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What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter How the U.S. Army Kills Its Own Soldiers A horrifying, exclusive report from JoAnn Wypijewski on the grim secrets of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. How a sadistic drill sergeant tortured basic trainees, amid brutal indifference that led to the death on March 19,2006,of 21-year-old PFC Matthew Scarano. Dead Movement Marching? Cockburn and St Clair assess the failures of the national antiwar groups, even as popular opposition to the war tops 60 per cent. Stalin or Confucius? Chris Reed on the Secrets of the Garden of Bliss, otherwise known as North Korea. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories Gabriel Kolko The US Empire vs. Reality March 23, 2006 Charles V. Peña Bush's Pro-Terrorism Defense Budget Joe DeRaymond El Salvador 2006: a Broken Nation Robert Fisk "US Authorities Say..." Jonathan Cook The Emerging Jewish Consensus in Israel Tom Engelhardt Whatever Happened to Congress?: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson Joshua Frank Political Lemmings: the Democrats and the Precipice Norman Solomon The Ultimate Scapegoat: Blaming the Media for Bad War News Robert Fitch / Joe Allen An Exchange on the State of Organized Labor Patrick Cockburn Kirkuk's Dr. Death CounterPunch News Service On the Proper Way to Address a Bible-Waving Republican State Senator from Maryland Website of the Day Bird-Dogging Kerry   March 22, 2006 David MacMichael Iranian Nuclear Showdown: an Unnecessary Crisis Juan Santos Brown Skin, Yellow Star: Making Latinos Illegal Paul Craig Roberts Hollow Nation: Americans Don't Live Here Anymore Patrick Cockburn Iraq's My Lai?: Shooting Any Iraqi Who Moves Ramzy Baroud The Jericho Raid Jason Leopold The Mysterious "Official One": Woodward's Plame-Leak Deep Throat Dennis Perrin Killer Lies from Cheney's Harlot William Blum The Cuban Punching Bag Jeffrey St. Clair Contract Casino Website of the Day Bird Flu: Will It Cross Over?   March 21, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Delusional Speech Winslow Wheeler Lipstick on the Pig: the Fiasco of Congressional Earmark Reform Tom Engelhardt Cold Warrior in a Strange Land: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson Arnold Oliver To the Guy Who Called Me a Traitor: Dissent and the Iraq War Earl Ofari Hutchinson When Black Cops Go Bad: the Killing of Elio Carrion Mike Whitney Death Squad Democracy William A. Cook Israeli Human Rights: Starve the Palestinians Sophia A. McLennen Assault on Higher Education: the Conservative Push for the Right Student   March 20, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts A Collapsing Presidency Dave Lindorff Howard Dean Tells CounterPunch: DNC No Foe of Impeachment Ralph Nader The DNC's "Grassroots Agenda": Howard Dean's Plea for Advice Diane Christian License to Lie: Over to You, Dante Jeff Halper "To Hell with All of You": the Power of Saying No Harry Browne Unhappy St. Patrick's Day: Bush's Crackdown on Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein Norman Solomon Why are We Here?: Is There a Right Way to Wage a Wrong War? Patrick Cockburn Death Squads on the Prowl; Iraq Convulsed by Fear Website of the Day Abugate   March 18 / 19, 2006 Cockburn / St. Clair Three Years On: Where's the Resistance Here on the Home Front? Werther Bombs and Butchers: "Where Do We Get Such Men?" Chris Kromm Katrina Aid Package: Much Too Little; Much Too Late Patrick Cockburn Halabja: Kurds Destroy Monument to Victims of Saddam's Poison Gas Attack Elaine Cassel Abortion Politics and Animus for Women: Can Justice Kennedy be Swayed? S. Brian Willson Iraq Vets and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Fred Gardner The War on Kids Brian Cloughley General Insanity: the Prevarications of Gen. Peter Pace Laura Carlsen Challenging Disparity: Toward a New US Policy in Latin America Eamon Martin Life in the Shadows of the Empire: Mysterious Photographers of Nothing Julie Hilden Free Speech in the Classroom: Teachers Don't Enjoy Enough Legal Protection Alison Weir So Much for "Sunshine Week": AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Krieger, Louise, and Engek Website of the Weekend Are the Elites Turning Against the Effects of the Israel Lobby?   March 17, 2006 Eduardo Galeano Abracadabra: Uruguay's Desaparecidos Begin to Appear Greg Moses Bush and Nuclear Preemption: Do You Feel Safe With This Man's Finger on the Button? Richard Falk / David Krieger The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is Dying: What Now? Cindy and Craig Corrie Three Ways to Remember Rachel Amira Hass Hamas's Haniyeh: "I Never Sent Anyone on a Suicide Mission" Mike Marqusee Reasons to March James Petas and Robin Eastman-Abaya Philippines: the Killing Fields of Asia Website of the Day Black Shamrock   March 16, 2006 Norman Solomon Hook, Line and Sinker: War-Loving Pundits Tom Philpott Neoliberalism at the Garden Gate: Community Farming in LA Heather Gray Anne Braden: the South's Rebel Without a Pause Amira Hass Is Hamas Playing into the Hands of Israeli Hardliners? Missy Comley Beattie Dangerous-to-Society Women: Locked Up in the Tombs Sen. Russell Feingold President Bush has Broken the Law; He Must be Held Accountable Lucinda Marshall President Ken Doll: Bush Insults Women on Intl. Women's Day Andrew Bosworth From the Man Who Voted Against Katrina Aid: Joe Barton's War on CITGO Clancy Sigal In Celebration of Dachau's 73rd Anniversary, Halliburton Gets Concentration Camp Contract Website of the Day Help Rebuild the New Orleans Public Library March 15, 2006 Jonathan Cook Israel's Raid on the Jericho Jail Winslow Wheeler Hiding the Cost of War: Paying for Iraq with Supplemental Funding Diane Christian Sharon's Stroke Ron Jacobs New Tenants for Abu Ghraib?: a Cell for Kissinger and Haig Missy Comley Beattie How Many Brinks to Pass? Jared Bernstein The Minority Wealth Gap Noam Chomsky The Crumbling Empire Website of the Day French Students Reclaim the Streets of Paris   March 14, 2006 Earl Ofari Hutchinson No Requiem for a Black Conservative: the Fall of Claude Allen Dave Lindorff Why the Gitmo Tribunals are a Bad Idea: Exhibit A, t he Moussaoui Case Kevin Zeese Divide and Rule in Iraq Gone Awry Todd Chretien Counting the Dead in Iraq: Why is the Left Understating the Carnage? Jason Kunin Canada in Afghanistan: "We're Here Because We're Here" Thomas Palley The Economics of Outsourcing Cockburn / St. Clair Pages from the Liberals' War Website of the Day Golf Courses and Swimming Pools   March 13, 2006 Uri Avnery The Missing Word Dave Lindorff Extra, Extra! Media Reports on Censure Motion Mike Whitney South Dakota's Taliban: the Fanatics are on the Loose David Green Questions of Solidarity: Blacks and Jews in Neo-Con America Jeremy Scahill Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Slobo Can't Talk Any More Mike Ferner Up Against the Wall, Son: Hungering for Justice During My First Congressional Testimony Corey Harris Memories of Ali Farka Touré Paul Craig Roberts Killing Off Milosevic: Was Serbia a Practice Run for Iraq? Website of the Day Prayer Flags for Peace March 11 / 12, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Democrats: When the War Was Lost Ralph Nader Bush at the Tipping Point Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Bush Destroy Iraq? Ben Tripp My Night at the Oscars: the Happy People Speak Out John Strausbaugh The Cowboys and the Village Voice: Alt Press Flagship Goes Corporate Landau / Hassen Why "We" Fight "Their" Wars Robert Bryce A Thousand Pages of Rage Gary Leupp Why They Really Think They Must Defeat Iran Fred Gardner "But He's Good on Our Issue" Ron Jacobs Condi and Iran: Folly, Tragedy and Farce Jonathan Scott Science Fiction's Black Oracle: the Genius and Courage of Octavia Butler Ramzy Baroud Who Will Stop Bush's Militant Militarists? Jordan Flaherty Gitmo on the Mississippi: Life Under the Klan Wasn't This Bad John Chuckman Parable of the Hatchet: the Fallacy of Nation-Building in Afghanistan Joe Allen Smearing Ron Carey and the TDU: Bob Fitch's Hatchet Job Julia Kendlbacher Amazonia: Where All Life Matters St. Clair / Walker / Pollack / Vest Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Hassen, Harley, Ford and Subiet Website of the Weekend No Hay Ser Humano Ilegal   March 10, 2006 Ben Rosenfeld The Great Green Scare and the Fed's Case Against Rod Coronado: a War on the First Amendment Lila Rajiva The Gitmo Documents: Miller, Boykin, Cambone and Feith Saree Makdisi From Rachel Corrie to Richard Rogers: the Wall, the Javits Center and the Bullying of an Architect Elena Shore FBI Grills US Professor Over Support for Venezuela Joshua Frank How the Green Party Slays Their Own Dave Zirin Lynching Barry Bonds Aura Bogado An Interview with Subcomandate Marcos   March 9, 2006 John Walsh Neocon Daniel Pipes Advocates Civil War in Iraq as Strategic Policy Annie Zirin Leftwing Generals: the Dark Side of Liberal Imperialism Brian McKenna We All Live in Poletown Now: GM and the Corporate Uses of Eminent Domain Chris Floyd Scar Tissue: How the Bushes Brought Bedlam to Iraq Rachard Itani "Over There": Iraq as Soap Opera Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Action Thing Wylie Harris Immigration and Jeffersonian Democracy: Free Borders Make Good Neighbors Alexander Cockburn Ex-State Department Security Officer Charges Pre-9/11 Cover-Up Website of the Day About Pace: Expelling Anti-War Students   March 8, 2006 Patrick Bond The Loans of Mass Destruction: Wolfowitz's Anti-Corruption Hoax at the World Bank Brian Concannon, Jr. Elusive Victories in Haiti Pat Williams Buyer's Remorse: Bush, the View from the Purple States Lance Selfa The Democrats and Dubai: the Politics of Distraction Mokhiber / Weissman Have You Ever Been Convicted of a Felony? Walter Brasch Compromising Civil Liberties Vijay Prashad For Them Indian Mangoes: Anatomy of an Agreement Website of the Day Rachel Corrie: a Call to Action   March 7, 2006 Werther Half a Trillion Dollars: It's an Awful Lot of Money to Make Us Less Safe and Less Free John Blair Dr. Strangelove is Our President: Global Peace Through Nuclear Weapons Dave Lindorff The Impeachment Groundswell and Bush's Last Hope: the Democrats Mike Whitney No Immunity: Israel's Policy of Targeted Assassination Warren Guykema Who is Afraid of Rachel Corrie? Sen. Russell Feingold Misleading Testimony About NSA Domestic Spying Robert Jensen Why I am a Christian (Sort Of) Norman Solomon Digitalized Hype: a Dazzling Smokescreen? Bernie Dwyer Hopeful Signs Across Latin America: an Interview with Noam Chomsky Website of the Day Golem Song March 6, 2006 Ralph Nader Bush and Katrina: "Situational Information?" Dave Zirin Why Did Pat Tillman Die? an Investigation Reopens Vanessa Redgrave Censorship of the Worst Kind: the Second Death of Rachel Corrie Walter A. Davis Theater, Ideology and the Censorship of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" Joshua Frank Down By Law: the Mysterious Case of David Cobb Nate Mezmer A Second Look at "Crash": More Myths About Blacks and Racist Cops Paul Craig Roberts America's Bleak Jobs Future Website of the Day Crossroads: Race, Class and Art March 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Dubai Ports Purchase: National Insecurity, Imported or Homegrown? Jennifer Van Bergen Bush's NSA Spying Program Violates the Law Steven Higgs Dying for Their Work: Westinghouse Workers and the Highest Level of PCBs Ever Recorded Winslow T. Wheeler The Generals, the Legislators and the Gulfstream VIP Transports Ron Jacobs Stealing Back Adam's Rib Rev. William E. Alberts Remember Damadola Colin Asher Goodbye, Dubai: the Teamsters and the Ports Fred Gardner Denney's Law "Pariah" Scapegoats and Shunning: Sexual Fascism in Progressive America John Scagliotti Brokeback Mountain: Pain is Not Enough Seth Sandronsky When the White House Walks Away: Bush, Arnold and the Flood Risk in the Central Valley Joan Roelofs A Challenge to Rebuild the World Arjun Makhijani The US / India Nuclear Pact: a Bad and Dangerous Deal Ardeshr Ommani Destroying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Diana Barahona An Open Letter to Freedom House: Release Info on Your Federal Grants Ben Tripp Bonzo, Wherefore Art Thou? St. Clair / Socialist Worker Staff Playlist: What We're Listening To Poets' Basement Engel, Davies, Buknatski Website of the Weekend The Return of Pearl Jam March 3, 2006 Laura Carlsen Mexico: the Power of Corruption and the Corruption of Power John V. Whitbeck Two States or One? Chris Floyd The Monolith Crumbles: Reality and Revisionism About Iran Mohamed Hakki Wolfowitz at the World Bank: Cronyism and Corruption Pratyush Chandra Bush in India: Dinner with George and Manmohan John Scagliotti Why are There No Real Gays in "Brokeback Mountain"? Website of the Day Support the IRC!   March 2, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts How the Economic News is Spun Dave Lindorff Troops to Bush: Get Us Out of Here! Ramzy Baroud Middle East Democracy: the Hamas Factor Saul Landau Halfway Down the Road to Hell Joe Allen The Murder of George Jackson: an Interview with His Lawyer, Stephen Bingham Steve Shore Berlusconi on Capitol Hill: "I Am Italy!" Denise Boggs Roadless and Clueless: Wilderness Logging Greenwashed by Enviro Groups Norman Finkelstein The Attacks on Beyond Chutzpah Website of the Day ScreenHead   March 1, 2006 Mairead Corrigan Maguire The Human Right to a Nuclear Free World Niranjan Ramakrishnan The India That Can No Longer Say No Faheem Hussain Bush in Pakistan Antony Loewenstein Spinning Us to War with Iran: an Aussie Perspective Elizabeth Schulte The Charge to Overturn Roe Has Begun Mike Whitney Sudan: Beware Bolton's Sudden Humanitarianism John Ryan Canada and the American Empire Michael Donnelly Brokeback Mountain: a No Love Story Tom Reeves Haitian Election Aftermath Website of the Day Mardi Gras Index: Reuilding of New Orleans Stalled         Subscribe Online

March 24, 2006 Relearning the Lessons of Vietnam, Every Day The US Empire Versus Reality By GABRIEL KOLKO This essay is excerpted from Gabriel Kolko's important new book, The Age of War. Like all warring nations before it, reality for the United States is totally different than its theories and expectations. Whether there is war or peace is now dependent on what happens in Washington; how America deals with its mounting frustrations and dilemmas will decide the future of much of the entire world. Sooner or later, reality has always been an antidote for dreamers since time immemorial, but dreamers with illusions have gravely harmed the world repeatedly because realism follows rather than precedes armed conflicts and disastrous failures. But never before was there such destructive weaponry in so many hands. War and peace is more important to mankind's future than ever, and to a very great extent that issue is increasingly dependent on what the U. S. does or does not do. Doctrinally, there is no constraint on American action; indeed, the Bush Administration only finely honed all the reasons for taking initiatives that were articulated before 2001 and taken them to their logical conclusion: it believes passionately in action. But war in Iraq again confirmed what Korea and certainly Vietnam had revealed much earlier: militarily and politically, the American way of making war is no better than those the Germans or French, English or Russians, had undertaken before them. War simply does not resolve problems between nations, whatever they may be, and those that attempt it invariably end up far worse than when they began, and unforeseen complications create crises it may never resolve. Wars have profoundly and increasingly scarred the human condition for centuries. The war the United States chose to fight in Iraq after March 2003 only reiterates these truisms, but the war there, like most before it, went badly from the inception. It is also incredibly costly and there are limits to America's budget deficits, including the willingness of foreigners to hold dollars. During 2003, the forthcoming presidential election in November 2004 inhibited further adventures but so too was the fact that the American military was overextended and had few resources to fight with. Iraq was supposed to be a short war but now it was protracted and expensive in both manpower and money. Alliances were crumbling and the most powerful nations, save the United Kingdom, rejected the war from the inception, plans for reforming the American military were in abeyance, and the goals and doctrines the Bush Administration had at its inception, and retained after September 11, were in tatters. Something went wrong for it, as it has for virtually every ambitious warring nation before it: there are countless surprises. Doctrinally, Bush's notion of preemption still existed, even ignoring that it was more a description of the conduct of American foreign policy since at least the beginning of the 20th century than an original strategy. There were other aspects to his more lofty utterances, such as democratizing most of the Middle East if not all of it, stamping out terrorism, unilateral American action when necessary, and the like, all underpinned by the illusion that its ambitious goals were honorable and U.S. power was unlimited. But the legitimacy of preemption depended at home and abroad on getting facts right and accepting the best evidence possible on the nature of reality. Iraq's utter lack of WMD showed the U.S. in the worst possible light, its credibility was zero, as was the astounding notion-floated in late 2004-that action was justified if a nation merely thought of or intended to get such weapons in the future. The capriciousness of such thinking showed how unpredictable, threatening, and dangerous the U.S. had become, its choice of enemies arbitrary. It is a rogue nation-out of control. The net effect of American bellicosity for members of the "axis of evil," including the those who feared future inclusion in it, was to convince them that safety was to be found in building a nuclear deterrent. Compared to the period before 1990, it is far easier and cheaper to obtain them. Intelligence has never been the basis of any great nation's foreign policy, and accurate information was ignored if it failed to reinforce what political and military leaders wish to hear. The U.S. is scarcely alone in this regard. There are situations in which information may impose constraints on options, but these are overwhelmingly tactical rather than strategic choices. There are also times when accurate information is utterly ignored even tactically, involving timing or clarity in the minds of decision-makers, and this relatively rare condition probably exists among a great many in Washington at the present moment. Then important people prefer to deceive themselves, and they surround themselves with sycophants who confirm the wisdom of their profound illusions and ignorance. Analytically, we do not often know who is deliberately issuing falsehoods-there are surely some who do this as a matter of routine-- and who is deluding themselves, much less who is doing both. Motives are difficult to fathom. But history is replete with individuals who leave us bewildered as to what they truly believe as opposed to cynically manipulate opinion to achieve and hold power. Intelligence is, by and large if not wholly, constrained by a larger structural and ideological environment and foreign policies generally foredoom efforts to base actions on informed insights. Even when knowledge is far greater than ignorance there are decisive boundaries to its role. Wars have afflicted the world again and again for centuries precisely because blindness and stupidity is combined with spurious ideas and the irresponsibility which power allows. Americans have never been alone in this myopia, which is nigh on universal, and the Bush Administration was not much different-if at all-than most of those that preceded it. CIA directors are often political appointees with their own agendas. The press reports what it is told and is usually reverential of leaks coming from the White House, but ultimately the problem is far less information than policy. What is different is the world is far more dangerous than it was 50 years ago and destructive weapons more universally distributed than at any time in history. The consequences of doing the wrong thing make truth that much more precious. Intelligence, in the sense of accurate information about specific topics, can become inaccurate because of policy predilections but also because there is too much of it and one is therefore free to believe what one wishes. The bad and good, or irrelevant, are all mixed together. In fact, American intelligence agencies have some very keen people working for them, and they often know a great deal about their topics. The U.S. spent at least $200 billion on signal intelligence from super-secret satellites after creating the National Reconnaissance Office in 1961. The NRO picked up everything and overstuffed the intelligence systems, allowing senior analysts to support their politically correct evaluations with all kinds of data-which in Iraq's case of WMD, to cite but one of many examples, turned out to be completely inaccurate and at total odds with an immense amount of publicly available information. Allies abandoned the U.S., its credibility has fallen immeasurably, and the doctrine of preemption is simply another reason for aggression rather than what Bush claimed he intended it to be-forestalling real rather than imaginary threats. The real danger confronting any nation, especially the U.S., is the belief that it is strong when it is not, and maintaining a faith in the power of weapons and technology when they are in fact wholly irrelevant-or even defective. This was surely the moral of the Vietnam War, which the U.S. fought more than a decade, investing tremendous resources and manpower in it, and lost completely. That lesson is now being relearned in Iraq on a daily basis. Gabriel Kolko is the leading historian of modern warfare. He is the author of the classic Century of War: Politics, Conflicts and Society Since 1914 and Another Century of War?. He has also written the best history of the Vietnam War, Anatomy of a War: Vietnam, the US and the Modern Historical Experience. His latest book, The Age of War, was published in March 2006. He can be reached at: kolko@counterpunch.org.

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