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Recent Stories
March 25, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gary
Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets
of Cairo
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings on
the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock
Market
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country
Gilad
Atzmon
Strategic Blunders by American Generals
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood for Oil:
the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint Them
Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Stephen Banko
I Was a Soldier
Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did We Become
an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert Jensen
Myths and
Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come On Democrats,
Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch from
Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The Erosion
of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush:
A Draft Resolution
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March
26, 2003
Buckets of Blood
A Second Chance
By ADAM ENGEL
The
buckets of blood that doused America this week, iftheyawaken it from
it’s two-year stupor, might not have been spilled in vain. Perhaps
it still can be a “wonderful life,” or at least notsuch
a damna horrible one. Perhaps, like George Bailey, we’ll cry out
“I want to live again!” and really mean it, and the world
will be given a second chance.
Leave it to Bush to make a hero out of a petty tyrant like Saddam, who
may well be remembered as the man who checked American aggression, the
man who saved the planet from Shock and Awe and a bevy of “preemptive
wars.” But then, it’s an old story. At least as old as “Frankenstein.”
The monster George Bush Sr., Cheney, Rumsfeld and company helped create,
by turning on it’s masters, may give the rest of us a chance to
save the world from both.
What do they always tell us on the News, that you gotta stand up to
these Hitler types? Well guess what? If George Bush Inc. is not stopped
IMMEDIATELY, the unchecked aggression against his imaginary “axis
of evil” and god knows who else will plunge the planet into even
more ghastly horrors than we’re witnessing in Iraq.
I read today that at least ten American marines had been killed, and
I felt sick. But no sicker than at the news of the scores of Iraqi civilians
bombed to oblivion by cruise missiles. And what about the “Iraqi
boys” in uniform who, unlike our volunteer soldiers, didn’t
have a choice as to whether to “serve” or not; didn’t
have a choice on whether to fight or not. Didn’t have a choice
but to stave off the invaders of their land?
Saddam is in his sixties. He won’t live forever. For those Iraqis
who are against him -- and they must be legion -- there must
be some hope in that. There is no hope whatsoever in an American invasion
and the predictable occupation, puppet government, etc.
Can we Americans take the “leap of faith” -- not even
a leap, more of a hop really -- to understand this? Would even
the most ardent of Clinton haters during the “Monica-gate”
scandal have preferred an invasion by the Chinese to settling the ridiculous
affair “in house?” Would Nixon’s greatest enemies
have preferred his removal by the Soviet Union? However much Iraqis
may hate Saddam, what kind of humans would they be if they welcomed
an American force that proposed to “liberate them” through
tanks, machine guns and cruise missiles; occupy their country; and IMPOSE
a new “democratic” regime?
Why were those marines killed? Why were those Iraqi soldiers and civilians
killed? Why is this happening? Who on earth wants this? A very small
but powerful minority.
But because this has proved to be not a “cake walk” over
the bodies of Iraqis -- which apparently was not enough to deter
us -- but a tragedy for both Americans and Iraqis, we might have
an “out.” We might be able to stop this madness that has
already swallowed up Afghanistan (remember them?) and, if proves to
be a piece of cake, will open the way toward the next targets on Bush’s
list.
Dammit. Wake up. If the Iraqis are so hell-bent on being liberated,
why are they fighting off the invader?
Throw away that newspaper, the one that calls America and it’s
sidekick, England, the “Allies.” Turn off those television
androids who urge you to support our troops. Do they mean the dead ones?
What if Congress had supported the troops a year ago by calling Bush
Inc. into accountability, by refusing him the power to declare all war
all the time? Then we’d certainly be able to support ALL of our
troops, because they’d be alive. It’s extremely difficult,
even for the most gung-ho of Flag Wavers, to support a man in a body
bag.
The Hydra: like with the Vietnamese and other peoples fighting off foreign
invaders, for every one the MAN kills, HE creates two more. If the MAN
blows up your house and your family and kills all your friends and takes
away your livelihood and you figure you don’t have anything left
to live for anyway, might as well fight back -- YOU are HIS enemy.
Even though HE has no business on your side of the planet (let alone
your hometown, the place you’ve lived all your life) to begin
with.
Does this register? Do we have any understanding of how humans behave?
We know how WE would behave if a foreign force invaded our country,
can we take that great leap of imagination and PRETEND that the Iraqis
are kinda human too?
Now is not the time to criticize the MAN and HIS media while adding
that convenient escape clause for ourselves: “but the American
people are a kind, generous people; they just don’t know the facts.”
The facts are this: bombs are dropping on civilians who’ve done
no harm to us whatsoever, on children who weren’t born yet when
Saddam provoked Bush I to “stay the course.” “Our
boys,” in addition to dropping the bombs, are getting killed.
The Iraqi people may seek restitution and compensation, as well as prosecution
of war criminals, but save that for a later date. Bush, Rumsfeld, Perle,
Powell etc. will have their day in court, as will, hopefully Saddam,
who I’m sure will have no problem ratting out the whole line,
beginning with Reagan, Bush I and Cheney for all they did to aid and
abet him in becoming “the beast of Baghdad.”
Open your minds to reality and close your senses to the bombardment
of Media hacks giving their opinion of how “we” should “prosecute
this war.” Whaddya mean we?
If “we” heed this call, this message that tells us we cannot
simply bomb our way into any sovereign nation we choose and expect a
native welcoming committee -- waving little REDWHITEandBLUE flags
and bearing delectable treats -- to greet their American liberators,
perhaps the scores, if not hundreds of people, soldiers and civilian,
will not have died for no goddamn reason other than to feed the insatiable
hunger for deception, violence and plunder of Bush Incorporated.
Shock and Awe. I believe when Hitler did it, it was called “Blitzkrieg.
”
Adam Engel truly believes that WE THE PEOPLE can call
this off if we act NOW. He can be reached at: asengel@attblobal.net
Today's Features
Gary
Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets
of Cairo
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why
Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings on
the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock
Market
Jeffrey St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gilad
Atzmon
Strategic Blunders by American Generals
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
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