Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
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
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
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
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.
|
November
14 / 23, 2003
The Pentagon's War
on the Facts
Is Anyone Telling
the Truth?
By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
Has Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez resigned
yet? If not, why not? It is astonishing that he remains in his
position as commander of occupation forces in Iraq.
Why astonishing? Why resign?
Because the Secretary of Defense of the
United States of America has declared that General Sanchez might
not be telling him the truth. The general should have resigned
at once and without seeking 'clarification' or asking what Rumsfeld
intended when he publicly disparaged him, and thus the entire
US Army.
What Rumsfeld said in an interview with
the CBS News 'Early Show' on Veterans' Day, November 11, was
clear and unambiguous. He "noted that the number of Iraqis
serving in security forces is rising steadily and may soon exceed
the number of US troops on the ground. Asked if US commanders
might be sugar-coating their reports, the defense secretary insisted
'What I want to hear is the truth. And I hope they're telling
the truth and you believe they're telling the truth and if they're
not, they're not serving their country very well because I have
no bias one way or the other'."
Rumsfeld 'hopes' that the most senior
generals in the US Army are telling the truth. But he considers
it possible they might NOT be telling the truth, because he used
the words "if they're not". And if they are not telling
the truth, then he states flatly that "they're not serving
their country very well". He must have meant what he said,
otherwise why would he phrase his reply like that? We keep being
told he is very clever and bright. And a main characteristic
of people who are clever and bright is the ability to state precisely
what they wish to convey in terms understandable to everyone.
He also said he hopes that "you [that is all of us who don't
inhabit Rummyworld] believe they're telling the truth".
This is defamatory. The fact that Rumsfeld says we should all
hope that American generals are telling the truth is, let us
say, a trifle unsupportive of his military commanders. As a former
soldier I go further and state bluntly that it is downright bloody
disloyal and insulting. It is a disgrace that the Secretary of
Defense should even hint that US Army generals are telling lies.
Unless they are telling lies, of course.
So on the matter of hoping that the defense
secretary and generals and others are telling us the truth, let's
examine a few statistics provided by prominent Washington people
in the past few weeks concerning the supposed numbers of Iraqis
possibly enlisted in various security forces within that blitzed,
crippled and now occupied country that never at any time presented
the slightest threat to the security of the United States.
On October 21 Rumsfeld told the American
Forces Press Service that "In the past five months, roughly
85,000 Iraqis have been trained to take up arms." According
to the Washington Times on October 30 "Mr. Rumsfeld praised
the number of armed Iraqi security forces being trained and organized
by some 130,000 US troops occupying Iraq. 'In less than six months,
we've gone from zero Iraqis providing security to their country
to close to 100,000 Iraqis currently under arms,' he said, adding
armed Iraqis soon will outnumber US forces and eventually all
coalition forces in Iraq."
On November 3 the Washington Post recorded
that "On October 9, Iraq administrator L. Paul Bremer told
a news conference in Baghdad there were 60,000 Iraqis providing
security to their country . . . about three weeks later, Rice
told foreign reporters the overall number was over 85,000 and
growing. That same day [October 30], Deputy Defense Secretary
Paul D Wolfowitz told an audience at Georgetown University the
figure was 'some 80,000 to 90,000'. On Saturday, the day before
Rumsfeld said [on November 2] there were more than 100,000, a
senior official in the occupation authority provided a figure
of nearly 85,000 which included 50,000 police, 20,000 in the
facility protection service, 7,800 in the civil defense corps,
5,000 border guards and 1,400 in a new Iraqi army."
Then on November 11 we heard on NBC's
'Today' program from General Richard B Myers, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, that "the number of Iraqis serving
in police forces, the civil defense corps, site protection services,
border guard units and the nascent Iraqi military has reached
131,000 . . . today there are more Iraqis in the coalition, if
you will, than any other force." By any interpretation
this means that the number of Iraqi armed forces is greater than
the number of American troops occupying Iraq.
Here are quoted numbers of Iraqi forces,
by dates.
October 9 : 60,000 (Bremer) ;
October 21 : roughly 85,000 (Rumsfeld) ;
October 30 : over 80,000 (Rice) ;
same date : 80 to 90 thousand (Wolfowitz) ;
same date : close to 100,000 (Rumsfeld) ;
November 1 : nearly 85,000 (Occupation Authority); November 2
: more than 100,000 (Rumsfeld) ;
November 11 : 131,000 (Myers).
In one month the official number of Iraqi
police and para-militaries seems to have more than doubled. (The
army has 1400 under training. That is one fact that can't be
disguised or manipulated.) But somebody is telling lies. In fact
it seems lots of people are telling lies.
So let's look again at Rumsfeld himself,
the loyal superior who publicly belittles his generals by saying
"I hope they're telling the truth". He forgets that
some of us keep records of what he says, mainly because we suspect
he might not be telling the truth but also because we think he
might have a few problems with reality. Like imagining the number
of Iraqi security forces increased by 15,000 in twenty-four hours
on 1 and 2 November. This is amazing, really, and reflects much
credit on those who enlisted, trained and deployed all these
police and para-militaries in such a short period. It works out
at 625 an hour, which must be a world record.
It was a 'senior official in the Occupation
Authority' who said there were 85,000 Iraqi security forces in
existence on November 1. Yet the defense secretary declared there
were "more than 100,000" a day later. (Two days before,
he said "close to 100,000", and a week before that,
"roughly 85,000" but let's not confuse the issue.)
Where did Rumsfeld get that figure from? Obviously not Bremer's
people, because they would have told him 85,000 which is what
they told reporters. So how did he arrive at the number of 100,000?
Is anyone going to query him? Don't count on it, because the
Rumsfeld reaction is to deny he ever said what he said if he
thinks he didn't say it or imagines we've forgotten it. Or something.
But then, wonder of wonders, over a further
nine days another 30,000 dedicated armed Iraqi defenders of liberation
appeared, like uniformed rabbits out of a hat. If they exist
they will be about as much use as rabbits, of course, but how
did the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs conjure them up? Who gave
him the figure of 131,000? What was the breakdown of "police
forces, the civil defense corps, site protection services, border
guard units" that he so confidently trotted out to the world?
Of course his figure would have nothing to do with the prediction
by Rumsfeld on October 30 that in some miraculous fashion "armed
Iraqis soon will outnumber U.S. forces and eventually all coalition
forces in Iraq".
We remember Rumsfeld saying before his
war that Iraqis would welcome US troops after being invaded.
His
exact words to Jim Lehrer on PBS's 'The News Hour' on February
20 were "There is no question but that they [US troops]
would be welcomed [by Iraqis]". We remember his testimony
to the House Armed Services Committee on September 18 last year
when he stated categorically that Iraq possessed "large
clandestine stockpiles of biological weapons" and "large
clandestine stocks of chemical weapons". He
repeated his statements next day to the Senate Committee.
All this is on record. These are facts that cannot be contradicted.
Oh yes they can. When Rumsfeld was asked
about these statements last week by Morris Jones of Sinclair
Broadcasting he said "Never said that. Never did. You may
remember it well, but you're thinking of somebody else. You can't
find, anywhere, me saying anything like either of those two things
you just said I said."
The Secretary of Defense of the United
States of America is a proven liar. But is there anyone in the
Bush administration who is capable of telling the truth?
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 Nov. 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
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|