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America's First Terror War
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Today's Stories May 25, 2007 David Vest
Franklin Lamb Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fantina Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Sen. Russell
Feingold Fred Gardner Mike Whitney Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury
and Mark Hoffman Caroline Paul Eva Liddell Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Rev. William
Alberts Joe DeRaymond Sudhanva Deshpande
Paul Craig Roberts Glen Ford Rannie Amiri China Hand Zoe Blunt Nivien Saleh Website of the Day
Robert Fisk Joshua Frank Harvey Wasserman David Mos Masumoto Sonja Karkar Conn Hallinan Dave Lindorff Jeffrey Kolakowski Evelyn Pringle Jim Baumer Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Nicole Colson John Ross Stephen Fleischman M. Shahid Alam Ron Jacobs Peter Rost, MD Alan Farago Paul Buchheit Website of
the Day
May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Uri Avnery Peter Gelderloos Saul Landau Robert Fantina Fred Gardner Ralph Nader Jean Daniels Reza Fiyouzat Missy Beattie Robert Alvarez Sonja Karkar Dave Lindorff Jeff Sher Julian C. Holmes Clancy Sigal Prairie Miller James Murren Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 18, 2007 Adam Jones Sharon Smith Christopher Brauchli Peter Rost,
MD Denise Maloney Pictou David Swanson Ali Khan Susan Rosenthal,
M.D. Samer Assad CP News Service Website of the Day
May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali Yifat Susskind Dave Zirin Brian J. Foley W. John Green Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Badruddin Khan Martha Rosenberg China Hand Dan Vojir Website of the Day
Patrick Cockburn Ashley Dawson Joshua Frank Corporate Crime
Reporter Ray McGovern Glen Ford Joe Bageant Sonja Karkar Mickey S. Huff John Chuckman Kaz Dziamka Website of
the Day
May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Patrick Cockburn Ashley Smith Marc Gardner Dave Lindorff Ben Terrall Ron Jacobs Harvey Wasserman Marcus Mabry Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Jeffrey St.
Clair George Bisharat Diane Wachtell Ramzy Baroud Rosemary and
Walter Brasch Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Roberto Rodriguez Jonathan Culp Website of
the Day
May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Diane Farsetta Ralph Nader Jean Bricmont Marcus Breen Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Juan Santos
Eve Bachrach Missy Comley
Beattie Ron Jacobs Niranjan Ramakrishnan Susie Day Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Kathleen Christison Mike Ferner John Holt Laurie Hasbrook Christopher
Brauchli Margaret Kimberley Dave Lindorff Nicole Colson John V. Walsh Website of the Day
May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Patrick Cockburn Neve Gordon Marjorie Cohn David Rosen Alan Farago John Hellman Kathy Rentenbach BANCO Richard Rhames Website of the Day
Jeff Leys Patrick Cockburn Glen Ford Paula Rothenberg Kathryn Weber John Chuckman Jordan Flaherty Dave Lindorff Stephen Lendman Website of
the Day
May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff Patrick Cockburn Corporate Crime Reporter Ralph Nader Malini Johar Schueller Juan Santos Dave Zirin Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Eamonn McCann Website of the Day
May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Monica Benderman Greg Moses Rannie Amiri Fitrakis / Wasserman Fred Wilhelms Ramzy Baroud Bruce K. Gagnon T. W. Croft Sonja Karkar Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn William Blum Uri Avnery Franklin Lamb Fred Gardner Lawrence R.
Velvel Missy Beattie Robert Fantina Carla Blank Linn Washington,
Jr. Stephen F. Jackson P. Sainath Anthony Papa James T. Phillips John Ross Stephen Lendman Ben Terrall CounterPunch
Newswire Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Col. Dan Smith Norman Solomon Azmi Bishara Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Bob Fitrakis Janet Kauffman Website of
the Day
May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper Christopher
Brauchli Dave Zirin Corporate Crime
Reporter Robert Fisk Mike Ferner Mike Whitney Pham Binh Dave Lindorff Michael A.
Johnson Website of the Day
May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Dr. Susan Block Carla Blank Margaret Kimberly Kevin Zeese Carlos Villareal Michael Dickinson Tim Shorrock Alevtina Rea William S.
Lind Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn Fred Gardner Chase Madar Ralph Nader John V. Walsh Joshua Frank Leslie Radford Shaun Harkin Dave Lindorff Peter Rost,
MD Peter Linebaugh Website of
the Day
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May 25, 2007 "I Don't Understand These People!"So You Thought They'd End the WarBy DAVID VEST Welcome to the Show, kid. The Democrats have "surrendered" on Iraq. Liberals are "shocked." And all the innocents who didn't know any better, didn't see it coming, feel "betrayed." Poor Duncan Black, better known as "Atrios," is nearly at a loss for words: "People hate Bush, hate Republicans, and hate this war," he protests, and yet the Democrats caved! "I don't understand these people," he wails. Precisely. Keith Olbermann, using the
same tone of humorless, near-postal anger he uses in every commentary,
no matter the topic, calls the Democratic rollover a "Neville
Chamberlain moment." At a time when even conservatives have come to loathe Bush, when people who thought he was going to round up all the "illegal aliens" and deport them are so upset, they think impeachment's too good for him, the Democrats labor to craft legislation "acceptable" to him. Liberals have already spent six and a half years loathing Bush -- longer if they live in Texas, a state whose statutes are said to recognize two classes of persons: Fuckors and Fuckees. (Republicans and Democrats, the big shots, belong to the former class. You and I belong to the latter.) There is nothing particularly wrong with loathing Bush. It only becomes a problem when it prevents progressives from finally figuring out that the people they're really going to end up having to fight are the Democrats. As Big Walter the Thunderbird used to say, "Sho' is tough." Right now, both major parties are playing dodge ball with the planet, trying to avoid "ownership" of Iraq. The only way at this point to "own" the war is to stop it, and there is no serious move afoot to make that happen. Having used antiwar sentiment, and disgust over Katrina, to regain control of Congress, the Democrats have no intention of relinquishing power. They all "support the troops," who are being asked to "lay down their lives for America" in far Mesopotamia -- but you didn't expect these people you elected to lay down their political careers for the good of the country ... did you? Of course not. Already Michael Tomasky is praising the Dems for practicing "smart politics," as though winning the White House in 2008 were far more important than "merely" ending the war in Iraq. How quickly "put us into power and we'll change things" becomes "put us into power and watch it change us." For the corporate powers behind the candidates, the rule is as it ever was: from time to time, things have to change in order to stay the same. But (someone protests), can't you at least admit that the Democrats are better than the Republicans? And if you love the country, or care about the world, aren't you obligated to support the lesser of two evils, even if it's only slightly less evil? To which I reply: What's really evil is being forced to choose between people on the one hand who support the war, and accuse anyone who questions it of "helping the terrorists" -- and people on the other who oppose the war, criticize the war, pledge to the end the war, and then vote to keep it going. Or being asked to choose between the village idiot and someone who's consistently outsmarted by him. Once upon a time, Bill Clinton filled the Interior Department with "environmentalists." Bush filled it with oil company hacks. Who was more honest? Lo and behold, when they cut down the old growth forest, it didn't make much difference to the trees and the rivers and the critters, whether oil company insiders or professional environmentalists were sitting at the desks in Washington. Eight years of Clinton-Gore, two terms of Bush-Cheney: the toxic dumps remain, and only the rhetoric has changed, to protect the naïve. Demonstrably now, it makes no difference to the war whether Republicans or Democrats control Congress. Do you suppose the shooting will end, on the day when a refined, well-spoken Democrat, who reads poetry perhaps and scorns the religious right, and who doesn't embarrass us when receiving foreign dignitaries, succeeds the bumbling oaf Bush? Think so? Or do you suspect people will soon be wailing, "I don't understand these people! They control Congress, the White house, and the military! Why don't they stop the war?" Perhaps apologists will go on CNN to reassure us: "The president wants to stop the war, really. But first she has to form a consensus, and set her legislative agenda in Congress, and build up her political capital. And when, not if, she wins re-election, then in that second term she'll be free to act, and she'll have that mandate, and I think you'll start to see some movement on ending this war." Sound about right? Look. Millions of people marched in the streets trying to prevent the invasion of Iraq, long before Bush sent a cruise missile into a Baghdad neighborhood trying to "take out" Saddam Hussein with one wild lunge, like the man who shot Liberty Valance. Without result, in either case. People marched and listened to speeches and then went home. The opinion of the multitudes counted for nothing. No one in power saw the slightest need to pay attention to them. They're still not paying attention. Why would they, as long as those bags of money keep coming in through the transom? The system is broken. It can't be fixed. As long as the Fuckors run it, it will continue to be utterly unresponsive to the will of the Fuckees. The system tolerates, even welcomes antiwar people, but it co-opts them if it can. Just as the oil companies co-opted Earth Day, and just as the nuclear power industry hopes to turn global warming into a wholly-owned subsidiary. In one party, if you're antiwar, you can get a job as Rudy Giuliani's foil. In the other one ... well, if you still "don't understand these people," what's it going to take? As the great working class poet Charlie Musselwhite says in "Black Water," the devastating post-Katrina anthem from his CD Delta Hardware: "Hello America -- are
you ready for more?" David Vest can be reached through his web site at www.rebelangel.com. A new CD featuring him, "The Last of the Best: Live Recordings by the Paul deLay Band," will be released on June 12.
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The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn            CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
