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Wars of the Laptop Bombers   Today's Stories February 28, 2005 Diana Johnstone Censorship and the Empire   February 26 / 27, 2005 Alexander Cockburn An American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence Noam Chomsky Nuclear Terror at Home Rev. William E. Alberts Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground Fred Gardner AARP Gets Pot-Baited Gary Leupp Bush and Camus on Freedom Saul Landau An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami Mafia Robin Philpot Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda Yitkhak Laor In Praise of the Facts Ben Tripp Out of Sight; Out of Mind Justin Taylor Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars Jack Random The Wounds from Wounded Knee Rafael Renteria Ward Churchill and White America Jim B. Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood Seth DeLong Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin John Chuckman A Season of Depressing Political Reruns Alison Weir Relativity, LA Times Style Richard Oxman Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace Dr. Susan Block It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation Poets' Basement Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert   February 25, 2005 Roger Burbach Murder in the Amazon Behzad Yaghmaian Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making Kurt Nimmo Conclave of the Brats Joshua Frank Diagnosing the Green Party John Farley How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians Lawrence Reichard The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil Pratyush Chandra The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs David Smith-Ferri When the Battlefield has No Borders Website of the Day The 2005 Election in 3-D   February 24, 2005 Omar Waraich The Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician Brian Cloughley Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame & 30 Pieces of Silver Tom Wright Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later Sharon Smith The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons Dave Lindorff Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu? Fred Feldman Lynching Ward Churchill James Reiss On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush Diane Christian Bad Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq Website of the Day The Gray Line February 23, 2005 Werther The Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq W. John Green A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground Rules James Petras A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy? Conn Hallinan Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby Joe Pietri Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and Cops) Louis Proyect Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism Alexander Cockburn Hunter S. Thompson and Gonzo Website of the Day Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not? February 22, 2005 Naseer Aruri The Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East Richard Manning The Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan William A. Cook Righteous Racism Running Rampant Paul Craig Roberts The Agents of Instability Ken Krayeske Dr. Thompson is Out Dave Zirin How the Owners Destroyed the NHL Kirkpatrick Sale Imperial Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire   February 21, 2005 Hunter S. Thompson "He Was A Crook" John Ross Mexico: the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq Ward Churchill What Did I Really Say? Why Did I Say It? Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to You by the US Navy David Swanson Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State Dave Lindorff All the News That's Fit to Fake Stew Albert Fear and Loathing: HST Michael Neumann Strategies in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky     February 19 / 20, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Back to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory" Kathleen Christison Struggling for Justice in Palestine Ted Honderich On Being Persona Non Grata Gary Leupp Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to Commit Suicide Don Santina Reparations for the Blues Jennifer Roesch John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior Scott Richard Lyons Ward Churchill and the Identity Police Chris Clarke Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage George Beres Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in Oregon Harry Browne The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels Manuel García, Jr. Who Killed Rafik Hariri? Mark Scaramella Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War Michael Donnelly Whatever Happened to John Edwards? John Pilger First, They Attack the Past Norman Madarasz Death Wish for Reform in Brazil? Surendra Devkota The Monarchy in Nepal Deborah Rich How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark Fred Gardner When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard CounterPunch News Service About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland Richard Oxman CounterPunching Arthur Miller Poets' Basement Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin   February 18, 2005 Ben Moxham In East Timor, the Nightmare Continues Dave Lindorff The Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte Larry Birns Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery Gregory Elich N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy Samuel Logan / John Meyers The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads Nicole Colson Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward Churchill Suzan Mazur Whose National Security Are We Talking About? Mickey Z. "One Man Has Stopped Killing"     February 17, 2005 Joshua Frank Hogtying of the Deaniacs Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media Robert Fisk Under the Shadow of Death in Lebanon Christopher Brauchli Where Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA Dr. Teresa Whitehurst Military Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be Cannon Fodder? Alison Weir Russia, Israel and Media Omissions Ahrar Ahmad A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?" Saul Landau An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples the Laws It Wrote" Website of the Day Petition to Support Ward Churchill     February 16, 2005 Robert Fisk Lebanon: a Battlefield for the Wars of Others Kevin Zeese Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect Retirement Gary Leupp Meanwhile, in Nepal... Ron Jacobs Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration Jessica Leight Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff Greg Moses Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities in Texas Mark Engler The Last Porto Alegre Jack McCarthy Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill Bill Christison US Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel Website of the Day The World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch     February 15, 2005 CounterPunch News Service Dean a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch Robert Fisk The Killing of Mr. Lebanon Uri Avnery "Sharm-al-Sheikh, We Have Come Back Again" Stan Cox Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal Mickey Z. Radio Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook Dave Zirin Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean Nadia Martinez Ending World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now Lila Rajiva "Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of Magical Thinking in Politics Paul Craig Roberts The American Job Sell Out     February 14, 2005 Robert Jensen Ward Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11 Brian Cloughley Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style Patrick Cockburn Outcome of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War Gary Leupp Post-election Iraq: What Next? Michael Donnelly Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity? Dave Lindorff When Bush Came to My Neighborhood Elaine Cassel The Lynne Stewart Verdict   February 12 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ward Churchill's Genes Saul Landau Alarcon Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba Paul Craig Roberts Nothing to Fear But Bush Himself Patrick Cockburn Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All Major Roads into Baghdad John Feffer Bush v. N. Korea: Round Two Mickey Z. Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak Kurt Nimmo Viva la Cucaracha! Fred Gardner Waiting for Raich Dave Zirin Fighting the New Republic(ans) John Chuckman Hiroshima, Mon Amour Ben Tripp A Leftist on the Bush Payroll Carol Norris "Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?" Robert Fisk No Middle East Peace Without Justice Frank / Chowkwanyun Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin Mike Whitney Condi's Euro Tour Deborah Frisch A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill Niranjan Ramakrishnan Reading Khomeini in Colorado Christine TenBarge What's So Special About Ward? Ron Jacobs Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan Dr. Susan Block Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting Poets' Basement Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert Website of the Weekend Free Sherman     February 11, 20055 Manuel Garcia, Jr The Eight Percent War Kurt Nimmo Ann Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need Him? Dave Lindorff Guckert or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In Larry Birns War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott Abrams Bill Quigley Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz Tom Barry Bush's State of Delusion Jennifer Van Bergen Lynne Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All     February 10, 2005 Dave Lindorff What Academic Freedom? Christopher Brauchli The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq Patrick Cockburn In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed Nicole Colson Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights? Suzan Mazur More on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha Michael Donnelly Salvaging an Opposition Mike Stark Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little Hope" Greg Moses Taking Jesus Back from the Hijackers Website of the Day The Missionary Positions     February 9, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Duck and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers Mickey Z. What Ward Churchill Didn't Say John Ross Hecho en Mexico: the Iraqi Election Tom Barry Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon Conn Hallinan The Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion Patrick Cockburn Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely Forbidden" Steen Sohn Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions Tim Wise Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians Website of the Day Support Antiwar.com     February 8, 2005 Patrick Cockburn Shia/Kurd Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral Pact, Not a Party" Brian Cloughley Out of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People" Steve Breyman Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society" Harry Browne "Don't Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland Doug Giebel "We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President and Ward Churchill Nate Collins The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the Same Beast Dave Lindorff It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper David Smith-Ferri Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq     February 7, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's War on Jobs Carolyn Baker The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher Ed Joshua Frank Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill Mickey Z. Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill Patrick Cockburn The Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq Mike Whitney Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism Stacie Jonas Pinochet: Fit to be Tried Dave Zirin A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI Tariq Ali Imperial Delusions       February 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Ward Churchill and the Mad Dogs Kurt Nimmo A Ward Churchill Kind of Day Joshua Frank Liberals Trash Ward Churchill P. Sainath Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami Patrick Cockburn Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust Laura Carlsen Bush, Rice and Latin America Dave Lindorff How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story Pamela Olson West Bank Story Behzad Yaghmaian The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen A Threatened UN in King George's Court Roger Burbach World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents Robert Fisk History by Laptop David Swanson James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome Justin E.H. Smith Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada Cacie Hart The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love Ron Jacobs Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life Mickey Z. Viewing America from the Outside Ben Tripp Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy Ben Sonnenberg France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the Game Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert Website of the Weekend John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File   February 4, 2005 Brian Cloughley The Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior of Someone Like That is to Kill Them" Bill Christison Election Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005 Elaine Cassel Did Zoloft Make Him Do It? Jacob Levich Chomsky and the Draft Kanak Mani Dixit Return of the Royalists in Nepal Ron Jacobs The Downward Spiral in Iraq     February 3, 2005 Ward Churchill On the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications and Gross Distortions Sharon Smith Resisting Soldiers Need Our Support Mickey Z. Leslie Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy? Mike Whitney President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union Jenna Orkin 9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan Saul Landau Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq Yitzhak Laor Strange is the Silence Dave Lindorff The Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies     February 2, 2005 David Domke / Kevin Coe Bush's Brand of Christianity Noam Chomsky Iraq After the Elections M. Shahid Alam O'Reilly's Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me in Its Crosshairs Richard Oxman Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen Joshua Frank The Suckering of Howard Dean Dave Lindorff A History Lesson from the NYT Nina Hartley Feminists for Porn Website of the Day War is a Racket     February 1, 2005 Joshua L. Dratel The Torture Memos Patrick Cockburn New Doubts About Allawi Robert Fisk "The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals" Uri Avnery The Stalemate Col. Dan Smith "W" Stands for Withdrawal Alison Weir Making America as "Secure" as Israel Alan Farago Heaven and Hell in the Everglades Ray Hanania Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified Voters Paul Craig Roberts American Police State Website of the Day Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors                         December 22, 2004 James Petras An Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre Historical Amnesia Omar Barghouti The Case for Boycotting Israel Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit Harry Browne Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge Richard Oxman On the Seventh Column Kathleen Christison Imagining Palestine Website of the Day FBI Torture Memos     December 21, 2004 Greg Moses The New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV Dave Lindorff Losing It in America: Bunker of the Skittish Chad Nagle The View from Donetsk Dragon Pierces Truth* Concrete Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam Patrick Cockburn "Things Always Get Worse" Seth DeLong Aiding Oppression in Haiti Ahmad Faruqui Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report Paul Craig Roberts America Locked Up: a System of Injustice                                         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

February 28, 2005 A Superior Treatment for Insomnia Maria Full of Cultural Colonialism at the Oscars By MARIO LAMO JIMENEZ For those of you who haven't seen it, this movie couldn't be more straightforward: A young Colombian girl from a troubled low-income family decides to become a drug mule, and sneak drugs into the USA in her stomach. After recently finding herself pregnant, no less. She soon meets another courier like herself. On a flight north, the second courier becomes ill when a drug balloon bursts inside her. But kind officers permit Maria to clear US Customs upon arrival, despite suspecting her of carrying drugs. The second courier dies, and Maria pays to ship her body home. THE END. But the simplicity of the plot is a fruit of the distorted and manipulative vision that an American by the name of Joshua Marston, the writer and director, has of our reality as Colombians and as Latin Americans. If the empire sprays us daily with its poison glyphosate, we are now doubly fumigated with its no less poisonous cinematic agent. "Maria, Full of Ö" isn't just a bad movie, slow and poorly acted: it also bears a cargo of ideological venom aimed at the publicís vision of Colombian reality. To hear the movie tell it, drug-running is a 100%-Colombian business -- in the film, not one American is shown sullying his or her hands with the business of making drugs move. Nor does one Colombian character evidence a shred of moral fiber. Maria's family is dysfunctional, her boyfriend is an opportunistic cad; she is mistreated at work, and later utilized by a local drug trafficker. The only characters we see express human kindness are a pair of US Customs agents who take pity on Maria upon learning that she is pregnant. This despite the fact that in real life, she'd have been detained with only laxatives and her conscience to keep her company, until her cargo manifested. And Maria's own conscience might have had harsh words for her. At no point does she express remorse or concern for the life of her unborn child, the true ìGraceî she holds, which would surely had been forfeited if she had shared the fate of the second courier. Beyond the above, contrary to its title, "Maria, Full of Grace" lacks any charm. It's quickly apparent that Maria wasn't written by anyone native to Colombia; it has no glimmer of reflected zeitgeist, of pop culture, or popular humor. The script was written in English and translated to Spanish, an antiseptic process lending it no authenticity. The plot is unfailingly linear, and most actors seem concerned only with getting their lines out of the way. The presence of one actress does help lift "Maria" from total disaster: Guilied Lopez. Playing Lucy, the second, less fortunate courier, Lopez comes off as human, real, someone who the audience might be able to care about. If this movie acts as anything more than a caricature of life, it's as a vehicle for the career of Catalina Sandino, and her status as a Hollywood commodity (she had a token Oscar nomination, and obviously didn't win). Easily forgotten with the glow of her features is her lack of acting skill, or that this is her first major movie role. Media pundits seem intent on recreating her as a star, in hopes of marketing her to a demographic that would desperately like to have one. Never mind that Sandino brings nothing to her character beyond her hair and her pose, unless one counts her wooden acting. Which might, again, be forgivable if one takes into account that she's doing less acting than she is preening for future roles. Much as the Spanish brought us bright baubles 500 years ago, to dazzle us with their brilliance as they grew laden with gold, modern filmmakers cum cultural colonialists would like the glow of the screen to dazzle us with images of what we aren't, while the cruel reality of drug trafficking remains occult. Nowhere on this screen do we see the bankers, the money-launderers, the end-users, the captains of industry that benefit from a continued narcotics trade, a trade in a new ìgoldî bled from our country. "Maria" would make a poor soap opera, a mediocre documentary, and as a movie, a superior treatment for insomnia. Once again, we Colombians are the subjects of cultural deconstruction disguised as art, parted from our spending money in theaters and video stores, and shot full of product "Made in the USA" (but, lest that seem too straightforward, filmed almost entirely in Ecuador.) In return, we get another effigy of ourselves and of our culture. Perhaps most ironic for a country that values its Catholic traditions: the contrast between the drug mule and the Virgin Mary. While the original Virgin Mary was "full of grace," the anti-virgin of this film was full of cocaine. The very title of this movie, and its intrinsic allusion are distracting sophistry, for the virgin in this movie was neither virgin nor full o grace. Should it then follow that the "child" she bears us -- the drug trade -- should be our Divine Redeemer? "Maria, Full of Grace" is in fact most full of what a discerning reader might most suspect, and should require no further clarification. Mario Lamo Jimenez is a Colombian writer and anthropologist, co-founder of the Colombian "Alliance of Journalists and Writers" and editor of its publication "La Hojarasca". He can be reached: admin@escritoresyperiodistas.com WWW http://www.counterpunch.org