How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
January 10,
2005
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 31,
2004
Farrah Hassen
The
Palestinian Right of Return: a View from Syria
Dave Lindorff
US Air's Bold New Idea: Work for Your Boss for Free!
George Capaccio
Tsunami Hits Iraq
Mike Whitney
Iraq v. Tsunami: Media Duplicity
Peter Phillips
The Tsunami and the Corporate Media: Waves of Hypocrisy
Christopher
Deliso
War
and the Tsunami: Putting It in Perspective
December 30,
2004
Lila Rajiva
Unnatural
Disaster? Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Nuclear Testing
Robert Fisk
The
Ghosts of Vietnam
Roger Burbach
Argentina
v. the IMF
Stan Cox
9/11 and 12/26: How to React
Walter Brasch
Bush and Tsunamis: Heartless in Crawford
Christopher Brauchli
Empire of the Misers
Alexandra Spieldoch
NAFTA Through a Gender Lens: "Free Trade" Pacts and
Women
Paul Kincaid Jameison
Grief, Relief and the Stingy West
Dan Bacher
The Water Kings of California
Paul Craig
Roberts
Unbecoming
Conduct
December 29,
2004
Dave Lindorff
Us,
Stingy?: It's All Relative
M. Shahid Alam
America
and Islam: Seeking Parallels
Ronald D. Hoffman
Tsunamis
and Nuclear Power Plants
Sam Bahour
/ Todd May
Elections
Without Democracy
Fred Gardner
Ricky Does 60 Minutes
Ali Khan
Who's Feeding the Bin Laden Legend?
John Hansen
Family Farms Are Being Fed to Corporate Sharks
Sam Lewin
How the Justice Department Continues to Screw the Sioux
Richard Oxman
As Time Goes By With Andy Goldsworthy
Mickey Z.
A Wave of Questions: Putting a Disaster in Context
Website of the Day
Banking While Muslim
December 28,
2004
Brian Cloughley
The
Chief Weirdo at the Pentagon: Rumsfeld Must Go
Joshua Frank
Privacy Piracy? What Howard Dean May Bring to the DNC
Jessica Leight
The
Chilean Miracle: Less Than Meets the Eye
Dave Lindorff
A
Shameful Response to Disaster
John Walsh
Disappearing the Anti-War Movement at the NYTs
Dave Zirin
The Death of Reggie White: an Off the Field Obituary
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Be Careful Not to Get Too Much Education: It's Happened to a
Lot of Good Christians
Ron Jacobs
Iran
2004: The Resistance and the Western Anti-War Movement
December 27,
2004
M. Junaid Alam
"Civilization
v. Barbarism": an Interview with Noam Chomsky
Michael Donnelly
Greens and Greenbacks: How Nonprofit Careerism Derailed the "Revolution"
Greg Moses
Texas Election Scandal: Forty Faxes and a Whisper
Toni Solo
Colombia's Appalling Vista: Justice With Eyes Wide Open
Brian Kwoba
Blaming the Victims of the 2004 Elections
Genna Goodman-Campbell
Honduras Validates Its Banana Republic Status, Again
Mike Whitney
Disappearing Act: Fallujah and the Media
Ari Shavit
"Zionism Has Exhausted Itself": an Interview with Amos
Elon
Richard Oxman
Reflections on a Handful of Activists
Saul Landau
James
Cason's Cuban Delusions
December 25
/ 26, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Yup,
It's Moral Outrage Time
Diane Christian
The Christmas Christ
Dr. Susan Block
Faith-Based Sex
Gary Leupp
Rumsfeld, His Critics and the Draft
Ron Jacobs
Music in Wartime
Elaine Cassel
Articles I Didn't Write
Jim Minick
Beyond Organic
Poets Basement
Louise, Landau, Orloski, Albert
and Collins
December 24,
2004
Diane Christian
Winning:
Rummy and John Milton
Chad Nagle
Ukraine's
Real Underdog
Saul Landau
My Friend Richard Barnet
Greg Moses
Ramsey Muniz Speaks
Joe DeRaymond
The Endless War in Colombia: a View From Within
Borzou Daragahi
Iraq's Christians: Tolerated by Saddam; Targets Under Occupation
Mike Whitney
Rummy's Quagmire of Lies
Francis A. Boyle
O Little Town of Bethlehem: Another Christmas Under Occupation
William Loren
Katz
Florida 1837: Christmas Eve Resistance to the First US Occupation
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
December 20,
2004
Gary Leupp
Japan
in Iraq
Robert Fisk
An
Army Without Compassion
Uri Avnery
The Mountain and the Mouse
Francisco Letelier
My Case Against Pinochet
Patrick Cockburn
The Polls of Fear
Bill Conroy
Charles Bowden on the Legacy of Gary Webb: "He Drew Blood"
Yoshie Furuhashi
Chokeholds of a Giant: Attacking Wal-Mart's Supply Chain
David Swanson
Media Blackout of Bush's War on Labor
Chad Nagle
Did Yushchenko Poison Himself?
December 18
/ 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
They Hated Gary Webb
Saul Landau
Gen.
Pinochet Should Also Face Charges in DC
Patrick Cockburn
Losing
Mosul: Once They Called It a Model for the Occupation
Douglas Valentine
Wolves
and Revolution in Venezuela: a Caracas Romance
Ray McGovern
Laughing Dragon, Dancing Bear: the New China / Russia Alliance
Fred Gardner
DEA Upholds Grower's Marijuana Monopoly
Jean-Guy Allard
Locked Up Naked in a Hole Within a Hole: Have the Cuban 5 Been
Tortured in US Prisons?
Ron Jacobs
Drifters Escape, Again: Encounters with Berkeley's Police
Raymond G.
Helmick, S.J.
The Law and Peace in the Middle East
Sean Sellers
Values Voters, Desperate Housewives and Sweatshop Tacos
Lee Sustar
Christmas
on the Picket Line at CNH: "They Want to Break Our Unions"
Richard Thieme
Webb's Wife: "Gary Was Never the Same After They Attacked
Him"
Sam Bahour
WANTED:
Middle East Negotiator
Joshua Frank
The
Spin Doctor: an Interview with Mickey Z.
Dave Lindorff
A Man Who Confers with God Should Have Good Hearing
Stan Cox
What Kids Cost: Dallas v. Delhi
Chris Frasier
Farming By Numbers: More Poets, Fewer MBAs
Poets' Basement
Katz, Melek, Harley, Albert and Ford
December
17, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
CounterAttack:
How the Press and the CIA Killed Gary Webb's Career
Dave Lindorff
Racism:
Philly Style
Dan Bacher
Bush Abandons Salmon Restoration
Marisa Jacott
NAFTA and the Environment: Trade Still Runs Roughshod
Francis Thicke
How Now, Industrial Cow?
Rupert Cornwell
The Inuit Strike Back
Website of the Day
Franz Boas Unrolls Over in His Grave
December
16, 2004
Michael
Neumann
How We Became Barbarians
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Ralph Nader
Gabriel
Espinoza Gonzales
The Dubious Career of John Bolton
Christopher
Brauchli
Louis Freeh's New Gig: Usurer
Patrick
Cockburn
Allawi's Pre-Election Ploy: Putting "Chemical Ali"
on Trial
Mike
Whitney
Gearing Up for a Draft?
Walter
Brasch
Hillbilly Humvees and Rumsfeld's New Physics
Bill
Conroy
How Gary Webb Saved My Ass from the FBI
Website
of the Day
Saturday Memorial for Gary Webb
December
15, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Who Killed Baha Mousa?
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Monster Under the Bed
Heather
Gray
Will the Real Christians Please Stand?: a Personal Testimony
Dave
Lindorff
The DNC, Albright and the Iraq Elections
Luis
Hernandez Navarro
To Die a Little: Migration and Coffee
in Mexico and Central America
Joshua
Frank
The Ohio Recount: an Exercise in "Dumbocracy"
Greg
Moses
Eighty-Sixing Civil Rights in Ohio?
George
Caffentzis
The Petroleum Commons
December
14, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
DNC Meddling in the Ukraine Elections
Larry
Birns / Seth DeLong
Haiti is Unraveling and No One is Saying
Anything
Richard
Thieme
My Last Talk with Gary Webb: "I Knew It Was the Truth and
That's What Kept Me Going"
Patrick
Cockburn
A Year After Saddam's Capture, Iraq
is Getting Worse
Chris
Floyd
Client State: Moral Values and Voluntary Servitude in Bush's
America
Akiva
Eldar
A One-time Hanukkah Miracle
Burbach
/ Cantor
The Legacy of Pinochet: Kissinger
and the Teflon Tyrant
December
13, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Gary Webb: a Great Reporter, Trashed
by the CIA's Claque
David
Phinney
"Contract Meal Disaster" for Iraqi Prisoners: Rancid
Food Sparked Abu Ghraib Riots
Paul
Craig Roberts
A Dose of Non-Delusional Reality
for Douglas Feith
M.
Junaid Alam
The War is the War Crime
Robert
Jensen
The US Has Lost the Iraq War...and That's a Good Thing
Richard
Oxman
Kafkaesque Lessons for the Left
Greg
Moses
Send No Messengers of Defeat
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
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January 10, 2005
Bush, Osama and Israel
Concealing
Causes and Consequences
By
WILLIAM A. COOK
As we approach the crowning of our Emperor
for another four years, a short two months to the day when he
launched the United States into its imperialist policy of pre-emptive
invasions of foreign states, we might pause to reflect on how
deeply this administration analyzed the causes that gave rise
to the atrocity of 9/11, the ostensible basis for our attacking
a nation that had done nothing to the US to warrant its destruction
and occupation. Consideration might be given, for example, to
the two antagonists who entered the lists recently, appearing
almost simultaneously before the American public, Osama bin Laden
via a recent tape aired by al Jazeera and Mr. Anonymous, Michael
Scheuer, author of the recent CIA approved Imperial Hubris:
Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. Interestingly,
while they carry lances from opposing Lords, bin Laden's lifted
on behalf of Allah and Scheuer's questioning our Lord of Misrule,
George W, both proffered the same perspective, the causes that
gave rise to the atrocity of 9/11 have never been addressed.
Osama stated it this way in
his address to the American people: "thinking people, when
disaster strikes, make it their priority to look for causes,
in order to prevent it happening again. But I am Amazed at you.
Even though we are in the fourth year after the events of September
11th, Bush is still engaged in distortion, deception and hiding
from you the real causes. And thus, the reasons are still there
for a repeat of what occurred." Scheuer made this observation:
"(Osama's) genius lies in his ability to isolate a few American
policies that are widely hated across the Muslim world. And that
growing hatred is going to yield growing violence." Scheuer
goes on to say that Osama " is remarkably eager for Americans
to know why he doesn't like us, what he intends to do about it,
and then following up and doing something about it in terms of
military actions." Yet our President continues to claim
that the al Quaeda terrorists hate us because of our freedoms
while the real causes for their actions go unaddressed.
As I contemplate the horrendous
consequences of this election and the solidifying of Bush's neo-con
crew and right-wing evangelical Zionist supporters into positions
of power, I am forced to reflect on 9/11 once again, the catalyst
that propelled America into Bush's unending war against the forces
of evil. America awoke that morning to an atrocity incomprehensible
to contemplate, an act that defied common sense, a wanton act
of inane dimensions that inflicted catastrophic destruction on
innocent people, an act we could not grasp because we had never
experienced its like before, an act that galvanized our people
in brotherhood, in anger, and in fear.
I was driving my stepdaughter
to her high school that morning and stopped at a convenience
store. As we entered, we saw two proprietors, mid-eastern by
descent, transfixed before the TV screen, horror struck at the
burning towers, transfixed by images that seemed at the time
to come from some Hollywood action film. There before us, she
in her teens, I having lived sixty years in the last century,
lay the ruins of America's might symbolically destroyed in the
World Trade Towers, the first instance of such destruction on
American soil by a foreign force.
How incomprehensible those
images to a teenager, the unfathomable realization that humans
could inflict such suffering on another human; indeed, how incomprehensible
to a man who lived while the firestorms of Dresden raged, while
the US firebombed 64 Japanese cities before the dropping of the
atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, while Nixon lit up the
skies with the Christmas bombing of Cambodia and Hanoi, and while
I witnessed in a hotel room in Prague the shock and awe destruction
of Baghdad less than two years ago.
Though I had lived five decades
longer than she, I had not, as is true of all Americans who have
lived between our far flung shores, ever heard the drone of Super
fortresses far overhead, the screech of bombs hurtling toward
earth, the wrenching split of buildings bursting beneath the
explosive power of tons of TNT, the intense heat generated by
thousands of phosphorus bombs that roll in waves of fire over
cars, down streets, into buildings turning everything into an
inferno of searing heat that melts human flesh, sucks the breath
of life from the lungs, and leaves the landscape a barren waste,
miles and miles of debris, the shattered remnants of human toil.
These reflections struck home
with a vengeance, when I received an email in response to an
article I wrote for Counterpunch, October 22, titled "Killing
for Christ." That article described pictures of death in
Iraq, death wrought in part by Christians goaded to war by fanatical
ministers. "Not until the US lies in ruin - the same carnage
I witnessed as a child in post-war Europe - will Americans be
forced to face the kind of evil they have unleashed upon the
world," Sandy wrote; "....These wars are not about
religion, or even oil they're about ignorance. Ignorant
people who have never watched their cities burned, have never
dug through the rubble of their bombed out home for the dismembered
remains of their children, have never shuddered to hear the tanks
and planes coming to destroy their homeland."
The thought contained in that
letter, ignorance and hence indifference resulting from America's
isolation from aerial devastation, surfaced again in Osama bin
Laden's "talk to the American people" printed in al
Jazeera, October 24. As Osama describes the events that brought
him to imagine the destruction of the Twin Towers, events resulting
from "the oppression and tyranny of the American/Israeli
coalition against our people in Palestine and Lebanon,"
he recounts unforgettable scenes of carnage, "blood and
severed limbs, women and children sprawled everywhere. Houses
destroyed along with their occupants and high rises demolished
over their residents, rockets raining on our home without mercy
And as I looked at those demolished towers in Lebanon, it entered
my mind that we should punish the oppressor in kind and that
we should destroy towers in America in order that they taste
some of what we tasted and so that they be deterred from killing
our women and children."
How terrible the thought, ignorance
of what we Americans have wrought on others believing in our
hearts that what our leaders did in our name was done to ensure
peace, to ensure our freedom, to bring Democracy to the rest
of the world. But that is not the thought present in Osama's
head. He reacted to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon as it hurled
American bombs from American supplied planes in a totally different
and personal way. "And that day, it was confirmed to me
that oppression and the intentional killing of innocent women
and children is a deliberate American policy. Destruction is
freedom and democracy, while resistance is terrorism and intolerance."
Michael Scheuer confirms what
bin Laden says according to the CBS "60 Minutes" interview:
"Right or wrong, he (Scheuer) says Muslims are beginning
to view the United States as a colonial power with Israel its
surrogate, and with a military presence in three of the holiest
places in Islam: the Arabian peninsula, Iraq, and Jerusalem.
And he says it is time to review and debate American policy in
the region, even our relationship with Israel."
But there is no discussion
of this as a cause in the United States; indeed, as Scheuer notes,
"But the idea that anything in the United States is too
sensitive to discuss or too dangerous to discuss is really, I
think, absurd," a comment directed specifically at the Congress,
the administration, and the main stream media to open discussion
about the impact of our Israeli policies as it can be a cause
of the terror that confronts America. "No one wants to abandon
the Israelis," Scheuer comments, "but I think the perception
is, and I think it's probably an accurate perception, that the
tail is leading the dog that we are giving the Israelis
carte blanche ability to exercise whatever they want to do in
their area." In short, Bush policy, essentially that designed
by his neo-con controllers, has put the United States in danger,
made it an accomplice in Sharon's oppression and occupation of
the Palestinian land and his savagery against its people, not
the least of which is the stridently visible manifestation of
it in the illegal and inhumane Wall of Fear he's erected around
their homes and villages, and, for the past year and a half,
the occupation and devastation of Iraq by America, seen as a
joint venture by the United States with Israel.
From Osama's perspective, the
United States has moved to take control of Arab land and resources
using Israel as its accomplice in the area. That perception of
US policy nourishes the hate, a hate that flows from two sources:
the hard right Israeli Zionists and the mentality that guides
Osama's fanatical brethren who drink from the same well, the
mythological stories that prophecy an inevitable war of destruction
between Jews and Arabs, the religious war of Armageddon. America's
support for Zionist goals is, therefore, a direct attack on Allah
and can only be repelled by counteractions that will result in
destruction of America. That is the kernel of Osama's talk to
America. Address the cause or suffer the consequences. That means,
as Scheuer notes, open debate on America's policies in support
of Israel or we continue our steady march to the ditch of doom.
Open debate, however, means
more than an investigation into the neo-cons' paper trail from
1991 to March of 2003 calling for and carrying through the invasion
of Iraq; it means as well an opening of America's soul to a catharsis
caused by an acute and painful examination of the chaos and havoc
it has wrought throughout the world. Osama's glib yet understandable
comment that Sweden was not attacked points the finger at America
as an instigator of actions that have raised the hatred of people
in nations throughout the world. Witness our emperor's recent
reception in Chile.
But Americans, for the most
part, know little or nothing of the actions taken in their name
that have given birth to the visceral hatred, evident throughout
the world, that plagues their every step. What graphic pictures
have we seen of our devastation of the holy city of Falujah?
What pictures show the bodies buried beneath the rubble of bombed
homes? What images of humans mangled and eaten by roaming dogs
have we seen in our press or on TV? What pictures show the terrorism
of Israeli forces and their indiscriminate murder of innocent
civilians? What graphics depict the horror of the wall that incarcerates
women and children, steals farms and orchids depriving families
of their livelihood? What graphs show the American taxpayer how
his or her money is being used, not just to surround and decimate
a people but to implicate America in the carnage caused by Sharon
and his government? How terrible the thought: the ignorance and
indifference of the perpetrators of the devastation, that allows
for its continuation, becomes the source of hatred for those
who see themselves the victims of the government Americans elect
to lead them.
The Twin Tower atrocity allowed
for a moment of reflection, a chance for Americans to look inward,
to see the world as those beyond our borders see us, victims
of a horror too incredible to contemplate, the intentional detonation
of civilian structures with the explicit and calculated knowledge
that innocent lives would be cremated beyond recognition. And,
indeed, the reaction was visceral in the heart of every American!
How instantaneous the response to the crumbling towers, not only
by my teenager 3000 miles away from the carnage, but on the part
of all Americans. How galvanized the response across America,
with an outpouring of money for the fallen firefighters and police,
the mourning for the relatives of the victims, and the flooding
of the blood banks. All felt the impact, shared the loss, and
suffered the anguish of those who fled in terror the flaming
debris, the falling stone, the blowing ash. Americans knew first
hand the horror of war at home.
That awareness drove them to
follow without question their leader's plea to go to war against
the evil forces that wanted to destroy America's "freedoms."
That war, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, sent wave upon
wave of bombers to unleash untold tons of explosives on untold
numbers of civilians who suffered the revenge of America's determination
to destroy its unknown enemy. But as I reflect on this galvanizing
of America's desire to eradicate its enemy, I begin to understand
that we have not merged our feelings with the feelings of those
who have suffered at our hands in Europe, in Asia, and in the
mid-East. What we experienced on 9/11, a deplorable atrocity
that took the lives of 3000 people, that brought havoc and chaos
to our people for weeks on end, that destroyed a collection of
buildings on approximately four acres of land in the middle of
a city, could not compare to the totality of devastation wrought
by American bombing on Falujah, or Baghdad, or Lebanon, or Hanoi,
or Tokyo, or Hiroshima, or Dresden. That these acts were seen
as acts of war by most Americans does not erase the impact of
the slaughter they brought to thousands of innocent people caught
in the accepted euphemism that allows the innocent to be sacrificed
on the altar of collateral damage.
To bring the American mind
to a point of recognition that allows for comparison of the suffering
we have inflicted against others as a possible rationale for
the hatred that has been leveled at America is a task beyond
our powers. But something has driven millions around the world
to look at America as a fearsome power willing and able to devastate
smaller states to achieve its goals and to protect its purported
interests. Why? Why this attitude about America?
As I reflect on times in my
own life when America unleashed its mighty power on those incapable
of defending themselves, I need only consider the firebombing
of Dresden. "On the evening of February 13, 1945, an orgy
of genocide and barbarism began against a defenseless German
city, one of the great cultural centers of northern Europe. Within
less than 14 hours, not only was it reduced to flaming ruins,
but an estimated one third of its inhabitants, possibly as many
as half a million, had perished in what was the worst single
event massacre of all time." ("The WWII Dresden Holocaust").
Dresden had no military installations, no aircraft to defend
it, no munitions factories, only factories that produced cigarettes
and china, and a hospital filled to overflowing.
Winston Churchill and Roosevelt
needed a "trump card" over Stalin for the upcoming
Yalta meeting, "a devastating 'thunderclap' of Anglo-American
annihilation' with which to impress him," in effect, an
act of unimaginable terror. That thunderclap took the lives of
half a million people. It took the form of a firestorm where
huge masses of "air are sucked in to feed the inferno, causing
an artificial tornado. Those persons unlucky enough to be caught
in the rush of wind are hurled down entire streets into the flames.
Those who seek refuge underground often suffocate as oxygen is
pulled from the air to feed the blaze, or they perish in a blast
of white heat, heat intense enough to melt human flesh."
700,000 phosphorus bombs dropped on 1.2 million people, 1 for
every 2 people, where the heat reached 1600 degrees centigrade,
in a bombing raid that lasted over 14 hours. Those who lived
through this Hell on earth had to pile the bodies on huge pyres
for cremation, 260,000 bodies counted; the remaining dead, indistinguishable,
melted into the cement or charred beyond recognition. "In
just over an hour, four square miles of the city equivalent
to all of lower Manhattan from Madison Square Garden to Battery
Park was a roaring inferno." (Murray Sayle, "Did
the Bomb End the War?") We Americans gasped at the horror
of four acres of destruction and 3000 dead; we could now, should
we but reflect on time past, understand how others felt when
they endured a slaughter of far greater proportions.
This horrendous description
of our might has been repeated over and over again since WWII
and during it. Tokyo and 63 other Japanese cities felt the brunt
of America's air power. "334 Super fortresses flew at altitudes
ranging from 4,900 feet to 9,200 feet above their target (Tokyo)
... For three hours waves of B-29s unleashed their cargo upon
the dense city below... the water in the rivers reached the boiling
point. ...83,793 killed and 40,918 injured, a total of 265,171
buildings were destroyed and 15.8 square miles of the city burned
to ashes."(Christian Lew, "The Strategic Bombing of
Japan"). Then came Hiroshima. "... the bomb instantly
vaporized, at a temperature of several million degrees centigrade,
creating a fireball and radiating immense amounts of heat....Heat
radiated by the bomb exposed skin more than two miles from the
hypocenter...between seventy thousand and eighty thousand people
are estimated to have died on August 6th, with more deaths from
radiation sickness spread over the ensuing days, months, and
years." (Murray Sayle, "Did the Bomb End the War"?).
Why did we drop the bomb? Without going into detail, suffice
it to say, "Some scholars ... have found it hard to believe
that the act that launched the world into nuclear war could have
come about so thoughtlessly, by default."
Consider these statistics:
the Germans "dropped 80,000 tons of bombs on Britain in
more than five years"; America dropped over 100,000 tons
in a month on Indochina, and between Lyndon Johnson and
Nixon, America delivered "7 million tons of bombs on Vietnam,
Cambodia and Laos," far more than we, and the British, unleashed
on Germany and Japan in all of WWII. Nixon found reason for this
devastation in his anger that North Vietnam had broken off peace
talks in Paris.
That brings us to our illegal
invasion of Iraq, an invasion we now know was engineered years
in advance of 9/11 and for reasons that had nothing to do with
the purported "war on terror." We also know that we
did it to aid Israel in its desire to destroy one of their enemies,
a nemesis that supported "freedom fighters" against
Israeli occupation of the land of Palestine. And today we have
a second letter from Osama bin Laden, delivered via video, that
proclaimed for a second time that Israel's subjugation of the
indigenous population in Palestine and its continued "cleansing"
to rid the land of them, is a reason for the destruction caused
by 9/11. Now, 100,000 civilian deaths later, more than 1300 American
soldiers dead, cities in ruins, and the people in revolution
against the American oppressor, we, as a nation, have chosen
to continue our unilateral aggression making America more of
a pariah nation and even less likely to share the grief of millions
who have suffered at our hands.
And that returns me to that
horrific morning of 9/11 when I attempted to share with a teenager
the inhumane nature of humans. How to demonstrate the enormity
of that act, yet put it in relationship to time past that we
might share the torment of those who have felt the oppressor's
boot and the wanton slaughter of innocents? In reflection days
after 9/11, I had a vision of Hiroshima's ashen landscape stretching
for miles as far as the eye could see, an image indelibly marked
on my mind as a young child, but in that barren waste rose the
Twin Towers, silhouetted against the distant hills and sky, a
reference point for reflection just before the planes struck,
turning them into candles to light the darkness that shrouds
the fields of death that once stood as the city of Hiroshima.
Perhaps in the light of those candles we might see, what we have
not wanted to see in our ignorance, that we have spread pestilence
and death throughout the world and now we are reaping the whirlwind.
William Cook is a professor of English at the University
of La Verne in southern California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was published by Mellen
Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
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Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
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What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
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Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
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The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
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One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
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Empire's Lawless Opportunities
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The Case of Captain R.
Walter
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Tabloid Justice
Stephen
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God's Kind of Men
Poets'
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Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
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