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Today's
Stories
March 15,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Under Surge
March 14,
2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta
and the State of the Left
Philip Agee
The
Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America
Bruce Dixon
The Digital Redlining of African-Americans
John Walsh
How One Senator Could End the War
Sunsara Taylor
Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran
William Johnson
Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula
Shipyards
Richard Thieme
Entitlement and Empire
Jeffrey Klein
Right-Wing Academic Values
Nicola Nasser
This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity
Dave Lindorff
Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats
Website of
the Day
Oil Change
March 13,
2007
Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D.
Scenes
from a Cop Riot
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon
Robert Bryce
Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coal-Powered Democrats
Pierre Rimbert
Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism
Dave Lindorff
What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai
Elizabeth Schulte
The Repackaging of John Edwards
Norman Solomon
The Pragmatism of Prolonged War
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan
Jeff Conant
Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos
Website of the Day
Tacoma and the Big Heat
March 12,
2007
Marjorie Cohn
Patriot
Act Unbound
Col. Dan Smith
Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials
Paul Craig Roberts
Neocons in Kafkaland
Ingmar Lee
The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine
Fred Gardner
Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal
Ron Jacobs
Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest
Ralph Nader
Send the Bush Twins to Iraq!
John Ross
Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico
Stephen Fleischman
Bush's Latin American Slip
Eva Carazo Vargas
Why We Reject CAFTA
Website of
the Day
Mountain Justice Spring Break
March 9
/ 11, 2007
Sameer Dossani
Interview
with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st
Century
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Dave Marsh
Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent
Patrick Cockburn
Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive
Jennifer Van Bergen
A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic
Spying
James P. Stevenson
Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen
Arthur J. Versluis
Crusade for Commercialism
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime
Missy Beattie
Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying
Michael Simmons
Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter
Kevin Zeese
Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No
Longer Enough
David Swanson
Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats
John A. Murphy
Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless?
Dave Lindorff
Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by
Democrats
Nikolas Kozloff
Lights! Camera! Chavez!
Christopher
Fons
Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR?
Mike Roselle
A Thousand Miles of Bad River
Mike Mejia
Justice for Sibel Edmonds
Susie Day
Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran!
Michael Donnelly
LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5)
Poets' Basement
Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley
Website of the Weekend
Japanese Dolphin Massacre
March 8,
2007
Elaine Cassel
The
Tragic Case of Jose Padilla
Yifat Susskind
Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation
Corporate Crime Reporter
Politics and the Prosecutors
Col. Dan Smith
The Sins of Walter Reed
William S. Lind
The Washington Dodgers
Mark Engler
Bush's Latin American Spring Break
Roger Burbach
With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail
Dana Cloud
Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought
Police
Isabella Kenfield
Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental
Degradation
Lucinda Marshall
We Stand with the Women of the World
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part
3)
Website of
the Day
Filibuster for Peace
March 7, 2007
Christopher Ketcham
What Did Israel Know in Advance
of the 9/11 Attacks?
Christopher
Ketcham
The
Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up
Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair
Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Mismeasuring the Defense Budget
Sean Donahue
Free Scooter Libby!
Dave Lindorff
The Fall Guy Has Fallen
Evelyn Pringle
Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction
Website of the Day
Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!
March 6,
2007
Gary Leupp
Meet
Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It
Gets"
Uri Avnery
Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism
Patrick Cockburn
The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter
Saul Landau
World
in Crisis, Candidates in Denial
Corporate Crime Reporter
John Edwards' Big Lie
Ron Jacobs
The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong!
Mike Roselle
Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone
P. Sainath
Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell
Joshua Frank
Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War
Aniket Alam
Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen
Dave Zirin
Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer
Website of
the Day
Physicians for a National Health Program
March 5,
2007
Greg Moses
Holding
Suzi Hazahza for Profit
Patrick Cockburn
Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities
James Petras
Bush vs. Chavez
Frida Berrigan
US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial:
the Case of Augustín Aguayo
Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati
The Rice Crisis in East Timor
Sen. Barack Obama
On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment
to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel"
Michael Young
Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot?
Dave Lindorff
It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al
Sonja Karkar
Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive
Website of the Day
How Obama Learned to Love Israel
March 3
/ 4, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Corporate Crime
Reporter
"No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim
Bias
Jeffrey St. Clair
Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite
Patrick Cockburn
War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply
Ralph Nader
Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
M. Shahid Alam
American Mamlukes
Gilad Atzmon
From Esther to AIPAC
Fred Gardner
It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela
Rock &
Rap Confidential
Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively
for Blacks"
Gillian Russom
The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo
Michael McPhearson
My Small Act of Civil Disobedience
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom?
Sunsara Taylor
Four Years of an Unjust War
Wendy Thompson
Re-Organizing the UAW
Kenneth Rexroth
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"
Missy Beattie
Regarding Cheney
Don Monkerud
Jesus Turned Away at US Border
Tina Louise
Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams
Poets' Basement
Richards, Landau and Davies
Website of the Weekend
John Prine: Flag Decal
March 2,
2007
Roger Morris
Cheney's
Bagram Ghosts
Phil Gasper
Prisoners of Ideology
Mike Roselle
Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone
Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scam
John V. Walsh
Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the
War
Sherwood Ross
Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget
China Hand
Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb?
David Rosen
To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America
Chris Genovali
Connecting the Dots
Peter Harley
The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
March 1,
2007
Laura Carlsen
Return
to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
Ray McGovern
How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows?
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Theater of the Absurd
Najum Mustaq
America's Musharraf Dilemma
Brent Bowden
The War on Terror and the Terror of War
Tina Richards
Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds
Ethan Nadelman
Mexico and the Drug War
Mike Stark
"Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution
Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague
Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN
Mike Whitney
Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan
Website of
the Day
Dylan Hears a Who
February
28, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
An
Amazing Disgrace
Tao Ruspoli
A Conversation with Francisco Letelier
China Hand
The Shanghai Crash: Take the Money and Run
Marjorie Cohn
Why the Boumediene Case on Gitmo Detainees and Habeas Corpus
Was Wrongly Decided
Sarah Olson
Is Lt. Watada an Isolated Case of Military Dissent?
Susan Van Haitsma
Mark Wilkerson: Standing for a Soldier's Right to Conscience
Nicole Colson
License to Torture
Harvey Wasserman
The Sham of Nuclear Power
William S. Lind
The Non-Thinking Enemy
Nicola Nasser
US Turnabout?: Engagement and Confrontation in the Middle East
Website of the Day
Andrew Cockburn on Rumsfeld
February
27, 2007
Tariq Ali
The
Khyber Impasse: the Case for Withdrawal from Afghanistan
Tom Barry
America's
Crusaders: Santorum and Lieberman
Uri Avnery
The Next War
Antonia Juhasz / Raed Jarrar
Oil Grab: the Secret Scheme to Split Iraq
Jeff Nygaard
Howard Hunt and the National Memory System
Hugh O'Shaughnessy
Grenada: an Invasion Revisited
Mitchell Kaidy
Israel's Cluster Bombs: Made in USA, Ground-Tested in Lebanon
Carl Finamore
Airline Bankruptcies, Mergers and Profits
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Really Big Lie About Autism
Ramzy Baroud
Who is Really in Control?
Andrew Rouse
The Queen, Her Apothecary and the War on Iraq
Website of the Day
New York City Skyline
February
26, 2007
Franklin Lamb
US
Israel Lobby Targets Lebanon's Jihad al-Bina
Bill Quigley
The
Right to Return to New Orleans
Greg Moses
Suzi Hazahza in Haskell Hell
Col. Dan Smith
Calling All Carriers
Ralph Nader
The Bush Administration is a Threat to Our National Security
Paul Buchheit
The Income Gap
Jeff Leys
How Democrats Are Buying the Iraq War
Dave Zirin
Bojangling for Bigots: an Open Letter to Jason Whitlock
Mike Whitney
Doomsday Dick and the Plague of Frogs
Michael Dickinson
Free Kareem Amer!
Website of the Day
Beware the Chickenhawks!
February
24 / 25, 2007
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Frightening
Tales of Endangered Species
R. T. Naylor
Inside Islamic Charity
Gary Leupp
AIPAC Demands "Action" on Iran
Saul Landau
Modern Day Miracle: Rev. Haggard Cured! Thank You, Jesus!
Ron Jacobs
Missile Defense Redux
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Debate on the Israel Lobby
Chris Sands
Afghanistan in Winter: Where Death Comes Cheap
Gary Freeman
The N-Word and Black History Month
Larry Portis
Zionism and the United States: the Cultural Connection
P. Sainath
Two Million People in "Maximum Distress"
Lee Sustar
What Next for the Immigrants' Rights Movement?
Kevin Wehr
Liberal vs. Radical Enviros: the Thrill isn't Gone, It's Just
Moved
Ken Couesbouc
The African Card
Soffiyah Elijah
FBI Hunting Dead Panthers: Can John Bowman Ever Rest in Peace?
Kathlyn Stone
Iraqi Labor vs. Big Oil
Dave Lindorff
Breaking the Dam in Olympia
Jason Kunin
Criticizing Israel is Not an Act of Bigotry
Kevin Zeese
Can Hillary be Trusted?
Remi Kanazi
All Roads Lead to Checkpoints
Missy Beattie
Five Words That Change Lives
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt and Rodriguez
Website of the Weekend
Caught on Tape: an Anti-War Movement Finding Its Feet?
February
23, 2007
Franklin Spinney
Top
Gun vs. the Axis of Evil: Is This What We Have Become?
Jonathan Cook
Watching
the Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
The True Extent of Britain's Failure in Basra
Kathy Kelly
Do Something Good
Chris Dols
Islamophobia at Urban Outfiters: the Case for Keffiyehs
Evelyn Pringle
The Neurontin Suicides: Risks Kept Hidden for Years
Stephen Pearcy
If Bush is a War Criminal, What About the Troops?
Dan Brook
Making Poverty History
Yifat Susskind
Iraqi Police Commit Rapes
Website of
the Day
A Citizens Arrest of Patty Murray
February
22, 2007
Robert Fantina
Repeating
History
Tariq Ali
Prodi's Soap Operatic Fall: Neoliberalism and War in Italy
Michael Shank
An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Iran, Iraq, the Democrats and
Climate Change
John Ross
Calderon's War on Drugs
Christopher Brauchli
Stockcars on Dope: How NASCAR and the Tour de France are Bring
the World Together
Cindy Litman
Paying for the Damage Done to Iraq
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Mr. Jefferson's Inheritors: Caution, Calculation and Cold Feet
Kevin Zeese
Finally, a Populist Antiwar Candidate for President
Aseem Shrivastava
The New Indian Way?: a Developer's Model of Development
Reza Fiyouzat
A Letter to the Israeli People: We are All Led by Mad Men
Illinois Students Against the
War
Why We Protested at Obama's Speech
Website of
the Day
An Interview with Mike Gravel
February
21, 2007
Maass / St.
Clair
The
Clintons: the Art of Politics Without Conscience
Sharon Smith
Inside
the Imperial Budget
Greg Moses
Showdown Over Texas Immigrant Prisons
Margaret Kimberly
America the Stupid
Ralph Nader
Making Cancer Cool: Tobacco and Hollywood
Nicola Nasser
Evasive Diplomacy: Bush Adm. Shuns Middle East Peace Talks
Mike Whitney
The Second Great Depression
Tao Ruspoli
Revolutionary But Gangsta: a Conversation with Stic.Man of Dead
Prez
Byeong Jeongpil
Beyond the "Protection Facility",
Another Prison
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Why Hillary, Obama and Edwards Oppose Single-Payer Health Care
Josh Mahan
The Lost Art of Shattuck: a Good, Old-Fashioned Drinking Story
Website of
the Day
Time to Free the Puerto Rican Nationalists
February
20, 2007
Sgt. Martin
Smith
Structured
Cruelty: Learning to be a Lean, Mean Killing Machine
Werther
How
to be a Washington Expert
Corporate Crime Reporter
Exposing SAIC
Carl G. Estabrook
Common Sense About the Recent Past
China Hand
Setting Sun: The Diverging US-Japan Relationship
Joshua Frank
Cleaning Up Exxon's Greenpoint Oil Spill
Megan Boler
The Daily Show and Political Activism
John Feffer
People Power vs. Military Power in East Asia
Daryll E. Ray
What's Inside the New Farm Bill
Alan Gregory
Midwest Wolves Fall Prey to Slob Hunters' PR Scam
Website of the Day
"Not a Target Rich Environment?"
February
19, 2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Economists
in Denial: Blind to the Consequences of Offshoring
Gary Leupp
"A Genocidal, Suicidal Nation:" Mitt Romney Joins Iran's
Hysterical Accusers
Ron Jacobs
The Mecca Agreements: the Future Remains Bleak
Michael F.
Brown
The Peace Process Industry
Robert Jensen
Liberal Icons and War: Bi-Partisan Empire-Building
Roger Burbach
Ecuador Stands Up to US
Monica Benderman
America, Where Are You Now?
Sonja Karkar
Apocalyptic Archaeology: Israel's Provocations Threaten Jerusalem
John Walsh
Some Good News from Beantown
Talli Nauman
Colorado Delta Blues: Challenging the Law of the River
Website of the Day
"The Best Place to be in Town"
Feburary
17 / 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Sold
to Mr. Gordon, Another Bridge!
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Conversation with Patrick Cockburn, Part Two
Gary Leupp
Iran: A Chronology of Disinformation
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Dark Mesas in an Ancient Light
Roger Morris
The Undertaker's Tally: the Tragedy of Donald Rumsfeld
Uri Avnery
Facing Mecca
James Brooks
Palestinians and the "Diplomatic Horizon"
Sen. Russell
Feingold
Congress Must Defund the Iraq War
Linn Washington, Jr.
"Death Row is a Web That Catches Only the Poor"
Michele Brand
Iran: the Proxy War?
Fred Gardner
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Music and Basketball in the Harlem Renaissance
Mitchel Cohen
Storming the Pentagon: Lessons from 1967
Mike Ferner
Democrats Keep Ohio Refugee Free: "No Iraqis in Our Backyards!"
David Swanson
Memo to Don Young: What Lincoln Really Said
P. Sainath
In the Theater of the Jungle Belt
Mike Stark
GoreAid: Gore Plans Concert with Musicians He and Tipper Betrayed
in the 80s
Missy Beattie
The Object of My Disaffection
Jonathan Franklin
Carnival: Where Dance is Hope
Website of the Weekend
The Godfather and the Tenor: "It's a Man's World"
February 16, 2007
Marc Levy
Turning
Point: Veterans' Voices Trigger Response
Andrew Cockburn
In Iraq, Anyone Can Make a Bomb
Glen Ford
Powell, Rice and Obama: Putting Black Faces on Imperial Aggression
Greg Moses
The Terror of Suzi Hazahza: Why Her Family Must Be Freed
Ron Jacobs
Marching on the Pentagon: Then and Now
John W. Farley
Hook, Line and Sinker: The Press and Stephen Hadley
James Marc Leas
Vermont Legislature Says: "Bring Them Home Now!"
Tim Rinne
The Most Dangerous Place on the Face of the Earth?: StratCom
and the Coming War on Iran
Albert Wan
Star-Cross'd Lovers?: The Strange Romance of Hillary and David
Brooks
Website of
the Day
Did Wal-Mart Murder Tweety Bird?
February 15, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Who
is Muqtada al-Sadr?
Saul Landau
How
to Obsess Your Enemies
Stephen Lendman
The Rules of Imperial Management
Evelyn Pringle
More Zyprexa Postcards from the Edge
Michael Simmons
Is the Joke Over?: an Evening with Ralph Steadman
Kevin Zeese
A Congressional Kabuki Show
Dave Lindorff
The Co-Dependent Congress
Pete Shanks
They Want You to Eat Cloned Meat--And They Don't Want You to
Know It
Peter Rost
The Michelle Manhart Affair: the Air Force Listens!
Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon
An Exchange
Website of the Day
Barack Obama vs. Huey P. Newton
February
14, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
A Conversation with Patrick Cockburn
Dick J. Reavis
War
Without a Name
Margaret Kimberly
Medical Apartheid in America
Christopher Brauchli
The Perils of Charity: You Can be Prosecuted for Funding Terror
Even If the Designation of the Group as a Terrorist Organization
was Wrong!
Paul Craig
Roberts
Cracks in the Pentagon
John Ross
The Plot Against Mexican Corn
Michael F.
Brown
The Democrats and Palestine: New Chairman, Old Rules
Dave Lindorff
The Press Bites, Again: a Word of Caution on Those Iranian Weapons
J.L. Chestunut,
Jr.
Texas-style Injustice in Black and White
Don Fitz
Hybrids, Biofuels and Other False Idols
Michael Donnelly
Give Love, Give Life
Dr. Susan Block
The Chemistry of Love
Website of
the Day
Code Pink Drops By Hillary's Office
February
13, 2007
Uri Avnery
Three
Provocations: the Method in the Madness
Patrick Cockburn
Targeting Tehran
Ralph Nader
When Wall Street Whines (You Know They're Making a Killing)
Marjorie Cohn
Fool Us Twice? From Iraq to Iran
Col. Dan Smith
Iran Bashing Goes Prime Time
Col. Douglas
MacGreagor
Empty Vessels: Gen. Patraeus and Other Hollow Men
Thomas Power
Coal Ambivalence: Mining Montana
Nicola Nasser
The Politics of Archaeology in Jerusalem
David Swanson
Iran War Talking Points
Columbia Coalition
Against the War
Why We Are Striking
Website of the Day
Our Friends at Antiwar.com Need Your Help
February
12, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Scapegoating
Iran
Paul Craig
Roberts
How the World Can Stop Bush: Dump the Dollar!
John Walsh
A Splintered Antiwar Movement: Nader and Libertarians Not Welcome
Dr. John Carroll,
MD
What Next for Haiti's Cite Soliel?: a Journey Through the World's
Most Miserable Slum
Greg Moses
An Outrageously Sickening Immigration Policy
Nicole Colson
The Frame-Up That Fell Apart: Jury See Through Another Botched
Federal "Terrorism" Case
Dave Lindorff
Acting in Bad Feith: Inappropriate
Behavior and Impeachment
Ray McGovern
The Kervorkian Administration: Are Bush and Cheney the Biggest
Threats to the Existence of Israel?
Doug Giebel
Rampant Cyncism
David Swanson
Twisted: Sex and Torture in America
Website of the Day
The Texas Model: Executing Women in Iraq
February
10 /11, 2007
Weekend Edition
Alexander Cockburn
Will
They Nuke Iran?
Gabriel Kolko
Israel, Iran and the Bush Administration
Patrick Cockburn
Now
It's War on the Shia
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Till the Cows Come Home: How the West was Eaten
Kevin Alexander Gray
Barack Obama: Not a Bold Bone in His Body
M. Shahid Alam
The Pacification of Islam
Greg Moses
The Words of Mohammad: an 11 Year-Old Prisoner
Paul Craig
Roberts
Brzezinski's
Damning Indictment
George Ciccariello-Maher
Coups and Democracy in Venezuela
Kevin Zeese
"You Can't Oppose the War and Fund the War:" a Conversation
with Anthony Arnove
Turner / Kim
The World's Factory: China's Filthiest Export
George Duke
Has Jazz Lost Its African-American Core?
Walter Brasch
A Dream Still Unfulfilled: America Remains Divided
Shepherd Bliss
Veterans' Love Story
Missy Beattie
Fear and Diversions: Anna Nicole, Wolf Blitzer and the Missing
Body Count in Iraq
Peter Harley
Mr. Hyde and Uncle Sam: Reading Stevenson in an Age of Shock
and Awe
Pat Wolff
Oprah's Strange Endorsement of "The Secret"
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt, Engel and Louise
Website of the Day
The 25 Most Corrupt Members of Bush Administration
February 9, 2007
Conn Hallinan
The
Najaf Massacre: an Annotated Fable
Gary Leupp
Charging
Iran with "Genocide" Before Nuking It
Lee Sustar
An Interview with Patrick Cockburn
Nikolas Kozloff
Bombing Venezuela's Indians
Newton Garver
Politics
and Apartheid
Yitzhak Laor
Under the Steamroller
Dave Lindorff
Truth or Consequences: Some Questions for Bush
David Swanson
The Politics of Self-Congratulation: Democrats Change Gas, Claim
It's a New Car
Website of the Day
Why Corporate Social Responsibility is Not Working for Workers
February
8, 2007
John V. Walsh
Filibuster
to End the War Now!
Marjorie Cohn
Watada Beats Government
Trish Schuh
The Salvador Option in Beirut
Ron Jacobs
The Case of the San Francisco 8
Laura Carlsen
Mexico at Davos: the Split with Latin America Widens
Ramzy Baroud
Countdown for Iran
Brenda Norrell
"Leave It in the Ground": Indigenous Peoples Call for
Global Ban on Uranium Mining
Bryan Farrell
The Splinter and the Beam: Violence in the Eye of the Beholder
Judith Scherr
BP Beds Down with Cal-Berkeley
Website of
the Day
Peace TV
February
7, 2007
Daniel Wolff
"The
Road Home is a Joke": Playing Politics with the Recovery
of New Orleans
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews:
A Conversation with Oliver Stone on Art, Politics and the Future
of Cinema in Bush's America
Tony Swindell
The
Looming Shadow of Nuremberg
Sharon Smith
Why Protest Matters
Ken Couesbouc
Delenda Est Baghdad: Why Republics End Up as Empires
Jeff Cohen
Jonah
Goldberg's Gambling Debt
Col. Dan Smith
The Self-Destructive Logic of War
Tom Kerr
McCain to Wounded Soldiers: When Words Fail Fundamentally
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran
Adam Elkus
Surging Right Into Bin Laden's Hands
Stephen Fleischman
The Good News About War on Iran
Website of
the Day
Vote Vets: Battling Escalation
February
6, 2007
Diana Johnstone
Frenzy
in France Over Iranian Threat
Gregory Wilpert
Did Chavez Over-reach?: Venezuela's Enabling Law Could Enable
Opposition
Norman Solomon
A Kangaroo Court Martial: Making an Example of Ehren Watada
Dave Lindorff
Borat Goes to Washington: Don't Experiment with the Economy?
William Blum
Space Cowboys: Full Spectrum Dominance
Mike Ferner
War Opponents Occupy Congressional Offices
CP News Service
Nader's CNN Interview: "Hillary's a Panderer and a Flatterer"
Evelyn Pringle
Eli Lilly and Zyprexa: Even the Insurance Companies are Bailing
Christopher Brauchli
Corporate Advice from the Office of Detainee Affairs
Alan Cabal
How Charles Manson Kept Me Out of Vietnam
Website of the Day
Free Josh Wolf: the Longest Jailed Journalist in US History
February 5, 2007
Dave Zirin
Super
Bore: When Hawks Cry
Uri Avnery
The
Fatal Kiss: Wars and Scandals
Ron Jacobs
The
Looming War on Iran: It's Not About Democracy
Paul Craig Roberts
The Real Failed States
Newton Garver
Bush
and the Old Hands: Decider vs. Negotiator
Bruce Anderson
The Genocidal Namesake of the Hastings School of Law
Saul Landau
The Golden Globes After a Mud Bath
Ralph Nader
The Good Fight of Molly Ivins
James T. Phillips
Road Outrageous: Tailgating and Iraq
Mike Whitney
Quarantine USA: Bird Flu Panic and Profiteering
Kenneth Rexroth
Clowns and Blood-Drinking Perverts: Imperial History According
to Tacitus
Website of the Day
Richard Thompson's Anti-War Song: "'Dad's Gonna Kill Me"
February 3 /4, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Who
Can Stop the War?
Tao Ruspoli
CounterViews: a Conversation with Dr. Susan Block on Sex, Censorship
and Liberation
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The Thrill is Gone: the Withering of the American Environmental
Movement
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqis
on the Run
P. Sainath
They Take the Early Train
Sen. Russell Feingold
A Symbol of a Timid Congress
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|
March
15, 2007
Memo to Congressional
Leaders on Iraq Funding
Denouement
on Iraq: First Stop the Bleeding
By Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
March 14, 2007
MEMORANDUM FOR:
Speaker of the House
Senate Majority Leader
FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS)
SUBJECT: Denouement on
Iraq: First Stop the Bleeding
In the coming weeks a Congress
that is willing to assert its prerogative as a co-equal branch
of government has a unique opportunity to stop the needless deaths
and maiming of U.S. troops in Iraq and bring them home in an
orderly way this year. To do that, it must use its constitutionally
mandated authority---the power of the purse. Although the president,
vice president, and their most ardent supporters blindly insist
that victory is a troop surge away, the current U.S. military
commander on the ground, General David Petraeus, concedes that
no military victory is possible. Victory will only be secured
through a political solution. The question is not whether U.S.
troops will remain permanently in Iraq. The vast majority of
Americans agree that the U.S. presence in Iraq is temporary.
The real question is how many more Americans will be killed
and wounded in a civil war that pits Sunnis against Shias.
Background: VIPS is a movement
of retired intelligence officers, which we created in January
2003 because of our acute concern over the the politicization
of our profession. Our first analytic effort was a same-day
critique of Colin Powell's performance at the UN on February
5, 2003. (At the time, we seemed the only ones not at all impressed.)
Since then we have issued eleven more briefing memoranda, most
of them addressed to President George W. Bush. Our intent was
to make available sane, unadulterated intelligence analysis to
foster enlightened decision-making on the Middle East. We have
not the slightest hint, though, that our memoranda actually reached
the president. And when we released them to the media, our
efforts received little ink or airtime.
This president and vice president
have made a regular practice of standing the intelligence process
on its head. For example, they decided on the "surge"
(which is looking more and more like escalation) before
the intelligence community issued its National Intelligence Estimate
(NIE), "Prospects for Iraq's Stability: A Challenging Road
Ahead" in January. To their credit, the authors resisted
pressure to support the notion that a "surge" would
improve the US position in Iraq; the analysts refused to budge
and made it abundantly clear that, surge or not, the US position
would continue to erode.
The only trace of unacceptable
policy influence on the preparation of that NIE appeared in the
unclassified Key Judgments where the straw man of "rapid
withdrawal" was introduced and knocked down forcefully again
and again (and yet again on Monday by Cheney and yesterday by
the editors of the Washington Post in their lead editorial).
Intelligence analysts have complained that they were forced
to estimate what would result from "rapid withdrawal"
of US troops from Iraq, but not what would result from a gradual
or phased withdrawal. Although the chairman of the estimate
assured Senators at a hearing on February 27 that no political
pressure had been applied to the drafters, he could not explain
why the most extreme option, "rapid withdrawal," was
singled out for debunking.
To be sure, in the wake of
frequent visits by Cheney and I. Louis Libby to CIA headquarters
to help the analysts, and the ensuing debacle in intelligence
on Iraq, US intelligence was thoroughly discredited. Still,
it makes no sense to make key foreign policy decisions in an
intelligence vacuum. When we served in US intelligence, the
president (and sometimes the Congress) would ask us for our considered
view on likely foreign reaction to this or that policy
before final decisions were taken. Quickly prepared,
time-sensitive estimates were called Special National Intelligence
Estimates (SNIEs). Before President Lyndon Johnson started bombing
Vietnam, for example, he asked for a SNIE addressing the question
as to whether bombing would make a significant difference in
helping defeat the Vietnamese Communist "insurgency."
That was a no-brainer; we said No. He went ahead anyway, but
the point is that he would not have thought of making such a
decision without obtaining the unvarnished views of intelligence
analysts first.
Thanks to the separation of
powers, and the outcome of the November election, the nation
now has another foreign policy "decider"-you, the leaders
of the new Congress. The bottom line is you now have the power
to end the most unconscionable and catastrophic foreign policy
blunder in our nation's history. It will take a lot of courage,
but such courage cannot be expected, absent an true understanding
of just how foolish it is to throw more and more U.S. troops
into the cauldron. They deserve better.
It is with this acute sense
of the stakes involved that we offer our professional view on
what is likely to happen should there is unnecessary delay in
withdrawing our troops from Iraq. Drawing on well over a hundred
years of our collective experience in intelligence, we five members
of the VIPS Steering Group offer below principal conclusions
of what amounts to a mini-SNIE.
We offer the following Key
Judgments:
* The vast majority of the
violence in Iraq is sectarian in nature and involves a multifaceted
civil war mostly pitting Sunnis against Shias. However, the
violence also entails secular Sunnis fighting Sunni extremists
linked to Al Qaeda and secular Shias battling Shia extremists.
The civil war aspect includes (as the Jan. NIE put it) "the
hardening of ethno-sectarian identities, a sea change in the
character of the violence, ethno-sectarian mobilization, and
population displacements"-in other words, a rabid dog fight
with our troops in between. The only thing the various factions
share is unflinching opposition to US occupation. But the notion
that there is a monolithic group of "insurgents" or
"enemy" falls far wide of the mark.
* U.S. strategy in Iraq is
based on the false assumptions that the "people" and
the "insurgents" in Iraq are two distinct and opposing
groups, and that US and Iraqi forces will be able to "clear"
the insurgents and "hold" the people. In fact, the
resistance will be suppressed in one area, only to re-emerge
somewhere else (the attempt to suppress is appropriately called
"Operation Whack-a-Mole"). It goes against virtually
all historical precedent to suppose that an unwelcome invader
with 150,000 troops-and Iraqi security forces that the NIE judged
to be "persistently weak"-can occupy and subdue a large
country with a population of 26 million and long porous borders.
* The United States does not
have enough military forces on the ground in Iraq to provide
effective control of the cities and key regions to prevent violence
and destroy insurgent infrastructure. Moreover, the U.S. lacks
sufficient soldiers and marines in its current globally deployed
force to provide sustained reinforcements. And absent is the
political will to bring back the draft to obtain the number of
troops required to get better control of the situation on the
ground in Iraq. Even with a draft, the United States would require
two years at a minimum to train and organize the new units for
any mission in Iraq. Given these facts, there is no military
solution to the situation in Iraq.
* A surge in US troops in specific
areas, specifically Baghdad, may bring more than a momentary
lessening in the violence, but it will not end the fighting.
In fact, this concentrated surge will enable insurgent forces
in other areas of the country to expand their operations and
control. A de facto partitioning of Iraq is under way. Since
the surge started we have already seen an increase in violence
in the Kurdish controlled north.
* At current casualty rates,
twelve more months will mean at least 1,000 additional US troops
killed and 18 more months will bring at least 1,500-not to mention
Iraqis killed, and thousands upon thousands seriously wounded.
The various Iraqi insurgent groups will probably fade into the
woodwork for a while, but at a time and place of their choosing
they will surely be back, in force. In the end, aside from the
deaths, nothing lasting will have been achieved.
* Senior US civilian and military
officials still don't get it. "They can't beat us in a
stand-up fight," bragged our vice president just two months
ago, echoing recent words of a US Army colonel in Iraq. This
completely misses the point, and calls to mind the sad month
of April 1975, when Col. Harry Summers was sent to negotiate
with a North Vietnamese colonel the terms of American withdrawal
from Vietnam. Summers reported the following exchange: "'You
know, you never beat us on the battlefield,' I said to Colonel
Tu, my North Vietnamese counterpart. 'That may be so,' he said,
'but it is also irrelevant.'"
* The critical parts of Iraq-Baghdad
and southern Iraq-will be under the control of the Shia. Iran
in turn will try to expand its aid and influence among both the
Shia populace and the secular Sunnis.
* The US occupation continues
to be a windfall for terrorist recruiters. An NIE of April 2006
on terrorism noted that the war in Iraq has become a primary
recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists whose numbers,
it said, may be increasing faster than the US can reduce the
threat. There is wide consensus among experienced observers
that the war in Iraq makes it immensely more difficult to deal
with the real threat of international terrorism.
* Violence in Iraq, at least
for the mid-term, will continue regardless of the U.S. presence.
Once a U.S. departure is under way there is an increased likelihood
that the Sunnis and Shias will move toward a political accommodation
of some sort since at that point neither can count on the United
States to fight on their side. The only thing in doubt is the
timing of the US departure, and whether it can be accomplished
without the massacres the British experienced trying to extricate
themselves from earlier expeditions into Iraq. The lack of a
substantial U.S. military presence in Iraq will have the counterintuitive
effect of increasing the likelihood that neighboring countries
will be more willing to take steps to help reduce the violence
in Iraq.
No one asked either the authors
of the recent NIE on Iraq, or us in VIPS, to assess the various
proposals on the table for their effect on the situation in Iraq.
Domestic politics appears the dominant factor guiding the Congress.
Domestic politics is not part of our portfolio, but as American
citizens, parents and grandparents, we will permit ourselves
this observation. We note that the amendment offered by Congresswoman
Barbara Lee, mandating that supplemental funding be used exclusively
for the "safe and complete withdrawal " of all US troops
and contractors from Iraq not later than December 31, 2007, offers
the most realistic approach in terms of what the U.S. can accomplish
on the ground in Iraq. The main difference boils down to the
saving of thousands of American and Iraqi lives this year, with
little-to-no chance for the administration to diddle Congress.
Your draft legislation makes
the dubious assumption that the president believes the U.S. Constitution
still applies to him-and that he should be taken at his word.
Rather, his behavior has shown that he has little but contempt
for Congress, which he has had little trouble manipulating-at
least until now. Again, what remains indisputably in your quiver
is the power of the purse. This is your chance to use it, and
save an untold number of lives in the process. You may wish
to let the chips, rather than our soldiers, fall where they may.
/s/
Ray Close, Princeton, NJ
Larry Johnson, Bethesda, MD
David C. MacMichael, Linden, VA
Ray McGovern, Arlington, VA
Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, MN
Steering Group
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
VIPS can be reached through
Ray McGovern at: RRMcGovern@aol.com
|
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