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Recent
Stories
June
12, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/12
June
11, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Attack of the Hog Killers: Why the
Generals Hate the A-10
Elaine
Cassel
Meet Michael Chertoff: Ashcroft's
Top Gremlin
David Lindorff
The Republican Drive to Eliminate Overtime Pay
Tom
Gorman
Greens, the Antiwar Movement and 2004
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia: The Most Dangerous Place
on Earth for Trade Unionists
Nnimo
Bassey and Lawrence Bohlen
Bush Must Stop Telling Us What to
Eat!
Julie Hilden
Spike Lee v. Spike TV
CounterPunch
Wire
Blair Bros. Change Jobs!
Eric
Hobsbawm
The Empire Expands, Wider and Still
Wider
Steve
Perry
DHS: As Big
a Planning Snafu as Iraq?
June
10, 2003
Benjamin
Shepard
A Season in the Anti-War Movement
Chris
Floyd
Bush Family Lies About Iraq and Nazi
Germany
Wayne
Madsen
Weaponsgate
Jason Leopold
Powell's Denials Ring Hollow
Richard
Lichtman
Whining, Whimpering Leftists Confront the Logic of American World
Domination
Ray
Close
A CIA Analyst on Why the Lies About
WMD Matter
Hammond
Guthrie
Banking on Saddam?
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/10
June
9, 2003
Alex
Coolman
Male Rape in US Prisons
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft is Coming!
Lee
Sustar
Is Iran Next?
Agustin
Velloso
Equatorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many
Poor
Gila
Svirsky
Some Lives Are Worth Less Than Others
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Human Worth in Bush's America
Michael
S. Ladah
A True Liberation
Ishmael Reed
Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder
Steve
Perry
How to Beat Bush, part 1
June
7 / 8, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Terrible Truth
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species
Joanne
Mariner
Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers
Steven
Sherman
A Different Theory of Everything
Ron Jacobs
Sports, Politics and the 60s
M.
Shahid Alam
Pauperizing the Periphery
Amelia
Peltz
If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost
Shelton
Hull
Another Powell, Another Capitulation
Binoy Kampmark
Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea
Ben
Tripp
A Fish Story
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Where is the Outrage?
Robin
Philpot
Congo Distortions
Julie Hilden
Murder and the Matrix
Laura
Flanders
An Interview with Isabel Allende
David Lindorff
The Last Byline
Adam
Engel
Talk Dirty Scary Monsters
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod
June
6, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Steve
Perry
Greens and
Moore in 04? No
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
June
4, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal
Walks
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity
Jason
Leopold
Manufacturing the Iraq War
John Chuckman
Blackmail as Policy
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Summit: Peace or Pretense?
Issam Nashashibi
Sharon's Sword of Damocles
Steve
Perry
Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript
June
3, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and
the Slaughter in Aceh
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Tells All
Elaine
Cassel
We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message
from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!"
Tom
Crumpacker
The Politics of US Cuba Policy
William
S. Lind
Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq
Sam
Hamod
The Final Brick in the Wall
Uri
Avnery
The Altalena Affair
Hammond
Guthrie
Stepping into Some Deep DARPA
Steve
Perry
The WashTimes'
al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive"
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
June
13, 2003
To Die Trying to Find
WMD that Don't Exist
Road
Map to What?
By DAVID VEST
Bush W. is now presiding over the largest budget
deficit in U. S. history. At $291 billion and counting, on the
way to $400 billion and beyond, he has already bettered his hapless
dad's record of dischievement by more than a billion dollars.
Dad left office clinically depressed, by all accounts. Does this
mean Junior can look forward to years of shock treatments and
a Prozac diet?
According to reports, his domestic approval
ratings have dropped by 15 points in the past two months. Abroad,
forget about it. Numbers don't go that low.
Judging by the televised expression on
his face, Bush W. would have to show a lot of improvement before
we could call him depressed.
A few short days ago his spokespeople
were on the talk shows boasting that we wouldn't have the Road
Map and "all the hope it represents" if their boss
hadn't invaded Iraq. Now, the man who misled his country into
a war the whole planet opposed is railing bitterly against those
who "hate peace." Terrorists, it seems, have ignored
the Road Map and killed some more civilians in the Middle East.
Such behavior must be condemned, says
the president, in the "strongest possible terms." What
language, one wonders, would he use if terrorists killed 3,240
civilians in a single month, as the Associated Press now says
Bush W. did in Iraq, 1,896 of them in Baghdad alone? Other estimates
place the number of civilian dead as high as 7,200.
The same man who sneered when UN weapons
inspectors asked for more time now says that he, too, needs more
time, please, to look for weapons of mass destruction. How many
more Americans will die looking for them, or directing traffic
while others look for them?
Some people say they don't care about
the weapons. They're just glad we went out and whipped somebody
and taught those Arabs a lesson. We won, didn't we? Who cares
about the truth?
Anyway, Saddam deserved what he got.
(Really? What exactly did he get, so far, apart from a billion
dollars in cash?)
But even people who make those unfeeling
arguments must surely care about the fate of American and British
"coalition" forces in Iraq, one or two of whom are
still being killed every day. In addition to bullets, bombs and
rocket-propelled grenades, our troops are now enduring full summer,
with no end in sight. No wonder reports of "restlessness"
and "discontent" are bubbling to the surface.
The temperature here in Portland, Oregon
was in the high 90s last week, bordering on the unbearable. We
worried about the flowers wilting right off the floats in the
Grand Floral Parade. Stories of heat exhaustion and sunstroke
led the news. If high heat was a serious threat to the annual
Rose Festival here in the Pacific Northwest, what must it have
been like in the Iraqi desert?
While the sweltering troops were brushing
flies out of their faces, eating food from plastic tubes and
looking for WMDs in back alleys and abandoned wells, Bush W.
was looking for ways to drop veterans from the VA health care
system so his rich pals can have bigger tax cuts.
Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden remains at
large, and Saddam Hussein has allegedly been spotted moving freely
around Iraq. For all we know, both men were at the Mets game
the other night.
* * *
Maybe they should send Jeff Postel to
look for Saddam and bin Laden. Postel, a rookie cop on routine
patrol, recently nabbed domestic terrorist suspect Eric Robert
Rudolph, who had eluded the FBI for years. Postel, who makes
$21,000 a year, apprehended Rudolph, considered highly dangerous,
without firing a shot, even though he saw Rudolph holding a black
object the officer thought was probably a gun. (It turned out
to be a flashlight.)
Compare and contrast, if you will, Postel's
actions with those of three Portland police officers, one of
whom fired a shot that killed an apparently unarmed 21-year-old
Black woman named Kendra James as she tried to drive off from
a traffic stop in North Portland.
* * *
Several people have written to protest
my recent comment that Kennedy "more-or-less" stole
the 1960 election from Nixon, "with a little help from Mayor
Daley," arguing that while plenty of fraud may have gone
on in lllinois, it probably wasn't enough to swing the election.
Turns out they may be right.
Doesn't influence the point I was trying
to make: some on the left have made a much bigger deal out of
Bush stealing Florida from Gore than Gore himself or Democrats
in general have done, which itself speaks volumes. And Bush W.
isn't planning to steal the next election, he's planning to buy
it fair and square. The Republicans have already raised "more
money than God," and their nominee will probably spend more
money than all the Democratic contenders put together could raise,
let alone any one of them alone.
It could look a lot like the U.S. military
against Saddam's conscripts, at least in terms of resources.
And don't forget: shortly before Bush W. invaded Iraq, Saddam
challenged him to a debate. Will the Democratic nominee get the
same answer Saddam got?
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. His scorching
new CD, Way
Down Here, is now available from CounterPunch.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
Today's
Features
Gary
Leupp
The Intel-gate Row in Britain: a Chronology
Ahmad Faruqui
The Tragic Legacy of the Six Day
War
Wayne
Madsen
Unfit for Office: Time for Rumsfeld to Resign
Laura Carlsen
Hunger and Security
Tarif
Abboushi
Warm and Fuzzy in Aqaba
Ray
McGovern
Deceived into War: Reflections of
a Former CIA Analyst
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars
Web Log 6/12
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