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Today's
Stories
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
March 5, 2004
Chris Floyd
Uncle
Sugar: How the WMD Scam Put Money in Bush Family Pockets
Ron Jacobs
Chaos
Reigns: Haiti and Iraq
Lisa Viscidi
Guatemalan
Refugees: a Difficult Return
Yves Engler
Canada and the Coup in Haiti
Mike Legro
Those Bush Ads: Some Dead Bodies Are Worth More Than Others
Javier Armas
A Night of Inspiration: Oakland Benefit for Grocery Workers Strike
Bennett Hoffman
"Who Cares About Haiti, Anyway?"
Bill Christison
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous
Website of the Day
Haiti Support Group
March 4, 2004
Diane Christian
Sex
and Ideals
Sen. Robert Byrd
Stop the Stonewalling, Mr. President: Fairy Tales, Bush and the
9/11 Commission
Norman Solomon
Assuming the Right to Intervene: The US Press and Haiti
Jack Brown
A Fragrant Saga of Mexico's Greens
Hal Cranmer
The
John Kerry Experience
David Lindorff
Greenspan's Pension
Sam Smith
The Election is Over, We Lost
Christopher Brauchli
Goin'
to the Chapel: The Gay and the Dead
Brian D. Barry
The "Perfect" World of E-Voting: A Computer Scientist
Reports from the Polling Booth
Richard Oxman
Arsonists for Haiti?
Peter Phillips
Haitian
Fantasies: Mainstream Media Fails Itself, Again
Tariq Ali
Notes on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and
Palestine
Website of the Day
What If Boeing Ads Told the Truth?
March 3, 2004
Heather Williams / Karl
Laraque
Marines
Retake Haiti
Jack McCarthy
Guy's
Our Guy: "I am the Chief. My Hero is Pinochet."
Robert Sandels
The
Purloined Label: The Struggle Over the Havana Club Trademark
Juliana Fredman / James Davis
Israeli Organized Crime
JG
The Yuppie Silence on Haiti
Emilio Sardi
The
Colombia/US Free Trade Deal: It's About More Than Trade
Alan Farago
Swimming in Sewage
Mike Whitney
"Blood
Will Have Blood": 143 Murdered in Liberated Iraq
CounterPunch Wire
Nader's Legislative Record in the 1960s
Steve Perry
Kerry
Advisory: Remember Lena Guerrero
Nelson George/ Marcus Miller
Miles Davis & Hip Hop: a Conversation
Website of the Day
$10,000 Is Yours for the Taking: The USS Liberty Challenge
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's
the Answer, What's the Question?
Conn Hallinan
Haiti:
the Dangerous Muddle
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Bravo
H-Bomb Test: One WMD They Couldn't Hide
Mike Whitney
Regime Change in Haiti: the Bush Dominos Keep Falling
Ra Ravishankar
Afghanistan, the Liberation That Isn't: an Interview with Mariam
from RAWA
Dan Bacher
Merle Haggard & the Politics of Salmon: "Clearcutting
is Rape"
Greg Moses
Oscar White
Brandy Baker
Mel Gibson's Minstrelsy Show
Little Tucker Carlson
What I Did on My Vacation
Robert Fisk
All This
Talk of Civil War, Now This
Merle Haggard
Kern River
Website of the Day
Rebel Edit
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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.
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Weekend
Edtion
March 6 / 7, 2004
Senator Gregg: "10
Million People Want Fly Planes and Kill Us!"
My
Breakfast with Judd
By TOM JACKSON
I had breakfast with US Senator Judd Gregg (R-NH)
one morning before the holidays, along with several members of
the Greater Portsmouth, New Hampshire Chamber of Commerce. A
few of us from our local peace group, "Seacoast Peace Response",
decided that since it was a public event, we would attend because
we hoped to express some very deep concerns to Mr. Gregg.
From the beginning of Mr. Gregg's speech,
I could hear the language of racism and fear mongering. In his
speech, and in response to my question later on, Mr. Gregg invoked
all of the now standard responses of the hawks who are benefiting
from the so-called war on terrorism.
He echoed George W. Bush's first speech
following the attacks of September 11, 2001 saying that "Islamic
fundamentalists" hate our way of life, hate our freedom,
we are at war, etc.
When I had my chance to ask Mr. Gregg
a question, I first thanked him for being there and wished him
happy holidays. I then expressed my concern for our troops over
seas, and also for Iraqi civilians. I asked him to urge the Bush
administration to reverse the new policy of not counting Iraqi
civilian casualties, and explained that I understood that this
policy announced the day before came from an Iraqi ministry,
but it was, of course, subject to the US-run Coalition Provisional
Authority. Mr. Gregg said he wasn't aware of the change in policy
and that he doubted the administration would approve of such
a policy. As if the Bush administration doesn't have control
over all policy moves in Iraq today.
I went on to my question. I noted the
disparity in resources being put into Afghanistan and Iraq. These
were both countries which were beaten down and suffered for years
under repressive regimes. The main significant difference between
the countries that jumped out at me is that Iraq sits on the
second largest oil reserve in the world. So, I asked, are US
service people dying every day in order to make Iraq a safe place
for companies like Halliburton to make hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Mr. Gregg explained that we are first
fighting the war on terrorism. He then said that we are talking
about "an entire culture" that hates us and wants to
kill us. When he took a breath I stood back up and said, "But,
Mr. Gregg, with all due respect, we are not talking about an
entire culture here by any means. We are talking about a very
tiny percentage of people who are willing to resort to this kind
of violence." He said that he was just going to say that.
He then went on to say that there are "over a billion Muslims
in the world. If we're talking 10%, that's 100 million people
who are willing to resort to this kind of violence. Even if we're
talking about just 1%, that's 10 million people who are willing
to fly planes into buildings and kill Americans." The language
of racism and fear mongering come together.
He then discussed the need to stabilize
the Middle East. The way they are doing this is to rebuild Iraq
and show them that our way of life works best. "Market economy".
"Democracy". He finished his statement by saying that
"oil has absolutely nothing to do with it." Holding
the party line. So, while he never directly addressed the part
of the question about Halliburton, in a sense he confirmed that
it is about making lots of money. That's why young men and women
in the US armed services, as well as uncounted Iraqi civilians
are dying.
After the program was over, I went over
to speak with Mr. Gregg. His face turned a slightly deeper shade
of red when he saw me. I shook his hand and thanked him for addressing
my question, and I told him that I had concerns over many aspects
of his response. I expressed my opinion that Hussein and anyone
else responsible for the gassing of the Kurds should be tried
for war crimes. One of my greatest concerns related to his response,
I explained, was that in 1988 after Hussein gassed the Kurds,
the United States actively blocked other countries that wanted
to bring sanctions against Iraq at that time. At this point Mr.
Gregg turned an even deeper shade of red and began to turn away
from me. I asked him how we could account for such hypocrisy.
He told me in an annoyed voice that "the point is, he has
weapons of mass destruction", and for some reason_perhaps
his use of the word "has"--- I thought he had jumped
into the present tense. "We haven't found them," I
countered. "Why don't you go tell a Kurd that," he
spat, and walked off. To anyone who's paying attention, this
kind of jumping back and forth between historical realities and
policies is absolutely bizarre. Unfortunately, many in the US
public know very little about the history of US-Iraq relations
or anything about the treatment of the Kurds, so hawks have been
able to blur reality, successfully avoiding the issue that it
took the US government almost 15 years to at least pretend that
they were outraged over the gassing of Iraqi Kurds.
Does Judd Gregg really care that much
about the Kurds? In 1988, Mr. Gregg was a House Representative
for New Hampshire. He had the chance to stand up for the Kurds
then. Right after the Hussein regime gassed the Kurds (remember,
that was in 1988), the US Senate unanimously passed The Prevention
of Genocide Act of 1988, attempting to bring US economic sanctions
against Iraq for their actions. On went the bill to the House.
The Reagan administration launched an aggressive campaign to
kill the bill. With the help of leading House Republicans and
some Democrats, the administration succeeded in killing the bill
on the final day of the legislative session. No heroics from
Mr. Gregg. Apparently the gassing of the Kurds only angers him
when he's told it should.
Mr. Gregg's silence in 1988 is not the
only indicator with regard to his real or feigned righteous indignation
over the fate of Iraqi Kurds. During his 1997-98 campaign for
Senate, Mr. Gregg accepted large amounts of campaign contributions
from weapons manufacturers who were bidding at the time for one
of the largest weapons contracts in history, to sell weapons
to Turkey, which were ultimately used against the Kurds.
The Turkish government has committed
some of the greatest acts of terrorism against the Kurds. According
to the US State Department, the Turkish military destroyed or
forced the evacuation of over four thousand Kurdish towns in
southern Turkey throughout the 1990s and into the current decade,
killed thousands of Kurds and made refugees of 2 million Kurds.
The State Department estimates that 1 million Kurds remain refugees
because of these attacks.
Two State Department reports from the
mid-1990s admit that U.S. military equipment has been used by
Turkey against innocent Kurdish civilians, including Turkish
attacks on civilians in northern Iraq, in the so-called "No
Fly Zone", which was supposedly created by the United States
to protect the Kurds.
Weapons manufacturers, Sikorsky, Boeing,
Bell Textron, and Northrop Grunman competed since 1995 for one
of the largest arms deals in history--- a $4 billion dollar contract
to construct 145 attack helicopters for Turkey. From 1995 to
2001 these companies lobbied congressional candidates for support
of the deal. The contract, opposed by human rights groups monitoring
Turkey's attacks on the Kurds, was awarded in late 2001 to Bell
Textron.
During his 1997-1998 campaign for senate,
Judd Gregg accepted tens of thousands of dollars from Boeing,
Bell Textron, Northop Grunman Corporation, and Lockheed Martin.
By accepting money earned through the
sale of arms to Turkey for use against the Kurds, Senator Gregg
endorsed the murder of innocent Kurds in Turkey and Iraq, and
personally profited. Mr. Gregg may deny any knowledge that weapons
produced by companies that contributed to his campaign would
be used against the Kurds, but that is specious at best. Even
if he didn't know about the blood on these campaign contributions,
any responsible leader should check his sources. But, based on
everything that I heard during my breakfast with Judd, I am convinced
he either doesn't want to know, or worse.
The level of hypocrisy, racism and fear
mongering emanating from Washington is absolutely astounding.
As long as crucial facts are kept out of the public eye, as long
as some people profit from letting the dogs of war run free,
the language of hate_the language of racism and fear mongering_-will
continue to shape tragic destinies for people world wide, including
here in the United States.
Nick Copanas contributed research
& writing on Kurdish and campaign finance issues in this
article.
Tom Jackson
produced "Greetings
From Missile Street", a documentary video that shows
Voices in the Wilderness delegates living with families in Basra,
Iraq in the summer of 2000. He can be reached at: coffeeanon@yahoo.com
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
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