Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 9, 2003
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
Recent
Stories
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
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
9, 2003
Eating
Humble Pie
Less
Secure, Isolated and Dead Broke
By WILLIAM A. COOK
A cynic may be the only person enjoying the current
scene Bush administration officials scurrying frantically around,
like so many roaches caught with the light suddenly turned on,
to the UNSC, to Germany, France, Congress, and the compliant
mainstream media talk shows, diligently explaining the virtues
of a broader based coalition of forces for Iraq carrying full
UN endorsement. But the cynic also sees the roaches peering out
from beneath the stove hoarding the goodies they've acquired
by their invasion in the dark of night. Powell and Rumsfeld,
buddies once again we're assured, proclaim how this is an international
concern requiring all members of the United Nations to join the
coalition by sending troops and money. When asked what's in it
for them beyond loss of revenue and body bags, the dynamic duo
can only mutter, "It's in your best interest."
Thus the spectacle! Powell crawling out
from his hiding place, humble pie smeared over his face, groveling
before his erstwhile friends, the ones he coddled, cajoled, and
abandoned between February and March five months ago, pleading
with them to pass yet another resolution making legitimate the
administration's illegal invasion. But Chirac and Schroeder,
arm in arm, smiles wide and sure, chuckle at the scene even as
they delicately step in and around the scurrying roaches, refrain
from saying "I told you so," and await wording that
would give them what they wanted five months ago. The entire
spectacle is deplorable.
Alex Cockburn, in these pages a few weeks
ago, caustically noted that UN officials, most especially the
Secretary General Koffi Annan, confused the UN with the US: the
UN is the US to all intents and purposes. Annan received his
anointment in much the same manner as Bush received his--through
the blessings of those who are the real power, the corporations
 and
lobbyists who own the judges and the politicians; for Bush the
court system and party operatives particularly in Florida and
DC; for Annan the controlling administration in the US that pulls
the strings on who will serve appropriately US interests as Secretary
General.
Well, now is the time for Annan to lead
the UN, not pick up the crumbs left by the US as it finds itself
exposed and totally vulnerable in Iraq. Why one wonders should
the UN capitulate to the demands of this administration when
it had made clear five months ago that it disagreed entirely
with the Bush drive to destruction of a country that was no threat
to the US and had no part in the disaster known as 9/11? Indeed,
why should the UN consider a resolution from this administration
when it was insulted and made a fool of five months ago when
this administration pulled the second Iraq resolution knowing
it would fail? That action made the US the UN, making it the
determiner of international disorder and sole determiner of how
to resolve that danger. Now is the time for the UN to assert
its mandate to act on behalf of all member states, not be the
lapdog of one. Now is the time for the UN to logically, and perhaps
ironically, apply the Bush doctrine that asserts the irrelevancy
of the UN unless it forces member states to comply with its resolutions,
the argument Bush used to bring world wide condemnation on Iraq
in his speech to the UN in September of 2002. Now is the time
for the UN to pass a Resolution, I'd suggest number 1443 following
the first and aborted second resolutions drawn up by the US to
give it face as it groped its way to the invasion, condemning
its rogue member state, the United States of America, for disregarding
the UN Charter and International Law as it illegally invaded
a state on false premises, for undertaking terrorist acts against
the citizens of that state, for disregarding the provisions of
the Geneva Protocols, for acts against humanity, and for supporting
and promoting terrorism in selected nations like Israel, Pakistan,
and India thus destabilizing the world community.
Consider the brazenness of the US in
going back to the UN. The administration seeks to have the current
debacle in Iraq transferred to UN shoulders. Here's the wording
of Powell's resolution: " transfer the US led military force
in Iraq into a UN-authorized multinational force under a unified
command." This implicitly transfers acceptance for the invasion
to the UN and, thereby, transfers the hatred of those attacking
US forces to their new mercenaries. It likewise transfers the
cost of the reconstruction, including rebuilding of structures
already paid for by the UN and subsequently destroyed by the
US, back to the UN. Yet the "unified command" remains
under the control of the US generals and its puppet administrator,
Mr. Bremmer. A deal like this the UN cannot turn down!
Having fallen victim to one of the most
insidious military strategies ever devised, one that may be cautiously
compared to that devised by the Russians when Napoleon, followed
by Hitler, invaded Russia, the US watched incredulously as the
armies of Saddam evaporated into the blinding sandstorms that
accompanied the tanks on their way to Baghdad. Unhampered by
an opposing army, snipped at the heals as the supply trucks lumbered
behind, the US forces moved swiftly into the center of Iraq.
With 150,000 troops spread across 167,000 square miles (or almost
one soldier per square mile), a landmass the size of California,
keeping tabs on 23 to 27 million people (or one soldier for every
180 Iraqis), the soldiers became sitting targets for snipers,
hidden bombs, and occasional missiles. The ensuing water torture
of daily deaths, the light of day realization that the devastation
wrought from the skies far exceeded expectations, the hate engendered
by US weapons of mass destruction on the innocent, and the infiltration
of sympathizers for those under US occupation has finally brought
home to our politicians the enormity of the cost of this ill-conceived
war in both dollars and the lost good will of the world community.
Now, then, is the time for the US Congress and the Senate, on
behalf of the American people, to stop this administration from
further terrorization of the world, to repudiate the administration's
National Security Strategy Report of September 2002, with its
doctrines of pre-emptive strikes and imposed global dominance
by this country, and to bring the perpetrators before the peoples'
court, by impeachment, to atone for their crimes against America
and the world communities. That action should include all members
of the Cabal responsible for this incredible debacle.
Concurrently with this action by our
representatives would come the UN Resolution 1443 citing the
United States for its unauthorized, illegal actions against the
state of Iraq. In keeping with the spirit of the UN Preamble,
the Security Council and the General Assembly would issue resolutions
premised on the authority vested in that body "to save succeeding
generations from the scourge of war, to reaffirm faith in fundamental
human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in
the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,"
and most especially, "to establish conditions under which
justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties
and other sources of international law can be maintained."
The UN can no longer act in fear and
trepidation of the US. It is and must be the arbiter of justice
and peaceful resolution of conflicts among and between nations.
The US has realized now something that liberal thinkers have
been pointing out for two years, the arrogance of the neo-cons
and the stupidity of their stated goals can destroy America not
bring it world dominance. A nation that spreads itself around
the world, in 123 nations, that spends its wealth on state of
the art weapons that can destroy hundreds and thousands at a
shot, and that believes it alone knows truth and, therefore,
is the determiner of good and evil for all peoples on the earth
is a nation that cannot sustain that breadth of deployment, that
can be defeated by stones and handguns and hand held missiles
and determined human will, and that must come to the realization
that truth and righteousness is elusive and varied. The peoples'
representatives finally understand as they watch in horror the
scurrying roaches attempt to salvage their hides, that a nation
can amass enormous power technologically having spent the peoples'
wealth to acquire it through the insatiable appetite of the military/industrial
complex, and find itself less secure, isolated from the community
of nations, and dead broke!
William Cook
is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern
California. His new book, Psalms
for the 21st Century, was just published by
Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
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