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Today's
Stories
July
19, 2004
Uri
Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of
Paris
Col.
Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?
David
Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition
to Iraq War
Jennifer
van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
July
17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything
Wrong with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
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.
|
July
19, 2004
Allawi,
Our Puppet with a Pistol
Iraq's
New Terrorist Prime Minister
By
MIKE WHITNEY
"In Iraq we meant to render
futile both the theory and the practice of terrorism; what we
have done instead is to endow it with diplomatic credentials,
making credible the policies of blind assassination."
Lewis H. Lapham; Harper's
In a long line of American puppets,
the name Ayad Allawi figures to loom large. In just a matter
of weeks the new Prime Minister of Iraq has accommodated his
US paymasters with a zeal that must leave the dapper Hamid Karzai
wondering if his job is safe.
In his first days after taking
office, Allawi was called on to endorse the bombing of an alleged
"safe house" in Falluja; an incident that took the
lives of 26 Iraqis including women and children. None of the
dead were identified as "foreign fighters", although
every major newspaper in America reiterated the Pentagon's view
that the occupants were colleagues of Abu Musab al Zarqawi.
The bombing of Falluja occurred
just three days after the UN was cajoled into signing the Iraqi
Sovereignty Resolution. During negotiations at the UN, the Bush
Administration made it look as though they were taking a more
"reasoned approach" to security issues.
That was not the case.
The military simply suspended
its major operations to make it appear as though a fundamental
shift in policy had taken place. This eschewed the very real
possibility that the members of the Security Council would have
rejected the resolution outright.
Instead, the Security Council
approved the resolution, establishing the US as the "UN
Multinational Force", and the bombing of Falluja resumed
three days later.
It was a deception that the
"more seasoned" members of the Council should have
anticipated.
The ex-CIA operative Allawi
expressed his enthusiasm for the bombing, saying that he supported
the action as a means of quashing the "terrorist" operatives
in post-war Iraq.
We will "annihilate the
terrorist groups," boasted Allawi.
There have been six more bombings
in Falluja producing equally dubious results. To date, no "foreign
fighters" have been positively identified in Falluja.
The rule of thumb seems to
be, that wherever an errant bomb drops on innocent Iraqis (be
it a wedding party or a Mosque) it immediately becomes a "legitimate
target" in the war on terror.
Just yesterday (Sunday, July
18) US forces bombed another "alleged" safe house in
Falluja killing an estimated 14 Iraqis including women and children.
Only the present occupants
of the White House and the American media can be expected to
defend such slaughter as justifiable.
The increasing death toll of
Iraqis attests to the fact that neither the US Military nor the
Bush Administration is particularly bothered the prospect of
more dead Muslims.
Nor does it seem to weigh on
the conscience of Iraq's "hand picked" P.M., Allawi.
Perhaps Allawi's tenure in Saddam's Gestapo (the Mukabarat) hardened
him to the pangs of remorse that we usually associate with the
killing innocent people. Or maybe it was his involvement in a
1990s terrorist bombing campaign in Baghdad (trying to destabilize
the Saddam regime) that deadened him to the loss life. (In one
incident he was directly connected to the bombing of school bus.)
Whatever it was, he has quickly
established his bone fides for ruthlessness with a passion
that has impressed his employers in Washington.
Allawi has become the cat's
paw of US policy in Iraq; the continued aggression of the military
is being fashioned to appear as though Allawi is "calling
the shots".
Iraqis are not taken in by
this ruse. They are well aware of the regions' colonial history
and the subsequent establishing of an "Arab facade";
the puppet governments that provide a mask to disguise the workings
of the imperial machine.
The Allawi experiment is no
different.
For example, consider the recent
detention of 500 criminal suspects who were arrested at Allawi's
behest. The action was taken for one of two reasons; either Allawi
has taken a sudden interest in crime in Baghdad or Rumsfeld wants
to continue rounding up insurgent suspects without drawing further
attention to his real motives. (Following the Abu Ghraib scandal,
the military must be as discreet as possible in their random
dragnets. Never the less, they will persist in detaining large
numbers of innocent Iraqis until the resistance is crushed.)
The justification of "fighting crime" provides a useful
screen for the real aims of the Defense Dept. chieftans.
Similarly, Allawi's announcement
of an "Order for Safeguarding National Security", the
equivalent of Martial law, is part of a broader US strategy to
apply maximum force whenever it chooses.
Even the name of the new law
(Safeguarding National Security) smacks of the euphemisms that
are churned out of American neoliberal "think tanks"
on a regular basis. It is just more of the same old Bush "doublespeak",
invoked to conceal the complete suspension of civil liberties.
(The law provides for "random
searches, seizures, closures, eavesdropping, curfews--all tools
of the modern police state--are now in the hands of the small
and unelected Baghdad leadership; and in the fine print, the
establishment of a half-dozen new security agencies, each with
a name, acronym and marching orders reminiscent of the decidedly
undemocratic Mideast norm." Mitch Potter)
The law enshrines the principle
that in "liberated" Iraq, citizens have been effectively
stripped of their personal freedom.
George Orwell could not have
imagined a more dismal state of affairs.
Incredibly, in the same week
that Allawi announced his intention to enact Martial law, he
also unveiled his plan to develop a "state security apparatus"
to deal with the insurgency.
No one in Iraq has any misgivings
about what this really means.
Allawi started his political
career as a Ba'ath Party enforcer and gradually worked his way
up to become a senior official in the Iraqi secret police (the
Mukabarat.) Eventually, he was bound to try to reconstitute the
feared secret police that kept the Iraqi people under Saddam's
iron grip for decades.
Not surprisingly, this was
already being done by the CIA and Dept of Defense prior to Allawi's
rise to power. (Z Magazine has reported that US intelligence
was reenlisting members of Saddam's Mukabarat to respond to the
growing insurgency.)
The Bush Administration has
no qualms about resurrecting the "primary instrument of
Iraqi state terror", as long as it is employed in the greater
interests of continued American domination.
Again, Allawi provides nothing
more than a convenient Iraqi face to a scheme that was well developed
before he was ever appointed as Prime Minister.
This is the real meaning of
Iraqi sovereignty; a curtain that hides the machinations of the
American Imperium.
So far, Allawi has followed
each of Washington's edicts with unmitigated enthusiasm. His
passion for his new position hasn't been dimmed by the carnage
he has authorized or by the constant threats to his life.
Apart from his utter loyalty
to the Bush clan, Allawi has demonstrated his aptitude for the
job in ways that are intangible. In an article in the Sydney
Morning Herald, Paul McGeough tells of Allawi's involvement in
the murder of six alleged insurgents' just days before he was
handed over control of the interim government.
"The prisoners--handcuffed
and blindfolded--were lined up against a wall in a courtyard
adjacent to the maximum-security cell block in which they were
held at the Al-Amariyah security centre, in the city's south-western
suburbs."
"Informants told the Herald
that Dr Allawi shot each young man in the head as about a dozen
Iraqi policemen and four Americans from the Prime Minister's
personal security team watched in stunned silence."
Was this the final indication
that Allawi was worthy of a place at the Bush table?
Is there a more appropriate
"initiation" into the world of gangland terror and
political bloodletting than that described in McGeough's article?
The occupants of the Oval Office
must have felt heartened to know that they had enlisted another
reliable member to their circle of murders and torturers.
Mike Whitney can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
Weekend Edition
Features for July 10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
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