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Cockburn / St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War Now Available! Today's Stories May 11, 2004 William A. Cook The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation, Nakedly Displayed May 10, 2004 Robert Fisk From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism and Torture as Entertainment Wayne Madsen The Israeli Torture Template: Rape, Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks Col. Dan Smith The Shame of Abu Ghraib Joe Bageant John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife! Ron Jacobs Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave Ben Tripp Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage Ray Hanania Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse Reza Fiyouzat "Mishandled" Invasions Diane Christian Images & Abstractions & Genitals Website of the Day Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?   May 8 / 9, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair Torture: as American as Apple Pie Adam Jones America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated and Shot at Kunduz? Douglas Valentine Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press Kurt Nimmo Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib Brian Cloughley Humpty Dumpty is Falling Lucia Dailey Forbidden Games Joanne Mariner * * * *: Redacting Moussaoui Mickey Z. Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders) John Chuckman The Thing with No Brain Doug Giebel Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs Norm Dixon How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11 Sam Bahour A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah Susan Davis Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art Dave Marsh In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing Laura Flanders Life with Dick and Lynne Dave Zirin Fans Push Spiderman Off Base Carolyn Baker Why I Won't Vote in 2004 Prince "Ain't No Sense in Voting" Dr. Susan Block Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation Poets' Basement Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska   May 7, 2004 Human Rights Watch 10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention Facilities in Iraq Ron Jacobs UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So Robert Fisk An Illegal and Immoral War Ahmad Faruqui The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien Phu Alexander Zaitchik From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell? Mike Whitney The Price of Victory Norman Solomon This War, Racism and Media Denial M. Shahid Alam A Comic Apology   May 6, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with Shit; Kicked to Death Kathy Kelly May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor for the War Machine Werther The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas Casino Game Lawrence Ferlinghetti Totalitarian Democracy Robert Fisk "Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded Men Being Shot by US Helicopter John Janney Torturing the Way to Freedom? Christopher Ketcham Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now! Alan Farago Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish Sam Hamod Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning James Brooks Sullen Spring William S. Lind On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq May 5, 2004 Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba Complete US Army Report on Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners Kathleen and Bill Christison Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives? Will Youmans Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian Zionist and the End of the World Patrick B. Barr Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label Lawrence Magnuson Nightline's All-American Morgue Greg Moses Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals Niranjan Ramakrishnan Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing Truth Lee Ballinger Cinco de Mayo and Unity Gilbert Achcar Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire Website of the Day Operation Phoenix & Iraq   May 4, 2004 Human Rights Watch A Timeline of Torture and Abuse Allegations and Responses Kurt Nimmo The CIA Privatized Torture David Peterson CBS, Self-Censorship & Iraq Barry Lando CACI's Private Torture Chambers Patrick Cockburn Torture: Iraqis Disgusted, But Not Surprised Dr. Susan Block Indecent Insurgents: Watch What You Say Fidel Castro A Mindless, Unnecessary War Mike Whitney Empire of Torture Sonali Kolhatkar How to Stop the War: Demonstrate Against John Kerry Josh Frank The Lost Sierra Club Stan Goff The Role: Another Open Letter to US Troops in Iraq Agustin Velloso Spare Us Your Disgusting Ethics Stew Albert American Know-How Website of the Day Scenes from a Cover-Up     May 3, 2004 Virginia Tilley Let the Wall of Silence Fall May 1 / 2, 2004 Patrick Cockburn An Army in Disgrace, a Policy in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat Robert Fisk "Good Guys" Who Can Do No Wrong Alexander Cockburn Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders, Useless Spies, Angry World Heather Williams Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin American Troops Flee Iraq Diane Rejman An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq: Abu Ghraib as My Lai? Diane Christian Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and Sharon Speak the Same Language Patrick Cockburn Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah Dave Lindorff Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked, Shocked, Shocked Chris Floyd Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists and Annihilation April 29 / 30, 2004 Dave Zirin A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome Death of Pat Tillman Kathy Kelly The Warden's Tour Greg Weiher Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the Banality of Evil Michael S. Ladah Terrorism and Assassination: the Ultimate Depception Patrick Cockburn The Fallujah Mutinies     April 28, 2004 Christopher Brauchli Meet Congressman Know-Nothing: Tom Tancredo Wendy Brinker The Politics of the Numb Faisal Kutty The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence John Chuckman Seeking the Evil One Mike Whitney Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times Tom Mountain Rwanda and the F***** Word Graeme Greenback The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production Tracy McLellan The War Comes Home M. Junaid Alam We are the Barbarians William Loren Katz Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson   April 27, 2004 James Davis The Colombia 3 Acquitted Dave Lindorff Chalabi as Prosecutor Bruce Schneier Terrorist Threats and Political Gain Cockburn / Sengupta British Generals Resist Calls for More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq Walt Brasch Presidential Letters: The Day I Was Asked to Feed an Elephant Saul Landau The Empire in Denial and the Denial of Empire April 26, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops Prepare to Enter Najaf Wayne Madsen Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR? Grover Furr Protest, Rebellion, Commitment Elaine Cassel Lies About the Patriot Act Mickey Z. Inspired by Pat Tillman? Greg Moses Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit Gila Svirsky Anarchy in Our Souls Uri Avnery Vanunu and the Terrible Secret April 24 / 25, 2004 William A. Cook Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry and Bush Melt into One Jeffrey St. Clair Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank Brandy Baker A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So Robert Fisk A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free Speech Ben Tripp October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios Nelson Valdés "Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti's Return to the Future Kurt Nimmo The CIA Killed Pat Tillman Mark Scaramella Does Anybody Know Anything? Patrick Cockburn The Return of Saddam's Generals Gary Engler Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas Col. Dan Smith Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush Greg Weiher Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam... Elaine Cassel Life on the Outside: a Review Vanessa Jones Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney Jim French Agriculture's Bullied Market Hammond Guthrie Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles Poets' Basement Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella April 23, 2004 Ron Jacobs The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal Dave Lindorff Imagination Deficit Disorder Mokhiber / Weissman Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster Norman Solomon Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?" Cynthia McKinney All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization CounterPunch Wire A Bitch Called Wanda Karyn Strickler Sierra Club, Inc. Hammond Guthrie Yellow Caked in the Face Paul de Rooij Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary of the Iraqi Occupation   April 22, 2004 Patrick Cockburn When Terror Came to Basra: "I Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire" Tanya Reinhart The Wall Behind Disengagement Lance Selfa Why is Kucinich Still in the Race? Josh Frank Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches Sen. Robert Byrd Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq William S. Lind Why We Get It Wrong Mickey Z. Undoing the Latches Robert Jensen Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank John L. Hess The New York Times from 30,000 Feet   April 21, 2004 Gary Leupp Yeats on Iraq Alfredo Castro Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners Dr. Susan Block Bush's Taliban Drug Deal William A. Cook George 1 to George 2 Jack Random Iraq and Vietnam Jean-Guy Allard Alarcon Meets the Editors Mike Whitney Charade in the Desert Bill Christison Only Major Policies Changes Can Help Washington Now     April 20, 2004 Dave Lindorff Bush and Kerry Share a Problem Stan Cox Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers Bruce Anderson On Listening to Air America Joseph Kalvoda Czech Mate for Condi Greg Moses Yesterday's Intelligence Stan Goff The Democrats and Iraq Website of the Day Santorum Happens     April 19, 2004 Kurt Nimmo The "Central Hand" of the Resistance Mike Whitney Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles Douglas Valentine 52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1 Rule John Chuckman The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often Triumph Doug Giebel Welcome to the Club Rahul Mahajan Hospital Closings and War Crimes     April 16 / 18, 2004 Robert Fisk Bush Legitimizes Terror Saul Landau Subverting Brazil and Cuba Dave Lindorff Paying for War: $2,150 per Family and Counting Brandy Baker Fallujah's Collateral Damage Mickey Z. The Left Attacks from the Right Bruce Jackson The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit Uns Norman Solomon How the "NewsHour" Changed History Alexander Cockburn Bush, Kerry and Empire   April 15, 2004 Greg Moses Follow the Families, Not the Script Virginia Tilley The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt: Just Change the Channel Ron Jacobs They Coulda Been Champions of the World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic Michael Neumann A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail   April 14, 2004 Tom Reeves Return to Haiti: an American Learning Zone Reza Fiyouzat Japan and Iraq Ron Jacobs What Bush Really Said Diane Christian The Real Passion   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 Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

May 11, 2004 The Whispers of Washington Brain-Teasers Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment By KURT NIMMO It's the second week of May and we're closing in on the elections. If more sadistic reports of prisoner abuse emerge -- like the most recent photos showing big guard dogs biting a hapless Iraqi detainee -- or something worse, Bush is more or less doomed come November. How to fix the damage? Dust off that old CIA song and dance show, al-Qaeda! "Experts say it is only a matter of time before al-Qaida or a related Islamic terrorist organization detonates a 'dirty bomb' in America or Europe," reports United Press International. "Prime targets could include this summer's Olympic Games in Athens or the NATO summit in June in Istanbul, which President Bush is scheduled to attend. Last week, Turkey announced the arrest of several alleged members of a cell with links to Al Qaeda who, investigators say, planned a bombing during the summit." How in the heck did these flat-footed investigators discover this nefarious al-Qaeda plot to bomb the NATO summit, possibly with a dirty nuke? Islamic websites! "Experts ... find that comments on Islamic websites justifying the use of nuclear weapons against the United States is on the increase." Oh, that cinches it for me! Never mind that on the internet anybody can claim to be al-Qaeda or Elvis or Santa Claus in a screamin' green jumpsuit. I wonder if these terr'ists have IP addresses. Or maybe they post from internet cafes in the deepest darkest recesses of Afghanistan. It seems these "experts" spend too much time surfing the net when they should be slogging around in the back woods of the Pakistani frontier looking for honest to Allah terr'ists -- say for instance Osama or Omar -- in the flesh. But no. It's easier (and safer) to sit in an airconditioned office and write up useless reports about how evil and demented terr'ists are going to take us out. Just to make sure we're sufficiently frightened and sincerely appreciate the seriousness of the situation, the Bush Ministry of Disinformation, Fox News division, reports that "Ukrainian security forces seized nearly 375 pounds of a radioactive material seen as a likely ingredient for a 'dirty bomb,' authorities said." "Dirty bombs use conventional explosives mixed with radioactive material to disperse radiation over a wide area," explains the Nature News Service. "They are a crude way for terrorists to use radioactive materials. The materials do not need to be of the quality required for nuclear weapons: radioactive materials used for industrial or medical applications, which are easier to obtain, would create panic and disruption and a significant radiological health risk." Sort of like all that depleted uranium in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Serbia. I bet the Iraqis would be more worried about "panic and disruption" from DU if they were not so desparately trying to nail down a bit for normalcy -- to say nothing of electricity and clean water. It's obvious we're entering that funny season when bombastic neoliberal bags of fetid hot air get on the idiot tube and try to get you to vote for them. It's going to be a real challenge this year telling the difference between Tweedle Dumb (Bush) and Tweedle Dee (Kerry). It seems Tweedle Dee has a leg up on Tweedle Dumb thanks to all those S/M digital photos floating around. Of course, Tweedle Dee would be in the same pickle as Tweedle Dumb if he were in the White House. No doubt he'd rattle off a speech about how he intimately understands the horrors of war and such due largely to his stint as a war criminal in Vietnam. Besides, it's obvious Kerry gives a better speech than Bush. It was a toss up for Dubya -- stick it out at Yale and actually learn something or go out drinking with his frat buddies. Bush sorely needs a dirty bomb attack. If it happens in America he can declare martial law or simply cancel the election. Remember, Bush said there's nothing wrong with a dictatorship so long as he's the dictator. I think it's the most serious thing he ever said. "In recent weeks FBI Director Robert Mueller, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice have all warned that they expect Al Qaeda to try to time a strike inside the United States with the upcoming presidential election," notes the Boston Globe. "Since the March bombings in Madrid, speculation about the impact of an attack on the outcome of the November election has become something of a whispered brain-teaser in Washington." Brain-teaser? It's just like the folks in Washington to make everything look like rocket science. I guess they consider it job security and a good reason to up their salaries during midnight sessions. Tommy Franks spelled it all out for us last December in Cigar Aficionado magazine. Franks said that "the worst thing that could happen" is if the terr'ists get their sweaty paws on and then manage to use "a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties." In Tommy's scenario "the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we've seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy." Experiment? Is that how Jefferson and Madison viewed the Constitution? Hey, it's just an experiment -- if it crashes and burns, oh well... we can go back to being ruled under a monarchy. Or a military dictatorship. I can distinctly envision Tweedle Bush salivating at the prospect. But terr'ists would not necessarily have to light off a dirty nuke in Cleveland or Kalamazoo. Just about anywhere in the "Western world" would do, as Franks tells it. "It means the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world it may be in the United States of America that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution. Two steps, very, very important," warned the Tom Meister. Last time a retired general warned us about tricky business it was Ike. He told us to watch out for the military-industrial complex. Seems to me the military-industrial complex -- under the aegis of guys like Dick Cheney and the neocons -- pretty much did what old Ike told us they'd do. So, let's take stock. It's May. The Democratic National Convention kicks off in late July and the Republican National Convention runs from August 30 until September 2. I don't know why these guys don't simply hold one convention and save you and me a whole lot of money. After all, there's not a lick of difference between them. Anyway, there's plenty of time for the terr'ists to get their act together. It shouldn't be too much of a problem since they received all that expensive and fancy training courtesy of the CIA back in the day when they were fighting against the Evil Empire for Reagan and William Casey and Ziggy Brzezinski. Maybe they're smuggling that Ukrainian radioactive nastiness in under the wire as I write this. Maybe inside one of those unsupervised carrier containers we were repeatedly warned about after 9/11. Or maybe they won't bother with America and will blow it off in Athens or Istanbul or London or Paris -- though probably not France because, as any neocon will tell you, those pantywaist Frogs are in cahoots with the terr'ists. It wouldn't be a good idea for people to get the idea the French are with us in this interminable war on terr'ism. We didn't change "french fries" into "freedom fries" in the Senate cafeteria for nothing. I don't know though. This whole dirty bomb business is crazy. Is there a reason al-Qaeda would blow off a dirty nuke and thus bring the wrath of Oceania down hard on Eastasia? Maybe those Islamic terr'ists have a death wish. It figures since the lot of them are suicide bombers. Or is it homicide bombers as Fox calls them? Maybe they want Junior to invade Iran, Syria, Lebanon, and any other lousy country on Ariel's dartboard. It must be their irrational and savage nature -- and because they're jealous of our way of life and such. Or so Tweedle Bush keeps telling us during his meandering press conferences. But think about it. Cui bono? Exactly who'd benefit from a dirty bomb attack on the Good and the Righteous? Not the Arabs. Bush would and so would the neocons and Israel and Halliburton and Bechtel and all the neoliberal carpetbaggers itching to get a piece of Iraq and Iran and Syria and of course -- the prize! -- Saudi Arabia with its gazillion barrels of black gold so yearned for by the SUV masses. It'd be worth suffering a little radiation -- especially if the radioactive clouds wafted over Istanbul and not Wall Street. Four more years -- or maybe four more decades. Now that would give the neocons and their Likudnik bosses enough time to "reshape" the Arab Middle East. But don't take my word for it -- go ask Charles Krauthammer or Richard Perle or that wild and crazy total war guy, Michael Ledeen. It's downright scary when Robert Mueller, Tom Ridge, Condi Rice, and a whole lot of "experts" start yammering about sideshow Osama doing a dirty bomb number on that most sacred of events -- well, at least for Demopublicans -- the hallowed United States presidential election. Shhh. Do you hear that? It's Tommy Jefferson rolling over in his grave. Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New Mexico. Visit his excellent no holds barred blog at www.kurtnimmo.com/blogger.html . Nimmo is a contributor to Cockburn and St. Clair's, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. A collection of his essays for CounterPunch, Another Day in the Empire, is now available from Dandelion Books. He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com Weekend Edition Features for May 8 / 9, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair Torture: as American as Apple Pie Adam Jones America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated and Shot at Kunduz? Douglas Valentine Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press Kurt Nimmo Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib Brian Cloughley Humpty Dumpty is Falling Lucia Dailey Forbidden Games Joanne Mariner * * * *: Redacting Moussaoui Mickey Z. Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders) John Chuckman The Thing with No Brain Doug Giebel Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs Norm Dixon How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11 Sam Bahour A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah Susan Davis Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art Dave Marsh In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing Laura Flanders Life with Dick and Lynne Dave Zirin Fans Push Spiderman Off Base Carolyn Baker Why I Won't Vote in 2004 Prince "Ain't No Sense in Voting" Dr. Susan Block Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation Poets' Basement Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /