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Today's
Stories
December 27,
2005
Evan Jones
Whither
the National Guard?
December 26,
2005
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The
Usurpers of Our Freedoms
Lance Olsen
The Toughest Challenge for Intelligent Design
Ben Terrall
No Holiday Compassion for Haiti's Political Prisoners
Scott Boehm
Santa Drove a Bulldozer
Charlie Ehlen
A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Bush
Tom Kerr
The Atheist Dad at Christmas
December 24/25,
2005
Aleander Cockburn
The
Year of Vanished Credibility
James Petras
Iran in the Crosshairs: Israel's Deadline
Ralph Nader
Talkin'
About the "I"-Word
Lila Rajiva
Horowitz's New Project: Begging for Brownshirts
Fred Gardner
Dialogue with the DEA
Ron Jacobs
When Impeachment was Taken Seriously
Dave Lindorff
Xmas Games for a Gitmo World
Gary Leupp
Happy Birthday Mithras!: the True Meaning of December 25th
Saul Landau
Bush's Year in Review: a Report Card from Santa
John Chuckman
A Christmas Tale for Bushtime
Dr. Susan Block
Merry XXX-mas!
St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Holt, Jones, Landau, Ross and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Merry Xmas, From the Beatles
December 23,
2005
John Ross
The
Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty
Chris Floyd
Gospel
Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie
Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey
The
Economy in a Nutshell
Joanne Mariner
Bringing
Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill
Eric Johnson-Debaufre
The Trew Law of Free Democracies?
Ray McGovern
Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward
J. L. Chestnut,
Jr.
What
White America Doesn't Hear
Website of
the Day
BB King: What I've Learned This Year
December 22,
2005
Ingmar Lee
The
Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion
Elisa Salasin
Classrooms
in Cages
Christopher
Brauchli
Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution
of the United States"
Robin Blackburn
Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist
Evelyn Pringle
Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal
Amira Hass
A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me"
Francis A.
Boyle
Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant"
Stew Albert
The
Spies Who Thought We Were Messy
Website of
the Day
How to Reach a Human Voice
December 21,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
One
Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty
Lila Rajiva
A Short History of Radio Free Iraq
Joshua Frank
Nancy Pelosi's Truth
Dave Zirin
The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano
Ramzy Baroud
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
Sonia Nettnin
Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo
Ben Saul
Torture as Calculated Policy
Jonathan Cronin
Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Election Spells Total Defeat for US
Website of
the Day
Nixon on Presidential Power
December 20,
2005
Jackie Corr
Natural
Gas: a Montana Tragedy
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Nothing
New About NSA Spying on Americans
Michael Donnelly
"Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono?
Gian Paulo
Accardo
Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler
Pierre Tristam
Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution
Norman Solomon
The Foulest Media Performances of the Year
Sen. Robert Byrd
No President is Above the Law
Dave Lindorff
Missing
Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by
NTSB, Concealed by FBI
Website of the Day
FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?
December 19,
2005
Mike Marqusee
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Gary Leupp
Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"
Ron Jacobs
The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld
John Blair
Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience
Gideon Levy
Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint
Kevin Zeese
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Missy Comley Beattie
Warnings from a Military Man and Dad
Don Santina
Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency
Website of the Day
A Call for Justice in Palestine
December 17
/ 18, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Time-Delayed
Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation
Gabriel Kolko
The
Decline of the American Empire
Susan Alcorn
Texas: Three Days and Two Nights
Werther
The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party
Ralph Nader
The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin
Patrick Cockburn
Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad
Fred Gardner
When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis?
Dave Lindorff
Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA
Ned Sublette
Essence is Gasoline
Lee Sustar
The Class War Economy
Jason Leopold
Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case?
Laura Carlsen
Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization
Jeff White
Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace?
Ray McGovern
Torture Between the Lines
Chris Floyd
Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah
William Loren Katz
Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs.
the Seminoles
Rose Miriam
Elizalde
Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time
Greg Moses
Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America
Heather Gray
Privatizing the Social Contract
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel
St Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau, Engel and Albert
Website of
the Day
At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters
December 16,
2005
Tom Kerr
CNN's
Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace?
Mark Engler
The
WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty?
John Bomar
When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Votes; Now What?
Pierre Tristam
Iraq, Ourselves
William S. Lind
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
Cyril Neville
Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans
Robert Jensen
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design
Saul Landau
Bolivian
Democracy and the US: a History Lesson
Website
CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies
December 15,
2005
Oren Ben-Dor
The
Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine
Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists"
Needn't Bother
Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics
Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals
Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad
Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs
Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quentin
Vijay Prashad
Our
Torture Problem
Website of
the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"
December 14, 2005
Patrick Cockburn
Iran
Poised to Win Iraqi Elections
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lethal
Developments
Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward
Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami
John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors
Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment
Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker
April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America
December 13,
2005
Stephen T.
Banko, III
Heroes
Patrick Cockburn
America's
War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong
Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO
Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin
Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London
Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin
Michael G.
Smith
Ending the Death Penalty
Stew Albert
California Killers
Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson
Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin
Website of
the Day
Boot Hill
December 12,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Defenders of Torture
Lawrence R.
Velvel
George the Disconnected
Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo
George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds
Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does
It Make a Sound?
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience
Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq:
the Beginning of the End
Website of
the Day
Wrestling for Peace
December 10 / 11, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
All
the News That's Fit to Buy
Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus
Ralph Nader
The
Widening Wasteland of American Media
Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore
Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day
Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court
Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem
Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd
Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest
Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice
John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice
John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and
US Foreign Policy
Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens
Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union
Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984
John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White
Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?
St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel
Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush
December 9,
2005
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Roots
of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home
Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark
On
Seeing Wesley Baker Die
Patrick Cockburn
Blair
Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush
Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill
Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive
Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?
Andrew Cockburn
Meet
Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"
December 8,
2005
Kathy Kelly
Blessed
are the Merciful in Baghdad
James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)
William S.
Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory
Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico
Justin Akers
Bush's Border War
Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?
Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam
Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn
The
Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War
December 7,
2005
John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate
Gary Leupp
Suicide
Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq
Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas
Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith
Bush
War Crimes: the Posse Gathers
Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary
William W.
Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy
Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Website of
the Day
Witnesses to Torture
December 6,
2005
Ron Jacobs
No
One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel
Patrick Cockburn
Inside
Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder
Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's
AIDS Policy
Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America
Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
to Europe: Trust Us
Website of
the Day
Debunking Woodward
December 5,
2005
John Walsh
The
Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did
They Know It?
Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative
Value of Human Lives
Mokhiber /
Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz
Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment
Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated
Federal Laws When They Fired Me
Lila Rajiva
The
Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment
December 3 / 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig
Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s
St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play
Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show
Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla
Website of
the Day
Rare Erotica
November 30,
2005
Allen / D'Amato
Incident
at Oglala 30 Years Later: the Long Struggle of Leonard Peltier
Mike Whitney
The Cheerleader at Annapolis
Kevin Zeese
The Hallucinations of Joe Lieberman
Norman Solomon
Colin Powell: Still Craven After All These Years
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon's New Party
Dave Lindorff
What Happened to All Those Bush/Cheney Bumperstickers?
Stephen Soldz
Mental
Health Workers in Iraq
November 29,
2005
Phil Gasper
Live
from Death Row: an Interview with Tookie Williams
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Ghost of Sangatte
Joshua Frank
Jack Abramoff's Bi-partisan Sleaze
Walter A. Davis
Life on Death Row: a Monologue
Gary Leupp
Bush the Dupe?
Len Colodny
Woodwardgate: Still Protecting the Rightwing
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Duke and the Enterprise: Randy Cunningham's Crash Landing
Bill Quigley
Human Rights Leaders Call for Release of Haiti's Political Prisoners
Website of
the Day
Watch Chomsky vs. Dershowitz Live, Tonight at 7PM, EST!
November 28,
2005
Chris Reed
The
"Bomb Al Jazeera" Documents Trial
David Isenberg
Cooked
Intelligence: the Dog that Didn't Bark
Ron Jacobs
Contraindications: a Review of Blood on the Border
Norman Solomon
The
Woodward Scandal Must Not Blow Over
Justin E.H. Smith
Schwarzenegger's Curious Power
Mickey Z.
Abbie Hoffman at 70: Steal This City
Mike Whitney
The Pentagon's Domestic Spying Operation
David Swanson
Is Impeachment an Election Issue?
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Grave Threat of the Bush Administration
Website of
the Day
"Don't Bomb Us!": a Blog by Al Jazeera Staffers
November 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
How
the Democrats Undercut John Murtha
Saul Landau
Who We Are: Torture and the Empire
Ralph Nader
Junk Television: Excluding Voices That Save Lives
Brian Cloughley
What Are They Dying For?
John Ross
When a Language Dies
Gary Leupp
The Nepal Pact
Fred Gardner
Dr. Denney Goes to Arkansas
Christopher Brauchli
Compassion for Corporations: Northrup Grumman and Katrina's Victims
Dave Lindorff
US War Crimes List Keeps Growing
P. Sainath
See, Neoliberalism Really Works: Net Worth of India's Billionaires
Soars!
Timothy J.
Freeman
The Price of Freedom
Lila Rajiva
Of Mice, Men and GM Peas
Eric Ruder
Beat the Needle: Saving Tookie Williams
Seth Sandronsky
Working Toward Whiteness: an Interview with David Roediger
Joaquin Bustelo
What Really Happened at Mar del Plata
Lewis Alper
Is the President's Soul in Jeopardy?: an Evangelical Christian
Looks at Bush's Skull and Bones Initiation
Will Youmans
In Search of Paradise
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones' Rough Justice in Bush Time
St. Clair /
Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Poetry and the City of Ideas
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Buknatski, Engel, Albert and Davies
Website of the Weekend
NLR: The Chequered Rainbow
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
|
December
27, 2005
What Strange Beast is
This?
Whither the National
Guard?
By EVAN JONES
CounterPunch published a piece on October
21 by Vietnam veteran, Colonel Dan Smith. Smith notes:
In April 2005, the [National]
Guard had eight combat brigades in Iraq--more than 50 percent
of U.S. combat strength in-country. Even in World War II, the
percentage of Guard combat units never exceeded 50 percent of
the total fighting combat force. [Currently] nearly half--75,000--of
the 152,000 U.S. military personnel are reservists.
And the human cost? From ten
percent of the fatalities during the 'major combat' phase in
March and April 2003, National Guard and reserve losses stand
at more than 30 percent for the first 10 months of 2005. In August,
56 percent of U.S. fatalities (48 of 85) were reservists. In
September, 27 of 49 were reservists. And at October's midpoint,
seven of the 33 U.S. dead in Iraq are from the reserves.
Yet the devastation that Katrina
wreaked on Louisiana and Mississippi had commentators and even
National Guard officers complaining that the ability to assist
affected communities has been severely hampered. Louisiana and
Mississippi Guard units are in Iraq, along with much-needed equipment.
On 1 September Salon.com reported
on concerns before Katrina hit the US coast:
On Aug. 1, a spokesman for
the Louisiana National Guard lamented to a local reporter that
the state might be stretched for security personnel in the event
of a big hurricane. Dozens of high-water vehicles, generators
and Humvees were employed in Iraq, along with 3,000 Louisiana
National Guard troops. Military experts have long said that
repeated, lengthy deployments to Iraq are decimating the National
Guard. Dispirited veterans are leaving the Guard in droves and
recruiting has plummeted.
Norman Solomon had this to
say on CounterPunch on the 31 August:
National Guard troops don't
belong in Iraq. They should be rescuing and protecting in Louisiana
and Mississippi, not patrolling and killing in a country that
was invaded on the basis of presidential deception. They should
be fighting the effects of flood waters at home -- helping people
in the communities they know best -- not battling Iraqi people
who want them to go away. Bring the National Guard home. Immediately.
Ramzy Baroud wrote in October:
The U.S. Army is stretched
too thin, bogged down in a war gone awry. Many National Guard
units, whose sole mission is to tend to the nation's needs in
times of crisis, were deployed to Iraq. The consequences of such
indiscretions were exhibited in the Katrina disaster to a humiliating
degree.
The National Guard's sole
mission to tend to the nation's needs in times of crisis? Well
not quite.
What is the nature of this
strange beast?
The only sustained treatment
of the Guard appears to be the official history, John Mahon's
History of the Militia and the National Guard (1983),
part of a series, The Macmillan Wars of the United States.
The Guard started life as a
citizen's militia in the early American colonies. From the start
of the Republic there was a tension between the centralising
Federalists, who wanted a national standing army, and the States'
righters, who saw a local militia as fundamental to their autonomy.
The militia supporters also inherited the then English cultural
antagonism to a standing army. The tension is still there.
When Eisenhower attempted greater
centralisation of the forces in 1958 in the Department of Defense,
the Alabama Governor claimed that 'if the military power had
not been dispersed from the beginning, the United States would
have succumbed more than a century before to a military dictatorship'
(Mahon).
The 1792 Uniform Militia Act
entrenched States' rights for over a century. The 1812 war with
the British and the 1846 war with Mexico enhanced the myth that
a citizen soldiery could 'whip' a trained army while undermining
the claim in practice.
With myth in place, the militia
found ready employment through the century, not least against
indigenous tribes, but also against workers, and even the newly
arriving Irish migrant hordes (1840s), who were considered by
established residents to be 'ignorant, degraded and virtually
subhuman' (Mahon).
The militia acquired rejuvenation
and purpose (expanded in number after the Civil War) with the
rise of corporate industrial America and the ensuing class war.
The Eastern States' railway strike of 1877 was the flashpoint,
and the birth of the modern National Guard (as its States-based
units paradoxically came to be labeled). At its peak, 45,000
Guardsmen were called in across eleven states. Quoting Mahon:
At that time, business moved
into a tacit alliance with the guard as an important agency in
protecting private property (sic) and thereafter provided it
with financial aid, beyond what the state and national governments
gave.
A rare instance in which this
support for capital had a positive moral effect was in the mid-1880s
in Washington and Seattle's sizeable Chinese community. Business
enjoyed the cheap labour; a populist racist push wanted the Chinese
out, and the Guard stepped in to prevent their forcible deportation.
But acting as handmaiden for
the employers' class warfare against labour was the bread and
butter of the Guard's activities--not least the mid-1880s agitation
for the eight-hour day, the 1892 Homestead steel strike, and
the 1894 Chicago Pullman strike.
The War with Spain diverted
the Guard from its repressive contribution to the class struggle.
But as American support of the rebels against Spain turned to
occupation, the Guard and Guard members faced the conundrum that
faces them to a heightened degree in Iraq today. Was the Guard
to be an instrument of defense, or of foreign interventions,
whether humanitarian or imperialistic?
That the Americans were having
difficulty distinguishing humanitarian and imperialistic excursions
was reflected in the hubris of Manifest Destiny that accompanied
the irrepressible expansion of territory through the nineteenth
century. The behaviour of the troops in the ex-Spanish colonies
exposed the imperial agenda to the harsh light of day.
Acts of 1902, 1908 and 1916
drew the Guard increasingly into the status of reserves for a
national standing army. There were some concessions to Guard
sensibilities, but federal imperatives prevailed--Guard members
were to constitute a reserve, and not Guard units and their chain
of command and culture. Guard members were deployed in this capacity
in significant numbers in both World War II and the Korean War.
Johnson broke with tradition
by deciding to use draftees rather than Guard reserves to complement
regular forces in Vietnam. The Guard became a refuge for draft
dodgers (including the Dallas Cowboys football team and George
W. Bush), and the draft system fueled dissent which ultimately
ended the War itself.
Interestingly, in 1912 the
US Attorney General declared the 1908 Act unconstitutional 'and
that the National Guard, which was the militia of the Constitution,
could not be used outside the country, since it was a defense
force only' (Mahon). This was a charming sentiment but as the
century progressed to be observed (excepting Vietnam) in the
breach.
Meanwhile, the Guard's role
as a domestic constabulary of the 'forces of law and order' continued
apace. West Virginia and Pennsylvania coal miners were the subjects
of attention in 1902, their Colorado counterparts in 1903. The
El Dorado of the Guard's contribution to class warfare was in
Rockefeller's Colorado town of Ludlow in 1913, in which the Guard
allowed itself to be infiltrated by company thugs, and a massacre
at 'Bloody Ludlow' ensued. Samuel Yellen's 1936 American Labor
Struggles is the indispensable source for this disgraceful
history.
Because labour had no rights
other than servitude before the law until 1935, the National
Guard was a natural complement to the indomitable right to rule
of Capital.
There is a telling tabular
construction in Alan Wolfe's 1973 The Seamy Side of Democracy
of the Guard's constabulary role through the twentieth century.
Wage labour was the favourite whipping boy until the passage
of the Wagner Act. After World War II, the Guard's attention
is turned elsewhere--Cold War repression, then race, then student
dissent.
The peculiar hierarchy of the
Guard (the President through the Governors) produced an inevitable
tension during the federal-ordered 1950s school integration process.
The Guards were called out both to prevent and to enforce integration.
But given that Washington paid most of the bills, the feds typically
had the upper hand. The Governor of Arkansas, Orville Faubus,
referred to the enablers at Central High, Little Rock, as 'occupation
forces'.
The same responsibilities and
tensions were reproduced in 1962 and 1963 when the Universities
(especially of Mississippi and Alabama) became the battleground
for integration. At its peak, 30,000 troops were on hand to enforce
nominal integration at 'Ole Miss'.
The race riots of the late
1960s had the Guard busy in 'preserving order', albeit equipment
and training were not up to the task. There were 10,000 Guardsmen
and 5,000 regulars in Detroit in July 1967, with 40 deaths and
2,000 wounded. General Throckmorton, sent by Johnson to take
charge, banned live ammunition, but 'the Guard either did not
received the order or, because the state commander disagreed,
did not obey it' (Mahon).
The high point of publicity
for the Guard's 'preserving order' role was at Kent State on
4 May 1970. Again live bullets were used, with four deaths and
nine people wounded.
The official history places
responsibility for the tragedy in hands other than the Guards.
Notes Mahon, the students had gutted the ROTC building. They
had:
hurled rocks, bottles, and
foul epithets at the Guardsmen They also burned the American
flag and displayed in its place the red flag of North Vietnam.
All the while they chanted: 'One, two, three, four, we don't
want your fucking war '. News reporters from every big city recognized
that if this sort of provocation continued there would be gunfire.
It is evidence of how little the students understood the culture
in which they had been brought up that the same truth was not
apparent to them.
In the rioting on the campuses,
the Guard was uniformly on the side of law and order. What if
the most radical of the rioters had achieved their objectives,
namely, to destroy the universities and beyond them the other
institutions of the nation in order to clear the ground for a
new society not as rotten as the one they thought they were living
in?
When the Guard was not drilling
into recalcitrant Americans 'the culture in which they had been
brought up', members were more harmoniously employed in emergency
control and relief efforts. Thus did Guard members become accidental
heroes, sustaining people in atrocious weather, rescuing birds
from oil spills, and even donating blood in quantity.
Until Katrina that is. Because
the Guards and their equipment were in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And the Guards are dying in Iraq and Afghanistan. What are they
doing dying in those countries? According to the Guard's website:
This page is dedicated to those
Army National Guard soldiers who have given their lives for liberty
in the War on Terrorism.
They are fighting a war on
terrorism, under the elegant codenames Operation Iraqi Freedom
and Operation Enduring Freedom. And the list of deaths keeps
growing.
Now 'the war on terrorism'
seems to be some distance from the motives of self defense on
which the early militia were established.
* *
*
Some comments from Guard members
themselves, courtesy of Michael Moore's Will They Ever Trust
Us Again? Letters from the War Zone.
[July 2004, Baghdad]
My name is Michael W. Yes,
I signed a contract with the government to serve in our military,
and proudly, but I never thought that our military would be used
in such a self-serving, crooked and disgraceful way.
the government is calling
up more and more troops from the Reserves. For what? Man, there
is a huge fucking scam going on here! There are civilian contractors
crawling all over this country. Blackwater, Kellogg Brown and
Root, Halliburton, on and on. These guys are making bank off
this bullshit war, and us soldiers are paying in more ways than
one!
[August 2004, Kuwait]
My name is Tony P. The Iraqi
resistance was insanity. all we see is hostility and anger over
our being there.
I have gone from 18 to 20 without
seeing my home. I live in constant fear, because all these laws
made to protect soldiers from being overused are on the verge
of being thrown out. There are constantly putting us on a stop
loss, extending our time of duty. Bush is constantly talking
about other countries besides Iraq and Afghanistan that are security
problems, and I think to myself, Is two not enough? Are you willing
to just destroy my life and the lives of thousands of others
on a whim?
[Brett S, December 2003, Kosovo]
This war and occupation [Iraq]
has come to disrespect all those who were trained to believe
in self-sacrifice for the greater good, with no provocation,
with no evidence of its supposed purposes (finding weapons of
mass destruction, ending terrorism), and with such obvious ulterior
motives (money, oil, a family vendetta). It seems the only way
it could be justified is through an exhaustive campaign of deception
and diversion.
President Bush must be seen
for what he is: someone who has taken a meritorious institution
composed of people who have signed a contract to serve their
country, and has employed them for his own pursuits. He should
be seen as a traitor to the ideals of honor and integrity. He
should be seen as a traitor to all soldiers who trusted that
their sacrifice would be worth something to their families and
loved ones, rather than a death to serve the financial and political
pursuits of one man.
* *
*
The deaths of the National
Guards members keep happening, the names of those sacrificed
for a higher cause dutifully filed in that expanding list on
the official site.
The National Guard is a body
that has always lived at cross purposes. It exists to maintain
order but it has been used to repress dissent against established
forces. It is a vehicle for good in social emergencies. It was
created for self-defense but came to fight overseas both in just
and unjust wars. In sense, the tensions of the National Guard's
multiple roles symbolise the tensions within United States society
itself.
Getting the Guard out of Iraq
is an important symbolic step to getting the US forces in toto
out of Iraq. Besides, there's work to do in New Orleans. Getting
the Guard out of Iraq is an important symbolic step to a reordering
of political priorities within the US in general.
Evan Jones can be reached at: E.Jones@econ.usyd.edu.au
|
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