Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
August 28, 2003
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Website of the Day
Pot TV
Recent
Stories
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?
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
August 20, 2003
Robert Fisk
Now No
One Is Safe in Iraq
Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?
Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark
Ramzi Kysia
Peace
is not an Abstract Idea
Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway
John L. Hess
A Downside Day
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake
Up Call"
Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype
August 19, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen
Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South
Pacific
Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism
Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense
Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna
John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
Hot Stories
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.
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August
28, 2003
Cheap Thrills
Bush
Buys Lies to Push His War
By CHRIS FLOYD
Just how cheap and easy are the muckity-mucks
of the Bushist Party? How much scratch does it take for a high
official of the Regime to overrule his own intelligence officers
and support the Potomac Empire's propaganda line? What's the
going rate for selling out the United States Constitution and
throwing in with the fomenters of aggressive war?
$20,500.
That's what the Busha Nostra paid Thomas
Rider, director of the Department of Energy's intelligence agency
in "bonuses" for services rendered in the mendacious
maneuvering toward war, Paul Sperry of the archconservative WorldNet
Daily reports.
Rider was named acting head of DOE's
intelligence service shortly before the Regime rolled out what
White House chief of staff Andrew Card called, with admirable
candor, the Bushist's "new product": a "pre-emptive"
war against Iraq. The PR campaign kicked off in September 2002--because
"from a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new
products in August," Card helpfully explained to the NY
Times.
One key to the kick-off was a gathering
of intelligence brass from throughout the government to put together
a "National Intelligence Estimate" on Saddam's weapons
of mass destruction. (They were still talking about "weapons,"
not "programs" or "materials" back in those
innocent days of yore.) The report was slapped together at top
speed: Congress was due to vote in October on Bush's demand for
a blank check to kill thousands of swarthy Arabs whenever he
took the notion, so the NIE had to be ready soon--and it had
to be really, really scary.
The Energy Department, of course, was
expert in nuclear matters, and its voice would carry great weight
when considering evidence that Saddam was preparing a mushroom-cloud
casserole for the heartland of the Homeland. There was only one
hitch: Energy's senior intelligence officers agreed there was
no such evidence. Whatever evil dreams might lurk in Saddam's
heart, they said, he had not "reconstituted his nuclear
weapons program."
But Rider, a longtime "human resources"
bureaucrat with zero experience in intelligence matters, had
not been plonked down in this important post just to whistle
Dixie--or to listen to a bunch of silly-billy experts. He had
a job to do--and had already received a little pre-meeting sweetener
bonus of $7,500 to do it. When the experts came forth with their
analysis of the White House warmongers' bogus evidence, Rider
responded in true Bushist style: he told them to "shut up
and sit down."
So the Energy Department threw its official
weight behind the nuclear claims of the NIE, which was then duly
forwarded to the trembly time-servers in Congress--who couldn't
wait to abandon their solemn constitutional duty to declare war
(or not). They sent their slavish submission to the Supremely
Appointed One, begging him to do as he pleased, whenever he pleased,
with that big bad mushroom-man across the sea. The rest, of course,
is history. (Or would be history, if the Bushists and
their beavering sycophants in the national media didn't spend
so much time revising it.)
Rider, too, was history. Having done
his solemn unconstitutional duty, the clueless placeman was paid
off with an additional $13,000 "performance bonus"
and sent out to graze on other government pastures. All in all,
a remarkable bargain--especially when you consider that the Regime
paid $30 million for the whack on the two Hussein brothers, while
Rider played a key role in the death of thousands of innocent
civilians in an unjust war. Who knows? By the time the Bushist
looting party has wrung its last cent out of Iraq's national
wealth--using America's own soldiers as sitting-duck decoys for
the old Potomac bait-and-switch--the pay-off to Rider might turn
out to be as cheap as a dollar a head.
Hey, these Regime guys weren't CEOs for
nothing!
Of course, Rider's tale is but a sordid
little sidelight in the global Grand Guignol that Bush is staging
for the entertainment and enrichment of his extremist clique.
But it's an instructive example of how these particular racketeers
operate: public service and private profit are viewed as a seamless
(not to mention seamy) whole. And when truth will not serve their
purposes, they are more than happy to lie--and pay--to get what
they want.
This salient point should be remembered
as the Regime rolls out a brand-new "product" come
September: its report on the search for Saddam's elusive WMD.
The CIA hired former UN weapons inspector David Kay, one of the
most gung-ho drumbeaters for the war, to find, well, something
in Iraq: plans, pop-guns, vats of goo--anything that might be
massaged into a one-day headline for the credulous mouthbreathers
in the media ("White House: We Found WMD!"), before,
like those fabled "trailers of mass destruction" Bush
once cited so definitively, it all dissolves in a back-page mist
of hedging, qualification, retraction and debunking.
It goes without saying that Kay is not
exactly a disinterested party. Until last fall, when he went
to work as an "independent" consultant touting the
Bush war "product," Kay was vice president of Scientific
Applications International Corporation, a secretive high-tech
defense company that pockets billions of Pentagon dollars--and
is hip-deep in the Iraq conquest. Any conclusion by Kay that
discredits the Bush war would erode SAIC's bottom line--not to
mention the credibility of a certain well-paid drumbeater named
David Kay. So there will be no such conclusion.
As always, it's a rigged game--the only
kind these jokers ever play.
Chris Floyd
is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor
to CounterPunch. His CounterPunch piece on Rumsfeld's
plan to provoke terrorist attacks came in at Number 4
on Project Censored's final tally of the Most Censored stories
of 2002. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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