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Today's
Stories
February 16, 2004
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
February 14/15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
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
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Weekend
Edition
February 14/15, 2004
Will Bush be Swept
Away
Is
the Tide Turning?
By RAHUL MAHAJAN
For at least six months, I have been resisting
early pronouncements of Bush's political death. Most of them
seemed to be composed of wishful thinking, extrapolating from
simple facts -- the disaster of the Iraq occupation, the mostly
jobless recovery, the lies about weapons of mass destruction
-- to that phenomenally elusive quantity that is public opinion.
If Ronald Reagan was the Teflon president,
then until recently Bush seems to have been made of some special
plastic developed by an advanced alien civilization. He took
some hits in the polls, but given that this administration has
lied about virtually every aspect of its policy (WMD, tax cuts,
budget, ...) and has presided over a series of disasters for
the United States from the 9/11 attacks to a failing colonial
occupation to economic stagnation to a collapse of the government's
fiscal soundness to a collapse of social services, he hasn't
done so badly. His job approval ratings remained in general well
over 50% and as late as October of last year, 59% of Americans
characterized Bush as "honest and trustworthy."
Furthermore, the administration has displayed
a consistent pattern: Unlike Bill Clinton, who really was obsessed
with the polls, Bush has been willing to let his ratings slide,
let criticism and confusion mount to extreme levels, then defuse
it all with a well-timed and heavily-hyped intervention.
There are signs, however, that this time
is different.
Bush's latest slide dates from the recent
statements of David Kay, former head of the Iraq Survey Group
that was tasked with finding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction,
that Iraq not only had no weapons but that they couldn't find
"the people, the documents or the physical plants"
that would have been necessary to produce weapons.
The administration tried to defuse the
issue with a couple of items from its usual bag of tricks. First,
it tried to turn this issue on its head by claiming that the
issue was "intelligence failures" rather than administration
deception, orchestrating a campaign to get the  media to go along with this
spin and planning for a whitewash of the issue by creating an
independent commission whose purview is restricted to intelligence
methods (see the Executive Order creating the commission at <http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/02/20040206-10
.html>). Second, it decided to stage a media opportunity by
having Bush appear on "Meet the Press."
This was a bit of a gamble, because most
past media interventions involved a prepared script, and the
effort required of Bush was simply to keeps his lips pursed very
tightly so that he wouldn't smirk as he read from the Tele-prompter.
Even though Tim Russert was the perfect
softball questioner, refusing to press Bush on such elementary
points as why he went to war while inspections were actually
in progress, it was a disaster. For once, the administration's
mix of warmed-over platitudes and stonewalling didn't work --
not only did Bush have nothing to say, he said it very badly.
And look at the results. Last week, Time
magazine's cover article talks about Bush's "credibility
gap." A Washington Post poll found 54% of the population
believing that Bush had lied or exaggerated about Iraq's WMD,
and 50% approving of his job as president. And, for the first
time since the war ended, only 48% of Americans approved of the
war.
Next, after being pressed hard over well-documented
claims of desertion while in the National Guard during the Vietnam
War, the Bush administration actually started releasing some
of his records. This is the most secretive administration since
Nixon's. Dick Cheney continues to stonewall on disclosing the
details of his meetings in drafting the 2001 Bush-Cheney energy
plan, even after a judge found in favor of the suit by the General
Accounting Office. It must have been surreal for journalists
who are consistently refused access even to documents that the
administration is legally required to make public to suddenly
be given the chance to peruse Bush's dental records.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
voted last Thursday night to expand the independent commission's
purview to include the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (Dick
Cheney's way to get around the CIA) and, in a highly limited
way (no subpoena power) to deception by administration officials.
It's much less than half a loaf, but given the recent history
of extreme partisanship by Republicans in the legislative branch
getting even that much through the Republican-dominated committee
is a major change.
And even Alan Greenspan, an extreme Bush
partisan for the past three years, has broken with the administration
by suggesting mandatory limits on tax cuts because of the unrestrained
growth of the deficit.
Add to all this the facts that Bush is
even coming under heavy fire from parts of his own party for
his budget shenanigans, and the fact that the previously mentioned
Washington Post poll shows Kerry beating Bush by 51 to 43 in
a head-to-head matchup, and it's fair to say that this crisis
is significantly more severe than any the administration has
yet faced.
No one should break out the champagne
yet. Bush has not even started spending down his $150 million
campaign war chest. Expect him to attack Kerry as an extreme
liberal (untrue) and a captive of special interests (true). The
recent media attention to Kerry's alleged philandering will allow
Bush to try to suggest that dishonesty about interns is far more
important than dishonesty that drags the country into war. Once
Bush really starts to fight back, all of his recent losses may
well be reversed. And even if Bush loses, nobody should expect
Kerry to end the occupation of Iraq.
But Bush's recent implosion does provide
a huge opportunity. The administration's credibility on foreign
policy is noticeably lower than it was even in the brief effloration
of a mass antiwar movement last February and March. Only 52%
of people now think of Bush as "honest and trustworthy."
Now is a time that people might just be receptive to the idea
that an administration that would lie to us about everything
else may also be lying about what's happening in Iraq, and may
even be lying about why it went to war in the first place.
This is an opportunity that cannot be
left to the Democratic candidates. In a New York Times op-ed
on January 29, Robert Reich, Clinton's former Secretary of Labor,
wrote about the need to build a liberal mass movement. He pointed
out that the right wing's recent successes grow very much from
its grassroots strength; he also implied that Howard Dean's supporters
provide at least an embryonic core for such a movement.
Reich's call is right on the money (although
his claim that Kerry and his campaign are part of such a movement
is not). There is a need for a mass movement that does not restrict
itself to support of one candidate or another and does not focus
narrowly on "electability" but defines itself around
core issues and pushes the public debate (and the position of
liberal candidates).
Central to such a movement must be opposition
to the new imperialism, to colonial-style occupations, and to
the aggressive increase in general militarism. Just as in the
Vietnam War, this is once again an issue that everybody knows
has an effect on them. Now is the time for a resurgent anti-imperial
movement to launch a mass public outreach campaign. The occupation
of Iraq, the new American imperialism, and the insane growth
of the military budget are in fact issues that you can go door-to-door
with. Some essential points for such a movement to address:
1. What the United States is doing in
Iraq. Nobody knows that in much of the country, including that
capital, Baghdad, people are worse off now than they were under
the twin brutalities of Saddam and the sanctions. Since we are
not now in the polarizing atmosphere of a push to war, people
will be much more open to understanding the human cost of the
occupation and the brutality and negligence of U.S. policy. We
must also connect the new imperialism, and the specificities
of how it is operating in Iraq, to people's lives here. The deliberate
destruction of social services in the United States parallels,
in a much less intense fashion, the destruction and collapse
of social order that is associated with the "regime change"
in Iraq.
2. Terrorism. Forget the lame criticisms
of the Democratic candidates, that the war on Iraq is a "diversion"
from some legitimate war on terrorism. Rather, we must emphasize
that the whole policy since 9/11 has dramatically increased the
risk from al-Qaeda and associated groups, something that even
FBI and CIA officials admitted before the Iraq war, and something
that is made clearer every day in Iraq. The policy of turning
Afghanistan and Iraq into "failed states," which is
precisely what the United States has done, is a disaster. An
alternative approach to terrorism must be based on disengagement,
allowing the people of Afghanistan and Iraq to generate their
own politics, funding for genuine reconstruction (overseen by
Afghans and Iraqis), cessation of attempts to control Middle
Eastern governments, ending aid to Israel, and accepting international
law. Certainly, none of these changes will stop bin Laden and
his current colleagues, but they are necessary to create the
background so that international efforts to bring them to justice
don't backfire and actually worsen the problem by increasing
new recruitment of terrorists. People will be willing to hear
this now in a way that they weren't after the seemingly "successful"
conclusion of the war on Afghanistan.
3. Linking military spending increases
(along with tax cuts) to the decrease in social spending. These
spending increases include money for current operations in Afghanistan
and Iraq, for corporate boondoggles (new submarines, more Stealth
bombers), and for possible new wars ("missile defense").
We must simultaneously differentiate between U.S. obligations
to pay for reconstruction of Afghanistan and Iraq, which are
a matter of international law and common decency, and continuing
military spending in those countries. Once the tax cuts and the
military spending increases are taken care of, our nearly $11
trillion economy can easily manage reconstruction payments as
well as an increase in social spending here.
There are many other issues for such
an anti-imperial movement, of course, but these three strike
most easily to the heart of public opinion. This anti-imperial
agenda would be part of a broader progressive agenda that focuses
also on jobs, health-care, and economic inequality.
Given the current political opening,
this can happen. A mass grassroots movement can make a difference,
if it gets started early enough, before the massive Bush reelection
campaign starts to shut down that gap and mends the current cracks
in the ice. Not only can we dramatically advance public consciousness
of the key issue for the whole world, the new American empire,
an incidental effect will be to make it more likely that Bush
is defeated in the November elections. To the more than one million
Americans who marched on February 15: It's time to come out again.
Rahul Mahajan
is the publisher of Empire
Notes and serves on the Administrative Committee of United
for Peace and Justice, the nation's largest antiwar coalition.
His first book, "The
New Crusade: America's War on Terrorism," has been called
"mandatory reading for anyone who wants to get a handle
on the war on terrorism," and his most recent book, "Full
Spectrum Dominance: U.S. Power in Iraq and Beyond,"
has been described as "essential for those who wish to continue
to fight against empire." He can be reached at rahul@empirenotes.org
Weekend
Edition Features for February 14 / 15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
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