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Today's
Stories
February 18, 2004
Greg Weiher
Why is Kerry Getting a Pass?
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
February 14/15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
February 13, 2004
Alan Maass
Kevin
Cooper's Fight to Live
Karyn Strickler
McCarthyism in the Sierra Club
Annie Higgins
On
a Street in America
Adam Federman
Democratic Snipers Target Nader
Mike Whitney
George W. Faces the Nation
Brian Cloughley
Our Imperial Leader Has Spoken
Website of the Day
Lying Action Figure Doll
February 12, 2004
Ray McGovern
George
Tenet's Spin Cycle
Robert Jensen
Bush's
Nuclear Hypocrisy
Saul Landau
Elegy to the Salton Sea
February
11, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Hail, Kerry: Senator Facing-Both-Ways
Steve Perry
Bush
v. Bush?
February
10, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
Inquisition in Iowa
Ron Jacobs
Politics and the Beatles: Don't
You Know You Can Count Me Out (In)
Elizabeth
Schulte
The Many Faces of John Kerry
Mickey
Z
Meet the Oxmans: "The Rich
Shouldn't Sleep at Night Either"
February
9, 2004
Michael
Donnelly
Will Skull and Bones Really Change
CEOs? Inside John Kerry's Closet
Chris Floyd
Smells Like Team Spirit: the Bush
B-Boys Replay Their Greatest Hits
Bill
Christison
What's Wrong with the CIA?
Dr. Susan
Block
Janet Jackson's Mammary Moment:
Boob Tube Super Bowl
February
7/8, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
Offending Valerie: Dealing with
Jewish Self-Absorption
Jeff Ballinger
No Sweat Shopping
Dave
Lindorff
Spray and Pray in Iraq: a Marine
in Transit
Alexander
Cockburn
McNamara: the Sequel
February
6, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Kurds in the Way?
Joanne
Mariner
Anita Bryant's Legacy
Saul
Landau
Happiness and Botox
Kurt Nimmo
Horror Non-fiction: A How-To Guide
from Perle and Frum
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Real Intelligence Failure:
Our Own
February
5, 2004
Benjamin
Shepard
Turning NYC into a Patriot Act Free
Zone
Khury
Petersen-Smith
A Report from Occupied Iraq: "We Don't Want Army USA"
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations of 2003
Teresa
Josette
The Exeuctioner's Pslam? Christian Nation? Yeah, Right
David Krieger
Why Dr. King's Message on Vietnam is Relevant to Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Monkey Business: Of Recess and Evolution in Georgia Schools
Norman
Solomon
The Deadly Lies of Reliable Sources
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Presenting President Edwards!
February
4, 2004
Brian
McKinlay
Bush's Australian Deputy: Howard's
Last Round Up?
Mark
Gaffney
Ariel Sharon's Favorite Senator: Ron Wyden and Israel
Judith
Brown
Palestine and the Media
Frederick
B. Hudson
Moseley-Braun and the Butcher: Campaign for Justice or Big Oil's
Junta?
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's Independent Commission: Exonerating
the Spooks
M.
Junaid Alam
Philly School Workers Fight for Fair Contract
Fran Shor
Whose Boob Tube?
Kevin
Cooper
This is Not My Execution and I Will Not Claim It
February
3, 2004
Alan
Maass
The
Dems' New Mantra: What They Really Mean by "Electability"
Nick
Halfinger
How the Other Half Lives: Embedded
in Iraq
Rahul
Mahajan
Our True Intelligence Failure
Neve Gordon
The Only Democracy in the Middle East?
Laura
Carlsen
Mexico: Two Anniversaries; Two Futures
Terry
Lodge
An Open Letter to Michael Powell from the Boobs & Body Parts
Fairness Campaign
Hammond
Guthrie
Investigating the Meaningless
Website
of the Day
Waging Peace
February
2, 2004
Gary
Leupp
The Buddhist Nun in Tom Ridge's Jail
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Manners of Their Deaths: Capital Punishment in a Smoke-Free
Environment
Tom
Wright
The Prosecution of Captain Yee
Winslow
Wheeler
Inside the Bush Defense Budget
Lee Ballinger
Janet Jackson's Naked Truth
Leonard
Pitts, Jr
For Blacks, the Game of Justice is
Rigged
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Hollow Candidate:
The Trouble with Howard Dean
Website
of the Day
Resistance:
In the Eye of the American Hegemon
Jan. 31 / Feb 1, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
For Whom the Death Tolls: Deliberate
Undercounting of Coalition Fatalities
Bernard
Chazelle
Bush's Desolate Imperium
Jack
Heyman
Bushfires on the Docks
Christopher
Reed
Broken Ballots
Michael
Donnelly
An Urgent Plea to Progressives: Don't Give in to Fear
Rob Eshelman
The Subtle War
Lee
Sustar
Palestine and the Anti-War Movement
George
Bisharat
Right of Return
Ray
McGovern
Nothing to Preempt
Brian Cloughley
Enron's Beady-Eyed Sharks
Conn
Hallinan
Nepal, Bush & Real WMDs
Kurt Nimmo
The Murderous Lies of the Neo-Cons
Phillip
Cryan
Media at the Monterrey Summit
Christopher
Brauchli
A Speech for Those Who Don't Read
John
Holt
War in the Great White North
Mickey
Z.
Clueless in America: When Mikey Met Wesley
Mark
Scaramella
The High Cost of Throwing Away the Key
Tariq Ali
Farewell, Munif
Ben
Tripp
Waiter! The Reality Check, Please
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Guthrie, Thomas and Albert
January 30, 2004
Saul
Landau
Cuba High on Neo-Con Hit List
Michael
Donnelly
Bush's Second Front: The War in
the Woods
Elaine
Cassel
Worse Than Jacko: Child Abuse at Gitmo
David Vest
More Halliburton News, Brought to You by Halliburton
Mike
Whitney
The Kay Report: Still Defending Aggression
David
Miller
The Hutton Whitewash
Sam
Husseini
How Many People Must Die Because of This "Mistake",
Senator Kerry?
January 29, 2004
Patricia
Nelson Limerick
John Ehrlichman, Environmentalist
Ron
Jacobs
Homeland Security and "Legalized"
Immigration
Rahul Mahajan
New Hampshire v. Iraq
Greg
Weiher
Bush Calls for Preemptive Strike on
Moon and Mars
Norman
Solomon
The State of the Media Union
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Does NH Mean Anything?
January
28, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
Bearing Witness Against Teachers of
Torture and Assassination
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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February
18, 2004
Anti-Empire Report
Mush-Minded
Liberals
By WILLIAM BLUM
The following is not simply a diatribe against
humorist Al Franken. It's a diatribe against all mushy-thinking
liberals. Franken tells us he is against the war in Iraq. But
he was part of a tour that went to Iraq to entertain the troops,
truly a feat of intellectual and moral gymnastics that enables
him to oppose terrible military violence and crimes against
humanity while honoring those who carry out the terrible military
violence and crimes against humanity.
Would he have condemned the oppression
and torture inflicted by General Pinochet while expressing his
support of the Chilean troops carrying out the oppression and
torture? The American troops in Iraq do not even have the defense
of having been drafted. Country singer Darryl Worley, who leans
"a lot to the right," as he puts it, said he was far
from pleased that Franken was coming along on the tour. "You
know, I just don't understand --why would somebody be on this
tour if they're not supportive of the war?"
Franken says that the Bush administration
"blew the diplomacy so we didn't have a real coalition."
Presumably, if the United States had been more successful in
bribing and threatening other countries to lend their name in
support of the war Franken would have then seen the splendid
beauty of the war effort himself.
He also criticizes the administration
because they "failed to send enough troops to do the job
right", the Washington Post reported. What "job"
does the man think they were sent to do that has not been done
up to his standards because of lack of manpower? Did he want
them to be more efficient at killing Iraqis who resisted the
occupation? {1}
And then we have the case of Michael
Moore supporting unindicted war criminal General Wesley Clark
for president. God help the American left.
Why Not Just Tell
the Truth?
On CNN's "Crossfire" program
of January 5, 2004, co-host Paul Begala had this exchange with
Ralph Nader:
BEGALA: Will you run for president
in 2004?
NADER: I'm going to decide later this
month. I'm in an exploratory stage, which, under the rules,
means that you solicit any indication of advice, fund-raising,
volunteers, support. Our Web site is NaderExplore04.org,
for anybody who wants to let us test the waters.
BEGALA: But you're not an indecisive
man. And you're generally not thought of as sort of a typical
politician, giving weasely answers. Why not just tell the truth?
Why not just say, yes, I'm going to run or, no, I'm not? You
-- I just -- frankly, I don't believe that you don't know. I
think you have decided and you ought to just tell us.
So there we have it, the cat is out of
the bag; mainstream media reporters really DO know that the
politicians they typically interview typically do not give honest,
complete, or enlightening answers. And the reporters typically
go along with the charade even though they may be as fed up
with the ritual as any of the listeners are.
Son of the Cold War
During the Cold War the policy was called
"containment" -- surrounding the Soviet Union and
its Eastern European satellites with US military bases and concluding
military/economic pacts with the surrounding countries. It
made the Soviets highly nervous and paranoid about Washington's
plans, but what could they do about it? Start World War III?
Now, the Soviet Union and the Cold War are extinct, and what
do we find? In the past few years, the United States has been
setting up one military base after another in the former Soviet
republics and satellite countries surrounding Russia and concluding
all kinds of agreements with these governments. The Russians
have been complaining about this; at times vociferously. One
of the latest cases is Georgia, where an uprising recently
overthrew the government, an uprising the United States in all
likelihood had a hand in.
"We are not trying to surround anyone,"
US Secretary of State Colin Powell told a Moscow radio station
during a trip to Russia and Georgia in late January. "The
Cold War is over. The Iron Curtain is down. Russia and the United
States are now friends, not competitors or potential enemies,
and we should not see things in old Cold War terms."
"Are we pointing a dagger in the
soft underbelly of Russia?" Powell asked. "Of course
not." A State Department spokesman called the new bases
"forward projection points."{2}
Grandson of the Cold
War
Imagine something like this happening
in the Soviet Union or East Germany during the Cold War. Would
we not have been preached to about the soullessness and mechanical
nature of the communist system?
"For Myra Bronstein, the news that
she had been laid off from the best job she ever had came on
a Friday last May.
"The following week, she was back
at work, having been told that if she wanted to receive her
full severance package, she would have to train her replacements.
They had flown in from India just for the occasion.
"In a tense meeting called by management
at telecommunications firm WatchMark Corporation., the Indian
workers sat across the table from the approximately 20 Seattle-area
employees they would replace. The quality assurance manager
stood up and in a very perky way said, 'This is my old staff,
and this is my new staff,' said Bronstein, who spent three years
at WatchMark testing software. The old staff was just trying
not to cry."{3}
Whatsoever a man soweth
...
There are many ways to look at what the
so-called War on Terror has reaped. Consider this: Dozens of
American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq have attempted suicide
because of the horrible things they've seen and been forced
to do. Many Afghan prisoners being held by the United States
in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Base under conditions intolerable
for humans have tried to kill themselves. The same is likely
true for Iraqi prisoners, although not yet reported. Suicide
bombers had not been an Iraqi custom before the American invasion
and occupation.
Hmmm, What is the
Man trying to tell us?
George W. Bush, 2002: "I do not
need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing
about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to
me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody
an explanation."{4} George W. Bush, 2004: "God serves
his own purposes and does not owe us an explanation."{5}
Getting to the nitty-gritty Every election
campaign, in addition to all the cliches, platitudes, and other
repetitions ad nauseum, the question of "job experience"
comes up. Here's my take on it: If my car needs repair it's
important to have a mechanic who's experienced with the particular
work involved. If I need an operation, I want an experienced
surgeon. But when it comes to a politician, all I care about
is the person's politics, his stand on certain issues. Why should
anyone be impressed because a candidate has held political office
for decades if his views are diametrically opposed to theirs?
Military service is another irrelevancy
they give me a headache with. What does being in the military,
or seeing combat, or not being in the military, or even avoiding
the draft, tell us about a candidate that his voting record
and speeches don't tell us with much more clarity? I don't care
if Bush was awol or a deserter, any more than I care if Kerry
was a "hero", particularly in an unjust war.
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
NOTES
{1} Washington Post, February 16, 2004
{2} Chicago Tribune, January 28, 2004
{3} Washington Post, February 7, 2004
{4} Ibid., November 19, 2002
{5} Ibid., February 7, 2004
Weekend
Edition Features for February 14 / 15, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Milk Bars, Hollywood and the
March of Empires
Jeffrey St. Clair
Oil Grab in the Arctic
William A. Cook
Faith-Based Fanatics
Stan Goff
Beloved
Haiti
Dave Marsh / Lee Ballinger
Rock, Rap & the Election
Hughes / Weiher
Tupac, the Patriot Act and Me
Michael Colby
Bush v. Kerry: the Power Elite's Dream Ballot
Mickey Z.
Michael Moore's Lesser Party: the General and the Lieutenant
Josh Frank
Dean's Demise No Big Loss for the Left
Peter Wolson
The Politics of Narcissism
William James Martin
Clean Break with the Road Map
Daniel Estulin
Religious Extremism in Africa
Standard Schaefer
The Privatization of Culture: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Dave Zirin
Maurice Clarett Gets Off the Plantation
Tracy McLellan
Oprah's Birthday Greedfest
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Guthrie, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Progressives Scorecard: Where Do the Dems Rank on the Issues
That Matter?
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