CounterPunch's
Scorching New Book on a Decade of War
Order Now / Available in April
Today's
Stories
March 29, 2004
Kathy Kelly
Crossing Lines
March 27 / 28, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A
Journey to Rafah
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Dave Lindorff
Spineless of US Journalists
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
March 26, 2004
Christopher Brauchli
There's
a Chill Over the Country
Robert Fisk
The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal
of Mordechai Vanunu
Joe DeRaymond
Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again
Mike Whitney
Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon
Mickey Z.
Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead
Chris Floyd
The Pentagon Archipelago
CounterPunch Photo Wire
Cheney's Close Shave?
John Breneman
Bush's Comic Bomb
Website of the Day
Dick
is a Killer
March 25, 2004
Lee Sustar
Who
is to Blame for Lost Jobs?
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers
Roger Burbach
Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins
to Throw Off the Austerity Planners
Jimmer Endres
Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue"
Larry Tuttle
Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups
Toni Solo
Misreporting Venezuela
Dan Bacher
A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded
Saul Landau
Is
Venezuela Next?
Website of the Day
The Spiral Railway
March 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
General
Musharraf's IOU
Richard Oxman
Shakespeare
for Kerry
William Lind
The Beginning
of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq
Rep. Ron Paul
Iraq One Year Later
Michael Dempsey
Killing Rachel Corrie Again
Alan Farago
The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn
Benjamin Dangl
and April Howard
Media
in Cuba
John L. Hess
No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke
Greg Weiher
Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George"
Eva Golinger
An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela
Grayson Childs
Where's Cynthia McKinney?
Steve Niva
Israel's Assassinations will Only
Fuel More Suicide Bombings
Website of the Day
The Bushiad and the Idiossey
March 23, 2004
Phillip Cryan
The
Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks
Ron Jacobs
They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too?
Dave Lindorff
A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections
Mike Whitney
Richard Clarke and Teflon George
Brian McKinlay
Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble
JG
Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door"
Phyllis Pollack
Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black
CD
Ahmed Bouzid
Sharon's One-Way Track
Sean Carter
The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here]
M. Shahid Alam
World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie
March 22, 2004
Mazin Qumsiyeh
On Extrajudicial
Executions
Uri Avnery
The
Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime
Gilad Atzmon
Sharon's Rampage
Mike Whitney
Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee
Jason Leopold
Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy
Scam
Greg Moses
Stop
Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March
Phil Gasper
San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation
Lenni Brenner
Report
from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace
Julian Borger
The Clarke Revelations
Steve Perry
Karl Rove's Moment
Website of the Day
Enviros Against War
March 20 / 21, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Gay
Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path
Jeffrey St. Clair
Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne
Do?
Ted Honderich
Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act
Gary Leupp
On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ"
William A. Cook
Fence, Barrier, Wall
Phil Gasper
Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism
Ron Jacobs
Fox News and the Masters of War
John Stanton
Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon
Justin Felux
Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man
Mike Whitney
Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity
Augustin Velloso
Avoiding Osama's Abyss
Lawrence Magnuson
Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism?
Kathy Kelly
Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism
Tracy McLellan
Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun
Kurt Nimmo
Emma Goldman for President!
Luis J. Rodriguez
The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill
Mickey Z
The Michael Moore Diet
Jackie Corr
When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility
Poets' Basement
Stew Albert & JD Curtis
Website of the Weekend
Virtual World Election
March 19, 2004
Jeffrey St. Clair
Zapatero
to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home
Ann Harrison
So
Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights?
William MacDougall
Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants"
Greg Moses
Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote
Cynthia McKinney
Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup,
Mr. Bush
Norman Solomon
Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future
John L. Hess
"Missing" Evidence and the NYTs
Vicente Navarro
The
End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend
Website of the War
Naming the Dead
March 18, 2004
Gila Svirsky
Rachel
Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency
Christopher Brauchli
Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million
from Saddam
William Kulin
Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing
Mike Whitney
Resistance: a Moral Imperative
Rep. Ron Paul
Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment
Josh Frank
The Nader Question
Jack Random
They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy
Greg Bates
What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey
Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes
Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain
Gary Leupp
The
Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost
Website of the Day
Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key
March 17, 2004
Marjorie Cohn
Spain, the EU and the US: War on
Terror or Civil Liberties?
David MacMichael
Untruth
and Consequences
Michael Donnelly
Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer
Tom Stephens
"Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware
Wayne Madsen
Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out
Karyn Strickler
Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections
Peter Linebaugh
Bush:
Blanc Blanc
March 16, 2004
Lenni Brenner
James
Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights
Scott Boehm
Madrid
Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days
Alexander Lynch
From Franco to Aznar: the History
Behind the Spanish Elections
Sam Hamod and Alfredo
Reyes
The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway
Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg
You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way:
Executing David Clayton Hill
Mike Whitney
The Case for a Nuclear Iran
Robert Fisk
The Bloody Price of the "War
on Terror"
Bill Christison
The
Aftershocks from Madrid
CounterPunch Photo Wire
The Passion of St. Teresa
Website of the Day
Join the War on Art!
March 15, 2004
Harry Browne
Terror Nothing New to Europe
Mike Whitney
Justice
Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism
Lidice Valenzuela
Haiti: a Coup without Consultation
Greg Moses
Lessons
from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs
Mickey Z.
Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health
Asaf Shtull-Trauring
AWOL
in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer
CounterPunch Wire
Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!
March 12 / 14, 2004
Gabriel Kolko
The
Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power
Saul Landau
Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie!
William Blum
Neo-Con(tradictions)
William S. Lind
Why They Throw Rocks
Rahul Mahajan
The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us
All Less Safe
Neve Gordon
Demographic Wars
Kurt Nimmo
Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists
Mickey Z.
The "New" UN Blames the Poor
Mike Whitney
War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge
Helen Scott and Ashley
Smith
Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup?
Justin E.H. Smith
Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy
of the American Prison
Brandy Baker
Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On
Robin Philpot
Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report
on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding
Dave Zirin
She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith
Daniel Wolff
The Lord's Pier
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
March
29, 2004
Crisis in the Caribbean
A
Miasma Foretold
By JOHN MAXWELL
The Caribbean has now proven that it is even more
hopeless at diplomacy than it is at cricket. And, as in cricket,
those who are considered guilty are not those at the top but
the foot-soldiers.
Our gutless leaders--unable to look a
principle in the face--are, as I write on Friday, busy selling
the Haitian people down the river...again.
Meanwhile, the bombastic Latortue, fresh
from embracing a choice assemblage of bloody-handed murderers,
desires to sit at the table with people who consider themselves
upright, law abiding and above all, respectable. The Bahamas
put our position best: We simply have no choice but to deal with
whatever Haitian regime is there. Of course, if we don't, the
US might just find it necessary to issue a travel advisory about
Bubonic Plague or Ebola fever in Nassau or Negril. Condoleezza
Rice has apparently threatened Jamaica directly, telling Patterson
to get rid of Aristide or face unspecified consequences.
But, even as we speak, the Bush Administration
is beginning to unravel, unconscionable lie by unconscionable
lie. But we do not understand that the slavemaster is in deep
trouble and that we need not follow illegal orders. I have been
re-reading some of the columns I wrote 10 years ago and what
surprises me is that some of them might have been written last
week.
"We know that a corrupt army, representing
a corrupt ruling class, has for 80 years enslaved the people
of Haiti, shot them down in cold blood, tortured and beaten them,
burnt them alive, raped them, flogged them to death, and tried
by every means to reduce a once proud and defiant and independent
people to the status of zombies, lesser than animals, things
without souls . We know that there are many Americans who are
ashamed of their government's complicity in these high and stinking
crimes, we know that there are many others of all races in this
world, who, if they knew, would be in the struggle to restore
Haiti to its peace and dignity." ('Accomplices to Murder'--Jamaica
Herald, June 5, 1994).
Now, listen to someone else, a man who
is now a judge at the International War Crimes Tribunal in The
Hague. He too is a Jamaican; his name is Patrick Robinson. In
1994, he was a member of the Inter-American Commission on Human
Rights. On the very day my words above were published, Robinson
was in Belem, Brazil, presenting a report by the Commission.
I quoted him in a later column ('The New Slave Trade'--Ja Herald,
June 26, 1994)
Rape as an instrument
of policy
"The people in Haiti have the same
emotions and aspirations as the citizens of any other state in
the organisation. They have within themselves an enormous capacity
for warmth and love and friendship and endurance and a great
yearning for peace, justice and democracy. But a people do not
endure the hardships, the deprivation, the violence, the victimisation
and the enormous disappointments that the Haitians have experienced
over the past 32 months without their faith in humanity and their
expectations of decency and justice being challenged in a serious
way ."
Mr Robinson then goes on to detail just
how seriously the Haitians were challenged. As you read his words,
please remember that Mr Robinson is speaking about some of the
same people embraced last week by Mr Latortue:
"[We] received information of severely
mutilated bodies deposited on the streets, and a member of the
delegation actually saw one such body . the purpose of these
acts is to terrorise the population . human corpses are being
eaten by animals . numerous reports of arbitrary detentions routinely
accompanied by torture and brutal beatings . 55 cases of political
kidnapping and disappearances during February and March ."
Robinson's report told of the actions
of the so-called Haitian army and its assistants, the 'attaches'
or tontons in their campaign of terror against ordinary people
who supported Aristide. Rape, he reported, was used as an instrument
of policy. "The Commission received reports of rape and
sexual abuse of the wives and relatives of men who are active
supporters of President Aristide .women are also raped, not only
because of their relationship to men who support President Aristide,
but because they also support President Aristide; thus, sexual
abuse is used as an instrument of repression and political persecution."
Patrick Robinson is now doing in The
Hague what he and his fellows should have been asked to do in
Haiti. In the court across the Atlantic, they are trying people
accused of very serious crimes, but few as noisome and depraved
as those committed against the men, women and children of Haiti.
The world thinks it necessary to punish those in Yugoslavia who
warred like savages against their own people for two and three
years, but they forgot about those who had oppressed, murdered,
maimed, raped, tortured and otherwise terrorised millions in
'peacetime' in Haiti for more than 30 years.
I don't believe that people were killed
in Bosnia simply for trying to escape the country. As I reported
in 1994, "the Haitian Goonocracy obviously regard escaping
from their island prison as a capital offence. Yet the American
authorities, operating from Jamaican territory, continue to send
back to Haiti, men, women, children and babies who have committed
this 'offence' and are therefore likely in President Clinton's
words, "to have their faces chopped off".
And the men who were doing the chopping
were, last weekend, on a platform in Gonaives glorying in the
embrace of the newly anointed prime minister of Haiti. Latortue
was brought to the scene in US Army helicopters and accompanied
by the resident representative of the Organisation of American
States.
A Miasma foretold
That the assassins are still there was
foreseen by me in 1994. I had listened to the words of two top
US policymakers and drew my conclusions. James Woolsey, then
head of the CIA, said that the political problem in the Haitian
military was that it was the rank and file hooligans who were
the engine of change in the military. "It presents a very
difficult situation for the policymakers."
Defence Secretary William Perry told
the Canadian defence minister that opposition to Aristide extended
deep into the lower ranks of the Haitian military. Yet, Mr Perry
told Meet The Press that the United States "would want to
use as much of the existing military and military police as is
capable". I said at the time: "This would seem to suggest
that the Pentagon, and by extension the CIA and the State Department),
wish to preserve their assets in Haiti and to build into any
new Aristide government an American capacity for subversion and
destabilisation on demand." ('Imagine That!'--Ja Herald,
July 24, 1994).
I said at the time that the interests
of the Haitian Bourbons clearly coincided with the interests
of the American right. I wrote then : "Aristide and his
people agreed to allow an amnesty to the murdering hoodlums in
the military and the private sector who had supported the Duvaliers
and the Generals who had followed them. Aristide and his people
could have made government impossible in Haiti, army or no army.
They tried, instead, to work within the system." ('When
You Sup with the Devil'--Ja Herald Sept 25, 1994.)
Liberating the Vampire
In 1994, the Americans were intervening
for the 29th time in Haiti. It was my opinion that their latest
mission had "liberated the vampire from its coffin and made
it an officer and a gentleman. They have legitimised the illegitimate
and promised impunity to the raging lumpen who feast on blood,
pain and the physical and sexual abuse of women and children.
They have sanctified the fanatical band of nigger-hating mulattos
who prey parasitically on the Haitian body politic and call themselves
the elite. The American white power structure is making its peace
with its natural allies, and as in 1915-1934, when Jim Crow reigned
in Haiti, hell is going to break loose". (Sept 25, 1994).
When Aristide was at last restored, in
October 1994, I watched the proceedings on television and I wrote
about them in a column entitled "A Love Song for Haiti".
It began by reporting Jean-Bertrand Aristide's words to his people:
'Look at us; We are a great people, we are a grand people .don't
be surprised that I am in love with you . I love all of you.'
Against all odds, Jean-Bertrand Aristide is back in Haiti and
as far as his people are concerned, everything is going to be
beautiful, 'Isolated we are weak,' he told his people, 'Together
we are strong'.
I commented: "They need to be both
optimistic and cautious. Shortly before Aristide and his entourage
landed in Haiti, CNN interviewed a pretty young mulatto woman,
a member of the Haitian elite. In her looks and her attitudes
she seemed almost Jamaican. "It is the Aristide supporters
who need to reconciliate," she said, and she did not say
that she and her ilk are the 'civilised'--the masters--at least
in their own minds. She had no intention, it was clear, of admitting
any fault, any responsibility for the thousands of Haitians,
slaughtered, raped, beaten and driven into exile by the elite
and their myrmidons over the generations." 'It is people
like Meyrelle Bertin with whom Aristide's supporters will have
to walk hand in hand . In South Africa there is a Mandela and
there is a de Klerk. In Haiti there is only Aristide.'
Sadly, Meyrelle Bertin was herself assassinated
a year later, and her murder was blamed on Aristide. Everything
was blamed on Aristide. As I reported in 1994: "Aristide
was generous in his gratitude to the Americans and all the others
who helped him get where he is. He did not worry about the political
and journalistic wars which brought his cause to the brink of
disaster. His message was acceptance and discipline. He was generous
to his enemies, to those who want to kill him. He offered them
love, reconciliation. To his people he said: 'Be patient once
again; you will find your dignity and your pride once again.'"
As I commented: "The Haitian people's
indomitable courage won them their independence, and their pride
and their dignity are about all that kept them alive through
generations of oppression; [Now] they are counselled by 'Titide'
to be patient once again." I urged our Caribbean people
to come to the assistance of Haiti. "We cannot provide economic
assistance--that anyway, is the responsibility of those who have
profited from Haiti's misfortunes for so long. We can provide
trained manpower to patch some of the holes in the Haitian body
politic ...Our debt to Haiti cannot be defined in material terms.
It is a debt of honour and of love, among other things. We may
not be able to define it at all, but it is immense and past due."
('A Love Song for Haiti'--Jamaica Herald Oct 16, 1994)
But that was 10 years ago.
John Maxwell
writes for the Jamaica Observer, where this column originally
appeared.
Copyright©2004 John Maxwell
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A
Journey to Rafah
Jeffrey St. Clair
Empire of the Locusts
Gary Leupp
The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria
William A. Cook
The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the
US
Faheem Hussain
Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army
Elaine Cassel
Is Playing Paintball Terrorism?
Larry Birns / Jessica
Leight
Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America
John Ross
Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead"
John Eskow
A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus
Alan Maass
Who Are the Real Terrorists?
Joe Bageant
Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy
Dave Zirin
Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids
Craig Waggoner
Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke?
The Kerry Quandry
Joel Wendland
Marxists
for Kerry
Josh Frank
Scary,
Scary John Kerry
Matt Vidal
Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy
Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Say a Little Prayer
Keep CounterPunch Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|