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Today's
Stories
May
16, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
Iraq is a Bloody No Man's Land
May
14 / 15, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Join the 14 Per Cent Club!
Saul
Landau
Lessons from Vietnam: Wars Kill Empires as Well as People
Gary
Leupp
Whither Yale? Towards the Imperial University
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The Glory that is Lockhart, Texas
Ben
Tripp
The Wayward Airplane: a Cautionary Tale
Brian
J. Foley
Was Jesus Gay?
Tom
Barry
Bolton the Eavesdropper
Mitchell
Verter
Barbarous Oaxaca: Indigenous Rights Groups Meet the "Law
of the Club"
Mike
Ferner
War on COs: Army Files Additional Charges Against Kevin Benderman
Dan
Smith
Perceiving Darfur
Mark
Scaramella
Death with Pitfalls
Don
Fitz
Mommy, Is This a Finger in My Rice Puffs?: Splicing Human DNA
into the Food Chain
Diane
Farsetta
PR Industry Imitates Big Tobacco: the Senate's "Fake News"
Hearings
Michael
Dickinson
Soldier Crawling: Military Conscription in Turkey
Ron
Jacobs
The Jackson State Murders
Fred
Gardner
"Hydroponics? Ridiculous!": A Real Farmer Looks at
Medical Marijuana
Farrah
Hassen
Far From Heaven: a Review of Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of
Heaven"
Douglas
Valentine
50 Cent's Plea
Poets'
Basement
Louise, Ford, Engel, & Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Military Base Closings and the South
May
13, 2005
Tom
Stephens
A Chronology of US War Crimes and Torture, 1975-2005
Patrick
Cockburn
"They Destroyed Everything"
Mike
Whitney
Tom Friedman, Imperial Chronicler
Chris
Floyd
Miami Vice: the Sleazy World of Jeb Bush
Jenna
Orkin
Ground Zero's Toxic Dust
Dave
Lindorff
Googling for Fun
Joshua
Frank
Yale Fires an Acclaimed Anarchist Scholar:
an Interview with David Graeber
Website
of the Day
Botero: Pinta El Horror de Abu Ghraib
May
12, 2005
Paul
Craig Roberts
America is Losing: More Phony Jobs
Hype
Uri
Avnery
Death of a Myth
Greg
Moses
Neo-Con Logic at the Border
Carolyn
Baker
The Politics of Dominionism: the New Religious Right in America
Pat
Williams
Amateurish High Jinks on Roadless Areas
William
S. Lind
Reality Gap: the Myth of US Invincibilty
Jack
Random
The Dubious Wisdom of George W. Bush
Gary
Leupp
Douglas Feith Bares His Soul to Jeffrey Goldberg
May
11, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
The Rise, Fall and Rise of Ahmed
Chalabi: King of Jordan to Pardon His $300 Million Bank Swindle
Kevin
Zeese
The Occupation Gets More Saddam-like
Every Day
Christopher
Brauchli
Coffee, Tea or Torture?: A One Way Ticket to Uzbekistan
Zalman
Amit
The Collapse of Academic Freedom in
Israel: Tantura, Teddy Katz and Haifa University
Robert
Shull
Carte Blanche for the Terror Cops:
Senate Gives DHS Power to Waive All Laws
Mike
Whitney
God, Gays, and George Bernard Shaw
Dr.
Teresa Whitehurst
Anti-Arabic Week at a Southern High School
Norman
Solomon
Political Bluster and the Filibuster
May
10, 2005
Richard
Drayton
The Imperial Mythology of WW II:
an Ethical Blank Check
Dave
Zirin
Steve Nash's Brilliant Year: Anti-War
Hoopster Wins NBA's MVP
Jackie
Corr
The Medicare Catch: Mrs. O'Hara's Windfall
Dave
Lindorff
Silence of the Scams: Economists
on China
Michael
Donnelly
From Roadless to Clueless: the Great
Stillborn Eco Victory
Reza
Fiyouzat
Nomadic Abstracts
Scott
Parkin
Taking Direct Action Against Halliburton
Stephen
Babcock
The Burden of Knowing Better
Alan
Farago
Florida, Water and Lobbyists
Michael
Neumann
Naomi's Courage
Website
of the Day
One Nation Under Plagiarism
May
9, 2005
Louis
Proyect
Shilling for Chevron: Jared Diamond,
Greenwasher
Robert
Fisk
"Mission Accomplished": the Occupation, Year Two
Kevin
Zeese
Concientious Objection on Trial: the Court Martial of Keith Benderman
Joshua
Frank
Kerry Bashes Gay Marriage
Sasha
Kramer
A Mother's Day Call for Justice in Haiti's Prisons
Andrew
Wimmer
Create and Resist
Jeffrey
Webber
Back to the Streets in Bolivia?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Straight to Bechtel
May
7 / 8, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Who Beat Hitler?
Gary
Leupp
Biblical Prophecy and Christian Zionism
Saul
Landau
Pope Torquemada: Purges, Pedophiles and Cover-Ups
Joe
DeRaymond
Autumn of the Revolutionary: Another Look at Daniel Ortega
Daniela
Ponce
Seeing Chile in Nepal
Heather
Williams
Hollywood Does Enron
Gregory
Elich
Zimbabwe's Fight for Justice
Anis
Memon
To Cuba and Back
John
Chuckman
The Peculiar State: "Criticism of Israel is a Form of Anti-Semitism"
Mike
Whitney
Hard Right Rage Against the Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Re-Reading "Born on the Fourth of July" as the Iraq
War Grinds On
Colin
Kalmbacher
Whither Disorder? Ann Coulter and the Texas Police State, Cont.
Lance
Selfa
Uprising in Mexico City
Fred
Gardner
"Getting High is a Little Like Cuba"
Ben
Tripp
Letters on Wittgenstein
Mickey
Z.
The Mother of All Days
Richard
Joseph
Those Patriotic Magnets
Dr.
Susan Block
Come As You Are: Masturbation 101
Poets'
Basement
Smith-Ferri, Louise, Nettnin, Engel and Albert
May
6, 2005
Patrick
Cockburn
Baghdad Diary: a Week of Bombs and
Blood
Erin
Yoshioka
Another "3 Strikes" Travesty:
Why is Santo Reyes Facing Life in Prison?
Sam
Husseini
Talking with Syrians
Dave
Lindorff
Ernie Pyle Where Are You? When Reporters were Reporters
Kevin
Zeese
Circus Trials of Abu Ghraib: When Even the Fall Girl Can't Plead
Guilty
Joshua
Frank
An Overextended US Military? It Won't Stop Another War
Dan
Bacher
Tribes and Salmon Win One: Bush Backs Off Trinity River Water
Raid
P.
Sainath
India's Bloody Water Wars
May
5, 2005
Carles
Mutaner
Is Chavez's Venezuela "Socialist"
or "Populist?"
Carl
G. Estabrook
Is There Any Hope for the Pope?
Farrah
Hassen
The US's Syrian Obsession
Kevin
Zeese
"Sent Into Combat Unequipped and Unprepared": an Interview
with Patrick Resta
Michael
Leonardi
May Day with an American Soldier in Rome
Bennett
Ramberg
The Future of Nuclear Terror: Coming to a Reactor Near You
Ray
McGovern
The Smoking Gun on White House Deceit
Norman
Solomon
Nuclear Fundamentalism, the New York Times and Iran
Nicole
Colson
The Back Alley Attack on Abortion Rights
Brian
Concannon, Jr.
Clearing the Fences in Haiti
May
4, 2005
Colin
Kalmbacher
Ann Coulter and the Police State:
Heckle a Racist, Get Arrested
John
Walsh
Al Franken is a Big Fat Phony: Lying
on Air America to Support the War
Greg
Moses
Vigilante Wedge: Schwarzenegger Reprises
"Birth of a Nation"
Ali
Khan
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Poised to Fall Apart
Chris
Floyd
Ring Them Bells
Linda
S. Heard
D-Day for Tony Blair: Bogeymen and Scare Tactics
Dave
Zirin
The NFL, Congress and the Male Cheerleader Principle
William
S. Lind
Fool's Paradise
Gary
Leupp
Bolton's Proudest Moment: Breaking
the UN's Anti-Zionist Resolution
Website
of the Day
Kent State, May 4, 1970
May
3, 2005
Dave
Lindorff
Bush has Grasped the Third Rail,
Now Turn on the Juice
Brian
Cloughley
Halliburton's War Loot
Ira
Kurzban
Death Squad Diplomacy: How Bolton Armed Haiti's Thugs and Killers
Seth
Sandronsky
Towards Debtors' Prisons?
Gilad
Atzmon
The Labour Party Isn't an Option Any More
Michael
Donnelly
Branding Eco Collapse
Alex
Sanchez
Chile's Man at the OAS: a Blow to Bush?
Peter
Linebaugh
Magna Carta and May Day
May
2, 2005
Ron
Jacobs
Toward an Anti-Imperialist Movement
Stan
Goff
The Case of Hasan Akbar
Karyn
Strickler
Achieving Gender Balance in US Politics
Joshua
Frank
Leaked UK Memo Indict's Blair's Iraq Folly
Kevin
Zeese
Getting Out of Iraq will Prove Tougher Than Getting Out of Vietnam
Vicente
Navarro
Pope Benedict: a Rightwing Politician
April
30 / May 1, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Marla Ruzicka, Rachel Corrie and
"Credibility"
Gabriel
Kolko
Lessons from a Total Defeat: the End
of the Vietnam War, 30 Years Later
Jennifer
Loewenstein
The Disengaged: Gaza and the Fragmentation of Palestinian Nationhood
Lee
Sustar
City for Sale: Richard Daley's Chicago
Saul
Landau
The Bush-DeLay Axis of Naked Power
T.W.
Croft
The Undiscovered Country: the High Tide of the Neo-Con Confederacy
Nikolas
Kozloff
Fox News v. Hugo Chavez
William
Blum
Never-Ending Double Standards
Dave
Lindorff
Judicial Jury Tampering in Philly
Joshua
Frank
The Bi-Partisan Assault on Teenage Girls
Doug
Giebel
Saving Jane Fonda
Steven
Erlanger
A Response to Kathy Christison, from the NYT Jerusalem Bureau
Chief
Fred
Gardner
Washington State Doctor Harassed
Mike
Whitney
Another Mad Bush Press Conference
Kurt
Nimmo
Putin Pussyfoots in Palestine
Joe
DeRaymond
A Short History of the 15th Congressional District of Pennsylvania
Michael
Dickinson
Flags
Mickey
Z.
May Day at Yankee Stadium
Justin
Taylor
The Crawling Chaos: HP Lovecraft's Polymorphous Legacy
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Engel, Albert, St. Clair
Website
of the Weekend
Save Barbados's Cowpastor
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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May 16, 2005
ANWR Prelude: Unreported Spills
and Huge Fines
BP
Stains the Arctic
By
JASON LEOPOLD
While the hacks working for mainstream
news organizations were busy chasing the story about the Runaway
Bride late last month, a real scandal was just beginning
to unfold as Congress inched closer to approving a controversial
measure to open up a couple thousand acres of the Artic National
Wildlife Refuge to oil exploration.
It was then, unbeknownst to the federal lawmakers who debated
the merits of drilling in ANWR, that the Alaska Department of
Environmental Conservation started to lay the groundwork to pursue
civil charges against UK oil and gas behemoth BP and the corporation's
drilling contractor for failing to report massive oil spills
at its Prudhoe Bay operation, just 60 miles west from the pristine
wilderness area that would be ravaged by the very same company
in its bid to drill for oil should ANWR truly be opened to further
development.
BP has racked up some hefty fines over the years due to a number
of mishaps at its Prudhoe Bay operations. In 2001, the Alaska
Oil and Gas Conservation Commission found high failure rates
on some Prudhoe wellhead safety valves. The company was put on
federal criminal probation after one of its contractors dumped
thousands of gallons of toxic material underground at BP's Endicott
oil field in the 1990s. BP pleaded guilty to the charges in 2000
and paid a $6.5 million fine, and agreed to set up a nationwide
environmental management program that has cost more than $20
million.
The latest charges against BP stem from claims made recently
by BP whistleblowers who exposed their company's severe safety
and maintenance problems that have caused at least a half-dozen
oil spills at Prudhoe Bay-North America's biggest oil field-and
other areas on Alaska's North Slope, which the whistleblowers
say could boil over and spread to ANWR if the area is opened
up to further oil and gas exploration.
Despite those dire warnings, neither Congress nor the Senate
plans to investigate the whistleblowers claims or plan to hold
hearings about drilling in ANWR, according to aides for Sen.
Pete Domenici, R-N.M, chair of the Senate Energy and Natural
Resources Committee. Even more troubling is the fact that the
federal Environmental Protection Agency still refuses to investigate
the whistleblowers claims of frequent oil spills and BP's alleged
attempts to cover it up.
No one at the EPA returned calls for comment.
Chuck Hamel, a highly regarded activist who is credited with
exposing dozens of oil spills and the subsequent cover-ups related
to BP's shoddy operations at Prudhoe Bay, sent a letter to Domenici
April 15 saying the senator was duped by oil executives and state
officials during a recent visit to Alaska's North Slope.
"You obviously are unaware of the cheating by some producers
and drilling companies," Hamel said in the letter to Domenici,
an arch proponent of drilling in ANWR. "Your official Senate
tour" of Alaska in March "was masked by the orchestrated
'dog and pony show' provided you at the new Alpine Field, away
from the real world of the Slope's dangerously unregulated operations."
Alaska environmental officials are expected to meet with BP Alaska's
top brass sometime this month to discuss either levying a hefty
fine on BP or forcing the company to make changes to its internal
regulations because BP and its drilling contractor Nabors Alaska
Drilling failed to immediately report oil spills in July 2003
and December 2004.
BP operates the 24 year-old Prudhoe Bay oil field on behalf of
ConocoPhillips and ExxonMobil and is responsible for maintaining
the safety and maintenance of the drilling operations on the
North Slope.
Hamel filed a formal complaint in January with the EPA, claiming
he had pictures showing a gusher spewing a brown substance in
July 2003 and December 2004. An investigation by Alaska's Department
of Environmental Conservation determined that as much as 294
gallons of drilling mud, a substance that contains traces of
crude oil, was spilled on two separate occasions when gas was
sucked into wells, causing sprays of drilling muds and oil that
shot up as high as 85 feet into the air.
Because both spills exceeded 55 gallons, BP and Nabors were obligated
under a 2003 compliance agreement that BP signed with Alaska
to immediately report the spills. But they didn't, said Leslie
Pearson, the agency's spill prevention and emergency response
manager.
BP spokesman Daren Beaudo said the spill wasn't that big of a
deal.
"In this case, the drilling rig operators did not feel this
type of event qualified for reporting," Beaudo told the
Anchorage Daily News in March. Beaudo said BP's own investigation
indicated that the spills did not cause any harm to the environment,
aside from some specks on the snow.
President Bush has said that the oil and gas industry can open
up ANWR without damaging the environment or displacing wildlife.
But the native Gwich'in Nation, whose 7,000 members have lived
in Alaska for more than 20,000 years, say President Bush is wrong.
"Existing oil development
has displaced caribou, polluted the air and water and created
havoc with the traditional lifestyles of the people," said
Jonathon Solomon, chairman of the Gwich'in Steering Committee,
in a May 7 interview with the Financial Times. "No
one can tell us that opening the Arctic Refuge to development
can be done in an environmentally sensitive way with a small
footprint. It cannot be done."
Jason Leopold's explosive memoir, Off the Record,
was days away from being printed when his publisher, Rowman &
Littlefield, abruptly canceled the book after receiving a complaint
from an attorney representing Steve Maviglio, the former press
secretary to California Gov. Gray Davis, over the way he was
portrayed in the publisher's press release about the book. Leopold
has since signed with a new publisher who will publish his memoir
in early 2006 under a new title: NEWS JUNKIE. Visit Leopold's
website at www.jasonleopold.com.
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