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New Special Double-Issue Print Edition of CounterPunch: Alexander Cockburn's India Journal: Travels with Sainath Fakers and fakirs of the Indian neoliberal disaster, from the Indian elites to Bill Gates to Bill Clinton to the New York Times; heroes and villains of the Indian press; 5,000 suicides in Andhra Pradesh and the rise and fall of Chandrababu Naidu, World Bank posterboy; what the British did to India, from Warren Hastings to the Falkland Road; what Indians did to architecture, from the Taj Mahal to the dawn of concrete; making weight in upland Kerala; why America needs south Indian cooking; homage to the great peasant rebellion of 1857; can India recover from "reform"? Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories June 13, 2005 John Stauber Mad Cow USA: the Cover-Up Begins to Unravel Fred Gardner Supreme Indignity: Medical Pot Doctors Respond to Justice Stevens Winslow T. Wheeler Neo-Con Unfurls the Big Picture   June 10 / 12, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Thomas Friedman's Imaginary World Sharon Smith Torturers and Liars: Masters of Deception Brian Cloughley "Support Our Torturers!" Chris Kromm Home Cookin': Pentagon's Base Relignment Plan Would Increase South's Share Heather Gray A Day in Mississippi: Some Things Have Changed; Some Remain the Same Kevin Zeese What the Left Must Learn from 2004: an Interview with Josh Frank Mickey Z. The Pentagon Papers, 34 Years Later Gary Leupp A Review of Sison's "At Home in the World" Eli Stephens The Asshole in El Paso: Why Posada Carriles Matters Nick Dearden A Scottish Band in the Occupied Territories Oscar Olivera Recovering Bolivia's Oil and Gas Robert Fisk Screening "Kingdom of Heaven" in Beirut Michael Dickinson Oh My God!: Gunning for Blasphemers Poets' Basement Engel, Albert, Louise, Ford Website of the Weekend Gravity's Rainbow, Illustrated June 9, 2005 Len Colodny Felt Was Asked Under Oath in 1975 If He Was "Deep Throat" Christopher Brauchli From Baseballs to Hand Grenades Ron Jacobs Light a Candle; Curse the Darkness Dave Lindorff US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist Katrina Yeaw / Alex Schmaus Repression 101: Anti-War Students Sanctioned at SFSU Alan Farago Spin Machine Busts a Gasket in the Everglades: Fed Judge Whacks Jeb Saul Landau The Charmed Life of a Mass Murderer June 8, 2005 Jim Hougan Strange Bedfellows Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and the CIA Alan Maass Is Bolivia on the Edge of Revolution? an Interview with Tom Lewis Jason Leopold Enron Lives!: Former Army Sec. White Wants Govt. Money for New Energy Scam Niranjan Ramakrishnan Exit Right, Advani: Unpardonable Acts of Statesmanship Dave Zirin The Rotting Soul of the 49ers Derrick O'Keefe Bush's Terrorist: the Case of Posada Carriles Diana Johnstone Non, Neen, Angelene! Why Defenders of the "Oui" are Wrong Website of the Day The Meatrix   June 7, 2005 Forrest Hylton Bolivia's Agony of the Stalement Continues Greg Moses / Susan van Haitsma Pushing Back the Violence Lenni Brenner What Madison Would Think About the Air Force Academy's Offical Fanatics Col. Dan Smith Liberation vs. Survival in Iraq Joshua Frank Dean at the DNC: the Establishment vs. the Elites Dave Lindorff Fair-Weather Allies: US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing Rights Margot Veranes / Adrian Navarro Xenophobia in the Desert: Racist Fever Becomes Law in Arizona Michael Neumann Sharing Music: Property Gone Wild June 6, 2005 Stew Albert Everybody Must Get Busted: Supremes Rule Against the Sick Paul Craig Roberts Federal Bureau of Entrapment Nicole Colson Inside Walter Reed Hospital Ali Khan Friendly Renditions to Muslim Torture Chambers Jason Leopold When Will Rumsfeld Be Indicted? Charles Walker Poff Rumsfeld, China and Hypocrisy Ramzy Baroud My Grandpa's Right of Return Rep. John Conyers Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq? Evelyn Pringle TeenScreen's Top Pusher Gary Corseri 25 Reasons to Impeach Bush Website of the Day Save This 200 Year Old Burr Oak from Bible Thumpers with Chainsaws June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander Cockburn France's Magnificent Non! James Petras The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America Robert Fisk Who Killed Samir? Patrick Cockburn My Father, Claud Cockburn, the MI5 Suspect Rev. William Alberts When Pride in Power Corrupts: the Story of a Methodist President, His Bishops and an "Incompatible" Lesbian Minister Saul Landau 40 Interns and a Mule: Will the Dems Ever Take Advantage of the Republicans' Blunders? Mario Lamo Jimenez Dante with a Brush: Botero Immortalizes Bush Dave Lindorff What is the Media Running From? Lance Selfa Why Bush is Getting Away with Murder Tom Crumpacker On the Use of State Terrorism: the Posada Precedent Joshua Frank How Beltway Dems Sank Dean for America Fred Gardner Don't Bogart That Taxable Commodity Michael Dickinson Roll Out the Barrel: Blood, Oil and Baku Roger Martin We Can See, But Not Far Enough Reza Fiyouzat Welcome to the Third World Ben Tripp Romance: Advice from a Pro Graeme Greenback Pardon Me, While I Piss on this Bible Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Albert, Engel, Smith     June 3, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Welcome to a Has-Been Country Joseph Massad Witch Hunt at Columbia Jeff Halper The Process of Transfer Continues Tom Barry The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On? Bruce K. Gagnon Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny" Joshua Frank Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter Mickey Z. Deep Throat as Sideshow Gary Leupp "Peddling Lies About How They Were Mistreated" Website of the Day Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973     June 2, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag Forrest Hylton Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate Mike Whitney Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges Brian Cloughley Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America Mazin Qumsiyeh A Two-State Solution is No Solution Russell D. Hoffman High Tension at San Onofre Norman Madarasz "Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non" Norman Solomon War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq David Price The Shallowness of Deep Throat Website of the Day Fallujah on Film     June 1, 2005 James Petras Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning of Posada Justin Delacour Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias Against Chavez Edward Jay Epstein Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid? Omar Barghouti / Lisa Taraki The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic" Freedom Dave Lindorff When War Goes Off the Script Kevin Zeese Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo? Jason Leopold When Presidents Lie William S. Lind Wreck It and Run     May 31, 2005 Sen. Mike Gravel Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New Deep Throat David Krieger US Nuclear Hypocrisy Tad Daley The Nuclear Me-Too Club Joshua Frank Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First Richard Gott Chavez Leads the Way Norman Solomon Time to Get Serious About Impeachment Tom Segev Our Man in the Territories Walter Brasch Killing Americans with Secrecy Diana Johnstone The French "Non"     May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander Cockburn There's Their Way or the Galloway Richard Lichtman We Wuz Framed! the Consolations of George Lakoff Sharon Smith The Road to Abu Ghraib Paul Craig Roberts Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq Dave Lindorff Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party Ramzy Baroud Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just Their Holy Book Brian Cloughley Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us? Fred Gardner Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot Lee Sustar Chavez Gets Proactive Joshua Frank Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until the Riots" Justin E.H. Smith What About the People? a Report from Romania Jackie Corr A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness Michael Kimaid Bush as Ahab Toufic Haddad Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott Justin Taylor The Fear of Paul Virilio Amir Butler Searching for a Saladin Ben Tripp Insomnia and Sarcasm Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise   May 27, 2005 Gary Leupp It Really is a Crusade! Daniel Estulin Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005 Kevin Zeese Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi? Robert Fisk Mubarak's Goon Squads Dave Zirin Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer Silent Website of the Day Stuckists   May 26, 2005 Yuki Tanaka Firebombing and Atom Bombing Ray McGovern Bolton, the Monomaniac Who Would Be Ambassador Arthur Mitzman Agenda for a Sustainable Europe Jack Random Afghanistan: the Forgotten Occupation Britt Bailey and Brian Tokar Big Food Strikes Back Rebecca Rush The New Banana Wars: Chiquita's Threat to the Caribbean Islands Jorge Mariscal Santiago v. Rumsfeld Paul Craig Roberts Uncovering a DOJ Cover-up: The Murder of Kenneth Trentadue Website of the Day The F Word     May 25, 2005 Camilo Mejia Prisoners of Conscience Dave Lindorff Brain Dead Democrats William S. Lind Of Cabbages, Cessnas and Kings Chris Floyd Tattoo Nation: Abu Ghraib as Normalcy Brian Cloughley The Stench of "Progress": the Torture and the Lies Continue Lenni Brenner The Plot to Stigmatize My Book on Nazi-Zionist Collaboration Sean Cain A Review of Naomi Klein's "The Take" Karl Shepard Extinction, Kansas and "Intelligent Design" John Ross Sweet Revenge at Terminal Island Website of the Day SWARM the Minutemen     May 24, 2005 Dave Zirin Palestine's Big Visitor: Not Laura, but Ronaldo Michele Bollinger Criminalizing Abortion in S. Carolina: Why Did Gabriela Flores Go to Jail? Winslow Wheeler The Pork War Uri Avnery Wagner at the Holocaust Memorial Michael Donnelly Behind the Green(back) Curtain Joshua Frank Chavez's Economy: Is It Sustainable? Stephen Dunifer The Folly of Media Reform Paul Craig Roberts Is Bush a Sith Lord?     May 23, 2005 Esther Sassaman / Thomas Nagy An Exclusive Interview with George Galloway Mike Whitney Free Jose Padilla: Three Years in Prison, Not a Shred of Evidence Ramzy Baroud Fallout from a Forged War: Battling Windmills While Iraq Burns Michael Dickinson Pictures at an Exhibition: Censoring the "Carnival of Chaos" Walter Brasch In Praise of Bob Barr Dick J. Reavis The Newsweek Scandal: an Unmentioned Detail Maria Tomchick Galloway and the US Press Norman Solomon Let's Play "Media Jeopardy" Kevin Zeese Inventing a Pretext for War: an Inte4rview with James Bamford Website of the Day Drawings of Darfur: Genocide Through Children's Eyes     May 21 / 22, 2005 David H. Price CIA Skullduggery in Academia Gabriel García Márquez My Visit to the Clinton White House, Bearing a Message from Fidel on Terrorism Oren Ben-Dor To Create Academic Freedom in Israel, a Boycott is Needed Gary Leupp Nights in White House Satin with Jeff Gannon Laith al-Saud An Anatomy of the Iraqi Resistance Elaine Cassel Bush and the Angry God: Twilight of Secular Democracy in America? Greg Moses The Saints of Mischief and Halliburton Fred Gardner Martyring Dr. Carol Wolman Dave Lindorff The GOP's Police State Alan Maass Uzbekistan's Karimov: Bush's Favorite Terrorist? William Blum The American Myth Industry Tom Crumpacker Send Posada Carriles to Venezuela Niranjan Ramakrishnan Newsweek: a Contest of Hypocrisies Doug Giebel The Grand Illusion Evelyn J. Pringle No Child Left Unmedicated: TeenScreen, State-drugging and Suicide Carolyn Baker Spiritual Abuse by the Religious Right Chris Floyd Justice in JebWorld Frederick B. Hudson Black and Gay?: a Review of "Brother to Brother" Ben Tripp Him Talk Plenty Long Time: Busting the Filibuster Poets' Basement Davies, Engel and Louise     May 20, 2005 Dave Lindorff Newsweek and White House Hypocrisy Kevin Zeese As Insurgency Increases, New US Military Recruits Fall Paul de Rooij "Private": a Film in Search of a Cliché Christopher Brauchli How Insurance Companies Exploited 9/11 Mark Engler Triumph Over Debt? Joshua Frank Bush to Dine with Porn Star Robert Jensen TV Talk, No Evidence Required Jeffery R. Webber Bolivia Erupts     May 19, 2005 Bill Forman An Interview with Alexander Cockburn Stan Goff Hey, Democrats, Listen to Galloway and Learn Something Neve Gordon From Ghettos to Frontiers: What Will Happen After Israel Withdraws from Gaza Michael Dickinson The Trouble with Menwith: Tagging British Peace Activists Karyn Strickler The Texas Nexus: How Racial and Political Gerrymandering United Andrew Freedman Nazi Science at NIH Paul Craig Roberts The Politics and Economics of Outsourcing     May 18, 2005 Jean Bricmont Vive La France? Laura Carlsen Bush's Posada Carriles Quandry: an Anti-Cuba Terrorist is Still a Terrorist Mike Whitney The Secret Raids of Alberto Gonzales: 10,000 Swept Up Joshua Frank Flushing the Koran: Why Newsweek Got It Right George Galloway Thusly, I Humiliated Norm Coleman (and Christopher Hitchens) Manuel Garcia, Jr. Writing Tickets for American War Crimes Dwight D. Eisenhower How the GOP will Destroy Itself Dave Lindorff The Plot to Make the PATRIOT Act Even Worse May 17, 2005 Mickey Z. GIs Behaving Badly Petuuche Gilbert The People of Acoma Still Fight to be Free Paul Craig Roberts Lies That Kill: Why Isn't Bush in the Dock? Ramzy Baroud The New Palestinian Uprising Robert Jensen / Pat Youngblood Pinning the Blame on Newsweek Stan Cox Poisoning Patancheru: the Severe Side Effects of India's Drug Industry Dave Zirin American Anthem: Ozzie Guillen and Fining for Freedom Diana Barahona Reporters Without Borders Unmasked Website of the Day Revolutionary Flower Pot Society May 16, 2005 Michael Gillespie The Family Released a Statement: Death Notices for the Warrior Theocracy Jason Leopold BP Stains the Arctic Jesse Muldoon How Many Schools Left Behind? Norman Solomon Media and the War: "The Bombs in Iraq Explode at Home" Robert Cray Twenty Patrick Cockburn Iraq is a Bloody No Man's Land Website of the Day Bolton's Divorce Papers: She Took It All Away, Including Most of the Furniture   May 14 / 15, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Join the 14 Per Cent Club! Saul Landau Lessons from Vietnam: Wars Kill Empires as Well as People Gary Leupp Whither Yale? Towards the Imperial University JoAnn Wypijewski The Glory that is Lockhart, Texas Ben Tripp The Wayward Airplane: a Cautionary Tale Brian J. Foley Was Jesus Gay? Tom Barry Bolton the Eavesdropper Mitchell Verter Barbarous Oaxaca: Indigenous Rights Groups Meet the "Law of the Club" Mike Ferner War on COs: Army Files Additional Charges Against Kevin Benderman Dan Smith Perceiving Darfur Mark Scaramella Death with Pitfalls Don Fitz Mommy, Is This a Finger in My Rice Puffs?: Splicing Human DNA into the Food Chain Diane Farsetta PR Industry Imitates Big Tobacco: the Senate's "Fake News" Hearings Michael Dickinson Soldier Crawling: Military Conscription in Turkey Ron Jacobs The Jackson State Murders Fred Gardner "Hydroponics? 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Lind Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty Jack Random The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush Gary Leupp Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg     May 11, 2005 Patrick Cockburn The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle Kevin Zeese The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like Every Day Christopher Brauchli Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan Zalman Amit The Collapse of Academic Freedom in Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University Robert Shull Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops: Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws Mike Whitney God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School Norman Solomon Political Bluster and the Filibuster   May 10, 2005 Richard Drayton The Imperial Mythology of WW II: an Ethical Blank Check Dave Zirin Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP Jackie Corr The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall Dave Lindorff Silence of the Scams: Economists on China Michael Donnelly From Roadless to Clueless: the Great Stillborn Eco Victory Reza Fiyouzat Nomadic Abstracts Scott Parkin Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton Stephen Babcock The Burden of Knowing Better Alan Farago Florida, Water and Lobbyists Michael Neumann Naomi's Courage Website of the Day One Nation Under Plagiarism   May 9, 2005 Louis Proyect Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond, Greenwasher Robert Fisk "Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two Kevin Zeese Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman Joshua Frank Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage Sasha Kramer A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons Andrew Wimmer Create and Resist Jeffrey Webber Back to the Streets in Bolivia? Jeffrey St. Clair Straight to Bechtel   May 7 / 8, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Who Beat Hitler? Gary Leupp Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism Saul Landau Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups Joe DeRaymond Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega Daniela Ponce Seeing Chile in Nepal Heather Williams Hollywood Does Enron Gregory Elich Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice Anis Memon To Cuba and Back John Chuckman The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism" Mike Whitney Hard Right Rage Against the Truth Ron Jacobs Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq War Grinds On Colin Kalmbacher Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont. Lance Selfa Uprising in Mexico City Fred Gardner "Getting High is a Little Like Cuba" Ben Tripp Letters on Wittgenstein Mickey Z. The Mother of All Days Richard Joseph Those Patriotic Magnets Dr. Susan Block Come As You Are: Masturbation 101 Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert     May 6, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and Blood Erin Yoshioka Another "3 Strikes" Travesty: Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison? Sam Husseini Talking with Syrians Dave Lindorff Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters Kevin Zeese Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead Guilty Joshua Frank An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War Dan Bacher Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water Raid P. Sainath India's Bloody Water Wars     May 5, 2005 Carles Mutaner Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist" or "Populist?" Carl G. Estabrook Is There Any Hope for the Pope? Farrah Hassen The US's Syrian Obsession Kevin Zeese "Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview with Patrick Resta Michael Leonardi May Day with an American Soldier in Rome Bennett Ramberg The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You Ray McGovern The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit Norman Solomon Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran Nicole Colson The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights Brian Concannon, Jr. Clearing the Fences in Haiti     May 4, 2005 Colin Kalmbacher Ann Coulter and the Police State: Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested John Walsh Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying on Air America to Support the War Greg Moses Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises "Birth of a Nation" Ali Khan Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart Chris Floyd Ring Them Bells Linda S. Heard D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics Dave Zirin The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle William S. Lind Fool's Paradise Gary Leupp Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution Website of the Day Kent State, May 4, 1970   May 3, 2005 Dave Lindorff Bush has Grasped the Third Rail, Now Turn on the Juice Brian Cloughley Halliburton's War Loot Ira Kurzban Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers Seth Sandronsky Towards Debtors' Prisons? Gilad Atzmon The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More Michael Donnelly Branding Eco Collapse Alex Sanchez Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush? Peter Linebaugh Magna Carta and May Day   May 2, 2005 Ron Jacobs Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement Stan Goff The Case of Hasan Akbar Karyn Strickler Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics Joshua Frank Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly Kevin Zeese Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam Vicente Navarro Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician       April 30 / May 1, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and "Credibility" Gabriel Kolko Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later Jennifer Loewenstein The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood Lee Sustar City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago Saul Landau The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power T.W. Croft The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy Nikolas Kozloff Fox News v. Hugo Chavez William Blum Never-Ending Double Standards Dave Lindorff Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly Joshua Frank The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls Doug Giebel Saving Jane Fonda Steven Erlanger A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau Chief Fred Gardner Washington State Doctor Harassed Mike Whitney Another Mad Bush Press Conference Kurt Nimmo Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine Joe DeRaymond A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania Michael Dickinson Flags Mickey Z. May Day at Yankee Stadium Justin Taylor The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy Poets Basement Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Save Barbados's Cowpastor                                             Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

June 13, 2005 Another Damning Document Bush and Blair Deny Early Decision for War By GARY LEUPP So the July 23, 2002 Downing Street memo (DSM) that matter-of-factly noted that "(U.S.) intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy" of attacking Iraq was preceded by another damning document---a Cabinet Office briefing paper composed July 21 declaring that it would be "necessary to create the conditions" that would make the war legal. Referring to a future UN resolution demanding that Saddam Hussein allow a renewal of arms inspections or face attack, it suggests, ""It is just possible that an ultimatum could be cast in terms which Saddam would reject." But the writer is not sanguine about that, and states that it would be "most unlikely" for the Anglo-American team to acquire legal justification for war. All present at the Downing Street meeting (including Prime Minister Blair, Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, and MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove) must have been a bit queasy discussing the fact that "US plans assume, as a minimum, the use of British bases in Cyprus and Diego Garcia," so legal issues "would arise virtually whatever option ministers choose with regard to UK participation." The Americans, the DSM observes, have given "little thought to the aftermath and how to shape it." Yet trapped in the "special relationship," the ministers, with stiff upper lips, proceeded down a road lined at this point by the corpses of 89 Britons, 1700 something Americans, 85 assorted "Coalition" troops and maybe 100,000 Iraqis. How do they sleep as the British press---echoed unhurriedly by the press across the pond--- implicitly tells the world that they committed to something they knew, as UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the BBC last September, was "illegal"? Bush and Blair had been discussing an Iraq attack within weeks after 9-11. It was reported within the last two years that Blair was hesitant and insisted that Afghanistan be attacked first since it bore a relationship to al-Qaeda and hence would seem an appropriate target. In April 2002 he signed on to the invasion of Iraq, but echoing Bush continued to insist until early the following year that war would be only "the last resort." These recent reports constitute excellent exposure of the mendacity of the Bush-Blair team, which should U.S. news editors decide to air appropriately with big headlines and trenchant analysis could mean a scandal dwarfing Watergate. Let us hope so. The evolving controversy really ought to include discussion of this "last resort" notion. "Only if Saddam forces our hand," we were told, "will we go to war! Only if he continues to defy the international community!" In November 2003 the New York Times, Knight-Ridder Newspapers, Guardian, and ABC News all reported that from December 2002 Saddam made repeated efforts to avoid a U.S. attack on his country. These culminated in an offer made through top Iraqi intelligence officers representing Saddam, communicated through intermediaries to U.S. officials, to (1) cooperate in fighting terrorism; (2) give "full support for any US plan" in the Arab-Israeli peace process; (3) give "first priority [to the U.S.] as it relates to Iraq oil and mining rights;" (4) cooperate with US strategic interests in the region; and (5) allow "direct US involvement on the ground in disarming Iraq." These efforts were resisted, as I indicated in a CounterPunch article summarizing the content of the various reports, by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, Jaymie Durnan, and most especially Richard Perle, who called the Saddam initiatives "non-starters" and demanded as the price of peace "Saddam's abdication and departure, first to a U.S. military base for interrogation and then into supervised exile, a surrender of Iraqi troops, and the admission that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction." Part of "fixing the facts around policy" was depicting Baghdad as hell-bent on war with the U.S. and its allies while in fact it was desperately trying to come to terms with a terrorizing threat. Similarly, Damascus has attempted to meet U.S. demands but seems similarly targeted for attack, first by vilifying disinformation and then military action. The fixed policy is for regime change throughout the "Greater Middle East," a huge permanent U.S. military presence in the region, U.S. control of the flow of Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf oil, billions in profits for corporate America, leverage over global allies and competitors, and a strengthened position for Israel. Whatever lies are necessary to secure those ends, be assured the neo-con led Bush administration will use them. In their joint news conference at the White House June 7 both Bush and Blair were questioned about the DSM, specifically the "Intelligence and facts remain fixed around the policy" quote. "Is this an accurate reflection of what happened?" a reporter asked. Blair spoke first, noting that the memo had been written before the November 2002 UN resolution requiring renewal of arms inspections. He made no sense but was brief. Bush spoke at some length, first with an effort to show he wasn't concerned: "Well, you know, I read, kind of, the characterizations of the memo..." Then he suggests that the timing of its publication by the Times of London was political, designed to affect Blair's reelection chances, and hence not to be taken seriously. "....particularly when they dropped it out in the middle of his race. I'm not sure who they dropped it out is..." Note the curious grammatical construction here. Who did the Times drop it out? Does he mean "Who dropped it out to the Times?" (Does he use "drop" rather than the more ordinary "leak" because he subconsciously thinks this story about the memo is potentially a bomb dropped on him?) Anyway, in an apparent effort at humor he tells the assembled journalists: "...but I'm not suggesting that you all dropped it out there." The official transcript notes laughter. Were they laughing with him or at him? I'd think the person who leaked the memo to the Times was a British government employee rather than a member of the White House press corps. "And somebody said" the president continued, as though moving on to another subject having settled one, "Well, you know, we had made up our mind to go to use military force to deal with Saddam. There's nothing farther from the truth." Does that mean that he and Blair were seriously waiting for Saddam to meet the conditions listed by Perle, resign, submit to U.S. military interrogation and confess that he had WMDs? "My conversations with the prime minister was [sic] how could we do this peacefully, what could we do." Note how he doesn't explain what he and Blair wanted to do peacefully? "And this meeting, evidently it took place in London" Yes, evidence shows Downing Street is in London. "happened before we even went to the United Nations---or I went to the United Nations." But that's the whole point. He went to the UN pretending to want war as a last resort when he'd already decided, in the view of his closest allies, that the war would happen. Perhaps he genuinely thinks that the chronology of things---that he did in fact go to the UN before going to war---validates his stated peaceful intentions. (The fact was, the neocon camp didn't want to go to the U.N. whereas Colin Powell insisted on it.) "And so it's­--look, both of us didn't want to use our military. Nobody wants to commit military into combat. That's the last option. The consequences of committing the military are very difficult. You know, one of the hardest things I do as the president is to try to comfort families who've lost a loved one in combat. It's the last option that the president must have, and it's the last option I know my friend had as well." "And so we worked hard to see if we could figure how to do this peacefully, to put a united front up to Saddam Hussein, so the world speaks. And he ignored the world. Remember, 1441 passed the Security Council unanimously." And the inspectors went in, and they found nothing, as Rumsfeld had said they would find nothing, and then they left, because Bush was going to bomb, while the UN looked on in horror and while the world spoke with massive antiwar demonstrations. "He made the decision. And the world is better off without Saddam Hussein in power."   * * * * It's worth recalling that Yoshi Tsurumi, one of Bush's professors at Harvard Business School, told Salon last year that while enrolled at Harvard Bush "showed pathological lying habits and was in denial when challenged on his prejudices and biases. He would even deny saying something he just said 30 seconds ago. He was famous for that. Students jumped on him; I challenged him." When asked to explain a particular comment, said Tsurumi, "Bush would respond, Oh, I never said that." Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu