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Today's
Stories
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel
and the Bush Team
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
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
Edition
February 28 / 29, 2004
When All is Looted
& Pillaged, Your Hunger Will Remain
The
Haiti Boomerang
By JG
When President Bush took to the airwaves on Wednesday
of this week, touting his Haitian counter-exodus measures, my
suspicions of a repeat of 1991s coup d'etat were confirmed. The
Coast Guard is to establish a wet line-of-defense, protecting
the Cuban Shangri-La of Miami from boatloads of greasy, AIDS
infected, odiferous Haitians. A carte blanche gifted to the water
patrol units, granting cutter vessels total amnesty from any
outcry resulting from dubious repatriation practices. The message
was clear; this country will not tolerate another influx of non-European
immigrants, especially those who defied our French brethren 200
years past.
Paraphrasing the State Department's policy
vis-a-vis Les Haitiens: Haitian refugees are not to be granted
asylum of any kind because their flight results from economic
pressures versus political oppression. This decision was put
into law during the Reagan administration only to be re-signed
by President Clinton (after having rallied on the issue of fair
immigration policies, gaining support from the Haitian community).
Even if one were to starkly ignore Haiti's riotous political
history and the undeniable reciprocity between instability and
abject poverty, the above rationale would seem at the very least
laughable. One needs only to analyze the diametrically polar
legal regard for Cuban exiles to bring on the hysterics. Above
all else, the recent upheaval in Haiti is the offspring of two
feuding superpowers, the US government and public opinion.
Au Debut
The ruling elite of the U$, since its
savage conception, has harnessed trepidation for the will and
power of the masses. Constitutional voting measures were implemented
to indefinitely postpone the rampage of the "bewildered
herd" (James Madison); this complemented by a myriad of
other dealings now recognized as laws. As astute as this despotism
was, the "founding fathers" recognized implicitly the
inherent limitations to totalitarianism under the guise of democracy;
aside from the fist of governmental nuances, how else could the
power structure go about ensuring its supremacy? Not out ruling
direct intervention by para-militaristic forces, erudition from
Western European models of media-manipulation (Anglo-Franco Industrialist
Revolutions) gave way to the American propaganda model: In simpler
terms, the mode by which to bring about compliance through the
dissemination of mass-disinformation, or, the manufacturing of
consent. Assuming the aforementioned synthesis to be true, the
two world super powers are inexorably dyadic, veritable mutually
non-exclusive creatures in perpetual dialectic being.
The past decade of political affairs
in Haiti provides a fantastic backdrop to analyze this "theory"
(which is in no way shape or form, remotely mine); even more
apt to conclusion is a brief glance at the current state of terror,
through the eyes of the mainstream media body. In 1990, Haiti
celebrated its first freely elected president, Jean Bertrand
Aristide. The previous 187 years of alleged independence observed
a lineage of brutal dictatorships, directly supported by the
U$, funded by and in compliance with the Haitian Bourgeoisie.
In addition to an openly racist hatred for the first Black Independent
country in this hemisphere, the U$ government & private sector
were desirous to solidify Haiti as one of many cheap-export platforms
throughout the region (long before the coining of the term Globalization
/ Neo-Liberalism, the practice was in effect). Aristide defied
the coming of age to third world power. A poor priest turned
politician, who would woo the proletariat and peasantry of the
country, a romance ultimately leading to his inauguration via
an unprecedented 67% popular vote.
As with the vast majority of elections
in Latin America, the U$-elitist constituents were in full form,
pursuing the implementation of a puppet leader (under the guise
of free elections). In this case, the dove was former World Bank
aficionado Marc Bazin. The prowess of abject poverty at the time
was immeasurable (as it is now). Aristide capitalized on the
hunger and distress of the Haitian populace on a platform of
quasi-socialist rhetoric and Liberation Theology. The propaganda
model failed in 1991, ensuing was the unacceptability of Third
World peoples freely electing a leader. In the view of the U$
government, President Bush and the Haitian elite, the Negroes
veered from their path, they needed be put back in their place.
10 months following this hemispheric
catastrophe, a coup d'etat occurred. Columns of Haiti's rogue
army, under the leadership of General Raoul Cedras, mounted an
offensive on the democratically elected government of Aristide.
In ironically queer resemblance to the July 26th movement of
Che and Fidel, this campaign began in the Plateau region of Haiti;
consequently the nucleus of Aristide's then greatest constituency,
MPP (National Peasant Movement of Papye). In their descent to
Port-Au-Prince, the rebels left aback a crater of devastation,
rape, murder and pillage (although the mass of killing was yet
to come). Within weeks, Aristide fled the country, temporarily
parting ways with the citizenry responsible for his success.
During these months, the Haitian Bourgeoisie was uncannily oblivious
to the tyranny of the moment. The expected denunciations from
the State Department were broadcast en masse. In response to
this miscarriage of Democracy, the U$ prepared and enacted a
slew of embargoes on the impoverished nation, ostensibly aimed
at pressuring Cedras and his tripartite cabinet to step down.
These embargoes were seen by virtually every Human Right's organization
as globally criminal, unjustifiable and incomprehensible. The
effect of these sanctions was an unequivocal dismantling of the
resistance to Cedras and his goons, whilst simultaneously bleeding
the populace of their diluted blood. This allowed Cedras to carry
out a reign of Terror comparable to the wiles of Stalin, Pinochet,
Pol Pot, and Duvalier.
It was pretty obvious that these Presidential
electives were perfunctory in pursuit. President Clinton and
the U$ government had never stopped providing aid to the coup
leaders and Haitian elite. Both Bush and Clinton authorized Texaco
to deliver oil to the country, supplying the murders with fuel
by which to continue a horde of assassinations and tyranny. When
the media pawns finally caught wind of these blatant violations,
congressional hearings were scheduled, at which CIA officials
vehemently denied the exportations. The lies and deceit were
profound.
In 1994, the benevolent "Big Dawg,"
Clinton, graced the Negroes with his leniency, sending 20,000
Marines to "restore order" (rumor has it that the Haitian
people had perhaps learnt their lesson). Aristide was allowed
to return with the Yankee boot across his neck. The tacit conditions
on his re-implementation were oddly analogous to the candidate
who had received 14% of the 1991 vote, Marc Bazin: Harsh Neo-Liberal
polices were imposed on the nation; IMF / World Bank dogma in
quest to privatize the general public wealth of the nation. Aristide
proved unwilling to capitulate to this demagogy and was reprimanded
by a second onslaught of foreign aid related sanctions. His incapability
to deliver on many of his campaign promises were directly correlated
to this Neo-Liberal shackling. Those who scrutinize and critique
Haiti's plummet under Aristide's leadership, would be moronically
remiss in not acknowledging the extenuating circumstances amidst
a subjectively lackluster tenure.
Maintenant
If Frantz Fanon were an oligarch, he
may have classified the recent rebel uprising as a "boomerang"
movement. Barring numerous discrepancies of historical parallel,
we are taking sight to a carbon copy of what transpired in 1991.
The following are excerpts from an article
in The Guardian Unlimited, written by Paisley Dodds, 2-22-04.
Rebel commander Jean-Baptiste Joseph,
formerly head of an association of ex-soldiers from Haiti's disbanded
army, declared ``It's the army that's in charge here. It's the
army that will free Haiti.''
- Curiously undemocratic rhetoric from
the "liberators" ...
``We came in today and we took Cap-Haitien;
tomorrow we take Port-au-Prince,'' said Lucien Estime, 19. ``Our
mission is to liberate Haiti.''
- Yes, and so shall you hijack power
and fatten the pockets of your constituents...
Some looted the pro-Aristide Radio Africa
station, and rebels shot up the building while a crowd clapped.
One man, said to be an Aristide supporter, lay dead in the street
from a bullet to the stomach. A second man, whose allegiance
was not known, was shot in the head and killed.
- Conform an already suspect press, assassinate
journalists, very American...
``The people are happy. Finally we're
free from terror,'' said Fifi Jean, 30, unperturbed as she stood
in front of the blazing police headquarters building, where people
looted everything in sight.
- When all is looted and pillaged, your
hunger will remain...
La Victorie
Is it mere coincidence that the same
disbanded army responsible for 1991s coup be the same perpetrators
now in service? Is it similarly a twist of fate that both the
U$ government and opposition parties / Haitian elite denounce
the violent actions of this rogue squadron but inexorably profit
from their thuggery? Is it by chance the U$ has evacuated its
Embassy except key personnel? Is it happenstance the umbrella
opposition party, The Democratic Popular Group, be spearheaded
by the same wealthy families of the Democratic Convergence (the
original rivals to Aristide and the Fanmi Lavalas and recipients
to 100+ million USD via USAID)?
Without a doubt, even a casual observer
can deduce that Aristide has conducted questionable dealings
in the past and present. There are serious dilemmas pertaining
to his ability to constructively govern a Democratic society;
of earsplitting concern, the tolerance of violence against his
opposition, by Lavalas supporters and or Police units. These
are evident truths. What is all the more transparent is the assault
on the automata of global citizenry by the media heads in cohorts
with the U$ powers. They, in coordination with the Haitian elite,
yearn to paint the political unrest in Haiti and the proceedings
of this rebel army, as representative of the will of the people.
Out-of-the-way of the illegal occupation of Iraq, the world-jury
has lightly ruled contrary to direct-interventionist policies.
Deploying platoons to whip the serfs into shape is an infinitely
easier task than the complex actions of 1991 & 2004. The
second world power has triumphed above the first, how fantastic!
JG
is the lead Emcee for the politically leftist Hip-Hop duet,
Over The Counter Intelligence (JG & HavikenHayes), based
in Fort Lauderdale Florida. They are most recognized through
their support of various grassroots organizations throughout
the country; most notably The Coalition of Immokalee Workers
-- The Taco Bell Boycott. They are of the best known Indie-Hip
Hop groups nationwide. JG has written songs, articles and editorials
specific to the oppression of the Haitian Global Village, most
importantly, the virulent immigration statues pertaining to Haitian
Refugees. He has recently recorded a solo album entitled "Insurgent,"
which will be released this year via record label. JG & Over
The Counter Intelligence will be performing at this year's Taco
Bell Boycott, 3-5, Irvine, CA.
He can be reached by email: jg_1804@hotmail.com
Weekend
Edition Features for 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
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