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Today's
Stories
October 20,
2004
Yitzhak Laor
"Did
You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian
Child
October 19,
2004
Jeff Taylor
Confessions
of a Swing State Voter
Matt Vidal
American
Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"
Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For":
Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum
William Loren
Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around
Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims
CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Party
Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe
October 18,
2004
Saul Landau
Facts
and Lies; Slogans and Truth
Dave Lindorff
Bulletin
on the Bush Bulge
Diane Christian
Sheep
and Goats: On the Language of Goodness
Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency
Uri Avnery
Ariel
Sharon's Philosophy
Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank
Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post
Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11
October 16
/ 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
October 15,
2004
Paul Craig
Roberts
Where
Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting
of America
Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart
vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon
Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers
Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?
Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear
Hugo Chavez?
Robert Jensen
/ Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears
Leah Caldwell
From
Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse
Website of
the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism
October 14,
2004
Darcy Richardson
The
Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown
Willliam A.
Cook
Turning
Myths into Truth
Laura Santina
Water, Women and War
Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug
Importation
Alan Farago
Lessons
from Nature
Rep. Maxine Waters
A Letter to Colin Powell on Haiti
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
|
October 20, 2004
First They
Came for the Nurses
First
the Back-Door Draft; Now the Foot-in-the-Door Draft
By
DAVE LINDORFF
So the cat's out of the bag. With reports
today in the New York Times, AP and other media outlets that
the Pentagon is contemplating a draft call-up of health professionals
because of a shortage of doctors, nurses and medics in the increasingly
thinly stretched U.S. military, we can see the lie in Bush's
(and in Kerry's) promises not to reinstate conscription.
Everyone agrees that with the
war in Iraq going badly, and with little prospect of it getting
easier for the U.S. forces over there, and with the president
making threats against Iran and Syria, not to mention North Korea,
that the military is extended way too far. Already we have the
"back-door" draft of reservists and National Guard
troops, who have been forced to do double hitches in Iraq, and
we have "stop-loss" orders that bar some troops--regular
and reserve--from leaving the military when their enlistments
are up.
You can't go much further there,
and recruitment and reenlistment targets are no longer being
met. To paraphrase a younger and nobler John Kerry, "Who
wants to be the next man to sign up and risk dying for a lost
cause?"
The main argument that has
been put forward by the punditry (and Bush apologists, which
is often the same thing in today's media), against the likelihood
of a return of the draft is that it would be politically unacceptable.
After all, they say, before you can
have a draft call-up, you have to have a conscription bill passed
by both houses of Congress, and signed by the president.
And so it would seem, but the
clever minds in the Bush administration have found a way around
this.
They'll call up docs and nurses.
Who in Congress, or the media,
or even among much of the public, is going to argue if the administration
next January announces that there is a critical shortage of doctors
and nurses in Iraq, and that our noble soldiers are at risk of
death or permanent injury because of inadequate emergency medical
services near the front?
Yet to call up those medical
personnel, first that draft authorization legislation would have
to be passed by Congress and signed into law by the president.
Obviously, such a bill would
be presented as "just" a measure so that medical personnel
could be required to serve, but of course, a draft bill is a
draft bill. Maybe at first the Pentagon would only ask for a
certain category of skills in a limited call-up, but the bill
itself would be passed into law. The decision on who to call
next would be an administrative, not a political, decision, to
be made by the generals and the folks at the Selective Service
System.
We could expect to see a general
call-up preceeded by a few more special category call-ups--maybe
mechanics, electronics experts, pilots, etc.--always with an
explanation that this was just a limited shortage. This draft
"creep" will eventually lead to a full-scale draft.
And the members of Congress
who voted for the authorization would be able to say they had
only intended it to be for medical help.
As someone who fought against
the draft for years during the Indochina War (I had an 81 in
the lottery and never took a deferment, but was improperly rejected
with a 4F after raising a fuss at my pre-induction physical in
1969), I have to say that maybe this would not be such a bad
thing. I'm inclined to agree with Korean War veteran Congressman
Charles Rangel, who had a bill in the House to restore the draft
until House Republicans killed the measure earlier this month.
A draft--especially a fair one that drafts the sons of the rich
as well as the sons of the working class--makes it much harder
for the government to fight unjust and unnecessary wars.
As Col. David Hackworth (http://www.hackworth.com)
has said, draftees make great soldiers when they believe in the
cause.
The thing is, when they don't,
they tend to get uppity about being put in harm's way, and don't
have to worry about their complaining and lack of submissiveness
getting in the way of their career paths.
Back in the late '60s and early
1970s, many draftees in Nam were in virtual open rebellion against
military authorities--part of the reason the U.S. lost the war
in Indochina. The latest brouhaha in Iraq in which a whole unit
of reservists refused orders to make what they called a "suicide
run" delivering fuel to a remote base with poor and unprotected
equipment, is a sign that the "back-door" draftees
of the reserve and Guard are starting to do the same thing in
this latest quagmire.
Meanwhile, back home, voters
and reporters should be asking both Bush and Kerry much more
specific questions about the draft and its possible return during
the term of the next president, whomever that may be.
***
And a cautionary semi-correction:
A number of liberal-minded
video techies have written to say that there are technical aspects
of video broadcasts which could explain the pre-echo that appears
on a number of broadcast feeds of Bush appearances on CNN and
Fox clips. If so, it would be one less clue regarding Bush's
likely use of a hidden earpiece during the three debates--and
on other occasions. That said, my own listening to the Fox tape
of his joint appearance with Jacques Chirac does include at least
one place where the preceding voice says something but Bush himself
stumbles, which would rule out an electronic pre-echo. While
my playback equipment--my Mac iBook G4--is admittedly very limited
in its sound reproduction, I still find this evidence pretty
compelling unless someone with better equipment and/or ears can
show me I'm missing something.
In any event, the other evidence
of a secret earpiece at the debates is still very powerful, even
if it turns out that the video clips can be explained away. Most
compelling, of course, is the White House's and Bush campaign's
continued denial that there is even anything there on the president's
back in the debates.
There's also a photo of Bush
in profile, taken at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this
year in Washington D.C., in which a small wireless earpiece is
clearly visible protruding from his ear. To see this photo, go
to This Can't
Be Happening!.
In that regard, readers should
repair to the website George
Bush's Bulges, for a whole slide show of photos of Bush over
the years of his presidency with a suspicious bulge under his
jacket.
There is also a photo, posted today on my
website, of Bush's head taken at the last National Prayer
Breakfast. It shows a small wireless earpiece in his left ear.
Now perhaps this can be explained as his direct link to God,
given the venue, but it still shows he is wired on occasion.
Finally, there's the tale of
Fred Burks, a contract Indonesian translator for the State Department,
who has translated for two presidents, Clinton and Bush, and
for Vice President Al Gore. Burks says he was asked to translate
for Bush during a 90-minute private session the president had
with then Indonesian President Megawati Sukarno Purti on Sept.
19, 2001, just eight days after the 9/11 attacks. He says a portion
of the session was devoted to talking about fighting terrorism,
but that much of the time was spent discussing detailed Indonesian
issues.
"I was briefed by a woman
whom I cannot identify publicly, before the session," Burks
recalls. "She told me the talking points for the meeting.
I was amazed at the number of complicated issues and asked, `How
on earth is Bush going to be able to talk intelligently about
all these issues? He's been busy with 9/11. He can't have been
preparing for all these.' She replied, `I don't know.'"
He continues, "Well, Bush,
whom we all know is not the brightest president we've had, covered
everything, with no help, no notes and no stumbles."
His conclusion, "There
are only two possibilities: Either he's much smarter than everyone
thinks, or he had an earpiece giving him prompts and information."
Burks adds, "After later experiences with the president,
in which I realized he wasn't that intelligent," he's convinced
the second explanation is the correct one.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing
Time: an Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. His new
book of CounterPunch columns titled "This
Can't be Happening!" is published by Common Courage
Press. Information about both books and other work by Lindorff
can be found at www.thiscantbehappening.net.
He can be reached at: dlindorff@yahoo.com
Weekend
Edition Features for October 16 / 17, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern
Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the
True Measure of Bush's Character
Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World
Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was
the President Just Glad to be There?
Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices
Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire
M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!
Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain
Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It
Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11
Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results
David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?
Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable
Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador
Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence
Thomas on the Million Worker March
Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the
South"
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
No More Bush Girls
/
|