[APR-news] Alternative Press Review - September 17, 2004

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Alternative Press Review
Your Guide Beyond the Mainstream
www.altpr.org
Friday - September 17, 2004 
The Puritans and The Myth of Democracy
by Steven Malik Shelton, Media Monitors
The history of American democracy is shrouded in fabrication and myth. In an almost Orwellian exclusion of the truth, books are written, documentaries are composed, and texts are presented to students in school, projecting an image of a country that was founded on the noble principles of justice and equal opportunity for all. The oppression and subjugation of Africans and Native Americans is glossed over. And the exploitation and repression of women along with multitudes of the poor and the downtrodden is ignored or presented in the false light of selfsame participation and reciprocal reward. In fact, America has a deep cancer festering in the heart of its national being. It is a sickness rooted in the twin prongs of racism and economic exploitation. 

It's Time To De-School
by J Subjectivity, Infoshop.org
Upon arrival at school we are subject to rules, regulations and an institution that we exercise no control over. And they wonder why we don't want to attend! It's because this lack of control engenders a severe feeling of alienation. The feeling that school would continue to function and imprison with or without you there. The same alienation we will feel upon entering the market or by having demagogic leaders and unknown technocrats organize our society. 

Elections, Alliances and the American Empire: Why Bush May Well Be The Lesser Evil
By Gabriel Kolko, CounterPunch
Nothing in President Bush's extraordinarily vague doctrine, promulgated on September 19, 2002, of fighting "preemptive" wars, unilaterally if necessary, was a fundamentally new departure. Since the 1890s, regardless of whether the Republicans or Democrats were in office, the U.S. has intervened in countless ways--sending in the Marines, installing and bolstering friendly tyrants--in the western hemisphere to determine the political destinies of innumerable southern nations. 

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Other articles of interest 

The Resort to Force
By Noam Chomsky, TomDispatch
In the desperate flailing to contrive justifications as one pretext after another collapsed, the obvious reason for the invasion was conspicuously evaded by the administration and commentators: to establish the first secure military bases in a client state right at the heart of the world's major energy resources, understood since World War II to be a ``stupendous source of strategic power'' and expected to become even more important in the future. There should have been little surprise at revelations that the administration intended to attack Iraq before 9-11, and downgraded the ``war on terror'' in favor of this objective. In internal discussion, evasion is unnecessary. Long before they took office, the private club of reactionary statists had recognized that ``the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein.'' With all the vacillations of policy since the current incumbents first took office in 1981, one guiding principle remains stable: the Iraqi people must not rule Iraq. 

War in Iraq is already lost -- and getting worse
By Geov Parrish, Working for Change
Hey, has anyone noticed? We've lost the war in Iraq. Of course, you could make the argument that the war in Iraq was lost 18 months ago, at the very moment invading US troops weren't met by Iraqi civilians throwing rose petals at their feet. The very moment we learned that the Bush administration's notion of Iraqis welcoming American liberators was a stupid neocon fantasy. We could have predicted everything that's come since then. 

Rumsfeld's dirty war on terror
By Seymour Hersh, The Guardian
In an explosive extract from his new book, Seymour Hersh reveals how, in a fateful decision that led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, the US defence secretary gave the green light to a secret unit authorised to torture terrorist suspects. 

Sabra and Shatila - September 16, 1982: Does anyone care to remember?
by Iqbal Jassat, Media Monitors
Historian Sami Hadawi has recorded that the 1982 massacre at the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila in Lebanon, like the 1948 massacre at Deir Yassin was a cold, calculated atrocity. The heinous nature of the crime committed by Sharon's proxy militias, the Phalangists, has been depicted as barbaric in the extreme. Hence the nightmare of Sabra and Shatila has served to depict Sharon as the "Butcher of Beirut". In addition his Defence Force members have been described as those that "slaughter children" and as those that "rip open pregnant women's stomachs". More chilling is the account of them "betting on the sex of the embryos". 

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NewsWire 

Indian Tribe Conducts First War Dance Since 1887 to Stop Expansion of Shasta Dam 

Rise in consumers 'threatens environment' 

North America is on the verge of "a full-blown natural-gas crisis" 

Rebels continue to sabotage oil pipelines 

Don't mess with librarians 

In land of the free, dissent can be dangerous 

SchNEWS.org marks a decade of independent news 

CanWest newspaper chain altering Reuters newswire reports dealing with war in Iraq and Israeli-Palestinian conflict, thereby changing their meaning 

U.S. Excuse for Murdering a Journalist: "He Was One Of The Terrorists" 

Iraq: Urgent inquiry needed into civilian killings by US troops 

Iraqi insurgents growing stronger - and wiser 

Iraqi insurgents more powerful than ever 

100,000-strong anti-American insurgency growing larger, more sophisticated and more violent 

US-created "Fallujah Brigade" Disbands, Joins Resistance to Fight Openly Against Occupation Forces 

The war is lost: Military experts see no exit from Iraq debacle and war is helping al-Qaida 

Growing consensus that Iraq is hopeless 

Far Graver Than Vietnam: Most senior US military officers now believe the war on Iraq has turned into a disaster on an unprecedented scale 

Green Zone is 'no longer totally secure' 

What's worse? The 1,000 US soldiers killed or the 30,000 Iraqi and Afghans killed 

219 GIs Wounded In Past Week 

Press Reports on U.S. Casualties: About 17,000 Short 

Mother of GI Killed in Iraq Arrested in 'Chaotic' Scene 

Soldiers being threatened with Iraq duty if they refuse to re-enlist 

U.S. May Run Out of Guard and Reserve Troops for War on Terrorism 

Thieves Rob Bus Full of Policemen 

Prozac linked to suicide 

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