|
Today's
Stories
March 6, 2008
Vincent Navarro
The
Next Failure of Health Reform
Peter Morici
Why the Dollar is So Cheap
George Ciccariello-Maher
Counter-Attack of the Bureaucrats
March 5, 2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Great Day for John McCain (and Maybe Nader)
Joanne Mariner
After Guantanamo
Fidel Castro
The Raid on Ecuador: Underestimating Rafael Correa
Christopher
Brauchli
The Turkish Invasions
Steven Sherman
Obama and the Prospects for a Renewal of the Left
Dave Lindorff
Busting Bush & Co. in New England
James Murren
Bombing Somalia
Adam Engel
Necropolis Now
Website of Day
Remember Song
March 4, 2008
Wajahat Ali
Mumbo
Jumbo: Naming Names with Ishmael Reed
William Blum
How Could Hillary Have Known?
Bill Quigley
The Cleansing of New Orleans
Ralph Nader
The Prince Harry Solution
Patrick Irelan
Oil and Health in Venezuela
James J. Brittain
/
R. James Sacouman
Uribe's Colombia is Destabilizing a New Latin America
Norman Solomon
The War Election
Jacob Hornberger
Hillary in Waco: the Missing Apology
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the European Parliament
Mike Averko
Kosovo and the Press
Website of the Day
Tex-Mex Primary
March 3, 2008
Jennifer Loewenstein
Gazan Holocaust
Alan Farago
American Politics and the Faltering Economy
Richard Gott
Colombian Deaths in Ecuador
Wajahat Ali
Who Speaks for a Billion Muslims? Analyzing the World Gallup
Poll with John Esposito
Paul Craig Roberts
The Mukasey Conspiracy: a Bi-Partisan Attack on the Constitution
Robert Weissman
When Multinationals Say Adieu
Uri Avnery
Good Morning, Hamas
Martha Rosenberg
When Your Meat is a Downer
Eva Liddell
Leave the Next Dance for Bill
Michael Donnelly
Will Ferrell Does Flint
Website of the Day
Muddy Waters: Train Fare Home Blues
March 1 / 2,
2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Race Card
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Political Trial of Don Siegelman
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Nader the Best Antidote to American Imperialism
Nelson P. Valdés
Cuba After Fidel
Christopher Brauchli
Meet Mr. Nursultan Nazarbayev: Friend of Bill, George and Dick
Ron Jacobs
Inside the Secret City: Bomb Making at Oak Ridge
John Ross
The New Conquistadores: Spain's Reconquest of Mexico
Robert Fantina
Posturing Over Patriotism: Obama and Those Lapel Pins
Robert Weissman
Hidden in Plain Sight: Human Rights Hypocrisy
Mohammed Omer
Fear in Gaza
Remi Kanazi
Barack Obama and the Politics of Xenophobia
Bob Jackson
Why is Yellowstone Destroying Its Bison Herd?
Richard Rhames
Casual Threats: Loaded with Mercury
Franklin Lamb
Lebanon Awaits the Arrival of the USS Cole
Rannie Amiri
Showboat Diplomacy: US Warships Steam Toward Lebanon
David Michael
Green
The Three Faces of Hillary: the Politics of Flim-Flam
Conn Hallinan
Notes from the Southern Cone
Faheem Hussain
Prince Harry of Afghanistan and the Meaning of Normalcy
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Gardner and Ford
Website of
the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs (and Deserves) Your Help!
February 29,
2008
Matt Gonzalez
The
Obama Craze
Jonathan Cook
Academic Freedom? Not for Arabs in Israel
Joshua Frank
Obama and Israel
Anthony DiMaggio
The Unilateral Presidency: Signing Statements and the Rollback
of American Law
Linn Washington, Jr.
Cop Abuse in America
Binoy Kampmark
Hubris and Nemesis
Robert Bryce
Energy Efficiency May be a Good Thing, But It Won't Cut Energy
Use
Sonja Karkar
Australia's Government Continues Its Love Affair with Israel
Dave Lindorff
A Manchurian Candidate in the White House? Obama or Bush?
Website of
the Day
Olduvai George
February 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
"Iraq"
Falls Apart
Fred Gardner
The Birth of NAFTA
Michael Levitin
The Crisis in Kosovo is Just Beginning
William S.
Lind
The Fake State of Kosovo
David Macaray
A Ray of Hope for Organized Labor
Stephen Fleischman
Nader's Latest Run: Monkey Wrench or Cattle Prod?
George Wuerthner
The Myths of Forest Health: Why Ecological Logging is an Oxymoron
Laura Carlsen
The North American Union Farce
Carl Finamore
Why the Delta-Northwest Deal Hasn't Taken Off
Michael Dickinson
The Day I Bombed the House of Commons
Website of the Day
Plane Stupid
February 27,
2008
David Rosen
Playing
the Race Card: Obama, Love Across the Color Line and Political
Dirty Tricks
Vijay Prashad
Bomber John: McCain and the 100 Year War
Harvey Wasserman
Incident at Turkey Point: Did Florida Go to the Radioactive Brink?
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo's Shambolic Trials: Pentagon Boss Resigns,
Ex-Prosecutor Joins Defense
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan for Sale: an Interview with Ayesha Siddiqa on Pakistan's
Military Economy
Peter Morici
The Auction-Rate Securities Fiasco: a Drama of Greed and Betrayal
Stephen Philion
Conspiracy Theory, Fears of Betrayal and Today's Anti-War Movement
Michael Donnelly
Obama by Unanimous Decision
Erica Rosenberg /
Janine Blaeloch
After the Land Deals: Will There
be Any Wilderness Left to Protect?
Website of
the Day
Dress Blues
February 26,
2008
Debbie Nathan
Confessions
of a Gitmo Guard
Alan Dershowitz
v. Frank Menetrez
On Finkelstein
Harvey Wasserman
How Ohio Got Nuked
Michael Colby
Ralph Nader vs. the Fundamentalist Liberals
Gary Leupp
Condi vs. Putin on Bullying Belgrade
David Orchard
The New Conquistadors: Canada in Afghanistan
Martha Rosenberg
The Big HRT
Fran Shor
The Electoral Circus and Nader's Sideshow
Serge Halimi
The Dom Perignon Socialist Manifesto: Bernard Henri-Levy's Plan
for the French Left
Global Balkans
Neo-Liberalism and Protectorate States in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans:
an Interview with Tariq Ali
Website of
the Day
Texistentialism
February 25,
2008
Roger Morris
A
Death in Damascus
Anthony DiMaggio
Military
Bases, the Media and the Democrats
Ralph Nader
Why I'm Running
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Broils
Paul Craig Roberts
Kosovo and the Empire Crazies
Peter Morici
Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms
Dave Lindorff
General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That
Minot Nuke Incident
Saul Landau
/
Farrah Hassen
Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film
Heather Gray
James Orange, Civil Rights Legend
Robert Weitzel
Accomodating Torture
John Halle
Kucinich Goes Down
Website of the Day
Do the Trunk Monkey!
February 23 / 4, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain
Paul Craig
Roberts
Obama
and Global Trade
Wajahat Ali
Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon
on the 9/11 Commission
Ralph Nader
Neutering the FDA
Jürgen
Vsych
"What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?"
Fidel Castro
Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo
David Macaray
Unions Under Assault
Jeremy Scahill
The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence
David Krieger
Stanley Sheinbaum
Caging the Cold War Monster
Ron Jacobs
Building for the Future
Michael Garrity
The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies
Brian McKenna
Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down
Missy Beattie
Over the Hill with John McCain
Fred Gardner
American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly)
Boris Kagarlitsky
The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement
Mike Ferner
Kick That Barrel
Dan Bacher
On the Trail with the Border Angels
Christopher
Ketcham
Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread
Poets' Basement
Davies and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
Obama
Mariachi
February 22,
2008
Mike Whitney
The
Bonfire of Capital
Jason Hribal
Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet
Liaquat Ali Khan
Arresting Musharraf
Joshua Frank
That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child
Dave Lindorff
Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for
Her!
Liliana Segura
When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion
Robert Fantina
Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen?
Yifat Susskind
The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women
Norm Kent
Pushing 60 with Pot
Website of
the Day
Bush Gets Down in Liberia
February 21,
2008
Saul Landau
Fidel
Steps Aside
Elizabeth Schulte
Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed
Helen Redmond
Health Care as a Human Right
Benjamin Dangl
Undermining Bolivia
Michael Levitin
Kosovo's Dilemma
Liam Leonard
Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle
Patrick Irelan
Land and Food in Venezuela
Linn Cohen-Cole
Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto
Michael Simmons
Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music
CounterPunch
News Service
A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs
Website of the Day
Cop Abuse in Shreveport
February 20,
2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lies
and Spies
Paul Krassner
My
Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The
Pakistani Elections
Farzana Versey
The
Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch
Allan Nairn
Dying for a Second Round: Israel's
New Plan to Attack Lebanon
John V. Whitbeck
If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization?
Steve Eckardt
Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News
Lee Sustar
Union-Busting at Freightliner
Mike Ferner
How Sick of It are You?
Website of the Day
The US Military Index
February 19,
2008
Uri Avnery
Blood
and Champagne
Paul Craig
Roberts
Paying
Insurgents Not to Fight
Gary Leupp
The Independence of Kosovo
Fidel Castro
The Moment Has Come
David Macaray
Management's Dirty Little Secret
Reza Fiyouzat
Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections
Valerie Morse
The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie
Walter Brasch
Bush on Safari
Website of the Day
Don't Think Twice, It's Alright
February 18,
2008
Wajahat Ali
Free
Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan
Diana Johnstone
NATO's
Kosovo Colony
Paul Craig Roberts
What Do We Stand For?
Andy Worthington
Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along"
Debbie Nathan
Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes
Anthony DiMaggio
Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business
of Elections
Bill Simpich
Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq
Eva Liddell
A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash
Christopher Brauchli
The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans
Stephen Soldz
Wikileaks is Under Attack!
Johann Rossouw
The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism
Website of
the Day
Sick of It Day!
February 16
/ 17, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
The
Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan
Ralph Nader
We
the Corporations ...
David Macaray
The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin?
William J.
Peace
Wheelchair Dumping
Ron Jacobs
War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption
Diane Christian
War Corrupts
Alan Maass
Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen
(and Beyond)
Ramzy Baroud
Iraq and the US Elections
Michael Donnelly
Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Art of Finding Whalers
James L. Secor
China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008
Eve Bachrach
Bush Returns to Africa
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army
Stephen Gowans
Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian
Missy Beattie
To Vote or Not to Vote?
David Michael
Green
Warming Slowly to Obama
Wajahat Ali
Attack of the Info-tainment Circus
Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther
Website of the Day
Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!
February 15,
2008
George Szamuely
The
Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo
Patrick Cockburn
Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability
to Baghdad?
Wajahat Ali
Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban,
Bin Laden and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg
Alan Farago
God and the Democrats
Chris Genovali
Alberta's Black Gold Rush
Jacob Hornberger
Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture
Dave Lindorff
Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull
Website of the Day
Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams
February 14,
2008
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Palestine
in the Mind of America
Mike Whitney
Swan Song for NATO
Clancy Sigal
Strike Notes from a Screenwriter
George Wuerthner
A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
Peter Morici
Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit?
John Ross
Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border
Allan Nairn
Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can
Whack Anyone
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon's Warmongers
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein
Donna Volatile
Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It
Seth Sandronsky
The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes
Website of
the Day
Conventions: the Land Around Us
February 13,
2008
Nikolas Kozloff
Meet
John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America
Alan Farago
Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line
Christina Kasica
King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America
Vicente Navarro
How to Read the U.S. Primaries
Hall Greenland
Australia's Finest Hour
Lee Sustar
Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most
David Macaray
The Writers' Strike Finally Ends
Roderick Frazier
Nash
Celebrating Wilderness
Patrick Irelan
Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT
Anthony Papa
Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases
Carl Finamore
Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted
by Politicians
Website of
the Day
John He Is
February 12,
2008
Frank J. Menetrez
The
Case Against Alan Dershowitz
Paul Craig
Roberts
War Without End
Dr. Trudy Bond
The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink
Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the
Torture?
Col. Dan Smith
The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away?
Ronnie Cummins
Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road
Ralph Nader
Open the Government
John V. Walsh
Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered
Dave Lindorff
Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms
the Candidate
Michael Donnelly
Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules
Ron Jacobs
La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life"
Ben Tripp
Beggars Collide
Website of the Day
Springsteen and Youngstown
February 11,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Lessons
for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate?
Wajahat Ali
A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby
Ray McGovern
Waterboarding for God and Country
Allan Nairn
The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta
Uri Avnery
An End Foreseen?
Chris Floyd
American
Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech
Martha Rosenberg
School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows
Stephen Fleischman
The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics
Marc Lamont Hill
Not My Brand of Hope
Liliana Segura
Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation
Peter Morici
Challenges for the New President
Christopher
Brauchli
A Drug Rant from a Former Taker
Website of the Day
Annie vs. the Blue Angels
February 8
/ 10, 2008
Paul Craig
Roberts
Does
the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves?
Patrick Cockburn
Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold?
Mike Whitney
The Great Bust of '08
Anthony DiMaggio
How the Press Covers Waterboarding
Andy Worthington
The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists?
Linn Cohen-Cole
Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto?
Firmin DeBrabander
Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency
Cpt. Paul Watson
The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering
and Deaths of the Great Whales
Kenneth S. Pope
Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association
Jacob G. Hornberger
American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy
Robert Bryce
Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ...
Then What?
P. Sainath
The Last of the Buccaneer Editors
Allan Nairn
Give Me Back My Land
Fred Gardner
/
Pebbles Trippet
"The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the
Law!"
Andrew Wimmer
Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death
Robert Fantina
America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr
David Michael Green
Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves
Kevin Zeese
Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd?
Peter Morici
Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence
Chris Driscoll
Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008?
Prairie Miller
Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen
Poets Basement
Davies and Buknatski
February 7,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Why
Baghdad Will Explode Again
Bill Christison
Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians
David Anderson
NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for
the Sake of Ratings
Ron Jacobs
Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill
Nikolas Kozloff
Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing
Jane Rockefeller
The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation
Andy Worthington
On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden
Dave Zirin
Instep Intifada
Saul Landau
The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln
Susie Day
Our Blob in the White House
Website of the Day
George Carlin on Voting
February 6,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Super
Tuesday's Vote for Chaos
Ben Rosenfeld
Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters
Vijay Prashad
An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out
Joe Bageant
Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned
Michael Donnelly
What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths
Allan Nairn
Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion?
Kathryn Gray
Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit
Ray McGovern
Powell's UN Fiasco
Sheldon Richman
The Whining Empire
Paul Cantor
/ Roger Sparks
A
Presidential Aptitude Examination
John Chuckman
Political Bits and Pieces
Website of
the Day
Save the Albatross
February 5,
2008
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The
Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget
Tariq Ali
Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair
Stephen Soldz
The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize
War Crimes?
Chris Floyd
Strange
Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War
William S. Lind
Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win
Martha Rosenberg
Live From the Killing Floor
Heather Gray
Conversations with Georgia Voters
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics
David Macaray
Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice
Eliza Ernshire
Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run
Brenda Norrell
Hated Nation
Website of
the Day
The Things I Used to Do
February 4,
2008
Marc Levy
Winter
in America
Patrick Cockburn
The Bird Market Bombings
Saree Makdisi
Strangling Gaza
Uri Avnery
From Stalingrad to Winograd
Alan Farago
Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer
Ben Tripp
Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter
Paul Wolf
Civil Wars North and South
Paul Craig
Roberts
Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed?
Joshua Frank
MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change
John Halle
Whither Progressive Democrats?
Website of the Day
How to Cheat in School
February 2
/ 3, 2008
Alexander Cockburn
Hot
Democratic Properties
Pam Martens
Bankers
Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense
Ralph Nader
The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked
John Ross
Hilaria
vs. "El Moreno"
Wajahat Ali
Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with
Imam Zaid Shakir
Robert Fantina
A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American
Empire
B. R. Gowani
Not All Veils and Guns
James L. Secor
China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow
John V. Walsh
The Invisible Green Primary
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble
Dave Zirin
Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul?
Jeremy Scahill
Blackwater and Blood
Fidel Castro
Reflections on Lula
Joe Allen
Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War
Stephen Lendman
Life in Occupied Gaza
Patrick Irelan
What Happened to the Streetcars?
Andrej Grubacic
Ziga Vodovnik
Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo
Josh Karpoff
Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement
Ron Jacobs
Carl Oglesby's War
Paul Krassner
Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel
Website of the Weekend
Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart
February 1,
2008
Ray McGovern
The
Iniquities and Inequalities of War
Diane Farsetta
The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman
Patrick Cockburn
The
Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists
Tariq Ali
Et
Tu, New York Times?
Allan Nairn
Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti
Rannie Amiri
Collective Punishment in Beirut
Ramzy Baroud
People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It
Kenneth Couesbouc
The Mother of All Snowballs
Peter Morici
Recession Looms
Mumia Abu-Jamal
Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro
Rosemary Jackowski
27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President
Scott Campbell
Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges
Website of the Day
Betes et Hommes
January 31,
2008
Saul Landau
Return
to Afghanistan
Andy Worthington
Horror at Guantánamo
Mike Whitney
Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System
Jeff Ballinger
Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the
"Suharto of the Steppe"
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
The Saga of the Freightliner Five
William Loren
Katz
Waterboarding:
Torure or Mystery?
Alan Farago
Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble
Col. Dan Smith
Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget?
China Hand
Slouching Toward Islamabad
Dave Lindorff
The Usual Suspects Once Again
Wadner Pierre
Fake Democracy in Haiti
Website of the Day
One Big Union
January 30,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
McCain
vs. Clinton?
Christopher
Ketcham
The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex
Robert Weissman
America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union
Neve Gordon
An Experiment in Famine
Paul Craig Roberts
Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse?
Joanne Mariner
How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech
David Macaray
Labor's Only Real Weapon
Liaquat Ali
Khan
Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan?
Raymond J. Lawrence
Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication
Dan Bacher
The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon
Website of the Day
Onward Through the Fog
January 29,
2008
Franklin C.
Spinney
Bush's
New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off
Mike Whitney
The Great Credit Unwind of 2008
Alan Farago
Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders
Association
Patrick Cockburn
"The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction"
Gary Leupp
"We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel
Edmonds Timeline
R. F. Blader
A
World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania
Ahmad Faruqui
Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect
Fran Shor
Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In"
Jeremy Scahill
Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater
Protesters
Allan Nairn
Bush's
SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All
Website of the Day
The Ghost of Rambo
January 28,
2008
Patrick Cockburn
Return
to Fallujah
Paul Craig
Roberts
The End of American Liberty
Allan Nairn
The Breaking of the Gaza Wall
Eyad al-Sarraj
/ Sara Roy
Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza
Martha Rosenberg
Obit for the "Front Page" City
Corporate Crime
Reporter
How They Rip Us Off
David Michael Green
Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War
Jennifer Van
Bergen
What's Left?
Nancy Oden
Survival Tips for Hard Times
Divya Karnad
Saving India's Sea Turtles
James L. Secor
Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp
Website of
the Day
Yellow Journalism?
|
March
6, 2008
Colombia's Cornered
President
High
Stakes in the Andes
By FORREST HYLTON
Sadly, the operation on March 1 in which
the Colombian Armed Forces shot and killed Luis Edgar Devia Silva,
a.k.a. "Raúl Reyes," spokesman for the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), along with sixteen other guerrillas
in a camp across the Putumayo River in Ecuador, was yet another
case of the oft-mentioned "death foretold" that characterizes
the country's seemingly endless civil war.
Eerily, in a March 1 column,
one of Colombia's most prescient political analysts, Alfredo
Molano, predicted that a giant storm cloud was about to sweep
across some portion of Colombia's borderlands. Molano described
how President Álvaro Uribe had brought the war with the
FARC to the Darien Gap joining Panama, the Catatumbo region of
Northern Santander shared with Venezuela, and the frontiers of
Pasto and Putumayo bordering Ecuador. In Molano's view, the fact
that Uribe had been politically cornered at home and abroad made
a widening war across national borders all but inevitable. As
Justin Podur noted, domestic and foreign pressure for a negotiated
peace-that is, a political solution to the armed conflict-has
led to an escalation of the war by the stronger, more violent
party, along Israeli lines.
Since the end of 2006, Uribe
has been beset by the parapolítica scandal, in which some
77 political figures, including 14 congresspersons, nearly all
of them staunch allies of the president, are under investigation
for ties to rightwing paramilitaries. The scandal reveals how
the president and the Casa de Nariño (presidential palace)
in Bogotá are tied to the country's regions, where power
and authority are delegated, hence most directly exercised. Indeed,
most of the para-politicos investigated are local office holders-governors,
mayors, legislators, etc. The bedrock of the paramilitary-politico
alliance was sealed in 2001 with the "Pacto de Ralito"
in Córdoba province. The pact led to the first and second
election of Uribe with solid-indeed fervent-paramilitary support
in congress and the regional state bureaucracies.
Parapolítica
and the President
Politicians under investigation
include Uribe's closest political ally and second cousin, Senator
Mario Uribe, who fell under suspicion after former paramilitary
chieftain Salvatore Mancuso testified to meetings he had with
the president's cousin to map electoral strategy in Antioquia
and Córdoba provinces. As Molano notes, what everyone
knows and has long talked about in those  provinces-relations between
the Uribe family, land deals and landholding, rightwing politics,
and paramilitarism-is but a step away from becoming a matter
of public record. As early as 1987 and as recently as 2002, distinguished
investigative journalists began looking into (and in some cases
uncovering) these connections. Uribe has publicly lashed out
at journalists digging into his past, forcing some to flee the
country amid ensuing death threats. Now, it would seem, legal
issues, and not merely personal honor, are at stake.
This explains, at least in
part, Uribe's confrontations with the Supreme Court, whose authority
he has repeatedly attempted to undermine in order to obtain "political"
status for paramilitary commanders looking to whitewash their
criminal pasts. As Senator Gustavo Petro highlighted in 2005
during debates about the "Justice and Peace" law regulating
paramilitary demobilization, there is reason to believe that
Uribe aims to protect family members from future prosecution
with its passage. During the parliamentary debates about parapolítica
in March 2007, Petro named Antioquia under governor Uribe (1995-97)
as the birthplace of modern-day paramilitarism. Any investigation
of its roots would need to begin there.
Claudia López, co-author
of the most comprehensive scholarly study of paramilitary penetration
of local and regional politics in Colombia between 2002 and 2006,
recently remarked on the extent to which, especially compared
to the Caribbean coast, parapolítica investigations have
stalled in Uribe's native Antioquia. This is to be expected,
as there is undoubtedly much to hide: Under Uribe's watch, paramilitary
activity-along with murders and disappearances of thousands of
suspected guerrillas-skyrocketed to record levels through close
coordination with the military and provincial government officials.
Though Uribe has made numerous
tours of Europe and the U.S. in order to sell peace with the
paramilitaries and war with the FARC, the parapolítica
scandal has become his Achilles heel. A number of leading Democrats
and not a few Republican congresspersons are wary of a trade
agreement with Colombia, given human rights conditions and lingering
doubts about the president's ties to paramilitaries. In May 2007,
Rep. Nancy Pelosi, leader of the House Foreign Relations Committee,
reprimanded Uribe and sent him home empty-handed when he tried
to sidestep the issues in Washington. Because of ties to organized
labor, Hillary Clinton has kept her distance from him in this
electoral season, while Al Gore refused to attend an event in
Miami last year that Uribe was scheduled to attend. (Unsurprisingly,
Bill Clinton has been less circumspect, hob-knobbing with Uribe
at an event called "Colombia is Passion" in New York
City in May.)
A bilateral "free trade"
agreement with the U.S. has been one of Uribe's chief goals since
coming to power in 2002, but it appears increasingly remote.
European countries, meanwhile, are reluctant to contribute funds
for war with the FARC or peace with paramilitaries, and their
meager offers of development aid are of little import to him.
Chávez,
Reyes, and the Hostages
Uribe has also been increasingly
cornered by the foreign policy of Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.
In what constitutes the major achievement by a Latin American
statesperson in recent memory, after months of negotiations (sanctioned
by President Uribe), in January and February of this year Chávez
convinced the FARC to turn over six hostages to his government-all
of them former politicians who, upon release, began agitating
for the release of the rest of the prisoners, particularly Ingrid
Betancourt, a center-left politician with dual French-Colombian
citizenship.
Betancourt's family, together
with human rights organizations and NGOs, have mounted a relatively
successful campaign of public awareness and political pressure
in France: President Sarkozy's government has reiterated its
commitment to free Betancourt, acknowledging the positive role
Chávez and the Venezuelan government have played thus
far. For Uribe, such meddling strengthens FARC diplomacy in Europe,
which is why he wanted Reyes dead. In Uribe's eyes, Reyes and
the FARC paved the way for Betancourt's family and European NGO's
to damage his image and undermine his policy of war as peace.
In 2001, as part of the FARC's "peace process" with
former president Andrés Pastrana, Reyes toured Europe
and deepened existing ties to European governments and NGOs.
As recently declassified documents obtained by the non-governmental
National Security Archive demonstrate, in 1998 Reyes established
contact with a U.S. diplomatic mission in Costa Rica led by Philip
T. Chicola, then director of the State Department's Office of
Andean Affairs. For all intents and purposes, Reyes was the FARC's
ambassador.
For Uribe, then, Reyes was
a rival, a competitor, and according to the mafia rules that
govern politics in Colombia, such people must die. There were
scores to be settled: it was Reyes and the FARC who, in the mid-1990s,
convinced allies in European government and society that Uribe's
security policies in Antioquia were unacceptable in terms of
human rights and international law. And it was Reyes and his
pals (no women were invited) who charmed European politicians
and solidarity groups in Europe in 2001. This set the stage for
Uribe's damaged credibility in Europe after 2002. Since then,
Reyes has presented his organization's position before the European
Parliament: prisoner exchanges that lead to a negotiated peace
settlement. There is strong support for such a policy in official
European circles.
Reyes was not a charismatic
leader, nor is Manuel "Sureshot" Marulanda, who has
led the FARC since it was founded in 1966. The FARC does not
depend on charismatic individuals for its survival. More important
than Reyes or Marulanda to FARC coffers was Tomás Medina
Caracas, alias "Negro Acacio," a former public school
teacher who became the first FARC commander wanted for extradition
to the U.S. after September 11, 2001, on charges of cocaine trafficking.
At the time of Medina's death in September 2007, much was made
of the putative "blow" it represented to the FARC,
as Medina was the group's answer to Pablo Escobar, managing cocaine
routes and protection rackets through Venezuela, Brazil, and
the Guyanas. Since Medina's death, no one has mentioned him again,
and it would be surprising if his routes had been disrupted or
destroyed without proper media fanfare. At the time of his death,
seasoned commentators were quick to note that as a matter of
policy, the FARC have at least three people ready to take the
place of someone like Medina at a moment's notice. As Fernando
Cubides has argued, the FARC is an "armed bureaucracy."
Thus there is no shortage of
trained personnel to keep the war machine running, and it is
unlikely that the killing of Raúl Reyes will make much
of a dent in its functioning, except in terms of negotiating
the release of the remaining hostages and laying the foundation
for a negotiated peace; in terms of politics rather than total
war. This explains the reaction of French Foreign Minister Bernard
Kouchner, who said, "It is bad news that the man we were
talking to, with whom we had contacts, has been killed. Do you
see how ugly the world is?"
It may tempting to dismiss
Kouchner's question, but his point may be somewhat more subtle:
namely, that Uribe killed Reyes in a deliberate effort to block
the French government from negotiating the release of Ingrid
Betancourt. Were Betancourt to be freed, Uribe would likely come
under international pressure to grant the FARC political status
as a pre-condition for a negotiated political settlement, and
might have to contend with Betancourt's efforts to build a broad
anti-Uribe coalition at home and abroad.
It is doubtful that the United
States was directly involved in killing Reyes, since Plan Colombia
was specifically designed to give the Colombian government the
hardware, surveillance, and training to carry out such missions
on its own. The Bush administration, of course, has greeted the
death of a top FARC "terrorist" with glee, legal niceties
and political subtleties aside. Uribe does not appear to have
asked permission to pursue Reyes into Ecuador, but in light of
past episodes, he had little reason to fear a reprimand from
Washington, and was likely emboldened by past precedent. Whether
Washington gives the green light beforehand matters little, as
long as Uribe's moves are sanctioned ex post facto, as they were
on March 4.
High Stakes
in the Andes
Ecuadorian and Venezuelan government
responses came quickly and unequivocally: within 48 hours, both
broke off all diplomatic ties with Colombia and moved troops,
tanks, and planes to their borders. Ecuadorian President Rafael
Correa explained that in addition to the efforts of Sarkozy and
Chávez, his government had been working on the liberation
of 12 hostages-including Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. mercenaries-at
the time Reyes was assassinated. He added negotiations were at
an "advanced" stage. Chávez jumped in and labeled
Uribe a "criminal, mafioso, paramilitary" in charge
of a "narco-government." In one of his more restrained
remarks, the Venezuelan president said, "It is very serious
that a country arrogates to itself the right to bomb the territory
of a neighbor and commit an incursion to take bodies, violating
many international laws. Think of the consequences, not just
for Colombia, but for your neighbors."
Predictably, Uribe engaged
in an almost surreal effort to re-create the atmosphere of the
build-up to the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The smoking gun was
Reyes' laptop, reportedly recovered at the scene. Head of Colombia's
National Police, Gen. Oscar Naranjo alleged that the FARC had
been plotting to get uranium for a dirty bomb: "When they
mention negotiations for 50 kilos of uranium, this means that
the FARC are taking big steps in the world of terrorism to become
a global aggressor. We're not talking of domestic guerrillas
but transnational terrorism." On March 4, the Colombian
government announced that the FARC was building a dirty bomb.
All of this would seem to be a transparent attempt to convince
the U.S. government and the rest of the world that the incident-and
the region-can be neatly slotted into the global "war on
terror."
Though allegations have cropped
up repeatedly, as ideologically needed, since Chávez came
to power in 1998, no one has ever documented illicit ties between
Chávez and the FARC; the Uribe government is apparently
now free to invent them. Another item recovered from Reyes' hard
drive purportedly demonstrates that the FARC received $300 million
in payments from Chávez as recently as February. To Gen.
Naranjo, this suggested clear proof of "an armed alliance
between the FARC and the Venezuelan government." A third
item allegedly contains a thank-you note from Chávez during
his stint in prison after his failed coup attempt in 1992. Given
the advanced division of labor within the FARC, it would be odd
indeed if its ambassador kept such delicate-and, in the case
of the "prison letter" from Chávez, dated-information
so readily accessible. For good measure, the Colombian government
also alleged that recovered documents linked the Ecuadorian government
to the FARC.
The Venezuelan government was
not fazed. Vice president Ramón Carrizales said, "We
are accustomed to the lies of the Colombian government. Whatever
they say has no importance. They can invent anything now to try
to get out of that violation of Ecuadorian territory that they
committed." President Correa met with his cabinet to inform
them of his government's position: "They said we had a pact
with terrorists, and that is completely false. We are dealing
with an extremely cynical government."
Perhaps the most hopeful development
to arise out of the whole morass is the new multilateralism in
South America: the regional powers, Chile and Brazil, demanded
an official apology from Colombia to Ecuador, and were followed
by Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru; all countries were eager to
find a peaceful solution through the Organization of American
States (OAS).
There is even more diplomatic
unity against Uribe than there was when he supported the U.S.-preferred
candidate for Secretary General of the OAS in 2005. That was
the first time since the organization was founded in Bogotá
in 1948 under the watchful eye of Secretary of State George Marshall
that the U.S. candidate did not win. In dealing with Uribe's
incursion, South American countries may well make another end
run around the U.S. and Colombia through the OAS, and at the
very least, foreign ministers have agreed to conduct an investigation.
Chávez has proposed to revive the Contadora group of countries
whose governments helped broker peace agreements in Central America
in the 1990s in spite of U.S. government obstructionism. The
latest violation of Ecuadorian sovereignty could convince other
South American countries of the need for such a group.
Poster for victims' march:
"Memory and Dignity for the Displaced, the Murdered, the
Disappeared, the Victims."
The protest march called for
tomorrow, March 6, in Colombia and the world to commemorate the
victims of paramilitary and state violence will be a test of
the political temperature. A range of sectors have promised to
participate: trade unions, human rights groups, families of the
kidnapped and disappeared, women's and neighborhood organizations,
peasant, Afro-Colombian, indigenous, and student groups. If this
push for truth, justice, and a negotiated peace finds an echo
in multilateral diplomatic initiatives, Uribe could find himself
cornered yet again; a frightening prospect, unless progressive
forces in the hemisphere prove strong enough to contain him and
his northern patrón.
Forrest Hylton is the author of Evil
Hour in Colombia (Verso, 2006), and with Sinclair Thomson,
of Revolutionary
Horizons: Past and Present in Bolivian Politics (Verso, 2007).
He is a frequent contributor to NACLA,
where this essay originally appeared.
|
Now Available!
How the Press Led
the US into War
Buy End Times Now!
New From
CounterPunch Books
The Secret
Language
of the Crossroads:
HOW THE IRISH
INVENTED SLANG
By Daniel Cassidy
WINNER
OF THE
AMERICAN BOOK AWARD!
Click Here to Buy!
Cassidy
on Tour
Click Here for Dates & Venues
"The Case Against
Israel"
Michael
Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
Click Here to Buy!
Saul Landau's
Bush and Botox World
with a Foreword by Gore Vidal
Click Here to Order!
Grand Theft Pentagon
How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism
The Occupation
by Patrick Cockburn
Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont
CITY BEAUTIFUL
By Tennessee Reed
|
