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Today's Stories November 5 / 6, 2005 Niranjan Ramakrishnan Missing the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation 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   October 19, 2005 Christopher Reed Koizumi and the Rape of Nanking Stephen Soldz Bush and Avian Flu: the Excuses Begin to Fly Chet Richards War and Intelligence Patrick Cockburn Saddam on Trial Scott Richard Lyons Multicultural Columbus? Ralph Nader An Interview with Rev. William Sloane Coffin Website of the Day Shocking Video: Why Birds May Be Taking Viral Vengeance on Humans   October 18, 2005 Chet Flippo Merle Haggard: "Let's Get Out of Iraq" Ron Jacobs Dual Devotions: the Catholic Church and the US Flag Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor A Tale of Two Cities: From DC to Toledo Dave Lindorff Judy Miller: Little Miss Run Amok Virginia Rodino A Winter Patriot: Reflections on the Antiwar Movement Thomas Healy The Weather in Goshen: Still Radical After All These Years Ralph Nader A New New Orleans Stephen Lendman The Sorrows of Haiti Patrick Cockburn On the Eve of Saddam's Trial: a Divided Iraq   October 17, 2005 Peter Linebaugh Spinoza and the Black Limos Norman Solomon Judith Miller, the Fourth Estate and the Warfare State Cockburn / Sengupta "If the Sunnis Don't Like It, That's Their Problem" Mike Whitney Miller's Confession: Last Gasp Before Indictments? Uri Avnery Iraq Now: What Awaits Samira? Harold Pinter Torture & Misery in the Name of Freedom Website of the Day Al Joudi v. Bush   October 15 / 16, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ayatollahs of the Apocalypse Patrick Cockburn "This Constitution Won't Get Me a Job" Saul Landau Two Terrorists and a Lush: Osama, Posada and Bush's Drinking Neve Gordon "Beyond Chutzpah": Exposing Grave Moral Distortions Moshe Adler Poverty in New York City Christopher Brauchli Lynndie England's Burden Diane Farsetta The Emperor Doesn't Disclose: the Fight Against Fake News Sam Husseini Notes on Current Reporting About Judith Miller Monica Benderman From Chaos to Conscience to Peace Mickey Z. POW Abuse by US: Nothing New Going On Here Douglas C. Smyth George W. Bush, the Honorius of Our Time Lee Sustar Will Delphi Bust the UAW? Fred Gardner Cannabinoids Arrive in Realm of Established Fact Elizabeth Schulte A Former Panther's Georgia Campaign: an Interview with Elaine Brown Joshua Frank Will the Democrats Save Harriet Miers? David Vest Down with Formalism! Up with Values! Ben Tripp Epistle II: the Reawakenign Poets Basement Engel, Albert, Ford and Louise Website of the Weekend The Hidden Canyon   October 14, 2005 Farrah Hassen A Somber Ramadan in Syria Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers: They Haven't Forgotten; Neither Should We Sasha Kramer USAID and Haiti: the Friendly Face of Imperialism? Katrina Yeaw The Student Struggle in Italy Nicole Colson Bird Flu: Militarizing Health Care Raúl Zibechi Survival and Existence in El Alto Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez and the Politics of Race Website of the Day LA Filmmakers Cooperative October 13, 2005 Jeremy Scahill Mr. Bush Goes to Tikrit (Sort Of) Jeff Birkenstein A Thoreau for Our Time: Why Cindy Sheehan Matters Brendan Smith / Jeremy Brecher Harriet Miers: Bush or the Constitution? Stan Cox Did You Know This About Iraq? Anis Memon The Curious Case of Russ Feingold Gary Leupp Miller, Libby and the June Notes Dave Zirin A Tribute to August Wilson Matthew Koehler America's Endangered Forests Werther The Two-Headed Monster Website of the Day Hurricane Song October 12, 2005 Omar Waraich Britain and the Quake: Mean and Stingy William Cook Voices Behind the Entombment Wall Phil Gasper Countdown to a Legal Lynching Dave Lindorff Impeachment Now and Then: Clinton, Bush and the Polls Matt Vidal Capital, Power and Class John Gautreaux New Orleans will Never be the Same Diana Johnstone Srebrenica Revisited: Using War as an Excuse for War Mark Weisbrot The IMF Has Lost Its Influence Brian J. Foley Gitmo Tribunals Endanger Public Safety Website of the Day Columbus Day Lies   October 11, 2005 Roger Morris / Steve Schmidt Strategic Demands of the 21st Century Lila Rajiva Live from New Orleans: Abu Ghraib Bill Quigley New Orleans: Leaving the Poor Behind Again Paul Craig Roberts Natural Born Liars Dave Lindorff Recruiters in Schools: No Lie Left Untried Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Suspect Thy Neighbor Mitchel Cohen Showdown at Chuck E. Cheese Tariq Ali Pakistan will Never Forget This Horror Website of the Day L'Heure Americaine   October 10, 2005 Cindy and Craig Corrie Rachel's Words Live Joshua Frank Washington's War Dems Gideon Levy The Beautiful Life Without Arafat Alan Wallis The Fight for Free Speech at Union Square Mickey Z. In Defense of Liars CounterPunch News Service Vermont Independence Convention Paul Craig Roberts The Police State is Closer Than You Think Website of the Day Dylan's Chronicles   October 8 / 9, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Rhetoric and Reality in the Business of Getting Rid of Black People Ralph Nader Katrina and the Growls of Greed Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: Legal Strategies in the Dharfir Case Saul Landau An Oily Religious Dream Jeff Halper Setting Up Abbas Lenni Brenner The Millions More Movement and Zionism Nikolas Kozloff Bird Flu and Bush Brian Cloughley Training Soldiers in Iraq Alice Slater A Nobel Prize for Chernobyl? John Gautreaux A View from Cajun Country Fred Gardner Does the Controlled Substances Act Mean What It Says? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Leveethan Approach M.G. Piety Rot in the Ivory Tower: Collusion, Cover-Up and Kierkegaard Tom Gorman The Hitchens Doctrine Mike Whitney Bunker Days with George Aseem Shrivastava Beyond the Wasteland: Lessons from Afghanistan Ben Tripp Religion, an Epistle Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Ford   October 7, 2005 Larry Johnson The Plame Case: the Real Issues Will Youmans Why Do We Hate Our Freedom? Recruiters and Thugs on Campus Dave Lindorff Bird Flu: Evolution or Intelligent Design? Judith Scherr Haiti's Children's Prison Russell D. Hoffman Nukes for Peace, Revisited?: Nobel Prize Debacle Jared Bernstein Katrina and Jobs Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: the Case of Dr. Dhafir Website of the Day FBI Witchhunt October 6, 2005 P. Sainath "Take That, Tom Friedman": Indian Masses Reject NYT's Neoliberal Idol Again Scott Parkin When Antiwar Activists Get Mugged Paul Craig Roberts Blundering into Syria Andréa Schmidt Haiti's Biometric Elections: a High-Tech Experiment in Exclusion Dave Lindorff Easy Money in the Big Easy Joshua Frank In Defense of Lew Rockwell M. Junaid Alam Jackboots at George Mason Matthew Koehler Cock and Bull on the Bitterroot Robert Pollin Is the Dollar Still Falling?   October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Militarization is Not an Answer for Reconstruction: the Case of the Philippines Robert Jensen Is Bush a Racist? Ramzy Baroud Bush's Final Choice: America or the Empire Col. Dan Smith Keeping Promises to Iraq: "Everything is Bad" Dave Zirin Barry Bonds Laughs Last Paul Craig Roberts Liberal Guilt? How the Neocons Took Over Alan Maass Doing the Right Wing's Dirty Work   October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Shocking the Two Party System: a Political Opportunity for Sheehan and the Antiwar Mvt. Mike Roselle Houston, You've Got a Problem Joshua Frank The Scoop on Harriet Miers John Chuckman War Porn: What the Gruesome Images Say Alan Farago Storm Warning for Jeb: Developers, Hurricanes and the Keys Mickey Z. An Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski Christine & Ethan Rose Home Depot Exploits Hurricane Victims Gary Leupp An Earlier Empire's War on Iraq: a Lesson from Roman History Website of the Day Rodney Crowell on Bob Dylan   October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Desperation at Holyoke Paul Craig Roberts Condi Rice: Gunslinger Joshua Frank An Interview with Cindy Sheehan Seth Sandronsky The Hiring Crisis for Black Teens Jeffrey St. Clair The Great Green Scare             Subscribe Online

Half-way Home CounterPunchers! Annual Fundraising Appeal We interrupt your regular reading habits to bring you the following important announcement: CounterPunch needs your financial support! We're not in the habit of making idle threats and this isn't one. Either we meet our fundraising goal of $60,000 over the next three weeks or we'll be forced to drastically curtail the operation of our website. It's near the end of our year and the wolf is at the door. CounterPunch's website is supported almost entirely by subscribers to the print edition of our newsletter. We don't clutter the site by selling annoying popup ads. We tried getting money out of Google, but they gave us the boot. We aren't on the receiving end of six-figure grants from big foundations. George Soros doesn't have us on retainer. And we don't sell tickets on cruiseliners. The continued existence of CounterPunch depends solely on the support and dedication of our readers. And we know there are a lot of you. We get thousands of emails from you every day. Our website receives nearly 100,000 visits each day-and those numbers grow by the month. Of course, all these readers chew up a lot of bandwidth and that costs money. Through the Iraq war, the daily traumas of the Bush administration, hurricanes, earthquakes and the disappearance of the Democrats, many of you have found a refuge at CounterPunch and made us your homepage. You tell us that you love CounterPunch because the quality of writing you find here every day and because we never flinch under fire. We appreciate the support and prepared for the fierce battles to come as the Bush administration expands its wars abroad and at home. Unlike many other outfits, we don't hit you up for money every month...or even every quarter. We only ask for your support once a year. But we when ask, we mean it. Please, make a donation to CounterPunch today or purchase a gift subscription or a crate of books as holiday presents. To contribute by phone you can call Becky or Deva toll free at: 1-800-840-3683 Onward, Alexander, Jeffrey, Becky and Deva November 5 / 6, 2005 The Unfolding Economic Nightmare Will Big Business Turn on Bush? By MARK ENGLER The Bush administration has a reputation for creating an unusually business-friendly White House. Put Dick Cheney's secretive Energy Task Force and massive tax cuts together with corporate lobbyists writing regulations for their own industries, and you've made an argument that seems pretty persuasive. There are reasons, however, to consider a contrary notion: Maybe George Bush and Dick Cheney aren't very good capitalists at all. George W. Bush's history as a failed businessman is well known. Dick Cheney, portrayed by conservatives as a brilliant ex-CEO and by progressives as a Halliburton shill, also has a suspect past. While he certainly increased Halliburton's profile in four-and-a-half years as its chief, his foremost accomplishment was the $7.7 billion acquisition in 1998 of Dresser Industries, a rival that turned out to be plagued with staggering asbestos-related liabilities. In the wake of Cheney's reign, multiple Halliburton divisions sought bankruptcy protection and the company's stock price plunged. Rolling Stone magazine reported in August 2004, "Even with the bounce Halliburton stock has received from the war, an investor who put $100,000 into the company just before Cheney became vice president would have less than $60,000 today." Many analysts hold the Vice President accountable for the downturn, arguing that Dresser's asbestos problems, which cost Halliburton billions, were predictable. Less harsh critics nonetheless question his success as a business leader. For instance, Jason E. Putman, an energy analyst at Victory Capital Management, argues that, as Halliburton chief, "[o]verall, Cheney did maybe at best an average job." Newsweek's Wall Street editor, Allan Sloan, is less complimentary, suggesting Cheney was a "CEO who messed up big-time." When it comes to Iraq, we hear a lot about the government largesse flowing toward Halliburton, Bechtel, and a handful of other favored firms. Less often do we consider the possibility that the administration's "war on terrorism" has been a major business blunder. If you start, though, with the lackluster corporate records of Bush and Cheney, the administration's foreign policy comes into quite a different focus. Even if you believe that the White House is designing its overseas crusade to benefit U.S. corporations, there's no reason to assume that it has been doing so successfully. Increasingly, the business press is suggesting that corporate leaders, who once hoped the current administration would push the corporate globalization of the Clinton years to new heights, now fear another fate from the international order Bush has created. Tax cuts and deregulation on the domestic front have been obvious bonuses, but otherwise many U.S. multinationals face a troubling scene. The White House's failed CEOs have pursued a global agenda that, at best, benefits a narrow slice of the American business community and leaves the rest exposed to a world of popular resentment and economic uncertainty. When it comes to the interventions of Bush, Cheney, Condi, and the neocons in the global economy, "at best an average job" might be a charitable judgment, and "messed up big-time" could be closer to reality. Those business people who have yet to join the majority that opposes the president's handling of his war in Iraq -- or the increasing chorus of conservative critics who have begun questioning the administration's foreign policy -- may soon have a long list of reasons to get on the bandwagon, starting with the bottom line.   Not KFC's War In recent years, KFC has had some trying moments in the Muslim world. In early September, a bomb exploded inside one of the company's fried-chicken outlets in Karachi, Pakistan. It was not the first time the chain had been targeted. In May, a Shia mob, angered by U.S. backing for President Pervez Musharraf and by reported abuses at Guantánamo Bay, set fire to another KFC outlet -- one decked out with large images of Colonel Sanders set atop fields of stars and stripes. Two other branches were destroyed shortly after the U.S. attack on Afghanistan in 2001. The woes affecting KFC go well beyond one fast-food chain -- McDonald's, too, has been attacked in Pakistan and Indonesia -- and the torching of fast-food outlets is only the most dramatic sign of the new business climate being fostered by a changing American foreign policy. If Clinton's diplomatic affairs could be described as a sustained effort to make the world safe for Mickey Mouse, Microsoft, and popcorn chicken, the Bush/Cheney agenda represents something altogether more dangerous for business. The Clinton administration served as a steady advocate for building a cooperative, "rules-based" international economy -- a multilateral order known to critics as "corporate globalization." The Bush administration, while purporting to be interested in issues like "free trade," has offered up a very different set of policies. Aggressive and unilateralist, it has fashioned a new model of "imperial globalization" which has even put multilateral institutions like the World Trade Organization, decried by globalization activists, in jeopardy. Rather than working through such bodies, the current administration has regularly shown intransigence in international negotiations around trade and development; it has focused on tying its aid for other countries directly to its militarist prerogatives; and it has tried to deny war-weary "Old Europe" its traditional role as a junior partner in the globalization endeavor. In the process, it has begun dismantling an international order that served multinational corporations very well in the booming 1990s, and facilitated their rise over the past 30 years. In short: If Bush is an oil president, he's not a Disney president, nor a Coca-Cola one. If Cheney is working diligently to help Halliburton rebound, the war he helped lead hasn't worked out nearly so well for Starbucks.   A Bungled-Brand America Whether the administration's bold gamble for U.S. global dominance will prove profitable either in the near future or in the long run, the business costs of this approach are already becoming evident. For starters, the new wave of anti-Americanism sweeping the planet goes far beyond KFC bombings in South Asia or widespread hostility in the Middle East. In Asia, the South China Morning Post has noted that a "strong, growing hostility" toward the United States has complicated Disney's expansion plans in the area. The Bush imperial foreign policy, moreover, is inspiring consumer backlash even among traditional allies. In December 2004, Jim Lobe of Inter Press Service reported on a survey of 8,000 international consumers released by the Seattle-based Global Market Insite (GMI) Inc. The survey noted that "one-third of all consumers in Canada, China, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, and the United Kingdom said that U.S. foreign policy, particularly the 'war on terror' and the occupation of Iraq, constituted their strongest impression of the United States... 'Unfortunately, current American foreign policy is viewed by international consumers as a significant negative, when it used to be a positive,' comments Dr. Mitchell Eggers, GMI's chief operating officer and chief pollster." Brands the survey identified as particularly at risk at the time included Marlboro cigarettes, America Online (AOL), McDonald's, American Airlines, Exxon-Mobil, Chevron Texaco, United Airlines, Budweiser, Chrysler, Barbie Doll, Starbucks, and General Motors. More recent assessments have verified these trends. Indeed, in past months, a litany of stories in the financial press featured unnerving questions for business. Typical were the British Financial Times in August (World Turning Its Back on Brand America) and Forbes in September (Is Brand America In Trouble?). A U.S. Banker magazine article from August relaying the results of an Edelman Trust Barometer survey of global elites found that "41 percent of Canadian elites were less likely to purchase American products because of Bush Administration policies, compared to 56 percent in the UK, 61 percent in France, 49 percent in Germany and 42 percent in Brazil." It's not just snooty foreigners who are negative, either. American business leaders themselves have been starting to link economic woes to imperial policy. The previously mentioned U.S. Banker article warned, "[T]he majority of American CEOs, whose firms employ eight million overseas, are now acknowledging that anti-American sentiment is a problem." And a 2004 Boston Herald story, headlined Mass. Execs: Iraqi War Hurting; U.S. competitiveness becoming a casualty, pointed to the "sixty-two percent of executives surveyed by Opinion Dynamics Corp. [who] said the war is hurting America's global competitiveness." Regularly featured in stories about America's image problems is a group of corporate executives who have come together as Business for Diplomatic Action (BDA).While avoiding an explicit stance on the Iraq war, the BDA argues: "The costs associated with rising anti-American sentiment are exponential. From security and economic costs to an erosion in our ability to engender trust around the world and recruit the best and brightest, the U.S. stands to lose its competitive edge if steps are not made toward reversing the negativity associated with America." Compared to the adverse impacts of Bush's imperial globalization, the administration's efforts at Karen-Hughes-style brand rehabilitation are laughable -- and the BDA knows it. Taking diplomatic matters into their own hands, BDA spokespeople flatly state, "Right now the US government is not a credible messenger."   A Quagmire for Corporations Is the problem just one of perception, or have the wages of war cut into business profits? In June 2004, USA Today reporter James Cox wrote about how financially ailing companies are pointing to the war as the culprit: "Hundreds of companies blame the Iraq war for poor financial results in 2003, many warning that continued U.S. military involvement there could harm this year's performance. In recent regulatory filings at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), airlines, home builders, broadcasters, mortgage providers, mutual funds and others directly blame the war for lower revenues and profits last year." Among those complaining, Hewlett-Packard claimed that the occupation of Iraq has created uncertainty and hurt its stock price; meanwhile, media companies Hearst-Argyle Television, Sinclair Broadcast Group, and Journal Communications bemoaned the number of TV and radio ads pre-empted by war news. While fingering the war might be just a convenient excuse for some underperforming executives, the level of grumbling is noteworthy, as are the comments of outspoken fund managers profiled by Cox: "'The war in Iraq created a quagmire for corporations,' David J. Galvan, a portfolio manager for Wayne Hummer Income Fund, says in his letter to shareholders. "Vintage Mutual Funds concludes that 'the price of these commitments (in Iraq and Afghanistan) may be more than the American public had expected or is willing to tolerate' "In an SEC filing, Domenic Colasacco, manager of the Boston Balanced Fund, calls the ongoing U.S. occupation 'sad and increasingly risky.'" Of course, we know that reconstruction companies are posting profits. Sales of gas masks and armored Humvees are also up. But such war-supported companies are a small minority. On the other hand, the diverse businesses in the tourism industry have taken a huge blow. Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Orbitz, Priceline.com, Morton's steakhouses, Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, and Host Marriott, to name just a few, have blamed disappointing returns on the war. Travel industry leaders have warned: "The US is losing billions of dollars as international tourists are deterred from visiting the US because of a tarnished image overseas and more bureaucratic visa policies... 'It's an economic imperative to address these problems,' said Roger Dow, chief executive of the Travel Industry Association of America, tourism's main trade body... Mr. Dow stressed that tourism contributed to a positive perception of the US... 'If we don't address these issues in tourism, the long-term impact for American brands Coca-Cola, General Motors, McDonald's could be very damaging.'"   Economic Nightmares Foretold Every year, the global business elite gathers at a resort in Davos, Switzerland for the World Economic Forum. In the high-flying Clinton years, a feeling of exuberance pervaded the globalists' gathering -- protests outside their meetings notwithstanding. By January 2003, however, the mood in Davos had already darkened perceptibly. Economic optimism was waning. The coming war in Iraq, in particular, was causing concern. Corporate leaders showed little more enthusiasm than the protestors outside for the impending unilateralist invasion. Analysts fed their misgivings, citing "the threat of war as the biggest question mark hanging over global growth prospects." Around the same time, progressive economists Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot detailed a possible worst-case scenario in a policy report entitled The Economic Costs of a War in Iraq. Beyond the costs of anti-Americanism abroad, they focused on three additional areas of concern: A war-related oil shock that might cost the American economy hundreds of thousands of jobs over a seven-year period; a heightened risk of terrorist attacks in the U.S. which might result in increased security costs, slowing the growth of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP); and a likelihood that increased oil prices would drag the developing world into a deep recession. I asked Baker how relevant the report's concerns have proven. Though he emphasizes that the worst did not come to pass, he notes worrying signs. Oil prices have indeed skyrocketed, owing largely to increased demand from China and India, but exacerbated by Iraq's AWOL oil. Moreover, as each new intelligence estimate predicts that we are less, not more, secure because of the Iraqi occupation, the risk of an economy-crippling attack grows. Already, Baker points out, the hours we spend waiting in security lines at the airport or delayed in city subways represent costly economic losses. Then, of course, there is the as yet unrealized possibility that spreading guerilla warfare and terrorism will include escalating sabotage against vast and largely indefensible stretches of oil pipeline in the Middle East. It is this scenario among others that caused professor of Middle Eastern history and Informed Comment blogger Juan Cole to liken Bush's Iraq debacle to "throwing grenades around in the cockpit of the world economy." Such costs, foretold before the invasion, suggest that the pre-war pessimism in Davos was well justified. And such a modest list hardly exhausts the possible economic "downsides" to Bush administration policies in Iraq and beyond. The debate about Congressional spending, for one, deserves at least passing mention. Whether fiscal conservatives are right that Iraq- and tax-cut-bloated deficits are necessarily bad for business, or whether Military Keynesianism has actually been helping to soften a periodic economic downturn, the idea of war without sacrifice should sound fishy to any account-minded executive. Take direct war costs running in the hundreds of billions, add in medical bills for disabled veterans, then throw in the costs of National Guard reservists being pulled from small businesses, and pretty soon you're talking real money. At some point the overvalued dollar, which our creditors in the central banks of China and Japan have decided to let ride for the time being, will have to come down and is likely to bring the economy with it. When that happens, Colonel Sanders won't be the only one to feel the pain.   Will Business Turn? Back in August of the 2004 election cycle, the Kerry campaign distributed a list of 204 business executives who supported the candidate's policies. It was a nice try, but, as Bloomberg News reported, the Democrat trailed Bush badly in corporate support. Fifty-two chief executives from major companies had by then donated to Kerry; 280 to the president's re-election campaign. (Business being business, "at least three executives on Kerry's list also gave the maximum $2,000 to Bush's re-election campaign.") A year has passed since the elections. Approval ratings for the victorious president continue to sink to all-time lows, and "staying the course" remains official Washington policy for Iraq. In this context, it's not surprising that Republican "realists" like Brent Scowcroft (who warned in a Wall Street Journal op-ed before the war that "it undoubtedly would be very expensive -- with serious consequences for the U.S. and global economy") are making noise again. And it would make perfect sense if an increasing number of those Bush CEOs were by now pining for a return to Clinton-style multilateral globalization of a sort still held out by the defeated Senator from Massachusetts and many other Democrats. Neither of these alternative camps will seem particularly appealing to progressives, but they pose a genuine threat to the imperial globalists who seem incapable of extracting themselves from Iraq. Indeed, intra-party rivalry among the Republicans -- which is likely to increase as we enter an election year -- could play a vital role in turning White House hawks into dead ducks. All the better if this avian transformation is sped by dissatisfaction from corporate leaders reevaluating the costs of Bush foreign policy and deciding that empire just doesn't pay. Mark Engler, a writer based in New York City, is an analyst with Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be reached via the web site http://www.DemocracyUprising.com. Research assistance for this article was provided by Kate Griffiths. This article was first published by Tomdispatch.com (http://www.tomdispatch.com/index.mhtml?pid=33201) and appears with permission of the author.   What You're Missing in the Special Expanded Print Edition The War So Far: a Failure Worse Than Vietnam by Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad "The need for the White House to produce a fantasy picture of Iraq is because it dare not admit that it has engineered one of the greatest disasters in American history. It is worse than Vietnam because the enemy is punier and the original ambitions greater." Get the answers you're looking for in the subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. 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