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Today's
Stories
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel
and the Bush Team
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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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Weekend
Edition
February 28 / 29, 2004
Britons and Americans
Condemned
to a Hobson's Choice
By LINDA S. HEARD
In Britain we've a messianic right-wing Neo-con
appendage, dolled up in left-of-center garb in Number 10, set
to be challenged by the even more right-wing leader of the Conservative
Party, who disingenuously puts himself forward as a child of
immigrants; a man who naturally empathizes with the hardships
of the poor and downtrodden. Both Tony Blair and Michael Howard
enjoyed comparatively privileged upbringings were gung ho concerning
the invasion of Iraq; both are hesitant as to a fully-fledged
commitment to Europe while Howard is even cozier with the Republicans
than Blair, if that's at all possible. So much for the choices,
which should surely be enshrined in any true democracy!
When one takes into account that Howard
is Jewish in the context of results of a recent poll which found
that 45 per cent of the British public would not vote for a Jewish
Prime Minister, then the choice for Britons is further diminished.
Across the Atlantic, with John Kerry
looking as though he'll be the Democratic contender for the White
House, the American people are similarly placed. Both the incumbent
president and Kerry were born with a silver spoon, were members
of the elitist Skull and Bones society while at Yale, and backed
the war with Iraq. Both Bush and Kerry are long-time Washington
insiders and have benefited heavily from corporate funding as
well as being financed by special interest groups.
However, in a hypocritical attempt to
pull the wool over our eyes Howard slams Blair for misreading
or embellishing 'intelligence' concerning Iraq's non-existent
WMD, while Kerry insists he did not give the President a blank
check to invade Iraq as Bush promised Congress the country would
only go to war as a last resort.
Short of an anarchical response, or a
ban on the ballot box, there is little the voter can do to change
the status quo. Any choice we think we have is an illusion, carefully
crafted by devotees of Goebbels-like propaganda.
Britons should take note of Howard's
response to Clare Short's bugging accusations. He didn't say
he was appalled that the British government would stoop to listening-in
on the conversations of Kofi Annan, not a suspected terrorist
or criminal, but a man who is supposed to represent the interests
of all UN member countries. Instead, he told Blair to get a grip
on his party. In other words, ensure that no other former minister
is tempted to wave the dirty laundry for all to see.
Likewise, when Kerry was recently asked
whether he would set a date for the pull out of U.S. troops from
Iraq--since he has been banging on about its illegality in the
absence of WMD--he fudged his answer. Indeed he has previously
said he would like another 40,000 available for rotation purposes
but hasn't elucidated where these should come from. There is
speculation he might re-introduce the draft.
Kerry was further ambiguous when it came
to the issue of gay marriages and on the subject of the death
penalty.
When it comes to the Israel-Palestine
conflict, there is hardly a chink of light between all four.
Blair urges a two-state solution and does nothing about it; Bush
mentions it in passing between vilifying Arafat and calling the
Palestinian militants "terrorists"; while Kerry has
written an emotive article about a visit he made to Masada, ending
it with Am Yisrael Chai--the People of Israel live.
As for Michael Howard he dare not put
his head above the parapet over Israel. As Melanie Philips wrote
in Ha'aretz: "So what would happen if Howard were to speak
up loudly and firmly in support of Israel's measures for self
defense and against the new anti-Semitism? He would be taking
a big risk of being fingered for double loyalty. For what troubles
the British even more than the individual Jew is the collective
Jew. Jews who publicly identify with each other are considered
suspect. The British public will overlook a politician's Jewish
heritage as long as it is kept to the level of something consenting
adults do in private, and as long he doesn't identify with Jewish
people-hood".
This probably accounts for Howard's silence
on the issue of Palestine and its absence from his own page on
the Conservative Party website.
His predecessor Iain Duncan-Smith, however,
made no bones about his party's policies. In a speech he made
before The Conservative Friends of Israel in September 2002 he
said: "Pessimism is a luxury that no Jew can allow himself.
In a similar vein Winston Churchill once said, 'it is better
to be frightened now than killed thereafter'. Both are telling
us the same thing. Appeasement is not an option. Every democracy
has the right to defend itself against such attack. Israel is
no exception. Israel is part of the front line for democracy
against terrorism. It must not stand alone, and Mr. Chairman,
we will not let it stand alone."
There is nothing wrong with support of
Israel but it is the extreme bias of successive British and American
governments, which has imperiled world peace and added spice
to burgeoning anti-Western feeling throughout the Muslim world.
It is the glaring double standards on the part of the U.S. and
Britain, which is fuelling this hatred as well as the penchant
of Western media to report on Israeli victims of the conflict
while all but ignoring the almost 3,000 Palestinian dead and
tens of thousands maimed and injured.
Americans especially are deeply concerned
about further terrorist attacks and about the endless wars bound
up with an open 'war on terror' but until Arabs and Muslims stop
seeing footage of babies with bullet holes in their chests, old
people wandering helplessly through the rubble of their demolished
homes and the lifeless corpses of tiny children whose only 'crime'
was to throw pebbles at tanks, there will no end to what American
and British leaders call 'terror'.
Britons, who have not been terrorist
targets have been duped by their government to believe they,
too, are under threat. Britain has its own mini-Guantanano, known
as Belmarsh prison, with 14 of its own foreign disappeared; new
laws similar to the U.S. Patriot Act have been introduced by
its authoritarian Home Secretary and its people are constantly
besieged by terror alerts preceding tanks around its airports,
repeated cancellations of British Airways flights and lurid Foreign
Office travel advisories. All designed so that the British will
stay on board the interminable 'war on terror'.
If the U.S. and its buddy Britain were
blessed with leaders who truly wanted to end the Mid-East bloodshed
in a fair and committed manner--perhaps carrying on from the
Taba talks where they were rudely cut short when Bush and Sharon
took over from Clinton and Barak--they would begin to earn respect
not only from the region but also from much of the Subcontinent
and South East Asia.
At present there is no leader or leadership
challenger putting forward this option. There is nobody promising
to put an end to the conflict by urging Israel to dismantle its
apartheid wall and stop its related land theft, nobody asking
the Jewish state to abide by a host of cast-aside U.N. resolutions
and while they all pat Libya on the back for coming clean on
its WMD, not one of them even mentions Israel's nuclear, chemical
and biological stock pile. It's as though they don't exist.
It's clear that whoever retains office
or gains office in America and Britain we are in for more of
the same: more overseas aggression, more distrust and worsening
economies. While these virtual two-party systems prevail and
while the nominally leftist parties veer ever towards the right,
ours is a world destined to benefit mega corporations, energy
companies, weapons manufacturers and those individuals whose
wealth is tied up with them. The rest of us are like drones scurrying
around to do the bidding of the King 'B's, but unlike drones
we have to believe that we can make a difference, our vote can
count for something. Exactly like drones, however, as individuals
we are dispensable just as were the 500 plus Americans and Britons
hurled into Iraq as cannon fodder on the alter of the hegemonic
ambition and big business interests of the few.
What can we do about it? The first step
is for each of us to search our own conscience and to realize
that the prevailing situation in the West Bank and Gaza represents
a cancer on our mutually dependent world. If this cancer isn't
put to rights, its malignancy can only spread and contaminate.
Let's forget the region's bloody history and the rights and wrongs
of either side and, instead, let's agree that no people should
have to live under the horrors of occupation. Armed with this
conclusion, en masse, we can encourage leaders who want to put
right the wrongs of our forefathers and peers to stand up and
be counted.
America as the sole superpower should
use its mighty influence for good instead of invariably putting
its selfish interests before everyone else on the planet. Most
Israelis want peace and a two-state solution, as do the Palestinians.
Israelis and Palestinians want flourishing economies as well
as safety and security. It is America's so called 'special relationship'
with Israel, supported by Britain, which is preventing this from
happening. Courageous American and British leaders with noble
aims could facilitate this outcome using the 'withdrawal of the
aid and arms' weapon and inserting a temporary peacekeeping force
between the Israelis and the Palestinians until they solve their
problems. This is a solution the Palestinians have long been
requesting to no avail.
Until such paragons emerge, if they ever
do, we are doomed to put up with this lot and the unfortunate
consequences of their covert plans, self-aggrandizement, hubris,
propaganda and downright lies. With elections coming up some
of us may believe we are at an important crossroads when, in
fact, we are all being dragged along a dank and dingy one way
street with no end in sight.
Linda S. Heard
is a specialist writer on Mid-East affairs and welcomes feedback
at: heardonthegrapevine@yahoo.co.uk
Weekend
Edition Features for February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
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