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Today's
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August 28,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
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August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
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
August 28 / 29, 2004
Blowing
Smoke on Intelligence
Turning
Liability into Asset
By
RAY McGOVERN
Former
CIA Analyst
What do the president's nomination of
Rep. Porter Goss (R, FL) to head the CIA and the seemingly contradictory
proposal of Senator Pat Roberts (R, KS) to dismember the CIA
have in common with tales of swift boats once in Vietnam? Answer:
The proven potential of all three to grab the headlines and draw
attention away from President George W. Bush's most serious vulnerabilities
in this key pre-election period.
One can be forgiven for being
confused at the administration's recent moves on the intelligence
front. Early last month, when the Senate Intelligence Committee
published its multi-count indictment of CIA's performance on
Iraq and former CIA Director George Tenet left the scene of the
crime, the pundits expressed confidence that the president would
ask Tenet's deputy to fill in over the ensuing months rather
than risk calling further attention to the intelligence fiasco.
Leading Democrats were rubbing
their hands in glee at the president's dilemma. Failing to appoint
a new take-charge CIA director would look inept amid all the
warnings of a pre-election terrorist attack, but appointing one
would bring still more embarrassment for the administration.
And some voters, the Democrats were hoping, might even remember
where the buck is supposed to stop.
Not a problem, decided Karl
Rove, who continues to outsmart many Democrats of higher IQ.
The situation is made to order. The president is particularly
vulnerable on two counts: what he did in Iraq, and what he didn't
do before 9/11. The 9/11 commission performed yeoman's service
in diffusing responsibility such that no one-and especially not
the one sitting where the buck used to stop-could be held accountable.
And it is turning out to be almost as easy on Iraqdespite
the continuing mayhem there and the inexorable culpability-creep
up the chain of command regarding the torture of Iraqi and other
prisoners.
Porter Goss
Front and Center
It was in this context that
the White House decided to stoke the fires of political controversy
still higher by nominating Porter Goss to replace Tenet. As
chairman of the House Intelligence Committee for the last eight
years, Goss is as responsible as anyone for the intelligence
failures that facilitated the attacks of 9/11.
He bears even more responsibility
for turning a blind eye toward the corruption of intelligence-including
the conjured-up-out-of-thin-air mushroom cloud that in October
2002 frightened Congress into surrendering to the president its
constitutional prerogative to wage war. No one has accused Goss
of being dumb. If we "out-of-the-loop" veteran intelligence
professionals could readily see what was going on, surely Goss
could.
And so, as Goss comes before
the Senate for confirmation, controversy is assured-and welcomed
by the White House. The Democrats will not pass up the opportunity
to ask the nominee how all this could have escaped Goss' attention
during the eight years he chaired the powerful House Intelligence
Committee. They will want to know, specifically, why he failed
to stem the erosion of CIA's human source reporting capability-a
problem Goss himself highlighted after his first year as chairman.
And they are bound to ask him why he sponsored legislation with
deeper cuts in intelligence funding than those advocated by Sen.
John Kerry-for which Republicans have roundly criticized Kerry.
But while the Democratic leadership
continues to lick its chops at the prospect of raking Goss over
the coals at his nomination hearings next month, Karl Rove is
smirking from ear to ear. Another situation made to order.
Attention will be riveted on this controversial "team player"
nominated to assume the mantle of Tenet, who in a leap of faith-based
intelligence aimed at keeping himself on the starting cheerleader
team, famously described the evidence of weapons of mass destruction
in Iraq as a "slam dunk."
Too bad the press, and even
the Democrats, play along in accepting the failure of intelligence
as the reason we invaded Iraq. In doing so they let the White
House off the hook and deny the public the honest debate it deserves
about the real reasons for war.
The focus on Goss and intelligence
reforms allows the White House to push its message: The president
was misled. It was a terrible performance, but now Tenet is
gone. Subtext to Senate Democrats: Here's Goss: take him, or
leave him (and open yourselves to charges of foot-dragging at
a time when our PR machine has ratcheted up the likelihood of
a terrorist attack before the election).
The performance of intelligence
was, indeed, terrible-as inept as it was politicized. But intelligence
failings regarding weapons of mass destruction and putative ties
between Iraq and al-Qaeda had very little to do with the president's
decision to make war on Iraq.
The Real
Reasons
With the false WMD threat exposed
and tales of significant ties between Iraq and al-Qaeda thoroughly
discredited, the American people need an open discussion about
the White House's motivations for invading Iraq. Rove's tactics
aside, the Democrats are none too eager to engage this question,
either, as is clear from John Kerry's recent statements on justification
for the war.
And the general consensus contrives
to silence those of us who dare to speak on the Iraq debacle.
As has become increasingly clear, the neo-conservatives' vision
that the US has a strategic imperative to gain more assured control
over oil from the Middle East, together with their overweening
zeal to eliminate any conceivable threat to the security of Israel,
are what sunk us into the quicksand of Iraq. More important
at this juncture, these twin aims render it virtually impossible
for these policy makers to find a way out.
Quite aside from the political
opprobrium that would attach to a decision to "cut and run,"
the neo-cons probably reckon that, in the wake of the invasion
of Iraq, Israel is only more secure as long as the US keeps a
sizable military presence there. The Bush administration is,
on the one hand, unwilling to send the "several hundred
thousand" troops that former Army Chief of Staff Eric Shinseki
at the outset warned would be needed. On the other hand, it
seems convinced that it cannot withdraw without leaving Israel
in the lurch.
The neo-cons have considerable
difficulty distinguishing between the strategic requirements
of Israel and those of the US. There are not enough US troops
in Iraq to quell the resistance, but there are enough to prevent
any strategic threat to Israel. And so, the Bush administration
shows no intention of drawing down US forces from Iraq anytime
soon.
This, needless to say, has
serious implications for us all-including my grandson Matthew
who is fast approaching draft age. But such awkward realities
are not supposed to be spoken in polite political discourse.
Last Friday on PBS' Charlie Rose Show, I broke that taboo
and was immediately branded "goofy" and "anti-Semitic"
by arch-neo-conservative James Woolsey, a former CIA director.
It is a volatile, but important,
point. Most Americans would be loath to support sending our
young men and women into Iraq to make the world safer for an
Israel that is armed to the teeth and led by the likes of Israeli
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.
In justifying the war, the
administration deemed it far better to home in on things like
"weapons of mass destruction" and to count on our somnolent
press to miss a glaring inconsistency. On February 24, 2001,
Secretary of State Colin Powell stated publicly, "Saddam
Hussein has not developed any significant capability with respect
to weapons of mass destruction." And in July 2001 Condoleezza
Rice said, "We are able to keep his arms from him. His
military forces have not been rebuilt."
But, as we are repeatedly reminded,
after September 11 "everything changed." Are we being
asked to believe, then, that weapons of mass destruction suddenly
descended softly on Iraq-like manna from heaven?
Intelligence
Complicity
Intelligence? No intelligence
estimate on Iraq was wanted by the White House, or needed, until
the fall of 2002 when Congress was asked to authorize war on
Iraq-long after the decision to attack. At that point the ever-vigilant
Senate intelligence oversight (overlook?) committee woke up to
the fact that it had seen no intelligence to justify war. So
the White House ordered the obedient Tenet to have his chefs
cook up the "evidence" needed to muddle congressional
minds with mushroom clouds. And the worst National Intelligence
Estimate in US history was conjured up to help convince Congress
to surrender to the president its power to make war.
Just as the swift boats of
August have been spreading thick spray, the Goss hearings next
month and debate on Roberts' cockamamie proposal on restructuring-so
outlandish as to have zero chance of passing-can be counted upon
to spread enough fog to keep the mayhem in Iraq off the front
pages and distract attention from the president's most serious
vulnerabilities. Karl Rove is counting on it, and he's cleverer
by half.
Iraq? The CIA made us do it.
Ray McGovern, a CIA analyst for 27 years, is co-founder
of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity and a
contributor to CounterPunch's unsparing new history of the Afghanistan/Iraq
wars, Imperial
Crusades. McGovern can be reached at: RRMcGovern@aol.com
This article was first published
on TomPaine.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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