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in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Recent
Stories
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
August 14, 2003
Peter Phillips
Inside
Bohemian Grove: Where US Power Elites Party
Brian Cloughley
Charlie Wilson and Pakistan: the Strange Congressman Behind the
CIA's Most Expensive War
Linville and Ruder
Tyson
Strike Draws the Line
Jim Lobe
Bush Administration Divided Over Iran
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon Freezes the Road Map
Tom Turnipseed
Blowback in Iraq
Gary Leupp
Condi's
Speech: From Birgmingham to Baghdad, Imperialism's Freedom Ride
Website of the Day
Tony Benn's Greatest Hits
August 13, 2003
Joanne Mariner
A Wall of Separation Through the
Heart
Donald Worster
The Heavy Cost of Empire
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Elaine Cassel
Murderous Errors: Executing the Innocent
Ralph Nader
Make the Recall Count
Alexander Cockburn
Ted Honderich Hit with "Anti-Semitism" Slur
Website of the Day
Defending Yourself Against DirectTV Lawsuits: 9000 and Counting
August 12, 2003
Ron Jacobs
Revisionist History: the Bush Administration, Civil Rights and
Iraq
Josh Frank
Dean's Constitutional Hang-Up
Wayne Madsen
What's a Fifth Columnist? Well, Someone Like Hitchens
Ray McGovern
Relax,
It Was All a Pack of Lies
Wendy Brinker
Hubris in the White House
Website of the Day
Black
Mustache
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
21, 2003
The Longer We Stay,
the Deeper They Will Hate Us
The
Darkening Tunnel
By RON JACOBS
Let's see: the US forces are arresting Iraqi workers
who were protesting the treatment of unemployed Iraqi workers
by occupation forces and U.S. corporations granted contracts
for work in Iraq; the United Nations headquarters in Iraq is
bombed because of its complicity in the colonial government that
the US is trying to form and its role in the devastating sanctions
that cleared the way for the US/UK war on Iraq; the US is getting
ready to deport hundreds of men who were picked up in recent
roundups of Middle Eastern and other Asians who had problems
with their INS status; and, just for good measure, Rumsfeld has
given the US the go-ahead to resume flights designed to intercept
or shoot down supposed drug flights. Oh yeah, the New York Times
and John McCain have asked that more troops be sent to Iraq.
As the son of a veteran and the sibling
of another, I am always dumbstruck when I hear old soldiers make
these kinds of statements. What, I wonder, is going on in their
brain? How can they wish their children and grandchildren to
be put in harms way for no discernible reason? Didn't their combat
experience--especially for those who served in Vietnam or Korea--prove
to them that wars fought for no reasons other than empire and
its accompanying greed are exercises in futility? Don't they
remember the hatred they felt from the locals in the countries
they swaggered through or (in McCain's case) bombed from the
sky? Didn't they recognize that the longer they and their fellow
soldiers stayed in country, the deeper that hatred became?
What kind of idiots do they take us for?
They lied to get us into their war (and about the consequences)
and now they expect us to believe that a few hundred thousand
more of our boys and girls in uniform sweating in the desert
sun with their fingers on the trigger of their automatic weapons
will get the results the Pentagon wants? For those of you who
dont know the routine: this is what the Pentagon always says.
The war on Vietnam was started with only a few thousand GIs.
Then, when the Vietnamese resistance refused to roll over and
die--choosing instead to attack US and other foreign troops at
will--we were told that more troops were needed to accomplish
Washington's goal. Unless that goal was the slaughter and wounding
of millions and the destruction of their country (which it may
have been), no stated goal was ever accomplished. The war on
Korea was started under similar circumstances. It ended with
no borders changing and millions of people dead and wounded.
Hell, they didn't even sign a peace treaty in that one.
What is going on in Iraq is the very
quagmire Bush and Blair were warned against. Unless we want it
to grow, it is essential that we insist on the combat in Iraq
being a major campaign issue. No candidate should get away without
stating his/her position clearly and unequivocally. The duty
of those forces arrayed against the war before it began need
to get back in the streets and make it clear that we will not
be fooled. While we regret the lives of those foreign soldiers
and civilians who have died in this war as much as we regret
the lives of the Iraqis killed and destroyed, we know better
than to believe that sending more occupation forces and carpetbaggers
to Iraq will justify their deaths. There can be no justification
for them. They will only be honored when their brothers and sisters
in arms are brought home.
This won't happen unless we make it happen.
Even supposedly antiwar politicians won't call for this because
they fear being labeled unpatriotic. Because they are so close
to the seat of power they think they have too much to lose. We
have nothing to lose but the lives of our children, siblings,
and lovers and, if we wait too long, perhaps what remains of
our freedom. Unless the movement against the occupation and for
an immediate withdrawal becomes a movement even more popular
than the movement against the war, those of us who already are
part of it could easily end up isolated and irrelevant or imprisoned.
Why do you think John Ashcroft is on
the warpath defending the PATRIOT Acts?
Ron Jacobs
is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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