Today's
Stories
February 15,
2006
Brian Conacnnon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections: Chaos, Supression
and Fraud
Amira Hass
Down the Expulsion Highway
CounterPunch
Wire
Winter of Discontent: a 34-Day Fast
Against the War
Robert Bryce
The United States of Enron
Website of
the Day
Osama's
Game: an Interview with Michael Scheuer
February
14, 2006
John Sugg
Those Cartoons and the Neo Con: Daniel
Pipes and the Danish Editor
Don
Santina
DiFi and the Royal Democrats: the
Curious Withdrawal of Cindy Sheehan
William A.
Cook
Shaming Sharon
Ray
McGovern
Who Will Blow the Whistle About
Iran?
John
Ross
Bush's Mexican Poodle
Website
of the Day
Willie
Nelson Records CPer Ned Sublette's "Cowboys Are Frequently
Secretly"
February 13, 2006
Lila
Rajiva
Axis of Child Abusers: UK Troops Beat
Up Barefoot Iraqi Teens
Christopher
Brauchli
Whistleblowers and Witch Hunters:
the Bush Inquisition
Dave
Lindorff
Deadeye Dick: If Stupidity Were
Impeachable, Cheney Would Be History
Ron
Jacobs
Black Liberation
Mike
Whitney
Riding High with Hugo Chavez
Michael
Neumann
Respectful Cultures and Disrespectful
Cartoons
Website
of the Day
Virtual Resistance
February
11 / 12, 2006
Alexander
Cockburn
How Not to Spot a Terrorist
Ralph Nader
Bringing Democracy to the Federal Reserve
Paul Craig Roberts
Nuking the Economy
Pat Williams
John Boehner's Dirty Little Secret:
Flying Lobbyist Air at $4,000 a Junket
Fred Gardner
Dr. Mikuriya's Appeal: a Last Minute
Twist
Saul Landau
From Munich to Hamas
John Chuckman
Cartoons and Bombs: Was Rice Right
for Once?
Roger Burbach
Evo Morales: the Early Days
Seth Sandronsky
Economy on Ice
Website of the Weekend
Just Say Know
February 10, 2006
Carl
G. Estabrook
A US War Plan for Khuzestan?
Sen.
Russell Feingold
A Raw Deal on the Patriot Act
Roxanne
Dunbar----Ortiz
How Did Evo Morales Come to Power?
Saree Makdisi
The Tempest Over the Hamas Charter
Website of the Day
The
New York Art Scene: 1974----1984
February 9, 2006
Dave Lindorff
Bush
and Yamashita: War Crimes and Commanders----in----Chief
Mike Marqusee
The
Human Majority was Right About Iraq
Paul Craig Roberts
How Conservatives Went Crazy: the Rightwing Press
Peter Phillips
Inside
the Global Dominance Group: 200 Insiders Against the World
William S. Lind
Rumsfeld the Maximalist: the Long War
Christine Tomlinson Innocent
Targets in the "Long War": False Positives and Bush's
Eavesdropping Program
Will Youmans
Church of England Votes to Divest from Israel
Robert Robideau
An American Indian's View of the Cartoons
Richard Neville
The Cartoons That Shook the World: All This from the Danes, the
Least Funny People on Earth
Peter Rost
The New Robber Barons
Website of the Day
Eyes Wide Open
February 8,
2006
Ron Jacobs
The
Once and Future Sly Stone: Soundtrack to a Riot
Stan Cox
Making
and Unmaking History with General Myers
Sen. Russ Feingold
Why
Bush's Wiretapping Program is Illegal and Unconstitutional
Robert Jensen
Horowitz's
Academic Hit List: Take a Class from One of the CounterPunch
16
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Bush Should Have Wiretapped FEMA and Chertoff
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Alberto Gonzales Channels Mark Twain
Don Monkerud
Covenant Marriage on the Rocks
David Swanson
Inequality and War
C.L. Cook
Nuking Ontario
Christopher
Fons
Chill Out Jihadis: They're Just Cartoons!
Jeffrey Ballinger
The Other Side of Nike and Social Responsibility
Website of
the Day
Encyclopedia of Terrorism in the Americas
February 7,
2006
Edward Lucie----Smith
An
Urgent Plea to Save a Small Estonian Museum from Neo----Nazis
Robert Fisk
The Fury: Now Lebanon is Burning
Paul Craig Roberts
Colin Powell's Career as a "Yes Man"
Neve Gordon
Why Hamas Won
Joshua Frank
The Hillary and George Show: Partners in War
Peter Montague
The Problem with Mercury: a History of Regulatory Capitulation
Jackie Corr
The
Last Best Choice: Public Power and Montana
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Rumsfeld's
Enforcer: the Secret World of Stephen Cambone
Website of the Day
Negroes with Guns
February 6,
2006
Christopher
Brauchli
Spilling
Blood: Two Sentences
Robert Fisk
Don't
Be Fooled: This Isn't About Islam vs. Secularism
John Chuckman
What Did Stephen Harper Actually Win?
Jenna Orkin
Judge Slams EPA for Lying About 9/11's Toxic Air
Paul Craig
Roberts
Who
Will Save America: My Epiphany
February 4
/ 5, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
"Lights
Out in Tehran": McCain Starts Bombing Run
Mike Ferner
Pentagon
Database Leaves No Kid Alone
James Petras
Evo Morales's Cabinet: a Bizarre Beginning in Bolivia
Alan Maass
Scare of the Union: Dems Collaborate with Bush on Surveillance
Fred Gardner
Annals of Law Enforcement: a Look Inside the San Francisco DA's
Office
Ralph Nader
Bush's
Energy Escapades
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Speaking in Tongues
Saul Landau
Freedom 2006: Buying Sex on the Net or Those Older Freedoms?
Laura Carlsen
Bad Blood on the Border: Killing Guillermo Martinez
James Brooks
Our Little Shop of Diplomatic Horrors
Mike Roselle
Hippies and Revolutionaries in Carcacas
John Holt
Black Gold, Black Death: Canada's Oil Sands Frenzy
Sarah Ferguson
Cops Suing Cops ... for Spying on Cops
William S.
Lind
Beware the Ides of March
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Price of Globalization: Free Trade or Free Speech?
Seth Sandronsky
The Color of Job Cuts in the Auto Industry
Derrick O'Keefe
Rumsfeld's Hitler Analogy
Michael Donnelly
Hop on the Bus
Ron Jacobs
Religion and Political Power
Elisa Salasin
RSVP to Bush
St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Stew Albert
God's Curse: Selected Poems
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, LaMorticella and Engel
Website of
the Weekend
Killer
Tells All!
February 3,
2006
Toufic Haddad
A
Parliament of Prisoners
Heather Gray
Working with Coretta Scott King
Tim Wise
Racism,
Neo----Confederacy and the Raising of Historical Illiterates
Conn Hallinan
Nuclear Proliferation: the Gathering Storm
Eva Golinger
Rumsfeld and Negroponte Amp Up Hositility Toward Venezuela
Daniel Ellsberg
The World Can't Wait: Invitation to a Demonstration
Dave Zirin
Detroit: Super Bowl City on the Brink
Robert Bryce
The
Problem with Cutting US Oil Imports from the Middle East
Website of
the Day
The Chavez Code
February 2,
2006
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Pentagon
Pork: How to Eliminate It
Stan Cox
Outsourcing
the Golden Years
Rachard Itani
Danes
(Finally) Apologize to Muslims (For the Wrong Reasons)
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan Five Years Later: Buildings Down, Heroin Up
Amira Hass
In
the Footsteps of Arafat: an Interview with Hamas' Ismail Haniya
Norman Solomon
When Praise is Desecration: Smothering King's Legacy with Kind
Words
Michael Simmons
Stew Lives!
Christopher
Reed
Japan's
Dirty Secret: One Million Korean Slaves
Website of the Day
State of Nature
February 1,
2006
Sharon Smith
The
Bluff and Bluster Dems: Alito and the Faux Filibuster
Jason Leopold
Enron and the Bush Administration
Cindy Sheehan
Getting
Busted at the State of the Union: What Really Happened
Joseph Grosso
Oprah
and Elie Wiesel: a Match Made in "Neutrality"
Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Coretta Scott King was More Than Just Dr. King's Wife
Steven Higgs
Life After Roe. v. Wade
Robert Robideau
"God Given Rights": Palestine and Native America
R. Siddharth
Tales of Power: When Gandhi Rejected a Faustian Bargain with
Henry Ford
Jim Retherford
Remembering Stew Albert: the Quiet Genius
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
The Legacy of Coretta Scott King
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
True State of the Union
Website of
the Day
Candide's Notebooks
| February
15, 2006
Al Gore's War ... With His Own
Past
The Rhetorical Gore
By JOSHUA FRANK
Al
Gore has become somewhat of an American idol this past few years.
After his departure from Washington in 2000 the ex-presidential
candidate has switch-backed across the county giving thundering
sermons to over-flowing auditoriums and town halls. He’s railed
against the Republican agenda in Iraq, denouncing President Bush
and the neocons at every turn. Gore is fast becoming the antiwar
celebrity du jour, capturing the imaginations of many who fear the
vicious Bush cartel.
“Normally,
we Americans lay the facts on the table, talk through the choices
before us and make a decision. But that didn't really happen with
this war -- not the way it should have,” Gore remarked in
a MoveOn.org sponsored lecture at NYU in August, 2003. “[A]s
a result, too many of our soldiers are paying the highest price,
for the strategic miscalculations, serious misjudgments, and historic
mistakes that have put them and our nation in harm's way.”
Some
believe Gore has always been a beacon of hope, alleging it’s
just too darn bad the 2000 election was stolen (or sabotaged by
Ralph Nader) right out from under him. We wouldn’t be in Iraq
today, they claim -- for this war on terror is purely a Republican
crusade that would have never occurred under a Democratic administration,
especially if Gore was at the helm.
Or,
so they say.
Despite
all the lofty rhetoric, Al Gore’s record on Iraq is anything
but dovish. During the autumn of 1998 Gore pressured President Clinton’s
advisors to embrace Operation Desert Fox, and they eventually they
did. From December 16 to the 18 of the same year, Iraq was ravaged
with US bombs and cruise missiles. Hundreds of sites were hit. The
goal was to diminish Saddam Hussein’s efforts to develop weapons
of mass destruction, with the hope that weakening his military capacity
would lead to his demise. It didn’t work and Saddam only became
more entrenched. Iraqi officials confirmed 100s of injuries and
dozens of civilian deaths. The Vice President’s endorsed bombing
wasn’t the only killer in Iraq; Gore also embraced the horrific
UN sanctions, which accounted for at least a half a million deaths,
mostly poor women and children.
Al
Gore was certainly no peacenik during his days as serving under
Bill Clinton. He supported NATO’s intervention in Bosnia and
bombing of the Sudan. Up until George W. Bush’s Iraq invasion
Gore was even delivering stump speeches highlighting Saddam’s
potential threat.
“Iraq’s
search for weapons of mass destruction has proven impossible to
deter,” Gore said on September 23, 2002. “[W]e should
assume that it will continue for as long as Saddam is in power.”
It
may be comforting for some to think Al Gore’s has had a change
of heart on Iraq. But Gore will still not delve into any of the
deeper issues that influence US foreign policy. As the Bushites
shift their wanton attention to Iran, Gore remains unwilling and
unable to recognize one of the primary perpetrators of another war
in the region: Israel.
During
a talk at the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia last week, Al
Gore pontificated about US policy in the Middle East. When pressed
by the largely Saudi audience as to whether or not America’s
allegiance to Israel was heightening the chance of a war on Iran,
Gore remained evasive. “We can’t solve that long [Palestine/Israel]
conflict in exchanges here,” he said.
In
other words, he won’t go there.
Al
Gore also complained of Middle Eastern countries (aside from Israel,
of course) not taking the Iran nuclear threat seriously enough.
"Is it only for the West to say this is dangerous?" Gore
asked. "We should have more people in this region saying this
is dangerous."
Perhaps
the real danger is in believing that Mr. Gore’s wishy-washy
attitudes on war deserve the praise and admiration of all those
who oppose the occupation of Iraq and a potential war on Iran. History
is not on his side -- no matter what he conveys to his liberal audiences.
Joshua
Frank edits the radical news blog www.BrickBurner.org and
is the author of Left Out! How Liberals Helped Reelect George W.
Bush, published by Common Courage Press (2005). Josh can be reached
at BrickBurner@gmail.com.
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