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Today's
Stories
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
March 30, 2004
William S. Lind
An Occurrence
in Pakistan: the Battle That Wasn't
Ron Jacobs
Assassinations, Hate Mail &
Justice
Mickey Z.
Tommy Boy Friedman Does "Imagine"
Neve Gordon
Strategic Motives of the Yassin Assassination
Mark Scaramella
The Founding Scam: Insider Trading is the American Way
John Chuckman
The Countessa of Empire: Condi
Rice's Idea of Democracy
Greg Moses
Live from Pasadena: Silhouettes of New Order
Rai O'Brien
What Kind of Democracy to Expect if the Opposition Takes Power
in Venezuela
Bill Christison
The
9/11 Commission: Dangerous Harbinger for the Future
Website of the Day
Ghost Town: Riding Through Chernobyl
March 29, 2004
John Maxwell
Crisis
in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold
J. Michael Springmann
Email
Spying & Attorney Client Privilege
Robert Fisk / Severin
Carrell
Coalition
of the Mercenaries
The Black Commentator
Haiti's Troika of Terror
Doug Giebel
Candide in the Wilderness:
How Bush Policy Was Made
David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Bargain
Mike Whitney
Rejecting the Language of Terrorism
Richard Oxman
The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American
Family
Kim Scipes
The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again
Michael Donnelly
End Game for Northwest Forests
Norman Solomon
The Media Politics of 9/11
Kathy Kelly
Last Lines Before Vanishing
Website of the Day
Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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
April 5, 2004
Shiites Say No
Another
"Nightmare Scenario"
By GARY LEUPP
Grotesque images from Fallujah---of charred, butchered
flesh framed with jubilant children's faces---remind the world
that the Sunni Triangle is a dangerous place for Americans. Elsewhere,
events in the hitherto quiescent Shiite south bode badly, too,
for the occupation.
The chief Shiite cleric, Ayatollah Ali
Sistani, opposes the interim constitution, approved by the Interim
Governing Council under Paul Bremer's guidance. He may issue
a fatwa against it, and against participation in the still-shapeless
regime that might "assume power" after the "restoration
of sovereignty" by June 30. Sistani refuses to meet with
occupation officials, whose authority he rejects. Meanwhile firebrand
junior cleric Moqtada Sadr lashes out at the occupation, and
frankly embraces Hamas and Hizbollah. He knows the occupiers
consider these Palestinian and Lebanese groups "terrorist"
and will likely tar him with the same brush. He's throwing down
a gauntlet. He sees his newspaper closed down for 60 days by
the Coalition Provisional Authority---on their (rejected) authority
which, to but it mildly, has dubious legal basis. Then foreigners
take Sadr's top aide, Mustafa al-Yaacubi, into detention.
Soon, predictably, outside the holy Shiite
city of Najaf, Sadr supporters clash with Spanish-led troops,
killing four Salvadoran "Coalition" troops and one
American soldier. In Shiite Basra, workers demanding jobs clash
with British forces and burn down the central post office. In
largely Shiite East Baghdad, Sadr's neighborhood, a U.S. tank
runs over two Sadr supporters following a protest demonstration.
On Sunday, April 4, seven U.S. troops are killed in encounters
with militiamen and militiawomen in Sadr's banned but apparently
powerful Army of the Mahdi. It was, as the New York Times
put it, "a coordinated Shiite uprising spreading across
the country, from the slums of Baghdad to several cities in the
south. By day's end, witnesses said Shiite militiamen controlled
Kufa, a city south of Baghdad, with armed men loyal to [Sadr]
occupying the police stations and checkpoints."
Wait now,
some might think. This was not how it was supposed to happen.
The Shiites are supposed to be the good Iraqis,
those who, having been most abused by Saddam Hussein's regime,
would naturally welcome the occupation. But around Najaf
Shiites are chanting: "No, no America! No, no, Israel!"
That of course is what the Sunnis have been saying too. Some
have been predicting a civil war between Shiites and Sunnis (fomented
perhaps by the mysterious Abu Musab al-Zarqawi) either in the
wake of a U.S. withdrawal or even while the occupation continues.
That would be an occupier's nightmare scenario. Here's another,
worse one. Sunni and Shiite (and Christian, and other---recall
that Iraq has for many years been ruled by a secular party that
has not attempted to promote any particular religion) all united
in demanding that the foreign troops, having no valid reason
to be there, go home, taking their consultants and carpet-baggers
with them.
Residual Baathist elements? Outside agitators?
Will such a characterization of the Iraqi resistance wash with
the American people if the Shiites---60% of the invaded, "liberated"
population---come to lead the complex, multifaceted resistance?
Continuing this imaginary scenario: the American people come
to generally conclude that the ultimate justification for an
unjust war, boldly pronounced as the WMDs and al-Qaeda connections
disappeared like mirages in the Syrian Desert, was just another
delusion. We didn't "free" them. They don't
want us there. The Iraqi people didn't want us to invade, didn't
ask us to invade, and being invaded, are understandably very
angry. That's the satori awaiting millions of Americans as
the images from hell proliferate.
* * * * *
As such a realization dawns upon people,
the Bush administration will endlessly reiterate its case. Here's
its current case, in a nutshell.
1. 9-11 showed that the U.S. was vulnerable
to terrorist attack.
2. That fact required and justified a
policy of preemption, a policy of acting against terrorist organizations
and nations that sponsor them.
3. Preemption required regime change.
4. The first target for regime change
was Afghanistan.
5. Al-Qaeda was greatly weakened by the
Coalition attack on Afghanistan, and its Taliban sponsors were
overthrown.
6. Afghanistan was liberated and is now
making strides towards democracy.
7. The second target for regime change
had to be Iraq.
8. The attack on Iraq was justified by
the fact that the best intelligence available indicated that
Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that could be used
against the United States, its friends and allies; and that there
had been a long history of cooperation between Saddam Hussein's
government and al-Qaeda.
9. It appears there were some flaws in
the pre-war intelligence that produced an exaggerated view of
these threats, but Saddam was a genuine threat because he had
demonstrated his intention to acquire weapons of mass destruction.
10. The most important result of the
war is that a dictator was overthrown, and Iraq is now free.
11. Americans are safer now than they
were two years ago.
12. The Patriot Act has better empowered
government to protect the people.
13. All the above show that we need four
more years of war and regime change.
(I think that is a fair representation
of the Bush viewpoint, and apologize to the Bush people if there
is any error at all in that representation.)
Now the critics' case, in a nutshell:
1. The administration wished and planned
to attack Iraq from its inception in January 2001. Some high
officials also favor attacking neighboring Syria and Iran as
part of a sweeping plan for Middle East change.
2. The preemption doctrine, as part of
a general rethinking of post-Cold War U.S. "defense"
strategy, which requires "full spectrum dominance,"
had been established long before 9-11. It didn't result from
the attacks.
3. The atmosphere of grief, anxiety,
and anger in the U.S. following 9-11, and the mass media's slavish
cooperation with administration objectives, allowed the administration
to act upon the plan to attack Iraq with much public support.
4. Some members of the administration
favored that attack before, or even instead of, an attack on
Afghanistan, and immediately after 9-11 attempted to find intelligence
linking Iraq to al-Qaeda.
5. Unable to obtain this from the CIA,
they established the Office of Special Plans in the Defense Department
to produce intelligence justifying war on Iraq. This office relied
heavily on the Iraqi National Congress, a U.S.-funded exile body
headed by convicted swindler Ahmad Chalabi, which had long urged
the overthrow of Saddam Hussein by U.S. troops. The "flawed
intelligence" was deliberate: an executive-branch decision.
6. The war on Afghanistan resulted in
the scattering of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, the death of an unknown
number of their forces, the overthrow of one repressive regime
and the reestablishment of another. All the talk about freeing
Afghan women from the burqa was nonsense.
7. Events since have greatly increased
support for al-Qaeda and sympathy for Osama bin-Laden, who is
still at large. There has been a massive increase in anti-U.S.
sentiment in Pakistan and elsewhere.
8. The Taliban is resurgent and has regained
control in some Pashtun areas. The Bush administration doesn't
emphasize these matters because Afghanistan was a sideshow to
begin with.
9. The attack on Iraq was seen by most
of the world as unjustified on the grounds given by the Bush
and Blair administrations, and has produced great antipathy towards
the U.S. throughout the world, including in European countries
traditionally closely allied with the U.S.
10. Iraq has not been freed, but thrown
into chaos. The occupation is highly unpopular, and meets with
increasing resistance. This cannot be attributed merely to Baathists
and Islamic fundamentalists.
11. The doctrine of preemption central
to the "War on Terrorism" (which the administration
states will continue for many years) is a disaster, has made
the whole world including the U.S. less safe.
12. The Patriot Act has allowed the government
to curb civil liberties, violate privacy, and attack dissent
on a scale not seen since the COINTELPRO 1970s.
13. Those responsible for all the above
should at the very least be removed from power, and if there
is any justice in the world, be placed on trial.
* * * *
Back in 1990, officials in the first
Bush administration called it the "nightmare scenario."
Iraq had invaded Kuwait (on grounds more justifiable than those
deployed by Bush II to invade Iraq). Bush 41, characterizing
Saddam as a "Hitler," demanded he withdraw. Saddam
agreed to do so in December, accepting terms presented by separate
delegations from the USSR and France. (This alone demonstrated
the ridiculousness of Bush's analogy; Hitler would not have withdrawn
from the Austria in 1938. His nation was much, much more powerful,
relative to the other powers of the time, than Iraq was relative
to the U.S. and its allies in 1990.) The nightmare to the president's
advisors was the prospect that Saddam would survive with his
army intact, and that Iraq---a large, advanced, secular, relatively
"progressive" Arab nation---would continue to build
up its military strength, as other comparable nations tend to
do. While a quasi-ally of the U.S. throughout the 1980s, when
both Iraq and the U.S. wanted to bleed Iran, Iraq following the
end of the Iran-Iraq War in 1988 seemed no longer helpful to
U.S. interests in the region. It had to be cut down to size,
and it was. On the "Highway of Death" between Mutlaa
(in Kuwait) and Basra, tens of thousands of fleeing, defenseless
Iraqi troops were eliminated by bombing. "Like shooting
fish in a barrel," as one U.S. pilot put it. http://deoxy.org/wc/wc-death.htm
So in that round, a nightmare was visited
on the Iraqi people. Bush made sure that the nightmare continue
by insisting on the economic sanctions which, within a few years,
resulted in the deaths of half a million Iraqi children. By encouraging,
then declining to support, a Shiite rebellion, he contributed
to tens of thousands more deaths. One might say, "Fair enough
that Bush 43---and his reelection campaign---should now face
this ongoing bad dream." But the smirking somnolent son
perhaps loses no sleep, while the families of 613 American soldiers,
and countless more Iraqi families, surely do.
Gary Leupp
is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor
of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants,
Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa, Japan;
Male
Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa, Japan;
and Interracial
Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900.
He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
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
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