Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 18,
2005
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
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December 23,
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Report
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David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
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Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
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David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
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An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
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Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
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Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
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The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
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Dragon Pierces
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"Things Always Get Worse"
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February 18, 2005
North Korea's Phantom Nukes
How
the US Subverts Diplomacy
By
GREGORY ELICH
On February 10, 2005, the Foreign Ministry
of North Korea made its most explicit statement yet concerning
nuclear weapons. The announcement was treated in the West as
a bolt out of the blue and a slap in the face after what was
regarded as President Bush's conciliatory gesture of refraining
from specifically condemning North Korea in his State of the
Union address. Only the month before, it appeared that resumption
of the six-way negotiations was imminent. A congressional delegation
travelled to the DPRK (Democratic People's Republic of Korea
the formal name for North Korea) in January and talked
with North Korean officials. Afterwards, delegation head Rep.
Curt Weldon said, "Our unanimous impression is that the
DPRK is ready to rejoin the six-party process."
The North Korean news service
KCNA reported that its delegation told the congressmen that "the
DPRK would not stand against the U.S. but respect and treat it
as a friend unless the latter slanders the former's system and
interferes in its internal affairs." North Korean officials
assured the congressional delegation that the DPRK "would
opt for finding a final solution to all the outstanding issues
between the two countries" and take part in the six-party
talks if the attitude of the congressmen reflected that of the
Bush Administration.
"Outposts
of tyranny"
It was a promising development,
but not for those in the Bush Administration who preferred "regime
change" in North Korea to peaceful negotiations. Only five
days after the congressional delegation left the DPRK, Condoleezza
Rice named North Korea in her Senate confirmation hearing as
one of six nations she categorized as "outposts of tyranny."
Two weeks later, President Bush delivered his State of the Union
address, in which he promised to "continue to build the
coalitions that will defeat the dangers of our time," and
to "support democratic movements in the Middle East and
beyond, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
It was not hard to infer the inclusion of North Korea in that
policy, given the juxtaposition with Rice's words.
Just before President Bush's
State of the Union address, Michael Green and William Tobey of
the National Security Agency (NSA) visited Asia to brief Japanese,
South Korean and Chinese officials on a U.S. intelligence assessment
tying uranium hexafluoride found in Libya to North Korea. Although
hexafluoride is not fissile material, it can become so if it
is processed through nuclear centrifuges. Extensive testing on
the material was done at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, leading
to the conclusion, one American official said, of an origin in
North Korea "with a certainty of 90 percent or better."
Western media repeated the claim that the analysis had "proved"
a link with North Korea, therefore showing the nation to be engaged
in the proliferation of nuclear materials. However, the process
used to arrive at this conclusion actually failed to establish
a North Korean connection.
U.S. scientists compared the
rarest of uranium's three isotopes, U-234, in the Libyan uranium
with samples from a variety of known sources. The percentage
of U-234 in uranium varies by regional source, and therefore
it can be a means of identifying the country of origin. The problem
is that U.S. scientists failed to match the Libyan uranium to
any of their samples. Lacking uranium from North Korea, by a
process of elimination it was concluded that the source must
be North Korea since other sources were ruled out. But U.S. scientists
also did not have samples from a number of other nations, including
Pakistan, a nation that would surely be a far more likely source
than North Korea, given its assistance to Libya's nuclear program.
To complicate matters further,
the percentage of U-234 in uranium can vary widely even in the
same mine or in a single sample of uranium ore. The International
Atomic Energy Agency conducted tests on the same material and
concluded that the evidence was inconclusive. An official for
the agency pointed out, "In order to come to this conclusion,
you need a sample from North Korea and no one has a uranium sample
from North Korea. The Pakistanis won't allow any samples of their
UF6 either." Another official, requesting anonymity, said
that it would be hard to believe that the material came from
North Korea. Fueling the agency's skepticism, the container holding
the Libyan uranium hexafluoride originated in Pakistan. It was
apparent that the Bush Administration was once again playing
fast and loose with the truth in order to further its political
objectives, and the visit by the two NSA officials to Asia was
an obvious effort to sway regional allies to support harsher
measures against the DPRK.
North Korea long played on
the ambiguity of its nuclear status as a means of discouraging
the Bush Administration from launching an attack. Yet it was
careful not to overplay that hand because its goal was to achieve
a long-sought rapprochement with the United States which would
bring about an end to the economic embargo. An earlier congressional
delegation visiting the DPRK in June 2004 was told that "the
only option open to them, given their inclusion in the 'Axis
of Evil' and the U.S. refusal to engage in bilateral discussions"
was to "strengthen and possess deterrent capability"
which they were putting into action. A North Korean official
explained to the delegation, "We are not blackmailing or
intimidating the U.S. side. We are not in a position to blackmail
the U.S. the only superpower. Our purpose in having a deterrent
is related to the war in Iraq. This is also related to statements
by the hawks within the U.S. Administration. Our lesson learned
is that if we don't have a nuclear deterrent, we cannot defend
ourselves." This nuclear program, a North Korean official
said, was "only for deterrence and not being pursued to
seek economic aid. We only wish to be left alone."
The first public mention of
a "nuclear deterrent" came on June 9, 2003, when KCNA
declared that "if the U.S. keeps threatening the DPRK with
nukes instead of abandoning its hostile policy toward Pyongyang,
the DPRK will have no option but to build up a nuclear deterrent
force." Nine days later, a spokesman for the DPRK Foreign
Ministry announced that his country "will put further spurs
to increasing its nuclear deterrent force for self-defense."
The actual choice of words
used by the North Koreans was interesting. "Nuclear deterrent"
was a deliciously ambiguous phrase. What precisely did "nuclear
deterrent" mean? Did this refer to nuclear weapons intended
to deter attack? Or did it mean something else, such as an army
strong enough to deter attack by nuclear weapons? Or was this
a reference to something nuclear in nature, other than weapons,
meant to keep the U.S. guessing as to North Korea's capability?
The phrase was intentionally vague and suggestive. From this
perspective, reopening the Yongbyon nuclear plant and reprocessing
fuel rods could serve as a "nuclear deterrent" if it
led U.S. leaders to speculate about a weapons program.
In January 2004, an unofficial
American delegation led by Prof. John Lewis of Stanford University
travelled to North Korea as a private initiative to see what
they could learn. In Pyongyang, they met with Deputy Foreign
Minister Kim Kye-Gwan on January 7, who told them that North
Korea desired a serious and substantive discussion with the U.S.
Kim noted that North Korea's offer to freeze its nuclear program
had elicited no response from the United States. Kim denied that
his nation had an enriched uranium program by pointing out that
"not only do we not have any program, we have no equipment"
and "we never had any scientists trained in that area."
Kim asked, "How is it that we can prove that we don't have
something that we don't have?"
The delegation was shown the
spent fuel pool and confirmed that all 8,000 of the fuel rods
had been removed. North Korean officials told them that the fuel
rods had been taken to the radiochemical laboratory where all
of them were reprocessed to extract plutonium. Just how many
fuel rods were actually reprocessed is uncertain. On October
3, 2003, North Korea reported that it had finished reprocessing
all of the fuel rods at Yongbyon four months before. However,
the evidence doesn't appear to confirm such a claim. Responding
at the time to the North Korean report, a South Korean intelligence
official noted, "It doesn't seem that the North has finished
reprocessing the spent fuel rods. Heat and vapor including krypton-85
always accompany the process of reprocessing spent fuel rods
in such numbers, but we have detected no such signal."
After touring the plant at
Yongbyon, the delegation was taken to a conference room where
they were shown two glass jars containing what was said to be
reprocessed plutonium from the fuel rods. Lacking essential equipment,
it was not possible for Hecker to verify that the powder inside
the jars was reprocessed plutonium, but he did note that the
visible characteristics were not inconsistent with the claim,
and a Geiger counter confirmed that the material was radioactive.
Hecker pointed out that "even if we could confirm that the
product we were shown is plutonium, we would not have been able
to confirm that it came from the most recent campaign without
additional, more sophisticated isotopic measurements that would
let us identify the age of the plutonium."
A spokesman for the North Korean
foreign ministry announced afterwards that the DPRK had shown
its "nuclear deterrent force" to the American delegation.
Permission was granted to the delegation to visit Yongbyon, he
said, to provide an opportunity for the Americans "to confirm
the realityand ensure transparency, as speculative reports and
ambiguous information about nuclear activities are throwing hurdles
in the way of settling the pending nuclear issue." At one
point, a North Korean official told the delegation, "We
have the potential to make nuclear weapons, but we do not have
a weapon." Hecker reported that North Korean officials "believe
that they provided us with evidence of their 'deterrent.'
At Yongbyon, they demonstrated
that they most likely had the capability to make plutonium metal.
However, I saw nothing and spoke to no one who could convince
me that they could build a nuclear device with that metal, and
that they could weaponize such a device into a delivery vehicle."
The extent of North Korea's 'nuclear deterrent' appeared at the
time to be little more than the ability to extract and refine
plutonium, leaving the rest to the imagination of U.S. officials
all too eager to exaggerate that capability into a full-blown
nuclear weapons program, replete with a nuclear arsenal.
An assessment by the CIA that
North Korea had succeeded in building two nuclear weapons based
on plutonium extracted before the signing of the 1994 Agreed
Framework has long been a staple of Western news reports. What
never gets mentioned is how this assessment was arrived at. The
claim is based on a National Intelligence Estimate developed
in November 1993, "the product of hypervigilant imaginations
in the American intelligence community," writes political
analyst Leon V. Sigal. The CIA came to the conclusion that the
DPRK had developed nuclear weapons by asking assembled experts
for a show of hands. "They asked the question two ways,"
recalled a Defense Department official. "They asked, 'How
many of you think they have a bomb?' More than half raised their
hands. They asked the question, 'What is the probability that
they have a bomb?' They averaged the answers. They got more than
fifty-fifty." This hardly constituted a serious analysis,
but by such dubious means the CIA concluded that there was a
"better than even chance" that the DPRK possessed nuclear
weapons.
The number of weapons the CIA
claimed that the DPRK had developed was based on an estimate
of how much plutonium might have been extracted from the Yongbyon
reactor. But a study conducted by former officials for the U.S.
Institute of Peace concluded that the estimate was "a worst-case
extrapolation that is not based on direct evidence. There is
no hard evidence only the presumption that the North
has successfully weaponized the plutonium it has accumulated."
Nonproliferation specialist Leonard Spector of the Carnegie Endowment
pointed out, "All of the assumptions in the worst-case scenario
have to be true for North Korea to have a bomb." Although
the Western public is routinely led by news reports to believe
that the CIA assessment was solidly grounded in evidence, it
was in fact constructed upon multiple layers of assumptions.
In 1996, the Livermore and
Handford laboratories estimated that North Korea could have extracted
at best 7 to 8 kilograms of nuclear fuel prior to the Agreed
Framework, "yet it takes ten kilograms of weapons-grade
plutonium to fabricate a first bomb," and 8 to 9 kilograms
for each additional weapon. "The possibility of North Korea's
possession of nuclear arms has been stated on many occasions
by U.S. intelligence authorities," said South Korean President
Roh in June 2003. "But the Korean intelligence organization
has no compelling evidence to prove these claims."
Before it signed the 1994 Agreed
Framework, North Korea may have conducted a nuclear research
program based on plutonium and may even have assembled some components,
although nothing can be said for certain. It is possible that
North Korea may have resumed a program following collapse of
the Agreed Framework. But this wouldn't necessarily indicate
the actual development of nuclear weapons.
A nuclear weapons program based
on highly enriched uranium, which is what the Bush Administration
accuses North Korea of operating, would be a far more arduous
endeavor than one based on plutonium. Because uranium much be
enriched to more than 90 percent purity in order to attain weapons-grade
quality, the process poses truly daunting technological challenges.
The rotors used in centrifuges, spinning at the speed of sound,
must be extremely strong and precisely balanced, or they will
wobble out of control and destroy the centrifuge. Uranium enrichment
to that level of quality requires several thousand centrifuges,
adding significantly to the expense and difficulty of the operation.
More importantly, the process soaks up enormous amounts of electricity,
the supply of which must be uninterrupted and without fluctuation,
precisely the resource that is most lacking in the DPRK. Plainly
put, such an operation would be impossible for North Korea.
Robert Alvarez, former policy
advisor to the U.S. Secretary of Energy pointed out, "To
make and operate thousands of centrifuges successfully, they
would have to rely on so many outside sources. They would need
ready access to the most sophisticated machine tools. They don't
have the money that the Iranians do to buy this fancy technology."
Even nations with far better resources can take several years
to achieve a successful result.
Only after ten years of effort
was Pakistan able to produce any highly enriched uranium at all,
and it took a further two years before it had produced enough
for a few weapons. Libya, despite more than ten years of effort,
never managed to enrich uranium to weapons-grade quality. Possibly
the DPRK may have conducted research related to enriching uranium
for the production of nuclear fuel. It would certainly have had
an interest in doing so, as the light water reactors under construction
under terms of the 1994 Agree Framework could only operate on
nuclear fuel. North Korea would be dependent on the U.S. and
other Western nations for its low enriched uranium fuel to power
the plants, and the supply could be cut off at any time for political
reasons. Far better for the DPRK if it could produce its own
supply.
Furthermore, uranium need only be enriched to a level of two
to three percent purity for the purpose of manufacturing nuclear
fuel, so the process would not be nearly as formidable as that
of highly-enriched uranium. However, no evidence has yet been
produced that North Korea is engaging in either type of uranium
enrichment program. At a three-day seminar in New York in August
2004, North Korean delegate Ri Gun denied that his nation had
a uranium enrichment weapons program. When asked directly whether
there was such a program for peaceful objectives, his response
was coy. "We are entitled to have it for peaceful purposes."
Several South Korean officials
have pointed out that it is uncertain whether the fuel rods at
Yongbyon were capable of being reprocessed into weapons-grade
material. South Korean nuclear experts also said that once operations
at North Korea's 5-MW(e) reactor in Yongbyon were resumed, it
would take over a year before additional waste fuel rods could
be extracted. The reactor would have to run at full power 75
percent of the time for four years in order to produce enough
plutonium for a single nuclear weapon.
Russian nuclear safety analyst
Sergei Kazenov reported that "converting peaceful atoms
to military use is a special problem" and "North Korea
lacks the necessary components, including the detonating systems
and some others." "The DPRK's present technical prowess
and economic strength are not yet up to the level of developing
nuclear weapons," says Evgeny Kozhokin, Director of the
[Russian] Institute for Strategic Studies. "First, it lacks
qualified personnel in nuclear physics. Second, it does not have
supercomputers for designing tests. Third, it will be very difficult
to master nuclear explosion technology without any nuclear tests.
In the past dozen years or so, the United States has all the
while been monitoring the DPRK's nuclear science research programs
through various means of espionage and up until now, there has
been little evidence to show that the DPRK has achieved progress
in the area of nuclear weapon development." This analysis
was confirmed by Vladimir Belous of the Russian Academy of Military
Sciences. "It is impossible to make nuclear arms or vehicles
of their delivery without field testing. In the meantime seismic
equipment and space monitoring means have registered no such
tests in North Korea. Creation of nuclear arms in stealth is
impossible." Belous concluded, "North Korea's economic,
technical and research potential will not let it acquire nuclear
capability in the foreseeable future."
In early 2004, the media buzzed
with the revelation that Abdul Qadeer Khan, head of Pakistan's
Khan Research Laboratories, had provided North Korea with plans
and technology for a highly enriched uranium weapons program
from the late 1980's to 2002. One U.S. official described what
Pakistan gave to North Korea as "the complete package."
An investigation by Pakistani officials led to the discovery,
and Khan was said to have admitted aiding nuclear weapons programs
not only in North Korea but also Iran and Libya as well. American
officials quickly announced that spy satellites had taken photographs
of Pakistani cargo planes at an airfield in Pyongyang in the
late 1990's, which they speculated had delivered nuclear equipment.
Kahn was reported to have told interrogators that he was taken
to an underground facility when he was in North Korea in 1999
and shown what the North Koreans claimed were three nuclear devices.
On February 4, 2004, Khan read out a statement on Pakistani television,
in which he apologized to the nation for his actions. "The
investigation has established that many of the reported activities
did occur and that these were inevitably initiated at my behest.
In my interviews with the concerned government officials, I was
confronted with the evidence and the findings. And I have voluntarily
admitted that much of it is true and accurate."
U.S. officials were jubilant,
quick to point out that the news proved their allegations about
North Korea. Vice President Dick Cheney flew to Beijing where
he told Chinese officials that the news meant that talks were
going too slowly and that the Bush Administration was losing
patience with the process and might consider stronger actions
such as the imposition of sanctions.
To bolster that effort, the
Administration prepared a report asserting that the DPRK had
increased its nuclear arsenal to as many as eight weapons. The
new estimate was admittedly based on guesswork, but Administration
officials hoped it would help persuade the other parties involved
in negotiations to support the U.S. position that no concessions
should be made to North Korea. For those who cared to examine
the details, Khan's confession raised more questions than it
answered. What is striking about Khan's televised confession
was the lack of specifics. Nothing concrete is mentioned, only
that "many of the reported activities did occur," without
identifying which did not. Nor did he indicate what evidence
he was confronted with and therefore responding to in his address
to the nation. Kahn was being held under house arrest and forbidden
from speaking to the public.
Pakistani officials even refused
to allow anyone from the U.S. to talk to Khan. What the public
in the West was hearing was fourth hand: what Khan had told Pakistani
officials, who then relayed to American officials what was told
to reporters, who in turn informed the public. One couldn't be
sure that the story wasn't being massaged along the route. The
story grew more curious in the following days. Pakistani officials
told reporters that Khan had confessed in writing to selling
nuclear technology to Iran and Libya because he wanted to help
fellow Islamic states develop nuclear weapons.
North Korea wasn't mentioned.
After calling Khan by cell phone, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, head of
Pakistan's main religious opposition party, Jammat-e-Islami,
told reporters, "I called Abdul Qadeer Khan on Monday and
he told me that he has not given any statement." Kahn told
Ahmed that he rejected the statement and had made no written
confession. When Ahmed asked to meet, Khan told him that would
be impossible as meetings with him were banned. One can only
speculate as to what pressures may have been applied on Khan
to make him read a statement on television that he later disavowed.
Or why Pakistani officials were claiming that Khan had revealed
things under interrogation which he denied saying. It soon became
known that Pakistan's investigation and house arrest of Khan
was prompted by pressure from high-ranking U.S. officials, claiming
to have evidence of Khan's involvement with the black market,
and threatening Pakistan that relations with Washington would
worsen unless they took action against him.
Responding to U.S. claims that
Pakistani C-130 cargo planes had delivered nuclear technology
to North Korea, Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokesman Masood Khan
claimed that the planes had flown in empty and only picked up
"a load of shoulder-fired SA-16 missiles," which Pakistan
had purchased from the DPRK. "There was no nuclear technology
on board, absolutely none. This is utter nonsense," he declared.
Former Pakistani Prime Minister
Benazir Bhutto told a Japanese reporter that shortly after taking
office in 1988, some military officials suggested trading nuclear
technology with North Korea for missiles. Bhutto discouraged
such talk, and said her nation obtained "long-range missile
technology" by buying "them with money." North
Korea was quick to discount the story, which a spokesman for
the ministry termed "nothing but a mean and groundless propaganda."
In March, the CIA delivered a classified report to President
Bush, in which it maintained that Pakistan had provided the DPRK
with nuclea |