonik
Tobacco
and Teens: Criminalizing the Victiims
Vijay Prashad
Fettered Histories:
Tariq Ali and Ahmed Rashid
on Islam
Bill Christison
A
Former CIA Analyst Details
The Disastrous Foreign
Policies of the United State
Omar Barghouti
Israel's Best Interest
May 9, 2002
Alex Lynch
American
Mainstream Media:
Institutionalized Subjectivity
Alexander Cockburn
The Armey Plan:
Palestine to Ft. Worth?
May 8, 2002
James
Masterson
Hysteria
and Panic
About France
Robert Fisk
The Solution to this Filthy War: Foreign
Occupation
Edward
Hammond
and Jan van Aken
Pentagon
Pushed for Offensive BioWeapons Development
David Vest
From Ground Zero to the Bronx
May 7, 2002
Patrick
Cockburn
Bone
Apart:
The Graveyard of Napoleon's Defeated Army
Philip
Farruggio
Muffler
Shop Medicine
Norman
Madarasz
French
Elections:
Pandora's Ballot
Tom Turnipseed
A Travesty of Justice
May 6, 2002
Fran Schor
Invasion
of Iraq:
Coming Soon
Dave Marsh
Love Hurts
John Chuckman
The
Paradoxes of Israel
Rep. Ron Paul
End Corporate Welfare, Pull
the Plug on the Ex-Im Bank
Hussein
Ibish
Devastation
Only Feeds Resistance to Israeli Rule
May 5, 2002
Jeffrey St. Clair
High and Dry in the Mojave
May 4, 2002
Robert
Fisk
Sharon
the Merciless
and Arafat the Corrupt
Sam Bahour
New United States of Israel
Alexander
Cockburn
Extreme
Solutions:
Priests and Palestinians
May 3, 2002
Arundhati Roy
Democracy and
Religious Fascism
Wayne
Madsen
Dispatch
from Paris:
Le Pen's Strange Coalition
Yigal Bronner
A Journey to Beit Jalla
CounterPunch
Wire
Otto
Reich Named to Board of School of the Americas
John Troyer
Hatemongers Try to Cleanse History:
Gays and 9/11
John Stauber
Big
Food/Tobacco/Booze
Attacks "Mad Cow" Authors
Kathleen Christison
Before There Was Terrorism
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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May
14, 2002
Appeasing
the Right and Beating the Drums of War
Bush's Cuba Blunder
by Michael Colby
When it comes to what the Bush administration
dubs "rogue states," its foreign policy goals look
something like this: fabricate the evidence and then rattle the
war sabers.
Take, for example, the current situation
with Cuba. In yet another move to appease its far-right base
of supporters, the Bush team blundered big-time last week by
letting loose with the unsubstantiated assertion that Fidel Castro's
Cuba was developing biological weaponry for both themselves and
other "rogue states."
The Bush administration official delivering
this accusation was John Bolton, the undersecretary of state
for arms control and international security. And, not surprisingly,
Bolton made his unsubstantiated accusations in a speech before
the Heritage Foundation, an ultra-conservative research group.
While the collective hearts of the Heritage Foundation members
fluttered with excitement by Bolton's speech, the world community
got yet another look into the Bush team's sloppy foreign policy
decision making. Appeasing your base of supporters is one thing,
but fabricating evidence and shoveling it out for the world to
see is brazenly reckless, particularly in a world made fragile
by lunatics, fanatics, and lies.
Interestingly, it was former president
Jimmy Carter who pulled the plug on this bit of Cuban propaganda.
While in Cuba this week Carter made it clear that he was given
no evidence that the Bush administration's accusation had any
validity whatsoever.
"There were absolutely no such allegations
made or questions raised," Carter said to an audience in
Cuba regarding his discussions with the Bush State Department.
"I asked them myself on more than one occasion if there
was any evidence that Cuba has been involved in sharing any information
with any country on earth that could be used for terrorist purposes.
And the answer from our experts on intelligence was no.''
Even Secretary of State Colin Powell
felt compelled to backpedal a bit from Undersecretary Bolton's
assertions. "We didn't say it actually had some weapons,"
Powell said, "but it has the capacity and capability to
conduct such research.''
Carter has taken a beating from the right
on television and radio news and talk programs over the last
couple of days as a result of his trip to Cuba. The right wing
loves its political boogeymen and Castro has played that role
for them for decades, no matter that much of the venom spewed
about Castro is far from the realm of truth. Anti-communists
seem to die a lot slower than communism did.
It's also interesting to note that, once
again, Powell is out of the loop with his own State Department
when it comes to the Bush administration's propaganda wars against
"rogue states." Powell, as you'll recall, has been
the lone voice of near-reason with the Bush team1s red-hot rhetoric
with regards to Hussein. When the right-wing ideologues were
beginning to beat the drums of war against Iraq late last year
it was Powell who provided the wet blanket by pointing out the
holes and dangers in the arguments of those wanting to rush into
another Gulf war. Now, with those same ideologues beating up
their favorite enemy commie, Castro, Powell is once again forced
to tippy-toe through some dangerous propaganda.
Finally, let's not forget that George
W. has apparently learned a lot from his dad, who sat atop an
administration emitting wholesale fabrications when the target
de jour was Iraq. During that Bush administration it was stories
about babies being pulled from incubators, as well as the standard
accusations of chemical and biological weapons, that whipped
the nation into a frenzy and effectively made Saddam Hussein
public enemy number one. By the time the public learned that
the incubator stories were largely fabrications concocted by
high-priced Washington lobbying firms, the American people either
didn1t care or didn1t want to be bothered by the truth.
Bush is playing a dangerous game of foreign
policy politics, a game that undermines U.S. credibility, foments
more hostility toward us, and panders to the right wing in the
short term while threatening world security in the long term.
I'd like to say that Bush should know better but, then again,
he is the president who championed his sophomoric "Bush
Doctrine" which idiotically paints the world in two convenient
shades: white if you're with us, and black if you're against
us.
Michael Colby
is the editor of Wild
Matters. He can be contacted at mcolby@wildmatters.org.
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