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December 4, 2001
Rep. Ron Paul
Keep Your
Eye on the Target
Susan
Herman
Ashcroft
and the Patriot Act
Tariq Ali
The Afghan
King and the Nazis
November 30, 2001
Jordan
Green
Disappeared
in the Southland
Willliam Blum
Rebuilding
Afghanistan?
November 29, 2001
Phillip
Cryan
Defining
Terrorism
Robert Fisk
We Are the
War Criminals Now
November 28, 2001
Tom Turnipseed
A
Continuum of Terror
Patrick Cockburn
Tribal
Council:
Don't Blame It All on Taliban
Robert
Fisk
At
Last, The Truth about the Sabra and Chatila Massacres
Harry Browne
The Bill of
Rights:
They Threw It All Away
Sunil
Sharma
Suffer
Palestine's Children
November 27, 2001
Paul Coggins
Kafka and
the Patriot Act
Tariq
Ali
Tigris
and Euprhates
November 26, 2001
Robert Fisk
Blood and
Tears in Kandahar
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Boeing's
Sweet Deal
CounterPunch Wire
Human
Rights Abuses and
Nuke Waste Shipments
Alexander
Cockburn
Harry
Potter and Terrorism
November 25, 2001
Ralph Nader
The Crisis
in Leadership
Sam Bahour
Israel's
Choice
November 24, 2001
Patrick Cockburn
He Who
Has
the Guns Rules
November 20, 2001
Sam Bahour
Plain
Truths About Palestine
Michael Ratner
Moving Toward
a
Police State
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
November 19, 2001
Edward
Said
Suicidal
Ignorance
November 18, 2001
John Farley
Shame on You,
Chelsea!
Resources:
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About 9/11
CounterPunch:
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Seattle and Beyond
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8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
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CounterPunch
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How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
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December
5, 2001
Questions Barbara Walters
Didn't Ask George W. Bush
By Don Williams
Last Thursday, ABC News announced that Barbara
Walters would interview President Bush for the December 5th 20/20
broadcast. ABC News asked viewers to submit questions for Walters
to ask Mr Bush.
The transcript of this interview is now
up on ABC
's web site.
I think Ms. Walters softball questions,
as shown in the transcript, illustrate the extent to which the
news media is in the pocket of the White House.
What follows are some questions I submitted
to ABC News for the interview:
Mr. President: In a 1998 ABC interview,
Osama Bin Laden stated that a Jihad was justified because of
America's support for Israel against Muslim Palestinians. This
past summer, Sharon attacked several Palestinian sites with US-made
F-16 fighter jets --while the US government looked on. Yet now,
several recent news stories based on White House sources have
claimed that you were secretly promoting a Palestinian peace
plan and a Palestinian state at the end of August. Question:
If these stories are true, why did you approve Lockheed Martin's
sale of 52 new F-16 jet fighters to Israel on September 5, precisely
one week prior to the September 11 attack?
The F-16s sale was criticized in the
Arab world on Sept 8. In a November 9 interview with Pakistan's
Ausaf newspaper, Bin Laden justified the Sept 11attack by noting
that the US government sells advanced weapons to Israel which
Israel then uses to kill Muslim Palestinians. Wasn't the Sept
11 attack triggered by the sale of the F-16s?
Vice President Dick Cheney's wife, Lynne
Cheney, was on Lockheed's Board of Directors from 1994 until
January of this year. Did she have any influence on White House
approval of the F-16 sale? Were the jobs provided to Fort Worth
Texas by the sale a factor?
Mr. President: Several huge oil deposits
have been found in the Caspian Sea area north of Afghanistan
--especially in Kazakhstan. When VP Dick Cheney was CEO of Halliburton,
he served on Kazakhstan's Oil Advisory Board and his recent energy
report advocated that you direct the Cabinet to "deepen
their commercial dialogue with Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and other
Caspian states." While CEO, Mr. Cheney lobbied for relaxation
of US sanctions against Iran so that a pipeline could be built
to carry Caspian oil to a tanker terminal on the Indian Ocean.
Given China's projected demand for oil over the next 30 years,
the potential profits are huge. Question: Will US oil companies's
desire for a pipeline to Kazakhstan via Afghanistan/Pakistan
influence who the US government supports for the post-Taliban
government?
Mr. President: Your February 2001 budget
indicates that you will pay for your income tax cut by borrowing
heavily from the government Trusts (Social Security, Medicare,etc.)
over the next ten years. By 2011, the Trust Funds will be holding
$6 Trillion in IOUs, which your Economic Advisor Lawrence Lindsey
has noted are "not real assets". When the huge baby
boomer generation begins retiring in 2011, the government will
need to repay the IOUs in 2011-2031--i.e., the government will
need to run a $300 Billion/year surplus for twenty years. How
will they do that?
If we cannot run a real surplus today,
in the boomers peak earning years, then how will we do so when
a large portion of the population retires?
Follow-up: The US spends more on defense
than the next 13 largest military powers. We spend $350 Billion/year
while our major allies (UK, Germany,Japan) and our major competitors
(Russia, China) only spend $20-$50 Billion /year. Why, then,
did you push for an increase in the defense budget?
Mr. President: During 1995-2000, large
numbers of personnel were laid off from the military and intelligence
community due to budget cuts by the Republican-controlled Congress.
For example, employment at Lockheed Martin, the large defense
contractor, fell from 190,000 in 1996 to 126,000 in 2000. ( VP
Dick Cheney's wife was on Lockheed's Board of Directors during
this time.)
In 1998 and 2000, the Republican-controlled
Congress raised the H-1B visa limit to allow US corporations
to bring in 800,000 foreign professionals and to allow said workers
to stay for 6 years. News reports stated that Congress did this
at the urging of Silicon Valley campaign donors.
In view of the current high unemployment,
the slump in the tech industries, the reluctance of industry
to hire older workers, and the recession, should Congress rescind
the increase in H-1B visas?
Don Williams
lives in Wayne, Pennsylvania.
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