|
Today's
Stories
April 12 /
13, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Olympic
Torch Toasts US Candidates
Patrick Cockburn
Warlord:
the Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr
Mike Whitney
Want to Save the Economy?
Robert Fantina
Bush's Brand of Morality
Conn Hallinan
Another Defining Moment in Iraq
Bill Hatch
In Praise of Hippies and the Counter-Culture
Ramzy Baroud
The Basra Battles
George S. Hishmeh
Back to Square One
Charles Thomson
The British Prime Minister and the Tate's Tin of Shit
Alexander Billet
The Diseney-fication of CBGB
Missy Beattie
Huffing and Puffing to Failure
April 11, 2008
Nikolas Kozloff
The Clintons and Their Sordid
Colombia Advocacy
Wajahat Ali
Revenge of the Ghetto Nerd: an Exclusive Interview with Junot
Diaz
Sharon Smith
Let
Them Eat Ethanol!
Yigal Bronner
/ Neve Gordon
Digging for Trouble: the Politics of Archaeology in East Jerusalem
Alan Farago
Eating South Florida
Dave Lindorff
On Waking Sleeping Giants: Lessons for America from China
George Wuerthner
Money for Nothing? The Problems with the Conservation Reserve
Program
Christopher
Brauchli
Prostitutes Don't Do Funerals
Website of the Day
Animals Explain the Insurance Industry: a Health Care Video
April 10, 2008
Mathieu Vernerey
Tibet
for the Tibetans!
Elizabeth Schulte
Slavery
in the Fields
David Macaray
Labor
Unions Will Never Get a Fair Shake
Ashley Smith
The Rise of Muqtada al-Sadr
Peter Morici
Driving Up Debt and Dragging Down Growth
Jacob Hornberger
The Military's Distintegrating Family Life
Harold Austin
Snitch or Else: Prison Officials Threaten Gang Drop Outs
Website of the Day
Hillary: the Wal-Mart Videos
April 9, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Fading American Economy
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Congressional
Theater: the Petraeus / Crocker Hearings
C. Hand
Why Dave Marash Left Al Jazeera
Paul Krassner
Sex and Violins
Paul Wolf
Colombian "Magnicidio" Remains a Mystery After 60 Years
Wajahat Ali
Alien Invasion!
Karyn Strickler
Lost in the Fumes: the Sierra Club Sells Out to Clorox
Dan La Botz
Confronting the Economic Crisis
Eric Walberg
The Shadow of Munich: Another NATO Flop
Robin Millenthal
Enough Already! Growth and the Tar Sands Economy
Website of the Day
Conservative
Nanny State
April 8, 2008
Mike Whitney
Should
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed be Set Free?
Nikolas Kozloff
Bush
Bullies Congress on Colombia Deal
Greg Moses
Migrant Detention in South Texas
Joshua Frank
The Other Military Draft
John Ross
Mexico City's Urban Tribes Go on the Warpath Against EMOS
Michael Donnelly
Hillary's Western Swing
John V. Walsh
Why Obama Lost Massachusetts
Jeff Nygaard
Health, Security and Mandates
Bill Piper
Last Shot for a Bush Legacy?
Sen. Russ Feingold
Legal Representation and the Death Penalty
Website of the Day
Catonsville 9, Forty Years Later
April 7, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Irish Black Thing
Harry Browne
Irish
Peace Activist Acquitted; Deported
Uri Avnery
Tibet and Palestine
Lenni Brenner
Obama's Constitution, His Pastor and His Unbelieving Mom in Heaven
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
America Must Respect Pakistan's Democracy
Robert Fisk
Fearful Lives in the Land of the Free
Edwin Krales
Ensuring the Success of Fascism in Spain: the US Corporate Role
Chris Genovali
Vancouver Island's Dwindling Ancient Forests
Website of the Day
LA Artists Against War
April 5 / 6,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
Did
the Elites Want MLK Dead?
Ramzy Baroud
There
are No Checkpoints in Heaven
Ralph Nader
Runaway Bailouts
David Yearsley
How Scott Joplin Had Wall Street Down
Saul Landau
Sex Politics in America
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Petraeus and Crocker Show
Lawrence Korb / Ian Moss
Rev. Jeremiah Wright, a True Patriot
Seth Sandronsky
Meet America's Promise Alliance: Colin Powell's New Gig
John Ross
La Cumbia de la Doctrina Bush: Colombia Kills Four Mexican Students
in Ecuador Bombing
Robert Fantina
McCain, Republicans and Family Values
David Michael Green
Back to Disaster: Hoover at Home, Tet Abroad
Missy Beattie
McCan't
Patrick Bond
Vultures Circle Zimbabwe
Dr. Susan Block
The New American Pot Dealers
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones Meet the Press
Adam Engel
The Boobus in the Lie
Jeffrey St. Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Diamand
and St. Clair
Website of the Weekend
Richard Pryor Goes to the Gun Shop
April 4, 2008
Dave Lindorff
The
Night I Heard King Had Been Shot
Greg Moses
Missing
King
Ron Jacobs
Two Murders, 40 Years On: Bobby Hutton and Martin Luther King,
Jr.
Alan Farago
Show Me the Size of Your Bail Out and I'll Show You Mine
Alison Weir
Funding
Our Decline: U.S. Aid to Israel
David Rosen
Rape as an Instrument of Total War
Robert Weissman
The Unrealized Dream
Jacob Hornberger
Was Killing Iraqi Children Worth It?
Jackie Corr
Hillary and Obama Head for Butte
Carl Finamore
Taking On United Airlines
Laray Polk
We Are All Dith Pran
Susie Day
Advice for the War-Torn
Website of
the Day
Winter Soldiers: a Video Portrait
April 3, 2008
Peter Morici
The Deepening Recession
Joe Bageant
The Audacity of Depression
Andy Worthington
Cleared But Still Detained:
The Ordeal of Moroccan Prisoner Said al-Boujaadia
Nikolas Kozloff
Condi's Divide and Rule Strategy in South America
Rannie Amiri
The U.S. Disdain for Mideast Democracy
David Macaray
More Labor Strife in Hollywood
Stephen Lendman
Lynne Stewart's Long Struggle for Justice
Website of
the Day
The
True Face of Da Vinci?
April 2, 2008
Diane Farsetta
Indian
Point on the Potomac
Harry Browne
Bertie
Ahern Laid Low by Secretary
Wajahat Ali
The Folly of Attacking Iran: a Conversation with Steven Kinzer
George Wuerthner
Open Season on Wolves
Col. Dan Smith
The
Militarization of America
Philippe Marlière
The Politics of Bling-Bling in France: Sarkozy's Cultivated Anti-Intellectualism
Steve Early
A Purple Uprising in Oakland
Bernard Chazelle
Saving the American Left
Reza Fiyouzat
Bowling in Hell
April 1, 2008
Jeff Leys
Fracturing
the Peace to End the War
Thomas P. Healy
Restoring the Constitution: a Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg
Winslow T. Wheeler
When Pigs Sprout Wings: Mangled Rationales for a Fatter Defense
Budget
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
New Deal Nostalgia
Patrick Irelan
Cocaine, Colombia and the Cartels
Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani
John V. Walsh
The Shunning of Ralph Nader
Michael J.
Smith
Woolly Mamet
Robert Weissman
The New Philip Morris--Even Worse Than the Old?
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Defining Moments
Martha Rosenberg
Brain Mist Disease: Boss Hog's Gift to Humanity
Website of
the Day
Support Briana!
March 31, 2008
Mike Whitney
Dead
on Arrival: Paulson's Fixit Plan for Wall Street
Mats Svensson
Walls,
Tunnels and Daily Humiliations
Paul Rockwell
Hillary's
Lies About Outsourcing
Paul Craig Roberts
A Third American War in the Making?
Patrick Cockburn
Sadr
Calls for Ceasefire
Peter Dale Scott
The Showdown
Alfredo Molano
Cultura Mafiosa in Colombia
Peter Morici
Why Paulson's Reform Plan Falls Short
Uri Avnery
Day of the Land, 32 Years Later
Michael Simmons
The American Bard in New Orleans
Betsy Roberts
/ Karen Orr
The Clorox Coup
Phyllis Pollack
First the Sun and Then the Moon: Scorsese Does the Stones
Website of
the Day
Five Years Too Many
March 29 / 30, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
When
They Pick Up the Phone at 3 AM, What Will They Say?
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Police Refuse to Back Maliki's Attacks on Medhi Army
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Next Big Bail Out Plan
Christopher Brauchli
The Pastor of Armageddon and the Slave Sale: McCain, Lieberman
and Rev. Hagee
William Blum
China, Tibet and the Propaganda Olympics
Robert Fantina
Iraq
Troika: McCain, Obama and Clinton
John Ross
AMLO, the Comeback Kid? Fighting the Privatization of Mexico's
Oil
Allison Kilkenny
Shady Lending Hits Home
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba, the Beatles and Historical Context
Suzanne Baroud
The Great Lake of Gaza: a New Crisis in the Making
Richard Rhames
Social Security: Throwing Granny from the Gravy Train
Christopher Fons
Transcending the 60s? Obama and the Baby Boomers
Carl Finamore
Misery at 35,000 Feet: Mergers Stall, Fares Soar, Services Slump
and Consumers Sour
Eamonn McCann
Hillary Misremembers Again!
Missy Beattie
Justice and the Monsters of War
Fred Gardner
Jim Thorpe, All-American
Kim Nicolini
Cock Chuggers and Cheese Curls: Richard Kelly's "Southland
Tales"
David Yearsley
"All the World's a Hospital"
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up
Poets' Basement
Valentine and Ko Un
Website of
the Weekend
Hidden Iraq
March 28, 2008
Saul Landau
Growing
Dread About Iraq
Alan Farago
Other People's Money: the Chop Shop Economy
Peter Morici
Knocking Down False Economic Gods
Andy Worthington
Plight of the Uyghus: a Chinese Muslim's Desperate Plea from
Guantánamo
Felice Pace
Ashes of Lies: Why No One Trusts the US Forest Service
Peter Montague
Sierra Club Cleans House -- With Clorox!
Dave Lindorff
The Mumia Exception
March 27, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Basra
Erupts
Binoy Kampmark
Free Market Apostates
Joanne Mariner
"Was George Washington a Terrorist?"
Norman Solomon
NPR News: National Pentagon Radio?
William S. Lind
Mars Only Knocks Once: a Prognosis for Iraq
John V. Walsh
Obama's Speech: a Touch of Bigotry?
Robert Weissman
How Things Work
Ron Jacobs
Meeting Charlie Ehlen
Ralph Nader
Put Impeachment Back on the Table
David Macaray
Court Rules Against Grocery Workers
John Borowski
Clearcutting the History of Forest Destruction
Website of
the Day
Going Out for an English
March 26, 2008
Stan Cox
The
Germs Next Door
Sharon Smith
Greed
Pays: Welfare on Wall Street
Anita Sinha / Jill Tauber
Dreams Turned into Rubble in New Orleans
Matt Vidal
So Much for the Self-Regulating Market
William S. Lind
Operation Cassandra
Joe Mowrey
The Audacity of Hypocrisy: Obama's Pandering to Israel
Dave Lindorff
Duck and Cover (Up): Hillary Under Fire
Ray McGovern
Frontline's War: Too Timid, Too Little, Too Late
Justin Smith
Why Race and Gender are Separate Issues
Sam Husseini
The Winter Soldier Hearings and Indy Media
Martha Rosenberg
Blood on Ice: Gentlemen, Pick Up Your Clubs
Michael Dickinson
Politicians as Dogs
Website of the Day
The Wal-Mart Virus: How the Infection Spread
March 25, 2008
Ishmael Reed
The
Crazy Rev. Wright
Corey D. B.
Walker
The Politics of Jeremiah Wright
Linn Washington Jr.
Racism in America and Other Uncomfortable Facts
Alan Farago
The Money Launderers: a Picnic for Wall St. Insiders
Vijay Prashad
A Glimmer of Hope From the Gulf Coast
Joshua Frank
A Silver Lining to the Bush Years?
Ralph Nader
How Public Servants Can Help End This War
David Rovics
If I Can't Dance: Why is the Left So Boring?
Peter Morici
America's Banks are Broken
Dave Zirin
Olympic Flames: China's Crackdown in Tibet
David Krieger
The Crisis in Tibet
Website of
the Day
Memorializing Iraq
March 24, 2008
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Blonde
Ambition: Hillary's Berserker Campaign for 2012
Peter Morici
Digging Out of the Recession
Uri Avnery
Two Americas
Wajahat Ali
First of the Mohicans: an Interview with Rep. Keith Ellison
Paul Craig Roberts
Inside the Shell Game
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Coming War on Venezuela
Stephen Lendman
Sami Al-Arian's Long Ordeal
Christopher
Brauchli
Possessing Someone Else's Country
Cat Woods
A Letter to Mom on Obama
Stacey Warde
Tax Burden
Dave Lindorff
The American Dead Hits 4,000, But Who's Counting?
Website of
the Day
Live from the Longest Walk
March 22 /
23, 2008
Ralph Nader
Bush
Blisters the Truth on Iraq
Nicole Colson
Can You Afford to Feed Your Family?
James Petras
The Cost of Unilateral Humanitarian Initiatives
Laura Carlsen
From Bombs to Markets: The Andean Crisis and the Geopolitics
of Trade
Greg Moses
Tolerance and the American Pulpit
Andy Worthington
Torture Stories Dog Guantánamo Trials
Michael Dickinson
Art on Trial
John Ross
Bush's Surge Hits Mosul
Missy Comley Beattie
Killer Economics
David Michael
Green
Happy Anniversary, America!
Ramzy Baroud
The Coming Uncertain War on Iran
Martha Rosenberg
Easter Egg Shells from Hell
Paul Watson
Evolution is Going to the Dogs in the Galapagos
Isabella Kenfield
Monsanto's
Raid on Brazil
James Murren
Logging v. Water in Honduras
Jacob Hornberger
Sex and the Immigration Officer
Kathlyn Stone
Ben Heine, Master of the Art of Resistance
Seth Sandronsky
Rethinking New Mexico's History
Kim Nicolini
Class, Gender and Abortion in Communist Romania
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Booked Up: What I'm Reading This Week
Poets' Basement
Wilson, Woods, Gibbons and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Merci, McCain!
March 21, 2008
Marleen Martin
Land
Behind Bars: the Hidden Casualties of America's "War on
Crime"
Peter Montague
Run
Your Car on Coal? Maybe Not
Saul Landau
Monroe's
Deadly Doctrine
Anis Hamadeh
Merkel in the Knesset
Jacob Hornberger
McCain's Al Qaeda Scare: Slip or Tactic?
Khalil Nakhleh
Al Nakba of 1948: How Long Will It Persist?
Adam Isacson
Colombia, Paramilitary Threats and Assassinations
Kenneth Couesbouc
Money for Nothing
Madis Senner
Will the Feds Underwrite the Stock Market?
Monica Benderman
The Costs of Freedom: What Are You Willing to Pay?
Website of the Day
Stop Foreclosures and Evictions
March 20, 2008
Damien Millet
/
Eric Toussaint
The
Triple Failing of the Big Private Banks
Mike Whitney
Winding
Up Bear
John Ross
What Do We Owe Iraq?
Dave Lindorff
Paying the Piper: the Bodies and Bills are Piling Up
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan on Fire
Jill Nagle
Memo to Sex Workers: Stop Financing Shock Journalism
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Obama and the Psychic Auto-Shrink-Wrapping Called Race in America
Dan La Botz
Obama's Race Speech
Robert Weissman
Alternative Power: Shutting Down the API
Stella Dallas
/
Jennifer Matsui
Apostasy Now! Mamet, Enter Stage Right
Website of the Day
The Angry Monk
March 19, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
A
War of Lies
Robert Fisk
The Little Men and the Inferno
Jeff Taylor
Five Years of War in Iraq
Ed Ruggero
From Pinkville to Iraq: the Dark Anniversary of My Lai
Ron Jacobs
Who'll Stop the Rain?
Christopher
Fons
Obama Takes the Race Bait
Sherwood Ross
In Defense of Rev. Wright
Cynthia McKinney
An Urgent Crisis: Confronting America's Racial Disparities
Joshua Frank
The Kool-Aid That Kills
Robert Weissman
Monsanto's Genetic Food Gamble
Walter Brasch
It's a Welfare State--If You're Rich
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation
Andrew Wimmer
War Demands Its Due
Website of
the Day
Glimpses of Nature
March 18, 2008
David Price
The
Military "Leveraging" of Cultural Knowledge
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Collapse of American Power
Tim Wise
Of National Lies and Racial America: Jeremiah Wright, Barack
Obama and the Unacceptability of Truth
Patrick Cockburn
One of the Most Disastrous Wars Ever Fought
Conn Hallinan
Afghanistan, a River Running Backward
James T. Phillips
Monsters: Past, Present and Wannabe
Uri Avnery
The Killing in Bethlehem
David Macaray
Could Wal-Mart Revive the Labor Movement?
Marjorie Cohn
Beware an Attack on Iran
Peter Zinn
Obama in New Orleans
Dan La Botz
The Economic Crisis, Labor and the Left
Monica Benderman
Where are We Going?
March 17, 2008
Pam Martens
The
Fed's Wall Street Dilemma
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The US, Iran and the Policy of Dual Containment
Nelson P. Valdés
The Imperial Branding of Simon Bolivar and the Cuban Revolution
Peter Morici
The Corrosive Consequences of the Trade Deficit
Wajahat Ali
Disrobing the Nine: a Conversation with Jeffrey Toobin on the
Supreme Court Since 9/11
Ronnie Cummins
Beyond Progressive Malpractice: Taking Down Big Pharma
Shaun Harkin
Saint Patrick's Day in Fortress America
Ali Khan
No Pardon for Musharraf
Robert Jensen
Beyond Peace
P. Sainath
Oh, What a Lovely Waiver!
Greg Moses
Jeremiah was a Bullhorn
Dr. Susan Block
Advice for Eliot Spitzer
Website of the Day
No Cowboys
March 15 /
16, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
How
to Destroy a Country in Five Years
Mike Whitney
Bearly
Alive: Investment Giant Rushed to ICU by Panicky Fed Chief
Ralph Nader
Of
Laws and Men
Robert Pollin
It's Still the Economy, Stupid
Diane Christian
The Poetics of Perversity: From Boccaccio to Spitzer
Wajahat Ali
Faking the Hood: a Conversation with Ishmael Reed
Tom Wright
/
Therese Saliba
Rachel Corrie's Case for Justice
Alan Farago
Back to Florida: Where Bushtime Began
Greg Moses
Raiding the Family Room in Texas
Michael Hudson
A Grand Global Bargain?
Martha Rosenberg
Why Hillary's Favorite Chicken Company is Eying China
John Goekler
Fourth Generation Warfare in a Fifth Generation Conflict
Uzma Aslam
Khan
A Letter to Barack Obama: Where's the Change, Barack?
Oren Ben-Dor
The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
David Underhill
Mammon, Morals and the Mobile Tanker Deal
Fred Gardner
The Education of Eliot Spitzer
David Michael
Green
Why Spitzer Should Have Resigned (and Why He Shouldn't Have)
Rev. William E. Alberts
Jesus, Entombed in Heaven
Gail Dines
It's All About the John: Prostitution and Male Power
David Yearsley
Conducting, Anarchy and the Problem of When to Begin
Chris Clarke
Walking with Zeke: the Luckiest of Dogs
Poets' Basement
Anderson, Lodge & Subiet
Website of
the Day
Deviant Art
March 14, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Watching
the Dollar Die
Don Santina
Vichy
Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi
Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom
Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In
Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter
to the Presidents-in-Waitings
David Macaray
Common
Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is
the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The
One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Republicans
and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown
Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State
or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan
Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From
Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing
Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The
Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How
to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or
"Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One
State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Fallon
and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was
the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All
the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How
Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering
Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One
State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC
Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank
You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb
Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin
Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High
Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill
A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring
the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why
"Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its
Sheen
Michael Neumann
The
One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis
and Harvey Wasserman
Did
the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe
Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley
Beattie
The
Passion of John McCain
March 8-9,
2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting
Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed
and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The
Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The
Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind
the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy
Christison
Crisis
over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé
Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia:
Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To
Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City
of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James
Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President
Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force
Chairman
Poet's Basement
St.
Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of
the Weekend
Hillary
Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question
for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The
Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When
Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing
the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish
Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo
Britons
Will Potter
Before
the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
|
Weekend
Edition
Apri1 12 / 13, 2008
Seven Practical
Recommendations to Curb the Addiction
America's
Jones for War
By DAVID MICHAEL GREEN
Seeing John McCain and David Petraeus
talking about the Iraq debacle this week is a frightening reminder
of how easily we Americans are able to slip into war. And how
frequently we do. And how hard it is to get out once we're in.
Assuming, of course, we even want to get out.
Recently, I catalogued the
unfortunately ample, and the amply unfortunate, evidence that
America has a serious jones for war. It would be nice if this
were not so. Then again, it would be nice if George W. Bush
was not sitting in the White House right now, too. But sometimes
you just have to face difficult truths, no matter how unpleasant
they are, and both of these are, verdad, muy mal.
But the unfortunate fact of
the American appetite for destruction leaves still unanswered
the question of whether there's anything to be done about it.
In fact, there is. Indeed, I see seven ridiculously practical
recommendations that, if adopted, would dramatically reduce American
proclivities toward institutionalized violence, which is a fancy
way of saying that they would cut or eliminate entirely the number
of our wars. I'm not saying these would be easy adjustments
to make. In fact, they would not be, especially where mass cultural
change or constitutional amendments are concerned. But they
are also philosophical and moral slam-dunks. And that will help
get over the pragmatic obstacles, when we're ready.
So let's roll up our sleeves
and get busy. Here are seven fundamental changes we could make
in order to end virtually all American war-fighting except that
which is absolutely necessitated by the most dire and otherwise
insoluble external conditions.
ONE: Imagine there was this
guy, and he was a Republican and a much-admired two-term US president.
Imagine that he had graduated from West Point and then had one
of the most celebrated military careers in American history,
including serving as commander of NATO and being one of the few
Americans to ever wear five stars on his shoulder. Now imagine
that this fellow made it his business upon ending a long and
distinguished career in public life to give a farewell speech
warning of the dangers of a growing military-industrial complex
that would distort American values and priorities in pursuit
of profits and power. Are you with me so far?
Guess what? You don't have
to imagine any of that. The guy's name was Dwight David Eisenhower,
and he did all of these things. It wasn't some long-haired Berkeley
professor of French Literature with bad teeth and the overpowering
odor of pipe smoke who said this, wearing the same hounds-tooth
coat he bought at a thrift shop in 1972 for the one interview
of his entire life. No, it was Dwight-freakin'-GOP-freakin'-Cold-War-president-freakin'-D-Day-Eisenhower
himself, man! I mean, what does it take? Ignoring this advice
is like rejecting Babe Ruth's tips on hitting homers because
the source is insufficiently authoritative. It would be like
saying that George Bush doesn't have the proper credentials to
write the Wikipedia entry on errant progeny. C'mon!
But, in fact, Eisenhower's
warning was ignored, and war has become the biggest of big businesses
in America. Can you say 'Halliburton', for instance? 'Raytheon'?
'Lockheed'? 'No-bid contracts'? 'Military-industrial complex'?
Of course you can.
Now let me ask you a question.
Would you like the judges who hear criminal justice cases to
get paid according to how many folks they put in jail? Do you
think that might corrupt the system a bit? Should Social Security
Agency workers be compensated by the number of claims they deny?
Should we privatize Congress and pay them on a piece-work basis,
for the number of laws they pass? I don't think so.
We don't even pay our soldiers
by the number of enemy soldiers they kill, so why is it that
the task of arming them is a major profit-making enterprise?
Why is it that people are getting very rich off of national
security?
It's way past time for that
to end, and a simple law passed by Congress could end it forever.
Better yet, a constitutional amendment. Either way, we need
only make it the law of the land that no profits shall ever be
made on war. Period, full-stop. Sure, the government can hire
out private contractors when it really needs to (which would
be a whole lot less than it does now), and these folks can be
paid a fair, market-value wage for their labors. Loyal patriots
that they are, I'm sure they'll find that compensation entirely
satisfying, and will be happy to contribute to America's national
security by foregoing profits from war. Indeed, they'll recognize
that by taking the profits out of the equation, America can massively
increase the amount of weaponry it buys to therefore more effectively
protect the homeland. And, of course, I'm quite sure these great
patriots are already anxious to forego their astonishingly lucrative
profits from defense contracts because of the shame they feel
knowing that base pay for an Army private is now a whopping $15,282.
('Course, I should mention that the Army will also pay for your
funeral when you get killed in action, so the contrast isn't
quite as bad as it seems at first glance.)
Sure, it would require some
effort and thought to fill in the lines and determine what is
allowed and what isn't. But this is hardly the first time we've
ever had to take a fundamental constitutional principle from
broad idea to specific implementation. Anyone ever heard of
"Congress shall make no law ... abridging the freedom of
speech"? Pretty general statement, isn't it? So let's
just get it out there, plain and simple: No profits for war.
Something tells me that this alone would seriously cut down
on our tendency to go fight in conflicts which we have no reason
to engage.
TWO: It's obscene that the
people who make wars don't fight them, and that's never been
more true than since the GOP chickenhawks came squawking into
town. How 'bout that macho Bushie Boy in his flight suit and
helmet, eh? Too bad he was AWOL on top of his AWOL during the
Vietnam era. Or Cheney with his five draft deferments, or Ashcroft
with his seven? Or Rumsfeld, or Wolfowitz, or Perle, or Feith,
or... Starting adding up all these tough guys whose toughness
only seemed to kick in after their draft eligibility kicked out,
and pretty soon you'd have enough to outfit another division
or two. Hey, maybe we could have won in Vietnam after all with
a little help from these guys. I guess they had "better
things to do", as Cheney has actually said. Like perhaps
making plans to send other less heavily engaged kids off to fight
another war for them a couple of decades later.
Screw that. From now on, anytime
there's a war there's a draft. No exceptions, and no favoritism
in assignments either, on penalty of treason. Maybe Ol' George
might have decided differently if his own partytime twins were
in jeopardy of getting whacked in Iraq, eh? Maybe Laura would
have put her foot down and denied him his war like she once took
away his bottle. I don't know, but I bet it woulda helped.
Again, the details would need to be worked out, but the principle
is sound. Kill the free ride of the wealthy and powerful and
you'll kill the wars.
THREE: No more wars without
congressional approval either. Not that these wimpy punks in
Congress can be particularly trusted to protect people from bogus
adventures, either, but they'll be better at it than power-hungry
presidents operating on their own. The Founders screwed-up when
they gave the power to declare war to Congress in order to check
against president ambitions. Nobody bothers to declare war anymore,
so it's about as useful nowadays as having the exclusive license
to manufacture powdered wigs.
Congress realized this after
Vietnam and passed the War Powers Resolution, but every president
since has rejected it on principle, and the relevant part of
the law has never been tested in the courts. Maybe a better
bet would be to amend the Constitution, giving Congress the sole
power to authorize war, not just declare it, with some provision
(as in the War Powers Act) for allowing the commander-in-chief
limited latitude without congressional approval only for very
short and very small-scale emergency deployments.
FOUR: War should never happen
except when absolutely necessary. Once again, this principle
is already legally enshrined, though you'd never know it. The
United States is a party to the United Nations Charter treaty,
which is emphatic on this question. According to the Charter,
aggression is only permitted in cases of self-defense or as part
of a UN-sanctioned multilateral collective security force responding
to someone else's aggression against someone else. And since
the United States Constitution makes treaties the highest law
of the land, these provisions absolute apply to the United States
government.
You'd hardly notice though,
would you? Perhaps another constitutional amendment is in order
here, incorporating exactly such language in the Constitution,
declaring that the United States may never go to war except under
one of those two circumstances. Of course, constitutional language
can be bent or broken, just as the Bush administration has done
with nearly every single provision in the document. But it makes
it harder to do and more obvious when it's happening if you have
it set down in black and white in our core governing contract.
FIVE: Anyone who violates
these provisions should be punished. Once again, as in so many
of the cases above, the remedy for this problem already exists.
It's called the International Criminal Court, and it's been
in existence since 2002. Meanwhile, for just as long, the United
States government under the Bush administration has been at great
pains to undermine the Court in every way possible, with the
effort initially spearheaded by that beacon of international
justice, the lovely John Bolton.
Given that to the rest of the
world there's little distinction between Bush's invasion of Iraq
and, say, Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, it isn't real hard
to figure out why the administration has worked so assiduously
to destroy the Court, including by unsigning American participation
in the treaty and by arm-twisting every other country in the
world to sign bilateral agreements exempting Americans from the
Court's jurisdiction.
One way to end needless American
wars is to give those who make such policies a very personal
reason for some serious and sober second thought. The next president
should re-sign us up to the ICC, push for Senate ratification,
and rip up all the bilateral exemption agreements. Then it might
be time for an arrest or six to be made. What did you say is
George Bush's address in Crawford?
SIX: Americans have a reputation
for being the most blinkered nation in the developed world, and
we got that the old-fashioned way: We earned it! We've tried
hard not to study history and geography, and damned if we aren't
ignorant as hell as a result. And proud if it!
The darned thing is, though,
it turns out that ignorance is expensive. I know, I know
who'd-a-thunk-it? But it's true. When you're dumb as a tree
(and my apologies to all those trees out there I know you
have feelings too!), your government can do lots of things to
you, like turn you into cannon fodder, steal your money through
taxes for the purpose of killing people you're not even angry
at, or ruin your reputation among billions of people you've never
met.
Painful as the whole notion
of education might be, it turns out to be a lot less painful
than the alternative. I know it's a radical idea, but these
are desperate times. Anyhow, what if we actually taught our
children a little history, a little geography, and a little truth?
Might we not avoid a war or two in the future?
It was good to see MSNBC dump
that little bow-tied twit, Tucker Carlson, off the airwaves not
long ago. If seeking a better educated American public is our
goal, getting disinformation-wielding, Rove-programmed, little
weenies like this guy off the air represents a small but promising
start. Please, sir, may I have some more?
SEVEN: God help us if there
actually is a god. What an amazingly twisted little culture
we are, eh? If judgement day ever does come I hope I'm not the
one called upon to explain American (would-be) morality to the
really pissed-off dude with the long white beard. I don't even
know how I could. Something tells me that he would be a lot
less concerned about who's been diddling whom, Mr. Falwell, than
about our unfortunate tendency to countenance the murder of millions
in bogus wars fought in our name.
Yeah, I'm afraid the ugly truth
is that we think nothing of bombing the snot out of third-world
countries, with all the "collateral damage" that entails,
but can't seem to stop obsessing about which sexual organ happens
to go into which orifice while people seek a little pleasure
in the privacy of our own homes. If our moral priorities were
any more twisted they would look like the entrails of a million
dead Iraqi civil... Oh, never mind.
I don't know how we get from
here to there, but somehow we have to learn the lesson that war
is almost never the right answer. We have to follow the path
of the Europeans who, at enormous first-hand cost, have figured
this one out and have by-and-large adopted a more thoughtful
and just position on this question. We, as a society, need a
morality befitting the twenty-first century, not the first (and
not even the twentieth).
Altogether these seven ideas
for curbing the American propensity for militarism are not the
entire solution to the problem. Even so, neither would they
be easy to implement. Some of them would require constitutional
amendments. Some of them would require a sea change in American
political culture. I'm not sure which of these would be more
daunting to accomplish.
But accomplished they must
be, and America's addiction to war must be curbed somehow, and
soon. The costs of continuing on the current path are enormous,
which is also why they are so carefully hidden from us at...
well, all costs.
It certainly takes courage
to go to war. A lot more than it does to camp out in the Situation
Room and order other peoples' kids to go. But given the culture
we live in today, it may take nearly as much courage to make
war prohibitively difficult. Standing up for peace and sanity
in an asylum of militarism has never exactly been an easy ride,
either.
This country fancies itself
as the home of the brave, but I wonder if it's ready for as scary
a challenge as making itself peaceful.
David Michael Green is a professor of political science
at Hofstra University in New York. He is delighted to receive
readers' reactions to his articles (dmg@regressiveantidote.net),
but regrets that time constraints do not always allow him to
respond. More of his work can be found at his website, www.regressiveantidote.net.
|
Now Available!
How the Press Led
the US into War
Buy End Times Now!
New From
CounterPunch Books
The Secret
Language
of the Crossroads:
HOW THE IRISH
INVENTED SLANG
By Daniel Cassidy
WINNER
OF THE
AMERICAN BOOK AWARD!
Click Here to Buy!
Cassidy
on Tour
Click Here for Dates & Venues
"The Case Against
Israel"
Michael
Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
Click Here to Buy!
Saul Landau's
Bush and Botox World
with a Foreword by Gore Vidal
Click Here to Order!
Grand Theft Pentagon
How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism
The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont
CITY BEAUTIFUL
By Tennessee Reed
|
