|
|
|
The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! How Cops Extort Confessions;
|
home / subscribe / donate / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
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.
|
Today's Stories August 16 / 17, 2008 Conn Hallinan Robert Fantina
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
|
Weekend Edition Imminent Threats Should Still be a Belli LaughForging the Case for WarBy DAVE LINDORFF Amid all the talk about Bush/Cheney administration conspiracies to forge documents or engage in “false flag” tactics in order to “get the war on” against Iraq, and about similar current efforts to get a new war going against Iran, lost has been the fact that many of the things that the administration falsely claimed as cassus belli actually don’t even qualify, whether they were true or not. Take the infamous receipts which the administration claimed were proof that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy 400 tons of yellowcake uranium ore from the landlocked African nation of Niger—documents which were demonstrably forgeries, and which were composed on stationary that had been stolen during a suspicious break-in into the Niger Embassy in Rome during the first month of the Bush presidency in an incident which had all the markings of an intelligence agency black-bag job (the only things stolen were the stationary and some official stamps!). Aside from the absurdity of thinking that Niger’s mining officials would have put their names and official stamps on documents proving that they were engaged in illegal activity—providing nuclear material to a nation under an international embargo—or that Hussein would have asked for a receipt—the point is that obtaining uranium ore is a long, long way from having a nuclear bomb. As we have seen from the Iranian situation, it takes years and years, and enormous expenditure of funds for centrifuge arrays, plus the development of technologies for actually constructing a bomb, before even a test model can be made from yellowcake ore. No one ever claimed that Iraq had even one working centrifuge. So when president Bush ominously told Congress and the American people in his Jan. 29, 2003 State of the Union message that “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein has recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” he was not talking about something that posed an “imminent threat” to anyone, American or otherwise. Never mind that he also knew, as he was speaking, that the documents that the British government had were papers he had been shown a year earlier, and which his own intelligence services had already spotted as forgeries (the signers were not even in office as of the dates of the alleged documents). Lying aside, the point, which members of Congress and the media completely failed to mention, was that under the UN Charter and the Nuremberg Charter, a country is only allowed to launch a war of preemption if it is faced with “imminent threat” of attack. The fake yellowcake purchase was not an imminent threat by any stretch of the most fevered imagination. The same can be said of those equally infamous aluminum tubes, which the administration claimed, fraudulently, to be likely parts for future Iraqi centrifuges for the refining of uranium gas into bomb-grade U-235. In fact, those tubes had been anodized, making them unusable for centrifuge purposes, and moreover, they were pre-cut, making them too short for the purpose. In fact, they were intended as tactical battlefield rocket casings, were totally legal for Iraq to be purchasing, and posed no “imminent threat” to the US. But that’s not the point. Even if they had been components for illegal Iraqi centrifuges, and even if Iraq back in 2003 had the wherewithal to construct those centrifuges (Iran has just been buying them already made, which tells us how likely it was that Hussein would have tried to make his own), he still would have been years away from making significant quantities of U-235, much less a test bomb. Note again that Iran has had hundreds, even thousands of centrifuges running now for over a year, and even the Israelis say that the Iranians are a year or more away from making a bomb today (Of course, Iran says it isn’t even trying to make a bomb, or to make bomb-grade uranium, and there is no hard evidence to dispute that claim.) The point here is that the mere buying of those aluminum tubes, had they truly been intended for centrifuge purposes, was not a legitimate cause for the US to invade Iraq. We need to look back at these issues because even today, while the focus is on whether the president and his administration lied or forged evidence for going to war on Iraq, nobody is talking about why members of Congress—including those who opposed going to war—and especially members of the corporate media—took at face value the administration’s bogus claims that this “evidence” constituted legitimate grounds for launching a war. It is important to ask these questions because now we are close to a seeing a disastrous war launched against Iran, which also poses no imminent threat to the US. Even if—and it is a big, unproven if—Iran were involved in a secret project to make nuclear weapons, that country would be at least a year away from being able to do so, and probably even five years away. And even if the Iranians were to build a weapon, they would have to test it before risking using it, meaning that the US would have fair warning that a bomb existed. And even if they tested such a bomb, they would have no way to launch it at the US, or probably even Israel. (The missiles that Iran has tested may be able to reach Israel, but, based upon existing Scud technology, they would be as likely to hit the target as were Iraq’s notoriously inaccurate Scuds. That is to say, Iran, if it launched a nuclear-tipped rocket at Israel, would be as likely to hit Gaza, the Dome of the Rock Mosque in Jerusalem or Bethlehem as it would be to hit the Knesset building.) Furthermore, the mere fact of Iran's having a nuclear bomb would not make it any more of an imminent threat to the US or its allies than does Russia's having nuclear bombs. Look at India and Pakistan. Implacable enemies who have even fought pitched battles against each other while both having the bomb, neither has used such devastating weapons against the other. Nor are they likely to. There is no way, in other words, that Iran—even if it were shown to be making a nuclear weapon—poses an imminent threat to the US or even to Israel, such that a preemptive war would be justified. So as the US boosts its Naval armada around Iran, and keeps upping the bellicose rhetoric of war (and as Barak Obama and John McCain continue to insist that in their administrations “nothing” would be off the table to prevent a nuclear Iran), it is critical that the American public demand that both Congress and the media put administration claims to that acid test: where’s the imminent threat? DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His latest book is “The Case for Imeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
|
Now Available from CounterPunch Books!
RED STATE REBELS:
Edited by  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy AMERICAN BOOK AWARD!  Click Here to Buy! Click Here for Dates & Venues Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz  Click Here to Buy! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order! How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism     
    
 
 Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont               CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed                   |
