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New Exposés in Special Print Edition of CounterPunch CIA's Overthrow Plans for Iran Agency musters Swiftboat vets, pumps funding into destabilization program aimed at Teheran. Trish Schuh reveals how White House approves race-baiting smears of Islam. Remember how Leadbelly got ripped off by Lomax, how Louis Armstrong's agent got richer than his most famous client? The rip-offs never die. Fred Wilhelms narrates how artists and musicians are being shafted in the age of the internet. Meet the real Judge John Roberts, serf for big business. Cockburn and St Clair dissect the Court's new nominee. Tailhook vet and self-proclaimed Tom Cruise model bites dust in Pentagon scandal: a defense industry parable. St. Clair on Duke Cunningham's Crash Landing. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only 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! CounterPunch's Hot New T-Shirts for Women! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by Kathy Kelly Click Here to Order 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly's Harrowing First-hand Account of Iraq Under the Squeeze of Sanctions and Missiles of Shock and Awe! Today's Stories August 3, 2005 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                                                             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.     Subscribe Online

August 3, 2005 In Memoriam: Innocent Victims of 8/6/45 and 9/11/01 From Hiroshima to Lower Manhattan By WILLIAM A. COOK The Twin Tower atrocity allowed for a moment of reflection, a chance for Americans to look inward, to see the world as those beyond our borders see us, victims of a horror too incredible to contemplate, the intentional detonation of civilian structures with the explicit and calculated knowledge that innocent lives would be cremated beyond recognition. And, indeed, the reaction was visceral in the heart of every American! How instantaneous the response to the crumbling towers on the part of all Americans. How galvanized the response across America, with an outpouring of money for the fallen firefighters and police, the mourning for the relatives of the victims, and the flooding of the blood banks. All felt the impact, shared the loss, and suffered the anguish of those who fled in terror the flaming debris, the falling stone, the blowing ash. Americans knew first-hand the horror of war at home. But Americans, for the most part, know little or nothing of the actions taken in their name that have given birth to the visceral hatred, evident throughout the world, that plagues their every step. Lacking that awareness, they followed without question their leader's plea to go to war against the evil forces that wanted to destroy America's "freedoms." That war, first in Afghanistan, then in Iraq, sent wave upon wave of bombers to unleash untold tons of explosives on untold numbers of civilians who suffered the revenge of America's determination to destroy its unknown enemy. But as I reflect on this galvanizing of America's desire to eradicate its enemy, I begin to understand that we have not merged our feelings with the feelings of those who have suffered at our hands in Europe, in Asia, and in the mid-East. What we experienced on 9/11, a deplorable atrocity that took the lives of 3000 people, that brought havoc and chaos to our people for weeks on end, that destroyed a collection of buildings on approximately four acres of land in the middle of a city, could not compare to the totality of devastation wrought by American bombing on Fallujah, or Baghdad, or Lebanon, or Cambodia, or Hanoi, or Dresden, or Tokyo, or Hiroshima. That these acts were seen as acts of war by most Americans does not erase the impact of the slaughter they brought to thousands of innocent people caught in the accepted euphemism that allows the innocent to be sacrificed on the altar of collateral damage. To bring the American mind to a point of recognition that allows for comparison of the suffering we have inflicted against others as a possible rationale for the hatred that has been leveled at America is a task beyond our powers. But something has driven millions around the world to look at America as a fearsome power willing and able to devastate smaller states to achieve its goals and to protect its purported interests. Why? Why this attitude about America? As I reflect on times in my own life when America unleashed its mighty power on those incapable of defending themselves, I need only consider the firebombing of Dresden. "On the evening of February 13, 1945, an orgy of genocide and barbarism began against a defenseless German city, one of the great cultural centers of northern Europe. Within less than 14 hours, not only was it reduced to flaming ruins, but an estimated one third of its inhabitants, possibly as many as half a million, had perished in what was the worst single event massacre of all time." ("The WWII Dresden Holocaust"). Dresden had no military installations, no aircraft to defend it, no munitions factories, only factories that produced cigarettes and china, and a hospital filled to overflowing. 700,000 phosphorus bombs dropped on 1.2 million people, 1 for every 2 people, where the heat reached 1600 degrees centigrade, in a bombing raid that lasted over 14 hours. Those who lived through this Hell on earth had to pile the bodies on huge pyres for cremation, 260,000 bodies counted; the remaining dead, indistinguishable, melted into the cement or charred beyond recognition. "In just over an hour, four square miles of the city--equivalent to all of lower Manhattan from Madison Square Garden to Battery Park--was a roaring inferno." (Murray Sayle, "Did the Bomb End the War?") We Americans gasped at the horror of four acres of destruction and 3000 dead; we could now, should we but reflect on time past, understand how others felt when they endured a slaughter of far greater proportions. This horrendous description of our might has been repeated over and over again since WWII and during it. Tokyo and 63 other Japanese cities felt the brunt of America's air power. "334 Super fortresses flew at altitudes ranging from 4,900 feet to 9,200 feet above their target (Tokyo) ...For three hours waves of B-29s unleashed their cargo upon the dense city below... the water in the rivers reached the boiling point ...83,793 killed and 40,918 injured, a total of 265,171 buildings were destroyed and 15.8 square miles of the city burned to ashes."(Christian Lew, "The Strategic Bombing of Japan"). Then came Hiroshima. "... the bomb instantly vaporized, at a temperature of several million degrees centigrade, creating a fireball and radiating immense amounts of heat... Heat radiated by the bomb exposed skin more than two miles from the hypocenter... between seventy thousand and eighty thousand people are estimated to have died on August 6, with more deaths from radiation sickness spread over the ensuing days, months, and years." (Murray Sayle, "Did the Bomb End the War") Consider these statistics: the Germans "dropped 80,000 tons of bombs on Britain in more than five years"; America dropped over 100,000 tons in a month on Indochina, and between Lyndon Johnson and Nixon, America delivered "7 million tons of bombs on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos," far more than we, and the British, unleashed on Germany and Japan in all of WWII. Nixon found reason for this devastation in his anger that North Vietnam had broken off peace talks in Paris. That brings us to our illegal invasion of Iraq, an invasion we now know was engineered years in advance of 9/11 and for reasons that had nothing to do with the purported "war on terror." We also know that we did it to aid Israel in its desire to destroy one of their enemies, a nemesis that supported "freedom fighters" against Israeli occupation of the land of Palestine. And today we have a second letter from Osama bin Laden, delivered via video, that proclaimed for a second time that Israel's subjugation of the indigenous population in Palestine and its continued "cleansing" to rid the land of them, is a reason for the destruction caused by 9/11. Now, 100,000 civilian deaths later, close to 2000 American soldiers dead, cities in ruins, and the people in revolution against the American oppressor, we, as a nation, have chosen to continue our unilateral aggression making America more of a pariah nation and even less likely to share the grief of millions who have suffered at our hands. And that returns me to that horrific morning of 9/11. How to demonstrate the enormity of that act, yet put it in relationship to time past that we might share the torment of those who have felt the oppressor's boot and the wanton slaughter of innocents? In reflection days after 9/11, I had a vision of Hiroshima's ashen landscape stretching for miles as far as the eye could see, an image indelibly marked on my mind as a young child. But in that barren waste rose the Twin Towers, silhouetted against the distant hills and sky, a reference point for reflection just before the planes struck, turning them into candles to light the darkness that shrouds the fields of death that once stood as the city of Hiroshima. Perhaps in the light of those candles we might see, what we have not wanted to see in our ignorance, that we have spread pestilence and death throughout the world and now we are reaping the whirlwind. Notes: Permission to use photos of the Twin Towers has been granted by Ms. Donna Young, a freelance photographer now resident in India, and by Triroc.com. I am most appreciative for their willingness to share their artistry. I also wish to acknowledge the creative technical support of Ms. Sarah Lesniak of the University's Teaching and Learning Center.   William Cook is a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California. His new book, Psalms for the 21st Century, was published by Mellen Press. He can be reached at: cookb@ULV.EDU