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What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter Blood Diamonds: the Inside Story An amazing expose by T.R. Naylor: How the "Blood" or "Conflict Diamonds" Myth peddled by NGOs Helped a Vicious Mining Company Shore Up Its Monopoly, Made a Pile of Money for A Washington Post Reporter and Leonardo di Caprio, Served As A Propaganda Myth in the "War on Terror" and had Nothing to Do With Osama Bin Laden. Pinochet is gone, and the world is a cleaner place. JoAnn Wypijewski recalls 1988 in Santiago, when Chile lost its fear. And yes, here they are in charge of Congress again, ready to facilitate a troop hike in Iraq. Alexander Cockburn re-introduces an old acquaintance: the Democrats--Party of War. Remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation towards the cost of this online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories January 8, 2007 Werther Why We Fight January 6 / 7, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The War and the NYT Franklin C. Spinney Stalingrad on the Tigris Paul Craig Roberts The Urge to Surge Ralph Nader Democrats in the Spotlight Walden Bello Globalization in Retreat? Marleen Martin The Needle and the Damage Done: Tortured in the Death Chamber Brian Cloughley We Do What We Like: Return Our Rapist or Else ... Uri Avnery The Kiss of Death Saul Landau Fidel Castro in the Fields Ron Jacobs From Cointelpro to the Patriot Act: a Legacy of Torture Joseph Nevins Crimes Against Humanity from Ford to Saddam William S. Lind A State Restored? Somalia and 4GW Gary Leupp Attention John Conyers: Impeach the President! Elisa Salasin Bringing Life to Numbers George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Confronting Recruiters: the Story of the Bush Street Raiders Michael Leonardi Toward an International Moratorium: Italy's Crusade Against the Death Penalty Richard Rhames Reality TV: Triumph of the Thugs Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Barbara LaMorticella Two Poems Website of the Weekend FBI Witch Hunts Song of the Weekend End Times: a Soundtrack January 5, 2007 Jorge Mariscal Growing the Military: Who Will Serve? John Walsh Clash of the Elites: Beltway Insiders vs. Neo-Cons! Christopher Brauchli The Great Relaxer: Bush and Federal Regulations Travis Sharpe No More New Nukes, Please Tom Barry Hawk for Hire: Roger Noriega's New Gig Linda Schade / Kevin Zeese Americans Voted for Peace: Has the New Congress Already Let Them Down? Tiffany Ten Eyck Workers' Centers and Unions: a New Alliance Mahmoud El-Yousseph A Challenge to Pelosi Lucinda Marshall 3003 Funerals: "And They're Still Burying Ford!" Website of the Day Van the Man: Warm Love January 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Martyrdom of Saddam Hussein Winslow T. Wheeler A Guide to Earmarks: Will the Democrats' Reforms Do Anything to Curb Pork Barrel Spending? M. Shahid Alam Has Regime Change Boomeranged? Raed Jarrar So This is Plan B? The US Attack on Saleh Al-Mutlaq's Headquarters Bert Sacks Can the US Legally Kill Iraqi Children?: a Challenge to the Supreme Court Kathy Rentenbach Report from Oaxaca Stephen Fleischman The Rain of Riches: Bonuses, Then and Now George Bisharat Carter's Truths Peter Rost, MD Hail the Hangman, Jail the Cameraman! Evelyn Pringle Can Eli Lilly be Held Criminally Liable for Zyprexa? Website of the Day Courage to Resist   January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Wrapped Around a Bullet Paul Craig Roberts His Last Hurrah: Bush Cuts and Runs from Reason William Johnson No Worker is Illegal: SEIU Members Push Their Union to Change Its Policy on Immigration Stan Cox Under a Brown Cloud: Money vs. the Monsoon Trita Parsi A Lose-Lose Situation with Iran Declan McKenna Ireland's Slavish Hostility Toward Cuba Joe Bageant Dispatch from the Chinese Landfill Nicola Nasser Somalia: New Hotbed of Anti-Americanism Missy Beattie Dead Wrong Website of the Day Pharmed Out January 2, 2007 Michael Watts Oil Inferno Amina Mire Return of the Warlords: Death and Destruction for Somalis James Brooks Pushing the Wedge in Palestine Alevtina Rea The Tyrant is Dead! Long Live ... ? Al Krebs Global Food Security: a Call to Action Peter Rost Invitation to a Hanging: the Saddam Hussein Execution Video Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Deadly December John Stanton Appetites for Destruction Website of the Day Out Now: Petition   January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Iron Man, Tin God: the Meaning of Saddam Hussein Uri Avnery What Makes Sammy Run? Joshua Frank Eliot Spitzer's Constitutional Hang Up: Architect of New York's Patriot Act   December 30 / 31, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn 2006, Hard to Call It Vintage, But 2007 Could Finally Be Bobby Byrd's Year Patrick Cockburn Iraq 2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart Paul Wolf Dying for Our Sins: A Lawyer for Saddam Describes How His Execution on the First of Eid May Transform Him Into a Martyr Manuel Garcia, Jr. Executing Saddam, Protecting the Rackets Tariq Ali Saddam at the End of a Rope Paul Craig Roberts The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power Douglas Valentine At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam Brian M. Downing The New Iraq Policy: Escalation Michael Donnelly Injustice in Black and White: the Duke Non-Rape Case Stephen Lendman Did Sharon Order the Assassination of Arafat? The Revelations of Uri Dan Fred Gardner Comes Now the Ghost of "Decrim:" Nixon and Marijuana Bailly / Caudron / Lambert Who Owns Ikea?: the Opaque Legacy of Ingvar Kamprad Ralph Nader The Prospects for Progressive Politics Nick Dearden The War on Terror Hits Africa Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg The Third Degree: an Interview with AC Thompson on the Origins of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights Missy Beattie In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War Ron Jacobs Sigh of the Oppressed: Religion and Politics Dan La Botz Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them! Andrew Wimmer An Act of Contrition: the Peace Movement in 2007 Dr. Carol Wolman, MD Psychiatrist: Impeach Bush for Good of Country Martha Rosenberg New Year's Resolutions for Big Pharma Dick J. Reavis News Before It Happens: Bush's 2007 MLK Day Speech Jeffrey St. Clair Listening to James Brown and His Followers Poets' Basement Grima, Curtis, Davies, Orloski and Engel Website of the Weekend Charlie Fowler's Photolog: a Life at Altitude Music Video of the Weekend "We're Winning the War on Drugs!" December 29, 2006 Bill Quigley A Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in New Orleans? Norman Finkelstein The Dershowitz Treatment John Borowski Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me Abid Mustafa The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan Greg Moses World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media Blackout Uri Cohen Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine Bailly / Caudron / Lambert The Secrets in Ikea's Closet Website of the Day Justice for New Orleans   December 28, 2006 Norman Finkelstein The Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book Anthony Cowell Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads John Ross Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution? Hilaria Cruz I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner Greg Moses Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas Brittany Bond The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred Terrorist Website of the Day Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk   December 27, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Farewell to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford Faruq Ziada Is There a Sunni Majority in Iraq? Christopher Brauchli Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save Your Life Michael Ortiz Hill Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide? Nikolas Kozloff Saving Caracas Mark Schneider Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism December 26, 2006 Peter Stone Brown James Brown: Please Don't Go Tito Tricot Chile: the Ghosts of Torture Gary Leupp Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission John V. Walsh Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again Reza Fiyouzat Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year Ron Jacobs The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin Website of the Day JB: Prisoner of Love December 25, 2006 Saul Landau A Jeep Trip with Fidel Lang / McGovern To Surge or Not to Surge? Michael Dickinson Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But ... Website of the Day James Brown, RIP December 23 / 24, 2006 Marjorie Cohn What's Going On? Jeffrey L. Gould The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years Diane Christian The Rape of Iraq William Loren Katz From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from the First US Invasion Greg Moses This War Can't be Made Right by Winning M. Shahid Alam An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design? Fred Gardner Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press Dave Lindorff Crime of the Century Azmi Bishara Ways of Denial Ralph Nader The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football Seth Sandronsky Fiscally Imperiled Social Security? William Hughes Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest Ron Jacobs Making Stones Weep Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve   December 22, 2006 David Rosen Bush's Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front Christopher Brauchli When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations John Ross Flashlights in the Tunnel of Hate J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Political Sell-Outs in Black and White Rahul Mahajan Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse? Arthur Neslen Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories Peter Rost, MD The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with $198 Million Website of the Day 10 Ways to Change the World in 2007 December 21, 2006 Rosa Mariam Elizalde An Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba" Arundhati Roy Breaking the News Brian Cloughley Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe Daniel White Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down of That Itavia DC-9 John V. Whitbeck On Israel's Right to Exist Sam Smith Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000 Paris Reidhead GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar Kevin Wehr Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment Website of the Day Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database December 20, 2006 Gabriel Kolko Rumsfeld and the American Way of War Winslow T. Wheeler The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq Tariq Ali The War is Lost Saree Makdisi Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter Bruce Jackson Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace Dave Lindorff Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq Leslie Radford The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers Dave Jansson Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the Empire Johnny Barber Jesus is a Terrorist Website of the Day Is It for Freedom? December 19, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Democrats Prepare to Fund Longer War Jonathan Cook End of the Strongmen Greg Moses Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto, TX Jail Sean Penn Georgie, There's a Crowd Downstairs Dave Lindorff Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists Ralph Nader Going Postal Laura Carlsen Latin America's Pink Tide? Carlos Villarreal The Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out Website of the Day Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon December 18, 2006 Luis J. Rodriguez En Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson Norman Solomon Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks for Nothing! Uri Avnery Lebanon: War Without a Plan Ron Jacobs More Troops, More Body Bags Phil Gasper Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its Supreme Leader William Blum The United States of Punishment Jim Goodman So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake? James Brooks Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go Maria C. Khoury Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for the Arts Website of the Day Got Powell December 16 / 17, 2006 Weekend Edition Vijay Prashad A Perilous Way to Socialism Saul Landau Filming Fidel Anthony Arnove The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts Paul Cantor The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger Annie Nocenti Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes Nicole Colson Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record Stephen Gowans Tehran's Holocaust Conference Jordan Flaherty A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second Looting of New Orleans Fred Gardner Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life P. Sainath There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow Seth Sandronsky The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says and Does Nadia Hijab An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow? Deb Reich Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands Susie Day Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man! Albert Wan Why Does It Take 50 Bullets? Missy Beattie Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please! Martha Rosenberg Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives Lee Ballinger The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths of the Yuma 14 Michael Dickinson Kingdom of Fear Jeffrey St. Clair Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford Website of the Weekend "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"   December 15, 2006 Eliza Ernshire Palestinian "Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration Virginia Tilley What Are You Going to Do Now, Israel? Mike Ferner Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em! John Ross Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse Fred Wilhelms The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes? Kevin Zeese Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War Candidate in a Pro-War Party? David Severn Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire Philantropist Dave Lindorff Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome Sunsara Taylor As American as Shopping and Torture Website of the Day June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting   December 14, 2006 Jonathan Cook The Recognition Trap Riz Khan An Interview with Jimmy Carter Jason Hribal Kasatka, the Sea World Orca Pennick / Gray The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program Richard Levins That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money Pat Williams The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and Pell Grants Peter Rost, MD Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys? Website of the Day The Sound of Rummy   December 13, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Iraq is Beyond Repair Greg Moses The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost Elizabeth Schulte Hungry for the Holidays Joshua Frank Death By Coke Debra Eschmeyer Corporations Control Your Dinner Leon Hadar Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late Peter Rost, MD I've Been a Very Bad Boy Margaret Knapke Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté! Reza Fiyouzat Are Cows Free? Fred Wilhelms A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday! Website of the Day The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet December 12, 2006 Fernando A. Torres The Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of Pinochet's Political Prisoners Paul Craig Roberts America's Injustice System is Criminal Stephen Soldz Abusive Interrogations Uri Avnery Baker's Cake William S. Lind Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq Missy Beattie Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN Dave Lindorff The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's Tears George Pyle Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years Norman Solomon Is the USA the Center of the World? Website of the Day Citizens' War Tribunal   December 11, 2006 Virginia Tilley Banning Mandela Roger Burbach The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US Col. Douglas MacGregor There's Only One Option Left: Leave! Fawwas Traboulsi Lebanon on the Brink Ron Jacobs Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet Gideon Levy The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle Mary McGrane Burning Books at Harvard Law Bernardo Ruiz The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in Apocalypto Website of the Day La Cancion de la Unidad Video of the Day Killing Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?   December 9 / 10, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Liberal Consensus for More Troops in Iraq Sen. Gordon Smith Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk Greg Grandin Jeane Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego? Col. Dan Smith The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program Ralph Nader The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction Behrooz Ghamari The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections Rev. Willliam Alberts Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush James T. Phillips The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?" Bennis / Leaver A Bi-Partisan Occupation Dave Lindorff A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks Nikolas Kozloff Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America Seth Sandronsky Activating White Racism Lucinda Marshall McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth Mike Whitney Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby John V. Whitbeck Recommendation No. 80 Faisal Kutty Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western Construct? Hugh Sansom Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times Robert Gold My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia Boots Riley Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel & Buknatski Website of the Weekend Alive in Mexico December 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn The Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal Leutisha Stills Just How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus? Norman Finkelstein The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter Will Youmans Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic Cleanser Peter Rost, MD What Went Wrong at Pfizer? Jonathan Demme My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help! Ray McGovern Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass Lucinda Marshall What She Wore Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn The Lost John Lennon Interview Website of the Day John Lennon's FBI Files   December 7, 2006 Alex Friedman Rev. Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison Industry Maureen Webb Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State Paul Craig Roberts Catastrophe Still Awaits Dave Lindorff Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense" Matt Vidal Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade Yifat Susskind Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq Rodriguez / Jones NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell Website of the Day 2006, Remixed December 6, 2006 Robert Bryce Omitting the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the Iraq Study Group William S. Lind The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy? Zoe Blunt The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest Corporate Crime Reporter The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations Amira Hass A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners Richard W. Behan The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War Sophie McNeill Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass December 5, 2006 Virginia Tilley Apartheid Israel: a Beacon of Hope? Sharon Smith The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq Joe Bageant Somewhere a Banker Smiles Ron Jacobs A War Washington Can't Win Norman Solomon Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq! Mike Whitney Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change Everything ... " Derrick O'Keefe Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba Julian Assange The Road to Hanoi Missy Beattie Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman Website of the Day Lessons of Suez and Iraq   December 4, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Gaza and Darfur George Ciccariello-Maher Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela Ray McGovern Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates John Ross Repression on the Menu in Mexico Walden Bello Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Clueless Executives Stephen Lendman The Withering of the Bush Dynasty Gideon Levy This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames Website of the Day The "Babes" of Hizbullah?   December 2 / 3, 2006 Weekend Edition Barucha Calamity Peller The Dirty War of Oaxaca Paul Craig Roberts Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological Ralph Nader The Big Boys of Financial Crime Winslow T. Wheeler Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators? Amira Hass The Checkpoint Generation Maymanah Farhat Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover" the Arab World Dave Lindorff Fighting the Iraq War--At Home Fred Gardner Dr. Jimenez Defends His Practice Methods Col. Dan Smith The Semantics of Civil War Raed Jarrar Maliki's Monopoly of Power Seth Sandronsky US Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor K.-Y. Taylor The Bride Wore Black: the Shooting of Sean Bell and the Resurgence of American Racism Yifat Susskind Greed, Dogma and AIDS David Rosen Made in China: the Global Trade in Sex Toys Ron Jacobs All Hands on Deck!: the New Pirates of the Caribbean Nikolas Kozloff Venezuela Prepares to Vote Talli Nauman Fighting La Choya: the Secret Toxic Dump on the Border Alan Gregory Shadow Trout: Why Hatchery Fish Aren't Real Joe Allen RFK and Hollywood Mythmaking: Emilio Estevez's Beatification of Bobby Kennedy St. Clair / D'Antoni Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Davies, Engel, Ford and Orloski Website of the Day Demo for Oaxaca   December 1, 2006 Greg Grandin Midnight in Mexico: Calderón's Inauguration Behind Closed Doors Linn Washington, Jr. The Mumia Case After 25 Years: Still More Keystone Kops Antics George Ciccariello-Maher Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas Brian J. Foley Taking Responsibility for Iraq Dave Zirin Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice Joshua Frank The Montana Formula: Jon Tester's Neopopulism Chris Floyd Hideous Kinky: Thomas Friedman Comes Undone Ingmar Lee Atomic Porker Strikes Indian Point Nuke Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Dark Fire: the Fall of WTC 7 Website of the Day No Gun Ri Revisited Video of the Day Drunken Hack Goes Ape at Aussie "Pulitzers"     Subscribe Online

January 8, 2007 A Status Bloodbath Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film By Dr. SUSAN BLOCK "Capital punishment is the most premeditated of murders, to which no criminal's deed, however calculated, can be compared." Albert Camus, "Reflections on the Guillotine, Resistance, Rebellion and Death" (1966) "Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto the wrath of God: for it is written, Vengeance belongeth unto me; I will recompense, saith the Lord" Romans 12:19 "Cockfighting is a status bloodbath" Anthropologist Erving Goffman So the Cockfight at the Baghdad Corral has climaxed with the Snuff Film of Saddam Hussein. And the important international question of "Who is the bigger dickhead, Bush or Saddam?" has been answered, sort of. Let's examine the contenders. Measuring up first is Saddam the cocky Iraqi, the brutal B-movie schmuck of a dick-tator who conducted mass executions, torture fests and disastrous loser wars while munching Doritos, writing romantic screenplays, erecting giant statues of himself and masturbating to Britney Spears videos. How much more evil and banal can you get? Most of his large-scale evil was committed with full support and often under the instructions of the U.S. government. Eventually, Saddam did have the balls to stand up to his bosses in Washington, and he seemed to have a good time doing it, winning him a few pan-Arabic fans, though it eventually cost him everything. He went limp when it came to defending his government, his country, his family and his life against the Anglo-American invasion of 2003. He was fished out of a hole, forced to open his mouth for an American tongue depressor, pushed and prodded through a kangaroo court, and finally made to bare his neck for the noose. Allahu Akbar! Meanwhile, on the other end of the Baghdad Corral, so far into the Green Zone he's not even in Baghdad, stands the American Presidential dickhead, George W. Bush, also a fan of Britney the Panty-less One (or is she a fan of his?). No stranger to hasty executions, during his six years as governor of Texas, he presided over the implementation of 152 death sentences, more than any other governor in recent American history. No stranger to disastrous loser wars either, this self-appointed "War President" has the cajones to demand more and more of the ultimate "sacrifice" from Americans outside his family circle. Making sure the Bush Family and their cronies don't have to sacrifice a thing is crucial to this American President's mission. The only way in which GW Bush is, perhaps, not a dickhead is his sense of "family values," that is, his Corleone-style devotion to his own family. Here is where the Biblical origins of the Cockfight emerge: Saddam insulted Bush's family, specifically, his Dad. He did this first by sticking his dipstick into the forbidden American oil harem of Kuwait (though some might say Kuwait was "asking for it"). Then, despite being beaten soundly in Gulf War I and heavily sanctioned, he further affronted the Bush Royals by staying in his saddle and continuing to rule Iraq like a king with his long hard scepter, outlasting George I by over a decade. Saddam's final humiliation of the retired American President was his botched but cocky assassination attempt during what was supposed to be a laurel-receiving pleasure trip to Kuwait for the Old Man. Enter the Texecutioner, Bush Senior's Boy George, chomping-at-the-bit, the ultimate presidential prick and birdbrain-chickenhawk, ready and willing to take the Cockfight at the Baghdad Corral to the next level of bloody sadomasochistic foolishness. Dubya's violent taunts incited Saddam's empty boasts which greased the way for the war profiteers and their bombs - American and insurgent - and soon the Cockfight turned into Perma-War. This international dick-waving contest was, in my humble sex therapist's view, at the heart of the reason why Bush toppled Saddam, raped his country, slew his sons and then slaughtered him like a sheep at festival time. After all, what better reason was there? Of course, all of the reasons the Decider gave at the time of the invasion were the kinds of tall tales horny guys tell reluctant girls to get them into bed, except these lies got us into war. First, there was the bogus 9/11 connection, a ham-fisted but effective attempt to channel American lust to avenge the national humiliation that castrated our two architectural big dicks (Dick 1 and Dick 2) into attacking Saddam, even though the bin Ladins were closer to the Bush Family than to the Husseins. Then there was the notion that Saddam was harboring Weapons of Mass Destruction, or perhaps a WMD "program," turning this mushroom dickhead into a "mushroom cloud." Since he had already used poison gas (purchased from West Germany, paid for by America) on Iran and the Kurds, and since he was always hinting that he might use some kind of secret WMD against his neighbors, this fantasy was slightly more plausible. But not really. As I wrote in the summer of 2002, Saddam was clearly the "kind of guy who brags he's got nine inches, then won't let you unzip his pants for fear you'll laugh at his actual four and a half (and he'd have to kill you for that)." As it turned out, Saddam was a bit of a eunuch weapons-wise; that is, he had no WMD at all. When the WMD excuse and the 9/11 connection fell apart, Bush fell back on the Bad Guy reason, i.e., "Saddam is a really Bad Guy, like Hitler, like Attila the Hun, like a really big dickhead, and he tried to kill my dad, so we need to exterminate the mofu, okay?" The Bad Guy reason works well enough, despite the existence of multiple Bad Guys oppressing other countries that we do nothing about. And yes, of course, we invaded Iraq because of the oil, though it's considered rude to say so. It's the Bush Family business, as well as Saddam's business. In terms of the Cockfight, it's the prize. A nice greasy expensive prize makes any cockfight more exciting. And so the cockfight has climaxed with a hanging. One dick dangles from a noose while the other dick explodes with sadistic glee as he and his proxy executioners make a typical mess of things. Not only is Bush II covered with the sticky jism of revenge ecstasy in this faux victory, he's covered in blood. Lots of blood. The hanging of Saddam looks like a lynching party, sounds like a Shi'a-Mafia hit and smells like a sacrifice (there's that creepy word "sacrifice" again). And it's all caught on tape, authorized and unauthorized. The execution, along with the revolution, will be televised. The Snuffing of Saddam, just like all of Bush's War, from the Cockfight at the Baghdad Corral, to the Bukkake Bombing Crusade of Shock & Awe, through the awful Rape of Iraq, on into Bush's POW Porn of Abu Ghraib (and Guantanamo), was a hasty, fumbled, barbaric fiasco. As those of you who know me know, I believe that all executions are wrong. Capital punishment has been shown to be impotent as a deterrent to crime. Indeed, it sets the example that killing is the way to solve problems. One of the first tragedies to come out of the Saddam execution was the hanging death of 10-year-old Sergio Pelico. Little Sergio was found dead Jan. 1, 2007, in his apartment bedroom in Houston, Texas, after watching Saddam's execution on the news. Police and family members said Sergio was apparently mimicking what he saw in Saddam's snuff film (and this was just the authorized version) when he hanged himself from a bunk bed. Some like Maliki (and Bush) would call for censorship of the snuff film. But the problem isn't with the snuff film. The problem is with the killing. Any killing that is not immediate self-defense is murder, and murder is wrong. An enlightened state should not murder its citizens. But the Snuffing of Saddam was a little worse than wrong. It was pathetic. It was an out-of-control, premature ejaculation of an execution, a terrible embarrassment for the American invader/occupiers and the Iraqi judges/executioners. Continuing the "cockfight" metaphor, it was the slaughtering of a chicken in a squawking hen house, except these chicken-killers were having much more fun. "Moqtada! Moqtada!" Also, the chicken was not so chicken. Cocky yet dignified right up until the disturbing finish, despite the taunts of his killers, Saddam kept his cool. Having been dubbed "Saddam's Sex Therapist" by the ranting Taranto of the Wall Street Journal, I must confess I was proud of his bearing. This dick held his head high. He looked slim, even sexy in that aging don sort of way, almost noble. He didn't squawk, cry, spit or sing "Oops!...I Did It Again," though he did question his tormentors' manhood. He also refused to wear the hood, perhaps so we, his snuff film audience (and you know he knew he was being filmed), could see that striking mafioso movie star face, the face he'd had carved into monuments, right through the awful end. At the moment one dickhead was being sacrificed, the other was fast asleep in his warm soft White House bed. Was Bush having wet dreams of Saddam's head, eyes staring into death, lips stretched into a ghoulish grin, bobbing on the hangman's noose? It would not be such an odd dream for this American Executioner who seems to come alive through the sacrificial deaths of others, both enemies and loyal soldiers, smirking uncontrollably as he cradles Saddam's gun in his clammy little hands, telling himself that this triumphal ritual sacrifice, this grand finale on the gallows means he wins the Cockfight, seals the deal that he, George W. Bush, is the biggest dickhead, the strongest evil, the blunderer-without-compare, the executioner of the free world. And yetSaddam might turn out to be the bigger dickhead, after all. Thanks to the snuff film(s), he's being transformed into a martyr. George can't be happy about this... How could this cockfight have gone so crazy? The Washington handlers can't figure it out. Just like all of Bush's Iraqi adventures, this one seemed at first to be an easy fight, the perfect crime. Clearly, Saddam was a Bad Guy, badder than all the penny ante killers and framed losers that George had executed in Texas, and badder than all the hundreds of thousands of other Iraqis the Anglo-American invasion and occupation has killed in this war, the great majority of whom are not bad at all. Saddam was bad. He was a prick. He had a lot of people tortured and killed, even pulled the trigger himself a few times, and seemed to enjoy it. He kept the "nation" we call Iraq together through force and fear. He also tried to keep Iraq together out of love, as evidenced by all the portraits of him looking warm and avuncular. But love didn't work very well, Saddam being more Stalin than Fidel, so it was back to force, fear and other Bad Guy tactics. Saddam also had notoriously bad taste in music, snacks and bathroom fixtures. In a way, he "deserved" to die, at least in the eyes of people who believe in capital punishment. So you'd think that the White House dickhead (well, two dickheads, one of whom is actually named Dick) would get some traction, a little bump in the polls after this grand finale, this glorious slaying of the Evil Saddam in the Cockfight in the Baghdad Corral. They thought they had it timed perfectly, announcing the triumphal death sentence as foreplay to the American erection, er, election. But the voters were collectively unimpressed with the results of George and Dick's Death Fetish Run Amok in Iraq, and voted their party out of power. Then suddenly, quick as a popper exploding on New Year's Eve, Saddam was snuffed. I don't know about you, but I was shocked at the speed of this action. Shouldn't an appeals process take a few months, if not years? Besides, there were other related trials still going on, so why kill one of the main witnesses? Why, indeed. The fact that Saddam witnessed America's intimate involvement in most of his worst war crimes is one of the key reasons he was snuffed so hastily. On New Year's Eve, I got into a polite argument with one of my guests about whether Saddam should have been offed like that. She's not a Bush supporter, but she hated Saddam, was excited by his hanging and wanted to celebrate it. This was just the kind of feeling Bush was hoping to capitalize on. I imagined Bushites around the world clinking flutes of champagne, toasting the New Year and the execution of Hitler-on-the-Eurphrates. What fantastic timing! Or maybe not. The execution "happened" to occur on the first day of the Eid al-Adha, the "Feast of the Sacrifice." Celebrated by Muslims worldwide, this is a major Winter Solstice holiday, a climax of the Hajj that commemorates the willingness of the Prophet Abraham to sacrifice his son Ishmael to God, similar to the old Genesis tale in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. In Islam as in Judaism, God stops Abraham just before he kills his son by giving him a lamb to sacrifice instead. This is a holiday of great forgiveness in the Arab world which even Saddam himself used to celebrate by suspending executions and even releasing some prisoners from his infamous jails. At 6 AM on Eid al-Adha, after being handed over by his American guards to Iraqi President Nuri Kamal al-Maliki's "officials" in leather jackets and ski masks, Saddam was hung by the neck until he died. Execute a man on this Feast of the Sacrifice, and he becomes the sacrificial lamb, the scapegoat, Christ-in-the-gallows dying for the sins of America in the Middle East. The irony is resonating. Despite Saddam's massive efforts to plaster his brutally jovial puss on as many sides of buildings as possible, this dick didn't have a lot of sincere fans in his day. Now he does. First there is the spiritual side: Saddam is a martyr, and his death was an Arab sacrifice. Then there is the rational side: Bad as Saddam was, life in Iraq is now much worse. So Arabs around the world are carrying the Beast of Baghdad's portrait through the streets. Libya is erecting a commemorative statue of Saddam near the site of a monument to Omar al Mukhtar, a Libyan national symbol who resisted the Italian invasion of Libya and was hanged by the Italians in 1931. Even Egypt's "moderate" President Hosni Mubarak told Israel's Yediot Aharanot, "No one will ever forget the way in which Saddam was executedThey turned him into a martyr." Assuming that he is, in fact, dead. Some say the man in the snuff film was actually one of Saddam's famous doubles. I doubt it, though with the wily Saddam, you never know. Wouldn't that be something if the cocky Iraqi turns out to be orchestrating his own martyrdom from some condo on the Côte d'Azur? But let's assume the ghastly head we saw hanging in the gallows was, in fact, the head of former President Saddam Hussein...Ding dong, the dickhead is dead, long live the dickhead! Allahu Akbar and God Bless America. Okay, so now that this cockfight is over, can we go home already? Since there are no WMDs and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11, there was only the issue of "removing the tyrant." Now the tyrant has been 86'ed. So are our troops packing? Hardly. In fact, we're "surging." By continuing the American occupation of Iraq, Bush and his fellow cockfighters reveal, once again, that all their talk about the purpose of the invasion being to "liberate" Saddam's oppressed people is just a load of chickenpoop. The Cockfight at the Baghdad Corral is over, but nobody won, and the Perma-War continues. The corral has morphed into a sacrificial mound. How many more will be sacrificed on the altar of the remaining dickhead's massive ego and family jewels ? Dr. Susan Block is a sex educator, cable TV host and author of The 10 Commandments of Pleasure. Visit her BRAND NEW BLOGGAMY & POST COMMENTS at http://www.drsusanblock.com/blog/blog.asp Send comments to liberties@blockbooks.com.

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