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March 9, 2004
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
March 5, 2004
Chris Floyd
Uncle
Sugar: How the WMD Scam Put Money in Bush Family Pockets
Ron Jacobs
Chaos
Reigns: Haiti and Iraq
Lisa Viscidi
Guatemalan
Refugees: a Difficult Return
Yves Engler
Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Mike Legro
Those Bush Ads: Some Dead Bodies Are Worth More Than Others
Javier Armas
A Night of Inspiration: Oakland Benefit for Grocery Workers Strike
Bennett Hoffman
"Who Cares About Haiti, Anyway?"
Bill Christison
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous
Website of the Day
Haiti Support Group
March 4, 2004
Diane Christian
Sex
and Ideals
Sen. Robert Byrd
Stop the Stonewalling, Mr. President: Fairy Tales, Bush and the
9/11 Commission
Norman Solomon
Assuming the Right to Intervene: The US Press and Haiti
Jack Brown
A Fragrant Saga of Mexico's Greens
Hal Cranmer
The
John Kerry Experience
David Lindorff
Greenspan's Pension
Sam Smith
The Election is Over, We Lost
Christopher Brauchli
Goin'
to the Chapel: The Gay and the Dead
Brian D. Barry
The "Perfect" World of E-Voting: A Computer Scientist
Reports from the Polling Booth
Richard Oxman
Arsonists for Haiti?
Peter Phillips
Haitian
Fantasies: Mainstream Media Fails Itself, Again
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
Website of the Day
What If Boeing Ads Told the Truth?
March 3, 2004
Heather Williams / Karl
Laraque
Marines
Retake Haiti
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
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
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
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March
8, 2004
On the Road to Damascus?
Neo-Cons
Target Syria
By TOM BARRY
Getting out of the political quicksand of Iraq,
or at least burying the bloody occupation as an embarrassing
daily news item, is mission number one for the Bush campaign.
Extricating U.S. troops and political
capital from the mess the Bush administration created in Iraq
may be mission impossible. But the president's political and
ideological handlers have proved adept at spinning the administration
out of scandals and misadventures. Their operating principle,
which they enshrined as official national security strategy,
seems to be: the best defense is a good offense.
When you are down in the polls and the
"bring 'em on" machismo no longer seems to get the
patriotic rise it first did, the Bush team doesn't retreat. It
advances with more tough words backed by military muscle and
missionary zeal. The Bush administration still has an itchy trigger
finger, and is in search of another evildoer to confront.
Even before the U.S. occupation forces
settled into Saddam Hussein's palaces in Baghdad, the neoconservatives
who have set the direction of the Bush presidency's radical foreign
and military policies were looking toward Syria. Before the month
is out, it's likely that President Bush will announce new sanctions
against Syria--accusing the northern neighbor of Israel, Lebanon,
and Iraq of many of the same offenses that were leveled against
the Hussein regime in Iraq. The charge list includes developing
biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction, condemning
the U.S. occupation of Iraq, supporting international terrorism,
and succoring anti-U.S. and anti-Israel guerrilla forces.
Immediately before the Iraq invasion,
Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security
traveled to Israel and promised Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that
"it will be necessary to deal with threats from Syria, Iran,
and North Korea afterwards." In April 2003 Deputy Secretary
of Defense Paul Wolfowitz warned: "There's got to be a change
in Syria."
Road to Damascus
The road to Damascus, which is at the
center of the Bush administration's roadmap for restructuring
the Middle East, doesn't run directly from Baghdad. Its starting
points are in Washington, Jerusalem/Tel Aviv, and Beirut--charted
by the neoconservative think-tanks, the Christian Right, and
the right-wing Zionists who move easily back and forth between
Capitol Hill and the Middle East.
The neoconservatives harbor a deep sense
of history--one that is shaped, they say, by the forces of good
and evil and the righteous and the appeasers. For the neocons,
history also teaches the virtues of certain political strategies,
such as the necessity of establishing bipartisan front groups
and establishing the legislative foundation for their agendas.
One of the key figures who has set Washington
on the road to Damascus is Ziad K. Abdelnour, an expatriate investment
banker from Lebanon who, together with neocon supporters of Israel's
Likud Party and the Christian Right, established the U.S. Committee
for a Free Lebanon (USCFL) in 1997.
The USCFL describes itself as the "cyber-center
for Pro-Lebanon Activism." USCFL was one of the leading
proponents of the "Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty
Restoration Act of 2003," which calls for a series of sanctions
against Syria and which President Bush signed on December 12,
3003.
Like Ahmad Chalabi, chief of the London-based
and U.S.-financed Iraqi National Congress (INC), the USCFL's
Abdelnour is an expatriate investment banker. He has lobbied
the Bush administration and the U.S. Congress for a U.S. foreign
policy that mirrors the hard-line position of Israel's Likud
Party. Working closely with neocon supporters on Capitol Hill
in the late 1990s, Chalabi helped persuade Congress to pass the
Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, which provided support for the Iraqi
National Congress and other anti-Saddam Hussein forces. The Iraq
Liberation Act of 1998 set the bipartisan foundation for a military-induced
regime change in Iraq. In the lead-up to the U.S. invasion of
Iraq, necon polemicists such as Richard Perle, William Kristol,
and Bruce Jackson created the Committee for the Liberation of
Iraq (CLI) to consolidate bipartisan support for the preventive
war.
The neoconservatives, strongly backed
the right-wing Zionist lobby through such groups as the Orthodox
Union and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs,
have followed a similar strategy to advance their agenda for
political transformation in Syria and Lebanon. In much the same
way that they moved forward their agenda for regime change in
Iraq step by step, the neocon advocates for a radical transformation
in the Middle East have in the case of Syria and Lebanon also
formed a "front group"--USCFL--and supported bipartisan
legislation that establish the political base for sanctions against
Iraq--and eventual U.S. military action. USCFL's page of "selected
links" recommends just three lobbying organizations: Conference
of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, and Christian Coalition of America.
(4)
USCFL, a self-described "non-profit,
non-sectarian think tank," states that it aims to rid the
Middle East of "dictatorships, radical ideologies, existential
conflicts, border disagreements, political violence, and weapons
of mass destruction" and to do so while abiding with the
tenets of the Charter of the United Nations. (5) (6)
USCFL's core supporters, which it calls
its "Golden Circle," include several members of the
Bush administration: Elliott Abrams, Richard Perle, Paula Dobriansky,
Michael Rubin, and David Wurmser. Other prominent neocons in
the Golden Circle include Daniel Pipes (Middle East Forum and
U.S. Institute for Peace), Frank Gaffney (Center for Security
Policy), Jeane Kirkpatrick (AEI) , Michael Ledeen (AEI), David
Steinmann (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs), and
Eleana Benador (Middle East Forum). Also included in this circle
of those who have donated $1,000 or more to USCFL is Rep. Eliot
Engel (R-NY), the congressional representative who was the main
sponsor of the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty
Restoration Act of 2003.
The USCFL lists Amin Gemayel, who as
Lebanon's president in 1983 signed an aborted peace treaty with
Israel, as a leading supporter. Although there are a few Muslims
in USCFL's Golden Circle, most of the Lebanese-Americans associated
with USCFL are Christian, including Abdelnour. In its selected
links, USCFL includes the Guardians of the Cedars, a fascistic
Christian Right Lebanese organization that has a military wing.
The large majority of USCFL supporters, however, are Jewish-Americans.
USCFL may be "non-sectarian,"
but its list of core supporters and the "pro-Lebanon"
groups listed on its website signal its neoconservative and pro-Likud
sympathies. Among the organizations interlocked with USCFL's
Golden Circle include Foundation for the Defense of Democracies
(FDD), American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Project for the New
American Century (PNAC), Center for Security Policy (CSP), Middle
East Forum, Hudson Institute, and Jewish Institute for National
Security Affairs (JINSA).
In 1999 Abdelnour founded the Middle
East Intelligence Bulletin (MEIB), which is the USCFL's monthly
online publication. Michael Rubin is on the editorial board and
Gary C. Gambill, an associate with the Middle East Forum and
Freedom House, is the editor. In 2002, Daniel Pipes of the Middle
East Forum (MEF) became a co-publisher of MEIB. The MEIB concentrates
on "internal political developments in the Middle East,
especially those that are thinly covered in other English-language
publications." (In 2000 Pipes coauthored a jingoistic report
with Abdelnour that advocated the use of U.S. military action
to force Syria out of Lebanon and to disarm Syria of its alleged
weapons of mass destruction. Virtually all 31 signatories of
this MEF report (which was used to persuade Congress to introduce
and pass the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration
Act in 2003) are USCFL members, and several became high officials
or advisers in the Bush foreign policy team, including Abrams,
Perle, Feith, Dobrianksy, and Wurmser.
The 2000 report by Pipes and Abdelnour
concluded that that "Syrian rule in Lebanon stands in direct
opposition to American ideals." It strongly criticized Washington's
policy of engaging Syria rather than confronting it. The Lebanon
Study Group of the Middle East Forum advocated harsh economic
and diplomatic sanctions. "The Vietnam legacy and the sour
memories of dead American Marines in Beirut notwithstanding,"
the group observed, "the United States has entered a new
era of undisputed military supremacy coupled with an appreciable
drop in human losses on the battlefield." Finally, said
the report, "If there is to be decisive action, it will
have to be sooner rather than later."
The Syria Accountability and Lebanese
Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2003 received overwhelming support
in both the House and the Senate. This public law aims: "To
halt Syrian support for terrorism, end its occupation of Lebanon,
stop its development of weapons of mass destruction, cease its
illegal importation of Iraqi oil and illegal shipments of weapons
and other military items to Iraq, and by so doing hold Syria
accountable for the serious international security problems it
has caused in the Middle East, and for other purposes."
It is designed to punish Damascus for its alleged links to terrorist
groups and its alleged efforts to develop weapons of mass destruction.
It bans all transfers of "dual-use" technology to Syria.
In addition, the act recommends an arsenal of sanctions against
Syria, including: reducing diplomatic contacts with Syria, banning
U.S. exports (except food and medicine) to Syria, prohibiting
U.S. businesses from investing or operating in Syria, restricting
the travel of Syrian diplomats in the United States, banning
Syrian aircraft from operating in the United States, and freezing
Syrian assets in the United States. Although the bill obligates
the executive branch to enact at least two of the recommended
sanctions, it does permit the president to waive the sanctions
if it is determined that they would harm U.S. national security.
USCFL commended Rep. Engel for his leadership
in moving the bill through the House, and also expressed its
special appreciation for the strong support provided by Rep.
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL) and to Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA)
and Rick Santorum (R-PA) "for pioneering it in the Senate."
(1)
The appointment of David Wurmser, a long-time
advocate of U.S. military action against Syria, to the staff
of Vice President Cheney in September 2003, followed by the president's
signing of the Syria Accountability act in December were widely
regarded as another signal that the U.S. regional restructuring
crusade might soon be embarking on the road to Damascus. If the
president imposes sanctions against Syria rather than attempting
to engage it through diplomatic channels, it's likely that the
Syrian regime will be painted with the same fear-mongering brush
used to justify the invasion of Iraq. With Osama bin Laden still
on the lam and bedlam in occupied Iraq, the Bush administration
needs to refocus public attention on another evildoer--which,
not so coincidently, is also the next preferred target of the
Likudniks in Israel.
Tom Barry
is Policy Director of the Interhemispheric
Resource Center.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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