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Stories
November
10, 2004
Bernestine
Singley
Tampa Vote: Dispatches from the Ground
November
9, 2004
Meredeth
Kolodner
Rebuilding the Anti-War Movement
Saul
Landau
The Appeal of George W. Bush: a Mystery for the World to Solve
Brian
Cloughley
Diego Garcia and Freedom, Bush-Style
Charles
Glass
US is Failing the Test of History in
Iraq
Robert
Fisk
Arafat Died Years Ago
Paul
Craig Roberts
The American Century is Over
Adam
Federman
Witch Hunt at Columbia: Middle East Profs Smeared as Anti-Semites
M.
Junaid Alam
The Discredited Logic of ABB
Tony
Kevin
Fallujah and the Making of a War Crime
Pierre
Tristam
Zealots on the Mount: Get Voltaire on Speed Dial!
Patrick
Cockburn
Crushing Fallujah Will Not End the
Iraq War
Website
of the Day
Don't Blame the Voters!
November
8, 2004
Roger
Burbach
Out of the Ashes: Bush Win is a Defeat
for Democrats, Not the Left
Dave
Lindorff
Lessons from a Quagmire: Fallujah, the Hue of Iraq
Greg
Moses
After the Morning After: On the Homefront of the Civil War
Greg
Bates
Nader's Election Legacy: Something to Stand On
Michael
Donnelly
The Hit-and-Run Left: From ABB to CYA
Nick
Schwellenbach
Gutting FOIA: the Harm of Too Much Secrecy
Adam
Jones
Men vs. Civilians in Fallujah
Amelia
Peltz
Note from Palestine: This Is Not the Time for Despair
David
Swanson
The Media Black Out on Vote Fraud
Brian
Rainey
The Devil Made Them Do It? Elections, Religion and the American
People
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Landau, Hamod
Website
of the Day
A Report on the US Supply of Toxic Weapons to Iraq
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
November
5, 2004
David
Vest
The Not-Bush Brothers: a Fond Farewell
Elizabeth
Boylan
The Dems and Faith-Based Politics
Conn
Hallinan
War Crimes and Iraq
David
Zonsheine
Poetry and the Courage to Refuse
Cynthia
McKinney
It's a New Day!
Elaine
Cassel
Running from the Religious Right
Chris
Geovanis
First Protect Your Vote: Lessons for Democrats on Fixing Elections
from Chicago
Rob
Ritchie
Election 2004 by the Numbers
Jo
Guldi
The Beast of History is In
November
4, 2004
Sharon
Smith
The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Lesser-Evilism
CounterPunch
Wire
Bush Voters: 2000 v. 2004
Ben
Tripp
My Fellow Americans...Get Stuffed!
Michael
Donnelly
Why Not Blame Rosie?
Vijay
Prashad
An Election of Homophobia and Misogyny
Jules
Rabin
De Profundis: the Morning After
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Professions of Faith:
"Your Rich Men are Full of Violence"
Zoltan
Grossman
Blue State Secession: the Only Solution?
Jonah
Birch
1968 and Today
Dave
Lindorff
What Went Wrong?
Jack
McCarthy
I Knew It Was Over When Michael Moore Showed Up: He Was For Nader...Before
He Was Against Him
Donna
J. Volatile
Ahoy Kerrycrats! Welcome to Our Nightmare
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bright Side of Black Tuesday
November
3, 2004
James
Hodge / Linda Cooper
The CIA and Abu Ghraib: 50 Years of
Training Torturers
Ann
Harrison
The Ghost Votes in the Machine: Voting Snafus Across the Nation
Greg
Moses
Blues for Fallujah
Anis
Memon
The Moral (Values) of This Election
Mickey
Z.
Post Mortem
Josh
Frank
The Dems Should be Ashamed
Chris
Floyd
No Ways Tired: Defeat, Dissent and the Bush Machine
spArk
Smoke Signals from Portland: Karmic Blowback and the Democrats
Friedrich
von Schiller
Folly, Thou Conquerest
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Democrats in End Time: Who to Blame
Now?
November
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Democratic Elections in Historical
Perspective: The Wrong Side Wins
Lance
Selfa
Selling the War on Terror
Laura
Carlsen
The US Elections and Latin America: Can the US Ever be a Good
Neighbor?
James
Davis
To Control the Event: Attention Bicyclists
Richard
Oxman
Getting Up with Osama
Dr.
Ira Kay
A Mental Map of the Bush Presidency
Jesse
Walker
Frankenstein v. Chucky: the Halloween Election
Thomas
C. Mountain
Election '24, Deja Vu?: LaFollette, Nader, & the "Most
Important Election of Our Lifetimes"
November
1, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and
Blew It
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate Confirmed; Press Yawns
Greg
Bates
Nader Voter Survey Results
Roger
Morris
Novel Politics: Only Fiction Can Do
This Election Justice
Diane
Christian
Death Tolls
Lenni
Brenner
Secularists Be Warned: Christlike Kerry Roams Spiritual Universe
Christopher
C. Conway
Can the Left Sink Any Lower?
Francis
Boyle
Legal Elites and the Iraq War: the Nazis Had Their Law Professors,
Too
Jason
Leopold
Rummy's Failed War Plan
Website
of the Day
Dylan Resurrects "Masters of War"
October
30 / 31, 2004
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Long March and the Million Worker
March
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells All
Bruce
Anderson
Notes from the Big Empty: When the Hippies Invaded NoCal
Vicente
Navarro
They Worked for Franco: How Sec. of State Cordell Hull and Nobel
Laureate Camilo Jose Cela Collaborated with the Fascist Regime
Robin
Blackburn
How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security
Greg
Bates
A Question of Character: What Makes Nader Tick?
Nancy
Welch
The American Health Care Crisis: an Interview with Dr. David
Himmelstein
William
Lind
Election Day: Which Menendez Brother Will You Vote For?
Brian
Cloughley
Uzbekistan and Bush Hypocrisies
Suzan
Mazur
Oops They Did It Again: the NYTs the Paper of Record and Rip-Offs
Greg
Moses
Standing at the Graves of Iraq
John
Chuckman
Osama's Endorsement
Richard
Oxman
Why Not Accept Osama's Offer?
Ken
Avidor
Landscape of Fear: When Ugly is Suspicious
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Bush, Ba'ath and Beyond
Hope
Bastian
Strangling Cuba's Economy
P.
Sainath
Tower of Gabble: Toward a Sustainable Rhetoric
Dave
Zirin
Bush League: Why MLB Owners Support the Prez
Jon
Swift
The Dry Drunk Thang: Put a Cork in It
Ron
Jacobs
The Joke's on Me: a Review of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1
Alexander
Billet
Taking Theatre Back: Are the States Ready for "Stuff Happens"?
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Laymon, Norris, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Weekend
The Origins of Halloween
October
29, 2004
Harry
Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County
Clare
October
28, 2004
Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's
Ghosts of October
Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion
in the Ranks
Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits
Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy
in Red Sox Nation
Alexander
Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War
October
27, 2004
Jules
Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics
Dave
Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue
Katherine
Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties
Ignore Working Parents
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
October 26,
2004
Brian Cloughley
Three
Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan
William Blum
Fear
Factors
Lenni Brenner
The
1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004
Ben Tripp
The
Chicken Salad Election
Fidel Castro
After the Fall
Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus
Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan
Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo
Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories
Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry
Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush
Kathleen Christison
Why
I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't
October 25,
2004
Ralph Nader
Letter
from a Minnesota Highway
Werther
West
Texas Wahabbism
Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License
Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah
William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story
John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency
Uri Avnery
On
the Road to Civil War
October 22
/ 24, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
You
Can't Blame Nader for This
Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions
Willliam A.
Cook
Killing for Christ
Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?
Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children
While Arresting Priest
Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really
Means
William S.
Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War
Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry
Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"
Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?
Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military
Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion
M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America
David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and
Kerry
David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs
Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story
Website of
the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling
October 21,
2004
Ben Tripp
The
Undecided Voter Examined
Joshua Frank
Kerry
and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green
Stan Cox
What
the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses
Bill Martinez
State
Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply
Mark Engler
The War and Globalization
Lina Britto
and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia:
a Year After the October Insurrection
Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
Jason Leopold
Sinclair
Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception
Jesse Sharkey
A
Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School
Students
Col. Dan Smith
Choking
Free Speech About the Draft
Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion
David Vest
If
Bush Wins, Blame Me
Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny
Ron Jacobs
Time
to Kick It Up a Notch
James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?
Christopher
Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest
Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...
Website of
the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue
October 19,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
November 10, 2004
There's No
There There
Debating
a Neocon
By
STAN GOFF
When I was first invited by Dr. Stephen
Smith to speak at Winthrop University in South Carolina, I was
preparing a trip to Haiti and I didn't give much thought to how
I would handle the engagement. I'd just finished being pole-axed
by a bout of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever and it was everything
I could do to just pull the Haiti trip together. So I didn't
pay much attention to the person who would appear with me
one Patrick Clawson to represent "the other side"
in a forum/debate billed as "What Next in Iraq? A Post-Election
Perspective."
While I was in Haiti, a full
blown intifada had broken out against the de facto US puppet
government of Gerard Latortue, so I had extended my trip for
a week. The problem was, I was scheduled to speak to a group
at Binghamton NY on November 4th, and had only just arrived from
Haiti the night of the 3rd (missing my opportunity to go to the
polls and refuse to vote for either Bush or Kerry), and I had
a weekend planned with my family and my 23-month-old grandson
from Friday night (the 5th) through Sunday night (the 7th) and
the debate with Dr. Clawson was on the 8th. So I didn't really
check out who this guy was until Sunday afternoon when I was
exhausted (a condition exacerbated by the acquisition of an amoeba
while I was in Haiti).
It was with less than a day
to prepare, as well as drive from Raleigh to Rock Hill, South
Carolina, that I web-searched "patrick clawson" and
discovered that he is a serious neocon heavyweight. Here is
his bio from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, where
he is deputy director:
"Patrick Clawson is deputy
director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He
is the author of more than thirty scholarly articles on the Middle
East, which have appeared in, among other scholarly media, Foreign
Affairs, International Economy, Oxford Bulletin of Economics
and Statistics and Middle East Journal. Dr. Clawson
has also published op-ed articles in the New York Times, Wall
Street Journal, Washington Post, among other newspapers.
Dr. Clawson is currently senior editor of Middle East Quarterly.
He has testified before congressional committees more than a
dozen times and was co-convenor of the Presidential Study Group
organized by The Washington Institute, which published its recommendations
to the new Bush administration in the form a monograph, Navigating
Through Turbulence: America and the Middle East in a New Century
(The Washington Institute, 2001).
"From 1993 to 1997, Dr.
Clawson was a senior research professor at the Institute for
National Strategic Studies of the National Defense University
in Washington, D.C., where he was the editor of the Institute's
flagship annual publication, Strategic Assessment. From
1981 to 1992, he was a research economist for four years each
at the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and Foreign Policy
Research Institute, where he was also editor of Orbis,
a quarterly review of foreign affairs.
"His most recent authored and edited works include:
How to Build a New Iraq
after Saddam, editor
(The Washington Institute, 2003)
The Last Arab-Israeli Battlefield? Implications of an Israeli
Withdrawal from Lebanon, co-editor (The Washington Institute,
2000)
Dollars and Diplomacy: The Impact of U.S. Economic Initiatives
on Arab-Israeli Negotiations, co-author (The Washington Institute,
1999)
Iran Under Khatami: A Political, Economic, and Military Assessment,
co-author (The Washington Institute, 1998)
Iraq Strategy Review: Options for U.S. Policy, editor
(The Washington Institute, 1998)
U.S. Sanctions on Iran (Emirates Center for Strategic
Studies and Research, 1997)
Energy Security in the Twenty-First Century (NDU Press,
1995, edited)
Iran's Strategic Intentions and Capabilities (NDU Press,
1994, edited)
How Has Saddam Hussein Survived? Economic Sanctions 1990-93
(NDU Press, 1993)
Iran's Challenge to the West: How, When, and Why (The
Washington Institute, 1993)
"Dr. Clawson graduated
with a doctoral degree from the New School for Social Research
and a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College. He speaks Persian
(Farsi), French, Spanish, German, and Hebrew."
Well...
My silent reaction to viewing
this information was, "Holy Shit! I've got maybe four hours
to prepare to debate in front of God-knows-how-many people with
this six-language-speaking, ultra-curriculum-vitaed, foreign-policy-PhD'ed
 Near East scholar who had,
according to the ads for the debate, just driven 2,000 miles
around Iraq. The guy's got Richard Perle and Paul Wolfowitz
on his advisory board, and turns out to personally know the vice-prez.
How in the hell do I prepare for the subtly-crafted, super-erudite,
arcanely-justified arguments that I am about to face Me, with
a degree I got by correspondence in the Army, whose never been
to Iraq, and who frequently reads his remarks in public presentations
to counteract a tendency to wander completely off into things
like what is the best way to season collards? Holy shit!"
So I dredged up every bit of
research I had used to write about the region, printed the stuff
out, and started reading. During a break in the reading at around
midnight the day of the debate, I battered my keyboard to produce
15 minutes of opening remarks. At midnight, I am about as sharp
as a bowling ball, so I went with combative simplicity and the
stuff I've repeated until it has become a mantra.
He might red bait me, so I'd
just claim my politics up front and take that away from him.
Don't get tangled up in arcane minutiae; stick to arguing what
the real reason are likely to be for the war I couldn't
argue about specific developments anyway, because I'd been out
of touch for a month. Denounce Kerry early and often so he can't
turn it into a post-election debate about Bush's "mandate."
Don't claim the war is about "stealing" oil (a favored
bit of nonsense among liberals that can be easily demolished).
Talk about it as a crisis of capitalism, because they never
want to discuss this. Hit him in his Zionism because it's basically
indefensible any time a couple of actual facts are deployed and
if he gives me any shit, bring up the USS Liberty (A low blow
I know, but I didn't have to go there, as it turned out). Imply
that the re-election of Bush might actually be a better situation
than the election of Kerry on account of the Bush administration's
propensity to be the bull in the China-shop (Fallujah is proving
this yet again), and bait him into defending the list of failures
so far in Iraq. Finally, mention Haiti and see if he bites.
My opening remarks were:
I'm sure some of you have
heard the story of the frog and the scorpion, but for those who
haven't, I'll tell it again.
There was a frog about to
swim across a river, when suddenly he was confronted with a scorpion
in his path. The frog fell back in fright, but the scorpion
was quick to reassure him, "I'm not going to sting you.
I just have a favor to ask."
The frog, still startled
but hoping the scorpion meant him no harm, said, "But you
are a scorpion. What favor could you ask of me?"
The scorpion replied, "I
just need a ride across the river. I can't swim, but you can.
If I sting you and you die, how would I get across? Can't you
please give me a ride?"
The frog thought for a moment,
and in his relief that the scorpion had not stung him, he consented.
The scorpion climbed on the frog's back, and off they went across
the river. As the frog reached the riverbank and pulled himself
out of the water, the scorpion stung him and stepped onto land.
The dying frog cried out
to the scorpion, "You told me you wouldn't sting me."
The scorpion replied, "I
can't help it. It's my nature," and walked away.
In most of the debates we
have heard about the war in Iraq during the election campaign,
debates that are now thankfully past, we heard the usual point/counterpoint
about weapons of mass destruction, about who could more competently
carry out the military occupation of Iraq, about who could convince
what allies to help carry this burden, about what has or hasn't
been done about Osama bin Laden, or about who was more competent
to carry out the War on Terrorism.
I will depart from these
formulae. I think these arguments are red herrings, that is,
the fallacious method of introducing irrelevant topics to divert
attention away from the real one.
I don't believe the war
is the exclusive product of the delusional thinking of the islamophobic
clique that surrounds our current presidential mediocrity, as
many liberals suggest. I don't believe the war ever had anything
at all to do with weapons of mass destruction. I don't believe
the very people who call this a War on Terrorism believe it for
one minute, and moreover I believe they know perfectly well that
the term "war on terrorism" is oxymoronic inasmuch
as one cannot prosecute a war against a tactic. I don't believe
it is a war to steal anyone's oil, though it has everything to
do with oil and more. The fact that half the people in the United
States believed at some point that a shattered nation like Iraq
constituted a threat to the United States does not compel me
for a moment to refrain from pointing out that this is a proposition
that was and is idiotic on its face and it is not at all unusual
for half of a national population to believe something that is
patently idiotic. I am not a conservative, and I am not a liberal,
and I am not a politician, and I am not a pacifist, and I am
not religious, so I am not in the least compelled or constrained
to prop up the polemical foundations of any of the agendas that
might be associated with these kinds of affiliations.
I believe that the war in
Iraq is symptomatic of a much deeper global crisis, and that
it foreshadows a period in which that crisis a crisis of
global capitalism will manifest itself not only in war
but in rapidly widening social destabilization, the further militarization
of the world system, and simultaneous economic and environmental
collapse.
Just in case there is a
temptation to resort to red-baiting to avoid responding to the
content of my arguments, let me save you the trouble. I am on
record as a severe critic of capitalism as an inherently destructive
system built on genocide and slavery, sustained by misogyny,
racism, poverty, and war, and bound to undermine its own material
basis through ecocide. I do not, however, believe as some leftists
seem to, that a more sensible system will inevitably replace
it. If progressives continue to whine and wring their hands
instead of fighting back, we could very well end up with a century
or so of anarchy and warlords in the context of a mass human
die-off on a ruined and toxified planet.
Present-day imperialism
is a real system, and it is currently directed by the American
state. The war in Iraq was probably the inevitable action of
this state in response to an impending and inexorable erosion
of the very basis of American global power. The war in Iraq,
while deeply morally repugnant, is not a failure of morality,
but the action of a system that can't help it, because like the
scorpion, it is that system's nature.
Republicans and Democrats
can't tell you this. Pacifists and most true religious believers
won't tell you this. Politicians, who will tell you only what
you want to hear, won't tell you this. But I believe that it
is irresponsible to delay telling the patient who will die of
gangrene the unpleasant fact that the leg must be amputated.
Global capitalism runs on
fossil energy, but the United States does not have to take oil
from anyone. Every oil producing nation, including Iraq, has
been perfectly willing to sell oil to the United States. It
is cheaper to buy oil that it is to steal it with military action.
The issue of oil is an issue not of production but of increasing
demand between competitors in a period when we have nearly reached
the peak of production output.
Global demand now is at
79.5 million barrels of oil a day. The International Energy
Agency and the Department of Energy predict global demand of
115 mbd by 2020, but that is based on demand rising at 1-1.25%
per year. In fact, demand is rising at twice that rate. Yet
industry experts who are not spinning figures to reassure stockholders
tell us that with massive improvements in infrastructure and
perfect political stability, the highest output achievable is
around 85 mbd. This year, China passed Japan as the world's
second largest importer of crude oil.
If anyone believes that
Dick Cheney's energy task force, on which Dr. Clawson served,
did not review these figures as part of their long-term strategic
energy assessment and how it related to the continued possibilities
for the accumulation of capital, I have a mountaintop retreat
to sell you in Miami.
So the question of oil is
not a question of taking it. It's the question of the mathematics
of it when global capitalist competition continues to trend toward
100 mbd by the end of the decade, when there's not adequate flow
pressure to meet that demand. Someone gets cut. And someone
decides who gets cut. Establishing permanent military bases
in the very region where over half the remaining easily accessible
reserves exist goes a long way toward putting the power that
controls those bases in the driver's seat. As a friend of mine
once said, "Oil is not a normal commodity. No other commodity
has five US Navy battle groups patrolling the sea lanes to secure
it."
Iraq's pre-invasion production
was around 2.5 mbd, but even with heroic effort to restore it,
production has not risen above 1.8 mbd today a net loss
of 700,000 barrels a day and the US military effort alone
is calculated to have an energetic cost of 350,000 barrels a
day.
This is not business math.
This is geopolitical and military math. What is being sought
is a new foundation, a military one, upon which to base US global
supremacy as the current one is beginning to crumble. And reliance
on direct military violence to achieve one's national aims is
not a sign of strength, but a sign of weakness a sign that
there is a fundamental failure of hegemony. Hegemony is not
direct control, but internalization of control by those who are
dominated.
In 1968, Richard Nixon inherited
the hair-raising collapse of the US Treasury's gold pool and
the un-winnable occupation of Vietnam that had caused it. Within
the next four years, Nixon would abandon fixed currency exchange
rates and the gold standard, then allow a 20% devaluation of
the dollar that wiped out billions of dollars in US debts to
Western Europe and Japan. Since oil payments were denominated
in dollars, the consequent jump in the price of oil was a harsh
blow for Europe, Japan, Africa, and Latin America.
The US, on the other hand,
owned the dollar printing press, and it was able to recycle the
crisis, via petrodollars, through these regions. US puppet governments
in Iran and Saudi Arabia helped underwrite this system with their
ability to swing oil production.
This game of economic chicken
by Nixon set the stage for a new method to assure US supremacy,
since the post World War II industrial boom had run aground on
the rocks of the Marshall Plan nations' export capacity and on
Vietnam.
The currency speculation
that this abandonment of the gold standard and fixed exchange
rates stimulated led inevitably to currency crises in weaker
nations, whereupon the Reagan administration in response to the
Mexican currency crisis of 1982 gave the US its first crack at
loan-sharking through the International Monetary Fund, in which
it held controlling plurality and exclusive veto power. This
loan-sharking is called "structural adjustment," and
it not only bleeds 70 different nations white with an un-payable
external debt, paid in dollars by the way, these loans are contingent
on allowing US investors to penetrate national economies to take
over key economic sectors. This system is now referred to as
neoliberalism but I just call it debt-leverage imperialism. [I later found out that Dr. Clawson
once worked for the IMF.]
It is augmented by a Treasury
Bill standard by which the US is able to force its key capitalist
competitors who have the lion's share of their central
bank reserve currencies in dollar-denominated T-Bills, loans
to the United States that they know and the US knows it can never
pay back to continue to accept the dollar at its over-printed,
overvalued current levels out of fear that they will wipe out
the value of their own central banks.
This continually growing
glut of fiat dollars created the conditions for the precarious
Asian meltdown of 1998, for the dotcom bust of 2000, and for
the real estate bubble that will burst next. US private and
public debts are at record levels, and if or should I say
when there is a deflationary crisis around a falling dollar,
the US middle class will sink to the bottom like the Titanic.
At the same time, the external
debts of underdeveloped countries imposed upon them by IMF loan-sharking
are creating increasing anger and unrest around the world that
is already translating into political upheavals.
Just as the post World War
II US-dominated global architecture began to crumble toward the
end of the Vietnam invasion, the neoliberalism that underwrote
the bacchanalia of the 90's is reaching its endgame. This is
the deeper reason that something has to be done, and what we
are witnessing right now is the particular neocon version of
how that global architecture will be rebuilt by dint of
arms actually and it's faltering badly in Southwest Asia,
where its ignorant and racist Orientalism, its overwhelming hubris,
and its devotion to and trust of the Apartheid state of Israel,
have led it into a deep and increasingly hostile labyrinth.
The region is now a hot
cauldron of competing and contradictory interests: the aspirations
of Kurdistan opposed to the interests of Iran, Syria, Turkey,
and the thug Allawi; the continuing expansionary aims of the
settler state of Israel tied irrevocably to the aims of the US
who desperately needs some street cred in a region where US prestige
is the lowest in living history; the connections being forged
between Iran, Russia, and China; the internal destabilization
of Pakistan by its alliance with the United States; the refusal
of the Iraqi resistance to conform to the US script; and the
potential destabilization of the Saudi regime the ultimate
goal of bin Laden all along where living standards have
gone into steep decline, aquifers are being depleted to squeeze
out more oil, and where the masses become more restive each day.
None of us can predict exactly
how and when this pot will boil over, only that it will.
So in closing, I have good
news and I have bad news.
The good news is that the
results of this election may not have been as terrible as thought
by those who allowed their revulsion to George W. Bush and his
coterie to cloud their view of the larger global conjuncture.
But the reality is that this crew is proving much more likely
to run the locomotive of imperialism off the tracks than their
Hamiltonian realist counterparts.
The specific crisis in Iraq
is not the crisis of military defeat which is not, at any
rate, ultimately determined by tactical outcomes, but by political
outcomes.
The US crisis in Iraq is
that one goal of that occupation was to demonstrate a fictional
US military invincibility to shock and awe the world.
The crisis is not simply the very real tactical crisis that we
can smell emanating from the podium of every Pollyanna briefing
from Rumsfeld's War Department. The deeper crisis is that the
shock-and-awe bluff is being successfully called, and the rest
of the world is now alive to the fact that the great power bleeds.
So we see now, for example,
the continental drift of Latin America, from the Chavista popular
democracy in Venezuela, to the current Haitian intifada, to the
popular rebellions in Bolivia and Ecuador, to the recent election
of a leftist government in Uruguay a development that is accelerated
by the fact that the US state has gotten itself bogged down in
a swamp of military and political contradictions in Southwest
Asia. The collapse of imperialism was going to be difficult
in any case, but I have to say that it is a good thing in the
larger scheme of things, and we should welcome it. That's the
good news.
The bad news is that we
have not reconstituted a vital, militant left that is clear on
its responsibility to seek political power in this country yet.
And I'm not talking about Howard Dean, folks. Anyone who considers
the Democratic Party as a left party needs to pull their face
away from that bottle of spot remover. We need to refound the
left in this country that has a fighting spirit and that does
not limit its activities to the fetish of elections and
one that can forge a program that does not shy away from the
difficult but necessary work of incorporating not just class,
but gender, oppressed nationality, and environmental justice
into that program.
That's the bad news, but
that can be corrected, starting now, and starting with the sisters
and brothers right here in this room. We cannot afford the luxury
of crying about an election. We are in a struggle for the soul
of our own society, a struggle against black-shirted reaction
on every front, and there can be no rest, no retreat, no compromise,
and no surrender. We cannot back down in the face of either
their patriot-baiting or their Patriot Act. As Irish revolutionary
James Connolly said, "The great only appear great because
we are on our knees. Stand up."
Now is our time to stand
up.
In fact, I was second to present
my opening remarks. While I was pretty nervous before he started
to talk, by the time he'd taken his 15 minutes to open, I grew
more and more relaxed. We were not being treated to either subtlety
or erudition. His pitch was barely above the level of a carnival
barker a rehash of what you might hear at any Centcom briefing.
The gist of it was and this was telling well, we made some mistakes,
at least the 'intelligence community' did, but now we are there,
and it would be a disservice to the Iraqi people for us to leave
the place and allow the 'terrorists' to take over.
That was it!?!?
This guy had boarded a plane
from DC to the Land of Strom to debate a burned-out commie vet
emaciated with an amoeba, and the best he could come up with
in front of around 300 people was "stay the course?"
That's when it occurred to
me, there's no there there. These people have no arguments they
can state. His opening remarks were a rehash of why John F.
Kerry was less fit to run Iraq than George W. Bush. Once anyone
refuses to engage in this speciousness, the neoconservatives
flounder like beached mullets.
We don't need the heavy artillery
of superbly crafted argument to face them down. The simplest
facts that were excluded from the presidential debates out of
political expediency (dare I call it opportunism) can shoot these
guys down like sparrows lined up on a fence.
(During a mini-engagement in
a class on Women and Global Politics, 21-year-old students were
handing Dr. Clawson his head.)
As the debate went forward,
Dr. Clawson:
(1) Claimed that 'the market'
can create natural resources.
(2) Said that Democrats wanted to attack Iraq, too.
(3) Recommended Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"
to the audience.
(4) Said that Democrats wanted to attack Iraq, too.
(5) Consistently refused to reply to any of the facts about Israeli
Apartheid and Palestinian Bantustans, or about Israeli violations
of UN resolutions (though we heard repeatedly that Saddam was
in violation of UN resolutions), or about Israeli weapons of
mass destruction.
(6) Said that Democrats wanted to attack Iraq, too.
(7) Referred four times to the 'Pottery Barn rule,' that 'you
break it, you buy it,' as an argument for staying in Iraq.
(8) Said that Democrats wanted to attack Iraq, too.
(9) Claimed that the hydrogen-economy was on the horizon and
that coal might replace gasoline (in coal-burning airplanes,
I assume).
(10) Said that Democrats wanted to attack Iraq, too.
(11) Said that the US has the responsibility to help 'weak and
fragile nations,' and that our disengagement with weak and fragile
Haiti was an example of what happens when we don't.
Whoa! He didn't say that last
one! Ah, but he did, and it was like a double-shot espresso.
With this target of opportunity squarely in a cleared field
of fire, the audience was treated to a detailed account of how
the US State Department orchestrated the February 29 coup d'etat
in Haiti, and about how badly THAT occupation is going, too.
He actually blushed after that one.
In every case, I agreed with
him that Democrats wanted to attack Iraq, too, and that they
had attacked it as often as possible throughout the eight-year
administration of Bill Clinton who by the way had killed
more Iraqis than George W. Bush. I also pointed out that Democrats,
not Republicans, were the most vocal in calling for a return
of military conscription, and that Kerry not only said he wouldn't
withdraw from Iraq, but that he would expand the troop numbers
making him the Lyndon Baines Johnson of Southwest Asia.
Not only that but any smart Democrat right now would be whooping
for joy that they won't get the next four years hung around their
necks, because the forces in motion including maybe stagflation
and the deepening defeat in Iraq are bigger than either
party of the rich.
It is truly remarkable how
easily KO'ed these neocons are once you step outside the tight
little ring of the Republicrats. They've got maybe three combinations,
and they are slow as a cow. Everything inside has been ritual
combat, so they do very badly when someone actually intends to
hit them.
One might think the audience
was put off by all this; that the conservatives were offended
when I called George W. Bush "Dick Cheney's meat puppet,"
or worse, that those who had desperately voted Kerry would be
offended by my speaking the unspeakable about him being another
bourgeois war-candidate.
Not so. People on both sides
were anxious to talk after the debate, asking for references
and links to some of the information, seeming suddenly stimulated
to ask new questions in the face of information to which many
had obviously never been exposed. They weren't angry. They
seemed almost relieved, like they'd been locked in and suddenly
found a key.
Take whatever moral from this
story you like. For this burned-out commie vet, it's keep battering
away because these people are weaker than they seem, even if
they DO have state power. (I'm ready for my IRS audit, sir.)
And quit accepting their premises, or you'll never end up with
anything except their conclusions.
Stan Goff is the author of "Hideous
Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti"
(Soft Skull Press, 2000) and "Full
Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He
is a member of the BRING
THEM HOME NOW! coordinating committee. His periodic essays
on the military can be found at http://www.freedomroad.org/home.html.
Email for BRING THEM HOME NOW! is bthn@mfso.org.
Goff can be reached at: sherrynstan@igc.org
Weekend
Edition Features for October 30 / 31, 2004
November
6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Don't
Say We Didn't Warn You
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Green Out
Carl
G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?
Saul
Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie
Gary
Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!
Ben
Tripp
You Call This a Party?
Paul
Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front
Jordan
Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM
Fred
Gardner
Haul of Justice
J.A.
Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered
Ramzy
Baroud
Life Without Arafat
Dave
Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete
Ron
Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost
Robert
Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise
Dave
Lindorff
Silver Linings
Richard
Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched
John
Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky
Rahul
Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War
Leila
Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge
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