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Today's Stories February 14, 2006 John Ross Bush's Mexican Poodle February 13, 2006 Lila Rajiva Axis of Child Abusers: UK Troops Beat Up Barefoot Iraqi Teens Christopher Brauchli Whistleblowers and Witch Hunters: the Bush Inquisition Dave Lindorff Deadeye Dick: If Stupidity Were Impeachable, Cheney Would Be History Ron Jacobs Black Liberation Mike Whitney Riding High with Hugo Chavez Michael Neumann Respectful Cultures and Disrespectful Cartoons Website of the Day Virtual Resistance   February 11 / 12, 2006 Alexander Cockburn How Not to Spot a Terrorist Ralph Nader Bringing Democracy to the Federal Reserve Paul Craig Roberts Nuking the Economy Pat Williams John Boehner's Dirty Little Secret: Flying Lobbyist Air at $4,000 a Junket Fred Gardner Dr. Mikuriya's Appeal: a Last Minute Twist Saul Landau From Munich to Hamas John Chuckman Cartoons and Bombs: Was Rice Right for Once? Roger Burbach Evo Morales: the Early Days Seth Sandronsky Economy on Ice Website of the Weekend Just Say Know   February 10, 2006 Carl G. Estabrook A US War Plan for Khuzestan? Sen. Russell Feingold A Raw Deal on the Patriot Act Roxanne Dunbar----Ortiz How Did Evo Morales Come to Power? Saree Makdisi The Tempest Over the Hamas Charter Website of the Day The New York Art Scene: 1974----1984   February 9, 2006 Dave Lindorff Bush and Yamashita: War Crimes and Commanders----in----Chief Mike Marqusee The Human Majority was Right About Iraq Paul Craig Roberts How Conservatives Went Crazy: the Rightwing Press Peter Phillips Inside the Global Dominance Group: 200 Insiders Against the World William S. Lind Rumsfeld the Maximalist: the Long War Christine Tomlinson Innocent Targets in the "Long War": False Positives and Bush's Eavesdropping Program Will Youmans Church of England Votes to Divest from Israel Robert Robideau An American Indian's View of the Cartoons Richard Neville The Cartoons That Shook the World: All This from the Danes, the Least Funny People on Earth Peter Rost The New Robber Barons Website of the Day Eyes Wide Open   February 8, 2006 Ron Jacobs The Once and Future Sly Stone: Soundtrack to a Riot Stan Cox Making and Unmaking History with General Myers Sen. Russ Feingold Why Bush's Wiretapping Program is Illegal and Unconstitutional Robert Jensen Horowitz's Academic Hit List: Take a Class from One of the CounterPunch 16 Rep. Cynthia McKinney Bush Should Have Wiretapped FEMA and Chertoff Niranjan Ramakrishnan Alberto Gonzales Channels Mark Twain Don Monkerud Covenant Marriage on the Rocks David Swanson Inequality and War C.L. Cook Nuking Ontario Christopher Fons Chill Out Jihadis: They're Just Cartoons! Jeffrey Ballinger The Other Side of Nike and Social Responsibility Website of the Day Encyclopedia of Terrorism in the Americas   February 7, 2006 Edward Lucie----Smith An Urgent Plea to Save a Small Estonian Museum from Neo----Nazis Robert Fisk The Fury: Now Lebanon is Burning Paul Craig Roberts Colin Powell's Career as a "Yes Man" Neve Gordon Why Hamas Won Joshua Frank The Hillary and George Show: Partners in War Peter Montague The Problem with Mercury: a History of Regulatory Capitulation Jackie Corr The Last Best Choice: Public Power and Montana Jeffrey St. Clair Rumsfeld's Enforcer: the Secret World of Stephen Cambone Website of the Day Negroes with Guns   February 6, 2006 Christopher Brauchli Spilling Blood: Two Sentences Robert Fisk Don't Be Fooled: This Isn't About Islam vs. Secularism John Chuckman What Did Stephen Harper Actually Win? Jenna Orkin Judge Slams EPA for Lying About 9/11's Toxic Air Paul Craig Roberts Who Will Save America: My Epiphany   February 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn "Lights Out in Tehran": McCain Starts Bombing Run Mike Ferner Pentagon Database Leaves No Kid Alone James Petras Evo Morales's Cabinet: a Bizarre Beginning in Bolivia Alan Maass Scare of the Union: Dems Collaborate with Bush on Surveillance Fred Gardner Annals of Law Enforcement: a Look Inside the San Francisco DA's Office Ralph Nader Bush's Energy Escapades Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: Speaking in Tongues Saul Landau Freedom 2006: Buying Sex on the Net or Those Older Freedoms? Laura Carlsen Bad Blood on the Border: Killing Guillermo Martinez James Brooks Our Little Shop of Diplomatic Horrors Mike Roselle Hippies and Revolutionaries in Carcacas John Holt Black Gold, Black Death: Canada's Oil Sands Frenzy Sarah Ferguson Cops Suing Cops ... for Spying on Cops William S. Lind Beware the Ides of March Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Price of Globalization: Free Trade or Free Speech? Seth Sandronsky The Color of Job Cuts in the Auto Industry Derrick O'Keefe Rumsfeld's Hitler Analogy Michael Donnelly Hop on the Bus Ron Jacobs Religion and Political Power Elisa Salasin RSVP to Bush St. Clair / Vest Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Stew Albert God's Curse: Selected Poems Poets' Basement Guthrie, LaMorticella and Engel Website of the Weekend Killer Tells All!   February 3, 2006 Toufic Haddad A Parliament of Prisoners Heather Gray Working with Coretta Scott King Tim Wise Racism, Neo----Confederacy and the Raising of Historical Illiterates Conn Hallinan Nuclear Proliferation: the Gathering Storm Eva Golinger Rumsfeld and Negroponte Amp Up Hositility Toward Venezuela Daniel Ellsberg The World Can't Wait: Invitation to a Demonstration Dave Zirin Detroit: Super Bowl City on the Brink Robert Bryce The Problem with Cutting US Oil Imports from the Middle East Website of the Day The Chavez Code   February 2, 2006 Winslow T. Wheeler Pentagon Pork: How to Eliminate It Stan Cox Outsourcing the Golden Years Rachard Itani Danes (Finally) Apologize to Muslims (For the Wrong Reasons) Mike Whitney Afghanistan Five Years Later: Buildings Down, Heroin Up Amira Hass In the Footsteps of Arafat: an Interview with Hamas' Ismail Haniya Norman Solomon When Praise is Desecration: Smothering King's Legacy with Kind Words Michael Simmons Stew Lives! Christopher Reed Japan's Dirty Secret: One Million Korean Slaves Website of the Day State of Nature   February 1, 2006 Sharon Smith The Bluff and Bluster Dems: Alito and the Faux Filibuster Jason Leopold Enron and the Bush Administration Cindy Sheehan Getting Busted at the State of the Union: What Really Happened Joseph Grosso Oprah and Elie Wiesel: a Match Made in "Neutrality" Earl Ofari Hutchinson Coretta Scott King was More Than Just Dr. King's Wife Steven Higgs Life After Roe. v. Wade Robert Robideau "God Given Rights": Palestine and Native America R. Siddharth Tales of Power: When Gandhi Rejected a Faustian Bargain with Henry Ford Jim Retherford Remembering Stew Albert: the Quiet Genius Rep. Cynthia McKinney The Legacy of Coretta Scott King Paul Craig Roberts The True State of the Union Website of the Day Candide's Notebooks

February 14, 2006 Bush's Mexican Poodle Vicente Fox vs. Latin America By JOHN ROSS Mexico City. If international diplomacy were a wrestling match, Fox Vs Latin America would be an apt sub--title for Mexico's foreign relations imbroglios in 2006. During the five years plus he has been in office, the Mexican president has taken on the leaders of the Latin American Left one by one, starting with Fidel Castro, with whom he once broke off diplomatic relations, Diplomatic relations with Cuba were once again endangered last week (Feb 5th) when the Mexican president failed to act after the U.S.--owned Sheraton Hotel chain canceled the reservations of a high--powered Cuban delegation in Mexico City to negotiate with Texas oil companies. The Cubans were kicked out of the swank Sheraton Isabel under the provisions of the Helms--Burton "trading with the enemy" act. Although U.S. laws are not applicable in Mexico, Fox failed to lodge a diplomatic protest with Washington, Fox's aggressive defense of free trade and the neo--liberal model now rejected by Latin America often makes it appear that he is carrying Washington's water. This was most recently displayed at the Mar de Plata Summit of the Americas in November when the Mexican president tried to force endorsement of George Bush's beloved Free Trade Area of the Americas (ALCA in its Spanish acronym), which would extend the dubious benefits of the North American Free Trade Agreement all the way to Tierra del Fuego. With Fox on the floor, "we don’t have to do much work ourselves" U.S. undersecretary for Western Hemisphere Affairs Tom Scanlon told the Argentinean daily Clarin. Now Fox's latest bete noir is the most recent passenger on the anti--neo--liberal bandwagon that is sweeping Latin America, Evo Morales, the continent's first Indian president since Mexico's Benito Juarez, a Zapotec, in the mid 19th century. But Juarez was a "good" Indian who defended white and mestizo liberal ideals and held is his own people in contempt. Evo is a "red" Indian, proud of his bloodlines and a dangerous socialist who talks bad about ALCA and globalization, weighs the nationalization of natural gas, and pledges to stand up to Uncle Sam. Evo's anti--neo--liberal stance was one reason underlying Fox's decision not to show up at his investiture in La Paz January 22nd. Although the Mexican president's press secretary Ruben Aguilar pretended that his boss had a prior commitment to attend the inauguration of the new Honduran president, Fox sent foreign minister Luis Ernesto Derbez to Tegucigalpa in his stead. Meanwhile, the highest--ranking Mexican official at Evo's swearing in was that nation's outgoing ambassador. To make the diplomatic snub crystal clear, just days later, the Mexican president flew south to Chile to huddle with president--elect Michelle Bachelet. Mexico and Chile have a bi--lateral trade agreement and both are outspoken advocates of ALCA. Fox's no--show in La Paz also avoided another run--in with Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez with whom the Mexican president is feuding. Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Morales recently announced the formation of an anti--imperialist front. By snubbing Bolivia, the Mexican president also expressed its irritation with Morales for having invited Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (EZLN) whom Evo had personally asked to share the platform with him. The EZLN is still technically at war with the Mexican government. Despite Evo's urgings, Marcos, who is touring Mexico with "The Other Campaign"----an anti--electoral, anti--capitalist crusade that is shadowing the upcoming presidential elections here----told a predominantly Indian audience in Campeche state that the EZLN was turning down the invite "because it is not our way to go and talk to great leaders. We have chosen to come and listen to you instead because you are never taken into account." In spite of Marcos's rebuff, Evo Morales borrowed a page from the Zapatista playbook when he promised the Bolivian people that he would govern according to the Mayan rebels' ethic of "mandar obedeciendo", that is, to govern by obeying the will of the people. But Fox tipped his hand as to the root reason for his rancor at the new president when he groused to a business group about Bolivia's refusal to export its natural gas --Bolivia has the second largest reserves on the continent. "Let them eat (their gas) down there" was the pull quote. Back in 2002, Fox thought he had struck a deal with then--president Gonzalo Sanchez de Losada ("Goni") -- Bolivia would build a pipeline to a Peruvian port, the gas would be liquefied and pumped onto tankers and sent up the Pacific coast to at least three LNG terminals to be sited in and around Tijuana, Baja California. Such energy titans as Chevron, BP, Marathon, Sempra, and Shell were bidding hig. But Goni's scam to sell Bolivian gas to the transnationals fell apart when he was deposed in a hectic October 2003 uprising in which Evo Morales and his cocalero federations played a crucial role. Fox's feud with Morales comes on the heels of celebrated tiffs with other luminaries of the Latin Left. Item --At a 2002 United Nations Development summit in Monterrey, Fox ordered Fidel Castro to abandon Mexico before George Bush touched down. Although Fidel complied, he later played an audiotape of his conversation with the Mexican president that exposed Fox's servility to the White House. With then--foreign minister Jorge Castaneda, a public foe of Fidel's, running the show, relations with Cuba stumbled from one disaster to the next and in 2004, Fox broke off ties with the rebel island after accusing a Cuban diplomat of spying on Mexico, a remarkable parroting of Washington's modus operandi. Months later, Castaneda's replacement, a red--faced Derbez, withdraw the spying charges but relations between Fox and Fidel are permanently strained. Item --Vicente Fox was vexed with Argentinean president Nestor Kirchner's keynote address at Mar de Plaza which chastised the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund for committing economic crimes against his country. When the Mexican president leapt to his feet in the name of "29 Latin American nations" (really just Mexico, Chile, and Panama) to argue for Bush's ALCA, Kirchner issued a stinging rebuke, reminding Fox that ALCA was not even on the Summit's agenda. After the four nation Mercosur plus Venezuela, a bloc that includes three Latin economic powerhouses, fended off Fox's "29 nation" ALCA lobby and even eliminated any mention of that beacon of globalization in the Summit's final declaration, the Mexican president excoriated Kirchner for having stage managed the fracaso. Vicente Fox further infuriated his Argentinean host when he badmouthed football idol Diego Maradona who was among the protestors at Mar de Plata. "For some Latin American leaders diplomacy is to bow their head and accommodate (the United States)" the Argentinean lashed out in an unavoidable reference to Fox. Item -- Fox's verbal street brawl at Mar de Plata with Comandante Chavez had been simmering ever since the U.S.--inspired April 2002 foiled coup when the Mexican president's silence was glaringly obvious. After Fox was thwarted at the Summit, an exuberant Hugo Chavez fired away with both barrels. Mexico's president was "a puppy of the imperialists." "It makes me sad that the Mexican people have a president who kneels down in front of the North Americans" he told Venezuelan television audiences. The remarks got Fox's dander up once again and he demanded an immediate apology --"I will never accept that Chavez can insult the dignity of the Mexican people." "Don’t mess with me or you'll get stung" the Venezuelan macho man shot back, and threatened --a la Fidel --to release videos shot at Mar de Plata which graphically showed this "imperial puppy" in action. Ambassadors were withdrawn within 24 hours and diplomatic relations will not be normalized until Mexico selects a new president in July, most probably the left--winger Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, who, although he leans more to the Bachelet style, should get things back on track between Latin America's two most significant oil producers. Despite the bad vibes between Washington and Caracas, unlike Mexico, the U.S. has never withdrawn its ambassador from Venezuela. The northern--most nation in Latin America, Mexico has an historical identity crisis. Is the Aztec nation the gateway to the south or merely an appendage of North America? NAFTA, which made Mexico a geographical part of North America, settled that debate. But whether attached or not to the U.S., in South America, Mexico has always been viewed as the Global North and distrusted as a stalking horse for Washington. Mar de Plata was just one more chapter in the north--south divide. "Because of your country's economic ties to the United States, Mexico's marketing of itself as a part of Latin America will never dispel the suspicions of those nations further south" Carlos Meza, the former Bolivian president who Evo helped to oust, told the Mexican diplomatic corps in early January. Fox's invitation to Meza to address the diplomats was seen as one more slap at Morales. But if Vicente Fox is really doing Bush's dirty laundry, he has rarely been rewarded for his demeaning efforts. Even his push to win the Organization of American States secretariat for Derbez ran aground when Condi Rice abandoned his candidacy in favor of the Chilean Jose Luis Insulza. Under Bush, Fox's futile crusade for immigration reform has turned into anti--immigrant counter--reform north of the border and Washington's plans to build a border wall is the latest payback for the Mexican president's loyalty to Bush and the neo--liberal model. Fox's blind support of ALCA, even though it will cost Mexico trade advantages it has enjoyed under NAFTA, is revealing. As a true believer in the neo--liberal credo, Vicente Fox will apparently work for free. John Ross is the author of Murdered By Capitalism.

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