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New Exposés in Special Print Edition of CounterPunch CIA's Overthrow Plans for Iran Agency musters Swiftboat vets, pumps funding into destabilization program aimed at Teheran. Trish Schuh reveals how White House approves race-baiting smears of Islam. Remember how Leadbelly got ripped off by Lomax, how Louis Armstrong's agent got richer than his most famous client? The rip-offs never die. Fred Wilhelms narrates how artists and musicians are being shafted in the age of the internet. Meet the real Judge John Roberts, serf for big business. Cockburn and St Clair dissect the Court's new nominee. Tailhook vet and self-proclaimed Tom Cruise model bites dust in Pentagon scandal: a defense industry parable. St. Clair on Duke Cunningham's Crash Landing. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... 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 donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch's Hot New T-Shirts for Women! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by Kathy Kelly Click Here to Order 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly's Harrowing First-hand Account of Iraq Under the Squeeze of Sanctions and Missiles of Shock and Awe! Today's Stories July 30 / 31, 2005 JoAnn Wypijewski Scenes and Silver Linings from Labor's Crack-Up Sheldon Rampton War is Fun as Hell: the Video Games Recruiters Play Greg Moses How to Cool Your Heels in Texas When It's Late July Across the World Jordan Green From Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Economics and the Race Divide in a Southern City Patrick Cockburn Getting Out of Iraq: 5,000 US Troops Have Gone AWOL Brian Cloughley The Bush-Cheney Fixation on Iran Joshua Frank Color-Coded Justice: John Roberts's Racial Hang Up   July 29, 2005 P. Sainath The Class War in Gurgaon Niranjan Ramakrishnan How the West Was Lost: CAFTA and the Disassembling of America Dave Lindorff Marvelous Marvin Bush J.L. Chestnut, Jr. America's Racist Inventory: Oppression Breeds Violence Pat Williams Giving Away the Last Best Place Norman Solomon In Praise of Kevin Benderman: a Moral Leader of the Nation Goes to Prison Sen. Russ Feingold The Bad News About the Energy Bill Cockburn / St. Clair Who's the Real Martyr? Judy Miller or Jim DeFede?     July 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Departing Iraq William S. Lind The Duke of Alba and George W. Bush Gilad Atzmon Blair the Camera Man Joshua Frank Passing CAFTA: Blame the Democrats Lila Rajiva Vision Mumbai Submerged Amina Mire Pigmentation and Empire: the Emerging Skin-Whitening Industry Website of the Day Gateway to Underground News   July 27, 2005 Roger Morris The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal Gary Leupp Is Iran Being Set Up? Paul Craig Roberts US Falling Behind Across the Board Jackie Corr Class War on the Ruby River: the Billionaire with His Foot in His Mouth Mike Whitney The Coming End of the Housing Bubble Dave Zirin Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush Christopher Bradley Why I Have Trouble Reading the News Norman Solomon Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist? Website of the Day Stormin' Norman     July 26, 2005 Suren Pillay The Enemy Within: When the "Other" is One of "Us" JoAnn Wypijewski Fission and Fizzle in Chicago: SEIU and Teamsters Quit the AFL Patrick Cockburn Iraq: the Unwinnable War David Anderson When the Greatest Outrage is the Lack of Outrage: NYC's Subway Searches Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton: Outflanking Bush from the Right Lenni Brenner Biography as Wish-Fulfillment: Jefferson, Hitchens and Atheism David Swanson Nuking Native Land   July 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts China-Mart Takes Over M. Shahid Alam Terrorism: America Defines Its Targets Uri Avnery March of the Orange Shirts Stan Cox Kreationism in Kansas Norman Solomon "Wagging the Puppy" Ramzy Baroud London Bombings: Barbaric, But Not Unexpected Mickey Z. No Gun Ri: 55 Years Later Website of the Day The Birth of a Hummingbird in 15 Images   July 23 / 24, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Islamo-Anarchs or Islamo-Fascists? Tariq Ali The War Comes Home Robert Fisk Something Happened Dave Lindorff Return of the Academic Witch Hunts Ricardo Alarcón Kidnapping in Miami: the UN, the US and the Cuban 5 Col. Dan Smith Living in a Twilight Zone: Troop Strength, Recruitment and the Draft Brian Cloughley The Pentagon's China Hypocrisy Kevin Zeese Growing Republican Opposition to Iraq War Bill Quigley Harrowing Hours in Haiti Fred Gardner The Reverberations of Raich Rep. Ron Paul The Patriot Act is a Threat to Liberty Joshua Frank Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats Shivali Tukdeo Project Mumbai Makeover: Casualties of Development Gilad Atzmon Blair's "Evil Ideology" James Petras Baghdad: Barbarism and Civilization (a Fiction) Ben Tripp When Being American Was Fun Poets' Basement Krieger, Louise, Buknatski, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Remember the West Memphis 3 July 22, 2005 Heather Gray Home Grown Axis of Evil: Corp. Agribusiness, the Occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott Decision David Domke The American Press and Credibility Lance Selfa Battle of the Insiders: No Heroes in the Plame Leak Scandal JoAnn Wypijewski Is This Really an "Insurgency" to Shake Up the Labor Movement?   July 21, 2005 Rose Ann DeMoro The Top 10 Problems with the "Crisis" in the Labor Movement William Blum London: Another Casualty in the War on Terror J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Whites Need to Learn Something: Dixie is Everywhere Christopher Brauchli Strange Affairs: Liberals and Alberto Gonzales Joshua Frank Plame Blame Game: the 5 Ws Brian Concannon, Jr. Haiti's Elections: Time for a Reality Check Patrick Cockburn The True, Terrible State of Iraq and the Link to London Website of the Day Who Blew Up the Murrah Building?     July 20, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judge Roberts: Business as Usual Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Red Christmas Ray McGovern Did Dick Finger Valerie?: the Hand of Cheney Chris Floyd Judge Dread: John Roberts and the "Enemy Combatants" Uri Avnery "Silence is Filth" Dave Lindorff Westmoreland's Body Count Goes Up by One Norman Solomon Gen. Westmoreland's Death Wish Bill Quigley Travels in Haiti with a Wanted Priest       July 19, 2005 Tariq Ali An Isolated Regime John Ross Jihad Meets G-8 Davey D. More Clear Channel Censorship: "Don't F--K Around with Tha Police" Greg Weiher Muzzling Saddam: the Old Bait-and-Switch in Iraqi Jurisprudence Brian McKinlay An "Arse Licker" Goes to Washington: John Howard's Grand Tour Norman Solomon Nukes for India; Threats for Iran Dave Lindorff Get Back to Where We Once Belonged Bill Christison Bush's Itinerary: First Stop Syria, Next Stop Iran Joshua Frank Laura's Justice?: Meet Edith Brown Clement   July 18, 2005 Joshua Frank An Interview with Ward Churchill M. Shahid Alam A Muslim Problem: Did Thomas Friedman Flunk History? Jude Wanniski Memo to Patrick Fitzgerald Ron Jacobs A Weekend to Stop the War Mike Whitney The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station William MacDougall From "Bring It On" to "London Can Take It" Seth Sandronsky Temporary Recovery: New Frontiers in Labor Flexibility Richard Lichtman The Consolations of George Lakoff Paul Craig Roberts Can Congressional Republicans End Bush's Wars? Website of the Weekend Novels of the Neo-Cons   July 15 / 17, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Don't You Dare Call It Treason Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Paul Craig Roberts Economic Treason Harry Browne "What They Do to Us, They Will Do to You": Shell Oil in Mayo, Ireland Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron A Warning from Israel Andrew Rubin End of the Enlightenment: an Open Letter to Stephen Plaut Patrick Cockburn Iraq's Ghost Battalions J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Changes in Selma: Standing Up to Racism in the South Fred Gardner A Professional Bust Christopher Brauchli An Olympic Feat: How to "Double" Aid with No New Money Chris Floyd The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway Ben Tripp The Dark Incontinent Col. Dan Smith General Abizaid, I'm Glad You Asked Jason Leopold What Did Rove Say and When Did He Say It? Jack Random Miller Time Norman Solomon War and Venture Capitalism George Ochenski Liberate Montana's Rivers: Come One, Come All! Website of the Weekend Vote for CounterPuncher David Vest     July 14, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Subcomandante Marcos This is What Will Do and How We Shall Do It: the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona Dave Lindorff No More Moral Relativism: the US is a Terrorist State Joshua Frank Rove Agency: Liberals and the CIA Jude Wanniski Those 8 Black Pages: What's the Real Story on Karl Rove? Dave Zirin Storming the Castle Kevin Zeese Exit Strategy: Within Reach? Robert Jensen War Myths and the Press Reza Fiyouzat A Worldwide Call to Free Akbar Ganji Carol Norris Governor Paranoid: Schwarzenegger Comes Unhinged Website of the Day Nate Osborn: Heroic Human Rights Activist and CounterPuncher   July 13, 2005 Brian Cloughley Cold Blooded Murders in Iraq George Galloway We Can't Separate the London Bombings from the Political Backdrop Carlos Fierro A Supreme Waste of Time Sarah Knopp Hate on the Border Norman Solomon "Isolated Pockets of Problems": the Fake Optimism of Washington's Warriors Mickey Z. Water on the Brain Jim Minick The Right Tree in the Right Place Pat Williams American Indian Education for All Andrew N. Rubin Life Behind the Wall: "We are No Longer Able to See the Sun Set" Website of the Day "London's Burning": the Mikey Mix     July 12, 2005 Laith al-Saud Voices of Resistance: an Interview with Dr. Mohammed al-Obaidi of Iraq's Peoples' Struggle Movement Kara N. Tina "This is How We Do It": Report from the Gleneagles Battlefield William A. Cook The London Bombings: Why Has It Come to This? Jack Bratich 2 Live Cruise: Tom Cruise v. Big Pharma Amina Mire The Problem with Speaking in the Name of Others Dick J. Reavis Lessons from the Christian Jihadists: the Virtues of Burning Crosses and Colored Smoke Kevin Zeese Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Vets Paul Craig Roberts No-Think Nation Website of the Day Coke Gags Indian Artist     July 9 / 11, 2005 Alexander Cockburn After the Bombings Uri Avnery War of the Colors in Israel Sheldon Rampton Blaming Galloway: Rhetoric vs. Reality in London Bill Christison Hiroshima's 60th Anniversary and Nukes in Iran: an Opportunity or Just More Hand-wringing from the Peace Movement? Robert Fisk Blair's Alliance with Bush Bombed Stephen Winspear Collateral Damage in London? Saul Landau Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken Behrooz Ghamari Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem Karl Beitel False Promises and Real Debt Relief Brian Concannon, Jr. Throwing Gasoline on Haiti's Fires Fred Gardner Sentencing Season John Whitlow And What Does the Market Say? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The London Blasts: Who's Being Transformed, Them or Us? Lila Rajiva Witches and Bastards Laura Carlsen CAFTA: Deepening the Inequities Jackie Corr Ted Turner and Jiminy Cricket Dave Lindorff "My Brother Went Over There Gung Ho; Now He's Just Bitter" N. D. Jayaprakash Why the CIA Tried to Kill Chou En Lai at the Bandung Conference Seth Sandronsky Meet the "Truth Tour": Rightwing Radio Hosts Go to Iraq Norman Madarasz The Choking of Brazil's Worker Party Ben Tripp The Inevitability of George W. Bush Poets' Basement Louise, Albert, Landau, Davies and Engel Website of the Weekend The Mother of All Enemies Lists     July 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blowback Hits Britain: Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception Tariq Ali The London Bombings: Why They Happened Monica Benderman One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality Rick Jahnkow Beyond Opt-Out: the Counter-Recruitment Movement Christopher Brauchli Dear Vet: If You Want to Eat While You Recuperate, You Gotta Pay Extra Kim Peterson Bombs in the Underground: Terror Begats Terror Joshua Frank Leakers and Liars: Inching Toward Indictments? Norman Solomon Messages from the Carnage Website of the Day An Interview with Ray McGovern   July 7, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr John Walsh More Hawkish Than Bush: Dems in Full Battle Cry Mike Marqusee Message from London Gilad Atzmon London's Burning Nicole Colson Showdown at the Supreme Court Jack Random Judith Miller, Anti-Hero Norman Solomon Judith Miller, Drum Majorette for War Len Colodny Is Bob Woodward Still Protecting Al Haig? Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr                                                             Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition July 30 / 31, 2005 Pot Shots The Ethan and Gavin Show By FRED GARDNER Ethan Nadelmann, mastermind of the Drug Policy Alliance, has a fantasy starring Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco. Newsom had already spoken and was seated at a table onstage, blushing and shaking his head, as Nadelmann shared his fantasy at a public forum sponsored by the S.F. Medical Society July 26. In the fantasy, after "very interesting conversations in the White House," Newsom must bar the entrance to San Francisco's city-run grow op as federal forces approach. "You'll have to take me first," he declares. (In reality, of course, the dashing young mayor would be surrounded by public health officers, supervisors, deputy sheriffs and citizens en masse.) More than 250 concerned citizens attended the forum, which was held at the Jewish Community Center (where cars get searched before entering the garage and security guards inspect suspicious guitar cases). San Francisco is weighing the regulation of cannabis dispensaries just as the DEA is closing some of them down - "a daunting task," to put it mildly. Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi has drafted an ordinance that would require dispensaries to pay $7,4000 to apply for several city permits, invite neighbors' input, and locate at least 500 feet from schools (or 1,000 feet if smoking allowed). An ordinance by Sup. Gerardo Sandoval, would require dispensaries to get a conditional use permit from the Planning Department (a higher bar than Mirkarimi's). Both bills involve the keeping of records that could facilitate prosecution by the feds. Here's the post-forum commentary of Michael Aldrich, a former club proprietor who has been monitoring the situation closely: "I'm very concerned that honest patient collectives (not retail stores) get left out of the permit process, which means if passed as written, there will be no way for patient collectives allowed in SB420 to exist in San Francisco! It may be irrelevant anyway, if the Federal injunction allowing WAMM to operate their collective garden, expires this month and is not renewed because of Raich. But I do think that patient collectives that do not have a retail store, that actually reimburse a grower to grow for them, have the right to exist under SB420. The problem with the WAMM model in the City is twofold: first, it's hard for them to raise money to recompense the grower, unless the grower also sells to retail stores and just gives it away to some patients... Second, the difficulty with inspecting and zoning hidden gardens without going through the public notification process our collective can't even apply for a permit because we'd have to find $7400 just for the permit application fee. Then going through the process, pay lawyers (or professional Zoning helpers, as one dispensary did), post big signs outside saying HEY THE POT FARM'S OVER HERE, so all the neighbors can object and the DEA doesn't even have to subpoena records or anything, just go wherever the permit process is happening and pound on the door. Then there's the "open books" public inspection process for "clubs," which again gives the Feds free reign without even subpoena'ing records because they're public record... Mirkarimi's bill seems to say, in fact, that the only gardens permitted are inside the clubs and not outside gardens. Since only dispensaries with permits are legal, how is a patient collective supposed to get a permit for a garden? Which is more defensible in court-- a collective with no retail sales, or a retail store very much involved in commerce? Perhaps neither. Both will be portrayed in Federal court as Money Laundering conspiracies (i.e. if you plow your proceeds back into the operation with services for patients, all the money you spend for cost of goods or services or fixing the place up or giving away to people in hospitals-- that's what the Feds are calling money laundering). And remember the Federal courts do not allow mention of "medical" in the trial. What a stacked deck! This is justice? Ironically, CHAMP met all the requirements for an MCD in the Mirkarimi bill, we were a patient collective, registered as a nonprofit corporation in California (no 501-C-3), and offering social services for patients every day, staff trained in CPR and harm reduction, friendly neighbor policy, hospital and hospice delivery, ventilation, we put $100,000 into rebuilding the interior to reduce mold, noise, smells, et cetera. We had permits (except I couldn't get a business tax certificate) and were members of the Chamber of Commerce, the lowest prices of any club open at the time, and our own private garden to make prices even cheaper. I never measured whether we were within 1000 feet of a school or any cultural or community center. We were a community center for patients and they loved us for that. The proudest day I spent at CHAMP was September 11, 2001, when more than a hundred worried patients jammed into CHAMP all day, watching the buildings collapse. These were mostly people who literally had no where else to go, we fed them, played nice music (TV sound off), and so forth. And many days CHAMP functioned as a day care center for homeless and indigent patients. And we paid our taxes accurately and honestly. I probably would have opened the books to City inspectors, because we felt fairly secure when the District Attorney himself visited and even brought other DA's to CHAMP to show them what a good facility looks like. But there is no protection whatever in present City government-- including Mirkarimi-- to defend the clubs who do the very things they want clubs to do, all the operating procedures et cetera. U.S. Moves Against Canadian Cannabis Advocates Marc Emery, 46, and two pro-cannabis activists in his employ were arrested July 29 by Canadian police. Emery's highly successful mail-order seed business has enabled him in recent years to underwrite the B.C. Marijuana Party, Cannabis Culture magazine, Pot TV, and non-stop political campaigning. In 2004 Emery did 90 days at a correctional center in Saskatoon for passing a joint in public. The latest bust was orchestrated by the U.S. government according to Richard Cowan of marijuananews.com (who was a founder, long ago, of Young Americans for Freedom): DEAland claims international jurisdiction over anyone it accuses of growing cannabis anywhere in the world, so the Vancouver Police collaborated with the DEA to raid the BC Marijuana Party Office and Bookstore and the Pot-TV studios with a search warrant issued under Canada's Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Act. The search warrant allowed for a search only on the Hastings Street offices, but it claims that there would be evidence there that Emery, et al., have conspired to grow cannabis and distribute seeds, and - of course - launder money. I doubt if they found any evidence of such a "conspiracy" there. Of course, the next step for them would be to get the "evidence" shipped to DEAland. To my knowledge, there are no customer records at the store - or anywhere else, for that matter. Apparently, DEAland and its local Quislings have used undercover agents to make "controlled buys" of seeds, which by its nature involves lying. The evidence obtained by lying was then presented to a Seattle Grand Jury, which issued a sealed indictment last May... this attack has been planned for at least a year. Presumably, DEAland will now seek to extradite our friends, which will quickly become a major strain on DEAland/Canadian relations. Frankly, if these people were not my friends, I would be delighted by the stupidity of this move. The weak Canadian government has tried to ignore the cannabis issue, but this is going to change everything. Fred Gardner can be reached at: fred@plebesite.com