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February 26, 2004
Virginia Tilly
The Deeper Meaning of the Wall
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
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
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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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February
26, 2004
A Purloined Letter
The
Zarqawi Gambit
By GREG WEIHER
We've got the rebels in Iraq on the run!
So says a letter intercepted by U. S.
Forces in Iraq in January (Dexter Filkins, New York Times, 02/08/04).
It was taken during a raid on a "known" Al Qaeda safe
house in Baghdad. U. S. authorities claim that the courier identified
the author as Abu Musab al Zarqawi, a man they contend has ties
to Al Qaeda and Ansar al Islam. According to these U.S. authorities,
the letter was intended for Al Qaeda, and proposes a joint attempt
to provoke civil war between Iraq's Sunni and Shia.
The letter confirms all of the fondest
theories of the Bush administration about the war in Iraq.
First, it apparently dispels all doubt
about an Al Qaeda-Iraq connection by virtue of its authorship
(Zarqawi, Qaeda associate) and its destination (Qaeda's "inner
circle").
Second, the letter establishes that the
insurgency is being carried out by alien jihadis who are planning
dastardly deeds. These are not the peace-loving Iraqis who want
nothing more than to benefit from American largesse and build
the democracy that the Bush administration has planned for them.
These are foreigners who want to attack the Shia so that they
will counterattack and "awaken the sleepy Sunnis."
Clearly, they do not seek Iraqi welfare, but only unending jihad.
Third, the letter shows that stalwart
American efforts are succeeding in winning the hearts and minds
of the Iraqi people. "The memo says extremists are failing
to enlist support inside the country, and have been unable to
scare the Americans into leaving." Nation-building proceeds
apace. The author says that if civil war does not come by June
30, the mystic date when the planets align and the Bush administration
must restore Iraqi sovereignty or turn into a pumpkin, then all
hope is lost. "We can pack up and leave and look for another
land, just like what has happened in so many lands of jihad.
Our enemy is growing stronger day after day, and its intelligence
information increases. By god, this is suffocation!"
Wow, what a gold mine!
This is the intelligence mother lode,
isn't it? I mean, if you were Karl Rove, you couldn't design
a better scenario to validate the administration's slant on the
war than this.
Bingo!
That's a good reason to maintain a healthy
skepticism.
In fact, there are a number of good reasons
to take this story with a grain of salt (maybe a three- or four-pounder).
First, things haven't been going so well
for George and the prevari-cons lately. George's approval rating
is sinking like a stone, a majority of Americans believe he either
lied or exaggerated the evidence that justified the war, the
caucus scheme to hand over sovereignty is dead in the water,
the Shia and the Kurds are getting restive, and there are rumors
that the politicos at Chez Bush are looking for a way to jettison
Darth Cheney. And lo and behold, now comes the Zarqawi letter
to simultaneously confirm all the worst that the Bushies have
been saying, and to reaffirm all of their most optimistic claims.
Isn't it all a little too pat? To quote
the Times again, "The writer contends that the American
efforts to set up Iraqi security services have succeeded in depriving
the insurgents of allies." This raises suspicions, first
because it so resolutely conforms to the Bush party line, and
second because it defies everything we know about the situation
on the ground.
The truth is that setting up Iraqi security
services has provided insurgents with targets rather than depriving
them of allies. Shortly after the letter was made public, a group
of fifty to seventy Iraqis (not outsiders) overran a station
in Fallujah, killing about twenty Iraqi police. When confronted
by disgruntled Iraqis, the police have often fled, sometimes
by crawling out of rear windows. One of the major obstacles to
creating an Iraqi security capacity has been desertion.
It would be so much more convenient for
the Bush Administration if all of the post-war woes of Iraq could
be blamed on outside agitators. But the facts are that Iraqis
continue to be "disappeared" and to die at the hands
of trigger happy American occupiers, that infrastructure and
institutions have not been restored, that unemployment and squalor
are prevalent, and that tensions are rising among the indigenous
Sunni, Shia, Kurds, Arabs, and Turkmen.
Another reason to be skeptical is that
this story was broken by the New York Times, and follows an all-too-familiar
pattern. "The Times reporter Dexter Filkins in Baghdad,
backed up by Douglas Jehl in D.C., broke the story exclusively,"
crowed William Safire (02/11/04).
Another "special" to the times.
It has all the earmarks. Note the lack of citations of any specific
CPA or Bush Administration contacts. Note the lack of any confirmation
of the authenticity of this letter/CD from experts or authorities
aside from "U.S. officials." Note the failure to consult
third-party intelligence experts, authorities on Al Qaeda, authorities
on wars of national liberation. Note the failure to provide any
background on the validity of claims that Zarkawi actually could
have written such a letter, is still in Iraq, or collaborated
with Saddam Hussein. There is one disclaimer, two lines in a
three-page piece: "Yet other interpretations may be possible,
including that it was written by some other insurgent, but one
who exaggerated his involvement."
This story comes solely from unnamed
American government sources. In a follow-up story ("Al Qaeda
Rebuffs Iraqi Terror Group," 02/21/04) the administration's
version of the facts is entirely unquestioned. And yet not one
actual person who vouches for the truth of this version is identified.
Who is it that stands behind the authenticity of this document?
"Senior American officials," "some American intelligence
analysts," "the officials," "one official
cautioned," "according to American officials,"
"one senior American official said," "two military
officials said." Safire confronts the issue by saying "the
message's authenticity was best attested by the amazed U.S. official
who told Reuters 'We couldn't make this up if we tried.'"
Why not? They've made up plenty of other stuff. I, for one, would
be much more reassured if this amazed U.S. official had been
willing to make his or her name a matter of record.
This is the Judith Miller method: cultivate
a "highly placed inside source," take whatever this
person says and report it verbatim on the front page above the
fold. Hence the bogus story in the Times about the aluminum tubes
imported by Iraq to enrich uranium. Hence the bogus story in
the Times about the Iraqi scientist who revealed the locations
where Saddam Hussein supposedly disposed of his chemical and
biological weapons just before the war. If I hadn't done an internet
search on "Dexter Filkins," I would suspect that it
is a pseudonym for "Judy Miller."
But the best reason to be skeptical of
the Zarkawi Gambit is the record this administration has so assiduously
established with respect to the truth. I'm not just talking about
the obvious stuff you know, the apocryphal weapons of mass
destruction. I'm talking about the absolute thoroughness of prevari-con
lies, extending to the smallest detail, leaving no stone unturned.
Lying is not episodic with the Bush Administration. It is policy.
Take for instance the plans of American
nuclear energy plants that were discovered among Al Qaeda documents
in Afghanistan. According to the Bush Administration, the phantom
menace had designs to spew radioactivity across our purple mountains'
majesties and amber waves of grain. Except that it now turns
out that the story about such plans being found was bogus. Come
on, did the plans exist or didn't they? How do you get that wrong?
Take for instance the other WsMD
the Wagons of Mass Destruction. As recently as the World Economic
Forum, Vice President Cheney spoke again of the mobile weapons
laboratories. Once again, however, there is a veracity problem.
It has been firmly established that the supposed mobile weapons
laboratories work much better for pumping hydrogen into artillery
balloons than for producing chemical and biological agents. After
all these months, how do you get that wrong?
I'm no intelligence expert, and I haven't
cultivated any high-level inside sources. The Zarqawi letter
may, against all odds, be genuine. But in the absence of an open
and above-board discussion about the letter's authenticity, it
is best to disregard it entirely. Why? Because without independent
confirmation, there is simply no reason to believe anything this
administration says.
I'll end with a quotation from the Christian
Science Monitor (02/10/04).
"In [a Coalition Provisional Authority]
briefing, Dan Senor, senior adviser to the CPA, suggested that
the memo reveals increasing desperation on the part of the terrorists
. . . [they] 'recognize that as we politically empower the Iraqi
people, the terrorists will be isolated and it will be harder
and harder for them to operate.'
"The day after the briefing, Reuters
reports that a car bomb killed more than 50 people at a police
station south of Baghdad."
I would like to thank Chris Dodson
for his correspondence on this topic. Mr. Dodson has been persistent
in asking the New York Times to address issues about the Zarqawi
letter that are raised in this essay. In spite of the Times'
recent journalistic difficulties, Mr. Dodson has yet to receive
any concrete response from the paper's "public editor."
Greg Weiher
is a political scientist and a freelance writer in Houston Texas.
He can be reached at gweiher@uh.edu.
Weekend
Edition Features for February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
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