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"
|
January
8, 2007
Parable
of the Self-Licking Ice Cream Cone
Why We Fight
By WERTHER
"War is a racket. It always
has been.
"It is possibly the oldest,
easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the
only one international in scope. It is the only one in which
the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives."
General Smedley Butler (1935)
As is our habit, we are wont to read
The Washington Post, bulletin board of the Beltway illuminati,
in Pravda fashion, from back to front, concentrating on
subject matter mentioned three quarters of the way through the
article. Let us take the Wednesday, 27 December edition of the
Meyer-Graham newsletter as an example.
We learn, surprisingly on the
front page, that Ethiopia has stepped up attacks on Somalia.
Only on the jump page, however, towards the end of the 1,100-word
article, does one uncover the Hitchcockian McGuffin:
" . . . U.S. policy in
Somalia has been widely criticized for having the opposite of
its intended effect, often encouraging the expansion of the [Islamic]
Courts movement. This year, the United States supported warlords
who called themselves an "anti-terrorism" coalition.
The warlords generally bribed [sic. This must be a misstatement
intended to mean "sought extortion payments from"]
and terrorized ordinary Somalis, who came to despise them. The
Islamic Courts came to power as an alternative to the hated warlords,
establishing order based on Islamic law village by village and
earning widespread support from beleaguered Somalis tired of
15 years of near-anarchy."
So, as the war on terror[ism]
spreads through the Horn of Africa with its attendant misery,
it just so happens that the United States government helped to
fuel it. In its broad outlines, this is just how a $3.5-billion
covert operation in Afghanistan two decades ago helped bring
us a hole in Lower Manhattan. Or how our covert assistance to
a Mesopotamian up-and-comer named Saddam Hussein led, like some
Sophoclean tragedy [2], to the current "grave and deteriorating"
circumstances in Iraq.
How is it that so many wars
have an act of U.S. complicity in their origin? Is it merely
the law of unintended consequences, or is there another logic
at work? Perhaps the crucial mechanism in Mogadishu, and Kabul,
and Baghdad is best described by that hoary Pentagon slang phrase,
"the self-licking ice cream cone." [3]
The axiom of the self-licking
ice cream cone has many applications, not only in the ignition
of wars, but in their conduct. Again, the Post provides
a kind of Delphic clue about this mechanism. The 26 December
edition has a fascinating piece buried on page 19: "Old
Iraq Strategy Lives On in Weekly Progress Reports." [4]
The writer, Glenn Kessler, pokes a bit of fun at a series of
weekly reports promulgated by the State Department to measure
alleged "progress" in Iraq; indeed, this is the gravamen
of the piece: how upbeat the reports can be despite a manifestly
failed policy.
But again, as with the Somalia
story, the lede is buried. Well into the piece, Kessler informs
us that the weekly Iraq reports are produced by the consulting
firm BearingPoint. But that is not the end of the story:
"The BearingPoint employees,
who work out of offices in the State Department, arrange the
meetings, set the agendas, take notes and provide summaries of
the discussions, the official said. They also maintain the Web
site of the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad."
As any veteran of bureaucratic
wars surely knows, whoever arranges meetings, sets agendas, and
takes the official notes determines the policy, regardless of
who is nominally in charge. But who is BearingPoint, and what
interest do they have in Iraq? The media watchdog Sourcewatch.org
provides the following:
In July of 2003, BearingPoint
was awarded a contract by USAID worth $79.5 million to facilitate
Iraq's economic recovery with a two-year option worth a total
of $240,162,688. Responsibilities in this contract include:
1. Creating Iraq's budget.
2. Writing business law.
3. Setting up tax collection.
4. Laying out trade and customs
rules.
5. Privatize state-owned enterprises
by auctioning them off or issuing Iraqis shares in the enterprises.
6. Reopen banks and jump-start
the private sector by making small loans of $100 to $10,000.
7. Wean Iraqis from the U.N.
oil-for-food program, the main source of food for 60% of the
population.
8. Issue a new currency and
set exchange rates.
One is surprised that BearingPoint
is not charged with rewriting Iraq's national anthem and choosing
the members of its Olympic team. But, again, who is BearingPoint?
That is hardly a name that rolls off the tongue like Microsoft,
or Morgan Guaranty Trust.
According to another watchdog,
Publicintegrity.org, BearingPoint has an interesting history:
"BearingPoint traces its
corporate lineage back over 100 years. In October 2002, KPMG
Consulting Inc. changed its name to BearingPoint Inc. KPMG Consulting
was formed in 1997 as the consulting division of accounting firm
KPMG LLP. An initial public offering on Feb. 8, 2001, marked
the official separation of KPMG Consulting from KPMG LLP. BearingPoint
was the first of the Big Five consulting firms to separate from
its audit and tax parent and become an independent, publicly
traded company. The crisis that engulfed the accounting profession
in the wake of the Enron/Arthur Andersen scandal later that year
hastened the company's decision to change its name in 2002. .
. . BearingPoint underwent a dramatic expansion by acquiring
most of Arthur Andersen's worldwide consulting operations."
Bingo. The firm responsible
for the corrupt accounting that papered over the Enron scandal,
the greatest corporate failure in U.S. history, lives on, assimilated
by BearingPoint. And it steers U.S. policy on Iraq as the government
blindly lurches towards escalation, a policy ostensibly supported
by only 11 percent of the U.S. population. [5]
One notes, however, that despite
the manifest lack of popular support, the vast flügelhorn
of the corporate media continues to sound the strains of the
Escalation Waltz. Based on an informal and unscientific survey,
we would estimate roughly 60-70 percent of the talking heads
on the telescreen are in favor of, metaphorically speaking, feeding
more cannon fodder into the Stalingrad pocket. More irritating
still is the Zelig-like ubiquity of the truly scary John McCain.
And above it all, on his alabaster
throne, sits the President, our Supreme Warlord. While even such
a scalawag as Lyndon Johnson knew that an unpopular war is a
losing hand for a politician to draw, President Bush seems unperturbed
by it all. Many columnists have attributed his attitude to intellectual
deficiencies, or irrational stubbornness, or megalomania. But
if Bush possessed the IQ of Descartes and the wisdom of Aquinas,
he could hardly act otherwise.
As a Texas plutocrat marinated
in petroleum, Bush is merely acting out his destiny, and that
of his class. Should the reader need reminding, one can always
turn to the more iconoclastic foreign press. While the great
American dailies are debating whether "we" need 20,000
additional troops or 40,000, or are limning the Napoleonic qualities
of the new Iraq commander, General David Petraeus, the London
Independent reveals the following:
"Iraq's massive oil reserves,
the third-largest in the world, are about to be thrown open for
large-scale exploitation by Western oil companies under a controversial
law which is expected to come before the Iraqi parliament within
days.
"The US government has
been involved in drawing up the law, a draft of which has been
seen by The Independent on Sunday. It would give big oil companies
such as BP, Shell and Exxon 30-year contracts to extract Iraqi
crude and allow the first large-scale operation of foreign oil
interests in the country since the industry was nationalised
in 1972." [6]
Was Auschwitz a German government-run
death camp? Or was it just one of I.G. Farben's synthetic rubber
factories, subject to a high employee turnover? One may also
ask whether Iraq is the central front of the war on terrorism,
or merely a profit center for corporations like BearingPoint
and Exxon-Mobil.
Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based
defense analyst.
Notes
[1] "Ethiopians
Closing In On Capital of Somalia," The Washington
Post, 27 Dec. 2006.
[2] This is no allusional flight
of fancy. The saga of Poppy, Bar, and Dubya has always contained
a heavy overlay of Oedipal melodrama. Saddam may usefully stand
in as the Sphinx, a demon of destruction and bad luck, according
to Hesiod.
[3] "Self-licking ice
cream cone" is the descriptor for a self-fulfilling prophecy
as described by the 20th century sociologist Robert K. Merton:
"The self-fulfilling prophecy is, in the beginning, a false
definition of the situation evoking a new behavior which makes
the original false conception come true."
[4] "Old
Iraq Strategy Lives On In Weekly Progress Reports,"
The Washington Post, 26 Dec. 2006.
[5] The CNN poll which found
this level of support, if accurate, is astounding. Eleven percent
of a random sample can probably be found to be in favor of necromancy.
Much higher percentages "believe in" flying saucers.
[6] "How
the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches,"
Independent [UK], 7 Jan. 2007.
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