home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq

Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! America's First Terror War From Pirates to Enemy Combatants: R.T. Naylor traces the birth of the American Military-Industrial Complex and illustrates the striking parallels between Thomas Jefferson's naval war on the Barbary Coast states and Bush's War on Terror. Oil Company U?: Ali Tonak takes apart the big merger between British Petroleum and Cal-Berkeley and reveals BP's plot to saturate the Third World with GM crops, all in the name of oil conservation. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair Cool Clothes for a Hot Summer: Brand New CounterPunch T-Shirts!

Today's Stories May 26, 2007 Michael Donnelly Green Sabotage as "Terrorism" May 25, 2007 Robert Jensen What the Finkelstein Tenure Fight Tells Us About the State of Academia David Vest So You Thought They'd End the War John Stauber Democratic Spin Won't End the War in Iraq Evelyn Pringle Congress Gives War Profiteers Another $100 Billion Corporate Crime Reporter Why Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are a Fraud Susan Rosenthal, MD What's Missing from the Health Care Debate Roberto Rodriguez Us vs. Them in the Immigration Debate Steve Fournier Goodie, Goodie Goodling Patrick McElwee Venezuela and RCTV: Is Free Speech Really at Stake? Robert Weissman Resisting the Commercialization of Public Schools Website of the Day New DNC Motto: "We Suck"     May 24, 2007 Franklin Lamb Who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon Corporate Crime Reporter House Democrats Buckle to Big Oil: Strip Down Price Gouging Bill Robert Fantina Giuliani: Righteous, Indignant and Wrong Norman Solomon Deadly Illusions, Rest in Peace Dave Lindorff Kerrycrats All!: Now It's a Democratic War Sen. Russell Feingold We are Moving Backwards on Iraq Fred Gardner Doctor of Last Resort Mike Whitney Paulson in China Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury and Mark Hoffman Becoming Imperialist: a Warning to Iraq War Critics Caroline Paul My Brother the "Terrorist": Animal Liberation and Prosecutorial Overkill Eva Liddell In Defense of Lying on Job Applications Website of the Day Johnny's Jumped the Shark May 23, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Opium: Iraq's Newest Export Rev. William Alberts Faith-Based Imperialism Joe DeRaymond Colombia's Civil War and the US Sudhanva Deshpande and Vijay Prashad The Political Economy of a Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Republicans in Self-Destruct Mode Glen Ford A Less "White" USA Rannie Amiri The Great Bank Heist of Tripoli China Hand China's Great Wall of Cash? Zoe Blunt Tales from the Tree Tops: Veteran Tree Sitter Tells All Nivien Saleh Who's to Blame for Iraq? Website of the Day Debating the Israel Lobby May 22, 2007 Robert Fisk A Front Row Seat for the Bloodbath in Lebanon Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton's Achilles Heel? Harvey Wasserman Drop Dead, New Yorkers: Giuliani and the Toxic Fallout from 9/11 David Mos Masumoto An Orchard Without Workers Sonja Karkar Israeli Forest Named After Australian Prime Minister Conn Hallinan The Afghan Quagmire Dave Lindorff A Widening Chasm on Impeachment Jeffrey Kolakowski Meet Us in Detroit: an Open Letter to John Konyers Evelyn Pringle A Misleading Suicide Warning Jim Baumer Politics Gary, Indiana-Style Website of the Day Should the Democrats Fear Mike Gravel? May 21, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Secret US Plot to Kill Sadr Nicole Colson Much Ado About the Fort Dix Pizza Plot John Ross Shooting for the Top: Mexico's Drug Gangs Take Aim at Calderon Stephen Fleischman Werewolf of Washington: Wolfowitz Comes Full Circle M. Shahid Alam Chosenness and Israeli Exceptionalism Ron Jacobs Green Mountain Days: Return to Vermont Peter Rost, MD Pfizer CFO Resigns Alan Farago Can the Everglades Save Florida? Paul Buchheit The Dark Side of Democracy Promotion Website of the Day Code Monkey: Live! May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Why America Lost the War in Iraq Uri Avnery The Next War Peter Gelderloos My Arrest in Spain: The Easy Road from Tourism to Terrorism Saul Landau Bush's Accomplishments Robert Fantina Iraq's History: Lessons for the Present and the Future Fred Gardner Hemp vs. Pot, a False Dichotomy Ralph Nader Timid Democrats and the Antiwar Movement Jean Daniels Waiting for Obama Reza Fiyouzat Vietnam Syndrome: Dead or Alive? Missy Beattie Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani and Osama's Fatwah Robert Alvarez Magical Thinking About Nuclear Waste Sonja Karkar The Palestinians of Iraq Dave Lindorff Mumia Case on Hold Jeff Sher Keep Workers Healthy and Reduce Health Care Cost: Eliminate Co-Pays Julian C. Holmes Torture, Maine Style Clancy Sigal Red Mutiny: 11 Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin Prairie Miller The Murder of Fred Hampton James Murren The Dog Ate Karl Rove's Homework: When Turd Blossom Met the Teachers of the Year Poets' Basement Davies, Valentine and Engel Website of the Weekend Yellowstone's Shame: Harassing Newborn Bison   May 18, 2007 Adam Jones When Does Genocide Purify? Ask the Pope Sharon Smith The Death of Triangulation Politics? Christopher Brauchli Cheney's Middle East Adventure Peter Rost, MD Bribes and Spies in the Drug Industry Denise Maloney Pictou The Murder of Our Mother, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash: After 31 Years, It is Time for Justice David Swanson Of Snoops and Dupes Ali Khan The Lawyers' Mutiny in Pakistan Susan Rosenthal, M.D. Cho Seung-Hui Delivers His Message Samer Assad Israel and the Refugees: Fifty-Nine Years of Dispossession CP News Service Bidding for Extinction: Ivory Trade on eBay Threatens Survival of Elephants Website of the Day Another War Criminal Goes to Harvard   May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali The General vs. the Judge Yifat Susskind Honor Killings in the New Iraq: The Murder of Du'a Aswad Dave Zirin Being Ali or Being Owned: an Open Letter to LeBron James Brian J. Foley Hell, No, Harry Won't Go! W. John Green The Godfather of Colombia: Uribe and the Para Scandal Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Challenges for the New Sanctuary Movement Badruddin Khan Rebirthing the Neocons: Bernard Lewis' Latest Call to Arms Martha Rosenberg From Cockfighting to Foie Gras: On the Menu and on the Docket China Hand Pope Rat in Brazil: "The Amazon Tribes Longed for Christianity!" Dan Vojir Falwell's Tinky Winky Legacy: Who Will Battle the Telebubby Threat Now? Website of the Day Welcome to the Terrordome May 16, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Chalabi Speaks Ashley Dawson Who's Afraid of Wolfowitz? Joshua Frank Obama's Cash Flow: Maverick or Kidder? Corporate Crime Reporter Corporate Drug Pushers Ray McGovern A Four-Letter Word for Tenet Glen Ford Black Labor and the Big Mission Joe Bageant The Ghosts of Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson Sonja Karkar The 59-Year Catastrophe Mickey S. Huff Preaching Hate: Farewell, Falwell John Chuckman Falwell's Lone Act of Kindness Kaz Dziamka What Ever Happened to Rogerian Argument? Website of the Day We're All Going to Hell   May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Two States, One State and Snake Oil Patrick Cockburn An American Nightmare Ashley Smith How the US Set Iraq on Fire Marc Gardner Parole and the Long-Distance Trucker Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington, Jr Mumia Case Reaches Its Climax Ben Terrall Benchmark as Theft: Iraq Oil Workers Strike to Stop Privatization Ron Jacobs Cheney Threatens More War Harvey Wasserman The Legacy of Seabrook Marcus Mabry Shopping During Katrina Dr. Susan Block Cheney and the DC Madam's Cookie Jar Website of the Day Save Jean Klock Park from the Mega-Developers!   May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Giuliani Time: the Mussolini of Manhattan Jeffrey St. Clair Humans, CO2 and Climate Change George Bisharat For Palestinians, Memory Matters Diane Wachtell The Real Imus Lesson Ramzy Baroud From Palestine to Rotterdam Rosemary and Walter Brasch When the National Guard Goes Missing: An Ill Wind and American Policy Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Blair's Exit Roberto Rodriguez The Elusive Bars of Justice Jonathan Culp Cutting Out Collage: Copyright and Art in Canada Website of the Day Uranium Rock May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Who are the Merchants of Fear? Patrick Cockburn State of Surge Jeffrey St. Clair High Line Fever: a Trip Across the Dark Side of Montana Diane Farsetta Untold Stories from the Pat Tillman / Jessica Lynch Hearings Ralph Nader Strip Mining the Newsroom: Mr. Zell and the Tribune Company Jean Bricmont The Great Illusion: Sarkozy and the "Decline" of France Marcus Breen Cheering Sarkozy: the US Media and the Rightwing Takeover of France Joe Bageant Rising Above Politics Conn Hallinan European Missiles and the Camel's Nose Fred Gardner The Unreported I-880 Fire Juan Santos and Leslie Radford Public Terror: Escalating the War on Migrants Eve Bachrach Inside Colombia's Flower Industry Missy Comley Beattie Shame Ron Jacobs The Bitterness of Regis Debray Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Sepoy Mutiny After 150 Years Susie Day Jesus Christ Weds Pat Robertson Poets' Basement Newberry, Engel, Landau, Katz and Davies Website of the Weekend The Shipyard: Recycling as Art May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Blair's Depature: the View from Baghdad Kathleen Christison Playing at Peace Mike Ferner Collateral Genocide John Holt Gating Montana: A Ghastly Disneyland with High Rise Outhouses Laurie Hasbrook This Minute and Then the Next: a Plea from an Antiwar Mother Christopher Brauchli The Children of Limbo: Will the Pope Finally Set Them Free? Margaret Kimberley GOP Openly Embraces Gipper Values: Racism, Violence and Control Dave Lindorff Use It or Lose It: The Democrats and the Impeachment Clause Nicole Colson Anger Erupts at Conditions in For-Profit Indiana Prison John V. Walsh Beware the Do-Gooders in Body Armor Website of the Day Take the Terrorist Quiz!   May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Adieu, Blair, Adieu Patrick Cockburn Killing of Teachers Turns Iraqi Sunnis Against al--Qa'ida Neve Gordon and Yigal Bronner In Israel Not All Blood is the Same: The Death of Samir Dari Marjorie Cohn Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada Carriles David Rosen The New Disappeared: Sex Offenders, Civil Confinement and the Resurrection of "Evil" Alan Farago Why the Everglades Have Dried Up: Developers and the South Florida Drought John Hellman France: From Pétain to Sarkozy Kathy Rentenbach A 100 Days of Rafael Correa BANCO The Stage is Set for Sentencing Another Innocent Black Man Richard Rhames Is Paris Burning? Website of the Day Tame the Corporation May 9, 2007 Jeff Leys Iraq and Afghanistan Supplemental Spending, 2008 Patrick Cockburn An Interview with Iraq's Foreign Minister on Iran and Iraq Glen Ford No Black Plan for America's Cities Paula Rothenberg Feminism Then and Now Kathryn Weber A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein John Chuckman The Likely Historical Significance of the War in Iraq Jordan Flaherty Looking for Justice in Jena, Louisiana Dave Lindorff Pelosi's Toothless Threat to Sue Bush Stephen Lendman Criminalizing Speech: the War on Free Expression in a Post-9/11 World Website of the Day "Fifth and Market": a Short Film About the Iraq War     May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff The Great Oil Robbery Patrick Cockburn The Horrific Stoning Death of a Yazidi Girl Sparks Waves of Revenge Killings Corporate Crime Reporter Snuff Politics: Democrats Escalate Attack on Single Payer Ralph Nader The People's Crusade of Mike Gravel Malini Johar Schueller Decoding Harlan Ullman: Shock and Awe as Sexual Fantasy Juan Santos The Hate Equation: Targeting Migrant Children in LA Dave Zirin Jason Whitlock, the Clarence Thomas of Sportswriters? Joshua Frank The Price of Fire in Latin America Evelyn Pringle Serotonin Syndrome Eamonn McCann Irish Peace Dividend for Discredited Premiers Website of the Day The Pagan Science Monitor     May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Great Wall of Baghdad Rises Monica Benderman Land of Opportunity Greg Moses Hutto Prison Rebuffs UN Rapporteur Rannie Amiri The Sham at Sheikh: Iraq Regional Conference a Flop Fitrakis / Wasserman Media Silence on Kent State Revelations Fred Wilhelms Another Royalty Forfeiture From SoundExchange: And This Time It's Secret! Ramzy Baroud The Hourglass of Blood: Darfur Revisited Bruce K. Gagnon The Democrats Don't Own the Antiwar Movement T. W. Croft Home Movies from a Weekend in Paris--And Related Dreamscapes Sonja Karkar Prizes for Supporting Israel? Website of the Day Posada Carriles: the Declassified Record May 5 / 6, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Trying to Catch Up with the Voters William Blum How America Has Changed Iraq Uri Avnery Exercise in Escapism Franklin Lamb Harvard's Twisted Report on Israel's Invasion of Lebanon Fred Gardner Elective Surgeries Kill Lawrence R. Velvel The American Moral Meltdown Accelerates Missy Beattie Lying and Dying: The Moral Sensibility of Military Recruiters Robert Fantina Bush's Veto: Hypocritical Words and Actions Carla Blank American Massacres and the Media Linn Washington, Jr. The Long Ordeal of Harold Wilson Stephen F. Jackson Taking It to Drummond: Paramilitaries and Mining Companies in Colombia P. Sainath The Jailing of Indian Farmers Anthony Papa Time to End New York's War on Itself James T. Phillips Blather Cancer John Ross Last Days of the Willie Loman of the EZLN Stephen Lendman Chavez's Oil Policy Sparks Panic at Wall Street Journal Ben Terrall Iggy Pop at 60 CounterPunch Newswire Advice from a Geezer Assassin Poets' Basement Valentine, Engel and Davies Website of the Weekend Mountain Justice Summer   May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn How the Surge is Failing Col. Dan Smith From Watergate to Gonzogate Norman Solomon FOX on Wall Street Azmi Bishara Why is Israel After Me? Ron Jacobs Sitting in on Senator Kohl and the War Dave Lindorff Clinton and Byrd are Calling for Revocation of the Wrong AUMF Kevin Zeese The Democrats Cave to Bush Bob Fitrakis Why Four Died in Ohio: Kent State, Gov. Rhodes and the FBI Janet Kauffman "Stop the Mudness!" Bare Earth is Scorched Earth Website of the Day Let Us Gather in Missouri!   May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper The Livni-Rice Plan for the Middle East: a Just Peace or Apartheid? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Best and Brightest: From Dr. Keroack to Bernard Kerik Dave Zirin Talking Sports from Death Row: an Interview with Kevin Cooper Corporate Crime Reporter Big Pharma Gets Its Hooks into Seton Hall Law School Robert Fisk Olmert Comes Undone Mike Ferner Bush Veto, Right for the Wrong Reasons? Mike Whitney A Stock Market Post-Mortem Pham Binh The Democrats and War Funding Dave Lindorff Kucinich's Impeachment Train: Look Who Just Stepped Aboard Michael A. Johnson Tenet on 60 Minutes Website of the Day Olivia Wilde: the Interview   May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His TV Show? Dr. Susan Block Hookergate II: Madame Julia's Big Black Book of Cheesy Republican Sex Acts Carla Blank Historical Amnesia: Worst U.S. Massacre? Margaret Kimberly The Candor of Mike Gravel: "These People Frighten Me" Kevin Zeese Durbin Gives Edwards More to Apologize For Carlos Villareal How "Law and Order" Covers for Bigotry in the Immigration Debate Michael Dickinson Trouble in Turkey: Criminalizing Political Art Tim Shorrock A Raw Deal Between Washington and Seoul: Corporate Interventionism as Trade Policy Alevtina Rea The Myth-Makers of Estonia William S. Lind General Incompetence: Col. Yingling and the Military Brass Website of the Day Good News: Rost's "ZubeGate Exposé Prompts Congressional Inquiry May 1, 2007 Andrew Cockburn How Rumsfeld Micromanaged Torture Fred Gardner Affirmative Abstinence: Adios, Randall Tobias, the Man Who Turned His Wife's Suicide into a Sales Pitch for Prozac Chase Madar Are Working Class Jobs Bad for Your Health? Ralph Nader Cheney and the BYU 25: Faith, Accountability and Protest in Utah John V. Walsh Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base Joshua Frank Obama, Incorporated Leslie Radford The Migrant Trap and the Migrant's Way Out Shaun Harkin An Interview with Nativo López on Immigration Bills and Protests Dave Lindorff Murtha Talks Impeachment Peter Rost, MD Inspector General Requests Meeting with Pfizer Whistleblower Peter Linebaugh May Day and Magna Carta Website of the Day Impeachment? Why Bother?         Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition May 26 / 27, 2007 Protest from a Bad Cripple Ashley Unlawfully Sterilized By WILLIAM PEACE The Ashley Treatment is back in the news. On May 8 major news outlets reported that the Seattle Children's Hospital and the doctors who performed surgery as part of the "Ashley Treatment" broke Washington State Law. The hospital acknowledged that they had violated the law when Ashley was sterilized (minors cannot be sterilized without a court order in Washington). The hospital medical director, David Fisher, stated "we deeply regret that a court order was not obtained and that an independent third party was not sought to represent Ashley. We take full responsibility for the miscommunication between the ethics committee and the treating physicians. We have introduced new safeguards so that procedures requiring a court order will have one obtained before they begin". This statement falls woefully short of addressing the profound implications of the Ashley Treatment I wrote about last January . While the hospital may have resolved its legal and procedural problems it has failed to understand or consider why people with disabilities were outraged. To me, the hospital statement amounts to nothing more than political or legal spin and demonstrates that the cultural divide between those with a disability and those without is as wide and deep as the Grand Canyon. How else can one understand the hubris of all those involved? The parents still advocate the Ashley Treatment, the hospital continues to evaluate children for this radically invasive "treatment" and no one questions whether the treatment itself is right or wrong. Based on the outcry of many people with disabilities, the Washington Protection and Advocacy System (WPAS), a private group vested with federal investigative authority for people with disabilities initiated an investigation into the use of the Ashley Treatment. With the cooperation of the hospital, the WPAS released a full report of their findings (the report is available on line: wpas-rights.org). Ashley's parents who have remained anonymous yet maintain a very public blog about their daughter praise and question the findings of the WPAS. In a May 8 update of their blog Ashley's parents "support the vigilance of WPAS in their efforts to protect vulnerable members of our society". But in their opinion the laws designed to protect the rights of disabled people to procreate did not apply to Ashley. They wrote that their daughter's documented developmental state and prognosis precluded voluntary procreation and that sterilization was not the intent of the Ashley Treatment but a byproduct of it. The parents conclude that the law regarding sterilization is too broad and requiring a court order for "all hysterectomies performed on all disabled persons regardless of medical condition, complexity, severity, or prognosis puts an onerous burden on already over-burdened families of children with medical conditions as serious as Ashley's". When I read this statement I was stunned. Are Ashley's parents unaware that through much of the 20th century in America disabled people were forcibly sterilized? Have they never heard of the Eugenics movement? * The law in Washington State is concise: a court order is required before a minor can be sterilized. Ashley may have profound mental and physical disabilities but she is human. The actions of Ashley's parents make me shudder. It also made me think of Joseph Merrick and the 1980 movie Elephant Man that was loosely based on his life. I remember only one scene from the film: it is when Merrick loudly proclaimed, "I am a human being". Is our culture aware that disabled people, regardless of their cognitive and physical abilities, have a place in society? Based on what I have experienced and read in published reports about the Ashley Treatment the answer is a thunderous No. What has the mainstream presses reported? The hospital is praised for cooperating with the investigation and publicly admitting they made a mistake. The hospital will even appoint a person with a disability rights perspective to the ethics board. Wow, is this great? I think not. It is entirely inadequate. The hospital, doctors involved in treating Ashley, and the ethics committee that approved the treatment should be condemned for bigotry of the basest sort. Published reports updating the story do not mention the merits of the case nor do they consider why it was acceptable to sterilize Ashley and radically alter her body. Why is Ashley's humanity never discussed? Why are her civil rights somehow different than those who are not disabled? Why was her right to due process ignored? Why was the fact that Washington is a state that has strict laws regarding the sterilization of minors ignored? Why were her constitutional and common law rights violated? Why were Ashley's parents "over-burdened", caring for their daughter? None of the above questions addresses the fact Ashley will never be the same person physically. This, I assure you, has implications for disabled people and the way they are perceived by society and the medical system. Since January the internet, particularly sites related to disability rights, have been abuzz with commentary. I have printed much of this discussion and the stack of papers on my desk easily exceeds 1,000 pages. All this material can be accessed with a few strokes of the keyboard yet not a single story mentions the multitude of questions raised by disability rights activists. Yes, the hospital cooperated with the WPAS but that has not stopped them from considering other children for the Ashley Treatment. More to the point, what choice did the hospital really have? At a joint news conference the hospital and disability rights activists were praised for cooperating with one another during the WPAS investigation (Ashley's parents were invited but declined to attend). This is fine but why did no one ask the simple question: why were Ashley's rights violated in the first place? According to Mark Stroh, executive director of the WPAS "Washington law specifically prohibits the sterilization of minors with developmental disabilities without zealous advocacy on their behalf and court approval and, in this instance, it did not happen". I want to know why and so do many other disabled people in this country. The failure to protect Ashley's rights highlights the fact that the problems disabled people encounter are not medical but social. Developmentally and physically disabled people are among the most socially isolated in this country. Group homes are routinely met with stiff resistance from neighbors and town governments. Secondary schools perceive disabled students to be financial burdens, taking resources away from "normal" kids. At universities across the country the ADA is routinely ignored (I often teach in a building that does not conform to ADA standards). American society simply does not accept or value crippled people. Why do I use this antiquated word crippled? Aside from the fact it has shock value, cripple refers to a person who cannot walk or use one or more limbs. I cannot walk. That is a fact. Ashley cannot walk and has profound mental limitations. These too are facts. Do these facts preclude us from living a full life? No. What do preclude our ability to live life to its fullest are societal ignorance and prejudice. We, meaning crippled people, cannot ignore past abuses. The history of crippled people is filled with stories of forced sterilization, institutionalization, and abandonment. These actions were taken not because they were good for crippled people. Rather they were in the supposed best interests of society. Given this, I remain alarmed that the primary benefit of the Ashley Treatment and growth attenuation was that it made "caring for the child less burdensome". According to Ashley's doctors, Daniel Gunther and Douglas Diekema, "a smaller person is not as difficult to move and transfer from place to place". This line of reasoning is deeply flawed, as are the conclusions they reached: "growth attenuation in the non-ambulatory child with severe developmental disability seems mutually beneficial to caretakers and patient. There does not appear to be conflict between the interests of the parents and the interests of the child". It is obvious that Ashley's parents and doctors not only infantilized Ashley but failed to acknowledge her rights as a human being. The WPAS findings directly contradict the conclusions of Ashley's doctors. The WPAS report is a fascinating document in that it is easy to read and blunt. For example, the hospital and doctors cited communication failures in neglecting to get a court order to sterilize Ashley. The WPAS executive summary makes it clear this failure was more than a simple miscommunication or paper work error. The WPAS stated that any individual being considered for the Ashley Treatment "must be zealously represented by a disinterested third party in an adversarial proceeding to determine whether the sterilization is in the individuals best interests". In turn the WPAS would "act as a watchdog on behalf of people with disabilities". The WPAS concluded that Ashley's parents did not have to the legal right to represent their daughter. According to the Washington Supreme Court, parents have limited "authority to consent to other types of medical interventions that are highly invasive and/or irreversible, particularly when the interest of the parent may not be identical to the interests of the child. Thus, the other aspects of the "Ashley Treatment"-surgical breast bud removal and hormone treatments-should also require independent court evaluation and sanction before performed on any person". There is no question that Ashley's doctors and the hospital acted illegally. The hospital has admitted to this and implemented procedures to insure a court order will be sought before other children are sterilized. What the hospital and the WPAS have not done is question the larger implications of this radical medical intervention. What does the Ashley Treatment say about the social perception of all disabled people. When reading the news stories about the Ashley Treatment, all of which were disheartening, I wondered what Robert Murphy, author of the Body Silent would have thought. Murphy's book, a text I identify as the Magna Carta for crippled people, held that disability was a social malady. I recall reading this book and being stunned: there was nothing "wrong" with me. My disability had little to do with medical issues but rather spoke volumes about society and culture. As such, I think disability is an allegory for life and entropy. Paralysis, or in Ashley's case mental deficiency, is a metaphor for what Americans fear the most-disorder, loss of control, and eventually death. The result is that society wants to isolate and hide disabled people in socially sanctioned settings. This takes the form of group homes, back entrances, obscure elevators, locked doors, paratransit systems, and a host of other "special" accommodations. Each of these accommodations are designed to do one thing-make the disabled person socially and personally invisible. Every day disabled people struggle against social invisibility. Stories such as the Ashley Treatment deeply depress me. How could doctors charged with the ethical principle primum non nocere, to "do no harm", think of such an abomination like the Ashley Treatment"? How could two loving parents want to mutilate their daughter's body and violate her most basic rights? What is next? Amputate the legs of paralyzed people because they are at risk for skin problems and blood clots? What about Alzheimer's patients? Should they be permitted to live if they are not sentient? I have rights. Ashley has rights. All crippled people have rights. These rights have been gutted by the Supreme Court who have made a mockery of the Americans with Disability Act. American society has utterly failed to be inclusive to crippled people. No one cares about crippled people aside from the crippled themselves. For example, I have been told many times wheelchair access is of limited use and should be optional. Building ramps, accessible bathrooms, and elevators makes no financial sense because the number of people that need them is severely limited. The argument that the inclusion of crippled people is not "fiscally responsible" and that my rights as a person who uses a wheelchair is somehow different is bigotry. Inclusion is not an option. It is a civil right. I hope some day those rights will be recognized and supported by all people-those than can walk and those that cannot. Editorial footnote: Allan Chase, in his "The Legacy of Malthus," says 63,678 people were compulsorily sterilized in America between 1907 and 1964 in the 30 states and one colony with such laws. But there were hundreds of thousands more sterilizations that were nominally voluntary but actually coerced. Chase quotes federal judge Gerhard Gesell as saying in 1974, in a suit brought on behalf of poor victims of involuntary sterilization, "Over the past few years an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 low-income persons have been sterilized annually by state and federal agencies." This rate equals that achieved in Nazi Germany. AC/JSC William J. Peace is an independent scholar. He is the author of Leslie A. White: Evolution and Revolution in Anthropology. He has contributed articles about disability in the Ragged Edge and scholarly publications such as Disability Studies Quarterly. Next spring CounterPunch Books will be publishing Peace's new book, The Bad Cripple. He can be reached at wjpeace@optonline.net

Now Available! The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained! Buy End Times Now! Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair       The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn     CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed   Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"