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 Special Print Edition of CounterPunch: The 2004 Election

The Wreckage: Labor, God and Turnout; Was Gay Marriage Really "the" Issue; Can These Democrats Ever Win Again?; Blame It on the Smart-Assed White Boys by JoAnn Wypijewski; Political Diary: They Didn't Believe Him: What Really Happened in Ohio; How to Lose a County Hit By 30% Unemployment; David Cobb: Apex Vote Suppressor; Hope From Montana? by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. 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 (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

November 30, 2004

Gregory Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for North Korea

 

November 29, 2004

Dave Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of the CIA?

Omar Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine: Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint

Mike Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to Market a Siege

Uri Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me Some Credit!"

Matt Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers

Patrick Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign Minister

Alan Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters

Justin Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later

Antony Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy

Gary Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real Issue

Website of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone

 

November 27 / 28, 2004

Peter Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with Sycorax in Iraq

Alexander Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?

Fred Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court

Kathy Kelly
What We Can Control

Diane Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"

Gary Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea

Lenni Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York Times

Ron Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of the AMS Clerics

Joshua Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd

Toni Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson

Saul Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica

JoAnn Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are No Cure for Homophobia

Justin Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities

Amos Harel
The Case of Captain R.

Walter A. Davis
Tabloid Justice

Stephen Hendricks
God's Kind of Men

Poets' Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford

 

November 26, 2004

Peter Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?

Greg Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid

Liaquat Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments

Michael Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry of Immigration

Dave Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the Way

Gary Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...

Paul Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?

Website of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch

 

November 25, 2004

Willliam Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"

Mitchel Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving

Mike Ferner
An Uncommon Mom

 

 

November 24, 2004

Gila Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence is Set by the State

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Other Mess in Congress

Christopher Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay

Dave Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony

Ron Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem

Ken Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah

Diana Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader

John L. Hess
Safire the Shameless

Jason Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear War

Map of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860

 

November 23, 2004

Forrest Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach

 

 

 

 

November 22, 2004

Dave Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage in Detroit

Paul Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?

Michael Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada

Kathie Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill

Ken Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place in Iraq"

Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer

Roger Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile

Website of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?

 

 

November 20 / 21, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice

Todd May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear

Abbas Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account

Kevin Zeese
Mishandling Nader

Landau / Hassen
After Arafat

Tom Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd

Justin E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel

Carl Estabrook
Where We Are Now

Gary Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue

Dave Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon

Jenna Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower and Lives

Mickey Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William Blum

Greg Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America

Sharon Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?

Ron Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs

Ben Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days

Richard Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!

Gilad Atzmon
Politics and Jazz

Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.

Website of the Day
Voice of the Forest

 

 

November 19, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
Mementos You Won't Find in the Clinton Library: Back in the 90s When We Were Happy

Kevin Alexander Gray
Soul Brother: the Exhibit You Won't See at the Clinton Library

Paul Craig Roberts
There's No One to Stop Them Now

Jack Z. Bratich
Digging Out Kerry and Burying the Bones(men)

Greg Bates
The Implosion of the Dems and the Death of Pragmatism (Hurray!)

Christopher Brauchli
Terror by Night: Waking Up to Darfur?

Forrest Hylton
At a Loss: for Margaret Hassan

James Petras
The Crushing of Fallujah

November 18, 2004

Brian Cloughley
Iraq War as Video Game: "I Got My Kills...I Just Love My Job"

Hugh Urban
America, "Left Behind": Bush, the Neo-Cons and Evangelical Christian Fiction

Luis A. Gómez
The Bolivian Crisis Deepens

Robert Fisk
The Murder of Margaret Hassan

Suzan Mazur
The New York Times Fesses Up to a Rip Off

Prof. Francis Boyle
Dems Cave on Gonzales: War Criminal as Attorney General?

Mike Ferner
Sign Here, Kid

 

November 17, 2004

Christian Harleman / Jan Oberg
Who and What Killed Our Friend Margaret Hassan?

Dave Lindorff
Bring Them Home Before They Kill Again

Larry Birns
Condi Rice and Latin America: She Sees Enemies Everywhere

Toni Solo
Rumsfeld in Nicaragua

Omar Barghouti
Snuff Films and War Crimes in Iraq

Clancy Sigal
"How to Take a Beating": Gen. Stilwell's Lessons for Iraq

Brita May Rose
America's Radioactive War: DU in Iraq

Ben Terrall
"We Must Kill the Bandits!": Lula's Troops in Haiti

Sam Hamod
The New Mongols

David Krieger
An Open Letter to the Regents of the University of California on Nuclear Weapons Research

Pierre Tristam
It Has Happened Here

John Marciano
Oppose the War and the Warriors: "Iraqis are a Cancer. An We're the Chemotherapy"

Website of the Day
Fallujah: the Real Story

 

 

November 16, 2004

Paul Craig Roberts
Declining Superpower Act: the Coming Currency Shock

Mike Whitney
The Goss Purge: Night of the Long Knives at CIA

Uri Avnery
Rejoice Not: Arafat's Funeral

Andrew Buncombe
Murder in a Fallujah Mosque

Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
On Refusing to be Silenced: Sen. Bill Frist v. John Quincy Adams

Rudy Rimando
Cousins of Color: Black Soldiers in the Philippines, 1899

Jordan Green
Fighting Jim Crow in Cincy: The Old South Lives ... Across the River

Hugh Urban
The Ohio "Vote": Ken Blackwell Has Some Explaining to Do

Steve Breyman
Challenges for the Peace Movement

John Ross
Bush in Rapture

Website of the Day
We Doomed?

 


November 15, 2004

Larry Birns
A Resignation Without Meaning: Powell and Latin America

Walt Brasch
On the (Far) Right Hand of God

John Pilger
The Greatest Political Scandal of Our Time

John Chuckman
Welcome to Ripley's Believe It or Not of Christianity

Francis A. Boyle
Obliterating Fallujah: War Crime in Real Time

Georgy / Sengupta
Fallujah in Ruins: The Air is Polluted with the Stench of Death

Ralph Nader
Voters v. Sports Fans

Neve Gordon
The "No Partner" Myth

Donna J. Volatile
So What Are You Going to Do About It?

Werther
On Reading the Duelfer Report

 

 

November 13 / 14, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
"Let Them Drink Sand!"

David Domke
Bush, God and the Election: a Theology of War?

James Petras
The Politics of Imperialism: Neoliberalism and Latin America

Carl G. Estabrook
How to Stop the GWOT: "Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil!"

Stan Goff
Torture and the Cinema

Dave Lindorff
The Ruins of Fallujah

Mike Whitney
Fallujah and the Erosion of American Power

Ron Jacobs
Waiting for the Last War to End

Alan Maass
The Rise and Fall of Gingrich: a Parable for Our Times

Lenni Brenner
"Next"...a Prison Tale

Gary Leupp
France's Little Vietnam: Imperialist France Destroys an African Air Force

Jessica Leight / Larry Birns
Haiti: the New Regime Shows Its Colors

Heather Gray
Whistling Dixie: Bush's Reelection, a Perspective from the South

Jordan Green
Ohio's Provisional Ballots: the State of Play

Robert Fisk
Arafat Ruled by Emotion and Cronyism

Omar Barghouti
The Death of Arafat and the Two-State SOlution

Fred Gardner
Marijuana: an Election Scorecard

Christopher Brauchli
When a POW Isn't a POW: the Other Torture Memo

Joanne Mariner
A Preview of the Scalia Court

Dr. Susan Block
Blue Values

Patrick Timmons
Violence at the Ballot Box: the War on Gay Rights

Mickey Z.
Rumor Club

Poets Basement
Hasan, Albert, Kent, St. Clair

Website of the Weekend
The Hand of God?

 

 

November 12, 2004

Forrest Hylton / Sinclair Thomson
Insurgent Bolivia: the Roots of Rebellion

November 11, 2004

Peggy Thomson
Encounters with Arafat

Joe Bageant
Hung Over in the End Times: Heaven's Foot Soldiers Escape the Dog Patch

Ben Tripp
The Squeaky Wheel Gets the Grief

Edwin Krales
Cuba's Response to AIDS: a Model for the Developing World

Jordan Green
How They Tried to Suppress the Black Vote in South Carolina

Gary Leupp
Guzman's Fist

Mike Whitney
Meet Your New AG: Alberto Torquemada

Sam Bahour
Palestine is Bigger Than Arafat

Sylvia Shihadeh and Robert Jensen
The Irony of Arafat

Russ Wellen
Why Do They Laugh at Us?

Mark Scaramella
Kerry's Enablers: the Clinton Cult Factor

 

November 10, 2004

Joshua Frank
The Bright Side of Bush's Reelection

Mickey Z.
The Worst President Ever?: Bush + Clinton = Bubya

Stan Goff
Debating a Neo-Con

Mike Whitney
Exit Ashcroft

Dave Lindorff
Taking a Leak on the Bush Bulge

Ghada Karmi
After Arafat

Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste
Letter from a Haitian Jail

Rev. Bob Jones, III
A Letter to President Bush: "God Has Granted America a Reprieve"

Bernestine Singley
Tampa Vote: Dispatches from the Ground

Website of the Day
Free Camilo Mejia

 

 

November 9, 2004

Meredeth Kolodner
Rebuilding the Anti-War Movement

Saul Landau
The Appeal of George W. Bush: a Mystery for the World to Solve

Brian Cloughley
Diego Garcia and Freedom, Bush-Style

Charles Glass
US is Failing the Test of History in Iraq

Robert Fisk
Arafat Died Years Ago

Paul Craig Roberts
The American Century is Over

Adam Federman
Witch Hunt at Columbia: Middle East Profs Smeared as Anti-Semites

M. Junaid Alam
The Discredited Logic of ABB

Tony Kevin
Fallujah and the Making of a War Crime

Pierre Tristam
Zealots on the Mount: Get Voltaire on Speed Dial!

Patrick Cockburn
Crushing Fallujah Will Not End the Iraq War

Website of the Day
Don't Blame the Voters!

 

 

November 8, 2004

Roger Burbach
Out of the Ashes: Bush Win is a Defeat for Democrats, Not the Left

Dave Lindorff
Lessons from a Quagmire: Fallujah, the Hue of Iraq

Greg Moses
After the Morning After: On the Homefront of the Civil War

Greg Bates
Nader's Election Legacy: Something to Stand On

Michael Donnelly
The Hit-and-Run Left: From ABB to CYA

Nick Schwellenbach
Gutting FOIA: the Harm of Too Much Secrecy

Adam Jones
Men vs. Civilians in Fallujah

Amelia Peltz
Note from Palestine: This Is Not the Time for Despair

David Swanson
The Media Black Out on Vote Fraud

Brian Rainey
The Devil Made Them Do It? Elections, Religion and the American People

Poets' Basement
Albert, Landau, Hamod

Website of the Day
A Report on the US Supply of Toxic Weapons to Iraq

 

 

November 6 / 7, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
Don't Say We Didn't Warn You

Jeffrey St. Clair
Green Out

Carl G. Estabrook
Who Killed Cock Robin?

Saul Landau
Che: the Man and the Movie

Gary Leupp
Let There Be Conflict!

Ben Tripp
You Call This a Party?

Paul Craig Roberts
The October Numbers: Continuing Stress on the Jobs Front

Jordan Green
Heroin, Cocaine and Espanola, NM

Fred Gardner
Haul of Justice

J.A. Miller
Cults of the Jealous God: the Balfour Decision Reconsidered

Ramzy Baroud
Life Without Arafat

Dave Zirin
Out at the Ballgame: Pro Sports and the Gay Athelete

Ron Jacobs
The Arrow on the Doorpost

Robert Oscar Lopez
How White Liberals Became a New Racial Minority

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The November Surprise

Dave Lindorff
Silver Linings

Richard Oxman
Invitation to the Bodily Snatched

John Whitlow
Value Wars: the View from Lexington, Kentucky

Rahul Mahajan
Fallujah and the Reality of War

Leila Matsui
Political "Ju-On": Carrying a Grudge

 

November 5, 2004

David Vest
The Not-Bush Brothers: a Fond Farewell

Elizabeth Boylan
The Dems and Faith-Based Politics

Conn Hallinan
War Crimes and Iraq

David Zonsheine
Poetry and the Courage to Refuse

Cynthia McKinney
It's a New Day!

Elaine Cassel
Running from the Religious Right

Chris Geovanis
First Protect Your Vote: Lessons for Democrats on Fixing Elections from Chicago

Rob Ritchie
Election 2004 by the Numbers

Jo Guldi
The Beast of History is In

 

 

November 4, 2004

Sharon Smith
The Self-Fulfilling Prophesy of Lesser-Evilism

CounterPunch Wire
Bush Voters: 2000 v. 2004

Ben Tripp
My Fellow Americans...Get Stuffed!

Michael Donnelly
Why Not Blame Rosie?

Vijay Prashad
An Election of Homophobia and Misogyny

Jules Rabin
De Profundis: the Morning After

Robert Jensen
Politics and Professions of Faith: "Your Rich Men are Full of Violence"

Zoltan Grossman
Blue State Secession: the Only Solution?

Jonah Birch
1968 and Today

Dave Lindorff
What Went Wrong?

Jack McCarthy
I Knew It Was Over When Michael Moore Showed Up: He Was For Nader...Before He Was Against Him

Donna J. Volatile
Ahoy Kerrycrats! Welcome to Our Nightmare

Paul Craig Roberts
The Bright Side of Black Tuesday

 

 

November 3, 2004

James Hodge / Linda Cooper
The CIA and Abu Ghraib: 50 Years of Training Torturers

Ann Harrison
The Ghost Votes in the Machine: Voting Snafus Across the Nation

Greg Moses
Blues for Fallujah

Anis Memon
The Moral (Values) of This Election

Mickey Z.
Post Mortem

Josh Frank
The Dems Should be Ashamed

Chris Floyd
No Ways Tired: Defeat, Dissent and the Bush Machine

spArk
Smoke Signals from Portland: Karmic Blowback and the Democrats

Friedrich von Schiller
Folly, Thou Conquerest

Cockburn / St. Clair
Democrats in End Time: Who to Blame Now?

 

November 2, 2004

Gary Leupp
Democratic Elections in Historical Perspective: The Wrong Side Wins

Lance Selfa
Selling the War on Terror

Laura Carlsen
The US Elections and Latin America: Can the US Ever be a Good Neighbor?

James Davis
To Control the Event: Attention Bicyclists

Richard Oxman
Getting Up with Osama

Dr. Ira Kay
A Mental Map of the Bush Presidency

Jesse Walker
Frankenstein v. Chucky: the Halloween Election

Thomas C. Mountain
Election '24, Deja Vu?: LaFollette, Nader, & the "Most Important Election of Our Lifetimes"

 

November 1, 2004

Cockburn / St. Clair
How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It

Dave Lindorff
Bulgegate Confirmed; Press Yawns

Greg Bates
Nader Voter Survey Results

Roger Morris
Novel Politics: Only Fiction Can Do This Election Justice

Diane Christian
Death Tolls

Lenni Brenner
Secularists Be Warned: Christlike Kerry Roams Spiritual Universe

Christopher C. Conway
Can the Left Sink Any Lower?

Francis Boyle
Legal Elites and the Iraq War: the Nazis Had Their Law Professors, Too

Jason Leopold
Rummy's Failed War Plan

Website of the Day
Dylan Resurrects "Masters of War"

 

 

October 30 / 31, 2004

JoAnn Wypijewski
The Long March and the Million Worker March

Winslow T. Wheeler
Spartacus Tells All

Bruce Anderson
Notes from the Big Empty: When the Hippies Invaded NoCal

Vicente Navarro
They Worked for Franco: How Sec. of State Cordell Hull and Nobel Laureate Camilo Jose Cela Collaborated with the Fascist Regime

Robin Blackburn
How Monica Lewinsky Saved Social Security

Greg Bates
A Question of Character: What Makes Nader Tick?

Nancy Welch
The American Health Care Crisis: an Interview with Dr. David Himmelstein

William Lind
Election Day: Which Menendez Brother Will You Vote For?

Brian Cloughley
Uzbekistan and Bush Hypocrisies

Suzan Mazur
Oops They Did It Again: the NYTs the Paper of Record and Rip-Offs

Greg Moses
Standing at the Graves of Iraq

John Chuckman
Osama's Endorsement

Richard Oxman
Why Not Accept Osama's Offer?

Ken Avidor
Landscape of Fear: When Ugly is Suspicious

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Bush, Ba'ath and Beyond

Hope Bastian
Strangling Cuba's Economy

P. Sainath
Tower of Gabble: Toward a Sustainable Rhetoric

Dave Zirin
Bush League: Why MLB Owners Support the Prez

Jon Swift
The Dry Drunk Thang: Put a Cork in It

Ron Jacobs
The Joke's on Me: a Review of Bob Dylan's Chronicles Vol. 1

Alexander Billet
Taking Theatre Back: Are the States Ready for "Stuff Happens"?

Poets' Basement
Jones, Laymon, Norris, Ford and Albert

Website of the Weekend
The Origins of Halloween

 

October 29, 2004

Harry Browne
No Justice for Peace Activist in County Clare

October 28, 2004

Forrest Hylton
"The Gas is Ours:" Bolivia's Ghosts of October

Col. Dan Smith
Rebellion in the Ranks

Alan Maass
Jon Stewart v. the Pundits

Ron Jacobs
Ecstasy in Red Sox Nation

Alexander Cockburn
Kerrycrats and the War

 

 

October 27, 2004

Jules Rabin
Crammed with Distressful Politics

Dave Lindorff
Bulgegate: the Lies Continue

Katherine Van Tassel
On the Home Front: Both Parties Ignore Working Parents

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil

 

October 26, 2004

Brian Cloughley
Three Weddings and Lots of Funerals: Atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan

William Blum
Fear Factors

Lenni Brenner
The 1964 Berkeley Free Speech Movement: Lessons for 2004

Ben Tripp
The Chicken Salad Election

Fidel Castro
After the Fall

Greg Bates
The Nation's Flawed Calculus

Walter Brasch
Gag the Public: the War on Dissent

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
An Open Letter to Pat Buchanan

Mickey Z.
Rumble in the Jungle at 30: Ali, Foreman and the Congo

Amir Taheri
The Boom in Conspiracy Theories

Alexander Billet
Say It Ain't So, Bruce!: the Boss Endorses Kerry

Doug Giebel
The Religion of G.W. Bush

Kathleen Christison
Why I Liked Thomas Friedman's Latest Column Before I Didn't

 

October 25, 2004

Ralph Nader
Letter from a Minnesota Highway

Werther
West Texas Wahabbism

Dave Zirin
Boston's Killer Cops: Death of a Fan

Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Oregon Revokes Dr. Leveque's License

Omar Barghouti
Executing Another Child in Rafah

William J. Nottingham
Lori Berenson's Story

John Chuckman
A Foolish Consistency

Uri Avnery
On the Road to Civil War

 

October 22 / 24, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
You Can't Blame Nader for This

Rev. William Alberts
On Bended Knee: Faith-Based Deceptions

Willliam A. Cook
Killing for Christ

Saul Landau
George W. Bush: a Man of His Words?

Bill Quigley
I Held the Bullet in My Palm: Masked Haitian Police Shoot Children While Arresting Priest

Christopher Brauchli
Seal It With a Frown: What Compassionate Conservativism Really Means

William S. Lind
Fallujah and the Moral Level of War

Sharon Smith
Guilt Trippers for Kerry

Greg Bates
Kerrynomics: "Hurt the Ones Who Vote for Us"

Justin E.H. Smith
Is Lesser Evilism a Compromise with Evil?

Rebecca Evans
Tarnished Legacy: Pinochet and the Chilean Military

Mike Whitney
Al Hurra TV: the Second Invasion

M. Junaid Alam
Purchasing Individuality in America

David Krieger
Nuclear Non-Proliferation: Examining the Policies of Bush and Kerry

David J. Ledermann
The Emperor's New Crumbs

Lawrence Reichard
Same Old FBI Story

Website of the Weekend
Lie Girls: the Real Coalition of the Willling

 

 

October 21, 2004

Ben Tripp
The Undecided Voter Examined

Joshua Frank
Kerry and the Environment:
It's Not Easy Pretending to be Green

Stan Cox
What the Left Doesn't Get About Small Businesses

Bill Martinez
State Depart and Cuban Visas: Only Anti-Castro Agitators Need Apply

Mark Engler
The War and Globalization

Lina Britto and Lucia Suarez
Bolivia: a Year After the October Insurrection

Website of the Day
Two Pampered Children of Wealth

 

 

October 20, 2004

Yitzhak Laor
"Did You Two Squabble?": a Bullet Fired for Every Palestinian Child

Jason Leopold
Sinclair Broadcasting's Air War: a Long History of Journalistic Deception

Jesse Sharkey
A Teacher's Account of How Military Recruiters Prey on High School Students

Col. Dan Smith
Choking Free Speech About the Draft

Dr. Teresa Whitehurst
Using My Religion

David Vest
If Bush Wins, Blame Me

Jack Random
The Jackson 17: Reflections on a Mutiny

Ron Jacobs
Time to Kick It Up a Notch

James Brittain
Plan Patriota and the FARC: a Change in the Countryside?

Christopher Dols
Bombing Madison: Michael Moore's Fright Fest

Dave Lindorff
First They Came for the Nurses...

Website of the Day
Banana Republican Catalogue

 

 

October 19, 2004

Jeffrey St. Clair
Party Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe

Jeff Taylor
Confessions of a Swing State Voter

Matt Vidal
American Myopia: "More Money in Your Pocket"

Victor Kattan
"It's Not Who You're Against; It's Who You're For": Palestine Takes Center Stage At Euro Social Forum

William Loren Katz
What Goes Around Comes Around

Sean Carter
O'Reilly Should Shut Up About Extortion Claiims

CounterPunch Wire
Who's Really in Bed with Republican Funders: Kerry or Nader?

 

 

 

October 18, 2004

Saul Landau
Facts and Lies; Slogans and Truth

Dave Lindorff
Bulletin on the Bush Bulge

Diane Christian
Sheep and Goats: On the Language of Goodness

Greg Bates / Dave Lindorff
Betting on War: a Wager on the Fallout of a Kerry Presidency

Uri Avnery
Ariel Sharon's Philosophy

Peter LaVenia
Leaving the Greens So Soon? a Response to Josh Frank

Mike Whitney
O'Reilly at the Whipping Post

Elaine Cassel
The Other War: Civil Liberties Three Years After 9/11

 

October 16 / 17, 2004

Alexander Cockburn
The Free Speech Movement and Howard Stern

Leslie Brill
Unmerciful Judge, Merry Executioners: the Death Penalty as the True Measure of Bush's Character

Jules Rabin
Reckoning Deaths in an Agitated World

Dave Lindorff
About the Bush Bulge: Was There a Pucker in That Jacket or Was the President Just Glad to be There?

Peter Linebaugh
Judging Judges: a Few Pages from The Mirror of Justices

Gary Leupp
Iran and Syria: How to Effect Regime Change and Expand the Empire

M. Shahid Alam
America, Imagine This!

Ron Jacobs
Trying to Cross Lake Champlain

Fred Gardner
The Flu Vaccine Question: How Bush Blew It

Jenna Orkin
The Toxic Legacy of 9/11

Dave Zirin
Name the DC Baseball Team: Contest Results

David Hamilton
Alone and Exposed: Bush as a Strong Leader?

Ralph Nader
Criticizing Israel is Not Anti-Semitism

Doug Giebel
Thinking the Unthinkable

Mark Engler
Crimes in Freedom's Name: Dick Cheney's El Salvador

Derek Tyner
Blacks Didn't Get the Vote by Voting: an Interview With Clarence Thomas on the Million Worker March

Evan Jones
Gimme That Ole Time Religion: Cash and "The Mind of the South"

Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Klipschutz and Albert

Website of the Weekend
No More Bush Girls

 

October 15, 2004

Paul Craig Roberts
Where Did These "Conservatives" Come From?: The Brownshirting of America

Laura Carlsen
Wal-Mart vs. the Pyramids of the Sun and Moon

Greg Bates
Empire of Insanity: Kerry's Iraq Troop Numbers

Michael Donnelly
News from a Swing State: Does Anyone Here Have a Spine?

Katherine Lahey
The Venezuelan "Threat": Why Do Kerry and Bush Fear Hugo Chavez?

Robert Jensen / Pat Youngblood
Election Day Fears

Leah Caldwell
From Supermax to Abu Ghraib: the Masterminds of Torture and Abuse

Website of the Day
An Anti-Billionaire Policy? Why That Would Be Economic Racism

 

 

October 14, 2004

Darcy Richardson
The Other Progressive Candidate: the Lonely Crusade of Walt Brown

Willliam A. Cook
Turning Myths into Truth

Laura Santina
Water, Women and War

Evelyn Pringle
Free Speech Banned by Big Pharma: What You Can't Say About Drug Importation

Alan Farago
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November 30, 2004

Hawk Engagement

A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for North Korea

By GREGORY ELICH

The recent appointment of Victor Cha as Asia Director in the National Security Council portends a more aggressive approach towards North Korea during President Bush's second term. Long an advisor to the Administration, as Asia Director, Cha will hold responsibility for developing U.S. policy towards North Korea, and it will be he who maps out the approach to the Democratic Republic of Korea (DPRK--North Korea) in the coming months.

Selig Harrison, Director of the Asia Program at the Center for International Policy, visited the DPRK in the spring of 2004, where he met with high-ranking officials. Harrison "found the North Korean leadership extremely eager to find a way to conclude a nuclear deal with the United States. They need such a deal urgently because North Korea embarked on significant economic reforms in the middle of 2002, and these have intensified the economic pressures that confront its leadership." Consequently, they want to improve relations with the United States. Harrison said that although the North Korean leadership is "very eager for settlement," they are "not prepared to do it in the way the Bush Administration is asking them to do it. The North Koreans say that Washington wants them to, in effect, simply roll over and disarm unilaterally." Harrison felt that the Bush Administration has "a very rigid position," and is "not prepared to trade anything."That approach, he added, "risks a war. The point is, the Administration's objective is really regime change in Pyongyang."

This policy was epitomized in Victor Cha, who Harrison described as "kind of the ideologue of the Bush Administration" on the subject of Korean affairs--and this even before his appointment to the NSC. Cha's book on North Korea, Harrison said, "lays it all out: the purpose of negotiating with North Korea is not to settle anything," because in Cha's eyes it presents a threat to South Korean and American interests. "You have these multilateral negotiations in Beijing simply to show to the other parties in the region--China, South Korea, Russia and Japan--that it is not possible to make any deals with North Korea. He says the purpose of the negotiations is to mobilize a 'coalition for punishment'."The goal of talks, therefore, is not conflict resolution but to build a multinational coalition backing sanctions or military action. Cha has argued that "engagement is the best practical way to build a coalition for punishment tomorrow. A necessary precondition for the U.S. coercing North Korea is the formation of a regional consensus that efforts to resolve the problem in a non-confrontational manner have been exhausted. Without this consensus, implementing any form of coercion that actually puts pressure on the regime is unworkable."The policy Cha terms "hawk engagement," is only a means to an end. For Cha, "engagement does not operate without an exit strategy, engagement is the exit strategy."

President Bush came very close to actually launching an attack on North Korea in the spring of 2003. In March the U.S. moved a fleet of ships to the region, including the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson with its 75 aircraft. In preparation for the attack, 6 F-117 Stealth bombers were sent to South Korea and 25 F-15 Fighters and 24 B-1 and B-52 bombers were stationed in Guam. Plans to conduct air strikes were in place, Bush admitted to South Korean Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Pan Ki-Mun one year later. The danger of war was averted during the U.S.-South Korean summit in Washington in May 2003, when South Korean officials strenuously objected to the plan.As in 1994, the American public never knew just how close the U.S. came to war on the Korean Peninsula in 2003. South Korean opposition to military action only strengthened the Bush Administration's conviction that it would be necessary to demonstrate the futility of negotiations before it could win the support of regional allies. It felt it could best accomplish that goal by presenting an image of negotiating without actually doing so.

In each of the first two six-party talks with North Korea, James Kelly, head of the U.S. delegation, was instructed not to negotiate.As a result, the meetings were little more than an exercise in futility. Russian, Chinese, South Korean and Japanese diplomats expressed their displeasure with Washington's stubborn refusal to engage in real negotiations. China's deputy foreign minister, Zhou Wenzhong, appealed to the U.S. to stop using its accusation of a North Korean uranium enrichment weapons program as an excuse for obstructing negotiations. "We know nothing about the uranium program," Zhou said. "We don't know whether it exists. So far the U.S. has not presented convincing evidence of this program." Zhou pointed out that if such a program did exist, then it should be included in any agreement, but that the U.S. should stop making accusations unless it could offer conclusive proof.

The North Korean position, as articulated by its foreign minister, Paek Nam-Sun, was that if the United States would produce evidence, then the DPRK "would certainly show" suspected sites, "as was the case with the Kumchangni incident." The reference was to an occasion in 1999 when the U.S. claimed to have solid evidence that a nuclear weapon facility was operating in a cave located at Kumchangni, and charged the DPRK with violating its treaty obligations.The U.S. pressured North Korea into allowing inspectors into the area, only to find nothing more than an empty cave.

Examples such as this, as well as the deliberate lies about Iraqi weapons programs used to justify invasion tended to leave third parties skeptical of overheated accusations and claims of evidence which are never produced.One Asian diplomat, requesting anonymity, said what was on the minds of many. "We think the U.S. claims are a little exaggerated, not as much as with Iraq, but still we have to be careful of what the U.S. says." Cognizant of the perception that it was as an obstacle to progress, the Bush Administration decided that it should present a plan.Administration officials admitted privately that the chaos in Iraq had changed the dynamics of the nuclear dispute with North Korea and that it was necessary to be seen by its allies as submitting a serious offer, even one that included conditions they knew the DPRK would refuse. One U.S. official admitted, "They may say no--and in that case they will have failed the test," confirming that the Administration viewed the process as a means of convincing its allies that talks were useless and that more hostile measures would eventually be necessary.

At the last round of talks, in June 2004, the U.S. delegation refrained from using the phrase "complete, verifiable and irreversible," which the North Koreans had begun to find increasingly offensive. Instead lead negotiator James Kelly proposed a new two-stage plan, in which the DPRK would first commit to dismantle all nuclear programs, whether peaceful or related to weapons production. This also would include the highly enriched uranium program that the U.S. was still insisting was real, but which the North Koreans always denied existed. In this first stage, North Korea would be given three months to "provide a complete listing of all its nuclear activities and cease operation of all of its nuclear activities; permit the securing of all fissile material and the monitoring of all fuel rods, and; permit the publicly disclosed and observable disablement of all nuclear weapons/weapons components and key centrifuge parts."

All of these actions would take place under "international," by which was meant U.S., supervision and verification.In exchange, other nations, but not the U.S., would resume shipments of heavy fuel oil to North Korea.Provisional multilateral security assurances by the U.S. and the other parties would be offered, stating that the five nations harbored "no intention to invade or attack" the DPRK. As a provisional statement of intent, it could be withdrawn at any time prior to the total dismantlement of all nuclear programs. Furthermore, officials of the Bush Administration indicated, a security guarantee would not mean committing never to seek regime change. Nations other than the U.S. would "begin a study to determine the energy requirements of the DPRK and how to meet them by non-nuclear energy programs."They would also "begin a discussion of steps necessary to lift remaining economic sanctions on the DPRK, and the steps necessary for removal of the DPRK from the List of State Sponsors of Terrorism." This discussion would focus on a series of further demands on North Korea, such as a reduction in its conventional military forces and an end to missile development.Although Western news reports on the plan claimed that the U.S. would be involved in those discussions, James Kelly himself specifically ruled that out. Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Kelly emphasized that "as the DPRK carried out its commitments, the other parties"- meaning South Korea, China, Russia and possibly Japan - would implement the "corresponding steps." It is probable, however, that behind the scenes the U.S. would direct how its allies approached the dialogue. The only U.S. commitment would be its inclusion in the five-party provisional security guarantee.

What is most striking about the first phase of the plan is that the U.S. would essentially undertake no meaningful obligations. Meanwhile, the DPRK would be compelled to identify and stop all of its nuclear operations, and permit U.S. personnel to take control of every element of its programs. Were the plan to collapse at mid-point, North Korea's nuclear material would have been secured and the Pentagon would have the bombing coordinates for every facility related to nuclear research and development. Presumably during the three-month preparatory phase, U.S. monitors would also be busily engaged in marking additional targets while guests of the DPRK.

Failure by North Korea to provide a list of facilities engaged in uranium enrichment would cancel the agreement, thereby triggering the automatic withdrawal of the provisional security guarantee. Given that there is no evidence that such a program ever existed, it may be concluded that the plan was intended to fail, but only after obtaining a wealth of intelligence data on North Korea. In return for handing over control of nuclear material to the U.S. and the coordinates of its operations to Pentagon planners, the DPRK would receive nothing substantive in return other than temporary shipments of heavy fuel oil from other nations.Aside from that solitary concrete commitment, there was only the promise to "begin a study," and the expectation of "discussions" about additional concessions the DPRK would have to make before yet more discussions could take place.

In the second and final step of the American plan, North Korea would proceed to dismantle every element of its nuclear programs, and the multilateral security guarantee would be made permanent once that process was complete. The U.S. plan was little more than a more detailed rehash of previous demands, as Kelly affirmed one month later before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "First, we seek the complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement of the DPRK's nuclear programs--nothing less."The plan, admitted a high-ranking official in the Bush Administration, was only a "repackaging and elaboration of things we have said before."It was said that the plan had been developed in response to South Korean and Japanese concerns, and represented an exercise in "alliance management."

U.S. negotiators behaved as if there was nothing amiss in their demand for North Korea to abandon plans for the peaceful development of nuclear energy.Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was critical of that approach, and felt it necessary to point out the obvious. "We consider that the DPRK, as any sovereign state, has a full right--in accordance with international law--to develop peaceful nuclear power. Toward this end, of course, it is necessary that the DPRK return to the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons and fully restore its participation in the IAEA, including the signing of an additional protocol on inspections."The head of the Russian delegation at the six-party talks, Aleksandar Alekseyev, expressed similar sentiments. "No one has the right to ban peaceful nuclear programs. This goes against international law." The Russians were, in fact, correct. According to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, "peaceful applications of nuclear technologyshould be available for peaceful purposes to all Parties of the Treaty, whether nuclear-weapon or non-nuclear weapon States."

Plans called for the six parties to meet again in late September, but hopes quickly faded as relations between the U.S. and DPRK continued to sour.The primary trigger that set off the chain of events leading to the dissolution of the talks was a statement by James Kelly before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 15. "Of course, to achieve full integration into the region and a wholly transformed relationship with the United States, North Korea must take other steps in addition to making the strategic decision to give up its nuclear ambitions. It also needs to change its behavior on human rights, address the issues underlying its appearance on the U.S. list of states sponsoring terrorism, eliminate its illegal weapons of mass destruction programs, put an end to the proliferation of missiles and missile-related technology, and adopt a less provocative conventional force disposition." Responding to questions from senators, Kelly emphasized, "We've made clear that normalization of our relations would have to follow these other important issues."Here was a clear signal that even an agreement and full implementation on denuclearization would not bring about a normalization of relations between the two countries.The North Koreans were dismayed at the prospect that they were expected to bargain away all of their chips only to be faced with a series of further demands and the maintenance of hostile relations. What the DPRK sought above all else was a normalization of relations between the two nations, and Kelly's statement was taken as an indication of a lack of good will.

The highly lauded U.S. plan, then, was little more than a ruse.It was never meant to lead to a genuine negotiated settlement of differences with the DPRK.Any future talks appear destined for failure, given the Bush Administration's "hawk engagement" approach, in which negotiations are intended to fail in order to build support for coercive and violent measures. The DPRK has recently indicated its willingness to resume negotiations, but says that it wants coexistence and asks the U.S. to drop its hostile approach so that meaningful dialogue may take place. The direction of events take on the Korean Peninsula will depend in large measure on the ability of the other parties to the talks--Russia, China, Japan and above all South Korea--to rein in the worst excesses of the Bush Administration without antagonizing it to the point where it decides to take unilateral military action against North Korea. Perhaps the best that can be hoped for is continued stalemate throughout President Bush's second term, but the appointments of Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State and Victor Cha as Asia Director in the NSC warn of darker possibilities.

Gregory Elich is nearing completion of his book, Strange Liberators: Militarism, Mayhem and the Pursuit of Profit. He can be reached at: gelich@worldnet.att.net

 

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