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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! General Petraeus' Fake War
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
General Petraeus' Fake War
How the Press and Congress Eagerly Swallowed It
EXCLUSIVE to subscribers in our latest newsletter, Gareth Porter dissects two years’ worth of successful lying by Gen Petraeus and his propaganda team. Guess what? The FBI AND DOJ didn’t specially target Muhammad Ali. Those G-men were just following normal procedures! Alexander Cockburn reviews the latest effort to “revise” the Sixties. Dick Cheney “didn’t understand the legalities.” James Abourezk describes his efforts to close down the lethal liquor operators that prey on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Whatever happened to the class war? Read Serge Halimi and find out. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 7, 2008 Andy Worthington July 5 / 6, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair / Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Binoy Kampmark Rannie Amiri Eric Ruder Brian Cloughley William Blum Frank Barat Christopher Brauchli David Yearsley Ron Jacobs Karim Makdisi Wendy Thompson / N.D. Jayaprakash Ramzy Baroud Kelly Overton Richard Neville Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
July 4, 2008 Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Paul Krassner Jackie Corr Laray Polk Dan Bacher Walter Brasch Charles Modiano Website of the Day July 3, 2008 Sharon Smith Andy Worthington Laura Carlsen Peter Morici Ramzi Kysia Martha Rosenberg Anne Landman Dave Zirin Kristin Bricker Website of the Day
July 2, 2008 Patrick Irelan Vijay Prashad Brian Cloughley Ralph Nader Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff Parvez Ahmed Robert Bryce Website of the Day July 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Mike Whitney Douglas Macgregor Steven Higgs Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark Dave Lindorff Roger Burbach Richard W. Behan Gary Leupp Website of the Day June 30, 2008 Peter Lee Jeff Sommers David Macaray Martha Rosenberg David Price Alexandra Early June 28 / 29, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Joan P. Mencher Nikolas Kozloff Jason Hribal Alan Maass Robert Fantina Bill Moyers / Mike Whitney Justin E. H. Smith Pham Binh David Yearsley Christopher Ketcham Jeremy R. Hammond Kathleen M. Barry Walter Brasch Brett Drugge Susie Day Website of the Day June 27, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Jonathan Cook Brian Cloughley Saree Makdisi Liliana Segura Paul Krassner William S. Lind Candace Cohn Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day June 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff William P. O'Connor Saul Landau Ashley Smith Dave Lindorff David Macaray Binoy Kampmark Matt Reichel Remi Kenazi Website of the Day
June 25, 2008 David H. Price Stephen Soldz Andy Worthington Marjorie Cohn Joanne Mariner Ralph Nader Robert Weissman Christopher Brauchli Suren Pillay Seth Sandronsky Website of the Day June 24, 2008 Ishmael Reed P. Sainath Nikolas Kozloff Gregory Kafoury Betty Shamieh Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Bill Christison Philippe Marlière Website of the Day June 23, 2008 Michael Hudson John Ross Peter Montague Ramzy Baroud Robert Fantina Robert Weitzel David Macaray Howard Lisnoff Richard Rhames Gail Dines Tim Matson June 21 / 22, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Pam Martens Mike Whitney Chris Floyd Tim Wise Paul Craig Roberts Michael Winship Ron Jacobs Ramzy Baroud Alan Farago Michael Yates Dave Lindorff Bernard Chazelle Linda Mamoun Jo-Shing Yang Robert Jensen Website of the Weekend
June 20, 2008 Robert Oscar Lopez Paul Craig Roberts Bouthaina Shaaban Bill Quigley Moshe Adler Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Norman Solomon Martha Rosenberg June 19, 2008 Ralph Nader Chellis Glendinning Neve Gordon Dave Lindorff Sheldon Richman George Bisharat Jackie Corr Farzana Versey Website of the Day June 18, 2008 Nicole Colson Rev. William E. Alberts Vijay Prashad Parvez Ahmed Bob Moss Dave Lindorff David Wilson June 17, 2008 Conn Hallinan Wajahat Ali Marjorie Cohn Uri Avnery David Macaray Rannie Amiri Website of the Day June 16, 2008 Uri Avnery Corey D. B. Walker Howard Lisnoff Dennis Loo Paul Craig Roberts June 13 / 15, 2008 Douglas Valentine Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Peter Linebaugh Ishmael Reed Joe Bageant Harry Browne Andy Worthington Jeff Sharlet Binoy Kampmark Alan Farago Brian Cloughley Manuel Garcia, Jr. Reza Fiyouzat Patrick Bond / David Yearsley Niranjan Ramakrishnan Ronnie Cummins Dan Bacher Michael Dickinson Seth Sandronsky Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 12, 2008 Judith Levine Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Christopher Brauchli Norman Solomon Helen Redmond Laura Carlsen Jeremy R. Hammond Anne Landman Website of the Day June 11, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Joshua Frank Clifton Ross Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Stephen Lendman Diane Farsetta Ron Jacobs Deborah Rich Hop Wechsler Website of the Day June 10, 2008 Alan Farago James G. Abourezk Saree Makdisi Malini Johar Schueller John Ross Wajahat Ali Peter Morici Jordan Flaherty Gary Macfarlane Joanne Mariner Website of the Day June 9, 2008 Uri Avnery Nikolas Kozloff Allan Nairn Dennis Loo Harry Browne C. Hand Peter Morici Kenneth Couesbouc Martha Rosenberg James L. Secor Website of the Day June 7 / 8, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Ishmael Reed Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Dave Lindorff Robert Fantina Conn Hallinan Neve Gordon Tom Barry Patrick Irelan Tim Wise David Ker Thomson Joshua Frank David Yearsley James T. Phillips Joe Allen P. Sainath David Macaray B.R. Gowani Fred Gardner Peter Harley Michael Dickinson Jen Roesch Poets' Basement Website of the Day
June 6, 2008 Frank Barat Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp James Abourezk Peter Morici Faheem Hussain Andy Worthington Ayesha Ijaz Khan Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 5, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Sharon Smith Nikolas Kozloff Linn Washington, Jr. Omar Barghouti Scott Pellegrino John Walsh Dan Bacher DC Larson Robert Jensen Website of the Day June 4, 2008 Eric Walberg Gary Leupp Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff George Wuerthner Victor M. Rodriguez Remi Kanazi Stephane Luçon Farzana Versey Laray Polk Website of the Day June 3, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts / Mike Whitney Steve Early Manuel Otero George Bisharat Nikolas Kozloff Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 2, 2008 Uri Avnery Nikolas Kozloff Allan J. Lichtman Malini Johar Schueller Robert Weissman Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. John Ross Ahmad Al-Akhras Website of the Day May 31 / June 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Gary Leupp Stan Cox Rannie Amiri P. Sainath Binoy Kampmark Robert Fantina Seth Sandronsky Corporate Crime Reporter Anthony DiMaggio Karl Grossman Matt Reichel Paul Myron Hillier Andy Worthington David Yearsley Daniel Cassidy Charles Thomson Gary Corseri Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Poets' Basement Website of the Day
May 30, 2008 Bassam Aramin Andrew Cockburn Saul Landau Nikolas Kozloff Robert Sandels Dave Lindorff Martha Rosenberg Harvey Wasserman Doug Giebel Shaun Harkin Website of the Day May 29, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Col. Dan Smith Karl Grossman William S. Lind Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff David Macaray Chris Genovali Laura Carlsen Website of the Day May 28, 2008 Wajahat Ali Ralph Nader Brian McKenna Corporate Crime Reporter Brian Cloughley Eric Walberg Michael Dickinson Ijaz Khan Website of the Day May 27, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Greg Kafoury Jean Bricmont Tim Wise Ricardo Alarcón Stephen Soldz Andy Worthington Alan Singer Richard Neville Susie Day May 26, 2008 Uri Avnery Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Marjorie Cohn Fred Gardner Raymond J. Lawrence Harvey Wasserman Moncia Benderman David Rovics Website of the Day May 24 / 25, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Barbara Rose Johnston Nikolas Kozloff Adriana Kojeve Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff David Yearsley Nelson P. Valdés Kathleen M. Barry John Ross Allison Kilkenny Fred Gardner Elizabeth Schulte Daniel Gross Christopher Brauchli Richard Rhames Daniel Cassidy Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
May 23, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Alan Farago Conn Hallinan Mark Engler George Wuerthner Kamran Matin Sandy Boyer / Robert Weitzel Cindy Sheehan Liaquat Ali Khan Website of the Day
May 22, 2008 Vijay Prashad Joanne Mariner Sharon Smith Jeff Birkenstein Brendan McQuade Peter Morici Niranjan Ramakrishnan Dave Zirin Ron Jacobs Stephen Lendman Website of the Day May 21, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Nikolas Kozloff Alan Farago Dave Lindorff David Model Eric Walberg Franklin Lamb Kenneth Couesbouc Website of the Day
May 20, 2008 Ralph Nader Uri Avnery Patrick Irelan Ray McGovern David Macaray Chris Genovali Ibrahim Fawal Christopher Ketcham Andy Worthington Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day May 19, 2008 Saul Landau Paul Craig Roberts Brian McKenna Patrick Cockburn B. R. Gowani Dr. Trudy Bond Cindy Sheehan John Mohawk Remi Kanazi Robert Day Website of the Day |
July 7, 2008 A Moral Debt to the African People Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?By PATRICK BOND A telling remark about US imperialism's double standards was uttered by Clinton-era deputy treasury secretary Stuart Eizenstat, who a decade ago was the driver of reparations claims against pro-Nazi corporations, assisting plaintiffs to gain $8 billion from European banks and corporations which ripped off Holocaust victims' funds or which were 1930s beneficiaries of slave labor (both Jewish and non-Jewish). But how about reparations for apartheid profits? As a November 2002 keynote speaker for the “USA Engage” lobby of 650 multinational corporations organised to fight the Alien Tort Claims Act (ATCA), Eizenstat warned that South African reparations activists “can galvanise public opinion and generate political support,” and “may achieve some success despite legal infirmities.” Six months later, at a Columbia University seminar, Eizenstat noted that “Anti-apartheid victims from SA have sued scores of US companies in US courts for their alleged - and I underscore alleged - participation in facilitating apartheid.” (He prefaced this with a post-racist personal explanation for his own Holocaust-restitution zeal, embarrassedly recalling a 1950s experience in his hometown: “I was unwilling to break with convention and give an elderly black lady my seat on the white section of an Atlanta bus.”) Today, convention has it that the apartheid victims should and will lose the lawsuit to be heard in the New York Southern District Court on Tuesday, July 8. Attending will be professor Dennis Brutus, the 83 year old poet and activist who served time on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela, before kicking SA out of the 1968 Olympic Games. Brutus is a leading plaintiff, amongst many thousands of black South Africans suing three dozen corporations for profiting from a “crime against humanity”, as the United Nations termed apartheid. The ATCA, passed in 1789, says, simply, “The district courts shall have original jurisdiction of any civil action by an alien for a tort only, committed in violation of the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” ATCA was meant to get a legal handle on piracy, and in the process to persuade colonial powers it was safe to trade with the US. But only in the last two decades has the law become widely known. Encouraged by Burmese villagers fighting Unocal, a case which in 2003 withstood challenge by the Bush Administration, activists like Brutus, Cape Town academic Lungisile Ntsebeza, the Khulumani Support Group for apartheid victims and Jubilee SA used the ATCA to sue latterday pirates: dozens of multinational corporations operating in SA prior to 1994 in spite of calls for sanctions and disinvestment. But matters were complicated when SA president Thabo Mbeki was requested by the Bush administration to oppose Brutus and the other activists in 2003. Thanks to the overarching imperial-subimperial alliance between Pretoria and Washington (as well as the British and German governments) on behalf of multinational corporations, Judge John Sprizzo initially decided the case on behalf of the defendants in late 2004. He reasoned that ATCA conflicted with US foreign policy and SA domestic economic policy, and indeed it did insofar as these policies consider corporate profits as their first priority. But last October, litigants won an appeal and in May, when the US Supreme Court was expected to finally kill the lawsuit, on behalf of the corporations, four of the justices discovered conflicts of interest in their own investment portfolios. Because they owned shares in the sued companies, the case went back to Sprizzo, in what plaintiff lawyer Charles Abrahams argued was “a massive victory for the international human rights movement as a whole.” In contrast, the Washington representative of the SA government's International Marketing Council, Simon Barber, was dismissive of the litigants' Supreme Court win, citing Mbeki's charge that SA sovereignty was violated. In any case, “The endeavour remains quixotic.” Nicole Fritz, director of the Southern African Litigation Centre, disagrees: “Companies that were not perpetrators of human rights violations but were complicit in such violations through their dealings with oppressive governments are now potentially liable in law for their actions.” Disincentivizing future profit-taking from dictatorships such as Burma or Zimbabwe is a central objective. In mid-2008, just as Robert Mugabe's Zanu(PF) paramilitaries committed sufficient murder and torture to ensure his “reelection”, thanks in part to Mbeki's perpetual connivance, AngloPlats announced a US$400 million investment in lucrative Zimbabwean platinum mines. As Abrahams argues, “The substantive basis of the suit is that foreign multinational corporations aided and abetted the apartheid government by providing arms and ammunition, military technology, transportation and fuel with which the government and its armed forces were able to commit the most heinous crimes against the majority of the people of South Africa.” (Such corporate work was, for Eizenstat, “alleged” - not obvious - facilitation of apartheid.) Corporations being sued by Abrahams' plaintiffs include the Reinmetall Group, for providing arms and ammunition to the Apartheid government; British Petroleum (BP), Shell, Chevron Texaco, Exxon Mobil, Fluor Corporation and Total Fina-Elf, for providing fuel to the armed forces; Ford, Daimler-Chrysler and General Motors, for providing transportation to the armed forces; and Fujitsu and IBM for providing the government with much needed military technology. Banks financing apartheid include Barclays, Citibank, Commerzbank, Credit Suisse, Deutsche, Dresdner, J P Morgan Chase and UBS. Although Mbeki was an exiled foreign representative of the African National Congress prior to 1994 and demanded that multinational corporations disinvest from SA, in subsequent years he conveniently developed amnesia. In 2001, at the UN World Conference Against Racism (WCAR) here in Durban, he censored a suggested clause that the “US should take responsibility and pay reparations for the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.” In spite of reparations advocacy by Nigeria and other African states, Mbeki refused to allow this to be mentioned in the final document, calling instead merely for more donor aid. In April 2003, Mbeki agreed with Bush that it was “completely unacceptable that matters that are central to the future of our country should be adjudicated in foreign courts which bear no responsibility for the well-being of our country, and the observance of the perspective contained in our constitution of the promotion of national reconciliation.” He expressed “the desire to involve all South Africans, including corporate citizens, in a cooperative and voluntary partnership” - but failed to reflect upon numerous such attempts by the Reparations Task Force and Cape Town’s Anglican Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, for years prior to the lawsuits. SA trade minister Alec Erwin then insisted that Pretoria was “opposed to, and contemptuous of the litigation” by activists. Any findings against companies “would not be honoured” within SA. In July 2003, SA justice minister Penuell Maduna wrote to the courts that the case would discourage “much-needed foreign investment and delay the achievement of the government’s goals. Indeed, the litigation could have a destabilising effect on the SA economy as investment is not only a driver of growth, but also of unemployment.” As a friend of the court on behalf of the claimants (alongside Archbishop Desmond Tutu), Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz replied that such comments had “no basis,” because, “those who helped support that system, and who contributed to human rights abuses, should be held accountable.” Maduna’s letter to the US court requested that the lawsuits be dismissed, “in deference to the sovereign rights of foreign countries to legislate, adjudicate and otherwise resolve domestic issues without outside interference.” (Mbeki and Maduna made no effort to establish SA's own ATCA.) But in August 2003, at the opening plenary of a major Reparations Conference, Jubilee SA’s Berend Schuitema reported that Maduna made an extraordinary confession: “The reason why he had made the objection was that he was asked for an opinion on the lawsuit by Colin Powell. He gave Powell his written response, whereupon Powell said that he should lodge this submission to the Judge of the New York Court. Howls from the floor. Jubilee SA chairperson M.P. Giyose pointed out the bankruptcy of the sovereignty argument.” Within a few months, the adverse implications of Maduna’s intervention for international justice became even more ominous, in a case involving women victims of Japanese atrocities during World War II. Fifteen “comfort women” from Korea, China, the Philippines and Taiwan sued Tokyo in the US using the ATCA. In June 2005, the US Court of Appeals in the District of Colombia rejected their suit, citing Maduna’s affidavit. Meanwhile at ho |