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Silent Coup
In the past 4 years 22 universities across the U.S. have quietly taken the CIA’s dollars and agreed to become spy-factories for student spooks. David Price breaks the story, identifies the campuses, details secret faculty protests and charts the strategy for resistance. The U.S.’s warlord clients in Afghanistan now produce 90 per cent of the world’s opium. Peter Lee reports how the U.S. sponsors widening drug plagues in Iran and Russia. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories February 8, 2010 Pam Martens February 5 - 7, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Forrest Hylton Joanne Mariner Bill Quigley Jeffrey St. Clair Todd Gordon / Jeffrey R. Webber Consolidating the Coup in Honduras Joseph Nevins Mike Miller Mark Weisbrot Alison Weir David Swanson Missy Beattie Jonathan Cook Richard Morse David Ker Thomson Benjamin Dangl Cal Winslow Jim Goodman Michael Dickinson Bouthaina Shaaban Don Monkerud Ananya Mukherjee-Reed Doug Bevington Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day February 4, 2010 Barbara Rhine Barry Lando David Macaray Shamus Cooke P. Sainath Christopher Brauchli Ramzy Baroud Suzan Mazur Harry Clark Andy Worthington Website of the Day February 3, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Franklin Spinney Dean Baker Marc Levy Kathy Kelly Gareth Porter Joshua Frank Rannie Amiri Gregory Vickrey Website of the Day February 2, 2010 Michael Hudson Boadiba Chris Floyd Paul A. Passavant Mike Whitney John Ross Jonathan Cook Susan Galleymore Dave Lindorff Tolu Olorunda Ron Jacobs Website of the Day February 1, 2010 Michael Hudson Stan Goff Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Dr. Carol Paris, MD Marshall Auerback Harvey Wasserman Johanna Berrigan Peter Gelderloos David Michael Green Martha Rosenberg Kevin Zeese Alan Farago Website of the Day January 29 - 31, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Daniel Ellsberg Bill Quigley Franklin Spinney Jeffrey St. Clair Steve Early Joe Bageant P. Sainath Jordan Flaherty Joshua Frank Winslow T. Wheeler Brian M. Downing Wajahat Ali William Loren Katz Dave Lindorff Jim Goodman Judith Scherr Kerry Kennedy / Monika Kalra Varma Anthony Papa David Macaray Roger Burbach Belén Fernández Nikolas Kozloff Dr. Susan Block Windy Cooler Charles R. Larson Mikita Brottman David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff David Rovics Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend January 28, 2010 Bill Quigley Peter Hallward Tanya Golash-Boza Shamus Cooke Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Uri Weiss Thomas M. Power Cecil Brown Wajahat Ali Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day January 27, 2010 Daniel Kovalik Paul Craig Roberts Dean Baker Uri Avnery Sasha Kramer Vijay Prashad Nikolas Kozloff Mark Weisbrot Jonathan Cook Bob Fitrakis / Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day January 26, 2010 Michael Hudson Joan Roelofs Patrick Cockburn Mike Roselle Brian M. Downing David Macaray Bouthaina Shaaban Kevin Zeese Richard Morse Fidel Castro Farzana Versey Jonathan Cook Website of the Day January 25, 2010 Michael Hudson Anthony DiMaggio JoAnn Wypijewski Nadia Hijab Robert Jensen John Maxwell Richard Morse Marilyn Langlois Dan Bacher James L. Secor Jayne Lyn Stahl Website of the Day January 22/24, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Russell Feingold Ralph Nader Christopher Ketcham Manuel Garcia, Jr Paul Craig Roberts Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Jean Damu Mitchel Cohen Paul Buccheit Conn Hallinan Steven Higgs Rob Stone, MD Saul Landau / Ron Jacobs Vijay Prashad P. Sainath M. Shahid Alam George Wuerthner Missy Comley Beattie Jean Sabaté Shamus Cooke Stephen Fleischman Michael Donnelly David Michael Green Michael Dickinson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Paul Craig Roberts Alan Farago Richard Morse Stewart J. Lawrence Harvey Wasserman Carl Finamore Ramzy Baroud Marshall Auerback Fawzia Afzal-Khan Adam Federman Website of the Day January 20, 2010 Alexander Cockburn James Bovard Mary Lynn Cramer Dean Baker Uri Avnery Kathy Kelly Jeb Sprague Ron Jacobs John V. Walsh Bouthaina Shaaban Gail Dines Website of the Day January 19, 2010 Michael Hudson John Maxwell Stephen Soldz Richard Morse Björn Kumm Gary Leupp Eric Toussaint / Nikolas Kozloff Benjamin Dangl Dave Lindorff Robert Roth Website of the Day January 18, 2010 Petra Bartosiewicz Nelson P. Valdés Bill Quigley Richard Morse Tolu Olorunda John Ross Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Murder of Masoud Alimohammadi: Assassinating the Iranian H-Bomb Ralph Nader Franklin Lamb Frederick B. Hudson Website of the Day January 15-17, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Richard Morse Bill Quigley Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Anthony DiMaggio Tom Reeves Daniel Wolff Alan Nasser Saul Landau / Andrew Oxford Michael Donnelly Russell Mokhiber Darwin Bond-Graham Missy Beattie David Ker Thomson Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Clifton Ross Jordan Flaherty Marshall Auerback Marjorie Cohn Joe Bageant Tariq Ali Jayne Lyn Stahl Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend January 14, 2010 Ashley Smith Harvey Wasserman Dean Baker Brian Cloughley Brock L. Bevan Don Monkerud Winslow T. Wheeler Gideon Levy Adam Federman James McEnteer Brian Concannon Jr Website of the Day January 13, 2010 Patrick Haenni / Jonathan Cook Cecil Brown Steven Higgs Paul de Rooij Richard Forno Dr. Trudy Bond Daniel Drennan Martha Rosenberg Brenda Baletti, Gilson Rego and Antonio Sena Website of the Day January 12, 2010 Bill Salganik Uri Avnery Dean Baker Dan Kovalik Raza Naeem George Wuerthner Dave Lindorff David Macaray Tolu Olorunda Patrick Bond Website of the Day January 11, 2010 Patrick Cockburn Gareth Porter John Ross Gregory V. Button Ralph Nader Tom Barry Mikita Brottman David Michael Green Lost in the White House David Swanson Kevin Zeese Website of the Day
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February 8, 2010 Put the Panhandle Up on the Wall, Next to the Wolf's HeadBlood Lust and Bragging RightsBy PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Which organization is the greatest threat to the Second Amendment, the anti-gun Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence or Idaho’s pro-gun Sportsmen for Wildlife? This might seem like a stupid question until you learn that the Idaho organization recently held three “predator derbies” in which competitors vied to see who could slaughter the most wolves over a two-day period. Similar assaults on wildlife occur in other western states. In Alaska “sportsmen” gun down wolves from airplanes. The wanton slaughter of wildlife for the fun of killing creates hostility toward firearms among the general public. After all the effort environmentalists made to reintroduce wolves into natural habitat, the wolf killing competitions can’t go down very well with millions of Americans. Trophy hunters, who kill polar bears with high-powered rifles (from safe distances of course), also contribute to anti-gun attitudes. A large percentage of the American population cannot empathize with the thrill of killing a magnificent animal. Many Americans have an aversion to people who get their jollies by murdering animals. Banning guns becomes a way to protect wildlife. People who love their pets have empathy for animals and none for hunters. We need the Second Amendment for our own protection and for our constitutional rights. If one right can be taken away or marginalized with regulation, so can all other rights. Americans are going to have a difficult time holding on to the Second Amendment. An armed population is not compatible with the police state that President Bush and the Republicans created and that President Obama and the Democrats have ratified. The danger to the Second Amendment is great enough without waving wildlife slaughter in the public’s face. The National Rifle Association and wildlife slaughter groups need to exercise judgment and not go out of the way to inflame feelings against guns. Recently while visiting a friend, I happened by chance to see a segment of a hunting experience on the television hunting channel, sponsored, I believe, by the NRA. A man and his wife or girlfriend were after a beautiful 8-point stag. When the woman “harvested” the deer, she jumped with joy and flung her arms around her man. It made even my friend, a hardened gun-nut, cringe at the joy she experienced from killing a beautiful animal. According to my friend, hunting is not supposed to be an indulgence in blood lust. Bringing home venison as an alternative to factory farming’s beef, pork, and fowl pumped full of antibiotics and hormones is one thing. To search out a magnificent animal for the fun of killing it is another. The main reason for the hunt is bragging rights. A couple of years ago my friend took me to his gun club to fire an antique Winchester rifle like the ones in the cowboy movies of my youth. A club member was trying to sight-in a .375 H&H magnum big game rifle. His shoulder was taking a terrible punishment, so much so that he was flinching every time he fired. Flinching was throwing him off and he couldn’t get a group in order to know how to adjust his sights. I engaged him in conversation and learned that he had been goaded by his friends into keeping up with them competitively by going to Africa and killing a lion. He had booked a trip and paid $25,000 for the experience of shooting a lion, but his heart was no longer in it. He had made his deposit before he learned that the way lions are hunted today is devoid of valid bragging rights. No one is on foot in the veldt with a double-barreled rifle taking the risk of missing or encountering a pride. Here is the way modern big game hunting works. First, he said, you go shoot a hippopotamus. The beast is cut up and the chunks are hung from trees or posts. The hunter ascends to a platform 20 feet off the ground and 50 or 60 yards from the hanging hypo meat and waits for the lion. When the lion rears up for the meat, the hunter fires. While recounting the procedure, he looked sheepish and regretful. I have often wondered if he went through with the trip or gave up being an equal among his great white hunter associates. Many hunters understand that predators are essential to healthy ecosystems and are as averse to slaughtering predators as members of Defenders of Wildlife, who are thrilled by the sight and presence of wild animals. These mindful hunters understand that inhumane wolf slaughter competitions threaten the public’s acceptance of hunting and guns as well as the health of deer and elk populations. The U.S. Forest Service is, alas, showing poor judgment on a par with the organizers of predator derbies. This government agency is fast-tracking oil-drilling in the Shoshone National Forest in Wyoming. The Shoshone is home to endangered grizzly bears, lynx, and wolf. But the Forest Service thinks that the profits of an oil driller are more important than the health of what might be the last complete natural ecosystem in the 48 states. This raises the question whether government does protect the environment. The George W. Bush administration seems to have cleaned all environmentalists out of the Forest Service and the EPA, just as it banished civil libertarians and constitutionalists from the Department of Justice (sic) and its appointments list to federal judgeships. As far as I can tell, Obama has taken no corrective measures. During the 1980s it was an article of faith among conservatives and Republicans, usually the same, that environmentalists ran the government and were destroying the economy. There is no sign of that now. Alaska is faced with a new round of oil drilling in pristine areas. The initial oil onslaught on Alaska was done in the name of “energy independence.” But it was a lie. The oil is “heavy oil,” unsuited for the American refineries. It is exported to Japan. In Florida I have watched developers, aided and abetted by state and county governments and Florida’s Department of Environmental Policy, destroy the environment and a way of life. Now the beautiful beaches of the Florida panhandle with their clear water and white sands are threatened by Texas oil man M. Lance Phillips. Mr. Phillips wants Florida panhandle residents to give up their tourist economy, their beautiful beaches and water, the values of their beachside homes, their beautiful view of the Gulf of Mexico and its extraordinary sunsets in order that he can make profits by despoiling the views, the sunsets, the beaches, the water, and the value of residents’ properties by placing his platforms and oil rigs in the Florida Gulf. They will be just three miles offshore, he says, which is in plain view and just perfect for ruining everything. Mr. Phillips has a stable of minions, and they are at work holding staged “debates” in which they promise a New Florida Economy, jobs, and no oil spills. It is not clear who can stop him. Not the Republican governor or the Republican members of the legislature. These “representatives of the people” are already in his pocket. The only hope is the seaside developments that the developers have built. Destin, Florida, would be destroyed if offshore Destin looked like offshore Texas or Louisiana. In South Walton county, upscale Gulf front developments such as Seaside, site of the movie “The Truman Show,” and Rosemary Beach might have some clout with Florida’s government. Perhaps the best hope is St. Joe, the former paper company, which owns one million acres in the Florida panhandle including miles of beach front. Driven into the real estate business by environmentalists opposed to its paper mill at Port St. Joe, this company has been the 800 pound gorilla of panhandle politics. It is ironic, isn’t it, that those who care about the beauty of where they live and the livelihood that this beauty provides are now dependent for its defense on the real estate developers who first assaulted the undisturbed beauty of the Florida panhandle. Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com |
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