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May 23, 2002
Dean Baker
Attack of the Clowns:
The Real Bush is Back
Susan Abulhawa
Israel
and South Africa:
Apartheid's Accidental Prophecy
Uri Avnery
Sharon the Great Reformer?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Travails
of a Middle Eastern Migrant: Accosted at the Border
May 22, 2002
Brian J. Foley
Dick Cheney's Obscenity
Gavin Keeney
Bete Noire
Enron & the Great Game
Fran Shor
Follow the Money
Bush, bin Laden & Carlyle
May 21, 2002
George Monbiot
Riddle
of the Spores:
The FBI and Anthrax
Yulie Khromchenko
Displaced Reality:
Impressions from Jenin
Bernard Weiner
Kenny
Boy to Bush:
"Welcome to the Club"
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
May 17, 2002
Wayne Madsen
Fox News Flashback:
Defending McKinney
James T. Phillips
Ceasefires
and Terrorists
Phillipe Dambournet
The Truth at Last:
Bush as the Energizer Bunny
Lori Berenson
In Defense
of Political Prisoners
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Terrorist Warnings
Hussein Ibish
Clarifying
the Obstacles
to Peace in Palestine
Alexander Cockburn
Israel and "Anti-Semitism"
May 16, 2002
Marylin Robinson
A Garden
in Tent City, But Where Do You Bathe?
Paul de Rooij
Worse than CNN?
The BBC and Israel
David Krieger
The Bush/Putin
Agreement:
Nuclear Dangers Remain
Steve Perry
Unsafe at Any Speed:
Youth, Sex and the Heresies
of Judith Levine
May 15, 2002
Ahmad Faruqui
Revisiting
Camp David
Rick Giombetti
Spiderman v. Pentagon:
Working Class Hero Battles Corrupt Defense Contractors
Stanton / Madsen
When the
War Hits Home:
Planning for Martial Law, Telegovernance and Suspension of Elections
May 14, 2002
Jacob Levich
Leaving the Truth Out?
Alternative Online Publication
Tells the Big Lie about Palestine
Michael Colby
Bush's
Cuba Blunder
Dave Marsh
Scapegoats: the Music Industry's War
on Cassettes
Jensen / Mahajan
US Power
Mideast Power Plays
May 13, 2002
Robert Fisk
Why Does John Malkovich
Want to Kill Me?
Mokhiber / Weissman
IMF
and World Bank:
Out of Control
Dean Baker
Will Darth Vader do Time?
The Enron Saga Continues
Nelson Valdés
American
Democracy:
A Lesson for Cubans
May 12, 2002
Bernard Weiner
Why Is America Acting Like This? A
Letter to European Friends
John Patrick Leary
Aiding Colombia
Kathleen Christison
Israel
and Ethics
May 11, 2002
Joady Guthrie
The Holy Lands:
A Peace Vision
Patrick Cockburn
Bombing
Iraq:
the Pentagon Prepares a Prolonged Campaign
George Sunderland
CounterPunch Special
Our
Vichy Congress: Israel's Stranglehold on Capitol Hill
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
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Published March 15, 2002
Read Whiteout and Find Out
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 New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism
By Rahul Mahajan
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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This Explosive
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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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May
24, 2002
The Death Penalty
is Flawed and Wrong
Halt Executions Nationwide
by Sen. Russ Feingold and Sen.
Jon Corzine
Gov. Parris N. Glendening took a courageous step
when he put a moratorium on executions in Maryland, as Gov.
George Ryan did in Illinois in 2000.
Mr. Glendening's action signals mounting
concern about flaws in our death penalty system: the 101st death
row inmate has now been exonerated; a Columbia University study
has found that from 1973 to 1995, more than two-thirds of death
penalty convictions were reversed on appeal based on serious,
reversible error; and late last month in New York, U.S. District
Judge Jed Rakoff announced that he was seriously considering
finding the federal death penalty unconstitutional because so
many death row inmates have been found innocent.
The message is clear: In response to
the glaring flaws in the administration of capital punishment,
the nation should conduct a thorough, nationwide review of the
death penalty.
No executions should go forward while
an independent, blue-ribbon commission examines the federal
and state systems of capital punishment - systems so riddled
with errors that for every eight people executed in the modern
death penalty era, one person on death row has been found innocent.
No one would buy a particular car if the brakes failed in one
car for every eight cars that came off the lot, and we should
never accept that level of error when people's lives hang in
the balance.
The commission appointed by Governor
Ryan has taken a hard look at that state's death penalty system,
which has freed more men from its death row than it has executed
since Illinois reinstated the death penalty in 1977. Yet no
thorough study of the federal death penalty, or of the death
penalty in 37 other states, has been conducted since the Supreme
Court first declared capital punishment unconstitutional in
the United States in 1972.
Just last week, the 101st exoneration
in the United States took place in Pennsylvania, where Thomas
Kimbell Jr. spent four years on Pennsylvania's death row for
murders he did not commit. With 101 death row inmates nationwide
found innocent - some just days before their execution date
- the nation should follow Illinois' lead by placing a moratorium
on executions and conducting a thorough examination of the
administration of capital punishment.
After the 13th innocent man was freed
from Illinois' death row more than two years ago, Governor Ryan
placed a moratorium on the state's death penalty and brought
together an esteemed panel of prosecutors, defense lawyers,
judges and other citizens from both sides of the issue.
That commission concluded that while
no system can guarantee that capital punishment won't take an
innocent life in Illinois, the state can institute reforms in
its criminal justice system to guard against such a terrible
injustice.
The recommendations made by the Illinois
commission address the root problems that have resulted in the
wrongful conviction of innocent people.
For instance, the commission recommends
that the death penalty be barred in certain situations in which
a conviction hinges solely on evidence that is inherently less
reliable, such as the testimony of a single witness, a jailhouse
informant or "snitch," or an uncorroborated accomplice.
The commission also recommends the videotaping
of questioning of capital suspects at a police facility to
reduce the risk of possible coerced confessions.
The problem of incompetent defense counsel
can be addressed by improving the training of lawyers in death
penalty cases, the commission writes.
While Illinois, and now Maryland, work
to reform their death penalty systems, many other states have
done little or nothing to review their own systems of capital
punishment, even though their rates for error in capital cases
may be significant.
Three-fourths of the states that have
conducted executions since 1976 have released at least one innocent
person from death row; 22 innocent people have been released
from Florida's death row alone in the modern death penalty era.
A national commission should study whether
and how these kinds of serious errors can be avoided in other
death penalty states and at the federal level.
We support legislation in the Senate
to create such a commission, and to put a moratorium on executions
while the commission evaluates whether the operation of the
death penalty machinery today is consistent with constitutional
principles of fairness, justice, equality and due process.
The harrowing stories of innocent people
narrowly averting execution, and the courageous steps by the
Maryland and Illinois governors, offer compelling evidence that
a national commission and moratorium should go forward.
Russ Feingold
is a Democratic senator from Wisconsin and Jon Corzine
is a Democratic senator from New Jersey. They are co-sponsors
of the proposed National Death Penalty Moratorium Act.
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