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Today's
Stories
October
29, 2003
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
October
23, 2003
Diane
Christian
Ruthlessness
Kurt Nimmo
Criticizing Zionism
David Lindorff
A General Theory of Theology
Alan Maass
The Future of the Anti-War Movement
William
Blum
Imperial
Indifference
Stew Albert
A Memo
October
22, 2003
Wayne
Madsen
Religious
Insanity Runs Rampant
Ray McGovern
Holding
Leaders Accountable for Lies
Christopher
Brauchli
There's
No Civilizing the Death Penalty
Elaine
Cassel
Legislators
and Women's Bodies
Bill Glahn
RIAA
Watch: the New Morality of Capitalism
Anthony Arnove
An Interview with Tariq Ali
October 21, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Beilin Agreement
Robert Jensen
The Fundamentalist General
David
Lindorff
War Dispatch from the NYT: God is on Our Side!
William S. Lind
Bremer is Deaf to History
Bridget
Gibson
Fatal Vision
Alan Haber
A Human Chain for Peace in Ann Arbor
Peter
Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Hanging of Thomas Russell
October
20, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Chile's
Failed Economy: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Chris
Floyd
Circus Maximus: Arnie, Enron and Bush Maul California
Mark Hand
Democrats Seek to Disappear Chomsky
& Nader
John &
Elaine Mellencamp
Peaceful
World
Elaine
Cassel
God's
General Unmuzzled
October
18 / 19, 2003
Robert
Pollin
Clintonomics:
the Hollow Boom
Gary Leupp
Israel, Syria and Stage Four in the Terror War
Saul Landau
Day of the Gropenfuhrer
Bruce Anderson
The California Recall
John Gershman
Bush in Asia: What a Difference a Decade Makes
Nelson P. Valdes
Bush, Electoral Politics and Cuba's "Illicit Sex Trade"
Kurt Nimmo
Shock Therapy and the Israeli Scenario
Tom Gorman
Al Franken and Al-Shifa
Brian
Cloughley
Public Propaganda and the Iraq War
Joanne Mariner
A New Way to Kill Tigers
Denise
Low
The Cancer of Sprawl
Mickey Z.
The Reverend of Doom
John Chuckman
US Missiles for Israeli Nukes?
George Naggiar
A Veto of Public Diplomacy
Alison
Weir
Death Threats in Berkeley
Benjamin Dangl
Bolivian Govt. Falling Apart
Ron Jacobs
The Politics of Bob Dylan
Fidel Castro
A Review of Garcia Marquez's Memoir
Adam Engel
I Hope My Corpse Gives You the Plague
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert, Guthrie and Greeder
October
17, 2003
Stan Goff
Piss
On My Leg: Perception Control and the Stage Management of War
Newton
Garver
Bolivia
in Turmoil
Standard
Schaefer
Grocery Unions Under Attack
Ben Terrall
The Ordeal of the Lockheed 52
Ron Jacobs
First Syria, Then Iran
David
Lindorff
Michael
Moore Proclaims Mumia Guilty
October
16, 2003
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush
Gunning for Regime Change in Cuba
Gary Leupp
"Getting Better" in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
The US Press and Israel: Brand Loyalty and the Absence of Remorse
Rush Limbaugh
The 10 Most Overrated Athletes of All Time
Lenni
Brenner
I
Didn't Meet Huey Newton. He Met Me
Website of the Day
Time Tested Books
October
15, 2003
Sunil
Sharma / Josh Frank
The
General and the Governor: Two Measures of American Desperation
Forrest
Hylton
Dispatch
from the Bolivian War: "Like Animals They Kill Us"
Brian
Cloughley
Those
Phony Letters: How Bush Uses GIs to Spread Propaganda About Iraq
Ahmad
Faruqui
Lessons
of the October War
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
Website
of the Day
Rank and File: the New Unity Partnership Document
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
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
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
29, 2003
Thieves Like Us
Cheney's
Backdoor to Halliburton
By CHRIS FLOYD
When they asked the outlaw Willie Sutton why he
robbed banks, he put it to them straight: "That's where
the money is."
It is of course physically--not to mention
politically--impossible for the weasel-wording cadres of the
Bush Regime to give a straight answer to anything, but if they
could be forced to cough up the truth behind the conquest
of Iraq, their reply would be identical to Sutton's. For although
the cadres--and the media commentariat--have thrown up a dust
storm of grandiose moral, strategic and ideological "reasons"
for the war, each passing week brings new proof that the whole
murderous farrago boils down to one thing: loot. "Follow
the money"--Deep Throat's abiding Suttonian wisdom--is definitely
the key to penetrating the grubby mysteries of the Bushist cargo
cult.
Let's begin by following the money from
the mounting pile of dead bodies in Iraq to the silk lining of
Dick Cheney's trouser pockets. This month the mainstream American
press woke up to the long-established fact that Cheney is still
receiving oodles of boodle in "deferred compensation"
from his old firm, Halliburton, which just happens to be the
biggest gorger at the Iraqi trough. These "revelations"
forced the grim-visaged veep into a furious spin cycle: the terms
of the deal were set before he took office, he'll give all the
money to charity, his probity is irreproachable, blah blah blah--the
usual soft-soap, swallowed whole, as usual, by the media.
So bold was his defense that last week
Bushist minions called on critics to issue a formal apology to
the poor maligned unelected multimillionaire war profiteer (and
former business partner of Saddam Hussein). But even granting
the ludicrous assumption that Cheney was actually telling the
truth about this particular arrangement--which only involves
chump change of a few hundred thousand dollars, after all--the
fact is that Halliburton is using a back door to fill their former
chief's coffers with ***millions*** in blood money pumped
directly from the corpses of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians.
This profitable arrangement was found
hiding in plain sight last week by investigator Maggie Burns
of the Progressive Populist. While the media mandarins were gulping
soap, Burns committed the increasingly rare act of journalism
by checking out Cheney's financial disclosure forms. These show
that Cheney has a minimum of $18 million invested in The Vanguard
Group, a leading mutual fund. (Given the deliberately vague,
vast ranges of the "disclosure" forms, this nest-egg
could be as high as $87 million. We mere mortals are not meant
to know).
Vanguard, as it happens, is the 10th
largest shareholder in--oh, you guessed already!--Halliburton.
The fund owns 7.6 million shares in the firm, worth about $176
million. Thus any government contract that swells Halliburton's
bottom line does indeed pour war profits straight into Cheney's
bulging bank accounts. No amount of soap can wash away that fact.
Meanwhile, five of the other top 10 shareholders in Halliburton
have big bucks parked with our old friends The Carlyle Group,
where George Bush Senior hangs out his shingle as a pricey corporate
shill (and former bin Laden business partner). So Bush family
coffers are definitely not forgotten when Halliburton goes to
war.
But do let's be fair. After taking a
bit of mild heat for larding Halliburton, Bechtel and other Bush-blessed
firms with billion-dollar no-bid contracts, the Regime announced
it was "opening up" competition for war pork. The new
rules give potential contractors all of three days--or even sometimes
as much as seven whole days!--to put together bids for major
projects totaling hundreds of millions of dollars, the NY Times
reports.
Oddly enough, most companies not already
on the ground in Iraq are finding it difficult to meet these
luxurious deadlines. "Oh, your company can't come up with
specs for rebuilding the entire national highway infrastructure
of Iraq in just three days? Too bad; guess we'll have to give
it to Bechtel then. Here ya go, Bechs--and by the way, thanks
for that campaign check, pal! See ya at the ranch this weekend!"
Now this system of conquistador cronyism
is going global. In a desperate bid to get some outside help
in cleaning up the ungodly, bloodsoaked mess they've made, the
Bushists struck a UN deal last week that will allow foreign countries
who contribute to the sacking--sorry, the reconstruction--of
Iraq to funnel the cash to their own politically favored firms,
the Guardian reports. Naturally, the Bushist occupation junta
will "coordinate" the gobbling at this new trough,
making sure the White House Vanguardians get their cut. At last,
a form of internationalism that Bush can embrace!
But the sweetheart deals get sweeter
yet for Homeland gobblers like Halliburton. First, most of the
insider pork is being doled out in "cost-plus" contracts,
with a company's profits tied to a project's "expenses."
The more costs they ring up, the greater the profit: it's a green
light for overruns, and a license to loot the public treasury.
But that's not all: the profits from these scams are being kept
secret--not only from those habitual saps, the American people,
but also from the Constitutionally mandated oversight of Congress,
the Seattle Times reports.
Secret deals with pals and patrons, secret
profits that can't be traced, mutual funds to launder the money--and
plenty of cannon fodder to do the wetwork and take the blowback:
Bush has turned America into a den of thieves.
Chris Floyd
is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor
to CounterPunch. His CounterPunch piece on Rumsfeld's
plan to provoke terrorist attacks came in at Number 4
on Project Censored's final tally of the Most Censored stories
of 2002. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Oct. 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
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