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From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
July
3, 2003
Stan
Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former
Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis
to Attack US Troops
David
Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong
and the US
John
Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution
Jackson
Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2
July 2, 2003
Diane
Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing
Richard
Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress
Justin
Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia
Reuven
Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2
July
1, 2003
Sasan
Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and
Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia
and the Sodomy Cops
Susan
Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong
to Ourselves
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono
David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name
Gary
Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1
June
30, 2003
Karyn
Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé
of Progressive Politics in America
Col. Dan
Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire
Tim
Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White
Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall
Chris
Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Kentucky Woman
Uri
Avnery
Hope in Dark Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30
Website
of the Day
Bush El Hombre
June
28 / 29, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside
Man
Laura
Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?
Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
C.Y.
Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten
Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law
Joanne
Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values
Ignacio
Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley
Bob
Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers
Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"
Kam
Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!
Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues
Julie
Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment
Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
Adam
Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square
Poets'
Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod
June
27, 2003
Jason
Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq
Posed No Threat to US
David
Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26
Website
of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy
June
26, 2003
Sen.
Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate
Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
Elaine
Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner
CounterPunch
Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops
Sheldon
Hull
Squatting in Mansions
Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo
June
25, 2003
Bruce
Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers
Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods
June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
It to Risk One's Life?
John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
Ray McGovern
Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad
Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
Avia
Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories
CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels
Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension
Maria
Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids
Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy
Poets'
Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod
June 20, 2003
Walter
Brasch
Down on Our Knees
Robert
Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America
Russell
Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells
Norman
Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a
Quebec Radical
Gary
Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"
Steve
Perry
Bush's Lies
Marathon: the Finale
Hot Stories
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
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.
|
July
4, 2003
One More US Soldier
& Eleven Iraqis
Dead
on the Fourth of July
By PATRICK COCKBURN
in Baghdad
As the American army in Iraq prepared to celebrate
Independence Day, an Iraqi sniper aimed at a US soldier in a
Bradley Fighting Vehicle outside the national museum in Baghdad
and shot him.
The soldier died of his injuries a few
hours later, bringing close to 30 the number of US soldiers killed
and wounded in Iraq since President Bush declared the war ended
on 1 May.
Overnight, guerrillas fired four mortar
rounds into the US base on the main road between Baghdad and
the town of Balad, injuring 18 soldiers, two seriously. "This
is the first time the base was attacked--and the first time we've
seen mortars," said Sergeant Grant Calease, who said he
and his colleagues would still have their traditional 4 July
steak barbecue.
Iraqis in the area did not seem very
surprised it had happened. "People are always shooting at
the Americans these days," said an unimpressed young man
at a crossroads close to the base where US tanks were sending
up clouds of dust while manoeuvring into defensive positions.
A few hours later on another road near
Balad, normally a quiet market town, the US military said it
had killed 11 Iraqis who  had attacked a convoy with rocket-propelled
grenades and machine-gun fire. No Americans were injured.
The mortar attack on the base came just
before the arrival of Arnold Schwarzenegger on a 4 July visit
to US troops and also presumably in the hope of boosting his
chances if, as he has indicated, he runs for the governorship
of California.
On arriving at Baghdad airport, where
there was a special screening of his latest movie, Terminator
3: Rise of the Machines, Mr Schwarzenegger had already, somewhat
tastelessly, given his first impressions of Iraq.
"It is really wild driving round
here, I mean the poverty, and you see there is no money, it is
disastrous financially and there is the leadership vacuum, pretty
much like California," he said. If he had stayed longer,
he would also have discovered differences between California
and Iraq such as the stream of raw sewage that runs in front
of the door of the main children's teaching hospital in Baghdad,
the lack of electricity and water and the continual looting.
And, as if to match the box-office draw
of Schwarzenegger, there was soon another mocking reminder that
the American and British victory was less than complete when
the voice of Saddam Hussein was heard on al-Jazeera television
saying he was still alive and well in Iraq. "I am still
present in Iraq with a group of leaders," said the voice
on a tape recording made on 14 June. "Oh brothers and sisters,
I relay to you good news: jihad [holy war] cells and brigades
have been formed."
With Americans being killed in small
numbers, Iraqis in larger numbers and Saddam Hussein's vow of
defiance, it is difficult to remember in Baghdad that this war
is officially over. Somehow, despite all the triumphalism after
the short war, the US and Britain have failed to turn their military
victory into a political victory.
The guerrilla attacks are still sporadic,
but they are increasing. They have spread to the heart of Baghdad.
They are also beginning to happen in Shia areas of southern Iraq,
which are hostile to Saddam Hussein, as well as in Sunni Muslim
towns such as Fallujah and around Balad.
There is also a more worrying sign for
the Allies. The attacks are generally popular. Some hours before
the American soldier was shot by a sniper while guarding the
national museum, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired into a
Humvee vehicle a few hundred yards away in Haifa Street. Several
American soldiers were wounded but, when the shooting had faded
away, the Iraqis who were in Haifa Street at the time of the
attack started dancing in jubilation. They climbed on top of
the smouldering Humvee and set it on fire. Whenever I have spoken
to Iraqis after an attack they have always said they were in
favour of it. This does not mean that many Iraqis want the return
of Saddam Hussein. "Only two million out of 24 million ever
supported him," said a teacher in Basra. But they do blame
America and Britain because, contrary to their high expectations,
their lives have become materially worse since the overthrow
of Saddam Hussein.
There are signs the US now recognises
it cannot rule Iraq by military force alone. In the past two
weeks, it has accepted an Iraqi interim administration, called
a Council of Governance, with real powers, will be announced
on 14 July, and will appoint 22 ministers. Previously, it had
wanted to confine the council to an advisory role.
Adnan Pachachi, the 80-year-old former
Iraqi foreign minister likely to have a leading position in the
council, believes that, while it will be "accused of being
an American political pawn, it will be accepted by Iraqis if
it takes important steps to improve their lives". It will
revive the police force and take as much power into its hands
as possible.
Mr Pachachi says that he believes America
really does want to withdraw most of its army from Iraq as quickly
as possible. But facts on the ground--the daily, deadly attacks
on troops--point to another scenario in which America and Britain
could get dragged ever deeper into a guerrilla conflict.
Weekend Edition
Features
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside
Man
Laura
Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?
Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?
C.Y.
Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten
Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law
Joanne
Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values
Ignacio
Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley
Bob
Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers
Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"
Kam
Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!
Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues
Julie
Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment
Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
Adam
Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square
Poets'
Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod
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