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From Common Courage Press

Recent Stories

July 17, 2003

Ron Jacobs
Sometimes Even the President of the United States Has to Stand Naked

Lisa Walsh Thomas
Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance

Martin Schwarz
Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs

Heidi Lypps
Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced Drugging and the Supreme Court

Norman Madarasz
Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance Conference

Pankaj Mehta
Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement

Marjorie Cohn
Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the Boy Who Cried Wolf

Hammond Guthrie
(Dis) Intelligence Revisited

Website of the Day
No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism

July 16, 2003

Jason Leopold
Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype Dubious Uranium Claims

William Cook
Defining Terrorism from the Top Down

Elaine Cassel
Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom Must Not Be Obeyed

Jason Leopold
How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found?

Linda Heard
Bondage or Freedom?

Raymond Barrett
From Detroit to Basra

Jeffrey St. Clair
Back to the Future in Guatemala: The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt

 

July 15, 2003

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Why We Resigned from VIPS

Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers: the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack

Chris Floyd
Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries

Jason Leopold
CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries

Gaius Publius
Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please

John Troyer
The Niger Syndrome

Becky Gillette
No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David Orrr

Uri Avnery
The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb

Website of the Day
Cost of Iraq War

 

July 14, 2003

Lisa Taraki
Hot Days in Ramallah

Walter Brasch
Bush: the Pretend Captain

SOA Watch
Training Colombia's Killers in the US

Dan Bacher
Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Intelligence Unglued

Website of the Day
Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties


July 12 / 13, 2003

Arthur Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future

Standard Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson

John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang

Ron Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran

Elaine Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights

Tom Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11

David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"

Jason Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11

Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?

Mickey Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa

Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group

Ramzy Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Adam Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist

Robert Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream

Poets' Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie

 

July 11, 2003

Conn Hallinan
The Coin of Empire

Tim Wise
God Responds to Bush

Mokhiber / Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa

Edward S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor

David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?

David Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary

Website of the Day
Dead Malls

 

July 10, 2003

Ron Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics

Sean Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia

Yemi Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?

Robert Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ali Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated

Joanne Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions

Website of the Day
Electronic Iraq

 

July 9, 2003

David Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush?

David Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons

Mickey Z.
Why Speak Out?

Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud

John Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie

Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq

Website of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years

 

July 8, 2003

Elaine Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia

Alan Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor

Chris Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag

Linda S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice

Brian Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders

Charles Sullivan
Bush the Christian?

Saul Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age

Website of the Day
Occupation Watch

 

July 7, 2003

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head

Ramzy Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons

Simon Jones
What Progressives Should Think About Iran

Lesley McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh

Uri Avnery
The Draw

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3

 

July 4 / 6, 2003

Patrick Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July

Frederick Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?

Martha Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture

Standard Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004

Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today

Elaine Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth

Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?

Wayne Madsen
A Sad Independence Day

John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War

Jim Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment

John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke

Lisa Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim

David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite

Adam Engel
Queer as Grass

Poets' Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair

Website of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian

 

July 3, 2003

Patrick W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg

Thomas W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy

David Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong and the US

John Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution

Jackson Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices

Stan Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3


July 2, 2003

Diane Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing

Richard Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?

Mokhiber / Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress

Justin Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia

Reuven Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2

July 1, 2003

Sasan Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and Iran

Elaine Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia and the Sodomy Cops

Susan Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong to Ourselves

Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono

David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name

Gary Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1

 

June 30, 2003

Karyn Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé of Progressive Politics in America

Col. Dan Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire

Tim Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White

Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall

Chris Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"

Elaine Cassel
Kentucky Woman

Uri Avnery
Hope in Dark Times

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30

Website of the Day
Bush El Hombre

 

June 28 / 29, 2003

M. Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside Man

Laura Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?

Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?

C.Y. Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten

Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law

Joanne Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values

Ignacio Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley

Bob Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers

Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"

Kam Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!

Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues

Julie Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment

Adrien Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide

Adam Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square

Poets' Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod

 

June 27, 2003

Jason Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq Posed No Threat to US

David Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker

David Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali"

Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26

Website of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy

June 26, 2003

Sen. Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin

Jason Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate Hans Blix

Paul de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine

Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq

Elaine Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner

CounterPunch Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops

Sheldon Hull
Squatting in Mansions

Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone

Uri Avnery
The Best Show in Town

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25

Website of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo

 

June 25, 2003

Bruce Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers

Mickey Z.
The New Dark Ages

David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists

Dan Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops

Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"

Elaine Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing Guidelines

Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25

Website of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods

 

June 24, 2003

Elaine Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court

Roya Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth It to Risk One's Life?

John Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations

David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24

 

June 23, 2003

Marc Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with Ray McGovern

Conn Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon

Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad

Edward Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23

June 21 / 22, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi

William A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness

Standard Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor

Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets

Harry Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares

Lawrence Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game

Harold Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery

David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Avia Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories

CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels

Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension

Maria Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids

Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod


June 20, 2003

Walter Brasch
Down on Our Knees

Robert Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells

Norman Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a Quebec Radical

Gary Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"

Steve Perry
Bush's Lies Marathon: the Finale

 

Hot Stories

Wendell Berry
Small Destructions Add Up

CounterPunch Wire
WMD: Who Said What When

Cindy Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From

Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Watch

Michel Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians"

Uzma Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go

Paul de Rooij
Arrogant Propaganda

Gore Vidal
The Erosion of the American Dream

Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution

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July 18, 2003

In the Eye of the Storm

Colombia's War on Journalists

By ALVARO ANGARITA

In 2002, journalists were involved in 111 incidents related to the Colombian internal armed conflict. Such incidents have caused the Press Freedom Foundation to declare that Colombia is one of the most dangerous countries in the world for practising journalism.

According to information delivered to the Press Freedom Foundation (a Colombian NGO known as FLIP -- its Spanish acronym) by the Colombian Ombudsman's Office, the many attacks suffered by journalists show a disturbing state of affairs.

Of the total infractions recorded, 75 were threats, 12 were kidnappings, 10 were attempted murders, 8 were murders, 3 were assaults, and 3 were obstructions in the exercise of profession committed by the Army.

DISTURBING REPORT

"Media for Peace", a Non-Government Organisation of Journalists, released an investigation on the 25th of June titled, "The War: A Threat to the Press". The report, put together by journalist Patricia Gomez, includes 126 interviews with journalists from nine cities (Bogota, Medellin, Cali, Monteria, Sincelejo, Past, Florencia, Valledupar and Barrancabermeja), as well as surveys of 120 journalists and reporters, from a base of 240 professionals who cover the country's armed conflict.

According to Media for Peace, one of the factors causing the threats, hostility and murder of journalists is the employment system used by the mass media owners, which keeps journalists, with some exceptions, in a very vulnerable position and a cycle of low income. In order to avoid this situation, many journalists and reporters choose instead to show bias toward local political bosses, to compromise the truth, to lie or to sensationalise news in order to obtain payments.

Objectivity is lost in such an environment, drowning journalists in a system of lying and placing them in an unsafe situation. They become trapped in the conflict, which could lead to their exile or death. Finally, in many cases, journalists are sent to cover events in war zones in an irresponsible way, without being provided safety measures, thereby placing them in grave danger.

NO GUARANTEES FOR JOURNALISTS

According to the FLIP, Efrain Varela, owner/director of radio station Meridiano 70, who was also acting as a human rights lawyer, was murdered in Arauca on the 28th of June, 2002. The body of Mario Prada Diaz, founder and director of the newspaper Horizonte Sabanero, was discovered on the 12th of June.

RCN Cameraman Hector Sandoval and driver Walter Lopez died on April 12, as a result of gunfire from a military helicopter. RCN TV journalist Luz Estela Arroyave, along with Semana Magazine photographer, were forced to take cover in a ditch to avoid being hit. A few days later, Ms Arroyave was forced to flee the country owing to threats.

The above mentioned cases are added to a wave of death threats against media commentators and reporters, which has intensified over the course of this year. These events have been classified by the Ombudsman's Office as serious infractions of International Humanitarian Law.

THIRTY THREE JOURNALISTS MURDERED

Since 1995, 33 journalists have been murdered in Colombia. Two of these cases occurred during a combat situation. Ten of them came as a result of their professional activities. The causes of the rest are yet to be established.

The Press Freedom Foundation advises journalists on dangerous missions that they should take steps to not be targeted by the conflicting sides, in order to minimise their risk. These include use of appropriate equipment for carrying out the assignment, training that makes them aware of the risks being faced, as well as guidelines about how to deal with armed groups and how to correctly handle the information being publicised about the conflict.

In relation to the latter of these measures, Media for Peace published a dictionary of terms a few years ago that assists in reporting using appropriate terminology. International Humanitarian Law has also outlined steps, such as identification or tags to distinguish journalists on dangerous assignments.

The Ombudsman requested the National Public Prosecutor to launch an investigation into the current cases, in order to urge national and international organizations that defend freedom of expression to establish a watchdog body that would register and monitor crimes committed against journalists. Such a body would follow the criminal investigation procedure and spur prosecutors and judges into action.

Alvaro Angarita writes for VOZ and Anncol.



Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003

Arthur Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future

Standard Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson

John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetry: Washington and Pyongyang

Ron Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran

Elaine Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights

Tom Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11

David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"

Jason Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11

Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?

Mickey Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa

Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group

Ramzy Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Adam Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist

Robert Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream

Poets' Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie

 

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