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Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
April
20, 2004
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
April
19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
April 10 /
12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other
Delicacies
Robert Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview
with Lee Evans
Brandy Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website of
the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9, 2004
Robert Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L. Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8,
2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6,
2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher
Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez
del Solar
A
Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The
Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated
US and International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
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.
|
April
20, 2004
A Review of Rice's
Uncertain Alliances
Czech
Mate for Condi
By JOSEPH KALVODA
Review in American Historical
Review (1985):[please note that the reviewer evidently believes
Dr. Rice is a man]
CONDOLEEZZA RICE.
The Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak Army, 1948-1983: Uncertain
Allegiance.
Princeton: Princeton University Press. 1984.
Pp. xiv, 303. $37.50
To write a scholarly study on the relationship
of the Soviet Union and the Czechoslovak army without access
to relevant Czechoslovak and Soviet documents is difficult. Therefore,
much of this book by Condoleezza Rice is based on secondary works.
His thesis is that the Soviets directly influence military elites
in the satellite countries, in addition to the Soviet Communist
party interacting with the domestic party. Rice selects Czechoslovakia
as a case study and attempts to show the role of the military
as instrument of both national defense and the Soviet-controlled
military alliance.
Rice's selection of sources
raises questions, since he [sic] frequently does not sift facts
from propaganda and valid information from disinformation or
misinformation. He passes judgments and expresses opinions without
adequate knowledge of facts. It does not add to his credibility
when he uses a source written by Josef Hodic; Rice fails to notice
that this "former military scientist" (p. 99) was a
communist agent who returned to Czechoslovakia several years
ago. Rice based his discussion of the "Sejna affair"
(pp. 111, 116, 144) largely on communist propaganda sources and
did not consult writings and statements by former General Jan
Sejna who had access to Warsaw Pact documents and is the highest
military officer from the Soviet bloc to defect to the West since
World War II.
Rice's generalizations reflect
his lack of knowledge about history and the nationality problem
in Czechoslovakia. For example, in 1955 Czechoslovakia was not
yet "the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic" (pp 83, 84).
In May 1938 Ludvik Svoboda was serving in the Czech army, not
organizing a Czech military unit in Poland. In the fall of 1939
he was captured by the Soviet invading forces in eastern Poland;
he did not "[escape] to the USSR" (p. 43). Rice's discussion
of the "Czechoslovak Legion" that was "born during
the chaotic period preceding the fall of the Russian empire"
(pp. 44-46) is ridiculous. (It was "born" on September
28, 1914.) He is clearly ignorant of the history of the military
unit as well as of the geography of the area on which it fought.
Rice claims that "Czechoslovaks
are supposedly passive and consider resistance to invading forces
unnecessary and dangerous, preferring instead political solution"
(p. 4). First, there are Czechs and Slovaks but not Czechoslovaks.
Second, history shows that Czechs resisted the invading Prussians
in 1866, Russia, France and Italy. In 1919 Czechs and Slovaks
fought the invading armies of Bela Kun in Slovakia. In 1939 and
1948, "the Czechoslovak president, Edward Benes, ordered
his troops to the barracks," writes Rice. "[Alexander]
Dubcek and Svoboda were, then just following precedent. Czechoslovak
passivity meant that the decision of 1968 was preordained"
(pp. 4-6). Nothing, indeed, is preordained in history. Moreover,
Benes in 1939 was no longer president but was teaching at the
University of Chicago.
In comparing Poland in 1981
and Czechoslovakia in 1968, Rice does not mention the obvious:
whereas Soviet troops have been garrisoned in Poland since the
end of World War II and, therefore, an invasion of Poland was
unnecessary, the main objective of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia
was to force Dubcek's regime to accept the stationing of Soviet
troops in the country.
The writing abounds with meaningless
phrases, such as is its "last word": "Thirty-five
years after its creation, the Czechoslovak People's Army stands
suspended between the Czechoslovak nation and the socialist world
order" (p. 245).
Joseph Kalvoda teaches at Saint Joseph College West
Hartford, Connecticut.
Weekend
Edition Features for April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
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