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April
26 / 27, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
The Other War: Bush, Ashcroft and
the End of Civil Liberties
Saul
Landau
Iraq War: a Policy of Christian and Jewish Fundamentalism
William
A. Cook
Sharon Recruits US as Mercenaries Against Syria
William
S. Lind
Now the Real War Starts
John Chuckman
In Jesus's Name:
Franklin Graham's Christian Empire
David
MacMichael and Ray McGovern
Ex-CIA Analysts on WMD: Where? Find?
Plant?
Gary Leupp
Why the War on Iraq was (and Remains) Wrong
Robert
Sandels
Cuba Crackdown: a Revolt Against Bush's National Security Strategy?
CounterPunch
Wire
An Open Letter to Jerry Brown on Oakland Police Violence Against
Peace Activists and Dock Workers
Mickey
Z.
Our Ba'athists
Anthony
Gancarski
Nader Plays Pullman
Scott
Handleman
The Mumia Abu-Jamal Case in Its True Colors
Claud Cockburn
Evelyn Waugh's Ear Trumpet
Poets'
Basement
Matt Simon, Sam Hamod, Hammond Guthrie and Stew Albert
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/26
April
25, 2003
David
Vest
It's Not the Oil; It's the Art!
Steven
Higgs
All About Tucker Carlson
Walt
Brasch
The Shock and Awe of American Ignorance
Alexander
Cockburn
The Decline of American Journalism:
the Case of Judy Miller
Zeynep
Toufe
A Letter to the People of Iraq from an Anti-War Activist
CounterPunch
Wire
Season of the Witch: Jeane Kirkpatrick Unbound
Hammond
Guthrie
Springtime in Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/25
Website
of the Day
Having
a Great Time, Wish You Were Here: Postcards from a War
April
24, 2003
Lois
Whitman
An Open Letter to Rumsfeld on the
Child Detainees at Guantanamo
Uri
Avnery
Abu vs. Abu: It's Not About Egos
David
Lindorff
Day Care in the Name of National Security? About Those Kids in
Camp X-Ray
John Grebe
Rev. Pat Robertson's Message in the Temple
Dokhi
Fassihian
Monster.Com: Ethnic Cleansing on the Web?
CounterPunch
Wire
Israeli Army Chief Threatens Peace Activists
Sam
Hamod
Our Man in Baghdad
Annie
C. Higgins
Do You Regret Being an American?
Harold
A. Gould
Will They Hate Us Forever?
Stew Albert
Big Brother in Bed
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/24
Website
of the Day
Muscles
Abroad
Hot Stories
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
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April 29,
2003
Open Book
In Syria, as
in Iraq, the Bushites Telegraph Their Punches
By CHRIS FLOYD
Some cynics claim that George W. Bush and his
closest advisors -- whom cynics cynically refer to as "bloodthirsty
corporate pimps" -- are just a bunch of vicious, shifty
liars. But this writer takes enormous umbrage at the heaping
of such unsupported calumny upon the good names of these great
leaders. They have been maligned, slandered, falsely accused.
For when it comes to their plans for world conquest, these "pimps"
are as honest as the day is long.
As we all know, the rape of Iraq (or
as future historians will doubtless call it, "The Dawn of
the Shiite Empire") was planned openly several years ago
by a hard-right agitprop cell led by Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.
Now it turns out that the recent big-monkey chest-beating aimed
at Syria -- threats of sanctions, "surgical" strikes,
and "regime change" -- was also carefully planned,
by many of the same people, long before the Bush Regime seized
power.
As we've often reported here, in September
2000 the Cheney-Rumsfeld outfit, Project for the New American
Century, proudly published their blueprint for the direct imposition
of U.S. "forward bases" throughout Central Asia and
the Middle East. They even foresaw the need for what they called
a "Pearl Harbor-type event" to galvanize the American
public into supporting their ambitious program. Their reasons
for this program were also stated quite openly: to ensure U.S.
political and economic domination of the world, while strangling
any potential "rival" or any viable alternative to
the rapacious crony capitalism favored by the PNAC extremists.
This dominance would be enforced by the ever-present threat --
and frequent application -- of violence. (A tactic known elsewhere
as "terrorism.")
PNAC was also very honest about the role
of Iraq in this crusade for empire, stating plainly that the
need for a U.S. military presence in the area "superseded"
the "issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." There
was no sanctimonious posturing about "liberation,"
weapons of mass destruction or terrorist connections. To dominate
the oil wealth centered in that region -- and hence the economic/political
development of the world in the coming decades -- they needed
a military presence in Iraq; it's as simple as that.
And now they've got it. Again, it's all
quite open -- for anyone who cares to look. Last week, the Pentagon
announced that it "expects" (i.e., "demands")
to have "long-term access" to at least four major military
bases in Iraq, The New York Times reports. (Rumsfeld -- or "Shifty"
as cynics like to call him -- later issued your standard weasel-worded
non-denial denial -- like the Jesuits of old, the Bushists never
lie when equivocation will do.) Although the hundreds of thousands
of armed and angry Shiite Muslims currently clamoring for an
Islamic state in Bush's new satrapy may yet cause a spot of bother
for the sahibs, for now the generals and arms dealers installed
as Iraq's new rulers believe they will still be sitting pretty
in Fort Pretzel and Carlyle Air Base throughout the "new
American century." This was, after all, the purpose of the
recent slaughter -- as Cheney and Rumsfeld told us plainly years
ago.
A few months before PNAC's prophetic
2000 report, an allied group with an overlapping membership published
a similar document outlining steps to be taken against Syria:
first "tightening the screws" with denunciations and
economic sanctions, then escalating to military action, as Jim
Lobe of Inter-Press Agency reports. The architects of this document
included Elliot Abrams, the convicted perjurer now running Bush's
Middle East policy; Douglas Feith, one of Shifty's top aides;
Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary to Colin Powell, and influential
Pentagon advisors such as David Wurmser, Michael Leeden and everyone's
sweetheart, Richard "Influence-Peddler" Perle.
The report sprang largely from the loins
of the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon, a curious
grouping of right-wing American Christians, right-wing American
Jews, and a sprinkling of Lebanese exiles. They object -- rightly
-- to the fact that Syria has maintained "long-term access
to major military bases" in Lebanon, using this minatory
presence to exercise undue sway over Lebanon's political and
economic life. Of course, some cynics would say this situation
is remarkably akin to Israel's own 18-year occupation of, er,
Lebanon, or the United States' decades-long -- and still-continuing
-- military presence in Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Great Britain,
Panama, etc. But you know what cynics are like.
The USCFL also provides highly insightful
and very nearly literate analyses of vital regional issues, such
as its seminal paper, "Even Arabs Don't Like Arabs."
But the mindset of the group -- whose members now stalk the corridors
of power in Imperial Washington -- is perhaps best displayed
in its thoughtful 2001 treatise, "A Petition Demanding War
Against Governments That Sponsor Terrorism" (Except, of
course, for governments who enforce their will by the ever-present
threat and use of violence -- i.e. terrorism -- but are run by
nice white men educated at Yale and Oxford.)
Here, the proto-Bushist group demands
that six "rogue nations" -- Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria,
Iran, Libya and Sudan -- "turn over their governments to
the United States" on pain of massive military response.
The United States will then "occupy these territories until
proper governments" -- ones that allow "long-term access"
to major military bases, no doubt -- "can be established."
And just how massive should that threatened U.S. military response
be? The USCFL is, as always, admirably -- and brutally -- forthright:
"America must set a clear example-identical to that of Hiroshima
and Nagasaki. If you tread on me, I will wipe you off the face
of the earth."
Is this what the Bushists are really
talking about in their fear-mongering diatribes about seeing
"terrorism's smoking gun in a mushroom cloud"?
Chris Floyd
is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor
to CounterPunch. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com
Yesterday's
Features
Elaine
Cassel
The Other War: Bush, Ashcroft and
the End of Civil Liberties
Saul
Landau
Iraq War: a Policy of Christian and Jewish Fundamentalism
William
A. Cook
Sharon Recruits US as Mercenaries Against Syria
William
S. Lind
Now the Real War Starts
John Chuckman
In Jesus's Name:
Franklin Graham's Christian Empire
David
MacMichael and Ray McGovern
Ex-CIA Analysts on WMD: Where? Find?
Plant?
Gary Leupp
Why the War on Iraq was (and Remains) Wrong
Robert
Sandels
Cuba Crackdown: a Revolt Against Bush's National Security Strategy?
CounterPunch
Wire
An Open Letter to Jerry Brown on Oakland Police Violence Against
Peace Activists and Dock Workers
Mickey
Z.
Our Ba'athists
Anthony
Gancarski
Nader Plays Pullman
Scott
Handleman
The Mumia Abu-Jamal Case in Its True Colors
Claud Cockburn
Evelyn Waugh's Ear Trumpet
Poets'
Basement
Matt Simon, Sam Hamod, Hammond Guthrie and Stew Albert
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 4/26
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