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Recent
Stories
April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
Ron
Jacobs
Bush and Rummy's Drunken Drive-by
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
April
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
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
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:
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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
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Mary
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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
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Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
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Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
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Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
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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
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Adam
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The Absence of War
Vijay
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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
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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
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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
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War Web Log 04/03
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April 10,
2003
The
Corporate War On Iraq:
Hard
Questions, Easy Answers
by
DAVID VEST
Since Iraqi oil "belongs
to the Iraqi people," as the Bush administration has repeatedly
assured the world, why doesn't American oil belong to the American
people?
Pamela Vest (yes, we're related; she's my sister-in-law) would
like to know. She writes from one of the sectors of Florida not
yet under full control of the Jeb Bush regime.
It's a question so simple, direct and unanswerable that it deserves
to be put to any politician who comes anywhere near a microphone.
Might be a good idea
to put it to ol' Jeb himself if you run across him down there
in the Neverglades, Pam. Meanwhile, maybe somebody will ask Ari
Fleischer the same thing.
Does Saudi oil belong
to the Saudi people, I wonder? (See how this kind of thinking
gets out of hand?)
We had better not ask
our own selves too many questions like that, 'cause it might
make us mad and turn us into commonists or something. Then we'd
start, ever so politely, saying things like ... perhaps President
Bush would be good enough to use the military to seize America's
oil on our behalf, as soon as he's done seizing Iraq's oil for
the Iraqis.
Naturally, this is the kind of thing President Bush could easily
get wrong. Instead of seizing America's oil for Americans, he
might just try one more time to seize the Arctic National Wildlife
Refuge for Exxon.
I'm not calling for him
to drop cluster bombs on Exxon headquarters -- not yet. I'm hoping
Pam's question is a much heavier and more deeply effective weapon
than the kind they used to try to get Saddam. If enough people
start asking it out loud, it will be.
Next thing you know,
we'd be wanting to redistribute wealth in this country. (What
do you think Bush is doing with his tax cut program? Remember
Nasdaqistan? Where did it go?)
Here's an equally disruptive
idea -- while we're "rebuilding" Iraq, shouldn't we
please have the simple decency to refrain from giving any contracts
to companies that have made big bucks doing business with Saddam
Hussein? Ask your elected reps where they stand on that one.
A parallel suggestion:
it would be unseemly for companies earning huge profits from
the destruction of Iraq to expect to get rich from the reconstruction
of it.
Would you be (a) surprised
(b) disgusted (c) outraged (d) all of the above and more, to
learn that corporations like Halliburton were "embedded"
among the coalition troops right from the beginning (like "journalists"
only with much better access), providing "logistical support"?
According to Corpwatch, it's true, to the tune of close to a
billion dollars before we even finish devastating Iraq so they
can start rebuilding it. One could be forgiven for asking, who's
over there to provide support for whom? Has anyone from Halliburton
been hit by friendly fire? What do you think?
They might as well have covered the face of Saddam's statue with
the corporate flag of Halliburton. This war is more clearly,
and more truly, a corporate war than any we have ever fought,
from the corporate media to the corporate arms suppliers, one
of whom will now supply a "governor" of Iraq who will
be "on loan" until any prospect of real change has
been extinguished and there is no longer any danger of Osama
bin Laden being elected president.
Many people have already
realized that they themselves are the ultimate enemy in these
corporate wars, along with their environment, their civil liberties
and their personal security. Every day more people around the
world are waking up to what is really going on.
If you think people in
Baghdad were happy to see the symbols of Saddam's repression
destroyed, can you imagine the world party that will take place
when the symbols of corporate domination come down?
The day is coming --
it had better come soon -- when the White House and the Congress
and the Pentagon will no longer be branch offices of Raytheon,
Brown & Root, DynCorp, etc.
Perhaps also in that
day, the Supreme Court will feel less like a Southern Baptist
church and more like a hall of justice.
Till then, corporate
domination and fundamentalism will remain strangely linked.
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
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
Ron
Jacobs
Bush and Rummy's Drunken Drive-by
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
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