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Today's Stories

October 25 / 26, 2003

Karyn Strickler
Down with Big Brother's Spying Eyes

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

 

October 23, 2003

Diane Christian
Ruthlessness

Kurt Nimmo
Criticizing Zionism

David Lindorff
A General Theory of Theology

Alan Maass
The Future of the Anti-War Movement

William Blum
Imperial Indifference

Stew Albert
A Memo

 

October 22, 2003

Wayne Madsen
Religious Insanity Runs Rampant

Ray McGovern
Holding Leaders Accountable for Lies

Christopher Brauchli
There's No Civilizing the Death Penalty

Elaine Cassel
Legislators and Women's Bodies

Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: the New Morality of Capitalism

Anthony Arnove
An Interview with Tariq Ali


October 21, 2003

Uri Avnery
The Beilin Agreement

Robert Jensen
The Fundamentalist General

David Lindorff
War Dispatch from the NYT: God is on Our Side!

William S. Lind
Bremer is Deaf to History

Bridget Gibson
Fatal Vision

Alan Haber
A Human Chain for Peace in Ann Arbor

Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell

October 20, 2003

Standard Schaefer
Chile's Failed Economy: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Chris Floyd
Circus Maximus: Arnie, Enron and Bush Maul California

Mark Hand
Democrats Seek to Disappear Chomsky & Nader

John & Elaine Mellencamp
Peaceful World

Elaine Cassel
God's General Unmuzzled

 

October 18 / 19, 2003

Robert Pollin
Clintonomics: the Hollow Boom

Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War

Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer

Bruce Anderson
The California Recall

John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes

Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"

Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario

Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa

Brian Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War

Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers

Denise Low
The Cancer of Sprawl

Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom

John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?

George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy

Alison Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart

Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan

Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir

Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague

Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder

 

October 17, 2003

Stan Goff
Piss On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War

Newton Garver
Bolivia in Turmoil

Standard Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack

Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52

Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran

David Lindorff
Michael Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty

 

October 16, 2003

Marjorie Cohn
Bush Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba

Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq

Norman Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse

Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time

Lenni Brenner
I Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me

Website of the Day
Time Tested Books

 

October 15, 2003

Sunil Sharma / Josh Frank
The General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation

Forrest Hylton
Dispatch from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"

Brian Cloughley
Those Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq

Ahmad Faruqui
Lessons of the October War

Uri Avnery
Three Days as a Living Shield

Website of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document

JoAnn Wypijewski
The New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor


October 14, 2003

Eric Ridenour
Qibya & Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre

Elaine Cassel
The Disgrace That is Guantanamo

Robert Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People

David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq

Patrick Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops

VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference

Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews

Peter Linebaugh
"Remember Orr!"

Website of the Day
BRIDGES

 

October 11 / 13, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
Kay's Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken Wings

Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles

Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia

Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites

Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way

Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference

Maria Trigona and Fabian Pierucci
Allende Lives

Larry Tuttle
States of Corruption

William A. Cook
Failing America

Brian Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand

Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?

Merlin Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin

Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!

Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries

Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus

Bruce Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"

William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2

Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley

Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack

Poets' Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney


October 10, 2003

John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger and the Lottery Society

Toni Solo
Trashing Free Software

Chris Floyd
Body Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women

 

October 9, 2003

Jennifer Loewenstein
Bombing Syria

Ramzi Kysia
Seeing the Iraqi People

Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic

Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?

Alexander Cockburn
Welcome to Arnold, King for a Day

Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark

 

October 8, 2003

David Lindorff
Schwarzenegger and the Failure of the Centrist Dems

Ramzy Baroud
Israel's WMDs and the West's Double Standard

John Ross
Mexico Tilts South

Mokhiber / Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust

James Bovard
The Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster

Michael Neumann
One State or Two?
A False Dilemma

 

October 7, 2003

Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion Ethnic Cleansing

Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta

Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present

David Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq

Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required

Cynthia McKinney
Who Are "We"?

Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case

Walter Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall

Gary Leupp
Israel's Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?

Website of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot

 

October 6, 2003

Robert Fisk
US Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria

Forrest Hylton
Upheaval in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity

Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War

Bridget Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal

Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus

Nicole Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials

JoAnn Wypijewski
The New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor

Website of the Day
Guerrilla Funk

 

October 3 / 5, 2003

Tim Wise
The Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment

Peter Linebaugh
Rhymsters and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW

Gary Leupp
Occupation as Rape-Marriage

Bruce Jackson
Addio Alle Armi

David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?

Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's War on Whistleblowers

Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean

Mickey Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest

Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq

John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus

William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac

Glen T. Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism

Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos

Wayne Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can

M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier

William Benzon
Scorsese's Blues

Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest

Poets' Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie

 

 

October 2, 2003

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What's So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?

Amy Goodman / Jeremy Scahill
The Ashcroft-Rove Connection

Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair

Hamid Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)

Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act

Saul Landau
Who Got Us Into This Mess?

Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!


October 1, 2003

Joanne Mariner
Married with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families

Robert Fisk
Oil, War and Panic

Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia as State Policy

Elaine Cassel
The Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act

Shyam Oberoi
Shooting a Tiger

Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?

Sean Donahue
Wesley Clark and the "No Fly" List

Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund

 

September 30, 2003

After Dark
Arnold's 1977 Photo Shoot

Dave Lindorff
The Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well

Tom Crumpacker
The Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers

Robert Fisk
A Lesson in Obfuscation

Charles Sullivan
A Message to Conservatives

Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective

Naeem Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth

Amy Goodman / Jeremy Scahill
Does a Felon Rove the White House?

Website of the Day
The Edward Said Page


September 29, 2003

Robert Fisk
The Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies

Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!

Lee Sustar
Paul Krugman: the Last Liberal?

Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War

Uri Avnery
The Magnificent 27

Pledge Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com

 

September 26 / 28, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
Alan Dershowitz, Plagiarist

David Price
Teaching Suspicions

Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity

Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and the Patriot Act

Brian Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again

Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama

Robert Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions

M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA

John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN

Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada

William S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security

Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia

Chris Floyd
Vanishing Act

Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui

Richard Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved

George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said

Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized

Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss

Mickey Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice

Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said

Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room

Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie

Website of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?

 

 

September 25, 2003

Edward Said
Dignity, Solidarity and the Penal Colony

Robert Fisk
Fanning the Flames of Hatred

Sarah Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School

David Krieger
The Second Nuclear Age

Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak

Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime

Michael S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs

Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley

Mustafa Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights

Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate Heart

Website of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine


The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!


September 24, 2003

Stan Goff
Generational Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War

William Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark

David Vest
Politics for Bookies

Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin

Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship

Latino Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!

Neve Gordon
Sharon's Preemptive Zeal

Website of the Day
Bands Against Bush

September 23, 2003

Bernardo Issel
Dancing with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand

Gary Leupp
To Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo

Gregory Wilpert
An Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela

Steven Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and Radical

Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?

Robert Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq

William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent

Elaine Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers

Yigal Bronner
The Truth About the Wall

Website of the Day
The Baghdad Death Count

September 20 / 22, 2003

Uri Avnery
The Silliest Show in Town

Alexander Cockburn
Lighten Up, America!

Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet

Anne Brodsky
Return to Afghanistan

Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me

Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie

Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open

Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism

Kurt Nimmo
Colin Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja

Brian Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame

Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush

Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda

Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector

Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!

Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq

John Ross
WTO Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold

Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals

Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane

Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization

David Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America

Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps

Poets Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert

Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?

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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October 25, 2003

Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies

The Minority of Billions and the Yankee Doodle Poodles

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY

"Sweet, sweet, the mem'ries you gave to me", warbled Dean Martin in -- oh dear me -- 1955 (although the song stuck around for years, and pleasant background schmaltz it was, too). But memories tend to be short and some are far from sweet. As the White House prepares for next year's presidential election the American people and billions of us elsewhere are in danger of failing to remember the lies we were told about "Iraq's reconstituted nuclear program"; "mushroom clouds"; "Iraq will be able to pay for its own development"; "500 tons of chemical agents"; "the Iraqi people will welcome us"; "we do not need more troops"; and similar tripe uttered by Bush, Cheney, Perle, Rice, Wolfowitz, Powell and Rumsfeld, to name only the most prominent liars.

Before we look at some memories that should be kept fresh, please let me explain why I, as a foreigner, comment frequently on Bush's Washington. (I've had some pointed emails about this.) It is not because America, qua America, is an evil place. Indeed the US is a wonderful, amazing, vibrant, successful nation whose energy and people are difficult not to admire. (Offer a green card and two hundred thousand dollars to every Islamic extremist in exchange for a promise to cool it and they would have to be fought off from the consulates. I'm only half-joking.) Rather it is because Bush interferes so much in the affairs of all of us out here. His policies and their implementation have an enormous and sometimes catastrophic impact on our simple lives. Getting down to the basics and descending to the level of non-American ordinary people like me who are affected by the Bush plans for the world, let me describe our local circumstances.

To the south of the five acres my wife and I own in the well-named Bay of Plenty in the North Island of New Zealand there is a flower nursery, and to the west and north a citrus plantation. Further along the way there is a cattle farmer who recently planted maize in addition to grazing his forty head. To the east is another farmer with about 20 cattle and 80 sheep. And we have two acres of lemon trees ourselves. All are modest enterprises from which most of the produce is exported. And remember there is not a cent of subsidy provided to any primary producer in New Zealand. We have one of the most open trade systems in the world. Not for us the billions of dollars and euros lavished on greedy US and European agribusinesses that make such vast profits and are cushioned from taxes (and bribe politicians with campaign donations of taxpayers' money). So our flowers, fruit, beef and lamb go out undefended to a highly competitive marketplace. Profits are small, but producers can make a reasonable living. (In our area most small farmers and/or their wives have part-time or even full-time jobs in town.) However, we have one big problem, name of Bush.

The law of the land is that no ship that is nuclear-powered or carrying nuclear weapons is permitted to dock in a New Zealand port. Now, it isn't as if there have been many requests for such vessels to drop anchor in GodZone (as we modestly call ourselves). In fact it is difficult to recollect the last time any such request was made. But Washington insists this is an 'unfriendly' national law that "causes problems". So Bush has declared that when he endorses a free trade agreement with Australia he is not going to permit a comparable free trade accord with New Zealand because we are not bowing the knee to him, unlike little Johnnie Howard, the prime minister of Australia, and his Yankee Doodle poodles. (Howard boasted he was 'Deputy Sheriff' to Bush in the region, but Bush contradicted this and said he was "The Sheriff". What an accolade, to be sure. Little wonder the Asia-Pacific nations admire Washington and Canberra so much.)

Exclusion from Australia's free trade with the US will mean hardship for Russell (citrus), Graham (flowers -- he provided blooms for the Oscar ceremonies this year), Harry (beef and maize), and Gary (beef and lamb). And our 400 lemon trees might as well be bulldozed down, just as US troops do in Iraq to citrus groves of farmers who do not tell them the names of guerrillas who attack them, which would, of course, lead to instant murder of the farmers by the guerrillas. But our guerrilla is Bush, because he is encouraging Australian producers to destroy us by giving them preferential economic treatment. New Zealand is hardly an economic or any sort of threat to the US, but this decision by Bush will have an enormously adverse impact on the entire population (which Bush, absurdly, says he "respects"). He cares not that New Zealand has troops doing his bidding in Iraq at this very moment ; he demands total, utter, complete, non-negotiable subjugation, just as he did the other day from a group of senators he summoned to his office for orders. (Which reminds me of the story of the autocratic Duke of Wellington who, after years of having orders obeyed unquestioned, was appointed prime minister of Britain and met some elected legislators. "D'ye know!" he later exclaimed to a friend, "I told them what to do and the damn' fellas wanted to discuss it!")

There is no need to alter the law of New Zealand about nuclear ships. For Pete's sake, how often does the Pentagon want to send one to Wellington or Auckland? Is it going to make the smallest difference to the foreign or military policies (they seem to be different) of the United States if a tiny country of 4 million people decides that as a symbol of disapproval of nuclear weapons it doesn't want to have nuclears in its harbours? Will it affect the 'War on Terror'? Will it for a moment cause the Bush juggernaut of militarism to even hesitate in its elephantine (in fact dinosaurian) advance? Of course not. But this doesn't matter, because the Bush doctrine is Do What We Say Or We Will Humiliate And Crush You (providing you are small enough and can't hit back). This is spiteful, paranoid, and poisonous.

This is why I and other foreigners consider we are entitled to comment about Bush and the misanthropic weirdoes around him in Washington. His pitiless determination to economically cripple even the most minor and completely unthreatening nation that dares disagree with his inflexible doctrine of domination is reason enough for us out here, the Minority of Billions, to raise our voices against the new emperor who seeks to subjugate the world. We see Bush as Shakespeare's Macbeth, surrounded by latter-day witches with their drip-feed of venom disguised by opaque mumbo-jumbo. Macbeth surged from paranoia to murderous dementia, and we fear the regime of Bush is embarked on the same course.

So back to the memories, for they are made of lies and affect us all. They are bitter memories of deceit, because Bush was warned eloquently and elegantly by "old Europe" (as witch, second class, Rumsfeld calls it) that his attack on Iraq would have a dreadful outcome. Better, said President Chirac, to wait, to let the UN inspectors do their work with the threat of a big stick in the background. Just as President de Gaulle warned Presidents Kennedy and Johnson about impending disaster in Vietnam, so the latter-day Cassandras, gifted to foretell the future but doomed to be disbelieved, politely told Bush his foray would not only be illegal but calamitous. Hatred of America, they said, would be but one result. Unheeding of this and other wise counsel, Bush and his minions pressed on with their lunatic attack, and lied to the world, then and later, about their reasons. (The latest arrant twisting of truth is presentation of the 'Terrorism Medal' to soldiers in Iraq, in an attempt to continue linking 9/11 with Saddam Hussein in the minds of the American people.)

One person who forever will have memories of the war is a boy, or, rather, three-quarters of a boy, called Ali Abbas who was orphaned in a US attack that blew off his arms. He has been fitted with artificial limbs and is grateful for that but said last week "They're very nice but they will never replace my real arms . . . I don't understand why adults do it. I would never wish a war upon anyone. I would like to have it that children never have to fear war." (This was a widely reported interview of considerable human interest in Europe, but there wasn't much in the US about it.) Ali's sentiment sounds reasonable, for wouldn't we all "prefer never to have to fear war"? Well, no, not quite all of us, because there are some wild-eyed, pseudo-intellectual barbarians in Washington who thrive in reputation, influence and self-esteem by advocating violence. We must remember them, for they were the originators and purveyors of the mammoth lies about Iraq in their search for world domination.

The memories of Cheney, Rice, Bush, Wolfowitz, Perle and Rumsfeld are not of war as such (for they have never seen war); nor are they of crippled children. Their memories are of glitzy video games of flashing crashing smashing missiles and fiery explosive pillars of cloud that show the remorseless superiority of their military machine. In similar fashion to stomping tiny, inoffensive New Zealand because he cannot bear to be thwarted in the slightest degree, Bush and the demented zealots who joined him to create and run the new empire are determined to crush individuals, groups and nations who dare defy the imperial will. If this can involve flash crash and smash, so much the better. It will impress and humble the surviving natives more effectively : just like 'Shock and Awe', that classic terrorist principle.

We all remember 9/11, of course; that day on which every reasonable human being sympathised with the US in its hours of danger and horror. There was hardly a country in the world whose peoples did not grieve with America. Sure, there were some loonies who danced in the streets in Cairo and Jakarta, for example, just as there were loonies in America who rejoiced when bombs and cruise missiles blew up such as Ali Abbas and killed his entire family. (What does the Caped Crusader Boykin have to say about maiming Iraqi kids?)

Proclivity for savagery knows no boundaries, and even compassion has few. But global commiseration and solidarity with Washington were at first gradually, then with accelerating and startling rapidity, expunged by arrogant assumption on the part of Bush and his zealots that the atrocities of 9/11 could be used -- manipulated -- to extend the power and majesty of the imperial dream. We all have memories of New York's finest and New York's bravest, but perforce they have been overtaken by stark realisation that their gallantry has been prostituted in the cause of empire and a second term for the Emperor.

The world was on the side of George Bush in these tense but touchingly unifying September days. But not much longer, because in his arrogance he chose to ignore its sympathy, experience and advice. Like a charlatan quack hawking cure-alls for boils and blisters he refused to acknowledge the existence, practicability and desirability of sensible remedies, and convinced himself (or was convinced by fellow-Crusaders) that war on Iraq was the solution for all his ills. His apparent inclination for confrontation became a pigheaded obsession. "You are with us or against us" was a not a rallying cry to advance freedom but a declaration of rigid intolerance. The State of the Union Address was a chauvinistic and xenophobic appeal to prejudice and bigotry. The Patriot Act is reminiscent of the worst period of the House Un-American Activities Committee of evil memory -- just at the time, indeed, when Dino Martin recorded "Memories are made of this".

Martin Luther King declared "I have a Dream" of equality that was created from memories of persecution of his people. Ali Abbas has a dream of peace created by memories of a missile that wiped out his family. George Bush has a dream of aggressive domination created by memories of nothing atall. The Bush adherents, that grim and devious band of malevolent ruffians who surround him, are conjuring up the next episode of shock and awe.

We should not forget them, because they convinced 75 percent of Americans that Saddam Hussein was linked to the September 11 attacks, that he had weapons of mass destruction ready for use, and that the occupation of Iraq could be funded by its oil. All three beliefs were spread by the Bush coterie. All were majestically wrong. Some memories, and all those of the official reasons for the Iraqi war, are made of lies.

Brian Cloughley writes about defense issues for CounterPunch, the Nation (Pakistan), the Daily Times of Pakistan and other international publications. His writings are collected on his website: www.briancloughley.com.

He can be reached at: beecluff@aol.com

Weekend Edition Features for Oct. 18 / 19, 2003

Robert Pollin
Clintonomics: the Hollow Boom

Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War

Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer

Bruce Anderson
The California Recall

John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes

Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"

Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario

Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa

Brian Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War

Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers

Denise Low
The Cancer of Sprawl

Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom

John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?

George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy

Alison Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart

Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan

Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir

Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague

Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder

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