|
CounterPunch's
Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Order Now / Available in April
Today's
Stories
April
28, 2004
Faisal
Kutty
The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence
April
27, 2004
James
Davis
The Colombia 3 Acquitted
Dave
Lindorff
Chalabi as Prosecutor
Bruce
Schneier
Terrorist Threats and Political
Gain
Cockburn
/ Sengupta
British Generals Resist Calls for
More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq
Walt
Brasch
Presidential Letters: The Day I
Was Asked to Feed an Elephant
Saul
Landau
The Empire in Denial and the Denial
of Empire
April 26, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops
Prepare to Enter Najaf
Wayne
Madsen
Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR?
Grover
Furr
Protest, Rebellion, Commitment
Elaine
Cassel
Lies About the Patriot Act
Mickey
Z.
Inspired by Pat Tillman?
Greg
Moses
Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit
Gila
Svirsky
Anarchy in Our Souls
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.
|
April
28, 2004
The Iraqi Alamo
A CNN/CIA Scenario
By GRAEME GREENBACK
CNN News
Updated: 05:25 p.m. EDT (21:25
GMT) April 26, 2004
Graeme Greenback reporting...
It was Sunday in Basra when I got the
call. I'd blown into the this British-held city a few days before,
when I got "the word" that the CIA was planning something
"explosive" to "distract" public attention
from all the furor "the wanted radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadrin"
was raising in Fallujah and Najaf. And sure enough, just like
in Saigon in 1954, the bombs went off and scores of innocent
people, even little school children, were killed by the usual
anonymous suicide bombers -- at least, that's what they told
us to report in our dispatches.
That's how it works here in
Iraq most of the time: our "journalistic" careers depend
on our being where the sensational events are happening, so a
few of us, like me, have "non-attributable" contacts
that allow us to be at the right place at the right time. Most
of the time we paint by numbers the picture that officialdom
wants the wild wild West to see.
But we play a double game too,
because sometimes the boys and girls at CIA Central haven't got
their good ear to the ground. Which is why those of us worth
our press passes cultivate our own sources call them spies
-- like Kahlil, my man in Baghdad. Kahlil was a senior counter-intelligence
officer in Saddam's Republican Guard, but saw the writing on
the wall and helped recruit a bunch of junior army officers over
to the CIA before the U.S.-British-Israeli invasion. In return
for services rendered, Kahlil was "detained" in Abu
Ghoryab prison for a few weeks, so none of his former colleagues
would suspect he was a double agent, and then he was given a
satellite cell phone and released on his own recognizance. Unbeknownst
to the CIA, Brits, and Israelis, Kahlil also works for Russians,
the Kurds, and anyone else who can afford his retainer.
So yesterday, I was sitting
at the British Officers Club in Basra, sipping a gin and tonic,
when I got the call from Kahlil. Within moments I had retrieved
my driver from the local Kasbah, and was tooling up the Highway
of Death to Baghdad in my six-cylinder camel, headed for the
story of the century.
Rendezvous
in Baghdad
I met Kahlil at a little carpet
shop off Bobby Sands Boulevard about midnight, high on OxyContin
and Benzedrine, ready to rumble. But no magic pill could have
prepared me for what the old Republican Guard had up his sleeve.
"Greeny," he said,
"Muqtada looks around him and sees his country in rubble.
Infidels in tanks and humvees, flying in formation overhead,
dropping napalm on mosques as if this was Philadelphia in May
1983, when the cops bombed the MOVE compound and destroyed 60
houses. 'This is wackier than Wacko,' he says to me. 'Women
and kids turned into toast, I mean, like when George the First
incinerated that Black section of Panama City just to whack Manuel.'
"Muqtada looks around,"
Kahlil continued, "and he sees the world look away. Which
might seem unbelievable, if it hadn't happened a thousand times
before. From, the Halls of Montevoooma, you know what I mean?
Now this  fancy General Hertling has
the balls to tell Muqtada to give up or get killed. Meanwhile
some Marine colonel, who thinks he's Santa Anna, says, 'What
is coming is the destruction of anti-coalition forces in Fallujah.
. . . They have two choices: submit or die.'"
Kahlil's eyelids narrowed,
then popped open wide like he'd broken open a vial of Amil-nitrate.
"Telling Muqtada to 'submit or die' in HIS own country,
for exercising his right to free speech, his right to bear arms
in self-defense against foreign invaders! Meanwhile the CIA's
got SEAL teams led by Israeli and Libyan assassins stalking him
day and night, and holding his wife and kids hostage."
"Well, yeah," I said.
"Everyone knows all that. So what's he going to do?"
With that, Kahlil pulled two
tickets from out of his sleeve, and cupped them in his palm,
like a fence flashing a pair of diamond earrings under a streetlight.
"Muqtada got his band
together for a Farewell Performance tonight, and for a thousand
dollars each, I acquired these, my brother."
Buckaroo
Bonsai's Last Tango On Planet Ten
I couldn't believe it! Two
front-row tickets to see Muqtada And The Mehdi Fedayeen in their
Farewell Performance at the Apollo Mosque in Najaf. A steal
at a grand a piece. I hugged Kahlil, and then, like teeny-boppers
on our way to see Brittany Spears, and we ducked down an alley,
dropped into one of the old sewers that crisscross the city,
passed under a 1st Armored Division checkpoint, and surfaced
two blocks from the golden shrine.
The streets surrounding the
place were packed with Shiites and Shia, all shoving and pushing
and trying to get close enough to hear "the radical cleric."
Luckily, one of Kahlil's old buddies, a former Republican Guard
now serving as security for Muqtada, let us in the service entrance
and escorted us through the kitchen and into the main room of
the Mosque. Inside a ring of black-clad militiamen, astride
what seemed to be a flying carpet with this two-piece band behind
him, was Muqtada himself, singing his heart out to a cheering
throng of true believers.
There was magic in the air
as he sang: "Well, you wonder why we always dress in black?
It's for the poor and the beaten down, livin' in the hopeless,
bombed-out side of town, and for the detainee at Abu Ghoryab,
who has long paid for his crime, but is there because he's a
victim of the New York Times."
Oh! The place was going wild,
to his signature "boom-chick-a-boom chick-a-boom" country
Iraqi sound.
Then all of a sudden, like
Elvis, he raised his left hand high and the music stopped; a
hush fell over the Mosque as Muqtada slid down on one knee, and
slowly lowered his hand till his forefinger was pointing straight
at a familiar face sitting only three seats away from us, right
next to Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. The man with the beard
smiled for the video cameras and exhaled a long stream of Afghan
hashish from the hookah he's perennially hooked-up to. (People
think he's on kidney dialysis, but not so.)
"Let's hear it for the
our guest of honor, the Grand Templar of Terror, Sheik Osama
bin Laden!"
It was like Folsom Prison,
I swear, what with all the celebrity evildoers in the crowd.
Even Bremer was there; you could see his combat boots sticking
out of his robe, and the Blackwater security people around him.
Then Muqtada stood and addressed
the audience. "I lived for forty years under the heel of
Saddam, but he never slammed me in Abu Ghoryab, or shut down
my newspaper, or bombed by neighborhood." The crowd roared.
"Sure, he gassed the Kurds - but the CIA sold him the gas!
And sure, he invaded Kuwait - but Dizzy Gillespie from the CIA
said that was okay too!" People were yelling 'Allah Akbar!'
and dancing, and waving Kalishnikovs over their heads. Oh, it
was the schmaltz!
"Yeah, I had my beef with
the dude; but he didn't impose the ten years of economic sanctions,
or the No Fly Zones that drove our country into the dirt. The
Americans like to talk about the trouble foreign terrorists that
are causing trouble here in Iraq can you image? They think
they're native Iraqis! They think they own this place!"
With that the place went wild.
It was bedlam. Meanwhile the band starting playing again and
Muqtada said, 'Let's here it for the band! Behind me on my left,
on lead guitar, Mohamed "Davy Crocket" Ibrahim! And
on my right, playing bass, Hajim "Jim Bowie" al-Hassani."
With that, the Muqtada swang into his best known tune, 'When
I was just a baby, my mother told me son, always be a good boy,
don't ever play with guns"
The crowd was standing and
stomping their feet and yelling for an encore as Muqtada and
the Mehdi Fedayeen levitated off the flying carpet and out of
sight, and then after about two minutes of pandemonium, they
drifted back, with golden halos over their heads this time.
The light show was just extraordinary.
"We'll just leave you
with this old ballad," the radical cleric said, knowing
he would never address his fans again. And with that he whipped
his six-string over his head so the frets were pointing down,
and using his guitar like a sword, he drew an imaginary line
in the air. "On one side of this line is the New Iraq,"
he said, "the New improved, Pepsi Cola Iraq, Holy owned
and operated by the American Junior Chamber of Commerce fronting
for the CIA, Halliburton and KBR. On the other side is Paradise.
What's it gong to be, brothers?"
I'll never forget what happened
next. In the silence that ensued, old Muqtada started strumming
and singing these words: "Iraqis were challenged by travelers
to die, as the battle for national sovereignty drew nigh"
And as he sang, everyone in the audience, even Bremer, held
up a Zippo and flicked on a light, giving the place and unearthly
glow, as Muqtada sang the last words in public he would ever
sing:
"A courier came to a battle
once bloody and loud
And found only skin and bones where he once left a crowd
Fear not little darling of dying
If this world be sovereign and free
For we'll fight to the last for as long as liberty be
Hey Up George Bush, they're killing your soldiers below
So the rest of Iraq will say, 'We've had enough!'
And remember Fallujah and sacred Najaf."
Out in the streets they shouted
that refrain: "Allah Akbar!"
Which, of course, in Iraqi
means, "Remember the Alamo!"
Graeme Greenback, aka 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 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
|