Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
Recent Stories
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
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.
|
September
13, 2003
The
Modified Vertical Stroke
A
Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
By WERTHER*
As the administration's Iraq "policy"
careens out of control like a car stolen by joy-riding teenagers,
critics are confronted with the inevitable retort: "But
what would you do? Be constructive!" In truth, this rejoinder
is a red herring: people who had no role in creating this mess
have no moral "responsibility" for solving it; the
authors of the mess have. And to the extent one accepts responsibility
for rescuing the situation, one implicitly believes that one
actually has a role in governing this erstwhile republic. In
reality, the neo-con-artists, Big Oil plutocrats, and "defense"
contractors will not release their iron grip on U.S. foreign
policy until their avaricious hearts cease to beat.
But in the constructive spirit of Jonathan
Swift's "Modest Proposal," we herewith offer a few
eminently constructive suggestions:
1. Clean house at the Pentagon. Show
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, et al., the door. Disband the Office of
Special Plans (or whatever its successor might be named) and
send Douglas Feith back to writing position papers for Benyamin
Netanyahu. Abolish the Defense Policy Board and banish Newt Gingrich
to the rubber chicken circuit and Richard Perle to the Borscht
Belt. Revoke the security clearances of all these luminaries
so that further damage is limited. Appoint Anthony Zinni (Gen
USMC Ret.) as Secretary, and empower him to appoint, free from
White House interference, subordinates of professional competence
and moral probity. The same conditions would apply to his direction
of the officer corps, including the Chairman, JCS.1/ And at
the NSC, replace the over-credentialed and underwhelming Condoleeza
Rice with a certifiable adult such as Brent Scowcrowft.
2. Rescind the reconstruction contracts
of Halliburton, Bechtel and the other corporate welfare clients.
The political influence of these ghoulish corporations was a
prime mover in provoking the Iraq war in the first place. In
Halliburton's case, its first Iraq oil field contract dates to
December 2001, i.e., 15 months before the war [see note 2/],
so their collusion in this tragedy is central. In any event,
their over-priced, no-bid contracts are mulcting the taxpayer
while hardly providing "reconstruction." Take the money
they disgorge and pay able-bodied Iraqi males of military age
$15 or $20 per day to wield picks and shovels for true reconstruction.
The work might actually be more cost efficient, and in any case
would avert the "idle hands are the Devil's playground"
truism.
3. Give GEN Sanchez an ultimatum: "Kill
Saddam Hussein by 31 December 2003 or you are commanding a radar
site on Adak." The death of our erstwhile client and bulwark
against Iran may not be functionally necessary, but would be
a political boon and usufruct to salve the wounds of our national
security Illuminati and justify this whole misguided operation
to the public (an important consideration as November 2004 looms).
And since GEN Sanchez has so often claimed that "we"
are closing in on Saddam, he should bear some responsibility
for turning words into deeds. It could at least justify a withdrawal
from Iraq on the basis that, "there were no WMDs, but we
did whack Saddam. Mission accomplished!" And why the deadline
of 31 December? -
4. Set a date of 31 December for withdrawal.
Since the administration's initial plan was to occupy Iraq for
six months, why should a stay of nine months seem like precipitate
flight? It might even reduce U.S. casualties. While the current
spin depicts the resistance in Iraq as robotic fanatics who laugh
in the face of death, the truth is more complex. There may be
some guerrillas who would kill Americans at any hazard, but if
U.S. troops were going to leave Iraq in a short time in any case,
some resisters might be less inclined to risk their own lives
in a pointless exercise. What the United Nations or "our
coalition partners" would or would not do thereafter is
of secondary importance. As former Senator George Aiken famously
said, "declare victory and get out."
5. Repair the damage to our military
personnel. Our troops were obliged to redeem the lies of the
American Enterprise Institute, The Weekly Standard, and other
plague bacilli, with their time, absence from their families,
and their blood. Honorable service in Iraq should net every enlisted
person a bonus of $10,000, tax free, above and beyond any other
special pays. Junior officers would reap $5,000; field grade
officers, $2,500. General and flag officers would receive the
thanks of a grateful Nation, suitable for framing. Granted, a
gratuity is somewhat crass, but one does not notice many CEOs
foregoing performance bonuses even when the share price of their
company tanks. And given that millionaires received, on average,
$86,000 back from Uncle Sam from the most recent tax cut, this
proposal should not be too onerous. One is certain that Halliburton
and Lockheed executives would be eager to contribute generously
to the General Fund of the Treasury to defray the cost of this
thank you to our men and women in uniform.
6. Appoint a special prosecutor. Armed
with plenary powers of subpoena, this bulldog would comb the
documents of the Defense Department, the White House, the Energy
Task Force, and other agencies for any evidence that our elected
public officials violated 18 U.S.C. 1001 (making false statements
to Congress), 18 U.S.C. 371 (the broad anti-conspiracy statute
that would apply in the case of provoking a war), or any other
statute or Constitutional provision that may have been violated
in prosecuting a pre-emptive war on false pretenses. Faced with
prolonged hospitality at Allenwood, some of the Thors and Wotans
who rule over us might be induced to practice a refreshing candor,
for once.
7. Begin the greatest untangling operation
since Watergate. Induce Congress (an admittedly hopeless bunch,
whose membership more and more resembles the idiotic Senator
Iselin in The Manchurian Candidate) to investigate the connection
between the think tanks, their "defense" contractor
contributors, public relations firms like Hill & Knowlton
or the Benador Group, foreign agents of influence, and the Federal
Government. Much as the mid-1930s Nye Committee unveiled the
relationships between government boards, munitions trusts, financiers,
and British propagandists, such an investigation would reveal
how a gullible public was led into the quicksand of the Middle
East for the sake of yet another "war to end all wars."
(1) The incumbent JCS chairman, GEN Richard
Meyers, is on record making one of the most astounding statements
of any public figure in our Nation's history: "The goal
has never been to get bin Laden." (interview on "Novak,
Hunt & Shields," CNN, 5 April 2002). The relative obscurity
of this statement is astonishing , given that our political class
is obsessed with relative trivia such as President Clinton's
"I did not have sex with this woman," or President
George H.W. Bush's "read my lips." Chalk it up to 50
years of television and bad government schooling.
(2) See, e.g., the U.S.
Army Corps of Engineers' web site for contract details. Heavy
web site traffic may result in the information's being sanitized.
The same information, however, is provided in the following:
"Halliburton's Deals Greater Than Thought," The Washington
Post, 28 August 2003, Page A1.
* Werther is the pen name of a
defense analyst based in Northern Virginia. This article originally
appeared on the excellent Defense
in the National Interest website.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|