home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events

 

Inside the New Print Edition of CounterPunch: a Special Report by David Price on the CIA on Campus

The CIA's New Campus Spies: Meet "PRISP", it may be at work on a campus near you. Program doles out cash to train tomorrow's spooks ; they say it's like ROTC, only it's all secret; a hundred spooklets on campus today; thousands down the road; pay back your loan by translating for torturers in tomorrow's Abu Ghraibs; meet PRISP's Frankenstein, Prof Felix Moos; anthropologists and the CIA, a deadly embrace by David Price; ALSO Alexander Cockburn on Disaster Relief as Scam; air-conditioned tents for the NGOs and money to burn; how tourist "development" deepened tsunami's impact; why governments love "relief". AND Humans and Woodchippers: When small isn't beautiful. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print edition of CounterPunch. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683
or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Wars of the Laptop Bombers

 

Today's Stories

January 27, 2005

Christopher Brauchli
The FBI's Carnival of Errors

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

Read How the Press & the CIA
Killed Gary Webb's Career

 

 

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.

 

 

Subscribe Online

 

January 27, 2005

33 Helicopters Have Been Lost in Iraq

The US's Bloodiest Day in Iraq

By PATRICK COCKBURN in Baghdad
and KEN SENGUPTA in Shaiba

Just four days before Iraq's historic elections, 36 US soldiers were killed yesterday in the deadliest single day for American forces since they invaded Iraq almost two years ago.

The heaviest loss was a transport helicopter crash in the western desert that killed all 31 Marines on board. The CH-53 Sea Stallion went down at 1.20am near Rutbah, a desolate town 220 miles from Baghdad. Officials in Washington said that bad weather was the most likely cause.

Four more US Marines were killed in ground fighting in Anbar province, which includes Ramadi and Fallujah, west of Baghdad, and a soldier was killed by a rocket-propelled grenade north of the capital. The losses bring the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq since the start of the war to more than 1,400, with more than 11,000 wounded.

At a press conference in Washington, President George Bush acknowledged that the news would be "very discouraging" to the American people. "We value life," he said, "and we weep and mourn when soldiers lose their life". But he ignored growing calls in Congress for the administration to at least set a timetable for withdrawal of most US troops, insisting American forces would remain in sufficient numbers to ensure "the job is done", and the Iraqis were able to defend themselves.

Despite the bloody cost of the war, the President stressed "the long-term objective, and that is to spread freedom". Sunday's elections, he predicted, would be "a grand day in the history of Iraq", though he declined to specify what would be a satisfactory turnout. An hour later, the Senate confirmed Condoleezza Rice as Secretary of State by a margin of 85 to 13, overriding fierce criticism from some Democrats that she had misled the country over the reasons for going to war.

Ms Rice did draw more opposition than any secretary of state in recent history, more than the seven votes cast against Henry Kissinger in 1973, and the six objecting to Alexander Haig in 1981. Her predecessor Colin Powell was confirmed unanimously.

The latest surge in casualties may divert public attention in the US from the election. The US has lost 33 helicopters in Iraq, of which 20 were shot down. In the worst incident before yesterday, two helicopters carrying soldiers collided over Mosul in northern Iraq in November 2003, while trying to avoid ground fire. Seventeen men were killed and five wounded. A Chinook helicopter was shot down by a shoulder-launched heat-seeking missile fired from a date grove near Fallujah the same month, killing 16 soldiers.

Helicopters now fly low and fast to give insurgents firing at them less time to aim. The roar as they fly just above roof-top level in Baghdad often sets off a cacophony of car alarms. Though flying low may make them less vulnerable, it also makes reconnaissance and surveillance by helicopter more difficult.

Yesterday, two suicide car-bombs were detonated on the airport road, the most lethal highway in Iraq, which is heavily patrolled by US armoured vehicles. Seven soldiers were wounded. Last November the British embassy told its staff not to use this road.

Although the interim Iraqi government claims 14 out of 18 provinces are safe, Iraqi truck drivers say the only safe provinces are the three Kurdish ones in the north. The guerrillas appear to have an inexhaustible supply of young men willing to be suicide bombers.

In the Sunni Arab town of Riyadh south-west of the oil city of Kirkuk, three suicide cars filled with explosives blew up close to an Iraqi army post and a police station yesterday. Four Iraqi policemen, two Iraqi soldiers and three civilians were killed, and 12 wounded. An approaching US combat team came under fire and two soldiers were wounded.

The insurgents, many different and loosely co-ordinated groups but all opposed to the election, reject the vote as illegitimate because it is in effect being held under the auspices of the US as the occupying power.

In the latest attempt to disrupt polling, a suicide bomber detonated a fuel tanker at an office of a major Kurdish political party yesterday, in Sinjar, a town a few miles south-west of Mosul, killing 15 people and injuring 30, officials of the Kurdistan Democratic Party said. The insurgent group led by al-Qa'ida's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, claimed responsibility for the attack.

The KDP is one of the two largest Kurdish political organisations in Iraq, and part of a coalition of 11 Kurdish groups for the elections. A video is circulating of a hooded fighter with a pistol who says: "We are mujahedin in the province of Nineveh [Mosul]. What they call elections have no basis in the Islamic religion and that's why we will hit all the election centres."

The US military keeps reporting they are fighting a group called AIF, for Anti-Iraqi Forces. US intelligence says 95 per cent of the insurgents are Iraqis.







Google
WWW http://www.counterpunch.org