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Today's Stories September 3, 2005 Alexander Cockburn From Mitch to Katrina Jordan Flaherty Notes from Inside New Orleans September 2, 2005 Evan Jones Katrina and the Corps of Engineers: Manufacturing Disaster David Stocker How Good is Your Levee? Frankly, Scarlet I Don't Think He Gives a Damn Dave Lindorff Baghdad on the Big Muddy Norman Solomon The Smirk of a Killer: Ending the Impunity of the Bush White House Mike Whitney How Bush Deals with a Disaster He Helped Create: Blame the Looters Eli Stephens What They Should Have Learned from Hurrican Ivan Ron Jacobs Katrina, Iraq and Blood Profits Christopher Brauchli Onward Christian Assassins Harvey Wasserman Bush to New Orleans: Drop Dead CounterPunch Wire Faith-Based FEMA? Feds Directing Katrina Money to Pat Robertson Glen Ford Will the "New" New Orleans be Black?   September 1, 2005 Dr. Greg Henderson, MD Situation Critical: a Doctor in the Flood Paul Craig Roberts How New Orleans Was Lost Mike Whitney Hurricane Donald: How Rumsfeld Smashed the National Guard Lee Sustar Left Behind to Drown: the Poor and Hurricane Katrina Dave Lindorff The Real Disaster: Bush and the Democrats Lynn Gonzalez The Cindy Spark: Mainstream America Stirs Chris Floyd The Perfect Storm August 31, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair New Orleans After Katrina John Walsh Democrats and the War Bernstein / Mishel Bush Economy: Incomes Down; Poverty Up! Alan Farago What are the Hurricanes Trying to Tell Us? Norman Solomon The National Guard Belongs in New Orleans, Not Baghdad Bryan Newbury "Hey, Shoot that Black Guy Running Off with the Bottled Water!" Jason Leopold What's Eating Cindy Sheehan? Website of the Day The Swiftboating of Cindy Sheehan   August 30, 2005 Gary Leupp Venezuela: Launch Pad for Muslim Extremism? Joshua Frank Bunny and the War Profireers Evelyn Pringle The Woman Who Blew the Whistle on Halliburton Gets Canned Urariano Mota To Die by Mistake: the Killing of Jean Claude de Menezes Ron Jacobs High Water Everywhere CP News Service An Open Letter to Alberto Gonzales: Free the Cuban 5 Roger Morris The War for the Future   August 29, 2005 Seth Sandronsky Pat Robertson, Big Oil's Televangelist Norman Solomon War Liberals and Cindy Sheehan Charles Sullivan Nation of Fools Paul Craig Roberts Does Anyone Know What We're Doing in Iraq? Website of the Day Monsanto Threatens "Bitter Greens" August 27 / 28, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Assassination: as American as Apple Pie (and Torture) Ricardo Alarcon The Cuban 5 in Atlanta: a Long March Towards Justice Diane Christian The Politics of Death: Assassination M. Shahid Alam How to be a Good Victim Laith al-Saud Baghdad Circus: Iraq's Constitutional Process Diane Farsetta School of the Americas Fights Back: PR Plan for Pentagon's "Demonstration Village" Saul Landau Reagan and Bottled Water: the Privatization of Everything Tom Barry Hurricane Hugo: Relating to Venezuela Nicholas Rowe Barenboim in Ramallah: an Unfinished Symphony George E. Bisharat Enforce the Ban on Settlements Dave Lindorff Another Mother for War: the Exploitation of Tammy Pruett Fred Gardner Pot Shots: Doing the Right Thing, Even If You Are Fearful John Francis Lee The Juggernaut of Jingo Evan Jones I.F. Stone on the Perils of Empire Ali Khan Defining Aggression Poets' Basement Albert, Nettnin, Engel, Ford, Krieger, Louise August 26, 2005 Lee Sustar Showdown at Northwest Ramzy Baroud Cindy Sheehan and the Power of the Ordinary Christopher Brauchli The Return of Edwin Meese Peter Harley The Wall as a Good Thing? John Snider Not One of the Gang Kathleen Christison Can Palestine be Put Back in the Equation?     August 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Hegemony Lost: the American Economy is Destroying Itself Cockburn / St. Clair Loewenstein's Big Mail Bag: Gaza and "the Shame of It All" J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Racial Politics in California They May Vote for You, But They Won't Have Lunch with You Chhandasi Pandya Libeling Venezuela Richard Ward Impressions from Camp Casey Norman Solomon Exploiting the 9/11 Anniversary: Will the Media Help Bush, Again? Joshua Frank Will the Real Leaders Please Stand Up? Seth Sandronsky GM, the UAW and US Health Care Lucinda Marshall The Democratic Unraveling: How Not to Mention the War VIPS Memo to Bush: Try a Circle of Wise Women Ralph Nader It's Time to Make the Iraq War Personal     August 24, 2005 Stan Goff Containing the Anti-War Movement: the Hayden Plan Rachard Itani Papal Double Standards Elisa Salasin The Militarization of Our Children Ron Jacobs Who Would Jesus Assassinate? John Chuckman Robertson and Posada: Bush's Kind of Terrorists Leibowitz / Heller Gaza: Disengagement or Military Redeployment? Douglas Valentine Suicide as Sacrament Thomas Nagy Congress Should Go to Crawford: an Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan Alexander Cockburn Hitchens Backs Down, Says Sheehan "Not a La Rouchie" Website of the Day Stations of the Cross       August 23, 2005 Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler Pat Robertson is Not a Christian Karen Kilroy Pittsburgh and Salt Lake City Protests: Violent Echoes of Kent State Stew Albert Fascism in America: Are We There Yet? Joshua Frank The Democrats and Cindy Sheehan Dave Zirin Pedaling Away from Principle: Lance Armstrong Cozies Up to Bush Julia Olmstead Our Reckless Chemical Dependence: A Little Round-Up With Your Precautionary Principle? CounterPunch Wire Prosecuting Bush in Canada for Torture: a Legal Update Jason Leopold Bush's Lips Move, But He Says Nothing Diane Christian The Politics of Death     August 22, 2005 Sonia Nettnin Gaza Stripped, the Occupation Remains Mike Whitney "Shoot to Kill": Tony Blair's First Trophy Kevin Zeese The Latest Falsehood: the US is in Iraq to "Stablize It" Norman Solomon Bush's Bloody Option: Escalate the War in Iraq Christopher Brauchli Secret Talkers Jeff Bale The Left's Challenge in Germany Greg Moses Raw Talk Revival at Camp Casey Two     August 20 / 21, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Can Cindy Sheehan End the War? Saul Landau Terrorism Then and Now: Townley Talks Kevin Zeese an Interview with Tom Hayden Greg Moses A Daytrip without Cindy Ray McGovern Cindy Sheehan and Creative Protest Fred Gardner Merck Gets Whacked Martin Smith Rebellion in the Ranks: the Soldiers' Revolt in Vietnam Benjamin Granby Gaza's Economy: the Key to Sharon's Strategy? Frankie Lake Dirty Tricksters: How the Federalist Society Operates Joshua Frank Failing Nature: the Democrats and the Environment Ron Jacobs When Sympathy is Not Enough Tom Crumpacker Moral Values and the CIA Mike Ferner "All of Our Stories are Sad" James Petras Suicide Bombers: the Sacred and the Profane Col. Dan Smith The President's Dilemma Dr. Teresa Whitehurst What de Menezes Didn't Know Ben Tripp Moses on Top of Old Smokey Poets' Basement Landau, Albert, Engel and Louise     August 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat, Part 4: Cutting Up Mochie Neve Gordon After the Withdrawal Gary Leupp The Pandora's Box of Iraq's Constitution William S. Lind Getting Swept Vijay Prashad The Rosa Parks of the Anti-War Movement Dave Lindorff Something Has Happened Pat Williams Social Security and the American West John Pilger Free Speech and the War on Terror Elaine Cassel Judge Roberts and the Death Penalty     August 18, 2005 Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat, Part 3: Vegetarians, Nazis for Animal Rights, Blitzkrieg of the Ungulates Greg Moses Cindy, the Peace Train and the Little Ditch that Could Ramzy Baroud Theatrics in Gaza: the Disengagement That Isn't Joshua Frank Bush's Emotional Incapacities Monica Benderman For Cindy: There's No Glory in Dying Paul Craig Roberts Courthouse Jackboots: Corrupted Justice   August 17, 2005 Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat: Part Two, the March to Porkopolis Robert Jensen America's Good Germans? Carl G. Estabrook News Notes from the Global War on Terrorism Mike Whitney Greenspan and the Housing Bubble Niranjan Ramakrishnan Shaming the Shameless Norman Solomon Slurs, Lies and Innuendos: Blaming the Antiwar Messengers Dave Zirin In Defense of Felipe Alou Jennifer Loewenstein The Shame of It All: Watching the Gazan Fiasco CounterPunch Clarification     August 16, 2005 Greg Moses Mona in a Field of Crosses at Camp Casey, Texas Thomas Larson The Unmitigated Gall of Dinesh D'Souza Diana Barahona Uneasy Standoff in Venezuela's Media Wars Dave Lindorff The Inquirer's Minds Don't Want to Know Rep. Cynthia McKinney A Letter to President Bush: Meet with Cindy Sheehan Elisa Salasin Hitchens Slimes Cindy Sheehan David Krieger Amazing Grace and Cindy Alexander Cockburn A Short History of Meat: Part One, Peter's Dream Website of the Day Reclaiming Appalachia: a Mountain Takeover     August 15, 2005 Greg Moses Pilgrims of Protest in Crawford Paul Craig Roberts Slouching Toward Armageddon? Mike Whitney Failing in Iraq Robert Jensen The Challenges We Face CounterPunch Wire Judge Fines Voices in the Wilderness $20,000 for Taking Medicine to Iraq; Voices Refuses to Pay Norman Solomon Someone Tell Frank Rich the War Isn't Over Kathleen Christison Camp David Redux: Anatomy of a Frame-Up   August 13 / 14, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair When Down is Up: the "Stricken" President William Blum The al-Dubya Training Manual Gary Leupp High Tide for the Neocons? Jack Z. Bratich Secreting the News: Anonymous vs. Confidential Sources Brian Cloughley The Ridiculous Rice Ron Jacobs Klan Justice: Mississippi is Still Burning John Farley "Beyond Chutzpah" Too Hot for Harvard Bookstore? Dave Lindorff Making the World Safer...for Nukes Tim Wise Animal Whites: PETA and the Politics of Putting Things in Perspective J.L. Chestnut, Jr. There's Not One Real Liberal or Conservative in the Senate John Gershman The Bolton Opportunity Felice Pace Saving Northwest Forests: Time for a Fresh Look Fred Gardner Feds Takeover Prosecution of Dustin Costa David Krieger The Fable of the Emperor and the Grieving Mother Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Being a Protestant Fundamentalist Ben Tripp GWAT: a Tone Poem Poets' Basement Reiss, Nettnin, Engel and Louise     August 12, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Courting God: Justice Sunday II Greg Moses A Crawford Peace House Morning with Cindy Sheehan Ramzy Baroud Israel's Nuclear Puzzle Norman Solomon Cindy Sheehan's Message: Repudiating Bush and Dean Chris Genovali Why is a Canadian Politician Trying to End Protections for US Grizzly Bears? Chris Floyd Cheney and Halliburton, the Stench Gets Worse Tariq Ali Blair's New Authoritarianism     August 11, 2005 Saul Landau Globalization and Its Discontents Dave Lindorff Privatization will Harm Same Sex Couples Ralph Nader Dear Cindy Sheehan: May You Prevail Where Others Have Failed Talli Nauman Radioactive Border: the Hot Mounds of Samalayuca Gary Leupp Politics of an Outing: Plame, Ledeen and Iran Sharon Smith The New Anti-War Majority Paul Craig Roberts Why is Cheney Lobbying for a Boost in China's Nuclear Capability?     August 10, 2005 Tim Wise Indian Mascots and White Rage Ron Jacobs Rumsfeld's Delusions Joshua Frank Dean and the PDA: Don't Believe the Hype Cynthia McKinney The 9/11 Op-Ed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Refuses to Run Rick Wilhelm Peter Jennings, Excuse Maker for War and Empire Stan Goff Homegrown Resistance     August 9, 2005 Mike Ferner What One Mom has to Say to Bush: Cindy Sheehan in Dallas Monica Benderman Is Being a Conscientious Objector Now Criminal? Mike Marqusee Making Excuses for Killing De Menezes Rep. Cynthia McKinney Strange Fruit and Tree-Shakers Paul Craig Roberts Watching the US Economy Crumble     August 6-8, 2005 Alexander Cockburn How the British Destroyed India Jason Leopold Halliburton and Iran: Still Doing Business After All These Years? Ray McGovern Iran, Truth-Tellers and the Devotees of Preemption David Krieger From Hiroshima to Humanity Sharon K. Weiner / Robert Jensen From Hiroshima to Iraq and Back Fred Gardner The Budtender's View of a Rip-Off     August 5, 2005 Bill Christison New NIE Report on Iran's Nukes will Not Deter US's Posture of Extreme Aggressiveness Paul Craig Roberts Kelo: a Supreme Assault on Personal Liberty Alexander Cockburn The Taj Mahal as Kitsch; the Editor and the Water-Walking Guru     August 4, 2005 Tom Barry Inside Bush's "World Democracy Movement" Lila Rajiva John Bolton's New Internationalism Greg Moses Bush Teaches Intelligent Design in Prison Alexander Cockburn Indian Journal: Why Indian Farmers Kill Themselves August 3, 2005     August 3, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Broken Arrows and Iran: a B-52 Pilot Remembers Paul Craig Roberts The Kelo Calamity: Money, Power and Eminent Domaine William A. Cook Innocent Victims: From Hiroshima to Lower Manhattan Dave Zirin Bush's Texas Rangers: a Crackhouse for Juiced Players? Dave Lindorff Court Packing and Worker Rights José Pertierra Why Hamdi Isaac Yes and Posada Carriles No?   August 2, 2005 Ramzi Kysia Disengagement and Diaspora: High Walls and Razor Wire in the Hebron William A. Cook Words Without Meaning: Torturing Bodies and Language Paul Craig Roberts When Armageddon Gets No Press Mike Whitney Chertoff's Preemptive Crackdown: 600 Arrests, Only 76 Charged Ron Jacobs Be a Hero: Demand That Johnny Come Home Norman Madarsz Before the Stun Gun: Jean Charles de Menezes, RIP Tim Wise The Faulty Logic of "Terrorist" Profiling     August 1, 2005 Virginia Rodino Why Bono and Geldof Got It Wrong: War and Global Poverty are Linked Diana Barahona Return to Venezuela: Land Reform and Neighborhood Doctors Joshua Frank Gitmo's Kangaroo Courts: First Torture Them, Then Rig Their Trials Mike Whitney The Consolidation of Powers: Rubber Stamp Roberts Norm Dixon The Worst Terror Attacks in History Norman Solomon Operation Withdrawal Scam James Petras The Corruption of Lula's Regime     July 30 / 31, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Lost Nuclear Warheads Now in Iran? JoAnn Wypijewski Scenes and Silver Linings from Labor's Crack-Up: a Special Report from Chicago Sheldon Rampton War is Fun as Hell: the Video Games Recruiters Play Jack Z. Bratich Fingerprints of Power: a Summer of Double Super Secrecy Greg Moses How to Cool Your Heels in Texas When It's Late July Across the World Jordan Green From Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Economics and the Race Divide in a Southern City Patrick Cockburn Getting Out of Iraq: 5,000 US Troops Have Gone AWOL Brian Cloughley The Bush-Cheney Fixation on Iran Justin Taylor Harry Potter and the War on Terror Saul Landau Enhancements for the Imperial Life: Fashionism Takes Command! John Walsh Dems Field Another Pro-War Candidate: Meet Hack the Hawk Joshua Frank Color-Coded Justice: John Roberts's Racial Hang Up Ron Jacobs Who Needs Feminism? We Have Condi Rice! Fred Gardner The Ethan and Gavin Show John Chuckman Friedman on Terrorism: the Dumbest Story Ever Written Liaquat Ali Khan Lessons City Bombers Need to Learn from Newton and Donne Remi Kanazi Annexing Justice in Palestine Naveen Jaganathan The Gurgaon Riots Rock India Richard Heinberg Where is the Hirsch Peak Oil Report? Max Watts Francis Ona, the Napoleon of Mekamui Ben Tripp Write Your Own Editorial! Poets' Basement Whalen & Engel, Landau, Albert and Krieger       July 29, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Who's the Real Martyr? Judy Miller or Jim DeFede? P. Sainath The Class War in Gurgaon Niranjan Ramakrishnan How the West Was Lost: CAFTA and the Disassembling of America Dave Lindorff Marvelous Marvin Bush J.L. Chestnut, Jr. America's Racist Inventory: Oppression Breeds Violence Pat Williams Giving Away the Last Best Place Norman Solomon In Praise of Kevin Benderman: a Moral Leader of the Nation Goes to Prison Sen. Russ Feingold The Bad News About the Energy Bill     July 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Departing Iraq William S. Lind The Duke of Alba and George W. Bush Gilad Atzmon Blair the Camera Man Joshua Frank Passing CAFTA: Blame the Democrats Lila Rajiva Vision Mumbai Submerged Amina Mire Pigmentation and Empire: the Emerging Skin-Whitening Industry Website of the Day Gateway to Underground News     July 27, 2005 Roger Morris The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal Gary Leupp Is Iran Being Set Up? Paul Craig Roberts US Falling Behind Across the Board Jackie Corr Class War on the Ruby River: the Billionaire with His Foot in His Mouth Mike Whitney The Coming End of the Housing Bubble Dave Zirin Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush Christopher Bradley Why I Have Trouble Reading the News Norman Solomon Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist? Website of the Day Stormin' Norman     July 26, 2005 Suren Pillay The Enemy Within: When the "Other" is One of "Us" JoAnn Wypijewski Fission and Fizzle in Chicago: SEIU and Teamsters Quit the AFL Patrick Cockburn Iraq: the Unwinnable War David Anderson When the Greatest Outrage is the Lack of Outrage: NYC's Subway Searches Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton: Outflanking Bush from the Right Lenni Brenner Biography as Wish-Fulfillment: Jefferson, Hitchens and Atheism David Swanson Nuking Native Land     July 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts China-Mart Takes Over M. Shahid Alam Terrorism: America Defines Its Targets Uri Avnery March of the Orange Shirts Stan Cox Kreationism in Kansas Norman Solomon "Wagging the Puppy" Ramzy Baroud London Bombings: Barbaric, But Not Unexpected Mickey Z. No Gun Ri: 55 Years Later Website of the Day The Birth of a Hummingbird in 15 Images     July 23 / 24, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Islamo-Anarchs or Islamo-Fascists? Tariq Ali The War Comes Home Robert Fisk Something Happened Dave Lindorff Return of the Academic Witch Hunts Ricardo Alarcón Kidnapping in Miami: the UN, the US and the Cuban 5 Col. Dan Smith Living in a Twilight Zone: Troop Strength, Recruitment and the Draft Brian Cloughley The Pentagon's China Hypocrisy Kevin Zeese Growing Republican Opposition to Iraq War Bill Quigley Harrowing Hours in Haiti Fred Gardner The Reverberations of Raich Rep. Ron Paul The Patriot Act is a Threat to Liberty Joshua Frank Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats Shivali Tukdeo Project Mumbai Makeover: Casualties of Development Gilad Atzmon Blair's "Evil Ideology" James Petras Baghdad: Barbarism and Civilization (a Fiction) Ben Tripp When Being American Was Fun Poets' Basement Krieger, Louise, Buknatski, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Remember the West Memphis 3   July 22, 2005 Heather Gray Home Grown Axis of Evil: Corp. Agribusiness, the Occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott Decision David Domke The American Press and Credibility Lance Selfa Battle of the Insiders: No Heroes in the Plame Leak Scandal JoAnn Wypijewski Is This Really an "Insurgency" to Shake Up the Labor Movement?   July 21, 2005 Rose Ann DeMoro The Top 10 Problems with the "Crisis" in the Labor Movement William Blum London: Another Casualty in the War on Terror J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Whites Need to Learn Something: Dixie is Everywhere Christopher Brauchli Strange Affairs: Liberals and Alberto Gonzales Joshua Frank Plame Blame Game: the 5 Ws Brian Concannon, Jr. Haiti's Elections: Time for a Reality Check Patrick Cockburn The True, Terrible State of Iraq and the Link to London Website of the Day Who Blew Up the Murrah Building?     July 20, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judge Roberts: Business as Usual Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Red Christmas Ray McGovern Did Dick Finger Valerie?: the Hand of Cheney Chris Floyd Judge Dread: John Roberts and the "Enemy Combatants" Uri Avnery "Silence is Filth" Dave Lindorff Westmoreland's Body Count Goes Up by One Norman Solomon Gen. Westmoreland's Death Wish Bill Quigley Travels in Haiti with a Wanted Priest       July 19, 2005 Tariq Ali An Isolated Regime John Ross Jihad Meets G-8 Davey D. More Clear Channel Censorship: "Don't F--K Around with Tha Police" Greg Weiher Muzzling Saddam: the Old Bait-and-Switch in Iraqi Jurisprudence Brian McKinlay An "Arse Licker" Goes to Washington: John Howard's Grand Tour Norman Solomon Nukes for India; Threats for Iran Dave Lindorff Get Back to Where We Once Belonged Bill Christison Bush's Itinerary: First Stop Syria, Next Stop Iran Joshua Frank Laura's Justice?: Meet Edith Brown Clement   July 18, 2005 Joshua Frank An Interview with Ward Churchill M. Shahid Alam A Muslim Problem: Did Thomas Friedman Flunk History? Jude Wanniski Memo to Patrick Fitzgerald Ron Jacobs A Weekend to Stop the War Mike Whitney The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station William MacDougall From "Bring It On" to "London Can Take It" Seth Sandronsky Temporary Recovery: New Frontiers in Labor Flexibility Richard Lichtman The Consolations of George Lakoff Paul Craig Roberts Can Congressional Republicans End Bush's Wars? Website of the Weekend Novels of the Neo-Cons   July 15 / 17, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Don't You Dare Call It Treason Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Paul Craig Roberts Economic Treason Harry Browne "What They Do to Us, They Will Do to You": Shell Oil in Mayo, Ireland Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron A Warning from Israel Andrew Rubin End of the Enlightenment: an Open Letter to Stephen Plaut Patrick Cockburn Iraq's Ghost Battalions J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Changes in Selma: Standing Up to Racism in the South Fred Gardner A Professional Bust Christopher Brauchli An Olympic Feat: How to "Double" Aid with No New Money Chris Floyd The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway Ben Tripp The Dark Incontinent Col. Dan Smith General Abizaid, I'm Glad You Asked Jason Leopold What Did Rove Say and When Did He Say It? Jack Random Miller Time Norman Solomon War and Venture Capitalism George Ochenski Liberate Montana's Rivers: Come One, Come All! Website of the Weekend Vote for CounterPuncher David Vest     July 14, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Subcomandante Marcos This is What Will Do and How We Shall Do It: the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona Dave Lindorff No More Moral Relativism: the US is a Terrorist State Joshua Frank Rove Agency: Liberals and the CIA Jude Wanniski Those 8 Black Pages: What's the Real Story on Karl Rove? Dave Zirin Storming the Castle Kevin Zeese Exit Strategy: Within Reach? Robert Jensen War Myths and the Press Reza Fiyouzat A Worldwide Call to Free Akbar Ganji Carol Norris Governor Paranoid: Schwarzenegger Comes Unhinged Website of the Day Nate Osborn: Heroic Human Rights Activist and CounterPuncher   July 13, 2005 Brian Cloughley Cold Blooded Murders in Iraq George Galloway We Can't Separate the London Bombings from the Political Backdrop Carlos Fierro A Supreme Waste of Time Sarah Knopp Hate on the Border Norman Solomon "Isolated Pockets of Problems": the Fake Optimism of Washington's Warriors Mickey Z. Water on the Brain Jim Minick The Right Tree in the Right Place Pat Williams American Indian Education for All Andrew N. Rubin Life Behind the Wall: "We are No Longer Able to See the Sun Set" Website of the Day "London's Burning": the Mikey Mix     July 12, 2005 Laith al-Saud Voices of Resistance: an Interview with Dr. Mohammed al-Obaidi of Iraq's Peoples' Struggle Movement Kara N. Tina "This is How We Do It": Report from the Gleneagles Battlefield William A. Cook The London Bombings: Why Has It Come to This? Jack Bratich 2 Live Cruise: Tom Cruise v. Big Pharma Amina Mire The Problem with Speaking in the Name of Others Dick J. Reavis Lessons from the Christian Jihadists: the Virtues of Burning Crosses and Colored Smoke Kevin Zeese Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Vets Paul Craig Roberts No-Think Nation Website of the Day Coke Gags Indian Artist     July 9 / 11, 2005 Alexander Cockburn After the Bombings Uri Avnery War of the Colors in Israel Sheldon Rampton Blaming Galloway: Rhetoric vs. Reality in London Bill Christison Hiroshima's 60th Anniversary and Nukes in Iran: an Opportunity or Just More Hand-wringing from the Peace Movement? Robert Fisk Blair's Alliance with Bush Bombed Stephen Winspear Collateral Damage in London? Saul Landau Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken Behrooz Ghamari Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem Karl Beitel False Promises and Real Debt Relief Brian Concannon, Jr. Throwing Gasoline on Haiti's Fires Fred Gardner Sentencing Season John Whitlow And What Does the Market Say? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The London Blasts: Who's Being Transformed, Them or Us? Lila Rajiva Witches and Bastards Laura Carlsen CAFTA: Deepening the Inequities Jackie Corr Ted Turner and Jiminy Cricket Dave Lindorff "My Brother Went Over There Gung Ho; Now He's Just Bitter" N. D. Jayaprakash Why the CIA Tried to Kill Chou En Lai at the Bandung Conference Seth Sandronsky Meet the "Truth Tour": Rightwing Radio Hosts Go to Iraq Norman Madarasz The Choking of Brazil's Worker Party Ben Tripp The Inevitability of George W. Bush Poets' Basement Louise, Albert, Landau, Davies and Engel Website of the Weekend The Mother of All Enemies Lists     July 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blowback Hits Britain: Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception Tariq Ali The London Bombings: Why They Happened Monica Benderman One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality Rick Jahnkow Beyond Opt-Out: the Counter-Recruitment Movement Christopher Brauchli Dear Vet: If You Want to Eat While You Recuperate, You Gotta Pay Extra Kim Peterson Bombs in the Underground: Terror Begats Terror Joshua Frank Leakers and Liars: Inching Toward Indictments? Norman Solomon Messages from the Carnage Website of the Day An Interview with Ray McGovern   July 7, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr John Walsh More Hawkish Than Bush: Dems in Full Battle Cry Mike Marqusee Message from London Gilad Atzmon London's Burning Nicole Colson Showdown at the Supreme Court Jack Random Judith Miller, Anti-Hero Norman Solomon Judith Miller, Drum Majorette for War Len Colodny Is Bob Woodward Still Protecting Al Haig? Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr             Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition September 3 / 4, 2005 CounterPunch Diary From Mitch to Katrina: Nature is Politics By ALEXANDER COCKBURN Nature really kicks the door down once in a while, and let's us know how humans have made a mess of things. A few years ago Hurricane Mitch laid waste much of Guatemala and neighboring countries. The hills crumbled and topsoil sluiced into the sea. There was politics, class politics, in that sluicing, same way there's politics in most "natural" disasters. The US had crushed land reform in Guatemala in the 1950s, with the CIA overseeing a coup against Arbenz and launching decades of savage repression. The peasants had to surrender the good flat land to the United Fruit Co and scratch small holdings for subsistence into ever steeper hillsides Katrina the aftermath is payback time for decades of stupidity, greed, pillage, racism. My thought is that the tempo towards catastrophe really picked up in the Reagan era. That's when the notion of this society being in some deep sense a collective effort, pointed towards universal human betterment ­ the core of the old Enlightenment ­ went onto the trash heap. Once you stop believing in universal betterment, you stop investing in social defenses, like health care, or flood control. You build your shining condo on the hill, put a fence round it, and cancel the local bus service so the poor can't get at you. What was the final answer to the bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama? Cancel the busses! So collective effort goes out the window, and soon the society forgets how collective effort works. Tens of thousands of poor people standing on roofs in the Delta and they haven't the slightest idea how to get them off. The ones they have brought to dry land they dump on the highway, where they stand as the Army trucks roll by. There are all sorts of bargains the rich and the powerful in any society make with the poor. But one way or another ­ through bread, circuses, the dole, the promise that Anyone Can Make It ­ there's the offer of a deal: Don't make trouble: we'll take care of you. Empires collapse when the offer ­ the "marginal rate of return" ­ becomes empty: we won't take care of you. Or, we can't take care of you. We don't need you and we're not frightened of you. We're at that point here. Malthus, a Christian, proposed locating the surplus poor next to unhealthy marshes, in the hope they would get sick and die. How much of a difference is there between that and the "emergency preparedness" and evacuation procedures before, during and after Katrina? How did Washington perceive New Orleans and most of the Gulf coast? Basically as a vast huddle of the mostly poor and the mostly black. So, year after year, they denied funds to shore up levees that all experts agree are bound to give way in more than a Force Three storm. They hollowed out every state economy so that in the end Mississippi's tax base was its cut of the gambling take, from floating casinos because the Christians said the Devil's Work couldn't take place on dry land. Mainstream politics in America has ceased to deliver the goods in anything but the meanest terms. The bigger the hog, the bigger the bucket of slops. There's no worthwhile opposition at the established level. Generally I think people are looking at the scenes along the Gulf coast and in the Delta with horror, at the realization of what our society has come to.   The Antiwar Movement, Goff and Hayden (and Me): an Admonition from Frank Bardacke I hope we see the omens of larger resistance in the antiwar movement. No doubt about it, the people are turning against the war. The Bush crowd is truly on low ground, and the political levees are starting to crumble. They feel it in Congress. Already there are private meetings, both sides of the aisle, evolving new positions on the war, exit strategies and so forth. Waiting in the wings are impeachment inquiries, hearings on Bush's low balling of the casualties, the lack of body armor. Once Bush's base starts to crumble these matters will move center stage. Right now there's a big argument going on about exit strategies and schedules from Iraq. Cindy Sheehan and many say Out now. Then the responsible politicos say, Be realistic. Start to leave at the end of 06. Stan Goff took a few lusty swings at Tom Hayden on this site, on this very matter of scheduling. He got attacked as being (a) nasty and abusive, and (b) being divisive and unrealistic. I wrote Stan a note, as follows: "Jesus Christ, this is like being suffocated by a dead ostrich. There's nothing wrong with vigorous invective. The left doesn't get places often because it's way TOO polite, too reluctant to air differences, too polite about people like Tom Hayden when they are selling a pwog Democrat line. Tom has done some good things and he's done some bad things. In 1982 I wrote in the Village Voice that in the National Gallery in Washington DC there are 134 portraits of Benedict Arnold. None look alike. All resemble Tom Hayden. Why did I write that? Because Tom Hayden and Jane Fonda flew to the advance Israeli positions from which the Israeli gunners were indiscriminately (NYT reporter Tom Friedman's word, censored at the time) shelling Beirut, to show solidarity with Israeli forces and to bolster Tom's political position in California. People who raised the issue of justice for Palestinians were told year after year that it was a "divisive" issue to raise, would rock the boat, set the cat among the pigeons, cause ructions. So the Democratic Party never has dealt with it. I haven't the slightest idea what Tom H says now about Israel and Palestinians, but like hundreds of others prominent in the DP through 70s and 80s, he cost us all, most of all the Palestinians, very dear by his prudence. I looked at the PDA site last week and saw a parcel of shredded platitudes about internationalizing the occupying force. You were quite right to make fun of that kind of blather. This "internationalization" line reminds me of the prudent line back in 2002 and 2003, before invasion, when a lot of people wrapped up the antiwar message in talk about a UN force. Very polite, and totally unrealistic, since the UN is a wholly owned subsidiary of the US. We aren't, thank God, a fascist country here, like Germany was in WW2, but suppose the Germans had been able to speak freely, would they have been talking in 1942 about a withdrawal of German forces from the Soviet Union beginning at the end of 1943? No, by mid-42 any sane German would have been saying AUS NOW. And they would have been realistic, because by the end of 43 most of the German soldiers were dead or captives. Do you want to tell all those US soldiers sent to Iraq that they should ride around in their Humvees waiting to get blown up till the end of 2006 when withdrawal can commence on a schedule that preserves PDA credibility. If so, they'll have a lot of explaining to do, to mothers like Cindy Sheehan." Hardly had I fired this off to Stan, before I got a remonstrative note about some sneers I'd made about vigils. It was from my friend Frank Bardacke in Watsonville, my political consigliere on many things. Frank has plenty of cred, not least in the area of antiwar organizing. He was one of the Oakland 7, arrested and tried after the attacks on the Oakland induction center in the late 60s. He's a very radical guy. Bardacke said ... well, hell, I'll give him the stage. Alex: Goff is very clever and much of what he says is absolutely true but I don't think he shows much sense about what an anti-war movement is like or how we could create a situtation where in Goff's words "We make the political cost so high in the US for continuing the war that it threatens the entire US state with destablization." In a mass movement against the war a lot of people are going to do a lot of different things. That's what a mass movement is. Some people are going to pass out mealy mouthed petitions; some people are going to go to weekly vigils; some people are going to go to big marches; some people are going to think about supporting anti-war candidates; some people are going to try to counter military recruiters at high schools; some people are going to try to stop military supplies from leaving the US for Iraq. All of it together is what makes "the political cost so high..." not just the radical action in the streets and schools. And it is the overall shift in opinion against the war which makes the more militant action powerful; otherwise the radicals are easily isolated and ignored. Things are beginning to change and Cindy had a lot to do with it. But one of the reasons that her action has been so effective is because the American people are turning against the war, as are even some sections of the media. Hayden's petition itself is an indication that more and more folks are looking for ways to end the war. In that respect it is a good sign. It doesn't prevent more radical deeds; and despite its proper sounding nonsense it may even help create an atmosphere in which more radical action is welcomed. That's the way it happened in the movement against the war in Vietnam. There were years of big moderate marches and liberal petitions before shutting down induction centers and military mutinies became a popular alternative among large numbers of people. And it was the whole thing together which put limits on the US ability to wage the war in Vietnam. Look. We have a tough task. It is much harder to build an anti-war movement when there is no draft. Not entirely, but to a large extent the anti-war movement was not an act of solidarity with the Vietnamese, but an act of self-interest by hundreds of thousands of young men who did not want to fight, kill, and die. It is going to be very hard to get the US out of Iraq - even harder, I believe than it was to get the US out of Vietnam. Vietnam was geographically on the periphery, and had no important natural resource. Iraq is at the center of the political world, and, of course, there is oil. Furthermore, as your brother pointed out, great powers can not suffer small losses. Any loss becomes a big loss. The folks who call the shots in the US (Democratic and Republican politicians and the people above them) are not going to leave Iraq until they are forced to. I think it is going to take a long time. We can't force them out; only the Iraqis can. But we can put limits on their ability to wage the war. Actually I think we are doing well. Our vigil in Watsonville is lively and growing. We hear that the vigils elsewhere are too. During the vigil people planned a successful effort to get the school district to make it easier for parents to block the military recruiters from talking to their children. People also go into the local high school and speak against the war. Folks sign petitions, write post cards, argue politics, make sure that everyone knows about the next big demonstration. Sure, we aren't blocking the street yet. But you don't start out blocking the street. You block it when there a good number of people who support you. And building that support takes all kinds of work. Goff is right. We are for immediate withdrawal. We are for immediate withdrawal because it is US troops who are provoking a civil war; it is not the presence of US troops that prevents one. And all the calls for something less than immediate withdrawal-including Hayden's-confuses that question. And so it is right not only to support immediate withdrawal but to argue against some kind of staged, limited withdrawal, like the one proposed by Hayden. But at the same time we welcome everyone who is now moving against the war, and we encourage them to do everything they can to stop it, even if it is not exactly what we think is the best thing to do. Well, that is a lot of words Alex. Maybe I could have just said this to Goff about Hayden: Back in the day we always welcomed the presence of opportunists. It meant that they sensed that within our movement there were opportunities. Frank   Hitchens Tries Again: Ten Terrible Arguments for War "The case for overthrowing Saddam was unimpeachable. Why, then, is the administration tongue-tied? " Thus is the Murdoch-owned, pro-Bush Weekly Standard this week, If the Standard's editors can't figure out the answer , let me help them. The Bush administration is tongue-tied because it doesn't know what lie to put out next. Each day Bush gets his minute on the news shows, wraps himself in the flag, says It's all going well, and each day he drops another notch in the polls. The people are turning against the war. The political landscape is changing, faster than people think. In that same issue, The Weekly Standard whistles up its Conde Nast scrivener, Christopher Hitchens, to try to make the arguments the White House can't come up with. He starts by writing, "Prison conditions at Abu Ghraib have improved markedly and dramatically since the arrival of Coalition troops in Baghdad." This doesn't rank very high as an argument for killing 100,000 Iraqisa since the sprting of 2003. The real point is, why is there an Abu Ghraib post-Saddam at all? "Conditions at Auschwitz have markedly improved since the takeover by allied troops -- torture is down, plumbing upgraded." Then Hitchens offers us ten points in favor of the war. Let me deal with them, one by one. "(1) The overthrow of Talibanism and Baathism, and the exposure of many highly suggestive links between the two elements of this Hitler-Stalin pact. Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who moved from Afghanistan to Iraq before the coalition intervention, has even gone to the trouble of naming his organization al Qaeda in Mesopotamia." Few points have been so generally discredited over last two years as the supposed connection between the Taliban and the Baath party in Iraq before the war in 2003. One of the supposed links - publicized by Jeffrey Goldberg in the New Yorker - was an Iranian Kurdish drug smuggler held in jail by the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan in Iraqi Kurdistan who claimed to have met bin Laden in Kandahar in Afghanistan and senior Baathists in Iraq. Before the war began, the smuggler was long exposed as a liar, though the New York has never apologized for promulgating this fraud. Mohammed Atta was said to have met Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague but his credit cards showed he was in the US. On Zarquawi Hitchens is all over the map. Zarquawi was famously at odds with bin Laden in Afghanistan. It's absurd to suggest that the presence of Zarquawi meant that Saddam Hussein was in league with either al Qaeda or the Taliban. "(2) The subsequent capitulation of Qaddafi's Libya in point of weapons of mass destruction ­ a capitulation that was offered not to Kofi Annan or the E.U. but to Blair and Bush." Long before the invasion of Iraq, Qaddafi was eager for rapprochement with the US. Blair had already reopened relations with Libya. The Iraq war did not mark a turning point in his behavior and the scenario of a cowed Qadaffi suddenly abandoning secret plans to construct a nuclear arsenal is far less persuasive than the likelihood he'd never been serious about building WMDs, and took whatever shipments from Pakistan were in the warehouse and surfaced them as an extra stimulant for the rapprochement he's wanted for a long time. "(3) The consequent unmasking of the A.Q. Khan network for the illicit transfer of nuclear technology to Libya, Iran, and North Korea." The A.Q. Khan network unmasked? This was so generally known that to put it in his list Hitchens is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel. "4) The agreement by the United Nations that its own reform is necessary and overdue, and the unmasking of a quasi-criminal network within its elite." It would be far more impressive if the war led to the reform of the US. Far more money has disappeared since the war than ever went missing before. At least $5 billion is missing from the Paul Bremmer era alone. "(5) The craven admission by President Chirac and Chancellor Schröder, when confronted with irrefutable evidence of cheating and concealment, respecting solemn treaties, on the part of Iran, that not even this will alter their commitment to neutralism. (One had already suspected as much in the Iraqi case.)" But most of the "cheating and concealment" alleged against Iraq turned out to be untrue so why does the fact that Schroder and Chirac said so at the time (unlike Bush) and got this right make their similar doubts about escalating the conflict with Iran so suspect for Hitchens? Anyway, the solemn treaty under discussionm is the non-Proliferation Treaty which specifically permits development of an enrichment program. Iran has not violated the Treaty. "(6) The ability to certify Iraq as actually disarmed, rather than accept the word of a psychopathic autocrat." This is just name-calling. The UN inspectors had shown that Iraq had no useable WMD posing a threat to anybody, as Scott Ritter repeatedly pointed out. There was no need to listen to the lies of a psychopathic autocrat, whether Saddam Hussein or George Bush. The reports of Hans Blix and Mohammed el Baradei sufficed. "(7) The immense gains made by the largest stateless minority in the region--the Kurds--and the spread of this example to other states. The Kurds did benefit though not thanks to Bush. In the weeks before the war the US was happily inviting 40,000 Turkish troops into northern Iraq to the horror of the Iraqi Kurds. Only when the Turkish parliament, ( possibly emboldened by the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world, all ridiculed by Hitchens) rejected the presence of a US army in Turkey invading Iraq from the north was the US forced to ally itself with the Kurds. "(8) The related encouragement of democratic and civil society movements in Egypt, Syria, and most notably Lebanon, which has regained a version of its autonomy." This offers a truly amazing faith in the democratic process now underway in Egypt and elsewhere. "(9) The violent and ignominious death of thousands of bin Ladenist infiltrators into Iraq and Afghanistan, and the real prospect of greatly enlarging this number." This is a peculiarly silly remark. Of course there weren't thousand of bin Laden militants before 2003. For video promos for al Qaeda bin Laden had to hire local tribesmen to take part in military exercises. If the implication is that all the trouble in Iraq is now caused by foreign infiltrators then Hitchens is maintaining a position which even the US army in Baghdad has abandoned. "(10) The training and hardening of many thousands of American servicemen and women in a battle against the forces of nihilism and absolutism, which training and hardening will surely be of great use in future combat." Ludicrous. What is meant by "hardening" ? Getting young men and women used to killing or being killed, expert in torture? Here's an example of "hardening" in action. In Iraq, a funeral was held Monday for Waleed Khaled, the sound technician working for the Reuters news agency who was shot dead by U.S. forces on Sunday. The 35-year-old Khaled, was shot in the face and took at least four bullets to the chest. According to Reuters, U.S. soldiers were heard joking around when Waleed Khaled's family came to the scene of the shooting. As his tearful relatives inspected his corpse, a U.S. soldier said "Don't bother. It's not worth it." A few other soldiers joked among themselves just a few feet from the body. According to Reporters Without Borders Khaled is the 66th journalist to be killed in Iraq since the March 2003 invasion. In comparison, a total of 63 journalists were killed in the Vietnam War. In reality of course what has happened in Iraq is like to give the US army, administration and people a lasting distaste for such ventures. And a significant percentage of the "hardened" troops coming home will exact their protracted toll, in the usual currency of alchoholism, drug abuse and domestic violence.   Remebering Jude Wanniski He suddenly died last week, of a heart attack, at the age of 69. I really liked the man and I'll miss him. Sometime in the late 70s, when I was at the Village Voice, I got a friendly note from Jude Wanniski, who was working on the Wall Street Journal's editorial page. He sent a very funny critique of a feature I'd just had a hand in, on the Military Industrial Complex. This was when Jude was making his name as a brilliant polemicist for the Supply Siders. It wasn't long before he'd given me and Jim Ridgeway a wonderful interview on the supply-side struggle inside the Reagan camp. We called it The Battle for the Mind of Ronald Reagan and it made a big stir. Years later, Martin Anderson, Reagan's man in charge of domestic policy, was still complaining about it years later. Jude may have played a part in my ten-year stint as left wing token on the WSJ's editorial page. I don't know. But I talked to him off and on, and always liked him. He really was in favor of the universal good, had read Marx and thought about him, was completely unafraid of being at odds with conventional thought. He took ideas seriously. He was eased off the WSJ editorial page when some pompous WSJ overlord saw him handing out leaflets for supply-sider Jeffrey Bell who was running for office in New Jersey. Then Jude became an independent agitator, a hammer of the neocons, a passionate foe of the war in Iraq. Some of his positions must have lost him friends in conventional places like his many defenses of Louis Farrakhan . You can google his name on this site's search function and find the excellent pieces of his we ran. We didn't run one, typically enthusiastic, saying in the wake of his dissent on the Kelo decision, that Clarence Thomas should become Chief Justice. These days the libertarian right is turning out more interesting independent agitators than the left. In the old days we had the cranky populists, like Wright Patman or Ralph Yarborough. Not any more. Bernie Sanders? Imagine how boring it would be, sitting on a bus next to that guy for more than ten minutes. But from the "conservative" side have come people like Jude and his old colleague, who now sails weekly under our colors, Paul Craig Roberts. Footnote: An earlier version of section on Hitchens's prowar rationales ran in the print edition of The Nation that went to press last week.     CLARIFICATION ALEXANDER COCKBURN, JEFFREY ST CLAIR, BECKY GRANT AND THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC CLARITY, COUNTERPUNCH We published an article entitled "A Saudiless Arabia" by Wayne Madsen dated October 22, 2002 (the "Article"), on the website of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.org (the "Website"). Although it was not our intention, counsel for Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi has advised us the Article suggests, or could be read as suggesting, that Mr Al Amoudi has funded, supported, or is in some way associated with, the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network. We do not have any evidence connecting Mr Al Amoudi with terrorism. As a result of an exchange of communications with Mr Al Amoudi's lawyers, we have removed the Article from the Website. We are pleased to clarify the position. August 17, 2005

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