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Today's
Stories
December 12, 2003
David Vest
Bush
Drops the Mask: They Died for Halliburton
December 11, 2003
Siegfried Sassoon
A
Soldier's Declaration Against War
Douglas Valentine
Preemptive
Manhunting: the CIA's New Assassination Program
John Chuckman
The Parable of Samarra
Peter Phillips
US Hypocrisy on War Crimes: Corp Media Goes Along for the Ride
James M. Carter
The
Merchants of Blood: War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq
December 10, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
The
War According to Newt Gingrich
Pat Youngblood / Robert
Jensen
Workers
Rights are Human Rights
Jeff Guntzel
On Killing Children
CounterPunch Wire
Ashcroft Threatens to Subpoena Journalist's Notes in Stewart
Case
Dave Lindorff
Gore's
Judas Kiss
December 9, 2003
Michael Donnelly
A
Gentle Warrior Passes: Craig Beneville's Quiet Thunder
Chris White
A Glitch
in the Matrix: Where is East Timor Today?
Abu Spinoza
The Occupation Concertina: Pentagon Punishes Iraqis Israeli Style
Laura Carlsen
The FTAA: a Broken Consensus
Richard Trainor
Process and Profits: the California Bullet Train, Then and Now
Josh Frank
Politicians as Usual: Gore Dean and the Greens
Ron Jacobs
Remembering
John Lennon
December 8, 2003
Newton Garver
Bolivia
at a Crossroads
John Borowski
The
Fall of a Forest Defender: the Exemplary Life of Craig Beneville
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Revised Inspirations for War
Tess Harper
When Christians Kill
Thom Rutledge
My Next Step
Carol Wolman, MD
Nuclear
Terror and Psychic Numbing
Michael Neumann
Ignatieff:
Apostle of He-manitariansim
Website of the Day
Bust Bob Novak
December 6 / 7, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
December 5, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
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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December
12, 2003
Blowback on the Stand?
The
Trial of Saddam Hussein
By ABU SPINOZA
The capture of Saddam Hussein has already brought
about a great deal of gloating. But it is critically important
to recall that this wicked tyrant of Iraq was a valued friend
of the current occupiers of Iraq, particularly when he served
his purpose and carried out his worst atrocities: the slaughters
of Iraqi communists, Kurds, religious minorities, and numerous
Iraqi dissents, and the war of aggression against Iran. He was
backed not only by the Arab gulf states and Saudi Arabia, but
also by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and the
former USSR. The Baathist regime received trade credits, loans,
armaments and critical military and logistic support from its
allies, including the NATO countries. American
Type Culture Collection and and the Center
for Disease Control had supplied biological
spores to the Baathist
regime ith the full knowledge and connivance
of the US authorities. USA Today provides a
partial list of the types biological pathogens supplied to
Saddam Hussein's regime.
***
George W. Bush's (hereafter Bush#2) gloating
speech following the capture of Saddam Hussein gives a useful
point of reference to check Iraqi reality against the lies of
the occupiers.
Bush#2 said, "For the vast majority
of Iraqi citizens, who wish to live as free men and women, this
event brings further assurance that the torture chambers and
the secret police are gone forever."
Though Saddam Hussein's regime may be
gone forever, it is the Anglo-American occupiers who are putting
men and women, including Iraqi scientists, into prison camps.
According to report recently published in the Washington
Post, "the CIA has recruited and trained some former
Iraqi intelligence agents to help identify the insurgents"
even though earlier "Bremer dissolved Iraq's four intelligence
services, along with the ministries of information and defense."
In the same Post report a former intelligence officer stated:
"Intelligence services are the heart and soul of a new country."
So Instead of Hussein's police, Iraq now has a secret police
in service of Anglo-American occupiers. Bush#2 said, "A
hopeful day has arrived. All Iraqis can now come together and
reject violence and build a new Iraq."
Alas, though Iraqis are authentically
rejoicing the capture of Saddam Hussein, there cannot little
ground for much hope until the occupiers are kicked out. Until
Iraqis have their own elected government exercising sovereign
control over its rich hydrocarbon resources, a "painful
era" will not be over.
Bush#2 said, "The success of yesterday'
mission is a tribute to our men and women now serving in Iraq.
The operation was based on the superb work of intelligence analysts
who found the dictator's footprints in a vast country. The operation
was carried out with skill and precision by a brave fighting
force."
Nothing could be further from the truth.
That it took more than eight months for the Anglo-American occupiers
to capture a much hated dictator of Iraq is a testimony to the
general unreliability of "intelligence." And despite
extensive hunt by US intelligence and US military in team with
Pakistani and other intelligence agencies, bin Laden is now almost
a forgotten figure, except when audio or video tapes surface.
More importantly the rationalized [begin
italics] causa belli [end italics] namely, that Iraq possessed
weapons of mass destruction, that Iraq posed a threat to the
United States, or that Iraq had any link with the terrorists
attacks of 9-11 are all demonstrably false.
Even though in his speech Bush thanked
and congratulated "the members of our armed forces,"
he did
not recall either those US soldiers who died or the Iraqi
civilians (let alone Iraqi soldiers) who were killed by Anglo-American
bombing n this unnecessary war. It will take some effort to remove
the memory of the bombings of Iraqi neighborhoods which the US
had targeted to try in vain to knock off Saddam Hussien and his
family from the face of the earth based on reports from "intelligence"
sources. How many civilians had to die because the US had decided
that Hussein was no more an asset but a liability who refused
to follow orders.
Bush#2 further averred, "The war
on terror is a different kind of war, waged capture by capture,
cell by cell, and victory by victory. Our security is assured
by our perseverance and by our sure belief in the success of
liberty. And the United States of America will not relent until
this war is won." This means that occupation will continue,
with its methods of hammering
the civilian population and the rhetoric of "war
on terrorism".
* * *
The talking heads of the corporate media
will pontificate on the meaning of the capture of Saddam Hussein
for a short period until another major development occurs. But
the resistance against the occupation will continue.
It is for the democratically elected
representatives of the Iraqi people to put Hussein to trial for
his war crimes and crimes against humanity. It is not for the
United States or its puppet regime to indict Hussein in a show
trial. Hussein's crimes are many, but resisting the illegal US-led
invasion is not one of his crimes. Hussein is as much entitled
to a proper defense as any one of former or present world leaders:
Pinochet, Shuharto, Milosevic, Henry Kissigner, Bush#1, Bush#2,
Blair, or Putin.
The United States invaded Iraq in obvious
violation of international law, just like Iraq had invaded Iran
and later Kuwait in violation of international law. Indeed, whereas
Iraq had certain legitimate grievances (though not justification
for war) against Kuwait, which was overproducing oil in excess
of its allocated OPEC quota and possibly taking advantage of
slant diagonal drilling to steal Iraqi oil, the United States'
justification for invading Iraq is absolutely groundless. The
actual motives to invade and occupy Iraq has nothing to do with
Bush's stated reasons for Persian Gulf War II.
A non-farcical trial of Saddam Hussein,
in a free Iraq, that is, a country free from its Anglo-American
invaders, in an independent court of honest and impartial judges,
would be worthwhile, because it would ensure that the criminal
responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousand of Iraqis,
Kurds, and Iranian is finally brought to justice. A fair trial
would also expose the complicity of the regime's Arab and Western
backers, including Bush#1, Rumsfeld-Powell (first incarnations),
Thatcher, assorted Arab monarchs and dictators, and others, as
well as world leaders who master-minded the invasion and the
occupation of Iraq, namely, Bush#2, Blair, Rumsfeld-Powell (second
incarnations), the neo-cons, and so on. This, of course, is
altogether unthinkable to the regimes in Washington and London.
It is, thus, a sure bet that they will do everything to subvert
an independent trial of Hussein.
The antiwar movement's goals should remain
simple: Self-determination for Iraq, and USA-UK out of Iraq.
Abu Spinoza
is a columnist for Pressaction
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
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