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Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Recent
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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
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
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August 12, 2003
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
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Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
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Hubris in the White House
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Black
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J.B.
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Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
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The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
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Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
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The
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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August
23, 2003
So Many Deaths, So
Few Answers
The
Second Anniversary of 9/11
By DAVID KRIEGER
As we approach the second anniversary of the terrorist
attacks of 9/11, it is important to take a hard look at the direction
our country has taken since these tragic events occurred.
The United States has attacked Afghanistan
and driven the Taliban regime from power. In the process, we
killed some 3,000 to 5,000 civilians, more than died at the World
Trade Center and Pentagon. The US has not been able to locate
and capture Osama bin Laden, the suspected mastermind of the
9/11 attacks. Reports from Afghanistan are that the US-backed
regime there controls little more than the city of Kabul, and
warlords are in control of the rest of the country.
The United States has also attacked Iraq,
but with neither evidence of a link between Iraq and the 9/1l
terrorists, nor with the sanction of the United Nations. The
US preventive war against Iraq killed some 6,000 to 8,000 civilians,
about twice as many as died at the World Trade Center and the
Pentagon. Since this war, it has come to light that in making
its case for war, the Bush administration used false intelligence
to inflate its claim that Iraq posed an imminent threat of using
weapons of mass destruction against the United States.
The US has not been able to locate and
capture Saddam Hussein or the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar. Nor
have any of the purported weapons of mass destruction, which
supposedly made the Iraqi threat so imminent, been found. There
is a strong sense that the Iraqi people are opposed to US occupation
of their country, and American soldiers are being killed on an
almost daily basis. Most recently, saboteurs have also been attacking
the Iraqi oil pipelines.
In addition to the price in American
and Iraqi lives, the occupation of Iraq is costing US taxpayers
nearly $4 billion each month, adding to the over $450 billion
projected deficit in the US budget this year. There is no clear
plan for US withdrawal from Iraq, and the administration will
not predict how long American troops are likely to remain or
how much the occupation is likely to cost in total. US corporations,
with links to the Bush administration, are being given lucrative
contracts to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure and manage its oil
production.
We still have no authoritative public
report on the intelligence failures that led to 9/11. No one
has been dismissed and no blame has been laid at the feet of
the intelligence community. The impression from the Bush administration
is that the lead up to 9/11 was just too difficult for the intelligence
community to handle, due to the paucity of communication within
and between agencies and the need to actually connect some dots.
The families of the 9/11 victims, along with the rest of the
American people, are still waiting for clearer and more complete
answers to why our intelligence failed so dramatically.
In a Congressional study related to intelligence
failures, much of the important information has been kept from
the American people by the Bush administration, including 28
pages on the role of Saudi Arabia. The Saudi leadership and members
of Congress have pleaded that this information be released to
the American people, but to no avail. Senator Richard Shelby
(R-AL), former chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated,
"My judgment is 95 percent of that information could be
declassified, become uncensored so the American people would
know."
Since the war in Afghanistan, the United
States has held prisoners, including US citizens, in a manner
that defies the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners.
The administration, aided by the Congress, has instituted the
USA Patriot Act, which restricts the civil liberties of all Americans.
The administration has put forward further legislation that provides
even more drastic restrictions on our liberties.
The trends do not bode well for America.
In two years, the country has engaged in two wars, at least one
of which was clearly illegal under international law. The administration
has engaged in a clear pattern of deception. Our wars have killed
at least three times the number of innocent civilians as died
in the 9/11 attacks. The individual thought to be principally
responsible for 9/11 remains at liberty, while the liberties
of Americans have been restricted. The goodwill with which America
was held throughout the world in the aftermath of 9/11 has been
squandered. We are viewed by much of the international community
as bullies who use military force in defiance of international
law and make our own rules when it suits us.
Our soldiers continue to pay the ultimate
price for the arrogance of this administration. Mr. Bush, in
the safety of the White House, challenged the militants attacking
American troops in Iraq with the rash and taunting remark, "Bring
'em on." This remark drew many negative responses from the
troops stationed in Iraq and their families.
Two years after 9/11 Americans do not
appear to be safer from terrorist attacks than they were before
9/11. We have a new bureaucracy, the Department of Homeland Security,
and a system of color-coded warnings, but these do not seem to
be effective barriers to terrorist threats. There is no reason
to believe that terrorists hate America because they envy our
way of life, as Mr. Bush says, and every reason to believe that
terrorists oppose our political and economic policies, particularly
in the Middle East.
To end the threat of terrorism, the United
States needs a return to decency and the values that make this
country strong. We need to reconsider the morality, legality
and consequences of our policies. This would require a major
reversal of the Bush administration policies that have cynically
used 9/11 in seeking to achieve its ideological goals of global
military dominance, control of oil, and financial gain for an
elite few. On the positive side of the ledger, there are increasing
signs that Congress, the media and the American people are awakening
to the dangers of these policies and vocally and actively opposing
them. It is none too soon to reassess and reverse the path we
have taken since 9/11.
David Krieger
is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. He is the editor
of Hope in a Dark Time (Capra Press, 2003), and author of Choose
Hope, Your Role in Waging Peace in the Nuclear Age (Middleway
Press, 2002).
He can be contacted at: dkrieger@napf.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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