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Today's
Stories
April 8, 2004
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
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
March 30, 2004
William S. Lind
An Occurrence
in Pakistan: the Battle That Wasn't
Ron Jacobs
Assassinations, Hate Mail &
Justice
Mickey Z.
Tommy Boy Friedman Does "Imagine"
Neve Gordon
Strategic Motives of the Yassin Assassination
Mark Scaramella
The Founding Scam: Insider Trading is the American Way
John Chuckman
The Countessa of Empire: Condi
Rice's Idea of Democracy
Greg Moses
Live from Pasadena: Silhouettes of New Order
Rai O'Brien
What Kind of Democracy to Expect if the Opposition Takes Power
in Venezuela
Bill Christison
The
9/11 Commission: Dangerous Harbinger for the Future
Website of the Day
Ghost Town: Riding Through Chernobyl
March 29, 2004
John Maxwell
Crisis
in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold
J. Michael Springmann
Email
Spying & Attorney Client Privilege
Robert Fisk / Severin
Carrell
Coalition
of the Mercenaries
The Black Commentator
Haiti's Troika of Terror
Doug Giebel
Candide in the Wilderness:
How Bush Policy Was Made
David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Bargain
Mike Whitney
Rejecting the Language of Terrorism
Richard Oxman
The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American
Family
Kim Scipes
The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again
Michael Donnelly
End Game for Northwest Forests
Norman Solomon
The Media Politics of 9/11
Kathy Kelly
Last Lines Before Vanishing
Website of the Day
Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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
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Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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April
8, 2004
Echoes of Vietnam
Phoenix,
Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
By DOUGLAS VALENTINE
On Monday, April 5th, as thousands of US Marines
surrounded Fallujah and prepared to pacify it, Senator Edward
Kennedy predicted that Iraq would be to Bush what Vietnam had
been to Nixon.
Given that Nixon won a resounding reelection
in 1972, this means that Bush will also win reelection in 2004.
Hence the the dangers of making analogies between Vietnam and
Iraq.
Having said that, similarities do exist.
Primarily, as the violence spreads and the body count rises,
it becomes increasingly obvious that Bush's prissy proconsul
in Baghdad, Paul Bremer (a former managing director of Kissinger
Associates) has badly underestimated the strength of the resistance
in Iraq, just as Nixon and his national security chief, Henry
Kissinger, badly underestimated their enemy in South Vietnam.
Granted, underestimating the enemy makes
for wonderful propaganda, and if it is believed, the propaganda
will help assure Bush's reelection. But it's also the best way
to lose a war--which is why Rumsfeld is sending more troops to
Iraq, in what represents the first "escalation" of
the occupation.
Perhaps Kennedy was alluding to these
two similarities:
1) underestimating the enemy and
2) quietly escalating the war in direct
contradiction to previous stated policy.
Whatever Kennedy meant, it's also obvious
that there is one great big difference between the Vietnam War
and the illegal invasion and occupation nof Iraq--that being
the media's obsession with self-censorship.
The process started long before anthrax-laced
black valentines were sent to Democratic senators. It started
during the Reagan regime, when Reagan sought to overcome the
"Vietnam Syndrome"--the name given to America's feeling
of inadequacy and impotence after its humiliating defeat by the
under-armed Vietnamese. Reagan issued the first media blackout
in wartime when he put America on the road to  recovery by invading and conquering
mighty Grenada. Bush the Superior spoke openly of having cured
America of the Vietnam Syndrome after issuing another media blackout
and then vanquishing Saddam Hussein in the First Iraq War.
Now Bush the Inferior has imposed a media
blackout over all but the embedded media in Iraq--although it
is hardly necessary. After twenty years, the media has become
accustomed to the night, and relying upon government communiqués
for its sustenance.
The big difference between Vietnam and
Iraq is that we had a reasonably free press in Vietnam that could
film the bloody carnage live on TV, and criticize and ask questions
of authority. These were things some reporters actually risked
their lives to do! A free press is a thing of the past. The
only information we get now is what Bush, Bremer and the rest
of the micro-Kissingers want us to hear and see and, more importantly,
think. And what they want us to think is:
1) that they are in control, and
2) that they are the forces of goodness
and light, and that anyone they kill is a "thug," a
"terrorist," or just a plain olde "evil-doer."
"If it's
worth doing at all, it's worth overdoing."
Ancient British Adage About Americans
The first big similarity between the
Vietnam War and the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq is
that US forces rely on indiscriminate and overwhelming firepower
to reassure the American public that they are The Superior Force.
This is especially important in a spiritual sense, as former
cheerleader Bush the Inferior in well aware; for by establishing
America as the Superior Force, he confers upon himself--as America's
leader -the mantle of divine rule. Not only do we overcome our
collective sense of guilt and inadequacy, we become miraculously
Godlike and infallible.
However, the use of indiscriminate and
overwhelming firepower nullifies any pretense the Bush/Bremer
regime has (or the Nixon/Kissinger regime had in Vietnam) of
turning its occupied territory into a self-sustaining, sovereign
democracy. For indiscriminate and overwhelming firepower always
kills and maims innocent people, and destroys their homes, businesses,
utilities and sacred sites. Rather than "winning their hearts
and minds" (another catch-phrase exhumed from Vietnam to
explain the method in Bush's madness in Iraq), indiscriminate
and overwhelming firepower incites hatred towards Americans.
Yes, this is why they hate us.
More importantly--and this is why the
ever-vulnerable Ted Kennedy is speaking up with some measure
of confidence--American indiscriminate and overwhelming firepower
is creating its "legitimate" military and political
opposition in Iraq, just as it did in Vietnam.
Simply stated, indiscriminate and overwhelming
firepower makes Americans feel good, but like underestimating
the enemy, it's inherently self-defeating.
For a year it was great fun for Bush
and Bremer, sitting tall in the saddle and shuffling through
the CIA's hilarious deck of death cards, hunting down Saddam
and his Ba-ath "henchmen" with their ugly mugs plastered
on Wanted Dead Or Alive posters all over the countryside. It
was entertaining and reassuring to pack Saddam's infamous prisons
full of his supporters and suspected sympathizers.
Then Bush and Bremer made their next
big mistake. Having wiped out the last vestiges of Saddam's
"brutal" regime, they shut down a newspaper that belonged
to anti-American Shiite cleric Sayed Moqtada al-Sadr; and rather
than quietly submit, Moqtada resisted. He decided he'd had enough
of censorship, death squads, and midnight arrests that packed
Saddam's old prisons to overflowing with detainees, many of whom
were Shiites and innocent bystanders.
Moqtada stood up to the Americans, and
his example has stirred a religious fervor for national salvation
in even the most secular Iraqi quisling. It has also pushed
the prideful--and many of those who have pulled the remains of
their loved ones from American-made bomb craters--into the swelling
ranks of a burgeoning Underground guerrilla movement which, like
the one American oppression generated in Vietnam, fires its single
shot or hurls its homemade grenade, and then slips away before
the helicopter gunships and tanks blow the neighborhood to smithereens
in retaliation.
This is what is happening now in Fallujah.
Subterranean Homesick
Blues
The emergence of an Underground in Iraq
is the second Big similarity with Vietnam, where the Underground
emerged and psychologically turned the tide of the war during
the February 1968 Tet Offensive.
Granted, the Iraqi Underground has not
staged a general uprising--but until last week, the arrogant
Americans were certain they had eliminated the resistance. Now,
even the benighted American media isn't so sure.
As everyone knows, the Iraqi Underground
announced its presence last week when it killed and mutilated
four American "contractors", dragged the body of one
through the streets (making the obvious comparison between Baghdad
and Mogadishu), and hung from a bridge the mutilated remains
of another, to the cheers of a mob right that had stepped right
out of the pages of The Hunchback of Notre Dame.
This was a counter-terrorist act of psychological
warfare that sent two subliminal (say it, Dubya) messages to
Bush:
1) it said that American civilians in
Iraq would, from now on, bear the cost of underwriting Israeli
terrorism in Palestine--the precipitating event was Ariel Sharon's
terrorist act of assassinating Hamas leader Yassin; and
2) it was a signal that after a year
of anything but benign liberation, the Underground has figured
out the identity, organization, and movements of CIA officers
and informants--and is willing to strike at them.
This is not to say that the four Blackwater
contractors killed last week were CIA officers--although Blackwater
is proconsul Bremer's Praetorian Guard. It's just to say that
the Iraqi Underground is sending a message to all swaggering
American contractors--a number of whom are undercover CIA officers
running Phoenix Program death squads and militias--that two can
play the happy deck of death cards game.
Yes, with this counter-terrorist act,
the Underground has started targeting members of the CIA's Phoenix
Program in Iraq, and its attendant interrogators and jailers.
For those who may have doubts, it is
a fact that Phoenix is in Iraq. We know this to be true, because
Seymour Hersh said so in December 2003, although he neglected
to mention two important things:
1) that Phoenix has been active in Iraq
since before Day One of the occupation, and
2) that he waited to announce its alleged
debut until the military, thinking it had the country under control,
got involved. But as in Vietnam in 1969, the CIA was slipping
out of sight and putting the military up front so it could take
the blame if anything went wrong--as is about to happen, big
time, just like in Vietnam.
Phoenix is another one of those self-defeating
obsessions that Americans have, only they try to keep this one
secret, because it amounts to genocide by quota. That's right,
CIA officers had to neutralize 1800 Vietnamese civilians every
month to meet their corporate quota. They went about this in
two ways.
Phoenix in Iraq, as in Vietnam (and Israel),
is a two-tiered program. The upper-tier is a secret war of
midnight assassinations and arrests of intellectuals and spiritual
leaders deemed politically threatening to the Bush/Bremer puppet
regime. This aspect is carried out by CIA officers and mercenaries
dressed in mufti, often posing as "contractors" like
the four unfortunates murdered and mutilated in Fallujah a few
days ago. These are the killers the American media is forbidden
from outing at the cost of their pathetic lives. These are also
the Israeli-advised guys and gals who cheerfully drew up the
hit-lists of Saddam's Ba-ath and Sunni "henchmen",
and organized the Iraqi-led militias that have provided the Iraqi
Underground with much of its data. As we now know, this aspect
of the CIA's Phoenix Program is penetrated up the gazoom, just
as it was in Vietnam.
The lower-tier Phoenix Program in Iraq,
like the one in Vietnam, consists of CIA officers and Iraqi collaborators
operating undercover of military "cordon and search"
operations, like the one in Fallujah. In Vietnam, CIA officers--undercover
of military "cordon and search" operations--went into
villages that supported the resistance, in hopes of catching
or killing civilian leaders, while the military polished off
the guerrilla forces. The My Lai massacre was the ultimate example
of this flawed policy in Vietnam; Sabra and Shatilla was Israel's
infamous version in Lebanon.
This "cordon and search" aspect
of Phoenix has helped packed Saddam's famous prisons full of
innocent Iraqis--the other big story Network News is forbidden
from telling by its corporate owners, who are so heavily invested
in the movie rights.
All of which brings us up to date: today,
in a traditional Phoenix cordon and search operation, US Marines
surround and destroy Fallujah. The unstated object of "Operation
Vigilant Resolve" is revenge for last week's slayings and
mutilations of the four American "contractors". The
stated reason, according to Lt. James Vanzant, the Marine spokesman,
is the Phoenix-style targeted kill. Vanzant told CNN, "We
want to get the guys we are after. We don't want to go in there
with guns blazing."
But the guns are blazing, and just as
in Vietnam, this Big Lie proves that US forces do not have the
political or military situation under control. The only question
that remains is: when will this overarching fact become fit for
Network News?
Douglas Valentine is the author of The
Hotel Tacloban, The
Phoenix Program, and TDY.
His fourth book, The Strength of the Wolf: The Federal Bureau
of Narcotics, 1930-1968,
will be published in May 2004 by Verso. For information about
Mr. Valentine, and his books and articles, please visit his web
sites at www.DouglasValentine.com
and http://members.authorsguild.net/valentine
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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