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The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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October 28, 2005 Phil Gasper Manual Garcia, Jr. Monica Benderman Jason Leopold
Saul Landau Stuart Hodkinson Ingmar Lee Lila Rajiva Ilan Pappe Niranjan Ramakrishnan Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Cockburn / St. Clair
October 26, 2005 Kathy Kelly Gary Leupp Mike Marqusee Eric Ruder Patrick Cockburn Joshua Frank J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Website of
the Day
October 25, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn Conn Hallinan Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Jackie Corr Robert Day John Sugg
October 24, 2005 Dave Lindorff Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Norman Solomon Bill and Kathleen
Christison
October 22 / 23, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Billy Sothern Saul Landau Ralph Nader Behrooz Ghamari Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Fred Gardner Lee Sustar Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen James Petras Joshua Frank Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Michelle Bollinger Missy Comley
Beattie Kona Lowell Ben Tripp Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
October 21, 2005 Dave Lindorff Winslow T. Wheeler Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Madis Senner Michael Donnelly
Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Jeremy Brecher
/ Patrick Cockburn Kevin Zeese Ross Eisenbrey Randy Shields Justine Davidson After Lucas
Cranach Joe Allen
October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Stephen Soldz Chet Richards Patrick Cockburn Scott Richard
Lyons Ralph Nader Website of
the Day
October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Ron Jacobs Keeanga-Yamahtta
Taylor Dave Lindorff Virginia Rodino Thomas Healy Ralph Nader Stephen Lendman Patrick Cockburn
October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Norman Solomon Cockburn /
Sengupta Mike Whitney Uri Avnery Harold Pinter Website of
the Day
October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Neve Gordon Moshe Adler Christopher Brauchli Diane Farsetta Sam Husseini Monica Benderman Mickey Z. Douglas C.
Smyth Lee Sustar Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Joshua Frank David Vest Ben Tripp Poets Basement Website of
the Weekend
October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen Ron Jacobs Sasha Kramer Katrina Yeaw Nicole Colson Raúl Zibechi Nikolas Kozloff Website of the Day
Jeremy Scahill Jeff Birkenstein Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Stan Cox Anis Memon Gary Leupp Dave Zirin Matthew Koehler Werther Website of
the Day
Omar Waraich William Cook Phil Gasper Dave Lindorff Matt Vidal John Gautreaux Diana Johnstone Mark Weisbrot Brian J. Foley Website of
the Day
October 11, 2005 Roger Morris
/ Steve Schmidt Lila Rajiva Bill Quigley Paul Craig Roberts Dave Lindorff Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Mitchel Cohen Tariq Ali Website of
the Day
October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig
Corrie Joshua Frank Gideon Levy Alan Wallis Mickey Z. CounterPunch News Service Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ralph Nader Jennifer Van Bergen Saul Landau Jeff Halper Lenni Brenner Nikolas Kozloff Brian Cloughley Alice Slater John Gautreaux Fred Gardner Niranjan Ramakrishnan M.G. Piety Tom Gorman Mike Whitney Aseem Shrivastava Ben Tripp Poets' Basement
October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson Will Youmans Dave Lindorff Judith Scherr Russell D. Hoffman Jared Bernstein Jennifer Van
Bergen Website of
the Day
P. Sainath Scott Parkin Paul Craig
Roberts Andréa Schmidt Dave Lindorff Joshua Frank M. Junaid Alam Matthew Koehler Robert Pollin
October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Robert Jensen Ramzy Baroud Col. Dan Smith Dave Zirin Paul Craig Roberts Alan Maass
October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Mike Roselle Joshua Frank John Chuckman Alan Farago Mickey Z. Christine & Ethan Rose Gary Leupp Website of the Day
October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank Seth Sandronsky Jeffrey St. Clair
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October 28, 2005 It's Mardi Graft TimeWay Down in New OrleansBy JENNIFER MATSUI The catastrophic success of Hurricane Katrina in carrying out the Bush administration's second term agenda in only a few short days should have been cheering news for the beleaguered war prez. Even though he is being forced to lick his wounds publicly while the key players of "Operation Hurrah Katrina" celebrate "Mardi Graft" behind closed doors, the president should have had plenty of reason to rejoice along with them, if he hadn't already outlived his usefulness both publicly and within his own party. Having secured New Orleans as ground zero for a long awaited ethnic cleansing, while laying out the blueprint for a police state nationwide, Bush is now in the awkward position of having to appear penitent while signaling "Mission Accomplished" to his dwindling base. Already we can see the damage he's inflicted on his trademark smirk, as he snorts and wheezes through his openly scripted public appearances. Not even his renewed hard line stance against Syria can re-ignite his fizzling approval ratings. Funny how the plight of homeless Somalis swimming around in your own backyard tends to put a damper on even the heartiest appetites for destruction. Add a grieving Gold Star mother left to bake outside your Texas ranch and you've got yourself a public relations nightmare. And that's not even counting Tom Delay's recent arrest for money laundering, Bill Frist's SEC woes, and Karl Rove's impending indictment in the Valerie Plame affair. Clearly, Bush is living off the chump change left over from his much vaunted and mostly illusory "political capital." After publicly praising fellow patsy and former FEMA chief Michael Brown -- the Lee Harvey Oswald of this reverse political assassination (what else do you call it when a public figure is set up to kill thousands of his fellow citizens?) -- Bush himself has become a fall guy for the White House's Cheney-led cabal, yet another expendable player in the shell game of Empire. Having achieved everything they set out to do (destroy the Bill of Rights, expand the powers of the Patriot Act, make Homeland Security a branch of the military, give permanent tax breaks to the rich, legalize torture, normalize pre-emptive war, eradicate public education... to name just a few), the junta has little reason to concern itself with trivialities like Bush's plummeting popularity. Still, the junta may have underestimated the fallout from the recently disclosed e-mails from a FEMA staffer to Michael Brown's secretary proving that "Brownie" fiddled with his dinner arrangements while New Orleans was being wiped off the map. "Let Brownie Eat Cake" will likely linger in the collective memory long after the heads of America's current Imperial rulers roll into the gutter of history. Rather than the fiery "End Times" finale many expected would mark the end of Bush's second term in office, a confluence of comparatively minor but highly symbolic events have contributed to the steady erosion of his approval ratings, leaving him vulnerable and ridiculous. Even die-hard loyalists have to admit that only a horse's ass would promote a horse show organizer to the nation's highest emergency relief agency. And only a horse's ass would praise the efforts of this mass murderer's bungled hatchet job on his own presidency. "Guten arbeit, Herr Braunie." Bush's choice of loyal spinster Harriet Miers, his one-time legal counsel and head cheerleader, as his Supreme Court nominee gives impetus to the notion that the president is a lonely and isolated figure in his own administration. At first glance, the evangelical Harriet Miers seems a natural choice for the "Supreme-Being" Court -- an asexual frump with a corruption riddled résumé and a paper trail of love letters to the guy who is now championing her promotion to the federal bench. Being as unfamiliar with the complexities of constitutional law as she is with the correct application of eyeliner, Miss Harriet fits right in with all the other unqualified comfort-giving cronies (emphasis on "crone") whom he has appointed to key positions based on loyalty and a willingness to play wet nurse to his inner demons. It's not hard to imagine (although painful to visualize) wee George struggling with mater Barbara's whalebone corsets only to find himself suckling the butt-end of her mother-of-pearl-handled Smith and Wesson. The wildly unpopular choice of his former lawyer to the nation's top court merely reinforces the view that the boy king feels increasingly frozen out of the decision-making loop, and is seeking maternal reassurance from yet another tough old nanny bird who will soothe his daily public spankings with lollipops, and lend a sympathetic ear to his private deliriums. On the other hand, we should at least consider the possibility that abject fear and paranoia lies at the root of Bush's bizarre choice. Could it be that George's real concern is that history will describe his major legacy as starting (and losing) a war based on a mountain of lies as opposed to being the first United States President to end up in prison for his achievement? Perhaps Harriet's secret asset and only real qualification for the highest court is her assurance of a "not guilty" verdict on appeal, should Dubya be forced to answer to a jury of American citizens angry at being manipulated, repeatedly lied to, and exploited for their warm bodies and tax dollars in the name of "Operation Iraqi Freedom" or any number of other high crimes and misdemeanors, including making torture a national policy and revealing the names of CIA operatives during wartime? Conservative opposition to Harriet Miers, nomination is only based in part on her ambiguous stance on Roe v Wade, contrary to what the blowholes of the religious right would have us believe. More likely, it stems from the residual rage Bush loyalists feel after seeing "Dear Leader" exposed as a drooling dummy, wholly dependent on Karl Rove's Light and Magic wizardry to prop him up. Image, more than ideology, has always explained the political genius of George Bush. By maintaining a barricaded and heavily armed distance from the grunts on the ground (at home and in Iraq), the boy king's regal disregard for human suffering could always be marketed to his advantage at the skilled hands of his puppet masters. Through the power of image, the silver spoon he was born with became a dirt tipped shovel, his cowardice, "courage", and his notorious insensitivity, "compassion". But almost overnight, it seems, Bush has transformed from the HSS Lincoln's buff, "commanderin," chief into a cowardly deck hand standing idiotically resolute on the prow of a life boat, watching helplessly as his slave ship sinks. That's not to say that his supporters are shedding too many tears for the chained human cargo that perished aboard the "SS Katrina." Indeed they have made clear that they privately endorse genocide if it accomplishes what decades of tax breaks for the rich, cuts to social services, and curbs on civil liberties have failed to do, namely kill off "undesirable" populations and keep the remaining majority paralyzed with fear and uncertainty. But even those who benefit
most from the "bidness" of government and religion
take exception to having their agenda laid out in the cruel glare
of daylight. For them, Bush's criminality is not so much his
utter contempt for human life but his ignorant disregard for
the protocols of Empire. Through arrogance and incompetence,
the Junior Bush has revealed the tricks of the global gulag trade,
allowing the inmates a revealing look into the infernal center
of their prison planet. For that reason alone, he will live out
the remainder of his term in disgrace and obscurity. |
from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair                      |
