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Today's
Stories
May
7, 2004
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
May
4, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
A Timeline of Torture and Abuse Allegations
and Responses
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Privatized Torture
David
Peterson
CBS, Self-Censorship & Iraq
Barry
Lando
CACI's Private Torture Chambers
Patrick
Cockburn
Torture: Iraqis Disgusted, But Not Surprised
Dr.
Susan Block
Indecent Insurgents: Watch What You Say
Fidel
Castro
A Mindless, Unnecessary War
Mike
Whitney
Empire of Torture
Sonali
Kolhatkar
How to Stop the War: Demonstrate Against
John Kerry
Josh
Frank
The Lost Sierra Club
Stan
Goff
The Role: Another Open Letter to US Troops in Iraq
Agustin
Velloso
Spare Us Your Disgusting Ethics
Stew
Albert
American Know-How
Website
of the Day
Scenes from a Cover-Up
May
3, 2004
Virginia
Tilley
Let the Wall of Silence Fall
May
1 / 2, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
An Army in Disgrace, a Policy
in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat
Robert
Fisk
"Good Guys" Who Can Do No
Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders,
Useless Spies, Angry World
Heather
Williams
Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin
American Troops Flee Iraq
Diane
Rejman
An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq:
Abu Ghraib as My Lai?
Diane
Christian
Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and
Sharon Speak the Same Language
Patrick
Cockburn
Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked,
Shocked, Shocked
Chris
Floyd
Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists
and Annihilation
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome
Death of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the
Banality of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the
Ultimate Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
April
28, 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
Meet Congressman Know-Nothing:
Tom Tancredo
Wendy
Brinker
The Politics of the Numb
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
John
Chuckman
Seeking the Evil One
Mike
Whitney
Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times
Tom
Mountain
Rwanda and the F***** Word
Graeme
Greenback
The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production
Tracy
McLellan
The War Comes Home
M.
Junaid Alam
We are the Barbarians
William
Loren Katz
Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson
April 27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
Uri
Avnery
Vanunu and the Terrible Secret
April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
April 23, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal
Dave
Lindorff
Imagination Deficit Disorder
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster
Norman
Solomon
Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?"
Cynthia
McKinney
All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization
CounterPunch
Wire
A Bitch Called Wanda
Karyn
Strickler
Sierra Club, Inc.
Hammond
Guthrie
Yellow Caked in the Face
Paul
de Rooij
Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary
of the Iraqi Occupation
April 22, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
When Terror Came to Basra: "I
Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire"
Tanya
Reinhart
The Wall Behind Disengagement
Lance
Selfa
Why is Kucinich Still in the Race?
Josh
Frank
Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches
Sen.
Robert Byrd
Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq
William
S. Lind
Why We Get It Wrong
Mickey
Z.
Undoing the Latches
Robert
Jensen
Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank
John
L. Hess
The New York Times from 30,000 Feet
April
21, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Yeats on Iraq
Alfredo
Castro
Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's Taliban Drug Deal
William
A. Cook
George 1 to George 2
Jack
Random
Iraq and Vietnam
Jean-Guy
Allard
Alarcon Meets the Editors
Mike
Whitney
Charade in the Desert
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes Can
Help Washington Now
April 20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
April 19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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May
7, 2004
UnAmerican?
I Wish That
It Were So
By RON JACOBS
Un-American? I can't help but smirk
every time I see this quote from Mr. Rumsfeld describing the
abuse and murder of Iraqi prisoners in US-run prisons throughout
Iraq. While these photographs are certainly (as Bush says) "disgusting,"
they not only do more to represent the US military's standard
operating procedure, they also pale when compared to other episodes
in US history. I'm not trying to be cynical or anti-American
here when I take a look at history for other un-American activities
by our armed forces and its intelligence cohorts. If one is
to list just a few well-verified incidents of other murderous
and abusive actions by US troops, it makes sense to begin with
the decades long war on indigenous Americans-a war that was intended
from the beginning to destroy the indigenous nations and their
peoples.
1776: Six thousand US troops
razed more than 20 Cherokee towns, "destroying crops, inflicting
serious casualties on noncombatants and sweeping much of the
population into Spanish Florida.
1864: U.S. territorial military
commander Colonel John Chivington ordered the brutal murder of
as many as 200 Cheyenne and Arapaho Indians at Sand Creek (Colorado).
The Indians were told that they had been given sanctuary at
Sand Creek. More than half of the victims were women and children.
1868: Lieutenant George Armstrong
Custer's Seventh U.S. Cavalry attacked a noncombatant Cheyenne
village camped along the Washita River in Oklahoma. This resulted
in the murders of more than 100 Cheyenne, including women and
children and the killing of 875 ponies.
1890/1899: The U.S. Seventh
Cavalry massacred 350 unarmed Lakota - mainly women, children,
and old men at Wounded Knee creek in South Dakota.
Then, of course, there is the
historical reality of chattel slavery in the United States.
This holocaust not only enslaved millions of people stolen from
their homelands in Africa, it also caused the deaths of untold
millions during their transport in inhumane conditions across
the Atlantic. In addition, thousands more died due to mistreatment
and neglect by their white owners. On top of these deaths, there
are untold massacres and individual murders of rebellious and
"uppity" slaves by US troops and other militias.
After the Civil War, which
was fought between slave-owning and non-slave-owning states over
a variety of economic and cultural differences, with the question
of slavery being one of those differences, the US economic system
began to demand another type of expansion in order to grow and
survive. This meant that US troops would soon be called into
duty overseas, as the US began its empire-building phase. The
first major stop on this journey would be Cuba and the Phillipines.
1898-1905: The U.S. Army seized
the Philippines from Spain, crushing a Filipino independence
movement and killing as many as 600,000 natives of the newly
US-acquired Philippine islands.
1915-1934: Haiti is occupied
by the U.S. Marine Corps, which dissolves that country's National
Assembly, restores virtual slavery, turns the economy over to
U.S. corporations, and massacres an untold number of Haitian
peasants.
Meanwhile, the US invaded and occupied various other southern
neighbors, among them Nicaragua and the newly formed Panama.
In the process, thousands of locals were uprooted from their
homes, murdered and raped, and subjected to daily humiliation
and poverty.
Korean War, U.S. soldiers machine-gunned
hundreds of helpless civilians, under the railway bridge at No
Gun Ri. At least 300 civilians were killed in this attack. Another
100 died in a preceding air attack. This incident was but one
of many similar incidents in the murderous war on the Korean
people-a war where over 2 million Koreans died, mostly as the
result of US bombardment by a variety of weapons, the most notorious
among them being napalm (a jellied gasoline that burns the skin
off its victims). Those Korean prisoners who survived the US
prison camps in Korea tell countless tales of torture and psychological
abuse.
On March 16, 1968, Charlie
Company, of the US Eleventh Light Infantry Brigade, was ordered
into combat by Captain Ernest Medina. The 150 soldiers, led by
Lt. William Calley, stormed into the hamlet, and murdered more
than 500 civilians -- unarmed women, children, and old men. They
had not encountered a single enemy soldier, and only three weapons
were confiscated.
Just as was the case in Korea,
this incident is but one of many similar incidents that occurred
during America's war on Vietnam. This war finally ended in 1975
with a Vietnamese victory. However, it is estimated that over
2 million Vietnamese were killed during the course of the war;
most of them killed by the US military and its counterintelligence
counterparts. One of the most well-known and most heinous programs
developed in Vietnam to destroy the Vietnamese insurgency was
known as Operation Phoenix. This program involved the torture
of prisoners, their murder, and the displacement of whole populations
into internment camps. In addition, many civilians were also
tortured and murdered in the hope that they would provide information
about the insurgency.
1989- The United States launched
an assault on Panama, ostensibly to rid the country of its leader,
Manuel Noriega. Noriega's primary crime seems to have been refusing
to go along with US plans for Nicaragua and El Salvador. These
plans included the subversion of the anti-imperialist government
of Nicaragua via the use of mercenary forces contracted by the
CIA and the destruction of the popular insurgency in El Salvador
against the US-sponsored government. These operations involved
the use of procedures on insurgent forces that were developed
in Vietnam: torture, murder, and economic subversion. After
the assault on Panama is over, world news media concludes that
over 2000 civilian residents of Panama City were murdered in
the US attack. The US denies the carnage.
1991: US forces killed as many
as 250,000 Iraqis, including large numbers of civilians during
"Operation Dessert Storm." Iraqi conscripts were buried
alive in the desert by US tank forces and US military planes
and helicopters killed thousands of retreating military men after
the war was declared over by the US in what became known as the
"Highway of Death."
This litany is not all-inclusive,
nor is it meant to be. My intention in relaying this list is
to graphically illustrate one of the fundamental pillars of our
lives in the United States. We are not where we are economically
and culturally by the grace of any god, as some of our fellow
residents pretend. No, we are here because of our military might
and its license to abuse, torture, and kill. I wish that it
weren't so, but it is.
Ron Jacobs is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is being republished by Verso.
He can be reached at: rjacobs@zoo.uvm.edu
Weekend Edition
Features for April 24 / 25, 2004
William
A. Cook
Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry
and Bush Melt into One
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank
Brandy
Baker
A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So
Robert
Fisk
A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free
Speech
Ben
Tripp
October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios
Nelson
Valdés
"Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Return to the Future
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Killed Pat Tillman
Mark
Scaramella
Does Anybody Know Anything?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Return of Saddam's Generals
Gary
Engler
Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas
Col.
Dan Smith
Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush
Greg
Weiher
Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam...
Elaine
Cassel
Life on the Outside: a Review
Vanessa
Jones
Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney
Jim
French
Agriculture's Bullied Market
Hammond
Guthrie
Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles
Poets'
Basement
Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella
|