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Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
December 12, 2003
Josh Frank
Halliburton,
Timber and Dean
Chris Floyd
The
Inhuman Stain
Dave Lindorff
Infanticide
as Liberation: Hiding the Dead Babies
Benjamin Dangl
Another Two Worlds Are Possible?
Jean-Paul Barrois
Two States or One? an Interview with Sami Al-Deeb on the Geneva
Accords
David Vest
Bush
Drops the Mask: They Died for Halliburton
December 11, 2003
Siegfried Sassoon
A
Soldier's Declaration Against War
Douglas Valentine
Preemptive
Manhunting: the CIA's New Assassination Program
John Chuckman
The Parable of Samarra
Peter Phillips
US Hypocrisy on War Crimes: Corp Media Goes Along for the Ride
James M. Carter
The
Merchants of Blood: War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq
December 10, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
The
War According to Newt Gingrich
Pat Youngblood / Robert
Jensen
Workers
Rights are Human Rights
Jeff Guntzel
On Killing Children
CounterPunch Wire
Ashcroft Threatens to Subpoena Journalist's Notes in Stewart
Case
Dave Lindorff
Gore's
Judas Kiss
December 9, 2003
Michael Donnelly
A
Gentle Warrior Passes: Craig Beneville's Quiet Thunder
Chris White
A Glitch
in the Matrix: Where is East Timor Today?
Abu Spinoza
The Occupation Concertina: Pentagon Punishes Iraqis Israeli Style
Laura Carlsen
The FTAA: a Broken Consensus
Richard Trainor
Process and Profits: the California Bullet Train, Then and Now
Josh Frank
Politicians as Usual: Gore Dean and the Greens
Ron Jacobs
Remembering
John Lennon
December 8, 2003
Newton Garver
Bolivia
at a Crossroads
John Borowski
The
Fall of a Forest Defender: the Exemplary Life of Craig Beneville
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Revised Inspirations for War
Tess Harper
When Christians Kill
Thom Rutledge
My Next Step
Carol Wolman, MD
Nuclear
Terror and Psychic Numbing
Michael Neumann
Ignatieff:
Apostle of He-manitariansim
Website of the Day
Bust Bob Novak
December 6 / 7, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
December 5, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
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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Weekend
Edition
December 13 / 14, 2003
From Vietnam to Iraq
Counterinsurgency
and Insurgency
By FRAN SHOR
The desperation that now pervades the US military
occupation of Iraq is palpable on the ground, even as the mystifying
rhetoric by those in command, both civilian and military, persists.
In a recent perceptive eye-witness account of the occupation,
Lucian Truscott notes: "No matter what you call this stage
of the conflict in Iraq--the soldiers call it a guerrilla war
while politicians back home often refer to it misleadingly and
inaccurately as part of the amorphous "war on terror"--it
is without a doubt a nasty, deadly war (NYTimes 7 Dec 2003, 4:13).
The war has, in fact, become even nastier
and deadlier for the occupying forces, leading to the adoption
of tactics that recall past counterinsurgency campaigns, especially
those during the US war in Southeast Asia. In a quote that is
reminiscent of that past war in Vietnam where destroying a village
was presented as "saving" it, a Colonel Nathan Sassaman
offered his interpretation of recent punitive measures by US
forces in Iraq. "With a heavy does of fear and violence,
and a lot of money for projects, I think we can convince these
people that we are here to help them" (NYTimes 7 Dec 2003,
1:13). While the "fear and violence" part recalls brutal
counterinsurgency programs, such as Operation Phoenix, that summarily
executed thousands of supposed Vietnamese insurgents, the "money
for projects" part reflects the pork-barrel programs that
Lyndon Johnson once proposed for Vietnam and now George W. Bush
puts into operation in Iraq.
Even if Kellogg, Brown & Root, Bechtel,
and Halliburton are cashing in on projects in Iraq, reinforced
by the passage of the 87 billion dollar boondoggle in Congress,
these same companies are becoming more squeamish about the lethal
environment in Iraq. According to Truscott's report from one
of his US infantry confidants: "One of the Bechtel truck
convoys got ambushed on the way up here three weeks ago, and
one of the security guys got wounded...They abandoned their trucks
on the spot and pulled out, and we haven't seen them since"
(NYTimes 7 Dec 2003, 4:13). Is it any surprise that the Bush
Administration has tried to accelerate plans for inducting more
Iraqis into security details, even if that means creating warlords
with private militias?
What is surprising, at a certain level,
is the effort by the Pentagon to return to the use of body counts.
Intending to demonstrate that more of the "bad guys"
are being hammered by US military engagements, this tactic also
recollects the disastrous and illusory use of body counts in
Vietnam War. The most egregious recent incident in Iraq at Samarra
clearly demonstrates that Pentagon fabrication of insurgent deaths.
Instead of the 54 black-clad fedayeen (reminiscent of black-clad
VC?), the actual body count at Samarra was, according to independent
sources, 8 killed and 55 injured, all civilian. Apparently, after
being fired upon indiscriminately by 120 mm canons mounted on
Abrams tanks and 25 mm machine guns from Bradleys and Humvees,
some civilians actually fired back. "Civilians shot back
at the Americans," said 30-year-old Ali Hasan, who was wounded
by shrapnel in the battle. "They claim we are terrorists.
So OK, we are terrorists. What do they expect when they drive
among us?"
Indeed, what are the expectations of
US military commanders in Iraq, falsely groomed by the Bush Administration
to be welcomed as liberators and then fed a steady stream of
racist theories about the "Arab mind?" According to
one US company commander: "You have to understand the Arab
mind...The only thing they understand is force..." (NYTimes
7 Dec 2003, 1:13). Now, force and violence are being applied
with ruthless abandon in the hopes that the US military won't
lose out to the insurgent forces. In villages where insurgents
have been waging their guerrilla tactics, the US military, adopting
a page from Israeli occupying forces in the Palestine, are bulldozing
houses, rounding-up all men for interrogation, and surrounding
large areas with barbed wire fences and intimidating security
checks.
This policy of counterinsurgency, while
consonant with Israeli military occupation, is also reminiscent
of Vietnam pacification programs. Such programs were intended
to dry up the guerrilla sources of support when, in fact, they
often led to civilian massacres and the creation of more insurgency.
Part of the reason for the failure of US counterinsurgency in
Vietnam "was to treat indigenous political culture as a
nullity" (Richard Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, 590). Hence,
in Iraq the Bush Administration's insistence that the insurgents
are either remnants of the old Saddam Hussein regime or smuggled
in al-Qaeda operatives. Whether they actually believe this to
be the case or not only reinforces the sense that Washington
policymakers are incapable of admitting the truth to the American
people about the occupation.
The truth about the insurgents is, of
course, rather complicated. There is obviously a well-financed
and planned out part of the insurgency that does have direct
links to Saddam Hussein's previous command structure. On the
other hand, there is incident after incident where Iraqis who
express their antagonism to the old regime nonetheless embrace
the insurgency. Commitments to that insurgency will only grow
in response to the vindictive violence that Washington continues
to mete out in Iraq.
As in Vietnam, more US working class
soldiers will realize that they are not fighting for a noble
cause, but for a narrow self-interested agenda of US hegemony
at any price. There are now wide-spread reports of growing numbers
of AWOL reservists and soldiers on the ground in Iraq bristling
with contempt for the Bush Administration chickenhawks. Stars
and Stripes, the official military newspaper, conducted a poll
of US military in Iraq that indicated over half of those still
in Iraq were fed-up with the whole operation. Perhaps, as in
Vietnam, an insurgency within the US military may also be the
reason for Iraqifying the war. Given the failure of Vietnamizing
the war to stem the insurgent tide in another time and place,
there is reason to believe that US policymakers will once again
be forced to abandon a flawed strategy to make-over a society
in their own image.
Fran Shor
teaches at Wayne State University and is a peace and justice
activist. He can be reached at: aa2439@wayne.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
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