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The Democrats Bow to Bush on War: How the Anti-War Movement Failed
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Today's Stories June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zali Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day
May 26 / 27, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Michael Donnelly Patrick Cockburn Franklin Lamb Jean Bricmont Gary Leupp James Petras William Peace Judith and John Sharpe Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Democracy in Iraq, Tyranny at Home? Jonathan M.
Feldman Dave Lindorff Missy Beattie Mike Whitney Badruddin Khan Ron Jacobs Zoe Blunt Arjun Chowdhury, Heather Gray N. D. Jayaprakash Joe Allen Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
Robert Jensen David Vest John Stauber Evelyn Pringle Corporate Crime Reporter Susan Rosenthal,
MD Roberto Rodriguez Steve Fournier Patrick McElwee Robert Weissman Website of the Day
Franklin Lamb Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fantina Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Sen. Russell
Feingold Fred Gardner Mike Whitney Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury
and Mark Hoffman Caroline Paul Eva Liddell Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Rev. William
Alberts Joe DeRaymond Sudhanva Deshpande
Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Rannie Amiri China Hand Zoe Blunt Nivien Saleh Website of the Day
Robert Fisk Joshua Frank Harvey Wasserman David Mos Masumoto Sonja Karkar Conn Hallinan Dave Lindorff Jeffrey Kolakowski Evelyn Pringle Jim Baumer Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Nicole Colson John Ross Stephen Fleischman M. Shahid Alam Ron Jacobs Peter Rost, MD Alan Farago Paul Buchheit Website of
the Day
May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Uri Avnery Peter Gelderloos Saul Landau Robert Fantina Fred Gardner Ralph Nader Jean Daniels Reza Fiyouzat Missy Beattie Robert Alvarez Sonja Karkar Dave Lindorff Jeff Sher Julian C. Holmes Clancy Sigal Prairie Miller James Murren Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 18, 2007 Adam Jones Sharon Smith Christopher Brauchli Peter Rost,
MD Denise Maloney Pictou David Swanson Ali Khan Susan Rosenthal,
M.D. Samer Assad CP News Service Website of the Day
May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali Yifat Susskind Dave Zirin Brian J. Foley W. John Green Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Badruddin Khan Martha Rosenberg China Hand Dan Vojir Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Ashley Dawson Joshua Frank Corporate Crime
Reporter Ray McGovern Glen Ford Joe Bageant Sonja Karkar Mickey S. Huff John Chuckman Kaz Dziamka Website of
the Day
May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Patrick Cockburn Ashley Smith Marc Gardner Dave Lindorff Ben Terrall Ron Jacobs Harvey Wasserman Marcus Mabry Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Jeffrey St.
Clair George Bisharat Diane Wachtell Ramzy Baroud Rosemary and
Walter Brasch Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Roberto Rodriguez Jonathan Culp Website of
the Day
May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Diane Farsetta Ralph Nader Jean Bricmont Marcus Breen Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Juan Santos
Eve Bachrach Missy Comley
Beattie Ron Jacobs Niranjan Ramakrishnan Susie Day Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Kathleen Christison Mike Ferner John Holt Laurie Hasbrook Christopher
Brauchli Margaret Kimberley Dave Lindorff Nicole Colson John V. Walsh Website of the Day
May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Patrick Cockburn Neve Gordon Marjorie Cohn David Rosen Alan Farago John Hellman Kathy Rentenbach BANCO Richard Rhames Website of the Day
Jeff Leys Patrick Cockburn Glen Ford Paula Rothenberg Kathryn Weber John Chuckman Jordan Flaherty Dave Lindorff Stephen Lendman Website of
the Day
May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff Patrick Cockburn Corporate Crime Reporter Ralph Nader Malini Johar Schueller Juan Santos Dave Zirin Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Eamonn McCann Website of the Day
May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Monica Benderman Greg Moses Rannie Amiri Fitrakis / Wasserman Fred Wilhelms Ramzy Baroud Bruce K. Gagnon T. W. Croft Sonja Karkar Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn William Blum Uri Avnery Franklin Lamb Fred Gardner Lawrence R.
Velvel Missy Beattie Robert Fantina Carla Blank Linn Washington,
Jr. Stephen F. Jackson P. Sainath Anthony Papa James T. Phillips John Ross Stephen Lendman Ben Terrall CounterPunch
Newswire Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Azmi Bishara Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Bob Fitrakis Janet Kauffman Website of
the Day
May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper Christopher
Brauchli Dave Zirin Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fisk Mike Ferner Mike Whitney Pham Binh Dave Lindorff Michael A.
Johnson Website of the Day
May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Dr. Susan Block Carla Blank Margaret Kimberly Kevin Zeese Carlos Villareal Michael Dickinson Tim Shorrock Alevtina Rea William S.
Lind Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn Fred Gardner Chase Madar Ralph Nader John V. Walsh Joshua Frank Leslie Radford Shaun Harkin Dave Lindorff Peter Rost,
MD Peter Linebaugh Website of
the Day
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June 5, 2007 Free the Oak Trees! Cut Down Those Yellow Ribbons!Stop Supporting the DupesBy MYLES HOENIG By now it has become obvious to most Americans that the reasons for going to war against Iraq were fabricated. People may argue what the real reasons were: maintain American hegemony in the Middle East; solidifying US imperialism worldwide; following the orders of the Likud Party; even sarcastic reasons like Bush couldn't spell Afghanistan so he invaded Iraq. Maybe it was simply that "After all this is the guy who tried to kill my Dad." (9/27/02) If we follow main stream media we will see that America is getting tired of the war. Even the MSM accepts that the Democrats were elected in '06 to get us out. What a shock it is to the millions of gullible Americans who voted for the Democrats now that they have given Bush all that he wants. It wasn't enough that the support from the Democratic Party was there from the beginning but many are feeling deceived by this most recent capitulation. Even though George Bush mangled the saying regarding 'Fool me once' with the Democrats it's 'Fool me for a thousandth's time." Why are so many Americans against the war? Still not a majority, but the reasons are not because it was an illegal war to begin with. More likely it's because we're losing. That doesn't happen much. Viet Nam was our first real lost war (and similarly conceived). However, not since Washington, D.C. was sacked in 1812 have Americans ever have known real war. We see it elsewhere. We cause it elsewhere. We fight it elsewhere. American troops go through all the hells of war, but if they survive, they're back home in the safety of rural communities, inner city townies, and shopping malls. Would we be so violent a people if half the block where our homes are have been blown away by mortars? Or, what if foreign troops are regularly patrolling our streets to make it safe (for them)? We have over 1000 military instillations throughout the world in over 130 countries. How would we react to Bulgarians, Fijians or others pushing us around as we get out of our cars with groceries? They are just a small representation of the mercenaries we employ in Iraq. Would Americans have a different attitude towards war if we were forever on the receiving end? Our armaments industry would never allow Congress to take a more peaceful path. Peace is just not good for business. America's economy could come to a screeching halt. Boeing would have to build energy efficient passenger planes. General Electric would have to build motors that run on renewable resources. Maybe Dow would have to develop environmentally safe pest control or avoidance devices, rather than napalm and other anti-personnel weapons. Can Raytheon come up with the perfect mousetrap? Just imagine the CEOs of each of these companies rallying their marketing troops away from war and death. Sorry. But I just can't. We are a violent nation. Period. Our foreign policy is straight out of the Roman Empire and our domestic proclivity towards violence and human degradation is seen every day on Jerry Springer, Oprah, and other shows that show how miserable our lives are and how we ourselves are a miserable lot. How does all this relate to our troops? It's a simple connection. The troops are an extension of our foreign policy. Regardless of the reasons for joining the military, the end result is to enforce policy that has nothing to do with American patriotism or values. We are in Iraq for lies. We all know that now, although many have known that long before 2003 (including most Congress members who pretended that they were deceived). Hell, those who voted for the war, and those who still vote to keep it going, are either complicit in committing war crimes or are just too damn stupid to be representing us. My US Senator, Barbara Mikulski, like her counterpart in Illinois, Richard Durbin, admitted that they knew the war was based on lies but feared a felony charge for divulging that information. Is there anyone more complicit in war crimes than one who could have stopped such an atrocity but cared more for keeping out of prison (or the country clubs)? I used to rank General Colin Powell as #1 war criminal for using his prestige to fake a cause for war. Those on the Senate Intelligence Committee who, like Mikulski and Durbin, were too cowardly to stop the war when they could have, should be sent to The Hague for trial first before Bush administration personnel. The troops are pawns. They are used and used up by the military to carry out a war of aggression against an innocent population. The majority of our servicemen and women are from rural towns or urban centers where opportunity is available but ignored for the cheap and easy enlistment promises. They are lied to and when finished with their service they are discarded afterwards. Yet what is different than in our last protracted war of aggression in Viet Nam that was also based on lies is that these soldiers are enlistees. Most going to Iraq or Afghanistan enlisted long after it was known that this war was based on fraudulent information. Except for the poor schmucks in the National Guard who thought they were just going to be weekend warriors, not casualties, each joined an army that has nothing but history of warmongering. They practiced warfare in high school with video games. They watch movies by Schwarzenegger and Stallone about how cool it is to kill 'filthy dirty Arabs', homicidal Reds, or whatever ethnicity or political entity worthy of de-humanization. Funny how our greatest war models were Chicken Hawks. Stallone was a draft dodger during Viet Nam (alleged to have been teaching girls' soccer in Switzerland) and John Wayne avoided military service during WW2 while fellow actors like Fonda, Garfield, Stewart, Palance, etc. enlisted. Even Elvis Presley enlisted! So did Maynard G. Krebbs, but that's another story. Only real peace voices, such as Cindy Sheehan, have the nerve to say what so many are afraid to think. Casey, and thousands of others, have died in vain. Their deaths are meaningless. Their mutilations are a joke on them for falling for patriotic claptrap that said they must avenge 9/11. Do we blame the soldier for being naÃve or a super-patriot? Do we blame ourselves for allowing our society to decay to the point where the military is an option out of poverty (as false a claim as that is)? Mad Magazine wonderfully shows a counter-recruitment poster with the caption: "Patriotism is a great motivator. Unemployment is a greater motivator." We can feel sorry for our soldiers for being dupes. But we can't give them a pass. They are in Iraq carrying out a brutal war of occupation. They represent the 'best' of America. For the first time, we are seeing Aryan Nation graffiti on Baghdadi walls. Acceptance of abusing Iaqi civilians is widespread where soldiers will not rat out fellow soldiers for abusing them. Four mercenaries are killed in Fallujah and we level the city like only the Fascist of Spain could have done to Guernica. Why are we defending these thugs? Who are they that they even deserve our respect, admiration, or even compassion? When they joined the military, they gave up much of their Constitutional rights as well as their humanity. They joined a collective, not much unlike the Borg Collective. Some may be Hugh's, fighting to be independent. Those are the soldiers we should back. They are the Erin Watadas of Hawaii who refused to deploy to Iraq because they knew the war was wrong. They are the Jeremy Hinzmans who have deserted to Canada rather than going to Iraq. These are the soldiers for whom we should care about and plaster magnetic ribbons all over our cars. What other soldiers should we care about? How about the resistance fighters in Iraq? The greatest heroes of WW2 were the partisans and resistance fighters who took on the occupying Nazis. They were true patriots; same for those for whom we call 'insurgents'. They are fighting an armed resistance against the constituted authority backed by the most powerful military Earth has ever known. They are taking on the occupying armies of the West, namely the US. Our own insurgents were once called Minutemen. Why are Iraqi insurgents treated as terrorists when they are only defending their homes? The answer is obvious. Their enemy is primarily the US Army and any enemy of our army must be evil. Foreign troops may be on the increase, but they still pale to pissed off Iraqi patriots who just don't like being occupied. Since those who fight the Americans are predominantly Muslim and don't engage much in alcohol, they can't use Sam's words from Casablanca as he's sipping on French champagne, "Kind of takes the sting out of being occupied, doesn't it Mr. Richard." Rick was part of the underground but had to flee to avoid arrest by the Gestapo. Real life partisans stayed, fought, and died or were tortured. They were the heroes of WW2 as the insurgents are the heroes of the 2nd war for Iraqi oil. Let's have magnetic ribbons that say, "I support the resistance" rather than jingoistic, xenophobic and imperialistic ones that adorn SUV's and other diesel belching trucks. When screaming hordes of Canadian lumberjacks cross our borders with axes then perhaps our Army can be used to defend us and we should then be proud of their service. What other occasion can be imagined where our military is used for truly altruistic purposes that will not benefit (usually financially) some industry or political party? I'm not advocating the dissolution of our military entirely. After all, as Mohamed El Baradei says, there are 'new crazies' out there. He was referring to the lunatics in the Bush administration planning war with Iran but it can refer to so many others out there who think like Bush and his circle of psychopaths. The US does need to be defended. We have earned the scorn, hatred, and fear of so many out there. The biggest 'blowback' is that someone as unbalanced as Bush could take it out on our farmers in Iowa or civil servants in urban centers. Their only crime is mostly being silent and wishful thinking. Myles Hoenig's lottery # in 1973 was 190 when Americans
were no longer threatened with involuntary servitude, except
for those already in bondage. With his wife, Brandy Baker, they
are working on peace and consumer issues through their Green
Party local, Charm City Greens. Myles served as the campaign
manager for Ed Boyd, Green Party candidate for Gov. of Maryland
in 2006. Myles can be reached at myles@charmcitygreens.org
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The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont             CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
