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Today's Stories
June 28, 2004
Patrick Cockburn / Leyla Linton
Grisly Rituals in Iraq
June 26
/ 27, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Venezuela: the Gang's All Here
Patrick
Cockburn
Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge in
Iraq
Dennis Hans
Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney, the
NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11
Ben
Tripp
Adventures in Fuel Efficiency
Dave Lindorff
That State Department Terrorism Report:
What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You
Chris
Floyd
Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit
Ali Tonak
Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives,
Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela
Keith
Rosenthal
The Withering of the Anti-War Movement
Bryan
Sacks
The Failure of the 9/11 Commission
Wayne
Madsen
Another Case of Blowback
Thomas
St. John
L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating in
the Wizard of Oz
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
American Swadeshi
June 25,
2004
Stephen
Gowans
US to North Korea: "Trust Us"
Saul Landau
2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush
Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction
Amir
Butler
Iraq: the Deadly Embrace
Jack McCarthy
Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did
Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News?
Greg
Bates
Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader
June 24, 2004
Gary Leupp
John
Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links
Patrick Cockburn
A
Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing
Death Threats
Harry Browne
On
the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe
Bill Kaufman
Another
Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush,
Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did
They Tell?
Rick Gioimbetti
Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence?
John Chuckman
Call Center ID Hypocrisy
Diane Johnstone
Kerry
and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"
June 23, 2004
Laura Carlsen
Bush
and Castro Face Off
Dave Zirin
Barry
Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism"
Kurt Nimmo
From
Saddam, With Love
Patricia Wolff
Foundation Wars
Mahboob A. Khawaja
"They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son"
Patrick Cockburn
The
Pretense of an Independent Iraq
Website of the Day
The Road to Abu Ghraib
June 22, 2004
Dave Lindorff
The
Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption
Ron Jacobs
Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq?
Vanessa Jones
Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings
Mickey Z
An Open Letter to the People of Iraq
John L. Hess
Clinton Exhales
Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity
Committee for Pacho Cortés
An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés
Bruce Jackson
Saying
No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify
Website of the Day
From Boot Camp to Boot Hill
June 21,
2004
Gary Leupp
Putin's Helpful Remarks
Lucson
Pierre-Charles
Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos
Upon Chaos
Cockburn
/ Khan
Saddam May Face Death Penalty
Uri
Avnery
Irreversible Mental Damage
June 19
/ 20, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid
and Isolated
Bruce
Anderson
Frozen Gringos
Diane
Christian
Morality and Death: a Meditation on
Bush and Blake
Walter
A. Davis
Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib
Josh
Frank
How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature
Col. Dan
Smith
Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan
Brian
Cloughley
A Profound Disruption of the Senses
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later
Prudence
Crowther
Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me!
Poets'
Basement
Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert
Kathy
Kelly
Dying to See Their Kids
June 18,
2004
Chris
Floyd
Blood Victory
Dave Zirin
Danielle Green, Basketball Player &
Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War
Justin
E.H. Smith
The Christian Question in American Politics
Gary
Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| June
28, 2004
Another
Bloody Week
Grisly Rituals
in Iraq
By
PATRICK COCKBURN
and LEYLA LINTON
Baghdad.
Two
car bombs in the city of Hillah that killed at least 23 civilians and
a rocket attack that left dead two children who were playing on the
bank of the Tigris River in Baghdad have raised the political temperature
before Wednesday's transfer of sovereignty.
A further 58 people were injured in the blasts in Hillah, south of Baghdad,
including Noor Ahmed, a two-year-old whose right arm had to be amputated.
Yesterday's
rocket attack in Baghdad, which came as President George Bush posed
for a photograph with other Nato leaders in an Ottoman palace in Istanbul,
was followed by the seizure of a US Marine. The hostage, like three
Turks whose capture was announced on Saturday, has been threatened with
beheading.
The cycle of violence appears to be worsening in the run-up to the handover
of sovereignty from the US-led occupation to the interim Iraqi government
on Wednesday. The toll from the Hillah bombs, late on Saturday night,
mean that more than 100 people have died and 300 been injured in bomb
attacks in Baghdad and four other Iraqi cities in the past few days.
Iraqi
insurgents tightened their stranglehold on Baghdad yesterday when they
hit an aircraft taking off from the airport with ground fire. It had
to turn back; one person on board was killed. The attack threatens for
the first time the main lifeline to the Iraqi capital, which is already
partly cut off from the rest of the country by guerrillas in control
of the roads.
The
US military sought to play down the importance of the C-130 transport
plane being hit by gunfire. The military spokesman, General Mark Kimmitt,
stressed that "there was no significant damage to the aircraft".
Insurgents have tried in the past to shoot down aircraft using the vast
airport west of Baghdad but have until now failed to kill anybody flying
into or out of Baghdad. Since last November guerrillas have had more
success in shooting down US military helicopters with ground-to-air
missiles.
The
US military command has been surprised by the ferocity of the co-ordinated
assaults by insurgents on cities across central and northern Iraq. The
threat to Baghdad's air-link to the outside world and the ground assault
led by Islamic militants shows that the overall military situation in
Iraq is still deteriorating. American officials in Baghdad have been
trying to foster a sense that the worst of the crisis in Iraq has now
passed in the run-up to the handover of sovereignty to the Iraqi interim
government.
The
captured marine, who is of Pakistani origin, was seized by gunmen who
said they would kill him within three days unless Iraqi prisoners were
released. "This man was taken after an attack on a US base in Balad,"
said one of the masked gunmen on a tape released last night by Arabiya
television. "You must release our prisoners held near the US base
in Balad, in Dujail, in Yathrib, in Samarra and near Abu Ghraib. You
have three days from the date of this recording and after that we will
behead him. We have warned you."
Militants
are also threatening to behead the three Turkish hostages tomorrow during
the Nato summit. They demanded that Turkey stop working with the US
forces in Iraq.
The
grisly rituals surrounding the murder of foreign hostages in Iraq are
now well established. A video sent to an Arab television station shows
the three Turks kneeling in front of two black-clad gunmen. Behind them
is the black banner of the organisation led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
the Jordanian militant seen by the US as the mastermind of terror in
Iraq.
The
Turkish government dismissed the kidnappers' demands contemptuously,
saying: "Turkey has been fighting terrorist activity for more than
20 years."
Iraqis,
like many of the foreigners in their country, are nervous as the so-called
transfer of power looms. Some Baghdad businessmen have fled to Jordan
or Syria.
The
belief that insurgents will launch suicide bombers into Baghdad as sovereignty
is being transferred is widespread. In the Iraqi capital residents say
they will avoid all but the most essential journeys over the next few
days. When they do travel, they try to avoid US or Iraqi government
positions.
There
were also explosions yesterday in the the Green Zone, where the US-led
Coalition Provisional Authority has its headquarters. The US army said
that three mortar bombs or rockets had landed but had caused no damage
and inflicted no casualties. It is a measure of the failure of the US
army over the past year to gain military control of Iraq that the bombardment
of US headquarters in Baghdad by guerrillas is now a matter of routine,
drawing little comment.
Iraqis
would like the government of Iyad Allawi to succeed, but fear that it
will be a puppet of the US. Earlier this month General Kimmitt said
that for US armed forces in Iraq, all that was happening was a change
of name. "I don't think that July 1st is particularly significant
on the part of the coalition military operations, with the exception
we will now be known as the multinational forces."
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede
Team CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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