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Today's
Stories
November 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
How
the Democrats Undercut John Murtha
November 25,
2005
David Price
How
US Anthropologists Planned "Race-Specific" Weapons
Against the Japanese
Brian McKenna
Will
Bush Miss the Next Bhopal?
Jeff Halper
Peretz or Bust?
Ray McGovern
Will
the US Seize the Opportunity for Troop Withdrawal?
Leigh Saavedra
Thanksgiving at Camp Casey
Ingmar Lee
How Have the Mighty Fallen?
Website of the Day
Saving Cathedral Grove
November 24,
2005
James Petras
How
to Think About War and Peace
Bob Shirley
Thanksgiving
Torture: What the Puritans Fled
Mike Fox
Torture
Survivors Speak for Themselves
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Adrift?
Perhaps. A Draft? Never!
Greg Moses
Thanksgiving Delayed: TX High Court Blesses Inequality
Alexander Cockburn
Turkeys
in the Larger Scheme of Things
November 23,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
The
Great Gaza Border Deal: What Does It Mean?
Mike Whitney
Bush, Padilla and Thomas More
Stan Cox
Red, White and Blue Dawn: What a Bad Hollywood Film Can Teach
Americans About Life Under Occupation
Linda S. Heard
Targeting Al Jazeera
November 22,
2005
Kevin Gray
/ Mike Hersh
Maxine
Waters, the Real Leader of the Anti-War Caucus
Ralph Nader
What Do Dems Stand For?
Michael Donnelly
The "Vetting" of Bernard Kerik
Mike Ferner
The CIA's "Torture Taxi" in the Spotlight
Pierre Tristam
The Justice Deficit
Marshall Auerback
Bush's "Compassionate Conservativism": Neither Compassionate
Nor Conservative
Website of
the Day
I Don't Like Geldof
November 21,
2005
Mike Marqusee
Clinton's
Hypocrisies on Iraq
Josh Frank
Democratic Hawks: the Avian Flu of the Antiwar Movement
Mike Whitney
Hugo Chavez vs. the King of Vacations
Norman Solomon
Getting Out of Iraq
Russ Baker
Woodward's Weakness
Robert Jensen
A National Day of Atonement
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lies
and Official Secrets
November 19
/ 20, 2005
Fred Gardner
The
Raid on MendoHealing
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
The House GOP Has Done a Heinous Thing: Stop Playing Politics;
Get the Troops Out Now
Ron Jacobs
A Pathetic Congress: If It Walks and Talks Like a Withdrawal
Resolution, Why Won't You Vote For It?
David Vest
The Politics of Surrender: It's as American as Robert E. Lee
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Condi Rice's Disdain for the Civil Rights Movement
John R. Bomar
Staying the Course on "Freedom's Frontier": a Vietnam
Vet on Iraq
John Ross
The
Dragon Flies High, But Not Over Mexico
Phillip Cryan
Colombia: "Political Kidnapping" and Murder in Cauca
Dave Lindorff
RIP In These Times
Dick J. Reavis
The Future of the Daily Press
Jeremy Scahill
Vegetarian Between Meals: This War Can't Be Stopped by a Loyal
Opposition
Dan Wright
Cleaning Up Alaska's Scan Bay
John Stanton
Scowcroft Talks Turkey; Edmounds Fights Fascism
St. Clair / Vest / Walker
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones: Rarities
Dr. Susan Block
Our Night of Weimar Love
Poets Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford, Harley and Louise
November 18,
2005
Michael Neumann
The
Palestinians and the Party Line
Dave Lindorff
Murtha and the L Word
Michael Donnelly
Black November 15
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Uncrucify Them
Don Monkerud
A Decent Workplace
Tom Kerr
Grant Clemency to Tookie Williams
Trish Schuh
Faking
the Case Against Syria
November 17,
2005
John Walsh
A
Fractured Anti-War Movement
Rep. John Murtha
Iraq Must Be Freed from the US
Occupation
Brian J. Foley
We Are All In GITMO Now
CounterPunch
News Service
Guardian
Apologizes to Chomsky; Publishes Total Retraction of Brockes'
Slurs
Dave Lindorff
In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians
Mark T. Harris
Coming Out in an Up-and-Coming Sport
Cockburn /
St. Clair
From
Reporter to Courtier: the Decline of Bob Woodward
November 16,
2005
John F. Sugg
Al-Arian
Speaks: In His First Interview Since the Trial Began, Al-Arian
Talks About What the Jury Didn't Hear
Noam Chomsky
Putting Out the Englightenment
Dave Lindorff
Shake
and Bake: Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah
Evelyn Pringle
Laurie Mylroie's War
Sam Husseini
Trying to Look a Female Suicide Bomber in the Eye
Pierre Tristam
Toturers' Theater
Greg Bates
Waffling Alito Charms DiFi
Farrah Hassen
Moustapha
AkkadDavid Lean of the Middle East Killed in Amman Blast
Bill Christison
Evidence
Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars
Website of
the Day
Violent Oscillations
November 15,
2005
Todd Chretien
My
Evening in the No Spin Zone; Or Why Bill O'Reilly Hates San Francisco
Leah Caldwell
Death
of the Jailhouse Press
Frederick Hudson
Rosa's Wreath: Miss Parks and Robert Williams
Harry Browne
Bush-Linked Judge Bows Out: Another Mistrial in Irish Ploughshares
Case
Jason Leopold
Secret CIA Testimony: Iraq Posed No Threat
Ingmar Lee
Logging Lackies vs. Canada's Most Endangered Species
Diana Barahona
Showdown on the Silver Coast
Tom Andre
New Orleans, Two Months Later
Website of the Weekend
Ernest Crichlow: 1914-2005
November 14,
2005
Diana Johnstone
The
Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky
Paul Craig Roberts
Power Over All: Unlimited Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus
Conn Hallinan
Provoking
Syria: Cambodia All Over Again?
Joshua Frank
Off She Goes: Hillary in Israel
Christopher
Reed
The
Persistence of Racism in Koizumi's Japan
November 11
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
First
the Lying, Then the Pardons
Gwyneth Leech
Cross Connections: a Painter Reimagines the Passion of Christ
in the Wake of Abu Ghraib
Elmas Mallo
Chillin' in the Blazin' Texas Sun: Inside the Texas Prison System
Michael Neumann
The Rebel King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin, an Appreciation
Saul Landau
Leakgate: the Screenplay
Sam Husseini
Bush and Zarqawi Bomb Because We Let Them
Brian Cloughley
Sleaze, Deceit and Torture
Ron Jacobs
Rep. McGovern's Withdrawal Resolution: a Step in the Right Direction?
Lila Rajiva
Dover Bitch: the Curses of Pat Robertson
Michael Donnelly
Hypocrisy Watch
Joe Allen
Murder in El Salvador: Who Killed Gilberto Soto?
Roland Sheppard
Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Justin E.H.
Smith
Another Monkey Trial?
Ben Tripp
The Cost of War
St. Clair /
Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Jones, Louise, Ford, Smith, Albert and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Iraq Vets and Against the War Need Your Help!
November 10,
2005
Peterside,
Ogon, Watts and Zalik
Delta
Blues Again: Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10 Years Gone
Pat Williams
Will Alito Cost the Republicans the Senate?
Steve Higgs
Bush Crony Targets Indiana's Forests: 400% Hike in Logging
Jimmy Massey
Is Ron Harris Telling the Truth?
Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Insanity Takes Over
Anthony Newkirk
Syria in the Crosshairs
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Why Did Libby Lie?
Website of the Day
Imperial Margarine
November 9,
2005
Gary Leupp
The
Niger Deception / Plame Affair: an Incomplete Chronology
Tariq Ali
Blair Defeated on Terror Laws
Chris Floyd
The
Philosopher's Stone
Elaine Cassel
The
Shocking Trial of an American Citizen: the Case of Ahmed Abu
Ali
Joshua Frank
Sen. Max Baucus's NASCAR Pay Day
Alison Weir
Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You
Give Israel a Pass?
Diana Johnstone
Rage
in the Banlieue
November 8, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Still
No Jobs
Roger Burbach
Bush
v. Chavez: the Imperial President Meets the Bolivarian Democrat
Ron Jacobs
An Interview with Behzad Yaghmaian on the Paris Uprising
Ralph Nader
"The Worst Marketed Disease on the Planet"
Jim McGrath
Voter Beware: a Cautionary Tale for Election Day
David Bloom
McCain, Israel and Torture: Setting the Record Straight
Stan Goff
Jimmy Massey, Ron Harris, and Ambush Journalism
November 7,
2005
Dick Reavis
The
Origins of Mr. Danger
Jason Leopold
Cheney and the Cover Up: the Vice President Lied
Dave Lindorff
What Country was Bush Talking About?
Eli Stephens
A Tale of Two Generals: the Lies of Colin Powell
David Swanson
The Bush-Cheney Ethics Refresher Course: a Syllabus
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview Stan Goff
Matt Reichel
Paris Uprising: a Rebellion in Real Time
Naima Bouteldja
Paris is Burning
Jeff Halper
Israel
as an Extension of American Empire
Website of the Day
Dispatches from Paris
November 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Storm
Over Brockes' Fakery: Guardian Fabricates Chomsky Quotes
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Lying,
Law Schools and Executive Power: What Senators Should Ask Alito
Diana Johnstone
Srebrenica: a Response to Certain Criticisms of My Essay
Roosa / Nevins
The
Mass Killlings in Indonesia, 40 Years Later
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Missing
the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation
John Ross
The Zapatistas' Otra Campaign for Mexico's Presidential Elections
Mike Whitney
Globalizing Sadism: the United States of Torture
Mark Engler
Will Big Business Turn On Bush?: the Economic Nightmare Unfolds
Juliano Mer-Khamis
They Shoot at Children, Too
Ron Jacobs
When Gen. Westmoreland Visited
Jill S. Farrell
Bird Flu and the Posse Comitatus Act
Missy Comley
Beattie
Trent Lott's Untroubled Sleep
Mitchel Cohen
People of the Dome, Revisited
Evelyn J. Pringle
Bush-Cheney and Big Oil's Big Summer
Reza Fiyouzat
Signs of Life or Last Gasp? Structural Problems in the Democratic
Party
Charles Sullivan
When Courage Fails: a White Southerner on Rosa Parks
Zachary Richard
Return to Louisiana
Ben Tripp
Beginning of the End? Don't Start Cheering Just Yet
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
November 4,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Blood
on the Tundra, Betrayal in the Rotunda: Losing ANWR
Dave Lindorff
A Majority Now Favors Impeachment: If He Lied, He Must Be Tried
Phillip Cryan
Crackdown
in Colombia
Christopher Brauchli
Katrina and Tax Breaks for the Very Rich
William S.
Lind
Exit Strategy: You Can't Stay the Course in a Lost War
Daryl G. Kimball
Of Madmen and Nukes
George Beres
Laurels for Negroponte?
Peter Montague
Why We Can't Prevent Cancer
November 3,
2005
James Petras
The
Libby Affair and the Internal War
Saul Landau
Torn
Families and Shot Down Planes: a Cuba Story
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
An Occurrence at Gretna Bridge
Michael Dickinson
Bang! Bang! You're Deaf! Sonic Weapons Over Palestine
Joshua Frank
Sham Behind Closed Doors
Remi Kanazi
Dancing with Perseverance
Reza Fiyouzat
Taxation or Racketeering?
Website of the Day
CIA Leak Investigation: Bigger Fish, Deeper Water?
November 2,
2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Holy
Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad
Robert Oscar Lopez
Saving Rosa Parks from American Hypocrisy
John Walsh
The Philosophy of Mendacity: From Leo Strauss to Scooter Libby
Brian J. Foley
Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should)
Ramzy Baroud
Rolling Back Syria
M. Junaid Alam
What Moral Values?
Todd Chretien
Judgment Day for the Governator
Bruce K. Gagnon
The Democrats' Slap Happy Day
Website of the Day
Hands Off Dave!
November 1,
2005
Ron Jacobs
An
Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart
Gary Leupp
The Plame Affair Leads to Rome
John Ross
Days
of the Dead on the Border
Bill Quigley
Why
Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town?
Joseph Nevins
From a Boundary of Death to One of Life
Dave Lindorff
Thinking About Impeachment
Linda S. Heard
Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN?
Heather Gray
Thank You, Mrs. Parks
Michael Dickinson
To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond
Jeffrey St. Clair
Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off
October 31,
2005
Elaine Cassel
Libby's
Lies
Mark Weisbrot
Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed
Mike Whitney
Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald
Norman Solomon
After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself
Farooq Sulehria
Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns
Nicole Colson
Scapegoating Immigrants
Madis Senner
Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights
Paul Craig
Roberts
Scooter
and the Neocons
October 29 / 30, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies?
Peter Linebaugh
The
Wedges of Hephaestus
Tim Wise
Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
John Chuckman
Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
Steven Higgs
Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland
Brian Cloughley
The Fifth Afghan War
M. Shahid Alam
Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness
Nikki Robinson
Crack Down at Kent State
Ralph Nader
Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives
Joe DeRaymond
Requiem for Bethlehem Steel?
Joshua Frank
Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter?
Laura Santina
Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder?
Fred Gardner
Death of an Organizer
Michael Dickinson
Insult Your Country
Ron Jacobs
Autumn in America
Dr. Susan Block
Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting
Vanessa S. Jones
Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Red State Update
October 28,
2005
Jared Bernstein
Inflation
Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record
Virginia Tilley
Embracing
the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine
Phil Gasper
The
Race to Execute Tookie Williams
Jennifer Matsui
It's Mardi Graft Time!
Manual Garcia,
Jr.
Is the US Really Against Torture?
Monica Benderman
In the Name of Justice
Jason Leopold
Fitzgerald
Focuses on the Forgeries
Dave Lindorff
Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials
Otober 27, 2005
Saul Landau
The
Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War
Stuart Hodkinson
Bono
and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't!
Ingmar Lee
Stop
the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq
Lila Rajiva
License
to Bill: Gates Does India
Ilan Pappe
The
Last Moment of Hope
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Waiting for Fitzgerald
Michael Donnelly
Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury
Ron Jacobs
Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo
Cockburn / St. Clair
White House in Meltdown
October 26,
2005
Kathy Kelly
For
Whom They Toll
Gary Leupp
Dialectics
of the Plame Affair
Mike Marqusee
Empire of Denial
Eric Ruder
War Crimes in Afghanistan
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation
Joshua Frank
Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Website of
the Day
Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index
October 25,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President?
Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn
Attack on the Palestine Hotel
Conn Hallinan
Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Pulling the Court Strings
Jackie Corr
Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros
Robert Day
Talk to Strangers
John Sugg
Judith
Miller and Me
October 24,
2005
Dave Lindorff
Revoke
Judy Miller's Pulitzer
Michael Donnelly
Shades of Iran/contra
Patrick Cockburn
A Nation Stands on Trial
Mike Whitney
Apres Rove
Norman Solomon
Iraq is Not Vietnam, But...
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Palestine
October 22
/ 23, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
When
Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller
Billy Sothern
Letter
from the Circle Bar, New Orleans
Saul Landau
Bush, an Assessment
Ralph Nader
An
Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers
Behrooz Ghamari
Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve?
Brian Cloughley
Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory?
Diana Barahona
Venezuela's National Workers' Union
Fred Gardner
Dershowitzed!
Lee Sustar
What the War on Terror is Really About
Patrick Cockburn
Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer
Laura Carlsen
Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake
James Petras
China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness
Joshua Frank
Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them?
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Disasters are Us
Michelle Bollinger
When Abortion Was Illegal
Missy Comley
Beattie
CSI: Iraq
Kona Lowell
Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun
Ben Tripp
Tanks for the Memories
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of
the Day
Indictment Watch
October 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
The
Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy
Winslow T. Wheeler
Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense
Budget
Col. Dan Smith
The Destruction of the National Guard
Norman Solomon
Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph
Madis Senner
Abusing Katrina
Michael Donnelly
Richard
Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots
October 20, 2005
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment
Comes to NYC
Ray McGovern
16
Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost
Jeremy Brecher
/
Brendan Smith
Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right?
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court
Kevin Zeese
Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed?
Ross Eisenbrey
Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment
Randy Shields
James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton
Justine Davidson
Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory
After Lucas
Cranach
Judy and Holofernes
Joe Allen
The
Scandalous History of the Red Cross
|
Weekend Edition
November 26 / 27, 2005
He Pointed the Way Out;
They Chopped Off His Hand
How the Democrats
Undercut John Murtha
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
Here we have one of the most widely
derided presidents in the history of the United States and a
war abhorred by a majority of all Americans and the Democrats
have near zero traction as a credible party of opposition. The
sequence of events after Representative Jack Murtha's speech
on Capitol Hill on November 17 tells the story.
It truly was a great speech,
as the Marine veteran (37 years in the US Marine Corps, then
31 years in Congress) actually delivered it with extempore additions
to the prepared text handed out after his news conference.
Listen to Murtha and you are
hearing how the US commanders in Iraq really see the situation.
Murtha is trusted by the military and has visited Iraq often.
"Many say the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on
a third deployment. Recruitment is down even as the military
has lowed its standards. They expect to take 20 percent category
4, which is the lowest category, which they said they'd never
take. Much of our ground equipment is worn out."
On Iraq's condition: "Oil
production and energy production are below prewar level. You
remember they said that was going to pay for the war, and it's
below prewar level. Our reconstruction efforts have been crippled
by the security situation. Only $9 billion of $18 billion appropriated
for reconstruction has been spent. Unemployment is 60 percentClean
water is scarce and they only spent $500 million of the $2.2
billion appropriated for water projects.
"And, most importantly
-- this is the most important point incidents have increased
from 150 a week to over 700 in the last year."
Then, amid his tears, came
Murtha's sketches of war's consequences in today's America:
"Now, let me personalize
this thing for youI have a young fellow in my district who was
blinded and he lost his foot. And they did everything they could
for him at Walter Reed, then they sent him home. His father was
in jail; he had nobody at home -- imagine this: young kid that
age -- 22, 23 years old -- goes home to nobody. V.A. did everything
they could do to help him. He was reaching out, so they sent
him -- to make sure that he was blind, they sent him to John
Hopkins. John Hopkins started to send him bills. Then the collection
agency started sending billsImagine, a young person being blinded,
without a foot, and he's getting bills from a collection agency."
And finally, Murtha's call
for rapid pullout of US troops from Iraq capped by one of the
most amazing resumes of political reality ever administered to
an audience on Capitol Hill:
"I believe we need to
turn Iraq over to the Iraqis. I believe before the Iraqi elections,
scheduled for mid-December, the Iraqi people and the emerging
government must be put on notice: The United States will immediately
redeploy -- immediately redeploy. All of Iraq must know that
Iraq is free, free from a United States occupation. And I believe
this will send a signal to the Sunnis to join the political process."
This was no wimp. This was
a 73-year old Marine veteran with Purple Hearts and Bronze Star,
one of the Armed Forces' most constant supporters. What more
credible advocate a speedy end to an unpopular war could the
Democrats ever hope for?
Barely had he stopped speaking
before the halls of Congress echoed with the squeaks Democrats
whimpering with panic as they skipped clear of Murtha's shadow.
Emboldening the White House to savage Murtha, John Kerry hurried
before the cameras of MSNBC to frag the Pennsylvania congressman
and to tell Chris Mathews how he, John Kerry, had a better plan,
involving something in the nature of a schedule for withdrawal
possibly limping into action in 2006.
Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats'
leader in the House abruptly retreated from a scheduled pres
conference to express support for Murtha. Scenting weakness,
the Republicans put up a resolution calling for withdrawal now.
Democratic panic escalated into pell mell retreat, shouting back
over their shoulders that they weren't going to fall for such
a dirty Republican trick. Why not? What better chance will they
get to go on record against the war? In the end just three Democrats
(Cynthia McKinney of Georgia, Jose Serrano of New York, and Robert
Wexler of Florida voted for immediate withdrawal and six voted
"present"). McKinney put it starkly:
"I will not vote to give
one more soldier to the George W. Bush/Dick Cheney war machine.
A vote on war is the single most important vote we can make in
this House. I understand the feelings of my colleagues on both
sides of the aisle who might be severely conflicted by the decision
we have to make here tonight. But the facts of US occupation
of Iraq are also very clear."
They may be clear to McKinney,
and Murtha and 60 per cent of the American people, but not to
the three Democratic Senators interested in the presidential
nomination in 2008. Even after Murtha's lead Russell Feingold
continued to mumble about the "target date" for withdrawal
being 2006, as does Kerry. For her part Hillary Clinton announced
at the start of Thanksgiving week that an immediate U.S. withdrawal
from Iraq would be "a big mistake" which "would
cause more problems for us in America. It will matter to us if
Iraq totally collapses into civil war, if it becomes a failed
state"
The importance of Murtha's
speech was that it vaulted over these laboriously prudent schedules
into the reality of what is actually happening in Iraq. As his
military sources in Iraq most certainly urged him to point out,
the main fuel for the Sunni Arab insurgency is foreign occupation.
So long as it continues the resistance is likely to go on. .
The idea that the Sunni taking part in the election somehow means
a shift from military action is also baloney.
Would there actually be a power
vacuum if US withdrew, followed by civil war, as is widely argued
in the U.S.? The Sunni can't take Baghdad. They can't penetrate
the main Kurdish and Shia areas. How exactly is the US military
preventing a civil war at the moment? The refusal of the Shia
to retaliate is the most important factor here and this is primarily
the result of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani standing firmly
against it.
Now suppose Sistani calls for
a withdrawal? Then the US and Britain will have little choice
but to go, probably over an 18 month period. This very week,
incidentally, a gathering in Cairo of Sunni, Shiite, and Kurdish
leaders (under the auspices of the Arab League) called for a
timetable for US withdrawal and also said that Iraq's opposition
had a "legitimate right to resistance." The Sunni are
not going to stop fighting while the occupation continues. The
quid pro quo for the US leaving would presumably be a ceasefire
by the Sunni and an end to suicide bombing attacks.
All those Democratic Party
withdrawal dates are predicated on the idea that Iraqi army security
forces will be built up and can take over. This scenario is as
unrealistic as calls to "internationalize" the occupying
force. All the evidence is that only an agreement on the departure
of the US will lead to an end to the armed resistance, just as
Murtha said. The idea that the Sunni taking part in the election
somehow means a shift from military action is also baloney. It
is clearly an 'Armalite and ballot box' strategy.
The Evolving
Postures of Prof. Juan Cole
First the professor from the
University of Michigan, influential in liberal circles as an
expert on Iraq, said he wanted withdrawal. Then he said that
to urge withdrawal would be advocacy of genocide. Then this,
on his website. Can you figure out what he wants?
Cockburn Misrepresents Cole
Alexander Cockburn says in
his piece in The Nation: 'Cole says to The Nation Institute's
Tom Engelhardt that for the United States to "up and leave"
Iraq would be to become an accomplice to genocide. He counsels
the heightened use in Iraq of "special forces and air power."
In other words, assassinations and saturation bombing.'
Cockburn is referring to my
interview with Tom Engelhardt.
I actually haven't called for
any assassinations or saturation bombing, and Mr. Cockburn's
"In other words" is just a trite way to open up a mendacious
smear.
For the thousandth time, what
I have in mind is that in the wake of a substantial drawdown
of US troops (which I think advisable), a civil war may well
break out in Iraq. It is also likely that Sunni Arab militiamen
will attempt to kill the members of the current government. (I
mean, they are already trying to kill them, they just aren't
usually succeeding.)
I am distressed at the prospect
of a Cambodia in Iraq, which strikes me as a real possibility.
As it is, there was that nastiness of Shiite and Sunni militiamen
killing each other Thursday.
I'd like to see such an outcome
prevented. I said earlier that I thought the best outcome would
be for Iraq to be internationalized and to have a United Nations
military force enforce the peace. However, it does seem increasingly
a rather forlorn hope (the UN is made up of member nations whose
politicians would like to stay in power, and that might be difficult
if they send their constituents' young men into the meat grinder
of Anbar province.) The Bushies aren't very likely even to allow
it during the next 3 years. I haven't stopped advocating it,
I just don't see it happening tomorrow.
So what is left, if I am right
that the US ground troops engaged in assaults such as Fallujah,
Tal Afar and Qaim are doing more harm than good and there is
no cavalry coming to the rescue any time soon?
I'm suggesting that the sort
of tactics used in northern Afghanistan be retrofitted. The Northern
Alliance fighters (surely not that much better than the current
Iraqi army) accepted Special Ops embeds. They told the Special
Ops guys where the Taliban positions were, and the GIs put lasers
on the targets and called down smart air strikes on warlord HQs,
tanks, etc. Once the Taliban positions were disrupted and their
armor and machine guns taken out, the Northern Alliance could
advance on cities like Mazar and take them, even on horseback.
I think the same sorts of synergies can be deployed to protect,
e.g., the Green Zone from the Sunni Arab guerrilla movement should
it mount an aggressive army to march on parliament.
Many readers have told me that
this tactic would not prevent car bombings or other killings.
That is correct. Nothing can prevent the low-intensity guerrilla
war from continuing, probably for a decade or more. The question
is only if it can be kept from escalating into a civil war that
kills a million Iraqis and sparks a generalized Middle East war.
I am arguing for a defensive
set of tactics, not offensive. I think I am probably the first
observer in Iraq to speak out consistently against US
bombing raids on civilian neighborhoods in Iraqi cities. I don't
know where Cockburn gets his weird misinterpretation of what
I said.
If Mr. Cockburn has any realistic
ideas for preventing this outcome, I'd be glad to hear them.
But, he can't just dismiss the possibility of massive killing--
that would be intellectually dishonest and morally reprehensible.
The real possibility exists. How to guard against it?
What Cole is recommending is
very similar to what the British did in Iraq after the rebellion
of 1920. They relied on airpower and "Bomber Harris",
the man in charge of the RAF effort made no effort to conceal
that he was going after civilians and their villages.
Bombing a la Cole is going
to be a suspiciously benign exercise. The Special Ops soldiers
in Afghanistan were supposedly able to "call down smart
air strikes on warlord HQs, tanks, etc. Once the Taliban positions
were disrupted and their armor and machine guns taken out, the
Northern alliance could advance on cities like Mazar and take
them." Note that there is no mention of people here but
all the targets to be so aseptically destroyed are inanimate
objects. In reality the US bombing of the Taliban front line
in Afghanistan was largely carried out by B-52s. In any case
the evaporation of Taliban forces was primarily the result of
the withdrawal of Pakistani support and bribes to the warlords
to change sides.
Somehow US airpower is only
to be used for a 'defensive' (Cole's italics) set of tactics.
What on earth is this supposed to mean? Does it imply that he
supposes that US aircraft in Afghanistan were somehow being used
"defensively". There is also a little problem that
the insurgents in Iraq do not have armor, machine guns and headquarters
ready and waiting to be taken out by smart bombs.
Cole gives himself a quick
slap on the back for being "the first observer in Iraq to
speak out consistently against US bombing raids on civilian
neighborhoods." Now first of all it is news that Cole is
"in Iraq". If so when and for how long? Secondly I
seem to recall Robert Fisk and others denouncing eloquently and
at great length the bombardment of civilians by the US. Did Cole
pre-date Fisk on this? If so congratulations but let him produce
the quote and the date when he said it.
Of course Cole hasn't "called
for any assassinations or saturation bombings". Few people
ever have. But if there is such a distinction between the genteel
and discriminating bombing he prescribes and "saturation
bombing" why was so much of Fallujah destroyed by the US
Marines and the aircraft supporting them during their assault
in November 2004 though they were able to put "lasers on
targets"? The answer is that the GIs do not know where the
enemy is so they destroy everything which might be used by the
other side or, in other words, saturation bombing.
Cole's earlier statement that "there are few third world
armies that couldn't be enticed by a couple of billion dollars"
is demonstrably untrue of Iraq from the word go. The Turkish
parliament turned down more than a couple of billion when refusing
to let the US invade Iraq from the north in 2003. The Turkish
refusal to send troops to Iraq has been followed by a large number
of states, despite all the money on offer. The cupidity of the
world is inspiringly less than Cole imagines.
The prescription suggested
by Cole: no US ground troops but heavy air support for local
allies is very similar to situation in Cambodia prior to take
over by Khmer Rouge. I don't see why it should avert genocide.
Prof. Cole's history is sometimes
severely botched. He claims that Dwight Eisenhower "got
De Gaulle out of Algeria before the latter could go Communist
by threatening to call in US loans to France." This is a
ludicrous speculation, as anyone with the slightest knowledge
of French history or of De Gaulle will confirm. I assume Cole
got in a muddle, and confused the circumstances of the French
withdrawal from Algeria with Eisenhower's successful pressure
on Britain, France and Israel to halt their attack on Egypt in
1956.
Field Day
for the Sex Haters
November 22 is a day that will
live in infamy, of course. I refer to the "guilty"
plea forced that dark day, last week, on Debbie Lafave in Tampa,
Florida. Lafave is the teacher at Greco Middle School who, 23
at the time, had sex with a fourteen-year old boy. The lad told
the cops he and Lafave had sex in a classroom at the school,
located in Temple Terrace near Tampa, in her Riverview town house
and once in an SUV while his 15-year-old cousin drove them around.
The boy said he and Lafave,
a newlywed at the time, got to know each other on their way back
from a class trip to SeaWorld Orlando in May 2004. He also said
Lafave told him her marriage was in trouble and that she was
aroused by the fact that having sex with him was not allowed.
But instead of being elevated
to sainthood for these charitable acts, Ms Lafave was charged
with two counts of lewd and lascivious battery.
The blue noses had a field
day. Debra Lafave's Attorney John Fitzgibbons says the Temple
Terrace police took inappropriate pictures of her sexual organs
during the investigation. According to Tampa news reports the
detective who investigated and the Debra case got arrested for
offering a woman $140 to have sex. His name is John Gillespie,
and he is the police officer who signed the search warrant which
enabled police to take graphic nude photos of LaFave while she
was in stirrups in a jail cell.
Debra, now 25, will serve
three years of house arrest and seven years of probation. She
could have gone to the joint for 15 years on each count.
Lafave's ex-husband, Owen Lafave,
doesn't show to advantage in this saga. He said after his ex's
the guilty plea that it was a double standard that she avoided
prison. "She is a sexual offender and if it were a male
she would have definitely gotten jail time," he told CBS's
"The Early Show."
The 14-year old's mother said
piously that "My prayer is that he can leave this behind
him and go on and be a happy, healthy young man." Mom says
he's "well-adjusted" and shows no signs of having been
traumatized. Amazing! Most teenagers having sex with older women
are scarred by this "gateway" experience and become
addicted to carnal pleasure.
Lafave apologized during the
hearing Tuesday, saying that "I accept full responsibility
for my actions."
Hillsborough Circuit Judge
Wayne Timmerman said LaFave will lose her teaching certificate,
must register with the state as a sexual predator, may not have
any contact with children including the victim, and will not
be allowed to profit from the sale of her story or personal appearances.
This is the witch hysteria
in yet another modern guise, a follow-on from the child-care
hysteria destroyed so many lives. Four hundred years ago they'd
have burned Debbie at the stake.
Slandering
the Man He Helped to Kill:
Howard Kurtz and Gary Webb
Under the headline "Investigative
Reporters, Digging Until It Hurts" the Washington Post ran
a piece on November 21 by Howard Kurtz, on the travails of journalists
whose stories came under withering fire and whose careers suffered
as a consequence.
Kurtz wrote piously that
Perhaps the saddest case involved
Gary Webb, a San Jose Mercury News reporter who suggested in
a 1996 series that the CIA knew a drug ring linked to the Nicaraguan
contras had been selling crack in Los Angeles. When the 'Dark
Alliance' series caused an uproar, the Mercury News editor concluded
after a review (and critical pieces in other major newspapers)
that it "fell short" of the paper's standards. Webb,
who called the findings "bizarre" and "nauseating,"
left the paper after being demoted. He committed suicide last
year.
Later, referring to his colleague
Bob Woodward, Kurtz commented that
He gave his detractors ammunition
by commenting on the case while keeping quiet about his involvement.
It would have been more seemly
if Kurtz had bothered to disclose to his readers his own involvement
in the onslaught on Gary Webb. In fact Kurtz's attack on Gary
Webb, in the Post for October 2, 1996, was the paradigm for many
of the subsequent slanders on Webb's reporting. Here's the relevant
passage from Whiteout,
The CIA, Drugs and the Press, by Jeffrey St Clair and the
present writer:
October 1, Webb got a call
in San Diego from Howard Kurtz, the Washington Post media
reporter. "Kurtz called me," Webb remembers, "and
after a few innocuous questions I thought that was that."
It wasn't. Kurtz's critique came out on October 2 and became
a paradigm for many of the assaults that followed. The method
was simplicity itself: a series of straw men swiftly raised up,
and as swiftly demolished. Kurtz opened by describing how blacks,
liberal politicians and "some" journalists "have
been trumpeting a Mercury News story that they say links
the CIA to drug trafficking in the United States." Kurtz
told how Webb's story had become "a hot topic," through
the unreliable mediums of the Internet and black talk radio.
"There's just one problem," Kurtz went on. "The
series doesn't actually say the CIA knew about the drug trafficking."
To buttress this claim, Kurtz then wrote that Webb had "admitted"
as much in their brief chat with the statement, "We'd never
pretended otherwise. This doesn't prove the CIA targeted black
people. It doesn't say this was ordered by the CIA. Essentially,
our trail stopped at the door of the CIA. They wouldn't return
my phone calls."
What Webb had done in the series
was show in great detail how a Contra funding crisis had engendered
enormous sales of crack in South Central, how the wholesalers
of that cocaine were protected from prosecution until the funding
crisis ended, and how these same wholesalers were never locked
away in prison, but were hired as informants by federal prosecutors.
It could be argued that Webb's case is often circumstantial,
but prosecutions on this same amount of circumstantial evidence
have seen people put away on life sentences. Webb was telling
the truth on another point as well: the CIA did not return his
phone calls. And unlike Kurtz's colleagues at the Washington
Post or New York Times reporter Tim Golden, who offered
twenty-four off-the-record interviews in his attack, Webb refused
to run quotes from officials without attribution. In fact, Webb
did have a CIA source. "He told me," Webb remembers,
"he knew who these guys were and he knew they were cocaine
dealers. But he wouldn't go on the record so I didn't use his
stuff in the story. I mean, one of the criticisms is we didn't
include CIA comments in [the] story. And the reason we didn't
is because they wouldn't return my phone calls and they denied
my Freedom of Information Act requests."
But suppose the CIA had returned
Webb's calls? What would a spokesperson have said, other than
that Webb's allegations were outrageous and untrue? The CIA is
a government entity pledged to secrecy about its activities.
On scores of occasions, it has remained deceptive when under
subpoena before a government committee. Why should the Agency
be expected to answer frankly a bothersome question from a reporter?
Yet it became a fetish for Webb's assailants to repeat, time
after time, that the CIA denied his charges and that he had never
given this denial as the Agency's point of view.
The CIA is not a kindergarten.
The Agency has been responsible for many horrible deeds, including
killings. Yet journalists kept treating it as though it was some
above-board body, like the US Supreme Court. Many of the attackers
assumed that Webb had been somehow derelict in not unearthing
a signed order from William Casey mandating Agency officers to
instruct Enrique Bermúdez to arrange with Norwin Meneses
and Danilo Blandón to sell "x kilos of cocaine."
This is an old tactic, known as "the hunt for the smoking
gun." But of course, such a direct order would never be
found by a journalist. Even when there is a clearly smoking gun,
like the references to cocaine paste in Oliver North's notebooks,
the gun rarely shows up in the news stories. North's notebooks
were released to the public in the early 1990s. There for all
to see was an entry on July 9, 1984, describing a conversation
with CIA man Dewey Clarridge: "Wanted aircraft to go to
Bolivia to pick up paste." Another entry on the same day
stated, "Want aircraft to pick up 1,500 kilos."
"In Bolivia they have
only one kind of paste," says former DEA agent Michael Levine,
who spent more than a decade tracking down drug smugglers in
Mexico, Southeast Asia and Bolivia. "That's cocaine paste.
We have a guy working for the NSC talking to a CIA agent about
a phone call to Adolfo Calero. In this phone call they discuss
picking up cocaine paste from Bolivia and wanting an aircraft
to pick up 1,500 kilos." None of Webb's attackers mentioned
these diary entries.
A sort of manic literalism
permeated the attacks modeled on Kurtz's chop job. For instance,
critics repeatedly returned to Webb's implied accusation that
the CIA had targeted blacks. As we have noted, Webb didn't actually
say this, but merely described the sequence which had led to
blacks being targeted by the wholesaler. However, we shall see
that there have been many instances where the CIA, along with
other government bodies, has targeted blacks quite explicitly
in testing the toxicity of disease organisms, or the effects
of radiation and mind-altering drugs. Yet Webb's critics never
went anywhere near the well-established details of such targeting.
Instead, they relied on talk about "black paranoia,"
which liberals kindly suggested could be traced to the black
historical experience, and which conservatives more brusquely
identified as "black irrationality."
Kurtz lost no time in going
after Webb's journalistic ethics and denouncing the Mercury
News for exploitative marketing of the series. As an arbiter
of journalistic morals, Kurtz castigated Webb for referring to
the Contras as "the CIA's army," suggesting that Webb
used this phrase merely to implicate the Agency. This charge
recurs endlessly in the onslaughts on Webb, and it is by far
the silliest. One fact is agreed upon by everyone except a few
berserk Maoists-turned-Reaganites, like Robert Leiken of Harvard.
That fact is that the Contras were indeed the CIA's army, and
that they had been recruited, trained and funded under the Agency's
supervision. It's true that in the biggest raids of all the mining
of the Nicaraguan harbors and the raids on the Nicaraguan oil
refineries the Agency used its own men, not trusting its proxies.
But for a decade the main Contra force was indeed the CIA's army,
and followed its orders obediently.
In attacks on reporters who
have overstepped the bounds of political good taste, the assailants
will often make an effort to drive a wedge between the reporter
and the institution for which the reporter works. For example,
when Ray Bonner, working in Central America for the New York
Times, sent a dispatch saying the unsayable that US personnel
had been present at a torture session the Wall Street Journal
and politicians in Washington attacked the Times as irresponsible
for running such a report. The Times did not stand behind
Bonner, and allowed his professional credentials to be successfully
challenged.
The fissure between Webb and
his paper opened when Kurtz elicited a statement from Jerry Ceppos,
executive editor of the Mercury News, that he was "disturbed
that so many people have leaped to the conclusion that the CIA
was involved." This apologetic note from Ceppos was not
lost on Webb's attackers, who successfully worked to widen the
gap between reporter and editor.
Another time-hallowed technique
in such demolition jobs is to charge that this is all "old
news" as opposed to that other derided commodity, "ill-founded
speculation." Kurtz used the "old news" ploy when
he wrote, "The fact that Nicaraguan rebels were involved
in drug trafficking has been known for a decade. " Kurtz
should have felt some sense of shame in writing these lines,
since his own paper had sedulously avoided acquainting its readers
with this fact. Kurtz claimed, ludicrously, that "the Reagan
Administration acknowledged as much in the 1980s, but subsequent
investigations failed to prove that the CIA condoned or even
knew about it." This odd sentence raised some intriguing
questions. When had the Reagan administration "acknowledged
as much"? And if the Reagan administration knew, how could
the CIA have remained in ignorance? Recall that in the 1980s,
the Reagan administration was referring to the Contras as the
"moral equivalent of the Founding Fathers," and accusing
the Sandinistas of being drug runners.
Kurtz also slashed at Webb
personally, stating that he "appeared conscious of making
the news." As illustration, Kurtz quoted a letter that Webb
had written to Rick Ross in July 1996 about the timing of the
series. Webb told Ross that it would probably be run around the
time of his sentencing, in order to "generate as much public
interest as possible." As Webb candidly told Ross, this
was the way the news business worked. So indeed it does, at the
Washington Post far more than at the Mercury News,
as anyone following the Post's promotion of Bob Woodward's
books will acknowledge. But Webb is somehow painted as guilty
of self-inflation for telling Ross a journalistic fact of life.
Puritans
and Torture
In his fine
piece on this site on Thanksgiving Day Bob Shirley was a
mite to kind to the Puritans when he wrote that "Puritans,
and many non-Puritans, disdained torture and created a nation
'conceived in Liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all
men are created equal.'"
The Puritans piled stones on
dissenters and pierced their tongues with hot irons. Torture
was endemic in precinct houses where suspects had confessions
tortured out of them by the Third Degree, until the Wickersham
Commission's 1931 Report on Lawlessness in Law Enforcement concluded
that "the third degree is the employment of methods which
inflict suffering, physical or mental, upon a person, in order
to obtain from that person information about a crime The third
degree is widespread. The third degree is a secret and illegal
practice."
Footnote: a version of the
first item ran in the print edition of The Nation that went to
press last Wednesday.
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