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New Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: The Real Scandal at the Times: Why Not Give Jayson Blair a Pulitzer? After all They Gave Them to Safire and Gerth; What About the Framing of Wen Ho Lee? Falling for the Jessica Lynch Fraud? Judy Miller's Missing WMDs? Blair, the Early Years; Meet the Minister of Sleaze: Deputy Interior Secretary Steve Griles; He Still Works for Big Oil and Strip Miners; Uses 90-Year Old Women as Human Shields; The Crash of the American Economy; Smearing Rachel Corrie's Memory; The Origins of Chalabi: Is He a Creature of Israeli Intelligence? Remember, the CounterPunch website is supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide web audience is soaring, with more than 60,000 visitors a day. This is inspiring news, but the work involved also compels us to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories May 19, 2003 John Chuckman Blair's Awkward Lies Elaine Cassel Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years Steve Perry Play It Again, O-Sam-a   May 17 / 18, 2003 Uri Avnery The Children's Teeth Peter Linebaugh An American Tribute to Christopher Hill Gary Leupp Nepal Today Rock and Rap Confidential The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks Walter Sommerfeld Plundering Baghdad's Museums Ron Jacobs Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades Thomas P. Healy Dubya Does Indy Tarif Abboushi Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap Francis Boyle Debating US War Crimes in Iraq Mark Davis An Interview with Richard Butler Richard Lichtman American Mourning Michael Ortiz Hill Overcoming Terrorism Adam Engel Uncle Sam is YOU! Alan Maas The Best News Show on TV Poets' Basement Reiss, Guthrie, Albert Elaine Cassel Good Enough for an Alien Website of the Weekend The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq Song of the Weekend Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues   May 16, 2003 Leah Wells In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix Ben Tripp Fear Itself Sharon Smith The Resegregation of US Schools Ramzy Baroud Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating? Sam Hamod A Nation of Fear Phil Reeves Baghdad Pays the Price Robert McChesney The FCC's Big Grab Mark Engler Those Who Don't Count Steve Perry We're All Extras in Bush's Movie Website of the Day Iraq and Our Energy Future   May 15, 2003 Ayesha Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould How Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter Writing Campaigns Julie Hilden Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees: Can He Get a Fair Trial? Tanya Reinhart Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure Laura Carlsen Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus? Kenneth Rapoza The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts New Yorker's Goldberg Stew Albert A Story I Will Tell Steve Perry Bush's Little Nukes Website of the Day Strip-o-Rama   May 14, 2003 Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Jason Leopold The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret November Deal for Iraq's Oil David Lindorff Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's Alaska John Chuckman Giggling into Chaos Jack McCarthy Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism and Double Standards Wayne Madsen Assassinating JFK Again M. Junaid Alam The Longer View Paul de Rooij The New Hydra's Head: Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War James Reiss What? Me Worry? Steve Perry More on Saudi Arabia Bombings Website of the Day A Tribute to Ted Joans   May 13, 2003 Saul Landau Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves Michael Neumann Has Islam Failed? Not by Western Standards Uri Avnery My Meeting with Arafat Steve Perry The Saudi Arabia Bombing Jacob Levich Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas William Lind The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory The Black Commentator Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes Stew Albert Asylum Hammond Guthrie An Illogical Reign Website of the Day Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence   May 12, 2003 Chris Floyd Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad Dave Lindorff America's Dirty Bombs Sam Hamod and Elaine Cassel Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty Uzi Benziman Sharon and Sons, Inc. Jason Leopold The Decline and Fall of Thomas White Rich Procter George Jumps the Shark Federico Moscogiuri Going to Israel? Sign or Else Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 5/12 Book of the Day Fooling Marty Peretz Website of the Day T-Shirts to Protest In           Hot Stories Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" Uzma Aslam Khan The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go Paul de Rooij Arrogant Propaganda Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.   Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

May 19, 2003 Bush's Eternal War Backfires So What Was It All For? by ROBERT FISK More than 50 dead in a week. Thanks for the Iraq war. Thank you, Mr Bush and Mr Blair, for making our world safer by ridding us of the one tyrant--Saddam Hussein--who never had any connection with 11 September 2001, or with the Riyadh bombings or with the bombings in Casablanca. The "liberation" of Iraq was supposed to free us from the bombers of al Qaeda. So said Mr Blair. So said Mr Straw. Could you talk to us, please, Messrs Blair and Straw? What was Iraq for? No, we don't have any "claim of responsibility" for the Casablanca massacre, but the nature of the cold calculation behind the Casablanca bombings is sufficient. One suicide bomber kills himself by blowing open the doors of the Jewish community centre. Then his surviving comrade blows himself up inside. Weren't the Jews--like the Christians--"people of the Book", honoured by Islam? But then--and there's always a "but then"--wasn't Morocco a "friend" of the West, a country that has resorted to torture again over the past year in its pro-American battle against "terrorism", yet another country in which human rights have taken second place to President Bush's war on terror? Osama bin Laden always said that his intention was to overthrow "the corrupt monarchies of the Arab world". It was Saudi Arabia at the beginning of the week, Morocco at the end. So, back to the point. Ten suicide bombers killed the innocent of Casablanca--that's more than half the total killers of September 11, 2001. And only five days after al Qaeda struck Riyadh. Was it not President Bush who boasted to us of how America had struck a devastating blow in the "war on terror" in Iraq? Was it not Vice-President Cheney who informed us that al Qaeda was reeling from America's bombardment of Afghanistan? Was it not Defence Secretary Rumsfeld who would have us believe that half of al Qaeda's leadership was eliminated--either through capture or murder (let us speak frankly) at America's hands? So take a look at the terrain. Afghanistan is in a state of anarchy, its pathetic government scarcely ruling over Kabul. Iraq is in an even more incipient state of anarchy, largely without electricity, money or petrol. And this is a war of good against evil? Casablanca is a sorry and pertinent page in the history of America's folly in the Arab world. So what comes next? More boasts by President Bush that he is winning the "war against terror" or more claims--yes, he told you so--that the "war on terror" is eternal? Heaven spare us all. Today's Features Leah Wells In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix Ben Tripp Fear Itself Sharon Smith The Resegregation of US Schools Ramzy Baroud Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating? Sam Hamod A Nation of Fear Phil Reeves Baghdad Pays the Price Robert McChesney The FCC's Big Grab Mark Engler Those Who Don't Count Steve Perry We're All Extras in Bush's Movie Website of the Day Iraq and Our Energy Future   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /