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From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
July
3, 2003
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Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former
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Lindorff
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Chuckman
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Jackson
Thoreau
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W. Gavin
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Podur
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1, 2003
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Block
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Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono
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Weapons in Search of a Name
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Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1
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30, 2003
Karyn
Strickler
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Smith
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Tim
Wise
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Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall
Chris
Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"
Elaine
Cassel
Kentucky Woman
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Avnery
Hope in Dark Times
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Perry
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of the Day
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June
28 / 29, 2003
M.
Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
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Hilden
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Adrien
Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide
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Engel
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Poets'
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27, 2003
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Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq
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David
Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker
David
Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical
Ali"
Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26
Website
of the Day
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June
26, 2003
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Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate
Hans Blix
Paul
de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine
Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq
Elaine
Cassel
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CounterPunch
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Hull
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A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone
Uri
Avnery
The Best Show in Town
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Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
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June
25, 2003
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Jackson
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Mickey
Z.
The New Dark Ages
David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists
Dan
Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops
Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"
Elaine
Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing
Guidelines
Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25
Website
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You Are Being Watched:
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June
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court
Roya
Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth
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John
Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations
David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24
June
23, 2003
Marc
Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with
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Conn
Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon
Wayne Madsen
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Edward
Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie
Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23
June
21 / 22, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi
William
A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness
Standard
Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor
Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets
Harry
Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares
Lawrence
Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game
Harold
Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery
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10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons
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June 20, 2003
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Russell
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Madarasz
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Impeach
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July
4, 2003
A Sad Independence
Day
Little
to Celebrate in a Country Gone Mad
By WAYNE MADSEN
Amid the fireworks, parades, Wal Mart sales, professional
sporting events, and other commercialized and phony tributes
to what was once a holiday celebrated not only across America
but around the world, Americans have very little to be proud
of.
With a President whose lack of mental
acuity would qualify him as mentally handicapped under the provisions
of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990--signed by Bush
41--the system of U.S. constitutional government and international
comity is unraveling at the seams.
An elite group of neo-fascists in Washington,
London, Canberra, Rome, Jerusalem, and Madrid are seeking to
return independent nation states to colonialism. Republicans
in the U.S. Congress and Texas are seeking to disenfranchise
hundreds of thousands of African Americans and other minorities
by redistricting them into Bantustan-like  congressional districts. Religious kooks
like Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and Pennsylvania Republican
Senator Rick Santorum want a constitutional amendment to ban
gay marriage. Add that to the proposed amendment to make illegal
the burning of cheap, Chinese prison-made American flags and
one can begin to see the end of sane government as we have known
it.
Meanwhile, in California, a state that
overwhelmingly voted for Al Gore, the right-wing fascists are
attempting to turn Governor Gray Davis out of office through
a recall petition financed by a Republican Representative Darrell
Issa. The Republicans are still smarting from the fact that Bill
Simon, their crooked candidate for Governor in the last election,
was soundly defeated by Davis. Typical of fascists -- when elections
fail, seize power through some political contrivance. The Republicans
want to overthrow Davis in a coup, just like they denied Gore
the White House and want to illegally steal as many as seven
House seats in Texas. One Republican plan would see "Terminator"
Arnold Schwarzenegger assume control of one of the most anti-Bush
states in the country. Just like when Adolf Hitler made Reinhard
Heydrich the overseer of the remnants of Czechoslovakia in order
to stamp out any remaining resistance to the Nazis.
So Bush could soon have his own "Terminator"
to deal with wayward California. Forgive me if I'm just a little
antsy about Austrian emigres who decide to seize political office
in another country. The Republicans blame Davis for California's
skyrocketing budget deficits and increased taxes, forgetting
that it was Bush's buddies at Enron who originally raped the
state's finances with usurious electricity rates. And to make
the Republican plan to oust Davis even more bizarre, its prime
hatcher, Issa, who made millions from selling those annoying
auto alarms, was arrested in 1972 for auto theft. You just can't
make this stuff up!
Bush eggs on potential Iraqi insurgents
by saying "bring them on," throwing down a gauntlet
for Iraqi resistance units to attack American troops who are
increasingly under strain as they become a thinly-spread quasi-permanent
occupation force. Bush's swagger is reminiscent of the British
troops in colonial India who dared rebels to take in the power
of the British Empire. That tactic failed in India just as assuredly
as it will fail in neo-colonial Iraq.
Bush's fellow fascist, Italian scandal-ridden
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, just two days into Italy's
presidency of the European Union, caused a major intra-continental
rift when, during a speech to the European Parliament, said a
German Social Democratic member of the European parliament would
make a "perfect Nazi concentration camp commander"
in a movie. Berlusconi, the heir to the fascist government of
Benito Mussolini, should know all about Nazis and concentration
camps. Berlusconi, an Italian version of the proto-fascist Fox
 News Channel tycoon Rupert Murdoch,
is a fervent supporter of Bush, whose own Defense Department
is busy building concentration camps and execution chambers in
Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bush must be privately gleeful that his
fascist Italian friend is tearing apart the very fabric of the
European Union, an economic powerhouse that stands in the way
of Bush's plans for global domination.
Bush invites Pakistan's President Pervez
Musharraf to Camp David and asks him not to provide information
on the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden but requests Pakistani
troops as part of the Iraq occupation force. In return, Musharraf
got a five year, $3 billion military aid package from Bush. What
did Bush get? A promise from Musharraf to accept "in principle"
a plan to send Pakistani troops to Iraq (where conceivably they
would be stationed along with Indian troops, a real recipe for
continued warfare in America's Middle East colony). Musharraf,
who knows exactly where Bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad
Omar are hiding, offered no assistance in turning them over to
the United States even though Bush, shortly after September 11,
said, with typical bravado, that he wanted Bin Laden "dead
or alive." Cheap words from a cowardly braggart.
Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas,
in a meeting with Palestinian factions, recounted what our "apocalyptic
Christian" President said to him during the recent peace
summit in Jordan. Bush indicated that he was personally told
by God to solve the MIddle East problem, just as God told him
to attack Al Qaeda and then Saddam Hussein. Nothing like a little
more religious fanaticism in trying to bring peace to a region
that has no shortage of it. Bush once received revelations from
the bottom of a tequila bottle along with a few lines of cocaine,
now he gets them from God. Either way, the man is delusional,
dangerously so.
Already dealing with a demoralized military,
Bush, on the eve of his trip to Africa, mulls sending U.S. troops
to Liberia. He also tells Liberian dictator Charles Taylor to
step down. Never mind that Bush's friends in the international
diamond industry, especially the head of the Corporate Council
on Africa, Maurice Tempelsman, were largely responsible for the
upheavals in West Africa, including Liberia, Sierra Leone, Ivory
Coast, and Guinea. The diamond merchants have found it lucrative
to keep West African governments unstable. They found unfettered
access to the diamonds controlled by local warlords to be far
more profitable than having to deal with centralized governments.
However, when Charles Taylor began threatening neighboring countries's
blood diamond supply lines and stood ready to upset the status
quo enjoyed by the diamond cartels of Tel Aviv, Antwerp, and
Amsterdam, Taylor's days were numbered. Bush's priority is to
maintain leaders in power throughout Africa who will not stand
in the way of Western exploitation. That includes the leaders
of those countries he plans to visit, especially Uganda, Botswana,
and Nigeria.
That is the way Bush's Assistant Secretary
of State for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner III, wants it.
A neo-fascist Republican veteran of the International Republican
Institute and the Corporate Council on Africa, Kansteiner, a
one-time supporter of racism and apartheid in South Africa and
on the record as favoring the Balkanization of nation states
in Africa, wants his friends in natural resources corporations
and the Pentagon (where he headed the Strategic Minerals Task
Force under then Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney) to have free
access to Africa's mineral and oil reserves. To make sure Africa's
natural resource rapists understand his commitment to their cause,
Bush spoke to the Corporate Council on Africa prior to his departure
for the beleaguered continent, a continent the moron-in-chief
once referred to as a "country."
The neo-cons now see West Africa as America's
next target for control. One of their chicken hawk columnists,
National Review's Rich Lowry, recently suggested that West Africa
is of such strategic interest to America, the U.S. should set
up military bases in the region with a U.S. military headquarters
on Sao Tome, in the Gulf of Guinea, a potental future "American
lake." More U.S. colonies. After years of exploitative European
colonization, Sao Tome and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, Liberia,
and other African countries may soon become virtual American
colonies as part of a Greater West Africa National Economic Sphere.
It is a page right out of the Japanese fascist playbook from
World War II. So for our mentally challenged president, his neo
con advisers tell him, "West Africa = diamonds + oil."
That's all he has to hear. He authorizes sending in U.S. troops,
building U.S. bases, and makes a trip there to Africa to cement
the deals.
A Washington insider familiar with Liberia
revealed that a major reason for Bush to go into Liberia is oil.
Liberia's flag flies on most of the world's supertankers. "Look,
the United States is about ready to start moving massive supplies
of Iraqi oil on supertankers. With Liberia, the major flag of
convenience for those tankers in a state of upheaval, Bush has
to go in with troops. Forget human rights, that's not the issue,
the Liberian Internatonal Ship and Corporate Registry must have
a stable government to nurture it," the insider said.
What is in store for Africa is spelled
out in the most recent journal of the neo con propaganda mill,
the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA). Its
important to closely read neo-con literature in order to anticipate
their future plans. Special attention must be paid to new catch
phrases and code words, for example, "new American century,"
West Bank "outposts" (instead of settlements), and
"Iraqi secular state." In one article in the JINSA
journal, the term "Franco/Afro" dictatorships is used.
This is a signal that the neo cons will make France pay dearly
for its failure to support their worldwide agenda. So-called
Franco-African governments in Gabon, Cameroon, Central African
Republic, Mauritania, Congo-Brazzaville, Congo-Kinshasa, Chad,
Niger, Togo, Benin, Ivory Coast, Burkina Faso, Guinea, Madagascar,
and Mauritius are clearly on the target list. For the United
States and its neo con friends around the world to take over
control of Africa--complete with ready-made human guinea pigs
for AIDS vaccines and genetically-modified "Frankenfood"--the
"Franco/Afro dictatorships" have to go. Bush showed
his compassion for the AIDS pandemic in Africa by naming the
former head of pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, Randall Tobias,
as his global AIDS "czar." Bush has shown us all not
to be surprised at his "compassion," his visit to Africa
will rival that of an arsonist visiting a hospital burn ward.
And what does Bush turn around and do
to some of his "coalition of the willing" partners?
He cuts off military aid to them. Because some 35 nations refused
to sign treaties with the United States exempting U.S. war criminals
from prosecution by the International Criminal Court, the moron
in the White House cuts off military aid. The Baltic nations,
who supported Bush's idiotic adventure in Iraq, are cut off.
So are other coalition partners--Slovakia, Croatia, Slovenia,
and Bulgaria. Bush gave waivers to Uganda and Rwanda, two nations
that use American military aid to maintain a brutal genocide
in a fractured Congo.
And what of the Solomon Islands, which
were added to the White House coalition list even though the
country's Prime Minister said he was unaware of his nation's
participation? Bush's troll-like partner, Australia's Prime Minister,
John Howard, recently announced that Australian troops would
occupy the civil war-ridden Solomon Islands and mete out justice
a la Iraq. Never mind the fact that American small arms companies
have been caught smuggling arms into the island group to help
foment civil war. Howard also reserves the right to invade and
re-colonize any other Pacific "failed state" he thinks
might have the potential to harbor terrorists. So attention all
you Al Qaeda terrorists who have moved from Tora Bora to Bora
Bora, Howard is going to come after you and your pina colada
beach bars.
With Howard threatening to invade Pacific
islands, no wonder Indonesia feels it can brutalize the secessionist
provinces of Aceh and West Papua, especially when Western corporate
interests (oil and copper, respectively) are involved. Expect
no more nations receiving independence or autonomy in Bush's
New World Order. The Indonesians, with Bush's support, might
just think about rolling back East Timor's hard-won independence.
After all, there's oil in the Timor Sea. Better for Bush and
his cronies to deal with corrupt and bloody Indonesian generals
than with the Nobel Peace Prize winners who run East Timor.
Other neo cons are advocating US intervention
to oust the leaders of Cuba, Venezuela, and Brazil, America's
so-called southern flank "Axis of Evil."
Unfortunately, some of these neo-con
ideas are creeping into periodicals not nornally associated with
their overall agenda. Here is an interesting exchange with the
editor of The American Legion magazine after they published three
neo-con propaganda pieces:
29 June 2003
To the Editor, The American Legion:
Your July issue contains a number of
articles that can best be described as mere propaganda generated
from the neo-conservative ideologues peppered throughout the
Bush administration. These individuals, many of whom conveniently
dodged the Vietnam draft, have hijacked American foreign and
defense policy for their own narrow political purposes. "The
Other Axis of Evil" by Paul Crespo gives weight to a white
paper from the extreme right-wing Hudson Institute, while "Beyond
Baghdad" is written by an official of the Hudson Institute.
"A Farewell to Armistice" about North Korea follows
the same neo-conservative line. Please do not allow your publication
to become an echo chamber for the "neo-cons." As a
veteran, I can speak for myself and many other veterans who object
to the chickenhawk neo-con agenda, one that dismisses the opinions
of flag rank officers and places our young military men and women
in perpetual danger in a badly thought-out Iraq occupation and
possible further military adventures as suggested by the above
three articles.
Wayne Madsen, Arlington, VA
*** Dear Mr. Madsen,
Thank you for your message to The American
Legion Magazine. Before accusing people of being "chickenhawks"
or "dodging the Vietnam draft," you may wish to do
a little more research. Paul Crespo is a U.S. Marine Corps veteran,
Alan Dowd was seven years old when Saigon fell, and Mike O'Callaghan,
a former Democratic governor of Nevada, is a Silver Star recipient
who lost his leg in Korea.
Your point that many idealogues [sic]
in the Bush administration evaded military service in Vietnam
is accurate, but the same can be said of the previous administration.
Draft evasion, unfortunately, is a bipartisan practice.
Sincerely,
John Raughter Editor USMC (1983-1990)
*** I did not accuse them of being draft
dodgers or being chickenhawks, I was accusing them of serving
the interests of those who are: Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz,
Douglas Feith, Abram Shulsky, Dick Cheney, Harold Rhode, David
Wurmser, Dov Zakheim, Scooter Libby, John Bolton, and the list
goes on and on and ultimately also includes Messrs. Rumsfeld
(weekend warrior between Korea and Vietnam) and G W Bush (AWOL
weekend warrior). The draft dodgers in the previous administration
did not place the country on an endless path to more unprovoked
pre-emptive warfare and our previous Vice President did serve
in Vietnam unlike either of the two top office holders in this
administration. Many veterans were and continue to be patriotic
Democrats who are opposed to this administration's unwise policies.
Wayne Madsen
***
I noticed that you left Bill Clinton
off your list of "Chickenhawks." Were we ever attacked
by Bosnia? Haiti? Or what about the air strikes he called on
Afgahnistan [sic], Sudan or Iraq?
I agree that many Democrats are patriotic
Americans. Partisanship should have nothing to do with foreign
policy.
*** "Partisanship should have nothing
to do with foreign policy." In other words, just do what
your dictators tell you to do and be about your business. On
that particular note, my exchange with the editor ceased. Notice
how these Republicans constantly must fall back on Bill Clinton?
It demonstrates that they can't maintain an argument based on
the current situation. Their neo-fascist parents always blamed
Franklin Roosevelt for every ill in America, even as late as
the 1960s and 1970s and as if Roosevelt had nothing to do with
pulling the country out of the deep recesses of the Depression.
Now, it's all Clinton's fault, or Carter's fault, or Kennedy's
fault. I refuse to get into a battle of wits with such unarmed
men.
So as Bush goes about ousting more leaders
from Charles Taylor in Liberia to Robert Mugabe in Zimbabwe and
Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, let us remember that the political
oustings should be refocused The leaders who must be ousted are
Bush, Blair, Aznar in Spain, the insulting gangster Berlusconi
of Italy, and Howard in Australia for starters. It will be great
day, indeed, when people can visit as tourists, a Guantanamo
Bay under restored Cuban sovereignty and be taken to see the
prison cages where Bush, Cheney, Berlusconi, Aznar, Musharraf,
Howard, Sharon, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, and Blair are held as international
war criminals. See the war criminals and then celebrate their
imprisonment at the nearest pina colada beach bar. Only then
will we know the world has returned to sanity and Americans can
celebrate Independence Day once again.
Wayne Madsen
is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist.
He wrote the introduction to Forbidden
Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of the
forthcoming book, "America's Nightmare: The Presidency of
George Bush II."
Madsen can be reached at: WMadsen777@aol.com
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