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Today's
Stories
July 31, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Kerry:
He's the (Any) One
July 30, 2004
Kolhatkar /
Ingalls
Shattering
Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not
Wanted
Dave Lindorff
Murder
Not So Foul?
Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Fidel Castro
The
Pathology of George W. Bush
Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist
Saul Landau
Bush
Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave
Sex, Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
July 29, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Hail,
the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam
Frank Bardacke
What
Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11
Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan
Ron Jacobs
Kerry
and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture
Robert Fisk
The Unreported War
Lichtman /
Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)
William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure
CounterPunch
Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!
Website of
the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness
July 28, 2004
Robert Fisk
The
Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of
the Dead
Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine
Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root
Causes
United for
Peace & Justice
An
Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots
Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face
Impeachment Mvt."
Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter
Alexander Cockburn
Candidate
Kerry
Website of
the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War
July 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
the Democrats Deserve Nader
Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!
Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera
Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez
Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs
Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then
the Sweatshops
Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
The
9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine;
Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism
July 26, 2004
Todd Chretien
Green
Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin
Robert Fisk
Terror
by Video
Richard Forno
Security
Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing
Flaws at the Fleet Center
Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious
Richard Moreno
Rockers
for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian
Alexander Cockburn
Boston
Awaits a Dead Party
July
24 / 25, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions:
Part One
Dennis
Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush
Patrick
Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning
Josh
Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject
the Peace Movement
Justin
E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin
American Experience
Tariq
Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela
Fred
Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the
Antagonist
Mark
Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope
Ron
Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie
Fire Statement...35 Years On
July
23, 2004
Lee
Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years
On
Dave
Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters
0
Saul
Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush
Beats Reagan
Mike
Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No
One
Mickey
Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth
Jennings
Gary
Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming
War on Iran
July
22, 2004
M.
Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat
Brian
McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon
Jason
Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While
CEO of Halliburton
Chris
Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths
Uri
Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon
July
21, 2004
Paula
J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War:
Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage
Joshua
Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's
be Fair
Ron
Jacobs
American Exceptionalism
Reza
Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda
Amy
Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?
John
Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go
On and On
July
20, 2004
Stan
Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket
Chris
Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!
Forrest
Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular
Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Mark
Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the
Rest of California
Sam
Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door
George
Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb
John
Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush
John
L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.
Website
of the Day
This Land is Your Land
July
19, 2004
Uri
Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of
Paris
Col.
Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?
Mike
Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol
Karyn
Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage
Robert
Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad
David
Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition
to Iraq War
Jennifer
van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
July
17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything
Wrong with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
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.
|
July
31, 2004
All
Slam and No Dunk
All
Blame and No Responsibility
By
BRIAN CLOUGHLEY
The late great Claud Cockburn once said
words to the effect that he never believed anything until he
read an official denial of it, and in few periods in history
can there have been more justification for his observation than
at present. Governments and their accessories of all complexions
have always told lies, of course, but the brazenness with which
the current bunch of charlatans in the US and Britain have been
bamboozling their unfortunate citizens is without precedent in
democracies in modern times. It isn't that the number of lies
has exceeded the norm : it is rather that the fabrications are
bolder, their originators are more bombastically self-righteous,
and the outcome of their deceit has been irreversibly disastrous.
To be sure, Anthony Eden misled
Britain to war on Egypt in 1956 with the same crusading fervor
as silly little Tony Blair did in 2003 regarding Iraq, and LBJ
manipulated Congress and the American people outrageously in
the Sixties over Vietnam, just as Bush quite cynically duped
and hoodwinked the House and the Senate in his immature macho
aspiration to be regarded as a "war president'. (Wouldn't
it be nice, just for once, to have a Peace President?) And just
as Eden and Johnson splashed into the gutters of history because
of their illegal wars (in spite of their positive achievements,
which were many), so we must hope that Bush and Blair will do
likewise. But while the result of the war on North Vietnam was
only intensified distrust of the US in its dealings with Asia,
and that of Eden's Suez adventure was extinction of already-waning
British influence in the Middle East, the Bush-Blair war on Iraq
has brought the plagues of hell upon the world for decades to
come. They decided on war, and the entire world is suffering
from their arrogant deceit. They were all slam, and no dunk.
Recent official inquiries into
the Bush-Blair manufactured justifications for war, into the
9/11 debacle, and into the scandals of Pentagon-endorsed torture
and murder of captives in Iraq and Afghanistan have revealed
a great deal, but, of course, failed to apportion responsibility
for incompetence or evil on the part of individuals at the highest
level. It has been left to those without power to do that, but
we would rather have the great and good inquirers, who are more
clever than the rest of us, actually point out who was to blame.
Why else would they have been asked to inquire, after all?
What a silly question. The
inquirers were carefully selected by the self-same people into
whose actions they were to inquire. Their terms of reference
were written specifically to prevent them from pursuing embarrassing
lines of investigation, even had they been inclined to do that.
And they were appointed because those who chose them knew without
doubt that they would not point a finger of culpability at anyone
important. They would merely poke an intellectual middle digit
at the rest of us. The concept is simple, and is along the lines
of "We report ; And you must accept what we decide because
you have no alternative".
If a private corporation made
a major decision that affected profits to the point that its
share price fell in the same ratio as international trust in
Bush and Blair has collapsed, there would be a major drama followed
by an independent investigation of its senior executives' mismanagement
and chicanery. The inquiry would speedily result in people at
the top being given the most energetic heave-ho, accompanied
by a blunt and unaffectionate warning to avoid the handle of
the rapidly-closing door just after it hit their departing and
sadly chastened butts. There might even be prosecution and imprisonment
of those who failed to cover their tracks.
Not in politics. Not any more,
and perhaps never again. And this is dangerous, because the precedent
has been set for officially-blessed evasion of responsibility.
The desperate hounding of Bill Clinton by the Starr Chamber over
so many years has been discredited, certainly : but the final
outcome has been far from satisfactory. The squalid and remorseless
(and unsuccessful) party political attempts to associate Clinton
with chicanery resulted in widespread distaste that has been
used very cleverly by the Bush administration to maneuver public
opinion against blaming their man in the White House for anything
atall. And this no-blame culture extends to the president's minions,
unless, of course, they are out of favor with his Inner Circle.
So slam-dunk Tenet had to go. But the man was almost a Democrat
anyway, so what the hell. We can be sure there will be no more
sacrifices ; no more falling on swords ; because to fire even
the most outrageously intellectually corrupt and bizarrely off-the-wall
fundamentalist members of the Bush coterie (yes, Wolfowitz, it's
you), would be tantamount to admission of presidential imperfection.
This cannot be allowed because at all costs the illusion of omniscient
infallibility must be maintained amongst the Bush faithful, most
of whom are misguided patriotic dupes of the Cheney-Rove propaganda
machine who believe what is reported by supposedly objective
and impartial people.
The 9/11 Commission has done
as reasonable a job as it could in the circumstances, because
the five Republican members of the ten-person group reporting
on their president could not be expected to rock the boat of
loyalty. Some of their factual statements are (if coded) condemnatory
to the extent that would have caused honorable men to have resigned
from public life a few moments after the report's publication.
But it cannot be expected that such liars as Cheney could possibly
abide by the tenets (pun intended) of decency and conscience.
Where the Report's authors test our credibility beyond reason
is in their non-committal yet lapdog-trusting description of
that seven minutes Bush dallied indecisively in a Florida schoolroom.
Their report states, with palpable deference, that
"The President was seated
in a classroom when, at 9:05, Andrew Card whispered to him :
"A second plane hit the second tower, America is under attack."
The President told us [the Committee, in front of which he made
a brief private appearance with his vice-president] his instinct
was to project calm, not to have the country see an excited reaction
at a moment of crisis. The press was standing behind the children;
he saw their phones and pagers start to ring. The President felt
he should project strength and calm until he could better understand
what was happening."
Of all the baloney that has
been written about Bush, this adulatory self-serving crap takes
the cake. A novice trial lawyer could have torn him to ribbons
in a heartbeat. But the patriotic deference factor set in. George
Bush told the senators what he says he believes he said, and
nobody on that Commission was going to take issue with him.
Does nobody remember what Bush
said publicly about that period when he failed so utterly to
give leadership to the American people? Here he is, as recorded
by CNN, December 4, 2001 (<www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0112/04/se.04.html>)
:
"Well Jordan [first name
of child] you're not going to believe what state I was in when
I heard about the terrorist attack. I was in Florida. And my
chief of staff, Andy Card, actually I was in a classroom talking
about a reading program that works. And I was sitting outside
the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the
tower, the TV was obviously on, and I use to fly myself, and
I said, "There's one terrible pilot." And I said, "It
must have been a horrible accident." But I was whisked off
there, I didn't have much time to think about it, and I was sitting
in the classroom, and Andy Card, my chief who was sitting over
here walked in and said, "A second plane has hit the tower.
America's under attack."
Let's take this dire garbage
from the top : the current president of the United States was
"sitting outside the classroom, waiting to go in"?
Since when did any President of the United States wait until
things were ready for him? Things are ready, but READY, for the
President of the United States, no matter where he is and what
he is doing. If he is scheduled to arrive at a venue at 09:00
he arrives at that instant and immediately starts the program
that has been decided to the last tiny detail. Forget anything
about Bush waiting outside a classroom until the tiny tots were
ready to receive him.
Then the President of the United
States said : "I saw an airplane hit the tower, the TV was
obviously on."
Let's get this right, once
for all: NOBODY IN THE WHOLE WORLD SAW THE VIDEO OF THE FIRST
PLANE'S ATTACK UNTIL LATER THAT DAY. George W Bush is a fantasist.
He told a downright lie. What he said is demonstrably untrue.
There is no doubt about it. Yet the 9/11 Commission failed to
put the question that would have publicly exposed GW Bush as
a liar. All they needed to ask, with every due deference to his
office, was : "Mr President : You are on record as saying
you "saw an airplane hit the tower' on television just before
9 in the morning of September 11. Then you say you were told
about a second plane hitting the second tower at 9:05. Nobody
else in the world saw on television the first plane hit a tower
at that time. Could you please explain to us why you said that?"
The 9/11 Commission acted rather
like a puppy dog in a forest : they sniffed every tree but wouldn't
raise a leg on the big ones. Their task was to "prepare
a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding
the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks," but they didn't
do that. Take another example of shying away from responsibility
: the failure to comprehensively rebut the frequent allegations
by the vice-president of the United States to the effect that
there was a link between the 9/11 atrocities and Saddam Hussein,
via al Qaeda.
In an interview on 17 June
this year with Gloria Borger on CNBC's "Capital Report'
[<www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/>] Cheney told a lie about
his pronouncement that an al Qaeda 9/11 plotter, Mohammad Atta,
had met an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001.
Borger said to Cheney :
"You have said in the
past that [the meeting] was, quote, "pretty well confirmed."
Cheney: No, I never said that.
Borger: OK. Cheney: I never said that. Borger: I think that is
. . . . Cheney: Absolutely not.
There could not be a more flat
denial that Cheney ever said that the supposed meeting was "pretty
well confirmed". The world was told, publicly, on the record,
without a blush, that the vice-president of the United States
did not say what was attributed to him in describing a most important
piece of evidence about Iraq's involvement with al Qaeda and
thus the evil of 9/11.
But on December 9, 2001, on
"Meet the Press' Cheney had stated equally flatly that "It's
been pretty well confirmed that he [Atta] did go to Prague and
he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence
service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the
[9/11] attack."
Now, if you were amongst those
instructed to "prepare a full and complete account of the
circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks"
on your country, would you not think it important to follow up
the statement of the vice-president of your country that it had
"been pretty well confirmed" that a terrorist deeply
involved in planning the 9/11 terrorist attack had met with a
representative of Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency? This
was not throwaway lightweight nonsense by Rush Limbaugh or Fox
News, after all : it was a major statement by the vice-president
of the United States of America concerning a plotter against
his country. The Commission did (down in the depths of the Report)
record that the claim was nonsense ; but not the fact that the
Vice-president of the United States had made that claim.
It would have been appropriate
if the 9/11 Commission had asked Cheney, publicly and on the
record, for all of us to hear : "Mr Vice-president, you
have stated that it was "pretty well confirmed" that
a meeting between a 9/11 terrorist and a Saddam Hussein intelligence
operative took place in April 2001. You maintain that this was
so. Would you please tell us why you continue to tell the American
public that this meeting took place?"
That is a simple question.
Cheney couldn't have wriggled out of that one, and even he would
not have dared, publicly, to tell them to get lost (or whatever),
as he did in a pathetically vulgar way to one of their Honorable
colleagues. But they didn't ask the right questions, because
Cheney is just another arrogant example of "I decide ; they
report ; you believe, because you have no alternative."
This is the hallmark, the leitmotif, the very ethos of the Bush
administration.
But there are some alternatives
presenting themselves to the American people. John Kerry will
not be the ideal president, but then nobody could be. He appears
pretty flaky on some issues, but this is in the main because
his policy pronouncements are ignored by those who should be
reporting on them objectively, and, as Paul Krugman pointed out
in the New York Times on Friday, the print and electronic media
are taking their cue from the Bush propaganda apparatus. They
refer to the "millionaire' Kerry but never to "millionaire'
Bush, for example, which is pretty smart, because the essence
of propaganda is to implant a nasty feeling in the public about
your opponent while maintaining, quite correctly, that what you
are saying is the exact truth.
The Bush camp ploy is to describe
John Kerry as a millionaire (true), thus implying he cares nothing
for the poor and the struggling middle class, in spite of the
fact that his (largely unreported) program will benefit them
enormously at little cost to any but the tacky and amoral super-rich
such as Cheney. And concurrently George W Bush is referred to
as "President' (true), but without the derisive and contemptuous
"millionaire' description. Therefore, by subliminal definition,
Bush MUST care about ALL Americans in spite of the fact he quite
blatantly favors the rich and cares not a fig for the poor and
nothing, but nothing, for the fiscally-penalized and increasingly
desperate middle class. It's amazing that the press and television
have been suckered by this sort of hocus pocus, but that's the
way it goes. And when even the US Army tries to pull the wool
over the eyes of the American public it's time to seriously examine
the blind acceptance of : "We report ; And you gotta believe
what we report because we're fighting for our commander-in-chief".
Coincidentally, on the same
day as the release of the 9/11 Commission's report (and announcement
of a few other interesting events and revelations round the world
that were deliberately buried on that day ; surprise, surprise),
there came the US military's official explanation of why its
soldiers tortured and murdered some hundred prisoners in Afghanistan
and Iraq.
To digress (or perhaps expand)
for a moment, while we are reflecting on coincidences, did anyone
notice that the final day of the Democrats' shindig in Boston
was also the day on which it was disclosed that Pakistan had
been interrogating an alleged king-pin al Qaeda figure who was
arrested without fanfare five days before? Supposedly he planned
the bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, which, amazingly,
might give the American public some interest in his appearance
in the headlines. And was it noticed that the final day of the
Democrats' confab was the day, too, on which Secretary Powell
paid a sudden and headline-intensive visit to Iraq? And the day
on which Homeland Security Fiasco Tom Ridge announced he might
retire? It was also the day on which a main domestic New York
Times' headline was "As Democratic Gathering Wraps Up, Bush
Is Raring to Go". Oh well, it's all fair and balanced stuff
; which brings me back to the US Army.
And it brings me back to the
New York Times which did have the decency to state that the Army's
brutality in Afghanistan and Iraq was indeed very naughty in
the course of the "volatile and dangerous mission of rounding
up and detaining 50,000 prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan over
the last two and a half years". To be fair on the Times,
it did record that the International Red Cross and the entire
civilized world had identified "ill treatment" in "a
systematic way" by the US military, and that the army's
pariah, Major General Taguba (who seems to be the only honorable
senior officer in the whole damn lot) had stated in his report
about torture that there was "systemic and illegal abuse
of detainees." But it didn't go as far as the Washington
Post did, bless its little cotton socks.
The Post said bluntly that
the Army's report into murder and torture by its soldiers was
"implausible and unacceptable" and that "If the
reputation and integrity of the Army are to be restored, some
other authority will need to do better." But, for so long
as GW Bush is military commander-in-chief, the US Army and the
entire American armed forces cannot possibly have any Authority
who can or will or want to do better.
The Army told lies in its report
about murder and torture, but it was following the example of
the Bush administration and its horrible appointees. The Army
blamed its most junior and stupid and defenseless (and also appallingly
evil) members for the atrocities against its captives. (Of whom,
in Iraq, the Red Cross stated categorically in November last
year there were 70 to 90 per cent innocent civilians, as has
been shown by the Army's precipitate and unconditional release
of thousands of them from Abu Ghraib and other lesser-known hell-holes.)
But by blaming those who cannot answer back, rather than the
generals who were actually responsible for the atrocities, the
Army's Inquiry was simply following the example of the honorable
Senators and all the other Good and Great Members of the western
world's Establishment who will never, like that dog sniffing
in the forest, lift a leg on the biggest trees.
The US Army apportioned blame
and lacked the guts to identify ultimate responsibility. Like
the 9/11 Commission, and all the other inquiries into official
incompetence, lying, deceit, dishonor and systemic malevolence,
it was all slam, and no dunk.
Brian Cloughley writes on military and political affairs.
He can be reached through his website www.briancloughley.com
Weekend
Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
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