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Today's
Stories
January 12, 2004
Uri Avnery
Syria's
Peace Proposal
January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
January 9, 2004
David Lindorff
The
Misers of War: Troop Strength and Chintzy Bonuses
Kurt Nimmo
Saddam's Defense: Summon Bush Sr. to the Stand
Mike Whitney
Orange Jumpsuits for the Bush Clan?: The Carnegie Report on Iraq's
Non-existent WMDs
Deb Reich
Palestinians and Israelis: This War is Unwinnable
David Vest
Disabled
Vets Fire Back at Rumsfeld
January 8, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israeli
Refuseniks Sentenced to Jail
Lenni Brenner
Dr.
Dean and the Godhead
Ray McGovern
Bush: Driving Without Breaks
Mark Scaramella
Inside
the DA's Office: Lies, Errors and Tedium
Yves Engler
Bush's Mexican Gambit
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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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January
12, 2004
From the First Instant
It Was About Iraq
Will
Anyone Hold Bush Accountable?
By JASON LEOPOLD
You'd think that President Bush would be facing,
to quote Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a long, hard slog
in his bid to recapture the White House for a second term what
with all the information trickling out of the president's administration
the past few months showing that senior administration officials
knowingly mislead the American public about the reasons for launching
a preemptive attack against Iraq.
But, unfortunately, there's too much
infighting taking place among the nine Democrats campaigning
for their party's presidential nomination and not enough attention
to the administration's misdeeds. Too bad, because this is the
type of ammunition that even the weakest Democratic candidate
should be able to easily spin to convince voters that Bush should
be replaced come November.
Still, despite the evidence that shows
how Bush and his closest advisers have spent most of the three
years they've been in office lying to the American public about
their knowledge of the 9-11 terrorist attacks right on down to
the reasons the United States invaded Iraq, Bush's approval rating
is still above fifty percent and he holds a strong lead over
all of the Democratic presidential contenders.
Maybe the drama now unfolding will put
a permanent dent in Bush's armor once and for all.
Bush's former Treasury Secretary, Paul
O'Neill, has revealed in a new book, "The Price of Loyalty,"
by journalist Ron Suskind, that the Iraq war was planned just
days after the president was sworn into office.
"From the very beginning, there
was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that
he needed to go," O'Neill said, adding that going after
Saddam Hussein was a priority 10 days after the Bush's inauguration
and eight months before Sept. 11.
"From the very first instance, it
was about Iraq. It was about what we can do to change this regime,"
Suskind said. "Day one, these things were laid and sealed."
As treasury secretary, O'Neill was a
permanent member of the National Security Council. He says in
the book he was surprised at the meeting that questions such
as "Why Saddam?" and "Why now?" were never
asked.
O'Neill was fired from his post for disagreeing
with Bush's economic policies. In typical White House fashion,
senior administration officials have labeled O'Neill a "disgruntled
employee," whose latest remarks are "laughable"
and have no basis in reality.
Moreover, claims by O'Neill that the
U.S. and Britain were operating off of murky intelligence during
the buildup to war came six days after Bush's inauguration. It
was then that British intelligence communicated to the CIA, the
Pentagon and National Security Adviser Rice's office that an
Iraqi defector told British intelligence officials that Saddam
Hussein had two fully operational nuclear bombs, according to
two senior Bush advisers.
The London Telegraph reported the defector's
claims on Jan. 28, 2001.
"According to the defector, who
cannot be named for security reasons, bombs are being built in
Hemrin in north-eastern Iraq, near the Iranian border,"
according to the Telegraph report. The defector said: "There
are at least two nuclear bombs which are ready for use. Before
the UN inspectors came, there were 47 factories involved in the
project. Now there are 64."
That information turned out to be grossly
inaccurate, but it was cited by Vice President Dick Cheney during
a speech in 2002 as a means to build the case for war.
However, O'Neill's allegations that Bush
planned an Iraq invasion prior to 9-11 are backed up by dozens
of on-the-record statements and speeches made by the president's
senior advisers, including Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin
Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, during
Bush's first four months in office.
In dozens of transcripts posted on the
Defense Department's web site between January and May 2001, months
before 9-11, Rumsfeld said the United States needed to be prepared
for surprises, such as launching preemptive wars against countries
like Iraq.
"If you think about it, Dick Cheney's
(Secretary of Defense) confirmation hearing in 1989 -- not one
United States senator mentioned a word about Iraq," Rumsfeld
said in a May 25, 2001 interview with PBS' "NewsHour."The
word "Iraq" was never mentioned in his entire confirmation
hearing. One year later we're at war with Iraq. Now, what does
that tell you? Well, it tells you that you'd best be flexible;
you'd best expect the unexpected."
In fact, Rumsfeld discusses the above
scenario in a half-dozen other interviews in May 2001 and appears
to suggest, by specifically mentioning Iraq, that history would
eventually repeat itself.
Responding to a reporter's question on
Jan. 26, 2001 about the Bush administration's policy toward Saddam
Hussein's regime days after his Senate confirmation hearing,
Rumsfeld said "I think that the policy of the country is
that it is not helpful to have Saddam Hussein's regime in office."
In his inaugural address on Jan. 20,
2001 President Bush also alluded to the possibility of war, although
he did not mention Iraq by name.
"We will confront weapons of mass
destruction, so that a new century is spared new horrors,"
Bush said. "The enemies of liberty and our country should
make no mistake... We will defend our allies and our interests."
Further evidence suggests that when the
Bush administration took office it was worried that the U.S.
was losing international support for the sanctions it placed
on Iraq ten years earlier leaving the door open to the possibility
that Saddam Hussein would be let out of his proverbial box. President
Bush sent Powell on a trip to the Middle East in late February
2001 to study the situation in Iraq to decide whether the administration
should keep the sanctions in place or whether it should start
to lay the groundwork for a preemptive strike.
But Powell returned to the U.S. and championed
the sanctions saying, Iraq posed absolutely no threat to the
U.S., during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
on March 8, 2001, much to the dismay of Vice President Cheney,
Rumsfeld and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, all of whom believed
in using military force to oust Saddam Hussein.
"When we took over on the 20th of
January, I discovered that we had an Iraq policy that was in
disarray, and the sanctions part of that policy was not just
in disarray; it was falling apart," Powell said during his
Senate testimony. "We were losing support for the sanctions
regime that had served so well over the last ten years, with
all of the ups and downs and with all of the difficulties that
are associated that regime, it was falling apart. It had been
successful. Saddam Hussein has not been able to rebuild his army,
notwithstanding claims that he has. He has fewer tanks in his
inventory today than he had 10 years ago. Even though we know
he is working on weapons of mass destruction, we know he has
things squirreled away, at the same time we have not seen that
capacity emerge to present a full-fledged threat to us."
In an interview with broadcast journalist
Charlie Rose last Wednesday, Richard Perle, the former chairman
of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and one of the major architects
of the war against Iraq, lent further credibility to the claim
that one of the reasons Iraq became a target for invasion was
because support for sanctions were eroding.
Perle also said that White House lawyers
advised President Bush and members of the National Security Council
to accuse Iraq of violating United Nations resolutions by concealing
stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons so as not to break
international laws when the time came to attack the country.
With the possibility of finding Iraq's
alleged WMD's, which the Bush administration used to as a basis
to invade Iraq last March, becoming increasingly remote after
10 months of combat and as the President's hand-picked team hired
to search for the weapons begins to filter out of Iraq empty
handed, Bush and his hawks still maintain that the war was justified.
In a heated exchange with "20/20"
anchor Dianne Sawyer several weeks ago, Bush admitted that he
personally saw no difference as to whether Iraq had physical
weapons or a weapons program. Either way, the president said,
"Saddam Hussein was a dangerous person." But it wasn't
the threat of an Iraqi weapons program that Bush said threatened
the U.S. when he spoke before the U.N. Security Council and Congress
and the Senate to support the war. It was an actual stockpile
of weapons that posed the threat.
Finally, Bush is going to face a tough
crowd come September. That's when the Republican National Convention
hits New York City and officially nominates Bush for a second-term.
This is the same New York City that Bush denied tens of billions
of dollars in aid to after the terrorists obliterated the World
Trade Center, breaking a promise to help rebuild the city's downtown
area. And this is the same New York City that the Environmental
Protection Agency, on orders from the White House, told New Yorkers
it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality
was not available.
Beware, Mr. President, you messed with
the wrong city.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 10 / 11, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
as Hitler? Let's Be Fair
Susan Davis
Dangerous Books
Diane Christian
On Lying and Colin Powell
Lisa Viscidi
Exhumations: Unearthing Guatemala's Macabre Past
Daniel Estulin
Destroying History in Iraq
Saul Landau
Homeland Anxiety
Elaine Cassel
Who's Winning the War on Civil Liberties?
Bruce Jackson
Making the Shit List
Christopher Brauchli
Baptizing Hitler's Ghost
Francis A. Boyle
The Deep Scars of War
Lee Ballinger
Cold Sweat: Sweatshops and the Music Industry
Patrick W. Gavin
Hillary's Slur: Mrs. Lott?
Ramzy Baroud
What Invaders Have in Common
Michael Schwartz
Inside the California Grocery Strike
Gary Johnson
An Interview with Former Heavyweight Champ Greg Page
Dave Zirin
An Interview with Marvin Miller on Unions and Baseball
Mark Hand
A Review of Resistance: My Life for Lebanon
Poets' Basement
Thomas, Daley, Curtis, Guthrie and Albert
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