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New Special "Serving Two Flags" Edition of CounterPunch

Inside the Neo-Cons: Wolfowitz, Perle, Feith and the Internal Security Problem at the Pentagon by Stephen Green; O'Neill, Oil and Bush by Alexander Cockburn; My Corporation Tis of Thee: The Stryker, The General and the Lobbyist by Jeffrey St. Clair; A Southern Africa Sojourn by Lawrence Reichard; The Kiev Con: Exposing David Duke's Illusory Doctorate; CounterPunch Online is read by 70,000 visitors each day, but we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

February 23, 2004

Gary Leupp
A Misguided Attack, The Passion, Rabbit Lerner and the Gospels

February 20 / 22, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry: He's Peaking Already!

Derek Seidman
Chasing Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!

Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem

Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops

Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq

John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People

Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary

Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq

Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and Hypocrisy

Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back

Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala

Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle

Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights Act?

David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons

Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget

David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This

Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics

Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert

Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique

 

February 19, 2004

Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw

Ray McGovern
Iraq Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd Get Away With It?

Tariq Ali
How Far Will Bush Go in Iraq?

Ralph Nader
Whither the Nation?

Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?

Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble

Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT

Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"

Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale

Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope

 

February 18, 2004

William Wilgus
Bush: AWOL and Dereliction of Duty

William Blum
Mush-Minded Liberals

Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome

Greg Weiher
Why is Kerry Getting a Pass?

Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber

Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"

 

February 17, 2004

Mike Ferner
The Countryside Murders in Iraq

Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation as Psychopath

Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate: a Victory for Free Speech

Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"

Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The Nation

Ximena Ortiz
A Bush Doctrine, of Sorts

Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?

Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"

Steve Perry
Kerry 1, Drudge 0


February 16, 2004

James Johnston
Huddling with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World

Sara Eltantawi
To Wear the Hijab or Not

Bruce Anderson
Kevin Cooper and the Midnight Needle

Elaine Cassel
Feds on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas

Rahul Mahajan
Bush, Is the Tide Finally Turning?

Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death

Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean

Larry David
My War

Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing

Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made


February 14/15, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the March of Empires

Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic

William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics

Stan Goff
Beloved Haiti

Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election

Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me

Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot

Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant

Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left

Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism

William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map

Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa

Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation

Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest

Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert

Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues That Matter?


February 13, 2004

Alan Maass
Kevin Cooper's Fight to Live

Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club

Annie Higgins
On a Street in America

Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader

Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation

Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken

Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll

 

February 12, 2004

Ray McGovern
George Tenet's Spin Cycle

Robert Jensen
Bush's Nuclear Hypocrisy

Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea

February 11, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways

Steve Perry
Bush v. Bush?

 

February 10, 2004

Kurt Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa

Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)

Elizabeth Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry

Mickey Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"

 

 

February 9, 2004

Michael Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet

Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits

Bill Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?

Dr. Susan Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment: Boob Tube Super Bowl

 

February 7/8, 2004

Kathleen Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with Jewish Self-Absorption

Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping

Dave Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine in Transit

Alexander Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel

February 6, 2004

Ron Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?

Joanne Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy

Saul Landau
Happiness and Botox

Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide from Perle and Frum

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure: Our Own

 

 

February 5, 2004

Benjamin Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free Zone

Khury Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"

Mokhiber / Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003

Teresa Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right

David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools

Norman Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources

Cockburn / St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!

 

 

February 4, 2004

Brian McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's Last Round Up?

Mark Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel

Judith Brown
Palestine and the Media

Frederick B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's Junta?

Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating the Spooks

M. Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract

Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?

Kevin Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It

 

 

 

February 3, 2004

Alan Maass
The Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"

Nick Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded in Iraq

Rahul Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure

Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?

Laura Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures

Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts Fairness Campaign

Hammond Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless

Website of the Day
Waging Peace

 

 

February 2, 2004

Gary Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail

Justin E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free Environment

Tom Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee

Winslow Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget

Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth

Leonard Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is Rigged

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean

Website of the Day
Resistance: In the Eye of the American Hegemon

 


Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004

Paul de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities

Bernard Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium

Jack Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks

Christopher Reed
Broken Ballots

Michael Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear

Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War

Lee Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement

George Bisharat
Right of Return

Ray McGovern
Nothing to Preempt

Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks

Conn Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs

Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons

Phillip Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit

Christopher Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read

John Holt
War in the Great White North

Mickey Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley

Mark Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key

Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif

Ben Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please

Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert

 


January 30, 2004

Saul Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List

Michael Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in the Woods

Elaine Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo

David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton

Mike Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression

David Miller
The Hutton Whitewash

Sam Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake", Senator Kerry?


January 29, 2004

Patricia Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist

Ron Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized" Immigration

Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq

Greg Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on Moon and Mars

Norman Solomon
The State of the Media Union

Cockburn / St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?

 

January 28, 2004

Kathy Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of Torture and Assassination

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


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CounterPunch Exclusive:
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February 23, 2004

Nader's Nadir?

Not a Chance

By JOSH FRANK

Watch out for the Democrat backlash, Ralph Nader is running for President as an Independent. Of course most agree Nader's run will not accrue nearly as many votes as his 2000 tally. Nonetheless these weak-kneed liberals are fearful of their deranged "spoiler" scenario.

Hollow political observers like The Nation's Eric "I have no spine" Alterman, will surely bark a shrill (read kick-me dog) denouncement of Nader's bid -- the whole while failing to articulate a coherent strategy for challenging the corporate entrenched Democrats as they genuflect at the feet of Republicans' every whim.

And if you plan on backing Nader you better sport a flak jacket, for there is a shotgun shell of scare tactics about to blast your way. As if Bush alone has placed our heads in a collective noose. Don't be fooled, Bush's loyal Democratic henchman have been at his side the whole while.

The 2002 congressional elections should have been a wake-up call for the bewildered Democrats, as their feeble opposition cost them control of the Senate. One month prior to that November election the Dems caved and voted in support of Bush's Iraq War Resolution. This after the Dems' overwhelming endorsement of Attorney General Ashcroft's Patriot Act, with Russ Feingold's sole dissenting vote in the Senate. But don't forget it was trusty Feingold who helped Ashcroft achieve his royal fervor in the first place. Thanks again for one that Russ.

Yes, the Democrats also supported the smart-bombing of Afghanistan. And no they didn't go after Bush for his friendly ties to Kenny Boy Lay of Enron, even though Bush flew around on the crook's private jet campaigning in 2000. How could they? They too pandered to Enron and ol' Kenny Boy's bank roll. Nor did the Democrats question Bush's forest plan, which was mirrored after language Democratic Senator Tom Daschle slipped into a bill in the summer of 2002.

Daschle's legal jargon, backed by the Sierra Club and other Big Green traitors, allowed logging on First American's holy land in the Black Hills of South Dakota, without having to abide by environmental restraints or environmental lawsuits. But we better blame those darn Naderites for that one. Never mind more Democrats voted for Bush in Florida than Ralph Nader, it is still that ego driven Nader's fault, damit!

How about the Supreme Court? Bush will surely shift the court if he is allowed to appoint a judge in the next four years, right? Don't fret, that is just another Democratic scare tactic. Alexander Cockburn summed it up best in an article he penned in July of 2000:

"A Democrat in the White House is no guarantee of a liberal on the Court. Truman put up four, all of them awful. By contrast, Eisenhower nominated the great liberal William Brennan, and Gerald Ford picked John Stevens, the court's current liberal champion, and indeed, the only justice to rule against two oil companies in one of the recent batches of Supreme Court decisions. Nixon's nominee, Harold Blackmun, wrote the Roe v. Wade decision. Twenty years later, Bush Sr.'s nominee, Souter, wrote the Planned Parenthood v. Casey decision in 1992 reaffirming the "essential holding" of Roe v. Wade, and arguing that "choice" was now installed in the national culture. The Court echoed that view in its recent upholding of the Miranda rule."

Sure Gloria Steinem will be bussed around swing states dispensing her panic that those back alley abortions will surely return if Bush isn't dethroned next November. But how will John Kerry, who is of late rhetorically attacking free-trade, enforce tougher worker rights abroad while teenage girls continue to sew our Gap clothes and Nike sneakers for pennies a day? He won't, because Kerry is no feminist or human rights champion. In fact Bush has done more to upset the free-trade community than any Democrat is recent history. Scary thought indeed. So anyway back to Ralph.

Nader is now publicly calling for the impeachment of the President. It is a reasonable request. Bush has led America into a war based on disinformation and lies. The Republicans attacked Clinton for a cigar and an intern, but the Democrats won't go after Bush for misleading Americans into war. Why? It's simple; the Democrats on the whole supported the illegal invasion, which was piggybacked on the Clinton and Gore Iraq Liberation Act signed back in 1998.

And now we have Senator John "I committed war crimes" Kerry leading in polls across the land. However, the Skull and Bones blood brother of George W. Bush isn't offering us any solid alternative to politics as usual. It would be nice if he were. But Kerry won't repeal Bush's Tax Cuts for the rich, pull out US troops in Iraq, or sign the Kyoto agreement. In fact prior to the Iraq debacle Kerry professed, "The President is authorized to use the Armed Forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to ... defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." What a leader Kerry, isn't.

So as the "liberal intelligentsia" retreats back into empire defense mode, don't be afraid to stand up in opposition. If it means supporting a third party candidate like Nader, so be it. The chattering classes will surely scream that this is Nader's nadir. But it isn't. It's the Democrats' and all those who follow the "Anybody But Bush" mantra blindly. You won't be a "spolier," the rotten Democrats already have that one covered.

Josh Frank can be reached at: frank_joshua@hotmail.com


Weekend Edition Features for February 20 / 22, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry: He's Peaking Already!

Derek Seidman
Chasing Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!

Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem

Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops

Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq

John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People

Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary

Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq

Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and Hypocrisy

Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back

Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala

Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle

Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights Act?

David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons

Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget

David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This

Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics

Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert

Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique

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