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Recent Stories
March 29, 2003
Kathy and Bill Christison
"Like Being Autistic with Power":
an Interview with Jeff Halper
Ben
Tripp
"My Empire for a Map!": Geography
American Style
Ann Harrison
The War on Protesters: San Francisco's
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Kurt
Nimmo
Dead People: Don't Go There
Chris Floyd
Blood on the Tracks: Cheney the War Profiteer
Ann
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Israelis: Victims No Longer?
Jo Wilding
Dispatch from Baghdad: Nowhere is Safe
Ramzy
Baroud
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David Krieger
Perle is Gone, But the Looting Continues
John
Gershman
Dreams of Empire; Eulogies for International
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Robert
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Bombing the Phone System
Brice Abel
War, Bush and the Jesus Torilla
Tom
Stephens
The Chickenhawk Circle of Hell
Alexander Cockburn
"War Not Going According to Plan"
March 28, 2003
Daniel Wolff
A Road Trip in Wartime
Chris
Clarke
We Never Spit on Any Baby Killers
David Lindorff
Saddam, a Hero Made in Washington
Pierre
Tristam
Icarus on Crack: American Hubris and
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Richard Perle: the Enterprising Hawk
Saul
Landau
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Carol Norris
The Mother of All Bombs
Riad
Abdelkarim, MD
Iraq War Lingo 101
Adam Engel
Schlock and Awe
Steve
Perry
War Web Log
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Anthony Gancarski
Somebody Blew Up Baghdad
Rahul
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The New Humanitarianism: Basra as Military
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Simon Jones
A Letter from Uzbekistan
William
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No Exit
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A Day of Reckoning
The
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Remembering the Real Moynihan: Genocide
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Thieme
The Problem of Empathy
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Energy Scams: Bilking California Out
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Ali
A Naked Display of Imperial Power
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Shock But Not Awe
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Heard
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Imad Jadaa
The Beautiful Face of America
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POWs, Torture and Hypocrisy
Robert Fisk
The Coup That Didn't Happen
April
Hurley, MD
A Doctor's Outrage in Baghdad
Gloria Bergen
Chretien's Shame
Reema
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The Smell of Death Surrounds Me
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Life During Wartime
Gary
Leupp
What Democracy Looks Like: the Streets
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Bill and Kathleen
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An Interview with Hanan Ashrawi
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Jackson
Why Protest? Why Write?
Uri Avnery
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Blood Indicator: Casualties and the Stock
Market
Ralph Nader
A Pre-emptive War on a Defenseless Country
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Alexander Cockburn
Ominous Signs
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Lindorff
Peacekeepers at Ground Zero
Diane Christian
Blood Sacrifice
Kathy
Kelly
The Morning After Shock and Awe
John Stanton
US Bombs Iran
Wayne
Madsen
How to Live with a Rogue Superpower
Anthony Gancarski
Iraq and the Death of the West
David
Vest
Earth vs. Bush
Ahmad Faruqui
The Liberation of Iraq in Perspective
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Fisk
We Bomb, They Suffer
March 22 / 23, 2003
Edward Said
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Kathleen and Bill Christison
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The Battle of San Francisco
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A Cauldron of Fire
Hani Shukrallah
The Gates of Hell
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Imagine Chicago Under This Kind of Attack
Ramzi Kysia
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The Grassroots Go Global
Josh Frank
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Elaine Cassel
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Gordon Solberg
Drowning in Niceness: the Lessons of Elizabeth Smart
Tom Crumpacker
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Dobie, Guthrie, Alam, Wechsler
March 21, 2003
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Blood for Oil:
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Cathy Breens
Report from Baghdad: Mothers, Kids and Crash Kits
Scott Handleman
Fourth
Generation Protesting: Shutting Down San Francisco
Vanessa Jones
Paint Them
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Brian J. Foley
Patriotic Protest
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Zoltan Grossman
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Philip S. Golub
Inventing Demons
Richard Lichtman
On the Current Experience of Terror
Milan Rai
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Weekend
Edition
March 29/30, 2003
CounterPunch War Diary
US
Insiders Gloomy: War "Not Going According to Plan;" Allah
1, Jahweh, 0; Rumseld Visits Geneva: Is He an Iraqi Asset?; British
Revert to Barbarism (As Usual); Will Bush Open National Hot Air Reserve?;
US Navy Dolphin AWOL
By ALEXANDER
COCKBURN
The
situation of the US/UK invading force can be assessed as difficult.
The US 3rd Infantry Division, the Marines, Division, the 101st Airborne
continue to be plagued by stretched supply lines which yesterday saw
one Marine unit entirely immobilized by lack of diesel fuel and the
food down to one “meal” a day, with the MREs being decried
by the soldiers as not fit for human consumption. Disorganization is
rife. The 3rd Infantry Division marches up one side of the Euphrates,
while their baggage and supplies proceed up the other, which renders
bridges more “strategic” than ever. The helicopter assaults
on the Iraqi Medina division left, on one account, seven still serviceable.
Two helicopters were lost in the attack and twenty-six were damaged.
It
is becoming clear that last week’s violent sandstorm was a very
serious blow to the invaders. The Iraqis were able to reinforce their
defenses around Najaf and assault launch some damaging attacks. US high
tech equipment has been seriously degraded by the sand. Perennial warnings
about excessive reliance on hi-tech weaponry and the hype of a supposed
Revolution in Military Affairs are now returning in force.
The
US/UK forces have taken no major town, are being harassed by guerilla
forces and now menaced by suicide units. Five US soldiers of the Third
Infantry Division were killed by one such unit on a highway north of
Najaf. The British are attempting to win hearts and minds in Basra by
aiming their artillery at the food warehouses, and attempting to reduce
the city by plague, endeavoring to cut off the water supply. A missile
killed 200 in a shelter in Basra, allegedly a “command and control
center” which may by US/UK-speak for a civilian shelter, as with
the Amariya shelter in Baghdad in 1991.
Even
the very base of the supply line in Kuwait is a choke point, not just
in the crowded and potential dangerous Persian Gulf but in the port
of Kuwait, which has only 21 landing births.
Behind
the steady stream of “All according to plan”, and “calm
and orderly advance” press releases being pumped out of Qatar
(always excepting Wallace’s dissenting squeak that the war wasn’t
going according to war-game scenarios), and the Pentagon there is extreme
nervousness among seasoned military observers. Serious reinforcements
will take weeks to arrive. Optimists suggest that the US Third Infantry
Division will soon engage and destroy the Iraqi Medina division and
the road to Baghdad will lie open. A less sanguine assessment is that
the two divisions will bog down in a First World War-style confrontation,
with the US disadvantage of those stretched communications. The third
scenario is that the Medina division will outflank the Third ID, take
it in the rear and overwhelm it. Then the exultant Arab street will
erupt in the humiliation of the Great Satan.
Allah,
1, Jahweh, 0.
And
so it will all get much, much nastier. The actual fighting component
of the invading US/British force is small because (as anonymous Pentagon
officers are now bitterly complaining) Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's
preference for Special Forces prevailed over Gen. Tommy Franks's recommendation
of a far larger force; also because huge peace demonstrations in Turkey
lopped off the northern half of the invading pincers. If urban fighting
increases, US strategy will veer toward old-fashioned saturation bombing.
The temptation to flatten significant portions of Baghdad by B-52 raids
is growing sharply as the land force gets seriously stymied.
As
regards the small US/UK force trying to overwhelm Baghdad, imagine a
force far less than one of the recent peace demonstrations landing in
Corpus Christi, Texas, then advancing towards Phoenix through sandstorms,
bypassing all major conurbations and occasionally announcing it has
successfully seized significant portions of the deserts of the south
west and nervously threatening to declare war on Mexico if it intervenes.
(On this latter point note that the Iranian backed Islamic council has
told its adherents in southern Iraq not to rise; also that the Kurds
are conspicuously sitting on their hands.
The
Agitprop War
The
propaganda war is not going according to Western plans either. There
are plenty of excellent and courageous correspondents and observers
in Baghdad, not least Paul Wood of the BBC. Robert Fisk’s account
"Bitter Truths of Basra"on
this site attests to the importance of the Al Jazeera coverage in Basra.
We have the truly extraordinary situation that the Iraqi spokesman in
Baghdad is being given more credibility than the far wilder military
flacks who have seriously damaged their credibility with numerous baseless
claims about the capture of Iraqi towns, and preposterous British allegations
that it is necessary to destroy Basra in order to bring it vital humanitarian
supplies.
It
should also be said that many reporters with major organizations are
doing a useful and professional job. We have been reading excellent
reports from UPI, Reuters and even AP, as well as Knight Ridder and
other papers.
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld continues to perform valiantly
as a vital Iraqi asset, tremulously discovering the Geneva Convention
on treatment of prisoners or suddenly threatening war against Syria
and Iran. Another Rumsfeld propaganda coup: The retired general named
as civilian governor of occupied Iraq has visited Israel on a trip paid
for by a right-wing group that strongly backs an American military presence
in the Middle East. Lieutenant-General Jay Garner, the co-coordinator
for civilian administration in Iraq, put his name in October 2000 to
a statement blaming Palestinians for the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian
violence and saying that a strong Israel was an important security asset
to the United States. This piece of information circulated the Middle
East with as much rapidity as the resignation of Richard Perle from
his chairmanship of the Defense Board and the supposed trip of Vice-President
Cheney’s daughter to become a human shield.
Chickens
in a Darkening Sky
So
the sky is dark with chickens coming home to roost, and bedtime reading
is Thucydides' account of the disastrous Athenian siege of Syracuse.
Start with the amazed discovery of the White House, the Defense Department
and the permanently embedded US press corps that nations don't care
to be invaded, even if they have been misgoverned by a tyrant for decades.
How many Russians died defending the Soviet Union from German invasion
after enduring famine and Stalin's terror? This isn't 1991, when Iraqis
asked themselves, "Why die for Kuwait?"
Basra?
"Military
officials," ran a European press report, "later admitted that
they had vastly underestimated the strength of Iraqi resistance and
the loyalty of Basra's population to Saddam." The report quoted
a British officer as saying "there are significant elements in
Basra who are hugely loyal to the regime."
Kurdish-held
northern Iraq? "Even in Kurdistan," reported the London Independent,
(in the person of my brother, Patrick Cockburn), "where the US
is popular and where President Saddam committed some of his worst atrocities,
there are flickers of Iraqi patriotism. A Kurdish official, who has
devoted years to opposing the government in Baghdad, admitted: 'Iraqis
won't like to see American soldiers ripping down posters of Saddam Hussein
though they might like to do it themselves. They didn't enjoy watching
the Stars and Stripes being raised near Umm Qasr.'"
Rumsfeld
Visits Geneva
But
perhaps the most grotesque chicken now roosting in the coop came in
the form of Rumsfeld's sudden discovery of the Geneva conventions regarding
prisoners of war. When five captured US soldiers were paraded in front
of the Iraqi television cameras, Rumsfeld immediately complained that
"it is against the Geneva convention to show photographs of prisoners
of war in a manner that is humiliating for them." True. But the
United States does not hold the high moral ground in leveling this charge.
In
January 2002 the United States released a photograph of Guantánamo
detainees kneeling, shackled and hooded. The Red Cross said the United
States may have violated the Geneva conventions by releasing the photo,
since no "coercion may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure
from them information of any kind whatever." Under conditions of
sleep deprivation, bright light and other techniques, at least 25 prisoners
in Camp X-Ray at Guantánamo have tried to kill themselves, some
more than once.
The
US government claims that these men are not subject to the Geneva conventions,
as they are not "prisoners of war" but "unlawful combatants."
But as George Monbiot of the London Guardian remarks, "The same
claim could be made, with rather more justice, by the Iraqis holding
the US soldiers who illegally invaded their country. But this redefinition
is itself a breach of article 4 of the third convention, under which
people detained as suspected members of a militia (the Taliban) or a
volunteer corps (al-Qaeda) must be regarded as prisoners of war."
On
March 6 US military officials acknowledged that two prisoners captured
in Afghanistan in December had died during interrogation at Bagram air
base north of Kabul. A spokesman for the air base confirmed that the
official cause of death of the two men was "homicide." The
men's death certificates showed that one died from "blunt force
injuries to lower extremities complicating coronary artery disease."
Another prisoner suffered from a blood clot in the lung that was exacerbated
by a "blunt force injury."
On
November 21 2001, around 8,000 Taliban soldiers and Pashtun civilians
surrendered at Kunduz to Northern Alliance commander Gen.Abdul Rashid
Dostum. A major war crime, with powerful evidence of US participation,
ensued. Jamie Doran's 2002 documentary film Massacre in Afghanistan
records how 3,000 prisoners were loaded into container trucks, with
the doors sealed and the trucks left to stand in the sun for several
days. An Afghan soldier said he was ordered by a US commander to fire
shots into the containers to provide air, although he knew he would
certainly hit some of those inside. An Afghan taxi driver reports seeing
a number of containers with blood streaming from the floors. According
to one of the drivers, survivors of the transport ordeal were dumped
in the desert near Mazar-i-Sharif. As thirty to forty US soldiers looked
on, those prisoners still alive were shot and left in the desert to
be eaten by dogs.
Doran
interviewed a Northern Alliance soldier guarding the prison. "I
was a witness when an American soldier broke one prisoner's neck. The
Americans did whatever they wanted. We had no power to stop them."
After an investigation, the German newspaper Die Zeit concluded that
"No one doubted that the Americans had taken part." Doran,
an Irishman, says in his film that the Pentagon and State Department
have tried "by any means possible" to block an investigation.
Inflated
Price of Hot Air Dooms Festival
The
amount of hot air being put out by official US and UK spokespersons
has led to an unexpected surge in the price of this vital commodity.
It is feared that unscrupulous entrepreneurs are taking advantage of
the recently deregulated market to corner hot air stocks and hold them
off the market, thus causing the base price of hot air to rise. Democrats
in Congress are calling on the Bush administration to open up the national
hot air reserve, now guarded by a mixed force of Wall Street Journal
editorial writers carrying their trademark popguns, plus a rabble of
fedayeen in civilian clothes press ganged from the Standard, New Republic
and CNN.
Evidence
of the economic devastation threatened such by price rises continues
to pour in to the CounterPunch news desk. Here’s a typical report
(3/28) by Emily Tsao of The Oregonian under the headline:
Withering
economy deflates Tigard Festival of Balloons
TIGARD
-- The popular Tigard Festival of Balloons won't take flight this
year because of tough economic times and a lack of sponsorship, its
coordinator says. "Given the economic situation of last year,
sponsorships have been very hard to come by, and we are not in a financial
position to produce the festival at a level we have in the past,"
Bruce Ellis, the event organizer, said Thursday. He said he hoped
to resume the event next year.
Every
year for the past decade, the festival at Cook Park sent dozens of
hot air balloons into the sky. In recent years, the three-day free
event drew tens of thousands of people. Ellis said the festival cost
about $80,000 a year. Title sponsor KGW chose not to renew its contract
last year, he said.
The
balloon festival, although no longer sponsored by the Rose Festival
Association, was sanctioned by it. That meant the Tigard event was
listed with other Rose Festival happenings but had an independent
organizer. Community members and organizations expressed disappointment
over the cancellation. "I am just sick," said Sydney Sherwood,
a Tigard city councilor. "It put us on the map and it gave us
an identity.”
The
Jampot Files (Just Another Middle-Aged
Porker of the Right)
Dear
Alexander Cockburn,
I
remember old Hitchens as a cherubic Trot at Oxford in revolutionary
1968. One day he was outside All Souls College, haranguing the masses
to burn down fascist Oxford University. A window opened, and All Souls
Warden John Sparrow, noted reactionary and Athenian sympathizer, trilled:
'Chrissie, you aren't going to be late for tea, are you?' Chrissie
was somewhat embarrassed. By the way, in a recent piece, you alluded
to your Irish upbringing--does this mean you are kin to the great
radical journalist Claud Cockburn, who lived at Youghal? The old boy
would be proud of CounterPunch.
Yours,
Art Vander Pattaya,
Thailand.
Good
one, Art! And yes, CC was indeed the Da.
Flight of the Dolphin?
This
Just In:
Takoma,
the Navy dolphin deployed in the war theater, has gone AWOL. Those dolphins,
remember, have huge brains.
Today's Features
Kathy and Bill Christison
"Like Being Autistic with Power":
an Interview with Jeff Halper
Ben
Tripp
"My Empire for a Map!": Geography
American Style
Ann Harrison
The War on Protesters: San Francisco's
Berserk Cops
Kurt
Nimmo
Dead People: Don't Go There
Chris Floyd
Blood on the Tracks: Cheney the War Profiteer
Ann
Pettifer
Israelis: Victims No Longer?
Jo Wilding
Dispatch from Baghdad: Nowhere is Safe
Ramzy
Baroud
Horror Chamber: Inside the Al-Amiriya
Shelter
David Krieger
Perle is Gone, But the Looting Continues
John
Gershman
Dreams of Empire; Eulogies for International
Law
Robert
Fisk
Bombing the Phone System
Brice Abel
War, Bush and the Jesus Torilla
Tom
Stephens
The Chickenhawk Circle of Hell
Alexander Cockburn
"War Not Going According to Plan"
Website of the War
Iraq
Body Count
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