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Today's
Stories
February 17, 2004
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
February 14/15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
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
Click Here
for More Stories.
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February
17, 2004
Bush's Endgame
A
Review of "The Sorrows of Empire"
By KURT NIMMO
If you listen to the Bush Ministry of Disinformation,
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly -- and millions of
Americans do, every day -- you get the impression people opposed
to Bush's plan for endless war are Marxist nutbars and shrill
hate-America malcontents.
Sure, some of them are Marxists. But
most of them are normal people. In fact, some of them are even
former CIA consultants.
Like Chalmers Johnson.
Johnson thought antiwar demonstrators
during the Vietnam were naive. He voted for Ronald Reagan. In
retrospect,  Johnson
told John Wilkens of the San Diego Union-Tribune, he was "a
spear carrier for the empire."
"If you have a little money, I'd
prepare your escape route," Johnson says. "You might
want to go up to Vancouver and buy yourself a condo."
I thought about this last year. In fact,
I was looking at Vancouver. But I don't have the money for a
condo and, besides, I think America is worth sticking around
and fighting for. But the way things are going it may be a lost
battle.
Chalmers makes it sound bleak.
"I fear that we will lose our country,"
Johnson writes in his latest book, "The
Sorrows of Empire: Militarism, Secrecy, and the End of the Republic."
Bush and the Pentagon are bankrupting
the nation, dismantling the Constitution, and leading us down
the path to endless war. America is afflicted with the same "economic
sclerosis of the former USSR," Chalmers explains in a ZNet
interview. But at least Mikhail Gorbachev tried to reform the
Soviet Union before it imploded. No such luck with Bush and the
neocons. "The United States is not even trying to reform,
but it is certain that vested interests here would be as great
or greater an obstacle. It is nowhere written that the United
States, in its guise as an empire dominating the world, must
go on forever. The blowback from the second half of the twentieth
century has only just begun."
It's not a good sign when former Generals
begin casually speculating on the demise of the Constitution
and the imposition of martial law, as Tommy Franks did a while
ago.
"I fear that [after 9/11] we are
going to get even more militarism," Johnson told Jeff Shaw
of In These Times magazine. "That is, more and more functions
-- including domestic police functions -- will be transferred
from civilian institutions to the military, and the military
will have ever greater authority in our society. We know how
that will end. We're talking here about imperial overstretch,
and the weaknesses of the imperial structure that will ultimately
lead to a collapse... If this attack is an attack on our foreign
policy, as I believe it is, we should be looking much harder
at what our foreign policy is. If the United States is now going
to go out and bomb some innocent people in Afghanistan who have
already gone through two decades of living hell -- most of it
sponsored by our government and that of the other erstwhile superpower,
the former Soviet Union. Then you must say, we deserve what we're
going to get."
Since there is no way to fight against
the enormous military power and technology of the United States,
adversaries will increasingly resort to asymmetric warfare, what
Bush and the neocons call terrorism. Realizing they have no choice,
Iran and North Korea are attempting to build nukes. It may be
the only way they can prevent the United States from invading.
Or it may give the US an excuse to bomb those countries in "preemptive"
fashion, as the neocons like to call it.
Sooner or later somebody will light the
Big Candle -- and that will be the end of life as we know it.
"The only hope for the planet is
the isolation and neutralization of the United States by the
international community," Chalmers explains. "Policies
to do so are underway in every democratic country on earth in
quiet, unobtrusive ways. If the United States is not checkmated
and nuclear war ensues, civilization as we know it will disappear
and the United States will go into the history books along with
the Huns and the Nazis as a scourge of human life itself."
Johnson explained the "sorrows"
mentioned in his latest book in an interview with Steve Dalforno
of Z magazine last November.
"I think four sorrows inevitably
accompany our current path. First is endless war... As it stands
right now, since 9/11, Articles 4 and 6 of the Bill of Rights
are dead letters. They are over... Second, imperial overstretch...
The third thing is a tremendous rise in lying and deceit... The
difficulty to believe anything that the government says any longer
because they are now systematically lying to us on almost every
issue. The fourth is bankruptcy. Attempting to dominate the world
militarily is a very expensive proposition... The United States,
for the last 15 years, has had trade deficits running at 5 percent
every year. We are on the edge. If the rest of the world decides
not to cooperate with us or just the rich people of East Asia
decide the Euro is a better currency to put their money in than
the dollar, we become a junkyard almost at once. The stock exchange
would collapse and we would have a howling recession. All four
of those things are likely to prevail... [The United States suffers
from an] inability to reform. I think it is quite easy to imagine
the defeat of George Bush as president. I do not find it easy
at all that any successor to George Bush would make any difference...
That leads me to the conclusion that we are probably going to
reap what we have sown. That is blowback."
That is scary.
John Kerry or Howard Dean or whatever
vanilla flavor of Republican Lite the Democrats throw out there
will not make a lick of difference. Don't waste your time voting
for them.
Boycott the elections. Go in the street
on March 20th. Make a stink. Bang pots like the poor outside
the Miraflores presidential palace in Caracas, Venezuela, when
the CIA attempted to overthrow Hugo Chavez. Let them know you're
pissed.
Or buy a condo in Canada.
And hope the wind is blowing in the right
direction on the day Bush launches the nukes.
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent no holds barred blog at www.kurtnimmo.com/blogger.html
. Nimmo is a contributor to Cockburn and St. Clair's,
The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. A collection of his essays
for CounterPunch, Another
Day in the Empire, is now available from Dandelion Books.
He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
Weekend
Edition Features for February 14 / 15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
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