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Coming in October From Common Courage Press   Today's Stories Ron Jacobs The Darkening Tunnel   Recent Stories August 21, 2003 Robert Fisk The US Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing Virginia Tilley The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War? Rep. Henry Waxman Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq Ben Terrall War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps on the Wrists Elaine Cassel Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show Christopher Brauchli Getting Gouged by Banks Marjorie Cohn Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq? Vicente Navarro Media Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush Website of the Day The Intelligence Squad   August 20, 2003 Robert Fisk Now No One Is Safe in Iraq Caoimhe Butterly Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad Kurt Nimmo UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War? Michael Egan Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark Ramzi Kysia Peace is not an Abstract Idea Steven Higgs NPR and the NAFTA Highway John L. Hess A Downside Day Edward Said The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay Jason Leopold Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake Up Call" Website of the Day Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype   August 19, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Blackouts Happen Gary Leupp "Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South Pacific Sean Donahue Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism Matt Martin Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense Juliana Fredman Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna John Ross Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques Sasan Fayazmanesh What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say Website of the Day Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities   August 18, 2003 Uri Avnery Hero in War and Peace Stan Goff The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure Cathy Breen Baghdad on the Hudson Michael Kimaid Fight the Power (Companies)! Jason Leopold The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay Matt Siegfried The Bush Administration in Context Elaine Cassel At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge Alexander Cockburn Judy Miller's War Harvey Wasserman The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson Website of the Day Fire Griles!   Congratulations to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD     August 16 / 17, 2003 Flavia Alaya Bastille New Jersey Jeffrey St. Clair War Pimps Saul Landau The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50 Brian Cloughley What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq? William S. Lind Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles Col. Dan Smith Time for Straight Talk Wenonah Hauter Which Electric System Do We Want? David Lindorff Where's Arnold When We Need Him? Harvey Wasserman This Grid Should Not Exist Don Moniak "Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline for August 14, 2003 David Vest Rolling Blackout Revue Merlin Chowkwanyun An Interview with Sherman Austin Adam Engel The Loneliest Number Poets' Basement Guthrie, Hamod & Albert Book of the Weekend Powerplay by Sharon Beder   August 14, 2003 Peter Phillips Inside Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party Brian Cloughley Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the CIA's Most Expensive War Linville and Ruder Tyson Strike Draws the Line Jim Lobe Bush Administration Divided Over Iran Ramzy Baroud Sharon Freezes the Road Map Tom Turnipseed Blowback in Iraq Gary Leupp Condi's Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride Website of the Day Tony Benn's Greatest Hits August 13, 2003 Joanne Mariner A Wall of Separation Through the Heart Donald Worster The Heavy Cost of Empire Standard Schaefer Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy Elaine Cassel Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent Ralph Nader Make the Recall Count Alexander Cockburn Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur Website of the Day Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting   August 12, 2003   Ron Jacobs Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and Iraq Josh Frank Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up Wayne Madsen What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens Ray McGovern Relax, It Was All a Pack of Lies Wendy Brinker Hubris in the White House Website of the Day Black Mustache   Hot Stories 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 William Blum Myth and Denial in the War on Terrorism Standard Schaefer Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy 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.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

August 22, 2003 Dubya Indemnity Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law? By CHRIS FLOYD At long last, a "smoking gun" has been found to justify the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Investigators probing obscure government archives in the occupied capital city have uncovered a document signed by the unelected tyrant which provides a clear casus belli for the much-disputed conflict. This remarkable directive was part of a series of moves undertaken by the dictator to strengthen his one-party stranglehold on the state by looting the wealth of the Iraqi people and placing himself and his cronies beyond the reach of the law. It was issued at the leader's autocratic whim, without public notice or any vote by the oppressed nation's ludicrous, rubber-stamp "legislature." It freed the dictator and his looter-barons from responsibility for a broad range of potential crimes: fraud, environmental devastation, slave labor, even murder--as long as those activities were related to filling the ruling clique's pockets with profits from Iraq's oil. A more powerful instrument of repression can scarcely be imagined--yet the bleeding-heart apologists for tyranny, those craven bootlickers who so strenuously oppose "regime change" to remove a thugocracy choking the life from a long-suffering people, have not uttered a peep about this nefarious document, which lies at the heart of a criminal enterprise that has claimed thousands of innocent victims and fanned the flames of international terrorism. We refer, of course, to Executive Order 13303, quietly promulgated by George W. Bush in May then buried deep in the verbiage of the Federal Register, where it was recently unearthed by Jim Vallette of the Institute for Policy Studies. Here, Bush's prettified public motives for war give way to the "bottom line" so beloved by the sordid corporate hacks and ideological extremists who seized Washington in the 2000 judicial coup. In the order, Bush proclaims that any legal action taken for any reason against any American corporation dealing in "Iraqi petroleum products" at any point in the process--from well-head to gas-pump to boardroom--"constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security" of the United States. In fact, the very possibility that one of Bush's oil pets might be held accountable for its actions while gorging on Iraqi crude is so terrifying that the Looter-in-Chief has declared a "national emergency" to deal with the situation. (A "national emergency" that he forgot to mention to, er, the nation.) The Bush edict grants a blanket immunity to all traffickers in Iraqi oil--as long as their moolah finds its way, by hook or crook, into the coffers of "United States persons or entities." Bush declares flatly that any "judicial process" launched against these protected entities "shall be deemed null and void." And how to guarantee that his partners and patrons won't be troubled by some rogue nation that still clings to the outmoded principle of law and order? Simple: one of the agencies authorized to "employ all powers" necessary "to carry out the purposes of this order" is our old friend, the Defense Department. Ostensibly, Order 13303 is aimed at preventing sissy-baby war-shirkers like, say, Russia, from going to court to enforce their existing oil contracts with Iraq. Here, the Regime is merely recognizing "facts on the ground": Iraq's oil doesn't belong to Saddam anymore; it belongs to George Bush, and he could do what he likes with it. (Forget the shuck-and-jive about "preserving the resources of the Iraqi people"--that's just cornball for the yokels back home.) But as Vallette points out, the rap sheet of American energy "entities" is crammed with ugly incident, including the aforesaid employment of forced labor, the hiring of murderous goons to put down protests by unruly natives, the subversion and corruption of national governments, and the despoiling of vast swathes of sea and coastline on a regular basis. There's little reason to believe these swaggering behemoths will be more circumspect in their fevered rush to exploit Iraq's captive treasures. Like many other of Bush's unconstitutional, unlegislated and undebated secret directives, Order 13303 is essentially a license to kill. It's also part of a massive effort to turn Iraq into a Bushist theme park, where favored corporate cronies can run wild, unfettered by regulation and glutted by American taxpayer money that frees them from any financial risk. To that end, Bush sent his old college buddy Thomas Foley to Baghdad last week, the Financial Times reports, to "advance the privatization" of Iraqi state enterprises by ensuring that the sell-off of the nation's non-oil assets will be "open to foreign trade"--i.e., "United States persons or entities." Many of the latter have hired Bush's former campaign manger and political fixer, lobbyist Joe Allbaugh, to front for them at the occupation trough, the National Journal reports. At the same time, a rigged bidding process last week forced rivals of Dick Cheney's paymaster, Halliburton (yes, he still gets fat checks from his old firm) out of the running for a new multibillion-dollar contract to administer Iraq's oil fields, the Washington Post reports. Those billions will now flow to the Vice Man's company--whose every action will be whitewashed by Bush's order of indemnity. But there is no indemnity, no immunity, for the American soldiers dying daily in guerrilla ambushes, or the innocent Iraqis mown down daily by their panicky conquerors, or the innocent people around the world at increased risk as terrorists ape the Bushist way of enforcing ideology by violence. No, they all pay the full price--the blood price--for the Bush barons' free ride. Chris Floyd is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor to CounterPunch. My CounterPunch piece on Rumsfeld's plan to provoke terrorist attacks came in at Number 4 on Project Censored's final tally of the Most Censored stories of 2002. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com Weekend Edition Features for August 16 / 17, 2003 Flavia Alaya Bastille New Jersey Jeffrey St. Clair War Pimps Saul Landau The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50 Brian Cloughley What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq? William S. Lind Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles Col. Dan Smith Time for Straight Talk Wenonah Hauter Which Electric System Do We Want? David Lindorff Where's Arnold When We Need Him? Harvey Wasserman This Grid Should Not Exist Don Moniak "Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline for August 14, 2003 David Vest Rolling Blackout Revue Merlin Chowkwanyun An Interview with Sherman Austin Adam Engel The Loneliest Number Poets' Basement Guthrie, Hamod & Albert Book of the Weekend Powerplay by Sharon Beder     Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /