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The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, 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 donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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October 28, 2005 Jason Leopold Otober 27, 2005 Saul Landau Stuart Hodkinson Ingmar Lee Lila Rajiva Ilan Pappe Niranjan Ramakrishnan Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Cockburn / St. Clair
October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly Gary Leupp Mike Marqusee Eric Ruder Patrick Cockburn Joshua Frank J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Website of
the Day
October 25, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Conn Hallinan Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Jackie Corr Robert Day John Sugg
October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Bill and Kathleen
Christison
October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Billy Sothern Saul Landau Ralph Nader Behrooz Ghamari Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Fred Gardner Lee Sustar Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen James Petras Joshua Frank Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Michelle Bollinger Missy Comley
Beattie Kona Lowell Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff Winslow T. Wheeler Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Madis Senner Michael Donnelly
Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Jeremy Brecher
/ Patrick Cockburn Kevin Zeese Ross Eisenbrey Randy Shields Justine Davidson After Lucas
Cranach Joe Allen
October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Stephen Soldz Chet Richards Patrick Cockburn Scott Richard
Lyons Ralph Nader Website of
the Day
October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Ron Jacobs Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor Dave Lindorff Virginia Rodino Thomas Healy Ralph Nader Stephen Lendman Patrick Cockburn
October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Norman Solomon Cockburn /
Sengupta Mike Whitney Uri Avnery Harold Pinter Website of
the Day
October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Neve Gordon Moshe Adler Christopher Brauchli Diane Farsetta Sam Husseini Monica Benderman Mickey Z. Douglas C.
Smyth Lee Sustar Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Joshua Frank David Vest Ben Tripp Poets Basement Website of
the Weekend
October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen Ron Jacobs Sasha Kramer Katrina Yeaw Nicole Colson Raúl Zibechi Nikolas Kozloff Website of the Day
Jeremy Scahill Jeff Birkenstein Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Stan Cox Anis Memon Gary Leupp Dave Zirin Matthew Koehler Werther Website of
the Day
Omar Waraich William Cook Phil Gasper Dave Lindorff Matt Vidal John Gautreaux Diana Johnstone Mark Weisbrot Brian J. Foley Website of
the Day
October 11, 2005 Roger Morris
/ Steve Schmidt Lila Rajiva Bill Quigley Paul Craig Roberts Dave Lindorff Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Mitchel Cohen Tariq Ali Website of
the Day
October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig
Corrie Joshua Frank Gideon Levy Alan Wallis Mickey Z. CounterPunch News Service Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader Jennifer Van Bergen Saul Landau Jeff Halper Lenni Brenner Nikolas Kozloff Brian Cloughley Alice Slater John Gautreaux Fred Gardner Niranjan Ramakrishnan M.G. Piety Tom Gorman Mike Whitney Aseem Shrivastava Ben Tripp Poets' Basement
October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson Will Youmans Dave Lindorff Judith Scherr Russell D. Hoffman Jared Bernstein Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of
the Day
P. Sainath Scott Parkin Paul Craig
Roberts Andréa Schmidt Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank M. Junaid Alam Matthew Koehler Robert Pollin
October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Robert Jensen Ramzy Baroud Col. Dan Smith Dave Zirin Paul Craig Roberts Alan Maass
October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Mike Roselle Joshua Frank John Chuckman Alan Farago Mickey Z. Christine & Ethan Rose Gary Leupp Website of the Day
October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank Seth Sandronsky Jeffrey St. Clair
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October 28, 2005 One Ring to Bind Them AllIs the US Really Against Torture?By MANUEL GARCÍA, Jr. It is true the overwhelming majority of Americans are aghast at the use of torture by agents of the US government, and favor an immediate, permanent and absolute abolition on its use. It is true that prominent US law-makers, policy-makers and military leaders -- including members of the President's own Republican Party, like Senator John McCain and former Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell -- have made vigorous and repeated public statements to the effect that torture should be banned from the operations of the US military. It is true that on 6 October 2005 the US Senate adopted a bill championed by Senator McCain, which would prohibit the "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of prisoners held by US combat forces. McCain's legislation is an amendment attached to the $440 billion defense-spending bill. A joint congressional committee is now reconciling House of Representatives and Senate versions of the defense-spending legislation, to send a final version to the President for his signature into law -- or his veto of the entire spending bill. McCain is confident his measure will survive the joint committee, it passed 90 to 9 in the Senate. And, it is also true that the Bush Administration, still in the thrall of "Saruman" Cheney and his "Uruk-hai" Neo-Cons (1), announced on 7 October its intent to veto any bill including restrictions on the Administration's use of torture in dealing with captives. If so, this would be Bush's first veto. If the US Congress overturns such a veto -- requiring a super-majority of 2/3 in both houses of Congress -- then we will know the country really disavows torture. And, that might be a signal that the Establishment had reconciled itself to a change of CEO. It is not enough for the public to be against torture, as obviously as they are against the Iraq War, favor impeachment for having started it deceptively, as well as favoring so much else not allowed them like universal health insurance and education. Unless the US ruling class also favors a ban on torture of captured "natives" (today called "terrorists"), we will not see such a ban enacted by the US Congress. Very simply, if torture is bad for business it will go, regardless of what Bush does. If torture is deemed necessary for business, then to hell with the public and both torture and Bush will stay. For Bush, "staying" would mean both an impeachment immunization and a continuation of his policy style in successor Republican leadership. Is it too cynical to think that some of the outspoken critics of torture as policy might be showboating to curry favor with the public, having an eye on political campaigns in 2006 and 2008? After all, many of the congressional representatives who express a distaste for torture now could have acted earlier by voting to withhold funds from the military after the revelations of Abu Ghraib. Abraham Lincoln resorted to this ploy in 1846 to oppose the Mexican War, and similar measures were adopted in opposition to the Vietnam War and the Nicaraguan War (the Contra proxy war of --1979-1990). A defense-spending bill with the McCain rider could be the beginning of such an Establishment revolt against the Iraq War (that is to say, how it is managed), because any presidential veto would necessarily cut funds to the military in Iraq and Afghanistan within weeks. It is most probable, from personal, emotional and pragmatic points of view, that high-ranking torture critics like McCain and Powell see that the American capitalist enterprise can be managed with greater efficiency by dropping torture in favor a bit more diplomatic sophistication. So, given the increasing difficulties of the Bush Administration in the fall of 2005, it is most likely that torture will drop away as official policy, if not immediately, then with the change of administrations after 2008. As ever, the criterion dictating the timing of any such policy refinement is one of efficacy, it will not be an alteration of goals. The calls by pro-war politicians to end torture now may be a fortuitous melding of their actual "personal feelings" with current popular sentiment, all during the ebb tide in the political fortunes of the Bush Administration, and thus in anticipation of the next flood tide in American politics. Waves all pass through the same water. American political careers today seem to be like water waves. While their rise and fall give an illusion of tides in national policy, in fact they are more often the rise and collapse of personal ambitions rippling through a constancy of political and economic control. Notes [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saruman . The "One Ring" is oil. Also, one hopes for a Fitzgerald Contraction to purely "cons."
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair                      |
