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Today's
Stories
November
1 / 2, 2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
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)
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
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
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
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Weekend
Edition
November 1 / 2, 2003
"Mow the Whole
Place Down"
Political
Barbarism and Iraq
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
Senator Trent Lott (R-Miss) has finally flipped.
His particular line is not military tactics, of course (no Vietnam
for him), so we should not expect any flashing Napoleonic insights
from this racist bigot. In fact his talent is that "he has
worked with the Pentagon to advance Mississippi's prowess in
shipbuilding and weapons construction as well as the state's
strategic location for its numerous military installations"
(according to his highly selective biography : nothing there
about having to relinquish the majority leadership in the Senate
because of his revelation of support for racial segregation).
His insights into the wider sphere of
military affairs include the gem on his website that "To
fight terrorists, we must improve our naval capacity and our
ability to project power to their turf before they get to ours.
As America faces new threats that more than ever require our
naval mobility, it's time we stopped living off shipbuilding
investments made during the 1980s, and begin charting a course
to ensure our country remains the world's largest most formidable
maritime power." That's interesting, because the last time
terrorists struck the Navy it was with an explosive rubber boat
powered by an outboard engine. It is difficult to see how expanding
naval capacity will deter rubber boats, and even more difficult
to determine which terrorists have navies.
"Project power to their turf"
is of course a valid strategic principle, even if a mixed metaphor
in the maritime sense. But how does a navy project power to the
turf of terrorists? Bush told the UN General Assembly in September
last year that al Qaeda terrorists had fled Afghanistan and moved
to Iraq. They hadn't, then, of course, but they are there now,
and in growing numbers it seems. So how does Lott intend to "project
power to their turf" by building more ships in Mississippi?
Perhaps this is unfair. It's taking on
a dumb cluck or a sitting duck. But Lott keeps on bobbing up
like the little rubber ducky he is, and begs us to take aim and
blast him out of the murky waters in which he paddles. His most
recent idiocy concerns Iraq. Now hold on to your hats, everyone,
because this is what he said:
"Honestly it's a little tougher
that I thought it was going to be [in Iraq]. If we have to, we
just mow the whole place down, see what happens. You're dealing
with insane suicide bombers who are killing our people and we
need to be very aggressive in taking them out." (http://www.thehill.com/)
"Mow the whole place down"
is an interesting military concept, like the brain dead "bring
'em on" of George Bush. But perhaps the Lott policy is worth
examining. After all, it seems to be what is happening, because
I actually gagged when I read an account of a US army raid in
Iraq in which "House after house meets the same fate. Some
homes only have women in them; they, too, are ransacked, closets
broken, mattresses overturned, clothes thrown out of drawers
. . . . When a house is 'complete', or at the Home Run stage
(stages are divided into 1st, 2nd, 3rd, Home Run and Grand Slam,
meaning ready to move on), soldiers relax and joke, breaking
their own tension and ignoring the trembling and shocked women
and children crouched together on the lawns behind them."
(See the full account in the Asia
Times.)
This is grim. Here am I, a retired and
wizened soldier who has seen warfare at several levels, an old
campaigner who you would think would be at the right hand of
Genghis Khan or Trent Lott and applauding victory over all sorts
of wogs, gooks, slopes or whatever ; yet I despair about what
is going on in the name of 'freedom' in Iraq. Because American
soldiers are behaving barbarically and without regard to human
rights, Geneva Conventions, or just plain decency.
I never thought American soldiers would
permit this, for example, in a recent raid on a village:
"Prisoners with duct tape on their
eyes and their hands cuffed behind them with plastic "zip
ties" [handcuffs] sit in the back of the truck for hours
without water. They move their heads toward sounds, disoriented
and frightened, trying to understand what is happening around
them. Any time a prisoner moves or twitches a soldier bellows
at him angrily and curses."
What on earth has happened to decent
American boys?
"By daylight the whole town can
see a large truck full of prisoners. Two men walking to work
with their breakfast in a basket are stopped at gunpoint, ordered
to the ground, cuffed and told to "shut the fuck up"
as their basket's contents are tossed out and they are questioned
about the location of a suspect."
What has happened to decent American
boys? How could a normal American youngster willfully destroy
someone's breakfast? Is it army policy for American soldiers
to bellow "Shut the fuck up" at unarmed civilians on
their way to work who are unfortunate enough to be within sight
of an American squad and are therefore treated as the worst of
enemies? The Iraqis don't understand "shut the fuck up",
of course. All they understand is that they were walking peacefully
to work with their breakfast in a basket and were threatened,
humiliated, physically abused, made captive and bellowed at by
the invaders of their country.
After this particular sweep, in which
'Apache Troop' was searching for alleged terrorists, Nir Rosen
of the Asia Times reported "From the list of 34 names [of
suspects], Apache brings in about 16 positively identified men,
along with another 54 men who were neighbors, relatives or just
happened to be around. By 0830, Apache is done, and starts driving
back to base. As the main element departs, the psychological-operations
vehicle blasts AC/DC rock music through neighborhood streets.
'It's good for morale after such a long mission,' Captain Brown
says."
Does not this oaf realise he has just
made hundreds more enemies for his country? Not only by the jackboot-style
raid, the conduct of which would have been well regarded by the
Waffen SS, but by his immature gesture of playing triumphal mega-decibel
foreign rock music to mark his victory over nothing. The entire
town hates Americans. Its citizens may or may not have been supportive
of Saddam Hussein or the occupying power before the raid, but
it doesn't take a genius to work out who they detest now.
Iraqi prisoners of the Occupying Power
have no rights of any sort. The Geneva Conventions are irrelevant,
so far as the US military is concerned. Let me emphasize this.
The Geneva Conventions regarding treatment of prisoners of war
and civilians (protected persons, as the Convention defines them)
might as well not exist. No Iraqi citizens have any rights once
they fall into the hands of the conquerors. Indeed no Iraqi citizens
have any rights if they go anywhere near US soldiers. Alex Berenson
of the New York Times reported October 28 that (<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/29/international/middleeast
/29IRAQ.html?pagewan>) "American soldiers killed six
civilians just west of this city on Monday after a roadside bomb
exploded near their convoy, according to town officials and witnesses.
The soldiers, who were on the main road to Falluja when the bomb
exploded, fired on a minivan heading in the opposite direction
on a different road more than 100 yards away, witnesses said.
"An American convoy of about eight
vehicles was traveling east toward Falluja, on a road where United
States patrols are often attacked. Two bombs planted in the center
median exploded, damaging one of the vehicles but not stopping
the convoy's progress, witnesses said. Still heading east, the
convoy began to fire, shooting at several vehicles heading southwest,
away from the patrol, on a nearby road, said Amir Ahmed Saleh,
a passenger in a vehicle on that road. The convoy's targets included
a minivan carrying employees of Iraq's state oil company, Mr.
Saleh said. . . . Four people in the minivan died, and two were
severely wounded . . . He showed what he said were photographs
of the shattered van that he had taken immediately after the
incident. The photographs show a gruesome scene. Pieces of bodies
cover the van's seats, sharing space with a set of brown prayer
beads. A headless, legless torso lies on the ground beside the
van. There was no independent means of confirming that the van
pictured was the one involved in the incident . . .
"Colonel Khamis, the police chief,
said of the American forces: "When they're subjected to
attack, they start shooting indiscriminately. The minibus was
heading to Ramadi - they didn't have any link with the issue."
Mr. Badewi [the mayor] said that he had pleaded with American
commanders to restrain their troops, but that they had refused.
"We've talked about this reaction, and so many people and
clerics have talked to them," he said. "They say, `This
is our way'." The political allegiance of the two Iraqi
officials was not clear, but they seemed generally moderate in
their view of the American occupation."
Alex Berenson is an accurate reporter.
He tells it like it is. Which is that some US occupation troops
are intent on mowing the whole place down. Trent Lott would be
proud of them. The important question is : does nobody in the
administration (Washington or Baghdad) realise the immense harm
being done to what Bush keeps telling us he wants to achieve
in Iraq? Reports of atrocities such as this are becoming more
and more common, and cannot be dismissed as propaganda. After
every incident of brutality there are scores, perhaps hundreds
more Iraqis alienated from the cause of democracy.
There is no point whatever in saying
US troops are under stress and claiming that their behavior is
only what is to be expected. First, soldiers are supposed to
be able to take stress. Second, if they haven't been trained
to adapt to and counter urban guerrilla warfare there is something
badly wrong with the entire training system. Third, reacting
to pressure by trashing houses and terrifying women and kids
is playing right into the hands of the guerrillas. Fourth, the
entire world is watching what is going on and much of it is only
too eager to conclude that US occupation troops are behaving
as barbaric conquerors.
There may well be soldiers who treat
suspects and captives with dignity, but reports of callous savagery
and random killings are too many to ignore. It may be too late
to retrieve the situation, such has been the damage done to the
image of the United States. If nothing is done to improve matters,
such as ordering soldiers to stop behaving like barbarians, then
there will be more and more troops needed in Iraq to keep down
an increasingly rebellious population. There is no point, either,
in blaming the foreign hand for attacks on occupying troops.
There may be foreigners involved, but they are going to be tolerated
and even regarded as saviours by citizens who are in the process
of being thoroughly estranged and antagonised by other foreigners
who treat them appallingly. For every school that is adopted
and fostered by a US unit, there is a school of hatred created
by another.
The Lotts of this world are many and
stupid. If they have their way, Iraq is doomed.
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. 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
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