The war on Iraq didn’t being with the lethal pyrotechnics of Shock and Awe and it didn’t end with George W. Bush’s made-for-tv aircraft landing. Undetected by the mainstream press, the US campaign against Iraq began many years before, featuring cruel sanctions, weekly bombardments and CIA-hatched assassinations. With Saddam deposed, the US now finds itself mired in a grinding and bloody occupation, its troops under constant attack with no exit in sight.
Iraq was just one of three major imperial crusades in the last decade, orchestrated by a new generation of American politicians, both Democrat and Republican, who backed pre-emptive strikes to overthrow unruly regimes in Yugoslavia and Afghanistan under the pretext of humanitarian intervention. Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair reported on these wars as they happened. Years ahead of the pack, they exposed the economic motives behind the wars and how fraudulent intelligence, a spaniel press corps, a servile United Nations and corporate propaganda techniques were used to foist them upon the public.
Imperial Crusades chronicles the lies that are now returning almost daily to haunt the liars in Washington and London, the secret agendas and the under-reported carnages of these wars. It is a ripely vivid and blow-by-blow commentary in the tradition of Tacitus and Macaulay.
Table of Contents
PART ONE: THE LAPTOP BOMBARDIERS
1. The Laptop Bombardiers
Alexander Cockburn
2. Sieg Heil!
Alexander Cockburn
3. May Day Missiles
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
4. Yes, Peace is at Hand
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
5. Wesley Clark: a Vain, Pompous Brown-noser
Andrew Cockburn
6. The War Behind the Briefings
Jeffrey St. Clair
7. Tom Friedman: the Maddest Dog
Alexander Cockburn
8. The Anti-War Left
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
9. Epic Poetry
Alexander Cockburn
10. First, Pick Your War Criminal
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
11. Humanitarian Adolf
Alexander Cockburn
12. The Anti-War Right
Alexander Cockburn
13. A Fraud Called Bernie Sanders
Alexander Cockburn
14. The Cost
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
15. The Liberals’ War
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
16. The John McCain Story
Jeffrey St. Clair
17. Here Comes Elie Wiesel
Alexander Cockburn
18. Where Tomorrow’s Bombs Will Fall
Jeffrey St. Clair
19. The First Lady as Therapeutic Cop
Alexander Cockburn
20. The Pentagon’s Presidential Auction
Andrew Cockburn
21. Genocide in Kosovo?
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
22. Clinton’s Good Side
Alexander Cockburn
23. Liberation Four Years After
Chad Nagle
Part Two: Overview
24. Why the War on Terror Won’t Work
Bill Christison
Part Three: Afghanistan
24. W: First Blood
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
25. Who Saw It Coming?
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
26. The Price, Mrs. Albright?
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
27. Retribution
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
28. Nukes: Small is Beautiful
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
29. The Left and the ‘Just War’
Alexander Cockburn
30. FBI Eyes Torture
Alexander Cockburn & Jeffrey St. Clair
31. Alter Asks: ‘Can We Torture Just a Teensy Bit?’
Alexander Cockburn
32. Where Were They When It Counted?
Alexander Cockburn
33. Fathers and Sons: the Bushes and Bin Ladens Go Way Back
Jeffrey St. Clair
34. Pebbles and Poppies
Alexander Cockburn
35. Anthrax as Normalcy: 500 Cases a Year
Jeffrey St. Clair
36. Daniel Pearl: Should His Editors Have Sent Him There?
Alexander Cockburn
37. Politics of a Bumper Crop:
Opium and Afghanistan
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
38. Karzai’s Bodyguard
Gary Leupp
39. The Tenth Crusade
Alexander Cockburn
40. The Trouble with Normal
Jeffrey St. Clair
41. Rummy: the Most Dangerous Man in Washington
Alexander Cockburn
42. Dogs of War, Bears of Wall St
Alexander Cockburn
43. Dwarf-throwing and the UN
Alexander Cockburn
44. Anatomy of Fear
Carol Norris
Part Four: War on Iraq
45. Iraq as Prison State
Jeffrey St. Clair
46. Iraq: When the Going Was Good
Vanessa Jones
47. From Marine to Anti-war Organizer
Scott Cossette
48. The Anti-war Mvt. and Its Critics
Alexander Cockburn
49. Torquemadas in Birkenstocks
Jeffrey St. Clair
50. Deceptions in Military Recruiting
Chris White
51. Bombing Iraq: They’ve Been Doing It For Eighty Years
Alexander Cockburn
52. Condition Orange as a Way of Life
Alexander Cockburn
53. Colin Powell and the Great Intelligence Fraud
Alexander Cockburn
54. Rummy’s Account Book: Who Armed Saddam?
Stephen Green
55. The Weekend the World Said No to War
Gary Leupp
56. Meet the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Goldberg
Alexander Cockburn
57. Why Let the Facts Stop a Good War?
Alexander Cockburn
58. When Jeffrey Goldberg Did Brazil
Alexander Cockburn
59. Forging Intelligence: Whose Deliberate Disinformation?
Ray Close
60. Fourth Generation Protesting
Scott Handleman
61. Roadtrip in Wartime
Daniel Wolff
Part Five: the Thirteen Years’ War
62. US Propaganda During the First 10 Days of the War
Paul de Rooij
63. Hating Wolf Blitzer’s Voice
Bruce Jackson
64. Baghdad: Farewell to a City Under Siege
Jo Wilding
65. War Means Almost (Never) Having to Say You’re Sorry
Joanne Mariner
66. Ego, Cruelty and Lies
Diane Christian
67. Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and War
Doug Lummis
68. The NYT and the Peace Movement
Susan Davis
69. Patriot Gore: the Fatal Flaws in the Patriot Missile System
Jeffrey St. Clair
70. What is Happening in the United States?
Edward Said
71. The Continuing Danger of Cluster Bombs
Joanne Mariner
72. Labor in the Dawn of Empire
JoAnn Wypijewski
73. The Dixie Chicks Cross the Road
Dave Marsh and Lee Ballinger
74. WMDs: Who Said What When
Jeffrey St. Clair
75. The Rat in the Grain: the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Jeffrey St. Clair
76. Decieved into War
Ray McGovern
77. Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
Ray McGovern
78. War Pimps: a Confidence Game on Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
79. Judy Miller’s War
Alexander Cockburn
80. Meet the Real WMD Fabricator: Rolf Ekeus
Alexander Cockburn
81. Handmaiden in Babylon: the Decline and Fall of the UN
Alexander Cockburn
82. Bush’s Iraq Mess: Getting Worse by the Day
Patrick Cockburn
83. The Thirteen Years’ War
Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair
