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Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair dissect HRC in her White House years and conclude their series on the woman who may be the next president. PLUS Eva Liddell on the man who really set the course of the Bush presidency PLUS Andy Worthington on the battle for the rights of the Guantanamo detainees PLUS Debbie Nathan on what the border crackdown has done to the women crossing the Rio Grande. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
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How the Press Led the US into War  Buy End Times Now! Today's Stories September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen David Michael Green Pius Adesanmi Betty Schneider September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Saul
Landau Ismael
Hossein-Zadeh Ray
McGovern Matthew
Abraham Alan
Farago Christopher
Brauchli Rannie
Amiri Fred
Gardner James
L. Secor Missy
Comley Beattie Ben
Tripp Francis
Boyle Joe
Allen and Paul D'Amato Website
of the Weekend
Robert
Fantina John
Ross James
Brooks Russell
Mokhiber Joshua
Frank John
Walsh Mark
Brenner Mike
Ferner Website
of the Day
September 6, 2007 Kathleen
and Bill Christison Allan
J. Lichtman Norman
Solomon Yifat
Susskind Catherine
Fenton Laura
Santina Farzana
Versey Yves
Engler Kelly
Overton Michael
Simmons Website
of the Day
September 5, 2007 Stan
Goff Michael
Dickinson Matthew
Abraham Patrick
Cockburn Dave
Lindorff Paul
Craig Roberts Clifton
Ross Elizabeth
Schulte Joseph
Grosso Ben
Terrall Website
of the Day
September 4, 2007 Jean
Bricmont Patrick
Cockburn Ron
Jacobs Tom
Kerr Gary
Leupp Sonja
Karkar Heather
Gray Fidel
Castro Jackie
Corr Sunsara
Taylor Website
of the Day
September 3, 2007 Patrick
Cockburn Eamon
McCann Joshua
Frank Chris
Floyd Marjorie
Cohn Walter
Brasch Matt
Reichel Website
of the Day
September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Andy
Worthington Saul
Landau David
Keen Patrick
Cockburn Diana
Johnstone George
Longstreth, MD Linda
M. Woolf Ralph
Nader Fred
Gardner Ben
Tripp David
Michael Green Missy
Comley Beattie Michael
Dickinson Paul
Krassner Ron
Jacobs Poets'
Basement
August 31, 2007 Jeff
Gibbs Paul
Craig Roberts Ray
McGovern Robert
Weissman Matt
Vidal Robin
Mittenthal Chris
Kutalik Richard
Forno Binoy
Kampmark Dave
Zirin Website
of the Day
August 30, 2007 Gary
Leupp John
Ross Anthony
DiMaggio Jordan
Flaherty Michael
Donnelly Russell
Mokhiber Dennis
Brutus William
S. Lind Martha
Rosenberg Jeff
Leys / Brian Terrell Website
of the Day
Patrick
Cockburn Winslow
T. Wheeler David
Rosen Dave
Zirin Paul
Craig Roberts Diane
Farsetta Ben
Davis Alan
Farago Jenna
Orkin Don
Monkerud Richard
Nasser Website
of the Day
August 28, 2007 Uri
Avnery Bill
Quigley Joshua
Frank China
Hand Firmin
DeBrabander Charles
Peña Andy
Worthington Ramzy
Baroud Anthony
Papa Ashley
Smith Website
of the Day
Jorge
Mariscal Bill
Christison Manuel
Garcia, Jr. Anthony
DiMaggio Bruce
A. Roth John
Walsh Dave
Lindorff Ron
Jacobs Binoy
Kampmark Russell
D. Hoffman Website
of the Day
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September 10, 2007 Screwing Up In Iraq"Bad Management" or Doomed from the Start?By SAUL LANDAU and FARRAH HASSEN The war and occupation of Iraq has attracted schemers of all stripes. Kenneth Pollock assured us that Saddam Hussein possessed WMD. Then he admitted his error. Now Pollock and fellow Brookings inmate Michael O'Hanlon declare that we can win. They saw for themselves, spending a day on a guided tour of Baghdad's green zone. Presidential aspirant Senator Joe Biden devised a scheme to redraw Iraq's boundaries. Hillary joins frustrated Administration officials to blame the puppet Iraqi government for the morass. Bush blames Democrats for wanting to have withdrawal timetables from Iraq. In an August 24 speech to the notoriously hawkish Kansas Veterans of Foreign Wars, the President alluded to the horrors of premature U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. Did Bush mean more U.S. soldiers should have died there before withdrawing; or just more dead Vietnamese civilians? Even in college Bush didn't grasp history; nor excel at management. Robert Dallek (Nixon and Kissinger: Partners in Power, 2007) said Bush's distortions "boggle my mind." He told the Washington Post: "We were in Vietnam for 10 years. We dropped more bombs on Vietnam than we did in all of World War II in every theater. We lost 58,700 American lives, the second-greatest loss of lives in a foreign conflict. And we couldn't work our will." Dallek added: "We've been in Iraq longer than we fought in World War II. It's a disasterŠ.But the disaster is the consequence of going in, not getting out." Some Bush critics avoid the "going in" part and focus only on Bush's "bungling" of the occupation. A new documentary reflects that efficient management school of empire. In his documentary "No End in Sight," Charles Ferguson argues the "if only it had been managed correctly" line. In a form that has come to typify modern documentaries -- power point presentations on video -- Ferguson assembles a convincing array of participants in the Iraq war and occupation to make a case that Bush and company grossly mismanaged the war and post-war reconstruction effort. "There were 500 ways to do it [the reconstruction] wrong and two or three ways to do it right," said Ambassador (Yemen 1997-2001) Barbara Bodine, who worked in Baghdad at the onset of the U.S. occupation. "What we didn't understand is that we were going to go through all 500." Following the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, U.S. forces discovered a paucity of Arabic-speaking personnel, inadequate phone service and no plan for winning Iraqi hearts and minds -- outside Baghdad's fortified Green Zone. Ferguson's talking critical heads range from former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (2001-2005), Colin Powell's Chief of Staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (2002-2005) and former National Intelligence Council Chairman Robert Hutchings (2003-2005) to Iraq's Deputy Ambassador to the UN Faisal al-Istrabadi and Lieutenant Seth Moulton (U.S. Marines). Most complain about Bush's mistakes: the military did nothing to stop looting after the initial conquest of Iraq; Bush dismantled Iraq's Ba'ath Party and the government bureaucracy it ran; Bush ordered the dissolution of the 400,000 man army and didn't immediately establish a viable interim Iraqi government. Had these errors not occurred, the film's commentators imply, Washington might have dethroned the dirty dictator and brought democracy to Iraq. They blame Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney and their gang of neo-con intellectuals-cum-policy makers led by Paul Wolfowitz and Doug Feith. These ignorant policy wonks dispatched J. Paul Bremer with a "privatization uber alles" mission. Bremer pretended to consult with knowledgeable people on the ground, but according to General Jay Garner, Colonel Paul Hughes and other initial supporters of Bush's invasion (Ferguson claims Ambassador Bodine opposed Bush's war), he paid no attention. His agenda mocked Iraqi reality. The film doesn't address why Bush went to war, how he misled and lied to the public; nor do the film's critics confront the evolution of Bush's stated reasons for going to war. They also don't deal with his perpetually moving goalposts: dismantling the threatening WMD and destroying Iraq's links to Al Qaeda, to toppling -- and later executing -- Hussein and bringing democracy, to making the U.S. secure, to not being able to tolerate the consequences of withdrawal. The well-filmed talking heads share screen time with clips of Bush and Rumsfeld assuring decisive victory and success in Baghdad. But the filmmaker doesn't ask the on-camera experts why they would have conceived that a rich, spoiled brat -- remember how The Great Gatsby's Jay and Daisy Buchanan "smashed up things and creatures and let other people clean up the mess" -- would miraculously change character as "a war time President" and become a model of American efficiency. As if anyone runs wars efficiently! Ferguson's failure to confront this issue makes the film's underlying premise problematic. Because Bush invaded Iraq without a reconstruction plan, the world now witnesses a country in daily chaos, Ferguson implies. The film emphasizes how Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld ignored the State Department's massive "Future of Iraq" project, which began to plan for a post-Saddam Iraq in October 2001. The camera zooms in on the 13 volume study, as if by using this hubris-laced tome as a guideline Bush could have "fixed" Iraq. Among other major shortcomings, the study's authors didn't stress that Iraqis could be divided into "Sunni," "Shiite," "Kurd" and "Turkmen." State's "scholars" didn't predict sectarian war. Like Bush and Rumsfeld, they assumed that Iraqi identity would remain intact after the invasion. But they did warn that "The people of Iraq are being promised a new future and they will expect immediate results. The credibility of the new regime and the United States will depend on how quickly these promises are translated to reality." The "Future of Iraq" project -- like the Bush administration -- didn't consider larger security concerns, including the refugee crisis, Iran's influence in Iraq, sectarian violence and the emergence of Al Qaeda in Iraq. Even ideal reconstruction plans cannot undo original sin: the illegal war against Iraq. The film's best parts highlight Iraqi civilian and U.S. soldiers' voices, but it reverts to power point when documenting the early days of the occupation (overusing actor Campbell Scott's narration). Nevertheless, interested Members of Congress ought to add "No End in Sight" to their arsenal of tools for extracting the U.S. from Iraq. As Bush seeks support to extend his war, this film shows the tragi-comic ineptness of his Administration and the stupidity of its daily operations. The film's collection of "shoulda" testimonies -- "don't should on yourself" -- don't address the question of how the U.S. should proceed in Iraq: withdraw immediately, gradually or remain indefinitely and blame the puppet government and Iran for lack of "progress." After two hours of testimony on bungling, we thought of historian Gabriel Kolko's observation: wars don't turn out the way they are supposed to. "Are you telling me that's the best America can do?" asks dejected-looking Lieutenant Seth Moulton. The answer is "yes." In Vietnam, the U.S. military killed 4 million Vietnamese and lost the war. Rather than continuing to debate about who will better "manage" Iraq, Democratic presidential aspirants should consider the Iraq war in light of wars in Korea and Vietnam and rethink their assessment of war-making itself. Saul Landau's new book is A Bush and Botox World. He is an Institute for Policy Studies fellow. Farrah Hassen is a Seymour Melman fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies.
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! Click Here for Dates & Venues Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz  Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order! How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn    Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed       Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
