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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter! Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
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Inside the New Print Edition of Our Subscriber-Only Newsletter!
Drug Companies and Psychiatrists
Partners in CrimeEugenia Tsao reports on the upcoming revision of one of the most important books in America, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Here’s where the drug lords, the shrinks and the insurance companies collude in establishing hundreds of bogus psychic conditions requiring the psychotropic drugs from which they reap billions every year. There are about 250,000 migrant laborers in Israel, mostly from the Philippines and Thailand. Meanwhile tens of thousands of Palestinians can’t find work. From Tel Aviv, Yonatan Preminger reports on Israel’s vicious employment strategy. Also in this latest newsletter Andrew Cockburn updates his CounterPunch world exclusive on how the U.S. has secretly helped build Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories July 13, 2009 Uri Avnery July 10-12, 2009 Alexander Cockburn José Pertierra John Ross Conn Hallinan Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross / Carl Ginsburg Michael Neumann Gilad Atzmon Jeffrey St. Clair Ellen Hodgson Brown Jim Goodman Christopher Bickerton Wendell Potter Dave Lindorff David Ker Thomson Anthony DiMaggio Raymond Lawrence Walid El Houri Stephanie Westbrook Roger Gaess David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
July 9, 2009 Ronnie Cummings Jonathan Cook Nikolas Kozloff James Bovard Norman Solomon Afghanistan: the Escalation Scam Allan Nairn Andy Worthington Tomas Borge Nadia Hijab Paul Krassner Website of the Day July 8, 2009 Saul Landau Dean Baker Winslow T. Wheeler Eric Walberg Ray McGovern David Rosen Dr. Mona El Farra Ron Jacobs Benjamin Dangl Alan Farago Website of the Day July 7, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Uri Avnery Brian M. Downing Gary Leupp Gregory A. Burris David Macaray Laura Flanders Alan Farago Greg Moses Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 6, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Diana Johnstone Nikolas Kozloff Gary Leupp Jonathan Cook Tim Wise Franklin Lamb Charles R. Larson Carlos Benemann Shepherd Bliss Jerry Kroth Karyn Strickler Website of the Day July 3-5, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Eamonn Fingleton Jeffrey St. Clair Mike Whitney Pam Martens George Ciccariello-Maher Paul Craig Roberts Patrick Cockburn Anthony DiMaggio Roger Burbach John Ross Nikolas Kozloff Gareth Porter Andy Worthington Saul Landau David Macaray Adam Federman Jane Slaughter Labor's Vague Rally for Health Care Russell Mokhiber Black Caucus Muzzled on Israeli Kidnapping of McKinney Robert Jensen Robert Bryce Belén Fernandez Missy Comley Beattie C. G. Estabrook Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Lorenzo Wolff Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 2, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff Wendell Potter Ellen Hodgson Brown Christian Christensen Iran: Networked Dissent? Patrick Irelan Binoy Kampmark Returning Iraq Nicola Nasser Brian Tokar Dan Bacher Website of the Day July 1, 2009 Vijay Prashad Alberto Vallente Thorensen Paul Craig Roberts Robert Weissman Manuel García, Jr. Victor Figueroa-Clark / Pablo Navarrete Norman Solomon Franklin Lamb Martha Rosenberg Diane Rejman Website of the Day June 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Benjamin Dangl Jonathan Cook Franklin Lamb George Wuerthner Todd Gordon Ron Jacobs Kenneth Libby Julian Vigo Website of the Day
June 29, 2009 Ishmael Reed Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Conn Hallinan James G. Abourezk Ralph Nader Carol Miller Greg Moses Website of the Day June 26-28, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Doug Peacock Daniel Wolff Mike Whitney John Ross David Rosen Emily Ratner Gareth Porter Farid Marjai Nadia Hijab Paul Craig Roberts Fred Gardner Carl Ginsburg Paul Watson David Ker Thomson Farzana Versey Geoff Berne Todd Alan Price Ramzy Baroud Jeff Sher Dr. Carol Paris Despite My Arrest by Max Baucus, I Will Continue to Advocate for Quality Health Care for All Walter Brasch Adultery as Family Value? Glen Johnson Charlotte Laws Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 25, 2009 Kathy Kelly Jack Bratich Wendell Potter Charles R. Larson Alan Farago Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter Bitta Mostofi / David Macaray Mark Schuller Website of the Day June 24, 2009 Andrew Cockburn Dean Baker Andy Worthington James Bovard Diana Gibson / P. Sainath Gareth Porter Robert Alvarez Dave Lindorff Steven Colatrella Remembering Giovanni Arrighi Website of the Day
June 23, 2009 David Price Patrick Cockburn James Ridgeway / Dave Lindorff Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero Gary Leupp Brian M. Downing Robert Bryce Nicholas Dearden Yousef Munayyer Website of the Day June 22, 2009 Michael Hudson Esam Al-Amin Chris Floyd Jack Z. Bratich Atash Yaghmaian Laura Carlsen Paul Craig Roberts Vijay Prashad Fred Gardner Andy Thayer David Macaray Website of the Day
June 19 - 21, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair Patrick Cockburn Al Giordano Henry A. Giroux Anthony DiMaggio Paul Craig Roberts John Ross Gareth Porter Carl Ginsburg Tommi Avicolli Mecca Joe Bageant Serge Halimi P. Sainath Jim Goodman Dave Lindorff Rannie Amiri Robert Fantina Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch David Ker Thomson Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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July 13, 2009 Behind the Detainee ReleaseA US / Iraq Conflict on IranBy GARETH PORTER The release Friday of five Iranians held by the U.S. military in Iraq for two and a half years highlights the long-simmering conflict between the U.S. and Iraqi views of Iranian policy in Iraq and of the role of its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) there. For the Barack Obama administration, as for the George W. Bush administration before it, the Iranian detainees had become symbols of what Washington steadfastly insisted was an Iranian effort to use the IRGC to destabilise the Iraqi regime. But high-ranking Shi'a and Kurdish officials of the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki had never shared the U.S. view of the IRGC or of the Iranian role. They have acted on the premise that Iran is interested in ensuring that a friendly Shiite regime would remain in power. State Department spokesman Ian Kelly expressed concern that the five Iranian detainees being released were "associated with" the Quds Force of the Iranian and could endanger U.S. troops in Iraq. The idea that the Quds Force was fighting a "proxy war" against U.S. and Iraqi troops was the justification for the George W. Bush administration's decision in late 2006 to target any Iranian found in Iraq who could plausibly be linked to the IRGC. Three of the five Iranian detainees, who had been grabbed in a January 2007 raid, were working in an Iranian liaison office that had been operating in the Kurdistan capital of Erbil. The U.S. military, hinting that it actually had little information about the Iranians seized, said they were "suspected of being closely tied to activities targeting Iraqi and coalition forces". Kurdish Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari tried to get the U.S. officials to After Mahmoud Farhadi was kidnapped by the U.S. military from a hotel in the Kurdish city of Suleimaniya in September 2007, a U.S. military spokesman made the spectacular claim that Farhadi was an IRGC commander responsible for all Iranian operations inside Iraq. Kurdish officials acknowledged Farhadi's IRGC affiliation, but the Kurdish president of Iraq, Jalal Talabani, publicly confirmed that Farhadi was a civilian official of the neighbouring Iranian province of Kermanshah on a "commercial mission with the knowledge of the federal government in Baghdad and the government of Kurdistan". Although Farhadi had indeed been a military commander at one time, the Kurds pointed out that he was now carrying out only civilian functions. Iraqi officials also rejected the idea that the IRGC's Quds Force itself was hostile to the Iraqi regime. They had personal relationships with the Quds Force commander Brig. Gen. Qassem Soleimani, and they acknowledged that he had ties with all the Shi'a factions in Iraq. They knew that Iran had trained officers of Shi'a nationalist cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Army and provided some financial support to Sadr. But they also believed that the purpose of that relationship was to exert influence on Sadr in the interest of peace and stability. After Sadr declared a unilateral ceasefire in late August 2007, the Maliki regime, including Kurdish foreign minister Hoshyar Zebari, argued publicly and privately to Bush administration officials that Iran had used its influence on Sadr to get him to agree to such a ceasefire. They used the argument to urge the Bush administration to release the Iranian detainees. Even the Bush administration itself was divided sharply over the Iraqi government argument that Iranian influence on Sadr was benign. The State Department was inclined to accept the Iraqi argument, and privately urged the release of the five in fall 2007. In December 2007 the State Department's coordinator on Iraq, David Satterfield, went so far as to agree publicly that the Sadr ceasefire "had to be attributed to an Iranian policy decision". But Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, strongly resisted that conclusion, insisting that it was U.S. military operations against Sadr's Mahdi Army that had brought about the ceasefire. The internal debate was resolved in favour of Petraeus, and the five Iranian detainees were not released. A series of events in 2008, however, showed that the Iraqi regime was much more comfortable relying on personal relationships with of the Quds Force than on U.S. military might to deal with the problem of the Mahdi Army. First, Maliki refused in March to allow U.S. ground forces to participate in an operation against the Mahdi Army in Basra. Then, only a few days into the battle, the government turned to the Iranian Quds Force commander, Gen. Qassem Suleimani, to lean on Sadr and broker a ceasefire in Basrah only a few days into a major battle there. Iraqi President Talabani met with Suleimani Mar. 28-29, 2008 at an Iran-Iraq border crossing and asked him to stop the fighting in Basra. Suleimani intervened to bring about a ceasefire within 24 hours, according to a report by McClatchy Newspapers Apr. 28, 2008. And in a second meeting a few days later, revealed by Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor May 14, 2008, Suleimani called Sadr the biggest threat to peace in Iraq. The Quds Force commander vowed support for the Maliki regime and referred to "common goals with the United States". In a gesture to Washington, Suleimani asked Talabani to tell Petraeus that his portfolio included not only Iraq but Gaza and Lebanon, and that he was willing to send a team to Baghdad to "discuss any issue" with the U.S. Petraeus refused to talk with Suleimani, according to Peterson’s account, supposedly on the ground that his offer was part of an Iranian bid to become an "indispensable power broker" in Iraq and thus establish Iranian influence there. But Petraeus understood that Suleimani had indeed achieved just such a position of power in Iraq as arbiter of conflict among Shi'a factions. "The level of their participation, centrality of their role, should give everyone pause," Petraeus told journalist and author Linda Robinson. "The degree to which they have their hands on so many lines was revealed very starkly during this episode". In late April, Petraeus tried to get the Maliki regime to endorse a document that detailed Iranian efforts to "foment instability" in Iraq. But instead an Iraqi government delegation returned from Iran in early May saying they had seen evidence disproving the U.S. charges. Then, Maliki again used Gen. Suleimani to reach an agreement with Sadr which ended a major military campaign in Sadr City just as the United States was about to launch a big ground operation there but also allowed government troops to patrol in the former Mahdi Army stronghold. Within weeks, the power of the Mahdi Army had already begun to wane visibly. Militia members in Sadr City were no longer showing up to collect paychecks and the Iraqi army had taken over the Mahdi Army headquarters in one neighbourhood. The Maliki regime saw that Suleimani had made good on his word. Prime Minister Maliki then began calling for the withdrawal of all U.S. troops by the end of 2010. He had opted to depend on Iranian influence rather than U.S. protection. Nevertheless, the U.S. military has continued to maintain the pretense that it is pushing back Iranian influence in Iraq. The successor to Petraeus, Gen. Ray Odierno, continues to denounce Iran periodically for aiding Shi'a insurgents. Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift:
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Waiting for
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