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Today's
Stories
October
15, 2003
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
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
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
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
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?
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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October
15, 2003
Joe Blow from Kokomo
How
GIs in Iraq are Used to Spread Bush Propaganda
By
BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
In his book 'Don't Go Near the Water', William
Brinkley described the hilarious adventures of a US Navy public
relations unit in the Pacific towards the end of the Second World
War. The unit was led (if one can use the word) by Lt-Commander
Clinton T ('Marblehead') Nash, who "had been commissioned
directly from his brokerage office without the corrupting influence
of any intervening naval training". But Marblehead had his
moments, as when he conjured up the idea of sending hometown
newspapers lots of pieces about sailors in the enormous Pacific
Fleet.
With fiery enthusiasm he planned that
"We get up a story on [an] event, mimeograph it off, then
simply fill in the man's name from the ship's roster, like 'Blank
Blank of Blank was aboard the USS Missouri recently when that
ship's sixteen-inchers disabled Yokahama', and fire it back to
the guy's home-town paper. Visualize it! The Missouri alone has
2700 men aboard, anytime she did anything, just anything atall,
this would automatically mean 2700 stories in papers all over
the States . . . millions of stories . . . From us to the thousands
of tanktown papers in the US . . . Thinking big! . . . It's Joe
Blow of Kokomo people want to hear about!"
In fact it wasn't that bad an idea (although
things did get a bit out of hand for Marblehead and his merry
men), and the technique has attractions. The problem is that
there is a distinct dividing line between news and propaganda
and it is fatal to truth to try to merge one with the other.
But the line has been crossed -- leapt across, indeed -- by the
mind-benders of US forces in Iraq. They are not content with
having "Blank Blank of Blank" being home-town news
because of something his unit had done. Far from it, because
it seems they want to convince home-town folks all over America
that US policy in Iraq is fine and dandy and - by implication,
at least - that it's only a bunch of sour-faced left wing liberal
peacenik internationalists who say things are catastrophic. So
the new Marbleheads had a great idea: that it would be splendid
for it to be made known by Joe Blow of Kokomo that "The
quality of life and security for the citizens has been largely
restored and we are a large part of why that has happened"
in the area of Kirkuk occupied by the Second Battalion of the
503rd Airborne Infantry Regiment.
Now : nobody should have any objection
to a letter containing such positive sentiments being sent to
a hometown newspaper -- providing, of course, it was composed
by the person who signed it. The Joe Blow letter continued that
"The fruits of our soldiers' efforts are clearly visible
in the streets of Kirkuk today . . . I am proud of the work we're
doing here in Iraq and I hope all of your readers are as well."
Great stuff. Freedom of speech means that Joe Blow of the 503rd
can write to the Kokomo local paper to say things are working
out in Iraq just as Bush says they are.
This sort of thing isn't quite what I
wrote home from Cyprus, Borneo or Vietnam when I was on active
service in these troubled places. Reflecting on such letters
as have survived I find the main themes were that Brigade HQ
was staffed by a bunch of incompetent dickwits, the local authorities
were corrupt, the food was lousy, our equipment was inferior
to that possessed by a poorly-endowed boy scout troop, the enemy
was fighting quite well, all generals and politicians (ours,
not theirs) were certifiable cretins, and the local population
(except in Borneo where we were welcomed by delightful people),
thought we were a damn pest or worse. We would have roared with
laughter if any of us Joe Blows had written to a newspaper at
home saying "we're proud of the work we're doing here".
What a joke that would have been. Perhaps things have changed.
But the problem with the enthusiastic
Joe Blow letter from the 503rd was not so much its content as
its origin, as was revealed when the Gannet News Service investigated
the appearance of identical Joe Blow letters in eleven (so far)
local newspapers around the US.
Some editors sniffed a rat and refused
to publish what they regarded as a form letter, which undoubtedly
it was, but others were happy to do so or took it at face value.
According to Gannett (which deserves an award for exposing this
tawdry little scheme), "[one] soldier didn't know about
the letter until his father congratulated him for getting it
published in the local newspaper in Beckley, West Virginia. 'When
I told him he wrote such a good letter, he said 'What letter?'
Timothy Deaconson said Friday, recalling the phone conversation
he had with his son, Nick . . . at a hospital where he was recovering
from a grenade explosion that left shrapnel in both legs."
Now if ever there was shabby practice, this is an example. The
letter from Pfc Nick Deaconson didn't mention any injuries to
anyone. The reason, of course, is that Nick hadn't written the
letter. Sergeant Christopher Shelton whose identical letter was
published in the Snohomish Herald was surprised too, but when
he was interviewed he said although he didn't write the letter
he agreed with it because "We've done a really good job."
Fair enough; but would Sergeant Shelton have sent the letter
to Snohomish voters without being prodded to do so? It was, after
all, written by his commanding officer, Lt-Colonel Dominic Caraccilo,
who boasted about it to ABC news after the whole affair blew
up.
The facts are there and can't be denied
: a sheet of propaganda was given to soldiers of the 503rd and
they signed it and 500 were sent to hometown papers which reach
thousands of voters. (Home town folks tend to revere the president
-- any president -- and rarely question his doings because to
their minds that would be unpatriotic. We are talking Flag, here,
as well as votes. Norman Rockwell country loves First Family.)
The soldiers who signed the propaganda sheet may well have agreed
with the information they were provided, but they could neither
add to it nor subtract from it. They could not give their own
views about the casualties their unit had taken. We are, in fact,
getting dangerously close to propaganda by omission of dissent
; the lowest form of obscurantism.
After the letters were placed before
the soldiers and they added their signatures they were taken
away and posted (at public expense?) to be read by recipients
who were not their friends, neighbours or relatives, save by
coincidence. The recipients were voters who may, in spite of
instinctive respect for the White House, have formed their own
opinions about the war on Iraq and its outcome. But through the
medium of their trusty local newspaper they could be influenced
by official propaganda disguised as personal -- Joe Blow -- opinion
to alter their views. If you live in Kokomo, which do you trust
: The New York Times? (the whut?) or the Kokomo Courier Despatch
that carries letters from hometown boys serving their courageous
commander-in-chief in Iraq?
Which brings us to the latest Bush initiative
of appointing a task force to supervise "Communications"
concerning Iraq in his new anti-Pentagon 'Iraq Stabilization
Group'. This bunch of propaganda apparatchiks will control the
media approach of the White House in election mode. As reported
by Associated Press, Bush declared "There's a sense that
people in America aren't getting the truth . . . I'm mindful
of the filter through which some news travels, and sometimes
you just have to go over the heads of the filter and speak directly
to the people." Just like Lt-Colonel Caraccilo, who is obviously
destined for higher things, Bush is determined to show that his
war worked. In their different ways, both are deceitful, but
at least Caraccilo probably believed in what he was doing. But
Joe Blow of Kokomo doesn't benefit one bit from this affair --
and he won't, either, from the Bush assault on truth that is
only just about to begin.
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 Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
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