Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
May 1 / 3, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Watching Niagra: Stupid Leaders, Useless
Spies, Angry World
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome Death
of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the Banality
of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the Ultimate
Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
April
28, 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
Meet Congressman Know-Nothing:
Tom Tancredo
Wendy
Brinker
The Politics of the Numb
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
John
Chuckman
Seeking the Evil One
Mike
Whitney
Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times
Tom
Mountain
Rwanda and the F***** Word
Graeme
Greenback
The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production
Tracy
McLellan
The War Comes Home
M.
Junaid Alam
We are the Barbarians
William
Loren Katz
Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson
April 27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
| Weekend
Edition
May 1 / 3, 2004
Bush's Torturous Logic
Shocked,
Shocked, Shocked
By DAVE LINDORFF
George
Bush is shocked, shocked that there is torture being used by U.S. forces
on Iraqi prisoners of war, in direct violation not only of basic human
rights but of the Geneva Convention on Treatment of Prisoners of War
of which the United States is not only a signatory, but a founding writer.
So
shocked that he had his Pentagon try to get CBS not to show the pictures
of the shocking behavior.
The
truth is that if the Commander-in-Chief--remember
him? He's the guy in charge of the military that was running the Abu
Ghraib detention facility in Baghdad--really did
feel the "deep disgust" he claims he feels, and that such
treatment is "not the way we do things in America," heads
would be rolling at very high levels of the military.
Instead
what we see is six very low level soldiers facing possible court martials
and seven higher-ups at the prison, as well as Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski,
commander of the 800th Military Police Brigade which was in charge of
running Abu Ghraib, being removed from their duties there.
You
can always tell whether prosecutors are serious about a case by whether
they go after the little guys with the big guns, or whether they start
cutting plea bargains with the small fry, in order to get them to rat
on the higher-ups. If they go after the little guys, like they did in
the My Lai Massacre case in Vietnam, you can bet that will be the end
of it. No senior commanders will be called to account.
And
so it appears to be going this time. So far the "punishments,"
such as they are, are being strictly limited to the prison command structure,
not to the officers above. This is exactly what was done with the My
Lai case. No one responsible for the policies that led to that sickening
massacre, or the countless others like it that went unpunished, was
ever sanctioned.
Obviously
everyone from General John Abezaid, and probably from Defense Secretary
Donald Rumsfeld, who actually visited the prison), on down knew what
was going on, not only in Abu Ghraib, but in the other less publicly
known prison camps where captured Iraqi insurgents are taken to be softened
up for information. There have been enough reports leaking out about
torture not only in Iraq but also in Afghanistan and in Guantanamo,
for us to know that torture is not an aberration but rather is the policy.
It
is in fact very much "the way we do things," maybe not so
much in America (though it certainly goes on routinely in police stations
across the nation also), but wherever American soldiers fight the empire's
battles.
If
anything, what sets America apart from some of its client states and
from Saddam Hussein's regime is not torture itself, which the CIA has
long endorsed and practiced and taught to client states' police, and
which U.S. soldiers do at least as capably as the next centurion. It's
that some American soldiers actually believe strongly enough in the
notional values of the American Constitution they ostensibly are fighting
to protect to actually report such evil, even at the risk of personal
loss or punishment. What sets America apart is that its mainstream media,
as compromised and timid as they have become, will still occasionally,
as CBS's "60 Minutes" has done here, blow the whistle on such
criminality and barbarism.
I
suppose President Bush might be forgiven for saying that torture is
not something American soldiers engage in. He wasn't in Vietnam, or
anywhere more dangerous than a rowdy bar, and probably the guys in his
National Guard unit, at least on those days when he chose to show up
for duty, weren't into torturing the locals in Texas or Alabama. Democratic
presidential candidate John Kerry, of course, would know better. Though
he seems to deny having said it these days, he once admitted to committing
atrocities in Vietnam, which he said was something everyone was doing
over there.
Still,
if he were genuinely distressed at the images broadcast by CBS over
his Pentagon's objections, he would be demanding the stripes and stars
of every ranking officer in the chain of command who either knew what
was going on, or should have known and allowed it to happen on their
watch.
Don't
hold your breath.
Dave
Lindorff is completing a book of Counterpunch columns titled
"This Can't be Happening!" to be published this fall by Common
Courage Press.
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