home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback

New Special Double Issue on the War Print Edition of CounterPunch Available Exclusively to Subscribers: The US vs. Iraq: the Thirteen Year War; The Sanctions That Killed; Bombing Iraq Every 3 Days Since the Ceasefire of 1991; What Would Gore Have Done?; The Rise of the Neocons; Israel's Proxy War Plan; Why Did It End So Quickly?; The Coming Occupation; Re-educating Iraqis, American-style; Those Reconstruction Contracts; Media Hawks; Christian Crusaders; Democratic Candidates and the War; Smart Bombs Go Haywire; Inside the Mind of Santorum; Gore Vidal on John Kerry; Thomas Pickering: the Bad Seed. Remember, the CounterPunch website is supported exclusively by subscribers to our newsletter. Our worldwide web audience is soaring, with more than 60,000 visitors a day. This is inspiring news, but the work involved also compels us to remind you more urgently than ever to subscribe and/or make a (tax deductible) donation if you can afford it. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Recent Stories May 1, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Santorum: That's Latin for Asshole Iain Boal A May Day Message to the FCC: "We Are Many; They are Few" Diana Johnstone About Cuba Sam Hamod Killings at Al Fallujah, City of Mosques Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Fiasco Lee Sustar Greed Air: Airline Workers Agree to Pay Cuts, While Bosses Stuff Their Pockets Peter Linebaugh May Day at Kut and Kenthal Stew Albert Straight Shooters Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 5/01 Website of the Day South Bay Mobilization   April 30, 2003 Ashley Smith Under Uncle Sam's Thumb: a History of Washington's Occupations Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/30 Gary Leupp Shooting Schoolboys: Preliminary Thoughts on the Fallujah Massacre Robert Jensen Fighting Alienation in the USA Wayne Madsen The Four Horsemen of Propaganda Ahmad Faruqui Bush's Strategic Myopia About the Middle East Gabriel Kolko Iraq, the US and the End of the European Coalition Adolfo Perez Esquivel A Nobel Laureat's Letter to Bush: "You Talk of Freedom; You Detest Freedom"     April 29, 2003 Gary Leupp Disorder and Opportunity: the Results of the Iraq War Uri Avnery Don't Envy Abu-Mazen Anthony Gancarski Brush with the Law Mickey Z. POWs: Then and Now CounterPunch Wire How to Spin Israel on the Hill: Internal Lobbying Documents Robert Fisk Did the US Murder Journalists? Chris Floyd Bush Telegraphs His Punches on Syria Wayne Madsen About Those Iraqi Intelligence Documents Wallace Gagne Pilgrimage or Demolition Derby? Eliot Katz Playing Catch with Cracked Globes Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/29   April 28, 2003 Ann Harrison Fighting Back: Medical Marijuana Patients Sue Ashcroft Robert Jensen Lack of WMD Kills the Case for War Peter Phillips Total Information Control Ron Jacobs Get the US Out of Iraq and Its Military Out of Our Minds Mark Hand Peace Park: The Pentagon Solution to a Baseball Stadium Dilemma Linda S. Heard Repeat After Me: Iraq is Weapons Free Kurt Nimmo US Military Bases: the Spoils and Deceptions of War Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/28   April 26 / 27, 2003 Elaine Cassel The Other War: Bush, Ashcroft and the End of Civil Liberties Saul Landau Iraq War: a Policy of Christian and Jewish Fundamentalism William A. Cook Sharon Recruits US as Mercenaries Against Syria William S. Lind Now the Real War Starts John Chuckman In Jesus's Name: Franklin Graham's Christian Empire David MacMichael and Ray McGovern Ex-CIA Analysts on WMD: Where? Find? Plant? Gary Leupp Why the War on Iraq was (and Remains) Wrong Robert Sandels Cuba Crackdown: a Revolt Against Bush's National Security Strategy? CounterPunch Wire An Open Letter to Jerry Brown on Oakland Police Violence Against Peace Activists and Dock Workers Mickey Z. Our Ba'athists Anthony Gancarski Nader Plays Pullman Scott Handleman The Mumia Abu-Jamal Case in Its True Colors Claud Cockburn Evelyn Waugh's Ear Trumpet Poets' Basement Matt Simon, Sam Hamod, Hammond Guthrie and Stew Albert Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/26   April 25, 2003 David Vest It's Not the Oil; It's the Art! Steven Higgs All About Tucker Carlson Walt Brasch The Shock and Awe of American Ignorance Alexander Cockburn The Decline of American Journalism: the Case of Judy Miller Zeynep Toufe A Letter to the People of Iraq from an Anti-War Activist CounterPunch Wire Season of the Witch: Jeane Kirkpatrick Unbound Hammond Guthrie Springtime in Iraq Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/25 Website of the Day Having a Great Time, Wish You Were Here: Postcards from a War   April 24, 2003 Lois Whitman An Open Letter to Rumsfeld on the Child Detainees at Guantanamo Uri Avnery Abu vs. Abu: It's Not About Egos David Lindorff Day Care in the Name of National Security? About Those Kids in Camp X-Ray John Grebe Rev. Pat Robertson's Message in the Temple Dokhi Fassihian Monster.Com: Ethnic Cleansing on the Web? CounterPunch Wire Israeli Army Chief Threatens Peace Activists Sam Hamod Our Man in Baghdad Annie C. Higgins Do You Regret Being an American? Harold A. Gould Will They Hate Us Forever? Stew Albert Big Brother in Bed Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/24 Website of the Day Muscles Abroad   April 23, 2003 Anthony Gancarski When Young Mothers Die in Combat Chris Floyd Desolation Row: Bush's Barbarians Teach by Example Marjorie Cohn Tax the War Profiteers William Lind The Fourth Generation of Modern War Dave Marsh Nina Simone: Freedom Singer Binoy Kampmark Malayasia's America: the War on Iraq David Vest Who's Looting Whom? Standard Shaefer Super Imperialism: an Interview with Michael Hudson Andrew Rodman Lawn Poem Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/23 Website of the Day Weapons of Mass Destruction in the Middle East   April 22, 2003 Edward Said The Appalling Consequences of the Iraq War are Now Clear Sam Hamod What's the Deal with This War? Kurt Nimmo Shi'a Will to Power Gary Leupp At last! The Necessary Evidence Carl Estabrook Oblivious Americans: They Distort, We Subside John Stanton Iran's Reza Pahlavi: a Puppet of the US and Israel? Ramzy Baroud What Else Hasn't Israel Told America? Steven Sherman About That Cuba Letter Wayne Madsen Bush's "Christian" Blood Cult Stew Albert Creep Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/22 Website of the Day Critical Media Literacy in Times of War   April 21, 2003 Elaine Cassel An Administration in Contempt Gary Leupp Easter Thoughts on Liberation, Jesus and Kanaka WaiWai Roger Witherspoon Why Michigan Needs Affirmative Action Uri Avnery At Midnight, a Knock on the Door Col. Dan Smith Early Lessons from Iraq Jo Freeman After the Protest Comes Politics Michael Berry The Friedman Absurdities Gray Brechin Hang Black Banners: Mourning the Cultural Loss Bob Riedel The Taliban from Texas Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 4/21   April 19, 2003 Gary Leupp The Rape of History Saul Landau Shop, Go to Church, Support Bush's War, Wait for Armageddon Michael J. Fellows Off With Their Heads: the Constitution According to Scalia Pablo Mukherjee Roadmap to Resistance Omar Barghouti Sharon's Bloody Beat Anthony Gancarski Tony Blair: the Most Powerful Man in the World Mickey Z. Animals: the Other Collateral Damage Will Potter When Police Attack Journalists William MacDougall America's In-Bedded Journalism Neve Gordon Haunted by History Adam Engel Wal-Mart and Peace Dr. Susan Block Art Bombs: American Libertines for Peace Poets' Basement Albert, Buono, Guthrie Steve Perry War Web Log 4/19 Song of the Weekend Baghdad to Basra   April 18, 2003 Uri Avnery Operation "Syrian Freedom": This One's Not About Oil Jorge Mariscal "They Died Trying to Become Students": the Future of Latinos in an Era of War and Occupation Mickey Z: Coalition of the Unindicted: Only Losers Get Tried for War Crimes Hussein Ibish Syria and the Road to World War IV Reza Ladjevardian Tarqeting Iran? Do It With TV, Not Cruise Missiles Matania Ben-Artzi You Are Not Protecting My Son's Rights: a Letter to the President of Israel's Supreme Court Bruce Jackson Jews Like Us Joe Allen My Lai Revisited Carl Estabrook Support Our Euphemism Steve Perry War Web Log 4/18 Website of the Day Meet the Victims of War   April 17, 2003 Jeffrey St. Clair Patriot Gore: the Fatal Flaws in the Patriot Missile System Joanne Mariner Looting Antiquity: the Legal Implications for the Pentagon Issam Nashashibi Zalmay Khalilzad: the Neocon's Bagman to Baghdad Wayne Madsen Another Sign of the "End Times" for American Journalism Robert Fisk The Army of Occupation Boris Kagarlitsky Virtual Saddam Takes Aim Biljana Vankovska A Personal View of Iraq: Where is the Truth? Dan Brook Oil War: Fueling the Empire Stanley Heller Bomb and Steal: This is What Privatization Looks Like Tim Robbins A Chill Wind is Blowing Through This Nation Harold A. Gould Iraq After the War Steve Perry War Web Log 4/17   Hot Stories 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.   Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

May 2, 2003 Bush's Military Defeat Where's the Superpower of Peace? By HARVEY WASSERMAN George W. Bush has fittingly stopped short of declaring victory in Iraq. He doesn't want to claim a definitive triumph because it would legally obligate the US to begin cleaning the place up and enforcing human rights obligations. But in fact, the US attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan have been shattering defeats. Let's count the ways: · At least three times US troops have fired live ammunition against angry crowds of "liberated" Iraqis. Far from "dancing in the streets" over the American presence, the people of Iraq have made it clear they want the US out just days after the removal of Saddam Hussein, who most Iraqis understand was put in power by the US in the first place. · US troops have now killed at least twenty Iraqis in demonstrations that appear to be nonviolent. Military claims of self-defense are reminiscent of lies that Kent State students fired weapons during the 1970 massacre there. Those four deaths put the US in an uproar; in Iraq, 1/20 the size of the US, the equivalent of 20 dead would be 400. · By independent count at least 3,000 Iraqi civilians were killed by the US in the removal of Saddam Hussein. That would equate to 60,000 Americans if the attack had been by Iraq on the US. · Like Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein is widely believed to be alive, but has yet to be found. · The weapons of mass destruction used as a pretext for the American attack have also yet to be found. None were used in Iraq's defense. · The pillaging of Iraq's most treasured museums, for which the US is directly responsible, has been widely ranked as one of the most barbaric and indefensible acts of cultural desecration in world history. · US corporate media coverage of the Bush attack was so absurdly one-sided and nationalistic it drew unprecedented contempt from critics worldwide. · The "victory" which has so enamored the US corporate media was an assault by a rich nation of 280 million people which spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined, against an impoverished, disunited nation 20 times smaller which has been ruled by a hated dictator installed by the US, subjected to international sanctions for 12 years, continually bombed through that time, and which was recently disarmed by United Nations weapons inspectors. Far a military triumph, its military conduct drew mocking derision from the major media outside the US. · The first female US soldier killed in Iraq was a divorced Hopi-Navajo mother of two small children who joined the military to escape poverty. Her death, and the grim future facing her children, received virtually no media attention, while the dubious "rescue" of her white friend, Jessica Lynch, received ecstatic---and wildly distorted---saturation hype. · Defense Secretary Rumsfeld openly and willfully violated explicit US law by failing to establish a baseline health study of American troops entering combat, reinforcing the failure to deal with Gulf War Syndrome from the previous attack on Iraq. · Though less than a thousand US troops were killed or wounded in the 1991 Gulf War, 220,000 or more are now disabled. Similar casualties are almost certain to surface in the wake of the latest attack, though Rumsfeld's illegal refusal to lay the statistical groundwork for a health study will again make these casualties hard to trace. · It is widely believed Bush launched a lethal attack on the Palestine Hotel in Baghdad with the express intent of killing and intimidating foreign journalists. · While profoundly disinterested in protecting the region's cultural history, or its civil institutions, the US military took great pains to guard Saddam's ministries of interior and oil, where crucial information on Iraq's petroleum reserves are stored. · US military encampments during the attack were named after major oil companies. · No major nations of the world except Great Britain joined the attack on Iraq, and none have come forward since to endorse it, despite Bush's alleged "victory". · Though leading Bush hawks have raised the possibility of attacking Syria, Iran or North Korea, all other major nations of the world---including Great Britain---have denounced the possibility. · Bush has scorned his previous promise to Great Britain's Tony Blair, his one major ally, that the rebuilding of Iraq would be largely done through the United Nations. · Afghanistan, has sunk into tribal warfare, complete with the rebirth of the "defeated" Taliban. American soldiers are still fighting and dying there. · Despite Bush's effusive pre-war promises, there is virtually no money in the latest US budget for rebuilding Aghanistan, or even for repairing the damage done by the US attack. · Drug production, particular opium poppies, is back in full swing in Afghanistan after having been successfully repressed by the Taliban. · Bush's violent assault and undiplomatic arrogance have infuriated much of the Muslim world and made it highly likely fundamentalist Iran-style regimes will eventually sweep over both Afghanistan and Iraq. · That likelihood has been enhanced by anti-Islam statements from close Bush cronies, including Rev. Franklin Graham, who've confirmed Bush's initial proclamation of a "crusade". · While crowing over "democracy" to Iraq, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld says he will not "allow" fundamentalists to take power in Iraq, but has not explained how he would stop it within a democratic framework. · By infuriating the Muslim world and isolating the US, Bush's conquests of Iraq and Afghanistan will likely guarantee a horrific increase in terrorist attacks against the US in years to come. Polls show a large portion of the American population fears precisely this outcome. In short, the Bush "triumph" has the taste and smell of a profound defeat. The Iraqi people have made it clear they want the US out, and that the demonstrations can only escalate. Afghanistan is in ruin and chaos. World opinion, so profoundly sympathetic to the US after the horrors of September 11, has swung wildly against us. To the vast bulk of humanity---especially 1.2 billion Muslims---the US is an out-of-control bully that invaded Iraq without legitimate provocation, primarily to grab its oil. Only the grotesquely unbalanced and intolerant US corporate media has supported this attack with any consistency. Worldwide, its credibility has sunk below zero. The United States may currently be the only military superpower. But it's a hollow shell, with its domestic economy in profound crisis and the dollar in fast decline. The cynicism, arrogance and brutality with which Bush has carried out these attacks has provoked a profound, deep-rooted worldwide hostility. Far from victory, the US has never been more weakened, isolated or insecure. In the long run, only one superpower---the one for peace---holds any hope for any of us. Harvey Wasserman is senior editor of WWW.FREEPRESS.ORG Yesterday's Features Jeffrey St. Clair Santorum: That's Latin for Asshole Iain Boal A May Day Message to the FCC: "We Are Many; They are Few" Diana Johnstone About Cuba Sam Hamod Killings at Al Fallujah, City of Mosques Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Fiasco Lee Sustar Greed Air: Airline Workers Agree to Pay Cuts, While Bosses Stuff Their Pockets Peter Linebaugh May Day at Kut and Kenthal Stew Albert Straight Shooters Steve Perry Bush's War Web Log 5/01 Website of the Day South Bay Mobilization   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /