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Today's
Stories
January 7, 2004
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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January
7, 2004
Doing Security While
Searching for a Clue
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
By GREG WEIHER
The Bush Administration, unabashed mouthpiece
of the world's loudest democracy, has mandated that foreign flights
coming to the United States carry armed air marshals to prevent
their being commandeered by terrorists. In the same vein, it
has been instrumental in the cancellation of flights into the
United States from England, Fr**ce, and Mexico, based upon intelligence
intercepts and the fact that passenger rosters included names
appearing on government watch-lists.
These actions have produced grumbling
in some quarters. A spokesman for Jane's pointed out the liabilities
of introducing fire arms into pressurized cabins, and that an
overpowered sky marshal's firearm could be put to diabolical
purposes.
For some, the American edict was redolent
of unilateralism. A spokesman for Mexican President Vicente Fox
noted that "[the Americans] provided just generalities,
and no details of names, groups or circumstances whatsoever .
. . It is the moral responsibility of the United States Government
to provide more information."
In its own, inimitable, "tough shit"
style, the U.S. offered the grumblers a simple choice: do it
our way, or stay out of our air space. Reporters who had the
temerity to ask about unilateralism at the press conference received
short shrift and a steely-eyed gaze from Homeland Security Secretary
Tom Ridge.
But the hopelessly irreverent may well
question this most recent round of huffing and puffing by Bush
and the prevari-cons, not because the threat from terrorism is
illusory, but because past efforts by these folks do not inspire
the greatest confidence. "Trust us!" they say. "We
can't tell you why we're doing this, but it's based on credible
and specific intelligence." Haven't we heard this story
before?
I'm not even going to raise the whole
issue of the WsMD beyond pointing out that this same crew gave
us iron-clad assurances that they knew what they were doing on
that one, too.
But what about the case of Maher Arar,
the Canadian citizen who deplaned to make a connection in New
York and was seized because his name appeared on a watch-list?
Arar was turned over to the Syrians for a year of gratuitous
torture on the basis of no actual evidence that he'd done anything
wrong. He was released with no more explanation of his treatment
than he received when he was detained. In this latest security
dust up, when you hear reports of passengers questioned in their
plane for hours after landing in the U.S., all based upon the
information contained in watch lists, you have to wonder a little,
don't you?
The passengers with the watch-listed
names on one of the recently cancelled flights were ultimately
tracked down. The results indicate that the Department of Homeland
Security has not yet shed its lovable, bumbling ways. According
to the Washington Post:
Fr**ch officials confirmed a report in
Friday's Wall Street Journal that none of the six individuals
whose names appeared suspicious to U.S. authorities on the flights
canceled before Christmas turned out to be of interest. One
turned out to be a 5-year-old boy with the same name as a suspected
Tunisian terrorist, another was an elderly Chinese woman, and
a third was a Welsh insurance agent.
The Post goes on to explain the difficulties
that the homeland security folks face in policing the skies,
including the fact that "U.S. officials must check manifests
using a dozen separate watch lists because the planned consolidation
of such data has yet to be completed." (Here's my advice
for solving that knotty conundrum: read each list into a spreadsheet,
then click "merge.")
The same problem seems to beset just
about every effort this administration makes in the war on terrorism
intelligence (no offense, President Bush). I use this term
as a catch-all for the various situations in which the Bush Administration
has been just awful at figuring out who the bad guys really are
(though that almost never stops them from acting precipitously).
They' re pretty good at shock-and-awe, but they're as likely
to wipe out the firehouse cat as they are a terrorist.
For instance, do you remember a few weeks
ago when an American convoy that was carrying bank notes to Samarra
was attacked by Iraqi insurgents? The Americans claimed that
they rebuffed the attack completely, suffering no fatalities
while killing some fifty attackers. The attackers were supposedly
Saddam Fedayeen, identifiable by their black uniforms. The whole
thing was portrayed as a great victory in the struggle for democracy
in Iraq: "the most [Iraqi deaths] reported in a single day
since Bush declared the end of major combat in May," according
to the New York Times.
However, less than a dozen bodies could
actually be found, and none were wearing the Saddam Fedayeen
uniform. In fact, one was a child, one a woman who was leaving
work at a pharmaceutical factory, and one was an old Iranian
who was making a religious pilgrimage. Iraqi witnesses to the
glorious victory said that the Americans responded to the attack
by shooting at everything in sight, whether animal, vegetable,
or mineral.
Of course, cynics might suggest that
the Bush administration tendency to kidnap-or-incinerate first
and ask questions later is explained by something other than
faulty intelligence. The Samarra triumph, for instance, was announced
during a period when the news from Iraq was mostly bad. Some
might say that the desperate need of some good news explains
the morphing of Iraqi civilian casualties into Saddam Fedayeen.
The incorrigibly suspicious might point
out that Bush and the prevari-cons have a perverse incentive
to hit the orange alert button every so often. People of this
suspicious bent suggest that the administration's grip on power
depends on the perpetuation of fear of terrorism. No terrorist
threat, no "George Bush, Warrior Bureaucrat!"
Remember jet-pilot George, posing on
the deck of a nearly-beached aircraft carrier in front of that
"Mission Accomplished" banner? Remember Thanksgiving-surprise
George, parading through a Baghdad mess hall with a fake turkey?
Is it possible that we're now being presented with orange-alert
George, guardian of the skyways?
What do you think the chances are that
in late October or early November, the powers that be will find
it necessary to call another orange alert?
Greg Weiher
is a political scientist and free-lance writer living in Houston,
Texas. He can be reached at: gweiher@uh.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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