Coming
in October
From Common Courage Press
Today's
Stories
August 28, 2003
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Website of the Day
Pot TV
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
28, 2003
Restoring the Good,
Old Term "Bum"
It
Applies to So Many Bush Cronies
By WAYNE MADSEN
The word "bum" has two major meanings.
One is pejorative and refers to the unfortunate among us who
find themselves homeless and out of work. That particular term
has properly fallen out of use. However, there is another definition
of "bum." Webster's Dictionary defines a bum as "one
who performs a function poorly." Brooklyn Dodgers fans were
fond of yelling "kill da bum" and "throw da bum
out" to umpires who rendered questionable calls against
their players. While reading about a number of Bush administration
officials today in The Washington Post, I thought to myself,
"these people are also bums."
Aside from being political extremists,
several Bush administration political appointees and their allies
abroad are, indeed, performing their jobs poorly. So let's stop
with the politically correct terms and resurrect the term bum.
It's clearly past time to throw these bums out.
Let's examine some of the bums who have
recently made the news because of their awful performance in
office. The headline in yesteray's Post reads, "Report Blames
Flawed NASA Culture for Tragedy." The Columbia Accident
Investigation Board released its findings on the cause of the
space shuttle disaster that occurred last February. The report
cites NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe for overemphasizing budgets
and deadlines over technical failings and safety. That should
come as no surprise to anyone. That's because O'Keefe is a bum.
During the Bush the First administration, O'Keefe was chief bean
counter and Secretary of the Navy under another bum, then-Secretary
of Defense Dick Cheney. O'Keefe and Cheney make a perfect pair.
O'Keefe, who first pinched  pennies
as Deputy Director of the Office of Management and Budget when
he first joined George W. Bush's administration in March 2001,
thought he could run NASA on a shoe string budget at the expense
of safety and proper technical engineering oversight. As a result
of this bum's actions, seven astronauts died. Cheney, a Vietnam
War-era draft dodger, decided he would micromanage the production
of intelligence on Iraq by personally visiting the CIA headquarters
and editing the intelligence reports. As a result of this bum's
actions, 180 men and women have died as a result of hostile action
while wearing the uniform that Cheney shunned during Vietnam.
The day after the Columbia panel issued
its blistering report on what caused the shuttle disaster, O'Keefe
vowed to reform NASA. Sorry, Mr. O'Keefe, you are a bum, a poor
performer. NASA and the international space program cannot afford
any more screw-ups from the likes of you. Since bums rarely understand
their own shortcomings, O'Keefe did not do the right thing and
resign. Congress should call for O'Keefe's immediate dismissal.
Also found on page one of the Post is
this headline, "Bremer: Iraq Effort to Cost Tens of Billions."
Bremer replaced retired General Jay Garner to get things back
to normal in Iraq after incessant bombardment by the United States.
Bremer, a former Heritage Foundation stooge, is just another
Bush administration bum. His viceroyship of Iraq has been an
unmitigated disaster. Iraq's recovery was to be paid for from
oil revenues. So, where's the oil? Some of Iraq's northern oil
pipelines have been blown up by Iraq's resistance to U.S. occupation.
But other oil is being pumped into tankers in the Persian Gulf.
Where is it going? How come Iraq's rebuilding is going to cost
"several tens of billions" of dollars? Why is Bremer
entertaining the rebuilding of the Iraqi pipeline to Haifa, Israel?
None of the money from that oil will ever get into Iraqi hands
without severe strings being attached. So Bremer is willing to
spend tens of billions of dollars, in addition to the $4 billion
a month price tag from the Pentagon's operations, for a country
that is rapidly descending into irreparable chaos, while shipping
its oil (and much of the oil revenue) to Israel. What a neo-conservative
wet dream that is! The cash-strapped Treasury of the United States
cannot afford this Iraqi folly any longer. Bremer is a bum and
he should be thrown out.
There is a passing reference on page
20 to David Kay, the U.S. weapons specialist that has a team
of 1200 personnel who are searching for (or planting) weapons
of mass destruction in Iraq. It's ironic that it is David Kay,
a CIA operative, and not David Kelly, the late British scientist,
who is running this operation. If it's taken this much time for
Kay and his team to find WMDs in Iraq, he is obviously just another
Bush bum. If the U.S. wants final closure on the WMD fable, send
a UN weapons team to Iraq that includes Scott Ritter. They will
find the truth. But then again, the truth is anathema to the
Bush administration. Kay and his people should pack their bags
and find other employment.
Page four of the Post carries a story
about the never-ending battle by the GOP to redraw Texas's congressional
districts into politically-contrived Republican districts with
majority Democratic districts confined to apartheid-style and
ethnically-based "Bantustans." It is clear that the
blow-dried successor to George W. Bush, Governor Rick Perry and
his Lieutenant Governor, David Dewhurst, are both major league
bums. While they have been conspiring with House Majority  Leader bum Tom DeLay, the Texas legislature
has not been able to consider hardly any pressing legislation
on education, medical care, and other quality of life issues.
The Democrats in both the Senate and House have wisely prevented
a quorum by fleeing into exile into neighboring states. Opposition
leaders being forced into exile is commonplace in Third World
banana republics. Congratulations to Perry and Dewhurst for placing
Texas into the same category as Gambia, Rwanda, Guatemala, and
Burma. Texans should immediately launch a recall of both of these
bums.
An awful story concerning the U.S. Navy
appears on page 6. The Navy and its GOP allies want to overturn
the Marine Mammal Protection Act, which was signed by President
Richard Nixon in 1972. The Navy does not care for the restrictions
placed by the act on its use of a new low frequency sonar system.
A number of federal and private studies have demonstrated that
the use of the Navy's sonar has resulted in mass beachings of
whales and harms the hearing of dolphins, porpoises, and whales.
A Federal judge in California recently ruled that the Navy's
use of the sonar must be restricted to areas that are not in
areas populated by migrating, breeding, and foraging marine mammals.
Weighed against these gentle creatures of the sea is the Navy
Department led by Gordon England, who just reassumed control
of the Navy after serving a brief stint as Deputy Secretary of
Homeland Security. England had served as Navy Secretary before
going to Homeland Security but his replacement, Colin McMillan,
committed suicide at his New Mexico ranch in July. Now back at
the Navy's helm, England is trying to kill marine mammal protection.
There was a time when the Navy used marine mammals in special
warfare operations. Perhaps the torture the Navy wants to visit
upon the marine mammals is retaliation for one of the Navy's
special operations dolphins, Takoma, going AWOL in the Persian
Gulf last March. During his first term as Navy Secretary, England
presided over one of the largest frauds in the Navy's history.
England managed the Navy-Marine Corps Intranet project, described
by one senior Navy officer as a complete fiasco and one of the
largest cost overruns in the Navy's history. But why would England
do anything differently than what he did as a General Dynamics
executive? Contractors like them have written the book on fraud,
waste, and abuse. Clearly, England is a bum. He should be fired.
Personally, I'd replace him with someone more intelligent, like
Takoma, if the Navy can find him.
In the international news section of
the Post, there is a story about the bogus presidential "election"
just conducted by Rwanda's dictator, Paul Kagame. Although Kagame
has been an effective repressive dictator, his role as a so-called
unifier has been a duplicitous failure. For that reason and others,
Kagame is a real bum. Chief U.N. prosecutor Carla del Ponte was
about to investigate Kagame and his henchmen for their own roles
in the genocide in Rwanda and neighboring Democratic Republic
of the Congo. But when her plans became clear, Kagame's controllers
in Washington and London pressured UN Secretary General Kofi
Annan to fire del Ponte. When one closely examines who was responsible
for the catalyst that triggered the Rwandan genocide in 1994,
the Russian SAM-16 missile attack on the plane carrying the Hutu
Presidents of Rwanda and Burundi, Kagame's fingerprints might
as well be on the triggers of the missile launchers.
Kagame laughably announced he had won
re-election as President of Rwanda with 95 per cent of the vote.
Kagame must have learned about such election results when he
was being trained by the militaries of North Korea and China.
After all, Kim Jong Il of North Korea did a hair better than
Kagame, winning 100 percent of his vote for re-election with
a 99.9 percent turnout. Kagame's major opponent, his former Prime
Minister Faustin Twagiramungu, whom I'm proud to know as a friend,
claimed foul. The European Union's election observers claimed
there was widespread voter harassment. Every independent minded
specialist on Africa's Great Lakes region said 95 percent for
Kagame, an ethnic Tutsi emigre from Uganda, was impossible since
80 percent of Rwanda's population is Hutu and they would naturally
favor fellow Hutu, Twagiramungu. Kagame won as a result of voter
fraud even more massive than that committed by the Bush boys
in Florida. So, it's no wonder what State Department spokesman
Phil Reeker (oh, what an apt name) said about the bogus Rwandan
election. He called the sham poll "an important milestone
in Rwanda's political transition" and that the election
went "smoothly and quietly." Unless Reeker's kidding,
such a statement would make him a bum. He should try and live
in Rwanda and see how smooth and quiet things are in a <U.S.-supported>
Stalinist dictatorship in the middle of Africa.
On the Post's Federal Page is a story
about the Inspector General of the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) report on the air quality in southern Manhattan in the
aftermath of the World Trade Center collapse. The report states
that EPA warnings about the potential hazards from the collapse
were deleted by the White House and National Security Council.
The White House, the NSC, and the White House Council on Environmental
Quality (CEQ) deleted information in the EPA report concerning
the dangers posed by asbestos, cadmium, and lead in the air.
CEQ Chairman James L. Connaughton defended the action, along
with acting EPA Administrator Marianne Horinko. They both qualify
as bums. They should be fired and be held accountable to all
the rescue workers and others in New York who continue to suffer
complications from airborne contaminants. As for National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice, who obviously played a hand in the
deletions in the EPA report, there are so many reasons why she
is a bum. She should have been fired long ago.
On the Op-Ed page is a story about Arnold
Schwarzenegger. This buffoon of an actor wants to fix California's
fiscal problem, originally caused by Enron's contrived energy
crisis heaped on America's most populous state in 2001. I guess
Schwarzenegger is going to do for his state what he did for his
company, Planet Hollywood--force it into bankruptcy. Yes, if
I put on my "Total Recall" hat, I remember he and his
two partners, Sly Stallone and Bruce Willis, using their fantastic
financial skills, couldn't turn a profit on a plate of French
(err . . . "freedom") fries and a hamburger. Schwarzenegger,
like another Austrian who once left his native country and ran
for office in another country in a "fixed" election,
is a bum. Hey Schwarzenegger, now that the Red Planet is only
34.6 million miles from the Earth, why don't you get your "aahss
to Mahs" instead of Sacramento? (And please, take your pal
Sean Hannity with you).
Finally, on the last page of the Post,
there is a story about the State Department's non-proliferation
chief, John Bolton. During tense negotiations with the North
over its nuclear weapons plant, Bolton launched a personal tirade
against North Korea's leader Kim Jong Il and his government.
And Bolton considers himself a diplomat? Of course, he was only
following the lead of Bush, who once called Kim a "pygmy,"
a pejorative term for the Twa people of central Africa. But it's
now clear that morons like Bolton crossed paths with a seasoned
diplomat, Charles "Jack" Pritchard. Pritchard told
North Korean officials that Bolton was just running his mouth
and his comments were not official U.S. policy. After the enriched
plutonium hit the fan, Pritchard was out and Bolton remained.
Bolton's chief ally is Arizona Republican Senator Jon Kyl. I
once attended a Senate hearing and noticed that from the way
the light was hitting his face, Kyl seemed to have a short mustache
under his nose. His hairline is similar to that of the Fuehrer.
But his policies are even more similar than his looks to the
former chief of the "master race." Both Bolton and
Kyl are bums. Bolton should be fired by Colin Powell. The people
of Arizona will have to give Kyl his walking papers in 2006.
There are other bums in the Bush administration
and the list is way too long to consider in this column. But
chief among the bums is George W. He actually had the nerve to
speak to the convention of the American Legion in St. Louis after
having slashed well over a billion dollars in medical benefits
to aging and ailing veterans. This AWOL weekend warrior during
Vietnam has no camaraderie with such an organization. Every day,
more and more U.S. troops in Iraq are placed in jeopardy because
of the bungling of Bush and his neo-con advisers: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz,
Feith, and the others. They are all bums. Let's "throw da
bums out."
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of the
forthcoming book, "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of
George Bush II."
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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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