Today's
Stories
December 3
/ 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon, Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Rememering the 60s
Website of the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play
Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show
Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla
Website of
the Day
Rare Erotica
November 30,
2005
Allen / D'Amato
Incident
at Oglala 30 Years Later: the Long Struggle of Leonard Peltier
Mike Whitney
The Cheerleader at Annapolis
Kevin Zeese
The Hallucinations of Joe Lieberman
Norman Solomon
Colin Powell: Still Craven After All These Years
Ramzy Baroud
Sharon's New Party
Dave Lindorff
What Happened to All Those Bush/Cheney Bumperstickers?
Stephen Soldz
Mental
Health Workers in Iraq
November 29,
2005
Phil Gasper
Live
from Death Row: an Interview with Tookie Williams
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Ghost of Sangatte
Joshua Frank
Jack Abramoff's Bi-partisan Sleaze
Walter A. Davis
Life on Death Row: a Monologue
Gary Leupp
Bush the Dupe?
Len Colodny
Woodwardgate: Still Protecting the Rightwing
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Duke and the Enterprise: Randy Cunningham's Crash Landing
Bill Quigley
Human Rights Leaders Call for Release of Haiti's Political Prisoners
Website of
the Day
Watch Chomsky vs. Dershowitz Live, Tonight at 7PM, EST!
November 28,
2005
Chris Reed
The
"Bomb Al Jazeera" Documents Trial
David Isenberg
Cooked
Intelligence: the Dog that Didn't Bark
Ron Jacobs
Contraindications: a Review of Blood on the Border
Norman Solomon
The
Woodward Scandal Must Not Blow Over
Justin E.H. Smith
Schwarzenegger's Curious Power
Mickey Z.
Abbie Hoffman at 70: Steal This City
Mike Whitney
The Pentagon's Domestic Spying Operation
David Swanson
Is Impeachment an Election Issue?
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Grave Threat of the Bush Administration
Website of
the Day
"Don't Bomb Us!": a Blog by Al Jazeera Staffers
November 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
How
the Democrats Undercut John Murtha
Saul Landau
Who We Are: Torture and the Empire
Ralph Nader
Junk Television: Excluding Voices That Save Lives
Brian Cloughley
What Are They Dying For?
John Ross
When a Language Dies
Gary Leupp
The Nepal Pact
Fred Gardner
Dr. Denney Goes to Arkansas
Christopher Brauchli
Compassion for Corporations: Northrup Grumman and Katrina's Victims
Dave Lindorff
US War Crimes List Keeps Growing
P. Sainath
See, Neoliberalism Really Works: Net Worth of India's Billionaires
Soars!
Timothy J.
Freeman
The Price of Freedom
Lila Rajiva
Of Mice, Men and GM Peas
Eric Ruder
Beat the Needle: Saving Tookie Williams
Seth Sandronsky
Working Toward Whiteness: an Interview with David Roediger
Joaquin Bustelo
What Really Happened at Mar del Plata
Lewis Alper
Is the President's Soul in Jeopardy?: an Evangelical Christian
Looks at Bush's Skull and Bones Initiation
Will Youmans
In Search of Paradise
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones' Rough Justice in Bush Time
St. Clair /
Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Barbara LaMorticella
Poetry and the City of Ideas
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Buknatski, Engel, Albert and Davies
Website of the Weekend
NLR: The Chequered Rainbow
November 25,
2005
David Price
How
US Anthropologists Planned "Race-Specific" Weapons
Against the Japanese
Brian McKenna
Will
Bush Miss the Next Bhopal?
Jeff Halper
Peretz or Bust?
Ray McGovern
Will
the US Seize the Opportunity for Troop Withdrawal?
Leigh Saavedra
Thanksgiving at Camp Casey
Ingmar Lee
How Have the Mighty Fallen?
Website of the Day
Saving Cathedral Grove
November 24,
2005
James Petras
How
to Think About War and Peace
Bob Shirley
Thanksgiving
Torture: What the Puritans Fled
Mike Fox
Torture
Survivors Speak for Themselves
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Adrift?
Perhaps. A Draft? Never!
Greg Moses
Thanksgiving Delayed: TX High Court Blesses Inequality
Alexander Cockburn
Turkeys
in the Larger Scheme of Things
November 23,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
The
Great Gaza Border Deal: What Does It Mean?
Mike Whitney
Bush, Padilla and Thomas More
Stan Cox
Red, White and Blue Dawn: What a Bad Hollywood Film Can Teach
Americans About Life Under Occupation
Linda S. Heard
Targeting Al Jazeera
November 22,
2005
Kevin Gray
/ Mike Hersh
Maxine
Waters, the Real Leader of the Anti-War Caucus
Ralph Nader
What Do Dems Stand For?
Michael Donnelly
The "Vetting" of Bernard Kerik
Mike Ferner
The CIA's "Torture Taxi" in the Spotlight
Pierre Tristam
The Justice Deficit
Marshall Auerback
Bush's "Compassionate Conservativism": Neither Compassionate
Nor Conservative
Website of
the Day
I Don't Like Geldof
November 21,
2005
Mike Marqusee
Clinton's
Hypocrisies on Iraq
Josh Frank
Democratic Hawks: the Avian Flu of the Antiwar Movement
Mike Whitney
Hugo Chavez vs. the King of Vacations
Norman Solomon
Getting Out of Iraq
Russ Baker
Woodward's Weakness
Robert Jensen
A National Day of Atonement
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lies
and Official Secrets
November 19
/ 20, 2005
Fred Gardner
The
Raid on MendoHealing
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
The House GOP Has Done a Heinous Thing: Stop Playing Politics;
Get the Troops Out Now
Ron Jacobs
A Pathetic Congress: If It Walks and Talks Like a Withdrawal
Resolution, Why Won't You Vote For It?
David Vest
The Politics of Surrender: It's as American as Robert E. Lee
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Condi Rice's Disdain for the Civil Rights Movement
John R. Bomar
Staying the Course on "Freedom's Frontier": a Vietnam
Vet on Iraq
John Ross
The
Dragon Flies High, But Not Over Mexico
Phillip Cryan
Colombia: "Political Kidnapping" and Murder in Cauca
Dave Lindorff
RIP In These Times
Dick J. Reavis
The Future of the Daily Press
Jeremy Scahill
Vegetarian Between Meals: This War Can't Be Stopped by a Loyal
Opposition
Dan Wright
Cleaning Up Alaska's Scan Bay
John Stanton
Scowcroft Talks Turkey; Edmounds Fights Fascism
St. Clair / Vest / Walker
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Phyllis Pollack
The Stones: Rarities
Dr. Susan Block
Our Night of Weimar Love
Poets Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford, Harley and Louise
November 18,
2005
Michael Neumann
The
Palestinians and the Party Line
Dave Lindorff
Murtha and the L Word
Michael Donnelly
Black November 15
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Uncrucify Them
Don Monkerud
A Decent Workplace
Tom Kerr
Grant Clemency to Tookie Williams
Trish Schuh
Faking
the Case Against Syria
November 17,
2005
John Walsh
A
Fractured Anti-War Movement
Rep. John Murtha
Iraq Must Be Freed from the US
Occupation
Brian J. Foley
We Are All In GITMO Now
CounterPunch
News Service
Guardian
Apologizes to Chomsky; Publishes Total Retraction of Brockes'
Slurs
Dave Lindorff
In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians
Mark T. Harris
Coming Out in an Up-and-Coming Sport
Cockburn /
St. Clair
From
Reporter to Courtier: the Decline of Bob Woodward
November 16,
2005
John F. Sugg
Al-Arian
Speaks: In His First Interview Since the Trial Began, Al-Arian
Talks About What the Jury Didn't Hear
Noam Chomsky
Putting Out the Englightenment
Dave Lindorff
Shake
and Bake: Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah
Evelyn Pringle
Laurie Mylroie's War
Sam Husseini
Trying to Look a Female Suicide Bomber in the Eye
Pierre Tristam
Toturers' Theater
Greg Bates
Waffling Alito Charms DiFi
Farrah Hassen
Moustapha
AkkadDavid Lean of the Middle East Killed in Amman Blast
Bill Christison
Evidence
Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars
Website of
the Day
Violent Oscillations
November 15,
2005
Todd Chretien
My
Evening in the No Spin Zone; Or Why Bill O'Reilly Hates San Francisco
Leah Caldwell
Death
of the Jailhouse Press
Frederick Hudson
Rosa's Wreath: Miss Parks and Robert Williams
Harry Browne
Bush-Linked Judge Bows Out: Another Mistrial in Irish Ploughshares
Case
Jason Leopold
Secret CIA Testimony: Iraq Posed No Threat
Ingmar Lee
Logging Lackies vs. Canada's Most Endangered Species
Diana Barahona
Showdown on the Silver Coast
Tom Andre
New Orleans, Two Months Later
Website of the Weekend
Ernest Crichlow: 1914-2005
November 14,
2005
Diana Johnstone
The
Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky
Paul Craig Roberts
Power Over All: Unlimited Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus
Conn Hallinan
Provoking
Syria: Cambodia All Over Again?
Joshua Frank
Off She Goes: Hillary in Israel
Christopher
Reed
The
Persistence of Racism in Koizumi's Japan
November 11
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
First
the Lying, Then the Pardons
Gwyneth Leech
Cross Connections: a Painter Reimagines the Passion of Christ
in the Wake of Abu Ghraib
Elmas Mallo
Chillin' in the Blazin' Texas Sun: Inside the Texas Prison System
Michael Neumann
The Rebel King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin, an Appreciation
Saul Landau
Leakgate: the Screenplay
Sam Husseini
Bush and Zarqawi Bomb Because We Let Them
Brian Cloughley
Sleaze, Deceit and Torture
Ron Jacobs
Rep. McGovern's Withdrawal Resolution: a Step in the Right Direction?
Lila Rajiva
Dover Bitch: the Curses of Pat Robertson
Michael Donnelly
Hypocrisy Watch
Joe Allen
Murder in El Salvador: Who Killed Gilberto Soto?
Roland Sheppard
Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott
Justin E.H.
Smith
Another Monkey Trial?
Ben Tripp
The Cost of War
St. Clair /
Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Jones, Louise, Ford, Smith, Albert and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Iraq Vets and Against the War Need Your Help!
November 10,
2005
Peterside,
Ogon, Watts and Zalik
Delta
Blues Again: Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10 Years Gone
Pat Williams
Will Alito Cost the Republicans the Senate?
Steve Higgs
Bush Crony Targets Indiana's Forests: 400% Hike in Logging
Jimmy Massey
Is Ron Harris Telling the Truth?
Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Insanity Takes Over
Anthony Newkirk
Syria in the Crosshairs
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Why Did Libby Lie?
Website of the Day
Imperial Margarine
November 9,
2005
Gary Leupp
The
Niger Deception / Plame Affair: an Incomplete Chronology
Tariq Ali
Blair Defeated on Terror Laws
Chris Floyd
The
Philosopher's Stone
Elaine Cassel
The
Shocking Trial of an American Citizen: the Case of Ahmed Abu
Ali
Joshua Frank
Sen. Max Baucus's NASCAR Pay Day
Alison Weir
Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You
Give Israel a Pass?
Diana Johnstone
Rage
in the Banlieue
November 8, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Still
No Jobs
Roger Burbach
Bush
v. Chavez: the Imperial President Meets the Bolivarian Democrat
Ron Jacobs
An Interview with Behzad Yaghmaian on the Paris Uprising
Ralph Nader
"The Worst Marketed Disease on the Planet"
Jim McGrath
Voter Beware: a Cautionary Tale for Election Day
David Bloom
McCain, Israel and Torture: Setting the Record Straight
Stan Goff
Jimmy Massey, Ron Harris, and Ambush Journalism
November 7,
2005
Dick Reavis
The
Origins of Mr. Danger
Jason Leopold
Cheney and the Cover Up: the Vice President Lied
Dave Lindorff
What Country was Bush Talking About?
Eli Stephens
A Tale of Two Generals: the Lies of Colin Powell
David Swanson
The Bush-Cheney Ethics Refresher Course: a Syllabus
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview Stan Goff
Matt Reichel
Paris Uprising: a Rebellion in Real Time
Naima Bouteldja
Paris is Burning
Jeff Halper
Israel
as an Extension of American Empire
Website of the Day
Dispatches from Paris
November 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Storm
Over Brockes' Fakery: Guardian Fabricates Chomsky Quotes
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Lying,
Law Schools and Executive Power: What Senators Should Ask Alito
Diana Johnstone
Srebrenica: a Response to Certain Criticisms of My Essay
Roosa / Nevins
The
Mass Killlings in Indonesia, 40 Years Later
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Missing
the Bus: When Conscience Bows to Calculation
John Ross
The Zapatistas' Otra Campaign for Mexico's Presidential Elections
Mike Whitney
Globalizing Sadism: the United States of Torture
Mark Engler
Will Big Business Turn On Bush?: the Economic Nightmare Unfolds
Juliano Mer-Khamis
They Shoot at Children, Too
Ron Jacobs
When Gen. Westmoreland Visited
Jill S. Farrell
Bird Flu and the Posse Comitatus Act
Missy Comley
Beattie
Trent Lott's Untroubled Sleep
Mitchel Cohen
People of the Dome, Revisited
Evelyn J. Pringle
Bush-Cheney and Big Oil's Big Summer
Reza Fiyouzat
Signs of Life or Last Gasp? Structural Problems in the Democratic
Party
Charles Sullivan
When Courage Fails: a White Southerner on Rosa Parks
Zachary Richard
Return to Louisiana
Ben Tripp
Beginning of the End? Don't Start Cheering Just Yet
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
November 4,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Blood
on the Tundra, Betrayal in the Rotunda: Losing ANWR
Dave Lindorff
A Majority Now Favors Impeachment: If He Lied, He Must Be Tried
Phillip Cryan
Crackdown
in Colombia
Christopher Brauchli
Katrina and Tax Breaks for the Very Rich
William S.
Lind
Exit Strategy: You Can't Stay the Course in a Lost War
Daryl G. Kimball
Of Madmen and Nukes
George Beres
Laurels for Negroponte?
Peter Montague
Why We Can't Prevent Cancer
November 3,
2005
James Petras
The
Libby Affair and the Internal War
Saul Landau
Torn
Families and Shot Down Planes: a Cuba Story
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
An Occurrence at Gretna Bridge
Michael Dickinson
Bang! Bang! You're Deaf! Sonic Weapons Over Palestine
Joshua Frank
Sham Behind Closed Doors
Remi Kanazi
Dancing with Perseverance
Reza Fiyouzat
Taxation or Racketeering?
Website of the Day
CIA Leak Investigation: Bigger Fish, Deeper Water?
November 2,
2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Holy
Alito!: Not as Crazy as Scalia, But Just as Bad
Robert Oscar Lopez
Saving Rosa Parks from American Hypocrisy
John Walsh
The Philosophy of Mendacity: From Leo Strauss to Scooter Libby
Brian J. Foley
Why Most Americans Don't Care About Gitmo (and Why They Should)
Ramzy Baroud
Rolling Back Syria
M. Junaid Alam
What Moral Values?
Todd Chretien
Judgment Day for the Governator
Bruce K. Gagnon
The Democrats' Slap Happy Day
Website of the Day
Hands Off Dave!
November 1,
2005
Ron Jacobs
An
Interview with Kent State's Dave Airhart
Gary Leupp
The Plame Affair Leads to Rome
John Ross
Days
of the Dead on the Border
Bill Quigley
Why
Are They Making New Orleans a Ghost Town?
Joseph Nevins
From a Boundary of Death to One of Life
Dave Lindorff
Thinking About Impeachment
Linda S. Heard
Bashing Syria: Another Trojan Horse from the UN?
Heather Gray
Thank You, Mrs. Parks
Michael Dickinson
To Di For: Charlie and Camilla Cross the Pond
Jeffrey St. Clair
Kent State: Wise Up and Back Off
October 31,
2005
Elaine Cassel
Libby's
Lies
Mark Weisbrot
Pop Goes the Bubble: Bernancke and the Fed
Mike Whitney
Carry On, Patrick Fitzgerald
Norman Solomon
After the Libby Indictment, the Press Acquits Itself
Farooq Sulehria
Trading Weapons While Kashmir Burns
Nicole Colson
Scapegoating Immigrants
Madis Senner
Dhafir Sentenced to 22 Years: Another Erosion of Civil Rights
Paul Craig
Roberts
Scooter
and the Neocons
October 29 / 30, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
The
Libby Indictment: Gotterdammerung for the Bushies?
Peter Linebaugh
The
Wedges of Hephaestus
Tim Wise
Framing the Poor: Katrina, Conservative Myth-Making and the Media
John Chuckman
Bushspeak: Dark and Garbled Words
Steven Higgs
Green Hoosiers: Forging a New Democracy in the Heartland
Brian Cloughley
The Fifth Afghan War
M. Shahid Alam
Israel and the Consequences of Uniqueness
Nikki Robinson
Crack Down at Kent State
Ralph Nader
Let the PIRGs Begin!: Student Activism Thrives
Joe DeRaymond
Requiem for Bethlehem Steel?
Joshua Frank
Karl's Great Escape: Did Rove Rat on Scooter?
Laura Santina
Tongue-Tied on Iraq: Why Aren't the Dems Screaming Bloody Murder?
Fred Gardner
Death of an Organizer
Michael Dickinson
Insult Your Country
Ron Jacobs
Autumn in America
Dr. Susan Block
Fear and Sex: a Halloween Greeting
Vanessa S. Jones
Self-Portrait, 1994. Bronte Beach
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Marbet, Gardner, Ford, Albert, Engel, Krieger & St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Red State Update
October 28,
2005
Jared Bernstein
Inflation
Up; Wages Down: Fastest Decline in Wages on Record
Virginia Tilley
Embracing
the Anti-Aparthied Movement in Israel/Palestine
Phil Gasper
The
Race to Execute Tookie Williams
Jennifer Matsui
It's Mardi Graft Time!
Manual Garcia,
Jr.
Is the US Really Against Torture?
Monica Benderman
In the Name of Justice
Jason Leopold
Fitzgerald
Focuses on the Forgeries
Dave Lindorff
Suddenly, Bush Endorses Right of Fair Trials
Otober 27, 2005
Saul Landau
The
Scandal Isn't the Leak, But the Illegal War
Stuart Hodkinson
Bono
and Geldoff: "We Saved Africa" Oh No, They Didn't!
Ingmar Lee
Stop
the Troops!: No Glory or Honor in Iraq
Lila Rajiva
License
to Bill: Gates Does India
Ilan Pappe
The
Last Moment of Hope
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Waiting for Fitzgerald
Michael Donnelly
Look Who's Talking Now: the GOP on Perjury
Ron Jacobs
Escape the Weight of Your Corporate Logo
Cockburn / St. Clair
White House in Meltdown
October 26,
2005
Kathy Kelly
For
Whom They Toll
Gary Leupp
Dialectics
of the Plame Affair
Mike Marqusee
Empire of Denial
Eric Ruder
War Crimes in Afghanistan
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: a Constitutionally Divided Nation
Joshua Frank
Fitzgerald v. the Bushies: Hold Your Elation in Check
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
The Legacy of Rosa Parks
Website of
the Day
Decent Work in America: the 2005 Work Environment Index
October 25,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
and Syrian Regime Change: Could Somebody Recommend a President?
Ken Sengupta / Patrick Cockburn
Attack on the Palestine Hotel
Conn Hallinan
Sleight of Hand: Iran, India and the US
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed
Pulling the Court Strings
Jackie Corr
Barbara Bush: Poster Gorgon of the Houston Astros
Robert Day
Talk to Strangers
John Sugg
Judith
Miller and Me
October 24,
2005
Dave Lindorff
Revoke
Judy Miller's Pulitzer
Michael Donnelly
Shades of Iran/contra
Patrick Cockburn
A Nation Stands on Trial
Mike Whitney
Apres Rove
Norman Solomon
Iraq is Not Vietnam, But...
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Palestine
October 22
/ 23, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
When
Divas Collide: Maureen Dowd v. Judy Miller
Billy Sothern
Letter
from the Circle Bar, New Orleans
Saul Landau
Bush, an Assessment
Ralph Nader
An
Open Letter to Bush on Harriet Miers
Behrooz Ghamari
Whose Justice Does Saddam's Trial Serve?
Brian Cloughley
Bush the Strategist: Pyrrhus Without a Victory?
Diana Barahona
Venezuela's National Workers' Union
Fred Gardner
Dershowitzed!
Lee Sustar
What the War on Terror is Really About
Patrick Cockburn
Murder of Saddam Trial Defense Lawyer
Laura Carlsen
Mexico City Seamstresses Recall 1985 Quake
James Petras
China Bashing and the Loss of US Competitiveness
Joshua Frank
Invading Iran: Who is to Stop Them?
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
Disasters are Us
Michelle Bollinger
When Abortion Was Illegal
Missy Comley
Beattie
CSI: Iraq
Kona Lowell
Intelligent Design: Making High School Fun
Ben Tripp
Tanks for the Memories
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening To This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of
the Day
Indictment Watch
October 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
The
Democrats' Abortion Hypocrisy
Winslow T. Wheeler
Paying for Their Mistakes: Incompetence, Deception and the Defense
Budget
Col. Dan Smith
The Destruction of the National Guard
Norman Solomon
Media at Crossroads: 25 Years After Reagan's Triumph
Madis Senner
Abusing Katrina
Michael Donnelly
Richard
Pombo: DeLay in Cowboy Boots
October 20, 2005
Dave Lindorff
Impeachment
Comes to NYC
Ray McGovern
16
Fatal Words: Cheney's Chickens Come Home to Roost
Jeremy Brecher
/
Brendan Smith
Attack Syria? Invade Iran?: By What Constitutional Right?
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Refuses to Recognize Court
Kevin Zeese
Was the Iraqi Constitution Vote Fixed?
Ross Eisenbrey
Millions Would Lose Pay and Protections Under Enzi Amendment
Randy Shields
James McMurtry Makes It in Dayton
Justine Davidson
Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Small Victory
After Lucas
Cranach
Judy and Holofernes
Joe Allen
The
Scandalous History of the Red Cross
|
Weekend Edition
December 3/4, 2005
"Broken, Worn Out"
and "Living Hand to Mouth"
The Revolt of the
Generals
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
The immense significance of Rep John
Murtha's November 17 speech calling for immediate withdrawal
from Iraq is that it signals mutiny in the US senior officer
corps, seeing the institution they lead as "broken, worn
out" and "living hand to mouth", to use the biting
words of their spokesman, John Murtha, as he reiterated on December
his denunciation of Bush's destruction of the Army.
A CounterPuncher with nearly
40 years experience working in and around the Pentagon told me
this week that "The Four Star Generals picked Murtha to
make this speech because he has maximum credibility." It's
true. Even in the US Senate there's no one with quite Murtha's
standing to deliver the message, except maybe for Byrd, but the
venerable senator from West Virginia was a vehement opponent
of the war from the outset , whereas Murtha voted for it and
only recently has turned around.
So the Four-Star Generals briefed
Murtha and gave him the state-of-the-art data which made his
speech so deadly, stinging the White House into panic-stricken
and foolish denunciations of Murtha as a clone of Michael Moore.
It cannot have taken vice president
Cheney, a former US Defense Secretary, more than a moment to
scan Murtha's speech and realize the import of Murtha's speech
as an announcement that the generals have had enough.
Listen once more to what the
generals want the country to know:
"The future of our military
is at risk. Our military and our families are stretched thin.
Many say the Army is broken. Some of our troops are on a third
deployment. Recruitment is down even as the military has lowered
its standards. They expect to take 20 percent category 4, which
is the lowest category, which they said they'd never take. They
have been forced to do that to try to meet a reduced quota.
"Defense budgets are being
cut. Personnel costs are skyrocketing, particularly in health
care. Choices will have to be made. We cannot allow promises
we have made to our military families in terms of service benefits,
in terms of their health care to be negotiated away. Procurement
programs that ensure our military dominance cannot be negotiated
away. We must be prepared.
"The war in Iraq has caused
huge shortfalls in our bases at home. I've been to three bases
in the United States, and each one of them were short of things
they need to train the people going to Iraq.
"Much of our ground equipment
is worn out.
"Most importantly -- this
is the most important point -- incidents have increased from
150 a week to over 700 in the last year. Instead of attacks going
down over a time when we had additional more troops, attacks
have grown dramatically. Since the revolution at Abu Ghraib,
American casualties have doubled."
What happened on the heels
of this speech is very instructive. The Democrats fell over themselves
distancing themselves from Murtha, emboldening the White House
to go one the attack.
From Bush's presidential plane,
touring Asia, came the derisive comment that Murtha was of "endorsing
the policies of Michael Moore and the extreme liberal wing of
the Democratic Party."
It took the traveling White
House about 48 hours to realize that this was a dumb thing to
have said. Murtha's not the kind of guy you can slime, the way
Bush and Co did the glass-jawed Kerry in 2004. The much decorated
vet Murtha snapped back publicly that he hadn't much time for
smears from people like Cheney who'd got five deferments from
military service in Vietnam.
By the weekend Bush was speaking
of Murtha respectfully. On Monday, gritting his teeth, Cheney
told a Washington audience that though he disagreed with Murtha
ihe's a good man, a Marine, a patriot, and he's taking a clear
stand in an entirely legitimate discussion."
One day later Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice told Fox News, ``I do not think that American
forces need to be there in the numbers that they are now because
-- for very much longer -- because Iraqis are stepping up.''
A week later Bush was preparing a speech laying heavy emphasis
on US withdrawals as the Iraqi armed forces take up the burden.
Are there US-trained Iraqi
detachments ready in the wings? Not if you believe reports from
Iraq, but they could be nonagenarians armed with bows and arrows
and the Bush high command would still be invoking their superb
training and readiness for the great mission.
Ten days after Murtha's speech
commentators on the tv Sunday talk shows were clambering aboard
the Bring eem home bandwagon. Voices calling for America to istay
the course" in Iraq were few and far between. On December
1 Murtha returned to the attack in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, telling
a civic group there that he was wrong to have voted for the war
and that most U.S. troops will leave Iraq within a year because
the Army is "broken, worn out" and "living hand
to mouth".
The stench of panic in Washington
that hangs like a winter fog over Capitol Hill intensified. The
panic stems from the core concern of every politician in the
nation's capital: survival. The people sweating are Republicans
and the source of their terror is the deadly message spelled
out in every current poll: Bush's war on Iraq spells disaster
for the Republican Party in next year's midterm elections.
Take a mid-November poll by
SurveyUSA: in only seven states did Bush's current approval rating
exceed 50 per <cent.These> consisted of the thinly populated
states of Utah, Idaho, Wyoming, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Alabama and
Mississippi. In twelve states, including California, New York,
Illinois, Pennsylvania and Michigan, his rating was under 35.
You have to go back to the
early 1970s, when a scandal-stained Nixon was on the verge of
resignation, to find numbers lower than Bush's. Like Bush, Nixon
had swept to triumphant reelection in 1972. Less than two years
later he turned the White House over to vice president Ford and
flew off into exile.
No one expects Bush to resign,
or even to be impeached (though vice president Cheney's future
is less assured) and his second term has more than three years
to run.
But right now, to use a famous
phrase from the Nixon era, a cancer is gnawing at his presidency
and that cancer is the war in Iraq. The American people are now
60 per cent against it and 40 per cent think Bush lied to get
them to back it.
Hence the panic. Even though
the seats in the House of Representatives are now so gerrymandered
that less than 50 out of 435 districts are reckoned as ever being
likely to change hands, Republicans worry that few seats, however
gerrymandered, can withstand a Force 5 political hurricane.
What they get from current
polls is a simple message. If the US has not withdrawn substantial
numbers of its troops from Iraq by the fall of next year, a Force
5 storm surge might very well wash them away.
Amid this potential debacle,
the Republicans' only source of comfort is the truly incredible
conduct of the Democrats. First came the Democrats' terrified
reaction to Murtha, symbolized by Democratic minority leader
Nancy Pelosi's cancellation of a press conference supporting
Murtha. This prompted the Republicans to realize that the Democrats
were ready to have their bluff called by the Republican- sponsored
resolution calling for immediate withdrawal, for which only three
Democrats voted, while so-called progressives like Kucinich and
Sanders and Conyers ran for cover.
Listen to any prominent Democrat
senator , like Kerry or Clinton or Feingold or Obama and you
get the same adamant refusal to go beyond the savage characterization
by Glenn Ford and Peter Gamble of the Black
Commentator, of Obama's address to the Council on Foreign
Relations:
U.S. Senator Barack Obama has
planted his feet deeply inside the Iraq war-prolongation camp
of the Democratic Party, the great swamp that, if not drained,
will swallow up any hope of victory over the GOP in next year's
congressional elections. In a masterpiece of double-speak before
the prestigious Council on Foreign Relations, November 22, the
Black Illinois lawmaker managed to out-mush-mouth Sen. John Kerry
- a prodigious feat, indeed.
In essence, all Obama wants
from the Bush regime is that it fess up to having launched the
war based on false information, and to henceforth come clean
with the Senate on how it plans to proceed in the future. Those
Democrats who want to dwell on the past - the actual genesis
and rationale for the war, and the real reasons for its continuation
- should be quiet.
"Withdrawal" and
"timetables" are bad words, and Obama will have nothing
to do with them.
Of course, the "insurgents"
are not a "faction," and must therefore be defeated.
On this point, Obama and the Bush men agree: "In sum, we
have to focus, methodically and without partisanship, on those
steps that will: one, stabilize Iraq, avoid all out civil war,
and give the factions within Iraq the space they need to forge
a political settlement; two, contain and ultimately extinguish
the insurgency in Iraq; and three, bring our troops safely home."
Nobody in the White House would
argue with any of these points. Point number two in Obama's "pragmatic"
baseline is, the containment and elimination of the "insurgency."
Of course, one can only do that by continuing the war. Indeed,
it appears that Obama and many of his colleagues are more intent
on consulting the Bush men on the best ways to "win"
the war than in effecting an American withdrawal at any foreseeable
time.
They want "victory"
just as much as the White House; they just don't want the word
shouted at every press conference.
The Black Commentator concludes
its excoriation of Obama and his fellow Democrats with these
words:
By late summer of 2006, when
voters are deciding what they want their Senate and House to
look like, if the Democrats have not caught up to public opinion
to offer a tangible and quick exit from Iraq, the Republicans
will retain control of both chambers of congress.
All that will be left in November
is mush from Kerry, Hillary, Biden, Edwards - and Obama's - mouths.
Here at CounterPunch we heartily
endorse this sentiment.
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