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New Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: Cockburn on the Roadmap: It's a Big Hoax in a Long Line of Hoaxes; St. Clair on The Rat in the Grain: Daniel Amstutz and the Looting of the Farms of Iraq; All About David Horowitz: the Dazed and Confused Dirigible of the Right; Handicapping the Democrats: Will It be Graham vs. Dean?; Kucinich Wows Madison: But Seems to Have Forgotten the Horrors of Clintontime; Blumenthal v. Hitchens: Inside the Conspiracy; Merle Haggard Stays the Course: Country Legend Defends Dixie Chicks, Bashes Bush. Remember, the CounterPunch website is supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide web audience is soaring, with more than 60,000 visitors a day. This is inspiring news, but the work involved also compels us to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories June 9, 2003 Alex Coolman Male Rape in US Prisons Elaine Cassel Ashcroft is Coming! Lee Sustar Is Iran Next? Agustin Velloso Equitorial Guinea: Few Rich, Many Poor Gila Svirsky Some Lives Dr. Gerry Lower Human Worth in Bush's America Michael S. Ladah A True Liberation Ishmael Reed Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder Steve Perry How to Beat Bush, part 1   June 7 / 8, 2003 Alexander Cockburn The Terrible Truth Jeffrey St. Clair Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species Joanne Mariner Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers Steven Sherman A Different Theory of Everything Ron Jacobs Sports, Politics and the 60s M. Shahid Alam Pauperizing the Periphery Amelia Peltz If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost Shelton Hull Another Powell, Another Capitulation Binoy Kampmark Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea Ben Tripp A Fish Story Sen. Robert Byrd Where is the Outrage? Robin Philpot Congo Distortions Julie Hilden Murder and the Matrix Laura Flanders An Interview with Isabel Allende David Lindorff The Last Byline Adam Engel Talk Dirty Scary Monsters Poets' Basement Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod   June 6, 2003 Elaine Cassel Ashcroft the Insatiable David Krieger The Big Lie Ramzy Baroud Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers Anthony Gancarski Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege" Sam Hamod His Own Little Country Sean Carter Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay? David Lindorff Cracks in the Consensus Stew Albert Ari's Great Set Steve Perry Greens and Moore in 04? No   June 5, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina Imraan Siddiqi Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth Michael Leon Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done Robert Jensen Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy Ann Harrison Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over Paul Dean How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush Gary Leupp When Spooks Speak Out Website of the Day Evidence in Black and White?   June 4, 2003 Alexander Cockburn Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal Walks Lisa Walsh Thomas The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity Jason Leopold Manufacturing the Iraq War John Chuckman Blackmail as Policy Mazin Qumsiyeh Summit: Peace or Pretense? Issam Nashashibi Sharon's Sword of Damocles Steve Perry Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript   June 3, 2003 Chris Floyd Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and the Slaughter in Aceh Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Tells All Elaine Cassel We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!" Tom Crumpacker The Politics of US Cuba Policy William S. Lind Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq Sam Hamod The Final Brick in the Wall Uri Avnery The Altalena Affair Hammond Guthrie Stepping into Some Deep DARPA Steve Perry The WashTimes' al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive" June 2, 2003 Arundhati Roy Day of the Jackals Norman Madarasz Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato, Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom Alain Frachon and Daniel Vernet The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter Anthony Gancarski Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now Standard Schaefer Wasted at the Pentagon Jason Leopold Rocky's Advice to the Dems Guthrie & Albert HUAC 58 Years Letter Steve Perry The Politics of Terror Alerts   May 31, 2003 Alexander Cockburn A Whiner Called Horowitz Gary Leupp The Frauds of War Dave Lindorff Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment Tom Stephens Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied? Sasan Fayazmanesh Who Is Next? Joanne Mariner Trivializing Terrorism Wayne Madsen Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week Larry Magnuson Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard? Elaine Cassel Wake Up, America! Gila Svirsky Waiting for the Lament to End Susan Davis Kitchen Dreams Chris Clarke Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite Chris Floyd Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God Adam Engel Gravity's End Zone Poets' Basement Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert   May 30, 2003 Ben Tripp Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda Neve Gordon The Bad Fence Todd Steiner Endangered Ocean Robert Freeman Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity Sean Carter Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions Daniel Bacher How Bush's War Violated International Laws Tariq Ali Re-Colonizing Iraq Steve Perry Bush Wars Web Log   May 29, 2003 CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Jason Leopold Despite Thin Intelligence Reports, US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime Ron Jacobs Popular Uprising, Inc. Michelle Ciaccorra Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do Yves Engler The Economics of Health Care in America: Pay More to Die Sooner Kimberly Blaker Vouchers for Jesus Harry Browne Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at the Top of the IRA Stew Albert Cops of the World Steve Perry Greens 04: In or Out?       Hot Stories CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Watch Michel Guerrin Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians" 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.   Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

June 9, 2003 Thrills of the SUV Nation Iraqi Slaughter, Mayhem and Plunder By ISHMAEL REED Editors' Note: CounterPunch is delighted to publish this essay on the Iraq war by Ishmael Reed, one of our favorite novelists. Reed also edits the excellent online zine, Konch. We encourage you to bookmark the site and read Reed's novels, poetry and essays. If you haven't read Mumbo Jumbo you've deprived yourself of one the funniest and most biting novels since Twain. He's a national treasure, but don't tell the Bush administration--we know how they treat national treasures. JSC / AC. The reason that a large part of the African-American public--up to 60%--opposed the war in Iraq, where defense contractors displayed their latest electronic weaponry, against an army that was supplied with 1917 Soviet rifles, is because many of the scenes that accompanied the slaughter of hundreds of Iraqi citizens looked familiar to them. Citizens lying on the ground with M-16s aimed at their heads. Homes broken into and frightened dwellers being threatened with weapons. (On May 18, The Times reported that an elderly black woman died from a heart attack after the NYPD burst into her home. They mistakenly thought that it was a crack operation.) The culture of those regarded as the enemy disrespected like African-American culture and history are disrespected at home. Even ridiculed by white American intellectuals and writers, who wish to keep white Americans and the rest of us in a cultural and intellectual backwoods. For example, an enterprising journalist managed to arrange a dialogue between American and Iraqi students. The exchange took place before the war, and was carried on the World Link network, a network that, unlike the inbedwith American media, presents a program called Mosaic, news from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan so that we get a balanced view of events taking place in the Middle East. The Iraqi students, who were receiving free education, knew more about international events than the American students. What does this say about our educational system that American students, who come in near the bottom when compared to students in other industrial countries when tested on math, history and geography are less informed than students who were living under a heinous American-sponsored regime? (And were receiving free education.) Perhaps these American students get all of their information about the world from television. 0n April 25th, the President of the B.B.C. was reported to have said that the American media's reporting of the war was characterized by so much patriotic cheerleading- my nomination for giddy hyper major domo for the war is CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who was goo goo eyed over the video-game display of "shock- and- awe" weaponry- that it would be hard to take the United States electronic media seriously. My favorite media moments of no shame occurred when Fox News criticized the former Iraqi minister of information of spreading disinformation and when an American educator, appearing on CNN, accused the Iraqi school curriculum of being driven by ideology. This woman, whose attitude of civilizing the natives, is a holdover from the old missionary impulse, would probably dismiss one as someone afflicted with "p.c." if one were to suggest that generations of Americans have been rendered ignorant as a result of a school curriculum driven by ideology and plain lies. (See James Lowen's "Lies My Teacher Told Me.") There is another pattern that African-Americans can identify as the occupying forces stand by as Iraqi museums are looted and libraries burned. That of imposing unwanted leaders upon a population that either resents them or has never heard of them. They do that to African-American, Hispanics and Asian-Americans all the time. The white left, right and middle have been doing this for years. All of them have political, cultural and intellectual nominations for H.N.I.C.s. Without the backing of The right wing Manhattan Institute, nobody would ever have heard of John McWhorter. Edward Said becomes annoyed when he sees and reads uninformed white men commenting on issues about the Middle East and writing books about Islam. That happens to African-Americans also. Most of the books about race in this country are written by white men. Some of them are informed. But most of them are trash. And what happened to the weapons of mass distraction that Neo-confederate leader, George Bush, The lesser, accused the Iraqi of possessing? Maybe former CIA errand boy Saddam Hussein swallowed them. Ishmael Reed is the author of Mumbo Jumbo, The Freelance Pallbearers, Yellowback Radio Broke Down, The Last Days of Louisiana Red, The Terrible Threes and Flight to Canada. He is also the editor of Konch, a journal of art and politics, where this essay originally appeared. He can be reached at: reed@counterpunch.org Weekend Edition Features Alexander Cockburn The Terrible Truth Jeffrey St. Clair Going Critical: Bush's War on Endangered Species Joanne Mariner Ashcrofts Sides with Torturers Steven Sherman A Different Theory of Everything Ron Jacobs Sports, Politics and the 60s M. Shahid Alam Pauperizing the Periphery Amelia Peltz If This is the Road, I'd Rather be Lost Shelton Hull Another Powell, Another Capitulation Binoy Kampmark Nuclear Deterrence and North Korea Ben Tripp A Fish Story Sen. Robert Byrd Where is the Outrage? Robin Philpot Congo Distortions Julie Hilden Murder and the Matrix Laura Flanders An Interview with Isabel Allende David Lindorff The Last Byline Adam Engel Talk Dirty Scary Monsters Poets' Basement Kearney, Reiss, Guthrie, Albert and Hamod   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /