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 April 2003
The Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee got its hands on this document, entitled Wexner Analysis: Israeli Communications Pri...
After the United States and Britain were shown to be providing bogus and plagiarized "intelligence" documents to the UN Security Council that supposedly "proved" Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction program, the world’s medi...
Some cynics claim that George W. Bush and his closest advisors — whom cynics cynically refer to as "bloodthirsty corporate pimps" — are just a bunch of vicious, shifty liars. But this writer takes enormous umbrage at the heaping of such unsup...
What is a journalist’s life worth? I ask this question for a number of reasons, some of them–frankly–quite revolting. Two days ago, I went to visit one of my colleagues wounded in the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. Samia Nakhoul is a Reuters co...
Now that the Bush administration has realised that unless Iraq is certified as having no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) the UN sanctions cannot be permanently lifted and the Oil for Food Program will remain in force, the US President is changing his tune. ...
Freedom of information in American society is in danger because corporate media needs to maintain access to official sources of news. Consolidation of media has brought the total news sources for most Americans to less than a handful and these news groups have an ...
My first impression of Abu-Mazen was of a serious, methodical, somewhat aloof introvert. He reminded me of a high-school principal, very different from Arafat, the impulsive extrovert, prone to personal gestures, exuding warmth to all around him. I met Abu-...
Gonzaga University’s Law School, in Spokane, Washington, fell to the bottom [4th] tier in US News and World Report’s annual ranking of law schools, released this month. Despite the local SPOKESMAN-REVIEW featuring quotes from students and administrator...
Tzahal (Israeli Military Radio) Transcript of an excerpt from the program ”Open line with the Chief of Staff” On Passover Eve, April 16, 2003 at 08:00, the program "Open Line with the Chief of Staff" was broad...
Cairo, Egypt "Do you regret being American?" I was asked. I cannot remember who asked me, or even if it was in Palestine or here in Egypt. It could have been anyone, anywhere, anytime. There has been a continuing stream of reasons for regret, from...
"When the Second World War/came to an end/We forgave the Germans/And we were friends/Though they murdered six million/In the ovens they fried/The Germans now too/Have God on their side." –Bob Dylan In his inexhausti...
Word that the Bush Administration’s goons down in Guantanamo Bay have been detaining children under the age of 16 among the "enemy combatants" that they spirited out of Afghanistan following the rout of the Taliban suggests a new strategy for deali...
When the London Observer started to publish extracts from the Diaries of Evelyn Waugh, a te...
The Bush administration’s refusal to allow UN inspectors to join the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in US-occupied Iraq has elicited high interest in foreign news media. The most widely accepted interpretation is that the US is well aware that evidence...
As the privatization of Iraq’s treasures, both cultural and hydrocarbon, gathers momentum, you can almost hear the faint sound of a circle being closed. After all, it was predatory looting, following upon slaughter, that filled most of the world’s grea...
War, by its nature, is full of surprises. Like most observers, I did not expect the Iraqis in the south to fight us, and they did. Also like most observers, I expected the Republican Guard around Baghdad to fight us, and they did not. The question of why they did ...
Our war on terror begins with al Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped, and defeated. –President George W. Bush, September 20, 2001...
General Jay Garner is "our man in Baghdad." It almost makes me think of that fine, sardonic novel by Graham Greene, OUR MAN IN HAVANA. The way it’s beginning to play out, with Garner in his Dockers, sunglasses and his, "Hi, I’m Jay Garne...
"What the hell! As long as U.S. laws aren’t broken, it’s all right. After all, these things are not appreciated in those countries. They’re brought here and given a home. Now cultured people can see them." –...
Even before the "victory" in Iraq had been declared, Administration officials began leveling accusations at Syria that sounded strangely familiar, something like a regurgitation of the lies that had propelled our forces into the "war that wasn’...
I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when Tucker Carlson approached the podium on the IU Auditorium stage last Tuesday evening. I knew that he was one of the shouting heads on CNN’s Crossfire. But since I have come to view post-9/11 cable news as an insi...
Mumia Abu-Jamal is a famous prisoner of the left, in the tradition of Sacco and Vanzetti and the Rosenbergs. Now...
On April 24, Monster.com, the world’s largest online job search and career management company, will delete the word "Iran," along with the names of six other countries–Burma/Myanmar, Cuba, Libya, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria–from its s...
"Wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows." – Martin Luther King Jr. Congratulations to George W. Bush, winner and still champion after defeating a highly ranked heavyweight contender! Indeed,...
More than half of all Americans believe that Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the 9/11 terrorist attacks. According to an Associated Press poll conducted shortly after the conclusion of the successful invasion of Iraq, 53 percent of the nation pin the 9/1...