Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
May
19, 2004
Elizabeth
W. Corrie
Caterpillar Should Do the Right Thing,
Now
Bill
and Kathleen Christison
The US Can't Win
Vijay
Prashad
For Whom the Polls Toll: the Indian Elections of 2004
Ray
Hanania
Israeli War Crimes: Who to Believe, AIPAC or Amnesty Intl.?
Greg
Moses
Man President Kisses Up at AIPAC
Michael
Gillespie
Who is Kenneth deGraffenried?
Josh
Frank
Homes Destroyed; Death Toll Mounts: But Where's John Kerry?
Gary
Corseri
Out of Iraq and Plato's Cave
Kevin
Alexander Gray
If Malcolm Were Alive
May
18, 2004
Neve
Gordon
The Gaza Debacle
Doug
Stokes
Imperial Policing: Why Abu Ghraib
Shouldn't Surprise Us
Bob
Wing
The Color of Abu Ghraib
Vanessa
Jones
Man on a Leash
Thomas
P. Healy
Chemical Trespass: the Body Burden
Zeynep
Toufe
Torture and Moral Agency: the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
Kenneth
Roth
Mistreatment of Detainees in US Custody: a Letter to Bush
Elaine
Cassel
Pre-empting the Bill of Rights: The Other War, One Year Later
Website
of the Day
Truth Against Truth
May
17, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The John-John Ticket: Kerry Woos McCain
Laura
Santina
Military Conditioning and Abu Ghraib
Mickey
Z.
With Friends Like These: More Election 2004 Madness
Frederick
B. Hudson
Police Terror: Three Mothers Search for Justice
Shakirah
Esmail-Hudani
Inside Abu Ghraib: the Violence of the Camera
Boris
Leonardo Caro
The Revelations of Mr. W.
Alex
Dawoody
Iraq: From Saddam to Occupation
Victor
Kattan
On Watching the Execution of Nick Berg
Ron
Jacobs
Rumsfeld's Sovereignty Shell Game
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
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.
|
May
20, 2004
A Visit from
the FBI
A Change Gonna
Come
By KATHY KELLY
Another world is not only possible,
she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
-Arundhati Roy Porto Alegre,
Brazil, World Social Forum, January 27, 2003
Pekin Federal Prison
Peoria, Illinois
"Kathleen Kelly, report
to Admin."
I was routinely cleaning toilets
in my dorm at Pekin Federal Prison Camp when the loudspeaker
summoned me to the Administration Building. "You're going
next door," said the guard on duty. "Someone wants
to talk with you." During a five-minute ride to the adjacent
medium-security men's prison, I quickly organized some thoughts
about civil disobedience and prison terms, expecting to meet
a journalist. Instead, two well-dressed men stood to greet me
and then flashed their FBI badges. They had driven to Pekin,
Ill., from Chicago, where they work for the FBI's National Security
Service.
Both men were congenial. They
assured me that their visit had nothing to do with Voices in
the Wilderness violations of federal law in numerous trips to
Iraq, where we regularly delivered medicines and medical relief
supplies. Nor had they come to talk about why I'm currently imprisoned
for protesting the US Army's military combat training school
in Fort Benning, Ga. What they proposed was "a conversation,"
since they had information which they felt would help me and
Voices teams in Iraq, both now and in the future. Likewise, I
could help them, and perhaps improve national security, by answering
some of their questions.
I said I'd prefer not to talk
with them without a lawyer present. The more talkative agent
quickly nodded and suggested a follow-up visit with a lawyer.
He spoke further about his favorable impressions of Voices in
the Wilderness and how useful it would be for our travelers to
better understand some of the people whom the Iraqi government,
under Saddam Hussein, had assigned to work with us as "minders"
during our past trips. He said he had information about "bad
things" they had done or had planned to do. Having this
conversation would benefit Voices in its travel to other countries
as well. (Voices has focused solely on Iraq, although some of
us have visited other countries with other groups).
At that point, I decided not
to talk with them at all. "I don't want to accuse either
of you of any wrongdoing," I said, wanting to be polite,
"but your organization has used methods that I don't support,
and sometimes your job requires you to lie."
Still amiable and interested
in some kind of conversation, albeit one-sided, they let me know
that they had carefully read our website. "We saw the pictures
of the children," said the less talkative agent. The three
of us were silent for a moment.
His partner mentioned that
they've already met with numerous Iraqi Americans, none of whom
had anything bad to say about Voices in the Wilderness.
"Do you have any questions
for us?" they asked several times. "Is there anything
you want to say?"
"Well, yes," I said,
finally. "I do want to say something. I don't mean this
disrespectfully, but I do encourage you to resign." Smiling
broadly, they told me they'd placed a bet about whether or not
I'd talk to them, but hadn't anticipated being asked to resign.
"Sorry, my wife wouldn't
like it," said one. "I've got a pension to collect,"
said the other.
Several times, they advised
me not to publicize the visit. "You know the Arab mind,"
one advised. "If you tell people we visited you in prison,
they'll never believe you didn't talk with us, and you won't
be trusted when you go to other countries." There's no such
thing as a monolithic Arab point of view, and what intelligence
agencies have done to undermine trust in Iraq and the surrounding
region is a chapter unto itself, but I bit my tongue.
I think these men came to see
me because they were responding to inquiries from their colleagues
in Iraq. Perhaps someone, whom I've known, in Iraq, is being
"vetted" for a position within the U.S. occupation,
or perhaps an Iraqi under investigation for wrongdoing named
me as one who could vouch for his or her decency. I don't see
how I could tell anything about my personal experience that would
have been harmful to another person, and maybe I could have been
helpful in showing that someone I know was genuinely concerned
for innocent civilians.
I'm ambivalent--maybe I should
have talked with them. But mainly I feel sad, a bit weary, and
somehow responsible because the most crucial "information"
Voices in the Wilderness can and should offer seldom reaches
the general public, much less officialdom. We tried hard to inform
people that hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children died as a
direct result of economic sanctions. But it was as though we
were part of a defective Jeopardy! quiz game. We had answers
to questions that would never be asked.
The agents who visited me asked
me about "bad apples" in Iraq. On Capitol Hill, panels
of civilians and military leaders want to punish the few "bad
apples" responsible for torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners.
When we clamor for closure of the military combat training school
in Fort Benning, Ga., a school whose graduates have massacred,
tortured, assassinated and disappeared many thousands of people
in Latin America, public relations spokespeople for the base
say that we are overreacting to "a few bad apples."
Suppose we set aside the bushels
of "bad apples." Military, prison, and intelligence-gathering
structures routinely and inherently involve dehumanizing actions
(my encounter was, I think, exceptionally benign). Instead of
searching for blameworthy bad apples as though we are blind children
trying to pin the tail on the donkey, why not carefully acknowledge
our collective, passive responsibility for systems predicated
on threat, force, and violence? When money, talent, and resources
are poured into military systems and prison systems, while health,
education, and welfare systems compete for inadequate budget
allotments, we can expect constant warfare abroad and the quadrupling
of prisoner populations which occurred in the US over the last
25 years.
Military and prisoner structures
don't train recruits to view "the enemy" or "the
inmate" as precious and valuable humans deserving forgiveness,
mercy, and respect if they have trespassed against us. These
systems don't foster the notion that we ourselves could be mistaken,
that we might seek forgiveness, or that we might, together with
presumed outcasts, create a better world. Look to Scriptures
for such views--they're there--but don't expect love of enemy
and the Golden Rule to guide military, prison, or intelligence
systems anywhere in the world.
U.S. history abounds with remarkable
achievements and noble endeavors--the movements to abolish slavery,
attain women's suffrage, build unions, and establish civil rights,
to name but a few. But no country can ever achieve political
maturity without willingly looking into the mirror and acknowledging
all of its history. The US must come to grips with having been,
since World War II (when, under the shadow of the mushroom cloud,
we ushered the world into the nuclear age), a nation constantly
at war: Korea, Vietnam, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Grenada, Panama,
the first Gulf War, Kosovo, Columbia, Afghanistan, the ongoing
war in Iraq. We've waged hot war after hot war, and undergirding
all these wars is the continuing war of Western culture against
the biodiversity of our planet. To preserve our pleasures and
privileges, we become the most dangerous warlike culture in human
history.
A few bad apples? Not a chance.
As more pictures of beleaguered
Iraqi prisoners emerge, prolonging and swelling a horrid scandal,
I can't help but wonder why the pictures of suffering Iraqi children
never raised equivalent concern or indignation in the US or elsewhere
in the world.
I won't forget that one of
the FBI agents mentioned seeing pictures of Iraqi children on
the VitW website. I'm grateful to him for remembering them. I
feel haunted by the infants, the toddlers, the young teens, and
their heartbroken mothers and fathers whom we met at bedside
after bedside in Iraqi hospitals. Walking on the oval track,
here in prison, I whisper the names and recall the sweet faces
of the little ones I grew to know, fleetingly. All of them were
condemned to death. None of them were bad apples. They were fine
fruits of loving families. Hundreds of thousands died--some after
many days of writhing pain on bloodstained mats, without pain
relievers. Some died quickly, wasted by waterborne diseases;
as the juices ran out of their bodies, they looked like withered,
spoiled fruits. But no, they weren't bad apples. They could have
lived, certainly should have lived--and laughed and danced, and
run and played--but somehow--honestly, I don't understand it--somehow
they were sacrificed, brutally punished to death.
Their pictures, each of their
stories, had something to say to us. If Americans had seen their
images, day after day, the economic sanctions would never have
lasted long enough to claim the lives of as many as half a million
children under age five. These Iraqi children who couldn't survive
abysmally failed foreign policies still have something to say
to us.
"Please call me by true
name," wrote Thich Nhat Hanh, a monk and poet who led the
Buddhist non-aligned movement during the Vietnam War. He wants
us to fully understand who we are.
We have an extraordinary challenge,
now, as the American people clearly don't want to be aligned
with or represented by disgraceful and bullying behavior. We
must resist being misled by finger-pointing at "a few bad
apples." We should acknowledge that all of us are called
upon to be change agents, by changing our over-consumptive and
wasteful lifestyles. We must look for every sign of a "climate
change" that will help us overcome our unfortunate addiction
to war-making.
This may be a pivotal time.
Consider the early stages of the Civil Rights movement. Participants
must have wondered how many beatings, how many lynchings, how
many Jim Crow indignities would be heaped on communities before
opponents of civil rights would say they were tired of being
the bully. In that movement, a pivotal point was reached when
Bull Connor ordered police to train fire hoses on peaceful protesters,
including children. Frustrated onlookers around the world were
horrified. And increasing numbers of Americans no longer wanted
to be identified with Bull Connor and all that he represented.
"Injustice must be exposed
to the light of human conscience," said the Rev. Dr. Martin
Luther King, "and to the air of national opinion before
it can be cured."
I feel sure that numerous members
of the armed services, the intelligence agencies, and various
other federal government bureaus, including the bureau of prison
employees, understand very; well why we need radical change in
the US. I feel sure that an era of reform and a climate conducive
to progressive humanitarian measures will recycle into our history.
But all of us need to take
advantage of our own opportunities to be agents of change. For
some it may mean walking away from cruel, wrongful, or dishonest
work. For others it may mean becoming whistle-blowers. Still
others can announce the truth as they see it in spite of risks
to their pensions or job security. When we're willing to call
ourselves by all of our names, change can happen.
Change is coming. Light as
the breath of excruciatingly beautiful Iraqi children nearing
their deaths, demanding as the imploring eyes of their mothers
who asked us why, you can feel it coming.
Kathy Kelly is a co-coordinator of Voices
in the Wilderness. To learn more about how to become part
of efforts to close the SOA, visit www.soaw.org
Kathy will also spend time in prison for crossing the line at
Project ELF, a US Navy nuclear weapon facility in northern WI
which helped fast-track Tomahawk Cruise missiles that attacked
Iraq during the Shock and Awe campaign. To learn more about the
campaign to shut down Project ELF, visit www.nukewatch.com.
She can be reached at: Kathy@vitw.org.
Weekend
Edition Features for May 15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
|