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Today's
Stories
December
9, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
The Voices of Sharon's Little Helpers
December
8, 2004
Ralph
Nader
Will the Real Michael Moore Ever Re-Emerge?
Ann
Harrison
The Ohio Recount: Reluctant Officials
and Few Rules
Paul
Craig Roberts
War Crime
Dave
Lindorff
They've Got a Secret: Inside the $40 Billion Black Budget for
Spying
Patrick
Cockburn / Andrew Buncombe
CIA Warning on Iraq: Fallujah Did Not Break the Back of the Insurgency
Col.
Dan Smith
Rules of Engagement in Iraq
Emily
Alves / Michael Johnson
Paradise Lost: Corruption and Clientelism in Costa Rica
Richard
Oxman
The Dylan Bob Wouldn't Mention: Up With Dylan Thomas
Ron
Jacobs
In Fallujah, Freedom Isn't Free
December
7, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Running Battles in Baghdad
Behrooz
Ghamari
Lost Muslim Voices of Dissent
Dave
Lindorff
American Fantasies: Psst! Hey Buddy,
Did You Hear How Well the War's Going?
Joshua
Frank
Dean at the DNC?
Richard
Oxman
Down with Dylan: the Insufferable Interview
Ray
McGovern
All Mosquitoes, No Swamp
John
Chuckman
The Invasion of Hallifax: The Imperial Wizard Visits Canada
James
Petras
Latin America: the Empire Changes Gears
Website
of the Day
ToxMap: Who's Poisoning You
December
6, 2004
Paul
Craig Roberts
Paranoia and Pre-emption: Is the
Bush Administration Certifiable?
December
4 / 6, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Politicize the CIA? You've Got to
be Kidding
Joe
Bageant
Dining with the Rhinos
Alan
Maass
Reporting from the Ground in Iraq: an Interview with Patrick
Cockburn
Brian
Cloughley
Democracy, Bush-style, in the Gulf
Laura
Carlsen
Latin America Shifts Left
Lenni
Brenner
Jefferson, Madison, Bush and Religion
Anna
Ioakimedes
Brazil's Haitian Mission: Doing God's Work or Washington's?
Uri
Avnery
Widow of Opportunity?
Fred
Gardner
Supreme Court Hears Medical Pot Case
Dave
Zirin
Steroids to Heaven
Jackie
Corr
Mining Camp Blues: the Red State Variation
Don
Fitz
Will Greens Abandon IRV?
Lucy
Herschel
"Art can be a Weapon of the Oppressed": an Interview
with Artist Anthony Papa
Richard
Oxman
No Angels in America: Bashing the Gay Play
Ron
Jacobs
Holiday Greeting Card
Poets'
Basement
Collins, Albert, LaMorticella
December
3, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Lie Then Escalate
Ben
Tripp
Fun With Boycotts: How to Shop in a
Time of Crisis
Joe
Allen
Murder in El Salvador: the Assassination of Teamster Organizer
Gilberto Soto
Matthew
B. Riley
Human Rights Court Fails Lori Berenson
Meir
Shalev
In the End, It is the Violin that Wins
Bob
Wing
The White Elephant in the Room: Race and Election 2004
Christopher
Brauchli
When McCain Bit His Tongue
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
The EU, the US, Israel and Iran
December
2, 2004
Tito
Tricot
No Justice in Chile: I'm a Torture
Survivor in a Country Where Torturers Still Run Free
Behzad
Yaghmaian
The Murder of Theo Van Gogh and Muslim Migration
Dr.
Susan Block
Lana and Me: Meetings with Remarkable Apes
Frank
/ Chowkwanyun
Liberalism and Its Bounds
Lee
Sustar
Standoff in Ukraine: the Bad v. the Corrupt
Patrick
Cockburn
Another Grim Record in Iraq
Mark
Engler
Seattle at Five
Michael
Donnelly
Something Stinks in South Bend: the Firing of Tyrone Willingham
Nate
Collins
The Bay Area Mall on an Ohlone Burial Grounds
Saul
Landau
The Assassination of Danilo Anderson
December
1, 2004
Phillip
Cryan
Associated with Whom? Rightist Bias
in Wire Coverage of Colombia
Dave
Zirin
What's the Matter with "Leon"?:
Budweiser's Racist Commercial
Ghali
Hassan
Iraq's Health Care Under the Occupation:
200 Children Die Every Day
Donna
J. Volatile
Beware Western Nations Threatening "Democracy"
Patrick
Cockburn
How Saddam Tried to Arm the Insurgency
Nick
Meo
Chemical War Over Afghanistan
Mike
Ferner
The Battle of Toledo
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Shame and Determination on Global AIDS Day: 40 Million and Rising
Kathy
Kelly
Looking the Other Way: the Real Crimes
of the UN in Iraq
November
30, 2004
Jennifer
Van Bergen
The Veil of Secrecy
Toni
Nelson Herrera
Meeting Kurtz: When Art is a Crime
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Bush Delusions: Successful at Incompetence
Patrick
Cockburn
The Insurgency Strikes Back: There Are No Safe Havens in Iraq
Chuck
Munson
WTO Protests Five Years Later: Seattle Weekly Trashes Anti-Globalization
Movement
Adam
Williams
Citizenship Sold: Back to Business in Indiana
Gregory
Elich
A Dangerous Turn in the US Plans for
North Korea
Website
of the Day
Read Lynne Cheney's Lesbian Novel Online!
November
29, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Blowback in Ukraine: The Hand of
the CIA?
Omar
Barghouti
"The Pianist" of Palestine:
Roadblock Concerto at Gunpoint
Mike
Whitney
The US Media and Fallujah: How to
Market a Siege
Uri
Avnery
The Abu Mazen Style: "Give Me
Some Credit!"
Matt
Vidal
Globalization and Economic Inequality: a Look at the Numbers
Patrick
Cockburn
An Interview with Iraq's Foreign
Minister
Alan
Farago
Sex Change and Salvation: God, Girly Men and Endocrine Disrupters
Justin
Huggler
Bhopal 20 Years Later
Antony
Loewenstein
How Australia Reported Arafat's Death and Legacy
Gary
Leupp
Ukraine: Poll Results Aren't the Real
Issue
Website
of the Day
Mosul: Images from a Kill Zone
November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
November
26, 2004
Peter
Feng
Gavin Newsom: Man or Machine?
Greg
Moses
It's the White Vote, Stupid
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Devil's Work: Bush's Minority Appointments
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should Be Banned from Canada: a Memo to the Ministry
of Immigration
Dave
Lindorff
Nation of Sheep, Turkey of an Election: Urkrainians Show the
Way
Gary
Corseri
When Black Friday Comes...
Paul
Craig Roberts
Whatever Happened to Conservatives?
Website
of the Day
Iraq Pipeline Watch
November
25, 2004
Willliam
Loren Katz
Giving Thanks to Whom?: "Thanks
to God We Sent 600 Heathen Souls to Hell Today"
Mitchel
Cohen
Why I Hate Thanksgiving
Mike
Ferner
An Uncommon Mom
November
24, 2004
Gila
Svirsky
License to Kill: the Example of Violence
is Set by the State
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The
Other Mess in Congress
Christopher
Brauchli
The Company He Keeps: the Syndicate of Tom Delay
Dave
Lindorff
Double Standards on Exit Polls: Hypocrisy Sans Irony
Ron
Jacobs
The Occupation of Iraq is the Root of t he Problem
Ken
Sengupta
Witnesses: War Crimes in Fallujah
Diana
Barahona
The Final Holocaust or Why I Voted for Ralph Nader
John
L. Hess
Safire the Shameless
Jason
Leopold
Did Harvard Hire (Another) War Criminal?
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Mark of McCain: the Senator Most Likely to Start a Nuclear
War
Map
of the Day
Now and Then: 2004 v. 1860
November
23, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
Bush and Uribe at the Beach
November
22, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Fight Night in the NBA: Selective Outrage
in Detroit
Paul
Craig Roberts
On to Iran: We Won't Get Fooled Again?
Michael
Mandel / Gail Davidson
Why Bush Should be Banned from Canada
Kathie
Helmkamp
Our Son: a Marine Who Won't Kill
Ken
Sengupta
The Triangle of Death: "This is Now the Most Dangerous Place
in Iraq"
Mike
Whitney
Greenspan's Hammer
Roger
Burbach
Why They Hate Bush in Chile
Website
of the Day
Fed Up with Government Lies and Corporate Spin?
November
20 / 21, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Poisoned Chalice
Todd
May
Religion, the Election and the Politics of Fear
Abbas
Ahmed Ibrahim
The Horrors of Fallujah: a First-Hand Account
Kevin
Zeese
Mishandling Nader
Landau
/ Hassen
After Arafat
Tom
Barry
The Vulcans Consolidate Power: The Rise of Stephen Hadley
Fred
Gardner
Pot Shots: Ask Dr. Todd
Justin
E.H. Smith
Triumph of the Will: the Sequel
Carl
Estabrook
Where We Are Now
Gary
Leupp
Imperial History-Making vs. Reality-Based Thought: a Dialogue
Dave
Lindorff
Apocalypse Soon
Jenna
Michelle Liut
Plans Colombia and Patriota: Wanton Wastes of Money, Manpower
and Lives
Mickey
Z.
The Granma Moses of Radical Writing: an Interview with William
Blum
Greg
Moses
The Same Old Struggle Against Imperial America
Sharon
Smith
Abortion Rights and the Election: What Now?
Ron
Jacobs
Sandwiches and Car Bombs
Ben
Tripp
Raising d'Etre: Finding Money in Hollywood These Days
Richard
Oxman
Basketbrawl Two Pointer: Iraq Rules!
Gilad
Atzmon
Politics and Jazz
Poets'
Basement
LaMorticella, Albert, Ford, & Anon.
Website
of the Day
Voice of the Forest
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.
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December 9, 2004
Ask Not Who Bankrolled Fallujah
War
Tax Resisters Opt Out
By
GREG MOSES
For three weeks beginning October 14,
say sources at Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting, the assault
on Falluja was pure PSYOPS,
a mere announcement of assault, designed to provoke "the
opposition" into premature response. The lie worked pretty
well. "The opposition" abandoned their so-called safe
havens and " melted
into the night." For this reason, many residents of
the city expected the PSYOPS theater to let out early, too.
One hapless doctor, Hakim
Mirzoev, says he expected the Americans to surround the city,
fire a few shots, and declare victory. He didn't realize that
a greater PSYOPS scheme was in the making, a plan to flatten
Falluja under boot and mortar so that the City of Mosques could
be rebuilt by Christian Soldiers into a Model City--a Pasadena by the Euphrates. With this world-historical
Crusade in mind, Falluja was crushed, thousands were killed and
wounded, hundreds of thousands displaced, so that America could
perceive itself great in the gaze of the world.
So who made Falluja possible?
Who enabled budgets to be filled with imperial plans? American
taxpayers did. The moral tracer on this funding leads to me
and you, the co-investors who backed this pre-holiday discount
on the lives of Fallujans, thousands of lives, forever lost and
unlived. To pay for this moral bankruptcy, we got up in the
morning, worked all day, and sent money to the war machine.
Ask not who bankrolled Falluja.
****
Texas school teacher Shirley
Smith made the connection between her tax dollars and the war
in Iraq during the first week of the invasion. It was March
27, 2003, and she was listening to Bitta Mostofi speak at the
University of Texas campus at Austin. Mostofi had been to Iraq
with Voices in the Wilderness,
serving witness to sufferings caused by USA-supported sanctions.
It was right after the invasion
and only a few weeks before the tax deadline, recalls Smith.
Mostofi said it would be an effective protest against the war
if everyone refused to pay taxes. And that's when the light
went on. Right away, Smith submitted a new W-4 form, so that
no taxes would be withheld. No more money would go from her
to the war. On April 15, 2003, Smith joined an annual protest
at the downtown Austin post office. Camera crews captured her
image as she helped to pass out leaflets. The next day a couple
of colleagues spoke to her about seeing pictures on the local
news. One colleague got excited.
"She told me she would
like to stop paying her taxes, too," recalls Smith. "So
I explained to her that we re-direct our tax money into groups
that work for peace. And then she wasn't quite as interested.
I think it's important to stress that we're not in this for
personal gain." Like many war tax resisters, Smith sends
her tax money to an escrow fund, where interest gets applied
to peace work.
When tax day rolled around
this year, Smith enclosed a letter with her tax form, explaining
why she would not send money. In August she received her first
reply from the Internal Revenue Service. On November 16, she
received her third. It arrived by certified mail, warning Smith
that the IRS would begin looking for property or other assets
to attach.
IRS Public Affairs officer
Ken Vargas of the Austin office explains that the collections
office sends out "soft notices" first, followed by
"harder notices" later. Vargas says the IRS doesn't
keep a handy record of war tax resisters, and he insists that
"normal collection procedures" apply to all subjects,
regardless of whether they write letters stating their war tax
resistance.
In fact, the tax reform act
of 1998 makes it illegal for the IRS to designate tax protesters
as a special class. A June 2004 audit
by the Treasury Inspector General reported "233 isolated
instances" where subjects had been identified as tax protesters
nevertheless. The only time the IRS can justify this practice,
warned the IG, is when case notes reflect what subjects say about
themselves. The IRS office most likely to abuse its classification
of tax resisters was the office of Chief Counsel.
Andy McKenna, who began his war tax resistance after the First
Gulf War, says that the three letters sent to Smith this year
may serve as one example of more aggressive collections. In
a press release, prepared for distribution this week, McKenna
joined with other war tax resisters to warn of increased enforcement
in the Austin area. At a mid-November meeting of the Austin
Conscientious Objectors to Military Taxation (ACOMT), members
shared their impressions that a long season of relative neglect
by the IRS is now being followed by a spate of collection activities.
In mid-October, McKenna himself was hit up for his first wage
garnishment, which left him only $330.00 per paycheck, twice
a month.
Anecdotal evidence from Texas
does not yet support a finding that there is a nationwide crackdown
on war tax resisters. From a few dozen emails sent to war tax
resisters elsewhere, only Mary Loehr, former national coordinator
for the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee (NWTRCC), responded with news
of fresh garnishment attempts in Ithaca, Albuquerque, and Chicago.
Co-director of Peace and Justice Studies at Wellesley College,
Larry Rosenwald, says that computer technology has helped to
speed up the IRS over the past five years, "increasing ability
to locate wtrs [war tax resisters] and their bank accounts by
way of computerized records." Ruth Benn, current coordinator
for NWTRCC, reports in the group's latest newsletter that, "It
is still not clear if there is more actual collection nationally."
Back in Austin, Susan Van Haitsma,
a war tax resister since 1985, feels that her fellow ACOMT members
have good reasons to report their experiences, even if no broader
trend emerges. "The fact that several in our local group
are experiencing collection efforts at the same time is probably
just a coincidence," writes Van Haitsma via email, "and
the reason we are seeking to publicize it is just that, in the
midst of war, it's a concrete example of resistance that is of
more interest to the general public (it seems) when we are actually
engaged in the legal push and pull of collections."
****
Which brings us back to Falluja
and the claim made by Bitta Mostofi that massive tax resistance
would work. Anyone interested in cutting ties to this war can
stop paying taxes. Yet, as Kathy Kelly noted in a recent essay,
a great deterrent to war tax resistance, besides irrational fear
of the IRS, is fear of family reactions, especially from spouses. Significantly, neither
McKenna, Smith, nor Van Haitsma is married.
Smith says that her daughter
was immediately afraid that mom was going to prison. But prison
is not a likely outcome, says Smith, as long as war tax resisters
remain honest about where their money is. Smith's father is
retired from military service. When she told him about her conversion
to war tax resistance, he joked that she didn't want to pay for
his retirement. And that was the worst thing he's ever said
about her decision. Supportive is the word Smith uses to describe
her parents.
War tax resistance affects
people in different ways. Van Haitsma lives a lifestyle at poverty
level, taking care to earn too little to tax. McKenna is starting
a new job, different from the one where he was garnished. Smith,
the school teacher, on the other hand, is adamant about her work
commitment.
"I feel like teaching
is a calling," says Smith. Conscience demands that she
keep teaching, even if the IRS garnishes her wages. Smith teaches
English as a Second Language and she works with middle school
students who are making good grades but who have no family history
of college. The program is called AVID or Achievement Via Individual
Determination. Smith spends her days helping students to fight
voices that would discourage rising classes. She is always volunteering
for after-hours events. And the district wants to pay her more
money. She pleads, no, don't pay me any more money!
Speaking via cell phone, school
teacher Smith lists all the charities where she sends money,
to keep her taxable income down. Then she asks a final question
before saying goodbye: "Have you heard the quote by Alexander
Haig? 'Let them march all they want, as long as they continue
to pay their taxes'?"
****
Keep buying, and keep buying
in. Soon after Sept. 11, Forbes
magazine urged Bush to get the American people back into the
shopping malls. Soon enough, " shopping"
was included in the president's short list of things that count
for daily life in America. Now that Falluja has been rubbleized
and stained in blood, freedom loving people everywhere will be
sick with curiosity: are the plans long ready, Mr. Bush, to build
a Falluja-Euphrates Mall?
The Falluja assault is an egregious
blunder, even by the awful standards set by President Bush.
Until Falluja, there was a tattered moral argument that Bush's
illegal invasion had at least toppled a bad guy from power.
But Falluja is a campaign of, by, and for the sheer effect of
terror. As a demoralized peace movement looks to Falluja with
dread, Kathy Kelly reminds us, there is one thing that any taxpayer
of conscience can do.
Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights
Review and author of Revolution
of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of
Nonviolence. His chapter on civil rights under Clinton and
Bush appears in Dime's
Worth of Difference, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey
St. Clair. He can be reached at: gmosesx@prodigy.net
Weekend Edition
Features for November
27 / 28, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Torture & Neo-Liberalism with
Sycorax in Iraq
Alexander
Cockburn
What Happened to O'Reilly's Loofa?
Fred
Gardner
Ashcroft v. Raich: Medical Marijuana and the Supreme Court
Kathy
Kelly
What We Can Control
Diane
Christian
The Other Cheek: "Empire Doesn't Analyze, It Acts"
Gary
Leupp
One More Neocon Target: South (Yes, South) Korea
Lenni
Brenner
Equality and Rights of Return: Jefferson Instructs the New York
Times
Ron
Jacobs
Death Squads and Iraq's Elections: the Mysterious Murders of
the AMS Clerics
Joshua
Frank
An Interview with Kevin Zeese on Nader, Kerry and the ABB Crowd
Toni
Solo
The Murder of Danilo Anderson
Saul
Landau
Fallujah, the 21st Century Guernica
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Matthew Shepard Case 6 Years Later: Why Hate Crimes Laws are
No Cure for Homophobia
Justin
Taylor
Empire's Lawless Opportunities
Amos
Harel
The Case of Captain R.
Walter
A. Davis
Tabloid Justice
Stephen
Hendricks
God's Kind of Men
Poets'
Basement
Albert, LaMorticella and Ford
|