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Here's the second in Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair's series as they describe Hillary Clinton's years in Little Rock and her narrow escape from federal charges that would have destroyed her political career for ever. PLUS KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY on how Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are failing Black America even as they hunt for votes in So uth Carolina's "Black Primary." Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
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Today's Stories September 1 / 2, 2007 Patrick
Cockburn August 31, 2007 Jeff
Gibbs Paul
Craig Roberts Ray
McGovern Robert
Weissman Matt
Vidal Robin
Mittenthal Chris
Kutalik Richard
Forno Binoy
Kampmark Dave
Zirin Website
of the Day
August 30, 2007 Gary
Leupp John
Ross Anthony
DiMaggio Jordan
Flaherty Michael
Donnelly Russell
Mokhiber Dennis
Brutus William
S. Lind Martha
Rosenberg Jeff
Leys / Brian Terrell Website
of the Day
Patrick
Cockburn Winslow
T. Wheeler David
Rosen Dave
Zirin Paul
Craig Roberts Diane
Farsetta Ben
Davis Alan
Farago Jenna
Orkin Don
Monkerud Richard
Nasser Website
of the Day
August 28, 2007 Uri
Avnery Bill
Quigley Joshua
Frank China
Hand Firmin
DeBrabander Charles
Peña Andy
Worthington Ramzy
Baroud Anthony
Papa Ashley
Smith Website
of the Day
Jorge
Mariscal Bill
Christison Manuel
Garcia, Jr. Anthony
DiMaggio Bruce
A. Roth John
Walsh Dave
Lindorff Ron
Jacobs Binoy
Kampmark Russell
D. Hoffman Website
of the Day
August 25 / 26, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn James
Petras Jeffrey
Buchanan / Marjorie
Cohn Rev.
William E. Alberts Robert
Fantina Brian
Concannon Ralph
Nader Laura
Carlsen Fred
Gardner David
Michael Green Stephen
Soldz Mike
Ferner Paul
Krassner Ben
Tripp Missy
Beattie Website
of the Weekend
August 24, 2007 Paul
Craig Roberts Greg
Moses William Schroder Alan
Farago Jackie
Corr Jeff
Ballinger Bill
Quigley Dave
Zirin Richard
Rhames Ryan
Haygood Website
of the Day
August 23, 2007 Kathy
Kelly P.
Sainath Ron
Jacobs Christopher
Brauchli D.K.
Wilson Joshua
Frank Dan
Bacher Brenda
Norrell John
Wright David
Vest Website
of the Day
August 22, 2007 Norman
Finkelstein Marc
Levy Lawrence
R. Velvel Ray
McGovern Norman
Solomon John
Walsh Michael
Dickinson William
S. Lind Bill
Hatch Kenneth
E. Foster and John Joe Amador David
Vest Website
of the Day
Saul
Landau Alan
Farago John
Stauber Phillip
Rizk Debbie
Nathan Binoy
Kampmark Martha
Rosenberg Sunsara
Taylor Website
of the Day
August 20, 2007 Paul
Craig Roberts Uri
Avnery Rannie
Amiri John
Ross Harvey
Wasserman Robert
Billyard Dave
Lindorff James
Rothenberg David
"DC" Larson Website
of the Day August 18 / 19, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Saul
Landau Ralph
Nader Patrick
Cockburn Robert
Fantina Robert
S. Eshelman P.
Sainath Dave
Lindorff Anthony
DiMaggio Fred
Gardner Ron
Jacobs Tom
Turnipseed Paul
Krassner Ben
Tripp Andrew
Wimmer Nancy
Oden N.D.
Jayaprakash Rick
Smith Missy
Beattie Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
Joanne
Mariner Paul
Craig Roberts Shepherd
Bliss Dave
Lindorff John
Muthyala Patrick
Cockburn Sherwood
Ross Phil
Doe David
Michael Green Website
of the Day
Jonathan
Cook Christopher
Brauchli Norman
Solomon Lee
Sustar / George
Bisharat Binoy
Kampmark Evelyn
Pringle Hugo
Blanco Website
of the Day
August 15, 2007 Paul
Craig Roberts Michael
Neumann Jordan
Flaherty Sonja
Karkar Felice
Pace Joshua
Frank Dave
Lindorff Carla
Blank David
Vest Harvey
Wasserman Peter
Rost, M.D. Russell
Mokhiber Website
of the Day
August 14, 2007 Paul
de Rooij Winslow
T. Wheeler David
Rosen Gary
Leupp Clifton
Ross Muhammad
Idress Ahmad Jacquelyn
Godin Uri
Avnery Ramzy
Baroud James
McEnteer Website
of the Day
August 13, 2007 Jeremy
Scahill F.
William Engdahl Alexander
Cockburn Kathy
Kelly Chris
Floyd Paul
Craig Roberts William
Blum Kenneth
Couesbouc Rannie
Amiri Brenda
Norrell Fran
Shor Ron
Jacobs Website
of the Day
August 11 / 12, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Stan
Goff Ralph
Nader Vijay
Prashad Greg
Moses Alan
Farago Patrick
Cockburn Ben
Tripp Robert
Fantina John
Ross Seth
Sandronsky Paul
Krassner Website
of the Weekend
August 10, 2007 Paul
Craig Roberts Stan
Goff Marjorie
Cohn Saul
Landau Chris
Floyd Daniel
Ellsberg Anthony
Papa Farzana
Versey Sgt.
Kevin Benderman Nuri
Nuri Website
of the Day
August 9, 2007 Stan
Goff Paul
Craig Roberts Alan
Farago William
S. Lind Doug
Giebel Harvey
Wasserman Jacob
Hill Raul
Zibechi Dave
Zirin Website
of the Day
August 8, 2007 Andy
Worthington Jeff
Halper Greg
Moses Nurit
Peled-Elhanan Sukant
Chandan Robert
Fisk George
H. Strauss D.K.
Wilson Bill
Day Tim
Campbell Website
of the Day
August 7, 2007 Patrick
Cockburn Andy
Worthington Kathy
Kelly Stan
Cox Sonja
Karkar Sen.
Russ Feingold Alan
Farago Norman
Solomon Binoy
Kampmark Dave
Lindorff John
Stauber Website
of the Day
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September 1 / 2, 2007 Sarkozy's New French Foreign PolicyBack in Uncle Sam's PocketBy DIANA JOHNSTONE One of the best known fables by the 17th century French poet Jean de la Fontaine tells of a fly that buzzed around a horse pulling a heavy coach up a steep hill. When the horse made it to the top, the self-important fly gave himself, and his buzzing, credit for getting the coach to the top. The new French foreign policy of Nicolas Sarkozy looks like that. Flies buzz around, looking for some event they can claim to influence. Act One : Cécilia and the Bulgarian nurses In July, Sarko found something exciting for his visibly bored wife, Cécilia, to do. In a surprise trip to Libya, the former fashion model was photographed with Moammar Gaddafi, who also knows how to dress. This was a photo opportunity with a humanitarian message. According to the script, the Mona Lisa-like Cécilia (whose distinctive style is to wear no obvious makeup, no broad smile) charmed the old desert fox into sparing the lives of six Bulgarian medical workers unjustly convicted of infecting children with HIV virus. Indeed, the five women nurses and the Palestinian-born male doctor were not only saved from the firing squad, they were allowed to leave Libya and go home, free, to Bulgaria. The happy ending was real. But the rôle of Cécilia? In reality, the release of the Bulgarian nurses was a foregone conclusion. It had been negotiated behind the scenes by European Union and German diplomats. But "behind the scenes" is not the Sarko way of life. Stealing the scene is more to the point. When I was in Libya last January, I asked people about the Bulgarian nurses. Everyone assured me the death penalty would never be carried out. But what surprised me was the widespread belief among lawyers and other professionals, none of them great admirers of Gaddafi, that the nurses were "not altogether innocent". How could intelligent, seemingly reasonable people believe what seemed obviously preposterous? The explanation I heard was certainly not convincing, but did tell me something about the real story, which differs from the Western media tale of the evil dictator cynically holding nurses for ransom in order to extort money from the West. When the story began eight
years ago, Gaddafi was high on the U.S. hit list. After having
unsuccessfully tried to kill Gaddafi in a bombing raid, the United
States accused his agents of blowing up Pan Am flight 103 over
Lockerbie, Scotland, in December 1988. To force Gaddafi to turn
over two accused agents for trial, the United Nations imposed
economic sanctions on Libya that seriously impeded its development.
Gaddafi gave in, and in Back in 1999, Islamic militants
were leading a violent insurrection against Gaddafi in Benghazi,
the capital of the eastern end of the vast north African country.
Benghazi, close to Egypt, is historically less developed and
more troubled than the western part of the country around Tripoli.
The insurgents were widely assumed to have been incited by outside
agents, as part of what is seen throughout the region as a Anglo-American-Israeli
subversion strategy to subjugate the Arab nation by breaking
it up into sectarian fragments. This sounds crazy in the West. But not in Africa, where several rare but highly publicized cases have been uncovered of European doctors using African patients for harmful experimentation. Western experts say that the HIV virus was introduced into the Benghazi hospital by guest worker patients from sub-Saharan countries struck by the AIDS epidemic. Re-use of insufficiently sterilized syringes did the rest. But in Benghazi, foreign sabotage seemed more credible. Anguished parents of dying children were outraged, and the police were under pressure to find perpetrators. So they interrogated the medical workers. The hapless Bulgarian nurses and the Palestinian doctor were cruelly tortured into making confessions. The conviction of the Bulgarians took the pressure off the Libyan authorities to account for the tragedy. The Gaddafi family foundation moved in to provide more comfortable incarceration for the unfortunate scapegoats. But then the Libyan regime
found itself under a counterpressure, as the affair of the Bulgarian
nurses turned into an obstacle to reconciliation with the West.
Since 2003, to escape from sanctions, Gaddafi not only paid
billions of dollars to Lockerbie victims, but officially ended
a program of "weapons of mass destruction" (which may
never have existed), turned his attention away from the explosive
Middle East to sub-Saharan Africa, and in general showed himself
to be cooperative with the United States and its NATO allies.
The Lockerbie charges were
trumped up to put pressure on Libya, according to Michael Scharf,
who as a legal expert helped the State Department devise both
the accusations and the sanctions against Gaddafi. Scharf said
the case was based on testimony by a "nut-job" liar
furnished by the CIA, was "so full of holes it was like
Swiss cheese" and should never have gone to trial. "Now Libya has given up its weapons of mass destruction, it's allowed inspectors in, the sanctions have been lifted, tourists from the US are flocking to see the Roman ruins outside of Tripoli and Gaddafi has become a leader in Africa rather than a pariah. And all of that is the result of this trial," Scharf said, as quoted in the Scottish newspaper, The Sunday Herald. "Diplomatically, it has been a huge success story." Robert Black, professor of
Scots law at Edinburgh University and the principal architect
of the Lockerbie trial in the Netherlands,jas frequently described
the Lockerbie case as "a fraud", and the conviction
as "a disgrace for Scottish justice". Lies were told,
evidence was planted, and now the whole flimsy structure is tumbling
down. So a solution was worked out. In return for compensation comparable to that paid to families of the 270 Lockerbie victims, the Libyan families of the 438 HIV-infected children would agree to the sparing the lives of the convicted Bulgarians. The symmetry was not perfect: most of the compensation to the children's families was actually paid by the Libyan government itself. Bulgaria paid $44 million in the form of debt forgiveness. The European Union agreed to donate nine and a half million euros to upgrade the children's hospital in Benghazi. Cécilia was, as the French say, the cherry on the cake. In France, criticism of the Cécilia show has been largely beside the point. Left-wing critics, cartoonists and commentators blasted the Sarkozys for "dealing with dictators", not for stealing the show. In fact, the deals were happening anyway, and Sarkozy does not deserve either blame or credit for the arms sales or the French firm Areva's important energy infrastructure contracts in Libya, which preceded his presidency. The French media have totally ignored the collapse of the Lockerbie accusation, and continue to portray Gaddafi as a bloodthirsty master-mind of international terror. The anti-dictator stance makes it impossible to observe that the outcome, which lets the Bulgarians go home and improves health care for children in Benghazi, is a reasonably humane compromise--which owes nothing to Sarkozy and his wife. Act Two: The Thief of Baghdad Bernard Kouchner was feeling left out. He is foreign minister, remember? To steal back into the limelight, on August 19 Kouchner arrived for a surprise visit in Baghdad's Green Zone and started uttering the off-the-wall declarations for which he is renowned. But what could this chronic
Americanophile say in such a desperate situation? The situation
is terrible, "sinister", he recognized, while hoping
that things may be starting to improve. "This is an Iraqi
problem which must be solved by Iraqis", he said, which
is true enough in a way--but not in the way he meant. For, without
reversing France's official disapproval of the U.S. invasion,
the thrust of Kouchner's remarks was to suggest that the current
chaos in Iraq is the fault of the Iraqis themselves, and their
"6,000 years of violence". He blamed the United States,
not for its violence against Iraqi people, for its illegal invasion
and destruction of Iraq, but rather for not applying the Kouchnerian
doctrine of humanitarian intervention properly. Sometimes, he
told Newsweek, the "right to interfere" has
been applied well, for instance in Kosovo--alluding to his own
stint as United Nations administrator of the occupied protectorate,
which left the province a seething cauldron of ethnic hatred
run by gangsters. But "in Iraq it was applied horribly". Calls to dump Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki are growing in Washington. Here was a coach to help up the hill. Interviewed by Newsweek, the fly began to buzz: "I just had Condoleezza on the phone 10 or 15 minutes ago, and I told her, 'Listen, he's got to be replaced'." Kouchner had a replacement in mind: Adel Abdul Mahdi, "not only because he studied in France. He's solid. Of the people who are available, he's widely seen as the one that ought to have the job." This undiplomatic statement aroused predictable protests. Kouchner was obliged to apologize to the Iraqi prime minister. But never mind, he was in the news. More important than his blundering words, the U.S. media interpreted his mere presence in Iraq as a sign that the French black sheep was back in the Uncle Sam's fold. First in the United States, with Reagan, and now in France, a population raised to identify action with appearing on television has elected leaders who share the same illusion. If it's on television, it happened. Otherwise Serious reflection is not telegenic. In fact, you can't see it at all. So what's the point? Sarko's Americanized Finance Minister Christine Lagarde summed up the new doctrine: France has been a country known for thinking. Enough of that, it's time to stop thinking and get to work. Kouchner is an extreme case. He seems oblivious to the fact that he is neither thinking nor really getting anything done. Words pop out like bubbles, burst and are followed by more words. Traditional diplomacy meant keeping options open by saying as little as possible. Kouchner's way is to say as much as possible in order to make the TV news. Contradictions are the spice of life. As for facts, never mind, they'll take care of themselves. What is the use of Kouchner as foreign minister? So far, the main answer could be that he makes Sarkozy look serious in comparison. Act Three: Let Them Bomb Iran Back in Paris from his U.S. vacation and Kennebunkport lunch with the Bush clan, Sarkozy summoned French diplomats to lay down the new foreign policy line. The media focused on his statement that "a nuclear-armed Iran is for me unacceptable". He called for tightening sanctions, as well as an "opening if Iran chooses to respect its obligations", as the only way to avoid having to make a "catastrophic" choice between "the Iranian bomb or the bombardment of Iran". France was not threatening to drop bombs itself, but was indirectly accepting a future U.S. or Israeli bombing of Iran as legitimate, in contrast to Chirac's refusal to endorse war against Iraq. More fundamentally, Sarkozy's policy speech subscribed to the U.S.-Israeli ideology of a "clash of civilizations" brought about solely by unprovoked radical Muslim aggressiveness. According to Sarkozy, the primary challenge confronting the world today is "how to prevent a confrontation between Islam and the West" -- a confrontation for which he put full blame on the Muslim side: the "extremist groups such as Al Qaeda who dream of installing, from Indonesia to Nigeria, a caliphate rejecting any opening, any modernity, even the very idea of diversity". There is no hint here that militant Islam might be, at least in part, a reaction to decades of aggressive Western intervention in Muslim countries, notably in Palestine and Iraq. The European Union must build a unified defense, first of all to meet "the threat of a confrontation between Islam and the West". He cited the Danish cartoon controversy as a portent of clashes to come. Sarkozy said he hoped to prevent the confrontation, notably by supporting "forces of moderation and modernity" in the Arab world. In practice, this means joining the United States and Israel in isolating and eliminating the Palestinian resistance on religious grounds. Sarkozy called for "reconstruction of the Palestinian Authority, under the authority of its President", ignoring the fact that President Mahmoud Abbas has lost almost all popular support and that the Palestinians democratically elected Hamas. Sarkozy called Hamas' successful resistance to the attempt by Israeli-armed militias to take control of Gaza "the creation of a 'Hamastan' as the first step in seizing control of all the Palestinian territories by radical Islamists." "We cannot resign ourselves to that prospect. France is not resigned to it", he declared. Openly abandoning any notion of a European defense independent of NATO, Sarkozy called for what in Washington is called greater "burden sharing" by Europeans. There was no more talk of a "multipolarity" in world affairs as an alternative to "unipolarity" around a U.S. hyperpower. Rather, like the Bush administration itself, Sarkozy rejected "unilateralism" as a failure, calling instead for "an effective multilateralism"--starting with the Franco-U.S. alliance. Sarkozy better watch out. The coach he thinks he's pushing up the hill may be about to go over the side of a cliff--taking the rest of us with it. Diana Johnstone is the author of Fools' Crusade: Yugoslavia, NATO and Western Delusions, Monthly Review Press. She can be reached at dianajohnstone@compuserve.com
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! Click Here for Dates & Venues How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair           The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn   Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed        Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh                   |
