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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! How Cops Extort Confessions;
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
How Cops Extort Confessions;
How the U.S. “Justice System” Really WorksNinety-two per cent of felony convictions in the U.S. are obtained by plea bargains or confessions. Without them the “justice system” would grind to a halt. In an important piece in our latest newsletter, available only to subscribers, Emily Horowitz shows how totally innocent people will “confess” under police pressure, even without physical torture. Horowitz outlines the powerful case for banning confessions altogether. Also in this new edition Marcus Rediker, co-author of the legendary The Many Headed Hydra, writes of popular heroism and resistance in the favelas of Medellin, Colombia. Alexander Cockburn reports on how America’s oldest bank, patronized by the global elites, washed billions smuggled out of Russia, and how the Russians might win their money back, shaking the world’s banking system if they do so. Serge Halimi describes the real battle for the soul of Europe. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
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Today's Stories August 18, 2008 Tariq Ali August 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Deepak Tripathi Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Robert Fantina Ray McGovern Nicole Colson Fatima Bhutto Jean-Luis Rocca David Michael Green Ramzi Kysia Dave Lindorff Lisa Martinovic Richard Rhames Don Santina Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud John Stanton Howard Lisnoff Ron Jacobs Seth Sandronsky Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
August 15, 2008 Steve Niva David Remington Michael Winship Paul Craig Roberts Farzana Versey Harvey Wasserman Felice Pace Julian Critchley Website of the Day August 14, 2008 Saul Landau / Conn Hallinan Mike Whitney Reza Fiyouzat Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli The Cheerleader in China Jack Bradigan Spula Patrick Irelan John Walsh Dan Bacher Website of the Day
August 13, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts David Remington Brian Cloughley Glen Ford Brendan Cooney Dave Lindorff Tom Lewis Stan Cox Alan Farago Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day August 12, 2008 Uri Avnery Anthony DiMaggio Bill Christison Eric Walberg Kate Connolly Diane Farsetta Peter Morici Thom Rutledge Lee Patton Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day August 11, 2008 Ishmael Reed Paul Craig Roberts Gary Leupp Douglas Kammen William Willers Greg Moses Jeff Leys Cynthia McKinney Alan Farago Website of the Day August 9 / 10, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Bruce Jackson Kevin Young Chris Floyd Joshua Frank Robert Fantina Brendan Cooney Mark Almond Lois Gibbs Rev. William Alberts Kathy Kelly John Ross David Michael Green Bill Moyers / Ron Jacobs Richard Rhames David Yearsley Lee Sustar Brenda Norrell Ben Terrall Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 8, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Manuel Garcia, Jr. M. Shahid Alam Andy Worthington Lawrence J. Korb David Model Alan Farago Diop Olugbala Firmin DeBrabander Website of the Day August 7, 2008 Dr. Trudy Bond William Blum Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Robert Weitzel Jacob G. Hornberger Binoy Kampmark David Macaray Howard Lisnoff Website of the Day August 6, 2008 Marc Herold Greg Moses Sheldon Rampton Kevin Young Michael Estrada Robert Weissman Dr. Susan Block Cindy Sheehan Ace Hoffman Website of the Day August 5, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Jeff Halper Patrick Cockburn Nancy Welch Peter Morici Sousan Hammad Eamon Martin Shepherd Bliss Tim Matson Website of the Day August 4, 2008 Uri Avnery Saul Landau David W. Remington Rev. Jesse Jackson Dave Lindorff Peter Morici Joanne Mariner Ramzy Baroud Christian Wright Website of the Day August 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Winslow T. Wheeler James Abourezk Andy Worthington Brian Cloughley Robert Fantina Benjamin Dangl Marlene Martin David Yearsley Fatemeh Keshavarz David Michael Green Obama as Dukakis Harvey Wasserman Jason Hribal Phyllis Pollack Laray Polk Ron Jacobs David Macaray David Rosen Dan Bacher Joe Allen Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 1, 2008 Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff Rannie Amiri Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli M. K. Bhadrakumar Patrick Cockburn James J. Brittain Dan Bacher Website of the Day
July 31, 2008 Michael Hudson Carl Finamore Mike Whitney Joshua Frank Andy Worthington Ralph Nader Bill Moyers / Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day July 30, 2008 Brian M. Downing Chuck Spinney William S. Lind David Ker Thomson Karl Grossman Mike Whitney Martha Rosenberg James Murren Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Website of the Day July 29, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair John Ross Peter Morici Alison Weir Gary Leupp David Macaray Brenda Norrell Marjorie Cohn Eric Ruder Website of the Day July 28, 2008 Dr. Bryant Welch Kathy Kelly Mike Whitney Peter Morici Christopher Brauchli Clifton Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
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August 18, 2008 The Humbling of the HyperpowerRussia's Georgia Campaign and the Expansion of NATOBy GARY LEUPP Many are drawing analogies between the U.S.-led attack on Yugoslavia in 1999 and the Russian attack on Georgia earlier this month. Most, including Russian officials, do so to highlight the hypocrisy of Washington’s criticism of Russia’s action. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, went so far as to state last week, “If we had the territorial integrity of Serbia in the case of Kosovo, then we would have the territorial integrity of Georgia . . . with regard to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.” He added that NATO’s war in 1999 “takes away the right to criticise Russia for any present or future action.” Surely one can ask: What right has the U.S., which led the assault on Yugoslavia ostensibly to protect the beleaguered Albanians of Kosovo, to condemn the Russians for advancing into Georgia to protect the South Ossetians who’d just been subjected (as AP acknowledges) to “a massive assault”? What right does the U.S., which led the bombardment of Belgrade, have to criticize Russia’s bombardment of Gori (sparing the Georgian capital of Tbilisi)? What right does the U.S., which this year recognized Kosovo as an independent country, have to challenge the Russian foreign minister’s pronouncement that Tbilisi can “forget about” retaining South Ossetia and Abkhazia whose citizens plainly want out of the Georgian state? There are many parallels between these two situations, the first and second wars in Europe since 1945. In 1989 Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic exploiting Serbian nationalism revoked Kosovo’s autonomous status. In that same year the Soviet Republic of Georgia’s parliament abolished South Ossetian autonomy, soon imposing Georgian as the only official language throughout the country. In both cases the withdrawal of autonomy was met with resistance, and ethnic violence and repression produced tens of thousands of refugees. In both cases a major power intervened, ostensibly to help the victims, with overwhelming military force. But without justifying either attack it’s important to recognize some important differences. Kosovo is thousands of miles away from the U.S., whereas South Ossetia borders Russia. Kosovo has little relationship to U.S. national security, while the situation in South Ossetia impacts the security of the whole Caucasus region including southern Russia. Milosevic sent federal troops into Kosovo in 1998 to back up police in suppressing the separatist movement; Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili bombed the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali in an effort to destroy the autonomous government and occupy the city with tanks. When the U.S.-led NATO forces attacked Yugoslavia, Kosovo was under Belgrade’s control. NATO had to bomb Kosovo and Belgrade to force the Serbian troops out. When Russia attacked Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia had acquired de facto independence and South Ossetia’s legislature had requested integration into the Russian Federation. Milosevic and Saakashvili both felt justified in attacking secessionist movements in their countries. But the former attacked a disordered province lacking effective leadership while the latter attacked what was in essence a country effectively divorced from Georgia since 1992. Bill Clinton acted in 1999 to show the world what happens when a third-rate power defies U.S. demands. (These had included a demand for Belgrade to allow NATO forces access to the roads and airspace not only of Kosovo but the entire country of Yugoslavia in order to avoid a U.S. attack.) He acted to expand NATO’s reach as global policeman; one of the largest U.S. bases in the world has since been established in Kosovo and 15,000 NATO-led forces remain there. Ostensibly the U.S. moved to protect the Kosovars from “ethnic cleansing” at the hands of the Serbs, but it was clear within a year that the pre-war allegations of hundreds of thousands of victims of Serbian violence, disseminated by the likes of U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, were pure disinformation. Only about 2000 persons in Kosovo (including Serbs and Roma) had been killed before the bombing started. The real ethnic bloodletting began with the war. In part., the Russian leadership acted on August 7 to show what happens when the leader of a neighboring country hostile to itself launches missile attacks against Russia’s friends (and in the South Ossetian case, for the most part Russian passport-bearers). It acted to assure its friends that Moscow has the will and might to protect them. On the face of it, the Russian action against Georgia seems more justifiable and understandable than the U.S. action against Yugoslavia. But that of course is not saying much. Both the U.S. and Russia are imperialist powers whose rulers go to war for reasons of profit and geopolitical strategizing that have little to do with the stated casus belli. In the background of the Georgia conflict loom the issues of U.S.-Russian competition for control of the flow of Caspian oil and gas and the expansion of NATO. During the Soviet period, the resources under and around the Caspian Sea were Soviet state property and a major source of foreign exchange. Now most belong to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, all courted by the U.S. bloc to cooperate in the construction of pipelines bypassing Russia (and Iran). In May 2005 a new pipeline built by a British Petroleum-led consortium began delivering oil from Turkmenistan to the Turkish seaport of Ceyhan, running through Georgia. Intended to reduce western dependence on Middle East and Russian oil, it inaugurates a new period of struggle for control that recalls the “Great Game” between Britain and Russia in Central Asia in the nineteenth century. It’s classical inter-imperialist contention. The expansion of NATO is, from the Russian perspective, even more provocative. In July 1991, as the Soviet bloc and USSR itself were falling apart, the Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved. Conceived of as a defensive pact, NATO lost its raison d’être. Then-Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev claims the U.S. administration promised him at the time that NATO would not expand to include former Soviet allies. Instead it has expanded inexorably. On March 12, 1999---two weeks before the commencement of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia---Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined the alliance. In 2004, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria joined. The first two of these countries border Russia. It is like having a global alliance designed to contain U.S. power expanding to include Mexico. Now Washington advocates the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO; George Bush promised it at the last alliance meeting (in Bucharest, Romania). They border Russia to the west and south and their inclusion would mean NATO encirclement of Russia. Since 2002 NATO has led the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the Russian leadership has to be nervous about permanent U.S. bases in that Central Asian country. All of these nations are a long ways from the North Atlantic. U.S. officials tell Moscow not to worry; NATO’s not directed at them. But this is obviously disingenuous. Washington has been pressing Poland and the Czech Republic to accept the installation of a ballistic missile defense system which the Russians have argued weakens their own deterrent capacity. The missiles, the U.S. replies, aren’t directed against Russia but against “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea---as though either of those countries is likely to attack Europe. On August 16, Poland signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. to establish the system bitterly opposed by Moscow. Surely the timing was no coincidence, following the Polish foreign minister’s visit to Tbilisi to support Saakashvili after the Russian attack and Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s allegation that the EU shows “submissiveness” in its policy towards Russia. In this context, Washington gave its good friend Saakashvili the green light to attack South Ossetia. It’s quite likely that most conspiratorial of warmongers Vice President Dick Cheney was deeply involved; he called Saakashvili on August 10 to inform him that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.” Asked for clarification, Cheney’s office replied, “This must not stand.” That is precisely the phrase the first President Bush used after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, before the U.S. attacked Iraq the first time. Russia under Putin never urged Milosevic to crack down on Kosovo; the Serb was nobody’s puppet. Moscow did not use the Kosovo crisis to provoke the U.S. but cooperated in the Rambouillet discussions until the U.S. made demands on Belgrade no sovereign nation could possibly accept. (The French foreign minister Hubert Védrine at the time suggested the U.S. had evolved beyond superpower status to become an hyperpuissance or “hyper-power”). The U.S. in contrast has apparently used South Ossetia’s aspirations for secession to provoke Russia in its own “near abroad.” It’s hard to know who that might help. John McCain, who’s personally close to Saakashvili (and whose chief foreign policy advisor, neocon Randy Schuememann, has made $ 800,000 lobbying for the Georgian regime)? Even though the mainstream media has been predictably perverse in its depiction of recent events, placing the onus on Russia, I doubt that the defense of Georgia against Russia will become a major campaign issue. The 1999 war was designed to expand NATO; the Russian attack on Georgia was designed in part to thwart its further growth. Russia has been on a defensive posture for sixteen years, accepting humiliation after humiliation. But with a real GDP now exceeding that of France and equal that of the U.K., Russia is back. The U.S. has taken a hit in the Caucasus, and seems powerless to respond meaningfully. Its actions in response to Russia are constrained by dissent within NATO ranks, especially from Germany 40% dependent on Russian natural gas. Abdullah Gül, the president of NATO-member Turkey told British journalists over the weekend, “I don't think you can control all the world from one center ... What we have to do is, instead of unilateral actions, act all together, make common decisions and have consultations with the world. A new world order, if I can say it, should emerge.” The hyperpower is humbled, as an old superpower revives. One shouldn’t side with one imperialist against another, as though selecting a lesser evil, but wish a plague on both their houses. Still, any blow to the ballooning NATO alliance is probably a good thing. Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades. He can be reached at: gleupp@granite.tufts.edu
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