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Recent
Stories
April
9, 2003
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
David Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
Todd
Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
Other Mideast Regimes
Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
Hot Stories
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April 9,
2003
Television as Weapon
of Mass Destruction
Smoking
Gun? You're Watching It
By DAVID VEST
News that the first C-130 Hercules had landed
at newly-secured Saddam International Airport outside Baghdad,
and that U.S. Marines have been told they can dispense with the
charade of lugging their chemical protection suits around in
the desert, could only mean one thing: the window for a credible
discovery of weapons of mass destruction was rapidly closing.
Had Bush, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz slammed the window shut on their
own fingers?
Discovery of WMDs in a country controlled
by Saddam Hussein would be one thing. Discovery of WMDs in a
country controlled by "coalition" forces would be quite
another. Could anyone ever be convinced the evidence hadn't been
delivered by the people who were looking for it?
First try convincing international observers
that a country that didn't use WMDs to defend its own capital
city was a threat to use them on another continent. Exactly how
did a regime unable to mount a credible military defense of its
own headquarters pose a present danger to Washington, Los Angeles
or Dollywood?
WMDs were never really an issue until
Colin Powell needed to throw together something to talk about
when he took his case to the United Nations. The U.S. has been
trying to supply supporting evidence ever since the day of Powell's
unsuccessful presentation. Since the Security Council didn't
buy it and since the U.S. and its coalition partners (Great Britain,
Rwanda, etc.) ignored most of the planet and launched their attack
anyway, the question arises as to why the U.S. even bothers to
go on looking for "smoking guns."
A decent respect for the opinions of
humankind can't be the answer, or the U.S. wouldn't have ignored
the will of the U.N., the pleas of the pope and the advice of
its oldest allies. Even among the Coalition of the Willing, only
in Romania did pre-war polls show those in favor of using military
force against Saddam Hussein outnumbering those opposed -- ironically,
because Romanians deposed their own iron-fisted dictator (Nicolae
Ceausescu) all by themselves, without U.S. military assistance.
Could the search be motivated by something
so banal as the desire to say "you were wrong and we were
right" to the UN? Why would Bush care? He has already declared
the UN "irrelevant."
No, the target audience being lined up
in the cross-hair of the quest for a "smoking gun"
is the American (and British) electorate. If Tommy Franks and
company could produce even one or two rusting barrels of "weaponizable"
chemicals, as long as they didn't turn out to be nothing more
than farm pesticides or mosquito repellants, then Bush and Blair
could run as the men who saved civilization, whether they find
Saddam or not.
Even if no "smoking gun" is
ever found, it's to Bush's advantage if the mainstream media
keeps concentrating on it. Every moment of airtime spent discussing
WMDs is a moment less that can be devoted to stories like the
one about the Red Cross announcing that casualties (including
civilian casualties) in Baghdad are "too high to count"
and that the wounded are reduced to trying to get themselves
to hospitals on foot.
Who's more out of touch with reality?
Saddam's spokesman, claiming that Americans aren't even in Baghdad?
This, remember, was a regime capable of putting Saddam Hussein
on TV almost daily, even with American tanks cruising the streets
of Baghdad. Or American television, with its depiction of a nearly
bloodless war, with all the action occurring offstage, as in
Greek tragedy? Aaron Brown told Democracy Now the other day that
he won't show pictures of casualties because he finds them "pornographic."
Thus has television itself become the
real smoking gun, an auxiliary weapon of mass destruction, helping
to kill people by refusing to show what is happening to them.
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
Today's
Features
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
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