How
the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career
Today's
Stories
January 19,
2005
Nancy Oden
The
Nuremberg Principles, Iraq and Toture
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
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Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
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Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
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January 19, 2005
Simulated Sex and a Forklift Hanging
A
Catalogue of British Abuses in Iraq
By
TONY PATERSON
The Independent
"Shocking and appalling"
photographs of British troops allegedly torturing and sexually
humiliating Iraqi civilians were revealed yesterday.
The images were produced at
a court martial of three British soldiers accused of acts of
abuse on Iraqis in an aid camp weeks after the fall of Saddam
Hussein. They include forcing detainees to strip and simulate
sex acts which were photographed by servicemen.
One of the photographs showed
a grimacing Iraqi civilian bound tightly in an army cargo net
being suspended from a forklift truck driven by a British soldier.
A second depicted a soldier dressed in shorts and a T-shirt standing
on the bound and tied body of an Iraqi civilian. Other pictures
showed two naked Iraqi men being forced to simulate anal sex
and two Iraqis forced to simulate oral sex.
Publication of the photographs
echoes the controversy surrounding US troops' abuse of Iraqi
prisoners--which was also captured on film--at the Abu Ghraib
jail near Baghdad.
The head of the British Army
said last night that he utterly condemned all acts of abuse after
he was shown photographs of the alleged abuse by British soldiers.
But General Sir Mike Jackson, the Chief of the General Staff,
insisted that only a "small number" of the 65,000 servicemen
and women who had served in Iraq were alleged to have been involved
in such incidents.
Three soldiers, Corporal Daniel
Kenyon, 33, and Lance Corporals Mark Cooley, 23, from Newcastle
upon Tyne, and Darren Larkin, 30, from Oldham, Greater Manchester,
face charges of indecency, assault and sexually humiliating the
Iraqis at a storage depot outside the southern city of Basra
in May 2003.
Two of the men, from the Royal
Regiment of Fusiliers, pleaded not guilty to all charges against
them. A third pleaded guilty to the single charge against him.
They face 10 charges in all. If convicted, they face dismissal
in disgrace from the Army and a maximum jail term of 10 years.
L/Cpl Larkin admitted one charge
of assaulting an Iraqi civilian, but he denied another charge
of forcing two Iraqi males to undress in front of others. In
the photographs L/Cpl Larkin is seen wearing his boxer shorts
and flip flops while standing on a bound Iraqi prisoner brandishing
a camoufage netting pole. William England, counsel for the defence,
said: "He is ashamed by this unacceptable and mindless act
and knows that his actions have brought shame on his proud regiment,
himself and his family."
Cpl Kenyon faces six charges
in total, including two of aiding and abetting a person to force
two naked males being detained by British troops to simulate
a sex act.
L/Cpl Cooley faces three charges,
including tying an unknown male prisoner to a fork-lift truck
as well as simulating punching and kicking another unknown male
also being detained by the Army.
The three accused based their
not guilty pleas on claims that they were ordered to "work
the prisoners hard". Their defence lawyers are expected
to argue that their superior officers created a climate in which
prisoner abuse was sanctioned.
The court martial was shown
a total of 22 colour photographs of the alleged abuse. Lieutenant-Colonel
Mick Clapham, the Army's chief prosecuting counsel, told the
hearing: "It cannot be said that these photographs are of
incidents that are anything other than shocking and appalling."
Addressing a board of seven army officers and Judge Advocate
Michael Hunter, who are to rule on the case, Lt-Col Clapham asked
them "not to be emotionally swayed despite the nature of
these photographs. I ask for your clinical objectivity."
The seven officers shook their
heads in disbelief as they looked at the pictures handed to them
by a military policeman.
Lt Col Clapham told the court
martial that the incidents had occurred when the accused were
part of an attachment of British soldiers at the Army's Bread
Basket supply camp half a mile west of Basra, which was full
of food and humanitarian aid for the Iraqis. "Unfortunately
the Bread Basket Camp had a looting problem. It was being raided
by looters every night so measures were taken to deal with the
situation," Lt-Col Clapham said. The court martial heard
how the commander of the camp, Major Dan Taylor, launched a controversial
operation, code-named Ali Baba, in an attempt to round up and
detain the looters and "work them hard". "There
was a difficulty with Major Taylor's order. He hoped it would
be a deterrent," Lt-Col Clapham said.
He added that the Major's order
to "work the prisoners hard" was not in accordance
with humanitarian laws and appears to have been in breach of
Article 4 of the Geneva Convention.
Lt-Col Clapham said, however,
that senior officers had decided not to take legal action against
the Major. Lt-Col Clapham said: "If the defendants had done
no more than fulfil the order that was given to them they would
not be facing a court martial today."
Lt-Col Clapham said the British
troops at Camp Bread Basket were ordered to parade at 6am on
the morning of 15 May 2003 dressed in shorts and T-shirts because
of the heat. Armed with SA-80 rifles and camouflage net poles
as weapons, they were ordered to police the perimeter of the
camp and to capture and detain looters. "The Iraqi civilians
were made to carry back the stores they had looted," Lt-Col
Clapham said. "They were all assembled near the main gate
of the camp and then broken up into groups of three or four and
taken away."
He described how the senior
NCO accused, Cpl Daniel Kenyon, was given charge of three or
four Iraqi civilians who were taken to a vast warehouse in a
remote corner of the camp to be "worked hard".
Photographs of the detained
Iraqi civilians showed them being taken on a forced run while
carrying crates of milk powder over their heads as part of an
alleged punishment. "It was after that that the incidents
occurred," Lt-Col Clapham said.
Cpl Kenyon is charged with
failing to report the incidents of abuse to senior officers and
of aiding and abetting those who carried out the acts.
The three accused were all
identified on the photographs presented as evidence to the court
martial: L/Cpl Cooley in a statement to military police admitted
driving the fork lift truck; L/Cpl Larkin was depicted standing,
dressed in shorts and a T-shirt, on a bound Iraqi civilian; and
Cpl Kenyon was shown as present in one of the other photographs.
Two other pictures showed L/Cpl
Cooley pretending to punch and kick an Iraqi civilian lying bound
in a net on the ground. L/Cpl Cooley did not deny that he was
identified in the photograph as the perpetrator.
The court heard how the photographs
later came to the notice of police in Britain.
In a written statement read
out to the court martial a woman shop assistant at a photographic
store in Tamworth, Staffordshire, described how a 20-year-old
fusilier had given her a film of his tour of duty in Iraq to
process. She said that when the photographs were developed she
was disturbed by their contents. "He seemed a very well-mannered
man but when I saw the photographs I called the police,"
her statement said. The fusilier was arrested when he arrived
to collect the photographs.
The fusilier was convicted
of a number of charges by a court martial last week.
The case continues today.
THE CHARGES
1 & 2: L/Cpl Mark Cooley
is charged with two counts of conduct to the prejudice of good
order and military discipline contrary to section 69 of the Army
Act 1955.
The particulars of the first
offence are that "on 15 May 2003 he simulated punching an
unknown male, being detained by British forces while the simulated
punch was photographed".
The particulars of the second
offence are that "on or about 15 May 2003 he simulated kicking
an unknown male, being detained by British forces while the simulated
kick was photographed".
3: L/Cpl Darren Larkin and
Cpl Daniel Kenyon are charged with committing a civil offence
contrary to section 70 of the Army Act 1955, that is to say battery
contrary to section 39 of the Criminal Justice Act 1988.
The particulars are that L/Cpl
Larkin, on or about 15 May 2003, assaulted an unknown male by
beating him. He pleaded guilty to this offence. Cpl Kenyon is
charged with aiding and abetting Larkin to commit the offence.
4: L/Cpl Cooley is also charged
with disgraceful conduct of a cruel kind contrary to section
66 of the Army Act 1955. The particulars are that "on or
about 15 May 2003, [he] placed an unknown male, being detained
by British forces and whose hands were tied, on the forks of
a forklift truck, raised the forks and drove the forklift truck".
5: Cpl Kenyon is charged with
conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline
contrary to section 69 of the Army Act 1955.
The particulars are that, "on
or about 15 May 2003, [he] failed to report that soldiers under
his command had caused an unknown male, being detained by British
forces and whose hands were tied, to be on the raised forks of
a forklift truck".
6: L/Cpl Larkin and Cpl Kenyon
are charged with disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind contrary
to section 66 of the Army Act 1955. The particulars are that
L/Cpl Larkin, "on or about 15 May 2003, forced two unknown
males, being detained by British forces, to undress in front
of others". Cpl Kenyon is charged with aiding and abetting
him to commit the offence.
7: Cpl Kenyon is charged with
disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind contrary to section 66
of the Army Act 1955. The particulars are that, on or about 15
May 2003, he "aided and abetted a person or persons unknown
to force two unknown naked males, being detained by British forces,
to simulate a sexual act".
8: Cpl Kenyon is charged with
disgraceful conduct of an indecent kind contrary to section 66
of the Army Act 1955, in that, on or about 15 May 2003, and on
an occasion other than that of the seventh charge, he "aided
and abetted a person or persons unknown to force two unknown
naked males, being detained by British forces, to simulate a
sexual act".
9: Cpl Kenyon is also charged
with conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline
contrary to section 69 of the Army Act 1955 in that, "on
or about 15 May 2003, he failed to report that soldiers under
his command had forced two unknown naked males, being detained
by British forces, to simulate an act of oral sex".
This is an alternative to charges
6, 7 and 8.
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