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Today's
Stories
January 3 / 4, 2004
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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
January 3 / 4, 2004
Anti-Empire
Report
Code
Orange, Code Orange!
By WILLIAM BLUM
Page one headlines in The Washington Post, Los
Angles Times and New York Times of December 20 about Libya "vowing
to give up its banned weapons!" ... Bush and Blair -- in
a "choreographed sequence" as the Post called it --
hailing Qaddafi's seeing the light! What's that? You didn't know
that Libya was stockpiling Weapons of Mass Destruction and was
the newest Danger To The Civilized World? Think Iraq. That's
what Bush and Blair have been thinking -- What can we do to regain
our credibility as saviors, as the good guys? If only we could
remove "another" imminent WMD threat. Perhaps it might
come out sounding believable this time.
Moammar Qaddafi is tailor-made to be
used for the purpose. The habitually gullible Libyan leader has
been dying for years to become "respectable" and end
the American sanctions against his country. Or as Bush put it:
"Leaders who abandon the pursuit of chemical, biological
and nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them will find an
open path to better relations with the United States and other
free nations. Libya has begun the process of rejoining the community
of nations."
Qaddafi, Tony Blair chimed in, made a
"courageous decision." The British Prime Minister declared
that "Libya's actions entitle it to rejoin the international
community." Will American and British voters be hearing
about this "success" in their upcoming national elections
ad nauseum in an attempt to spray over the awful odor of the
Iraq misadventure? We did not have to wait long to find out.
White House officials immediately said they "felt certain
that the brewing military confrontation with Iraq influenced
Qaddafi's decision to reach out". They "touted the
Libyan move as vindication for the decision to go to war against
Iraq ... because of the message it sent."
Bush described Libya's announcement "as
resulting from careful US strategy and diplomacy, including the
decision to invade Iraq in March". "I can't imagine
that Iraq went unnoticed by the Libyan leadership," a senior
US official added to the chorus.
And the LA Times opined that "Libya's
announcement enables the Bush administration to claim a major
foreign policy victory and deflect criticism that the war in
Iraq had done little to decrease the broader threat of terrorism
and proliferation of deadly weapons." So how close were
we to yet another Arab-terrorist-madman unleashing his vast arsenal
of doomsday weapons upon an innocent and unsuspecting world?
Here's what the leading three American newspapers reported (emphasis
added): "The Libyan foreign ministry issued a statement
admitting that the country had SOUGHT to develop unconventional
weapons."
US, UK, and UN "Experts met with
[Libyan] scientists at research centers that COULD SUPPORT biological
weapons research and also examined missile RESEARCH facilities."
"They also revealed "DUAL-USE" chemicals that
can be used for peaceful purposes OR FOR WEAPONS."
"British officials said that experts
were given access to RESEARCH projects, including uranium enrichment
that COULD BE USED for nuclear weapons. Finally, a US official
said that "They found that the program was more advanced
than had been previously confirmed ... and that Libya possessed
all the equipment and expertise NEEDED TO PRODUCE weapons-grade
uranium." A petrified world hangs on the official's every
word with bated breath ... at last able to exhale when the official
adds: "We did not see an enrichment facility. We saw the
components that would make for an enrichment facility."
He then adds that "the Libyans did not say they had produced
any highly enriched uranium."
Washington spinmeisters may well try
to make a mountain of uranium out of a molehill of sand, although
other voices are already being heard. Ray Takeyh, a Libya expert
at the Pentagon's National Defense University, declared that
"Libya's program did not have a sophisticated enough infrastructure
for a very viable program, and they haven't had it for years."
And Joseph Cirincione at the Carnegie
Endowment for International Peace said that "it made little
sense for Libya to embark on a slow and costly nuclear weapons
program and wondered how much of the nuclear research was new
or simply left over from earlier, now discarded programs."
Summing it all up, "One senior Bush
administration official, in a recent interview, said Libya's
bumbling attempts at mastering the science of advanced weapons
earned it a reputation as the 'clown prince of weapons of mass
destruction'."
Is Libya's abandonment of any kind of
WMD program a good thing no matter how primitive a stage it might
have been at? Yes, and it would be even much better if all nations
abandoned such programs whether primitive or advanced. George
W. declared: "Those weapons do not bring influence or prestige.
They bring isolation and otherwise unwelcome consequences ...
I hope that other leaders will find an example in Libya's announcement
today."
This tired, sad old world can only
wish that one of those leaders would be the president of the
United States. In any event, we must remember that even if Iraq
had a full complement of WMD they were not a threat to the United
States in the absence of an irresistible desire for mass national
suicide. The same of course applies to Libya.
Oh, almost forgot, something called "oil"
may also be a factor. US oil companies have long been eager to
return to Libya, but have been stopped by the sanctions. This
whole scenario is the kind of thing political leaders employ
to sell a change of policy to the public, so that in this case
if the US ends the sanctions it won't be seen as "rewarding
an evildoer", but done because the evildoer has mended his
ways.
***
THE SPINELESS DEMOCRATS,
AGAIN
After the capture of Saddam Hussein,
Democratic Party presidential candidate Howard Dean stated that
this "has not made America safer." He was immediately
punished for his outbreak of honesty and perception, being lambasted
by other candidates and the media. He and his team have apparently
learned their lesson. Commenting about the Libyan announcement
about abandoning WMD programs, Dean advisor Ashton Carter stated:
"We should hope that our resolve over Iraq's WMD had something
to do with convincing the Libyan leadership to take this course."
The White House couldn't have said it
better. Democrats once again refuse to challenge the basic contradictions
and disinformation underlying the administration's foreign policy
proclamations. They're usually afraid that they'll appear "unpatriotic".
***
THE PANAM 103 MYTH, AGAIN
Some of the current stories about Libya
predictably contain references to that country's role in the
bombing of PanAm flight 103 in 1988. This belief is etched in
marble and will probably remain that way forever. But the fact
remains that there's no proof or any good evidence of Libya's
role in that tragedy despite a Libyan man sitting in prison for
the crime after being convicted by a court in The Hague. The
reader is directed to my essay on the matter at: http://members.aol.com/
***
OH COME ALL YE (MARKETPLACE)
FAITHFUL
On December 19, in announcing a major
grant to the District of Columbia to help the homeless, the US
Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) said the criteria
for such grants "have been adjusted to promote the Bush
administration's goal of ending chronic homelessness by focusing
on permanent housing." This is certainly a noble aspiration,
but do our noble leaders realize that it runs head-on into an
even more cherished tenet of theirs?--
Our salvation cometh from the market
economy. The two main causes for homelessness in the United States
are clearly low wages and high rents; many of the homeless actually
have jobs but don't earn enough to meet the exorbitant cost of
renting an apartment. But what can a government with such a fundamentalist
ideology do about such a state of affairs when wages and rents
are dictated by "the magic of the marketplace", the
wise "hidden hand" of free enterprise?
William Blum is
the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions
Since World War II, Rogue
State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and West-Bloc
Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.
He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
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