Weekend Edition
March 29-30, 2003
Images of War: Terror on Baghdad
Free Asan Akbar and Put the System on Trial?
Steve Hesske, Alternative Press Review
Today's Army may be all volunteer, but the same class (and race) divisions that marked the Vietnam-era military are present. The distant managers of the invasion of Iraq are mostly white, almost all from the ruling elite (a status that did not require any military service from them).
CounterPunch War Diary
Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch
US Insiders Gloomy: War "Not Going According to Plan;" Allah 1, Jahweh, 0; Rumseld Visits Geneva: Is He an Iraqi Asset?; British Revert to Barbarism (As Usual); Will Bush Open National Hot Air Reserve?; US Navy Dolphin AWOL
Iraq as Trial Run
Interview with Noam Chomsky, Frontline (India)
What is interesting about this case is that the coercion did not work. There
were countries - in fact, most of them - who stubbornly maintained the
position of the vast majority of their populations.
New Fear Dawns over Baghdad
Nasreen Al-Rafiq, Inter Press Service
”They are going to starve us,” says a shopper at the souk. ”The American soldier will never come and fight on the streets of Baghdad,” he says. ”They will just wait for all our food to finish, wait for our water to finish, they will wait for us to be finished.”
Eliminating the Truth: The Development Of War Propaganda
David Miller, Scoop (New Zealand)
The US is determined to eliminate independent reporting of and from Iraq and it will go to unprecedented lengths to ensure that its propaganda and spin will dominate media agendas in the UK and US and it will expend massive resources in minimising critical coverage across the world.
They do not know what they are doing or why they are doing it
The Independent
Every day public statements on the war are made with great bravado by British and US leaders. A day later most of them turn out to be inaccurate or untrue.
Human Decency
John deLaubenfels, Strike the Root
We f***ed up. We thought it would be a cakewalk, and we thought people would welcome us. It's not a cakewalk, and no one is welcoming us.
Why?
Jo Wilding, Electronic Iraq
why did they do this to us? Why did they kill my child? Why are we a target? Why can't my mum come back? Why destroy my shop and my living? Why can't anyone stop them?
War and Resistance
Sukumar Muralidharan, Frontline (India)
`Operation Iraqi Freedom', the U.S.-led war that marks the final act of over a decade of duplicity, coercion and insensitivity, gets under way. As the aggressors stumble through, their plans of conquest and subjugation elicit hostility and contempt among Iraqis.
The War on Protesters: San Francisco's Berserk Cops
Ann Harrison, CounterPunch
One week after anti-war demonstrators brought San Francisco's business district to a standstill, the city's police force has been accused of attempting to repress dissent with widespread brutality, intimidation, and illegal mass arrests.
Liberating the people of Iraq by massacring them
Al-Jazeera Editorial Roundup
In his lengthy conversation with publisher Talal Salman, Assad says he is not surprised by the intensity of the resistance being mounted against the invasion, likening it to Lebanon’s experience under Israeli occupation, and saying that far from provoking a refugee exodus, it has prompted many Iraqi expatriates to return to defend their homeland.
Spectre orange
Cathy Scott-Clark and Adrian Levy, The Guardian
Nearly 30 years after the Vietnam war, a chemical weapon used by US troops is still exacting a hideous toll on each new generation.
NewsWire
Pittsburgh police lock up anti-war protesters for 30 hours
Protesters Continue March Against War
Military families unite in protest
Troops won’t fight, sent home to face prison
US forces' use of depleted uranium weapons is 'illegal'
More than 135 countries demand end to Iraq war
Turks shower US soldiers with eggs, stones
Worldwide massive rallies call for Jihad against US
Amnesty International condemns US/UK for breaching Geneva Convention, targeting civilian buildings
The Coming ShitStorm: US turns sights on Syria and Iran
America in the vice: Lives and careers are on the line in Iraq
Government apology for Blair’s claim of ‘executions’
Iraqi civilians feed hungry US marines
Anger as at least 55 killed in Baghdad Market
US slaughters 200 in Basra strike
Pentagon Hides Return of Iraqi War Dead From Media
British 'Nowhere Near' Capturing Basra
Al Jazeera TV wins award for battling censorship
Chron Journalist Suspended for Being Jailed in Protest
Columbia Prof Calls for Deaths of American Troops
Former CIA analyst: US ‘conned into war’
Friday
March 28, 2003
US War Criminals Vow to Slaughter Iraqis
Richard Wallace, The Mirror
Lieutenant Colonel McCoy, commanding the US Marine 3rd Battery, 4th Regiment, was unflinching. He said: "Our job now is killing."
From "Plain Sailing" to "Where the Hell Are We?" to "Up the Creek"
Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch
Barely into its second week Operation Easy Sailing is in big trouble. One simple way of measuring just how big is by adding up all the time you hear the phrases "all according to Plan", and the "Our strategy is sound". That's the captain of the Titanic speaking.
US and Britain heading for disaster
Patrick Seale, Al-Hayat
Whatever the military outcome of the 'battle for Baghdad', politically and morally the United States and Britain have already lost the war. Far from welcoming the Western troops with flowers, surrendering, or fleeing the country as refugees, the Iraqis are putting up ferocious resistance.
U.S. defeat in Iraq may trigger total collapse of empire!
Joel Meyers, Infoshop
The victory of Iraqi resistance in defending Baghdad is not as unlikely as U.S. war propaganda may have induced many to believe.
Technological Massacre
Saul Landau, CounterPunch
The United States doesn't have a monopoly on weapons of mass destruction but it can certainly out-compete the rest of the world combined as it has demonstrated over the last dozen years in the 1991 Gulf War and in serial bombings of various third world targets since then.
MASS DUST-RUCTION
SchNews
Many of the bombs being dropped on Iraq contain Depleted Uranium (DU), a
radioactive by-product from nuclear reactors. So no need to worry, if the
bombs don't get you then the uranium will.
Raw, devastating realities that expose the truth about Basra
Robert Fisk, The Independent
The short sequence of the dead British soldiers – over which Tony Blair voiced such horror yesterday – is little different from dozens of similar clips of dead Iraqi soldiers shown on British television over the past 12 years, pictures which never drew any condemnation from the Prime Minister.
Blood on the Tracks
Chris Floyd, Moscow Times
Before the first cruise missile crushed the first skull of the first child killed in the first installment of George W. Bush's crusade for world dominion, the unelected plutocrats occupying the White House were already plying their corporate cronies with fat contracts to "repair" the murderous devastation they were about to unleash on Iraq.
Washington's hypocrisy over Iraqi "war crimes"
Bill Vann, World Socialist Web Site
In Afghanistan, the US openly flouted the Geneva Conventions. It is holding
Taliban forces incommunicado and brutalizing and humiliating them to the
point that suicide attempts have reached epidemic proportions at the
Guantanamo prison camp. Two prisoners have reportedly died from torture.
The New Great Game
C. Kleveman, The Ecologist
War on Iraq is about a lot more than boosting oil companies’ profits. It’s the latest battle in the ongoing war over who gets to control the earth’s remaining energy reserves.
Al-Jazeera tells the truth about war: My station is a threat to American media control – and they know it
Faisal Bodi, The Guardian
I do not mean to brag – people are turning to us simply because the western media coverage has been so poor.
Soldiers at the Door
Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!
Hip-hop artist Michael Franti describes how a bandmate's mom received an unnerving visit from the military and how MTV has warned artists it won't run songs relating to war or protest.
NewsWire
Positive Action: N.M. Prosecutor Blows Officers' Covers
About the eviction of Indymedia Argentina
A ‘Turkey Shoot’ But With the Marines as Targets
Americans being harassed and detained for opposing war
Millions sign up for Al-Jazeera in Europe
Vulnerable Supply Lines, Combative Enemy Slow U.S. Drive
Critical Supplies… Are Unaccounted For
Syrian Mufti Calls For Martyr Operations Against U.S.
Resistance on ‘every inch’ of road to Baghdad
Basra uprising is a mirage in Iraq’s deserts
Gulf war syndrome research reveals present danger
Israeli bulldozer makes a martyr of American peace campaigner
Can't bomb Iraq and tell us to talk to Pak, India tells US
Confirmed: Depleted Uranium Contaminates Bosnia-Herzegovina
Thursday
Where Did They Go Wrong?
US Will Lose the Iraq War Says Scott Ritter
Of Lies, Liberation and American Self-Delusion
Winning Hearts and Minds Bush-Style
It was an outrage, an obscenity
Blair’s press conference: lies and self-delusion
Blair: War Criminal
Daniel Patrick Murderer
Let's go back 227 years
McCarthy's ghost
NewsWire
Positive News: US Military Vehicles Firebombed in Italy
US admits '8,000 Iraqis captured' claim was false
Protesters denounce media at CNN's San Francisco office
“The British troops are shooting civilians"
Soldiers build secret camp to intern thousands of Iraqi captives
Wave of fury sweeps Middle East
15,000 Indonesians sign up to fight the US
5,000 Iraqi’s from Jordan return to Baghdad to fight for their country
Mob storms KFC as anti-war protests sweep country
"Precise" and "Surgical": NBC's Bombing Claims Lack Verification
As eyes of the world focus on Iraq, the rest of the world's hotspots get hotter
Wednesday
Wails of Yanqui Power: Life During Wartime
THE GATHERING STORM PART II
US prepares for slaughter in Iraq
Six Days of Shame
America is losing the InfoWar
Live From Iraq, an Un-Embedded Journalist
I Support Our Troops
NewsWire
Al-Jazeera says no sign of Basra uprising
Iraqi Shi'ite Opposition Says No Uprising in Basra
Lack of Skepticism Leads to Poor Reporting on Iraq Weapons Claims
Why did the administration endorse a forgery about Iraq’s nuclear program?
Something Suspicious is in the Air
Peace Activists Planning to Disrupt Manhattan
Photos Give a Different Perspective on 'Operation Freedom'
Global Anti-war Protests Continue Unabated
US finds nothing at Iraq Chemical Plant
Tuesday
They Dare Not Speak Its Name
The Genocidal War on Iraq: Can We Scream Any Louder?
One rule for them
The Geneva Convention
The US media: propagandists for a criminal war
All Indicators Are Already Red
US Losing the Propaganda War
Strategic Blunders by American Generals
You should have known we'd fight - The invading forces will never win over Iraqi hearts and minds
Making a Mess
All Americans are now war criminals
Shock and Awe
Saddam starts to sound more like his hero, Uncle Joe
Shut your mouth
NewsWire
Arab media outdoes US networks
Al-Jazeera launches site in English
War Pictures Cause Yellowtimes.Org To Be Shut Down, Again
'This makes us love Saddam, not America' – 34 die as US missiles hit wrong target
Anger Builds as Marines Wage Bloody Street Fight
Civilian Deaths From Airstrikes on Baghdad Fuel Rising Anger
Iraqi Exiles Head Home to Fight ‘Invaders’
How the resistance movement caught Allies in a trap
Australian pilot refused American command to bomb target
Iran to be US next target: CIA Report
Defence experts have warned up to 12,000 allied forces may be killed in the battle for Baghdad
Coalition of the willing has become a joke
Monday
Photos of captured and killed American GIs
Protest Pictures from Around the World
Ominous Signs
Hypocrites of America Crying Foul
US Hypocrisy and the Geneva Conventions
Bitter Rice
'Iraq will become a quagmire for the Americans'
Will you cheer for the rapist now that the rape is on?
As the Economy Crumbles #8
NewsWire
Fragging stirs memories of Vietnam
US Embassies Besieged Across the Globe
Anti-war protesters try to storm Australian parliament
Pacifica Radio Network Becomes Antiwar Voice
Ominous Signs for Coalition in Battle for Umm Qasr
U.S. Losses Expose Risks, Raise Doubts About Strategy
'Liberated' Iraqis Question US Motives
Iranians take pot shots at US-British forces in Iraq
Basra Facing Disaster After Supplies Cut
War Could Be Big Business for Halliburton
Michael Moore's Acceptance Speech at the Academy Awards
U.S. Steps Up Secret Surveillance: FBI, Justice Dept. Increase Use of Wiretaps, Records Searches
YellowTimes shut down for posting POW pictures
Weekend Edition
WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS WHEN THEY SHOOT THEIR OFFICERS
Blast from the Past
March 27, 2003
Uri Avnery, Strike the Root
The Iraqi people react as any normal people would. In the face of a foreign invasion, they unite. Even the opponents of the regime support the leader in battle. When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, even the prisoners in the Gulag camps cheered Stalin.
Fimtan Dunne, GuluFuture
Thorn in the side of the American administration, and former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, has warned that America will lose the Iraq war and the American military: "will leave Iraq with its tail between its legs."
Tim Wise, ZNet
It is the same arrogance that prompted whites to view the genocide of Indian peoples as progress, and a civilizing mission (for those we didn't kill), and a mission for which the savages should have been grateful. The same arrogance that allowed the belief that we were doing Africans a favor by enslaving them, and "bringing them to Christ." The same arrogance that inspired the notion of "destroying the village in order to save it," in Vietnam.
Linda S. Heard, CounterPunch
There was no talk about the Geneva Conventions when contingents of Arabs and Moslems were flown to Guantanamo Bay, shackled, handcuffed, gagged, hooded and chained to their aircraft seats only to be thrown into chicken coops open to the elements.
Robert Fisk, The Independent
Two missiles from an American jet killed them all – by my estimate, more than 20 Iraqi civilians, torn to pieces before they could be 'liberated' by the nation that destroyed their lives. Who dares, I ask myself, to call this 'collateral damage'?
Julie Hyland, World Socialist Web Site
Prime Minister Tony Blair’s monthly press conference, held Tuesday, March 25, was a distasteful spectacle.
Tam Dalyell, The Guardian
I believe that since Mr Blair is going ahead with his support for a US attack without unambiguous UN authorisation, he should be branded as a war criminal and sent to The Hague.
Mickey Z, ZNet
After having served as an advisor to Richard Nixon (an excellent venue for honing skills of genocide), Moynihan was appointed United States Ambassador to the United Nations under President Ford. It was during this time that the U.S.-backed Indonesian invasion of East Timor took place.
American Newsreel
We complain that the Iraqis have ambushed our soldiers after waving the white flag of surrender. On March 3, 1779, the Continental Army at Briar Creek, Georgia, waved the white flag to British troops and then attacked.
Gary Younge, The Guardian
Democracy is under threat in the United States; anyone who objects to the conflict in Iraq is not allowed to say so
March 26, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch
We've already seen the revival of fragging, Patriot missiles shooting down a British Tornado jet, a US fighter firing on a Patriot missile battery, errant bombs hitting Iranian oil fields, Turkish villages and a busload of Syrians. Less than a week into the war and parents of dead US soldiers have already denounced Bush for sending their son to their deaths in an illegitimate war.
Michael C. Ruppert, From the Wilderness
Military, economic, oil, and political storms continue to gather and converge in what may become a Perfect Storm for the Bush Administration and the United States economy.
By Bill Vann, World Socialist Web Site
With the failure of the Bush administration’s war strategy to secure either the speedy collapse of the Iraqi regime or the support of the Iraqi people, the Pentagon is preparing to dramatically escalate its onslaught against the country’s civilian population as well as its military.
John Pilger, ZNet
They have tried to belittle the militia defending Basra with lurid stories that its fighters are killing each other. The truth is that the Iraqis are fighting like lions to defend not a tyrant but their homeland.
William Thomas, Center for Research on Globalisation
At scripted press briefings at the White House, where America's top "journalists" read pre-approved questions, stern-faced government minders are shown on FOX News checking off each recited sentence on clipboards.
Democracy Now transcript
Robert Fisk on Washington’s ‘Quagmire’ in Iraq, Civilian Deaths and the Fallacy of Bush’s ‘War of Liberation’
John Sanbonmatsu
I support our troops' right to return to this country and to use their Apache helicopters and Tomahawk cruise missiles against the filthy oil companies and rich elites and yahoo commentators and cowards in the Capitol for having exposed their precious minds, bodies, and souls to death, destruction, and the organized murder of another people.
March 25, 2003
Steve Hesske, Alternative Press Review
It took years of bad policy, pointless bloodshed and half-witted cowboy field commanders in Nam for fragging to manifest itself. In the Iraqi theater a fragging has occurred three days into the war.
Ramzy Baroud, Palestine Chronicle
For over 10 years now, Iraqis have been murdered, at the hands of the United States government, using the greatest weapon of mass destruction, the sanctions. Now, using ‘conventional weapons’, so powerful, that they seem like mini nuclear bombs, the US government and army are leading genocide against the people of a sovereign country.
George Monbiot, The Guardian
Five PoWs are mistreated in Iraq and the US cries foul. What about Guantanamo Bay?
John deLaubenfels, Strike the Root
Donald Rumsfeld defies belief. Here he comes, right on cue, after American prisoners are shown on Iraqi television, to scream that the Geneva Convention has been violated.
Would that be the same Geneva Convention that the U.S. has given the finger to so dramatically in the last year and a half, with the same Donald Rumsfeld leading the way?
Bill Vann, World Socialist Web Site
It is difficult to overestimate the criminal role played by the mass media in the current war of aggression.
David Cromwell, Media Lens
In one media alert after another, we have attempted to document the relentless stream of deceptions, omissions and outright lies that have enabled Washington and London, in full view of a horrified world, to undertake a massive, illegal and immoral invasion of a stricken Third World nation.
Daily Kos
The US is really starting to lose the propaganda war, as everything it says turns out to be lies. Saddam is dead! Ok, no he's not. Iraq fired a Scud at Kuwait! Ok, no it wasn't. Umm Qasr is taken! Ok, no it's not. The Iraqi 51st Division surrendered en masse! Ok, not it hasn't. Republican Guard commanders will surrender! Ok, no they won't. Basra is taken! Ok, no it's not. We found a chemical weapons factory! Ok, maybe it isn't.
Gilad Atzmon, CounterPunch
Watching an Iraqi mob searching for "coalition" servicemen on Baghdad's riverbank reveals the 'surprising' truth: the Iraqi people don't really like their 'liberators'. This must be shocking for Blair and Bush who present themselves as the saviours of the Iraqi people.
Burhan al-Chalabi, The Guardian
It is now clear to everyone that ordinary Iraqis are resisting this military aggression with their lives and souls. Commentators and politicians in Britain and America seem taken aback: how come the Iraqis are putting up such a fight?
Brendan O’Neill, Spiked Online
Having launched a war with the aim of doing as little as possible to achieve its ends - and a military strategy that stressed avoiding risky action and hand-to-hand combat - military commanders now seem surprised that they may actually have to fight.
John Kaminski, Information Clearing House
British New Age guru David Icke showed his courage the other day when he came right out with it. "F*** the troops!" he said. "They have decided to give their minds away to brainless dictators and that is their choice and they must take the consequences. They don't have to go and kill people, they can refuse to if they want. How about the troops "supporting the civilians" they are going to kill?
Disinfopedia/PR Watch
Shock and awe bears a striking similarity to terrorism as propaganda, in which psychological rather than material dominance is viewed as a primary war objective. (The terrorist attacks of September 11 also induced "shock and awe" in the U.S. population.)
Robert Fisk, The Independent
The sheer amount of military and statistical detail coming from the Iraqi authorities is beginning to make the US Centcom information boys look like chumps.
Tim Grieve, Salon.com
As radio giants censor antiwar musicians, TV networks bully pro-peace actors, and Attorney General John Ashcroft prepares a new assault on civil liberties, a climate of intimidation creeps over America.
March 24, 2003
Alexander Cockburn, CounterPunch
Add in the extraordinary fragging attack on senior officers of the 101st Airborne, the Patriot downing an RAF plane, the news of casualties and one can see why the vainglorious predictions of the preceding week are dying down abruptly, as the prospect of serious city fighting begins to come into focus.
Paul Routledge, The Mirror (UK)
Nothing more clearly illustrates the cruel hypocrisy of America's war against Iraq than Washington's reaction to the news that GIs have been captured.
Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice
Where does Mr. Rumsfeld get off pontificating about Geneva Conventions? This is the same man who rejected POW status, as mandated by the Geneva Conventions, for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters captured in Afghanistan.
Uri Avnery, Strike the Root
The Shiites received the Israeli soldiers as liberators. When they realized that they had come to stay as occupiers, they started to kill them. ... When they will realize that the Americans intend to stay, they will start a deadly guerrilla war.
Robert Fisk, The Independent
Iraq stunned the Americans and British last night by broadcasting video tape of captured and dead American troops – the nightmare of both George Bush and Tony Blair. The body of one American soldier was seen with a great red gash on his neck, while five US prisoners appeared on screen. One, a black female soldier, had been wounded, while a male serviceman said he had been "only following orders".
Meria Heller, Online Journal
The rationale of supporting our troops now that the war is happening anyway is the ultimate mind control, propaganda, Nazism that anyone could hurl at us. It is the same as barging in on a rape and rationalizing, "Well, the rape is already happening, so I might as well cheer on the rapist" and screw the victim.
Visualize Economic Collapse, Infoshop.org
In this issue: The Economic Consequences of the War, Latest Threat to the Flow of Oil and The Economy Continues to Crumble
March 22-23, 2003
Harass the Brass!
Kevin Keating, Alternative Press Review
Our rulers want us to forget what happened during the Vietnam war, and they want us to forget what defeated their war effort — and the importance of the resistance to the war by enlisted men and women.
On supporting the troops
Stan Goff, Military Matters
The support the troops thing is a mystifying old red herring. What our new fascists really want us to do is shut the fuck up. What we really want is for the troops to come home.
And shutting up is exactly what I'm not going to do.
This War is Illegal
Robin Miller, robincmiller.com
The Bush team's new doctrine of "preventive war" simply has no legitimacy under international law. Nazi leaders offered the same defense at the Nuremberg Tribunal.
US blitzkrieg turns Baghdad into an inferno
Editorial Board, World Socialist Web Site
The US bombardment of Baghdad, which began in earnest Friday, is a horrific, brutal and cowardly attack. It is being carried out for predatory imperialist aims—above all, the seizure and control of oil wealth—against the defenseless population of a nation that represents no threat to the American people. March 21, 2003 is a shameful day in US history.
Shock and Revulsion Over Baghdad
William Thomas, Centre for Research on Globalisation
In this senseless butchery of Baghdad, a self-described land of "freedom and democracy" has revealed itself to the world as a greedy, self-obsessed, ignorant and callous nation of mass murderers.
Now, I Am the Terrorist
William Rivers Pitt, Truthout
The opening stage of the Bush administration's "Shock and Awe" attack plan began as night fell on Iraq, and lived terribly up to its terrible name. CBS news is reporting that great swaths of residential neighborhoods within Baghdad have been engulfed in flames.
This is the reality of war. We bomb. They suffer
Robert Fisk, The Independent
Donald Rumsfeld says the American attack on Baghdad is "as targeted an air campaign as has ever existed" but he should not try telling that to five-year-old Doha Suheil.
Is Baghdad Burning?
Marc Ash, Truthout
If you thought that a classic German blitzkrieg was a history lesson, stay tuned. What is happening in Baghdad right now will make the invasion of Poland look reasonable by comparison.
Bush Administration Readying for 2004 Invasion of Iran
John Stanton, Centre for Research on Globalisation
Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donnie Rumsfeld, Richard Armitage, Elliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad and other up and coming War Criminals are anxious to set things right with Iran. It is Iran's turn to be subjected to the 21st Century version of Nazi Germany's Blitzkrieg, that being the murderous American Shock and Awe campaign created by leading War Criminal Harlan Ullman.
An Orwellian Pitch - The inner workings of the war-propaganda machine
John R. McArthur, LA Weekly
Government manipulation of public opinion is an old story, of course, but the two Presidents Bush seem especially gifted in the black arts of publicity and sloganeering.
No Ribbons, No Flags, No Fireworks
Tim Wise, ZNet
Do we really have an obligation to support the troops no matter what they do as they prosecute this slaughter against a minor league opponent? ... It is not the anti-war movement whose concern for the troops should be questioned, but rather that of the men who send them to battle, to face weapons that those same men (or their fathers) sold to the other side in the first place.
Shutting Down San Francisco's Downtown
Scott Handleman, CounterPunch
The most noteworthy thing about this day of protest, I think, was the effectiveness of the new strategy of protest by small, autonomous clusters.
Bye Bye CNN
Editorial, Arab News
Iraq has now thrown CNN out of Baghdad for acting as a crude propaganda tool of the Bush administration. It is difficult to have any sympathy for that particular news outlet, so repulsively gung-ho has it been, so preposterously shallow its coverage of anything that actually matters.
Sparing the public the horrors of war
Firas Al-Atraqchi, YellowTimes.org
Arab TV networks, notably Abu Dhabi TV, Al-Jazeerah, and Al-Arabiya have shown scores of Iraqi civilians -- women and children -- as they are brought into hospitals and triage units for treatment. In the early hours of the aerial assault, the casualties were light. However as the hours turned into days, the pictures of Iraqi wounded became more disturbing, more grotesque. None of these images were shown on U.S. networks.
You Can’t Handle the Truth
Ian Williams, In These Times
CNN: While not quite as bad as Pyongyang TV with its references to beloved leaders, it came close.
Fox News Goes to War
Dave McGowan, Center for an Informed America
There is clearly disappointment among the Fox crowd that Iraqis are not being slaughtered quickly enough. One gets the distinct feeling that nothing would make these guys happier than seeing Iraq turned into a field of mushroom clouds.
Pundits Enter All-Spin Zone
Doug Ireland, TomPaine.com
CNN had expensive, snazzily animated graphics to help vaunt the destructive powers of, say, the latest generation of Tomahawk cruise missiles or the Nighthawk stealth bomber. And deprived of real information to relate, the anchors fell all over themselves to fill dead air time with these nonstop free commercials for the military-industrial complex's sophisticated products.
Blair's Sincerity And The Media
David Edwards, Dissident Voice
While we casually mock the lunacies of the past, some people, notably mainstream journalists, nod soberly at the lunacies of the present.
If You Work for Peace, Stop Paying for War
by Michelle Kinnucan, CommonDreams
If a thousand [people] were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. --Henry David Thoreau, "On the Duty of Civil Disobedience"
NewsWire
Marine Family: “It’s all for nothing.”
Oscars blacklist stars in bid to prevent peace protest speeches
Move on Basra Met by Strong Iraqi Resistance
Iraqi’s died in their trenches clutching white flags
North Korea warns of threat of nuclear war
Conscripts shoot their own officers rather than fight
Fragging: US soldier held in attack against on his own camp
Rallies across US keep anti-war message alive: 200,000 protest in NYC
World Protests U.S.-Led ‘Shock And Shame’ War
The case of the missing Iraqi POWs
Friday
The Time For Debate Has Ended
The crisis of American capitalism and the war against Iraq
Casualties of War - First Truth, Then Conscience
Memory Lane
Pentagon press briefing: farce, charade and deception
Operation Inflate the Coalition
A reckless path
How Can You Protest?
Halliburton Makes a Killing on Iraq War
NewsWire
Fans boo during US national anthem
Anti-war protests cause mayhem
Demonstrations Protest War Around the World
“Anarchy” in the streets of San Francisco
Top White House Anti-Terror Boss Resigns
Israeli Soldiers Take Hostages in Nablus; Attempt to Kill Another US Activist
Israeli censors warn Web sites on war coverage
Thursday
WE SUPPORT OUR TROOPS WHEN THEY SHOOT THEIR OFFICERS
Blast from the Past
March 21, 2003
John deLaubenfels, Strike the Root
A question for the CNN commentator and others who think "The time for debate has ended." Is this the advice you would give German citizens as Hitler pushed the button and invaded Czechoslovakia? Or Poland? Or France? "Just shut up and rally behind your leader, like a good little Citizen!"
David North, World Socialist Web Site
Not since the 1930s—when the fascist regimes of Hitler and Mussolini were at the zenith of their power and madness—has the world been confronted with such a display of international gangsterism as that being provided by the Bush administration.
Norman Solomon, Media Monitors
The huge news outlets have swung behind slaughter in Iraq, and the dissent propelled by conscience is not deemed to be very newsworthy. The mass media are filled with bright lights and sizzle, with high production values and degraded human values, boosting the war effort while the U.S. government implements a massive crime against humanity.
Chris Floyd, Moscow Times
Dazzled by the glitzy video-game graphics of the wardrumming television networks, and battered by a ceaseless barrage of lies from their leaders -- even from the sainted Colin Powell, whose much-ballyhooed "case for the prosecution" at the UN has since been revealed as a farrago of fake documents, doctored tapes and plagiarized schoolwork -- a full 45 percent of Americans now believe the transparent lie that Saddam Hussein was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks.
Matthew Riemer, YellowTimes
After opening statements from Rumsfeld and Myers, the groveling reporters squealed from their seats, "Mr. Secretary," "General," like a gaggle of pre-pubescent boys trying to win a chance to kiss the prom queen.
Jake Tapper, Salon.com
During the last Gulf War, 32 nations sent troops to support the U.S. This time around, 3 nations did. So how is Donald Rumsfeld claiming Operation Iraqi Freedom is larger than the '91 coalition?
Paul Craig Roberts, Washington Times
The administration's use of forged evidence opens Mr. Bush to unflattering comparisons that his enemies will not hesitate to make. They will point out that it was Adolf Hitler's strategy to fabricate evidence in order to justify his invasion of a helpless country.
John Pilger, Information Clearing House
Rebellion against a government committing a crime in your name is now of vital importance. ... Be encouraged that the revolt is already under way.
Pratap Chatterjee, CorpWatch
As the first bombs rain down on Baghdad, CorpWatch has learned that thousands of employees of Halliburton, Vice President Dick Cheney's former company, are working alongside US troops in Kuwait and Turkey under a package deal worth close to a billion dollars.
March 20, 2003
Harass the Brass!
Kevin Keating, Alternative Press Review
Our rulers want us to forget what happened during the Vietnam war, and they want us to forget what defeated their war effort — and the importance of the resistance to the war by enlisted men and women.
Their "support our troops" hypocrisy
Sharon Smith, Socialist Worker
What DeLay really fears is soldiers’ doubts growing into a full-scale rebellion, as happened during Vietnam. By the late 1970s, there were roughly 70 antiwar newspapers in circulation among U.S. troops in Vietnam. And discontent among the troops led them to organize, refuse to follow orders--and ultimately, turn on their commanding officers.
THE PERFECT STORM - Part I of a Special Two-Part FTW Series
Michael C. Ruppert, From the Wilderness
The Real Stakes Behind the War
- With the UN Neutralized There Are No More Rules
- The U.S. Economy on the Brink
- Global Oil Shortages and Massive Price Hikes Imminent
- Paralysis Looming in U.S. Government
The 20 Lies of George Bush
Patrick Martin, World Socialist Web Site
Monday night’s 15-minute speech by President Bush, setting a 48-hour deadline for war against Iraq, went beyond the usual distortions, half-truths, and appeals to fear and backwardness to include a remarkable number of barefaced, easily refuted lies.
Pro-war Propaganda Machine: Media Becomes Branch of War Effort
Anthony Arnove, ZNet
George W. Bush can’t boast that the Republican Party owns the country’s newspapers, television stations or radio networks. But he can still count on a press that’s nearly as obedient as Pravda.
Military disengagement
Brendan O'Neill, Spiked Online
America and Britain's war on Iraq - whether it starts in 24, 48 or 72 hours - will certainly be devastating. But it will also be a cowardly war.
Shooting in the Dark: The Portland Six, the Patriot Act and a Black Bag Job on the Constitution
Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch
The lawman's eyeballs must have bulged at the sight: turbans, blacks and guns. Here was a trifecta in the terrorist profiling sweepstakes. The sheriff rang up the FBI and within hours the insidious new machinery of the Patriot Act was put into stealthy motion.
NewsWire
Fremont Democrat says plan to bomb Baghdad is 'act of extreme terrorism'
Anti-War Protests Sweep Globe Following Launch of Strikes in Iraq
Wednesday
March 19, 2003
A Call to Mutiny
Mitch Jones, YellowTimes
I call on all soldiers who still have a conscience somewhere deep inside of them to revolt. Throw down your weapons and tell your commanders you won't be a part of this insane farce of a war. You don't have to kill or die for the neoconservatives in the Bush administration. You have a choice.
War Party’s Message to Military Veterans: Fuck You
Kate McLaughlin, VAIW
With our military poised to attack Iraq, the Republican Party is poised to devastate the budget of American veterans.
War Criminals, Not Heroes! - Have US Soldiers Forgotten the Nuremberg Trials?
Jerre Skog, Jerre's Thinktank
Just like the Nazis' Waffen SS they are prepared to carry out the bloody handywork for corrupt leaders by taking the lives of innocent men, women and children whom they have never seen.
John McCain's satirical piece in the New York Times
By Matthew Riemer, YellowTimes
In a March 11th editorial in the New York Times, Arizona Senator John McCain reveals the utter bankruptcy of his moral stance and intellectual capacity regarding a war in Iraq.
Moments of Truth, Masters of War
Paul Street, ZNet
Across the nation, America's newspapers announce the same headline, handed as is so often the case to our media poodles by their masters in the White House: "Moment of Truth."
In Iraq Crisis, Networks Are Megaphones for Official Views
FAIR Alert
Network newscasts, dominated by current and former U.S. officials, largely
exclude Americans who are skeptical of or opposed to an invasion of Iraq, a
new study by FAIR has found.
Red Alert Blues
Kurt Nimmo, www.globalresearch.ca
In New Jersey, a former FBI man and current director of counter-terrorism, Sid Caspersen, says a red alert will restrict all personal freedom to move about and associate. "Red means all noncritical functions cease," Caspersen explained.
The Velvet Glove Comes Off the Iron Fist
Michael Novick, People Against Racist Terror (PART)
It is possible that by the time you read this, George Bush has already launched a war of aggression against Iraq, with a campaign called "Shock and Awe." It is designed to break the will of the Iraqi people to resist through massive bombing of Baghdad, a city of 5 million.
NewsWire
Media Giant Sponsored Recent Pro-War Rallies
PM under siege after committing Australian troops to Iraq war
Anti-Iraq Coalition Shows Some Limits
Tuesday
March 18, 2003
Israeli bulldozer driver murders American peace activist
Nigel Parry and Arjan El Fassed, Electronic Intifada
On 16 March 2003 in Rafah, occupied Gaza, 23-year-old American peace activist Rachel Corrie from Olympia, Washington, was murdered by an Israeli bulldozer driver. Rachel was in Gaza opposing the bulldozing of a Palestinian home as a volunteer with the International Solidarity Movement.
Rachel Corrie in Her Own Words
Rachel Corrie, Dissident Voice
I think about the fact that no amount of reading, attendance at conferences, documentary viewing and word of mouth could have prepared me for the reality of the situation here.
Rachel Corrie, Nuha Sweidan and Israeli War Crimes
Steve Niva, Dissident Voice
The Israeli bulldozer that ran over and killed American peace activist Rachel Corrie, 23, in the Gaza Strip yesterday had killed before. A few weeks ago, on March 3, an Israeli bulldozer killed a nine-month pregnant Palestinian woman, Nuha Sweidan, while destroying the house next door in a dilapidated Gaza refugee camp.
When saying "we're all Palestinians" really means something
Stephen Gowans, What's Left
Do Americans who act as human shields, in places like the West Bank and Gaza and Iraq, believe their lives are so significant that Israeli bulldozers won't rumble over them and that American cruise missiles won't vaporize them?
Crying Wolf?
Uri Avnery, Media Monitors
"Why do you think that Sharon may exploit the American attack on Iraq in order to carry out transfer in the occupied territories?" a journalist asked me, after we published a warning to this effect in his paper. "Aren’t you crying wolf?"
Craig Rosebraugh on the Anti-War struggle
Portland IndyMedia
As the U.S. led military campaign gets fully under way in the very near future, the question remains… how far is the anti-war movement in the United States willing to go to stop the U.S. government and its unceasing atrocities? How far are you willing to go, what are you willing to do to stop the massive bloodshed once again caused by the U.S. government?
The Torrent of Deceit
Robin Miller, robinmiller.com
The Bush team's campaign for war on Iraq would have made Nazi master propagandist Joseph Goebbels proud. Fabrications are announced as facts. Lies are repeated until they displace the truth. Deception is the order of the day.
The Rot at the Center of Empire
Jacob G. Hornberger, Future of Freedom Foundation
Last weekend’s announcement that the U.S. government had relied on
fake and false evidence in the attempt to secure approval of its upcoming invasion of Iraq was, by and large, met by a collective yawn from the American people, especially the members of Congress. It’s just one more example of the depths of moral depravity to which our nation has fallen.
Is Iraq the opening salvo in a war to remake the world?
Robert Dreyfuss, American Prospect
For months Americans have been told that the United States is going to war against Iraq in order to disarm Saddam Hussein, remove him from power, eliminate Iraq's alleged stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and prevent Baghdad from blackmailing its neighbors or aiding terrorist groups. But the Bush administration's hawks, especially the neoconservatives who provide the driving force for war, see the conflict with Iraq as much more than that.
Media Watchdogs Caught Napping
Leander Kahney, Wired
"Given how timid most U.S. news organizations have been in challenging the White House position on Iraq, I'm not surprised if Americans are turning to foreign news services for a perspective on the conflict that goes beyond freedom fries," said Deborah Branscom, a Newsweek contributing editor, who keeps a weblog devoted to media issues."
Surveillance Nation
Dan Farmer and Charles C. Mann, Technology Review
Webcams, tracking devices, and interlinked databases are leading to the elimination of unmonitored public space. Are we prepared for the consequences of the intelligence-gathering network we’re unintentionally building?
NewsWire
Massive US Terror: History's deadliest night of airstrikes will start the war
Nowhere for Bush to hide from anti-war protests
War may provoke national strike
Instant protests threatened when attacks start
sraeli special forces join 'secret front' in Jordan
Oscars blacklist stars in bid to prevent peace protest speeches
US role revealed in 1998 Colombia bombing
Blood Money: US firms get $1.5bn deal to rebuild Iraq
Weekend Edition
No Peace Without a Fight
How to Unseat the War Criminals and Reverse the Tide of War? - Expose the Links between Al Qaeda and the Bush Administration
Last Orders
Oil War: The Smoking Guns
The forgotten power of the General Assembly
Britain: Charities warn 11 million Iraqis face starvation in event of war
Perpetual Death
Do Media Know That War Kills?
NewsWire
Blair plans for war as UN given 24 hours
Optimistic War Protesters Keep Pressure on Bush
Vandenberg Air Force Base authorizes 'deadly force' against trespassing protesters
'Direct Action' Seen as Next Step If War Begins
Millions of Spanish Workers Protest War
Top US military planner fears a 'likely' repeat of Somalia bloodbath
A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making
Ari & I: White House Press Briefing with Ari Fleischer
Friday
World Creating Food Bubble Economy Based on Unsustainable Use of Water
Canada’s National Post demands “harsh” sentences for anti-poverty protesters
The Media: Keeping Americans in the Dark
The Conventional Media Wisdom of Obedience
Don’t Support Our Troops
The Case Against US Adventurism in Iraq
Disobey
Who Killed Djindjic? And What Will Be the Repercussions in the Balkans?
Indigenous Struggle in Ecuador Becomes a "Cause Beyond Control"
Proof That the Washington Post and the White House Press Corps Wear Knee Pads: Breathe Deeply and Swallow
NewsWire
Rumsfeld, Bush Sr. Refused To Back 1989 UN Resolution To Investigate Iraq For Human Rights Abuses
AP Protests Government Seizure of Package
Journalists' group upset as Canada Customs `detains' anti-war film
Schools Ask Parents to Hide Kids From Military Recruiters
Thursday
A Glossary of Warmongering
The White House Press Corps politely grabs its ankes
Did Bush Know? – Warning Sings of 9-11 and Intelligence Failures
Recovering the Power of the Global Grass Roots in the Antiwar Movement
This is the Cost of Blair's 'Moral' War
NewsWire
Apply for a driver’s license, register for the draft
The dreaded Iraqi drone: made of balsa wood and duct tape
Perle Sues Investigative Journalist
Wednesday
The Empire Needs New Clothes
Stopping the 'Transfer' of the Palestinians During Bush's War
Interview with Illustrator and Author Ted Rall
Pentagon Threatens to Kill Independent Reporters in Iraq
NYPD snipers snipped from New York Times
Smearing Sy Hersh: Richard Perle calls him a terrorist
Camelot and the Bushies: Some Disturbing Parallels
Malpractice Myths
Shaking Hands With the Butcher
NewsWire
New York Times, Networks Shun U.N. Spying Story
Latest U.S. Worry: ‘Ungoverned Spaces’ in Latin America
Police State USA: Gestapo Tactics at Anti-war Rally?
U.S. Stocking Uranium-Rich Bombs?
Movie men add special effects to media war
Secretive U.S. ‘Information’ Office Back
Any Member of a Government Backing an Aggressive War Will Be Open to Prosecution
Pentagon Papers’ Ellsberg Calls for Leaks on Iraq Policy
Monday
The US and Eurasia: End Game for the Industrial Era?
The Anglo-American Military Axis
Action, not speculation: Cynthia Peters interviews Noam Chomsky
Treated Like a Criminal: How the INS Stole Three Days of My Life
Bush and the Compliant Media
White House vs. whitehouse
As the Economy Crumbles
This is War
NewsWire
Peace protesters breach U.S. base
Protesters Declare ‘Code Pink’
UN launches inquiry into American spying
Oil War: 23 Years in the Making
‘Democracy Now!’ Host Amy Goodman is Making Her Voice Heard on Iraq
Bush News Conference: “This is scripted”
Weekend Edition
MSNBC's Double Standard on Free Speech: "Turd World" is OK-- "anti-war, anti-Bush" is not
Murder Under the Cover of Righteousness
Towards the Precipice: Crisis in the US Economy
How American journalists censor themselves in the Corporate Era
Total Business Awareness: The Corporate Contracting Behind John Poindexter's Total Information Awareness Program
Map Links Healthier Ecosystems, Indigenous Peoples
Who is in charge?
The Education of Corporal Gunderson
US Intentions
Untold story of February 15 demonstration: NYC used city vehicles, extreme noise as weapons against peaceful demonstrators
Severe Attack on the Gaza Strip
First They Came for Jose Padilla
Media Lens Alert: Outrageous Omissions - How The Press Has Buried The Truth Of Iraqi Disarmament
We Say Liberation, You Say War Crimes
NewsWire
UK troops tell of low morale, lack of food
Some military reservists will risk jail to resist Iraq duty
U.N. weapons inspectors say some documents presented as evidence by US were forged.
George Michael's Anti-War Song Raises Hackles
Study of Antarctic Points to Rising Sea Levels
Friday’s Articles
Media Dodging U.N. Surveillance Story
Librarians as FBI Extension Agents
US media ignore Sharon's embrace of ethnic cleansers in new Israeli cabinet
Postcards from Hell
The Gangs of DC
NewsWire
Amnesty: Human Rights Eroding in US at an “alarming rate”
US Army field manual on large "civilian internment" camps
Kuwaitis are evicted from half of their country as troops arrive
US Troops “pouring into Saudi Arabia”
Thursday’s Articles
Oops Journalism
A Cover for Israel’s Atrocities
Worthy and Unworthy Victims in Colombia
The Bush Leagues
NewsWire
Students Worldwide Stage Walkouts to Protest War in Iraq
Satire: Bush Offers Taxpayers Another $300 if We Got to War
Taliban West: 50 Year Jail Term for Petty Theft
Over One Million Iraqi Children Might Die in War – Secret UN Document
This Modern World: Loyal American’s Guide to War Preparedness
Wednesday’s Articles
13 Myths About the War on Iraq
Pentagon, media agree on Iraq war censorship; Reporters to be “embedded” in military
Arrest Me
On the Winning Side: Curtis LeMay's Brand of Hell
NewsWire
Students Walk Out of Classes to Protest War
Water scarcity could affect billions: is this the biggest crisis of all?
Lawyer Arrested for Wearing a 'Peace' T-Shirt
Tuesday’s Articles
The Unbalanced Hawks at the Washington Post
Israeli officer court-martialled for refusing order to target civilians
Capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed raises questions about war on terrorism
Railroaded for Courthouse Leafletting
Bill O'Reilly's Enemies of the State: Journalism as McCarthy Hearing
The Disinformation Age
AS THE ECONOMY CRUMBLES #5
NewsWire
The Bush Legacy: Afghanistan retakes its place as #1 heroin producer
UK: Cardiff Anarchists invade arms factory
600,000 demand pardon for farmer Bove
PBS Denies Showing of Award-Winning Documentary
Organizers of Antiwar Movement Plan to Go Beyond Protests
Recently Captured al Qaeda Leader
Was Killed Last Year
Bush Says Military Force Now an Option on North Korea
Weekend Edition
Blair Hypocrisy
Dis-Integration: What, Me Worry?
Traces of Poison
Don’t be seduced by claims that war will bring democracy to Iraq
A tilt toward controversy
The Dangers of Dissent
NewsWire
Antiwar activists plan nonviolent blockades
Anti-war Protestors to Block Main US Army Base in Germany
Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
US prepares to use toxic gases in Iraq
Turkey’s Refusal Stuns US – “They did what?” blurted one State Department official
Friday’s Articles
Afghani-Sham
War
Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed
Swinging Blades
Criminalizing an act of love
Fair and Balanced?
A country in chaos: President told his days are numbered
Don’t Worry About Terrorism
Enemies of the State
NewsWire
U.S. Diplomat Resigns, Protesting 'Our Fervent Pursuit of War'
John Brady Kiesling's letter of resignation
Coalition of the Willing or Coalition of the Coerced?
Bove gets 10 months in jail for GM crop attack
Thursday’s Articles
When Peace is War
The Party’s Over
The Mexican Farmers’ Movement: Exposing the Myths of Free Trade
The ruling view is the view of those who run the show
The war and premeditated genocide: What is at stake?
A Lethal Warning to US Client States: Behave or Else
The Gulf War Casualties Not Mentioned
So, Bush Wants Civil Disobedience?
Missing US-Iraq History
Followup Needed After Newsweek Story on Iraqi Weapons
Life in a Barrel of Oil
NewsWire
More controversy: Camisea Gas Project in Peru’s Amazon Heartland
Blair rocked by biggest revolt over Iraq
Section by section analysis of the Patriot Act II
Wednesday’s Articles
The Anti-war Talk I Never Made
War by Numbers
Patriot II: Secret Bush Legislation Sent to Cheney, Hastert, Deepens Assault on Constitution
Busted for Peace: Cops Play Soldier, Protesters Become the Enemy
US public turns to Europe for news
NewsWire
Ari Gets Laughed Out of the White House Briefing Room
Gulf War Vet Group: US Troops Set Kuwaiti Oil Fires
Anti-war campaigners shut scores of Esso garages and bar entrance to company HQ
Iran is Suing the U.S. For Its Support of Saddam Hussein in the 80's
Nuke Lab Can’t Keep Snoops Out
Police Detain Library Patron Over Chat Room Visit
Tuesday’s Articles
Programming the Work Force: The Failure of Mass Education
How the news will be censored in this war
Pentagon to Censor Coverage of War
Totalitarianism for Dummies
War and the Press: Watchdogs, Lapdogs and Sleeping Dogs
As the Economy Crumbles
NewsWire
Coalition of the Willing? Make that War Criminals
Allies Hushed Up Weapons’ Destruction
Monday’s Articles
Rumsfeld pushes ‘big lie’ on human shields in Iraq
Shock and Yawn
Poll: US Biggest Threat to Peace
Weekend Edition
Inside Iraq: The Tragedy of a People Betrayed
It’s the Empire, Stupid!
What They Don’t Tell Us: A Dissection of U.S. Media Censorship
In a Land Where Justice is a Game: Killing Amos King
US government mounts conspiracy frame-up of Palestinian activists
March 15-16, 2003
Naomi Klein, Dissident Voice
The great irony is that these movements are actually waging the real war on terrorism--not with law and order but by providing alternatives to the fundamentalist tendencies that exist wherever there is true desperation. They are developing tactics that allow some of the most marginal people on earth to meet their own needs without using terror--by blockading roads, squatting in buildings, occupying land and resisting displacement.
Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalisation
When people across the US find out that Al Qaeda is not linked to Saddam but is in fact a creation of the CIA and that the terrorist warnings are fabricated, the legitimacy of the Bush Administration will tumble like a deck of cards. The perceived enemy will no longer be Saddam, it will be Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, et al.
Chris Floyd, Moscow Times
The shadowy militarized oligarchy created after World War II -- the infamous "National Security State," a military-corporate complex financed by the looting of the public treasury, protected and promoted by a hydra of secret agencies and covert armies, and driven by the fomenting of almost-ceaseless war -- will reach its apotheosis, standing triumphant and alone, having at last devoured the body politic upon which it has fed for so long.
Ritt Goldstein, CounterPunch
A US Department of Defense document has just been discovered, a top-level document specifically discussing war for oil. This is the first official document found explicitly confirming as policy the US Defense Department's readiness to wage oil war.
Robert Fisk, The Independent
For 30 years, America's veto policy in the United Nations has been central to its foreign policy. More than 70 times the United States has shamelessly used its veto in the UN, most recently to crush a Security Council resolution condemning the Israeli killing of the British UN worker Iain Hook in Jenin last December.
Julie Hyland, World Socialist Web Site
Some 11 million people would be at immediate risk of starvation if the US proceeds with its war on Iraq, leading aid charities in the UK have warned. In a briefing for MPs in the House of Commons on March 12, Care International, Christian Aid and Save the Children warned that military action could push 60 percent of Iraqis to the brink of starvation.
Paul Harris, YellowTimes
The depleted uranium weapons utilized by the Americans and the British against Afghanistan have created a "perpetual death" that will haunt that land for decades to come. These same two aggressors also used depleted uranium weapons against Iraq during the Gulf War and in the Balkans.
FAIR Media Alert
Since the beginning of the year, according to a search of the Nexis database (1/1/03-3/12/03), none of the three major television networks' nightly national newscasts-- ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News or NBC Nightly News-- have examined in detail what long-term impact war will have on humanitarian conditions in Iraq. They've also downplayed the immediate civilian deaths that will be caused by a U.S. attack.
March 14, 2003
Lester R. Brown, Earth Policy Institute
As world water demand has tripled over the last half-century, it has exceeded the sustainable yield of aquifers in scores of countries, leading to falling water tables. In effect, governments are satisfying the growing demand for food by overpumping groundwater, a measure that virtually assures a drop in food production when the aquifer is depleted.
Henry Michaels, World Socialist Web Site
After seven weeks of pre-trial hearings, a criminal trial that represents a direct attack on the right to protest commenced in Toronto last week. For the first time in decades, political demonstrators are being prosecuted as “rioters” under some of the most draconian provisions of the Canadian Criminal Code.
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Iraq
In his 6 March press conference, President George Bush once again issued a series of assertions that are unsupported and even contradicted by the available evidence. What is most disturbing is the abject failure of the US media to subject Bush's statements to any form of scrutiny.
Norman Solomon, ZNet
As the possibility of a U.S. invasion turns into the reality of massive carnage, the war on Iraq cannot avoid confronting Americans with a tacit expectation that rarely gets media scrutiny. In a word: obedience.
Ted Rall, CommonDreams
Supporting our troops while they're fighting an immoral and illegal war is misguided and wrong.
Noam Chomsky, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
The most powerful state in history has proclaimed that it intends to control the world by force, the dimension in which it reigns supreme. President Bush and his cohorts evidently believe that the means of violence in their hands are so extraordinary that they can dismiss anyone who stands in their way.
John Pilger, Dissident Voice
What is heartening is the apparent demise of "anti-Americanism" as a respectable means of stifling recognition and analysis of American Imperialism. Intellectual loyalty oaths, similar to those rife during the Third Reich, when the abusive "anti-German" was enough to silence dissent, no longer work.
Michel Collon, Centre for Research on Globalisation
Who put Djindjic in power? The West. Thanks to more than nine years of a crushing embargo (dictated by the IMF in order to destroy workers' self-management and to impose globalization), plus nine years of an info-war demonizing the Serbian people, plus 78 days of NATO bombardment and tens of millions of dollars spent on a destabilization campaign to get rid of Milosevic, a campaign which was orchestrated by the CIA in 2000.
By Kenny Bruno, CorpWatch
Force majeure -- literally "major force" but translated also as "cause beyond control" -- usually describes unforeseen natural catastrophes such as earthquakes or major upheavals such as wars, which can void the obligations of a legal contract. But the Ecuadorian government now uses force majeure to describe legitimate community opposition to oil concessions on indigenous territory in the Amazon rainforest.
Buzzflash News Analysis
White House reporters have to have quotes that they publish, after "background" interviews, approved by the Stalinist censors in the Rove/Fleischer office of White House Communications. Not only do the so-called reporters have to get approval before including the quotes in an article, the White House can alter the quotations and demand that they be printed as though they were the original quotations.
March 13, 2003
by Paul de Rooij, CounterPunch
The propaganda leading up to wars debases language. In an effort to counter the inevitable prostitution of language, and to perhaps become aware of a different reality, a glossary of commonly post-Gulf War abused terms is presented below.
Matt Taibbi, New York Press
After watching George W. Bush’s press conference last Thursday night, I’m more convinced than ever: The entire White House press corps should be herded into a cargo plane, flown to an altitude of 30,000 feet, and pushed out, kicking and screaming, over the North Atlantic.
Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Media Montors Network
This is an edited version of Chapter 4 from the explosive 400-page exposé, The War on Freedom: How and Why America was Attacked, September 11, 2001, by the leading British political scientist and human rights activist Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed, Director of the Institute for Policy Research & Development in Brighton, UK.
Cindy Milstein, Infoshop.org
The global day of antiwar protests on February 15 was remarkable for several reasons.
John Pilger, The Mirror
The Blair Government has known, almost from the day it came to office in 1997, that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were almost certainly destroyed following the Gulf War.
12 March 2003
Thom Hartmann, CommonDreams.org
What the war is really about is the survival of the American lifestyle, which, in their world-view, is both non-negotiable and based almost entirely on access to cheap oil.
Uri Avnery, Gush Shalom
It is clear to the Palestinians that the war will give the occupation forces the opportunity to intensify even more the things which happen now every day: the execution of militants and others, wholesale demolition of homes, uprooting of plantations.
Buzzflash
Ted Rall, America's hardest-hitting editorial cartoonist for Universal Press Syndicate, is an award-winning commentator who also works as an illustrator, columnist, and radio commentator. Nationally known for his editorial cartoons, Rall is a modern day renaissance man.
Fintan Dunne, GuluFuture.com
The Pentagon has threatened to fire on the satellite uplink positions of independent journalists in Iraq, according to veteran BBC war correspondent, Kate Adie. In an interview with Irish radio, Ms. Adie said that questioned about the consequences of such potentially fatal actions, a senior Pentagon officer had said: "Who cares.. ..They've been warned."
Helen Highwater, Unknown News
This deeply-buried mention of police snipers, positioned on rooftops above a huge crowd in New York City, was edited off The Times website within hours. It was replaced with a rewritten, somewhat longer version of the same article — omitting any mention of police snipers on roofs and plainclothesmen in the crowd.
Kurt Nimmo, CounterPunch
Seymour Hersh is a rarity in America these days -- an investigative journalist.
Robert Higgs, Independent Institute
The Kennedy administration’s leaders displayed, in Leebaert’s phrase, “an astonishing militancy” (p. 256). Yet, despite their high-toned educations and their polished social graces, they generally had only the foggiest idea what they were doing—they epitomized what the sociologist C. Wright Mills called “crackpot realists.”
Kip Sullivan, In These Times
The real problem isn’t greedy lawyers, it’s bad doctors
Paul Harris, YellowTimes
There is a wonderful photograph floating around the Internet these days. It is not a fake; it is not doctored; it is real. It shows the smiling face of a much younger Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with the Butcher of Baghdad.
10 March 2003
Richard Heinberg, MuseLetter
The industrial era differs from previous periods of human history in the large-scale harnessing of energy resources (coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium) for the purposes of production and transportation - and for the deeper purpose of expanding the human carrying capacity of our terrestrial environment. All of the scientific achievements, the political consolidations, and the immense population increases of the past two centuries are predictable effects of the growing, coordinated use of energy resources.
Michel Chossudovsky, Centre for Research on Globalisation
The broader Middle East-Central Asian region encompasses more than 70% of the World's reserves of oil and natural gas. According to U.S. Central Command: "The purpose of U.S. engagement... is to protect U.S. vital interest in the region - uninterrupted, secure U.S./Allied access to Gulf oil."
Cynthia Peters, ZNet
The disparity of force is so extraordinary that the term "war" doesn't apply. We wouldn't call it a boxing match if the world champion were in a ring with a kindergarten child.
Behrooz Arshadi, The Progressive
What was the purpose? The people who are coming for these registrations are trying to comply with the law. They're working people, good people, people with families. We were not criminals, but they treated us like that.
Kim Petersen, Dissident Voice
On 7 February President Bush spoke before the media and fielded questions from them afterwards. It was a very collegial affair with Mr. Bush responding to questions proffered him by chuckling or praise: “I appreciate that question a lot;” “Great question.” The quality of the queries conformed without exception to the Propaganda Model of Herman and Chomsky.
Farhad Manjoo, Salon.com
Doesn't the vice president have better things to do than trample the First Amendment rights of a Web satirist? An interview with whitehouse.org's John Wooden.
Issue #6, Visualize Economic Collapse
It should come as no surprise to see the conservative Daily Telegraph declare in an
editorial that what the world needs is a war. They openly admit the world economy is in danger of falling off a cliff and seizing Iraq's oil is a necessity to stave off an economic collapse.
The Memory Hole
an unblinking look—in words and images—at the reality of warfare
8-9 March 2003
Activism Update, FAIR
MSNBC's claim to be championing free speech by hiring hate-talk radio host
Michael Savage is disingenuous in the extreme.
Shulamit Aloni, CounterPunch
Dr. Ya'akov Lazovik writes ("Academic Genocide", "Ha'Aretz", 4 March) that in the State of Israel it is impossible that the regime and the nation will plan and commit a genocide. It is difficult to determine if this is naivety or self-righteousness.
Robert Brenner, Dissident Voice
In much the same way as the Bush Government's plans for national security are about the projection of US military might in the Middle East and beyond, its economic stimulus programme is about the transfer of wealth from the poor to the already wealthy.
Tamara Baker, American Politics Journal
Molly Ivins mentioned recently that, according to a recent nation-by-nation study of the the freedom and accuracy of the world's media, the US press comes in at -- guess where? Not first, not second, not even in the top ten... but seventeenth place. Seventeenth! Several former Soviet client states score better than we do.
Adam Mayle and Alex Knott, Multinational Monitor
The Total Information Awareness System, the controversial Pentagon research program that aims to gather and analyze a vast array of information on people in the United States, has hired at least eight private companies to work on the effort.
Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News
Central America and southern Mexico's forests and marine resources have been dwindling for decades. Now there's evidence that the scope of destruction depends on who uses the land and water. A new map shows that natural ecosystems have a better chance of survival when indigenous people inhabit them.
Edward Said, Media Monitors
It is no exaggeration to say that this war is the most unpopular in modern history. Before the war has begun there have been more people protesting it in this country alone than was the case at the height of the anti- Vietnam war demonstrations during the 60s and 70s.
Allen Gunderson, Orange County Weekly
I joined the Marines to get a good education, and all I got was a crummy Gulf War
Dale Allen Pfeiffer, From the Wilderness
- A Sobering Look at the Oil Numbers Behind the U.S. Panic to Invade Iraq
- Bush Knew of Peak Oil Before Taking Office
- Natural Gas Picture Worsens
Daniel Forbes, The Progressive Review
Overwhelmed by the unexpected crush of hundreds of thousands of antiwar demonstrators on February 15 and losing control of the streets, the City of New York sent official vehicles barreling deliberately and at high speed through a mass of protesters on Second Ave.
Kristen Ess, Electronic Intifada
Gaza Strip hospitals are urgently requesting blood and medical supplies that under constant Israeli closure they are unable to get. They have run out of space for all of the dying Palestinians. Israeli occupation forces have injured 100s of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip over the past week alone.
Oread Daily
He was arrested at an American airport. He is a U.S. citizen who has been declared an enemy combatant. When he was arrested, Gen. Ashcrot said, "We have disrupted an unfolding terrorist plot to attack the United States." But the government has presented little evidence to back that charge. Yet he's being detained by the military -- indefinitely, without seeing his attorney, even though he hasn't been charged with any crime.
Media Lens Alert
A massive assault is being planned against a crushed Third World country that was demolished by the US/UK in the original Gulf War, by continuous (and now all but daily) bombing raids since, and by murderous sanctions that have been described as "genocidal" by senior United Nations diplomats who resigned in protest.
Terry Allen, New Scientist
"Whether I hate Saddam or not, and I'm not saying I do," one man told me quietly during my recent trip to Iraq, "I hate America – the government, not the people – for what it did and is going to do to our children." His is not a lone voice. The vast majority of the Iraqi people I spoke to believe the United States committed war crimes during the last Gulf war in 1991 by using depleted uranium (DU) weapons deliberately to cause cancer and inflict birth defects for generations to come.
7 March 2003
Norman Solomon, Media Beat
Three days after a British newspaper revealed a memo about U.S. spying on U.N. Security Council delegations, I asked Daniel Ellsberg to assess the importance of the story. "This leak," he replied, "is more timely and potentially more important than the Pentagon Papers."
David H. Price, CounterPunch
The FBI is back in our libraries, and librarians and their professional associations are doing nothing to directly obstruct their access to private records of what we read.
Ali Abunimah, Michael Brown & Nigel Parry, The Electronic Intifada
The inclusion in the new Israeli government of the racist National Union, which openly calls for the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, received muted coverage in the US media and passed largely without comment.
George Smith, Village Voice
Littering southern Iraq with hundreds of thousands—even millions—of postcards and missives, the American military machine is warning everyone in the region that the air force is going to blow their heads clean off. … If similar articles were dropped over the American heartland, it would be viewed as an act of war.
Chris Floyd, Moscow Times
The newest war -- the invasion of Iraq -- will come because a gang of like-minded men is willing it into being. They want it -- it's as simple as that. They want what they believe this war will give them: wealth, dominion, and empire.
6 March 2003
Bev Conover, Online Journal
The corporate-controlled media's employees—who falsely call themselves journalists—breathlessly feed the American people a daily diet of lies, distortions and disinformation packaged as news.
Michael S. Ladah, Dissident Voice
As the world comes closer to the war on Iraq which now appears imminent, many of us are more concerned not only about the major loss in civilian lives in Iraq but also about the potential tragedy that is expected to unfold in the West Bank and Gaza.
Doug Stokes, ZNet
This familiar pattern of worthy and unworthy victims is now being played out in Colombia, the worlds third largest recipient of global US military aid and the US's latest ally in its war of terror.
Capital Hill Blue
The White House apparently believes it should not be the subject of satire and is trying to censor a web site that parodies Vice President Dick Cheney's wife.
5 March 2003
Rich Cowan, Paul Rosenberg and Abigail Caplovitz, AlterNet
Recently, a group of online "mythbusters" involved in the 13myths.org project went one step further. They posted a summary of key claims made by the proponents of war and then invited hundreds of people to offer suggestions on how to respond. The following is the result of this exchange. The complete document, with more than 120 footnotes from mainstream and primary sources, is online at 13myths.org.
By Henry Michaels, World Socialist Web Site
During the 1991 Gulf War, the White House and the Pentagon imposed unprecedented censorship on media coverage. With the willing agreement of the corporate-owned media, American military activities in the region were mostly off-limits to journalists. Defense Department censors cleared photos, video footage and battlefield dispatches. Reporters were allowed to travel only in “pools,” accompanied by US military escorts.
William Rivers Pitt, Dissident Voice
George W. Bush is out of control. I'll say it again. George W. Bush is out of control.
By Mickey Z., CounterPunch
By May 1945, 75 percent of the bombs being dropped on Japan were incendiaries. Cheered on by the likes of Time magazine - who explained that "properly kindled, Japanese cities will burn like autumn leaves" - LeMay's campaign took an estimated 672,000 lives.
4 March 2003
Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman, Focus on the Corporation
What is going on at the Washington Post? We would say that the Post editorial pages have become an outpost of the Defense Department -- except that there is probably more dissent about the pending war in Iraq in the Pentagon than there is on the Post editorial pages.
Brian Smith, World Socialist Web Site
An Israeli military intelligence officer has been court-martialled for refusing to carry out an order that blatantly defied both international laws and Israel’s own statutes and would have led to the certain death of countless Palestinian civilians.
Stephen Gowans, What’s Left
We're now to believe it was the hitherto unknown Mohammed, not the infamous bin Laden, who engineered the events that provided Washington the initial impetus to embark on a series of wars of conquest under the banner of a war on terrorism.
Anne Harrison, CounterPunch
The director of California's best-known medical marijuana club has announced that he will begin a hunger strike when he is imprisoned March 3 for leafleting outside a courthouse.
Kurt Nimmo, CounterPunch
As O'Reilly points out, in the not too distant future you will be expected to either give your full support to Bush, or shut up. If you can't shut up, if you insist on taking to the streets in protest, if you insist the First Amendment (which O'Reilly exploits) means what it says it does, you will be "spotlighted." You will be declared an "enemy of the state."
Dennis Hans, The Scoop
How George W. Bush and Saint Colin of Powell are lying America into an unnecessary war — and what honest journalists can do about it
Visualize Economic Collapse
Summarizing the shitty economic news of the week. In this issue: The Party's Over, Rollback, Critical Condition, We're Screwed, Debt & Bankruptcy, Jobs? What Jobs?, Investor Gloom & Market Blues
1-2 Mar 2003
John Pilger, ZNet
Having failed to fabricate a link between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and prove that Iraq has a secret armoury of banned weapons, the warmongers have fallen back on the "moral case" for an unprovoked attack on a stricken country. Farce has arrived.
Michael C. Ruppert, From the Wilderness
So many emails. So many people worried and confused. So many people acting as if it doesn't make sense.
Salman Abu-Sitta, Al-Ahram Weekly
Israel, not Iraq, holds that distinction of being the first country in the region to use weapons of mass destruction with genocidal intent.
Ali Abunimah, Electronic Iraq
Having spectacularly failed to convince the world that Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction present an imminent danger, supporters of American war plans, notably UK prime minister Tony Blair, have turned to 'moral' and 'humanitarian' arguments.
Rone Tempest, Los Angeles Times
"I think the Anderson Valley Advertiser is the best small newspaper in America," said media critic Alexander Cockburn, who lives in Humboldt County and is a regular contributor to the Boonville newspaper, as well as to the Nation and the Los Angeles Times. "It does things that a lot of newspapers have given up doing," Cockburn added. "Bruce is completely fearless, a very good writer and very funny -- a polemical writer in the Mencken tradition. There aren't too many of them around."
Heather Wokusch, www.heatherwokusch.com
Dissent isn't easy these days. You're branded unpatriotic for questioning an unelected president's rush to war, and dismissed as insignificant even when you number in the millions.
28 Feb 2003
Schnews
In the week that George W. presents his ‘vision’ for a post-war Iraq, a vision that he has already refused to contribute to financially, SchNEWS reckons it’s appropriate to look at Afghanistan one year on. Just how has bombing and killing civilians improved the situation for the Afghan people?
Howard Zinn
The anti-war movement will not likely surrender to the martial atmosphere. The hundreds of thousands who marched in Washington and San Francisco and New York and Boston - and in villages, towns, cities all over the country from Georgia to Montana - will not meekly withdraw. Unlike the shallow support for the war, the opposition to the war is deep, cannot be easily dislodged or frightened into silence.
FAIR Media Advisory
On February 24, Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis. In a revelation that "raises questions about whether the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] stockpiles attributed to Iraq still exist," the magazine's issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told U.N. inspectors that Iraq had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims.
Chris Floyd, Moscow Times
It's a well-known fact -- oft detailed in these pages -- that the boys in the Bush Regime swing both ways. We speak, of course, of their proclivity -- their apparently uncontrollable craving -- for stuffing their trousers with loot from both sides of whatever war or military crisis is going at the moment.
Doreen Miller, YellowTimes
According to the convoluted logic of the Bush administration, human shields attempting to stop the war, thus sparing the lives of innocent Iraqis, will be prosecuted for giving aid to "the enemy," the Iraqi people, who, by reason of countless declarations by Bush, are not our enemy; after all, our president has made it very clear over the past several months that it's just Saddam who is our enemy, not the Iraqi people.
From the Wilderness
An Organic Consumers report now brings us the saddening news that a Florida Appeals court has overturned the original ruling on the grounds that there is absolutely nothing illegal about lying, concealing or distorting information by a major press organization.
LatinamericaPress.org
Almost seven months into his term, President Gonzalo Sánchez de Lozada, who already governed Bolivia 1993-97, faces a national crisis which, according to the experts, is beyond his control.
Charley Reese, reese.king-online.com
Chill out, folks. Despite the Washington hype, aimed at justifying big budgets, and television's moronic perpetual hysteria, terrorism is the very least of our problems.
Bill O'Reilly has issued a warning
27 Feb 2003
Willful Disobedience Vol 3, #5
We are all aware that the United States is gearing up for an attack on Iraq. The formalities are still being worked out, but at this point, US military action seems almost certain. But this war will not be without resistance.
Richard Heinberg, New College News
"Industrial nations’ fossil-fueled joyride is about to end . . . is anyone prepared?"
Laura Carlsen, Americas Policy Report
Not since agrarian reform under President Lázaro Cárdenas in the late thirties had so many campesinos marched in the nation's capital. And perhaps not since the revolution had such a diverse crowd united behind such radical demands.
Stephen Gowans, What’s Left
History, it is understood wrongly, is a chronicle of battles and wars and statecraft and diplomacy. A parade of kings, dictators, princes, generals, captains of industry, and emperors march across the pages of history books -- the "great men" of history who led armies, performed great deeds, and conquered nations. Rare is a history told from the other side, from the perspectives of peasants and factory workers, slaves and the conquered, conscripts and servants.
James Petras, Rebelion
This is scientific pre-meditated genocide, similar to what took place in Nazi Germany at the Wannsee Conference of January 1942 when the high command decided on extermination of the Jews. The major difference with the Nazi experience is that Washington's decision on genocide precedes the war and is widely publicized in public documents and in official speeches by its executioners.
Carl Estabrook, CounterPunch
It's remarkable how rarely Israel is mentioned in regard to the American plans to attack Iraq -- with the exception of occasional notices of how strongly the Israeli government supports those plans.
Stanley Heller, Antiwar.com
The official Veterans Administration GWVIS report of September 2002 states that 159,238 soldiers who were in the Gulf in 1990-91 are disabled. Of that number over 111,000 are 10% or more disabled. 8,000 Gulf War vets have died. You won't find any of these numbers in the articles about Gulf War illnesses being printed all over in the major newspapers in the last few weeks.
Naomi Klein, Toronto Globe & Mail
The most ambitious plan has come from San Francisco, where a coalition of antiwar groups is calling for an emergency non-violent "counterstrike" the day after the war starts: "Don't go to work or school. Call in sick, walk out: We will impose real economic, social and political costs and stop business as usual until the war stops."
Robert Parry, Consortiumnews.com
Before George W. Bush gives the final order to invade Iraq -- a nation that has not threatened the United States -- the American people might want a few facts about the real history of U.S.-Iraq relations. Missing chapters from 1980 to the present would be crucial in judging Bush’s case for war.
Norman Solomon, Dissident Voice
You gotta hand it to America's mass media: When war hangs in the balance, they sure know how to bury a story.
John Stanton, Centre for Research on Globalisation
Those K-8 youngsters will never learn that the energy business is a filthy one in which US and European governments--and their militaries--must and will resort to any tactic in any country to get the oil and natural gas companies in a position to extract and deliver product.
26 Feb 2003
Mickey Z, Dissident Voice
"Two worlds are in conflict -- two philosophies of life -- one of these two worlds must break asunder." These are not the words of our un-elected president but rather Adolph Hitler, in the 1930s. I do not compare these two time periods lightly.
George Szamuely, Centre for Research on Globalisation
It's a ploy that was used again and again in the Balkans over the past decade. Back then Serbia, not Iraq, was crying out to be punished by the righteous nations led by the United States. Serbs were beyond the pale.
Michael C. Ruppert, From the Wilderness
CPI's Lewis was not jesting when he told Moyers that Patriot II was five or ten times worse than the first Patriot Act.
Alisa Solomon, Village Voice
The myriad tales of police hostility that have gushed forth since February 15, when hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets to protest a U.S. war against Iraq, extend far beyond a few cops' bad-egg excesses. More on police aggression
Elizabeth Croad, dot journalism
The American public is apparently turning away from the mostly US-centric American media in search of unbiased reporting and other points of views.
25 Feb 2003
Charles Sullivan, CounterPunch
Our schools are really factories of mass production where the object isn't to educate and inform, but to produce a homogenous culture of non-thinking conformists and consumers.
Robert Fisk, The Independent
A new CNN system of "script approval" – the iniquitous instruction to reporters that they have to send all their copy to anonymous officials in Atlanta to ensure it is suitably sanitised – suggests that the Pentagon and the Department of State have nothing to worry about.
Greg Mitchell, Editor & Publisher Online
Media Will Be Asked to Remove 'Sensitive' Info
In a brave move by the literary publishers the book 1984 has been re-branded and re-marketed as "totalitarianism for dummies." Now in a bright yellow cover with a photograph of George Bush emblazoned across it with the slogan "I did it and I can't even pass high school exams" the book explains in easy terms and step by step guides how to control your population with a state of "Permanent War", how to set up your own "Ministry of Truth" and how to control the minds of your minions with Doublethink.
Will Potter, CounterPunch
Journalists like to think of themselves as watchdogs, nipping at the heels of the powerful and guarding democracy.
Visualize Economic Collapse, Infoshop.org
Summarizing the shitty economic news of the week. Features a variety of news summaries with links to further information about the lousy economic trends affecting many of us.
24 Feb 2003
Henry Michaels, World Socialist Web Site
Faced by protests against their war plans involving millions of people worldwide, the Bush administration and the US media are increasingly employing one of the “big lie” techniques notoriously employed by the likes of Hitler and Stalin: accusing their enemy of the crimes they are about to commit.
Geov Parrish, Working for Change
Are Americans -- politicians, media executives, and ordinary citizens -- so numb, or oblivious, or callous to the horrors of war that we cannot raise ourselves to be bothered by what would be, if it works as planned, one of the greatest massacres, one of the greatest war crimes, in the history of the world, committed in our name and with our money?
TIME asks which country really poses the greatest danger to world peace in 2003? The results as of 2/24/03:
North Korea 5.8%
Iraq 6.8%
United States 87.4%
22-23 Feb 2003
John Pilger, Information Clearing House
Wherever you go in Iraq's southern city of Basra, there is dust. It rolls down the long roads that are the desert's fingers. It gets in your eyes and nose and throat; it swirls in markets and school playgrounds, consuming children kicking a plastic ball; and it carries, according to Dr Jawad Al-Ali, 'the seeds of our death'...
Paul Woodward, YellowTimes
In the United States, much of the opposition to a war against Iraq has been couched in terms that avoid facing the fear that now weighs heavily on the rest of the world. That fear is the fear of America's imperial ambitions.
Ted Rall, Yahoo
A new, subtle form of self-censorship has recently become commonplace. A news story is covered in full, minus a crucial fact that changes the entire tenor of the piece.
Jeffrey St. Clair, CounterPunch
As it now stands, on February 26 Jeb Bush will give the order to execute Amos King, an inmate on Florida's death row who seems almost certainly innocent of the murder that put him there.
Editorial Board, World Socialist Web Site
The indictment and arrest February 20 of University of South Florida (USF) Professor Sami Amin Al-Arian and three other men on terrorist conspiracy charges is an ou