home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq

The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! Obama's Money Cartel Pam Martens exposes the slimy underside of the campaign for "hope" and "change". Obama says lobbyists "haven't funded my campaign". A lie, Martens writes in this explosive issue of CounterPunch. Five top contributors to Obama are registered lobbyists and he fronts for the most vicious players on Wall Street. Read how he helped pass the law for which Big Business had been scheming for a decade. PLUS Alexander Cockburn on the adventures of an Indian sociologist in Chicago's Projects. PLUS an eyewitness report from Jack Brown on how Egyptians greeted the people of Gaza. PLUS the truth about John McCain: "war hero" and "maverick" or mean-spirited fraud? Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great holiday presents. Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !

Today's Stories February 27, 2008 David Rosen Playing the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political Dirty Tricks February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard Alan Dershowitz v. Frank Menetrez On Finkelstein Harvey Wasserman How Ohio Got Nuked Michael Colby Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals Gary Leupp Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade David Orchard The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan Martha Rosenberg The Big HRT Fran Shor The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow Serge Halimi The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan for the French Left Global Balkans Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans: an Interview with Tariq Ali Website of the Day Texistentialism   February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport   February 20, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Lies and Spies Paul Krassner My Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Pakistani Elections Farzana Versey The Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch Allan Nairn Dying for a Second Round: Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon John V. Whitbeck If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine? Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization? Steve Eckardt Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News Lee Sustar Union-Busting at Freightliner Mike Ferner How Sick of It are You? Website of the Day The US Military Index   February 19, 2008 Uri Avnery Blood and Champagne Paul Craig Roberts Paying Insurgents Not to Fight Gary Leupp The Independence of Kosovo Fidel Castro The Moment Has Come David Macaray Management's Dirty Little Secret Reza Fiyouzat Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections Valerie Morse The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie Walter Brasch Bush on Safari Website of the Day Don't Think Twice, It's Alright   February 18, 2008 Wajahat Ali Free Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan Diana Johnstone NATO's Kosovo Colony Paul Craig Roberts What Do We Stand For? Andy Worthington Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along" Debbie Nathan Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes Anthony DiMaggio Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business of Elections Bill Simpich Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq Eva Liddell A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash Christopher Brauchli The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans Stephen Soldz Wikileaks is Under Attack! Johann Rossouw The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism Website of the Day Sick of It Day!   February 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan Ralph Nader We the Corporations ... David Macaray The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin? William J. Peace Wheelchair Dumping Ron Jacobs War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption Diane Christian War Corrupts Alan Maass Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen (and Beyond) Ramzy Baroud Iraq and the US Elections Michael Donnelly Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card Cpt. Paul Watson The Art of Finding Whalers James L. Secor China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008 Eve Bachrach Bush Returns to Africa Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army Stephen Gowans Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian Missy Beattie To Vote or Not to Vote? David Michael Green Warming Slowly to Obama Wajahat Ali Attack of the Info-tainment Circus Poets' Basement Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther Website of the Day Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!     February 15, 2008 George Szamuely The Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo Patrick Cockburn Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability to Baghdad? Wajahat Ali Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban, Bin Laden and the Bush Administration Mike Whitney Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg Alan Farago God and the Democrats Chris Genovali Alberta's Black Gold Rush Jacob Hornberger Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture Dave Lindorff Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull Website of the Day Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams     February 14, 2008 Kathleen and Bill Christison Palestine in the Mind of America Mike Whitney Swan Song for NATO Clancy Sigal Strike Notes from a Screenwriter George Wuerthner A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Peter Morici Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit? John Ross Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border Allan Nairn Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone Rannie Amiri Lebanon's Warmongers Niranjan Ramakrishnan The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein Donna Volatile Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It Seth Sandronsky The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes Website of the Day Conventions: the Land Around Us   February 13, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Meet John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America Alan Farago Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line Christina Kasica King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America Vicente Navarro How to Read the U.S. Primaries Hall Greenland Australia's Finest Hour Lee Sustar Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most David Macaray The Writers' Strike Finally Ends Roderick Frazier Nash Celebrating Wilderness Patrick Irelan Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT Anthony Papa Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases Carl Finamore Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted by Politicians Website of the Day John He Is   February 12, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez The Case Against Alan Dershowitz Paul Craig Roberts War Without End Dr. Trudy Bond The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the Torture? Col. Dan Smith The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away? Ronnie Cummins Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road Ralph Nader Open the Government John V. Walsh Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered Dave Lindorff Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms the Candidate Michael Donnelly Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules Ron Jacobs La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life" Ben Tripp Beggars Collide Website of the Day Springsteen and Youngstown   February 11, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Lessons for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate? Wajahat Ali A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby Ray McGovern Waterboarding for God and Country Allan Nairn The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta Uri Avnery An End Foreseen? Chris Floyd American Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech Martha Rosenberg School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows Stephen Fleischman The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics Marc Lamont Hill Not My Brand of Hope Liliana Segura Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation Peter Morici Challenges for the New President Christopher Brauchli A Drug Rant from a Former Taker Website of the Day Annie vs. the Blue Angels   February 8 / 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Does the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves? Patrick Cockburn Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold? Mike Whitney The Great Bust of '08 Anthony DiMaggio How the Press Covers Waterboarding Andy Worthington The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists? Linn Cohen-Cole Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto? Firmin DeBrabander Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency Cpt. Paul Watson The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering and Deaths of the Great Whales Kenneth S. Pope Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association Jacob G. Hornberger American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy Robert Bryce Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ... Then What? P. Sainath The Last of the Buccaneer Editors Allan Nairn Give Me Back My Land Fred Gardner / Pebbles Trippet "The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the Law!" Andrew Wimmer Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death Robert Fantina America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr David Michael Green Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves Kevin Zeese Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd? Peter Morici Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence Chris Driscoll Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008? Prairie Miller Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen Poets Basement Davies and Buknatski   February 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Baghdad Will Explode Again Bill Christison Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians David Anderson NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for the Sake of Ratings Ron Jacobs Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing Jane Rockefeller The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation Andy Worthington On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden Dave Zirin Instep Intifada Saul Landau The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln Susie Day Our Blob in the White House Website of the Day George Carlin on Voting   February 6, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Super Tuesday's Vote for Chaos Ben Rosenfeld Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters Vijay Prashad An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out Joe Bageant Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned Michael Donnelly What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths Allan Nairn Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion? Kathryn Gray Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit Ray McGovern Powell's UN Fiasco Sheldon Richman The Whining Empire Paul Cantor / Roger Sparks A Presidential Aptitude Examination John Chuckman Political Bits and Pieces Website of the Day Save the Albatross February 5, 2008 Winslow T. Wheeler The Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget Tariq Ali Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair Stephen Soldz The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize War Crimes? Chris Floyd Strange Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War William S. Lind Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win Martha Rosenberg Live From the Killing Floor Heather Gray Conversations with Georgia Voters Ayesha Ijaz Khan Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics David Macaray Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice Eliza Ernshire Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run Brenda Norrell Hated Nation Website of the Day The Things I Used to Do     February 4, 2008 Marc Levy Winter in America Patrick Cockburn The Bird Market Bombings Saree Makdisi Strangling Gaza Uri Avnery From Stalingrad to Winograd Alan Farago Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer Ben Tripp Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter Paul Wolf Civil Wars North and South Paul Craig Roberts Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed? Joshua Frank MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change John Halle Whither Progressive Democrats? Website of the Day How to Cheat in School   February 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Hot Democratic Properties Pam Martens Bankers Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense Ralph Nader The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked John Ross Hilaria vs. "El Moreno" Wajahat Ali Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with Imam Zaid Shakir Robert Fantina A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American Empire B. R. Gowani Not All Veils and Guns James L. Secor China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow John V. Walsh The Invisible Green Primary Niranjan Ramakrishnan Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble Dave Zirin Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul? Jeremy Scahill Blackwater and Blood Fidel Castro Reflections on Lula Joe Allen Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War Stephen Lendman Life in Occupied Gaza Patrick Irelan What Happened to the Streetcars? Andrej Grubacic Ziga Vodovnik Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo Josh Karpoff Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement Ron Jacobs Carl Oglesby's War Paul Krassner Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel Website of the Weekend Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart   February 1, 2008 Ray McGovern The Iniquities and Inequalities of War Diane Farsetta The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists Tariq Ali Et Tu, New York Times? Allan Nairn Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti Rannie Amiri Collective Punishment in Beirut Ramzy Baroud People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It Kenneth Couesbouc The Mother of All Snowballs Peter Morici Recession Looms Mumia Abu-Jamal Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro Rosemary Jackowski 27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President Scott Campbell Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges Website of the Day Betes et Hommes   January 31, 2008 Saul Landau Return to Afghanistan Andy Worthington Horror at Guantánamo Mike Whitney Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System Jeff Ballinger Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the "Suharto of the Steppe" Tiffany Ten Eyck The Saga of the Freightliner Five William Loren Katz Waterboarding: Torure or Mystery? Alan Farago Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble Col. Dan Smith Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget? China Hand Slouching Toward Islamabad Dave Lindorff The Usual Suspects Once Again Wadner Pierre Fake Democracy in Haiti Website of the Day One Big Union   January 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair McCain vs. Clinton? Christopher Ketcham The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex Robert Weissman America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union Neve Gordon An Experiment in Famine Paul Craig Roberts Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse? Joanne Mariner How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech David Macaray Labor's Only Real Weapon Liaquat Ali Khan Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan? Raymond J. Lawrence Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication Dan Bacher The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon Website of the Day Onward Through the Fog   January 29, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Bush's New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off Mike Whitney The Great Credit Unwind of 2008 Alan Farago Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders Association Patrick Cockburn "The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction" Gary Leupp "We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel Edmonds Timeline R. F. Blader A World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania Ahmad Faruqui Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect Fran Shor Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In" Jeremy Scahill Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater Protesters Allan Nairn Bush's SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All Website of the Day The Ghost of Rambo   January 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Return to Fallujah Paul Craig Roberts The End of American Liberty Allan Nairn The Breaking of the Gaza Wall Eyad al-Sarraj / Sara Roy Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza Martha Rosenberg Obit for the "Front Page" City Corporate Crime Reporter How They Rip Us Off David Michael Green Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War Jennifer Van Bergen What's Left? Nancy Oden Survival Tips for Hard Times Divya Karnad Saving India's Sea Turtles James L. Secor Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp Website of the Day Yellow Journalism?         Subscribe Online

February 27, 2008 Bomber John McCain and the 100 Year War By VIJAY PRASHAD John McCain beams. When he was defeated by George W. Bush in the Republican primaries in 2000, McCain's hopes for the White House seemed dashed. Seven years later, as he began his campaign for the same address, the media scoffed. He could neither raise the money nor garner enough support from the conservative base of the Republican Party. McCain fashions himself as a maverick in a party that has become increasingly doctrinaire on three issues: Christian fundamentalism, tax cuts and an aggressive foreign policy. McCain's good fortune is that even as he could not unite the three sections of the Republican Party, his rivals did worse. Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani carried far too many personal failures for a largely evangelical party (the one a Mormon and the other a twice-divorced Roman Catholic). McCain's almost certain victory in the Republican race has raised a potential problem for him. Many conservatives have vowed to opt out of the election although this might be bluster more than anything else. Bush hastened to give one of his rare one-on-one interviews, once again on the loyal Fox News, where he embraced John McCain as a "true conservative". Bush's father, the former President and the pater familias of the Republican Party, endorsed McCain, as did Romney and Giuliani. The wagons have begun to circle. But the more McCain is painted as a conservative, the harder it will be for him to appeal to the narrow slice of "independents", those people who are not partisan Democrats or Republicans and who end up with the votes that count. (Recent elections have been won by as narrow a victory as 51 per cent to 49 per cent. Although Al Gore got more of the popular vote than Bush, he lost in the archaic electoral college vote once the United States Supreme Court intervened on Bush's behalf.) What is so peculiar about the rise of McCain is not whether he is a real conservative or a real maverick. On Iraq, nobody is as close to Bush as McCain. In 2002, on CNN, McCain took up the cudgels against Iraq, saying that victory against the Saddam Hussein regime would be "overwhelming in a very short period of time". In the same interview, McCain drew upon his own military experience to suggest, "We're not going to get into house-to-house fighting in Baghdad." Just as the cruise missiles crushed Baghdad and the U.S. armed forces began their dusty drive north from Kuwait, McCain told the media: "There's no doubt in my mind that once these people are gone [the Hussein regime] that we will be welcomed as liberators." The error of his judgment did not sober him. Instead, he went further, drunk on the adrenalin of combat. He demanded more troops rather than drawdown and victory rather than withdrawal. His criticism of Bush was not that he took the U.S. into a war of choice but that he sent insufficient numbers of troops in and he did not properly prepare the American people for the combat. "We had not told the American people how tough and difficult this could be. It has contributed enormously to the frustration that Americans feel today because they were led to believe this could be some kind of day at the beach." Indeed, McCain himself contributed to this view, but in retrospect, did not take personal responsibility for that failure. Rather, the failure has made him more bellicose, more adventurous. With Bush's war universally unpopular, it is a wonder that McCain sailed to victory. Even anti-war Republicans lined up to vote for him. At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, someone asked him what he thought of Bush's idea that the U.S. would be in Iraq for 50 years. "Make it a hundred," McCain responded. "That would be fine with me. I hope it would be fine with you." When a journalist pushed him on this, McCain, who has a legendary temper, snapped, "How long are we going to be in Korea?" McCain claims to be one of the architects of the surge, the strategy that sent in 30,000 additional U.S. troops to suffocate the insurgency in Iraq. It is true that casualty figures are lower, or at least the rates reported are lower, but people are still dying, and Iraqis either continue to flee or have not returned from Syria and Jordan (where 3.2 million Iraqis languish). U.S. officials on the ground try to remain as sober about the prospects as possible although the White House and the Republican Party require some measure of success to bolster the chances of the party remaining in power. This is why Ahmed Chalabi, a veteran Iraqi politician, told journalist Patrick Cockburn: "The problem in Iraq is that the agenda is driven not by what is really happening but by the perception in America of what is happening." On March 19, the U.S. will celebrate the fifth anniversary of the invasion. Whether the relative peace will hold even until then remains to be seen as some people expect Moqtada al Sadr's Mahdi army to re-emerge from its hibernation. McCain has thrown down his marker: "If Americans aren't dying", then the occupation should continue. The problem is not the occupation but U.S. casualties. Once those figures rise, McCain will no doubt reinvent himself as the only one who can protect America from the rise of what he now obsessively calls the "Islamo-fascists". McCain, the Vietnam veteran, rises as the savior of a trapped America. As Democrats bicker over plans for withdrawal and extend their own commitment to this occupation, McCain seems steadfast, ready to lead the U.S. to victory. Bad news from Iraq and from the U.S. economy has, for the moment, been overshadowed by the excitement of the primary elections. The enthusiasm during the campaigns has relegated these facts to the margins of popular conversation. The tight race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton on the Democratic side has galvanized very large numbers of voters to the polls, most of whom come because they are as much inspired by these two leaders as fed up with the Bush regime. What they want above all is change. The word "change", in fact, has become the mantra of this election. All the contenders, including the Republicans, have adopted the word in their stump speeches. The Democrats raise a verbal effigy of Bush to inflame their supporters. Republicans take refuge in the memory of Ronald Reagan and keep as much distance as they can from their current leader in the White House. Even McCain is not keen to associate himself too directly with Bush. The population wants change, but will it be possible as Bush continues to make military spending, tax breaks and consumer profligacy the basis of U.S. society? Undaunted by his declining popularity across the U.S., Bush continues to govern from his principles. He does not deign to reach out to the majority that disagrees with him. Nor does Bush retreat into a lame-duck posture, waiting for his final flight from the White House lawn in the presidential helicopter. "You won't have Nixon to kick around any more," said that other deeply unpopular Republican, whose resignation in 1974 foreshadowed the hasty departure of U.S. officials from the roof of their embassy in Saigon the following year. Bush's obduracy might be a sign that the U.S. military will as stubbornly hold its post as the fires around it thicken in Baghdad. Recruitment to the military is down, but Bush wants to boost morale through the infusion of massive funds to the generals. Perhaps they can use this money to come up with the warm bodies needed to go to the frontlines. As the mortgage crisis unfolded and as Bush inked a recovery package worth $150 billion, his $3.1 trillion federal budget landed on the doorstep of Congress. In this budget, Bush proposes to spend $541 billion on the U.S. military, a 5 per cent increase from the previous year's figure. This is by far an amount greater than what the rest of the planet combined spends on the military. The budget request for the military does not account for costs to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (or to secret disbursements to the military and to intelligence services). The National Priorities Project estimates that the total bill for the Iraq war will soon be $600 billion, which is almost as much as what the entire Vietnam war cost the U.S. exchequer although the South-East Asian war ran from the early 1960s to the mid-1970s, whereas this war has only run for five years. This enthuses McCain, who ratified the increase saying that the U.S. needs "a larger and more capable military", all this justified under the claim that the military needs to be "modernized". He gets no debate on this from Hillary Clinton (who earned the name "Mama Warbucks" from The Village Voice). The U.S. economy is in free fall. The sub-prime fiasco has dampened the confidence of the population, who cannot turn to the government for comfort. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson's pessimism is stark: "In terms of sub-prime [mortgages], the worst isn't over. The worst is just beginning." Instead of doing anything substantial, Paulson's office simply offered a few public relations maneuvers, such as a telephone hotline for the public to report delinquent homeowners. From this shaky foundation, the U.S. government hopes to derive this historically significant sum for its military project. To balance the budget, the Bush regime has requested deep cuts in social spending, from fewer children being able to get childcare assistance to less funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and for the Environmental Protection Agency.' Out-of-control spending According to the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, one million families will also lose access to the Home Energy Assistance Program. Meanwhile, the Bush government pushes to cut taxes for the very rich. The tax breaks for those who earn more than $1 million would, according to the Centre on Budget and Policy Priorities, "exceed the entire amount that the federal government spends on elementary and secondary education, as well as the entire amount that it devotes to medical care for the nation's veterans". The social side of the state is being whittled down. McCain's plan to pay for the massive military increase is to "stop the out-of-control spending", which refers directly to these social programs. When asked how he would deal with the recession and the mortgage crisis, McCain flatly told the press: "The issue of economics is something I've never really understood as well as I should. As long as Alan Greenspan is around, I would certainly use him for advice and counsel." Perhaps McCain failed to read Greenspan's book The Age of Turbulence (2007) in which the acolyte of Ayn Rand took on the Bush administration's reckless funding, "They swapped principle for power. They ended up with neither." McCain likes the name maverick. Others find Dr. Strangelove more appropriate. Never has there been a leader who has loved every war with so much relish. His doubts on Iraq are jejune. Now he has already shifted his glee to Iran, singing, "Bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann". A John McCain presidency should be cause for alarm. McCain is no maverick but a more credible military face for the Bush doctrine than Bush himself. Vijay Prashad is the George and Martha Kellner Chair of South Asian History and Director of International Studies at Trinity College, Hartford, CT His new book is The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World, New York: The New Press, 2007. He can be reached at: vijay.prashad@trincoll.edu A version of this article originally ran in India's Frontline.

Now Available! How the Press Led the US into War Buy End Times Now! New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy WINNER OF THE AMERICAN BOOK AWARD! Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   Grand Theft Pentagon How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont     CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed