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July 4, 2002
S. Brian Willson
What
the Flag Means to Me
Philip Farruggio
Independence Day and
the Working Poor
Tom Gorman
The Uncommon
Pledge
of Allegiance
Chris Floyd
Jungle
Fever:
Bush's Bolivian Mercenaries
July 3, 2002
Francis Boyle
The Death
of the Oslo Accords
Mokhiber / Weissman
Cracking
Down on Corp. Crime
Robert Jensen
Lynne
Cheney's Primer
Behzad Yaghmaian
An Alternative
to the G-8s Africa Initiative
Toward a Global AIDS Fund and a Living Wage
John Borowski
Public
Schools Under Seige
Norman Madarasz
Brazil,
the Workers' Party and the Financial Times
July 2, 2002
Leah Wells
The Wedding
Was a Bomb
CounterPunch Wire
Trial of
the SOA 37
Edward Hammond
Bombing
the Mind:
The Pentagon's Drug Warfare
Sam Bahour
Ramallah
Occupied:
Uninvited Guests Become Neighbors
July 1, 2002
Norman Madarasz
Brazil's
Triumph
June 28/30, 2002
Kathleen Christison
The True Story of Resolution
242 or How the US Sold Out
the Palestinians
Cockburn / St. Clair
Death,
Juries and Scalia
Tarif Abboushi
Bush's
Double Standard
on Israel
N.D. Jayaprakash
Seething
with Rage:
The Palestinian Saga
Michael Yates
Taking
the Pledge:
Teachers and the Flag
Stephen Zunes
Bush's
Speech a Setback
for Peace
Walt Brasch
The Pledge
v. The Constitution
Cockburn / St. Clair
Strikers
as Terrorists?
Tom Ridge Calls Longshoremen
June 27, 2002
Ralph Nader
Reclaiming
Our Commons
Neve Gordon
Jerusalem
Under Attack
Robert Jensen
Alternative
Futures
David Vest
Darryl Kile's
Great Day
Gary Leupp
The Loya
Jirga Joke
Rahul Mahajan
Arafat
Says US Needs New Leadership; Calls for Fair Elections
June 26, 2002
Robert Fisk
Sharon as
Bush Speechwriter
Mokhiber / Weissman
Brokerman
June 25, 2002
Dave Marsh
The RIAA,
Library of Congress and the Web Pirates
Uri Avnery
Reform
Now!
Bahour / Dahan
Bush:
Off with Arafat's Head
Walt Brasch
Bush:
the Compassionate Exerciser
June 24, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Talkin'
About the F-Word
David Bates
Portland
Gets Dicked:
Cheney Does Oregon
Jo Freeman
Will
the War on Terror Follow the Path of the Cold War?
Tom Gorman
The Only
Thing "Generous" is the Propaganda
Bezhad Yaghmaian
Caught
Between Borders
in a Borderless World
Ben Sonnenberg
Ted
Hughes' Spell
June 22/23, 2002
Douglas Valentine
Sex,
Drugs & the CIA
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
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Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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July
5, 2002
Ashcroft's
Vendetta:
Lynching
John Walker Lindh
by Steve Baughman
The frenzied cry to string John Walker Lindh up
by his thumbs is a fine example of America's determination never
to let facts get in the way of a good temper tantrum. Attorney
General John Ashcroft accuses Lindh of dedicating himself to
"killing Americans," and a 10-count felony indictment
includes allegations that Lindh committed "conspiracy to
murder United States nationals."
The Attorney General even went so far
as to accuse Lindh of complicity in the atrocities of September
11. At his January 15, 2002 press conference Aschroft stated
that the filing of criminal charges against Lindh was compelled
"by the inescapable fact of September the 11th." "We
cannot," Ashcroft said, "overlook attacks on America
when they come from United States citizens."
The mainstream media coverage of this
case has been characteristically shoddy, shallow and sensational.
Much attention has been given to Lindh's Marin County upbringing
and to the pathetic attempts by his parents to make him look
like a good boy. Less frivolous commentary has tended to focus
on such things as the conditions of Lindh's battlefield confinement,
whether he was properly Mirandized and whether his statements
will be admissible at trial. Almost completely absent has been
a discussion of what exactly Lindh did and whether it justifies
the government's attempt to put him away for life plus 90 years.
A close look at the facts will embarrass
both the government and the mainstream press. It will also shame
the alternative media, which has been unforgivably silent about
what seems to be a blatantly political prosecution of a United
States citizen.
A detailed account of Lindh's conduct
can be found in the "overt acts" section of the indictment,
a 21-paragraph recitation of his journey from Pakistan to Afghanistan
to prison. Its most striking feature is the absence of evidence
that Lindh engaged in, attempted to engage in, assisted or attempted
to assist others in engaging in acts of terror against the United
States. Indeed, it makes abundantly clear that Lindh was simply
on a mission to prevent the Northern Alliance from retaking Afghanistan.
The indictment alleges that Lindh entered
Afghanistan in May or June of 2001 "for the purpose of taking
up arms with the Taliban." He then presented a letter to
Mujahideen headquarters in Kabul and indicated that "he
wanted to go to the front lines to fight." He later underwent
military training at an "al-Qaeda training camp." In
June or July of 2001 he left Kabul for the front. After the United
States entered the conflict in October of 2001, Lindh remained
with his unit until they were captured in November. It is nowhere
alleged that Lindh ever fired a shot at anyone. He and several
other trainees also met with Osama bin Laden in the summer of
2001 for several minutes. During this meeting bin Laden "thanked
him and other trainees for taking part in jihad."
That's it. That's the government's case.
That's the basis of the hysterical cries to throw away all keys.
Where, one wonders, is the evidence of intent to "murder
United States nationals" or to assist in "attacks on
America?" And if these rather tame facts are not sufficiently
humbling for the lynch mob, there is paragraph 14 of count 1
of the indictment. That paragraph states that in June or July
of 2001 Lindh was offered the chance to travel outside of Afghanistan
"to conduct operations against the United States and Israel"
but that he "declined in favor of going to the front lines
to fight." Thus, the government's own pleadings have Lindh
declining to participate in terror operations against the United
States.
Obviously Americans have not bothered
to pay attention to the facts of this case. And those charged
with defending the public's right to know have not been much
help. Paragraph 14 has been all but ignored by the press. A San
Francisco Chronicle reporter told me that "that detail got
lost in the avalanche of other information." A Cox News
reporter with an apparent reading disability told me that "there
are no court documents or testimony to support that [Lindh] expressly
turned down assignments to commit terror against the United States."
Yet there it is in the indictment, evidence that this kid was
not out to harm the United States, that his purpose in entering
Afghanistan was to fight an undisputably vicious group of warlords
who were seeking to regain control of a country that had four
years earlier given them the boot. One may not approve of Lindh's
choice of causes. But to divine from these facts a "conspiracy
to murder United States Nationals" is a laughable bit of
Ashcroft-speak.
Unfortunately, nobody is laughing. Perhaps
we have taken to heart White House spokesman Ari Fleischer's
command that Americans start watching what they say. This is
disturbing because much more is at stake here than the fate of
the accused. The Lindh prosecution is a power grab that has staggering
implications for the expressive rights of all Americans. Multiple
life sentences for John Walker Lindh might just be what the government
needs to bring annoying dissenters a little more into line. And
it looks like the strategy may just work.
Steve Baughman is a partner in the San Francisco law firm
of Baughman & Wang. The indictment can be found at his website,
http://www.freejohnwalker.net.
Baughman can be reached at: Talltree1@aol.com
Today's
Feature
Rahul Mahajan
Why I
Won't Celebrate the Fourth of July This Year
S. Brian Willson
What
the Flag Means to Me
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