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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! From Nixon to Sarah Palin
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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!
From Nixon to Sarah Palin
What’s happened to the Republican Party? What’s happened to populism? Read Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair on the life and death of Nixonland, and the class politics of the war over Sarah Palin. ALSO in our new subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter, read Serge Halimi on how Russia gave Georgia and the U.S.a well-deserved black eye. PLUS Carrie Dann’s wonderful first-hand account of the fight of the Western Shoshone to reclaim their land. 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 September 10, 2008 Conn Hallinan Peter Morici September 9, 2008 Michael Colby Chellis Glendinning Vijay Prashad Jeffery R. Webber/ David Michael Green Brian J. Foley John Ross Pierre M. Sprey / Nicole Colson Marc Gardner William S. Lind Website of the Day
September 8, 2008 Mike Whitney Tariq Ali Pam Martens Bill Quigley Malini Johar Schueller / Robert Jensen Uri Avnery Win McCormack Howard Lisnoff Maria C. Khoury Website of the Day September 6 / 7, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Linn Washington, Jr. Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Nancy Kurshan William Blum Michael Winship Fred Gardner Nikolas Kozloff Wajahat Ali Robert Fantina Karyn Strickler David Yearsley Richard Rhames James L. Secor Missy Beattie Eric Patton Ben Terrall Thom Rutledge Dan Bacher David Macaray Jane Stillwater Grady Harper Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend September 5, 2008 Elizabeth Walters Bill Quigley Alan Farago Dave Lindorff Ira Glunts Peter Morici Deepak Tripathi Manuel Garcia, Jr. Michael Donnelly Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day September 4, 2008 Jeffrey St. Clair Paul Craig Roberts Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Andy Worthington Osama Dawoud Stephen Lendman Fidel Castro Website of the Day September 3, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Sen. Mike Gravel Vijay Prashad Nikolas Kozloff Ralph Nader Howard Lisnoff Steve Early / Cal Winslow Shepherd Bliss Bill Quigley Website of the Day
September 2, 2008 Marjorie Cohn Jonathan Cook Robert Weitzel Corey D. B. Walker John Ross Eric Walberg Judith Scherr Richard Morse B. R. Gowani Michael Greenberg Website of the Day September 1, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff C. G. Estabrook Manuel Garcia, Jr. David Macaray B. R. Gowani Saul Landau Charles Orloski Gloria La Riva Website of the Day August 30 / 31, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Bill Quigley Jeffrey St. Clair Andy Worthington Deepak Tripathi Stanley Howard Dave Lindorff Wajahat Ali Robert Fantina Josh Schlossberg Benjamin Dangl Missy Beattie Howard Lisnoff Suzan Mazur Rev. Jim Rigby David Yearsely Serge Quadruppani B.R. Gowani Richard Rhames Poets' Basement Website of the Day
August 29, 2008 Mike Whitney Brian Cloughley David Ker Thomson Joanne Mariner Neve Gordon Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Michael Donnelly August 28, 2008 Judy Gumbo Albert Paul Cantor Saul Landau / Andy Worthington Ben Terrall Leonard Peltier Niranjan Ramakrishnan Donna J. Volatile Website of the Day
August 27, 2008 Anthony DiMaggio Jordan Flaherty Ralph Nader Melissa Checker Bob Sommer Cynthia McKinney Ali Khan M. Junaid Levesque-Alam Dave Lindorff David Macaray Website of the Day
August 26, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Michael D. Yates Paul Craig Roberts Andy Worthington Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Huwaida Arraf Joseph Grosso Sheldon Richman Binoy Kampmark Website of the Day August 25, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook James McEnteer Uri Avnery Will Potter Robert Jensen Stephen Lendman Wajahat Ali Carl Finamore Website of the Day August 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patty O'Grady Nicole Colson Steve Conn Deepak Trapathi Robert Fantina Jonathan M. Feldman Joshua Frank Osama Qashoo Howard Lisnoff David Michael Green Dave Lindorff Christopher Brauchli Alan Farago Michael Winship Richard Rhames David Rosen Patrick B. Barr Jamie Newlin Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 22, 2008 Boris Kagarlitsky Laura Carlsen Bob Barr Marwan Bishara Peter Morici Manuel Garcia, Jr. Charles Mostoller Sumbul Ali-Karamali Keith Rosenthal John F. Miglio Website of the Day August 21, 2008 Allan J. Lichtman Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It Ralph Nader Joanne Mariner Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Rostam Purzal Anthony Papa Website of the Day August 20, 2008 Michael Neumann Ray McGovern Eric Walberg Fidaa Abed Daniel Haack Mike Whitney Website of the Day August 19, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Deepak Tripathi Marwan Bishara Saul Landau William S. Lind Martha Rosenberg James Brittain Pratyush Chandra David Macaray Website of the Day |
September 10, 2008 Where Are Her Children?The Horrendous Case of Aafia SiddiquiBy JOANNE MARINER Everyone agrees that she's a 36-year-old mother of three young children. But while the New York Post calls her the "Al Qaeda mom," and federal prosecutors claim that when she was arrested in July she was carrying a bag packed with chemicals and handwritten notes about a "mass casualty attack," Aafia Siddiqui's lawyers say she's a victim. "This woman has been tortured and she needs help," explained Elizabeth Fink, one of her defense counsel, at an August 11 court hearing. Siddiqui disappeared in Pakistan in March 2003. Together with her three children - then aged 6 years, 5 years, and 6 months - she reportedly left her parents' home in Karachi to visit her uncle in Islamabad, but never arrived. Last July, more than five years later, she mysteriously reappeared in US custody in Afghanistan. Based on their interviews with her, and a pattern of similar cases, her lawyers claim that she has spent the last five years as a secret captive of Pakistani or American authorities. Siddiqui's oldest child, Ahmed, was found with her in Afghanistan. The whereabouts of her two younger children are unknown. Disappearance from Karachi, Reappearance in Ghazni The name Aafia Siddiqui first came to public attention on March 18, 2003, when the FBI issued an alert requesting information about her. Siddiqui, a US-educated neuroscientist, was then living in Pakistan. The US government later alleged that Siddiqui was linked to al Qaeda suspects Majid Khan and Ali 'Abd al-'Aziz Ali (also known as Ammar al-Baluchi), and news outlets reported that she had acted as an al Qaeda fixer. Majid Khan and Ali 'Abd al-'Aziz Ali both disappeared from Karachi at almost precisely the same time as Siddiqui did. They did not reappear until September 2006, after their transfer to Guantanamo from CIA custody. For more than three years, they had been secretly held by the CIA or one of the CIA's proxies. Like many others, they had been arrested by the Pakistani intelligence services and handed over to CIA as part of the "war on terror." When Siddiqui disappeared, on approximately March 28, 2003, the Pakistani papers mentioned reports that she had been "picked up in Karachi by an intelligence agency" and "shifted to an unknown place for questioning." A year later, in a follow-up story, the Pakistani papers quoted a Pakistani government spokesman who said that she had been handed over to US authorities in 2003. But unlike Khan and a number of others, Siddiqui did not reappear in US custody in 2006; nor was she heard from in 2007. It was not until July 2008, after her case had started gaining political notoriety, that she suddenly reappeared in Afghanistan. According to the official US account, Afghan police arrested Aafia Siddiqui and her son in Ghazni, Afghanistan, on July 17, 2008. The federal indictment against Siddiqui states that the Afghan police officers who arrested her found suspicious items in her handbag, including notes referring "to the construction of 'dirty bombs,' chemical and biological weapons, and other explosives." Siddiqui's lawyers reject this account, suggesting that the charges against Siddiqui are a sham. US federal prosecutors allege that the day after her arrest, while still in Afghan custody, she grabbed a gun from the floor and fired it at a team of US soldiers and federal intelligence agents who were visiting the Afghan police compound where she was being held. Nobody was killed in the scuffle, but Siddiqui was injured. In August, she was charged with assaulting and trying to kill US officials. She is currently in US federal custody in New York City, awaiting arraignment. An Unlikely Story Siddiqui's story seems improbable, no matter which version you believe. If you trust the US story, you have to imagine that Siddiqui succeeded in hiding for more than five years -- despite the intense interest of US and Pakistani intelligence services - then decided to pop up in Afghanistan with an all-purpose terrorism kit, and then, upon her arrest, decided to take advantage of a security lapse to blast away at US soldiers and FBI agents. More than the al Qaeda mom, as the New York Post dubs her, she would have to be al Qaeda's Angelina Jolie. The claim that she was hidden away in secret detention all these years might seem equally unlikely. But when one realizes that the people she was allegedly linked to were themselves held in secret detention, and that the Pakistani intelligence services were covertly arresting dozens of people in Karachi during this period, the story gains plausibility. Because Siddiqui's disappearance fit neatly into a larger pattern, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and several other human rights groups included Siddiqui on a 2007 list of people suspected to have been in CIA custody. Although the US government has denied that the United States held Siddiqui during the period of her disappearance, the federal court that is hearing her case should facilitate an in-depth investigation of her lawyers' claims. The possibility that Siddiqui was held for five years in secret detention before her official arrest is not only deeply relevant to her mental state at the time of the alleged crimes, it goes to the integrity of the court's jurisdiction. 11-Year-Old Ahmed Siddiqui Besides the question of where Siddiqui herself has been all of the years, an even more pressing question is where are her children? To date, the whereabouts of the two youngest children - who should now be about 5 and 10 years old - are unknown. But Siddiqui's oldest son, Ahmed, an 11-year-old with American citizenship, is in Afghan custody. According to an Afghan Interior Ministry official quoted in the Washington Post, Ahmed Siddiqui was held briefly by the Interior Ministry when he was arrested with his mother in July, and then he was transferred to the custody of the Afghan National Directorate of Security (NDS), the country's intelligence agency. The NDS is notorious for its brutal treatment of detainees. Under Afghan and international law, Ahmed Siddiqui is too young to be treated as a criminal suspect. Under Afghanistan's Juvenile Code, the minimum age of criminal responsibility is 13. And according to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child, which monitors the treatment of children globally, a minimum age of criminal responsibility below age 12 is "not ... internationally acceptable." Human Rights Watch has called upon the Afghan authorities to release Ahmed Siddiqui to members of his biological family, who reside in Pakistan, or to a child welfare organization that can provide proper care until he is reunited with his family. As Human Rights Watch has emphasized, an 11-year-old should never have been transferred to the custody of the NDS. "Treatment Fairly Characterized as Horrendous" Siddiqui's lawyers say that she is a physical and psychological wreck. Her nose has reportedly been broken; she is deathly pale, and her mental state is extremely fragile. Siddiqui refused to attend her most recent court hearing, unhappy with the prospect of an invasive strip search, but at an early hearing she seemed in obvious pain. "She is a mother of three who has been through several years of detention, whose interrogators were Americans, [and] who endured treatment fairly characterized as horrendous," said Elaine Sharp, one of Siddiqui's lawyers. As this case progresses, in the coming weeks and months, the court should ensure that the public learns the truth of these claims. Joanne Mariner is an attorney with Human Rights Watch in New York.
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