Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
Recent
Stories
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
August 20, 2003
Robert Fisk
Now No
One Is Safe in Iraq
Caoimhe Butterly
Life and Death on the Frontlines of Baghdad
Kurt Nimmo
UN Bombing: Act of Terrorism or Guerrilla War?
Michael Egan
Revisiting the Paranoid Style in the Dark
Ramzi Kysia
Peace
is not an Abstract Idea
Steven Higgs
NPR and the NAFTA Highway
John L. Hess
A Downside Day
Edward Said
The Imperial Bluster of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Gridlock at Path 15: the California Blackouts were the "Wake
Up Call"
Website of the Day
Ashcroft's Patriotic Hype
August 19, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Blackouts Happen
Gary Leupp
"Our Patch": Australia v. the Evil Doers of the South
Pacific
Sean Donahue
Uribe's Cruel Model: Colombia Moves Toward Totalitarianism
Matt Martin
Bush's Credibility Problem on Missile Defense
Juliana Fredman
Recipe for the Destruction of a Hudna
John Ross
Fox Government's Attack on Mexican Basques
Sasan Fayazmanesh
What Kermit Roosevelt Didn't Say
Website of the Day
Tom Delay's Dual Loyalities
August 18, 2003
Uri Avnery
Hero in War and Peace
Stan Goff
The Volunteer Military and the Wicked Adventure
Cathy Breen
Baghdad on the Hudson
Michael Kimaid
Fight the Power (Companies)!
Jason Leopold
The California Rip-Off Revisited: Arnold, Milken and Ken Lay
Matt Siegfried
The Bush Administration in Context
Elaine Cassel
At Last, A Judge Who Acts Like a Judge
Alexander Cockburn
Judy Miller's War
Harvey Wasserman
The Legacy of Blackout Pete Wilson
Website of the Day
Fire Griles!
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 16 / 17, 2003
Flavia Alaya
Bastille
New Jersey
Jeffrey St. Clair
War Pimps
Saul Landau
The Legacy of Moncada: the Cuban Revolution at 50
Brian Cloughley
What Has Happened to the US Army in Iraq?
William S. Lind
Coffins for the Crews: How Not to Use Light Armored Vehicles
Col. Dan Smith
Time for Straight Talk
Wenonah Hauter
Which
Electric System Do We Want?
David Lindorff
Where's Arnold When We Need Him?
Harvey Wasserman
This Grid Should Not Exist
Don Moniak
"Unusual Events" at Nuclear Power Plants: a Timeline
for August 14, 2003
David Vest
Rolling Blackout Revue
Merlin Chowkwanyun
An Interview with Sherman Austin
Adam Engel
The Loneliest Number
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Hamod & Albert
Book of the Weekend
Powerplay by Sharon Beder
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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August
29, 2003
Time to Change Course
Bush
Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
By ALICE SLATER
This August, during the very same week that the
world commemorated the 58th anniversary of the only use of nuclear
weapons-an act which obliterated the cities of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki-- more than 150 military contractors, scientists from
the weapons labs, and other government officials gathered at
the headquarters of the US Strategic Command in Omaha, Nebraska
to plot and plan for the possibility of "full-scale nuclear
war" calling for the production of a new generation of nuclear
weapons-more "usable" so-called "mini-nukes and
earth penetrating "bunker busters" armed with atomic
warheads. Plans are afoot to start a new bomb factory to replace
the one closed at Rocky Flats, now one of the most polluted spots
on earth thanks to earlier production of plutonium triggers for
the US hydrogen bomb arsenal, halted after the end of the Cold
War. And there is a move to shorten the time to restart nuclear
testing at the Nevada test site as well as to lift the restrictions
that were placed on the production of "mini-nukes"
by Congress.
How did we get to this awful state, with
North Korea and Iran threatening nuclear break-out and even Japan
now talking about developing nuclear weapons of its own? What
action can ordinary citizens take to end the nuclear madness
and provide for real national security?
President Eisenhower, in his farewell
address to the nation, is often remembered for warning us to
guard against dangers to our "liberties and democratic processes"
from the "military-industrial" complex. But equally
telling, and not as well-known, he also warned us against the
"danger that public policy could itself become the captive
of a scientific technological elite", noting that the "prospect
of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment,
project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and
is gravely to be regarded. "
The fact is, our Doctor Strangeloves
have been driving this nuclear arms race in partnership with
military contractors engaged in pork barrel politics with a corrupt
Congress, spreading nuclear production contracts around the country
to the great detriment of our national health, and security.
From the first time we thought we were able to put some limits
on nuclear development, when the Limited Test Ban Treaty was
negotiated in 1963 because of the shock and horror at the amount
of radioactive strontium-90 in our baby's teeth, the labs made
sure there was continued funding to enable testing to go underground.
And when Clinton signed the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in
1996 to cut off nuclear testing, he bought off the labs with
a $4.6 billion annual program-the so-called "stockpile stewardship
" program-- in which nuclear testing was now done in computer
simulated virtual reality with the help of so-called "sub-critical
tests", 1,000 feet below the desert floor, where plutonium
is blown up with chemicals without causing a chain reaction.
This program created a vast loophole in the not-so-comprehensive
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. It is the fruits of this Faustian
bargain that produced the research for the new nukes Bush is
now prepared to put into production.
Although the majority of the Congress,
Democrats and Republicans alike, and most of the media keep stirring
the pot with scare stories about nuclear proliferation from so
called "rogue" states, we hardly hear about the essential
bargain of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), signed in 1970,
which has kept the lid on the spread of nuclear weapons until
very recently. The NPT is a two-way street. It was a deal,
not only for non-nuclear weapon states not to acquire nuclear
weapons, but also for the nuclear weapons states to give them
up in return. India and Pakistan never signed the treaty,
as it elevated the privileges of the then five existing nuclear
weapons states-US, USSR, UK, France and China. And while India
had tested in 1974 for its own nuclear arsenal, it wasn't until
1998, after the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty was signed over
India's objections because of the hi-tech testing loophole, that
India broke out of the pack, swiftly followed by Pakistan.
Under Bush, annual funding for the weapons
labs went from $4.6 billion under Clinton to $6.4 billion-an
obvious recipe for proliferation. Because we cling to our nuclear
weapons despite our treaty obligations to eliminate them, other
nations attempt to acquire them. Furthermore, our determination
to "dominate and control the military use of space",
threatening the whole world from the heavens, is another incentive
to less powerful nations to make sure they have the only equalizer
that can hold us at bay-nukes of their own.
In August, Russia, for the first time
joined China at the UN disarmament talks in Geneva, calling for
a treaty to prevent the weaponization of space. To eliminate
the nuclear threat, we need to terminate our military space program,
close down the Nevada test site, put the weapons designers out
to pasture, and begin immediate negotiations on a treaty to ban
nuclear arms.
Alice Slater
is President of the Global
Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) and
a founder of Abolition 2000 a global network of more than 2000
organizations working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons.
She can be reached at: aslater@gracelinks.org
Weekend
Edition Features for August 23 / 24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
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