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Today's
Stories
April
27, 2004
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April
26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
April 20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
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.
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April
27, 2004
People Resist
Conquest and Occupation
The Empire in
Denial and the Denial of Empire
By SAUL LANDAU
George W. Bush, for all the jokes about
his intellectual challenges, has established an unsurpassed level
of imperial denial, while he blithely rejects notions that he
runs an empire that has run into considerable trouble. Indeed,
except for the comments of a few humorists and pundits, the media
has failed to call the emperor on his political fiascoes. Instead,
they have bought Bush's own description of them as successes.
"The Bush universe of eternal sunshine," as
NY Times columnist Maureen Dowd called it, amounts to
a bubble of errors covered by holy-sounding rhetoric.
W and his tough guys have intimidated
the media -- and most nations of the world -- with relative impunity.
Bush repeatedly claims to have made the world safer from terrorism.
Yet, terrorist incidents have multiplied since he announced his
"war against terrorism" (Not counting Israel, just
look at Iraq, Afghanistan, Spain, Bali etc.). Critics credit
his crude tactics with fostering the recruitment of new militants.
Bush declared last May, almost a year ago, that the war in Iraq
had ended. Last week, the US body count topped 610 and no one
expects it to stop there.
Indeed, after the December
13, 2003 capture of Saddam Hussein, Bush had assured the nation
that the resistance would collapse. Instead it has grown more
intense. Bush insists that he will prevail in his mission to
bring freedom to Iraq. The foreign terrorists responsible for
the daily carnage, insist Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Colonial
Governor L. Paul Bremer, operate only in the limited area of
the Sunni Triangle (Baghdad-Fallujah-Tikrit). Presumably Sunnis
Hussein is a Sunni continue to resist out of loyalty.
But over the April 2-4 weekend, a Shi'ite cleric organized massive
and bloody demonstrations in parts of the Sunni Triangle and
in other cities as well!
If freedom to Bush meant only
the privatization of formerly public wealth, his claims might
carry more weight. Bremer's gang has usurped the Iraqi patrimony
and offered it for sale and a buyers' market prevails. Given
the violent atmosphere insurance companies are understandably
reluctant to issue policies on businesses; thus, few buyers will
come forth. Essentially, Bush offers the security provided by
over 100,000 members of the US armed forces and tens of thousands
of hired mercenaries (Blackwater, Halliburton et. al) paid for
by US taxpayers just to secure Iraq for the western way
of life: business.
Despite daily news and photos
to the contrary, Bush persists with his "Iraqis are happier"
hymn. Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the out-of-tune right wing
radio chorus sing along, just as Marines begin their retaliation
against the perpetrators of the killing and mutilating of four
US mercenaries last week in Fallujah. Hundreds of people
or more -- took part at some level in the deed and celebration
that followed.
When I discussed with a pro-Bush
colleague the difference between my pessimistic Iraqi scenario
and the optimistic White House picture, he dismissed my criticism
as "carping" and offered wisdom like, "you have
to break eggs to make an omelet," and "democracy doesn't
just happen."
He believes that God intended
Bush to bring democracy to the world. I got a more secular spin
on that idea in grade school. My teachers told me that democracy
and freedom stand as indelible US values at home and our nation
sells our cultural offerings to the world for them to literally
buy. US culture and ideology, after all, count as our most successful
exports.
The very repetition of this
"selling freedom" mantra has elevated it to unquestioned
status despite evidence that repeatedly contradicts it.
Last week, Bush again boasted of having brought freedom to the
people of Iraq, seemingly oblivious to the fact that on March
28 occupation forces shut down Al-Hawza, a newspaper critical
of US policies because "it didn't print the truth."
In addition, Bush might not
have read about the documents emerging from the national security
classification cellar that showed the US helping to overthrow
the elected Brazilian government of Joao Goulart in 1964 and
supporting a military dictatorship in its place. Since Goulart's
nationalistic economic policies lacked US approval, U.S. ambassador
Lincoln Gordon sent top secret cables to national security heavies
in Washington pleading for "a clandestine delivery of arms"
for military coup plotters.
On March 29, 1964, Ambassador
Gordon recommended secretly "pre-positioning" the armaments
to be used by "friendly military." President Johnson
had authorized CIA covert operations to support anti-Goulart
military and political forces.
This new material also contains
an audio tape of President Johnson receiving a Brazil briefing
by phone at his Texas ranch, as general and admirals mobilized
against Brazil's elected government. "I'd put everybody
that had any imagination or ingenuity...[CIA Director John] McCone...[Secretary
of Defense Robert] McNamara" on ensuring the coup's success,
Johnson instructs undersecretary of State George Ball. "We
just can't take this one," Johnson says. "I'd get right
on top of it and stick my neck out a little."
Shocking? The nation of democracy
and freedom, the place where revolution received its first justification
"when in the course of human events" also
became the bastion of counterrevolution, the exporter of dictatorship,
the grand interventionist in the affairs of less powerful nations
whose leaders refuse to abide by US dictates.
Few nations have borne as much US wrath over their insubordination
as Cuba. Indeed, the island has become a perpetual target.
On March 31, with the false
claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction still fresh in
the public mind, John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms
Control and International Security, offered Congress 35 pages
of written testimony that Cuba "remains a terrorist and
[biological weapons] threat to the United States."
Bolton didn't even use discredited
exile sources like those who fed false information to the
Administration on Iraq to support his contention. Acting
without fear of replicating the baseless WMD charges that became
the casus belli for Bush's war against Iraq, Bolton asserted
in his fact-free belief that "the case for the existence
of a developmental Cuba [biological weapons research and development]
effort is strong."
Bolton first made these charges
on May 2002, but almost two years later he has still not gathered
a fact to support them.
The Cuban government denied
the accusation and invited US scientists to inspect the labs
to which Bolton referred. Just as Bolton's boss, Secretary of
State Colin Powell, has made public his unhappiness with the
shoddy intelligence delivered to him on Iraq, Bolton uses imprudent
charges that could become the basis for war with Cuba.
One of Powell's more prudent
subordinates, Assistant Secretary of State for
Intelligence and Research Carl Ford, told Congress on June 5,
2002 that the US had no evidence of a full-fledged biological
weapons "program." He did say that the administration
was "worried" about Havana's capabilities.
Cuba's biotech industry produces
medicines and vaccines, as the world knows, and therefore theoretically
has the ability to create weapons as well. But Fidel Castro knows
that such a move would amount to suicide and he has shown no
tendency to self destruct during his 45 year rule.
I detect evidence, however,
that Cuba may have employed some of its sophisticated biological
weapons here in the United States. Observe the strange behavior
of Lincoln Diaz Balart, (R-FL) called "Low IQ Lincoln"
by some of his colleagues. In March, Diaz Balart called on the
President to assassinate Fidel Castro. Sources in the national
security apparatus said they had not carried out any tests on
Diaz-Balart's cerebral cortex to determine whether he might have
succumbed to some sophisticated bio-brain vapor that Cuban covert
operatives had managed to slip into his breakfast cereal. His
colleagues found it otherwise difficult to explain how a Member
of Congress could otherwise be so oblivious to the law and to
the implications of advocating such actions.
That neither the media nor
Congress responded in shock to Diaz Balart's remarks, or Bolton's
unfounded charges, attests to the state of imperial denial under
Emperor Bush. On the one hand, the national security apparatus
has again insinuated assassination into the foreign policy play
book, thanks not only to Israel's example of blatantly targeting
Palestinians, but also because of the mystification process that
has obscured the nature of the "terrorist enemy."
Indeed, Bush's rival, John
Kerry, has not decried the policy and has tried to show he would
act even more aggressively against Castro.
When declassified documents
appear and show how Washington overthrew elected governments
in Iran, Guatemala, Brazil, Chile etc the media and government
officials act as if this material relates only to unfortunate
errors of the Cold War. Wouldn't it be refreshing to have a major
media source simply admit: "hey, we're the world's biggest
empire; we offer the world our version of democracy and freedom
and if rogue nations reject it, we'll shove up it up their"
The problem is that people,
like Iraqis, resist conquest and occupation. Does denying the
existence of empire naturally lead imperial rulers to practice
denial?
Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy
Studies. He teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau's
writing in Spanish visit: www.rprogreso.com. His new book,
PRE-EMPTIVE
EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, has just been published
by Pluto Press. His new film is Syria: Between Iraq and a Hard
Place, now available from the Cinema
Guild. He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org
Weekend Edition
Features for April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
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