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Today's
Stories
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
March 11, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Bedtime
for Democracy
Bill Kauffman
Hey,
Ralph! Why Not Another Party of the People?
James Hollander
Slaughter
in Madrid: Consolidating an Ally?
Norman Solomon
They
Shoot Journalists, Don't They?
Patrick Gavin
The Salvation of Dan Quayle: Family Values Return
Becky Burgwin
You're
Messing with the Wrong Generation
John Sugg
The FBI is on My Trail
March 10, 2004
Hammond Guthrie
Read
This Book!: "Who the Hell is Stew Albert?"
Chris Floyd
Operation Enduring Sweatshop: Another
Bush Brings Hell to Haiti
Elizabeth Corrie
Remembering the Death of Rachel Corrie
Mike Whitney
US Press Torpedoes Aristide
M. Junaid Alam
An Anti-Civilizational War?
Bob Feldman
The Occupation of Haiti: Recalling 1915-1934
John L. Hess
An Overload of Crises
Gary Leupp
On Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi and the Uses of al-Qaeda "Links"
March 9, 2004
Greg Weiher
The
Zarqawi Gambit, Part 2
Ben Tripp
Word Up! Let's Have a Conversation
Tom Barry
Neo-Cons Target Syria
Sharon Smith
The Hypocrites in the Catholic Church
Robert Fisk
The Same Old Iraq
Doug Giebel
The Bush Strategy: Laughing All the Way
Ralph Nader
Pension Rights, the Trail of Broken Promises
Daniel Estulin
In Memory of Ricardo Ortega: a Great Journalist, Killed in Haiti
Dave Lindorff
Martha Stewart's Cloudy Day
Saul Landau
Will the Filthy Rich Dump Bush?
Website of the Day
Imperial Armies in the Garden
March 8, 2004
Amy Goodman
An
Interview with Aristide
Eric Ruder
An Interview
with Robert Fatton on the Coup in Haiti
Robert Jensen
The Presidential Library Terrorist
Connection
Mike Whitney
Expel the US from the Security Council
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Helped Cover Up Pakistan's
Nuclear Proliferation
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Why is Apartheid Touted as a Solution?
Kevin Alexander Gray
The Legacy of Strom Thurmond
Derek Seidman
Radical Continuity: an Interview with Paul Buhle
Steve Perry
Kerry Fiddles While He Could be Burning Bush
Website of the Day
Patriot
Act Game
March 6 / 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Understanding the World with
Paul Sweezy
Robert Pollin
Remembering Paul Sweezy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Timber Theft
Tom Reeves
Bush's Mass Deportations: 63,000 and Counting
Charles Lewis
Who Mugged Howard Dean in Iowa:
Kerry, Torricelli and a Mysterious Frontgroup
Tom Jackson
My Breakfast with Sen. Judd Gregg
Kurt Nimmo
Is Venezuela Next?
Alan Cisco
A Report from Caracas
Jack Random
Haitian Democracy be Damned
Colin Piquette
Oh, Canada: the Coup Coalition
Lee Sustar
Labor's State of Emergency
William D. Hartung
Iraq and the Costs of War
David Sally
Rebuilding
Amérique
Mark Scaramella
When God Mooned Moses: Test Your Bible Knowledge
Mickey Z.
What We Can Learn from Ashcroft's Gallbladder
Ron Jacobs
Politics and Baseball
Dave Zirin
The Longest Jump: the Blackballing of Phil Shinnick
Poets' Basement
John Holt and Larry Kearney
Website of the Weekend
National Day of Action for Rachel Corrie
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
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for More Stories.
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Weekend
Edition
March 20 / 21, 2004
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Step
One: Look in the Mirror
By KATHY KELLY
Following the March 11, 2004 terrorist attacks
in Madrid, Secretary of State Colin Powell told ABC TV's "This
Week" that he hoped Europeans, recognizing that no one is
immune, would dedicate themselves to "going after"
terrorist organizations with military force, intelligence, and
law enforcement. He said that all of us have to get together
to defeat organizations determined to kill and destroy innocent
people. He urged Spain not to step back from the war on terrorism.
I think a crucial step forward in coming
to grips with terrorism requires that we ask ourselves why individuals,
some of them young, rational people with their whole lives ahead
of them, would hate the US and its allies so much that they would
commit acts of massive destruction and end their own lives as
well.
Shortly after US troops began occupying
Iraq in April, 2003, a large contingent of western media people
arrived in Baghdad. One young journalist said a more seasoned
correspondent had told her to talk with me when she was ready
to do a humanitarian story. One of the first stories she pursued
was about a baby who'd been born in one of Saddam Hussein's prisons.
I suggested she might also explore stories about the hundreds
of thousands of children who died because of economic sanctions.
"Oh," she said, "That was Saddam Hussein's fault."
I mentioned that UN documents directly attributed the deaths
of over 500,000 children under age 5 to the effects of economic
sanctions. Her response was immediate: "Well, except now
everyone knows that the UN was in bed with Saddam Hussein."
US think tanks helped brief US journalists
before they headed over to the war zone. Perhaps the complex
US/UN relations during thirteen years of economic sanctions couldn't
have fit into convenient briefings. With deadlines to meet, electrical
outages to cope with, and editors seeking stories about Saddam's
cruelties, who could expect this young, energetic reporter to
delve into old analysis of yesteryear's news?
But if US people are ever going to understand
what would motivate people to end their lives in the course of
committing gruesomely destructive acts, we'll have to "step
back" from what the mainstream media dishes out to us, and
strive for empathy, --try to understand why terrorists believe
it's imperative to resist US domination. One way to develop empathy
would be to revisit the history of Iraq under economic sanctions
and military bombardment.
The logic of this history, on the part
of the US leadership, seems to have been: "We had to starve
you so that we could stop bombing you, and then we had to bomb
you so that we could stop starving you."
The entire façade of bureaucratic
delays that made up the UN's efforts in Iraq in the last years
of the sanctions was absurd. Did any of the UN workers who struggled
to provide minute documentation that Iraq wasn't building bombs
out of parts for water treatment plants, for example, really
believe that the US cared about their work? After 5 years of
"oil for food," it was clear that the U.S. was simply
interested in finding excuses to maintain sanctions. Despite
repeated denials, and incredibly detailed levels of "monitoring"
and documentation, by UN officials across every agency working
in Iraq, the US continued to pretend that the Iraqi government
could have solved the problems by distributing hoarded medicines
and was solely responsible because it refused to use the money
and medicine it had available. The truth was that no amount
of medicine could have saved the lives of children, then, and
still won't be adequately effective, because Iraq's infrastructure
is so badly debilitated that even now infant mortality at the
neonatal clinic in the Yarmuk Hospital in Baghdad is twice that
of last year. And at Baghdad's Central Teaching Hospital for
Children, where gallons of raw sewage wash across the floors,
the hospital's doctors say "the hospital drinking water
is contaminated" and "80 percent of patients leave
with infections they did not have when they arrived."(NYT
""Chaos and War Leave Iraq's Hospitals in Ruins"
Jeffrey Gettleman, February 14 2004)
Many of the accounts about ways that
Saddam Hussein's regime engaged in smuggling and arranged "kickbacks"
under the oil-for-food program were widely reported while Saddam
Hussein's regime was still in power. We should be scandalized
by that regime's choice to live luxuriously when they could have
helped save the lives of innocent children. And we should be
equally scandalized that the US used the UN to wage economic
warfare against Iraq knowing full well that the sanctions would
brutally and lethally punish innocent people, including children,
who had no control over their government.
In Baghdad, a few days before the Shock
and Awe war began, a woman whom I've known for seven years whispered
"Believe me, Kathy, we want this war. All the people, they
are tired of this life where we work so hard and still cannot
feed our children." A March 9, 2004 letter from her explains
how betrayed and battered she now feels. "Today, we faced
a horrible day. My partner, the engineer, was attacked by shooting.
He was wounded by three shots and is in the hospital. We are
not sure if he will live. This is Iraq today. This is what we
pay for Mr. Bush and his freedom. We can't move from place to
place without shooting and bombing. We are like hostages in our
own land. There is no safety, no jobs, no good water, no electricity.
Everything is bad here. We are hopeless. We can't protect our
children."
I wonder if people who flock to see Mel
Gibson's "The Passion of the Christ" understand that
the brutality Jesus suffered was the punishment for those convicted
of insurrection against military occupation. Military occupation
then and now is not much different. Imagine anyone in Iraq, Israel
or Palestine, whether civilian or military, occupier or occupied,
who survives a bombing, --their limbs shattered, organs ripped
open, flesh torn. Imagine arms aching for loved ones who'll never
return. Or imagine someone armless and yearning, like the woman
whom Faith Fippinger wrote of who had given birth to a baby just
before a US bomb tore off her arms during the Shock and Awe campaign.
Other women helped the armless woman nurse the infant by crouching
behind her and holding the baby to her breast.
I recently read about a woman who carried
her sister-in-law's newborn baby to a hospital where she had
been advised that an incubator would be available. When she arrived,
she learned another woman had arrived before her and the incubator
was taken. A nurse tried to console the distraught woman, but
her companion, the mother's sister, was willing to try an alternative.
Using a manual ventilator, she followed a nurse's instructions:
"squeeze and let go, squeeze and let go, as long as she
could. Shortly before dawn, after standing by the baby and working
the respirator for eight hours, Mehdi's arms gave out" (Washington
Post "Iraqi Hospitals on Life Support" March 5, 2004).
The baby died of respiratory failure.
I don't know anyone in Iraq who wasn't
relieved to see Saddam Hussein deposed. I'd like to be heartened
by those who say they advocated warfare against Iraq because
they wanted to save Iraqis from an abusive despot. But, I can't
help but wish that this profound care for Iraqi people could
have been activated during the long years when Iraqis endured
the most comprehensive state of siege ever imposed in modern
history.
Why do some people in the Islamic world
hate us so much? It's a quick discussion. We take over and dominate
other people's societies. We set up client states in their regions
and rely on these client states to house US bases and, as in
the case with Israel, to punish neighboring states if they don't
submit to US aims. We foster double standards, condemning invasion
and occupation when it suits us, (e.g., the Iraqi invasion of
Kuwait) and yet undertaking or supporting murderous sanctions,
invasions and occupations, while claiming to support and enhance
democratic states. The role of the US and its client state, Israel,
as occupiers in Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine evokes rage and
retaliation. Hideous and violent terrorist attacks will continue
as long as we insist on taking other people's precious and irreplaceable
resources for cut rate prices. We should either begin paying
fair prices, or find new ways to live in which we're not so dependent
on these resources.
How could we live differently, with less
consumption and waste? Let me answer for myself. I consume far
more than my fair share of jet fuel, electrical energy, and water
each year. It's time to start rationing myself. The old adage,
"Live simply so that others can simply live" comes
to mind.
I'll have a refresher course in simple
living during the late spring and summer of this year when I'll
be an inmate in a US federal prison for four months. The prison-industrial
complex is a cruel extension of US war-making against the poor
in our country, but I hope this prison sentence, for nonviolent
trespass on US military installations, will serve me as an incubation
period, a time of adjustment while living with less, and a time
to hatch new ideas about how to live more simply after I leave
the prison. I hope all of us will find ways to slow down, find
more leisure time, and in our times of rest reflect very seriously
on Secretary of State Colin Powell's encouragement that we "get
together to defeat organizations determined to kill and destroy
innocent people." I hope we can get together to nonviolently
defeat US militarism, at home and abroad.
Kathy Kelly
is a co-coordinator of Voices in the Wilderness. She and dozens
of activists who participated in civil disobedience at Fort Benning,
GA and at the ELF nuclear weapon facility in northern WI have
recently been sentenced to prison. For more information, visit
www.vitw.org, www.soaw.org
or www.nukewatch.org.
She can be reached at: Kathy@vitw.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
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