Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 16,
2005
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
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February 16, 2005
Washington Amps Up the Rhetoric
Oil-Flush
Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
By
JESSICA LEIGHT
Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
is not known for his discretion, caution, nor political reserve.
Yet the in-your-face leader travels with lady luck as he revels
in the nation's ever-increasing oil wealth and the virtually
unprecedented political and economic prominence that skyrocketing
petrol prices have brought to Caracas. The Venezuelan strongman
shows every sign of being prepared to strike out even more aggressively
this year against any foe he perceives as threatening his "Bolivarian
revolution," namely his plans for land reform, social justice,
and the redistribution of wealth. Certain to seek reelection
to a six-year term in next year's presidential race, Chávez
is bolstering his domestic base through the aggressive expansion
of the recent social programs that have won him the fierce loyalty
of the nation's long-neglected lower-classes.
Russia and
Brazil Arms Sales could prove Explosive
At the same time, Chávez
is aggressively raising his international profile as he seeks
to position himself as a major spokesman for the burgeoning center-left
South American informal group of nations and as a statesman of
hemispheric stature, fully capable of creating a counterforce
to Washington's still powerful, if fading, influence in the region.
It is an ambitious and perhaps risky two-tier game that Chávez
plays. But as long as he holds the trump card-the nation's huge
oil reserves--Chávez may yet prove capable of winning
at least this round in his confrontation with Washington. If
reelected, he can rightfully claim overtaking one of the most
stunning political trajectories seen in the hemisphere in recent
decades: from his own failed coup attempt in 1992 followed by
his being a victim of a near-successful military coup in 2002,
to decisively winning the 2004 referendum, to his being a major
progenitor of the grand design of Venezuela's (perhaps even Latin
America's) political and economic future. If Chávez is
to be looked back upon as a lion, there is little question who
the goat will be. A major loser in the approaching U.S.-Venezuela
confrontation is likely to be State Department Assistant Secretary
Roger Noriega. The inept ideologue's myopic analysis that Chávez's
close ties with Castro requires him to be either marginalized
or eliminated has had a catastrophic impact on Washington's ties
to the rest of Latin America and has brought such relations to
their lowest point in years.
Among the most audacious, and
perhaps the most ominous, moves made by Chávez in recent
days has been his substantial and widely-publicized purchases
of arms both from Russia, which has sold Caracas 40 helicopters
and 100,000 Kalashnikovs, and from Brazil, whose President Luiz
Inácio Lula da Silva added a surprise twist to the long-awaited
summit with Chavez by agreeing to sell Venezuela approximately
two dozen Super Tucano light attack aircraft. Lula's move is
particularly notable in light of the harsh criticisms, including
a formal diplomatic demarche presented to the Russian embassy
in Washington, that the Bush administration had leveled at Russia--one
of its staunchest allies in the "war on terror"--after
the earlier sales were announced. For Lula to ignore these obvious
warning signals and press ahead with the sale of aircraft to
Venezuela, sealed at a highly visible regional summit during
a period of increased tension, is perhaps the clearest signal
in recent months that Brazil is ready and eager to openly challenge
the United States' hegemonic power in Latin America.
New Problems
for Washington
In retrospect, the sale will
no doubt represent a turning point in the regional standing of
both Chávez and Lula: the latter aggressively standing
up to Washington, while the former strengthens his bid to make
Venezuela into an independent regional power. This is the case
because Washington would not dare to directly scold Brazil, with
important FTAA negotiations pending, since few issues are higher
on the Bush Latin America agenda than obtaining a free trade
agreement with Latin America, whose total population approaches
that of the EU. The move also holds substantial, and perhaps
dangerous, implications for Andean regional relations, potentially
sparking an arms race between Venezuela and Colombia, the latter
a long-time beneficiary of munificent arms provisions from Washington.
The Bush administration, increasingly irked by Chávez's
adventurism, will no doubt use the recent arms purchases as an
excuse to funnel still more armaments to Bogotá, increasing
tension and the possibility of regional instability.
It's the
oil, stupid
Despite Chávez's charisma
and political shrewdness, the president owes much of his recent
success to the good fortune of presiding over the fifth-largest
oil exporter in the world. This is at a time when soaring prices,
instability in the Middle East, and nationalizations in Russia
have made major oil-consuming industrialized nations, above all
the United States, ever more anxious to guarantee secure supplies
of the precious fuel. Chávez, not surprisingly, has sought
to maximize this advantage, repeatedly making it clear that he
intends to use the threat of cutting off oil exports to the U.S.
as a defensive weapon against any bellicose posturing by Washington.
The Bush administration has long despised the Venezuelan president
as a dangerous revolutionary and has vociferously condemned his
close relationship with Fidel Castro of Cuba, his nationalist
economic policies, and his opposition to Washington's attempts
to construct its version of a Free Trade Area of the Americas.
The White House's reflexive
hostility toward Chávez was most recently on display at
the Senate hearings held to confirm Condoleezza Rice as Secretary
of State. There, the former national security adviser stated
that she had "nothing good to say" about Chávez
and portrayed him as a "democratically-elected leader governing
in an illiberal way." Not surprisingly, she offered no reflections
on whether the United States' endorsement of the anti-Chávez
coup in April 2002 or the role of the congressionally-funded
National Endowment for Democracy and International Republican
Institute in financing Venezuela's so-called "civil society"
organizations intimately tied to the golpistas, constituted
"illiberal" behavior on Washington's part.
Chávez
vs. Bush
The ever-pugnacious Chávez
counterattacked with his usual zing, calling the then-national
security adviser "illiterate," publicly challenging
President Bush to wage a one-dollar bet that he would remain
in Caracas' Miraflores palace longer than the U.S. chief executive
would occupy the White House. In response to Rice's accusation
that he represented a negative force in Latin America, Chávez
proclaimed himself to be such a force against U.S. imperialism
in the region.
Even more telling, Chávez
deftly turned up the pressure on Washington by intensifying his
efforts to seek new markets for Venezuelan oil through diversifying
its exports, with the implicit suggestion being that his new
commercial strategy could entail a curtailment of shipments to
the United States. Currently, this flow accounts for anywhere
from 11 to 15 percent of U.S. consumption, thus making Venezuela
the fourth most important supplier of crude petroleum to the
United States, behind only Saudi Arabia, Canada, and Mexico.
On January 30, the Venezuelan president signed an accord with
China's vice president Zeng Qinghong, facilitating the China
National Petroleum Corporation to invest in the development of
Venezuelan oil and gas reserves. The country also has begun to
sell fuel and crude oil to China at discounted prices to offset
the high shipping costs to east Asia and thus affirming the economic
attractiveness of the deal to Beijing. Meanwhile, the Chávez
government is in talks with the government of Panama regarding
the possibility of shipping oil via the Panama Canal to the Pacific
and thus to the ever-growing Asian market.
A Perfect
Storm?
Adding insult to injury, Caracas
has entered into a widely publicized agreement for a team of
sales representatives from the Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA
(Petroleos de Venezuela) to be trained by Iranian advisers on
strategies for penetrating the Asian market. While Iran has long
been one of Venezuela's closest allies in OPEC, Chávez
has decided to tighten economic links with Tehran precisely as
the Bush administration attempts to ratchet up the pressure on
Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions and intensifies its rhetoric
regarding that country's violations of human rights and democratic
principles. This must be seen as a brash and potentially dangerous
challenge to Washington. For the United States, it is a challenge
that mostly will, in some form or other, be met: Venezuela conspiring
with one of President Bush's self-declared archenemies--and a
charter member of the "Axis of Evil"--in order to more
effectively sell oil to the world's rising economic power, China,
is no small matter. Moreover, oil destined for China will likely
be diverted from the U.S. market just when high fuel costs threaten
to swell this country's current account deficit even further
beyond the point of sustainability, likely driving the now vulnerable
`economy into a renewed recession.
While Chávez still faces
several formidable hurdles before this ambitious strategy can
be fully implemented, he appears to be well on his way to beginning
the reorientation of Venezuela's oil exports away from the north,
where they have always been directed, to the east, as apprehension
in Washington mounts. The possible economic impact of a disruption
of oil imports from Venezuela was prominently highlighted during
Secretary of State Rice's confirmation hearings before Foreign
Relations chairman Senator Richard Lugar (R-IN), when he urged
the administration to more carefully examine the potential consequences
of its Venezuela policies on the energy markets. More recently,
the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan congressional
investigative agency, has begun a study of the risks associated
with the consequences of any interruption in the Venezuelan oil
supply. Therefore, it could be that the pesky South American
populist whom the Bush administration has repeatedly tried to
swat away, has nevertheless survived to haunt it. It is against
this backdrop that Brazil's massive arms sales, just announced
during a meeting with Brazil's President Lula, can be understood.
A Rising
Regional Power
Chávez's feisty petard
diplomacy and his increased sparring with Washington has been
coupled with an expansion of his campaign to build close relationships
with the fellow members of the informal anti-U.S. "axis
of power" coalition, which stretches from Havana through
Caracas to the center-left governments of Presidents Lula in
Brazil, Tabaré Vasquez of Uruguay and Nestor Kirchner
in Argentina, as well as an embattled President Mesa in Bolivia.
Declaring that "our strategy has to be to break the U.S.
axis and forge South American unity" at a meeting with Lula
February 13, Chávez has sought to take advantage of his
current political strength at home to project his profile as
a regional statesman. On that occasion, the presidential colleagues
reaffirmed the importance of the "strategic alliance"
between their two countries and signed new agreements for development
in transportation, oil, gas and coal. Analysts have speculated
that however uncomfortable Chávez's rhetoric may make
the Brazilian president feel, and no matter how un-amused Lula
must be over the Venezuelan leader's ties to the left wing of
his own Brazilian Worker's Party, which has been critical of
the conservative approach exhibited by Lula's economic planners,
the two leaders need each other. It is within this context that
maintaining a close relationship, with Chávez--a hero
to the left across Latin American--is nonetheless essential for
Lula in order to shore up his own fading revolutionary credentials
with his more radical domestic critics. Whatever the substantive
differences between the two men, Chávez can thus continue
to bask in the prestige of his close relationship with one of
the few hemispheric leaders with a legitimate claim to international
stature.
Meanwhile, Caracas has not
neglected to maintain close ties with another, even more laurelled
hemispheric revolutionary: Fidel Castro. Over the last two years,
Venezuela has provided substantial shipments of subsidized oil
to Cuba to ease the energy and transport shortages in the perennially
ailing Cuban economy; in return, Cuba has steadily increased
its flow of medical and other social service personnel to Venezuela.
Such Cuban professionals now in Venezuela include 14,000 doctors,
3,000 dentists, 1,500 eye specialists and 7,000 sports trainers.
In a break with usual practice when Cuba engages in sending its
medical personnel to developing countries desperately in need
of such services, Caracas committed itself in a December agreement
with Havana to make separate payments for the Cuban aid, to be
valued at a price set by the World Health Organization's schedule
for such services. While the inflow of cash is no doubt vital
to Castro, Chávez also stands to benefit considerably
from the arrangement. He now has the necessary personnel to implement
his "barrio adentro" (inside the neighborhood)
program of social services, with its ambitious plans to construct
1,800 laboratories and medical clinics. It was precisely the
inauguration of a long-delayed expansion of basic medical and
social services, within the poorest Venezuelan slums that appears
to have been decisive with the president's referendum victory
last August, and no doubt represents one of Chávez's principal
political assets for a reelection victory next year. Despite
the symbolic and rhetorical value of the links that Caracas assiduously
has cultivated with its ideological brothers-in-arms across the
hemisphere, however, the president has not neglected the more
pragmatic side of Venezuela's foreign policy.
Chávez's talent at realpolitik
was evident most recently in his successful patching-up of the
diplomatic fracas that erupted with the conservative pro-Washington
government of Álvaro Uribe in neighboring Colombia. Rodrigo
Granda, a leader of the leftist Colombian rebel FARC (Fuerzas
Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) who was quietly living in
Caracas, was captured by Venezuelan bounty hunters in broad daylight
last December and was subsequently handed over to Colombian police
on the other side of the border by the well paid renegades. Accusing
the United States of provoking the crisis, Chávez withdrew
his ambassador from Bogotá and halted bilateral trade
between the two countries, which normally amounts to almost two
billion dollars annually.
Having sent an unmistakable
signal to the Bush administration that further interference in
South American regional relations, such as the clumsy intrusion
of the U.S. ambassador to Colombia, William Wood, in strong support
of Uribe against Chávez, will not be tolerated--Chávez
agreed to meet with the Colombian president in order to discreetly
end the standoff before any damaging economic repercussions could
set in. While he aggressively confronted Bogotá--viewed
throughout Latin America, along with El Salvador and Chile, as
one of Washington's most faithful bootlickers--demonstrated that
the Venezuelan leader is capable of responsibly managing what
has to be considered his most important bilateral relationship.
It also showed that ultimately Uribe was not prepared to sacrifice
his all important bilateral ties with his neighbors just to be
used as a stalking horse against Venezuela. Ultimately, Chávez
may attempt to position himself as a bridge between Uribe, who
remains relatively isolated in South America despite (or perhaps
because of ) his close relationship with the Bush administration,
and the center-left Mercosur governments, thus further broadening
a South American coalition that Chávez envisages as part
of his hemispheric legacy.
Chavez's
First Term: The Finale, or Merely the Prelude?
Having cut a memorable swath
across Venezuela and Latin America during his first term, President
Hugo Chávez shows every sign of being well-poised to win
a mandate for six more years in Miraflores palace, a period of
time that would allow him ample opportunity to expand his strategy
of aggressive oil diplomacy, regional institutionalization and
relentless attempts to thwart Washington's economic and political
aspirations in the hemisphere. With his power immeasurably enhanced
by rising oil prices and the key strategic importance of Venezuela's
petroleum reserves, Chávez may just be able to stand up
to the Bush administration--which is increasingly apprehensive
that frayed bilateral relations could lead to disruptions in
oil exports from Venezuela, precisely when those imports are
most crucial--while at the same time playing a pivotal role in
the emergence of a South American "axis of power."
There are few Latin American
leaders today who can even begin to articulate such grand regional
ambitions. But buoyed by the tide of oil prices that has steadily
enhanced Venezuela's economic and political strength, Chávez's
domestic popularity and his international stature can only grow.
The pugnacious president may yet win a second term, and thus
be able to watch his ideological archrival, President Bush, exit
the White House in 2008.
Jessica Leight is a research associate at the Center on Hemispheric Affairs.
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