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Today's
Stories
September 11
/ 12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Swatting
at Flies
September 10,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
Disappointment
at Samarrah?
Michael Donnelly
Democrats v. Democracy
Alan Farago
Mosquitoes in a Hurricane
Doug Giebel
Karl Rove's Terror Playbook
Mike Whitney
Bob Graham's Political Tsunami
David Domke
God's
Will, According to the Bush Administration
September 9,
2004
Joe Bageant
Karaoke
Night in Bush's America
Ed Kinane
Abducted in Baghdad
Peter Bohmer
The Cuban Revolution: Present and Future
Todd May
The Emerging Case for a Single-State Solution
Jeremy Scahill
The New York Model: Indymedia and the Text Message Jihad
Joshua Frank
Green House Party Gasses
Fran Shor
The Crisis in Public Dissent: When Protest is Considered a Terrorist
Act
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome
to the Dirtiest City in the World: Despair in Baghdad
Website of
the Day
Liberty Street Protest: No to War at Ground Zero
September 8,
2004
Patrick Cockburn
This
Doesn't Smell Like Victory: A War on Two Fronts in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush Confuses; Kerry Mute: Spinning 1000 Dead
Bulent Gokay
Russian and Chechnia After Beslan
Lisa Viscidi
Land Reform and Conflict in Guatemala
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Byrd's Eye View
Mike Whitney
Afghanistan: American's Drug Colony
Stan Goff
Body
Count: 1001
Website of
the Day
Bush and the Love Doctors
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
September 7,
2004
Diane Christian
Hostage Tactics: a Game of Mortal Poker
Joshua Frank
Greens
Unravel from Within
Patrick Cockburn
Fallujah
Erupts Again: US Death Toll in Iraq Nears 1000
Ron Jacobs
Bush and Putin: "We're Not Girlie Men"
Chris Floyd
Cry Havoc: Bush's Own Personal Janjaweed
Dr. Carol Wolman
No Blood for Oil at Paul Bunyan Day Parade
John Ross
The
Politics of Darkness North / South
September 6,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
An
Anti-Labor Day That Lives in Infamy: How Many Democrats Voted
For Taft-Hartley?
Ralph Nader
The
Cruel Legacy of Taft-Hartley: a Labor Day Call for Rights for
Working People
Lee Sustar
What's Driving the Attack on Pensions?
Kathleen and
Bill Christison
Dual
Loyalties: the Bush Necons and Israel
September 4-5,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
September 3,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Jesus Told Him Where to Bomb
Rahul Mahajan
Bush's RNC Speech: an Annotated Response
Carl Estabrook
The
Book of Slaughter and Forgetting
Joshua Frank
The Florida of the Northwest: Oregon Dems Sabotage Nader Again
Gary Leupp
Music to My Ears: Sunday's March
James Hollander
Deja Vu in Manhattan: Assisted Political Suicide?
Mark Engler
Republicans
Among Us: a Week at the RNC, Inside and Out
Jesse Sharkey
Making Students and Teachers Pay for the Crisis in Education
Jane Stillwater
Calling the Cops on Your Own Kid
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: the Bush Neo-Cons and Israel
September 2,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part 3: More Pricks Than Kicks
Max Gimble
Et Tu, Menchu? Extrajudicial Killings and Clandestine Graves
in Guatemala
James Petras
President Chavez and the Referendum: Myths and Realities
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Afghan Electoral Model: "If They Want to Vote
Twice, Let Them"
Todd Chretien & Jessie
Muldoon
Will the Democrats Expel Zell Miller?
Jack Random
Spite and Venom Day: the Turncoat and the Profiteer
Alan Maass
The Real Vietnam
Christa Allen
Contre Bush
Website of
the Day
[Redacted]
September 1,
2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Stench of Doom
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Poor Larry Franklin
Dave Lindorff
Kerry's Litmus Test
Josh Frank
Protest in White: Not All of New York Rises Up
John L. Hess
Moles, Scoops and Flip Flops
Mike Whitney
Deconstructing Arnold
Jack Random
Kindergarten Night at the RNC
Andrew Wilson
War on the Pachyderms: Why Do Elephants Hate Us?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: Part Two: Mark His Words
August 31,
2004
Joseph Nevins
Escapism
and Global Apartheid: The Dominican Republic & the NYTs
Matt Vidal
Beyond
Bush's Rhetoric on the Economy
Neve Gordon
Kerry and the Middle East
Dave Lindorff
Bush
the Peace Candidate?
Mike Whitney
NPR Leads the Charge for War Against Iran
Jack Random
Opening Night: Playing the War Card
Jeffrey St.
Clair
High
Plains Grifter: the Life and Crimes of George W. Bush (Part One)
CounterPunch Photo of the Day
Pete Seeger in NYC
August 30,
2004
Justin Podhur
The
Disappeared Mayor
Shaun Joseph
The
Hypocrites at TheNaderbasher.com
Mike Whitney
Israeli Moles in the Pentagon: What More Could They Possibly
Want?
Ron Jacobs
Live, From New York: the Majority of Protesters Claimed No Candidate
David Lindorff
Sunday in Manhattan: the Sound of Marchin', Chargin' Feet, Boy
Dave Zirin
USA Basketball: The Team White America Loved to Hate
Sam Husseini
Israeli Spying on the US: a Long History
August 28 /
29, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Zombies
for Kerry
Patrick Cockburn
Najaf Ceasefire Good for Iraq, But Weakens Allawi and US
Ray McGovern
Blowing Smoke on Intelligence
Dr. Juan Romagoza
From El Salvador to Abu Ghraib: Reflections of Torture Survivor
Ray Hanania
An Israeli Spy in the Pentagon? Ridiculous!
Fred Gardner
Eddie Lepp Busted by DEA: Facing Life for Growing Medical Pot
Diane Christian
Big Men: the Better Leader Lets You Live
William S. Lind
The Desert Fox
Paul D'Amato
The Left Takes a Dive for Kerry
Joshua Frank
Greens at the Crossroads
Mickey Z.
Media Declares War on Anti-War Protests
Winslow T. Wheeler
Sen. McCain's Pork Chops: an Exchange
Justin E.H.
Smith
The New Age Racket and the Left
Thomas St. John
Burning Slaves at the Stake: On "Sinners in the Hands of
an Angry God"
Ali Tonak
Help the NYPD?
Mark Engler
New York Says "No"
Justin Felux
Haiti: the Attica of the Americas
Poets' Basement
Gelman, Albert, Ford and Hamod
August 27,
2004
Gary Leupp
Neocon
Musings
Robin Cook
The
Ghosts of Abu Ghraib
Diane Christian
Disarming
Michael Donnelly
Situational Democracy: the Show Me the Green Party?
Jack Random
4F and Other Heroes: an Army of War Resisters
Mike Ferner
"To the Swift Boats!"
Mazin Qumsiyeh
7000 Palestinian Political Prisoners
Veronza Bowers, Jr.
"You Won't Be Leaving Tomorrow"
August 26,
2004
M. Shahid Alam
The
Clash Thesis: a Failing Ideology?
Diane Christian
War
Rules: Bush is No Sun Tzu
Derek Seidman
"They're As Bad As Wal-Mart:" Starbucks Workers Get
Organized
David Lindorff
Court to RNC Protesters: Drop the Rally
Christopher
Brauchli
Signs of Dissent: the Bush in the Bubble
Stew Albert
Reporting Suspicious Activity
Mark Donham
Judgement in Athens: Give the Koreans Their Day in Court
Saul Landau
Pinochet:
the Al Capone of the Southern Cone
Website of
the Day
The Kerry 527 Ad You'll Never See
August 25,
2004
Amelia Peltz
Can
I Have 9.8 Seconds of Your Time?
Noah Leavitt
Defining and Redefining Torture
Ron Jacobs
Takin' It to the Streets: It's Not About the Election, It's About
Democracy
James Brooks
Coronado Crosses the Jordan
Akiva Eldar
How to Win the Jewish Vote: Turn Gaza into a "Mini-Afghanistan"
Gemma Araneta
Chavez's New Brand of Populism
Philip Cryan
Uribe's Boys: the Death Squads of Colombia
CounterPunch Wire
Cheney Opens the Closet Door
August 24,
2004
Jeremy Scahill
John
Kerry: the Warchurian Candidate
Gary Leupp
"We
Want Them to Go Away"
David Domke
God
Willing: an Echoing Press and Political Fundamentalism
William Loren Katz
The Meaning of Hugo Chávez: Black and Indian Power in
Venezuela
Jonah Gindin
With Chavez? Reading the International Private Media
Fran Schor
Denying Atrocities: From Vietnam to Fallujah
Joe Bageant
Driving
on the Bones of God
Website of the Day
The Great America Lockdown: a Primer for the RNC
August 23,
2004
Winslow Wheeler
Don't
Mind If I Do: Porkbarrel and the War on Terror
John Pilger
Bush
May Be the Lesser Evil
Stan Goff
Swift
Boat Dogfight
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Notes
from the West Bank: Build, Demolish, Rebuild
Mike Whitney
The Unraveling of Afghanistan
William Blum
Brave
New World of Iraqi Sovereignty
Ralph Nader
A Letter to the Washington Post: a Shameful and Unsavory Editorial
August 21 /
22, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
"They
Want Blood:" The Bi-Partisan Origins of the Total War on
Drugs
Landau / Hassen
Failing
the Mission? Form a Commission
Brian Cloughley
The
Bush Team in Iraq: Moral Cowardice, as Practiced by Experts
Josh Frank
Nader as David Duke? The ADL Wants You to Think So
Mike Whitney
Reincarnating Mengele: the Torture Doctors of Abu Ghraib
Ron Jacobs
Day Labor Blues
Mickey Z.
Shooting at Whales: 40 Years After Tonkin
Fred Gardner
Dr. Wolman Comes Out: The Cannabis Consultants
Dave Zirin
Uprising in Athens: Iraqi Soccer Team Gives Bush the Boot
Josh Saxe
Witnessing Police Brutality in LA
Yanar Mohammed
Letter from Baghdad: a Democracy of Killings and Bombings
Helen Williams
Ali's Story: a Taste of Reality from Baghdad
Michael Donnelly
Elemental and NaturalForests, Fire and Recovery
Elizabeth Schulte
The Crisis in Affordable Housing
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert, Virgil, Ford and Krieger
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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Weekend Edition
September 11 / 12, 2004
When Our Assassins
Go Free
Geezers
Make Gas
By
SAUL LANDAU
Our cause is just, it's
just to slay
Fidelista Cubans on any given day
If cops ever catch us, we could care less
Proud members of GAS will never confess
We are GAS
You bet your ass
We got class
We kill for cause and cause is a killer
Posada's his name, he's our Godzilla
We whack Commy dragons, they go straight to hell
The Commy of Commys his name is Fidel
We are GAS
We kick your ass
We are nass--ty
(Lyrics from the GASeous hymn)
GAS, or Geezers Assassination
Society, a Miami source claims, refers to a secret club formed
by four recently pardoned anti-Castro terrorists, all in their
twilight years. The group offered honorary membership -- women
can only become honorary members -- to outgoing Panamanian president
Mireya Moscoso, who on August 26, released the convicted men.
A Panamanian court had sentenced them and two others to 7
and 8-year terms for threatening public security and falsifying
documents. The prosecutor presented a large cache of explosives
and related gear with the defendants' fingerprints on them. Witnesses
avowed that the men planned to use this material in 2000 to bomb
Cuban President Fidel Castro--not engage in playful fireworks
-- during a scheduled speech at a Panamanian university.
GAS membership requires that aspirants swear in blood rituals
to dedicate the remainder of their lives--when not seeing prostate
specialists to plotting to assassinate Castro. GAS stole
its credo -- Viva la Muerte!--from Nazi pilots during the Spanish
Civil War (1936-9).
The newly pardoned admirers of those Nazi aces caught a waiting
airplane that carried them out of Panama. The plane stopped in
Honduras to allow the padrino of Latin American terrorism, Luis
Posada Carriles (76), to disembark. Guillermo Novo (65), Pedro
Remon (60) and Gaspar Jimenez (68), the other august GAS founders,
all with impressive criminal records, continued on to Miami,
where perspective GASers and groupies greeted them.
Out-going President Moscoso apparently contravened Panamanian
law by issuing the pardons before the appeals process had ended.
Moscoso immediately phoned US Ambassador Simon Ferro, saying
she had complied with Washington's request to release the men.
Their arrival in Miami coincided with President Bush's campaign
stop there. Bush had declared himself a mortal enemy of those
who harbor terrorists. Apparently, he made a nuanced exception
for anti-Castro terrorists--"zealous patriots."
Some Panamanians suspect that Moscoso deposited millions in a
Swiss bank prior to issuing the pardons. Such an act would have
helped offset the hurt feelings she suffered from the worldwide
criticism of her actions. I empathize with Moscoso. The poor
woman had become addicted to the lavish lifestyle  she developed in her five
years as President. But she spent only $23 million of public
money on her personal needs and only $3 million on trips abroad.
Her critics charged her with disguising personal tourism as state
missions since her overseas junkets accomplished nothing for
Panama. I say: "No one's perfect."
Unkind Panamanians call her a kleptomaniac. More generous compatriots
consider this a slight exaggeration. But, her defenders point
out, she resisted pressure to pardon the anti-Castroites until
their advocates offered a sufficient sum of money.
The newly liberated but still grumpy seniors had shared membership
in various terrorist organizations like Omega 7 and the Cuban
Nationalist Movement and had received support from the prestigious
Cuban American National Foundation (CANF) for their ongoing but
unsuccessful efforts to whack Cuba's leader. They had, however,
dispatched other, lesser Cuban officials and destroyed Cuban
property in New York, Argentina, Mexico, Barbados and elsewhere.
Indeed, part of GAS' pledge week activities require aspirants
to memorize Posada's decades of failed assassination attempts,
just as religious Christians return to the film, "The Passion
of Christ," to internalize the pain of Jesus, the Prince
of Peace, en route to his crucifixion.
The Prince of terrorists, Posada Carriles, achieved world status
in 1976 by directing the sabotage of a Cuban commercial airliner
over Barbados. Shortly after taking off from Barbados International
Airport, the bomb exploded on board, the plane plunged into the
sea and all 73 passengers and crew members died. Posada denied
involvement, but police nabbed two of the plotters who identified
Posada as the man who hired them to place the bomb on the plane
before they disembarked in Barbados.
Posada's wife told a
Venezuelan journalist of her mate's emotions. "When he started
with the Barbados affair, I knew he would be successful because
the 'poor guy' had dedicated so much effort, with so much passion"
(We Placed the Bomb and So What, by Alicia Herrera).
Born Luis Clemente Faustino Posada Carriles, he became known
as Bambi to his terrorist pals--how sweet. He served on dictator
Fulgencio Batista's repressive forces until the January 1959
revolutionary takeover. Posada then swore vengeance.
In 1963, after the Bay
of Pigs, the CIA trained Posada at Fort Benning, Georgia on the
fine points of spying, using explosives and other lethal devices.
In 1971, he partnered with Antonio Veciana, founder of Alpha
66, another anti-Castro terrorist group, to plan a movie script
type plot to assassinate Castro.
In 1996, Veciana told me how he and Posada had recruited a couple
of Venezuelan hit men, disguised them as a TV news crew and sent
them to Santiago, Chile before Castro arrived on a visit. Meanwhile,
the assassins "blended in" with the rest of the media.
CIA technicians had outfitted one of their news cameras with
a gun that would fire when they activated the camera. Fortunately,
for Fidel, the assassins chickened out. Posada became enraged
over their cowardice, Veciana continued, and recruited other
assassins to use the same camera on Castro when he stopped in
Caracas for a press conference on his return to Cuba. But those
whackers also had second thoughts.
The plot failed again. But killing Castro remained the driving
force in Posada's life. Veciana quit the assassination business
in 1973 after an unknown gunman shot him in the head.
Perhaps, Posada's frustration over the failed 1971 hits abated
after the "success" of his 1976 Barbados air sabotage.
But, alas, Venezuelan authorities charged him with that crime
and threw him in prison, where he remained until August 1985,
when leaders of CANF bribed prison authorities to help Posada
"escape."
Lt. Col. Oliver North then engaged him in the late 1980s to re-supply
the CIA-backed Contras from El Salvador. In 1990, in Guatemala,
a gunman shot Posada in the face. Down, but not out, the determined
Castro slayer hatched a plot to bomb Cuban hotels to deter the
tourist trade. In one hotel bombing, an Italian tourist died.
Cuban police nabbed a Salvadoran man who fingered Posada as his
recruiter. The attacks did reduce tourism for a brief time.
In a New York Times interview (July 12, 1998) with Anne
Bardach and Larry Rohter, Posada described "the Italian
tourist's death as a freak accident." But "I sleep
like a baby," he said. "That Italian was sitting in
the wrong place at the wrong time." Posada told the Times
that he "still intends to try to kill Castro, and he believes
violence is the best method for ending Communism in Cuba."
Inevitably, the violence-prone Posada linked his fading professional
destiny with another pit bull-like GAS founder, Guillermo Novo.
When the newly freed Novo landed in Miami in late August he passed
quickly through US Immigration. Luckily for him, his name wasn't
Ted Kennedy or the authorities would have questioned him about
terrorist connections. "We beat you," Novo crowed to
Fidel, who wasn't listening. There were no reports that Castro
had conceded or even acknowledged Novo's existence.
Novo, like Posada, eligible to collect social security, swore
eternal allegiance to terrorism as the only way to remove Castro.
Terrorism has animated his life since 1964 when he fired a bazooka
at the UN building in New York while Che Guevara addressed the
General Assembly.
In 1979, a Washington DC jury convicted him of conspiring to
assassinate former Chilean Chancellor Orlando Letelier. Novo
appealed and got acquitted at a second trial, but was convicted
of perjury for lying about his knowledge of the assassination
conspiracy. But he had already served his time, the judge ruled.
Novo rejoiced in the courthouse hall. Since then, he's had little
to laugh about.
Both Novo and Posada have earned reputations as serious men.
So, when they smile, it's not because they've succeeded in whacking
Fidel. Remember, young babies also evince smiles when GAS enters
their system.
Saul Landau is the Director of Digital Media and International
Outreach Programs for the College of Letters, Arts and Social
Sciences. His new book is The
Business of America.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept 4 / 5, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Elephants
and Gramsci
Ted Honderich
The
Way Things Are
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The
Holy Empire: Who We Are and What We Do
Douglas Valentine
What the World Should Know About Guantanamo
Patrick Cockburn
New Iraqi Police State Flexes Its Muscles
Gary Leupp
Neo Cons Under Fire
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: the Hempstead T-Shirt
William A.
Cook
The
Day of the Lemming
Dave Zirin
Kobe Bryant and the Price of Freedom
John Chuckman
The Day the World Ended
Karyn Strickler
God Save the Endangered Species Act
Vanessa Jones
Bad Day with an Ikea Cup
Mike Whitney
Kerry: the "Better" War Candidate
Mark Donham
Dear John (Kerry): Start Explaining and Fast
Mickey Z.
McBypass Nation: Feeling Clinton's Pain
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades be Fixed?
Poets' Basement
Landau and Albert
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