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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories May 28, 2003 David Vest DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More Dave Lindorff My Grandfather's Medal John Stanton America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key Bernard Weiner A PNAC Primer Robert Jensen Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party Ahmad Faruqui The Oil Business of Regime Change: the CIA and Iran Hammond Guthrie Disarming Conundrums Steve Perry What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?   May 27, 2003 Kurt Nimmo Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli Myths Anthony Gancarski Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love? Patrick Cockburn Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad John Chuckman an Interpretation of Bush's Character Kathleen Christison What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets Jeffrey Blankfort AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap Steve Perry Trouble in the Hinterlands   May 26, 2003 Franklin C. Spinney Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism Elaine Cassel Supreme Sacrifice Sam Hamod When Trained Killers Return Home Stew Albert The Final Conflict   May 24 / 25, 2003 Gary Leupp The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss and the Neo-Cons Uri Avnery The Hannibal Procedure Diane Christian Who's the Real Enemy? "Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards" Alexander Cockburn Derrida's Double Life William S. Lind Is Saddam Really Out of the Game? William Cook Road to Nowhere David Krieger Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice Ilan Pappe Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel Wayne Madsen American Idle Noah Leavitt Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields Walt Brasch Americans are Liars Lenni Brenner John Brown and Dutch Bill Mickey Z. Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda Michael Ortiz Hill Grievous Harm Here and Abroad Adam Engel Towers of Babel Poets' Basement Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski   May 23, 2003 Standard Schaefer Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits? Ron Jacobs Long Live People's Park! Michael Greger, MD Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply at Risk Elaine Cassel Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt." Sam Hamod The Shi'a of Iraq Christopher Greeder After the Layoffs (poem) Steve Perry Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23   May 22, 2003 Mark Gaffney Christian in Name Only Carl Estabrook Republic of Fear Carl Camacho, Jr. Reason for Hope Ben Granby What Rates a Headline from the Middle East? Vanessa Jones Terror Alerts in Australia Mickey Z. Instant Understanding Don Monkerud Snowballs in a Soggy Economy Barry Lando The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush Steve Perry Total Information Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?   May 21, 2003 Dave Lindorff Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain Chris Floyd How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity Dr. Gerry Lower Graham's God and Bush's Pathology Patrick Cockburn In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown are Everywhere Brian Cloughley The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz Saul Landau Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush Larry Kearney Two Morning Poems, May 2003 Steve Perry Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted? Elaine Cassel Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq   May 20, 2003 Tariq Ali The Empire Advances Ahmad Faruqui Whither American Nationalism? Ben Tripp Dialysis with Osama Linda Heard The Cage of Occupation Cynthia McKinney Toward a Just and Peaceful World Edward Said The Arab Condition Mokhiber and Weissman Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago Stew Albert Yale Men Steve Perry The New Face of Al-Qaeda   May 19, 2003 Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing Evidence CounterPunch Wire "Terror" Slut Steve Emerson Eats Crow John Chuckman Blair's Awkward Lies Matt Vidal Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market Michael S. Ladah The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map Robert Fisk Bush's Eternal War Backfires Elaine Cassel Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years Jonathan Freedland Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic Steve Perry Play It Again, O-Sam-a   May 17 / 18, 2003 Uri Avnery The Children's Teeth Peter Linebaugh An American Tribute to Christopher Hill Gary Leupp Nepal Today Rock and Rap Confidential The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks Walter Sommerfeld Plundering Baghdad's Museums Ron Jacobs Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades Thomas P. Healy Dubya Does Indy Tarif Abboushi Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap Francis Boyle Debating US War Crimes in Iraq Mark Davis An Interview with Richard Butler Richard Lichtman American Mourning Michael Ortiz Hill Overcoming Terrorism Adam Engel Uncle Sam is YOU! Alan Maas The Best News Show on TV Poets' Basement Reiss, Guthrie, Albert Elaine Cassel Good Enough for an Alien Website of the Weekend The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq Song of the Weekend Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues   May 16, 2003 Leah Wells In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix Ben Tripp Fear Itself Sharon Smith The Resegregation of US Schools Ramzy Baroud Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating? Sam Hamod A Nation of Fear Phil Reeves Baghdad Pays the Price Robert McChesney The FCC's Big Grab Mark Engler Those Who Don't Count Steve Perry We're All Extras in Bush's Movie Website of the Day Iraq and Our Energy Future   May 15, 2003 Ayesha Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould How Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter Writing Campaigns Julie Hilden Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees: Can He Get a Fair Trial? Tanya Reinhart Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure Laura Carlsen Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus? Kenneth Rapoza The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts New Yorker's Goldberg Stew Albert A Story I Will Tell Steve Perry Bush's Little Nukes Website of the Day Strip-o-Rama   May 14, 2003 Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Jason Leopold The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret November Deal for Iraq's Oil David Lindorff Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's Alaska John Chuckman Giggling into Chaos Jack McCarthy Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism and Double Standards Wayne Madsen Assassinating JFK Again M. Junaid Alam The Longer View Paul de Rooij The New Hydra's Head: Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War James Reiss What? Me Worry? Steve Perry More on Saudi Arabia Bombings Website of the Day A Tribute to Ted Joans   May 13, 2003 Saul Landau Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves Michael Neumann Has Islam Failed? Not by Western Standards Uri Avnery My Meeting with Arafat Steve Perry The Saudi Arabia Bombing Jacob Levich Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas William Lind The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory The Black Commentator Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes Stew Albert Asylum Hammond Guthrie An Illogical Reign Website of the Day Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence   May 12, 2003 Chris Floyd Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad Dave Lindorff America's Dirty Bombs Sam Hamod and Elaine Cassel Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty Uzi Benziman Sharon and Sons, Inc. Jason Leopold The Decline and Fall of Thomas White Rich Procter George Jumps the Shark Federico Moscogiuri Going to Israel? Sign or Else Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 5/12 Book of the Day Fooling Marty Peretz Website of the Day T-Shirts to Protest In           Hot Stories Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" 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

May 29, 2003 The Beat Goes On Despite Thin Intelligence Reports, the US Plans to Overthrow Iranian Regime By JASON LEOPOLD Here we go again. While postwar Iraq continues to crumble, the Bush administration is now setting its sights on a new target--Iran--in its so-called effort to reshape most of the Middle East and bring democracy to countries ruled by vicious dictators. But the Bush administration is again relying on flimsy evidence and thin intelligence information in claiming that the Iran poses an immediate threat to the United States. The U.S. still hasn't uncovered any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was the prime reason for launching an attack against the country. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said in an interview reported by CNN Tuesday that it's possible the WMD in Iraq may have been destroyed prior to the war. So, right now, the Bush administration has a credibility problem similar to that of The New York Times, which is still reeling from a spectacular scandal that one of its reporters fabricated dozens of national stories. In taking a hardline stance against Iran, the Bush administration is going to have to do better than "trust us" and this time offer some hard evidene that countries like Iran pose an immediate threat to U.S. interests. Still, if the rhetoric coming out of the White House this week is any indicator, the U.S. is gearing up for war, again. The reasons, however, are based on accusations, not tangible evidence. Ari Fleischer, Bush's press secretary, said during his daily press briefing Tuesday that Iran hasn't taken the appropriate steps to round up al Qaeda terrorists allegedly hiding out within its borders, a claim disputed by the CIA. Moreover, Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons puts the U.S. in grave danger. Therefore, regime change is in order. "The future of Iran will be determined by the Iranian people, and I think the Iranian people have a great yearning for government that is representative of their concerns," Fleischer said. Fleischer also said Iran's claim that its nuclear program is designed to produce fuel for civilian nuclear reactors is a "cover story." "Our strong position is that Iran is preparing instead to produce fissile materials for nuclear weapons," Fleischer said. "That is what we see." An Iranian opposition group says the Iranian government is building two secret nuclear sites that might already be partially operational, producing enriched uranium that could be used in nuclear weapons. Alireza Jafarzadeh, a spokesman for the National Council of Resistance of Iran, claims the Iranian government has "planned it" so that it can "be able to get the bomb by 2005." The NCRI provided detailed information about the previously undisclosed sites -- Lashkar-Abad and Ramandeh, about 25 miles west of Tehran, but offered no direct evidence. Iranian officials have denied harboring al-Qaeda operatives and said the country would vigorously defend itself against any U.S. threat, which in the eyes of the Bush administration, could set the stage for another war and further increase anti-American sentiment and put the U.S. in more danger of terrorist attacks, according to several Democratic lawmakers. However, the real cover story is the one the Bush administration is spinning in order to win public support for what was already planned for Iran months ago, well before "Operation Iraqi Freedom." Before the United States military decimated Iraq, the neocons at the highly influential think tanks the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century were already advising Bush administration officials, like Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, on how to overthrow the ruling parties in Iran, Libya and Syria after the war in Iraq was over. Many of AEI and PNAC's former members are now working in Bush's administration. PNAC's influence on Bush's foreign and defense policies are so powerful that many of its recommendations on how to transform the military have already been adopted by the Pentagon. But unlike Iraq, using military force in these other countries to replace the rulers wasn't being considered as a way to oust the regimes, according to former Bush administration officials. Whether or not that becomes the course of action now is debatable, but even if military force isn't used for regime change in Iran or other Middle Eastern countries the reasons for engaging in political warfare in that region is just as troubling as the reasons the U.S. launched a military attack on Iraq: intelligence information that suggests these countries pose an immediate threat to the U.S. is thin and possibly non-existent. Still, the Bush administration has its agenda and it seems that Iran is indeed its next target. Instead of military action, the Bush administration will encourage a "popular uprising" in its effort to overthrow Iran's supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, and lend financial support to Iranians to get the job done. To get Iranians to rise up against its government, U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, R-Kansas, has drafted an amendment to the Senate Foreign Authorization bill titled The Iran Democracy Act that calls for using the new Radio Farda to host programming from Iranian Americans who communicate with their families inside Iran about the desire for an internationally monitored referendum vote on what form of government Iran should have. The amendment would also provide grants for private radio and TV stations in the U.S. that broadcast pro-democracy news and information into Iran. The amendment also provides funds to translate books, videos and other materials into Persian - specifically, information on building and organizing non-violent social movements. Moreover, Brownback introduced legislation that would establish an Iran Democracy Foundation to provide grants to the Iranian-American community and for the radio and TV St! ations in the U.S. that broadcast directly into Iran. This is the type of political warfare the Bush administration believes will force Iran's government from power. But the Bush administration will have a hard time convincing Iranians that it can follow through on its promise. For one, anarchy is running amok in postwar Iraq and many critics have accused the Bush administration of abandoning its goal of democratizing the country. Furthermore, Iranians remember how the first President Bush encouraged the Kurds to rise up against Saddam Hussein during the 1990s only to be abandoned by that administration and ultimately slaughtered by Hussein. But that doesn't stop the think tanks from believing that it can't be done. "For Iran, the approach might be compared to the approach the United States and other democratic states took to Poland in the 1980s," said David Frum, President Bush's former speechwriter, who is credited with coining the phrase "axis of evil," in an April 5 presentation at AEI. "In Poland, as in Iran, an economically incompetent authoritarian regime ruled over an increasingly angry population. In Poland, as in Iran, a mass opposition movement rose up against the regime: Solidarity in Poland, the student democratic movement in Iran. Back in the 1980s, the United States and its allies never confronted the Polish communists directly. Instead, they imposed stringent economic sanctions on the regime--and contributed hundreds of millions of dollars to pay for its covert newspapers and radio stations and to support the families of jailed ! or exiled activists...as the regimes economy disintegrated, the Polish communists were compelled first to open negotiations with Solidarity, next to permit Solidarity to compete in semi-free elections, and finally to step aside for a Solidarity government. Fourteen years later, Poland is a democratic state and a staunch NATO ally." Richard Perle, who sits on the Defense Policy Board, a group that advises Rumsfeld, is more blunt in the reasons for going after Iran and he is not shy about suggesting that military force be used if necessary. "The idea that our victory over Saddam will drive other dictators to develop chemical and biological weapons misses the key point: They are already doing so. That's why we may someday need to preempt rather than wait until we are attacked," Perle said in a letter to AEI members earlier this month. Michael Ledeen, another influential AEI scholar, claims that the U.S. ought to "bag" Iran's regime because of its anti-American views. 'The Iranian people have shown themselves to be the most pro-American population in the Muslim world, but the Iranian regime is arguably the most anti-American on Earth. Let's support the people, and help them bag the regime." Jason Leopold can be reached at: jasonleopold@hotmail.com Today's Features May 28, 2003 David Vest DubyaCo.: It's Not So Funny Any More Dave Lindorff My Grandfather's Medal John Stanton America's Dying: Arts and Philosophy Hold the Key Bernard Weiner A PNAC Primer Robert Jensen Texas Dems Set a Standard for the Rest of the Party Ahmad Faruqui The Oil Business of Regime Change: the CIA and Iran Hammond Guthrie Disarming Conundrums Steve Perry What If There's No Such Thing as Al-Qaeda?   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /