Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 10,
2005
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
January 31,
2005
Dave Zirin
Mr.
Frank's Fatwah: New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture
of Arundhati Roy and Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid
Tragedy, Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick Cockburn
A
Victory for the Shia
Website of
the Day
Voting by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure
Come From?
January 29
/ 30, 2005
Manuel Yang
/ Peter Linebaugh
A
Dialogue About Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian
and Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job: Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary
vs. Vermont's Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs; Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop
the Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on
the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The
Politics of Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins, Shanahan and Albert
Website of
the Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and Denial
January 28,
2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami
Aid By the Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen / Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth
Davies
Attacks on Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting
the Poverty Draft
January 27,
2005
Seymour Hersh
We've
Been Taken Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The
US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela
/ John F. García
The Laws of Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The
FBI's Carnival of Errors
Website of
the Day
Informed Eating
January 26,
2005
Saree Makdisi
An
Iron Wall of Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the
Prospects for Middle East Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The
US and Latin America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A.
Cook
Bush's Second Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions
About Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New Campus Spies
January 25,
2005
Brian Cloughley
Iraq
as Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My Co-Pilot
Josh Frank
/ Merlin Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Party Without Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The
Intolerance of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The
US / Colombia Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the Environment
January 24,
2005
Fred Gardner
Last
Monologue in Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22
/ 23, 2005
Jennifer Van
Bergen / Ray Del Papa
Nuclear
Incident in Montana
Alexander Cockburn
Prince
Harry's Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Day of the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau, Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21,
2005
Dave Lindorff
A
Great American Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The
Anti-War Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball, Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying
for Sycophants
William Cook
The
Bush Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices
from Abu Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19,
2005
Marta Russell
Social
Security Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines
Stretching Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS: When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander Cockburn
Will
Bush Quit Iraq?
January 18,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How
Americans Were Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal
Judge: Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese
Oil Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat: a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17,
2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions
About King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US
Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One
of Texas's Worst Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King
and the Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15
/ 16, 2005
James Petras
The
Kidnapping of a Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise, Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14,
2005
Robert Fisk
"The
Tent of Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social Security Con Job
José
M. Tirado
The Christians I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the Influence
Yves Engler
The Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert
Zoellick: a Bush Family Man
Website of
the Day
Ryan for the Nobel Prize?
January 13,
2005
Mark Chmiel
/ Andrew Wimmer
Hearts
and Minds, Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador Option: Terror,
Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting
for the Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12,
2005
Robert Fisk
Fear
Stalks Baghdad
Josh Frank
The
Farce of the DNC Contest
Jack Random
Casualties
of War: the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at CBS
Alan Farago
Can
the Everglades be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's
Our Biggest Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11,
2005
Tom Barry
The
US isn't "Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon
of Foreign Policy
James Hodge
and Linda Cooper
Voice
of the Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the
the Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two Elections
Harry Browne
Irish
"Peace Process", RIP
January 10,
2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker
Carlson's Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy
Moss's Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes
and Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 /
9, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Say,
Waiter, Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H. Summers
Chomsky
and Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT: Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex
and the Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau, Albert, Collins
January 7,
2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Old
Vijay Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest: First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing the IRS
Roger Burbach
/ Paul Cantor
Bush,
the Pentagon and the Tsunami
January 6,
2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales:
Supporting Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot
Up America!: Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An
Open Letter to Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The
Tsunami and India's Coastal Poor
January 5,
2005
Alan Farago
2004:
An Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting, Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death
on the Living Room Floor
January 4,
2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They
Say They Can Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The
Year in Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic
Tales and Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death
and Life in the Andaman Islands
January 3,
2005
Ron Jacobs
The
War Hits Home
Dave Lindorff
Is
There a Single Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and the Ohio Recount
Kathleen Christison
Patronizing
the Palestinians
January 1 /
2, 2005
Gary Leupp
Earthquakes
and End Times, Past and Present
Rev. William
E. Alberts
On "Moral Values": Code Words for Emerging Authoritarian
Tendencies
M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for Pedagogy
Brian Cloughley
Bush and the Tsunami: the Petty and the Petulant
Sylvia Tiwon
/ Ben Terrall
The Aftermath in Aceh
Ben Tripp
Requiem for 2004
Greg Moses
A Visible Future?
Steven Sherman
The 2004 Said Awards: Books Against Empire
Sean Donahue
The Erotics of Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's Belly
David Krieger
When Will We Ever Learn
Poets' Basement
Soderstrom, Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23,
2004
Chad Nagle
Report
from Kiev: Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
David Smith-Ferri
The
Real UN Disgrace in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death
Watch for Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs
from Our Table
Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry X-mas
Greg Moses
When
No Law Means No Law
Alan Singer
An
Encounter with Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social
Security Pump and Dump
Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets Laid
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
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.
|
February 10, 2005
Mr. Garsin Emends His Tale
Templesman's
Man in Kinshasha Tells More About the Assassination of Patrice
Lumumba
By
SUZAN MAZUR
"Meet me under the 59th Street
bridge," Mark Garsin said after reading my interview
with him about the murder of Patrice Lumumba, the Congo's
first democratically elected leader. (Suzan
Mazur: "Mr. Garsin from Kinshasa")
The edge of New York at the East River?
"A few mistakes I want to change with you," Tempelsman's long-time
man in Zaire advised in a voice message. "There's
a restaurant under the bridge. I don't know the name."
I wondered what the corrections could be. It was a Q&A. But
I had further questions, so we fixed a meeting for coffee.
Somewhere under the 59th Street bridge.
Guastavino's occupies the space there between York and First
Avenues, I would discover. It's an expansive restaurant with
blaring music and rush hour traffic just a few bricks away
from you and your espresso.
I've been punctual in my appointments with Garsin. And he has
consistently arrived early, perhaps a habit left
over from the Zaire days when it was necessary to check
for hidden mikes in the chandelier.
Garsin was dressed elegantly in beige tones of
suede and cashmere despite a New York meltdown of
the previous week's foot of snow. He enjoys the luxury
of time now that he is retired from Africa's resource
wars and the diamond intrigues of 47th Street.
And the kind of "deals"
he prefers to chase these days are more along the lines
of foodshopping at Harlem's Fairway accompanied by his girlfriend
Fern, who does the driving.
*
* *
Garsin: Here on page six, ".
. .Something you don't understand, Lumumba was exactly a nobody."
That's not what I meant. He might have been a very intelligent
fellow. I think he was intelligent, very intelligent .
. . but I don't think he had a dream. He was not made
to be a prime minister. He had not the background, the education,
the instruction. . . .
Saying he was a nobody, it
doesn't mean anything. It's my English you know. I said, "You
can't call him a Commie" or anything. I think he was
politically unaffiliated . . .
Q: Unaffiliated.
Garsin: That's what I would
like to change. I don't mean that he was an idiot absolutely
not. . . .
And, the part about Omar
Bongo. Bongo is Gabon. He has nothing to do with
the Group of Binza. The one whose name I forgot to include in
Binza was Adoula. . . . Adoula was Minister of
Foreign Affairs. Adoula was a very intelligent guy. .
. . He was president of the trade union or something. He had
been in the mill. He had been in the political business
all his life.
[Garsin said in part one
of our interview that the Group of Binza was behind the Lumumba
assassination -- Mobutu Sese Seko, Cyrille Adoula, Albert Ndele,
Justin Bomboko and Victor Nendaka (later Mobutu's Security
Chief). Namebase.org adds to the list Larry
Devlin, the CIA's Chief of Station in the Congo.]
Ludo De Witte, author of the definitive The
Assassination of Lumumba, told me in a recent phone
conversation that Tempelsman's people gave protection to Cyrille
Adoula when he was physically threatened in an attack in Zaire.
De Witte said he didn't include Tempelsman in the Lumumba book though
because "Tempelsman's role in Zaire up to January '61 was
very limited".
He also said that he thinks the participation
of the CIA in the assassination was "secondary". "They helped
to get Lumumba into prison," De Witte commented, but he
claimed the Belgians were behind the transport and execution.
He said the American Embassy orchestrated a "push
against the Lumumba forces". As to whether Carlyle Group's Frank
Carlucci, then a Foreign Service officer at the embassy, had
doubled as CIA -- De Witte believes "it is difficult
to make the separation".]
Q: Janine Farrell Roberts,
an Australian author, wrote a book called Blood Stained Diamonds. She
mentions that after Mobutu was put in power a major diamond deal
was announced with Maurice Tempelsman. That was about 1961,
when you first joined the organization but before you took
charge in 1963 in Zaire.
Roberts writes: "Immediately
after Lumumba's death, the Acting Prime Minister of the Congo,
Adoula, announced support for a very major Tempelsman diamond
deal, telegramming this to President Kennedy."
Also, Douglas Valentine,
author of the rich expose on America's war on drugs and history
of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, The
Strength of the Wolf, was able to get a significant number
of CIA documents declassified for his book. He's told me there
were references to diamonds all over the documents pertaining
to Zaire. But you've said copper was much more important.
Garsin: I don't understand
what you're telling me . . .
Q: The intelligence files,
The CIA, Federal Bureau of Narcotics files regarding Zaire concerned
diamonds. This would have brought Tempelsman into the picture.
Garsin: Let me tell you. I was not aware of it. Adoula was
definitely helping us. But he was a very intelligent man besides
helping us. He's not the one who signed the convention with
Oppenheimer. He was already gone. I think he was dead already.
He died very young.
The one who was in charge at
the time when we got this convention with the government of Zaire
was Ndele, who was governor of the National Bank. Mobutu
signed, but it is Ndele who negotiated.
Q: And it's Nendaka who
was CIA.
Garsin: Nendaka was a CIA
man.
[Roberts says immediately after
Mobutu came to power that, "Tempelsman became an even bigger
player in the Congo recruiting his own staff from those
CIA staffers that Mobutu most favored that put him in power.
Mobutu also at this time gave Tempelsman, as a 'Christmas Gift',
rich mineral resources." She said Tempelsman then facilitated
"the return of the Oppenheimers to the Congo. . . "
And she quotes historian Richard Mahoney citing a State Department
memo: "Congo Diamond Deal: 'The State Department has
concluded that it is in the political interest of the US to implement
this proposal.' (2 August 1961)."
Roberts also tells of a plot against Ghana's President Nkrumah
in which "the State Department wrote a furious letter to
Maurice Tempelsman saying that his office, by using an unguarded
phone line, had betrayed the identity of the plotters against
Nkrumah and the identity of the CIA Head of Station. The plotters
seemingly were communicating to the White House via Tempelsman's
office (memorandum for the President from WW Rostow, 24
September 1961)."
Garsin has told me he will not say anything "against"
Tempelsman, and that he "enjoyed every minute" of his
21 years with the company.]
Q: Doug Valentine states on
page 193 of The Strength of the Wolf that Mobutu
was also CIA.
Garsin: Well, they said
that. Has he got the proof of that?
Q: His source on this was an interview with
"Colonel Tulius Acampora, an army counterintelligence officer
detached to the CIA and assigned as an advisor to the Italian
Carabinieri". Valentine writes that "CIA officer
Bob Driscoll recruited Joseph Mobutu when he was Chief of Staff
in the Congolese Army", when the Belgian Congo was first
independent --1960, 1961. And that "[then] CIA Director
Allen Dulles sent Driscoll under commercial cover [first] to
Rome", that Driscoll was a navy commander with a sort
of low-key style.
Garsin: It was quite
possible.
Q: After Rome, Driscoll went to Africa. Part of his mission
in Rome was to get the Communists out. Valentine said Driscoll
worked out of Merrill Lynch, which not only funded CIA operations
in Rome in the late 1950s, but also in Beirut and Greece.
He said Merrill Lynch - Rome also laundered
money for the Masons [one of FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover's favorite
organizations].
Valentine emailed me saying:
"Please ask Garsin about navy commander named Robert
Driscoll." He thinks Driscoll recruited Nendaka
as well.
Garsin: What was his name?
Q: Bob Driscoll. This was
around 1961. The email continues: "Mobutu was
a Catholic and that's what Driscoll played on. Reportedly the
recruitment took place at night. Driscoll was taken down some
river to a place in the jungle where he met Mobutu by torchlight.
Very dangerous."
So Mobutu was CIA early on.
Garsin: I do believe
that he might have joined the CIA. It was not against his ideas.
It's quite possible. It's quite probable. . . . We always
suspected that he was. . . .
[De Witte told me that "we
know for sure [from the Lumumba Commission, etc.] that Mobutu
was paid by the Belgian Secret Service up to and after independence
until he became Chief of Staff of the Congolese army" --
around August, September 1960. And that "the Americans"
were angling to get in on the resource wealth of Zaire, but "were
in the second line". He said "the Belgians were calling
the shots in Zaire, while the Americans had influence with Nato
and the UN".]
Q: The other thing
Valentine highlights regarding the Lumumba assassination -- if
you remember in our first conversation I mentioned that the CIA
dispatched a fellow by the codename QJ/WIN for the job. QJ/WIN
was supposed to recruit underworld French Corsicans who would
have been involved in smuggling -- drugs, diamonds, etc. -- to
spy on the Soviets and as assassins. Apparently the Soviets were active
in the Corsican communities in Zaire.
Garsin: I didn't know that
[the Soviets were active in the Corsican communities].
Q: So the French Corsicans
were involved with smuggling -- drugs and diamonds. QJ/WIN was
sent to Congo . . . Valentine believes he was Jose Marie
Andre Mankel.
[Valentine writes in the book
that the CIA's chief of the assassination unit, William K. Harvey,
was told: "Soviets were operating in Africa among nationality
groups, specifically Corsicans [italics added], and that
he was being asked to spot, assess, and recommend some dependable,
quick-witted persons for our use."
Harvey refers to QJ/WIN as FNU Mankel (Federal Narcotics Undercover?).
Mankel may have been the person referred to in the records
as a "multilingual bar owner in Florence, acquainted
with Belgium's criminal milieu, and thus suitable for work in
the Congo . . ." QJ/WIN was later caught "smuggling
nickel behind the Iron Curtain", according to Valentine,
and then fired as an agent in '64.
De Witte told me that QJ/WIN was smuggling diamonds out of Zaire
in the 1960s. He confirmed that drug smuggling was
going on in Zaire at the time as well. But De Witte agrees
with author Richard Mahoney that QJ/WIN was Mozes Maschkivitzan,
a Russian emigre who lived in Luxembourg, partly because of a
reference to QJ/WIN as "the Luxembourger" in a communique.]
Garsin: May I tell you
something. Before the 1980s there were few diamonds coming out
of Zaire. I'm talking about smuggling. Very few. You had Miniere du
Congo. . . . I never heard about large amounts that disappeared.
That came later when they start digging. And then they start
digging in Bujimai and then they found diamonds near Kisangali.
No Stanleyville . . . Ah -- then it became a big
business. Until then there was very little diamond smuggling in
Zaire.
Q: And the drug situation you
said was not very apparent.
Garsin: There was some smuggling
sure. But there was nothing that big. They made it bigger than
it was.
Q: Because President Kennedy
was interested in African countries jump starting their economies.
JFK wanted to give a pass to certain African countries on
the production of narcotics.
[Valentine says "newly
elected president John F. Kennedy requested" Federal Bureau
of Narcotics chief Harry Anslinger to sign the UN's Single Convention
with the knowledge that one of its provisions "allowed several
African nations to raise revenue by growing opium for export".]
Garsin: I think there
was a bit of smuggling. . . . Yeah there was some. I'm not
disputing. But there was nothing that big.
Q: Heroin?
Garsin: They were selling it
to the middlemen in Zaire who had some kind of European connection.
And nothing very complicated to smuggle diamonds.
I also want to clarify something
about Mobutu. Mobutu was damned intelligent. . . . He's
the one who made one country of the Congo. Tried to make
one country of those 230 different tribes. He nearly did
it. It's amazing what he did. Nobody recognized it. Because
at the end he made a mess of everything with the sorcellerie
[witchcraft]. He made a mess of it. But he was damned good
to start with.
You don't like the idea of
a dictator, I understand that. He was a dictator. There's no
doubt about it. And he intended to rule like that [slams
table]. There's no doubt about it. But maybe it was not such
a bad idea at the time. Look what's happening
now. . . .
Anyway, Africa -- I'll miss
it forever.
Suzan Mazur covered developments in science and
technology in Nigeria, Kenya, Tanzania and Zambia in the 1980s
for Omni magazine. Her reports have also appeared in the Financial
Times, Economist, Forbes, Newsday, Philadelphia Inquirer, and
on PBS, CBC and MBC. She has been a guest on McLaughlin, Charlie
Rose and various Fox television programs. Email: sznmzr@aol.com.
|