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Recent
Stories
April
10, 2003
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
Ron
Jacobs
Bush and Rummy's Drunken Drive-by
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
April
9, 2003
David
Lindorff
Secret Bechtel Docs Reveal: Yes,
the War Is About Oil
Doug
Lummis
Saving Private Lynch: Hollywood and
War
Susan
Davis
The New York Times and the Peace Movement
David Vest
Smoking Gun? You're Watching It
John
Chuckman
America's Sovereign Right to Do
as It Damn Well Pleases
Akiva
Eldar
Gary Bauer and AIPAC: an Unholy Alliance
with the Christian Right
Ray
Hanania
Suicide Bombers without the Suicide:
Racism, Hypocrisy and the War on Iraq
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/9
April
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Killing the Messengers: It Doesn't
Matter If It's Deliberate or Accidental
Richard
Lichtman
Dr. Phil in the Trenches
John
Brown
Why Uncle Ben Hasn't Sold Uncle Sam:
a Former Foreign Service Staffer on Bush's Policy Failures
Ben
Terrall
Report from the Oakland Docks: "The
Cops Had No Reason to Open Up on Them"
Jason Leopold
FERC and Wall Street: Conversations
May Have Violated Federal Law
Anthony
Gancarski
Conyers Heeds the Call on Perle
Linda Heard
Journalists Die, the Networks Lie, Iraqis Ask "Why?"
Ahmad
Faruqui
Wallowing in Hypocrisy
Wallace
Gagne
Baghdad Babble
Harry
Browne
Report from the Protests at the Bush/Blair
Summit
Larry Kearney
I Understand There's a Boy in
a Baghdad Hospital
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/8
M. Shahid
Alam
The Israelization of America
April
7, 2003
Todd
Chretien
Wooden Bullets & Grenades: Oakland
Cops Attack Peace Protesters and Dock Workers
David
N. Gibbs
Spying, Secrecy and the University:
The CIA is Back on Campus
Harry Browne
War and Peace Summit a Royal Farce
Gideon
Levy
America is Not a Role Model
Diane
Christian
A Scene from an Obscene War
Jules
Rabin
Remembering Deir Yassin
James Davis
Oddsmaking in Dublin: Will Bush
Shake Gerry's Hand?
Robert
Fisk
The Twisted Language of War
Patrick
Cockburn
Slaughter on the Road to Dibagah
John
Mackay
War and Art
Seth Sandronsky
Wars and the Color Line
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/7
April
5, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
The Iraqi Humanitarian Relief is
in Shambles
Anne
Gwynne
A Drowning in Salem
Uri
Avnery
Roadmap to Nowhere
Chris
Floyd
Hell for Leather: Bombs, Bullets, Bibles and Bush
William
Cook
Would You Have Sent Your Son (or Daughter) Off to War If...
Gila
Svirsky
A Busy Day for Bulldozers
Mike Ferner
Back from Baghdad: What Next for the Peace Movement?
Joanne
Mariner
Civilian Deaths and Official Apologies
John Stanton
Bush Takes His Killing Orders
from the Lord
Romi
Mahajan
Learning to Count the Dead
Aluf Benn
After Iraq, US Vows to Deal with
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Mary
Ellen Peterson
Gay Marine Refuses to Fight
William
MacDougall
Country Music and the Crimes of Patriotism
Ron
Jacobs
War and Occupation
Bernie
Pattison
Aborigines and the Different God
Mark
Engler
Iraq War as Arms Expo
Adam Engel
Li'l Box of Love: a Novelini
Poets'
Basement
Tripp, Albert, Katz
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Flesh and Its Discontents: the Paintings of Lucian Freud
Norman
Madarasz
Canada and the War
April
4, 2003
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell's Shame
John
Chuckman
Was Einstein Right About Israel?
David
Krieger
The Meaning of Victory
Tom
Gorman
The Mantra of the Troops: Support
or Treason?
Adam
Federman
The Absence of War
Vijay
Prashad
There Are No More Arguments
Tom
Stephens
The End of the Innocence
Mickey
Z.
Makes Me Sic (Sic): Copy Editing
Bush Speak
Pierre
Tristam
War Coverage: a Dishonest Reality
Show
Hammond
Guthrie
The Deadly Mihrab
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/04
April
3, 2003
Uri
Avnery
A Crooked Mirror: Presstitution and
the Theater of Operations
David
Vest
Can You Hear the Silence?
Anthony
Gancarski
Colin Powell Telemarketer
David
Lindorff
Takoma: the Dolphin Who Refused
to Fight
Michael
Roberts
War, Debts and Deficits
Ramzy
Baroud
Now That Iraqis Are Being Killed Is Israel Any More Secure?
Jo Wilding
From Baghdad with Tears
Anton
Antonowicz
Cluster Bombs on Babylon
Alison
Weir
Israel, We Won't Forget Rachel Corrie
Bruce
Jackson
Hating Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Eliot Katz
War's First Week
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 04/03
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April 12,
2003
The
General from Mississippi
Meet
the New Butcher of Baghdad
by
WAYNE MADSEN
In the euphoria over the impending U.S. conquest
of Baghdad, people everywhere should be introduced to the major
war criminals of the war. Although, the Bush administration dearly
wanted the Iraqis to use weapons of mass destruction to justify
later claims of war crimes, no such weapons or attacks using
them ever materialized. So the scene of parading Iraqi generals
in front of tribunals may not have much of a legal basis after
all.
Instead, the world witnessed a different
kind of atrocity. U.S. tanks opened fire on foreign TV and wire
service offices that were already identified as "no fire"
zones by the US Central Command. It did not matter. Tanks belonging
to the US Army's Third Infantry Division destroyed the media
offices and killed and injured a number of journalists.
The man who ordered his tanks to open
fire on the Baghdad offices of Al Jazeera, Abu Dhabi TV, and
Reuters is Major General General Buford "Buff" Blount
III. Like his three bosses, General Tommy Franks, General Richard
Myers, and George W. Bush, Blount is a native of Texas.  After the war is over, Blount will return
amid ruffles and flourishes to accolades from Bush administration
officials and a doting media. It must never be forgotten what
crimes Blount perpetrated on April 8 in Baghdad.
We should all know what kind of person
Blount is. He is the top military officer in the Savannah, Georgia
region. His command includes Fort Stewart and Hunter Army Airfield.
Blount is a 1971 graduate of the University of Southern Mississippi,
the Hattiesburg college that did not integrate its student body
until 1965, three years before Blount enrolled as a student and
three years after the University of Mississippi was forced to
admit its first black student. Blount's wife, Anita Barr, is
also a native Mississippian. Hailing from Collins, Mississippi,
she graduated from the University of Southern Mississippi in
1970. "Buff" and Anita, who is a school teacher, have
two children.
The Third Infantry Division commander
comes from a politically-connected family. His father, Buford
Blount II, is a former Air Force Colonel who was once the deputy
commander of Keesler Air Force Base, and is now mayor of Bassfield,
Mississippi. General Blount's sister, Lisa, told the Jackson
Clarion Ledger that she was worried about the lives of her brother's
troops, however, the story made no mention of any concern for
the lives of the civilians which they encountered. General Blount's
uncle was also an Army general. He was Major General Dr. Robert
E. Blount, who after his Army career became Dean of the University
of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson.
Blount must have had a certain disdain
for Al Jazeera, the independent Arab satellite news network that
has been the bain of the Saudi Royal Family. Before assuming
command of the Third Infantry Division, Blount was the Program
Manager for the Saudi National Guard. Unlike the U.S. National
Guard, the Saudi Guardsmen are the shock troops for the Saudi
royals. They are every much as committed to the Saudi princes
as Iraq's Republican Guards were committed to Saddam Hussein.
Blount undoubtedly sympathized with his Saudi benefactors when
they disparaged Al Jazeera and their Qatari financial backers.
There have been a number of heated exchanges between Saudi Crown
Prince Abdullah and Qatar's Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani over
the coverage of the Saudis by Al Jazeera.
Blount probably did not have to think
twice about teaching Al Jazeera a lesson on behalf of his Saudi
friends. For at the the same time Blount lorded over the Saudi
National Guard, he was also a top military adviser to Abdullah.
Blount's connections to the Saudis and his disregard for the
safety of Al Jazeera journalists may appear to be highly unprofessional.
However, when considering that officers like Blount are merely
modern-day mercenaries, acting on behalf of corrupt royal regimes,
oil company interests, and neo-conservative political operatives,
his actions in Baghdad are very understandable -- painfully so.
So when the parades are held on behalf
of Blount in Hinesville, Georgia, the bedroom community of Savannah
that sits outside of Fort Stewart's front gate, the local Hinesville
Coastal Courier, in covering the military homecoming, should
remember that General Blount is, as far the the international
press and the maimed civilians of Iraq are concerned, the real
"Butcher of Baghdad."
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth.
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
Yesterday's
Features
Zoltan
Grossman
The Perils of Occupation: the Easier
the Victory, the Harder the Peace
Uri
Avnery
The Night After
Wayne Madsen
The Telltale Signs of Empire
David Krieger
Before You Become Too Flushed with Victory, Think of Ali Ismaeel
Abbas
Jeremy
Brecher
What Can the World Do Now That Tanks Prowl Baghdad?
Robert
Jensen
The Unseen War
Geoffrey
Neale
Ashcroft's War on the Constitution:
A Patriot Attack on America
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Last Tango in Baghdad
Hammond
Guthrie
Rumors of War
Joseph
Heller
Nately's Old Man
Steve
Perry
War Web Log 4/10
Website
of the Day
The
Third Page
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