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Today's Stories

December 3, 2003

Stan Goff
Feeling More Secure, Yet? Bush, Security, Energy and Money

December 2, 2003

Matt Vidal
Denial and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom

Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas

Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?

Norman Solomon
That Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test

Josh Frank
Trade War Fears

Andrew Cockburn
Tired, Terrified, Trigger-Happy


December 1, 2003

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam

Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland

Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media

Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?

Gilad Atzmon
About "World Peace"

Bill Christison
US Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes

November 29 / 30, 2003

Peter Linebaugh
On the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone

Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos

Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math

Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative

Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview with John Pilger

Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam

Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream

Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia

Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser

Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali

Standard Schaefer
Unions are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes

Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay Bridge

Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again

Adam Engel
The System Really Works

Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool

Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans

Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace

Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy

Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith

 

November 28, 2003

William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes

David Vest
Turkey Potemkin

Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks

Wayne Madsen
Wag the Turkey

Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited

Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?

South Asia Tribune
The Story of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words

Website of the Day
Bush Draft


November 27, 2003

Mitchel Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving

Jack Wilson
An Account of One Soldier's War

Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas

Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD

Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer

Neve Gordon
Gays Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa


November 26, 2003

Paul de Rooij
Amnesty International: the Case of a Rape Foretold

Bruce Jackson
Media and War: Bringing It All Back Home

Stew Albert
Perle's Confession: That's Entertainment

Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities

David Orr
Miami Heat

Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists on the Beach

Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami

Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates

Kathy Kelly
Hogtied and Abused at Ft. Benning

Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement


November 25, 2003

Linda S. Heard
We, the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy

Diane Christian
Hocus Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators

Mark Engler
Miami's Trade Troubles

David Lindorff
Ashcroft's Cointelpro

Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas

 


November 24, 2003

Jeremy Scahill
The Miami Model

Elaine Cassel
Gulag Americana: You Can't Come Home Again

Ron Jacobs
Iraq Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?

Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant

 

 

November 14 / 23, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime: Was It Really a Golden Age?

Saul Landau
Words of War

Noam Chomsky
Invasion as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy

Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity

Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl

John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills

Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith

Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees

Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins

M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory

Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete

Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil

Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?

William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics

Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine

Dave Lindorff
Bush's Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First

Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners

Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly

Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review of Bush in Babylon

Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq

Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions

Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?

David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead

Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film

Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam

 

Congratulations to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!

 

November 13, 2003

Jack McCarthy
Veterans for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade

Adam Keller
Report on the Ben Artzi Verdict

Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time

Vijay Prashad
Confronting the Evangelical Imperialists

November 12, 2003

Elaine Cassel
The Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?

Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo

Jonathan Cook
Facility 1391: Israel's Guantanamo

Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home

Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike

John Chuckman
Forty Years of Lies

Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency

Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left

Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops


November 11, 2003

David Lindorff
Bush's War on Veterans

Stan Goff
Honoring Real Vets; Remembering Real War

Earnest McBride
"His Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched?

Derek Seidman
Imperialism Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff

David Krieger
Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide

Sen. Ernest Hollings
My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War

Dan Bacher
The Invisible Man Resigns

Kam Zarrabi
Hypocrisy at the Top

John Eskow
Born on Veteran's Day

Website of the Day
Left Hook

 

November 10, 2003

Robert Fisk
Looney Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East

Elaine Cassel
Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar Laws Across Globe

James Brooks
Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss

Thom Rutledge
The Lost Gospel of Rummy

Stew Albert
Call Him Al

Gary Leupp
"They Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals


November 8/9, 2003

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism as Racist Ideology

Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered

Saul Landau
The Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz

Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?

David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War

Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens

Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring Hollow

Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"

Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?

Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum Disorder

Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy

Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post

Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet

Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder


November 7, 2003

Nelson Valdes
Latin America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance

David Vest
Surely It Can't Get Any Worse?

Chris Floyd
An Inspector Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment

William S. Lind
Indicators: Where This War is Headed

Elaine Cassel
FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You"

Maria Tomchick
When Public Transit Gets Privatized

Uri Avnery
Israeli Roulette


November 6, 2003

Ron Jacobs
With a Peace Like This...

Conn Hallinan
Rumsfeld's New Model Army

Maher Arar
This is What They Did to Me

Elaine Cassel
A Bad Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar

Neve Gordon
Captives Behind Sharon's Wall

Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime

 


November 5, 2003

Jeffrey St. Clair
Just a Match Away:
Fire Sale in So Cal

Dave Lindorff
A Draft in the Forecast?

Robert Jensen
How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List

Joanne Mariner
Prisons as Mental Institutions

Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance

Simon Helweg-Larsen
Centaurs from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections

Josh Frank
Silencing "the Reagans"

Website of the Day
Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid to Ask

 


November 4, 2003

Robert Fisk
Smearing Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word?

Ray McGovern
Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam

Woodruff / Wypijewski
Debating the New Unity Partnership

Karyn Strickler
When Opponents of Abortion Dream

Norman Solomon
The Steady Theft of Our Time

Tariq Ali
Resistance and Independence in Iraq

 


November 3, 2003

Patrick Cockburn
The Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah

Dave Lindorff
Philly's Buggy Election

Janine Pommy Vega
Sarajevo Hands 2003

Bernie Dwyer
An Interview with Chomsky on Cuba

November 1 / 2, 2003

Saul Landau
Cui Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off

Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality

Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver

Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"

John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines

William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit

Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes

Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred

Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos

Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle

Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action

Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon

Strickler / Hermach
Liar, Liar Forests on Fire

David Vest
Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him Famous

Adam Engel
America, What It Is

Dr. Susan Block
Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn

Poets' Basement
Greeder, Albert & Guthrie

 


October 31, 2003

Lee Ballinger
Making a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy" Combs

Wayne Madsen
The GOP's Racist Trifecta

Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber

Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"

Elaine Cassel
Coming to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)

Linda Heard
An Arab View of Masonry

 


October 30, 2003

Forrest Hylton
Popular Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia

Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military Families

Dave Lindorff
Big Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"

Philip Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of Israel

Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak

Robert Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?

Alexander Cockburn
Paul Krugman: Part of the Problem

 

 

October 29, 2003

Chris Floyd
Thieves Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton

Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans

Rick Giombetti
Let Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy

The Intelligence Squad
Dark Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks

Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists

Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement

Gary Leupp
Every Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures

October 28, 2003

Rich Gibson
The Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003

Uri Avnery
Incident in Gaza

Diane Christian
Wishing Death

Robert Fisk
Eyewitness in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"

Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte

Jason Leopold
Halliburton in Iran

Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten

Chris White
9/11 in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective

 


October 27, 2003

William A. Cook
Ministers of War: Criminals of the Cloth

David Lindorff
The Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer

Elaine Cassel
Antonin Scalia's Contemptus Mundi

Robert Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia

John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls

Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us

Bill Kauffman
George Bush, the Anti-Family President

 

 

October 25 / 26, 2003

Robert Pollin
The US Economy: Another Path is Possible

Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China

James Bunn
Plotting Pre-emptive Strikes

Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?

Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany

Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace

Christopher Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit

Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror

Diane Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors

Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq

John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula

Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies

Benjamin Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur

An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia

Karyn Strickler
Down with Big Brother's Spying Eyes

Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization

John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America

Mickey Z.
War of the Words

Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous

Poets' Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert

Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand

 

 

 

October 24, 2003

Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's War on Greenpeace

Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews

Jeffrey St. Clair
Rockets, Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited

Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty

David Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button

Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East

Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't

 

 

 

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December 3, 2003

Bush's Operation Clean Sweep

A Nightmare Scenario

By JOHN STANTON

Even though Bush II will lose the popular vote in the US presidential election of 2004, his electoral college victory seems assured. With Republican party governors firmly in charge of Florida, California, Texas and New York, and supported by a whopping Bush campaign war chest approaching $200 million, dubious electronic voting schemes courtesy of Diebold, Lockheed Martin and other defense contractors (http://www.blackboxvoting.com), it seems certain that Bush will make it back to the Oval Office through the back door that is the Electoral College. And if not the Electoral College then by benefit of a rebel attack on US soil which kills thousands of Americans and leads to the suspension of the US Constitution. That according to General Tommy Franks, USA (Ret.), who opined in the magazine Cigar Aficionado that the US will have to shed its constitution in favor of a military style of government. Even the notorious aristocrat Alexander Hamilton would have been appalled at such a statement, as would Thomas Jefferson and James Madison. But these are mediocre times in history; particularly, and dangerously, in America where its people have eliminated those who might have continued to wage a struggle for an equitable form of government in the US, as well as engage the world through international treaty building.

Mediocre times produce the very worst that the world has to offer: Reagan, Bin Laden, Bush, Hussein, Sharon, and Blair. None but the feeble minded could draw inspiration from such a ghastly lineup of "leaders". This is the world as it has become absent the shortened lives of John and Robert Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X and Yitzhak Rabin, all of whom were murdered for their beliefs, or, rather, for the threat they posed to the established interests. Even Nikita Khrushchev was removed from power in the then USSR in 1964 for trying to push his country towards a more peaceful coexistence with the rest of the world. The threats these titans of history posed to the established order of their day was not so much monetary as it was ideology. Each of them planted in the minds of those who would listen the thought that the established order of war, racism, poverty, and income and wealth disparity could and should be questioned. However, those who pull the strings could not stand an ignorant populace that questioned the order of things. And so their fate was, it seems, preordained by disgruntled individuals agitated by those portions of business and government who were wedded to the status quo. And so, JFK and Khrushchev, King and RFK, and Malcolm X and Rabin were terminated and Americans, and the world, found themselves at the mercy of Bush and Bin Laden, Hussein and Blair, and Reagan and Sharon.

Crippled Opposition

With the election of Bush II in 2004, the ideological and economic fracturing of America will be complete and, for the foreseeable future, permanent. The three branches of the US government, corporations, and the majority of state's governors and state houses will be controlled by those Republicans and Democrats who have become indistinguishable in their belief that the government's only role in America is to make it safe and ludicrously easy for small and large corporations to make a profit without the drag of government regulations, programs and taxes that, in their view, steal from the bottom line. With those folks at the helm, 2002 and 2003 saw the US federal and state governments give the business community trillions of dollars of hand-outs in the form of tax cuts, regulatory relief and legislation that allowed businesses to rape and pillage the American landscape and its middle and lower classes. The latter group's struggle is getting worse. Even as its industrial, service and information technology jobs are exported to other countries, these Americans are being forced to work longer hours, endure more expensive privatized health and welfare benefits, and higher prices for feeding, clothing and educating their children. Slowly but surely, Americans from the middle and lower classes find themselves at an increasing distance from their rulers, yet must bear the burden of profit and war for these same dastardly people. But those that rule have in their malleable plebian audience a strange group of middle and lower class acolytes. Among them, the notorious Christian right and an estimated 5 to 9 million American-Muslims who handed Bush II over 90 percent of their vote in the last presidential election. That group, along with neo-con Latinos and Asians, seem to have forgotten the struggles they waged to reach, what once was, a republic with a semblance of representative democracy. Are they trying to recreate the religious-military dictatorships of their own home countries? Bush II certainly has obliged them in that effort.

The invincible political-corporate-state apparatus (PCS) that George Bush II and his supporters have created will be opposed by a loose affiliation of hundred's of local and urban communities-- supported by a handful of wealthy donors, actors and retired military personnel--who have refused to accept the destruction of the federal and state governments, the Iraq War and the draconian Patriot Act I and II, or, for that matter, the legitimacy of the Bush II presidency. But the deck is stacked against them.

Catholics and Muslims of the World: Unite!

Thanks to the Patriot Act, elements of the Bush PCS can now enter the homes of protestors that question opposition to the established order on the street, the Internet, in high schools, on television, in the newspapers, and even in common conversation. The Pentagon has its own domestic intelligence service that has begun working with the FBI who, in turn, is ramping up its efforts to build databases of Americans who oppose the Bush PCS machine. Even local police, like the Miami Police Department, have become tools of the hideous juggernaut that has been created by the powerful and paranoid of the land. The Miami Police Department received $8.5 million from the $87.5 billion Pentagon appropriation for the Iraq War. The $8.5 million from that Pentagon appropriation was used for the defense of Miami against anti-globalization protestors in the same way it is used by the US military to quell disturbances in Iraq. The Miami protestors were made up of a broad spectrum of America society representing unions, teachers and the young and old alike. That event should be burned into the minds of Americans and the world as the Bush PCS has made it clear that it makes no distinction between the Iraqis demonstrating for a free press, or a US steelworkers demonstrating against a "Free" Trade Agreement. Antiwar, anti-globalization, pro-labor, pro-women's rights, pro-environment, pro-national healthcare movements should be cautious post-2004 as they take to the streets to protest. America has become a police state.

And so the Bush-led PCS will continue to dress its god, its profits, its worldview in the colorful and flammable costume that is patriotism. The rallying cries are very persuasive to simple minds: Fight 'Em There Rather than Here! America is Safer Now! The Economy is Recovering! Do Your Duty and Buy! Cheaper Oil and Gas for Americans! Help Freedom Loving Iraqi's Rebuild! God Bless America! Go Team! That same sort of infantile rationale will continue to be used to not only further the economic and ideological divide in America, but to attack nations who, coincidently, have large oil and gas reserves, sit in the path of energy pipelines, or who happen to believe in Islam. But wait! The Catholic and oil rich nations of Venezuela and Colombia find themselves targets of the Bush PCS. Now there's a coincidence: Roman Catholics and Muslims the target of an Evangelical Christian American government. Catholics and Muslims Unite!

2004-2008: Operation Clean Sweep

Shortly upon taking office in 2004, Bush's PCS will move rapidly on a number of fronts. Unbound by the constraints of campaigning, the real work of the Bush PCS will begin. First, the Bush PCS will continue to rupture federal and state programs that assist the middle and lower classes of America and their culture and environment. The US Supreme Court will eliminate a woman's right to choose. Constitutional amendments banning gay rights, women's rights and civil rights/affirmative action will be proposed by the Bush PCS and, in all likelihood, will succeed. An additional amendment to the constitution concerning military rule in case of an attack on US soil by any foreign individual or state will be added easing the way towards military rule in America.

While the nation debates these issues, Bush will quietly issue an edict supporting a return to the draft. The massive military campaign that is sure to follow will require millions of US military personnel that can only be had forcibly through conscription. As early as the Christian holiday of Christmas in December 2004, or more likely, the Christian Easter Holiday in April 2005 (celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ), the Bush PCS will attack. Syria will be attacked by American-British-Israeli coalition forces, primarily from its Western, Southern and Eastern flanks. There will be no prolonged bombing campaign in this operation. The air campaign will be concomitant with an amphibious assault on Syria's Western shores, accompanied by a land invasion from the Southern and Eastern flanks. The forces of the American led coalition will crush the dilapidated Syrian military within 10 business days. The Palestinians will likely be granted a piece of the former Syria and will be relocated there by the US and Israel.

Simultaneously with invasion of Syria, Iran will be subjected to an extraordinary air and cruise missile assault led by American forces. This operation will include additional military elements from the Turkish and Afghani military who will have been promised a piece of Iran once it is defeated. A withering air assault will come from the Northwest through Turkey, from the West from US controlled Iraq, from the East from the air bases in Afghanistan, and from carrier groups and cruise missile launching submarines, to include an Israeli submarine, in the Persian Gulf. Within 60 business days, Iran will be defeated by US-led forces. And should Iran successfully test a nuclear weapon prior to that time, the Bush PCS will accelerate its timetable for attack opting to use tactical nuclear weapons to take out Iranian nuclear weaponry.

Since the Bush PCS believes that North Korea cannot be allowed to exist, it will attack North Korea simultaneously with its invasion of Syria and Iran. China will have been dealt with during back channel negotiations. The price China will demand of not intervening against the US invasion (Chinese troop strength at 100 million) will be Taiwan. The Bush PCS will turn a blind eye to China's takeover of Taiwan, which had become a bad US hangover from the Cold War. The US will be glad to rid itself of support for Taiwan. Vladimir Putin may sign on to the US-led invasion and commit Russian troops which will incur from the Northeastern portion of North Korea's border. Participation with Bush in this effort would allow Russia basing rights on the Eastern shores of North Korea. The US and South Korean military will attempt to neutralize the North Korean military with low yield tactical nuclear weapons which will be used primarily along the heavily fortified Southern border. This conflict will see the massive deployment of ordnance with calmative agents meant to literally put to sleep the North Korean military. An electromagnetic pulse weapon or weapons will be used to knock out North Korea's command and control infrastructure. Ground operations will be simultaneous with air and sea assault but the conflict will rage on for 12 business quarters as weather and terrain complicate the US led attack.

Meanwhile in Colombia, US military forces will openly engage in combat against the FARC and indigenous peoples movements there. Over in Venezuela, the US will finally topple Hugo Chavez (if not prior to 2004). The aged leaders of Cuba and Libya will be no match for the Bush PCS, and they will likely be toppled in US led coups. In each of these cases, Bush PCS friendly dictators will be installed and US corporations will quickly move to capitalize each of those societies, just as they are doing in Iraq.

All of this, it seems, is a fait accompli.

John Stanton is a Virginia-based writer specializing in political and national security matters. He is the author, along with Wayne Madsen, of America's Nightmare. Reach him at cioran123@yahoo.com.

 

Weekend Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003

Peter Linebaugh
On the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone

Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos

Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math

Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative

Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview with John Pilger

Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam

Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream

Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia

Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser

Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali

Standard Schaefer
Unions are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes

Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay Bridge

Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again

Adam Engel
The System Really Works

Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool

Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans

Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace

Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery

Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy

Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith


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