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Coming in August! Dime's Worth of Difference: Beyond the Lesser of Two Evils Order Now! Today's Stories August 14 / 15, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair War on the Poor: "A Risk No Sane Person Would Take" M. Shahid Alam The Civilizing Mission: Some Economic Results Saul Landau God and Botox John Ross Echoes of Mexico City, 1968 Katherine Lahey "Uh! Ah! Chávez No Se Va!": Democracy and Venezuela Medea Benjamin Hugo Chavez and the Poor of Venezuela Yves Engler The Media and the Venezuela Referendum Justin Podur The NYTs and Chavez: More Than the Usual Bias Eric Drooker Gaza Stripped Dave Lindorff A29 Could be a Very Slow Day Rebecca Brigham The Aftermath of Guatemala's Strike: Promises Still Unfulfilled   August 13, 2004 Lee Sustar Report from Caracas Mickey Z. McProtests R Us: Why are the Dems Trying to Gag Anti-War Protesters? Stan Goff There He Goes Again: Kerry's "Energy" Plan Norman Madarasz Thoughts on Najaf: How Could the US Ever Be Considered a "Terrorist" State? Victor Kattan Press Freedom, Censorship and the War on Terror Oscar Heck Is Mendoza Off His Rocker? Chavez Opponents Pledge to Post Results Online Before Polls Close CounterPunch Wire Military Families File "Stop Loss" Suit Milan Rai Najaf: Bush Started It Website of the Day The Yes Men   August 12, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair How Bush Got (and Lost) His Wings Lenni Brenner Take It on Faith: Kerry's See-Through-Monk's Robe Lee Ballinger The Coors and the Kerrys: Drink Up, Kids! Tariq Ali The Handover Fiction Yves Engler What's at Stake in Venezuela William S. Lind Seeing Through the Other Side's Eyes Christopher Brauchli Getting Bush's Goat Website of the Day The Sucker Puncher   August 11, 2004 Ceylon Mooney Who Woke Up Sen. Joe?: Watchers of the NJ Turnpike Voices in the Wilderness Hands Off Najaf Ray McGovern Porter Goss as CIA Director? Robert Jensen US Supports Anti-Democratic Forces in Venezuelan Recall Annie Higgins In Memory of Nick Pretzlik: As Good as It Gets Alexander Cockburn Bush v. Kerry: Not Even a Dime's Worth of Difference Website of the Day Nick Pretzlik   August 10, 2004 William A. Cook Silencing the Voice of the People Todd Chretien California Greens at the Crossroads: Will It Be Nader or Cobb? Dave Lindorff Chicago on the Hudson? Richard Gott Loathed by the Rich: Why Chavez is Headed for a Big Win Toni Solo Bluebeard's Castle: Disappearing the Right to Development Dave Zirin Carl Eller's Plea Rep. Ron Paul Police State, USA Patrick Cockburn If the Chalabis Were Corrupt, They Weren't Alone Website of the Day The Surveillance-Industrial Complex   Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase   August 9, 2004 Tito Tricot Pinochet Must Still be Tried: a Murderer and a Thief on the Loose Ron Jacobs In Memory of Deep Throat: the Day Nixon Was Gone Norm Dixon Crisis in Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West's Tears for Darfur Kurt Nimmo The Politics of Entrapment Elaine Cassel Welcome to Bush's America Gary Leupp Why Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria   August 7 / 8, 2004 James Petras The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib Fred Gardner Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain Justin Delacour Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela Brian Cloughley Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd? Joshua Frank The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader Iain A. Boal On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection Chris Floyd All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome Andrew Fenton Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti Aseem Shrivastava Saga of an Anguished Afghan Neil Corbett See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush Carol Miller / Forrest Hill Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote Tarek Milleron Breaking the Principled Voter Donald Macintyre The Battle of Najaf Ron Jacobs Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies Mickey Z. Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO Poets' Basement Adler, Ford and Albert     August 6, 2004 Joshua Frank David Cobb's Soft Charade: the Greens and the Politics of Mendacity Derek Seidman An Interview with Stan Goff Mike Whitney The Arbitrary Imprisonment of Jose Padilla William S. Lind Corruption in the Marine Corps David Price In the Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki     August 5, 2004 Mike Ferner The Kerry Show: When Peace is Off Message Bruce Anderson Two Rejections Robert Fisk The Tale of Saddam's Cameraman Todd Chretien Florida Comes to California: the Democrats' Plot Against Nader Peter Linebaugh Doing Time for Political Crime: Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail     August 4, 2004 Mickey Z. Two Traditions: WMD and Disinformation Justin Huggler The Hunt for Bin Laden John Ross Mexico's Dirty War Never Ended: Inside Puente Grande Prison   August 3, 2004 Uri Avnery The Oligarchs Ray McGovern The 9/11 Commission Chimera Jack McCarthy Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida Eric Ruder Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star John L. Hess Crying Wolf: Orange Alert! Elaine Cassel Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004 Jules Rabin The Man Who Didn't Walk By Website of the Day No Wall   August 2, 2004 Robert Jensen Kerry's Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War Joshua Frank Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity Mike Whitney The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American Police State" Gary Leupp Beyond Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions July 31 / Aug. 1, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Kerry: He's the (Any) One Merlin Chowkwanyun Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of a Narrow Policy Spectrum" David Lindorff The Shame of the DNC John Chuckman The Disturbing Words of John Edwards Brian Cloughley All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility Christopher Brauchli "Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face of Compassionate Conservatism Fred Gardner A World of Pain Michael Donnelly How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly David Nally Genocide in Darfur? Joshua Frank Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon Sam Bahour Colin Powell and My Grandmother Diane Farsetta The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the Voting Booth Harold Gould Was Iraq a Mutual Charade? Van Bergen / Stephens Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater Lee Sustar A New Model for the Labor Movement? Ron Jacobs The Lost Art of Hitchhiking M. Junaid Alam An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik Poets Basement Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair Website of the Weekend Cross Cultural Poetics   July 30, 2004 Kolhatkar / Ingalls Shattering Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not Wanted Dave Lindorff Murder Not So Foul? Bruce Jackson Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice Fidel Castro The Pathology of George W. Bush Maximilien Robespierre Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist Saul Landau Bush Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave   July 29, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair Hail, the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam Frank Bardacke What Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11 Tom Barry Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan Ron Jacobs Kerry and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture Robert Fisk The Unreported War Lichtman / Kellis-Borok What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't) William S. Lind The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure CounterPunch Wire Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971! Website of the Day Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness       July 28, 2004 Robert Fisk The Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of the Dead Kevin Mink Kerry's Misperception of Palestine Ray McGovern Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root Causes United for Peace & Justice An Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots Mike Ferner Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face Impeachment Mvt." Imraan Siddiqi Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter Alexander Cockburn Candidate Kerry Website of the Day Iraq Vets Against the War   July 27, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Why the Democrats Deserve Nader Dave Lindorff Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming! Mike Whitney Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al. If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez Stefan Wray Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs Louis Proyect Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then the Sweatshops Rick Giombetti Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz Bill and Kathleen Christison The 9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine; Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism     July 26, 2004 Todd Chretien Green Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin Robert Fisk Terror by Video Richard Forno Security Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing Flaws at the Fleet Center Mitchel Cohen Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious Richard Moreno Rockers for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian Alexander Cockburn Boston Awaits a Dead Party     July 24 / 25, 2004 Alexander Cockburn The Democrats and Their Conventions: Part One Dennis Hans Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush Patrick Cockburn The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning Josh Frank The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject the Peace Movement Justin E.H. Smith Christianity and the Left: the Latin American Experience Tariq Ali What's at Stake in Venezuela Fred Gardner The Politics of Pot: Year of the Antagonist Mark Scaramella There's Dope and There's Dope Ron Jacobs The Weather Underground's Prairie Fire Statement...35 Years On     July 23, 2004 Lee Sustar Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years On Dave Lindorff Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters 0 Saul Landau Zaniest President in US History: Bush Beats Reagan Mike Whitney The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No One Mickey Z Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth Jennings Gary Leupp The 9/11 Commission and the Looming War on Iran   July 22, 2004 M. Junaid Alam Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat Brian McKinlay Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon Jason Leopold Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While CEO of Halliburton Chris Floyd Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths Uri Avnery Chirac v. Sharon   July 21, 2004 Paula J. Caplan The Emotional Casualities of War: Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage Joshua Frank Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's be Fair Ron Jacobs American Exceptionalism Reza Ghorashi The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda Amy Martin Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals? John Ross Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go On and On   July 20, 2004 Stan Cox The Bush / Kerry War Ticket Chris Randolph An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb! Forrest Hylton The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum Mark Scaramella It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the Rest of California Sam Bahour The World is Knocking on Israel's Door George Reiter A Defense of David Cobb John Ross Burying Iraq, Burying Bush John L. Hess Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co. Website of the Day This Land is Your Land     July 19, 2004 Uri Avnery Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of Paris Col. Dan Smith What Has Been Accomplished? Mike Whitney Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol Karyn Strickler Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage Robert Fisk The Crisis of Information in Baghdad David Swanson Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition to Iraq War Jennifer van Bergen The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty   July 17 / 18, 2004 Gary Leupp Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations is Must Reading Ghada Karmi Vanishing the Palestinians Lenni Brenner When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader Ben Tripp Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story Brandy Baker What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry? M. Shahid Alam Israel Builds Another Wall Sasan Fayazmanesh Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA Patrick Bond The George Bush of Africa Fred Gardner Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics William Blum Bush and Thucydides Ben Terrall Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything Wrong with a General Running the Country" Tom Barry John Lehman on the War Path David Vest Dylan Without the Music Phyllis Pollack Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons Ron Jacobs Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out Joshua Frank Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!" David Nally A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot Toni Solo Bolivia's Gas Referendum Landau, Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff Three Reviews of Moore's F911 Poets's Basement Ford, Smith and Albert     July 16, 2004 Dave Zirin Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up Shervan Sardar Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws Ron Jacobs The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War Plank Robert Fisk Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe: Coffin Bombs in Baghdad Greg Moses The Forts of Iraq Mickey Z. Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV Dan Bacher A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes Dave Lindorff The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP, But a Movement in Shambles Paul McGeough Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood? Website of the Day 10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)       July 15, 2004 Heather Williams McMissing the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message Werther Iraq: Follow the Money Tom Crumpacker The Birds of Guantanamo Brian Cloughley What Does the Bush Regime Object To? Bill Christison Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But...   July 14, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers Neve Gordon Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall Diane Christian The Priesthood of Death Stefan Wray Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab? Josh Frank The Nader / Dean Debate Conn Hallinan Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education Website of the Day Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire     July 13, 2004 Ray McGovern The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse Mark Donham The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney Ben Tripp Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates? Mark Gaffney Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq Dave Lindorff Osama Wins! Election Postponed! Chris White Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination     July 10 / 12, 2004 Kathleen Christison The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel Janine Pommy Vega Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War Sherry Wolf From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen A Transfer of Power, Sort Of Michael Donnelly How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004 Stanton / Madsen Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda? Richard Lichtman The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology Gila Svirsky Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall Kurt Nimmo Clinton's Life Toni Solo Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers and the Rest Camelo Ruiz Marrero Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize Omar Barghouti Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance Poets' Basement Curtis and Albert   July 9, 2004 Dave Zirin Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War Justin Delacour Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America Robert Fisk Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency Boris Kagarlitsky Two Congresses and a Funeral William S. Lind The October Surprises Sibel Edmonds Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth Ron Jacobs Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future Gary Leupp The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link   July 8, 2004 Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Inexplicable John McCain Toufic Haddad Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent Dave Lindorff Liberation as Martial Law Joshua Frank The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean Christopher Brauchli Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card James Petras The Truth About Jimmy Carter   July 7, 2004 John Chuckman Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning Virginia Tilley A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike Susan Martinez A Letter to Bill Cosby Mickey Z Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade Michael Donnelly Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire Sean Donahue Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown Diane Christian Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq   July 6, 2004 Lisa Viscidi Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte Marc Norton The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants James Brooks Chemical Warfare on the West Bank? Ray McGovern Porter Goss as CIA Director? William Cook Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...   July 5, 2004 Forrest Hylton US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture Chris White A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day Joe Bageant Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July Robert Jensen Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire Kathy Kelly "Two Days an' a Wake-Up"   July 3 / 4, 2004 Elaine Cassel Bush's Police State and Independence Day Stan Goff ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti Snehal Shingavi "We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out Bruce Anderson The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens Sharon Smith Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush" Josh Frank Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates Robert Fisk Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing Joe Bageant Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite! Brian Cloughley Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine Justin Delacour The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons William S. Lind Saudi Spillover Linda S. Heard A Joke Called "Justice" Greg Moses "It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down Ron Jacobs "Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?" Toni Solo Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There Dan Nagengast Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It? Stew Albert Brando, a Personal Recollection Dave Zirin From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando Patrick W. Gavin The Progressive Case for Dodgeball Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911 Poets' Basement Kearney, Ford and Davies Website of the Day Global Peace Solution   July 2, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party Douglas Valentine Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism Gary Leupp "Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities Lee Ballinger Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights Robert Fisk Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly CounterPunch Wire "What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment Christopher Brauchli Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right Saul Landau Buzz Words and Venezuela   July 1, 2004 Katherine van Wormer Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method Joe Bageant Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter? William James Martin The Dogma of Richard Perle Dave Lindorff Bush's Evacuation Moment Robert Fisk Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq Alan Maass Green Party in Reverse Website of the Day Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?     June 30, 2004 Kurt Nimmo Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush Tariq Ali Getting Away with Murder in Iraq Jennifer Van Bergen Bush and the Detainees Douglas Valentine Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American David Price Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass Roger Normand America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq Stan Cox Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art Henry David Thoreau On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming Ben Tripp Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof                       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

Weekend Edition August 14 / 15, 2004 The Carter Center's Jennifer McCoy Can She be an Impartial Observer of Venezuela's Referendum? By JUSTIN DELACOUR and DIANA BARAHONA Caracas. The most internationally recognized observer mission that is monitoring today's recall referendum on the government of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias is the Carter Center, founded by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. In view of the fact that both national and international opinion of Venezuela's political conflict is highly polarized, the Carter Center's evaluation of the referendum process is likely to influence both the level of political stability in the country and the international reaction to its electoral outcome. Thus, the question of how the Carter Center might respond to the claims and counter-claims of Venezuela's political actors today is a pertinent one. In the face of projections that the Chavez government is poised to win yet another popular mandate, the business-led political opposition appears increasingly desperate. Some sectors of the opposition have announced their intention to release the results of their own exit polls at 2 P.M. today, five hours before the voting centers are scheduled to close. According to the Venezuelan publication Diario Vea, the Carter Center's lead observer --University of Georgia political science professor Jennifer McCoy-- has indirectly criticized the opposition's decision to release early and unofficial results. Dr. McCoy reportedly declared that all political actors should wait for the announcement of results by the accredited governmental body, the National Electoral Council. Opposition leader Enrique Mendoza's argument in favor of preemptively releasing unofficial results as a means to counteract possible fraud by the government appears illogical on its face. Why would a government risk jeopardizing the integrity of an electoral process when it holds a commanding lead in the polls, including polls commissioned by the opposition itself? The more likely motive behind an early announcement of unofficial results would be to lay the basis for accusations of governmental fraud and to discourage late voters in the poorer neighborhoods --where Chavez's support is highest-- from going to the polls. The Role of International Observers As Latin America increasingly challenges the neoliberal policies that have long been foisted upon it by U.S.-dominated international financial institutions, one might hope that --for the Carter Center to remain a reputable international observer mission-- it would seek to disassociate itself from U.S. foreign policy objectives. However, despite Dr. McCoy's principled reaffirmation of the National Electoral Council's authority over the Venezu ela's electoral process, it remains to be seen if Dr. McCoy is capable of acting as a disinterested mediator in the ongoing conflict between the opposition --which has bipartisan backing from most of the U.S. political establishment-- and the Chavez government. Unfortunately, McCoy has not always demonstrated political impartiality in her assessments of Venezuela's political actors, nor does she seem to disassociate herself from U.S. imperial prerogatives in her articles and presentations concerning Venezuela. In testimony before a U.S. subcommittee hearing on March 15, 2000, Dr. McCoy clearly placed the Venezuelan government in the category of "new, subtler forms of authoritarianism through the electoral option" In her declared quest to "deter new hybrid democracies," McCoy called for continued U.S. government support of the Carter Center, claiming that such funding represented a "neutral and professional means to improve the electoral process." She also portrayed the Chavez government in the same light as Peruvian ex-President Alberto Fujimori, stating: The recent State Department messages in fact warning against President Fujimori's manhandling of the electoral process are welcome, but need to be sustained and spread to other countries, including Venezuela, which is coming up on very crucial elections in May. What was most remarkable about Dr. McCoy's blatant call for U.S. government meddling in Venezuela's electoral affairs was that, unlike in the Peruvian case, there had never been any significant allegations of electoral fraud in either Chavez's 1998 election or in the plebiscites that his government sponsored in following years. Dr. McCoy's call for U.S. pressure on the Chavez government appeared to have had little to do with how free and fair the electoral process had actually been under Chavez. Dr. McCoy's suggestion that the Carter Center's reliance on U.S. government funding reinforced its neutrality and professionalism was highly questionable. Clearly there is a conflict of interest implicit in the Carter Center's reliance on U.S. government funding, especially in cases in which almost the entire U.S. political establishment favors one political side over the other (as in the case of Venezuela). McCoy to Chavez: Mind your manners In an article that McCoy co-wrote with fellow Carter Center associate Laura Neuman for the February 2001 issue of Current History, the authors unmistakably portray Chavez as childish and irresponsible for "thumbing his nose at the West." "He embraces world pariahs and seems to enjoy provoking the United States," write McCoy and Neuman. It is worthwhile to examine the authors' use of language. The labeling of some of Chavez's allies as "pariahs" --a term that is almost exclusively applied to militarily weak regimes that periodically violate international law or internationally-accepted democratic norms-- is politically loaded. The term "pariah" is virtually never applied to large, militarily powerful states that violate international law with impunity, such as in the case of Ronald Reagan's contra war against Nicaragua in the 1980s or George W. Bush's "preemptive" war against Iraq. After the United States underwent what could be described --up to this point-- as the Western Hemisphere's most questionable presidential election in the early 21st Century, few mainstream journalistic or scholarly sources question the United States' adherence to internationally-accepted democratic norms. Generally speaking, mainstream usage of politically loaded terms such as "pariahs" fulfills a useful propaganda function for U.S. power-holders; mainstream U.S. scholars and journalists tend to parrot the U.S. State Department's definition of "world pariahs" but fail to apply the same standards to their own government. Equally interesting is McCoy and Neuman's use of the term "provocative." By what logical standard could one argue that Chavez provokes the United States? In common parlance, one state's provocation against another generally involves some type of threat to another state's security. McCoy and Neuman cite Chavez's calls for "a new foreign policy" to create a "counterbalance to United States dominance in the Western Hemisphere" as an apparent provocation against the U.S. One such example that McCoy and Neuman point to is the Venezuelan government's initial opposition to the U.S.-backed Plan Colombia, combined with Chavez's denial of American requests to allow U.S. "drug-surveillance planes" to fly over Venezuelan airspace. In other words, the Venezuelan government's defense of its national sovereignty in the face of a U.S.-sponsored militarized solution to a neighboring country's civil conflict was "provocative," according to McCoy and Neuman. But, in this case, it's worthwhile to ask which governments have operated in a truly "provocative" manner. Is it not "provocative" for U.S. administrations --which have been clearly hostile to the Chavez government-- to increase their military presence in a country that borders Venezuela? According to McCoy and Neuman, Chavez has created "tensions" with Colombia by "verbally supporting leftist guerrillas fighting against the Colombian government." Perhaps if McCoy and Neuman had bothered to listen to the Venezuelan government's actual statements about Colombia's civil conflict --instead of the gross distortions peddled by U.S. intelligence and Venezuela's opposition media-- they would find that the Venezuelan government has never made public statements "supporting" Colombia's guerrillas. Rather, the government adopted a position of neutrality with regard to Colombia's civil conflict and offered to broker negotiations for a peaceful settlement of the conflict. Economic "provocations"? Clearly, neither Venezuela nor its Latin American allies represent a military threat to the United States. Rather, the threat that U.S. power-holders perceive from the Chavez government seems to be more economic in nature. This "threat" is not one of economic ruin, such as that which Venezuela faced during the opposition-sponsored and U.S.-supported campaign of economic sabotage from December 2002 to February 2003, but rather one of diminished U.S. economic domination of the hemisphere, something that U.S. administrations find unacceptable. The Clinton and Bush administrations have pushed for free trade agreements in the hemisphere, which Dr. McCoy also strongly supports. In testimony before a House subcommittee on March 15, 2000, Dr. McCoy called for the reintroduction of presidential fast track authority for the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the extension of NAFTA-style agreements to Central America and the Caribbean. Perhaps not coincidentally, McCoy's views on trade contrast starkly with that of President Chavez, who argues that FTAA would be tantamount to U.S. economic annexation of Latin America; Chavez advocates a South American economic bloc independent of the U.S. Might Dr. McCoy's general support for U.S. economic and geo-political objectives diminish her ability to observe Venezuela's electoral process in a balanced fashion? One apparent bias demonstrated by Dr. McCoy is her failure to hold opposition leaders accountable for their role in the political and economic destabilization of the country. For example, she treats the failed coup of April 11, 2002 as almost a natural reaction to Chavez's behavior, as demonstrated by the following passage from the Carter Center's website: Despite early approval ratings exceeding 80%, his leadership style was confrontational, and the country became extremely divided and polarized, culminating in an attempted coup against him.... Clearly, such a simplistic explanation exempts certain sectors of the opposition from their responsibility for contributing to the political instability that led to the failed coup. Neither does Dr. McCoy take the opposition to task for its subsequent attempt to force Chavez out through business-led economic stoppage, which resulted in a massive economic contraction and greater socio-economic deprivation of the population. There is a steady and disturbing theme in McCoy's narrative of Venezuela. According to this narrative, the powerful sectors that oppose the Chavez government --both Venezuela's economic elite and the United States government-- are essentially beyond reproach. In McCoy's analysis, these sectors are not generally held accountable for their actions; rather, according to McCoy, these sectors are "provoked" by the Chavez government's insufficient subservience to their interests. Based on the unspoken assumption that the economic interests of Chavez's powerful adversaries should remain essentially untouchable, the Chavez government becomes the guilty party by definition. The basic and disturbing premise of McCoy's argument is that any significant challenge to the economic interests of domestic economic elites and the U.S. government is impermissible within a "democratic" framework, irregardless if the electorate has specifically granted the government a popular mandate to loosen these sectors' stranglehold over the country. Where does the Carter Center go from here? Hopefully Dr. McCoy may eventually come to reassess the basic assumptions upon which she has operated with regard to Venezuela's political conflict. For a leading representative of the Carter Center to adopt a subtly hostile approach to a democratically-elected government and to serve as an apologist for U.S. bullying in the region may not be befitting of an "impartial" electoral observer. One hopes that Dr. McCoy will set these biases aside today and perform the constructive role of impartially observing Venezuela's electoral process and respecting the country's legitimate electoral outcome. Meanwhile, for the Carter Center to remain a reputable international observer mission in the Americas, it may have to reconsider whether it is appropriate for it to allow itself to be publicly represented by a scholar with openly partisan tendencies.     Weekend Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004 James Petras The Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of Abu Ghraib Fred Gardner Run Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain Justin Delacour Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela Brian Cloughley Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd? Joshua Frank The Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader Iain A. Boal On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection Chris Floyd All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome Andrew Fenton Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti Aseem Shrivastava Saga of an Anguished Afghan Neil Corbett See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush Carol Miller / Forrest Hill Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only 12% of the Vote Tarek Milleron Breaking the Principled Voter Donald Macintyre The Battle of Najaf Ron Jacobs Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies Mickey Z. Kid Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO Poets' Basement Adler, Ford and Albert WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /