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CounterPunch
February
17, 2003
After the Fall
A Day of Reckoning
by WAYNE MADSEN
The day of reckoning may be close at hand for
Bush's "Coalition of the Willing." The worldwide February
15 protests that saw millions of people in the streets protesting
the reckless adventurism of the Bush administration has begun
to eat away at the periphery of Bush's "Dominion of Deception."
Just as the Roman Empire fell, province-by-province, the "Coalition
of the Willing" also looks set to collapse. The signs that
our global nightmare may soon be over are evident. When French
Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin received an unprecedented
ovation after his speech at the UN Security Council and the world
witnessed a miffed Colin Powell unceremoniously depart the chamber
with his apparatchiks, those who favor peace over war received
a much-needed shot of adrenalin.
And as American city councils - most
notably those of Chicago, Philadelphia, and Atlanta -- continue
to pass anti-war resolutions, the end of the Bush regime may,
thankfully, also be in sight. Bush and his allies, who dismiss
their own peoples' protests as irrelevant and unpersuasive, will
eventually face their wrath at the voting booth. The people will
eventually prevail. However, it is now time to decide how to
effectively deal with the purveyors of war and disinformation
once they are out of power. The war mongers must never again
be permitted to unjustly threaten other nations with war and
military occupation.
In addition, the police who enthusiastically
maced and tear gassed the elderly, the handicapped, and children
should be identified. Textual, photographic and video records
of their identities and behavior should  be maintained. After the war mongers
and gangsters are run out of the White House, Congress, and state
houses, civilian commissions should be established with the power
to indict law enforcement officers who engaged in motiveless
violence. Politicians who oppose these moves should be summarily
voted out of office and replaced with those who will support
an ultimate accounting by the civil rights violators.
Similarly, politicians who refuse to
repeal the draconian USA Patriot and Homeland Security Acts should
be shown the door. The Teutonic and fascist-sounding "Homeland
Security" term must be eliminated from government and popular
usage and replaced by "Civil Defense." That term worked
during the Cold War with the very real threat of global thermonuclear
warfare. It will also suffice in the War on Terrorism. And no
longer will the U.S. government haphazardly be able to label
countries as an "Axis of Evil" without legitimate provocation.
News organizations that cooperated with
the war mongers' agenda should also be identified and vilified.
The Associated Press continues to massively undercount the numbers
of anti-war demonstrators. Its dispatches from Paris reported
the number of demonstrators there to be in the "thousands"
when, in fact, the number was well over one million. Other AP
stories relied exclusively on numbers obtained from police departments
charged with deliberately low balling figures. This is not journalism.
It is disinformation, pure and simple. Readers and viewers should
expose the AP, the cable news channels, and newspapers like The
New York Times by writing letters to the editor and sending and
posting e-mail.
The right wing Babelists on the radio
airwaves should be constrained by a return to fairness doctrines.
Every minute of broadcast racism, xenophobia, and verbal thuggery
should be matched with opposing words of reason and sanity. Returning
the public airwaves to the public itself will eliminate many
of the Rush Limbaugh clones who, on a daily basis, try to outmatch
this modern day Father Coughlin's right-wing rhetoric with their
own unacceptable diatribes against "frogs," "krauts,"
"towel heads," "camel jockeys," and "wet
backs." For the more egregious purveyors of hate, broadcast
regulators should impose heavy fines on their radio stations
and syndicators. After all, the United Nations has indicted Rwandans
for broadcasting hate-filled messages in 1994. If radio hate
broadcasts were an international war crime then, they should
be now.
Political sell outs should also be run
out of office and embarrassed from ever again seeking elective
office. Tony Blair comes to mind as the primary example of a
person willing to sell out his political party and country for
a few photo ops with George W. Bush. Like his predecessor John
Major, Blair may have been promised a lucrative position with
The Carlyle Group, an international cabal of corporate manipulators
tied to the Bush family. The Labor Party should hasten its cleansing
process with an immediate vote of no confidence in Blair and
his Cabinet supporters.
And, alas, Senator John McCain turns
out to be the biggest sell out in modern American political history.
Many of the people who have always questioned the motives of
the Bush family were among McCain's most ardent supporters. I
feel betrayed that after voluntarily working for McCain's 2000
presidential primary campaign - an effort that helped secure
a record 61 percent victory over Bush in Arlington County, Virginia
- McCain now chooses to glom on to the xenophobic and nationalistic
rhetoric of the right wing. The so-called straight-talking McCain
now opts for demagoguery - saying that while people have a right
to protest they don't have a right to be "foolish."
McCain's shameful duplicity will forever be enshrined in America's
political hall of shame.
Pseudo-Democrats like Joseph Lieberman,
who owes his Senate seat to right-wing paragon William F. Buckley,
should be pounded into irrelevancy in the early Democratic primaries.
Likewise, pretty boy politicians like John Edwards, who recently
sponsored a bill to create yet another spy outfit - the Homeland
Security Intelligence Agency - should not only be sent packing
from the presidential primary but also from his next North Carolina
senatorial primary run.
But take heart! The effects of the reaction
to the Bush agenda are already having positive effects. The so-called
willing coalition is collapsing. Bush's chicken hawks who drone
on about some 30 countries supporting the war will soon have
to face the fact that many of these nations will soon join France,
Germany, Russia, Canada, and Mexico in opposition. One country
often cited is Bulgaria. Bulgaria's monarchist-based conservative
government is on the verge of collapse and will be replaced by
one opposed to Bush's war plans. A newly resurgent Dutch Labor
Party is now within striking distance of the conservatives after
surging ahead of a xenophobic anti-immigrant party in January
elections. In a recent poll, 43 percent of Dutch said they had
"zero confidence" in Bush.
Spain's pro-war conservative government
has united the opposition against it with 65 percent of Spaniards
opposed to a war with or without UN approval. Public opinion
polls in Donald Rumsfeld's "New Europe" are running
heavily against Bush's war aims. Only 24 percent of Czechs favor
Bush's war, while 62 percent of Slovenians and Poles are against
their governments' support for Bush. Croatian Prime Minister
Ivica Racan quickly did an about face after signing a pledge
of support for Bush. The reason: a poll showed 81 percent of
Croatians opposed to war. The same results are repeated across
Eastern Europe with 66 per cent of Estonians opposed to war and
76 percent of Hungarians.
Italy's scandal-plagued Prime Minister
and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi is once again under a cloud of
suspicion for questionable financial deals. He may soon be vocing
his support for Bush from an Italian prison. Denmark's conservative
Prime Minister is under fire from Danish opposition parties for
unconstitutionally backing Bush without consulting with the Danish
Parliament's Foreign Affairs Committee. Bush's favorite organ
grinder monkey, Tony Blair, was sweating before a Labor Party
conference in Glasgow while the ever more popular Liberal Democratic
leader Charles Kennedy had an anti-war audience of 1.5 million
in the streets of London.
Bush's Coalition of the Willing is a
mere paper tiger. No wonder a senior U.S. intelligence official
recently scoffed at the term, calling it an overused "phrase."
The real coalition of the willing are the millions who protested
against the Bush regime. Croats and Muslims, once at war with
one another, protested together in Bosnia. Greek and Turkish
Cypriots united at a protest at a British airbase on their divided
island and Israelis and Palestinians jointly staged an anti-war
protest in Tel Aviv. Hundreds of Americans joined in the Paris
anti-war protest, receiving thunderous cheers from the French
protestors who jammed the streets with them.
Judging from the body language of the
Bush shills who hit the television talking head shows the day
after the global protests, they are absolutely shell shocked
after a week of the world saying in unison to the Bush regime,
"Enough!" National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
appeared to be on the verge of tears and/or a nervous breakdown.
Colin Powell was visibly boiling after he received a drubbing
from the Security Council. The maniacal Rumsfeld continued to
lash out against Europeans, the latest target being Austria for
its insistence on maintaining its constitutional obligation of
neutrality. Tom Ridge, the dullard in charge of "homeland
security," had to tell people not to wrap their homes in
plastic sheeting and duct tape after telling them they should
be prepared to do exactly that. John Ashcroft, the "Singing
Nazi," announced, with Ridge behind him playing second fiddle,
that the nation was at Code Orange. It was later revealed that
the alert was based on bogus information. And Bush Junior appeared
more and more mentally challenged, uttering juvenile words like
"gooder" in war rally speeches. Fortunately, for the
people of the world, once these pathetic fools are finally run
out of office, the political futures for them and their ilk will
be relegated to oblivion. The People must firmly pledge to ensure
that never again will the seats of power be handed over to such
a cabal of crooks and gangsters.
The good news for the millions of people
who have braved the elements and the kilometers to demonstrate
in the streets against the Bush war machine is that The People
will soon regain the reins of political power. The bad news for
the mindless war mongers is that The People of the world have
long memories and, ultimately, The People will have their day
in court.
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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February 15
/ 16, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Colin
Powell and the Great "Intelligence Fraud"
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
The Whole World is Watching
Edward Said
A Monumental Hypocrisy
Wouter Hijink
Report from Amsterdam
"War: Do Not Feed!"
Linda Heard
At Last! Proud to be British
Lawrence Ferlinghetti
Taking a Stand on Iraq
Robert Fisk
The Case Against War
Lev Grinberg
Lessons from Israel
A War Without Legitimacy
Chris Floyd
Cold Fronts:
Bush War Profits
Ahmad Faruqui
Stepping Back from the Brink of War
Norman Madarasz
French Kisses from the Citizens of France
Adam Lebowitz
Scott Ritter in Tokyo
Kurt Nimmo
Bring Us the Head of Osama bin Laden
Forrest Hylton
The Revolt in Bolivia
Col. Dan Smith
Irrelevance and Credibility:
Bush, NATO and the UN
Wayne Madsen
The Lies of Tom Lantos
Ranjit Hoskote
The Invisible Modernities of the Islamic World
Emily Zitter-Smith
Who's Safe Now?
An American in Cairo
Rich Procter
Anybody Remember the Powell Doctrine?
Poets Basement:
Eliot
Katz, Scott Handleman, and Bruce Tomczak
Website of the Weekend
Anti-War
Posters
Read
Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
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Press
by Alexander
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and Jeffrey St. Clair
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