home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events

Sensational New Print Edition of CounterPunch Amazing Plan Surfaces: "We Need Ethno-Weapons!" David Price tells how top-flight US anthropologists eagerly obeyed US government's mandate to "think in a-moral terms". One scheme of OSS's willing executioners: target Japanese physical "weak spot", the respiratory tract, with anthrax germs. Gabriel Kolko asks What's so New About the Neo-Cons? If they had not existed, would the policies have been the same? Jeffrey St Clair digs up more dirt on Halliburton's secret history. Alexander Cockburn on why we need more "celebrity justice". Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories Mike Marqusee Message from London July 6, 2005 Elaine Cassel Political Necrophilia in Florida: Jeb Bush and Terri Schiavo, a Strange Affair Sean Donahue Why the G8 Debt Relief Plan Won't Help Nicaragua's Poor Jeremy R. Hammond State Sponsors of Terrorism, Applying the US Standard Joshua Frank Will Rove be Indicted? Ali Khan The "Gift" of US Democratization Michael Dickinson Billy Graham's Final Crusade: Blessed are the Warmakers Norman Solomon How to Plunge Deeper into a Quagmire: Withdrawal and US Credibility Dave Zirin Triumph of the Shrill: Tony Blair's Olympiad Gary Leupp Accusing Ahmadinejad Website of the Day Humiliation in Baghdad: "Not Something We Would Do" July 5, 2005 Behrooz Ghamari What's the Matter with Iran?: How the Reformists Lost the Presidency Elaine Cassel Why This Progressive Will Miss Sandra Day O'Connor Ron Jacobs Robert and Mabel Williams's Great Fight for Justice Bob Libal The Right's Assault on Academia Dr. Peter Rost Mea Culpa from a Big Pharma CEO Mark Engler The Big Debt Deal: Where's the Jubilee? Gideon Levy They Broke the Public's Heart Dave Zirin The Great Olympics Scam Sameer Dossani The Trouble with Gleneagles   July 2 / 4, 2005 Alexander Cockburn "Bomb Teheran!" Urges Jilted Condi? Lenni Brenner Jefferson, God and the Fourth of July Laura Carlsen Zapatista's Red Alert James Petras The Pretensions of Neoliberalism: Six Myths About the Benefits of Foreign Investment William A. Cook Kings of Serpents Brian Cloughley Quagmire of the Vanities Saul Landau The Mass Media, Symbols and Ownership Tom Crumpacker Who Has What to Hide About Luis Posada Carriles? Greg Moses Dylan's America Dr. Susan Block My Adelphia Story: a Tale of Censorship, Fraud, Christian Family Values and Really Lousy Cable Service Fran Shor Disassembling Bush's Iraq War: Liberated into a No Man's Land Fred Gardner Study: Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer Moshe Adler The New London Case: Corporate Giveaways That Destroy Communities, But Don't Create Jobs David Model The Downing Street Memo: So What's New? Seth Sandronsky California Spying, Schwarzenegger-Style Ramzy Baroud Managed Democracy in the Middle East Suzan Mazur Frank Carlucci the First: the "Sublime Prince" of Scranton Ben Tripp Voltaire, I Can Dig Your Rap Justin Taylor Faux Biography and the Pleasures of "Lint" Brendan Bailey Mesh Caps, Vice Magazine and the Trouble with Irony Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Louise Website of the Weekend Radical Reference   July 1, 2005 Christopher Brauchli With Friends Like These: Bush Buddies Karimov and Musharraf Pat Williams What Real Westerners Think About Bush's Pseudo-Cowboy Palaver Gary Leupp Summer Surprise? John Stauber Mad Cow in America: the USDA Continues to Lie John Chuckman The Blessings of Canada Justicia y Paz Colombia's Disappeared: Their Names, At Least! Cockburn / St. Clair It's Put Up or Shut Up for Bush and the Dems on the Supreme Court   June 30, 2005 Kathy Kelly An Open Letter to Carl Levin: Compassion for Iraqis John Stauber Oprah Not the "Only" Mad Cow in America Virginia Rodino All Roads Lead to Baghdad: Unity in the Anti-War Movement Jason Leopold Meet the New Chair of the FERC: James Kelliher, the Man Who Invited Enron to Write Bush's Energy Policy Dave Lindorff What Was Bush Thinking? Greg Moses Racism at Cape Cod Norman Solomon Memo to the Iraq War Joshua Frank Israel's Theocrats Alexander Cockburn The Political Function of PBS   June 29, 2005 Mike Schaefer How the Washington Post Lied About Its Own War Poll Roger Burbach / Paul Cantor Bush's Big Democratic Hoax in Iraq Sharon Smith Democrats Shift into Reverse Sam Husseini A Quick Way to End the Insurgency John Stauber Put a Photo of Mad Cow #2 on a Milk Carton Ahmad Faruqui Is Militarism Irreversible in Pakistan? Linda S. Heard Bush's Speech: the View from Cairo Stew Albert Chet Helms: a Rock and Roll Hero Ray McGovern Bush at Ft. Bragg: Stay the Crooked Course     June 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts A Defeat Bred in Deceit Landau / Hassen Bush's Meddling in Internal Syrian Politics John A. Murphy Keeping Nader Off the Ballot: an Analysis of Political Profiling in Pennsylvania Mike Whitney More Lies from Rumsfeld: Those "Meetings" with Insurgents CounterPunch News Service JFK on Staying in Vietnam: Is Bush Reading from Kennedy's Playbook? Dave Zirin Pining for the Pistons Dave Lindorff Showtime in Washington Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Bloody Mess   June 27, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blood Sacrifices for Empty Slogans Mike Marqusee G8: Who are the Hijackers? Mark Scaramella When a Corporate Raider Claims Economic Hardship: the Court-Approved Lies of Charles Hurwitz Leigh Saavedra Press Apologists for Torture Kathy Kelly Where is the UN? June 25 / 26, 2005 Alexander Cockburn The Supreme Court's Jackboot Liberals Jennifer Van Bergen America's Parallel Legal Systems George Corsetti This Land is Their Land: Condemnation for Corporations Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer Let's Open the Gulag: a People's Mission to Gitmo Kevin Zeese Counter-Recruitment: How to Keep the Military From Getting their Hands on Your Kids P. Sainath Russian Roulette in Vidharbha John Stauber How to Bury a Mad Cow Scott Handleman Gay in the Third World Tom Barry The Politics & Ideologies of the Anti-Immigrationists John Walsh Looking for Peace in All the Wrong Places Justin E.H. Smith The Hairless Apes of Kansas vs. the Reality-Based Community: Why Progressives Have a Stake in the War on Evolution Alan Wallis The Story of Pinky: the Drug Trade in My Neighborhood Ben Tripp Negative Space: an Artful Lesson Frederick B. Hudson Songs to Lose Your Loneliness By: the Raised Voices of Sweet Honey in the Rock Poets' Basement Gaffney, Engel, Davies, and Albert     June 24, 2005 Ray McGovern The Downing St. Fixation: Fixing to Fix "Fixed" Jorge Mariscal "They Only Call Us Americans When They Need Us for War": the Paradox of Mexican Americans in Iraq Desiree Hellegers Portland vs. the FBI Zeynep Toufe What Do the American People Know and When Did They Know It? Joshua Frank Call Him Senator Con Job David Lindorff Which Flag Would Jesus Burn? Michael Neumann Victory and Recruitment Website of the Day Gagging Dr. Dean June 23, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Thomas Griffith and Rule 49: He Practiced Law Without a License; Now He's a Federal Appeals Court Judge Clay Conrad Killing Off the Jury with Tort Reform Standard Schaefer A Retort to Military Neo-Liberalism P. Sainath Vidharbha: No rains and 116F, But It Does Have "Snow" and Water Parks Mark Engler CAFTA Deserves a Quiet Death Norman Solomon Voluntary Amnesia in America Cockburn / St. Clair Frank Calzon Kathy Kelly Where You Stand Determines What You See   June 22, 2005 Kevin Zeese The Bush Administration's Psy-Ops on the American Public: an Interview with Col. Sam Gardiner William S. Lind Afghanistan: the Other War Arsalan Iftikhar Patriots Against the PATRIOT Act Dan Nagengast Give Populism a Chance: From France to Kansas David Krieger To the Graduates: We Live in an Interdependent World Kathleen & Bill Christison Tempest in Santa Fe: Confronting Israeli Myth-making     June 21, 2005 Brian Cloughley Destroy the Unbelievers! Mike Whitney President Disconnect Dave Lindorff Who Needs Big Bird, Anyway? Mark Weisbrot Bush's Lonely Campaign Against Hugo Chavez Matthew R. Simmons The Coming Saudi Oil Crisis Dave Zirin The Crass Slipper Fits: Ron Howard's Terrible "Cinderella Man" Virginia Rodino The Anti-War Movement and Impeachment Paul Craig Roberts A War Waged by Liars and Morons   June 20, 2005 Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Tariq Ali To the Gates of the Gleneagles Hotel! Mickey Z. WMDs American-Style: It's 60 Years Since Alamogordo William Blum Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends Gary Leupp Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Chance to Attack Iraq Jason Leopold Someone Tell Bush Iraq Wasn't Behind 9/11, Before He Starts Another War Dave Lindorff Why the Media Should be Schiavo'd Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Uri Avnery Condi and Hamas Website of the Day Crimes Against Poetry                                                                               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

July 7, 2005 More Hawkish Than Bush Democrats in Full Battle Cry By JOHN WALSH "As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down." George W. Bush, Fort Bragg, NC, June 28, 2005. "We can begin drawing down American forces to coincide with the number of trained Iraqi forces." Former Senator George McGovern and Congressman James McGovern (no relation), Boston Globe Op-ed, June 6, 2005. " We cannot afford to lose"(1). "There's not enough force on the ground now to mount a real counterinsurgency"(2). Senator Joseph Biden, Senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, commenting on Bush's speech at Fort Bragg. "We don't have enough troops" there (2). Failed Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry on Bush's speech. Last week George W. Bush delivered himself of a speech gorged with stale and rotten lies, calling for the U.S. to fight on against an increasingly effective Iraqi Resistance to a criminal war and occupation. The speech, designed to rally Americans behind a path of ever more death and destruction, was delivered at the urging of Democratic Senator Joseph Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. And after the speech, Democratic Senator Chris Dodd was bursting with praise for Bush, saying: "The president needs to do more of what he did last evening. This is a beginning"(2). If there were any doubt where leading Democrats stand on the war in Iraq, it was totally dispelled by their reaction to Bush's speech. The war may or may not have been a mistake in the first place; that the Dems can debate ­ at least now that their support for the war lies safely in the past where no amount of debate can reverse it. But for the present and future, the Democratic elites are resolved as one to continue the killing and even to escalate it. The Democratic Party has emerged beyond any doubt as "the other war party." The Democrats' response to Bush's lies was so strikingly at odds with the role of an opposition party that it drew attention even in some quarters of the mass media. Joan Vennochi, for one, ordinarily a mild-mannered columnist for the Boston Globe, took note in a column, "Democrats Buy into Bush's War"(1). Vennochi was right on target when she concluded that: "If you listen carefully, you realize Democrats like Kerry and Biden are saying that this war is being fought the wrong way, not that this is the wrong war. They have bought into the Karl Rove argument that might makes right." Vennochi focuses a lot of attention on John Kerry who continues to press for more troops as he has since before the election. But Kerry goes even further now, responding to a TV interviewer as Vennochi reports: '''Is Bush getting an unfair shake?' (asked the interviewer). Kerry answered: 'To some degree, I think that's true. And I've said that publicly. We've made progress (in Iraq).' Kerry also rejected Senator Edward M. Kennedy's labeling of Iraq as 'an intractable quaqmire.' Said Kerry: 'No, I don't believe it is that today. But it could become that if we don't make the right choices.'" So there Kerry is, calling for more troops and dissociating himself from Ted Kennedy who has been the only Democratic Senator calling for disengagement now and properly labeling the whole sordid adventure as a "quaqmire" (1). Nor has Hillary Clinton been a silent member of this pro-war chorus, saying: ''We have many disagreements about how to engage in [Iraq] and how to win it, but I never want to live through that (the struggle to end the war in Vietnam) again"(4). Here Hillary defines the limits of the debate, i.e. "how to engage," not whether to engage, and "how to win," not how to withdraw. But Clinton stoops even further and repudiates the entire Vietnam era of struggle, which produced not only a strong anti-war consciousness, the so-called "Vietnam syndrome," but also great advances for civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, voting rights and strides against racism. So too, out of the struggle forced upon us now to end the war in Iraq, great good may come. But Hillary Clinton would prefer that the blood continue to flow in Iraq rather than a political struggle over the war take place in the U.S. One could go on and cite the ravings of Howard Dean and Joseph Lieberman which are the same or worse than those of Kerry, Dodd, Clinton and Biden. But the bottom line can be discerned from the quotes at the beginning of this piece. "Iraqization" is the policy of George Bush and some prominent and powerless "left-wing" Democrats like George McGovern. But the Democratic Party bosses are calling for sending even more troops. It is no exaggeration to say that these Democrats are more hawkish than Bush. Why is this, one might ask. After all, the war is highly unpopular, with 60% of Americans favoring withdrawal of some or all troops, and 56% saying they would be "upset" if more troops were sent. Why then do the Democrats not take up this issue? The reason is that they do not respond to their progressive and activist base, for which they have a barely concealed contempt. They answer to the same masters as Bush: the oil barons, AIPAC and the tycoons of the military-industrial complex. I have asked several times in this space why the anti-war movement is not making more headway given the popular hostility to the Iraq disaster. One reason, but not the only one, is that too many progressives and "liberals" blindly follow the Democrats who wish us to see the issue of the war as a partisan one. It is "lesser evil politics" in part which guarantees that the war will grind on. So what is to be done? These Democrats respect only power and cringe only at the prospect of losing elections. There is no reason for any of us to give them one dime or one minute of time in 2006. And we have a moral obligation to deny them both. If some Democrats take an unequivocal and strong position to get out of Iraq at once and completely, then they can claim our support. But not otherwise. John V. Walsh can be reached at bioscimd@yahoo.com. Notes 1.http://www.boston.com/ 2.http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/06/29/bush.speech.ap/ 3.http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/230949_thomas03.html 4.http://www.boston.com/