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Today's
Stories
March 14, 2008
Don Santina
Vichy Democrats: Pelosi and the Politics of Collaboration
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Mother Vows Revenge on US: How She Lost Her Husband and Her Sons
Tim Rinne
StratCom Rules! The Next War Will Start in Nebraska
Robert Fantina
In Torture We Trust
Saul Landau
Letter to the Presidents-in-Waiting
David Macaray
Common Myths About Labor Unions
Franklin Lamb
Is the Bush Administration Switching Horses in Lebanon
Michael Neumann
The One State Illusion: Reply to My Critics
March 13, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
Republicans and "Free Market" Zealots Bring Disaster to America
Mike Whitney
Meltdown Looms Larger As Credit Markets Freeze
Assaf Kfoury
"One-State or Two State?"- Sterile Debate on False Alternatives
Andy Worthington
Afghan Hero Who Died in Guantánamo: The Background to the Story
Adam Federman
From Autopia to Autogeddon: Cars Reach the End of the Road
March 12, 2008
Dave Lindorff
Bringing Down Spitzer: It's the Big Brother Who Should Bother US
R.F. Blader
The Spitzer Backlash
Yonatan Mendel
How to be an Israeli Journalist. Never Write "Murder" or "Palestine"
Jonathan Cook
One State or Two? Neither. The Issue is Zionism
Bill and Kathy Christison
Fallon and Gates -- At Least One Cheer
James J. Brittain
Was the U.S. Involved in Killing the FARC-EP Leaders
Ron Jacobs
"All the Money You Make Will Never Buy Back Your Soul"
March 11, 2008
Paul Craig Roberts
How to End the Subprime Crisis
Ed O'Loughlin
How Israeli Troops Invade Homes in Gaza, Brutalize, Smash and Steal
Ramzy Baroud
'Unwavering Commitment' to Inequality
Kathy Christison
One State or Two? The Debate Over Israel and Palestine
China Hand
PRC Plays it Cool, as U.S. Tries to Amp Up Pressure on Iran
John Joslin
Thank You, Nafta! Welcome to Weirton, Home of the Discount Cigarette
Mike Averko
Serb Politics, Kosovo and the Moscow-Washington Divide
Ben Rosenfeld
Gavin Newsom's Kneejerk Plan
Thierry Paquot
High Rise, Low Spirits:The Curse of the Tower Block
March 10, 2008
Uri Avnery
"Kill A Hundred Turks and Rest": The Five-Day War in Gaza
Col. Dan Smith
Scoring the "Surge" and What Lies Beyond
R.F. Blader
Why "Lock Them Up and Throw Away the Key" is Losing its Sheen
Michael Neumann
The One-State Illusion: More is Less
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey Wasserman
Did the Republicans Give Hillary Her Victory in Ohio?
James J. Brittain
Anti-Uribe Protests in Colombia and the World
Missy Comley Beattie
The Passion of John McCain
March 8-9, 2008 Weekend Edition
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Only Way to Fight the Clintons
Mike Whitney
Sorting Through the Rubble in Post Bubble America
Peter Morici
Fed and Treasury Fiddle as Economy Plummets
Ralph Nader
The Silent Violence of Gaza's Suffering that Candidates Ignore
Jonathan Cook
The Meaning of Gaza's Shoah
Steve Niva
Behind the Israeli Escalation in Gaza
Bill and Kathy Christison
Crisis over Teheran's Alleged Nuclear Plans Nearing Climax
Hervé Do Alto and Franck Poupeau
Bolivia: Morales is Checked
Eric Walberg
To Leave and Stay at the Same Time: Putin to Medvedev to…?
Scott Johnson
City of A Thousand Foreclosures
Mark Scaramella
James Brown's Gate
Bill Clinton
President Clinton's Remarks on Naming William M. Daley as NAFTA Task Force Chairman
Poet's Basement
St. Thomasino, Engel, Davies and Willson
Website of the Weekend
Hillary Blackens Barack
March 7, 2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why Iraq Could Blow-Up in John McCain's Face
Robin Blackburn
Question for Barrack Obama: Why Afghanistan is the 'Right War'?
Saul Landau
The Stupid Economy
Binoy Kampmark
When Competition is Good: McCain and the Muddled Democrats
Chris Floyd
Crushing the Ants: Admiral Fallon and His Empire
Andy Worthington
Spanish Drop "Inhuman" Extradition Request for Guantánamo Britons
Will Potter
Before the Smoke Even Clears in Seattle: Bringing Out the T Word
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Forrest Hylton
High Stakes in the Andes: Colombia's Cornered President
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
John Ross
Taxi! Taxi! The Dark Side of the Oscars
Jacob Hornberger
No Standing to Lecture on Justice
Paul Watson
Illegal Japanese Whaling by the Numbers
Dan Bacher
Off the Deep End
Website of the Day
A Katrina Reader Online
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
March 1 / 2,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Race Card
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Political Trial of Don Siegelman
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba After Fidel
Christopher Brauchli
Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick
Ron Jacobs
Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge
John Ross
The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico
Robert Fantina
Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins
Robert Weissman
Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy
Mohammed Omer
Fear in Gaza
Remi Kanazi
Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia
Bob Jackson
Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd?
Richard Rhames
Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole
Rannie Amiri
Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon
David Michael
Green
The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam
Conn Hallinan
Notes from the Southern Cone
Faheem Hussain
Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!
February 29,
2008
Matt Gonzalez
The
Obama Craze
Jonathan Cook
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
Joshua Frank
Obama and Israel
Anthony DiMaggio
The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback
of American Law
Linn Washington, Jr.
Cop Abuse in America
Binoy Kampmark
Hubris and Nemesis
Robert Bryce
Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy
Use
Sonja Karkar
Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel
Dave Lindorff
A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush?
Website of
the Day
Olduvai George
February 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
"Iraq"
Falls Apart
Fred Gardner
The Birth of NAFTA
Michael Levitin
The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
William S.
Lind
The Fake State of Kosovo
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor
Stephen Fleischman
Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod?
George Wuerthner
The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron
Laura Carlsen
The North American Union Farce
Carl Finamore
Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off
Michael Dickinson
The Day I Bombed the House of Commons
Website of the Day
Plane Stupid
February 27,
2008
David Rosen
Playing
the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political
Dirty Tricks
Vijay Prashad
Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War
Harvey Wasserman
Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns,
Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's
Military Economy
Peter Morici
The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal
Stephen Philion
Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement
Michael Donnelly
Obama by Unanimous Decision
Erica Rosenberg /
Janine Blaeloch
After the Land Deals: Will There
be Any Wilderness Left to Protect?
Website of
the Day
Dress Blues
February 26,
2008
Debbie Nathan
Confessions
of a Gitmo Guard
Alan Dershowitz
v. Frank Menetrez
On Finkelstein
Harvey Wasserman
How Ohio Got Nuked
Michael Colby
Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals
Gary Leupp
Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade
David Orchard
The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan
Martha Rosenberg
The Big HRT
Fran Shor
The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow
Serge Halimi
The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan
for the French Left
Global Balkans
Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans:
an Interview with Tariq Ali
Website of
the Day
Texistentialism
February 25,
2008
Roger Morris
A
Death in Damascus
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
Ralph Nader
Why I'm Running
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Broils
Paul Craig Roberts
Kosovo and the Empire Crazies
Peter Morici
Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms
Dave Lindorff
General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That
Minot Nuke Incident
Saul Landau
/
Farrah Hassen
Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film
Heather Gray
James Orange, Civil Rights Legend
Robert Weitzel
Accomodating Torture
John Halle
Kucinich Goes Down
Website of the Day
Do the Trunk Monkey!
February 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
February 20,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lies
and Spies
Paul Krassner
My
Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The
Pakistani Elections
Farzana Versey
The
Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch
Allan Nairn
Dying for a Second Round: Israel's
New Plan to Attack Lebanon
John V. Whitbeck
If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization?
Steve Eckardt
Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News
Lee Sustar
Union-Busting at Freightliner
Mike Ferner
How Sick of It are You?
Website of the Day
The US Military Index
February 19,
2008
Uri Avnery
Blood
and Champagne
Paul Craig
Roberts
Paying
Insurgents Not to Fight
Gary Leupp
The Independence of Kosovo
Fidel Castro
The Moment Has Come
David Macaray
Management's Dirty Little Secret
Reza Fiyouzat
Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections
Valerie Morse
The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie
Walter Brasch
Bush on Safari
Website of the Day
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
February 18,
2008
Wajahat Ali
Free
Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan
Diana Johnstone
NATO's
Kosovo Colony
Paul Craig Roberts
What Do We Stand For?
Andy Worthington
Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along"
Debbie Nathan
Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes
Anthony DiMaggio
Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business
of Elections
Bill Simpich
Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq
Eva Liddell
A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash
Christopher Brauchli
The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans
Stephen Soldz
Wikileaks is Under Attack!
Johann Rossouw
The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism
Website of
the Day
Sick of It Day!
February 16
/ 17, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan
Ralph Nader
We
the Corporations ...
David Macaray
The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin?
William J.
Peace
Wheelchair Dumping
Ron Jacobs
War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption
Diane Christian
War Corrupts
Alan Maass
Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen
(and Beyond)
Ramzy Baroud
Iraq and the US Elections
Michael Donnelly
Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Art of Finding Whalers
James L. Secor
China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008
Eve Bachrach
Bush Returns to Africa
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army
Stephen Gowans
Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian
Missy Beattie
To Vote or Not to Vote?
David Michael
Green
Warming Slowly to Obama
Wajahat Ali
Attack of the Info-tainment Circus
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther
Website of the Day
Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!
February 15,
2008
George Szamuely
The
Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo
Patrick Cockburn
Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability
to Baghdad?
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban,
Bin Laden and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg
Alan Farago
God and the Democrats
Chris Genovali
Alberta's Black Gold Rush
Jacob Hornberger
Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture
Dave Lindorff
Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull
Website of the Day
Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams
February 14,
2008
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Palestine
in the Mind of America
Mike Whitney
Swan Song for NATO
Clancy Sigal
Strike Notes from a Screenwriter
George Wuerthner
A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
Peter Morici
Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit?
John Ross
Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border
Allan Nairn
Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can
Whack Anyone
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon's Warmongers
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein
Donna Volatile
Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It
Seth Sandronsky
The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes
Website of
the Day
Conventions: the Land Around Us
February 13,
2008
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet
John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America
Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line
Christina Kasica
King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America
Vicente Navarro
How to Read the U.S. Primaries
Hall Greenland
Australia's Finest Hour
Lee Sustar
Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most
David Macaray
The Writers' Strike Finally Ends
Roderick Frazier
Nash
Celebrating Wilderness
Patrick Irelan
Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT
Anthony Papa
Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases
Carl Finamore
Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted
by Politicians
Website of
the Day
John He Is
February 12,
2008
Frank J. Menetrez
The
Case Against Alan Dershowitz
Paul Craig
Roberts
War Without End
Dr. Trudy Bond
The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the
Torture?
Col. Dan Smith
The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away?
Ronnie Cummins
Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road
Ralph Nader
Open the Government
John V. Walsh
Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered
Dave Lindorff
Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms
the Candidate
Michael Donnelly
Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules
Ron Jacobs
La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life"
Ben Tripp
Beggars Collide
Website of the Day
Springsteen and Youngstown
February 11,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Lessons
for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate?
Wajahat Ali
A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby
Ray McGovern
Waterboarding for God and Country
Allan Nairn
The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta
Uri Avnery
An End Foreseen?
Chris Floyd
American
Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech
Martha Rosenberg
School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows
Stephen Fleischman
The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics
Marc Lamont Hill
Not My Brand of Hope
Liliana Segura
Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation
Peter Morici
Challenges for the New President
Christopher
Brauchli
A Drug Rant from a Former Taker
Website of the Day
Annie vs. the Blue Angels
February 8
/ 10, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Does
the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?
Patrick Cockburn
Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold?
Mike Whitney
The Great Bust of '08
Anthony DiMaggio
How the Press Covers Waterboarding
Andy Worthington
The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists?
Linn Cohen-Cole
Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?
Firmin DeBrabander
Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering
and Deaths of the Great Whales
Kenneth S. Pope
Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association
Jacob G. Hornberger
American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
Robert Bryce
Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ...
Then What?
P. Sainath
The Last of the Buccaneer Editors
Allan Nairn
Give Me Back My Land
Fred Gardner
/
Pebbles Trippet
"The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the
Law!"
Andrew Wimmer
Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death
Robert Fantina
America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr
David Michael Green
Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves
Kevin Zeese
Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd?
Peter Morici
Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence
Chris Driscoll
Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008?
Prairie Miller
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen
Poets Basement
Davies and Buknatski
February 7,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Baghdad Will Explode Again
Bill Christison
Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians
David Anderson
NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for
the Sake of Ratings
Ron Jacobs
Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing
Jane Rockefeller
The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation
Andy Worthington
On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
|
March 14, 2008
Letter to the Presidents-in-Waiting
By SAUL LANDAU
I request that as your first act in office you end the “War on Terror.” Such action, I submit, would make most Americans feel more secure. Millions of us are sick of the word “terror,” of feeling terrified. Terror means fear; fear precludes hope and confidence. You advocate hope and change. “Yes, we can.” To do things (change), we need to be freed from White House panic harangue.
Last December’s CNN poll reported 40 per cent of the public still worried about themselves or family members becoming terrorist victims. Almost half the people in the poll believed the US was not winning the war; 21 per cent think the terrorists are winning. How can anyone engage fight in Bush’s “war” against that abstraction -- except as victims of government agencies and departments that the Bush/Cheney White House has hijacked?
The CIA, Pentagon, and Department of Justice squashed habeas corpus, denied defendants’ right to counsel and disregarded laws against torture. In the name of “war on terror,” using the Patriot Act, the government wiretapped, practiced kidnapping and outsourced torture (extraordinary rendition), while simultaneously championing human rights. All for “security and democracy!”
In 1984, George Orwell’s Ministry of Truth changed facts before people’s eyes and dictated a new version to them until they repeated lies as truth -- the secret of thought control.
Commands echo from airport loudspeakers. Robot voices warn everyone: “Supervise your suitcase!” I tell my suitcase not to pee on the airport floor.
“Security” also means facing TSA – “thousands standing around,” says my grandson. Off with shoes, empty pockets, laptop on tray, creams and pastes in clear plastic bags! Beep! Oops, forgot the belt, try to keep pants from falling down, damn, the floor is cold without shoes! Last year, I missed a plane because one uniformed zealot – having successfully completed his parole? -- claimed my toothpaste tube contained more than the allotted amount and, before confiscating it and throwing it in the trash, he chastised me for rule violation.
Air travelers experience an imposed-by-the-White-House “culture of fear,” a negative ethos derived from Bush’s fantasized war. Technically, as you know, Congress has not declared war against Afghanistan and Iraq. Yet, US forces invaded and now occupy both countries. Bush claims with pride that he’s a war time president, enabled, with congressional approval. Congress did increase his powers and he’s used them to infringe on rights, felt most painfully by Muslims
Mr. O and Ms. C, please eliminate Homeland Security. It’s Bush’s only policy – except for cutting taxes for the least needy. Yes, we have enemies, fanatics, who blow themselves and others to smithereens. But Bush hasn’t pursued the terror organizers, some of whom live in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; not guys in caves, but those bankers and intellectuals who control them. Instead of going after the brains and money, Bush created chaos, more enemies more bureaucracy (Homeland Security) and, his “War on Terror” helped Al-Qaeda expand their numbers.
Future Presidents, you know wars against abstract evils -- poverty, drugs, crime -- have become inane. After a century, the drug war expands. Yet, addiction has cursed humanity for thousands of years. Poverty and crime thrive in today’s world. Gore Vidal predicted a war on dandruff. Terrible!
“Terror,” repeated endlessly, induces fright. Who remembers life before the Patriot Act and Homeland Security? “The past was erased, the erasure was forgotten, the lie became truth,” wrote Orwell.
President Carter’s National Security Adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, analyzed how “fear obscures reason, intensifies emotions and makes it easier for demagogic politicians to mobilize the public on behalf of the policies they want to pursue. The war of choice in Iraq could never have gained the congressional support it got without the psychological linkage between the shock of 9/11 and the postulated existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.” In 2004, the Bush campaign stressed: “a nation at war shouldn’t change commander in chief in midstream.” Their message implied pervasive albeit imprecise danger and then channeled it in politically expedient directions “by the mobilizing appeal of being ‘at war.’” (Washington Post, March 25, 2007)
Like Zbig, you both must view skeptically how the “War on Terror” became mass marketed. The sales job meant liars Bush and Cheney – excuse my frankness – played the lead missionaries in the cause of their own prevarications. (A twofer, the ad guys would say.) Bush says he equates his anti-terrorist crusade – imagine him astride his horse lance in hand in Syria defending a 12th Century Castle -- with World War II and Hitler. From his cribbed history notes at Yale, he knew Hitler headed a state with a potent military force.
Will you teach the public that the shadowy Al Qaeda doesn’t operate from a state? Supposedly Afghanistan served as Al Qaeda’s base when it had less power, but the exploders now work in many countries through networks which, by their nature, remain immune from the high tech weaponry of the US armed forces. How do you nuke guys in caves or plotting in some apartment?
Will you help revive citizenship as a way to challenge the culture of fear and intimidation imposed by Homeland Security? Remember, after 9/11 Bush urged citizens to shop and take their families to Disney World, to show flying was safe (help the crippled airline industry). Bush called for unity in this struggle, but didn’t ask citizens to discuss what to do in the face of attacks. Bush’s enterprise has cost trillions of dollars.
Bush claims the Iraq occupation is integral to his war on terror, yet refuses to ask taxpayers to finance it. Unless we stay at war, he warns, Al Qaeda will bring the fight here. But Iraq has served Al Qaeda as a recruiting instrument. Senators, the April 2006 National Intelligence Estimate said the invasion of Iraq “has become the cause célèbre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement.”
So, how do you coincide “hope,” “change” and “yes we can,” with a divided and insecure nation? Did the 9/11 fiends have such an outcome in mind? War and occupation in Iraq have also generated wounds back home. How would you both introduce healing?
Remember war’s beneficiaries. While troops and civilians die, a mushrooming terrorism industry produces both products (for war and “security” at home) as well as people like Jessica Stern, a self-proclaimed “leading expert on terror.” She once directed Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian Affairs at the National Security Council under Clinton. She didn’t make bombs or chat with bombers. But, she warned in a 2003 Council on Foreign Relations paper, “the United States cannot let its guard down against terrorism because the chances for a second 9/11 attack remain ‘very high.’” Did bookies use her to set odds? Pontificating experts on talk shows assure audiences that dirty nuclear bombs lie ahead.
In 2005, Congress identified 77,769 possible targets. Think of the expense, the jobs required to “secure” that ever-growing target list!
“Security” means “anxiety” to me, not Linus’ blanket. On Highway 10 in East Los Angeles, a digital billboard warns drivers: “Report Suspicious Activity” (blow jobs in cars?). “Suspicious” means Muslims, Arabs, darker skinned foreigners: Islamophobia. You understand that, Barack Hussein Obama? Rush Limbaugh and his ilk claimed you attended the same madrasa as aspiring terrorists. You probably breathed the same air as well!
Fear begets bigotry, and a removal of protections for some “enemy non combatants” and some citizens: habeas corpus, right to an attorney and speedy trial, freedom from torture. Stuff you both know. Government mouthpieces say these “unusual methods” have inhibited terrorism. Sure! In 2006, seven semi-literate guys in Miami got set up by a government informer who promised them money and instead got busted for conspiring to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. None of them had heard of the building, been to Chicago or knew about explosives.
When you become Presidents please undo the damage Bush has caused. Engage other nations on catching terrorists through police cooperation, infiltration of their cells and by networking with judicial systems. They shouldn’t go to Guantanamo or other dark holes, but tried by courts anywhere in the world. Terrorism is a crime under international law. All courts have jurisdiction. Would you try to involve the UN in this effort and help restore its status? The US and other military forces have proven counterproductive. Count the massive number of declared anti-American terrorists today compared to before Bush hit Afghanistan and Iraq!
Please use this letter against the Republican – John Sidney McCain III (does Sidney reflect Hebrew heritage?). After getting the nomination, he repeated his priorities: make the US secure from Islamic extremism, victorious in Iraq, confident in trade, sound in its economy. Imagine how much he’ll have to spend on the first two items and you’ll see how they negate the last two. With him at the helm, Bush’s madness might endure for another 1,000 years. Wow! I hope as president either of you really gets the country out of the mess; not deeper into it.
Saul Landau is an Institute for Policy Studies Fellow. He writes regularly for Counterpunch and progresoweekly.com. His film, WE DON’T PLAY GOLF HERE, is available on DVD through roundworldproductions@gmail.com
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