Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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.
|
February 9, 2005
The Ambassador of Lies
Elliott
Abrams: the Neocon's Neocon
By
TOM BARRY
President Bush's Inaugural Address was
the sound of the second shoe dropping. Three years ago the president
shocked the world with the announcement of the U.S. government's
new doctrine of preventive war and global military engagement.
Last month he proclaimed that U.S. power and influence had a
soft side. Along with use of our military might, the U.S. government
was committing the American people to an international campaign
to promote freedom and democracy.
Minutes before his State of
the Union Address, in which he repeated the promise to answer
the call of freedom worldwide, the White House announced that
Elliott Abrams would direct the new global democracy campaign
as well as overseeing Middle East policy from his perch in the
National Security Council.
Elliott Abrams embodies neoconservatism.
Perhaps more than any other neoconservative, Abrams has integrated
the various influences that have shaped today's neoconservative
agenda. A creature of the neoconservative incubator, Abrams is
a political intellectual and operative who has advanced the neoconservative
agenda with chutzpah and considerable success.
As a government official, Abrams
organized front groups to provide private and clandestine official
support for the Nicaraguan Contras; served as the president of
an ethics institute despite his own record of lying to Congress
and managing illegal operations; rose to high positions in the
National Security Council to oversee U.S. foreign policy in regions
where he had no professional experience, only ideological positions;
proved himself as a political intellectual in books and essays
that explore the interface between orthodox Judaism, American
culture, and political philosophy; and demonstrated his considerable
talents in public diplomacy as a political art in the use of
misinformation and propaganda to ensure public and policy support
for foreign relations agendas that would otherwise be soundly
rejected.
Abrams has moved back and forth
between government and the right's web of think tanks and policy
institutes, holding positions as a senior fellow at the Hudson
Institute, president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center (EPPC),
advisory council member of the American Jewish Committee, and
charter member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
Abrams has maintained close ties with the Social Democrats/USA,
the network of right-wing social democrats and former Trotskyites
who became the most vocal of the self-described "democratic
globalists" within the neocon camp in the 1990s.
His family ties have helped
propel Abrams into the center of neoconservatism's inner circles
over the past few decades. In 1980 he joined one of the two reigning
families of neoconservatism through his marriage to Rachel Decter,
one of Midge Decter's two daughters from her first marriage.
As a member of the Podhoretz-Decter clan, Abrams became a frequent
contributor to Commentary and Norman Podhoretz's choice
to direct the magazine's symposiums on foreign policy. As one
of the leading neocons in the Reagan administration, Abrams also
served as a liaison between government and the right wing's network,
as exemplified by his appearances at the forums organized by
Midge Decter's Committee for the Free World in the 1980s.
Emblematic of Abrams' visceral
right-wing politics was his statement following the murder of
John Lennon in December 1980. Setting the tone for the cultural
and political backlash that would soon dominate U.S. politics,
Abrams complained publicly about all the media attention given
the famous singer: "I'm sorry, but John Lennon was not that
important a figure in our times...Why is his death getting more
attention than Elvis Presley's? Because Lennon is perceived as
a left-wing figure politically, anti-establishment, a man of
social conscience with concern for the poor. And, therefore,
he is being made into a great figure. Too much has been made
of his life. It does not deserve a full day's television and
radio coverage. I'm sick of it."
Abrams as
Anti-Communist Gladiator
As an aide to Sen. Henry "Scoop"
Jackson in the 1970s, Abrams began his political career mixing
the soft and hard sides of the neoconservative agendaas
both a proponent of Jackson's strategically driven human rights
policies and as an advocate of his proposals to boost the military-industrial
complex. Through Jackson, Abrams became involved in a group of
Cold Warriors called the Coalition for a Democratic Majority,
which was associated with the Democratic Party and led by the
neoconservatives.
Among former members of Jackson's
staff to find positions in the Reagan administration's foreign
policy team were such neoconservative operatives as Paul Wolfowitz,
Richard Perle, Frank Gaffney, Charles Horner, and Ben Wattenberg.
Other Jackson Democrats who secured appointments in the Reagan
administration included Jeane Kirkpatrick, as UN ambassador,
and neoconservatives on her staff, such as Joshua Muravchik,
Steven Munson (like Abrams a Podhoretz-Decter son-in-law), Carl
Gershman, and Kenneth Adelman.
Abrams joined the neocon exodus
from the Democratic Party in the late 1970s led by members of
the Committee on the Present Danger and the Coalition for a Democratic
Majority. His first position in the Reagan administration was
director of the State Department's Office for Human Rights and
Humanitarian Affairs. But he was appointed only after Reagan's
first choice came under fire in the Senate.
During the Reagan years, the
neocon human rights program was a velvet glove tailored for the
iron fist side of foreign and military policy. During the Reagan
administration, Abrams was at once a human rights advocate, a
manager of clandestine operations, and a bagman for the Nicaraguan
contrascalling himself "a gladiator" in the cause
of freedom.
Crimes and
Misdemeanors
Although he entered the Reagan
administration scandal-free, he left as a convicted criminal.
Abrams, who entered the administration as its human rights chief
and in 1985 became assistant secretary of state for inter-American
affairs, was indicted by the Iran-Contra special prosecutor for
intentionally deceiving Congress about the administration's role
in supporting the Contras, including his own central role in
the Iran-Contra arms deal.
The U.S.-backed and organized
Contras were spearheading a counterrevolution against the Sandinista
government in Nicaragua. Congress had prohibited U.S. government
military support for the Contras because of their pattern of
human rights abuses. Abrams pleaded guilty to two lesser offenses
(including withholding information from Congress) to avoid a
trial and a possible jail term.
Abrams and five other Iran-Contra
figures were pardoned by President George H.W. Bush on Christmas
Eve 1992, shortly before the senior Bush left office. By pardoning
Abrams, John Poindexter, and other former Reagan officials, Bush
was in effect protecting himself. At that time media and congressional
investigations of Iran-Contra scandal were threatening to expose
the role of Bush himself, who was Reagan's vice president during
the executive branch's program of illegal support to the Nicaraguan
Contras.
During the Reagan administration,
Abrams was the government's nexus between the militarists in
the National Security Council and the public-diplomacy operatives
in the State Department, White House, and National Endowment
for Democracy (NED). Abrams worked closely with Otto Reich, who
directed the White House's Office of Public Diplomacy, which
was in charge of disseminating "white propaganda" to
the U.S. public, media, and policymakers to build support for
the Reagan administration's interventionist policies in Latin
America and elsewhere.
Abrams in
the 1990s
After Reagan left office in
1989, Abrams, like a number of other prominent neoconservatives,
was not invited to serve in the Bush Sr. administration. Instead,
he worked for a number of think tanks and in 1996 became president
of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. With EPPC as his new
base, Abrams wrote widely on foreign policy issues, especially
on Middle East policy, and on cultural issues, including about
the threats posed by U.S. secular society to Jewish identity.
Created in 1976, EPPC was the
first neocon institute to break ground in the frontal attack
on the secular humanists. For nearly three decades, EPPC has
functioned as the cutting edge of the neoconservative-driven
culture war against progressive theology and secularism, and
the associated effort to ensure right-wing control of the Republican
Party. It explicitly sought to unify the Christian right with
the neoconservative religious right, which was mostly made up
of agnostics back then. A central part of its political project
was to "clarify and reinforce the bond between the Judeo-Christian
moral tradition and the public debate over domestic and foreign
policy." Directed by Elliott Abrams from 1996-2001, EPPC
counts among its board members well connected figures in the
neocon matrix including Jeane Kirkpatrick, Richard Neuhaus, and
Mary Ann Glendon.
Abrams remained an integral
part of the tight-knit neoconservative foreign policy community
in Washington that revolved around the American Enterprise Institute
(AEI). Abrams was also a charter member of the Project for the
New American Century, which issued its statement of principles
about the need for a "neo-Reaganite" foreign policy
in 1997.
Elliott Abrams, when serving
as EPPC president, said that human rights should be a "policy
tool" of the U.S. government. Working closely with Newt
Gingrich and the Republican Congress, EPPC together with the
Christian Coalition and Family Research Council lobbied for the
creation of a new permanent commission that focused on religious
persecution. The main countries of concern listed in the congressional
deliberations were China, Sudan, North Korea, Cuba, Laos, Saudi
Arabia, and Indonesia, as well as general condemnation of Muslim
nations. Abrams became a founding member of the U.S. Commission
on International Religious Freedom and served as its chairman
until mid-2001, when he joined the Bush administration.
Regarding Abrams's biased stance
on Middle East affairs, Dr. Laila al-Marayati, a former member
of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, wrote:
"From the vantage point of the [U.S. Commission on International
Religious Freedom], as an American and as a Muslim, I had the
unfortunate opportunity of witnessingclearly and unequivocallythe
deep bias that Abrams brings to his new position. ...As chairman
of the commission at the time, Abrams led the delegation to Egypt
and Saudi Arabia, but did not go to Jerusalem with three of us
as he was of the opinion that there are no problems with religious
freedom in Israel that would warrant the attention of the commission.
...Bypassing Israel was not the only way Abrams undermined the
Commission's visit to the Middle East. ...Abrams managed to snub
the leading Islamic cleric in Egypt... which nearly created a
diplomatic nightmare that was only narrowly averted by the intervention
of the U.S. ambassador."
The New
Freedom Fighter
Since Bush's reelection in
early November, Abrams has become one of the administration's
most high-profile officials. He has acted as Bush's envoy to
Europe and Israel as part of the administration's new attention
to the Israel-Palestinian conflict. Abrams participated in an
hour-plus meeting in the Oval Office with the president and Natan
Sharansky, Israel's minister for Jerusalem and diaspora affairs.
Sharansky, the author of The Case for Freedom, subsequently
met with Rice. Both Bush and Rice have repeatedly referred to
Sharansky's book in their pronouncements about the U.S. government's
new commitment to ending tyranny and spreading democracy, frequently
using the same phrasing as Abransky.
Also in November, Abrams arranged
conference calls with the leaders of the major national Jewish
American organizations in advance of formal meetings with Rice.
Last week, Abrams traveled to Israel and met with Ariel Sharon's
top adviser Dov Weisglass to smooth the way for Secretary of
State's visit with Prime Minister Sharon.
After the scandals involving
neoconservatives in the late 1980s and the end of the cold war,
many foreign policy observers wrote off the neoconservatives
as a spent force. The same dismissal of the enduring influence
of the neoconservative camp became widespread among pundits and
analysts when the Iraq invasion proved a quagmire rather than
a liberation "cakewalk."
It's likely that Elliott Abrams,
who has established a close working relationship with Condoleezza
Rice, will become the leading administration architect of Middle
East policy during the second Bush administration. Like the Middle
East policy of the first administration, the regional initiatives
of the new administration will continue to be guided by neocon
notions about the centrality of Israel, the U.S. mission to restructure
the Arab world, and the use of public diplomacy gloss of spreading
freedom and democracy to advance U.S. national security strategy.
Tom Barry is policy director of the International
Relations Center, online at www.irc-online.org He is the author
of books on U.S. economic aid including The
Soft War: Uses and Abuses of U.S. Economic Aid in Central America
(Grove Press).
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