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EXCLUSIVE! HOW THE FBI SPIED ON EDWARD SAID First look at secret files: How G-Men kept Said under surveillance from 1971. David Price traces years of snooping on US's best known Palestinian Bush says 30,000 dead in Iraq but real number caused by 2003 US attack is AT LEAST 180,000, maybe twice that as Andrew Cockburn digs out the real numbers Is the US Constitution worth saving? Hmmm, maybe ... New York Times takes a year to make up its mind. Cockburn and St Clair on NYT and NSA ... 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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Dec. 31 / Jan. 1, 2005/6 Patrick Cockburn December 30,2005 Evo Morales Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Dave Lindorff Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Brian Concannon Sandra Lucas T.W. Croft Website of
the Day
December 29, 2005 Norman Solomon Missy Comley
Beattie Dave Zirin Kevin Zeese Derrick O'Keefe Sam Bahour Macdonald Stainsby Bill &
Kathleen Christison Website of the Day
December 28, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Lila Rajiva Amira Hass Joshua Frank David Swanson Richard Thieme Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
December 27, 2005 Evan Jones Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Gideon Levy David Swanson Norman Solomon
December 26, 2005 Lawrence R.
Velvel Lance Olsen Ben Terrall Scott Boehm Charlie Ehlen Tom Kerr
December 24/25, 2005 Aleander Cockburn James Petras Ralph Nader Lila Rajiva Fred Gardner Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Gary Leupp Saul Landau John Chuckman Dr. Susan Block St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
December 23, 2005 John Ross Chris Floyd Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey Joanne Mariner Eric Johnson-Debaufre Ray McGovern J. L. Chestnut,
Jr. Website of
the Day
December 22, 2005 Ingmar Lee Elisa Salasin Christopher
Brauchli Robin Blackburn Evelyn Pringle Amira Hass Francis A.
Boyle Stew Albert Website of
the Day
December 21, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Lila Rajiva Joshua Frank Dave Zirin Ramzy Baroud Sonia Nettnin Ben Saul Jonathan Cronin Patrick Cockburn Website of
the Day
December 20, 2005 Jackie Corr Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Michael Donnelly Gian Paulo
Accardo Pierre Tristam Norman Solomon Sen. Robert Byrd Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
December 19, 2005 Mike Marqusee Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs John Blair Gideon Levy Kevin Zeese Missy Comley Beattie Don Santina Website of the Day
December 17 / 18, 2005 Cockburn /
St. Clair Gabriel Kolko Susan Alcorn Werther Ralph Nader Patrick Cockburn Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff Ned Sublette Lee Sustar Jason Leopold Laura Carlsen Jeff White Ray McGovern Chris Floyd William Loren Katz Rose Miriam
Elizalde Greg Moses Heather Gray Alison Weir St Clair /
Walker / Pollack Poets' Basement Website of
the Day
December 16, 2005 Tom Kerr Mark Engler John Bomar Patrick Cockburn Pierre Tristam William S. Lind Cyril Neville Robert Jensen Saul Landau Website
December 15, 2005 Oren Ben-Dor Stan Cox Joshua Frank Ben Terrall Patrick Cockburn Monica Benderman Walter A. Davis Vijay Prashad Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Lawrence R. Velvel Wayne Garcia John Sugg Gary Leupp Ray McGovern Alan Maass April Hurley, MD Kevin Alexander
Gray
December 13, 2005 Stephen T.
Banko, III Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen Karl Grossman Niranjan Ramakrishnan Kevin Zeese Norman Solomon Michael G.
Smith Stew Albert Bob Dylan Phil Gasper Website of
the Day
December 12, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Lawrence R.
Velvel Jessica Stewart George Bisharat Nate Mezmer Earl Ofari
Hutchinson Alison Weir Seth Sandronsky Patrick Cockburn Website of
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Alexander Cockburn Landau / Hassen Ralph Nader Linn Washington, Jr Bill Christison Mike Ferner Elizabeth Schulte Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner Linda S. Heard Ingmar Lee Ray McGovern John Chuckman John Ryan Dick J. Reavis Christopher
Brauchli Behzad Yaghmaian Aseem Shrivastava John Ross Ben Tripp St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
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December 9, 2005 Linn Washington,
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/ Mike Stark Patrick Cockburn Alexander Cockburn Lila Rajiva Gary Leupp Jason Leopold Bruce K. Gagnon Andrew Cockburn Website of the Day
December 8, 2005 Kathy Kelly James Petras William S.
Lind Laura Carlsen Justin Akers Thomas Graham, Jr Norman Solomon Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn Website of
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December 7, 2005 John Ryan Gary Leupp Fran Quigley Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith Joshua Frank William W.
Morgan Dave Lindorff Patrick Cockburn Harold Pinter Website of
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December 6, 2005 Ron Jacobs Patrick Cockburn Yifat Susskind Mike Whitney Pat Williams Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
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December 5, 2005 John Walsh Brian Cloughley Mokhiber /
Weissman Robert Jensen Norman Solomon Peter Rost, MD Lila Rajiva Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Lawrence R.
Velvel Rev. William Alberts Saul Landau Ralph Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Mike Whitney Allan Lichtman Dave Lindorff Brian Concannon,
Jr. Fred Gardner Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Carol Wolman St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack Poets' Basement Website of
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December 2, 2005 Stan Goff Mike Ferner Christopher Brauchli Niranjan Ramakrishnan Manuel Talens Peter Phillips J.L. Chestnut,
Jr. Website of
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December 1, 2005 John Walsh,
MD Ron Jacobs Jenna Orkin Joshua Frank Tiffany Ten
Eyck Missy Comley Beattie Eli Stephens Elaine Cassel Website of
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Weekend
Edition A Pentagon of Loyalists and EnforcersRumsfeld Versus the MilitaryBy RALPH NADER Civilian control over the military is a long established democratic tradition in our country. It was the military that was believed by our founding fathers to be susceptible to plunging our country into foreign adventure. Presently, however, the boondoggles, crimes and recklessness of draft-dodging George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and former Air Force pilot, Donald Rumsfeld, together with their draft-dodging neo-con associates, have turned this expectation upside down. The civilians are the war-mongers. Probably the least told story of the Iraq war-quagmire is the extent to which the Pentagon military, especially the U.S. Army brass, disagrees with and despises these civilian superiors. Donald Rumsfeld, one of the most disliked of the Secretaries of Defense, has spent much energy making sure that high level dissent in the military is muzzled and overlayered by his loyalists. Just last week Rumsfeld demoted three military service chiefs in the Pentagon hierarchy and replaced them with three loyalists who previously worked for his buddy Dick Cheney. Right from the beginning the U.S. Army brass opposed the invasion of Iraq for both military and strategic reasons. They believed such an attack would absorb massive human and material resources that would divert from the chase after the 9/11 terrorists and the resolution of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. They disagreed with the paucity of soldiers that Bush/Cheney and Rumsfeld were to send there. They were appalled by the lack of post-war planning directives by the Administration. At the 4 star general level, the Army brass knew Saddam Hussein was a tottering dictator, embargoed, surrounded and contained by the U.S., Britain, Turkey, and Israel, and unable to field an army equipped with minimum loyalty and equipment. They also knew that going to Iraq would be the gigantic equivalent of batting a large bee hive. To this day Army commanders in Iraq, most recently General George Casey, recognize that the U.S. military occupation is a magnet for more and more terrorists from inside and outside Iraq. CIA Director Porter Goss was more explicit before Congress last February testifying that occupied Iraq is a recruiting and training ground for more terrorists who will return to their countries for more disruption. When Colin Powell was at the Pentagon, he developed what came to be known as the Powell Doctrine-know clearly what your military and political objectives are, follow up with overwhelming force and have a clear exit plan. Bush/Cheney, Rumsfeld violated this Doctrine. Their only objective was to topple their former ally, in the Eighties, Saddam Hussein. After that, they were clueless and surprised by the insurgency. To top Army officers, the worst of all worlds is Iraq. Their Chief of Staff, General Eric Shinseki, after testifying before Congress about the need for over 300,000 soldiers for any such invasion, found his retirement accelerated. Draft-dodger Paul Wolfowitz, then number two in the Pentagon, rejected his estimate and recommended less than half that number. Retired high military officers, diplomats and intelligence officials, with good sources inside the Department of Defense, say that the military is furious with Bush/Cheney. The latter orders torture with thinly veiled instructions and dubious legal memos and when disclosed, as at Abu Gharib, the Army takes the rap to its reputation. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld start these so-called commando groups, which included ex-Saddam toughs, and their predictable atrocities against young Sunni men becomes the U.S. Army's headache to restrain. The idea behind these outlaw, death squads, reported/ The/ /New York Times Magazine/ last year, was to enable summary destruction of arbitrary 'suspects' and terrorization of the Sunni population. The Army kept telling Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld that such Administration-approved mayhem was backfiring and fueling more hatred by the Sunnis against the U.S., its troops, and these hired gangs. The Administration finally responded by telling the Army to assign more men to advise and monitor these gangs which the U.S. is equipping and paying. Other sources of irritation within the military is Bush/Cheney making sure that the fallen soldiers and the injured soldiers are returned in stealth fashion at Dover Air Force base and Andrews Air Force base outside of Washington, D.C. Bush/Cheney do this for political reasons, knowing opposition to the war increases as U.S. casualties mount. Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld still refuse to count officially U.S. soldiers who are injured outside a combat situation, again for political reasons. This keeps the official injury count at about one third of the real total. Career Army officers do not like their solders being used this way. The Army is also upset over the loss of some of their senior officers and non-commissioned officers to the giant corporate contractors operating in this cost-plus environment of maximum profit for less than maximum service. These companies are hiring away these experienced soldiers with offers that double or triple their salaries to do the very privatized jobs which the Army used to do for itself. In a tight skilled manpower situation, the Army finds this drain to be undermining its mission. On the surface, Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld are heavy on their photo opportunities with the troops, heavy with the flattery that these political tricksters heap on the soldiers and alert to any potential public dissent. There was a recent slip up though. At a Pentagon news conference, November 29^th , a reporter asked General Peter Pace, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, what should American soldiers in Iraq do if they witness Iraqi security forces abusing prisoners. The General's reply: "It is absolutely the responsibility of every U.S. service member, if they see inhumane treatment being conducted, to intervene and stop it." Standing next to him, the calculating conniver, Donald Rumsfeld tried to distort the words of the forthright Pace by saying that American soldiers only had an obligation to report any mistreatment. In a nutshell, that is the
difference between the Pentagon military and their arrogant civilian
superiors who have disrespected their judgment and ordered them
to shut up and follow unlawful policies. Meanwhile the quagmire
bleeding Iraq continues in its way to bleed America. Speak up
military. Remember the Nuremberg principles.
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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                            Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |
