|
Today's
Stories
January 25,
2006
Joan Roelofs
Military
Contractor Philanthropy
January 24,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Patriot Police: the Unfathomed Dangers of Patriot Act Reauthorization
Kathy Kelly
Liberation
and Deliverance
Jorge Mariscal
Bush's War Viewed from the South
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Smoke
and Mirrors in the Defense Budget
John Walsh
Why We Picket John Kerry: Join Us Friday in Boston
Youmans / Muaddi
The Growing Israel Divestment Movement
Roger Burbach
Bolivia's Evo Morales: Original Mandate for Social Revolution
Fr. Gerard
Jean-Juste
Letter from a Haitian Prison
Noam Chomsky
The Terrorist in the Mirror
Website of
the Day
Big Brother Watch
January 23, 2006
Uri Avnery
Pity
the Orphan: Israel, Hamas and the Palestinian Elections
Susan Pynchon
Diebold in Florida: "I Saw It Hacked"
William Loren
Katz
Harry Belafonte Reaffirms a Proud Tradition
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's IRS: Squeezing the Poor
Chris Floyd
The Goon Show
Joshua Frank
Tre Arrow and ELF: Environmentalism on Death Row
Norman Solomon
The Other Shoe Drops: Classified Leaks and Journalists
Jackie Corr
Working for the Railroad: Racicot and the Burlington Northern
Paul Craig
Roberts
Inside
Cheney's War Workshop
Website of the Day
Arms Against War
January 21/22,
2006
Tim Shorrock
Why
the Buses Didn't Come: Bush-Linked Florida Company and the Katrina
Evacuation Fiasco
Ralph Nader
Congressional
Ethics After Abramoff
Peter Feng
Casualties of War: Neoliberalism, Katrina and the Asian Tsunami
Brian Cloughley
CIA Bombs Pakistan, Hits America
Michael Donnelly
Tapes and Snitches: Feds Hand Down Eco-Sabotage Indictments
Tom Kerr
Crackdown in San Quentin: Why are They Rounding Up Tookie Williams'
Friends?
Tim Matson
Best Not Drive While Black on I-91
(But Walk Tall With the Bloody Chainsaw You Just Topped Your
Neighbor With)
Dave Lindorff
Rumsfeld: Venezuela "Overspending" on Military
Daniel Wolff
Hour of Reckoning: the Gospel Roots of Wilson Pickett
Fred Gardner
"Metabolic Syndrome" is to "Clinical Depression"
as Acomplia is Prozac
Jason Leopold
How Cheney Used the NSA to Spy on Americans Prior to 9/11
Matthew Koehler
Betting on Biscuit: Does Post-Fire Logging Make Ecological (or
Economic) Sense?
John Bomar
The Emperor's Clothes: from Bonaparte to Bush
Ron Jacobs
When Miners March: Struggle and Lose, Struggle and Win!
Becky Akers
Debunking Democracy
Joanne Mariner
Security, Terrorism and Human Rights
St. Clair / Walker / Pollack
CounterPunch Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Holt, Engel and Davies
Website of the Day
Osama's Book Club: Featured Selection
January 20, 2006
Brian J. Foley
What
Kind of War Doesn't Allow for a Truce?
Richard Gott
Revolution in the Andes
Joshua Frank
Israel and US Threats Against Iran
Pierre Tristam
Imperial Mongers: From Gladstone to "King George"
Bernstein /
Allegretto
Hourly Wages Have Fallen in 18 of the Last 20 Months
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion
Before Roe
Website of
the Day
This Dog Bites
January 19,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Political
Machines: Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Bill Simpich
Those Damn Democrats: To End War, Don't Ask for What You Don't
Want
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Reclaiming King Day (From the NAACP)
Sam Husseini
Rot at the Top: If the Democrats Really Want to Stop Bush, They
Need New Leadership
Sam Smith
The Real Chocolate City
Monica Benderman
Dare to Make a Stand
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Just
How Big is the Defense Budget?
Website of the Day
Leave My Child Alone
January 18,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
Gore's
Speech: a Challenge That Cannot be Ignored
Norman Solomon
The Crime of Giving the Orders: Executing Clarence Ray Allen
Jonathan M.
Feldman
The System Doesn't Work Anymore
Michael Carmichael
"Extraordinary Circumstances": the Case Against Alito
Paul D'Amato
The Crimes of Jimmy Carter
Cynthia McKinney
King's Mission Endures
Norman Finkelstein
Why
an Economic Boycott of Israel is Justified
Website of the Day
The Planetary Movement
January 17,
2006
M. Shahid Alam
"Real
Men Go to Tehran": Has al-Qaeda's Gambit Paid Off?
John Ross
Latin
America's Indians on the Move--in Different Directions
Tariq Ali
God, Blood, Oil and Iraq
Michael Donnelly
Killing Anna Mae Aquash, Smearing John Trudell
Amira Hass
No Child Left Unharassed: the Obstacle Course to School in Palestine
Doug Giebel
Alito's CAP: Either He Lied on His Resumé or There's a
Cover-Up
Bill Quigley
MLK Day in a Haitian Prison
Ron Jacobs
Meet the Son of Jim Crow: MLK Day Below the Mason/Dixon Line
Mike Stark
Governor on a Killling Spree
Werther
The Liberties of the Subject
January 16, 2006
John Walsh
Tears
of a Neocon: The Good News from Daniel Pipes
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Black
Students Under Fire: Racial Profiling in Public Schools
Roger Burbach
Bachelet's
Victory: Leftward Drift in Chile?
Norman Solomon
Ted Koppel, NPR and Henry Kissinger: a Natural Fit?
Robert Jensen
Dreams and Nightmares: How Would King Judge America?
Sam Husseini
Martin Luther King and the Deeper Malady
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush
Crosses the Rubicon
Website of the Day
MLK: Beyond Vietnam
January 14
/ 15, 2006
Alexander Cockburn
What
the FBI Repairman Wore When He Tried to Bug Edward Said
JoAnn Wypijewski
What
is an Antiwar Movement?
James Petras
The State of the Empire, 2006
Ron Jacobs
Fifteen Years of War: Who's Better Off?
Brian Cloughley
Fly Boys and Lie Boys: Smart-Bombing Iraqi Families While They
Sleep
Marianne McDonald
The Madness of Ajax: a Play for Our Time
Bruce Tyler Wick
Bush on Torture Echoes Charles I on Arbitrary Imprisonment
Fred Gardner
A Last, Desperate Plea to Stay in Canada
Flavia Alaya
Victory at Passaic County Jail
Gary Leupp
A Neocon Plan to Plant WMDs?
Dr. Susan Block
Peeping Tom in the Bush: Nonconsenual Voyeurism and the NSA
Nicole Colson
The House Jack Built: The Abramoff Giude to Buying Friends and
Influencing Politics
Jeffrey Kolakowski
Senator as Illusionist: the Hypocrisies of John McCain
Missy Comley
Beattie
The Stepford Hearings of Samuel Alito: The Senator, the Weepy
Wife and a Secret Annoiting
Charles Thomson
Is Serota Dead in the Water?: the Ofili Scandal at the Tate
St. Clair /
Walker / Vest
Playlsts: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Historians Against the War
January 13,
2006
Ralph Nader
The
Two Questions the Senate Should Have Asked Alito
Leonard Weinglass
The
Singular Story of the Cuban Five
Amira Hass
Prisoners in Their Own Land: 800,000 Palestinians Sealed Off
by IDF in West Bank
Chris Kutalik
/ Jennifer Biddle
Airline Workers Fight Back
Lawrence R. Velvel
Alito and the Democrats
Dave Lindorff
Eight Who Dared: a (Short) Congressional Honor Roll
Mike Whitney
Countdown to War with Iran?
David Price
How
the FBI Spied on Edward Said
January 12,
2006
Jennifer Van
Bergen
The
Unitary Executive: Why the Bush Doctrine Violates the Constitution
Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith
Command Responsibility: Torture and Legal Accountability
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Alito
Refuses to Answer Fundamental Questions
Ralph Nader / Robert Weissman
Corporations, Originalism and the Bill of Rights: an Open Letter
to Justice Scalia
Jackie Corr
Killing the Big Sky's Golden Goose: Marc Racicot and the Deregulation
of Montana Power
Jared Bernstein
The Wage Doldrums
Russell D.
Hoffman
New Horizons in Space, New Lows in Government
Aubrey Streit
I Was Born in a Small Town: the Fate of Rural America
Clancy Sigal
Hugh
Thompson and My Lai: He Broke Ranks; He Did the Right Thing
Website of the Day
Nukes in Space
January 11,
2006
Kevin Zeese
NSA
Spied on Baltimore Peace Group (And They've Got the Documents
That Prove It)
Ray McGovern
The
Big Wiretap
Allan Maass
/ Joe Allen
Schwarzenegger's
Hit List: Smearing Mandela, Killing Tookie
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Snatching at King's Legacy: Mythmaking, Profiteering & Outright
Distortions
Annie Murphy
Evo Morales' Sweater
Allan Lichtman
Abramoff's
Kind of Big Government
Ramzy Baroud
Politics of Chaos: Gaza's Turmoil in Context
Joshua Frank
MoveOn Surrenders to Hillary
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
"Eating
Palestine for Breakfast": the Real Sharon
Website of
the Day
Memoirs of Rummy's Geisha
January 10,
2006
Uri Avnery
The
Post-Sharon Landscape: Three Fingers, No Fist
Saul Landau
Different
Americas
Noam Chomsky
Beyond the Ballot: Iraq, Iran and China
Brian J. Foley
Playing with Fire: Congress and Executive Power
Lenni Brenner
The War Within the Antiwar Movement
Ronan Sheehan
Sheehan to Sheehan: Cindy Sheehan's Irish Interview
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Con Jobs
January 9,
2006
Behzad Yaghmaian
Who
is to Blame for the Deaths of the Sudanese Refugees?
George Bisharat
US
Aid to Israel is Out of Hand
Dave Lindorff
How the US Press Squelches Bush Impeachment Drive
Norman Solomon
Smoke a Marlboro, Then an Iraqi: How Media War Images Distort
Not Inform
Christopher Brauchli
The Generosity of Credit Card Companies
Aharon Shabtai
A Poet's Letter on the Occupation
Andrew Cockburn
How
Many Iraqis Have Died Since the US Invasion in 2003?
January 7 /
8, 2006
Lawrence Velvel
The
NYT's Unconscionable Decision to Sit on the NSA Story for a Year
James Petras
AIPAC on Trial: Them or US
J.L. Chestnut
Racism and Injustice in Alabama's Courts
Mike Ely
The Dead Miners in Sago
Andrew Wilson
The Dying of Ariel Sharon
Lila Rajiva
Two Moms Go to Capitol Hill
William Cook
The Rape of Palestine
Ramor Ryan
The Sub Motorcycle Diaries: On the Road with the Zapatistas
Thomas Kleine-Brockhoff
An Interview with Michael Scheuer on the CIA's Rendition Program
Peter Montague
Inherit the Wind: the Global Spread of GMO Crops
Ron Jacobs
Would Ethan Allen Pay to Protest?
Neve Gordon
Images of Real Eco-Terrorism in Twaneh
Fred Gardner
Business as Usual in San Diego
Josh Mahon
Idaho Timber Industry Leader Advocates Violence Against Green's
Mom
Dr. Susan Block
Abramoff Family Values: the Lobbyist Who Screwed Us All
Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert and Engel
Website of the Weekend
Bush Crimes Commission
January 6,
2006
José
Pertierra
Posada
Carriles May Soon Hit the Streets
Joe Allen
Gary Freeman's Struggle: a Black Radical from the 1960s Fights
Extradition to the US
Winslow T. Wheeler
Huge Defense Budget, Lousy Equipment
John Bomar
A Former NSA Officer on Snoopgate: the Squawkers Should be Congratulated
Jason Leopold
Snoop and Shred
Norman Solomon
Axis of Fanatics: Netanyahu and Ahmadinejad
Robert Pollin
Remembering
Harry Magdoff: the Man Who Explained the Empire
January 5,
2006
Scott Boehm
Big
Profits, Buried Lives: Bulldozing the Dead in New Orleans
Zoltan Grossman
New
Challenges for the Antiwar Movement
Heather Gray
Whistling
Dixie Yet Again
Haninah Levine
Simple
is Dangerous: the Pentagon's Plan for a Manhattan Project on
IEDs
Pierre Tristam
The Sham of Homeland Security: a West Virginia Parable
Remi Kanazi
Stroke of Luck?: Political Hemorrhage in Israel
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon
Meets His Maker
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine
January 4,
2006
Ron Jacobs
Pity
the Miner: A-Diggin' My Bones
Lila Rajiva
Terror
Hits Bangalore
Huibin Amee
Chew
Why
the War is Sexist
Pat Williams
How the West Turned: Biting the Hands That Steal
Linda Milazzo
The House That George and Jack Built: Ownership Society Meets
the Entrepreneurial Style
Nick Dearden
The Fantasy of "Even-Handedness": Blair's Cynical Policy
on Palestine
James Petras
Evo
Morales: All Growl, No Claws?
Website of
the Day
Rat Out a Lobbyist for Jesus
January 3,
2006
James Ridgeway
Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and 9/11: How Much Did the Bush Administration Know?
Laith al-Saud
Iraqi
Intellectuals and the Occupation: an Interview with Dr. Saad
Jawad
Dick J. Reavis
Border
Walls: the View from Mexico
Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton, AIPAC and Iran
Rochelle Gause
Inside Rafah: Collective Punishment as Normalcy
Missy Comley
Beattie
How My Mother Went from a Republican to a Screaming Progressive
Paul de Rooij
A Glossary of Dispossession
January 2,
2006
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Gestapo Administration
Clancy Sigal
A Trip to the Far Side of Madness
Cindy Sheehan
A Tour of Europe: Friends Don't Let Friends Commit War Crimes
Alexander Cockburn
A
NYT Editorial Contemplates Iraq
Dec. 31 / Jan.
1, 2005/6
Patrick Cockburn
The
Year in Iraq
Alexander Cockburn
Who Are We to Complain?: a Diary of 2005
Ralph Nader
Rumsfeld vs. the Military: a Pentagon of Loyalists and Enforcers
James Petras
The Politics of Language: "Escalation" or "Retaliation"
in Israeli Attacks on Palestinians
Peter Montague
A Darker Bioweapons Future
J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Black Forever: Race, Class and Activism in the South
Vijay Prashad
My California Vacation: Conversations with Indian Americans
P. Sainath
Farm Suicides in Vidharbha
James Brooks
The Spoils of War: Israel's Corruption was Inevitable
Eileen E. Schell
The Farmer Wants a Wife: Hayseeds and Hickxploitation in the
Land of Reality TV
Christopher
Brauchli
Birds of a Feather: George and Vlad
Jo Guldi
Politics, Gay Marriage and Christianity
Fred Gardner
America's Only Legal Grower
Ben Tripp
A Hapless New Year
St. Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening To This Week
Poets Basement
Engel, Albert, LaMorticella, Buknatski, Davies, Ford and Bear
Dog
Website of
the Weekend
Commit Bloggamy with Dr. Suzy
December 30,2005
Evo Morales
I
Believe Only in the Power of the People
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
The
Toxic Air in Black America
Dave Lindorff
Bush's NSA Spying Jeopardizes National Security
Gary Leupp
Targeting Iran and Syria: Goss Builds Case for Turkey-Based Attacks
Ron Jacobs
A
Dead New Year's Eve
Brian Concannon
Down
in Haiti, the Chickens are Coming Home to Roost
Sandra Lucas
Inside TeenScreen: the Making of Mental Patients
T.W. Croft
The
Wind Has Changed: Gulf Storms, Fables of Reconstruction and Hard
Times for the Big Easy
Website of
the Day
Images
of Mass Consumption
December 29,
2005
Norman Solomon
Journalists
Should Expose Secrets, Not Keep Them
Missy Comley
Beattie
Christmas
Without Chase
Dave Zirin
Over the Edge: the Year in Sports
Kevin Zeese
Top
10 Antiwar Stories of 2005
Derrick O'Keefe
Bolivia and Venezuela Offer an Alternative to Neo-Liberalism
Sam Bahour
Turning the Page in Palestine, Again
Macdonald Stainsby
What's Behind Paul Martin's Broadside Against Bush?
Bill &
Kathleen Christison
Let's Stop a US/Israel War on Iran
Website of the Day
Deconstructing the Democrats
December 28,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
The
Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life?
Lila Rajiva
Operation Romeo: Lessons on Terror Laws from India
Amira Hass
The Humanitarian Lie
Joshua Frank
Let the Drilling Begin: Iraq's IMF Loan
David Swanson
Leaking Top Secret Lies
Richard Thieme
High Time for Torture
Paul Craig
Roberts
Three
Books to Wake You Up
Website of the Day
Conyers Report: "Constitution in Crisis"
December 27,
2005
Evan Jones
Whither
the National Guard?
Uri Avnery
The Peretz Shuffle
Mike Whitney
Pop Goes the Bubble!
Gideon Levy
Dusty Trail to Death
David Swanson
Kurt Vonnegut: a Man Without a Country
Norman Solomon
NSA Spied on UN Diplomats During Push for Invasion of Iraq
December 26,
2005
Lawrence R.
Velvel
The
Usurpers of Our Freedoms
Lance Olsen
The Toughest Challenge for Intelligent Design
Ben Terrall
No Holiday Compassion for Haiti's Political Prisoners
Scott Boehm
Santa Drove a Bulldozer
Charlie Ehlen
A Vietnam Vet's Appraisal of Bush
Tom Kerr
The Atheist Dad at Christmas
December 24/25,
2005
Aleander Cockburn
The
Year of Vanished Credibility
James Petras
Iran in the Crosshairs: Israel's Deadline
Ralph Nader
Talkin'
About the "I"-Word
Lila Rajiva
Horowitz's New Project: Begging for Brownshirts
Fred Gardner
Dialogue with the DEA
Ron Jacobs
When Impeachment was Taken Seriously
Dave Lindorff
Xmas Games for a Gitmo World
Gary Leupp
Happy Birthday Mithras!: the True Meaning of December 25th
Saul Landau
Bush's Year in Review: a Report Card from Santa
John Chuckman
A Christmas Tale for Bushtime
Dr. Susan Block
Merry XXX-mas!
St. Clair / Vest / Pollack
/ Donnelly
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Holt, Jones, Landau, Ross and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Merry Xmas, From the Beatles
December 23,
2005
John Ross
The
Corrido of Death Row: Mexico Ends the Death Penalty
Chris Floyd
Gospel
Truth: Bush Hypocrisy, Radical Holiness and Woody Guthrie
Lawrence Mishel
/ Ross Eisenbrey
The
Economy in a Nutshell
Joanne Mariner
Bringing
Torture into Court: the Loopholes in McCain's Bill
Eric Johnson-Debaufre
The Trew Law of Free Democracies?
Ray McGovern
Cheney the Bully; Rockefeller the Coward
J. L. Chestnut,
Jr.
What
White America Doesn't Hear
Website of
the Day
BB King: What I've Learned This Year
December 22,
2005
Ingmar Lee
The
Citizen's Metamorphosis: I Awoke an Object of Suspicion
Elisa Salasin
Classrooms
in Cages
Christopher
Brauchli
Absolut Bush: "I Swear to Upturn and Rear End the Constitution
of the United States"
Robin Blackburn
Rudolf Meidner, a Visionary Pragmatist
Evelyn Pringle
Dan Olmstead, Autism & the Dangers of Thimerosal
Amira Hass
A 14-Year Old's Prison Journey: "I Refused and He Hit Me"
Francis A.
Boyle
Iraq and the Laws of War: US as "Belligerent Occupant"
Stew Albert
The
Spies Who Thought We Were Messy
Website of
the Day
How to Reach a Human Voice
December 21,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
One
Nation, Under Prosecutors: Presumed Guilty
Lila Rajiva
A Short History of Radio Free Iraq
Joshua Frank
Nancy Pelosi's Truth
Dave Zirin
The Bray of Pigs: Bush Nixes Beisbol Cubano
Ramzy Baroud
US Image Problem Rooted in History, Not Media
Sonia Nettnin
Connect the Dots: Decoding Bush's Mumbo Jumbo
Ben Saul
Torture as Calculated Policy
Jonathan Cronin
Anniversary of a Handshake: Cherry-picking History in Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
Election Spells Total Defeat for US
Website of
the Day
Nixon on Presidential Power
December 20,
2005
Jackie Corr
Natural
Gas: a Montana Tragedy
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Nothing
New About NSA Spying on Americans
Michael Donnelly
"Eco Terrorism": Cui Bono?
Gian Paulo
Accardo
Empire of Shame: a Conversation with Jean Ziegler
Pierre Tristam
Trifler, Fibber, Sophist, Spy: How Bush Flouted the Constitution
Norman Solomon
The Foulest Media Performances of the Year
Sen. Robert Byrd
No President is Above the Law
Dave Lindorff
Missing
Black Boxes in WTC Attacks Found by Firefighters, Analyzed by
NTSB, Concealed by FBI
Website of the Day
FBI's Spy Files: Got Yours Yet?
December 19,
2005
Mike Marqusee
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Gary Leupp
Feds Ask Student: "Why are You Reading that Little Red Book?"
Ron Jacobs
The Antiwar Movement, the Democrats and the Delusions of Bushworld
John Blair
Stealing the Golden Shovel: Lessons on Civil Disobedience
Gideon Levy
Sadism at the Qalandiyah Checkpoint
Kevin Zeese
The
Global War on Civil Liberties
Missy Comley Beattie
Warnings from a Military Man and Dad
Don Santina
Ride 'Em Brush Cutter: Cowboy Imagery and the American Presidency
Website of the Day
A Call for Justice in Palestine
December 17
/ 18, 2005
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Time-Delayed
Journalism: the NYT and the NSA's Illegal Spying Operation
Gabriel Kolko
The
Decline of the American Empire
Susan Alcorn
Texas: Three Days and Two Nights
Werther
The Democrats are an Impotent and Tolerated Opposition Party
Ralph Nader
The Senator Without Guile: Proxmire of Wisconsin
Patrick Cockburn
Counting Ballots and Bodies in Baghdad
Fred Gardner
When Prosecutors Deceive: Did the Feds Frame Bryan Epis?
Dave Lindorff
Spy Scandal Far Larger Than Just NSA
Ned Sublette
Essence is Gasoline
Lee Sustar
The Class War Economy
Jason Leopold
Did Karl Rove Destroy Evidence in Plame Case?
Laura Carlsen
Report from Hong Kong: Deciphering the Language of Globalization
Jeff White
Teacher Fired for Talking About Peace?
Ray McGovern
Torture Between the Lines
Chris Floyd
Pale Fire: the White Death of Fallujah
William Loren Katz
Remembering the First Quagmire at Xmastime: Zachary Taylor vs.
the Seminoles
Rose Miriam
Elizalde
Mashenka and the Bear: a Tale for Our Time
Greg Moses
Pinter's Provocation: Self Love in America
Heather Gray
Privatizing the Social Contract
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience: the Sequel
St Clair /
Walker / Pollack
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Landau, Engel and Albert
Website of
the Day
At Least Homeland Security Believes that Mao Still Matters
December 16,
2005
Tom Kerr
CNN's
Goddess of Vengeance: What's Not to Love About Nancy Grace?
Mark Engler
The
WTO in Hong Kong: Is Market Access the Answer to Poverty?
John Bomar
When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Votes; Now What?
Pierre Tristam
Iraq, Ourselves
William S. Lind
The Fine Art of Withdrawal
Cyril Neville
Why I'm Not Going Back to New Orleans
Robert Jensen
Monkey See, Monkey Do: Reason, Evolution and Intelligent Design
Saul Landau
Bolivian
Democracy and the US: a History Lesson
Website
CounterPunch & Dr. Price Vanquish Anthropologist Spies
December 15,
2005
Oren Ben-Dor
The
Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine
Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists"
Needn't Bother
Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics
Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals
Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad
Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs
Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quentin
Vijay Prashad
Our
Torture Problem
Website of
the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"
December 14, 2005
Patrick Cockburn
Iran
Poised to Win Iraqi Elections
Paul Craig
Roberts
Lethal
Developments
Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward
Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami
John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors
Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"
Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment
Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker
April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead
Kevin Alexander
Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America
December 13,
2005
Stephen T.
Banko, III
Heroes
Patrick Cockburn
America's
War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong
Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO
Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin
Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London
Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin
Michael G.
Smith
Ending the Death Penalty
Stew Albert
California Killers
Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson
Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin
Website of
the Day
Boot Hill
December 12,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Defenders of Torture
Lawrence R.
Velvel
George the Disconnected
Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo
George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds
Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does
It Make a Sound?
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy
Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience
Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq:
the Beginning of the End
Website of
the Day
Wrestling for Peace
December 10 / 11, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
All
the News That's Fit to Buy
Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus
Ralph Nader
The
Widening Wasteland of American Media
Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore
Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day
Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney
Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court
Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem
Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd
Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest
Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice
John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice
John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and
US Foreign Policy
Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens
Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union
Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984
John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White
Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?
St. Clair / Pollack / Vest
/ Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel
Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush
December 9,
2005
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Roots
of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home
Dave Zirin
/ Mike Stark
On
Seeing Wesley Baker Die
Patrick Cockburn
Blair
Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush
Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill
Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive
Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time
Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?
Andrew Cockburn
Meet
Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper
Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"
December 8,
2005
Kathy Kelly
Blessed
are the Merciful in Baghdad
James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)
William S.
Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory
Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico
Justin Akers
Bush's Border War
Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?
Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam
Tariq Ali /
Robin Blackburn
The
Lost John Lennon Interview
Website of
the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War
December 7,
2005
John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate
Gary Leupp
Suicide
Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq
Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas
Jeremy Brecher
/ Brendan Smith
Bush
War Crimes: the Posse Gathers
Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary
William W.
Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy
Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"
Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture
Website of
the Day
Witnesses to Torture
December 6,
2005
Ron Jacobs
No
One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel
Patrick Cockburn
Inside
Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder
Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's
AIDS Policy
Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America
Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public
Paul Craig
Roberts
Condi
to Europe: Trust Us
Website of
the Day
Debunking Woodward
December 5,
2005
John Walsh
The
Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did
They Know It?
Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative
Value of Human Lives
Mokhiber /
Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz
Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment
Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated
Federal Laws When They Fired Me
Lila Rajiva
The
Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment
December 3 / 4, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
The
Revolt of the Generals
Lawrence R.
Velvel
Iraq,
Brains and Lies
Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod
Saul Landau
Latino
Troops Have Parents
Ralph Nader
Consumerama
Paul Craig
Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts
Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America
Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government
Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?
Brian Concannon,
Jr.
Haiti's Elections
Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers
Manuel Garcia,
Jr.
On Freeing the CPT
Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s
St. Clair /
Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week
Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski
Website of
the Weekend
Free the CPT
December 2,
2005
Stan Goff
An
Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad
Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings
Over Baghdad?
Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions
for the President
Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem
Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence
J.L. Chestnut,
Jr.
Alabama's
Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy
Website of
the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!
December 1,
2005
John Walsh,
MD
The
God Gaps
Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?
Jenna Orkin
EPA's
Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero
Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine
Tiffany Ten
Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi
Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play
Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show
Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla
Website of
the Day
Rare Erotica
|
January
25, 2006
When
J. Edgar Hoover Bugged My Phone Calls with My Father
Domestic Spying, Now and Then
By SAUL LANDAU
"If somebody from al-Qaeda
is calling you, we'd like to know why. In the meantime, this
program is conscious of people's civil liberties, as am I. This
is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United
States limited to calls from outside the United States to calls
within the United States. But, they are of known numbers of known
al Qaeda members or affiliatesWe're at war with a bunch of cold-blooded
killers who will kill on a moment's notice. And I have a responsibility,
obviously, to act within the law, which I am doing. It's a program
that has been reviewed a program to which the Congress has been
briefed, and a program that is necessary to win this war and
to protect the American people."
George W. Bush,
Brooke Army Medical Center, San Antonio, January 1, 2006
Bush's statement to wounded troops contains
a series of lies and distortions. As a series of published reports
have revealed, his eavesdropping program did not coincide with
protecting civil liberties; nor did he design it to prevent attacks
or limit it to "calls from outside the United States."
Surveillance covered people
who had no contact with Al Qaeda and nothing to do with what
the enemy is thinking-- if such an entity has a brain. Bush acted
outside the law. Congress had not been briefed. The few
Members who knew anything about the program had misgivings. Several
Members denied receiving any briefing.
How does the United States win a war against "terrorism,"
a word connoting violence against civilians, which has been going
on since the beginning of history? In the past, wars meant US
engagement with enemy nations, not concepts.
"We're at war,'' Bush
said. Did I miss the headlines the day Congress declared war
against terrorism?
"Next thing you know,"
quipped Gore Vidal, "Bush will declare war against dandruff
as well."
"And as commander in chief,
I've got to use the resources at my disposal, within the law,
to protect the American people," Bush explained as his reason
for unauthorized wiretapping. How it fell under the aegis of
the law we have yet to learn.
In addition, Homeland Security
spooks open citizens' letters. In December 2005, retired University
of Kansas history professor Grant Goodman told reporter Brock
N. Meeks, that he "received a letter from his friend in
the Philippines that had been opened and resealed with a strip
of dark green tape bearing the words "by Border Protection"
and carrying the official Homeland Security seal. (MSNBC Jan.
6, 2006)
In 1974, I received some of my own correspondence in some 1,400
pages from the FBI and CIA in response to my Freedom of Information
Act (FOIA) request. The CIA sent me letters I had sent to friends
abroad. I was shocked not only from discovering my disgraceful
efforts at prose.
Frivolity aside, the explanations,
then and now, for contravening time honored rights, have little
resonance with reality. During the Cold War, US leaders referred
to "internal subversion," magnified by an external
threat of Soviet world domination. This supposed superpower collapsed
in 1989 without the United States firing a shot at it.
Robert Scherrer, a former FBI
Agent, laughed about the countless hours he spent in the 1960s
interviewing "little old Jewish grandmas in the Bronx who
had been members of the Communist Party. They were always polite
and offered me tea and cookies."
FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover never
pursued the Mafia with the vigor he showed in his assault on
the left. Reportedly, Mafiosos apparently used against him a
photo of the director clad in a tutu while tripping the light
fantastic in his living room -- in a house he shared with another
high FBI official (male). The Mob also practiced surveillance.
Like government prying, Mafia snooping related to extending their
power.
When I was a university freshman
in the 1950s, the FBI opened a file on me for writing a letter
to the student newspaper supporting free speech for communists.
The documents I received from the Bureau under the FOIA contained
dozens of pages of transcripts of my phone conversations in the
1960s and 70s. I read transcripts of conspiratorial phone conversations
I'd had with my father about when I would arrive at his Santa
Monica home with my wife and kids and how my mother was doing
with her diabetes treatments.
I don't know if anyone actually
listened or if the FBI simply recorded and then transcribed these
calls. Nor do I know how much it cost the government to carry
out wiretapping on thousands of people who did not even contemplate
engaging in crime.
In 1956, top FBI leaders invented
COINTELPRO, the acronym for Counter Intelligence Program, to
target the left and even liberals. COINTELPRO was supposed to
"expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize"
protest movements and their leaders. The Bureau kept this invasiveness
going until 1971.
FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover
and his cronies considered as "subversive" not only
those few loonies who declared their intentions of overthrowing
the government, but the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
led by Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., whose goal was racial integration.
Yes, the Bureau targeted the Ku Klux Klan and handful of Nazis
as well.
In those days, the government
used the "communist threat" to justify such measures.
Today, as in the past, blanket surveillance has no relationship
to security. It does, however, produce insecurity. Indeed, it
forms part and parcel of the power package that the Bush gang
has employed to govern. Bush speech writers use "protecting"
as a metaphor for taking away their rights.
Ironically, no Administration
in my lifetime has proved so incompetent at protecting its people
and responding to emergency needs even natural disasters when
they arose. Asleep at the switch before 9/11, the ears of the
NSA became super active. Does this electronic listening target
Bush political enemies? Or does NSA listen indiscriminately and
bug peoples' email as well? And for what end?
The Bushies did not predict
the Iraqi insurgency, nor did they impede the various acts of
terrorism carried out by Al Qaeda fanatics in Madrid, London,
Indonesia etc
Homeland Security officials
under Bush seem very adept at opening returned professors' personal
mail, but as Frank Rich reported, a Christmas week independent
audit by the Transportation Safety Administration's inspector
general "found everything from FEMA to border control in
some form of disarray." (The Wiretappers That Couldn't Shoot
Straight NYT January 8, 2006)
Yet, Rich continued, the President
assures the nation regularly that his aim is to protect them--as
he appoints incompetent "cronies into top jobs in immigration
enforcement and state and local preparedness with recess appointments
that by passed Congressional approval."
I find it difficult that millions
of Americans continue to believe anything Bush says. I'm talking
of the President who read "My Pet Goat" to Florida
second graders for seven minutes after learning a plane had hit
one of the Twin Towers; the man who couldn't discipline himself
to leave his vacation home in Texas to visit the Katrina disaster
area for five days--and then only from above in Air Force One;
the commander in chief who appointed a series of schlemiels to
run government agencies, like Michael Brown at FEMA and then
complimented them -- "You did a heck of a job Brownie"
-- on their miserable performance. He now assures the public
that those who exposed unauthorized wiretapping "put
our citizens at risk." Did he think terrorists would not
suspect that the US government listened to their calls? Did he
not know that for decades the FBI concerned itself with transcribing
conversations about the family matters of tens of thousands of
liberals and lefties rather than analyze messages about those
planning to sabotage the country?
Dick "The Heartless Heart
Attack" Cheney went so far as to tell the public that had
NSA carried out such non authorized surveillance before 9/11,
the attacks might have been prevented.
Did he forget that FBI agents
and CIA officials had recorded material indicating something
foul afoot, that then National Security Adviser Condi Rice did
nothing with that data?
Bush is commander in chief
of the most incompetent administration in US history. It has
one objective: the exercise of naked power. Its "anti-terrorist"
rhetoric to justify overstepping laws and limits should appear
as a clumsy façade to the citizens.
Unfortunately, knowledgeable
Members of Congress seem reluctant to shout: "the emperor
has no clothes." And the media, as Marshall McLuhan
said, are the message: keep the pubic confused and distracted
so they can shop and vacation. As if to emphasize this, on October
5, 2001, less than a month after 9/11, Bush advised citizens
to "Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families
and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed."
My question is: can freedom
to shop coexist with the growing infringements on other freedoms?
Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy
Studies. He will be presenting his Emmy Award winning film, Paul
Jacobs and the Nuclear Gang, at the Fifth Avenue Cinema in Portland,
Oregon on January 28 at 7 PM.
|
Finally
Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case
Against Israel
By Michael Neumann
Click Here to Order Michael Neumann's
Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz
WHAT'S
INSIDE
Grand
Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror
by Jeffrey St. Clair
The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced
as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"
CounterPunch
Speakers Bureau
Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid?
CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair
are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues,
as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call
CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.
|
