Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
Recent
Stories
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
August 28, 2003
Gilad Atzmon
The
Most Common Mistakes of Israelis
David Vest
Moore's
Monument: Cement Shoes for the Constitution
David Lindorff
Shooting Ali in the Back: Why the Pacification is Doomed
Chris Floyd
Cheap Thrills: Bush Lies to Push His War
Wayne Madsen
Restoring the Good, Old Term "Bum"
Elaine Cassel
Not Clueless in Chicago
Stan Goff
Nukes in the Dark
Tariq Ali
Occupied
Iraq Will Never Know Peace
Arnold Schwarzenegger
Behold, My Package
Website of the Day
Palestinian
Artists
August 27, 2003
Bruce Jackson
Little
Deaths: Hiding the Body Count in Iraq
John Feffer
Nuances and North Korea: Six Countries in Search of a Solution
Dave Riley
an Interview with Tariq Ali on the Iraq War
Lacey Phillabaum
Bush's Holy War in the Forests
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Website of the Day
The Dean Deception
August 26, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing the Dead
David Lindorff
The
Great Oil Gouge: Burning Up that Tax Rebate
Sarmad S. Ali
Baghdad is Deadlier Than Ever: the View of an Iraqi Coroner
Christopher Brauchli
Bush Administration Equates Medical Pot Smokers with Segregationists
Juliana Fredman
Collective Punishment on the West Bank: Dialysis, Checkpoints
and a Palestinian Madonna
Larry Siems
Ghosts of Regime Changes Past in Guatemala
Elaine Cassel
Onward, Ashcroft Soldiers!
Saul Landau
Bush:
a Modern Ahab or a Toy Action Figure?
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 25, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Israeli Outlaws in America
David Bacon
In Iraq, Labor Protest is a Crime
Thomas P. Healy
The Govs Come to Indy: Corps Welcome; Citizens Locked Out
Norman Madarasz
In an Elephant's Whirl: the US/Canada Relationship After the
Iraq Invasion
Salvador Peralta
The Politics of Focus Groups
Jack McCarthy
Who Killed Jancita Eagle Deer?
Uri Avnery
A Drug
for the Addict
August 23/24, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Rumsfeld
Does Bogota
Robert Fisk
The Cemetery at Basra
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for
Sanity
Insults to Intelligence
Andrew C. Long
Exile on Bliss Street: The Terrorist Threat and the English Professor
Jeremy Bigwood
The Toxic War on Drugs: Monsanto Weedkiller Linked to Powerful
Fungus
Jeffrey St. Clair
Forest
or Against Us: the Bush Doctor Calls on Oregon
Cynthia McKinney
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
David Krieger
So Many Deaths, So Few Answers: Approaching the Second Anniversary
of 9/11
Julie Hilden
A Constitutional Right to be a Human Shield
Dave Lindorff
Marketplace
Medicine
Standard Schaefer
Unholy Trinity: Falwell's Anti-Abortion Attack on Health and
Free Speech
Catherine Dong
Kucinich and FirstEnergy
José Tirado
History Hurts: Why Let the Dems Repeat It?
Ron Jacobs
Springsteen's America
Gavin Keeney
The Infernal Machine
Adam Engel
A Fan's Notations
William Mandel
Five Great Indie Films
Walt Brasch
An American Frog Fable
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Kearney, Guthrie, Albert and Alam
Website of the Weekend
The Hutton Inquiry
August 22, 2003
Carole Harper
Post-Sandinista
Nicaragua
John Chuckman
George Will: the Marquis of Mendacity
Richard Thieme
Operation Paperclip Revisited
Chris Floyd
Dubya Indemnity: Bush Barons Beyond the Reach of Law?
Issam Nashashibi
Palestinians
and the Right of Return: a Rigged Survey
Mary Walworth
Other People's Kids
Ron Jacobs
The
Darkening Tunnel
Website of the Day
Current Energy
August 21, 2003
Robert Fisk
The US
Needs to Blame Anyone But Locals for UN Bombing
Virginia Tilley
The Quisling Policies of the UN in Iraq: Toward a Permanent War?
Rep. Henry Waxman
Bush Owes the Public Some Serious Answers on Iraq
Ben Terrall
War Crimes and Punishment in Indonesia: Rapes, Murders and Slaps
on the Wrists
Elaine Cassel
Brother John Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Salvation Show
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Gouged by Banks
Marjorie Cohn
Sergio Vieira de Mello: Victim of Terrorism or US Policy in Iraq?
Vicente Navarro
Media
Double Standards: The Case of Mr. Aznar, Friend of Bush
Website of the Day
The Intelligence Squad
Hot Stories
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
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
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
Click Here
for More Stories.
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September
6, 2003
The Pentagon's New
"Forward Operating Location"
The
Militarization of the Americas
By LAURA CARLSON
The Bush administration has launched renewed efforts
to reach out to Central and South American countries over the
past month. The recent visits of Secretary of Defense Donald
Rumsfeld and Head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Richard Myers
signal that Latin America is back on the U.S. government's geopolitical
map--but the map is being significantly redrawn.
That both overtures were military comes
as no surprise. The trips emphasized hemispheric security as
the number-one priority for the region, and Myers and Rumsfeld
noted that security depends on fighting terrorism. The U.S. has
pushed its southern neighbors to support its anti-terrorist agenda
both in the UN and in actions such as the recent dispatch of
Salvadoran, Nicaraguan, and Honduran troops to back up U.S. forces
in Iraq.
The war on terrorism has accelerated
funding for establishing new U.S. military centers and beefing
up old ones in the hemisphere. In the past four years, the U.S.
has broadened its military presence throughout Latin America,
opening new "Forward Operating Locations" in Ecuador,
El Salvador, Aruba, and Curacao.
Spurred in part by anti-terrorism, Plan
Colombia alone has funneled over $3 billion in U.S. aid to that
region over the past three years, most of it military. The State
Department's list of terrorist organizations includes three based
in Colombia: the leftist Colombian Armed Revolutionary Front--FARC,
the National Liberation Army--ELN, and the rightwing paramilitary
group the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia--AUC.
Following his two-day visit to Bogota,
Gen. Myers stated that Plan Colombia military aid and equipment
will be increasingly used in counterinsurgency efforts, despite
former restrictions to antinarcotics activities. Myers underlined
the government's position: "Terrorism of any kind affects
the stability of not only Colombia, but also the entire Western
Hemisphere."
The implications of increased U.S. involvement
in internal counterinsurgency efforts could have grave implications,
not only for Colombia but for its neighbors as well. Erasing
the line between terrorism, the drug war, and counterinsurgency
fighting opens the door to increased involvement in Bolivia,
where coca producers form the backbone of the opposition movement,
and Ecuador, where the indigenous-led movement has ousted governments.
Nobel Peace prize winner Adolfo Perez
Esquivel recently warned: "I have no doubt that if Ecuador
should become involved in Plan Colombia, Latin America could
become a new Vietnam, with consequences as serious as, or more
serious, than those of the war in Iraq." (Latinamerica Press,
5/7/03)
Speaking in Honduras, Sec. of Defense
Rumsfeld called terrorism a "terrible problem" in the
region and also coupled it with the drug trade. But the U.S government's
focus on the war on terrorism clashes sharply with the way Latin
American civil society groups are reformulating the concept of
security in the Western Hemisphere. These groups note that the
region has seen a marked decrease in international imbroglios
and an increase in what they call "intrastate insecurity."
They emphasize growing threats within national borders, stemming
primarily from the social causes of poverty, impunity, and discrimination.
It seems that in the lexicon of the Bush
administration, "terrorism" has become a catchall term
for interpreting conflicts that have plagued Latin American countries
for years, including narcotics production and trafficking, guerrilla
and paramilitary activity, and illegal migration. In lumping
together deeply rooted conflicts under the rubric of terrorism,
the U.S. has allocated huge sums for mostly military solutions
while ignoring the larger causes.
However, military solutions to social
and political problems not only escalate violence, they don't
work. Despite evidence that funding to Colombia has not reduced
the violence, U.S. military involvement has increased in the
wake of the Sept. 11th attacks with little congressional debate
about its effectiveness. Unrestricted funding to the Colombian
military, which has a long history of human rights violations
and paramilitary ties, will end up fanning the flames of an extremely
volatile situation that affects the whole region.
On the <U.S.-Mexico> border, the
Department of Homeland Security has included illegal migration
among terrorist threats, resulting in a record $6.7 billion budget
for border security, much of it earmarked for infrastructure
to prevent the entry of mostly Mexican and Central American job
seekers. The measures have so far increased migrant deaths and
done little to abate the flow of undocumented workers.
The anti-terrorism lens fails to see
crucial factors in regional conflicts: the drug trade may fund
terrorists, but it stems from peasants' lack of other productive
options and the incessant demand for illegal drugs in U.S. cities.
Counterinsurgency efforts may decimate organizations like the
FARC, but they also lead to the displacement and death of thousands
of civilians, thus creating new sources of social instability.
By framing Western hemisphere security
in anti-terrorist terms, the U.S. seeks the moral authority to
intervene in regional conflicts in defense of its own particular
interests, rather than the interests of long-term conflict resolution.
Granting the U.S. a carte blanche for intervention based on its
post-Sept.11th victim status would be a fatal mistake.
The campaign against terrorism should
not be viewed as a boilerplate for security policy in the Western
Hemisphere. The results could be the opposite of peace.
Laura Carlsen
is director of the IRC's Americas Program. She can be reached
at: laura@irc-online.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for August 30 / Sept. 1, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
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