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Today's
Stories
April 6, 2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B. Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez del Solar
A Year
Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The Illegal
Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated US and
International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
March 30, 2004
William S. Lind
An Occurrence
in Pakistan: the Battle That Wasn't
Ron Jacobs
Assassinations, Hate Mail &
Justice
Mickey Z.
Tommy Boy Friedman Does "Imagine"
Neve Gordon
Strategic Motives of the Yassin Assassination
Mark Scaramella
The Founding Scam: Insider Trading is the American Way
John Chuckman
The Countessa of Empire: Condi
Rice's Idea of Democracy
Greg Moses
Live from Pasadena: Silhouettes of New Order
Rai O'Brien
What Kind of Democracy to Expect if the Opposition Takes Power
in Venezuela
Bill Christison
The
9/11 Commission: Dangerous Harbinger for the Future
Website of the Day
Ghost Town: Riding Through Chernobyl
March 29, 2004
John Maxwell
Crisis
in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold
J. Michael Springmann
Email
Spying & Attorney Client Privilege
Robert Fisk / Severin
Carrell
Coalition
of the Mercenaries
The Black Commentator
Haiti's Troika of Terror
Doug Giebel
Candide in the Wilderness:
How Bush Policy Was Made
David Krieger
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation
Bargain
Mike Whitney
Rejecting the Language of Terrorism
Richard Oxman
The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American
Family
Kim Scipes
The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again
Michael Donnelly
End Game for Northwest Forests
Norman Solomon
The Media Politics of 9/11
Kathy Kelly
Last Lines Before Vanishing
Website of the Day
Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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.
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April
6, 2004
The Anti-Empire Report
What
Would Royko Write?
By WILLIAM BLUM
A higher purpose
Saturday afternoon, March 6, a shuttle boat moving
through Baltimore's Inner Harbor was hit by a sudden and ferocious
gust of wind and capsized; 25 people were thrown overboard; some
were trapped under the boat; disaster was imminent. But the scene
was in sight of a group of sailors stationed at the Naval Reserve
Center at Fort McHenry, about 1,000 feet away. They quickly sprung
into action. Twenty-five Naval Reservists and career sailors
in a combat landing craft arrived at the shuttle within minutes
of the accident. The sailors lowered the craft's retractable
landing ramp -- designed to allow troops to exit the boat in
a beach landing -- and used it as a lever to lift the capsized
vessel. It worked. The maneuver provided enough room to extract
the people trapped beneath the boat. Other sailors dived into
the water. Almost everyone was saved. And what thought came to
me upon reading the story of this rescue? If only American military
forces -- who would really rather not study how best to kill
-- and their superb, costly equipment could be used for life-enhancing
purposes all the time, in all corners of the world.{1}
The Israeli lobby
Philip Zelikow is of the type of whom
it is customarily said: "He has impeccable establishment
credentials". He is currently executive director of the
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States.
Between 2001 and 2003 he served on the President's Foreign Intelligence
Advisory Board (PFIAB), which reports directly to the president.
Before his appointment to PFIAB he was part of the Bush transition
team in January 2001. And in 1995 he co-authored a book with
Condoleezza Rice.
It's recently been revealed that in 2002
he publicly stated that a prime motive for the upcoming invasion
of Iraq was to eliminate a threat to Israel.
"Why would Iraq attack America or
use nuclear weapons against us?" he asked a crowd at the
University of Virginia on Sep. 10, 2002. "I'll tell you
what I think the real threat (is) and actually has been since
1990 -- it's the threat against Israel. And this is the threat
that dare not speak its name, because the Europeans don't care
deeply about that threat, I will tell you frankly. And the American
government doesn't want to lean too hard on it rhetorically,
because it is not a popular sell."
And this seems to be the story that dare
not speak its name. The story was revealed on March 29 by Inter
Press Service, a major international news agency that is mainly
published outside the United States. An extensive search of the
Lexis-Nexis database revealed that only one English-language
news source in the world picked up the story: another news agency,
United Press International, on March 30. There thus appears to
be no mainstream newspaper or broadcast medium that used it.
I'll bet you never
thought of that
On March 25, L. Paul Bremer, the American
head of the occupation authority in Iraq, issued an executive
order specifying that "All trained elements of the Iraqi
armed forces shall at all times be under the operational control
of the [American] commander of coalition forces for the purpose
of conducting combined operations." The order was not referring
simply to the present state of affairs; it was a command for
the future, after the alleged return of sovereignty to the Iraqis
on June 30.
In regard to the rather obvious and rather
sensitive question of whether the Iraqis would stand for this
continued American control, a US official in Baghdad had it all
figured out: He declared that the Iraqis could hardly claim that
Iraq's sovereignty was compromised by having its troops under
American command when nations like Britain and Poland had placed
military contingents in Iraq under an American general. "There's
no sovereignty issue for them," he said.{2}
Guinea pigs fighting
for freedom and democracy
Jessica Horjus, a member of the US Air
Force, refused to take the anthrax vaccine before deploying to
a base in Kuwait, about 30 miles from Iraq, primarily because
no anthrax has been found in Iraq; the vaccine moreover is a
product that has accumulated thousands of reports of adverse
reactions ranging from headaches and vomiting to severe autoimmune
and neurological problems. Despite this and despite four years
service and commendations and Good Conduct Medals, Horjus' commander
demoted her and cut her pay in half.
In February, she declined a second and
third order. In March, the young mother accepted the Air Force's
offer of an other-than-honorable discharge. Some who have declined
the vaccine have been imprisoned; others have been threatened
with up to 10 years in prison, more than even rape or drug charges
may bring in the military. Soldiers, citizen groups and members
of Congress are increasingly calling upon defense officials to
stop the vaccinations, which have been declined by numerous members
of the armed services. All to no avail.{3}
What lies behind the military's obstinate
refusal to bend and its desire to severely punish?
Could it be that the Pentagon wants the
vaccinations to continue so that statistics can be further compiled
and refined about the effects of the vaccine? This would of course
be using members of the armed forces as guinea pigs, a practice
which has a long tradition in the US military ... GIs marched
to nuclear explosion sites, subjected to chemical and biological
weapons experiments, radiation experiments, behavior modification
experiments that washed their brains with LSD, the list goes
on ... literally millions of experimental subjects, seldom given
a choice or adequate information, often with disastrous effects
to their physical and/or mental health, rarely with proper medical
care or even monitoring.{4}
What part of "no"
don't they understand?
During a visit to the former Soviet republic
of Kazakhstan on February 25, US Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld
was moved to declare: "It's interesting when one thinks
about the problem of Iraq and their unwillingness to disarm that
Kazakhstan stands as an impressive model of how a country can
do it."
Rumsfeld's words inspire one to ask again
the immortal question: Huh? Hasn't the man heard yet that Iraq
did disarm? And rather thoroughly it would appear. Can we soon
expect George W. to once again call upon Iraq to disarm? "Had
Iraq followed the Kazakhstan model after 17 U.N. resolutions
and disarmed the way Kazakhstan did, there would not have been
a war," Rumsfeld added.{5}
There's no reason to assume that anything
short of the second coming would have dissuaded the imperial
mafia to change their long-held plans to conquer Iraq, but one
still might ask, as supporters of the war have: Why didn't Iraq
announce before the invasion that it had no weapons of mass destruction?
There are several answers to this question,
the most important one being: They did! Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister
Tariq Aziz announced it on at least two occasions on American
television. In August 2002 he told Dan Rather: "We do not
possess any nuclear or biological or chemical weapons."{6}
In December he asserted to Ted Koppel: "The fact is that
we don't have weapons of mass destruction. We don't have chemical,
biological, or nuclear weaponry."{7}
But in any event, the Bush administration
knew perfectly well that Iraq's military capability was nothing
to be concerned about at all. Here's Colin Powell, speaking in
February 2001 of US sanctions on Iraq: "And frankly they
have worked. He has not developed any significant capability
with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to
project conventional power against his neighbors."{8}
And here is Condoleezza Rice, in July
of that year, speaking of Saddam Hussein: "We are able to
keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."{9}
Personal responsibility
a la America
"A compassionate society is one
in which people respect one another, respect their religious
views, respect their opinions. It's a society in which people
take responsibility for the decisions they make." George
W. Bush {10}
It's unclear what taking responsibility
for one's decisions has to do with compassion, but the virtue
that American society supposedly attaches to such behavior is
legendary; many a Western film has revolved around the mystique
of personal responsibility. Thus it is that if people have problems
caused by alcohol, owners of liquor stores and distilleries are
not arrested.
If people have problems caused by smoking,
cigarette vendors and manufacturers are not arrested.
If people have problems caused by obesity,
food vendors and food manufacturers are not arrested.
Yet, if people have problems caused by
recreational drugs, or even if they don't have problems but use
or merely possess the drugs, those associated in any way with
making such drugs available to the public are put away by the
millions for god-awful long times.
Love me, love me,
love me, I'm a liberal
You've read about liberals starting their
own radio network to compete with the likes of Rush Limbaugh,
Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly? When I first read about this
I was only mildly enthused because, as I've mentioned before
in this report, it's a fallacy to pose liberals as polar opposites
to such conservatives. Will they be ideologically challenging
and tough enough, I wondered. But I was willing to keep an open
mind and give them a chance. Then I read of the name of the new
liberal network -- "Air America". A name intimately
associated -- indeed, virtually synonymous with -- the CIA for
more than 50 years, the Agency's principal airline.
It's not broadcast in my area, but I
read a report of the station's first day on the air: Michael
Moore apologizing to Al Gore for supporting Ralph Nader in 2000.
A defense of Janet Reno's response to "terrorism" compared
with that of John Ashcroft. (Did someone mention "Waco"?)
Janeane Garofalo complaining about the "very vulgar things"
said about Bill Clinton. Did they miss anyone in their valentine
to the Democratic administration? Hillary Clinton was slated
to appear on Day Two.{11} Air America has the potential to do
more harm to the progressive cause than Fox News Channel. Unsophisticated
listeners, i.e., most Americans, will listen in and think that
THIS is the alternative to what I've been hearing from the likes
of Fox or neo-cons, and never imagine the world above and beyond;
conservatives need not feel particularly threatened in their
beliefs.
William Blum is
the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions
Since World War II, Rogue
State: a guide to the World's Only Super Power. and West-Bloc
Dissident: a Cold War Political Memoir.
He can be reached at: BBlum6@aol.com
NOTES
{1} Washington Post, March 8,2004
{2} New York Times, March 26, 2004
{3} Washington Post, March 27, 2004
{4} William Blum, Rogue State: A Guide
to the World's Only Superpower, pp.3-4
{5} Los Angeles Times, February 26, 2004
{6} CBS Evening News, August 20, 2002
{7} ABC Nightline, December 4, 2002
{8} State Department press release, February
24, 2001
{9} CNN Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer,
July 29, 2001
{10} White House press release, January
29, 2004, from Bush speech
{11} Washington Post, April 1, 2004
Weekend
Edition Features for April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B. Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
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