Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 5, 2003
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Recent
Stories
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
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
Hot Stories
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
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.
|
September
5, 2003
Why Doesn't the Prez
Visit the Wounded?
Bush's
Stacked Deck
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
Damon Runyon, in 'The Idyll of Miss Sarah Browne'
(which became the musical 'Guys and Dolls'), delivered a cautionary
tale through his character Obadiah Masterton, otherwise known
on Broadway as The Sky, whose father offered him advice in lieu
of more substantial patrimony. "Son", he said, "No
matter how far you travel or how smart you get, always remember
this. Someday, somewhere, a guy is going to come to you and show
you a brand new deck of cards on which the seal is never broken,
and this guy is going to offer to bet you that the jack of spades
will jump out of this deck and squirt cider in your ear. But
son, do not bet him, for as sure as you do, you are going to
get an earful of cider."
I was dismayed when the occupying power
in Iraq manufactured thousands of decks of playing cards depicting
Iraqi leaders and officials, simply because it was a vulgar and
amateurish propaganda antic that would achieve little except
fawning publicity on Fox News and various rabid talk-in programmes.
One wonders if The Sky would have gone the limit if faced by
the Pentagon's deck (in which, incidentally, the jack of spades
was General Ibrahim al-Sattar Muhammad, the armed forces chief,
who, like other prisoners of war, has been treated with no regard
whatever for the Geneva conventions and is held without charge
or trial in a place unknown). Those portrayed were supposedly
the people "Most Wanted" by US forces, and although
it was an immature campaign designed by boobies it provided innocent
enjoyment to sophisticated Iraqis who with justification laugh
at idiots who try to use western ideas to influence eastern psyches.
In an almost unbelievably moronic advertisement
for these silly things the manufacturer in America proudly announces
that for nine dollars "You will receive an actual Liberty
Brand, casino-quality deck from the company that actually produced
cards for the government! Impress your friends and poker buddies
with your INSIDERS' KNOWLEDGE as well as the fact that YOU own
a set from the EXACT SAME company that printed the cards for
the government." The mind reels at the rustic vulgarity.
(But it plays well in Peoria.)
The US Marine Corps is also marketing
a propaganda deck. It is called "America's Most Unwanted"
and is designed, produced and sold by officers of the Corps whose
motto is 'Semper Fidelis' or 'Always Faithful', usually abbreviated
to 'Semper Fi'. But it seems that the Corps is not always faithful
to the elected representatives of the United States of America,
because some of those depicted on the "America's Most Unwanted"
cards of the US Marine Corps are senators and members of the
House of Representatives. Two of the cards show American Presidents
Carter and Clinton who are now ridiculed by the Corps of which
they were commander-in-chief. ('Semper Fi', anyone?)
The reason for production of this deck
of spite is that the legislators and Presidents (and actors and
others) who appear on the cards are considered by officers of
the US Marine Corps to be traitors to America because they opposed
the war on Iraq. Marine Major Doug Cody solemnly pronounced that
"I don't begrudge anyone their right to express their opposition
to the war, but the people on the cards went above and beyond
what I thought was reasoned or principled opposition." (It
should be noted that twenty per cent of Major Cody's profits
from sale of the cards, at 12 dollars a deck, "will be given
to U.S. Armed Forces Relief Societies". How very generous
of him.)
I sniff McCarthy, by God, and it's a
bloody awful stink. When I see images of US Senators on a profitable
hate pack produced by citizens who swore to abide by (and fight
for) the Constitution, I realise that freedom in the United States
is under threat. If serving officers of the United States Marine
Corps are encouraged to become deeply involved in party politics
and openly denigrate members of the US Congress without being
called to account, then I fear for the foundations of democracy.
Any member of the Armed Forces of the United States (or of any
country, indeed) who publicly vilifies an elected representative
of the people should be required to get out of uniform instantly.
If these people had produced a "Most Unwanted" deck
of cards depicting Cheney, DeLay or Wolfowitz their loyalty would
have been quickly questioned. The White House and Congress would
have gone berserk and by now they would be former Marines. Why
has no action been taken by Rumsfeld and Ashcroft in this case
of insolent, irresponsible and disloyal defamation?
Responsibilities and loyalties must extend
downwards as well as upwards. People at the top and on the higher
rungs of ladders have a duty to those below them. (Except in
the corporate world, of course, where there is no such thing
as loyalty.) And one of the main responsibilities of a military
officer is to visit the sick. As an officer you have genuine
concern for the well-being of your soldiers (or marines or whoever),
and when one of them is wounded or injured or hospitalised for
any reason, your first duty is to get there and give comfort.
It's automatic. It's part of family life in a regiment or squadron
or ship, and is nothing out of the ordinary to those of us fortunate
enough to have experienced it.
But it seems it isn't automatic or ordinary
at the top of the totem pole. Commander-in-Chief Bush has ended
a month-long vacation during which he had money-raising parties
and gave electioneering speeches praising US troops in Iraq.
But he didn't visit any of them in hospitals at home.
As of this week there was a total of
1124 US soldiers wounded in action in Iraq, of whom 574 casualties
were inflicted after Top Gun dramatically declared an end to
major combat on May 1. In addition there were 301 who, according
to the Washington Post, "received non-hostile injuries in
vehicle accidents [presumably including Private Jessica Lynch]
and other mishaps, and thousands who became physically or mentally
ill."
There is a moral in these two seemingly
unrelated (if equally sad) manifestations of Bush administration
culture which are both redolent of disloyalty : one up, one down.
It is that loyalty is a precious commodity. Squander it by failing
to give people due attention as required by your rank and position,
and you never recover it. Not only that, but you destroy utterly
what you are trying to achieve.
US Army morale in Iraq is pretty damn
low right now, and even Republican Senator McCain, just returned
from a visit to the country, wrote in a Washington Post piece
on August 31 that ". . . our military force levels are obviously
inadequate. A visitor quickly learns in conversations with US
military personnel that we need to deploy at least another division."
That is senate-speak meaning "I talked to all ranks from
private to general and they told me they need minimum 20,000
reinforcements NOW." When that is placed against Rumsfeld's
absurd statement that "the conclusion of the responsible
military officials is that the force levels are where they should
be," you have to wonder if he is talking about the same
military campaign. And you have to look at the effect of such
pronouncements on soldiers protecting palaces in which administrators
dwell in air-conditioned comfort.
The Bush administration propaganda battle
has not only been lost in Iraq with the Iraqi people; it has
been lost in Iraq with US soldiers. Of equal significance, it
is about to be lost as regards other very important groups of
people : the relatives of exhausted, frightened, over-extended
soldiers still in Iraq, and the families of hundreds of wounded
soldiers who wonder why their Commander-in-Chief has failed to
acknowledge their sacrifice and suffering by just stopping by
one day to visit with them in their hospital. It wouldn't take
much time out of his schedule.
Why does the US Commander-in-Chief refuse
to visit his wounded soldiers in their hospital beds? I'll tell
you why. It wouldn't play well on camera. Bush, the great commander-in-chief,
he of the aircraft carrier-landing in macho Top Gun kit, is facing
election next year, and it wouldn't look good for him to be photographed
alongside American kids who had their legs blown off after he
declared the end of major combat operations. He would play the
compassion card if he thought it would bring him votes. But the
cards he gave soldiers before he sent them to Iraq were out of
a stacked deck. One of them will probably squirt cider in his
eye.
Brian Cloughley
writes about defense issues for CounterPunch, the Nation (Pakistan),
the Daily Times of Pakistan and other international publications.
His writings are collected on his website: www.briancloughley.com.
He can be reached at: beecluff@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for August 30 / Sept. 1, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
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