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Today's
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April
21, 2004
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes
Can Help Washington Now
April
20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
April 19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
April 10 /
12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other
Delicacies
Robert Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview
with Lee Evans
Brandy Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website of
the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9, 2004
Robert Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L. Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8,
2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6,
2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher
Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez
del Solar
A
Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The
Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated
US and International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
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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April
21, 2004
The Smack Daddies
Bush's
Taliban Drug Deal
By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK
There's nothing wrong with those on
the Left congratulating themselves on having gotten a thing or
two right these days. Lord and Lady know, the Bushites do it
all the time, even when they're obviously, disastrously wrong.
Thus, I cheered when, in a recent column, Robert Scheer gave
himself a well-deserved pat on the back for having "blasted
the Bush administration for rewarding the Taliban for 'controlling'
the opium cropfive months before 9/11." I remember Scheer's
May 15, 2001 piece, mainly because it got me so steamed up that
I made the Bush-Taliban drug deal the focus of my next show's
opening monologue. Digging into my archives for May 26, 2001,
I discovered that I also deserve a small back-pat, having presciently
awarded the "Boobie Prize" (a bronze Heilman-C stick
figurine with gigantic breasts) to both the Taliban and the Bushites.
Here's the transcript:
"The first Boobie Prize
of the Week goes to the Taliban of Afghanistan, this time for
forcing Hindus to wear ID labels, kind of like the Nazis made
the Jews wear Yellow Stars. This, in addition to enslaving their
women, harboring anti-US terrorists like Osama bin Laden, blowing
up priceless historic art like the Bamian Buddhas, chopping off
the clitorises of their little girls & chopping off the heads
of their prostitutes.
Hey Taliban! Get your head
out of the Sand! Be a Man, Taliban! The Pussycat is out of the
Bag. You can't cover it up with a veil. You can't chop off its
clit, you can't even chop off its head. It is many-headed &
many-clitted, the force of female sexuality. Accept it. Practice
the Bonobo Way. You'll get laid more often...
"And the second Boobie
Prize of the Week goes to the Bush Administration for giving
a gift to the Taliban of $43 million for joining the War on Drugs.
In a pretty shrewd PR move, the Taliban have declared that opium-growing
is against the will of God. So, even though they're cutting off
girls' clits & hookers' heads, even though they're beating
the women for showing an ankle & beating the men for not
growing a beard, even though they're making the Hindus wear little
Hindu patches so when it's time to round up all the Hindus &
do Allah knows what, they'll know who they are, even though they're
verging on Nazism here, hey, they've signed up to fight the WAR
on DRUGS
"So President Bush just
wipes the coke from his nose & hands 'em 43 mil. Are we nuts?
We're like religious fanatics. When it comes to the Drug War,
American zealotry knows no bounds. Hey Saddam, ya listening?
All you have to do is declare War on Drugs, execute some poppy
farmers, & America will give you money. Drug money. Hey,
take away their opium, put 'em on Prozac. What a world."
Of course, I didn't have a
scoop on any of this back then, on the cusp of what we now call
the "Summer of Threat." I found out about Dubya's little
smack deal from Scheer's column and learned about the Hindu patches
from a news piece in the LA Times. It was common knowledge that
the Taliban were hyper-religious thugs enslaving other Afghans
and constructing terrorist training camps like some countries
build resorts.
The Taliban happened to interest
me because the summer after my freshman year at Yale (nah, I
wasn't a Skull & Boner, though I did bone a few members),
I'd spent a magical month in Afghanistan, backpacking my way
through the rocks and caves, riding horseback around the crystal
lakes and giant Buddhas, touring the mosques, shops and Buszchazi
matches.
It was the summer of '75, after
the revered and tolerant King Mohammed Zahir Shah left, but before
the Russians barged in. Those were the days when things practically-medieval
brushed up against things almost-modern, and that brush seemed
like an exciting tickle, not a lethal threat. Those were the
days when Kabul career women showed off their legs in western-style
skirts and high heels, while the Bamian peasant women wore gypsyish
peasant-wear, and only the ultra-religious ladies of Kandahar
cowered under burqas whenever they went out.
Once, a cute Pashtun shop owner
persuaded me to try on a burqa. I didn't know whether to wear
my glasses over the fishnet eye-panel or under it, so I kept
bumping into things, and got myself a nice embroidered vest instead.
Burqas seemed a quaint old custom; little did I know they'd be
de rigueur Afghan fashion in 20 years. Certainly, we tourists
could wear pretty much what we wanted. I have a photo of myself
onto of one of the Bamian Buddhas gazing at the gorgeous view,
wearing a short-sleeved T-shirt, with no hassle from the easygoing
Hazara locals. This was "my" Afghanistan.
Of course, it all changed dramatically
within a few short years. Now we know the history: the Russians
rolled in, then got bogged down in the quagmire of Afghan resistance.
Then, gangs of Islamist muhajedeen, groomed by Americans to fight
the Soviets, turned "my" Afghanistan into a rocky den
of violent, Koran-thumping misogynism. The Taliban, being the
strongest of the bunch, proclaimed themselves rulers of a war-traumatized,
poverty-stricken country.
Then, in March of 2001, they
blew up "my" Buddhas, the biggest in the world--the
giant, stately 1700-year-old, 175-foot and 120-foot high Buddhas
of Bamian-with help from Osama bin Laden's explosive experts.
In hindsight, I see the eerie warning those wily "uneducated"
Taliban were sending us: first our two biggest Buddhas, then
your two biggest buildings-boom! Castrated. Gone.
When the Buddhas came down,
the West was shocked, the art world moaned, and I cried like
I'd lost an old friend. You could say that my loathing for the
Taliban and their woman-hiding, antiquity-exploding, one-eyed
Mullah was personal. And this bin Laden guy, also trained as
a "resistance fighter" by our own CIA, was like some
disgruntled ex-employee gone off his turban. Despite my usual
pacifist leanings and trepidation about just whom those bombs
might be pulverizing, I thought Clinton had a pretty good reason
for firing that missile into al-Queda's Afghan training camp,
and I don't mean "wagging the dog."
So, in Spring of 2001, when
Dubya did the dirtiest dope deal of his life in the Land of the
Taliban Caliban Man, I had to ask why. Why? Not that I
(or Scheer) got any answers. But now that we know that this dollars-for-drug-control
transaction was made with the future mid-wives of 9/11, I think
we ought to ask why again. Was it some kind of continuation of
America's support of fundamentalism in the region, a vestige
of the Cold War? Did Bush forget that the Taliban were blatantly
"coddling" Osama, the black sheep of that nice bin
Laden family that did so much business with his own family?
The 9/11 Commission has asked
some important, difficult questions, most of them centering on
why nobody nabbed Mohammed Atta and his not-so-secret society
of boxcutter-armed suicide-pilots before they boarded their airplane-missiles.
Maybe there's a clear answer to that, but probably not.
In any case, the kinds of draconian,
souped-up Patriot Act tactics they're suggesting lead inexorably
to reduction of our civil liberties and expansion of our police
and military. This falls right into Osama's plan for us. Shortly
after the attacks, he boasted in an Al-Jazeera interview: "Freedom
and human rights in America are doomed. The US government will
lead the American people, and the West in general, into an unbearable
hell and a choking life."
Fellow liberals and libertines,
we must ask ourselves: Do we really want to go down the route
of constant surveillance, round-ups of terror suspects, ubiquitous
security checks, more censorship, more pre-emptive striking in
all directions, more racist, trigger-happy paranoia? Do we really
want to fulfill Osama's dreams for us? The commission's findings
may condemn the Bushites, as well as the Clintonites, for not
fighting harder to get the culprits before the Twin Towers came
a-tumbling down. But they are playing right into Ayatollah Asscraft's--and
his boss'--plans for über-control of every citizen and non-citizen
in America. I smell a Patriot Act III on the heels of this commission's
dreadful findings.
Of course, it is satisfying
(especially during an election year), to let the commission show
how George II can't even read his own PDB's, and that he's been
obsessed with invading Iraq at least since he invaded the White
House. But we already knew that, and we can congratulate ourselves
about having known it, if it makes us feel better. But let's
not slap our own backs too hard, because apparently, lots of
Americans don't much care.
So, why not try a slightly
different line of questioning? After all, it's hard to ask someone
why he or she didn't do something, like prevent the 9/11 attacks.
It's pretty easy to ask why someone did do something, like donating
millions to an illegitimate government of zealot thugs in bed
with a guy who had vowed to murder Americans at home, and had
already started doing so abroad.
Why isn't the 9/11 commission
asking why Bush gave terrorists (anti)drug money, some of which
could have even been used to help orchestrate 9/11? Then again,
why don't they call in Jimmy Carter, that old Bible-toting US
Commander-in-Chief on the Democratic side, to ask him an easy
question: Did your administration spend billions of American
dollars to back Islamist militants who soon morphed into the
Taliban and al-Queda? After all, Boy George didn't create that
particular mess, even though his all-thumbs, ultra-deadly, born-again
extremism has quickly made him Poster Boy for Why They Hate Us.
It's easy to avoid giving straight
answers to hard questions like, "What could you have done
to prevent the attacks?" You can turn them into a blame
game (the Asscraft approach), an exercise in obfuscation (Condi's
way), a disdainful battle of wits (Rummy) or call upon God as
your witness (our Prez). But an easy question like, "Did
you or did you not give $43 million to the Taliban while they
were hosting bin Laden?" is impossible to bloviate around,
and the simple answer is very telling.
The next question is why,
or more appropriately, how could you? What would the Bushites
say? That the War on Drugs trumped the War on Terror? They do
have a lot in common. Both are fake wars that kill real people.
In both the War on Drugs and the War on Terror, the enemy is
often the same folks one is purporting to help. Both are wildly
idealistic, grossly expensive, catastrophically misguided government
crusades against natural human tendencies that could, perhaps,
be controlled in more compassionate, less destructive ways than
"wars." But wars they are, where "you're either
with us or against us."
Though that can change on a
drug-money dime. Whereas the Taliban were "against us"
in the War on Terror, they were "with us" in the War
on Drugs.
Of course, in the Bizarro world
of the Bushites where warnings are "histories," Osama
is Saddam, Iraq is al-Queda, liberation is occupation, and a
cakewalk turns into a quagmire, anything is possible, and no
one is responsible, as long as we "stay the course,"
which has gaily careened from defending America against WMD attacks
to "changing the world," one bloody battle at a time.
Excuse me for asking, but what kind of drugs are these guys on?
As for transforming Afghanistan
into a nice, democratic, opium-free Prozac Nation (as if Afghan
kids don't have enough problems without Prozac-suicides), well,
obviously, that didn't happen. Even though the mess we've made
over there is enough to deeply depress anyone, the Afghans won't
be taking our Prozac anytime soon. With most US troops mired
in Mesopotamia, the Taliban are back in Kandahar, more women
are cowering under burqas than before, Osama is releasing new
tapes-Live from Afghanistan!-and this season's opium crop
is one of the biggest ever.
Well, hey, how many fake wars
can one fake warrior fight?
Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cultural commentator,
host of The Dr. Susan Block Show and author of The
10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her website at http://www.drsusanblock.com
Send all hate mail, love letters, commentary, questions and
confessions to her at liberties@blockbooks.com
© April 18, 2004, Dr.
Susan Block
For reprint rights, please contact rox@blockbooks.com
Weekend
Edition Features for April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
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