Today's
Stories
October 7 /
8, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
Wargasms
and Orgasms
October 6, 2006
Alison Weir
Just
Another Mother Murdered
Tiffany Ten
Eyck / Mark Brenner
Made
in (DeUnionized) America
Corporate Crime Reporter
Look Who's Behind "37 Reasons" to Vote for Big Business:
Former Clinton PR Flak Mike McCurry
Juan Antonio
Montecino
Cleaving a False Divide in Latin America
Walden Bello
A Siamese Tragedy
Christopher
Brauchli
Rank Invitations: Dining with Bush
Brynne Keith-Jennings
Dan Burton in Nicaragua: the Congressman, His Stick and the Elections
Jonathan Cook
The Struggle for Palestine's Soul
Website of the Day
Fighting Hog Farms and Clearcuts in the Heartland
October 5, 2006
John Walsh
Turn
the Page
Carol Norris
The
Radical Right, the Myth of the Gay Child Abuser and You: a Psychotherapist
on the Hysteria Over Foley
Paul Craig Roberts
Will November Bring Hope or Another Stolen Election?
Ricardo Alarcón
The
Truth About the Embargo of Cuba
James Abourezk
Waterboarding the Constitution: After Torture, What's Next?
Nicola Nasser
Removing Hamas: Brinksmanship or Coup d'Etat?
Kirkpatrick Sale
Breaking Away: the First North American Secessionist Conference
Uri Avnery
Peace
with Syria: Lunch in Damascus
Website of the Day
More Naughty GOP Messages
October 4, 2006
Elizabeth Terzakis
The
Walls That Racism Built: Blood Revenge, the Death Penalty and
Kevin Cooper
Paul Wolf
The
Mushy Rebellion: Pakistan Under Musharraf
Sean Penn
The
Arrogant, the Misguided and the Cowards
Dave Lindorff
Outrage as Misdirection: The Real Scandal isn't Foley
Diane Farsetta
For Sale: Iraqi Kurdistan
Sharon Smith
Democrats:
Yes to War, No to Pedophilia
Felice Pace
Revoking 1776
Sara Roy
The Economy of Gaza
Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn: the Video Interview (Part Two)
October 3, 2006
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Compassionate
Conservative Pedophiles
Greg Moses
The Infallible Empire: Junking Habeas Corpus
Stan Cox
Real Bad ID: a National Driver's License and the Fading Right
of Anonymity
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How Empires Die
Evelyn Pringle
Big Pharma Takes a Hit: Alaska's Supreme Court Outlaws Forced
Drugging
Fred Wilhelms
SoundExchange and Unpaid Music Artists: Help Us Find These Musicians
and Get Them Paid!
Michael Abelman
Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food: the Risks of Convenience and
Consolidation
Gary Leupp
The Foley Follies
Website of the Day
Bush and Blair: Endless Love
October 2,
2006
Eric Hazan
Roadmap
to Nowhere: an Interview with Tanya Reinhart on Israel/Palestine
Since 2003
Mike Whitney
Bloodbath on 60 Minutes: Court
Stenographer Finally Comes Clean
Norman Solomon
American Narcissism and Iraq
Assaf Kfoury
Meeting Nasrallah
Missy Beattie
The Meaning of "ummmm": Speaker Hasert and the Over-Friendly
Congressman
Arthur Neslen
Lie Less in Gaza
Paula J. Caplan
How
the Supreme Court Mangled My Research
Website of the Day
Predator Drones Target Bechtel
Sept. 30 /
0ct. 1, 2006
Weekend Edition
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
New Face of Class War
Marjorie Cohn
Rounding Up US Citizens: a Consitutional Shredding
Ben Tripp
Deviant Conservative Males: an Analysis
Ron Jacobs
A Dismal and Chaotic Place: Iraq According to Patrick Cockburn
Ralph Nader
Torturer-in-Chief
Mike Whitney
Iraq: The Breaking Point
Christopher Reed
It Pays to Raise a Ruckus
Seth Sandronsky
The Housing Bust: Excess Investment and Its Discontents
Fred Gardner
The Chancellor's Wife
Mokhiber /
Weissman
Hewlett Packard and the Erosion of Privacy
Michael Dickinson
My Escape Attempt from Prison Transfer: Extract from a Diary
in Turkish Police Custody
Alan Gregory
Fake Green: Top 10 Ways Politicians Pretend to be Environmentalists
Poets' Basement
Gardner, Landau, Lindorff, Davies,& Buknatski
September 29,
2006
Bruce Jackson
Chavez's
Reading, Bush's Reading
Michael J.
Smith
The
Lobby Debate Does Manhattan
Emira Woods
Oil Trip: Record Profits for Exxon, Deprivation for Africa
William S.
Lind
The Sanctuary Illusion: Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iraq as Theme
Parks for 4GW
David Swanson
Mommy, What's Waterboarding?
Jonathan Cook
Bad
Faith and the Destruction of Palestine
Website of the Day
Jesus: the Recruitment Tapes
September 28, 2006
Sen. Russ Feingold
The
Flaws in the Military Commissions Act
Ron Jacobs
The
Generals, the Democrats and Iraq: One Policy, Two Parties
Mokhiber /
Weissman
Scenes from Laura's Book Festival: Elmo Will Not Save You
Lee Sustar
A Left Challenge to Lula
Robert Jensen
Finding My Way Back to Church--and Getting Kicked Out
John Chuckman
America Has Just Lost Two More Wars
Evelyn Pringle
Inside America's Nursing Homes: a Hidden Tragedy of Neglect and
Abuse
Nicola Nasser
Bush and Islam: Words vs. Deeds
Uri Avnery
Political
Corruption in Israel
Website of the Day
Art Against the Empire
September 27, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
A
Final Explosion Looms in Mosul
Camilo Mejia
Blowback From Iraq: Giving Terrorism a Reason to Exist
Pat Williams
Tax Burdens and Cheaters in the Rockies: Send Those IRS Mercenaries
in Search of Montana's Land Barons and Oil Drillers
Ben Terrall
Failing Haiti: Another Bungled UN Mission
Ridgeway /
Ng
Paul Weyrich Explaines His Opposition to the Patriot Act: a Short
Film
Joe Allen
Where are the Mass Protests?
Andrew Wimmer
Don't Disappear Into a Black Hole
Franklin C. Spinney
Rumsfeld's AutoCarterization: Skullduggery in the Pentagon's
Budget
Website of
the Day
Model Nukes: the Photo Contest
September 26, 2006
Hani Shukrallah
The
American Mind: When Historical Analysis is Reduced to Whim
William Blum
If It's Election Season, It Must Be Time for a Terror Alert
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Torturing the Obvious
Barbara Becnel
Witness to an Execution: a Slow and Very Painful Death
Paul Rockwell
Judicial Complicity in US War Crimes: the Watada Case
Dave Lindorff
Bush and Iran: Going to War to Save His Own Ass?
Rich Gibson
Lessons from the Detroit Teachers' Strike
Anthony Papa
The Danger of Meth Registries: "Have a Cold? Prove It, Then
Sign Here"
Nate Mezmer
New Orleans is Back ... Without Blacks: Monday Night Football
at the Superdome
Uri Avnery
Mohammed's
Sword
Website of the Day
Only YOU Can Stop the Sale of Public Lands to Mining, Timber
and Real Estate Corporations
September 25, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
The
Most Dangerous Place in the World: a Journey to Iraq's "Taliban
Republic"
Jonathan Cook
Human Rights Watch: Still Missing the Point on Lebanon
Joshua Frank
Did
Maria Cantwell's Campaign Try to Buy Off Aaron Dixon?
Paul Craig
Roberts
Is
the Bush Administration Itching to Nuke Iran?
Robert Jensen
Defending Chavez on FoxNews
Dave Lindorff
Horowitz on Campus: This Mouth for Hire
Norman Solomon
Media Tall Tales for Next War
Dr. Charles
Jonkel
Save a Grizzly, Visit a Library: "People like the Croc Hunter
are Worse Than the Most Bloodthirsty Slob Hunter
Michael Dickinson
"The King's New Clothes:" a Play Written in a Turkish
Jail
Alexander Cockburn
Flying
Saucers and the Decline of the Left
Website of
the Day
Great Bear Foundation
September 23
/ 24, 2006
Weekend Edition
Jonathan Cook
How
Israel is Engineering the "Clash of Civilizations"
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Star Wars Goes Online ... Crashes
Dr. Anon
A Doctor's Life in Baghdad
Tom Barry
Oil and Political Opportunism
Carl G. Estabrook
The Darfur Smokescreen
Laura Carlsen
Mexico's Two Presidents
Todd Chretien
The Axis of Lesser Evilism
Dr. Charles
Jonkel
From Grizzly Man to the Croc Hunter: the Global Media and the
Death of Bears
Debbie Nathan
I Was Disappeared By Salon
Fred Gardner
Dustin Costa Struggles Against Invisibility
Fred Wilhelms
The Money Belongs to the Artists Who Created the Music
Seth Sandronsky
The Cruel Economics of Health Care in America
Ralph Nader
Mavericks at Work
Rev. William
Alberts
"Specks" and "Logs" and 9/11
Jon Van Camp
Who is Hezbollah?
Heather Gray
Conservatives and Technology
David Vest
Jerry Lightfoot, RIP
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listenting to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau / Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Meet
Me In The Morning: C. Wonderland & J. Lightfoot
Video of the Weekend
Is It a Bird? A Missile? Or, Just Perhaps, a Friggin' Plane?
September 22,
2006
Patrick Cockburn
Republic
of Fear: Torture in Bush's Iraq, Worse Than Under Saddam
Michael Donnelly
It's
the Manipulated Economy, Stupid!
Ramzy Baroud
The Next Palestinian Struggle
Evo Morales
"We Need Partners, Not Bosses": Address to the United
Nations
Stanley Howard
Torture and Justice in Chicago
Sarah Leah
Whitson
Hezbollah's Rockets and Civilian Casualties: a Reply to Jonathan
Cook
JoAnn Wypijewski
Conservations
at Ground Zero
Website of the Day
Cockburn in Atlanta: the Video Interview
September 21, 2006
Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad
"No
Nation Should Have Superiority Over Others:" UN Address
Justin E. H.
Smith
Ending
the Death Penalty: Outline of an Abolitionist Program
Rick Kuhn
Australian Government Steps Up Attacks on Muslims: "I Certainly
Don't Want That Type of People in Australia"
Mike Roselle
Ed
Wiley's Long March: the Elementary School vs. the Strip Mine
Amira Hass
In the Name of Security: What Israeli Police Files Reveal About
the Occupation of Palestine
Deborah Rich
From the Kitchen of Dr. Frankenstein: the Consumption of Gene-Engineeered
Foods
Mickey Z.
10 Reasons Cars Suck
Saul Landau
Terrorism at Sheridan Circle
Website of
the Day
Stop
the Decapitation of Mountains!
September 20, 2006
Sharon Smith
Elections, Detentions and Deportations
Christopher
Reed
Goodbye
Koizumi, Hello Abe
John Ross
Mexico:
Does AMLO Have a Future?
Joshua Frank
A Wasted Campaign: How Jonathan Tasini Helped Hillary Clinton
and Distracted the Antiwar Movement
Arthur Neslen
The Clenched Fist of the Phoenix: What Made Israel Burn Lebanon,
Again?
Norman Solomon
The Hollow Promise of Digital Technology
Michael Carmichael
The Vatican's Tyrant
Evelyn Pringle
The Merck Vioxx Litigation: a Scorecard
Hugo Chavez
Rise Up Against the Empire: Address to the United Nations
Website of the Day
Before You
Enlist: Watch This Video!
September 19, 2006
Patrick Cockburn
Deadly
Harvest: Lebanese Fields Sown with Israeli Cluster Bombs
Jeff Leys
Economic
Warfare: Iraq and the IMF
Brian M. Downing
War,
Taxes and Democracy
Col. Dan Smith
Dispelling
Brutality
Liaquat Ali
Khan
Presidential Incitements: Did Bush's Speech Violate Geneva Conventions
on Genocide?
Ron Jacobs
Just Sign on the Dotted Line: Iraqi Oil and Production Sharing
Agreements
Nik Barry-Shaw
/ Yves Engler
Canada in Haiti: Torture, Murder and Complicity
Lucinda Marshall
Air Paranoia: the Great Toothpaste and Hair Gel Scare
Saul Landau
The Pinochet Syndicate
Photo of the Day
Hold That Bridge!
Website of
the Day
Scenarios for an Iranian War
September 18, 2006
Carl Boggs
Crimes of Empire
Uri Avnery
Peace
Panic
Mike Stark / Jim Bullington
Ann Richards, the Original Texacutioner
Joshua Frank
Corporate E. Coli
John Murphy
The Price of Free Speech
Ramzy Baroud
Murdoch Almighty
Dave Lindorff
On Constitution Day
Bill Quigley
Showing Conviction at Echo 9
Website of the Day
Tutorial: How to Hack a Diebold Voting Machine
September 16 / 17, 2006
Weekend Edition
Tariq Ali
A
Bavarian Provocation
Eliza Ernshire
Death
and Tears in Nablus
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part 7): To Tilted Park
Mairead Corrigan Maguire
A Nobel Laureate Visits with Israeli
Nuclear Whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu
Brian Cloughley
"Let Them Drink Coke!": Losing Hearts and Minds in
Afghanistan
Ben Tripp
November Prognostication: Republicans Sweep!
Laura Carlsen
Bush and Latin America: War on Terrorism or Fight for Social
Justice
Ralph Nader
Terror on the Road
Ron Jacobs
Shooting Sgrena
John Chuckman
Imperial Entropy
Robert Fisk
The American Military's Cult of Cruelty
Gary Leupp
The Pope's New Crusade: Defender of the West, Scourge of Islam
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The Pretexter in Chief: Learning About Bush from Hewlett-Packard
Missy Comley Beattie
The Insecurity of Immorality
Adrienne Johnstone
Deporting Widows: the Nightmare of a Kenyan Immigrant
Mickey Z.
Why I Hate America
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Orloski, Engel, Louise and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Still
Life with Killpecker
September 15, 2006
Diana Johnstone
In
Defense of Conspiracy: 9/11, in Theory and in Fact
Diane Christian
On
Retaliation
William S. Lind
General Puffery: When the Military Brass Deceives
Lee Sustar
Bosses Take Aim at Undocument Workers
Dave Lindorff
Retroactive Immunity for Bush?
Ramzy Baroud
Presidential PR: Lost in the Bush Spin Cycle
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Cesspool
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Glow,
River, Glow: Radioactive Leaks and Plumbers at Hanford
Website of the Day
F-22: The Most Expensive Piece of Junk Ever Built?
September 14, 2006
Franklin Lamb
Israel's
Use of American Cluster Bombs: a Walk Through the Rubble
Tim Wilkinson
Alan Dershowitz's Sinister Scheme
Dick J. Reavis
Mexico's
Time of Troubles: Who Benefits?
Sam Husseini
9/11 Five Years Later: a Conspiracy to Silence
Doug Giebel
Democracies of Death: Why John Adams Wouldn't Recognize His Own
Country
Bill Berkowitz
The Messaging Strategy of the Iraq War
Diane Farsetta
What Media Democracy Looks Like
Mary Turck
Targeting Refugees and Human Rights Workers in Colombia
Patrick Cockburn
Amnesty Intl Accuses Hizbollah of War Crimes, But Katyusha Damage
"Much Less" Than Israel Claimed
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Ah,
Do You Know What It Means to Miss New Orleans?
Website of
the Day
The Shocking Truth About Inequality
September 13, 2006
Jack Bratich
Eyes
Put a Spell on You: Signs of Surveillance in the Public Secret
Sphere
John Ross
Welcome
to the Nightmare: Al Qaeda de Mexico?
Christopher
Brauchli
"You Had to Have Been There": Teaching Iraq and Iran
Dave Lindorff
Mourning in America: Bush Weeps? Who are They Kidding?
Antony Loewenstein
My Israel Question
Al Krebs
The Gates Foundation and African Agriculture
Leonard Peltier
Crazy Horse in Chains
Jim Bensman
My
Adventures with the FBI: How I Was Targeted as a Terrorist
Website of the Day
FreedomWalk: Take a Moment for Leonard Peltier
September 12, 2006
Norman Finkelstein
Kill
Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism
Seth Sandronsky
The War on Nurses
John Walsh
Khatami
Comes to Harvard
Alan Maass
"Islamic Fascism": the New Hysteria
David Krieger
Troubling Questions About Missile Defense
Nate Mezmer
September 12th, America
Kathleen Christison
The
Coming Collapse of Zionism
September 11, 2006
Uri Avnery
State
of Chutzpah
Patrick Cockburn
Palestinians
Forced to Scavenge Rubbish Dumps for Food
Col Dan Smith
The
Centrality of War in the Presidency of George W. Bush
Dr. Susan Block
Beyond Terror
Anthony Alessandrini
Forgetting 9/11
Dave Lindorff
Bush After 9/11: Five Years of High Crimes and Misdemeanors
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
What Happened?
Joshua Frank
Proving Nothing: How the 9/11 "Truth" Movement Helps
Bush & Cheney
Jean Bricmont
The
End of the "End of History"
Sprague / Emesberger
"You Are a Dog. You Should Die": Death Threats Against
Lancet's Haiti Investigator
Website of
the Day
Web Piracy
September 9/10,
2006
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
The
9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11
Off the Hook
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Remaking of Cataract Canyon: In the Footsteps of Vladimir Putin
(Part Six)
Greg Grandin
Good
Christ, Bad Christ: Testament of the Death Squads
Peter
Stone Brown
Bob Dylan's Swing Time Waltz in the
Face of the Apocalypse
Ralph
Nader
X-Raying Greed
Brian
Cloughley
Rumsfeld at the American Legion:
Dead Babies and Nazi Propaganda
Col.
Chet Richards
Crossroads at the Litani
David
Model
Tailoring the Case Against Iran: Cut
from the Same Old Pattern
Dave
Himmelstein
From Bil'in to Birmingham
Ron
Jacobs
War and the Power of Words
Fred
Gardner
Is Medical Pot Image a Turn-Off to
Teens?
Mike
Whitney
America's Economic Meltdown
Josh
Gryniewicz
In the Belly of the Bentonville Beast:
Working for Wal-Mart
Daniel
Gross /
Joe Tessone
An IWW Story at Starbucks
Joe
Bageant
Inside the Iron Theater
Nicole
Colson
The Colbert Factor: Some Truthiness,
At Last
Alexander
Billet
Thirty Years of "White Riot":
Long Live The Clash!
Poets'
Basement
Engel, Louise, Buknatski, Davies, &
Orloski
September
8, 2006
Uri
Avnery
"I'm a Leftist, But ...":
the Liberals' War on Lebanon
Paul
Craig Roberts
Books Are Our Salvation
Bill
Quigley
Judge Says: "No Clowning Around Our WMDs!"
Robert
Jensen
Parallel Purges: Academic Freedom
in Iran and the US
Norman
Solomon
Perception Gap: The War on Terror as Others See It
Keith
Bolin
September
8, 2006
Uri
Avnery
"I'm a Leftist,
But ...": the Liberals' War on Lebanon
Paul
Craig Roberts
Books Are Our Salvation
Bill
Quigley
Judge Says: "No Clowning Around Our WMDs!"
Robert
Jensen
Parallel Purges: Academic Freedom
in Iran and the US
Norman
Solomon
Perception Gap: The War on Terror as Others See It
Keith
Bolin
The Future of the Family Farm
Kristin
S. Schafer
The Global Trade in Deadly Pesticides
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Five)
Patrick
Cockburn
Gaza is Dying
Website
of the Day
Help the Bismark 3!
September 7, 206
Marjorie
Cohn
Why Bush Really Came Clean About the
CIA's Secret Torture Prisons
Sharon
Smith
Downward Mobility: No Recovery for Workers
René
Drucker Colín
The Fraud in Mexico
Michael
Donnelly
Bush Family Values: About Those Nazi Appeasers
John
Borowski
Scholastic Peddles a Fictitious Path to 9/11 to Kids
Lucinda
Marshall
Bombing Indiana
Charles
Sullivan
Katrina and the New Jim Crow: Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part Four
Jonathan
Cook
How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way
in Lebanon
Website
of the Day
Rasta!
Reggae's Joe Hill
September
6, 2006
Stephen
Soldz
Protecting the Torturers: Bad Faith
and Distortions frm the American Psychological Assocation
Dave
Zirin
Cops vs. Jocks: the Shooting of Steve
Foley
Ramzy
Baroud
The Gaza Maze: Who Gained Most from the Fox Reporters' Kidnapping
Noel
Ignatiev
Democrats, Pwogs and the Lesser Evil Folly
Dave
Lindorff
Bombing Without Regrets: The US and Cluster Bombs
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Troop Levels in Iraq
Binoy
Kampmark
The Death of Steve Irwin and the Politics of the Zoo
Jeffrey
St. Clair
A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Three)
John
Ross
The Death of Mexican Presidency
Website
of the Day
Flaming Arrows
September
5, 2006
Jonathan Cook
Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story? Time For A Champion
of Truth to Speak Up
Patrick Cockburn
Better Not Meet at the Casbah
Mike Whitney
The Worst Secretary of Defense in U.S. History? You Be the Judge
Roland Sheppard
The Civil Rights Movement is Dead and So is the Democratic Party
James Petras
As Bush Regime Faces Twilight Slide, How Much Havoc Can Paulson
Wreak?
Alexander Cockburn
Will Bush Bomb Teheran?
September 4,
2006
Clancy Sigal
The Women Who Gave Us Labor Day
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part 2
Anthony Alessandrini
The
Great Debate about Aroma Coffee: Why I Boycott
Dennis Perrin
The
Great Debate in Tarrytown: Straight Zion, No Chaser
Daniel Cassidy
'S
lom to Slum
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
War Is Lost
September 2
/ 3, 2006
Uri Avnery
When
Napoleon Won at Waterloo
Jeffrey St.
Clair
A
Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon
Ralph Nader
The
No-Fault White House
Noam Chomsky
Viewing the World from a Bombsight
Allan Lichtman
Arrested Democracy: Letter from the Baltimore County Jail
Stanley Heller
When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is "Anti-Semitic"
Rana el-Khatib
Invasion's Child: the Making of Issa
Peter Montague
Taking on the Pentagon: Chemical Weapons to Burn
Laura Carlsen
Mexico on a Collision Course
Dr. Susan Block
Bush Hate Rising
Joe Bageant
Roy's People: Why Progressives Need to Listen to Orbison, Not
Policy Wonks
Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf
A New Generation of Landmines?
Gary Leupp
The Emperor Has Been Exposed
Stephen Fleischman
The Great American Oligarchy
Paul Balles
Has Ahmadinejad Already Checkmated Bush?
Ingmar Lee
Canada's $450 Million Gift to Bush: the Softwood Lumber Slush
Fund
Jane Stillwater
Burning Man: the Good, the Bad and the Evil Twin
Ron Jacobs
Dylan Faces the Apocalypse, Again
St. Clair /
Bossert
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Grima, Engel, Orloski and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
To New Orleans: a Photo Journal
September 1,
2006
Uri Avnery
Olmert
Agonistes
Paul Craig
Roberts
Of
Wolves and Men (and Impotent Democrats)
Bill Ayers
Exclusionary Signs of the Times
Kevin Zeese
The Best War Ever
Xochitl Bervera
The Forgotten Children of New Orleans
Norman Solomon
Bush vs. Ahmadinejad: a TV Debate We'll Never See
Alexander Cockburn
Hezbollah Denounces Nasrallah Interview as a Fake
Richard Neville
Rupert
Murdoch's Victims
Website of the Day
The Uranium Flood
Weekend
Edition
October 7 / 8, 2006
Options for Revision
Revolt
of the Generals
By RALPH NADER
I magine the U.S. military--from the
soldiers on the ground to the generals--saying publicly what
they are thinking and saying privately about their two draft-dodging
but bellicose rulers in the White House.
Sometimes, reporters have gathered
a few excoriating statements from the frustrated, beleaguered,
often body armor-less GIs. One even demanded Bush's resignation
from his barracks in Iraq, which was shown on national television.
There is also the under-reported
Zogby poll released in January 2006--the only scientifically
sampled field poll in Iraq--which showed over seventy percent
of the soldiers thought the United States should withdraw in
a time period ranging from six months to a year. And this opinion
in the war zone was registered when the situation was not as
bad as the quagmire is today.
As for the Generals, their
dissatisfaction with Don Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, goes
well beyond his brusque personality into the rigid and mistaken
policies from the beginning of this fabricated, illegal war.
Now comes the New York Times
reporter, Michael R. Gordon, with a page one story about a forthcoming
Army and Marine Corps field manual with a "new counterinsurgency
doctrine that draws on the hard learned lessons from Iraq and
makes the welfare and protection of civilians a bedrock element
of military strategy."
Some might view this manual--drawing
from the experiences of bottom to top military personnel--to
be an indirect rebuke of the failed brute, force military policies
of the Bush White House. Some may also wonder what took the Pentagon
so long to rediscover old knowledge about what succeeded and
failed in foreign military occupations. Old knowledge that says
reliance on sheer military power, mistreating prisoners, and
not safeguarding civilians and essential public services fails
again and again.
Well, better late than never.
This particular field manual went through many comments, consultations,
and drafts before distilling nine "representative paradoxes"
of counterinsurgency operations. Their theme is that the more
force used, the less effective it is. Staying in touch with the
civilian population, instead of staying in compounds, is more
effective than a brute force and firepower approach. Dollars
and ballots have more impact than sheer weaponry because they
strengthen the host country's restoration of basic services like
police, electricity, drinking water, food, health and schools.
Other paradoxes include one
that says "tactical success guarantees nothing," and
that "most of the important decisions are not made by generals,"
but by troops at all levels.
By now you are probably saying,
"Isn't that just repeating the obvious?" Why, yes,
but when your dogmatic, messianic commanders are Bush and Cheney,
shorn of history, common sense, and critical reactive thinking,
the "obvious" has to be conveyed as something new,
lest it be seen as what it is--a repudiation of disastrous policies
from design to supply to logistics.
Col. Conrad C. Crane (Ret.),
the director of the Military History Institute at the Army War
College and a principal drafter of the new doctrine told The
New York Times: "In many ways, this is a bottom-up change.
The young soldiers who had been through Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia,
Kosovo, and now Iraq and Afghanistan, understood why we need
to do this."
But the drafters of this "new"
approach know that applying it on the ground requires more soldiers,
more smarts and fewer profiteering, bungling corporate contractors.
They might have added that protecting the civilian population--in
contrast to the violent chaos and anarchy brutalizing the Iraqi
people daily--is a requirement of international law. Invaders
who occupy another country are obligated under international
treaties to keep order and to safeguard the rights and safety
of civilians.
By engaging in sectarian politics
and playing favorites, among their publicized blunders, the Bush
occupation sowed the seeds of the upheavals that are tearing
the country apart at an increasing pace.
So when this field manual reaches
President Bush's desk, with the requisite cue card summaries,
the findings will likely be rejected. After all, a failed war
that keeps failing can at least point to the growth of the terroristic
forces in Iraq as the circular rationale for "staying the
course."
Mr. Bush's own intelligence
reports, and not just the most recent highly publicized National
Intelligence Estimate, have concluded that the war-occupation
is providing recruitment and training grounds for terrorists.
Daddy Bush should take his
son and have him repeat after him again and again--"options
for revision," "options for revision," "options
for revision." Unless, that is, Bush and Cheney both do
the country a favor and resign.
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