Read
Why It Happened!
Dime's
Worth of Difference:
Beyond the
Lesser of Two Evils
Order Here!
Today's
Stories
December
13, 2004
Douglas
Lummis
The Pentagon's Neurosis: Fallujah
Gulag
December
11 / 12, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Running an Empire on the Cheap
Ron
Jacobs
The Drugs of War: Getting High in the Green Zone?
Saul
Landau
Listening and Talking to God About
Invading Other Countries
Gary
Leupp
Bush's Capital
Sharon
Smith
The Horrible Toll on US Troops
Dave
Lindorff
Deja Vu All Over Again: 5,000 Desertions and Counting
Uri
Avnery
The Boss Has Gone Crazy
Jude
Wanniski
The Neo-Con Smear on Kofi Annan: What Food-for-Oil Scandal?
Heather
Gray
How the South Became Republican: an Interview with John Egerton
Patrick
Cockburn / Ken Sengupta
Fallujah: the Homecoming and the Homeless
John
Pilger
Return to Kosovo: Calling the Humanitarian Bombers to Account
Joshua
Frank
All the Rage: Mr. Solomon, Say You're Sorry
Ben
Tripp
O Canada!: the Truth About the Election of 2004
John
Stanton
God Speaks!
Laura
Nathan
Porn Stars are People, Too: a Talk with Christi Lake
Poets'
Basement
Capaccio, Davies, Louise, Ford and Albert
Website
of the Day
Fallujah Photos: Killed in Their Beds
December
10, 2004
Ralph
Nader
President Bush, Stop Destroying the
Mosques of Iraq
Greg
Moses
Whitewashing Voter Fraud
Nicole
Colson
Rebellion in the Ranks: Grunts Are Resisting Stop-Loss Orders
Frederick
B. Hudson
"They Still Got Those Dogs": A New Book Probes Old
Civil Rights Lessons
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq's Insurgents Oppose the Occupation, Not the Elections
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
December 13, 2004
Trashed by the CIA's Claque
Gary
Webb: a Great Reporter
By
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
News came over the weekend that Gary
Webb had died Friday from a gunshot wound to the head in his
home in Sacramento, California. It appears to have been self
inflicted. The news saddens us, and rekindles our anger at the
fouls libels he endured at the hands of his colleagues.
Webb was a great reporter whose
best-known work exposed the CIA'S complicity in the import of
cocaine into the United States in the 1980s, during the US onslaught
on the Sandinista government of Nicaragua. His devastating series
Dark Alliance, published in the San Jose Mercury News in 1996,
provoked a series of wild attacks in the New York Times, Los
Angeles Times and Washington Post, purporting to demolish Webb
and exonerate the Agency.
The attacks were without merit,
but the San Jose Mercury News buckled under the pressure and
undercut its own reporter with a groveling and entirely unmerited
retraction by its publisher. It was a very dark day in the history
of American journalism. We described the entire saga in detail
in our book Whiteout:
the CIA, Drugs and the Press which sets the story in the
larger context of the Agency's complicity in drug smuggling since
its founding.
Webb left the Mercury News,
and expanded his series into his excellent book Dark
Alliance. He also did other fine journalism, notably
in Esquire the definitive expose of what came to be known
as "driving while black", about the system program
of racial profiling by cops across the country. For now, here
is Webb's own, briskly robust account, which he sent us and which
we ran on this site in March, 2001, of the storm over his series,
along with his generous appeal to help a crusading journalistic
enterprise, Narco News.
Later this week we will run
a longer reprise on Webb and his famous series.
March 21, 2001
Silencing the Messenger
Censoring NarcoNews
by Gary Webb
CounterPunch
Not long after I wrote a series
for the San Jose Mercury News about a drug ring that had flooded
South Central Los Angeles with cheap cocaine at the beginning
of the crack explosion there, a strange thing happened to me.
I was silenced.
This, believe it or not, came
as something of a surprise to me. For 17 years I had been writing
newspaper stories about grafters, crooked bankers, corrupt politicians
and killers -- and winning armloads of journalism awards for
it. Some of my stories had convened grand juries and sent important
people to well-deserved jail cells. Others ended up on 20/20,
and later became a best-selling book (not written by me, unfortunately.)
I started doing television news shows, speaking to college journalism
classes and professional seminars. I had major papers bidding
against each other to hire me.
So when I happened across information
implicating an arm of the Central Intelligence Agency in the
cocaine trade, I had no qualms about jumping onto it with both
feet. What did I have to worry about? I was a newspaperman for
a big city, take-no-prisoners newspaper. I had the First Amendment,
a law firm, and a multi-million dollar corporation watching my
back.
Besides, this story was a fucking
outrage. Right-wing Latin American drug dealers were helping
finance a CIA-run covert war in Nicaragua by selling tons of
cocaine to the Crips and Bloods in LA, who were turning it into
crack and spreading it through black neighborhoods nationwide.
And all the available evidence pointed to the sickening conclusion
that elements of the US government had known of it and had either
tacitly encouraged it or, at a minimum, done absolutely nothing
to stop it.
And that's when this strange
thing happened. The national news media, instead of using its
brute strength to force the truth from our government, decided
that its time would be better spent investigating me and my reporting.
They kicked me around pretty good, I have to admit. (At one point,
I was even accused of making movie deals with a crack dealer
I'd written about. The DEA raided my film agent's office looking
for any scrap of paper to back up this lie and appeared disappointed
when they came up emptyhanded.)
To this day, no one has ever
been able to show me a single error of fact in anything I've
written about this drug ring, which includes a 600-page book
about the whole tragic mess. Indeed, most of what has come out
since shows that my newspaper stories grossly underestimated
the extent of our government's knowledge, an error to which I
readily confess. But, in the end, the facts didn't really matter.
What mattered was making the damned thing go away, shutting people
up, and making anyone who demanded the truth appear to be a wacky
conspiracy theorist. And it worked.
As a result, the CIA was allowed
to investigate itself, release a heavily censored report admitting
that it had worked with cocaine traffickers, and simultaneously
declare itself innocent of any wrongdoing. And that's where our
firebrand national news media has let the matter lie to this
day.
Now it's NarcoNews' turn for
the silence treatment. And, if I had to guess, I'd venture to
say that it's probably more important to the folks selling us
the Drug War to shut up Al Giordano than it is to silence mainstream
reporters who, in my father's eloquent words, wouldn't say shit
if they had a mouth full of it.
No one can lean on NarcoNews's
editors, or their bosses, or its board of directors to reign
Al in or, failing that, reassign him to the night copy desk.
The only person they can lean on is Al, who doesn't take to being
leaned on. And they can't shut down the Internet either. So two
choices remain.
They can grit their teeth and
suffer Al's reporting, day after aggravating day, as he exposes
the ugly underside of this endless war on drugs - and actually
makes things happen, like real journalists are supposed to do.
Or they can try to make it impossible for him to do his job by
harassing him with specious lawsuits, bedevil him with lawyers
and depositions and interrogatories and subpoenas, and reduce
him to penury. Why? To silence him. To make him go away. To keep
him from looking under rocks that reporters aren't supposed to
look under.
Make no mistake. This court
fight isn't about any particular story NarcoNews has done. It's
about ALL of them, and all of the ones yet to come. And it's
a battle over the continued independence of Internet journalism
as well. The silencing of Al Giordano and NarcoNews isn't a theoretical
possibility that might happen a couple years from now. It's already
happening. Al and his volunteer lawyers are hip-deep in it right
now. And they need our help.
Narco News and Al Giordano
face an April 9th deadline to respond to the Banamex censorship
lawsuit or they will be declared in default - guilty without
a single fact being heard in a case where the facts prove them
right.
A civil lawsuit is different
than a criminal case: complex legal issues require trained lawyers
to dig through the law books on procedural issues so far from
the basic truths about photographs of cocaine trafficking on
the coast of Mexico. The bank's lawyers at Akin Gump are paid
astronomic fees to raise every small point of process and delay
the day when the facts come to light in New York City court.
If this case goes to trial,
that's when Narco News will triumph. And all of us will win with
it as the real facts of the corruption of the international drug
war come to light in the media center of New York.
The hard part comes right now,
in navigating the maze of irrelevantprocess issues, as any reporter
who has covered the courts has seen. Narco News will either be
able to have skilled attorneys get them through this complicated
phase or - I can see it coming - Al will have to take a long
trip to the law library himself, abandon reporting for the coming
weeks or months in order to wage his own defense. Then you and
I will not be able to read new reports on Narco News at this
key moment when Plan Colombia explodes regionally and more Latin
American voices are raised against the drug war, like the Mexican
police chief yesterday, who, if not for Narco News, would never
be heard by those of us who speak and read in English.
That is what is at stake: Whether
a skilled reporter has to retire for months to become a pro se
lawyer, or whether he can continue reporting the facts to us.
I was silenced but am not silenced
any more. When, the other day, the film rights to my book Dark
Alliance about US complicity in the cocaine trade were purchased
for a television movie, I wrote Al to pledge part of those proceeds
to his defense. In the years to come, there is no question that
Narco News will be proven right and will be helping the next
generation of reporters fight efforts to censor them.
But wouldn't it be wonderful
if this time the censors failed entirely to take Al and Narco
News out of circulation, for a year, for months, even for a week?
Wouldn't that be the best deterrent against bankers and lobbyists
from waging these frivolous lawsuits against Free Speech on the
Internet? I understand that Narco News needs only about $13,000
more to be able to have the most difficult stage of the lawsuit
process - that which it faces immediately - handled with professional
legal assistance, thus allowing Al to continue expending his
energy and time in reporting to us the facts. One person of means
could solve this problem with a check. Two dozen people giving
$500 could do it. 130 people giving a hundred dollars... you
can do the math: If half of Narco News' readers give one dollar
each, Narco News will keep publishing.
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
|