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Recent
Stories
May
27, 2003
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
May
26, 2003
Franklin
C. Spinney
Test Anxiety: Star Wars, Punctuated
Epistimology and the Triumph of Medievalism
Elaine
Cassel
Supreme Sacrifice
Sam
Hamod
When Trained Killers Return Home
Stew Albert
The Final Conflict
May
24 / 25, 2003
Gary
Leupp
The Philosopher Kings: Leo Strauss
and the Neo-Cons
Uri Avnery
The Hannibal Procedure
Diane
Christian
Who's the Real Enemy?
"Just Cause" or "Kill the Bastards"
Alexander
Cockburn
Derrida's Double Life
William
S. Lind
Is Saddam Really Out of the Game?
William
Cook
Road to Nowhere
David Krieger
Bush's War on the Poor: Economic Justice
Ilan
Pappe
Academic Freedom Under Assault in Israel
Wayne Madsen
American Idle
Noah
Leavitt
Slowing Sowing Justice in the Killing Fields
Walt Brasch
Americans are Liars
Lenni
Brenner
John Brown and Dutch Bill
Mickey
Z.
Hope, Crosby & Al Qaeda
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Grievous Harm Here and Abroad
Adam Engel
Towers of Babel
Poets'
Basement
Albert, Guthrie, Alam, Orloski
May
23, 2003
Standard
Schaefer
Lifting the Sanctions: Who Benefits?
Ron
Jacobs
Long Live People's Park!
Michael
Greger, MD
Return of Mad Cow: US Beef Supply
at Risk
Elaine
Cassel
Tigar to Ashcroft: "Secrecy is the Enemy of Democratic Govt."
Sam
Hamod
The Shi'a of Iraq
Christopher
Greeder
After the Layoffs (poem)
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog 5/23
May
22, 2003
Mark
Gaffney
Christian in Name Only
Carl
Estabrook
Republic of Fear
Carl
Camacho, Jr.
Reason for Hope
Ben
Granby
What Rates a Headline from the Middle
East?
Vanessa
Jones
Terror Alerts in Australia
Mickey
Z.
Instant Understanding
Don
Monkerud
Snowballs in a Soggy Economy
Barry Lando
The Nether-Nether World of G.W. Bush
Steve
Perry
Total Information
Awareness: Secret Shadow Program?
May
21, 2003
Dave
Lindorff
Ari Fleischer Quits the Scene: The
Liar's Gone, the Enablers Remain
Chris
Floyd
How Blood Money Becomes Business Opportunity
Dr. Gerry
Lower
Graham's God and Bush's Pathology
Patrick
Cockburn
In Post War Iraq, the Signs of Breakdown
are Everywhere
Brian Cloughley
The Fatuous Braintrust: Newt, Rummy and Wolfowitz
Saul
Landau
Shopping, the End of the World and the Politics of Bush
Larry Kearney
Two Morning Poems, May 2003
Steve
Perry
Chaos in Iraq: Just What the US Wanted?
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Justice Comes to Iraq
May
20, 2003
Tariq
Ali
The Empire Advances
Ahmad
Faruqui
Whither American Nationalism?
Ben Tripp
Dialysis with Osama
Linda
Heard
The Cage of Occupation
Cynthia
McKinney
Toward a Just and Peaceful World
Edward
Said
The Arab Condition
Mokhiber
and Weissman
Why Ari Should Have Resigned in Protest Long Ago
Stew
Albert
Yale Men
Steve Perry
The New Face of Al-Qaeda
May
19, 2003
Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
A Letter to Kofi Annan on Powell's Missing
Evidence
CounterPunch
Wire
"Terror" Slut Steve Emerson
Eats Crow
John
Chuckman
Blair's Awkward Lies
Matt
Vidal
Corporate Media and the Myth of the Free Market
Michael
S. Ladah
The Fine Print to Bush's Road Map
Robert
Fisk
Bush's Eternal War Backfires
Elaine
Cassel
Clarence Thomas, Still Whining After All These Years
Jonathan
Freedland
Ann Coulter's Appalling Magic
Steve Perry
Play It Again, O-Sam-a
May
17 / 18, 2003
Uri
Avnery
The Children's Teeth
Peter
Linebaugh
An American Tribute to Christopher
Hill
Gary
Leupp
Nepal Today
Rock and
Rap Confidential
The Republican Plot Against the Dixie Chicks
Walter
Sommerfeld
Plundering Baghdad's Museums
Ron Jacobs
Condy Rice's Yipping Tirades
Thomas
P. Healy
Dubya Does Indy
Tarif Abboushi
Bush, Sharon and the Roadmap
Francis
Boyle
Debating US War Crimes in Iraq
Mark Davis
An Interview with Richard Butler
Richard
Lichtman
American Mourning
Michael
Ortiz Hill
Overcoming Terrorism
Adam
Engel
Uncle Sam is YOU!
Alan Maas
The Best News Show on TV
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Albert
Elaine
Cassel
Good Enough for an Alien
Website
of the Weekend
The 37 Americans Who Run Iraq
Song of
the Weekend
Talkin' Sounds Just Like Joe McCarthy Blues
May
16, 2003
Leah
Wells
In Iraq Water and Oil Do Mix
Ben Tripp
Fear Itself
Sharon
Smith
The Resegregation of US Schools
Ramzy Baroud
Does Defeat Have to be So Humiliating?
Sam
Hamod
A Nation of Fear
Phil Reeves
Baghdad Pays the Price
Robert
McChesney
The FCC's Big Grab
Mark Engler
Those Who Don't Count
Steve
Perry
We're All
Extras in Bush's Movie
Website
of the Day
Iraq and Our
Energy Future
May
15, 2003
Ayesha
Iman and Sindi Medar-Gould
How
Not to Help Amina Lawal: The Hidden Dangers of Letter
Writing Campaigns
Julie
Hilden
Moussaoui and the Camp X-Ray Detainees:
Can He Get a Fair Trial?
Tanya
Reinhart
Bush's Roadmap: a Ticket to Failure
Laura Carlsen
Here We Go Again: NAFTA Plus or Minus?
Kenneth
Rapoza
The New Fakers: State Dept. Undercuts
New Yorker's Goldberg
Stew Albert
A Story I Will Tell
Steve
Perry
Bush's Little
Nukes
Website
of the Day
Strip-o-Rama
May
14, 2003
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Jason
Leopold
The Pentagon and Hallburton: a Secret
November Deal for Iraq's Oil
David
Lindorff
Fighting the Patriot Act: Now It's
Alaska
John
Chuckman
Giggling into Chaos
Jack
McCarthy
Twin Towers of Journalism: Racism
and Double Standards
Wayne
Madsen
Assassinating JFK Again
M.
Junaid Alam
The Longer View
Paul
de Rooij
The New Hydra's Head:
Propagandists and the Selling of the US/Iraq War
James
Reiss
What? Me Worry?
Steve Perry
More on Saudi Arabia Bombings
Website
of the Day
A Tribute to Ted Joans
May
13, 2003
Saul
Landau
Clear Channel Fogs the Airwaves
Michael
Neumann
Has Islam Failed? Not by Western
Standards
Uri
Avnery
My Meeting with Arafat
Steve Perry
The Saudi Arabia Bombing
Jacob
Levich
Democracy Comes to Iraq: Kick Their Ass and Grab Their Gas
William
Lind
The Hippo and the Mongoose: a Question of Military Theory
The
Black Commentator
Fraud at the Times: Blaming Blacks for White Folks' Mistakes
Stew Albert
Asylum
Hammond
Guthrie
An Illogical Reign
Website
of the Day
Sy Hersh: War and Intelligence
May
12, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Bush, Bin Laden, Bechtel, and Baghdad
Dave
Lindorff
America's Dirty Bombs
Sam
Hamod and Elaine Cassel
Resisting the Bush Administration's War on Liberty
Uzi
Benziman
Sharon and Sons, Inc.
Jason
Leopold
The Decline and Fall of Thomas White
Rich Procter
George Jumps the Shark
Federico
Moscogiuri
Going to Israel? Sign or Else
Steve
Perry
Bush's War Web Log 5/12
Book
of the Day
Fooling
Marty Peretz
Website
of the Day
T-Shirts to Protest In
Hot Stories
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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May
28, 2003
It's Not So Funny Any More
DubyaCo.
By DAVID VEST
Having destroyed Iraq, the United States now proposes
to rebuild it with the money generated from the sale of Iraqi
oil, which will be flowing again, we are told, within three weeks.
Thus will Iraq's natural wealth be pumped directly into the coffers
of Bechtel, Halliburton and other administration cronies. Call
them DubyaCo.
You will perhaps have noticed that no
one is telling us that electricity, water and the rule of law
will be restored throughout Iraq within three weeks. These things
are not feasible. But oil will flow.
"Iraqi oil belongs to the Iraqi
people," says Ari Fleischer, famously referring I suppose
to what will be left of it after DubyaCo "recoups expenses."
How long will the U.S. be in Iraq? Ask
rather, how long will money flow from the spigot? And then ask
how much American blood and treasure it took to get it flowing,
right into the wallets of Cheney's pals and Bush's supporters.
Everyone under the command of Tommy Franks was effectively part
of a mercenary expedition, employed at taxpayer expense and deployed
in the service of "American interests," i.e., DubyaCo.
Contracts to rebuild Iraq "could
possibly create jobs here as well as overseas," says the
Houston Chronicle, enthusiastically boosterising the trickle-down
effect. Perhaps the "reconstruction" of Iraq could
turn out to be something like the Gulf Freeway in Texas, a contractor's
paradise and a motorist's nightmare, said to have been "under
construction" almost continuously since the day it opened
in the 1940s -- and slated for still more construction on into
the new century. They'll be doing construction on the Gulf Freeway
long after today's autos are all rusting away in the junkyard.
Who knows, Iraq might even benefit from
one or two big dam projects! After all, dams are a Bechtel specialty.
During the 60s and 70s, the excruciating
folly of U.S. involvement in Vietnam became obvious to anyone
with a conscience or an education. But folly is not the word
for what is happening in Iraq. Compared to Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld,
Johnson and McNamara look like the Innocents Abroad, or characters
out of Ring Lardner. Even Nixon looks naive by contrast. Kissinger
(like Hitchens) must be slack-jawed with admiration.
There is a reason why all the Dumb-Ass
Dubya jokes have been drying up lately. It isn't for the reason
the Foxadelphians think , either. They believe people have stopped
mocking him because he suddenly seems heroic. Even Howard Dean
says people admire Bush because, like him or not, he acts like
a leader. (The gentle reader may wish to pause here and gag before
reading on. Or to recall Dylan's advice: "Don't follow leaders.")
The fact is that people have stopped
laughing at Bush because he's no longer the village idiot. He's
the village tyrant now. After what he did to Iraq, after he lied
to this country to persuade it to go to war, nothing he ever
does will be funny anymore.
There were those among us who thought
that if we kept harping on the "Bush is an ignoramus"
theme, why, one day we'd all wake up and laugh him right out
of office, no need for an election. We dwelt on his inability
to pronounce "nuclear" (neither could Jimmy Carter)
or string two sentences together as comforting proof of his stupidity,
as though he were more an embarrassment than a danger.
But the point was never what we thought
of him. We are finally beginning to get that now. It was what
he thought of us. (Has any American president ever shown less
interest in the American people and their well-being?)
The point is not even that he stole the
presidency. After all, so more-or-less did Kennedy, with a little
help from Mayor Daley. Lyndon Johnson was elected to the U.S.
Senate by a margin of votes supplied by dead people. For that
matter, what important U.S. election hasn't been effectively
stolen by corporate money lately?
The point is that the country and, for
all practical purposes, the world are now being run for the benefit
of DubyaCo. Getting rid of Bush won't necessarily dismantle the
enterprise. There are too many wholly-owned subsidiaries.
Anyway, the naming rights will be up
for sale in 2004. KerryCo? LiebermanCo? Or will it be ClintonCo
in 2008? Would you be more comfortable with a social liberal
supervising the looting of Iraq?
David Vest
writes the Rebel Angel column for CounterPunch. His scorching
new CD, Way
Down Here, is now available from CounterPunch.
He can be reached at: davidvest@springmail.com
Visit his website at http://www.rebelangel.com
Today's
Features
Kurt
Nimmo
Condoleezza Rice: Huckstress for Israeli
Myths
Anthony
Gancarski
Hillary: a Dem the NeoCons Could Love?
Patrick
Cockburn
Terror, Bush and Joseph Conrad
John Chuckman
an Interpretation of Bush's Character
Kathleen
Christison
What Sharon Wants, Sharon Gets
Jeffrey
Blankfort
AIPAC Hijacks the Roadmap
Steve
Perry
Trouble in the Hinterlands
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