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Today's
Stories
April 8, 2004
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The Anti-Empire
Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B. Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez del Solar
A Year
Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The Illegal
Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated US and
International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
March 30, 2004
William S. Lind
An Occurrence
in Pakistan: the Battle That Wasn't
Ron Jacobs
Assassinations, Hate Mail &
Justice
Mickey Z.
Tommy Boy Friedman Does "Imagine"
Neve Gordon
Strategic Motives of the Yassin Assassination
Mark Scaramella
The Founding Scam: Insider Trading is the American Way
John Chuckman
The Countessa of Empire: Condi
Rice's Idea of Democracy
Greg Moses
Live from Pasadena: Silhouettes of New Order
Rai O'Brien
What Kind of Democracy to Expect if the Opposition Takes Power
in Venezuela
Bill Christison
The
9/11 Commission: Dangerous Harbinger for the Future
Website of the Day
Ghost Town: Riding Through Chernobyl
March 29, 2004
John Maxwell
Crisis
in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold
J. Michael Springmann
Email
Spying & Attorney Client Privilege
Robert Fisk / Severin
Carrell
Coalition
of the Mercenaries
The Black Commentator
Haiti's Troika of Terror
Doug Giebel
Candide in the Wilderness:
How Bush Policy Was Made
David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Bargain
Mike Whitney
Rejecting the Language of Terrorism
Richard Oxman
The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American
Family
Kim Scipes
The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again
Michael Donnelly
End Game for Northwest Forests
Norman Solomon
The Media Politics of 9/11
Kathy Kelly
Last Lines Before Vanishing
Website of the Day
Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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.
|
April
8, 2004
Responding to the
Iraq Intifada
Will
Bush Flatten Fallujah?
By KURT NIMMO
Imagining the probable future of places such as
Fallujah, Sadr City, Nasiriyah, Karbala, Kut, and Ramadi, I recall
the photographs of Grozny (Djohar), Chechnya, taken by the Gamma
Press Agency photographer Eric Bouvet.
"In February [2000] when I entered
Grozny, it was as if I was hit by an apocalyptic vision,"
Bouvet writes. "In 20 years of covering wars I never had
the occasion to feel like a astronaut landing on another planet.
I had visited Grozny four times in the last war, but this time
I couldn't even be sure where I was. Where Minutka Square --
with it imposing buildings that lead to Lenin Avenue -- once
was nothing remained, just a huge, imposing void. The Russians
had dynamited the city, leaving it totally in ruins."
Sooner or later, in desperation, Bush
will surely order the destruction of wide swaths -- inhabited
by "bad guys" -- of Iraqi cities in response to the
undefeatable Shia and Sunni uprisings against the occupation.
It is inevitable. Like Sharon and the Likudites, Bush's ideological
mentors, the US military will eventually repeat the atrocities
and violations of human rights and international law the Israelis
eagerly committed in the Jenin refugee camp in September of 2000.
Civilians always pay the price for any "up tick" in
support for the resistance -- be they Palestinians, Chechnians,
or Iraqis.
Both Republicans and so-called liberal
Democrats will fervently support the flattening of Iraqi cities
and the mass murder of civilians, especially now that the Shia
have joined the Sunnis in resisting Bush's neoliberal plans for
Iraq. Or should I say the Likudite plan for the Arab Middle East?
In fact, Democrats have a long track
record of supporting state terrorism directed against civilians,
from the torching of Vietnamese villages to the cluster bombing
of neighborhoods in Yugoslavia. Bush Senior, Clinton, and Bush
Junior all supported and kept in place brutal sanctions that
resulted in the death of 500,000 Iraqi children from 1991 until
Bush invaded Iraq last year. All three administrations engaged
in the recurring slaughter of Iraqi civilians over the same period
of time.
The Pentagon has repeatedly attacked
civilians since Bush invaded the country over a year ago, killing
more than 10,000 of them. For instance, most recently, on April
7, in response to the murder of four US "contractors"
(rumored to be CIA operatives) and increased resistance, the
US bombed a Fallujah mosque "as worshippers were gathering
for afternoon prayers," the AP reported. "The bodies
of dead and wounded were rushed away in cars to private homes
in the area where temporary hospitals have been set up."
On April 6, 60 Iraqis were killed and more than 120 wounded.
The dead and wounded are invariably described as "militants"
or "insurgents" by the corporate media, but as the
history of modern warfare in urban environments demonstrates,
a high percentage of the casualties are invariably civilians.
In the weeks ahead, as the Shi'ites intensify
their resistance to the occupation, the number of dead will go
up dramatically -- not that the US cares.
For as the Pentagon told Helen Thomas
last September, dead Iraqis "don't count. They are not important."
Iraqi Health Ministry, Dr. Nagham Mohsen, was ordered by her
superior, Dr. Nazar Shabandar, to stop collecting data on the
number of Iraqi dead last December, probably at the behest of
Paul Bremer and the CPA.
In fact, dead Americans are not important
either, for as retired General Tommy Franks told an audience
at the annual Chamber of Commerce banquet in Salina, Kansas,
in February, "If [conquering Iraq] costs 500 [American lives],
that's OK, or 5000,
OK, or 50,000, that's OK with me." Obviously, it is OK with
the American public as well, since there was virtually no response
to Franks' outrageous remarks.
As the events in Samarra last year reveal,
US troops respond to attacks on convoys by slaughtering civilians
in trigger-happy fashion. "There was an attack and an exchange
of fire between the Americans and the resistance lasting half
an hour," Samarra police chief, Colonel Ismail Mahmoud Mohammed,
told the media. "The resistance withdrew, then [US] bombardments
started, using all manner of weapons in all directions and without
any discrimination." This resulted in numerous civilian
dead and wounded. "We received the bodies of eight civilians,
including a woman and a child," said hospital director Abd
Tawfiq. "More than 60 people wounded by gunfire and shrapnel
from US rounds are being treated at the hospital." Many
of the wounded came from the al-Shafi mosque, targeted by US
rockets and gunfire.
"So far, in the 'war on terror'
initiated since 9/11, the USA and its allies have been responsible
for over 13,000 civilian deaths, not only the 10,000 in Iraq,
but also 3,000-plus civilian deaths in Afghanistan, another death
toll that continues to rise long after the world's attention
has moved on," reports the Iraq Body Count website. "Elsewhere
in the world over the same period, paramilitary forces hostile
to the USA have killed 408 civilians in 18 attacks worldwide.
Adding the official 9/11 death toll (2,976 on 29 October 2003)
brings the total to just under 3,500."
The Pentagon and Rumsfeld brag about
avoiding "collateral damage," but the history of warfare
over the last 60 or so years tells a different story. In fact,
the deliberate targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure
is a military strategy used over and over with gruesome results.
From the Allied fire and nuclear bombings of German and Japanese
cities during WWII to Bush Senior's calculated plan to destroy
Iraqi sanitation and water purification plants during the Gulf
War, the engineered mass murder of innocent civilians is a frequently
used "tactic" of war. It will be no different in Iraq
now that Shi'ite and Sunni resistance fighters have apparently
come together to fight the US occupation.
Last year a newspaper in Ohio revealed
the numerous war crimes committed against Vietnamese civilians
by the US Army's Tiger Force in 1967. "The paper said the
Army's investigation of Tiger Force found 27 soldiers who said
the severing of ears from dead Vietnamese was an accepted practice,"
Reuters reported in October. "One soldier told the newspaper
that troops would wear necklaces of ears to scare Vietnamese
civilians."
As would-be president John Kerry admitted
before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971, US soldiers
in Vietnam "raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires
from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the
power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians,
razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle
and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged
the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage
of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is
done by the applied bombing power of this country." Kerry
admitted taking part in these war crimes. "Yes, I committed
the same kinds of atrocities as thousands of other soldiers have
committed. I took part in search and destroy missions, in the
burning of villages."
Since the Winter Soldier investigation
and his testimony before the Senate, however, Kerry has undergone
a remarkable transformation from an antiwar activist to a Republican
Lite senator who wants to send an additional 40,000 troops to
Iraq to bomb mosques and shoot down protesting Iraqis. "I
have to tell you, sometimes in foreign policy, certain things
are complicated," Kerry told MSNBC's Chris Matthews last
October.
Many Democrats are literally indistinguishable
from their warmongering Republican colleagues. For instance,
Zell Miller, Georgia Democrat, advised Bush to "Bomb the
hell out of them" after 9/11. As it turned out, most of
"them" were poor Afghan citizens, such as wedding celebrants
massacred in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan in August,
2002.
The urge to reduce sections of Iraq into
a "parking lot" will only increase as the Iraqi resistance
begins to accomplish its objectives of fighting the US to a standstill,
inflicting a growing number of casualties, and eventually driving
them from the country.
For instance, as I write this, it appears
Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army has "captured a number of soldiers
from the <U.S.-led> coalition during clashes currently
taking place across a large swathe of Iraq," Reuters reports,
citing Lebanon's al-Manar television station run by Hezbollah.
Naturally, these captured soldiers will likely be exploited for
propaganda purposes by the Shi'ites the same way the US exploited
the captured and humiliated Saddam Hussein. As Donald Rumsfeld
made obvious during the invasion, the capture and parading of
US soldiers sincerely angers the Bush administration, as did
the murder and gruesome public display of four so-called "contractors"
in Fallujah last week.
Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt, the coalition's
senior military spokesman, has promised "powerful offensive
operations to destroy the al-Mahdi army throughout Iraq,"
a highly unlikely prospect considering al-Mahdi claims to have
tens of thousands of supporters. Kimmitt is setting the US military
up for failure -- there is simply no way the US, the Iraqi Governing
Council, the CPA , or even Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani can
stop the resistance and violence from spreading like wildfire
across Iraq -- that is, short of flattening cities and killing
thousands of al-Sadr's followers along with an indeterminate
-- and uncounted -- number of civilians.
Eventually, faced with defeat, the Bush
administration -- or a Kerry administration -- will vengefully
flatten large sections of Iraqi cities. As the Israeli experience
in the West Bank town of Jenin demonstrates, incredible violence
and destruction is required to defeat an entrenched enemy in
an urban environment. "Only when armored Israeli bulldozers
demolished buildings sheltering the last of the Palestinian gunmen
was the resistance finally quelled and the full extent of the
damage revealed: According to the United Nations, 23 Israeli
soldiers and 52 Palestinians were killed. Hundreds of houses
were seriously damaged or destroyed," Yagil Henkin writes
in Azure. "Many people, in Israel and abroad, judged the
operation by a strict moral standard concerning treatment of
civilians."
Fallujah, Sadr City, Nasiriyah, Karbala,
Kut, and Ramadi may eventually resemble Grozny - vast plains
of strewn rubble where buildings once stood -- but this will
not put an end to the resistance. In addition to blasted homes
and shops, the US will leave behind 75 tons of depleted uranium
in the same way it left behind 72 million liters of the deadly
defoliant Agent Orange in South Vietnam. It will not apologize
or pay reparations.
Even with their cities flattened, Chechen
resistance fighters continue the struggle. Earlier this week,
Chechnians fired on Russian positions 19 times, killing four
soldiers and wounding seven. As well, Chechnians have taken the
battle to the enemy, recently blowing up oil pipelines in Russia.
Is it possible Bush will repeat Russia's
Chechen mistakes in Iraq?
Kurt Nimmo
is a photographer and multimedia developer in Las Cruces, New
Mexico. Visit his excellent no holds barred blog at www.kurtnimmo.com/blogger.html
. Nimmo is a contributor to Cockburn and St. Clair's,
The
Politics of Anti-Semitism. A collection of his essays
for CounterPunch, Another
Day in the Empire, is now available from Dandelion Books.
He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
Weekend
Edition Features for April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B. Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
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