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Today's
Stories
April
26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
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
April 10 /
12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other
Delicacies
Robert Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview
with Lee Evans
Brandy Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website of
the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9, 2004
Robert Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L. Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8,
2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6,
2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher
Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez
del Solar
A
Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The
Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated
US and International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
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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April
26, 2004
The World Doesn't
Need More Heroes Like This
Inspired by
Pat Tillman?
By MICKEY Z.
You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.
Bob Dylan, "Masters of War"
Here's how the New York Times described
Pat Tillman: "A graduate of Arizona State University, Tillman,
a safety, played for four seasons with the Arizona Cardinals.
But as an unrestricted free agent in 2002, he turned town a three-year,
$3.6 million contract offer from the Cardinals and enlisted in
the Army."
Thus, when Tillman was killed
in action in Afghanistan last week, the predictable platitudes
followed.
For example, former teammate
Corey Sears said: "All the guys that complain about it being
too hot or they don't have enough money, that's not real life.
A real life thing is he died for what he believed in."
There was no mention if Sears
views Iraqis or Afghanis dying for what they believe in to be
"a real life thing" or if that experience if reserved
exclusively for Americans. There are a lot of people, like Sears,
speaking for Tillman since his death but none have elaborated
upon what it was he "believed in" enough to die for..except
bland statements about "defending freedom" or "giving
something back." Here is a brief sampling:
* Former Cardinals head coach
Dave McGinnis said Tillman "represented all that was good
in sports" and "proudly walked away from a career in
football to a greater calling."
* "Pat Tillman personified
all the best values of his country and the NFL," said commissioner
Paul Tagliabue.
* "Where do we get such
men as these? Where to we find these people willing to stand
up for America?" asked Rep. J.D. Hayworth, R-Arizona. "He
chose action rather than words. He just wanted to serve his country.
He was a remarkable person. He lived the American dream, and
he fought to preserve the American dream and our way of life."
We've all heard this kind of
talk before (Does the space shuttle crash ring a bell?) but it
does little except soothe Americans who want to believe in heroes.
Talk of "best values," "a greater calling,"
and "the American dream" roll off the tongues of the
average citizen but how would that same citizen react if a "war
hero" came home sick from exposure to depleted uranium and
decided to speak out against the U.S. government and its crimes?
Would he/she still be revered for "preserving our way of
life" if s/he organized protests and boycotts and reached
out in solidarity across international borders to those who have
suffered from U.S. foreign policy?
We all know the answer to that
last question, don't we? Tillman (or someone like him) could've
chosen to "serve their country" by challenging the
corporate-mandated status quo...but that's not how things work
around here, is it?
Instead we get endless talk
about preserving freedom and defending our way of life and standing
up for America. Such cliches are designed to discourage critical
thought but the questions must be asked: Which freedoms? What
way of life? Standing up for whom and why?
Are those men and women in
Afghanistan and Iraq in agreement with, say, for-profit health
care for the few or pre-emptive wars or corporate welfare or
the death penalty or maybe unelected presidents? Are they fighting
to defend strip malls, SUVs, or cell phones...or maybe the right
to vote for the next "American Idol"? I'd just like
some clarification.
Is it really a "greater
calling" for an ex-NFL player to hunt down CIA-created Taliban
fighters in Afghanistan (with much "collateral damage,"
of course) in a misguided, myopic attempt to avenge 9/11?
What values is NFL commissioner
Tagliabue referring to...the values canonized in our history
texts (but ignored in reality) or the values of militarism and
greed this nation has lived by for over 200 years?
Which America was Tillman standing
up for...the bosses at Halliburton or the homeless guy I see
every day on the subway steps? The country personified by war
criminals like Bush and Kerry? The country defined by corporate
pirates? Indeed, soldiers like Tillman aren't serving the 2 million
behind bars or the 2 million locked in nursing homes against
their will. The actions they chose over words don't make our
air or water cleaner or stop the suburban sprawl. If anything,
they have the exactly opposite effect.
What American dream are Tillman's
eulogizers talking about? The dreams of Wal-Mart, Nike, and The
Gap? Whose way of life...Wall Street speculators, professional
athletes, and digitally- or surgically-enhanced celebrities?
I certainly didn't ask him (or anyone) to kill for me and he
sure wasn't protecting anything I hold dear. Soldiers like Pat
Tillman, to me, seem like heavily-conditioned American males...the
spawn of decades of corporate conditioning and State-sponsored
patriotism.
I know many will say Tillman
was defending my right to voice dissenting opinions: "In
other countries, you can't write this kind of stuff." But
none of those critics will ever explain how Pat Tillman's actions
or his death impacts on anyone's freedom to write an article
in America. That question is left unasked...as if the answer
were obvious.
But yet again, the opposite
is true. As Arundhati Roy explains, "The organizations that
control the world todayÐthe WTO, the IMF, the World BankÐoperate
in complete secrecy." This nefarious system guarantees that
the Tillmans of the world will be revered as heroes...while the
beat goes on.
Pat Tillman walking away from
millions to "fight for his country" (by becoming a
mercenary for Corporate America) does not awe me as much as the
dangerous skill to manipulate humans into consistently acting
against their interests and the interests of the entire planet.
"People often are conscripted
into armies, but sometimes they enlist with gusto," explains
Steven Pinker, director of the Center of Cognitive Neuroscience
at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Jingoism,"
Pinker declares, "is alarmingly easy to evoke."
"War itself is venal,
dirty, confusing and perhaps the most potent narcotic invented
by humankind," says New York Times columnist Chris Hedges.
"It allows us to suspend individual conscience, maybe even
consciousness, for the cause. And few of us are immune... The
contagion of war, of the siren call of the nation, is so strong
that most cannot resist."
But resist we must...and unless
we in America create powerful and urgent ways to resist, we cannot
expect the victims of our indifference and ineptitude not to
hold each of us accountable.
"[T]he brown-skinned folks
dying in the millions in order to maintain this way of life...[can't]
wait forever for those who purport to be the opposition here
to find some personally comfortable and pure manner of affecting
the kind of transformation that brings not just lethal but genocidal
processes to a halt," explains Ward Churchill in a recent
interview.
Churchill warns ominously that
those "brown-skinned folks dying in the millions" have
"no obligation-moral, ethical, legal or otherwise-to sit
on their thumbs while the opposition here dithers about doing
anything to change the system."
The world doesn't need any
more "heroes" like Pat Tillman. It doesn't need young
men and womenÐheads filled with noble aspirations sent off
to die to defend corporate profit. The world needs the American
people to snap out of their propaganda-induced fog ASAP and seek
a "greater calling" in the truest sense.
Mickey Z. is the author of two upcoming books:
"A Gigantic Mistake: Articles and Essays for Your Intellectual
Self-Defense" (Prime Books/Library Empyreal) and "The
Seven Deadly Spins: Exposing the Lies Behind War Propaganda"
(Common Courage Press). He can be reached at mzx2@earthlink.net.
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
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