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

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January 14, 2002

Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It

January 13, 2002

C.G. Estabrook
Why We Kill People

January 12, 2002

Cockburn/St. Clair
Forbidden Truths

January 11, 2002

Lee Balllinger/Dave Marsh
Neil Young's Duet with Ashcroft

January 10, 2002

Tom Turnipseed
Bush, Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban

St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace to Greenwash?

Hans von Sponek
Iraq: Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?

Jim Lobe
Israeli Human Rights Group Assails Army

Marina Mayakova
Russia's Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL

January 9, 2002

David Vest
The Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent

ND Jayaprakash
Winnable Nuclear War?

Rafiq Kathwari
Kashmir Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire

January 8, 2002

Prudence Crowther
Sting Like a B-52

Nelson Valdés
Al-Qaeda at Guantanamo Bay

John Chuckman
Dark Tales from the
Ministry of Truth

Richard Corn-Revere
Do We Fear Freedom?

Joan Hoff
The Nixon You Haven't Heard

January 7, 2002

Lawrence McGuire
Confusing Economic Tales About Argentina

Wael Masri
They Are Taking
Our Rights Away

Philip Farruggio
Better Medicine

January 6, 2002

Ralph Nader
Students Put the Heat on Foreign Sweatshops

Tariq Ali
Battleground Kashmir

January 5, 2002

Mark Schneider
Kifah: The Movie Star
Israel Killed

Edward Said
Is Israel More Secure Now?

January 4, 2002

CG Estabrook
Anti-War = Anti-Globalization

Jordan Green
What's Changed in New York

January 3, 2002

Walt Brasch
Exit Cheney, Enter Ridge

Mokhiber and Weissman
The 10 Worst Corporations
of 2001

Robert Hunter Wade
America's Empire Rules an Unbalanced World

Shahid Alam
Is There an Islamic Problem?

January 2, 2002

Ross Regnart
Patriot Act Redefines the Mob as "Terrorist Associates"

John Chuckman
The Republicans' Secret Plan X

David Vest
Turn, Turn, Turn

January 1, 2002

Kathy Kelly
Iraq's New Year

December 31, 2001

John Absood
An Alternative to War in Iraq

Ramzi Kysia
Iraq Goes Radioactive

December 28, 2001

John Chuckman
Observing George Bush

Suren Pillay
Civilian Bodies

Aaron Lehmer
Inviting Future Terrorism

December 27, 2001

Patrick McNamara
Palestinian Children Bear Brunt of Mideast Violence

Nelson Valdés
A Possible Scenario on the Location of bin Laden

Jensen and Mahajan
Remember the Afghan Dead

Philip Farruggio
A New Year's Resolution

Ramzi Kysia
The People of the Valley

December 26, 2001

John Chuckman
In Praise of the Unspeakable

Sam Bahour
2002: Year of the Twos

December 25, 2001

Jennifer Loewenstein
Israel's Human Rights Record

December 24, 2001

Sam Bahour
It Happened One Morning

Yair Khilou
Why I Resisted Being Drafted into the Israeli Army

Michael Chisari
War as Diversionary Tactic

Cockburn/St. Clair
Enron and the Green Seal


A Photographic Journal of Life in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann

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 Oct. 15, 2001

8-Page Special Issue

War Diary

CIA's Assassination Plan a History of Torture in US Prisons

bin Laden and Bush Business Connections

Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype of US Food Bombs

Peter Linebaugh on Pakistan

Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher

Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em


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 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

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New Book at an
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Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual


Private Warriors
by Ken Silverstein

CounterPunch's Booktalk

January 14, 2002

Collapse of Georgia is Ignored by the World

By Patrick Cockburn
in Moscow
The Independent

In the depths of the Pankisi Gorge, a natural fortress in the mountains of northern Georgia shielded from the outside world by its sheer rock walls, kidnappers are holding an Orthodox monk and demanding $1 million for his release. The kidnapping has provoked a public outcry and highlighted the disintegration of Georgia.

Demonstrators gathered last week at the entrance of the gorge, which is controlled by Chechen battle commanders, to protest against the abduction of Father Basili Machitadze. They are demanding the Georgian government reassert its authority over the Pankisi, which is among several large enclaves in Georgia that is no longer under central government control.

Kidnappings are not uncommon in Georgia, but Father Basili, a hermit, has become a popular figure since he was taken by gunmen on 19 November. In addition to the 50 protesters, three Orthodox monks have been holding a vigil at the mouth of the gorge to demand his release.

Nobody quite knows who is holding him--though the most likely candidate is one of three Chechen military commanders with bases in the Pankisi--but his kidnapping and the inability of the government in the capital, Tbilisi, to do anything about it is only the latest symptom of the fragmentation of Georgia, a nation of five million, which has rapidly gathered pace over the past three months.

While international attention has been focused on Afghanistan, Georgia has slithered towards disintegration. It has been a patchwork of competing authorities since soon after independence 10 years ago.

Abkhazia, an enclave on Georgia's Black Sea coast, won effective independence in 1993 after a savage little war. South Ossetia, an impoverished region in northern Georgia, had done the same after heavy fighting a year earlier. No peace treaties have been signed with either of these breakaway regions. Tbilisi is technically in a state of war with both.

As things fall apart on the periphery of Georgia there are also signs that the centre will not hold. Georgian politics have always been rough. Last July Georgi Sanaya, one of the best- known journalists in the country and news presenter for the commercial Rustavi-2 television channel, was shot dead.

The same television station was at the centre of a crisis in October. A politically inspired raid by the tax police on its studios led to thousands of demonstrators taking to the streets and the Georgian President, Eduard Shevardnadze, sacking his government. The former Soviet foreign minister, 73, says he will stay until his term expires in 2005 but he is looking increasingly beleaguered.

Georgian governments tend to see the hand of Russia behind many of their difficulties.

The kidnapping of father Basili underlines that the Pankisi Gorge is one more part of the country where the government has lost control. But while foreign governments and media remain absorbed by Afghanistan the disintegration of the country shows little sign of evoking outside interest.