Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
January 24,
2005
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
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January 24, 2005
On the Politicization of My Case
A
Letter to Human Rights Activists and Intellectuals in the Western
Hemisphere
By
LORI BERENSON
Dear ladies and gentlemen:
Along with my most respectful
greetings, I send my acknowledgement for the work that you do
to protect human rights as well as your efforts to make this
world a more just place for all who inhabit it.
At the end of November 2004,
the Inter-American Court for Human Rights issued its ruling on
my case. Contrary to all precedents and in a truly contradictory
ruling, the Inter-American Court decided in favor of the Peruvian
State. The Inter-American Court determined that it had not been
proved that my fundamental rights were violated in my second
(i.e., civilian) trial in 2000 - 2001.
We have had a month to absorb
this situation, analyze what happened, and arrive at some conclusions.
An "undefined monster" with a fuzzy legal definition
hounds the "post-September 11" world. This "terrible
being" can be found in any third world country, particularly
if the country has natural riches which obviously need to be
"protected" so that they cannot be used against humanity,
especially against those who today present themselves as the
defenders of humanity. This surreal image is now summarized in
the slogan of the "war against terrorism" which is
launched from the North and used to repress any opposition to
the ruling powers which becomes unpleasant. Today, the so-called
"war against terrorism" has become the central theme
in international politics; abuse and wrongs are justified in
its name. Obviously, the Inter-American Court could not be on
the margin of the world stage. In fact, in almost all recent
bilateral and multilateral events, independent of the real reasons
for their being convened, it's almost obligatory that "someone"
proposes introducing a declaration to commit those present in
this "war against terrorism."
The Inter-American Court's
acknowledgement that I was judged by legislation that does not
comply with the standards of the American Convention on Human
Rights is one of the most controversial aspects in my case. Specifically,
in Point No. 1 of the section which contains the judgment, the
Inter-American Court orders the Peruvian State to adapt its internal
legislation to meet the American Convention's standards. Yet
the Inter-American Court concludes that it was not proved that
the due process norms established in this American Convention
were violated and the Inter-American Court did not even consider
the fact that my trial began during the regime of the now fugitive
ex-president Fujimori whose antiterrorism laws the Inter-American
Court had always criticized.
The politicizing of my case
has been a long-standing issue. From the time of the Fujimori
government, it is obvious that my case has been converted into
the symbol of the "war against terrorism." Clear proof
of this is when the Court agreed to hear my case, particularly
as the date of the ruling approached, the Peruvian government
began arduous media campaigns that invoked the constant fears
which surround the sensitive issue of the experience of political
violence in Peru, and related these to what a positive ruling
in my favor might imply.
A few weeks before the Inter-American
Court was to render its ruling in my case, the public trial of
the leadership of the Communist Party of Peru (known as the Shining
Path) began in Lima. The Peruvian State created conditions in
the trial so that an incident before the press could occur, which
then served as a pretext for the political class to unite behind
the government and support its series of repressive measures
against incarcerated subversives currently facing new trials.
With this, they re-launched the cry of alarm about the then awaited
ruling in my case: if it were favorable to me, it would mean
the subversive leadership and, in general, all the "terrorists"
would be released.
Many years ago, rather than
working to comprehend the political violence, Peru initiated
a psychosocial campaign containing many falsehoods, designed
to confuse things to achieve a political objective - to politicize
the issue. In the May 2004 public hearing in the Inter-American
Court, the Peruvian State representatives did not have any better
arguments for the central part of their defense than their invention
of new and fallacious accusations against me. From my perspective,
one does not need to resort to lies and psychosocial campaigns
if one has firm, coherent arguments and the truth on one's side.
The Inter-American Court's unexpected and contradictory ruling
leads me to reflect on the weight of diplomatic and press pressure.
I most regret the precedent that this creates and what it means
in the future for people like myself who turn to this international
authority in search of justice. Despite the adverse results for
me, the subject of due process and the respect for the principle
of legality are, and will continue to be, issues that at some
moment the Court will have to resolve and weigh on the conscience
of those who ruled in my case. I continue to believe that in
my case, like many others in Peru, the right to due process was
not respected. I was judged under laws that, in part, the Constitutional
Court of Peru has since declared unconstitutional long after
my trial had ended.
On this ground, there is not
much to do. We received an undeniable and very hard blow. With
the ruling, we lost; there are 11 more years of imprisonment.
Lamenting this or lamenting recently legislated restrictions
on Peruvian political prisoners' lives will not change this reality.
In a world in which horrors like destructive bombings are our
daily bread, or torture in Guantanamo or in Iraqi prisons is
justified by the hegemonic world superpower, what can we expect
if we are labeled not simply "political prisoner" but
also with the epithet "terrorist"?
The situation is definitely
complex. Nonetheless, I have begun to think that if the intellectual
and material authors of so much human suffering want to label
those who disagree with them as "terrorists," then
it does not bother me to be labeled as such, despite its inaccuracies,
if it distinguishes me from so much barbarism.
How did we get to where we
are and what needs to change are the questions at this topic's
core on a global level. In the Peruvian case, this is related
to an understanding of the causes of the violent era. These are
not things that one is obligated to explain, rather they require
the entire society's reflections and, even more so, all of society's
will to change. Even before the formation of nation states, people
have risen up against injustice. Bombs, slaughter, torture, or
long prison sentences do not erase the injustice. These measures
may be useful to momentarily distract public opinion, but they
do not resolve any situation. I think that there is much to do
globally about social, legal and political injustice. I believe
that although these walls might impede me from being in the streets
marching alongside other men and women who hunger for justice,
they definitely do not diminish my vision of the need to work
to build a different, more just, supportive - in the end - more
humane world. Regardless of how much I can do in my situation,
be assured that I am, and always will be, with you in your work
to make this world a place in which we can all live with justice
and dignity.
I thank you for your concerns
and efforts on my particular case. I am fully convinced that
you will succeed as you continue working towards a better world.
Respectfully,
Lori Berenson
Huacariz Prison
Cajamarca, Peru
More information is available
at www.freelori.org.
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