Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
January 22
/ 24, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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.
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Weekend Edition
January 22 / 24, 2005
Bush, Kissinger and Polonius
Nothing
Succeeds Like Failure
By
SAUL LANDAU
President Bush doesn't allow negative
news to interfere with his predictable rendition of clichés
and slogans. "Iraq will be free, the world will be more
peaceful, and America will be more secure," he regularly
announces, as news of bloody chaos emanates from Iraq. He claimed
success for his 2002 "No Child Left Behind Act."
"We are regularly testing every child ... and making sure
they have better options when schools are not performing."
Studies showed, however, that charter schools "options"
left behind lots of kids. Bush never had to worry about
his financial future yet dogmatically insists that privatizing
social security will afford future generations increased security.
By skimming 15% off the top as brokers' fees?
Bush's clichés remind me of how my mother tried to indoctrinate
me with Shakespeare's truism: "neither a borrower nor a
lender be." In fact, Shakespeare put those words in the
mouth of Polonius (Hamlet's would-be father-in-law), who continued
that "loan oft loses both itself and friend." But how
would Mom or Polonius have survived in 2005 without credit cards
and mortgages to say nothing of auto and appliance loans?
She also neglected to tell me that Shakespeare drew the Polonius
character as a pedant whose lack of practical wisdom proved fatal.
This pompous bungler served as a character foil. By following
his simplistic logic spying on Hamlet to learn the cause
of his infirmity -- he got himself fatally stabbed.
Like Bush, Polonius possessed a one-dimensional view of the world;
a stark contrast to Hamlet's complexities. Hamlet reflected on
experiences, analyzed his emotions and rejected facile solutions
to his moral and political problems: how to avenge his father's
murder and punish the murderer, the King who had married his
mother? But Hamlet's introversion led him to ignore threats to
Denmark's security. His Byzantine mental process led not only
to his own and his loved ones' demise, but to the conquest of
Denmark as well.
Contemporary US leaders speak with the pomposity of Polonius,
but lack the elementary moral foundations education that Shakespeare
gave to his foil. How would Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld interpret
Polonius' most famous saw, "To thine own self be true"?
For truth to surface in the Oval Office, Congress would have
to create the position of "court jester," a truth-telling
clown who would counsel the president on the politics of contemporary
empire. Such a truth telling clown would announce: "Nothing
succeeds like failure."
He would use Bush as an example. He failed as a student (poor
grades and questionable character) and a young adult (addict
and shirker). In business ventures, from oil drilling to owning
a baseball team, Bush invested millions of dollars of other
people's money. He failed, but nevertheless grew richer, thanks
to bailouts from wealthy Republicans. Stockholders, however,
lost money. Bush's friends encouraged him to invest $600,000
in the Texas Rangers. He made almost $15 million when the team
was sold.
In 2000, he lost the popular vote for President in 2000, but
slimed his way into the Presidency thanks to Florida shenanigans
and a Republican Supreme Court. He launched an invasion of Iraq,
which he called a "catastrophic success." Bush built
up the US debt and deficit to record levels and divided the nation
more than it had been since the Civil War. While his hand steered
the ship of state, a vast corporate scandal emerged that involved
Bush's friend and campaign contributor, Ken "Kenny Boy"
Lay, ENRON's Chief Executive officer. Bush emerged as a moral
failure. But it didn't seem to matter.
Before the 2004 election, the public also knew that on the economic
and social level Bush had delivered nothing for the majority.
His tax policies, however, had made the filthy rich even filthier.
In foreign policy, after 9/11 Bush succeeded in converting immense
world sympathy and support into unabashed hatred and contempt.
He isolated the United States by withdrawing from important world
processes like the Kyoto environment discussions and the International
Criminal Court. He also lied about the reasons for invading Iraq:
weapons of mass destruction and ties to the 9/11 terrorists.
If lying signifies failure, then Bush is overqualified.
Bush also took more vacation time during a war than
any other president. He eroded traditional foundations of the
nation: separation between church and state. In light of this
record of fiascos, he garnered some 60 million votes in 2004.
"They've seen me make
decisions, they've seen me under trying times, they've seen me
weep, they've seen me laugh, they've seen me hug," Bush
told USA Today (Aug 27, 2004). "And they know who
I am"
Yes, the voters knew. But why
they chose Bush would defy even Shakespeare's infinitely complex
mind. Do millions identify with Bush because he screws up?
Recent history provides evidence that failure is the road to
success. As National Security Adviser and Secretary of State
for Presidents Nixon and Ford, Henry Kissinger offers a prime
example of failure at the highest levels leading to future rewards.
Kissinger helped devise The Nixon Doctrine. In the post-Vietnam
War atmosphere, Kissinger wanted a strategy to replace US forces
with surrogate powers. Since the public rejected the notion of
the US military as world police force, Kissinger erected a surrogate
notion. Each region would have a US flunky doing the dirty work.
To placate critics, Kissinger used peace and human rights language
in his speeches and edicts.
He chose Iran and Israel as his Middle East police power centers.
The Israeli lobby's influence could help overcome critical sentiment.
Iran under the Shah, the other regional US subordinate, would
become Israel's partner in keeping the Middle East orderly
that is, maintain energy flow and insure that no revolutions
occurred. Washington would provide heavy weapons, which Iran
not Israel would pay for, thus further softening
domestic opposition. In 1979, the Shah's regime collapsed to
an Islamic revolution and Israel became Washington's sole military
ally in the region, which has produced tension and violence ever
since. By elevating Israel and not an Arab country to the role
of regional cop, Kissinger insured long-term instability.
In addition, Kissinger promoted in 1974 a southern Europe strategy,
in which the United States would rely on Spain, Portugal and
Greece as the pillars of anti-communism. All three of those dictatorships
fell within two years.
Kissinger's support for authoritarian regimes throughout the
third world brought about the horrors of institutionalized torture
and murder in several Latin American countries and led to a network
of assassins (Operation Condor). To this day no one is certain
of how many hundreds or thousands of victims fell to this sinister
"national security" operation. He backed coups and
dirty wars that cost the lives of hundreds of thousands. Kissinger
also carries the burden of millions of dead Vietnamese and thousands
of Americans because he prolonged the Vietnam War in order to
achieve "peace with honor," which of course did not
happen.
Kissinger created greater world instability and murderous organizations
that did not go gently into the night. Despite having authorized
wholesale slaughter, Kissinger continues to earn large fees as
a business consultant and to pontificate on network political
shows. Indeed, Bush nominated him to chair the 9/11 Commission
who understands terrorism better than a man who inspired
it?
Bush intuitively understood that he would succeed by nominating
failures to high posts. After the Bush Administration earned
the world's moral outrage for torturing captive at Guantanamo
and Abu Ghraib prison, Bush named the very man who counseled
him on those legal fine points for Attorney General. As White
House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales posited the legal interpretations
that led US officials to torture, abuse and even kill scores
of detainees held in the war on terror. For staining the international
reputation of the country, Bush promoted Gonzales to attorney
general.
When Senators asked Gonzales at his confirmation in early January
if he still considered valid his statement in a memo claiming
that the president should not feel bound by international law
or domestic anti-torture statutes, he refused to commit himself
about the president's power to order torture and immunize torturers.
Gonzalez dodged questions about the foreign powers possibly torturing
U.S. citizens and using "national security" doctrines.
And he got away with it! Those who make war policies don't take
seriously the consequences of their actions. During the annual
Radio & TV Correspondents' Association dinner, Bush made
charade-like search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. "Nope,
no weapons over there," he chirped, looking under a chair."
Maybe under here," he chortled, looking elsewhere. "Those
weapons of mass destruction have got to be somewhere."
Roman emperors had jesters to remind them that they were not
God. Bush may not think he's God, but does believe God has spoken
to him. A jester would whisper in his ear: "You have power
to destroy the world, but maybe it's not God who's talking to
you," as he pointed downward and winked his eyesatanically.
Saul Landau teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University, where
he is the director of Digital Media Programs and International
Outreach, and is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.
His new book is The
Business of America.
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