Exclusively in the new print issue of CounterPunch
HOLLYWOOD AND THE CIA — Film historian Ed Rampell details Hollywood’s entangled relationship with the CIA and the Pentagon; HOUSES OF THE DEAD: Nancy Kurshan exposes the cruel human rights offenses taking place inside America’s vast gulag of Control Unit Prisons; BROTHERHOOD OF SUMMER: David Macaray charts the history of the most powerful union in the US: the Baseball Players Association; TAR SANDS COME TO AMERICA: Steve Horn explains how the Keystone Pipeline debates have diverted attention from Big Oil’s other plans to transport Alberta’s oil into the US. PLUS: Jeffrey St. Clair on CONSTITUTIONAL ENTROPY; Mike Whitney on HOW THE BANKS TARGETED BLACKS; Chris Floyd on THE RISE OF BRITAIN’S TEA PARTY; Kristin Kolb on THE NEEDLE AND THE DAMAGE DONE; Kim Nicolini on the FILMS OF WILLIAM FRIEDKIN; and Lee Ballinger on POETS VS. THE ONE PERCENT.
Archives from 2001
As the impressive U.S. military rout of the Taliban regime and the terrorists they harbored enters a new phase, some in Washington propose a similar strategy for Iraq. I argue against this for several reasons and propose a non-military solution. Indeed, a carefully revamp...
It is ironic that my most treasured Christmas moments have come in a largely Muslim country. It is December 1998 and after an intense and illegal bombing campaign at the very beginning of Ramadan, we have spent a week with children in Baghdad learning to sing ...
Dr Alim Abdul-Hamid’s office at Al Mustanseriya Medical College in Baghdad is decorated in bright, cheerful colours, but what he has to say is anything but cheerful. Formerly Dean of Basra Medical College, Abdul-Hamid has had plenty of first-hand experience with I...
How many civilians have died in the United States’ attack on Afghanistan? Military officials assert that high-tech weapons and precision bombing have kept that number low. Reports of civilian casualties — whether coming from the Taliban or independent ...
In early December, another dreadful statistic — more than 3,500 dead — was made public, except this time the figure did not refer to the appalling mass grave at Ground Zero. No, this gruesome number described the civilian death toll so far in Afghanist...
When I first visited Iraq in the summer of 1999, I wrote that nothing could have prepared me for my trip – for the incredible hospitality of the people, or for the incredible brutality of the sanctions. Since then, I’ve seen reports that sanctions against Iraq...
Millions of Americans settle into their couches with bowls of popcorn, bags of potato chips, and diet cola. They enjoy the color pictures on the evening news report of bombs exploding in Afghanistan. Pictures of explosions are always popular in America, no matter ...
The United states once again has vetoed a UN resolution calling for an end to Israeli violence against Palestinians and the introduction of international monitors. The veto damages both Israel and the Palestinians. Friends of Israel and Palestine need to act now t...
Let us suppose, for a moment that Osama Bin Laden had something to do with the events of September 11. Let us suppose, also, that he understood how the United States government would react. Let us suppose that he, like those who actually implemented ...
Confucius said: “you succeeded because you tried again”. When will we realize that from the 9-month-old baby to the 99-year-old in the nursing home, we all share one connection: as consumers!. We all consume, thus we have the numbers. It’s time t...
I took my usual trip from our apartment off Amsterdam Avenue uphill toward the School of International and Public Affairs building at Columbia University. It was a crisp morning, just a hint of autumn in the air. On my way to the library I passed the small ...
When I turn to the opinion pages of a major newspaper in the muscular, brawling Midwestern city where I grew up, it’s an unpleasantly fascinating experience, a little like what I imagine a victim of child abuse might feel, smiling at a family gathering, stil...
“We Palestinians believe that the creation of the State of Israel was a grave political error, one which has done grievous harm to the interests of all concerned [...]. But it was not merely an error, it was also a crime. A crime perpetrated against the na...
For the last sixteen months my staff has suffered the humiliation of Israeli checkpoints twice a day, once coming to work and once going back home. Daily, I’m briefed of the horror stories, which unfortunately have become part of our ‘normal’ lif...
[ Yair Khilou, is a young activist in several radical left-wing groups, and one of the organisers behind the "letter of the twelfth-graders" (a letter to Israeli Prime Minister Sharon, signed by 62 youths, announcing their refusal to cooperate with the Israeli arm...
On Saturday, 15 December 2001, the United States vetoed a United Nations Security Council resolution that would have cleared the way for international monitors in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Many believe that such monitors would help end the increasingly bloody ...
The riots in Argentina are serious. They are food riots. They required no agitation, no manufactured political awakening of the people, and no defining moment. Just hunger. When millions of people starve as food rots on the shelves of supermarkets and warehouses, ...
The fall of Enron sounds the death knell for one of the great rackets of the past decade: green seals of approval, whereby some outfit like the Natural Resources Defense Council or the Environmental Defense Fund would issue testimonials to the enviro-conscience and selfle...
Polls in the United States show unprecedented support for George W. Bush and his leadership in the victory of the world’s sole super-power over the destitute nation of Afghanistan, and its rag-tag Taliban government. Bush has become enormously popular and em...
Dear Secretary Rumsfeld, We are writing to urge you to ensure that the rules and procedures governing military commissions authorized by the President’s order of November 13 fully honor the fair trial guarantees mandated by international human rights...
In the days since the FBI secured the premises of the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development’s headquarters in Richardson, Texas, the subject of who will represent the nation’s largest Muslim charity has prompted an uncustomary level of consternation ...
It takes a good deal of time to realize the full impact of any large and sudden change in foreign policy, and this is especially true of the kind of sudden, violent interventions often undertaken by the United States since the end of World War ll. In the ca...
Don’t label John Walker a traitor yet. Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York didn’t hesitate to call John Walker a traitor when she was interviewed on Meet the Press. The American was recently found with the Taliban in Mazar-e Sharif, Afghanistan, an...
“…Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law” Universal Declarat...
In the weeks after the September 11 attacks, and the instant US declaration of a global war against all countries that harbor terrorists-a list populated by Muslim countries-it appeared that the ‘clash of civilizations’ predicted by Samuel Huntington w...