Today's
Stories
April 20, 2006
Justin E.H. Smith
Doctors and Lethal Injection
April 19, 2006
P. Sainath
More Kids? Pay More for Your Water
Norman
Solomon
When Diplomacy Means War: Bait-and-Switch
on Iran
Anthony Papa
When Justice Isn't Blind: Double Standards
for the Rich and Poor in New York
Mike
Ferner
Movement Blues
Stanley Heller
The Massacre at Qana, 10 Years Later:
Still No Justice
Rifundazione
"We Defeated Berlusconi"
Christopher
Reed
Secrets of the Garden of Bliss
Alexander
Cockburn
The Pulitzer Farce
Website of
the Day
Bunker
Busters: the Movie
April 18, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts
How Safe is Your Job?
Eric
Wingerter
Washington Post vs. Venezuela
Juan Santos
What Immigrants Need to Learn from
the Black Civil Rights Movement
Greg
Weiher
The Zarqawi Gambit Revisited
Sam Bahour
Is Hamas Being Forced to Collapse?
Behzad
Yaghmaian
In the Gaze of New Orleans
Website of
the Day
The
FBI and the Jack Anderson Files
April 17, 2006
Kevin Zeese
An Interview with the First Arab-American
Senator: Jim Abourezk on Bush's Lies and the Dems' Complicity
Uri Avnery
Olmert the Fox
Norman Solomon
Why Won't Moveon.Org Oppose the Bombing
of Iran?
John Ross
A Real Day Without Mexicans?
Laila al-Haddad
The Earth is Closing in on Us: Dispatch
from Gaza
Jeffrey Blankfort
A Tale of Two Members of Congress
and the Capitol Hill Police
Website of the Day
Dixie
Chicks: Not Ready to Back Down
April
15 / 16, 2006
Jeffrey
St. Clair
How Star Wars Came to the Arctic
Ralph
Nader
Remembering Rev. William Sloan Coffin
Thaddeus
Hoffmeister
The Ghost of Shinseki: the General Who Was Sent Out to Pasture for
Being Right
Kevin Prosen
/ Dave Zirin
Privilege Meets Protest at Duke
Thomas
P. Healy
Taking Care of What We've Been Given: a Conversation with Wendell
Berry
Kristoffer
Larsson
Are 40 Percent of All Swedes Anti-Semitic?: Anatomy of a Statistical
Flim-Flam
Fred
Gardner
Continuing Medical (Marijuana) Education
Edwin Krales
New York's Katrina: the Hidden Toll of AIDS Among Blacks and the
Poor
Brian
Cloughley
Don't Blitz Iran: Risking the Ultimate Blowback
John Holt
Walking Off Vietnam with Edward Abbey's Surrogate Son
Seth
Sandronsky
What Billionaires Mean By Education Reform: Oprah, Bill Gates and
the Privatization of Public Schools
Rafael Renteria
Making It Plain About New Orleans
Michael
Ortiz Hill
In the Ashes of Lament: an Easter Meditation
William A.
Cook
An Israel Accountability Act
Gideon
Levy
Shooting Nasarin: a Story About a Little Girl
Andrew Wimmer
Stopping the Bush Juggernaut: a New Citizens Campaign
Madis
Senner
Talking Points for Easter Weekend: Jesus Didn't Lie, Mr. Bush
Michael Kuehl
The Sex Police State: Women as "Rapists" and "Pedophiles"?
Mark
Scaramella
When Even God Can't Follow His Own Commandments: the Timeless Scarcasm
of Mark Twain
Nate Mezmer
187 Proof: Living and Dying Hip-Hop
Jesse
Walker
Playlist
Poets' Basement
Engel, Laymon and Subiet
Website
of the Weekend
Pink Serenades Bush
April
14, 2006
Col.
Dan Smith
Candor or Career?: Why Few Top Military Officials
Resign on Principle
Saul Landau
Ho Chi Minh City Moves On Without Regrets
Stan
Cox
The Real Death Tax
Kevin Zeese
Hersh vs. Bush on Iran: Who Would You Believe?
Brian
McKinlay
Bad Times for Bush's Buddies
Howard Meyers
Dwarves, Knives and Freedom: Bush, Jr. is No LBJ
Ishmael
Reed
The Colored Mind Doubles: How the Media Uses Blacks
to Chastize Blacks
Website of
the Day
Asshole: a Film Strip
April
13, 2006
CounterPunch
News Service
Powell's "Bitch"?
Norman
Solomon
The Lobby and the Bulldozer
Stanley Heller
Time to Shake Up the Peace Movement
Jeff
Birkenstein
Bush and Freedom of Speech
Evelyn J.
Pringle
Not So Fast, Mr. Powell
Michael
Donnelly
The Week the Bush Administration Fell Apart
Kamran Matin
Synergism of the Neo-Cons: What's Going On In Iran?
Website
of the Day
"Don't Be Afraid of the Neo-Cons"
April
12, 2006
Vijay Prashad
Resisting Fences
Alan
Maass
The Suicide of Anthony Soltero
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Insane First Strike Policy: If You Don't Want to Get Whacked,
You'd Better Get Your Nation a Nuke ... Fast
Ron
Jacobs
Resistance: the Remedy for Fear
Ramzy Baroud
The Imminent Decline of the American Empire?
Randall
Dodd
How a Wal-Mart Bank will Harm Consumers
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Boy President Who Cried "Wolf!"
P. Sainath
The Corporate Hijack of India's Water
Website of
the Day
"The System is Irretrievably Corrupt"
April
11, 2006
Al
Krebs
Corporate Agriculture's Dirty Little Secret: Immigration
and a History of Greed
Lawrence
R. Velvel
The Gang That Couldn't Leak Straight
Sonia Nettinin
Palestinian Health Care Conditions Under Israeli Occupation
Willliam
S. Lind
The Fourth Plague Hits the Pentagon: Generals as Private Contractors
Robert Ovetz
Endangered Species in a Can: the Disappearance of Big Fish
Pratyush
Chandra
Nepalis Say, "Ya Basta!"
Grant F.
Smith
The Bush Administration's Final Surprise?
Laray
Polk
Loud, Soft, Hard, Quiet: Marching Through Dallas for Immigrant Rights
Francis Boyle
O'Reilly and the Law of the Jungle: How to Beat a Bully on His Home
Turf
José
Pertierra
A Glimpse into the Mindset of Terrorists: Posada Carriles, Orlando
Bosch and the Downing of Cubana Flight 455
Website of
the Day
The Dead Emcee Scrolls
April
10, 2006
Ralph
Nader
Tinhorn Caesar and the Spineless Democrats
Heather Gray
Atlanta and the Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Uri
Avnery
The Big Wink
Joshua Frank
Big Greens and Beltway Politics: Betting on Losers
Seth
Sandronsky
Immigration and Occupations
Michael Leonardi
The Italian Elections: "Reality is No Longer Important"
Evelyn
Pringle
Did Bush Pull a Fast One on Fitzgerald?
Tom Kerr
FoxNews Does Ward Churchill
Lucinda
Marshall
The Lynching of Cynthia McKinney
Website of
the Day
Brown Berets
April
7 -9, 2006
Alexander
Cockburn
If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Saga of Magnequench: Outsourcing US Missile
Technology to China
Patrick
Cockburn
The War Gets Grimmer Every Day
David Vest
The Rebuking and Scorning of Cynthia McKinney
Dave
Lindorff
The Impeachment Clock Just Clicked Forward
Gary Leupp
"Ideologies of Hatred:" What Did Condi Mean?
Elaine
Cassel
The Moussaoui Trial: What Kind of Justice is This?
Saul Landau
Vietnam Diary: Hue Without Rules
James
Ridgeway
"This is Betty Ong Calling": a Short Film
Ron Jacobs
Why Iran was Right to Refuse US Money
John
Walsh
Kerry Advocates Iraqization: Too Little, Too Late
Ramzy Baroud
The US Attitude Toward Hamas: Disturbing Parallels with Nicaragua
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush Finds Democracy Has Its Limits
Todd Chretien
What the Pentagon Budget Could Buy for America
Jonathan
Scott
Javelins at the Head of the Monolith
John Bomar
What They're Saying About Bush in Arkansas
Michele
Brand
Iran, the US and the EU
Ronan Sheehan
Remember When the Irish First Met the Chinese?
Mickey
Z.
Let Us Now Praise OIL
Don Monkerud
March of the Bunglers
Michael
Dickinson
The Rich Young Man: a Miracle Play
Website
of the Weekend
The Case Against Israel and Munich: Compare and Contrast
| April
20, 2006
"The Solution to 'Enemy
Deprivation Syndrome'"
Cheney, the Neocons
and China
By GARY LEUPP
Robert
Dreyfuss’ article “Vice
Squad,” about the Office of the Vice President in the
American Prospect) is the best piece I’ve seen in awhile on
the neoconservatives and their persistent influence in the Bush
Administration. But it also places the neocons’ Middle East
preoccupation in wider perspective.
Dreyfuss
notes that the OVP is “very difficult for journalists to penetrate”
because of its extraordinary, unprecedented degree of secrecy. Even
so, “a Prospect investigation shows that the key to Cheney’s
influence lies with the corps of hard-line acolytes he assembled
in 2001. They serve not only as his eyes and ears, monitoring a
federal bureaucracy that resists many of Cheney’s pet initiatives,
but sometimes serve as his fists, too, when the man from Wyoming
feels that the passive-aggressive bureaucrats need bullying.”
Among
key staff members, Dreyfuss lists the disgraced Lewis “Scooter”
Libby, formerly Cheney’s chief of staff and top national security
adviser; current top security adviser John Hannah; current chief
of staff David Addington; national security advisers Eric Edelman
and Victoria Nuland (wife of neocon heavy Robert Kagan); Middle
East specialists William J. Luti, and David Wurmser; and Asia hands
Stephen Yates and Samantha Ravich. He also lists an array of technocrats,
lobbyists, domestic policy gurus and communications directors. (For
an official enjoying about 18% approval, Cheney has a large PR staff.)
Dreyfuss
describes how on numerous occasions one of Cheney’s “acolytes”
has intervened to overturn decisions made by the State Department,
CIA or other government bodies to produce the result Cheney desires.
For example, in February 2005 King Abdullah of Jordan on a Washington
visit urged the U.S. to bolster Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas,
the Fatah leader, to counter the power of the new popularly elected
Hamas administration. The State Department was inclined to agree,
but Hannah stepped in, arguing Cheney’s view that the entire
Palestinian Authority was now irrelevant. (Washington has since
cut nearly all ties to the Palestinian Authority.)
Cheney
consistently gets his way, controlling what information reaches
President Bush, who has little interest in details. An “insider
deeply involved in U.S. policy toward North Korea” described
the decision-making process. “The president is given only
the most basic notions about the Korea issue. They tell him, ‘Above
South Korea is a country called North Korea. It is an evil regime.’
… So that translates into a presidential decision: Why enter
into any agreement with an evil regime?”
Lawrence
Wilkerson has referred to the Vice President’s office as the
center of a “cabal” that pressed for war on Iraq and
built the case by cherry-picked dubious intelligence. That it’s
a powerful nest of neoconservatives intent on “regime change”
in Syria and Iran is no news. That the simple-minded, bellicose
president leans on Cheney for advice and thereby empowers an alliance
of aggressive nationalists and neoconservatives to set foreign policy
is no news either. But Dreyfuss sheds new light on Cheney’s
perception of the world, and the role that China plays within it.
Cheney’s
leading China specialist, Stephen Yates, and several other staffers
(including Libby) worked for California Congressman Christopher
Cox in the 1990s during the investigation into Chinese political
influence in the U.S. that followed allegations of Beijing contributions
to the Clinton-Gore presidential campaign. The long report they
produced maintains that China is a looming threat and rival, with
its rapacious need for Middle East oil and designs on Taiwan. Charles
W. Freeman, a former U.S. ambassador to China who has known him
many years says that Yates, as well as neocons Paul Wolfowitz and
Douglas Feith, formerly top officials in Donald Rumsfeld’s
Defense Department, “all [see] China as the solution to ‘enemy
deprivation syndrome.’” (You need some unifying enemy
after the collapse of the Soviet Union.)
I’ve
hesitated about whether to apply the word “neoconservative”
to persons like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. I tend to follow the
Christian
Science Monitor list. Paul Wolfowitz, Libby, Douglas Feith,
Richard Perle, Richard Bolton, and Elliott Abrams are intellectuals
absorbed in the project of using U.S. military power to remake the
Middle East to improve Israel’s long-term security interests.
(Hannah, David Wurmser, Eric Edelman, and other White House staffers
not on the Monitor’s dated list also fall into this category.)
Ultimate decision-makers Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld on the other
hand are sometimes referred to as “aggressive nationalists.”
They are no doubt Christian Zionists, but are probably most interested
in transforming the “Greater Middle East” in the interests
of corporate America in an increasingly competitive world. They’re
probably more concerned about the geopolitics of oil and the placement
of “enduring” military bases to “protect U.S.
interests” than the fate of Israel.
Dreyfuss’
article suggests that Cheney (and thus, the administration) sees
China as the biggest long-term threat to those interests. If conflict
with China is inevitable, it makes sense to have U.S. bases in Afghanistan,
Kyrgyzstan, Iraq and maybe Iran and Syria. If China is dependent
on Middle East oil, it makes sense for the U.S. to be able to control
how and where it flows from the Caspian Sea and Persian Gulf oil
fields. It makes sense to cultivate an alliance with India, risking
the accusation of nuclear hypocrisy in doing so. It makes sense
to ratchet up tensions on the Korean Peninsula, by linking North
Korea to Iran and Iraq, calling it “evil,” dismissing
South Korea’s “sunshine diplomacy” efforts and
encouraging Japan to take a hard line towards Pyongyang. It makes
sense to get Tokyo to declare, for the first time, that the security
of the Taiwan Straights is of common concern to it and Washington.
It makes sense to regain a strategic toehold in the Philippines,
in the name of the War on Terror, and to vilify the growing Filipino
Maoist movement. It makes sense for a man like Cheney, who decided
on Bush’s staff in late 2000, to seed the cabinet with strategically-placed
neocons who have a vision of a new Middle East. Because (1) that
vision fits in perfectly with the broader New World Order and U.S.
plans to contain China, and (2) the neocons as a coordinated “persuasion”
if not movement, with their fingers in a dozen right-wing think
tanks, and the Israel Lobby including its Christian Right component,
and the academic community, are well-placed to serve as what Dreyfuss
calls “acolytes.”
They
are equipped with a philosophical outlook that justifies the use
of hyped, imagined threats to unite the masses behind rulers’
objectives and ambitions, to suppress dissent and control through
fear. They’re inclined to identify each new target as “a
new Hitler,” and to justify their actions as “an
answer to the Holocaust.”
They
have served Cheney well, and he them so far. They’re all being
exposed, maybe weakened. But as Dreyfuss states at the end of his
article, “The true measure of how powerful the vice president’s
office remains today is whether the United States chooses to confront
Iran and Syria or to seek diplomatic solutions. For the moment,
at least, the war party led by Dick Cheney remains in ascendancy.”
Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University,
and Adjunct Professor of Comparative Religion. He
can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
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