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May 21, 2002
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
May 17, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Fox News Flashback:
Defending McKinney
James T. Phillips
Ceasefires
and Terrorists
Phillipe Dambournet
The Truth at Last:
Bush as the Energizer Bunny
Lori Berenson
In Defense
of Political Prisoners
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Terrorist Warnings
Hussein Ibish
Clarifying
the Obstacles
to Peace in Palestine
Alexander Cockburn
Israel and "Anti-Semitism"
May 16, 2002
Marylin Robinson
A Garden
in Tent City, But Where Do You Bathe?
Paul de Rooij
Worse than CNN?
The BBC and Israel
David Krieger
The Bush/Putin
Agreement:
Nuclear Dangers Remain
Steve Perry
Unsafe at Any Speed:
Youth, Sex and the Heresies
of Judith Levine
May 15, 2002
Ahmad Faruqui
Revisiting
Camp David
Rick Giombetti
Spiderman v. Pentagon:
Working Class Hero Battles Corrupt Defense Contractors
Stanton / Madsen
When the
War Hits Home:
Planning for Martial Law, Telegovernance and Suspension of Elections
May 14, 2002
Jacob Levich
Leaving the Truth Out?
Alternative Online Publication
Tells the Big Lie about Palestine
Michael Colby
Bush's
Cuba Blunder
Dave Marsh
Scapegoats: the Music Industry's War
on Cassettes
Jensen / Mahajan
US Power
Mideast Power Plays
May 13, 2002
Robert Fisk
Why Does John Malkovich
Want to Kill Me?
Mokhiber / Weissman
IMF
and World Bank:
Out of Control
Dean Baker
Will Darth Vader do Time?
The Enron Saga Continues
Nelson Valdés
American
Democracy:
A Lesson for Cubans
May 12, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Why Is America Acting Like This? A
Letter to European Friends
John Patrick Leary
Aiding Colombia
Kathleen Christison
Israel
and Ethics
May 11, 2002
Joady Guthrie
The Holy Lands:
A Peace Vision
Patrick Cockburn
Bombing
Iraq:
the Pentagon Prepares a Prolonged Campaign
George Sunderland
CounterPunch Special
Our
Vichy Congress: Israel's Stranglehold on Capitol Hill
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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May
21, 2002
Confidential Memo
Kenny Boy to Georgie Boy:
"Welcome to the Club"
by Bernard Weiner
Dear Georgie:
I thought I was the only guy facing a
political/ethical firing squad. But you have topped me, my lad.
The "I" word is beginning to be brought out of mothballs.
Unless something major happens (another terrorist attack would
help out a lot), you're about to join Bubba in the impeachment
well.
When Enron went South and the press sharks
came out to taste the blood, I just had to eat the bad publicity,
declare bankruptcy, hunker down and try to ride it out. (So far,
it's working; nobody's even asked me lately about Enron's connection
to the oil pipeline now planned to go through Afghanistan to
our dormant plant in India.)
You, my friend, are in a somewhat different
position. I know you're trying to find a hunker place, but I'm
afraid, given your rather lonely position at the top, there's
really no place for you to hunk. And there are too many folks
wanting your head -- on a plate -- and they're not all Democrats.
Sorry to say it, Georgie, but you have
blown this 9/11 thing badly. Welcome to the club! The bullyboy
tactics we've both used took us a long way and made us a lot
of money, but we also had to run over a lot of people, friends
and foes, on the climb to the top, and a good many of them aren't
a bit sorry about the daggers being aimed our way by our enemies.
If I could publicly speak on your behalf
-- if that would help and not hurt -- you know that I would.
I'll forget your pretending that you aren't quite sure who I
am: I know how the game has to be played. I know that if anything
happens to me legally, you'll be there in the end with a presidential
pardon. That's how the game is played, too. I give you scratch,
you scratch my back. (Needless to say, after the private courier
presents you this letter, read it and burn it -- DON'T SHRED
IT!)
But, despite our similar circumstances,
I can wiggle out of my tight spot, given enough time. But you
-- you have real problems. I'm talking about the 9/11 coverup;
you blew that one big time.
It seems the lawyers and press (you really
need to take care of that Rather guy, teach him and the other
journalists a good lesson) are starting to piece together the
dots. You believed that you'd never get caught, that you could
browbeat or frighten your would-be critics into averting their
eyes -- a stance with which I'm certainly familiar -- but these
beliefs meant that you weren't as careful in covering your tracks
as you should have been. (Besides, how long did you think it
would take before Daschle and Gephardt revealed that you and
Dick had asked them to stay away from investigating pre-9/11
matters? The implication is not pretty.)
Having key members of the Cabinet abandon
flying by commercial airliners in July of 2001 makes it appear,
in retrospect, that you and they knew something about the upcoming
use of hijacked commerical jets as possible terrorist weapons
long before you chose to share that information with others.
Now you say that you learned what was about to go down only in
August of 2001, which certainly suggests that since the others,
including key senators, knew in July, either you're lying or
you weren't in charge and that whoever was in charge wasn't providing
you key information. Not good, Georgie. Whether the pitcher hits
the stone or the stone hits the pitcher, it ain't good for the
pitcher.
Intelligence officials in France and
Israel and the Philippines and Malaysia and here in this country
had been talking for years about thwarted attempts by terrorists
to use jetliners as weapons against icon structures (Eiffel Tower,
et al.), our own intelligence commissions and CIA had warned
of such impending attacks -- so your blaming the debacle on the
lack of CIA/FBI sharing of information again means either you
and your staff are incompetent or lying. Pitcher/stone again.
Not good.
No, it's clear to me that you did what
we all did: you had insider information and you used it to your
advantage. (The same for those who bought all those put options
on United and American airlines stocks in the days prior to 9/11.
That's a hard one to explain away.) I commend you for it, but
worry about the public-relations flap of not covering your backside
more intelligently.
Your biggest problem is not the inevitable
Democrat brouhaha about all this. Americans expect such partisanship.
It's the fact that 4000 people died, and a lot of their relatives
and other concerned citizens are middle-of-the-road ordinary
Americans, conservatives and liberals, and they are angry and
looking for someone to blame. Guess what? You're it. (And I'm
it in the energy area.)
You can try to ride it out with bravado,
blaming "partisan politics" and so on -- Dick's really
good at that; you aren't so good, even coming across as so out-of-control
the other day in your rambling discourse that journalists thought
maybe you were coming mentally unglued or maybe had tipped the
old bottle. But I don't think you'll be able to stem the rising
demand for a full investigation. (Is that why Karen Hughes left
so suddenly? She smelled what was about to make contact with
the fan and got out while the getting was good?)
My advice would be to get in front of
the story. 1) Get all the facts out -- everything, even the July
Phoenix FBI memo warning about terrorists enrolling in U.S. flight
schools, and the August Minneapolis FBI memo about the arrest
of Massoui for suspicious behavior at a flight school -- and
blame "the system" for failing to connect all the dots.
Don't make it look like you're trying to hide anything.
2) There will be another terrorist attack
as Al Qaeda regroups, or something like it can be "anticipated,"
if you get my drift. Be ready to move, a la 9/11; have plans
ready to clamp down harder on dissent (those who question your
tactics are supporting the terrorists, etc.), the press, Congress'
asking embarrassing questions. Re-ratchet up the "war on
terrorism" rhetoric, "homeland defense," "national
security," and so on; put the Dems on the patriotic-silence
routine. It's worked before and it's worth a try now, even though
the American public is not as gullible as it once was.
The move for impeachment will proceed
in the country and the Congress, but you might be able to slow
its growth prior to the upcoming elections, as citizens rally
around our "wartime President," and possibly even slow
down the Democrat election victory in Congress that seems just
around the corner.
If you resign or are forced out, Dick
becomes President (unless he's impeached, too) and things can
proceed as normal. If that happens, Dick has to make sure IMMEDIATELY
to appoint a Vice President of our business-friendly frame of
mind. We don't want to risk Daschle or Gephardt or, God forbid,
Colin Powell becoming President if anything should befall Dick
of the damaged heart.
As I'm sure you and your father realize,
we're playing for Big Stakes here. Not just money, although that's
always a big one, but staying in control of the agenda and the
goodie- and power-dispensary. You lose the momentum, and those
controlling, taxing Democrats get back in, and we're all in deep
doodoo.
So, Georgie Boy, I seriously recommend
that you come up with something to get these impeachment-fodder
stories off the front pages and leading the evening news -- dump
all the documents into Congress' lap while you spin the "it's-the-system-that's-responsible"
line, heat up Kashmir, stoke up the Palestinian war, invite another
good old terrorist event in the U.S., and stop pussyfooting around
with your/our domestic enemies. Sic 'em, boy. Bite them before
they get anywhere near your jugular. #
Bernard Weiner, a poet and playwright,
was the San Francisco Chronicle's theater critic for nearly 20
years. A <Ph.D>. in government & international relations,
he has taught at Western Washington University, San Diego State
University, and has published in The Nation, Village Voice, The
Progressive and widely on the internet.
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