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Today's
Stories
January
24, 2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Empire Turns Its Guns on the Citizenry
Robert Day
Translating Snow
January 23, 2007
Trish Schuh
Lebanon
on the Brink of Civil War, Again
Robert Bryce
The
Politics of Cheap Oil
Stephen Soldz
Aliens in an Alien Land
John Blair
King Coal's Latest Con Job: Clean Coal is Not Clean
Gloria La Riva
Miami: a Place of Refuge for Anti-Castro Terrorists
Joshua Frank
Turning Silence into Gold: Hillary and Israel Lobby
Patrick Cockburn
In Iraq, All Foreigners are Targets
Ralph Nader
Questions for Bush on Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Pelosi and Iraq: Blunder or Treason?
Uri Avnery
Israel and Apartheid
Website of the Day
Down By the River
January
22, 2007
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
China's
New Chip in Space War Poker
Jen Marlowe
Trapped
in Darfur: the Ordeal of Suleiman Jamous
George McGovern
War of the Belligerent Professors: Get Out of Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Only Impeachment Can Save Us from More War
Norman Solomon
The Pentagon vs. Press Freedom
Amira Hass
Life Under Prohibition in Palestine
Mike Whitney
A Fool's Errand in Baghdad
Ramzy Baroud
The Things We Take for Granted
John Walsh
Support Jimmy Carter in Boston!
Website of
the Day
The Hagelian Dialectic
January
20/21 2007
Alexander Cockburn
First
Bomb Carter; Then Nuke Iran!
Gail Dines
I
Was Ambushed by Paula Zahn
Newton Garver
Evo
Morales' First Year
Gilad Atzmon
100
Years of Jewish Solitude
Seth Sandronksy
New
Push For Social Security "Reform"
Raphaelle Bail
Where
Nicaraguans Go to Work
Jim Goodman
Round
Up the Usual Experts: Make Them Live on a Dollar a Day
Larry Portis
Chouraki's
Oh Jerusalem
Website of
the Weekend
Press
Poodles Play it Safe
January
19, 2007
Jonathan Cook
Jimmy
Carter Doesn't Tell the Half of It
Glen Ford
Barack
Obama: The Mania and the Mirage
Dave Lindorff
Bush
Blinks on Illegal Spying - Don't let him off the hook
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part Two
Website of
the Day
For
Whistleblowers
January
18, 2007
William Peace
Protest
From a Bad Cripple
Virginia Tilley
The
Steady March to War on Iran: What It Would Take to Stop It
Michael Donnelly
The
Real Reason I Can't Stand Obama
B.R. Gowani
Democracy:
Everywhere and Nowhere
Larry Portis
Zionism
in the Cinema: Part One
Jason Hribal
A
Horse is Worth More than Riches
Website of
the Day
Baghdad
Clampdown
January 17, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Why
Time is not on Bush's Side
John Ross
Oaxaca's
Rising: Vibrant as the Paint on the Walls
Susan George
Can
World Trade Ever Be Fair? Back to Keynes!
Paul Craig
Roberts
Attacking
Iran: What's In It For Bush
Joshua Frank
Obama
and the Middle East
David Lindorff
Towards
Oil at $200 a Barrel
January 16, 2007
Col. Sam Gardiner
Escalation
Against Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Stimson's
Outrageous Threat
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal in Havana: Part 2
Ron Jacobs
Welcome
Back to 1965
Susan Block
From
Snowjob to Blowjob
Ken Couesbouck
Year
of the Pig
Website of
the Day
Amazon's
Hit on Jimmy Carter
January 15, 2007
Roger Morris
Another
War the Voters Hoped to End
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Must Go
Kathy Kelly
Umm
Heyder's Story
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report
Ralph Nader
The
Class War's New Map
Saul Landau
Gore
Vidal In Havana
January 12
/ 14, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
"21,500
More Troops": Will America Ever Leave Iraq?
David Rosen
Bush's Domestic Sex Policy: the Teen Abstinence-Only Crusade
William S.
Lind
Less Than Zero
Laith al-Saud
The
Ironies of Bush and Iraq
Paul Craig
Roberts
Surge and Mirrors: What Bush Really Said
John Ross
Celebrating the "Sum of the World" in Chiapas
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Case of Venezuela's RCTV: Not About Free Speech
Christopher Brauchli
How to Avoid an IRS Audit: Become a Millionaire!
Robert Buzzanco
Rogue State, Redux
Evelyn Pringle
The Secrets in Eli Lilly's Cabinet
Peter Rost,
MD.
Promises, Promises: Playing Politics with Drug Reimportation
Mike Whitney
Baghdad Crackdown
Yifat Susskind
Beyond the Surge: Demanding an End to Bush's Wars
Saul Cohen
Latin America's Real Mr. Danger: Negroponte's Latest Gig
Missy Beattie
A Day of Action and Questions
Stephen Lendman
Holiday Hypocrisy
Website of
the Weekend
Bruegel on Bush War Plan
January 11,
2007
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The
Profits of Escalation
Paul Craig
Roberts
Carter's Inconvenient Truths
Kathy Kelly
Refugee Dreams
Dave Lindorff
Blood for Face
Jeff Leys
The War Widens
Richard W.
Behan
Barrels and Bodies
Col. Douglas MacGregor
Surging Right Into Al-Sadr's Hands
Website of
the Day
An Explanation from Google
Speech of the Day
Is There Even One Politician Alive Who Could Give This Speech?
January 10, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
Walk in Oaxaca
Robert Fantina
Punishing
Deserters: Prosecution or Persecution?
Patrick Cockburn
Why Troop Escalation Won't Bring Peace to Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
Distracting Congress: Troop Escalation and Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Why U.S. Policy is Failing
Ben Tripp
The Politics of Bad Karma
Evelyn Pringle
How the FDA Protects Big Pharma
Ron Jacobs
Coalition of the Lunatics: Trying to Create the Next World War
Mike Ferner
If Not Now, When?
Dave Zirin
Judgment of the Juiced: Why McGwire Wasn't Elected to the Hall
of Fame
Website of
the Day
Revolting Students!
Bootleg of the Day
Bob
Dylan: Live at Scotia Bank Place
January 9, 2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Somalian Labyrinth
Jonathan Cook
Israel's
Purging of Palestinian Christians
Mike Ely and Linda Flores
The Smithfield Strikers: No Longer
Hidden, No Longer Hiding
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: More Bellicose Than Bush
Norman Solomon
The Headless Horseman of the Apocalypse
Sen. Russell
Feingold
An Open Letter to President Bush: So Now You Want to Snoop Through
Our Mail?
Joe Allen
Justice for the Omaha Two: Black Power, Racism and COINTELPRO
in the Heartland
James T. Phillips
"Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Ch'Intrate": The Hell
That is Iraq
Brian Concannon
Resolutions for Haiti
Leonard Peltier
When the Truth Doesn't Matter: 30 Years of FBI Harassment and
Misconduct
Website of the Day
Kick Out the Jams, MFers!: Meet the New RRC
January 8,
2007
Werther
Why
We Fight
Jeff Leys
The Occupation Project: a Campaign of Civil Disobedience to End
Iraq War Funding
Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking Iran
Shulamit Aloni
Israeli Apartheid: Sorry, This Road is For Jews Only
Dave Lindorff
The Party of Invertebrates Reverts to Form
Sunsara Taylor
The Democrats' First Day: Same As It Ever Was
Seth Sandronsky
Syndicated Error: George Will and the Minimum Wage
Dr. Susan Block
Baghdad Cockfight Ends in Snuff Film
Website of the Day
Watch CounterPuncher Sunsara Taylor Take on Bill O'Reilly!
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
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Just
How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus?
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Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic
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Peter Rost, MD
What Went Wrong at Pfizer?
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My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help!
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Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass
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Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense"
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Norman Solomon
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Mike Whitney
Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change
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Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba
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Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela
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Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates
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Repression on the Menu in Mexico
Walden Bello
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Pfizer's Clueless Executives
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The Withering of the Bush Dynasty
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/ 3, 2006
Weekend Edition
Barucha Calamity
Peller
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Greg Grandin
Midnight
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Linn Washington,
Jr.
The
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Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas
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|
January
24, 2007
Strategic Errors of Monumental Proportions
What
Can Be Done in Iraq?
By Lt. General WILLIAM
E. ODOM (US Army Ret.)
Text of testimony before
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,18 January 2007
Good afternoon, Senator Biden, and members
of the committee. It is a grave responsibility to testify before
you today because the issue, the war in Iraq, is of such monumental
importance.
You have asked me to address
primarily the military aspects of the war. Although I shall
comply, I must emphasize that it makes no sense to separate them
from the political aspects. Military actions are merely the
most extreme form of politics. If politics is the business of
deciding "who gets what, when, how," as Boss Tweed
of Tammany Hall in New York City once said, then the military
aspects of war are the most extreme form of politics. The war
in Iraq will answer that question there.
Strategic
Overview
The role that US military forces
can play in that conflict is seriously limited by all the political
decisions the US government has already taken. The most fundamental
decision was setting as its larger strategic purpose the stabilization
of the region by building a democracy in Iraq and encouraging
its spread. This, of course, was to risk destabilizing the region
by starting a war.
Military operations must be
judged by whether and how they contribute to accomplishing war
aims. No clear view is possible of where we are today and where
we are headed without constant focus on war aims and how they
affect US interests. The interaction of interests, war aims,
and military operations defines the strategic context in which
we find ourselves. We cannot have the slightest understanding
of the likely consequences of proposed changes in our war policy
without relating them to the strategic context. Here are the
four major realities that define that context:
1. Confusion about war aims
and US interests. The president stated three war aims clearly
and repeatedly:
* the destruction of Iraqi
WMD;
* the overthrow of Saddam Hussein; and
* the creation of a liberal democratic Iraq.
The first war aim is moot because
Iraq had no WMD. The second was achieved by late Spring 2003.
Today, people are waking up to what was obvious before the war
-- the third aim has no real prospects of being achieved even
in ten or twenty years, much less in the short time anticipated
by the war planners. Implicit in that aim was the belief that
a pro-American, post-Saddam regime could be established. This
too, it should now be clear, is most unlikely. Finally, is it
in the US interest to have launched a war in pursuit of any of
these aims? And is it in the US interest to continue pursuing
the third? Or is it time to redefine our aims? And, concomitantly,
to redefine what constitutes victory?
2. The war has served primarily
the interests of Iran and al Qaeda, not American interests.
We cannot reverse this outcome
by more use of military force in Iraq. To try to do so would
require siding with Sunni leaders and the Baathist insurgents
against pro-Iranian Shiite groups. The Baathist insurgents constitute
the forces most strongly opposed to Iraqi cooperation with Iran.
At the same time, our democratization policy has installed Shiite
majorities and pro-Iranians groups in power in Baghdad, especially
in the ministries of interior and defense. Moreover, our counterinsurgency
operations are, as unintended (but easily foreseeable) consequences,
first, greater Shiite openness to Iranian influence and second,
al Qaeda's entry into Iraq and rooting itself in some elements
of Iraqi society.
3. On the international level,
the war has effectively paralyzed the United States militarily
and strategically, denying it any prospect of revising its strategy
toward an attainable goal.
As long as US forces remained
engaged Iraq, not only will the military costs go up, but also
the incentives will decline for other states to cooperate with
Washington to find a constructive outcome. This includes not
only countries contiguous to Iraq but also Russia and key American
allies in Europe. In their view, we deserve the pain we are
suffering for our arrogance and unilateralism.
4. Overthrowing the Iraqi regime in 2003 insured that the country
would fragment into at least three groups; Sunnis, Shiites, and
Kurds. In other words, the invasion made it inevitable that
a civil war would be required to create a new central government
able to control all of Iraq. Yet a civil war does not insure
it. No faction may win the struggle. A lengthy stalemate, or
a permanent breakup of the country is possible. The invasion
also insured that outside countries and groups would become involve.
Al Qaeda and Iran are the most conspicuous participants so far,
Turkey and Syria less so. If some of the wealthy oil-producing
countries on the Arabian Peninsula are not already involved,
they are most likely to support with resources any force in Iraq
that opposes Iranian influence.
Many critics argue that, had
the invasion been done "right," such as sending in
much larger forces for re-establishing security and government
services, the war would have been a success. This argument is
not convincing. Such actions might have delayed a civil war but
could not have prevented it. Therefore, any military programs
or operations having the aim of trying to reverse this reality,
insisting that we can now "do it right," need to be
treated with the deepest of suspicion. That includes the proposal
to sponsor the breakup by creating three successor states. To
do so would be to preside over the massive ethnic cleansing operations
required for the successor states to be reasonably stable. Ethnic
cleansing is happening in spite of the US military in Iraq, but
I see no political or moral advantage for the United States to
become its advocate. We are already being blamed as its facilitator.
Let me now turn to key aspects
of the president's revised approach to the war, as well as several
other proposals.
In addition to the president,
a number of people and groups have supported increased US force
levels. As General Colin Powell has said, before we consider
sending additional US troops, we must examine what missions they
will have. I would add that we ask precisely what those troops
must do to reverse any of these four present realities created
by the invasion. I cannot conceive of any achievable missions
they could be given to cause a reversal.
Just for purposes of analysis, let us suppose we had unlimited
numbers of US troops to deploy in Iraq. Would that change my
assessment? In principle, if two or three million troops were
deployed there with the latitude to annihilate all resistance
without much attention to collateral civilian casualties and
human rights, order might well be temporarily reestablished under
a reign of US terror. The problem we would then face is that
we would be opposed not only by 26 million Iraqis but also by
millions of Arabs and Iranians surrounding Iraq, peoples angered
by our treatment of Muslims and Arabs. These outsiders are already
involved to some degree in the internal war in Iraq, and any
increase of US forces is likely to be exceeded by additional
outside support for insurgents.
I never cease to be amazed
at our military commanders' apparent belief that the "order
of battle" of the opposition forces they face are limited
to Iraq. I say "apparent" because those commanders
may be constrained by the administration's policies from correcting
this mistaken view. Once the invasion began, Muslims in general
and Arabs in particular could be expected to take sides against
the United States. In other words, we went to war not just against
the Iraqi forces and insurgent groups but also against a large
part of the Arab world, scores and scores of millions. Most
Arab governments, of course, are neutral or somewhat supportive,
but their publics in growing numbers are against us.
It is a strategic error of
monumental proportions to view the war as confined to Iraq.
Yet this is the implicit assumption on which the president's
new strategy is based. We have turned it into two wars that
vastly exceed the borders of Iraq. First, there is the war against
the US occupation that draws both sympathy and material support
from other Arab countries. Second, there is the Shiite-Sunni
war, a sectarian conflict heretofore sublimated within the Arab
world but that now has opened the door to Iranian influence in
Iraq. In turn, it foreordains an expanding Iranian-Arab regional
conflict.
Any military proposals today
that do not account for both larger wars, as well as the Iranian
threat to the Arab states on the Persian Gulf, must be judged
wholly inadequate if not counterproductive. Let me now turn
to some specific proposals, those advocated by independent voices
and the Iraq Study Group as well as the administration.
Specific
Proposals
Standing up Iraqi security
forces to replace US forces. Training the Iraqi military and
police force has been proposed repeatedly as a way to bring stability
to Iraq and allow US forces to withdraw. Recently, new variants,
such as embedding US troops within Iraqi units, have been offered.
The Iraq Study Group made much of this technique.
I know of no historical precedent
to suggest that any of them will succeed. The problem is not
the competency of Iraqi forces. It is political consolidation
and gaining the troops' loyalties to the government and their
commanders as opposed to their loyalties to sectarian leaders,
clans, families, and relatives. For what political authority
are Iraqi soldiers and police willing to risk their lives? To
the American command? What if American forces depart? Won't
they be called traitors for supporting the invaders and occupiers?
Will they trust in a Shiite-dominated government and ministry
of interior, which is engaged in assassinations of Sunnis? Sunni
Arabs and Kurds would be foolish to do so, although financial
desperation has driven many to risk it. What about to the leaders
of independent militias? Here soldiers can find strong reasons
for loyal service: to defend their fellow sectarians, families,
and relatives. And that is why the government cannot disband
them. It has insufficient loyal troops to do so.
As a military planner working
on the pacification programs in 1970-71 in Vietnam, I had the
chance to judge the results of training both regular South Vietnamese
forces and so-called "regional" and "popular"
forces. Some were technically proficient, but that did not ensure
that they would always fight for the government in Saigon. Nor
were they always loyal to their commanders. And they occasionally
fought each other when bribed by Viet Cong agents to do so.
The "popular forces" at the village level often failed
to protect their villages. The reasons varied, but in several
cases it was the result of how their salaries were funded. Local
tax money was not the source of their pay; rather it was US-supplied
funds. Thus these troops, as well as "regional forces,"
had little sense of obligation to protect villagers in their
areas of responsibility. For anyone who doubts that the Vietnam
case is instructive for understanding the Iraqi case, I recommend
Ahmed S. Hashim's recent book, Insurgency and Counterinsurgency
in Iraq. A fluent Arab linguist and a reserve US Army colonel,
who has served a year in Iraq and visited it several other times,
Hashim offers a textured study that struck me again and again
as a re-run of an old movie, especially where it concerned US
training of Iraqi forces.
US military assistance training
in El Salvador is often cited as a successful case. In fact,
this effort amounted to letting the old elites, who used death
squads to impose order, come back to power in different guises.
And death squads are again active there. The real cause of the
defeat of the Salvadoran insurgency was Gorbachev's decision
to cut off supplies to it, as he promised President George H.
Bush at the Malta summit meeting. Thus denied their resource
base, and having failed to create a self-supporting tax regime
in the countryside as the Viet Cong did in Vietnam, they could
not survive for long. Does the administration's new plan for
Iraq promise to eliminate all outside support to the warring
factions? Is it even remotely possible? Hardly.
The oft-cited British success
in Malaysia is only superficially relevant to the Iraq case.
British officials actually ruled the country. Thus they had
decades of firsthand knowledge of the local politics. They made
such a mess of it, however, that an insurgency emerged in opposition.
A new military commander and a clean-up of the colonial administration
provided political consolidation and the isolation of the communist
insurgents, mostly members of an ethnic minority group. This
pattern would be impossible to duplicate in Iraq.
An infusion of new funds for
reconstruction. A shortage of funds has not been the cause of
failed reconstruction efforts in Iraq. Administrative capacity
to use funds effectively was and remains the primary obstacle.
Even support programs carried out by American contractors for
US forces have yielded mixed results. Insurgent attacks on the
projects have provoked transfers of construction funds to security
measures, which have also failed.
A weak or non-existent government
administrative capacity allows most of the money to be squandered.
Putting another billion or so dollars into public works in Iraq
today before a government is in place with an effective
administrative capacity to penetrate to the neighborhood and
village level is like trying to build a roof on a house
before its walls have been erected. Moreover, a large part of
that money will find its way into the hands of insurgents and
sectarian militias. That is exactly what happened in Vietnam,
and it has been happening in Iraq.
New and innovative counterinsurgency
tactics. The cottage industry of counterinsurgency tactics is
old and deceptive. When the US military has been periodically
tasked to reinvent them the last great surge in that industry
was at the JFK School in Fort Bragg in the 1960's it has
no choice but to pretend that counterinsurgency tactics can succeed
where no political consolidation in the government has yet been
achieved. New counterinsurgency tactics cannot save Iraq today
because they are designed without account for the essence of
any "internal war," whether an insurgency or a civil
war.
Such wars are about "who
will rule," and who will rule depends on "who can tax"
and build an effective state apparatus down to the village level.
The taxation issue is not even
on the agenda of US programs for Iraq. Nor was it a central focus
in Vietnam, El Salvador, the Philippines, and most other cases
of US-backed governments embroiled in internal wars. Where US
funding has been amply provided to those governments, the recipient
regime has treated those monies as its tax base while failing
to create an indigenous tax base. In my own study of three counterinsurgency
cases, and from my experience in Vietnam, I discovered that the
regimes that received the least US direct fiscal support had
the most success against the insurgents. Providing funding and
forces to give an embattled regime more "time" to gain
adequate strength is like asking a drunk to drink more whiskey
in order to sober up.
Saddam's regime lived mostly
on revenues from oil exports. Thus it never had to create an
effective apparatus to collect direct taxes. Were US forces and
counterinsurgency efforts to succeed in imposing order for a
time, the issue of who will control the oil in Iraq would become
the focus of conflict for competing factions. The time would
not be spent creating the administrative capacity to keep order
and to collect sufficient taxes to administer the country. At
best, the war over who will eventually rule country would only
be postponed.
This is the crux of the dilemma
facing all such internal wars. I make this assertion not only
based on my own study, but also in light of considerable literature
that demonstrates that the single best index of the strength
of any state is its ability to collect direct taxes, not export-import
tax or indirect taxes. The latter two are relatively easy to
collect by comparison, requiring much weaker state institutions.
The Iraq Study Group. The
report of this group should not be taken as offering a new or
promising strategy for dealing with Iraq. Its virtue lies in
its candid assessment of the realities in Iraq. Its great service
has been to undercut the misleading assessments, claims, and
judgment by the administration. It allows the several skeptical
Republican members of the Congress to speak out more candidly
on the war, and it makes it less easy for those Democrats who
were heretofore supporters of the administration's war to refuse
to reconsider.
If one reads the ISG report
in light of the four points in the strategic overview above,
one sees the key weakness of its proposals. It does not concede
that the war, as it was conceived and continues to be fought,
is not "winnable." It rejects the rapid withdrawal
of US forces as unacceptable. No doubt a withdrawal will leave
a terrible aftermath in Iraq, but we cannot avoid that. We can
only make it worse by waiting until we are forced to withdraw.
In the meantime, we prevent ourselves from escaping the paralysis
imposed on us by the war, unable to redefine our war aims, which
have served Iranian and al Qaeda interests instead of our own.
I do not criticize the report
for this failure. As constructed, the group could not advance
a fundamental revision of our strategy. Its Republican and Democrat
members could not be said to represent all members of their own
parties. Thus the most it could do was to make it politically
easier for the administration to begin a fundamental revision
of its strategy instead of offering a list of tactical changes
for the same old war aim of creating a liberal democracy with
a pro-American orientation in Iraq.
What Would
a Revised Strategy Look Like?
How can the United States recover
from this strategic blunder?
It cannot as long as fails
to revise its war aims. Wise leaders in war have many times
admitted that their war aims are misguided and then revised them
to deal with realities beyond their control. Such leaders make
tactical withdrawals, regroup, and revise their aims, and design
new strategies to pursue them. Those who cannot make such adjustments
eventually face defeat.
What war aim today is genuinely
in the US interest and offers realistic prospects of success?
And not just in Iraq but in the larger region?
Since the 1950's, the US aim
in this region has been "regional stability" above
all others. The strategy for achieving this aim of every administration
until the present one has been maintaining a regional balance
of power among three regional forces Arabs, Israelis, and
Iranians. The Arab-Persian conflict is older than the Arab-Israeli
conflict. The United States kept a diplomatic foothold in all
three camps until the fall of the shah's regime in Iran. Losing
its footing in Tehran, it began under President Carter's leadership
to compensate by building what he called the Persian Gulf Security
Framework. The US Central Command with enhanced military power
was born as one of the main means for this purpose, but the long-term
goal was a rapprochement. Until that time, the military costs
for maintaining the regional power balance would be much higher.
The Reagan Administration,
although it condemned Carter's Persian Gulf Security Framework,
the so-called "Carter Doctrine," continued Carter's
policies, even to the point of supporting Iraq when Iran was
close to overrunning it. Some of its efforts to improve relations
with Iran were feckless and counterproductive, but it maintained
the proper strategic aim regional stability.
The Bush Administration has
broken with this strategy by invading Iraq and also by threatening
the existence of the regime in Iran. It presumed that establishing
a liberal democracy in Iraq would lead to regional stability.
In fact, the policy of spreading democracy by forces of arms
has become the main source of regional instability.
This not only postponed any near-term chance of better relations
with Iran, but also has moved the United States closer to losing
its footing in the Arab camp as well. That, of course, increases
greatly the threats to Israel's security, the very thing it was
supposed to improve, not to mention that it makes the military
costs rise dramatically, exceeding what we can prudently bear,
especially without the support of our European allies and others.
Several critics of the administration
show an appreciation of the requirement to regain our allies
and others' support, but they do not recognize that withdrawal
of US forces from Iraq is the sine qua non for achieving their
cooperation. It will be forthcoming once that withdrawal begins
and looks irreversible. They will then realize that they can
no longer sit on the sidelines. The aftermath will be worse
for them than for the United States, and they know that without
US participation and leadership, they alone cannot restore regional
stability. Until we understand this critical point, we cannot
design a strategy that can achieve what we can legitimately call
a victory.
Any new strategy that does
realistically promise to achieve regional stability at a cost
we can prudently bear, and does not regain the confidence and
support of our allies, is doomed to failure. To date, I have
seen no awareness that any political leader in this country has
gone beyond tactical proposals to offer a different strategic
approach to limiting the damage in a war that is turning out
to be the greatest strategic disaster in our history.
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