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First the Wedding; Now the Wake: Big Labor's New Unity Partnership by JoAnn Wypijewski; Report from Baghdad: How Did the Votes Add Up: by Patrick Cockburn. Tsunamis of Blood: Wolfowitz in Indonesia: by Joseph Nevins; ALSO Alexander Cockburn on Tsunami Aid: How the People Scored. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories March 7, 2005 Uri Avnery March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Tom Reeves Jenna Orkin Tom Barry Joshua Frank Moshe Adler Jane Stillwater Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir Christopher
Brauchli John Pilger Raúl
Zibechi David Krieger Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Bhishma Karki Joseph Pietri Ben Tripp Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson
March 3, 2005 Pat Williams Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Greg Moses Lynne Landes Nelson P. Valdés John Ross
March 2, 2005 Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen Mike Roselle M. Junaid Alam Suzan Mazur Jackson Thoreau Michael Donnelly Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
March 1, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons David Lindorff Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders Ron Jacobs Tanya Garcia Joseph Pietri Kona Lowell Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
the Day
February 28, 2005 Gary Leupp Bill Quigley Paul de Rooij David Swanson Mario Lamo
Jimenez Emma Perez Diana Johnstone Website of the Day
February 26 / 27, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Noam Chomsky Rev. William E. Alberts Fred Gardner Gary Leupp Saul Landau Robin Philpot Yitkhak Laor Ben Tripp Justin Taylor Jack Random Rafael Renteria Jim B. Seth DeLong John Chuckman Alison Weir Richard Oxman Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement
February 25, 2005 Roger Burbach Behzad Yaghmaian Kurt Nimmo Joshua Frank John Farley Lawrence Reichard Pratyush Chandra David Smith-Ferri Website of
the Day
February 24, 2005 Omar Waraich Brian Cloughley Tom Wright Sharon Smith Dave Lindorff Fred Feldman James Reiss
Diane Christian Website of
the Day
February 23, 2005 Werther W. John Green James Petras Conn Hallinan Joe Pietri Louis Proyect Alexander Cockburn Website of
the Day
February 22, 2005 Naseer Aruri Richard Manning William A.
Cook Paul Craig Roberts Ken Krayeske Dave Zirin Kirkpatrick
Sale
February 21, 2005 Hunter S. Thompson John Ross Ward Churchill Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst David Swanson Dave Lindorff Stew Albert Michael Neumann
February 19 / 20, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Kathleen Christison Ted Honderich Gary Leupp Don Santina Jennifer Roesch Scott Richard
Lyons Chris Clarke George Beres Harry Browne Manuel García,
Jr. Mark Scaramella Michael Donnelly John Pilger Norman Madarasz Surendra Devkota Deborah Rich Fred Gardner CounterPunch
News Service Richard Oxman Poets' Basement
February 18, 2005 Ben Moxham Dave Lindorff Larry Birns Gregory Elich Samuel Logan / John Meyers Nicole Colson Suzan Mazur Mickey Z.
February 17, 2005 Joshua Frank Paul Craig
Roberts Robert Fisk Christopher
Brauchli Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst Alison Weir Ahrar Ahmad Saul Landau Website of the Day
February 16, 2005 Robert Fisk Kevin Zeese Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Jessica Leight Greg Moses Mark Engler Jack McCarthy Bill Christison Website of the Day
February 15, 2005 CounterPunch
News Service Robert Fisk Uri Avnery Stan Cox Mickey Z. Dave Zirin Nadia Martinez Lila Rajiva Paul Craig
Roberts
February 14, 2005 Robert Jensen Brian Cloughley Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Michael Donnelly Dave Lindorff Elaine Cassel
February 12 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Paul Craig
Roberts Patrick Cockburn John Feffer Mickey Z. Kurt Nimmo Fred Gardner Dave Zirin John Chuckman Ben Tripp Carol Norris Robert Fisk Frank / Chowkwanyun Mike Whitney Deborah Frisch Niranjan Ramakrishnan Christine TenBarge Ron Jacobs Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 11, 20055 Manuel Garcia,
Jr Kurt Nimmo Dave Lindorff Larry Birns Bill Quigley Tom Barry Jennifer Van
Bergen
February 10, 2005 Dave Lindorff Christopher Brauchli Patrick Cockburn Nicole Colson Suzan Mazur Michael Donnelly Mike Stark Greg Moses Website of
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Clair Mickey Z. John Ross Tom Barry Conn Hallinan Patrick Cockburn Steen Sohn Tim Wise Website of
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February 7, 2005 Paul Craig
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February 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Kurt Nimmo Joshua Frank P. Sainath Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen Dave Lindorff Pamela Olson Behzad Yaghmaian Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Roger Burbach Robert Fisk David Swanson Justin E.H. Smith Cacie Hart Ron Jacobs Mickey Z. Ben Tripp Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of
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February 4, 2005 Brian Cloughley Bill Christison Elaine Cassel Jacob Levich Kanak Mani Dixit Ron Jacobs
February 3, 2005 Ward Churchill Sharon Smith Mickey Z. Mike Whitney Jenna Orkin Saul Landau Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff
February 2, 2005 David Domke
/ Kevin Coe Noam Chomsky M. Shahid Alam Richard Oxman Joshua Frank Dave Lindorff Nina Hartley Website of the Day
February 1, 2005 Joshua L. Dratel Patrick Cockburn Robert Fisk Uri Avnery Col. Dan Smith Alison Weir Alan Farago Ray Hanania Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
December 22, 2004 James Petras Omar Barghouti Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond Harry Browne Richard Oxman Kathleen Christison Website of the Day
December 21, 2004 Greg Moses Dave Lindorff Chad Nagle Dragon Pierces
Truth* Patrick Cockburn Seth DeLong Ahmad Faruqui Paul Craig
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March 7, 2005 Twisting the Minds of the American PeopleMore War CrimesBy BRIAN CLOUGHLEY Let me paint a word picture. An unarmed, wounded American soldier is lying helpless, bleeding and barely conscious on the floor of a church in a country with which the US is at war. An armed soldier of that country walks up to the wounded American. It so happens that a TV cameraman is present. He films the foreign soldier shouting, "He's fucking faking he's dead!" One of his comrades says "And he's breathing". The first soldier again yells "He's faking he's fucking dead!" He then kills the helpless, wounded man with a burst of fire that blows his head off and spatters the room with blood and tiny bits of flesh and bone. One of the foreign soldiers says "He's dead, now." Question One: What do you think the reaction of most of the American people would be to the murder of a wounded, unarmed US soldier lying helpless and barely conscious on the floor of a church in a foreign land? Question Two: What was the reaction of most of the American people to the murder of a wounded, unarmed Iraqi lying helpless and barely conscious on the floor of a mosque in his own country? First Answer: Shrieking outrage and demands for the foreigner to be tried and executed, whichever came first. Second Answer: Unconcern. The dialogue about faking it came from a CBS tape of a US soldier killing an Iraqi prisoner. The whole thing was recorded. It is undeniable that the crime was committed. The clips of the murder were played worldwide on television - except for the actual killing, because that was thought too vile, even for a television audience accustomed to the most explicitly horrible murder scenes. And nobody has dared take a poll as to how many Americans approve of the murder. Most TV reports called it "an incident", and it has dropped out of sight because, to put it bluntly, an American life is considered to be worth more than an Iraqi life. To many millions of Americans, the marine who murdered the helpless man is a hero. If you doubt this, please read on. Think about another 'incident', when a squad of US soldiers opened fire on a car travelling along the Baghdad-Airport road on March 4, killing an Italian official. The lies began at once, and there is no point in describing what happened because the truth as told by eyewitnesses has already been denied by the military, and the official version will be accepted by much of the US media. It is not surprising that the media will toe the official line, as most of their readers and viewers automatically doubt what they are told by foreign or independent US sources (not that there are many of the latter, these days), and are uncomfortable with anything that smacks of criticism of US soldiers. This is because such criticism is considered unpatriotic and unforgivable, even if it is justified by first-hand evidence of brutality or murder. And if audiences are unhappy about what appears in the media, advertisers will be even more unhappy and will withdraw their business. In short: mainstream news cover in the US is directed by two major factors: advertising revenue and its precursor, audience prejudice. And advertisers get their financial messages from some very unpleasant bigots. These are people like the beauty who commented on the killing of the Italian official and the wounding of the Italian journalist he was escorting to freedom (that's Bush freedom: it comes with free shrapnel wounds) as follows:
We only have to look at the deranged outpourings on right wing blogs to realize there are millions of Americans who feel exactly the same way as bpb901. He or she is not in any way unusual. Unhinged and demented, yes ; badly in need of urgent mental treatment, certainly ; but out of the ordinary: no. (Bear in mind that The Economist of March 5-11 noted the uncomfortable statistic that "about one in five Americans now suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder".) Think back to the 'incident' in January at Tal Afar in which US soldiers killed the mother and father of six kids. Getty Images photographer Chris Hondros was there. He described the shambles like this:
We know about the killing of the father and mother of six kids because a photographer was there and we've seen his evidence. Same for the murder of the wounded prisoner. And we know about the killing of the Italian official because there is a high-profile former hostage still alive to tell us what really happened. But if these 'incidents' had not involved independent witnesses we would have been told nothing about them. They would have gone unrecorded, as have unknown numbers of similar atrocities in and around many cities. The Washington Post of 7 March says US officials "have declined to estimate how many civilians . . . have been killed accidentally by US forces at checkpoints or elsewhere in Iraq" This is no surprise, because although countless Iraqis have been killed by being sprayed with bullets by delinquent troops, the stories recounted by Iraqi witnesses of these terrible events are ignored. There are many people with the mentality of the moron who wrote "Too bad the US troops didn't shoot her in the head and been done with trouble making people like her . . .", and none of them would for an instant condemn the murder of a helpless prisoner by a heroic marine. Neither would they be critical of the gallant troops who wiped out the parents of six children. It is a terrible thing to say, but it must be said: there are millions of Americans who would and do applaud these murders. In the case of the Italian murder, however, they seem to be a bit out of step with their hero, the deranged Bush. Bush and Rumsfeld have grovelled to Italy's crooked prime minister, Berlusconi, because their troops murdered an Italian citizen and wounded another. There was a phone call of apology from Air Force One to Rome the moment the news broke, and the Bush media machine trotted out the usual garbage about the car being attacked "by coalition forces". (This phrase is used by the Bush people to try to avoid acknowledgement that US troops have been criminally incompetent yet again.) Bush spoke to Berlusconi "to express his regret about the incident that occurred earlier today," and to assure "prime minister Berlusconi that the incident will be fully investigated." But there is never an investigation of the murder of Iraqis. To the US military and to millions of tragically disturbed Americans they are non-persons. Iraqi lives do not matter. Just as in Hitler's Germany the Nazis referred to various sections of the population (Jews, gypsies and other 'antisocial elements') as the "untermenschen" -- the sub-humans -- so do US troops and the crazed bigots who bay for blood refer to Iraqis as "ragheads" -- the sub-humans. The Nazi regime was founded and fostered by people who thought along the lines of "Too bad the US troops didn't shoot her in the head and been done with trouble making people like her . . .". If people are trouble-makers, well, don't try to live with them ; don't try to understand them ; don't try to treat them as human beings: just shoot them. Or torture them. Or both. What the hell? The reasoning is that they are different to the superior people and therefore they should not be allowed to exist. The attitude of millions of Americans is exactly that of the German supporters of fascism in the 1930s and early 1940s. They were encouraged to think of themselves as the Master Race and there were whole nations whose populations could be treated as inferiors, and they took pride in doing just that. The present wave of hysterical intolerance in the US makes the McCarthy years of persecution look benign, because the idea has been planted by Bush and his people that US citizens are superior in every possible way. There can be no admission of frailty, and no acceptance of equality. International law and treaties are ignored or treated with contempt, and human dignity has become irrelevant. Hysterical ultra-nationalism is thriving and gathering pace. The director of the slippery slope to totalitarianism has beckoned his citizens, and they are responding with enthusiasm to his encouragement. War crimes are being committed by US troops and spooks on an extraordinary scale all round the world, but the biggest war crime is taking place in Washington: it is the twisting of the minds of the American people. Brian Cloughley writes on military and political affairs.
He can be reached through his website www.briancloughley.com |
