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Read Cockburn and St. Clair's Whiteout: the CIA, Drugs and the Press and discover how the CIA gave a helping hand to the opium lords who took over Afghanistan, thus ushering the Taliban into power.


CounterPunch: Complete Coverage of 9/11 and the War on Afghanistan

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April 11, 2002

Alexander Cockburn
From the West Bank to BBQ
to Old Sparky, And Beyond

April 10, 2002

M. Juniad Alam
Blaming the Victims:
Hating the Palestinians

George Monbiot
World Bank to West Bank

Fran Schor
US-Sponsored State Terror

David Vest
Political Color Schemes

Jack McCarthy
Florida State Radicals:
The Berkeley of the South
Rises Again

Doreen Miller
A Tale of Two Warring Tribes

Michael Neumann
Israelis and Indians

April 9, 2002

Bernard Weiner
Colin Powell's Table Talk

Matt Vidal
Thomas Friedman,
Another Wasted Pulitzer

Ron Jacobs
Buyer Beware

Robert Jensen
I Helped Kill a Palestinian

Vijay Prashad
Memories of Barbarity:
Sharonism and September

Wayne Madsen
Anthrax and the Agency:
Thinking the Unthinkable

April 8, 2002

David Vest
From Birmingham to Nashville:
The Making of Tammy Wynette

Rick Giombetti
Paxil, Suicide and Science

Dr. Neve Gordon
Letter to an IDF Colonel:
How Did You Become
a War Criminal?

Dave Marsh
DeskScan:
This Week's Top 10 CDs

Jordy Cummings
Not in My Name Anymore

Gavin Keeney
Bush and the Middle East:
Mouth Wide Shut

Edward Said
The Future of Palestine

April 7, 2002

Beth Daoud
Accompanying Ambulances
in Bethlehem

Nancy Stohlman
After the Invasion:
The Search for Bread
Among the Ruins

Thomas Mountain
"Yellow Peril" In Hawai'i:
Judge Orders Chains and Shackles for Chinese Witnesses

Tariq Ali
Who Killed Daniel Pearl?

April 6, 2002

Philip Farruggio
War, Snake Oil and Circuses

Viktor Litovkin
Russian Generals Raise Questions About Pentagon Victories in Afghanistan

Patrick Cockburn
CIA Survey of Iraqi Airfields
May Herald Attack

Walt Brasch
Oil Slick George:
Bush-whacking the Environment

Ralph Nader
Campaign Finance Sham

Sam Bahour
The Blind Leading the Criminal

Bill Christison:
A Former CIA Official on
Oil and the Middle East

April 5, 2002

Charmaine Seitz
In Ramallah: The Grueling Reoccupation Grinds On

Nancy Stohlman
The Invasion of Bethlehem
and Our Tax Dollars at Work

Beth Daoud
The Siege of Bethlehem:
"What Do You Mean God Is Punishing Me?"

Fareed Marjaee:
Demonizing Iran

Mokhiber / Weissman
Philip Morris to Canada:
"Drop Dead"

Alex Lynch
Tampa Campus Mirrors
Middle East Strife

Alexander Cockburn
Sharon's Wars: How the
News Gets Through

April 4, 2002

Ray Hanania
Sharon's Latest Lie About the Church of the Nativity

Mike Leon
Rightwing Assault on Madison Progressives Misfires

Tom Turnipseed
Stop the Killing Now!

Nancy Stohlman
An American Under Siege in a West Bank Refugee Camp

Christopher Reilly
Kissinger, Chile and Justice
at Long Last?

M. Shahid Alam
The Lies of Thomas Friedman

April 3, 2002

Don Henley
Dear Loathsome Trade Hacks

Bernard Weiner
An American Jew Talks
About His Shame

David Vest
Sting of Stings

Gabriel Ash
America's Bravest

John Chuckman
Of War, Islam and Israel

Robert Fisk
The Siege of Bethlehem

Alexander Cockburn
The Sins of the Church

Resources:
100s of Links About 9/11


CounterPunch:
Complete Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath


Five Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond

By Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula

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Published March 15, 2002

  • Facing Down Rehnquist and Scalia:
  • Jennifer Harbury at the Supreme Court;
  • ADL Throws in Towel, Pays Up:
  • How They Worked for Apartheid Regime and Spied on NAACP:
  • Cockburn on America the Bully:
  • From Teddy Roosevelt to George W.
  • St. Clair on Musicians Against the Death Penalty & The Legacy of the Mekons.


    Search CounterPunch

Read Whiteout and Find Out How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden

Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the Press

by Alexander Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The New Crusade:
America's War on Terrorism

By Rahul Mahajan

The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff

The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid

Edited by Roane Carey

 

A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair

The Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine

Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair

Buy This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
 

Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual


Private Warriors
by Ken Silverstein

CounterPunch's Booktalk

April 11, 2002

It Survived the Nazis, But Can It Withstand the Developers?

Battle for the St. Petersburg Zoo

By Patrick Cockburn
in St. Petersburg

The hippopotamus in Leningrad zoo survived the German siege of the city in the Second World War because keepers persuaded him to eat dubious porridge mainly made from sawdust.

Now the 165-year-old zoo, in the Alexander Garden near the Peter and Paul Fortress in the city centre, is under threat again --allegedly because local developers, helped by the governor's office, want to turn it into a leisure centre.

The battle over St Petersburg zoo involves President Vladimir Putin and Alexander Yakovlev, the city governor. The zoo has had six directors in 10 months, including a woman who lasted three days and a mysterious military officer who refused to tell anybody his rank. For a city trying to clean up its act in time for its 300th anniversary next year, it has not looked good.

The feud first came to public notice when Irena Yakovleva, the governor's wife, sacked Dr Ivan Korneyev, the zoo's director for 11 years. Her husband, a powerful politician, had set up a foundation called Zoosad to make plans for the future of the zoo, which is owned by the city.

These plans envisaged moving the zoo to an outer suburb of St Petersburg, where it would be filled with herds of wild animals at a cost of nearly $1 billion. Since no money was allocated, Dr Korneyev believed the real purpose was to use the zoo site to build hotels. He said: "The aim was to convert the Alexander Garden, or at least the zoo part of it, into a leisure centre. The animals' problems were the last thing they ever thought of."

Dr Korneyev's attacks drew so much attention that the plan was dropped. But he had become an enemy of the governor's wife. Mr Putin sympathises but the city owns the zoo. "If the authorities decide to close the zoo tomorrow, nobody can stop them," said Dr Korneyev, adding that only the mayor's resignationwould save the zoo.

Nikolai Konotovsky, an official in the governor's office, claims the position is not so bad and "everything is OK with the animals". But Valentina Shurganova, its deputy director, who has spent 19 years at the zoo, is gloomy. "The situation was never as bad as it is now," she says. "We cannot understand what will become of us."