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Today's
Stories
September
25, 2003
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
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
Recent
Stories
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?
September
19, 2003
Ilan Pappe
The
Hole in the Road Map
Bill Glahn
RIAA is Full of Bunk, So is the New York Times
Dave Lindorff
General Hysteria: the Clark Bandwagon
Robert Fisk
New Guard is Saddam's Old
Jeff Halper
Preparing
for a Struggle Against Israeli Apartheid
Brian J. Foley
Power to the Purse
Clare
Brandabur
Hitchens
Smears Edward Said
Website of the Day
Live from Palestine
September
18, 2003
Mona Baker
and Lawrence Davidson
In
Defense of the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions
Wayne
Madsen
Wesley
Clark for President? Another Neo-Con Con Job
Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Wesley Clark and Waco
Muqtedar Khan
The Pakistan Squeeze
Dominique
de Villepin
The
Reconstruction of Iraq: This Approach is Leading Nowhere
Angus Wright
Brazilian Land Reform Offers Hope
Elaine
Cassel
Payback is Hell
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Leavitt
for EPA Head? He's Much Worse Than You Thought
Website
of the Day
ALA Responds to Ashcroft's Smear
September 17, 2003
Timothy J. Freeman
The
Terrible Truth About Iraq
St. Clair / Cockburn
A
Vain, Pompous Brown-noser:
Meet the Real Wesley Clark
Terry Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Moore on Gen. Wesley Clark
Mitchel Cohen
Don't Be Fooled Again: Gen. Wesley Clark, War Criminal
Norman Madarasz
Targeting Arafat
Richard Forno
High Tech Heroin
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Website of the Day
The Ultimate Palestine Resource Site!
September 16, 2003
Rosemary and Walt Brasch
An
Ill Wind: Hurricane Isabel and the Lack of Homeland Security
Robert Fisk
Powell
in Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
Imperial Sociopaths
M. Shahid Alam
The Dialectics
of Terror
Ron Jacobs
Exile at Gunpoint
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's War on Wages
Al Krebs
Stop Calling Them "Farm Subsidies"; It's Corporate
Welfare
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
Website of the Day
From Occupied Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
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
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
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
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.
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September
26, 2003
Bush at the UN
American
Psycho
By JOHN CHUCKMAN
No, I did not read the book, but what words more
perfectly describe George Bush making one of the oddest speeches
ever made at the UN? There he was--with his designer suit, costly
watch, and constantly-manicured haircut--stone-faced and unrepentant
for the violent destruction he caused, for his obvious lying,
and for his rage against the thoughtful objections of others.
Actually, unrepentant seems an inadequate description, unaware
or uninterested being closer to the mark.
The matter and manner of Bush's speaking
are always an ordeal for thinking people. He seems convinced
that every audience deserves the same approach given the pathologically
credulous at a revival tent meeting.
But he outdid himself this time. His
description of anti-social behavior on a global scale as support
for the world community must have provided a sophisticated audience
interesting dinner topics. One can imagine the bons mots around
the subject of the world's most incorrigible, obvious liar claiming
he defends UN credibility. As with Dostoevsky's Father Karamazov,
it was as though all his recent vicious and disturbing behavior
had simply never happened.
Of course, he sees the UN as good for
a big handout towards the financial and human cost of rebuilding
the waste he made of Iraq. This may seem odd for one of those
"we ain't a gonna pay no damn UN dues" types, but,
remember, psychopaths are complete narcissists.
But a handout is not Bush's critical
need. Facing an election, he is looking for ways to deflect growing
criticism and doubt from American voters. Americans have been
remarkably quiescent over the dirty wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
because they cost so few American lives and provided a reassuring
sense of the nation's vast capacity for revenge, even if they
killed mostly innocent people and few or any of those associated
with 9/11.
But night after night of car bombs and
dead American soldiers on television have a way of changing perceptions.
America's press, "embedded" with the Pentagon long
before the term was invented for the Iraq war, often poorly reports
around foreign policy, but it simply cannot resist blood-and-ambulances
stuff with real American victims. With this continuing week after
week, it is likely more Americans will see the Iraq war for what
it was--nothing to do with justice or democracy or rights or
even terror--but one more kill-a-commie-for-Christ campaign,
only on a vast scale with high-technology killing and no commies.
And, as with all previous such holy wars, it just happens to
serve the interests of America's utterly selfish foreign policy.
The UN is widely misunderstood in America,
a circumstance people of Bush's leaning have always diligently
cultivated, and its involvement on any appreciable scale gives
Bush something external and vaguely-disliked to manipulate in
explaining all the violence and confusion yet to come as a people
revolt against conquest, occupation, and misery.
International involvement gives room
for maneuver, wiggle room, and can be twisted with words to serve
many purposes, including the claim that it vindicates Bush's
wisdom, all those do-nothing, effete foreigners finally coming
to recognize the threat of terror--and, yes, he once again with
unblinking dishonesty linked terror with Iraq during his UN performance,
terror being, with the bitterest irony, Bush's best ally in garnering
votes. Iraqis fighting back with limited means against the world's
military and technological Frankenstein naturally has to be called
something else, so it is called terror, just as violent resistance
to endless occupation and abuse in Gaza and the West Bank is.
Psychopathy likely is one of those many
glitches in the gene pool, an evolutionary trial-and-error that
served a useful purpose before modern urban society, psychopathic
warriors being valued for their ability at defending early human
settlements and terrifying potential enemies. Probably most of
our legends of monsters such as vampires or ghouls derive from
human experience with all-too-real psychopathic personalities.
Psychopaths are valued to this day as
torturers for secret police, assassins, and dirty-tricks operatives
for intelligence services. Police and prison-guard services who
are careful about their hiring screen out such people with tests
(there are extremely reliable ones), since psychopaths are naturally
drawn to work where others will be at their mercy.
As with many mental disorders, from depression
to schizophrenia, there appears to be degrees of psychopathy.
The father of the late Jeffrey Dahmer, a man who killed, consumed
and memorialized portions of his victims in his Milwaukee apartment,
wrote a courageous book after the discovery of his son's horrific
deeds. He recognized in retrospect signs from his son's childhood
that something unusual was developing. He also, very importantly,
recognized that there were uncomfortable thoughts he had had
as a young man which now might be understood as a milder inclination
in the same direction.
Politics with the power of elected office
and the glow of press attention surely is a draw for at least
the more moderately afflicted. There is reason to believe that
psychopathy helps explain the careers of some horrible and bizarre
politicians. The example that leaps to mind is the late Senator
McCarthy. Yes, he was a nasty drunk, but lots of drunks function
in politics without becoming destroyers of others' lives. The
great Winston Churchill, for example, couldn't get through a
day without his brandy.
How do you get rid of a political psychopath
like Bush? Well, I hope the Democratic party doesn't see its
only option as simply running another one. The Democratic contenders
include at least a couple characters who might well qualify as
having the disorder.
The armed forces have always been natural
repositories for these dark creatures, the work of killing and
the skill of being able to do it with relish making good fits.
We have a general who suddenly discovered at nearly sixty years
of age that he is a Democrat. What that means in the context
of the general's military experience, which includes probable
war crimes and extremely hazardous judgments in Serbia, is not
clear.
We have a Senator who always smilingly
supports death, whether as part of American foreign policy, Israeli
foreign policy, or in prisons.
Maybe that's just how it has to be in
a vast bloated empire that pretends it represents principle.
After all, you need to keep all those disagreeable foreigners
in line. Statesmen and humanitarian leaders aren't very good
material for the job.
John Chuckman
lives in Canada. He can be reached at: chuckman@counterpunch.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 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?
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