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Meat and Empire
The pig-raising factories of Smithfield Farms stretch from Mexico to Rumania and back to home sty in North Carolina, where swine flu first mutated. Viewing Earth from outer space an alien ecologist might conclude cows are the dominant species of our planet. Alexander Cockburn on the conquest landscapes of the meat-producers. Nanotechnologies, say their boosters, are changing the way people think about the future. They rush to buy nano-products. But how safe are they? Steven Higgs has a chastening message for us. And Senator James Abourezk concludes his vivid “Adventures in Indian Country”, with the story of the occupation of Wounded Knee. Yes, he was there and he was one scared senator. Get your new edition 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 May 18, 2009 Dave Lindorff Abdul Malik Mujahid Ben Rosenfeld Patrick Cockburn May 15-17, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair David Rosen Mike Whitney Bruce Page Jeremy Scahill Fred Gardner Tom Barry Mats Svensson Ramzy Baroud Mark Engler Mark Weisbrot Farzana Versey Ron Jacobs Hannah Wolfe Cal Winslow David Macaray Christopher Brauchli Mark Seth Lender Robert Fantina David Ker Thomson Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Chase Madar Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 14, 2009 Michael Hudson Andy Worthington Paul Craig Roberts Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Lance Selfa David Green Dave Lindorff Frida Berrigan Sue Udry Website of the Day May 13, 2009 Brian M. Downing Gareth Porter Robert Sandels Ricardo Alarcón Eric Walberg Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi William S. Lind Kevin Zeese Franklin Lamb Website of the Day May 12, 2009 Gary Leupp Richard Neville Wajahat Ali Dean Baker Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Paul Craig Roberts Lisa M. Hamilton Bob Fitrakis / David Macaray Website of the Day May 11, 2009 Andrea Peacock Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader John Kelly Saul Landau Dave Lindorff David Michael Green Anthony Papa Paul Krassner Website of the Day May 8-10, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Wolf Steve Niva Neve Gordon Mike Whitney Warren Hinckle Serge Halimi Gareth Porter Sharon Smith Andy Worthington Mark Weisbrot Rosa Miriam Elizalde Cyber Command and Cyber Dissident: More of the Same? David Macaray Missy Beattie Ron Jacobs Diane Farsetta Ramzy Baroud Phelie Maguire Robert Fantina Kevin Zeese Margaret Flowers, MD Dave Lindorff Richard Rhames Ben Sonnenberg Kim Nicolini Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 7, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Chris Floyd Andy Worthington Alan Farago Ray McGovern Dave Lindorff Eric Toussaint / Ana M. Malinow, MD Jeff Armstrong Norman Solomon Website of the Day May 6, 2009 Doug Peacock Patrick Cockburn Richard Neville Manuel Garcia, Jr. Winslow T. Wheeler Deepak Tripathi Stephen Soldz Reuven Kaminer David Macaray Kevin Zeese Marjorie Cohn Coalition for an Ethical Psychology Website of the Day
May 5, 2009 William Blum Uri Avnery Steven Higgs Dean Baker Daniel Wolff Sibel Edmonds Carole King Klein Fidel Castro Belén Fernández Dan Bacher Website of the Day May 4, 2009 James G. Abourezk Jeff Leys Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Jaime Avilés David Swanson Paul Craig Roberts P. Sainath Eugenia Tsao Benjamin Dangl Sami Al-Arian Website of the Day May 1 - 3, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Gary Leupp Peter Linebaugh Jeffrey St. Clair / C. G. Estabrook Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Pierre Sprey / Andy Worthington Mairead Maguire Nadia Hijab Diane Farsetta Michael Calderón-Zaks Richard Rhames Russell Mokhiber Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri Deb Reich Steven Higgs Brian Cloughley David Michael Green Farzana Versey Jim Goodman Carl Finamore Christopher Brauchli Susie Day David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Peter Stone Brown Poets' Basement Dominguez, Orloski and Springate Website of the Weekend April 30, 2009 Ellen Cantarow Dana L. Cloud Paul W. Lovinger / Binoy Kampmark Brian Downing Frank Snepp David Swanson Conn Hallinan Ron Jacobs John Goekler Jasmine L. Tyler / Website of the Day April 29, 2009 Joann Wypijewski Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Chris Floyd Dave Lindorff Jeremy Scahill Doug Henwood Michael Hudson Russell Mokhiber Eric Toussaint Website of the Day April 28, 2009 Uri Avnery Jeremy Scahill Dean Baker Michael D. Yates Conn Hallinan John Stauber Tom Barry Harvey Wasserman Jeff Nygaard Frederico Fuentes Website of the Day April 27, 2009 Pam Martens Patrick Cockburn Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission Mitu Sengupta Franklin Lamb Firmin DeBrabander Dave Lindorff Russell Mokhiber Mike Whitney Mark Weisbrot Rev. José M. Tirado Website of the Day April 24-26, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Marjorie Cohn Andy Worthington Jeremy Scahill Chris Floyd Mike Whitney Anthony DiMaggio Chris Kromm Saul Landau Dave Lindorff Greg Moses Joshua Frank Fred Gardner Manuel Garcia, Jr. David Michael Green Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri Laura Carlsen Richard Morse Nikolas Kozloff Kent Peterson Robert Bryce Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts Ron Jacobs Richard Rhames Stephen Martin David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend April 23, 2009 Eamonn Fingleton Ray McGovern Michael Ratner Alan Farago Rob Larson Nadia Hijab Fawzia Afzal-Khan Dave Lindorff Helen Redmond Adam Federman Website of the Day April 22, 2009 Chris Floyd Joanne Mariner Vijay Prashad Gareth Porter Dean Baker Peter Morici Winslow T. Wheeler Barucha Calamity Peller Harvey Wasserman Aisha Brown / Teo Ballvé Website of the Day April 21, 2009 Randy Rowland Dave Lindorff Fidel Castro George McGovern Greg Moses Benjamin Dangl Sonia Nettnin Frank Barat Binoy Kampmark John V. Walsh David Macaray Website of the Day April 20, 2009 Mike Whitney Andrea Peacock Henry A. Giroux Liaquat Ali Khan Fred Gardner Stephen Soldz Nadia Hijab Dave Lindorff P. Sainath Nelson P Valdés Mark Engler Belén Fernández Website of the Day
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May 18, 2009 Caught in a LieThe U.S. is Using White Phosphorous in AfghanistanBy DAVE LINDORFF When doctors started reporting that some of the victims of the US bombing of several villages in Farah Province last week—an attack that left between 117 and 147 civilians dead, most of them women and children—were turning up with deep, sharp burns on their body that “looked like” they’d been caused by white phosphorus, the US military was quick to deny responsibility. US officials—who initially denied that the US had even bombed any civilians in Farah despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, including massive craters where houses had once stood—insisted that “no white phosphorus” was used in the attacks on several villages in Farah. Official military policy on the use of white phosphorus is to only use the high-intensity, self-igniting material as a smoke screen during battles or to illuminate targets, not as a weapon against human beings—even enemy troops. Now that policy, and the military’s blanket denial that phosphorus was used in Farah, have to be questioned, thanks to a recent report filed from a remote area of Afghanistan by a New York Times reporter. C.J. Chivers, writing in the May 14 edition of the NY Times, in an article headlined “Korangal Valley Memo: In Bleak Afghan Outpost, Troops Slog On,” wrote of how an embattled US Army unit in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan, had come under attack following a morning memorial service for one of their members, Pfc. Richard Dewater, who had been killed the day before by a mine. Chivers wrote:
It is clear from this passage that the military’s use of the phosphorus shells had not been for the officially sanctioned purpose of providing cover. The soldiers had no intention of climbing that hill to attack the spotter on the ridge themselves. They were trying to destroy him with shells and bombs. In fact, the last thing they would have wanted to do was provide the spotter with a smoke cover, which would have helped him escape, and which also would have hidden him from the planes which had been called in to make gun runs at his position. Nor was this a case of illuminating the target. The incident, as Chivers reports, took place in daylight. Clearly then, this article shows that it is routine for soldiers to call in phosphorus rounds to attack enemy soldiers, which is supposed to be against US military policy for this material. Whoever was manning the howitzer had a stock of the weapons on hand, and was ready to fire them. The US initially flatly denied using white phosphorus weapons in Iraq, when reports first began to come out, including from US troops themselves, that they had been used extensively against insurgents defending the city of Fallujah against US Marines in November 2004. Under mounting pressure, the Pentagon first admitted that it had used the chemical in Fallujah but only “for illumination.” Later, the Pentagon added that it had used phosphorus as a “screen” to hide troops. But finally, in 2005, the Pentagon was forced to admit that it had also used white phosphorus directly as a weapon against enemy Iraqi troops in the assault on Fallujah, a city of 300,000 that still held many civilians. The same pattern of denial and eventual admission regarding the use of this controversial and deadly weapon by US forces now seems to be repeating itself in Afghanistan. It is odd that given the controversy over the use of white phosphorus weapons, which result in terrible wounds and eventual death as phosphorus particles burn their way down through flesh to the bone and sometimes straight onward through a body, leaving a charred channel of destruction, the New York Times’ Chivers—or perhaps his editors back in New York?—ignored any mention of the issue while reporting on the use of the chemical rounds to attack a lone spotter on the ridge. Given the current controversy over whether the US used white phosphorus shells or bombs in Falah Province only days before, it is hard to understand why the issue wasn’t mentioned in this particular article. Indeed, in the online version of the story, the word phosphorus is set as a hotlink to an article on the controversy over the battlefield use of phosphorus, indicating that at least someone at the Times has integrity and a good news sense. As for the US government and the Pentagon, it is clear that they know the weapon is a vicious and controversial one, and that besides causing horrific and painful wounds, it is profoundly dangerous for innocent civilians, particularly when used in town or village settings. It is bad enough that the US is using this weapon. It is even worse that it is forced to lie about it. Surely if the goal of US policy is to win the hearts and minds of Afghanistan’s people, it shouldn’t be using a weapon that causes such terrible and indiscriminate wounds. Then again, maybe winning those hearts and minds isn’t the goal. Maybe, as in the so-called “Pacification Program” applied by US forces in rural South Vietnam, the goal is to terrorize Afghan villagers in Taliban regions into rejecting the Taliban in their midst. Requests for answers from the press office at the Pentagon, and at military headquarters in Afghanistan regarding US policy on the use of white phosphorus, and on the specific use of the shells mentioned in the New York Times article were ignored. Dave Lindorff is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). He can be reached at dlindorff@mindspring.com |
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