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Recent
Stories
July
25, 2003
Francis
A. Boyle
Impeaching Bush
David
Krieger
15 Questions
Harvey
Wasserman
Pat Robertson's Supreme Fatwah
Steve Dunifer
Seize the Airwaves!
Dan
Bacher
Federal Judge Throws Out Bush Salmon Plan for Klamath River
Kurt Nimmo
Bread, Circuses, Uday and Qusay
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Stop the Wall!
July
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses...Again
Robert
Fisk
The Ugly Story of Camp Cropper: The
US Torture Camp in Iraq
David
Lindorff
Dumb and Dumber in Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Ashcroft Demands Death Penalty in
Puerto Rico
David
Vest
Dylan in Bend
Tom Turnipseed
Killing Saddam & His Family Won't Stop Killing of US Troops
Douglas
Valentine
A Nation of Assassins
Stew Albert
Contract Killing
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Report on Palestinian Child Prisoners
July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
David
Lindorff
Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft
Rebuked
Mano
Singham
Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists
Steve
Perry
Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies
John Stanton
Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope?
Patrick
Bond
Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission
Harry Browne
A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman
Paul
Beaulieu
When the WTO Comes to Montreal
Robert
Fisk
The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance
Will Grow
William
Witherup
Georgie Porgie
Website
of the Day
Lieberman & Falwell:
True Love at Last
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
July
21, 2003
Edward
Said
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping
of Arabs
Ron
Jacobs
Shut Up and Shoot
Allan J.
Lichtman
Why is George Bush President?
Elaine
Cassel
How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment
Camps
Bruce
Jackson
Third and Arizona, Santa Monica
Website
of the Day
John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim
by Claim
July
19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
July
18, 2003
David
Vest
Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo
Rahul
Mahajan
Deceit Runs Deep
John Chuckman
Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World
Harold
A. Gould
The Bush-Musharraf Conclave
Alvaro
Angarita
In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists
David
Grenier
Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island
Dave Lindorff
Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal
Website
of the Day
Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair
July
17, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Sometimes Even the President of the
United States Has to Stand Naked
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance
Martin
Schwarz
Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation
Watchdogs
Heidi
Lypps
Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced
Drugging and the Supreme Court
Norman
Madarasz
Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance
Conference
Pankaj
Mehta
Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement
Marjorie
Cohn
Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the
Boy Who Cried Wolf
Hammond
Guthrie
(Dis) Intelligence Revisited
Website
of the Day
No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism
July
16, 2003
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype
Dubious Uranium Claims
William
Cook
Defining Terrorism from the Top Down
Elaine
Cassel
Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom
Must Not Be Obeyed
Jason
Leopold
How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found?
Linda Heard
Bondage or Freedom?
Raymond
Barrett
From Detroit to Basra
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Back to the Future in Guatemala:
The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt
July
15, 2003
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Why We Resigned from VIPS
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers:
the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack
Chris
Floyd
Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries
Jason
Leopold
CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries
Gaius Publius
Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please
John
Troyer
The Niger Syndrome
Becky Gillette
No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David
Orrr
Uri
Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall
Dwell with the Lamb
Website
of the Day
Cost of Iraq War
July
14, 2003
Lisa
Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah
Walter
Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain
SOA
Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US
Dan Bacher
Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Unglued
Website
of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties
July 12 / 13, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future
Standard
Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an
Interview with Michael Hudson
John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang
Ron
Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran
Elaine
Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights
Tom
Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11
David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"
Jason
Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11
Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?
Mickey
Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa
Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group
Ramzy
Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Adam
Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist
Robert
Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie
July
11, 2003
Conn
Hallinan
The Coin of Empire
Tim
Wise
God Responds to Bush
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa
Edward
S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor
David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?
David
Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary
Website
of the Day
Dead Malls
July
10, 2003
Ron
Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody
Profits of General Dynamics
Sean
Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia
Yemi
Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?
Robert
Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview
with Wes Jackson
Ali
Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated
Joanne
Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions
Website
of the Day
Electronic Iraq
July
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on
Bush?
David
Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons
Mickey
Z.
Why Speak Out?
Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud
John
Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie
Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq
Website
of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years
July
8, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological
Dissents of Scalia
Alan
Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor
Chris
Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag
Linda
S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice
Brian
Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders
Charles
Sullivan
Bush the Christian?
Saul
Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age
Website
of the Day
Occupation Watch
July
7, 2003
William
Blum
The Anti-Empire Report
Harvey
Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head
Ramzy
Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons
Simon
Jones
What Progressives Should Think About
Iran
Lesley
McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh
Uri
Avnery
The Draw
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3
July
4 / 6, 2003
Patrick
Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July
Frederick
Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?
Martha
Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation
and Neglect
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and
the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture
Standard
Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004
Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today
Elaine
Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth
Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?
Wayne
Madsen
A Sad Independence Day
John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War
Jim
Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment
John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim
David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite
Adam
Engel
Queer as Grass
Poets'
Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian
Hot Stories
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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July
26, 2003
Don't Extend Them
& Don't Replace Them
Just
Bring 'Em on Home Now!
By STAN GOFF
On July 23rd, my son, who is assigned to the 82nd
Airborne Division, was told along with the rest of his company
at morning formation, to get his affairs in order. They are going
to replace the 3rd Infantry Division in Iraq.
Jessie spent his first thirteen years
around the military, from which I retired just seven years ago
right there in Ft. Bragg. It's no surprise, then, that in the
face of all my protests he joined the army anyway. The military
is 'normal' to him.
His mother and I have been scrupulously
'normal' for the last few days, self-consciously so. We show
great attention to detail in our day-to-day activities. We stay
busy.
I reassure her and myself that he is
a light wheeled vehicle mechanic, that he won't be participating
in convoys when his unit goes to Iraq in September, that Baghdad
airport, where the motor pool probably is, has by now been turned
into an impregnable fortress, that perhaps there wasn't as much
depleted uranium fired there as in some Baghdad neighborhoods,
that he won't be obliged to take lives and lose that little piece
of his soul, that he won't fall into the habit of calling Iraqis
ragheads or hajjis, that he can just save some money, do his
job, and stay busy and out of harm's way. This is what people
say to each other who are in our position, because there is no
alternative way to think and still go to work, still attend to
the needs of other children, still manage relationships, and
still maintain some modicum of self-control.
On July 3rd, I wrote a
piece for "Counterpunch" expressing my reaction to
George W. Bush's remark about "bring 'em on."
I went after this remark for its counterfeit courage, for its
puerility, for its utter hypocrisy and insensitivity. But now
I am reminded, now that my son is going to go there (at his age
I  was already in Vietnam), that George
W. Bush and his coterie are more than offensive. They are obscenities
with a lot of blood on their hands, and their wretchedness is
something far more terrifying and unspeakable --viewed as a parent
--than this bit of schoolyard mouth.
The "Counterpunch" column about
this Texas preppy's remark elicited a stunning reaction. My email
was hit by a tidal wave, hundreds of responses an hour at first,
reactions of empathy and outrage that told me there is a vast
reservoir of doubt, fear, and rage filling up beyond the ken
of the cringing institution that calls itself the press. Around
40 percent of those responses came from troops, military families,
and veterans. There is a great well of sullen anger smoldering
out there against these pop-opera generalissimos. Now, as parents
facing our son's first combat tour, we are even more part of
that burning.
The recent news stories about the Bush
adminstration's mountain of lies was not news to those of us
who learned long ago to seek sources outside offcialdom. Millions
of us said they were lying over a year ago. And we parents --many
of us --know that our enemies are not in Iraq. Our enemies are
in office, and they have the blood of children --some of them
ours --on their hands. Everyone is someone's child, even when
they are grown. Even when they take paths we don't approve of.
Even when they become soldiers, and are sent to pay for lies
with their bodies and hearts and the blood of others.
I replied to every email, most perfunctorily,
some at length. I skimmed at first, until I realized I had overlooked
a letter from a woman whose son struggled for four years with
post traumatic stress disorder before he took his own life. Not
long after, his young wife did the same. This bereaved mother
wrote to say thanks for giving her a voice. But it was she and
others like her who are giving us a voice.
I made calls, and the people I called
made calls, and within four days a small group of activist veterans
and military families had formed a coordinating committee to
figure out how we might find those other voices and amplify them.
We bought a web domain, made more calls, wrote statements of
purpose, developed outreach literature, conferred for two hours
at a time on the phone from the west coast to the east. We did
more organizing in two weeks than I have seen with most initiatives
in six months. As the word has leaked out, we are getting phone
calls and email. What is this thing you are doing? Military Families
Speak Out, Veterans for Peace, Vietnam Veterans Against the War,
Citizen Soldier, and others --these dissident military communities
have networks!
So we are going to give troops, their
families, and critical veterans a voice. That's the reason-for-being
of "Bring Them Home Now!" We are using our web site
www.bringthemhomenow.org
as a communications clearinghouse to publish the voices of military
communities and to link them to the networks and resources they
will need to organize themselves. When military families rebelled
recently at Ft. Stewart, the brass didn't hesitate to issue veiled
threats that criticizing the war might impact on their loved
ones' careers. The brass will have no control over us, however,
and those same people (mostly courageous women) will be able
to say what they want, when they want, and we'll protect their
identities if that's what they need. Through them, we will communicate
with the troops in combat zones, whose recent public dissent
brought a swift and clear injunction from the CENTCOM commander
threatening retaliate with the full force of the Uniform Code
of Military Justice.
We are going directly to those upon whom
our would-be emperors depend to carry out their grandiose and
deadly vision ---the military. A friend of mine who passed away
this year once said, "Soldiers [and their families] are
political scientists. No-one cares as much as they do about what
it is they are asked to die for." For these political scientists,
'Bring Them Home Now!' will be a conference room, a classroom,
and a loudspeaker.
We will turn up the volume and the political
pressure to bring our loved ones home, NOT 'replace' them with
more of our children and spouses, and to leave the people of
Central and Southwestern Asia to determine their own futures
without Bush's bombs and bullets.
Stan Goff
is the author of "Hideous
Dream: A Soldier's Memoir of the US Invasion of Haiti"
(Soft Skull Press, 2000) and of the upcoming book "Full
Spectrum Disorder" (Soft Skull Press, 2003). He is a member
of the BRING THEM
HOME NOW! coordinating committee, a retired Special Forces
master sergeant, and the father of an active duty soldier. Email
for BRING THEM HOME NOW! is bthn@mfso.org.
Goff can be reached at: sherrynstan@igc.org
Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
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