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Recent
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April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
April
2, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Politics of Casualties
David
Lindorff
Making America Safer...for Iraqi
Fighters
William
Blum
Some Observations on the Recent Behavior of the Empire
Gustavio
Sierra
The Morning After the Slaughter at
Nasser
Patrick
Cockburn
Playing Into Saddam's Hands
Robert
Jensen
Peter Arnett: Whipping Boy of the
Pentagon
Jeremy
Brecher
Uniting for Peace Update
N.D.
Jayaprakash
The Siege of Basra
LaDawn
Haglund
You Can Jail the Resisters, But You
Can't Arrest the Resistance
Robert
Fisk
Truth and Subterfuge
Jemima
Khan
I'm Ashamed to be British
Steve
Perry
War Web Log
Stew Albert
Total War
Website
of the Day
Traitor List: Sign Up Now!
April
1, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Rumsfeld: "Get Me Rewrite"
William
S. Lind
The Pitfalls of War Planning
Jorge
Mariscal
Latinos on the Frontlines, Again
Paul
de Rooij
Arrogant Propaganda
Jo
Wilding
From Baghdad: "I Am His Mother"
Tarif
Abboushi
Operation Embedded Folly
Lee
Sustar
Labor's War at Home
Akiva Eldar
Israeli Dreams of Iraqi Oil
Bernard
Weiner
The Vietnam Connection
Robert
Fisk
The Graveyard at Baghdad's North
Gate
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/01
Website
of the Day
A Collectible War
March
31, 2003
David
Lindorff
Liberating Iraqis from Their Homes
Neve Gordon
A Different Kind of Despair
John
Chuckman
Absurdities and Contradictions
Ron Jacobs
Bernie Sanders Voting Maybe on
War
Wayne
Madsen
The Siege of Washington
Mark Franchetti
Slaughter at the Bridge of Death
Robert
Fisk
Blood and Bandages of the Innocent
Robin Cook
Send Our Soldiers Home
Anthony
Gancarski
Investigate Perle
Uri Avnery
The Devil's Dictionary
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 03/31
March
29, 2003
Kathy and
Bill Christison
"Like Being Autistic with
Power": an Interview with Jeff Halper
Ben
Tripp
"My Empire for a Map!": Geography
American Style
Ann Harrison
The War on Protesters: San Francisco's
Berserk Cops
Kurt
Nimmo
Dead People: Don't Go There
Chris Floyd
Blood on the Tracks: Cheney the
War Profiteer
Ann
Pettifer
Israelis: Victims No Longer?
Jo Wilding
Dispatch from Baghdad: Nowhere
is Safe
Ramzy
Baroud
Horror Chamber: Inside the Al-Amiriya
Shelter
David Krieger
Perle is Gone, But the Looting
Continues
John
Gershman
Dreams of Empire; Eulogies for International
Law
Robert
Fisk
Bombing the Phone System
Brice Abel
War, Bush and the Jesus Torilla
Tom
Stephens
The Chickenhawk Circle of Hell
Alexander
Cockburn
"War Not Going According
to Plan"
March 28,
2003
Robert
Fisk
Bitter Truths About Basra
Daniel
Wolff
A Road Trip in Wartime
Chris
Clarke
We Never Spit on Any Baby Killers
David Lindorff
Saddam, a Hero Made in Washington
Pierre
Tristam
Icarus on Crack: American Hubris
and Iraq
Jason Leopold
Richard Perle: the Enterprising
Hawk
Saul
Landau
Technological Massacre
Carol Norris
The Mother of All Bombs
Riad
Abdelkarim, MD
Iraq War Lingo 101
Adam Engel
Schlock and Awe
Steve
Perry
War Web Log
March 27,
2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Somebody Blew Up Baghdad
Rahul
Mahajan
The New Humanitarianism: Basra as
Military Target
Simon Jones
A Letter from Uzbekistan
William
S. Lind
No Exit
Diane Christian
A Day of Reckoning
The
Black Commentator
Onward
Embedded Soldiers: the Press and the War
Mickey
Z.
Remembering the Real Moynihan:
Genocide in East Timor
Richard
Thieme
The Problem of Empathy
Jason Leopold
Energy Scams: Bilking California
Out of Billions
Tariq
Ali
A Naked Display of Imperial Power
Alexander
Cockburn
Up the Creek
March 26,
2003
Bruce Jackson
A Battlefield from Hell
Pablo
Mukherjee
Watch
Their Lips
David Krieger
Shock But Not Awe
Linda
Heard
Winning
Hearts and Minds Bush-Style
Imad Jadaa
The Beautiful Face of America
Adam
Engel
Buckets
of Blood
Patrick
Cockburn
Kurds Unimpressed
David
Lindorff
POWs,
Torture and Hypocrisy
Robert
Fisk
The Coup That Didn't Happen
April
Hurley, MD
A
Doctor's Outrage in Baghdad
Gloria
Bergen
Chretien's Shame
Reema
Abu Hamdieh
The
Smell of Death Surrounds Me
March 25,
2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Life During Wartime
Gary
Leupp
What
Democracy Looks Like: the Streets of Cairo
Bill and
Kathleen Christison
An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
Bruce
Jackson
Why
Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
Bitter Rice: Thoughts and Warnings
on the War
Jason
Leopold
Blood
Indicator: Casualties and the Stock Market
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless
Country
March 24,
2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Ominous Signs
David
Lindorff
Peacekeepers
at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The
Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How
to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony
Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
Robert
Fisk
We
Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
The Other
America
Saul Landau
The Threats of Empire
Kathleen and Bill Christison
On the Road in the West Bank
Joanne Mariner
Suing Seymour Hersh
Ann Harrison
The Battle of San Francisco
Robert Fisk
A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
Chris Floyd
Memory Lane
Kathy Kelly
Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
Bombing Away a Chance for Joy
Linda Heard
Baghdad Burns While Bush Does Lunch
Bradley Burston
Could the US be at War for Years?
Salvador Peralta
Mass Murder as Liberation?
Tom Gorman
Now That's a Coalition!
Jorge Mariscal
Johnny Mack, When Are You Coming Back?
Cindy Milstein
The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
Blocking Portland's Bridges
Elaine Cassel
The Case of Elizabeth Smart: Kidnapping and Insanity
Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
Getting to Know the Real Havana
Poets' Basement
Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
Ben Tripp
Blood
for Oil: the Exchange Rate
Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint
Them Red
Brian J. Foley
Patriotic
Protest for Professors
Zoltan Grossman
After Saddam, a War on Iraqi Rebels?
Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
Blitz-Coup
Pepe Escobar
A Cheap Family Farce
Floyd Rudmin
The Nightmare at the Back Door: Nuclear Plant's as Terror Targets
Chris Floyd
See Rome (poem)
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
March 20, 2003
Jo Wilding
From
Waiting to War: a Day and a Night in Baghdad
Stephen Banko
I Was
a Soldier Once
Kevin Alexander Gray
How Did
We Become an Outlaw Nation?
Shane Claiborne
Nomadic
Solidarity: Glimpses of Life in Baghdad on the Eve of War
Kathy Kelly
Waiting on the Baghdad Skies to Crack
Anthony Gancarski
Michelle
Makin's "Liberty Shields"
Rahul Mahajan and Robert
Jensen
Myths
and Facts About the War on Iraq
Jason Leopold
Cheney's
Lies About Halliburton and Iraq
Ron Jacobs
If War is Business as Usual, There Should be No Business as Usual
Chuck O'Connell
Predictions About the Iraq War
Douglas Herman
US Air Force Veteran on the Coming Air Campaign
Ralph Nader
Come
On Democrats, Stand Up for Peace
William Hughes
War is Theft
Sima Saeedi
Dispatch
from Iran
Hammond Guthrie
John Philip Sousa
Website of the Day
Iraq
Body Count
Hot Stories
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April 5,
2003
The
Song Remains the Same
Georgie
on My Mind
By WILLIAM MACDOUGALL
The crimes of American country music are great
and many: for every Hank Williams there is a Conway Twitty, for
every Gram Parsons a Garth Brooks. Johnny Cash may well have
been arrested for stopping to smell the flowers, but his crimes
pale into insignifance compared to the current crop of country
stars whose rejuvenated musical careers owe as much to September
11 and the current war in Iraq as they do any questionable musical
ability.
Country's latest heartthrob Darryl Worley
received an American flag from Lieutenant General Richard Cody
during a recent (31/03/03) concert in Montgomery, Alabama. The
flag, one of many flown at the Pentagon on the first anniversary
of 9/11, was presented to Worley in recognition of his vocal
support for American soldiers and their families patriotism.
That's a mighty fine accolade you might think, even for a self
confessed good ole boy from Hardin County, Tennessee. So, what
you ask, do you have to do to receive such a fine honour? Well,
plumbing the depths of post-9/11 taste and decency by writing
a song which calls for a war on Iraq to avenge the bloodshed
wrought by Osama Bin Laden certainly helps. "Have You Forgotten?"
(almost certainly not a rhetorical question) is that song; an
emotive call to arms in which Hardin County's currently most
famous son asks: "I hear people saying we don't need this
war/I say there's some things worth fighting for/What about our
freedom and this piece of ground?/We didn't get to keep 'em by
backing down."
Worley then proceeds to magically conflate
the current War in Iraq with the events of 9/11 in a chorus whose
blustering rhetoric and fuzzy logic have proven popular with
any number of undiscerning country music fans and right-thinking
Americans: "Have you forgotten how it felt that day/To see
your homeland under fire/And her people blown away?/Have you
forgotten when those towers fell?/We had neighbors still inside/Going
through a living hell/And you say we shouldn't worry 'bout Bin
Laden7Have you forgotten?"
"Have You Forgotten?" is currently
riding high at number one for the second consecutive week in
Billboard's Hot Country Singles and Tracks chart. Never, it seems,
has the phrase "number one with a bullet" been more
apposite. Worley bristles at charges that the nakedly emotive
nature of the song has helped forward Bush's war agenda, arguing
two weeks prior to the American led invasion of Iraq that "I
am not a politician. I never have been. It's amazing to me how
a lot of people become successful at their particular job in
entertainment; whether it be an actor or a dancer or a singer
or whatever. And all of a sudden they become this force to be
reckoned with on a political level. There is nothing in this
world that I want less than that."
Fine words from a man who, at a March
26 concert and rally for families of serving American soldiers
(part of the "Spirit of America" tour currently entertaining
miltary personnel and their families) held at Tampa's MacDill
Airbase, took George W. Bush's hand and said, ""Mr
President, I want you to know that I pray for you every day."
Bush, himself also not averse to making banal statements on a
grand scale, responded in kind: "That is the greatest gift
you could ever give a President."
General Michael DeLong, Deputy Commander
of the U.S. Central Command, told the cheering 4,000 strong crowd,
"If Darryl Worley, Toby Keith and the Star-Spangled Banner
can't get your blood boiling, you're at the wrong place."
He very probably meant "pumping", but "boiling"
will certainly do. Bush, for his part, missed the show proper,
citing special presidential dispensation in his defence: "One
of the problems with being the President is you always end up
being the last guy here" he told the crowd, before solemnly
thanking Keith and Worley for "providing their talents in
support of our efforts to make the world a more peaceful place."
Amen.
Worley will doubtless be crushed to hear
that--daily bouts of Bush inspired genuflection notwithstanding--the
Commander in Chief is in fact a closet Toby Keith fan. Who's
Toby Keith you ask? What, you mean to say you don't know who
the Big Dog is? Why, he's the Angry American, that's who. Keith
scored a massive hit last year with "Courtesy of the Red,
White and Blue(The Angry American)", a song which asserts
"Justice will be served/And the battle will rage/This big
dog will fight when you rattle his cage/And you'll be sorry that
you messed with the US of A/'Cause we'll put a boot in your ass/It's
the American Way." Little wonder then that Dubya is a card
carrying member of the Toby Keith Appreciation Society. Keith's
brand of angry Americanism has already wowed them at the Pentagon
and on a USO tour of Bosnia and Kosovo. Keith, who penned the
song as a tribute to his army serving father who died in 2001,
says "it was a song I was inspired to write because I lost
my father six months before 9/11. Nobody wrote an angry American
song, and this was one. It was the way everybody felt when they
saw those two buildings fall."
Keith is witheringly disparaging of those
sorry individuals who have only let Ol' Glory back into their
hearts post 9/11: "He taught me to be a flag-waving patriot
long before it was cool to wave a flag like it is now."
A close friend of metaphor,Keith's live performances include
a video backdrop showing a bulldog--"Toby" natch--urinating
on a newspaper picture of Osama Bin Laden. Recent live performances
have seen the "Big Dog" look at the lot of the average
"two bedroom cave" dwelling Afghan "middle-aged
Middle Eastern camel herding man" overjoyed at the downfall
of the Taliban in--wait for it!--the imaginatively titled "The
Taliban Song" (the self proclaimed national spokesman for
the American Redneck Society's talent for metaphor is somewhat
mercurial). Speaking prior to the onset of hostilities in Iraq,
Keith sought to distance himself from the song's gung-ho sentiment
in a clumsily formulated attempt at clearing the decks:
"Probably the biggest thing that
people don't realize about my situation on, that is, I'm as anti-war
as the next guy--I really am. I'm not for ever having to go to
war. If you have to go fight... If our President and our people
that we've got elected... I have faith that they'll make the
right decisions and if we do, then I think you've got to go in
gung ho and protect as many of us as you can."
Bush must surely have been listening.
"I'm angry about a singer in a band called the Dixie Chicks"
the Big Dog told an appreciative Alabama audience in March. "She
felt a need to the LA Times my song was ignorant and you were
ignorant if you listened to it" he said, referring to criticisms
levelled at him by the Chicks Natalie Maines. "She was also
recently on a European tour where there was an anti-war flavour
and said some things about President Bush and the war. So, what
do I think about her?" he asked. Cue "Courtesy of the
Red, White and Blue" played against a visually doctored
backdrop of Maines and Saddam Hussein together. I guess you had
to be there.
But spare a thought for those poor godforsaken
Dixie Chicks. The popular country trio saw their latest single
"Travelin' Soldier" tumble down the country charts
thanks to very public anti-Dubya comments made by Mains at a
recent London concert. Maines, doubtless appalled by the resulting
lack of radio airplay and the damaging commercial implications
of her comments, later made not one, but two very public climbdowns:
"As a concerned American citizen,
I apologize to President Bush because my remark was disrespectful.
I feel that whoever holds that office should be treated with
the utmost respect. We are currently in Europe and witnessing
a huge anti-American sentiment as a result of the perceived rush
to war. While war may remain a viable option, as a mother, I
just want to see every possible alternative exhausted before
children and American soldiers' lives are lost. I love my country.
I am a proud American."
A group of outraged Dixie Chicks fans
have started a freedom of speech petition in support of Maines
following the South Carolina Legislature's adoption of a resolution
calling for a public apology from Maines and a free concert for
military families when the popular country trio resume US touring
duties resume in May. A case of a tour of duty, as oppposed to
touring duties. Irate talk radio host Mike Gallagher has proposed
an alternative concert to the Dixie Chicks South Carolina date,
with all proceeds from the concert donated to South Carolina
military families. Fit to burst, he said, "Obviously, this
is designed to send a message that it's not okay to run down
our President during this time of war. They insulted their core
audience. Country music fans are red-blooded, patriotic Americans
who support our military and support our commander in chief.
"
Country Music Queen Rosanne Cash has
compared the treatment of Maines as being like McCarthyism all
over again. "It's the people who scream loudest about America
and freedom who seem to be the most intolerant for people with
a different point of view" she told Australia's Undercover
Music. The current issue of the American satirical magazine The
Onion hits the nail dead on the head in a mock opinion piece
by Ellen Dunst entitled, "I Should Not Be Allowed To Say
The Following Things About America":
"True patriots know that a price
of freedom is periodic submission to the will of our leaders-especially
when the liberties granted us by the Constitution are at stake.
What good is our right to free speech if our soldiers are too
demoralized to defend that right, thanks to disparaging remarks
made about their commander-in-chief by the Dixie Chicks?"
Unfortunately, truth really very often
is stranger than fiction. The Dixie Chicks make it on to an online
traitor list ( http://www.probush.com/traitor.htm ) alongside
other such showbiz luminaries as Madonna, Mos Def and Sheryl
Crow to name but a few of the "flaky" celebs who fall
foul of the website's guiding principle that "if you do
not support our president's decisions you are a TRAITOR to our
country!". A patriot list is also provided in the interests
of balance ( http://www.probush.com/patriot_list.htm ), which
very handily comes replete with a useful dictionary definition
of the "p" word for those not quite so certain as to
the increasingly tainted word's meaning ("one who loves
his country, and zealously supports its authority" in case
you were wondering). José Maria Asnar, 54, Madrid, Spain
has signed up but Darryl and Toby are noticeable by their absence.
Still further bad news came the hapless
Chicks way with the dread news that Al Gore had taken up the
freedom of speech cudgels on their behalf. Speakling to an audience
of college students, Gore said, "They were made to feel
un-American and risked economic retaliation because of what was
said. Our democracy has taken a hit. Our best protection is free
and open debate." Cometh the hour, cometh the man so to
speak.
Yet where Maine's timid anti-Bush outburst
resulted in a very public slapdown from the media and country
radio programmers alike, Worley and Toby Keith have been garlanded
with praise and country music award nominations galore as a result
of their twangin' post-9/11 triumphalism. Not only did Keith
record the fastest selling record of his career to date, but
he also scooped eight Academy of Country Music Award nominations.
Worley for his part bagged a best New Male Vocalist nomination.
According to Worley's record label Dreamworks, the song is "scaling
the charts faster than any single in recent memory. Obviously,
Darryl has hit a nerve that strikes to the core of this country's
conscious."
The song has certainly hit a very obvious
emotive nerve; whether it strikes to the core of the American
conscious is another thing entirely. One can only wonder what
the good folks of Basra and Baghdad would think of Worley and
Keith's chest beating invocations to war. The "Spirit of
America" has well and truly been reawakened; unfortunately
it is the mean spirited paranoid America of McCarthy's House
on Un-American Activities--simply substitute Hanns Eisler and
Pete Seeger with Natalie Maines or even Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder
who has recently taken to impaling a mask of President Bush on
a microphone stand at recent concerts. In that context, red blooded
patriots Keith and Worley may well be the Elia Kazan Lites of
their generation.
Richard Perle, one of the chief architects
of the Bush administration and former president of the defence
policy board, has famously said that: "If we let our vision
of the world go forth, and we embrace it entirely, and we don't
try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage total war,
our children will sing great songs about us years from now."
Thankfully, they'll know who to call. As is so often the case
with these things, the last word must go to Toby "Big Dog"
Keith: "Soon as we could see clearly through our big black
eye/Man, we lit up your world like the fourth of July. "
Repeat to fade as they say.
William MacDougall can be reached at: wmacdougall@msn.com.
Today's
Features
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
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