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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! General Petraeus' Fake War
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
General Petraeus' Fake War
How the Press and Congress Eagerly Swallowed It
EXCLUSIVE to subscribers in our latest newsletter, Gareth Porter dissects two years’ worth of successful lying by Gen Petraeus and his propaganda team. Guess what? The FBI AND DOJ didn’t specially target Muhammad Ali. Those G-men were just following normal procedures! Alexander Cockburn reviews the latest effort to “revise” the Sixties. Dick Cheney “didn’t understand the legalities.” James Abourezk describes his efforts to close down the lethal liquor operators that prey on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Whatever happened to the class war? Read Serge Halimi and find out. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 10, 2008 Brian McKenna Saul Landau Ron Jacobs July 9, 2008 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Luis Rodriguez Sheldon Richman Fatemeh Keshavarz Chad Hanson Sen. Russ Feingold Niranjan Ramakrishnan Dave Lindorff Stanley Heller Philip Rizk Website of the Day July 8, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Laura Carlsen Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Patrick Irelan Chellis Glendinning David Macaray Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Phillip Doe Website of the Day July 7, 2008 Patrick Bond Kathy Kelly Andy Worthington Clifton Ross Elizabeth Schulte Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Binoy Kampmark Stephen Fleischman Website of the Day July 5 / 6, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair / Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Binoy Kampmark Rannie Amiri Eric Ruder Brian Cloughley William Blum Frank Barat Christopher Brauchli David Yearsley Ron Jacobs Karim Makdisi Wendy Thompson / N.D. Jayaprakash Ramzy Baroud Kelly Overton Richard Neville Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
July 4, 2008 Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Paul Krassner Jackie Corr Laray Polk Dan Bacher Walter Brasch Charles Modiano Website of the Day July 3, 2008 Sharon Smith Andy Worthington Laura Carlsen Peter Morici Ramzi Kysia Martha Rosenberg Anne Landman Dave Zirin Kristin Bricker Website of the Day
July 2, 2008 Patrick Irelan Vijay Prashad Brian Cloughley Ralph Nader Robert Fantina Dave Lindorff Parvez Ahmed Robert Bryce Website of the Day July 1, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Mike Whitney Douglas Macgregor Steven Higgs Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark Dave Lindorff Roger Burbach Richard W. Behan Gary Leupp Website of the Day June 30, 2008 Peter Lee Jeff Sommers David Macaray Martha Rosenberg David Price Alexandra Early June 28 / 29, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Joan P. Mencher Nikolas Kozloff Jason Hribal Alan Maass Robert Fantina Bill Moyers / Mike Whitney Justin E. H. Smith Pham Binh David Yearsley Christopher Ketcham Jeremy R. Hammond Kathleen M. Barry Walter Brasch Brett Drugge Susie Day Website of the Day June 27, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Jonathan Cook Brian Cloughley Saree Makdisi Liliana Segura Paul Krassner William S. Lind Candace Cohn Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day June 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff William P. O'Connor Saul Landau Ashley Smith Dave Lindorff David Macaray Binoy Kampmark Matt Reichel Remi Kenazi Website of the Day
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July 10, 2008 Largest Conservation Deal in History a Taxpayer Funded Crapshoot?Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth VaderBy JOSHUA FRANK The wild forests of North America have almost completely disappeared over the past century and a half, and so too have the great timber barons that stole these lands from the public trust. Even so, the corporate pillage continues to be celebrated, and the companies left standing are still being bailed out. Several weeks ago Congress passed the engorged HR 2419, the "Food and Energy Act of 2008," better known to the rest of us lay folk as the annual Farm Bill. Along with the laundry list of lavish handouts to the agricultural industry, there were also two fat pork loins cooked up for timber companies, tucked deep in the 682-page sham of legislation. Thanks to Montana Senator Max Baucus, a Democrat, timber giant Weyerhaeuser was granted $182 million in tax breaks along with Plum Creek Timber, one of the largest private land owners in the state, which received a whopping $500 million. On May 23, Sen. Baucus announced his backhanded deal with Plum Creek CEO Rick Holley standing by his side. It was payback. Employees of Plum Creek have donated almost $20,000 to Baucus this past year, and the company spent $200,000 in lobbying fees during the period in which the Farm Bill was being debated in Congress. The forest removal industry has for decades been rewarded for its bad behavior. They have been given unfettered access to log on our public lands, with subsidies aiding them along the way. Even when push came to shove they have always made out like bandits, sharing little of their uber-wealth with the public who helped finance their success -- not to mention ever giving back to the habitat they profited from by destroying. If I sound bitter, it's because I am. Plum Creek, after cutting virtually all the good trees on its Montana land, is about to be compensated for its loss by so-called conservationists. Last week the Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land announced a backroom deal, brokered by Sen. Baucus himself, that would transfer up to 300,000 acres of the company's despoiled property over to the groups for the amount of $510 million. It is to become the largest, most expensive conservation deal in U.S. history. Nonetheless, all that money isn't going to be paid by the green groups alone. In fact, the Federal government will cover half of the tab, thanks to Sen. Baucus of course, with Montanans paying another $100 million. The rest will be raised by the conservationists who claim they are actually saving the land from residential development. It should be clear that Plum Creek doesn't deserve the hundreds of millions of dollars it’s going to receive from taxpayers. Instead the company ought to be the one cutting checks for all the environmental damage they've caused to grizzly and fish habitat throughout the state over the years. Here's a little information about Montana's non-forest policy that Plum Creek Timber and others have exploited: The state is essentially a resource treasure chest that has no acting forest practices in place to regulate private lands. In short, it's a deregulated, boondoggle, free-for-all. And Plum Creek, in this case, liquidated its assets (trees) and is now selling off their land off under the guise of conservation, paid in large part by the public. However, what's being conserved is still up for debate. "I recently flew over some of the Plum Creek land that the public will eventually get west of Seeley Lake, Montana, and it was mile after mile of clearcuts," says Michael Garrity, Executive Director of Helena, Montana based Alliance for the Wild Rockies. "That is probably one reason Plum Creek agreed to sell it and not develop the land into vacation subdivisions. Who wants a vacation home in a middle of a clearcut?" Yes, that's right, Plum Creek can still log on some of this land, but they can only do so if certified "sustainable" by a third-party verifier. "Many of these third party certificates are worthless if the public is not allowed to over see them," says Garrity. "And it is not clear if the public will." This fact alone should raise the hackles of taxpayers who are footing the majority of Plum Creek's bill. They may have little input about what actually happens on the land they helped pay for. The agreement will also allow the Forest Service, an agency wrought with a history of corruption and mismanagement, to oversee half of the land down the road. It is just one more tale of environmental compromise that many greens have for far too long been forced to accept in Montana and the Pacific Northwest when dealing with resource extraction outfits like Plum Creek and conservationists such as the Nature Conservancy. These guys run the only game in town, which is fixed at the highest levels by senators like Max Baucus who operate behind the curtains of power with impunity. So how good is this deal when all is said and done? "Nothing is good about 150 years of corporate subsidies, but the unintended consequences are less evil than the subdivisions alternative," says veteran forest activist Steve Kelly of Bozeman, Montana. "Oh, there will still be subdivisions, just a lot fewer. Good, or excellent, is never an option in a rigged world limited to choosing between the lesser of two evils." Joshua Frank is the author of Left Out! (Common Courage Press) and the co-editor, with Jeffrey St. Clair, of Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland (AK Press). Visit the new Red State Rebels website at www.RedStateRebels.org.
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