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Today's
Stories
December
10, 2004
Kathy
Kelly
From Haiti to Iraq: Burying Water
December
9, 2004
Greg
Moses
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
Joshua
Frank
Cobb and the Ohio Recount: Vote Fraud as Fundraiser!
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush: It's Time to
Disclose the Real Casualty Figures
Lee
Sustar
Bhopal: the Making of a Disaster
Tom
Barry
Restrictionist Resurgence
Mickey
Z.
Sander Hicks and the 9/11 Truth Movement
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush in the Bubble
Mark
Donham
Why are House Democrats Trying to
Deny Cynthia McKinney Seniority?
Gary
Corseri
On the Anniversary of John Lennon's Death, 2012
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
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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December 10, 2004
From Haiti to Iraq
Burying
Water
By
KATHY KELLY
In the summer of 1994, I was part of
a four-person Christian Peacemaker Team dedicated to filing reports
on human rights conditions in Jeremie, located in the southern
finger of Haiti. When I arrived, I spent one day in Port au Prince,
waiting to travel by ferry to the tiny coastal town of St. Helene.
That day, eager to be Helpful Hannah, I joined some young girls
to haul Hinckley Schmidt size water containers, destined for
a neighborhood center in Port au Prince's appalling Cite Soleil,
across a ravine. My arms were trembling almost immediately. When
we reached the cement ledge where the plastic water containers
were lined up for vehicle transport, I dropped mine down with
an exhausted hurrah and then watched in horror as it split. The
girls flew into action trying to save some of the precious water.
"Si ou cache verite, ou enterre dlo," the Haitian proverb
says that to hide the truth is like trying to bury water. The
truth was gushing out. Throughout that summer I watched women
carry water, on their heads, walking miles uphill. One day my
friend Madame Ti Pa nearly fainted from the ordeal.
Madame Ti Pa struggled to support
three children: Natasha, 8, Petiarson, 2, and Patricia, 1. Natasha
was an orphan whose parents were killed when the overcrowded
Neptune ship capsized off Haiti's coastline. Madame Ti Pa found
Natasha wandering tearfully in the street and took her into her
home. Natasha was elegible for financial help to attend school,
but Madame Ti Pa couldn't afford to buy her a uniform, socks
and shoes. Nor did she have money to feed the children properly.
The children appeared malnourished and were often feverish. Even
so, they sang, laughed and cuddled together, obviously responsive
to Madame Ti Pa's animated spontaneity.
St. Helene's hilly roads were
rocky and jagged, rough on wheels, shoes and bare feet. Beyond
St. Helene, one path led to a smooth, paved road with attractive
interlocking stones called "adoken". Lined by gorgeous
plants, trees and flowers, the road passed through the richest
section of Jeremie.
Our Christian Peacemaker Team
members hurried along this route two mornings each week to make
radio contact with Port-au-Prince. The sisters at the House of
the Good Shepherd let us use their equipment. Afterward, it was
always pleasant to chat with the kindly sisters and to hear of
progress at the cooperative farm they sponsored. Sixty-five families
were supported by women who cultivated crops in fields next to
the sisters' home.
One day, Madame Ti Pa asked
me to go with her to talk to the sisters about joining the project.
A woman in Port-au-Prince had written her a letter of recommendation.
Madame Ti Pa's eyes flickered with hope when she showed me the
typed letter. Then, she asked for a bar of soap. She hadn't been
able to wash clothes for weeks, soap having become a luxury.
Letter in hand, dressed in
a clean skirt and top, Madame Ti Pa met me to walk up to the
Good Shepherd House. When we reached the smooth road, Madame
Ti Pa told me the story behind it. The "adoken" bricks
were ordered by President Jean Bertrand Aristide to build a road
through St. Helen, but the shipment was delayed and didn't arrive
until after the coup d'etat. The bricks were then confiscated
and used instead to cover the already paved road through the
richest section of town. The people of St. Helen felt disappointed
and cheated.
More disappointment was in
store for Madame Ti Pa when we arrived at the Good Shepherd house.
Sr. Angeline firmly told her that it was impossible for them
to accept any more women into the project. Madame Ti Pa was one
of many who had begged to join.
Walking back along the "adoken"
road, Madame Ti Pa trembled with weakness. She hadn't eaten since
the previous morning. I thought again of the attitude I'd heard
macoutes express: "The poor are too lazy and stupid to run
the country. They just want to cheat and steal." On that
road, even the very stones would cry out. (Habakkuk 2: 9-11)
What could we say to people
who had driven Haitians to raw despair? Days later I met a man
reputed to have committed the worst crimes. He was accused of
theft, torture and murder, yet because he had a gun, he had power.
He used this power against simple people who had nothing and
craved little more than basic rights. Yet, I had to ask, did
I come from a country that had more in common with him or with
the people he persecuted?
A cold shiver ran through me
when I recalled similar awareness of the power of water, the
power of guns and the grinding power of poverty encountered in
Basra, Iraq during the summer of 2000. Our small peace team,
again four in number, wanted to settle into the poorest area
of Iraq's southern port city to study Arabic and better understand
conditions in a neighborhood blighted by the effects of economic
sanctions and a dictatorship's abusive rule. Three of the first
words I wanted to learn in Arabic were, "Don't do that!"
I wanted to shout the phrase at playful boys who, in the blasting
heat, would cup their hands, dip into the sewage ditch running
alongside the road, and pour water over their heads to cool off.
By the end of the summer, my companions and I would sometimes
clap our hands over our eyes and shout "OK, my turn,"
then pucker our lips as the boys poured water over our heads.
The alternative was to pass out under the harsh sun as the temperature
soared to 140 degrees.
Each morning, in the household
where I stayed, Nadra, whose name means "exceptional,"
would rise at 4:00 a.m. to begin scrubbing every surface in the
sparsely furnished home. Her next task would involve removing
a stone, lowering an electric pump into the well below, and siphoning
off some of the available tap water supply. Nadra was one of
a very few people who could afford such a pump. Our team members
didn't drink the pumped water, for fear of becoming deathly ill.
We drank bottled water and spent more money on two days of bottled
water for ourselves than Nadra's household spent for an entire
month. So you can see the pecking order: Americans get purified
bottled water, an Iraqi family in the good graces of the regime
could at least manage to pump somewhat sanitized water, and the
poor would be the most vulnerable to water-borne diseases.
Again, memory takes me to a
scene of painful conflict over water. I'm remembering a time
when our friend Caoihme Butterly walked into the wretched remains
of the Jenin Camp on the West Bank, in April of 2002, carrying
two heavy six packs of bottled water. Immediately, small boys
ran up to her, eager to greet her. "Caoihme, Caoihme!"
they shouted. Caoihme is a tall woman. She towered over them,
holding the valuable water. I watched her eyes fill with tears
when the boys, in frustration, began to fight with each other
as they reached up to grab her cargo, eager to bring a bottle
home to their family.
I wonder how Natasha, the eight
year old orphan whom I met in St. Helene, has fared. Is she an
eighteen year old woman with luminous eyes and a gorgeous smile?
Would she remember waiting outside her home, each morning, to
run and greet me when I stepped out of mine? I hope she doesn't
remember a morning when she was crouched on the ground and looked
away when I called her name. I walked toward her, wondering if
I had done something to hurt the child's feelings the previous
day. Drawing closer, I could see tiny pebbles glistening on Natasha's
lip. Natasha hadn't run to see me because Natasha was eating
dirt.
"You can't bury water,"
said our Haitian friends. "And you can't bury truth."
The British medical journal, the Lancet, estimates that upwards
of 100,000 Iraqi civilians have died as a result of the war.
Child malnutrition is escalating and chronic outbreaks of such
diseases as hepatitis and cholera occur regularly.
After 18 months of US war and
occupation, contaminated wells cause water borne diseases; rivers
are so polluted that not even animals can safely drink from the
rivers; the lack of electricity means food and medicine can't
be preserved and water and sewage can't be treated. Because of
chaos and corruption in the US occupation, Iraqis remain in desperate
need of jobs, services and security.
A decade has passed since I
first met children in Haiti. Next month, Voices in the Wilderness
will mark a decade since we first declared our intent to become
"criminals" by traveling to Iraq. Several of our members
are returning from recent trips to Haiti with stories worse than
mine. I hope the children we,ve met and all those who hunger
and thirst for justice will teach us to tell the truth, nonviolently,
and to never be so foolish as to think you can get anywhere by
burying water. Many of the people in Haiti and Iraq have the
truth but don't have the water. We have the water, but we don't
have the truth.
Kathy Kelly is a co-coordinator of Voices
in the Wilderness, a campaign to end U.S. economic and military
warfare abroad and in our own locales. Kelly's book, Other
Lands Have Dreams: Letters from Pekin Prison, will be published
in the Spring of 2005 by CounterPunch Books / AK Press. She can
be reached at kathy@vitw.org
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
|