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Read Cockburn and St. Clair's Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press and discover how the CIA gave a helping hand to the opium lords who took over Afghanistan, thus ushering the Taliban into power.


CounterPunch: Complete Coverage of 9/11 and the War on Afghanistan

New Print Edition of CounterPunch Published January 21: the Enron Follies: buying a longterm lease on the White House; how Enron CEO lamented "Unfortunately, workers aren't slaves"; George Bush crony now Pakistan lobbyist; the Rise and Fall of Death Row Records; Cuba Travel Advisory; Black Hawk Bilge Subscribe Now!

January 31, 2002

Rahul Mahajan
State of the Union:
A New Cold War

Alexander Cockburn
American Journal:
Killer Dog, Weird Couple

Dr. Susan Block
Blowback and Daniel Pearl

January 30, 2002

Jeffrey St. Clair
Linda Lay, Hill and Knowlton and the Tears of a Clown

Jack McCarthy
Free Noelle Bush!

Michael Ratner
Memo to Bush: Adhere to
the Geneva Convention

Jay Moore
Proud to be an American?

Susan Block
The Great Pretzel Swallower
and Guantanamo Porn

January 29, 2002

Gary Leupp
Why This War Was, and Remains, Utterly Wrong

Alexander Cockburn
The Birds of Kandahar

Patrick Cockburn
Afghan Opium Trade
Back in Business

January 28, 2002

Larry Chin
Brosnahan for the Defense

Mokhiber/Weissman
Tyranny of the Bottom Line

George E. Curry
Civil Rights Nominee Called Affirmative Action "Racist"

Sen. Russ Feingold
Campaign Finance Reform?
Think Enron

John Chuckman
Liberal? Media?

January 27, 2002

Mokhiber and Weissman
Enron's Drip, Drip, Drip

Tom Turnipseed
MLK Jr.'s Dream Perverted

January 26, 2002

Norman Madarsz
Adieu, Bourdieu

January 25, 2002

National Lawyers Guild
Know Your Rights

Alexander Cockburn
You Call This Terrorism?

CounterPunch Wire
Cal Energy Crisis Hoax:
It Wasn't A Shortage,
It Was a Shakedown

Tariq Ali
Kashmir, Klinghoffer,
the Kurds and Chomsky

Nadine Strossen
Protecting MLK Jr.'s Legacy:
Justice and Liberty After 9/11

January 24, 2002

Robert Fisk
Turkey Targets Chomsky

Dean Baker
Lying on Top:
Ken Lay One of Many

David Vest
Idiot Wind

January 23, 2002

Terry Waite
Guantanamo Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?

Molly Secours
The Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty

Robert Jensen
Speak Out, Get Slimed


A Photographic Journal of Life in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann

Resources:
100s of Links About 9/11


CounterPunch:
Complete Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath


Five Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond

By Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula

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Published Oct. 15, 2001

8-Page Special Issue

War Diary

CIA's Assassination Plan a History of Torture in US Prisons

bin Laden and Bush Business Connections

Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype of US Food Bombs

Peter Linebaugh on Pakistan

Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher

Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em


Search CounterPunch

Read Whiteout and Find Out How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden

Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the Press

by Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism

By Rahul Mahajan

The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff

The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid

Edited by Roane Carey

A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine

Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair

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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual


Private Warriors
by Ken Silverstein

CounterPunch's Booktalk

January 31, 2002

Miles Copeland, Son of a Spook

The Titanic Sails at Dawn

By Dave Marsh

"To attack the business at a time when we are facing serious challenges that undermine the entire base of the industry is like arguing about the size of your room and the price of your ticket when you're on the Titanic and you're about to hit the iceberg," said Miles Copeland at the Future of Music Conference.

As a Titanic passenger let me point out that it's the perfect time to change captains. The people who steered us into the iceberg won't be the perfect ones to help us survive the collison. Can you imagine standing at the rail, listening to the cry: "Moguls and A&R men first!"

Miles Copeland is the son and namesake of a notorious CIA ferret, who boasts about his role in overthrowing democratic governments in Iran and Egypt. Thus, one might argue, Miles Sr. personally instigated the war presently being prosecuted by the son and namesake of another CIA veteran. But we can't blame Miles the Younger for that (even though I've always been curious about who might have traveled with the Police on all those Third World tours Miles managed.) Anyhow, I don't hate Copeland, I love him for bludgeoning every ideological point his confederates are too chickenshit to say out loud.

Our Miles Copeland, former manager of the Police and current owner of Ark 21 Records, is a propagandist for virtuous entrepreneurship. His task is mainly to ensure that the real issues-who owns what; what the owners have done with their "property" (the stuff you think of as music); whether anyone except the owners gets a say in how things change-never get discussed. Copeland does this by insisting that the bad guys are greedy artists and thieving consumers.

This isn't a full-time job because most of the time nobody would dare raise such questions in public. When they are raised, the subject is very skillfully changed. There's no need to suppress the rude person who raised the question-more likely, that person will be exalted. So Ani DiFranco is lauded not for subverting the music cartel's scam but because Righteous Babe Records became a profitable business. She becomes not a rebel but the very paragon of entrepreneurship.

In the wake of being forced to change the cover of the Coup's Party Music album, which showed the World Trade Center in smoke, rapper Boots did everything he could to make his political position clear. He talked about American crimes in countries like Sudan. He even said, "Our fans know that we advocate a violent overthrow of the system."

When this appeared in Rolling Stone, it became "we do not advocate," which the Rolling Stone reporter attributed to being "edited under an extremely frenetic atmosphere." In my day, this would have meant Jann Wenner was on a binge, but back then, even the tyranny of the loaded owner/editor didn't change the stuff within quote marks. Perhaps today's Rollling Stone fact-checkers simply couldn't believe that anyone would say such a thing.

The Wall Street Journal wrote a story about Boots but it wasn't about Party Music or his desire that "people hear it and get involved in movements and campaigns." It's about Boots becoming a media celebrity in spite of his politics: as guest on Politically Incorrect. Maybe they could invite Miles Copeland, too. After all, Party Music's lead track is "5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO."

Dave Marsh coedits Rock and Rap Confidential. He can be reached at: marsh6@optonline.net