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Today's
Stories
June
5, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
June
4, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Masked and Anonymous: Inside America's
Animal House
Cornwell
/ Penketh
Exit Tenet: the Fall of a Fall Guy
Wayne
Madsen
Apprehension & Frustation: Neo-Cons on the Brink
Greg
Moses
Agitating for Workers' Rights in Iraq
Yitzak
Laor
Before Rafah
Ghali
Hassan
Ambassador to Death Squads: Who is Negroponte?
Jane
Stillwater
God, the Rapture and Vera Casey
CounterPunch
Wire
D-Day Reconsidered: Was It Really Worth the Carnage?
John
Borowski
Woo-Wooism v. Meteorites: Why the Dems Are No Match for Bush
Mike
Griffin
Caterpillar's Assault on the UAW
Alexander Cockburn
Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?
Website
of the Day
Aquae Urbis Romae:
Water and Empire
June
3, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Iran's Nuclear Dilemma
Dr.
Susan Block
America in tha Hood
Michael
Donnelly
The Bully and the Brahmin
John
Chuckman
Insanity in America: US Ranks Number
One in the Deranged
Christopher
Brauchli
The Return of Cardinal Law: Rome
on $12,000 a Month
Samia
Nassar Melki
Caravaggio in Iraq
Mike
Whitney
Subverting Justice: Pre-Trial Ruminations in the Padilla Case
Diane
Rejman
Memorial Day Isn't Just About the Dead
Scott
Morris
"WMDs" in Cuba
Paul
de Rooij
Palestinian Misery in Perspective
June
2, 2004
Brian
Cloughley
The Liars are Winning
Ray
McGovern
How Far Would They Go? Beware "Credible
Intelligence"
Josh
Frank
The Anybody But Bush Offensive
Mike
Whitney
The Afghanistan Failure: Bush's Warlord Patriots
Jackie
Corr
Iraq and Ireland: Three Tales from Butte, Montana
Robert
Jensen
The US Lost the Iraq War...and It's a Good Thing, Too
Alexander
Cockburn
"Bye, Bye Boonville!"
June
1, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Instant Karma: Bush's Sins Catch Up
with Him
William
A. Cook
Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in
Rafah
Dave
Lindorff
Will the Times Clean House?
Kevin
Zeese
Inside the Kerry / Nader Meeting: Did
the Kerry Campaign Lie About What Was Discussed?
Jacob
Levich
Coming Soon: Return of the Draft,
a Bipartisan Production
Kathy
Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness v. the US
Government
Website
of the Day
Remind Us
May
29 / 31, 2004
Lee
Ballinger / Dave Marsh
The Origins of Memorial Day
Janine
Pommy Vega
Memo for Memorial Day
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
May
28, 2004
Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz
Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5
Greg
Moses
Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib
Dave
Lindorff
Dissing Independent Contractors:
Those Who Do the Dirty Work
Norman
Solomon
Leaping for Lies at the Times
Rep.
Bill Delahunt
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
Paul
McGeough
Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India and Nehru: 40 Years After
Alexander
Cockburn
NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a
Little"
May
27, 2004
Amy
Goodman / David Goodman
Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times
Douglas
Valentine
Ragging the Dogs of War at the
NYTs
John
L. Hess
The Times Confesses...Kind Of
Stew
Albert
Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist
Dave
Dellinger
a 1993 Interview
Christopher
Brauchli
Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids
Rampton
/ Stauber
Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony
May
26, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a
Friend of Ours
Robert
Fisk
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
Zeynep
Toufe
New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation
Conn
Hallinan
Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection
Tom
Stephens
2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons
and War Crimes
Derek
Medley
Protesting Gov. Bigot
CounterPunch
Wire
FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art
Andrew
Cockburn
The Trail to Tehran
May
25, 2004
Joe
Bageant
The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It
is in Texas
Col.
Dan Smith
A Question of Human Dignity
Gary
Handschumacher
Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home
Toni
Solo
A Developing War in the Andes
Marc
Estrin
September Song: Disturbing Questions
About 9/11
Stephen
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
Website
of the Day
The Wizard of Whimsy
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
Image
of the Day
A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the
NYTs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
Website
of the Day
Rafah Today
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
June 5 / 6, 2004
Meet
the New Boss, Same as the Old
"Illegal
Militias" and "Saddam Loyalists" are Your Friends
By
DEREK SEIDMAN
In an effort to deny the Iraqi resistance
to the US occupation any legitimacy whatsoever, George Bush had
this to say about it last week in his primetime speech outlining
the plan for the "transfer of sovereignty":
"The swift removal of
Saddam Hussein's regime last spring had an unintended affect.
Instead of being killed or captured on the battlefield, some
of Saddam's elite guards shed their uniforms and melted into
the civilian population.
"These elements of Saddam's
repressive regime and secret police have reorganized, rearmed
and adopted sophisticated terrorist tactics. They've linked up
with foreign fighters and terrorists. In a few cities, extremists
have tried to sow chaos and seize regional power for themselves."
He continued:
"Coalition forces and
the Iraqi people have the same enemies: the terrorists, illegal
militia and Saddam loyalists who stand between the Iraqi people
and their future as a free nation. Working as allies, we will
defend Iraq and defeat these enemies.
"America will provide
forces and support necessary for achieving these goals."
If we were to assume that Bush
really means what he says, we'd have to come to the conclusion
that he either pays absolutely no attention to events in Iraq,
or that he's living on a separate planet from the rest of us.
After all, being told that the problem is "Saddam's elite
guards" and "foreign fighters and terrorists"
is at odds with virtually every headline concerning the Iraqi
resistance for the past several weeks, which almost unanimously
deal with the indigenous Shiite (read: anti-Baathist) rebellion
of followers of Moqtada al-Sadr. Beyond that, much of the investigative
reporting shows the fierce Sunni resistance that exists in places
like Fallujah to be primarily native and from the grassroots,
having little to do with nostalgia for Saddam and much to do
with anger at the occupation.
To be sure, resistance is coming
from "Baathist remnants" as well, and there are surely
a few "foreign terrorists" in Iraq now, but Bush's
self-serving fairy tale is just a way for him to obscure the
central reality in Iraq: mass opposition and resistance amongst
Iraqis to a brutal, illegal occupation that they hate. By pretending
that the resistance is marginal, foreign, and unpopular, he can
make the US look like the good guy just trying to bring freedom
and stability. Telling the truth, however, means exposure. The
reality of a popular resistance for independence encompassing
Sunnis and Shiites doesn't mesh to well with the good-versus-evil
"War on Terror" narrative.
But just for the heck of it,
let's take Bush at his word and look further into his explanations.
Concerning the "illegal
militia who stand between the Iraqi people and their future as
a free nation", there are two relevant observations to make
based on recent information in the press that put Bush's grasp
on the situation into question (let alone his honesty and integrity).
Bush's explanation rides on
the notion that the militias are the bandits and it is, in fact,
the occupation that is bringing freedom and democracy. However,
the Financial Times recently reported on a very credible
poll whose results show that not only is the occupation hugely
unpopular, but that one of Bush's enemies of freedom, the Shiite
cleric Al-Sadr, is gaining a "surge in popularity".
The article says:
"An Iraqi poll to be released
next week shows a surge in the popularity of Moqtada al-Sadr,
the radical young Shia cleric fighting coalition forces, and
suggests nearly nine out of 10 Iraqis see US troops as occupiers
and not liberators or peacekeepers."
It goes on to tell us that
"the poll was conducted by the one-year-old Iraq Center
for Research and Strategic Studies, which is considered reliable
enough for the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority to have
submitted questions to be included in the study." Apparently
Bush forgot to tell us that the occupation-for-democracy seems
to have less support from Iraqis than the "illegal militia".
Whether or not the "illegal
militia" of Al-Sadr is more responsive to the actual sentiment
of the Iraqi people, the militia is indeed illegal according
to US-imposed law, and it is a big obstacle towards achieving
the Occupation's professed goal of American-imagined freedom,
democracy, and stability. Because Bush made this all clear enough
in his speech, it was surprising to find an article in the New
York Times the following morning entitled "Failing to Disband
Militias, U.S. Moves to Accept Them".
Despite Bush's freedom-ringing
words, apparently:
"[W]ith the sharp deterioration
of the security situation in recent months, American officials
appear to have resigned themselves to working with militias in
Falluja, Baghdad and elsewhere even as American soldiers die
fighting them in street battles in Karbala and Najaf.
"As that date approaches,
the Americans are quietly allowing some of these armed groups
to flourish and, in some cases, have even helped recreate them."
While the article also refers
to illegal militias other than Al-Sadr's Mahdi Army, it is unambiguous
about the latter:
"Even fighters in the
Mahdi Army of the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr, whom
American soldiers have been killing in large numbers in recent
weeks, may be given a chance for legitimacy. In a recent news
conference, the general commanding American forces in Najaf and
Karbala said he would be willing to consider taking Mahdi Army
militiamen into a new Iraqi security force being set up to help
secure southern Iraq."
With the level of deceit shown
by the Bush administration, perhaps it's not unexpected to see
it (and it is hard to believe that the General would've made
such a statement if it wasn't in line with policy from higher-up)
denounce the militias as the enemies while simultaneously trying
to accommodate them. This behavior is in good continuity with
his habit, say, of invoking Saddam's brutal atrocities against
his own people while failing to mention that the US, and most
of his own current administration, willfully supported this.
Apparently there is now even talk of trying to integrate al-Sadr
into the new short-term government. If Bush is serious about
"staying the course", perhaps he should first make
up his mind over whether al-Sadr needs to be killed or cooperated
with. Of course, he would never tell the American people about
the latter option straight-out, since it would undermine all
his hitherto rhetoric.
We see the same kind of hypocrisy
with the "Baathist remnants". While Bush puts blame
for the instability in Iraq on these bogeymen, the occupation
is simultaneously pursuing a policy of 're-Baathification', as
Wolf Blitzer put it a recent piece from CNN. It goes on:
"The remnants of Saddam
Hussein's regime know they have no future in a free Iraq,"
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Thursday, restating
the U.S. stance even as coalition officials in Baghdad confirmed
that some of Saddam's former Baath Party loyalists may be allowed
to take back their old jobs."
Another article explains:
"Facing its greatest military
challenge in Iraq since President Bush declared the end of major
combat a year ago, the United States is turning to a once-unthinkable
source for help: commanders from Saddam Hussein's defunct army.
"Just weeks ago they were
lumped with "dead-enders" and "former regime elements"
unfit to serve in the new Iraq. But today ex-officers are shaking
hands with U.S. military and civilian officials and are leading
a test case for a newly democratic--and pragmatic--approach to
rebuilding the country."
The Shiite majority, presumably
the majority group to be liberated from Baathist terror, naturally
feels a bit uneasy about this situation:
"A senior leader of the
Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq sharply criticized
the American decision to gather former Republican Guard soldiers
into a "security force" in Falluja.
""Of course we are
not happy--they are Republican Guards, with the same uniforms,
the same mustaches," said Adel Abdel Mehdi, the group's
leader."
My central point here isn't
to make a judgment on Bush's assessment of the militias or supposed
Baathist remnants. It is simply to point out the lies and contradictions
that drip from all the mantras he constantly invokes. He must
lie and deceive because the truth delegitimizes his justifications
for the war and calls into question his self-proclaimed credentials
as some sort of spokesperson for world freedom and justice. He
is leading an occupation for "freedom" and "democracy"
that the Iraqi people oppose; he is in cahoots with the very
elements he denounces as enemies of freedom. Of course, to tell
this to the American people would be unthinkable.
Derek Seidman, 24, is co-editor of Left
Hook (www.lefthook.org) and lives in New York City. He
can be reached at derekseidman@yahoo.com.
Weekend Edition
Features for May 29 / 31, 2004
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
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