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Today's
Stories
August 17,
2004
John Ross
Mexicans
Dying in Bush's War
August 16,
2004
Gary Leupp
The
Attack on Najaf: the Ultimate Stupidity
Ron Jacobs
Iran
Through an Iraqi Mirror?
Mike Whitney
The
Guantanamo Mock Trials
Zvi Bar'el
Theater
of the Absurd in Iraq: Chalabi, Feith and Israel
John Blair
A
Culture of Waste
Sharmini Peries
Chavez
Triumphs; Crushes Opposition
Tariq Ali
The Importance of Hugo Chavez
Website of
the Day
Hurricane City
Sex,
Drugs & the Blues!
Serpents in the Garden
CounterPunch's
Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available
Click here to purchase
August 14 /
15, 2004
Justin Delacour
/ Diana Barahona
The
Venezuela Referendum: Can the Carter Center's McCoy be an Impartial
Observer?
Cockburn /
St. Clair
War
on the Poor: "A Risk No Sane Person Would Take"
M. Shahid Alam
The Civilizing Mission: Some Economic Results
Saul Landau
God and Botox
John Ross
Echoes of Mexico City, 1968
Fred Gardner
Is California Spying on Pro-Pot Doctors?
Jonah Girdin
The Opposition Strategy in Venezuela: Subvert Democracy in the
Name of Democracy
Katherine Lahey
"Uh!
Ah! Chávez No Se Va!": Democracy and Venezuela
Medea Benjamin
Hugo Chavez and the Poor of Venezuela
Yves Engler
The Media and the Venezuela Referendum
Zeynep Toufe
The NYTs and Chavez: More Than the Usual Bias
Mike Whitney
The Trouble in Najaf: What Was al-Sadr's Crime?
Eric Drooker
Gaza Stripped
Dave Zirin
Olympic Sized Horror in Greece: 150 Workers Died Building the
Facilities
Dave Lindorff
A29 Could be a Very Slow Day
Rebecca Brigham
The Aftermath of Guatemala's Strike: Promises Still Unfulfilled
Wayne Madsen
The McGreevey Scandal: an Israeli Connection?
David Krieger
Nuclear Disarmament in a Time of Globalization: the US Double
Standard
Tracy McLellan
The Illegality of Pot is a Crime: a Personal Account
Christina Gerhardt
Confronting Capitalism: What Has Changed Since Seattle 1999?
Poets' Basement
Adler, Albert Vijayalakshmi, Gilliam
August 13,
2004
Lee Sustar
Report
from Caracas
Mickey Z.
McProtests R Us: Why are the Dems Trying to Gag Anti-War Protesters?
Stan Goff
There
He Goes Again: Kerry's "Energy" Plan
Norman Madarasz
Thoughts on Najaf: How Could the US Ever Be Considered a "Terrorist"
State?
Victor Kattan
Press Freedom, Censorship and the War on Terror
Oscar Heck
Is Mendoza Off His Rocker? Chavez Opponents Pledge to Post Results
Online Before Polls Close
CounterPunch
Wire
Military Families File "Stop Loss" Suit
Milan Rai
Najaf: Bush Started It
Website of
the Day
The Yes Men
August 12,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
How
Bush Got (and Lost) His Wings
Lenni Brenner
Take
It on Faith: Kerry's See-Through-Monk's Robe
Lee Ballinger
The Coors and the Kerrys: Drink Up, Kids!
Tariq Ali
The
Handover Fiction
Yves Engler
What's at Stake in Venezuela
William S.
Lind
Seeing
Through the Other Side's Eyes
Christopher Brauchli
Getting Bush's Goat
Website of
the Day
The Sucker Puncher
August 11,
2004
Ceylon Mooney
Who
Woke Up Sen. Joe?: Watchers of the NJ Turnpike
Voices in the
Wilderness
Hands
Off Najaf
Ray McGovern
Porter
Goss as CIA Director?
Robert Jensen
US
Supports Anti-Democratic Forces in Venezuelan Recall
Annie Higgins
In Memory of Nick Pretzlik: As Good as It Gets
Alexander Cockburn
Bush
v. Kerry: Not Even a Dime's Worth of Difference
Website of the Day
Nick Pretzlik
August 10,
2004
William A.
Cook
Silencing
the Voice of the People
Todd Chretien
California Greens at the Crossroads: Will It Be Nader or Cobb?
Dave Lindorff
Chicago on the Hudson?
Richard Gott
Loathed
by the Rich: Why Chavez is Headed for a Big Win
Toni Solo
Bluebeard's
Castle: Disappearing the Right to Development
Dave Zirin
Carl Eller's Plea
Rep. Ron Paul
Police State, USA
Patrick Cockburn
If the Chalabis Were Corrupt, They Weren't Alone
Website of
the Day
The Surveillance-Industrial Complex
August 9, 2004
Tito Tricot
Pinochet
Must Still be Tried: a Murderer and a Thief on the Loose
Ron Jacobs
In
Memory of Deep Throat: the Day Nixon Was Gone
Norm Dixon
Crisis in Sudan: Oil Profits Behind West's Tears for Darfur
Kurt Nimmo
The Politics of Entrapment
Elaine Cassel
Welcome to Bush's America
Gary Leupp
Why
Iraqi Christians are Moving to Syria
August 7 /
8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
August 6, 2004
Joshua Frank
David
Cobb's Soft Charade: the Greens and the Politics of Mendacity
Derek Seidman
An
Interview with Stan Goff
Mike Whitney
The
Arbitrary Imprisonment of Jose Padilla
William S. Lind
Corruption in the Marine Corps
David Price
In
the Shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
August 5, 2004
Mike Ferner
The Kerry Show: When Peace is Off
Message
Bruce Anderson
Two
Rejections
Robert Fisk
The Tale of Saddam's Cameraman
Todd Chretien
Florida
Comes to California: the Democrats' Plot Against Nader
Peter Linebaugh
Doing Time for Political Crime:
Paul and Silas, Bound in Jail
August 4, 2004
Mickey Z.
Two
Traditions: WMD and Disinformation
Justin Huggler
The Hunt for Bin Laden
John Ross
Mexico's
Dirty War Never Ended: Inside Puente Grande Prison
August 3, 2004
Uri Avnery
The
Oligarchs
Ray McGovern
The 9/11 Commission Chimera
Jack McCarthy
Sexual Politics in Jeb's Florida
Eric Ruder
Meet Barak Obama: the Democrats' New Liberal Star
John L. Hess
Crying Wolf: Orange Alert!
Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Elections: 1800 v. 2004
Jules Rabin
The Man Who Didn't Walk By
Website of the Day
No Wall
August 2, 2004
Robert Jensen
Kerry's
Hypocrisy on the Vietnam War
Joshua Frank
Greens, Kerry and the Politics of Mendacity
Mike Whitney
The 9/11 Commission and Civil Liberties: "We Need an American
Police State"
Gary Leupp
Beyond
Good and Evil: Some Thoughts on Invasions
July 31 / Aug.
1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Kerry:
He's the (Any) One
Merlin Chowkwanyun
Five Questions with Noam Chomsky: "The Savage Extreme of
a Narrow Policy Spectrum"
David Lindorff
The Shame of the DNC
John Chuckman
The
Disturbing Words of John Edwards
Brian Cloughley
All Slam and No Dunk; All Blame and No Responsibility
Christopher Brauchli
"Being Poor is a State of Mind": the Frowning Face
of Compassionate Conservatism
Fred Gardner
A World of Pain
Michael Donnelly
How Big Pharma Bilks the Elderly
David Nally
Genocide in Darfur?
Joshua Frank
Forest Battles Escalate in Oregon
Sam Bahour
Colin Powell and My Grandmother
Diane Farsetta
The IMF and the Indonesian Elections: The Invisible Hand in the
Voting Booth
Harold Gould
Was Iraq a Mutual Charade?
Van Bergen / Stephens
Election 9/11: Surreal Political Theater
Lee Sustar
A New Model for the Labor Movement?
Ron Jacobs
The Lost Art of Hitchhiking
M. Junaid Alam
An Interview with Palestinian-American Rapper, The Iron Sheik
Poets Basement
Albert, Ford, Krieger, St. Clair
Website of
the Weekend
Cross Cultural Poetics
July 30, 2004
Kolhatkar /
Ingalls
Shattering
Illusions: Kerry's Speech Tells Anti-War Activists They're Not
Wanted
Dave Lindorff
Murder
Not So Foul?
Bruce Jackson
Walt Whitman on the Sound of Wolf Blitzer's Voice
Fidel Castro
The
Pathology of George W. Bush
Maximilien Robespierre
Memo to Kerry and Bush: Why They Resist
Saul Landau
Bush
Charges Castro with Sex Tourism; JFK Rolls Over in His Grave
July 29, 2004
Cockburn /
St. Clair
Hail,
the Conquering War Criminal: What Kerry Really Did in Vietnam
Frank Bardacke
What
Michael Moore Left Out of F9/11
Tom Barry
Shallow and Formulaic: Kerry's Latin America Plan
Ron Jacobs
Kerry
and Lennon: Hawking the CounterCulture
Robert Fisk
The Unreported War
Lichtman /
Kellis-Borok
What Kerry Must Do to Win (But Probably Won't)
William S. Lind
The 9/11 Commission Report: Cashing in on Failure
CounterPunch
Wire
Doonesbury Onto John Kerry in 1971!
Website of
the Day
Jabbing JibJab: Copyright Madness
July 28, 2004
Robert Fisk
The
Occupation at 114 Degrees: Baghdad is Swamped in the Smell of
the Dead
Kevin Mink
Kerry's Misperception of Palestine
Ray McGovern
Israel and the Iraq War: How the 9/11 Report Soft-Pedals Root
Causes
United for
Peace & Justice
An
Open Letter to John Kerry: Winter Soldiers and Summer Patriots
Mike Ferner
Vets Demand End to Occupation: "Pull the Troops or Face
Impeachment Mvt."
Imraan Siddiqi
Turning Tricks with Ann Coulter
Alexander Cockburn
Candidate
Kerry
Website of
the Day
Iraq Vets Against the War
July 27, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Why
the Democrats Deserve Nader
Dave Lindorff
Back to the 19th Century: Globalization's Coming!
Mike Whitney
Control Room: Inside Al Jazeera
Ali, Anderson, Bello, et al.
If We Were Venezuelan, We'd Vote for Chavez
Stefan Wray
Texas Plan to Grab Los Alamos Takes Hold, as DOE Shuts Down Labs
Louis Proyect
Reflections on Nicaragua: First Came the Contra Butchers, Then
the Sweatshops
Rick Giombetti
Faith in Freedom: the Challenge of Thomas Szasz
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
The
9/11 Report and Its Weak-Kneed Consensus: Dogding Israel/Palestine;
Blinkered on Causes of Terrorism
July 26, 2004
Todd Chretien
Green
Resistance: a Reply to Normon Solomon & Medea Benjamin
Robert Fisk
Terror
by Video
Richard Forno
Security
Theater in Boston: Security Expert Harrassed by DHS for Exposing
Flaws at the Fleet Center
Mitchel Cohen
Report from a Boston Demo: Arresting the Curious
Richard Moreno
Rockers
for Justice: an Interview with Tom Morello and Serj Tankian
Alexander Cockburn
Boston
Awaits a Dead Party
July
24 / 25, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
The Democrats and Their Conventions:
Part One
Dennis
Hans
Those 16 Words Still Smell, Mr. Bush
Patrick
Cockburn
The Struggle for Iraq is Only Beginning
Josh
Frank
The War Path of Unity: Dems Reject
the Peace Movement
Justin
E.H. Smith
Christianity and the Left: the Latin
American Experience
Tariq
Ali
What's at Stake in Venezuela
Fred
Gardner
The Politics of Pot: Year of the
Antagonist
Mark
Scaramella
There's Dope and There's Dope
Ron
Jacobs
The Weather Underground's Prairie
Fire Statement...35 Years On
July
23, 2004
Lee
Sustar
Revolution in Nicaragua: 25 Years
On
Dave
Lindorff
Battle for NYC: Bush 1, Protesters
0
Saul
Landau
Zaniest President in US History: Bush
Beats Reagan
Mike
Whitney
The 9/11 Whitewash: Blaming No
One
Mickey
Z
Get On the Bus: 150 Years After Elizabeth
Jennings
Gary
Leupp
The 9/11 Commission and the Looming
War on Iran
July
22, 2004
M.
Junaid Alam
Ten Ways to Build a Better Democrat
Brian
McKinlay
Rusted On Down Under: Howard, Bush and Sharon
Jason
Leopold
Cheney Lobbied for Easing of Sanctions on Terrorist Regimes While
CEO of Halliburton
Chris
Floyd
Mob Rule: Ripping the Lid Off of America's Pious Myths
Uri
Avnery
Chirac v. Sharon
July
21, 2004
Paula
J. Caplan
The Emotional Casualities of War:
Psychologists Can't Heal All the Damage
Joshua
Frank
Nader Sleeping with the Enemy? Let's
be Fair
Ron
Jacobs
American Exceptionalism
Reza
Ghorashi
The Elections, Iran and al-Qaeda
Amy
Martin
Will Congress Rearm the Guatemalan Generals?
John
Ross
Bush May Lose, But His Wars Will Go
On and On
July
20, 2004
Stan
Cox
The Bush / Kerry War Ticket
Chris
Randolph
An Open Letter to Dr. Ehrenreich: It's Over, Barb!
Forrest
Hylton
The Ghosts of Gonismo: "Popular
Patricipation" and Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Mark
Scaramella
It's Official! Mendocino County is Crazier and Fatter Than the
Rest of California
Sam
Bahour
The World is Knocking on Israel's Door
George
Reiter
A Defense of David Cobb
John
Ross
Burying Iraq, Burying Bush
John
L. Hess
Girlie Stuff: Media Tolerance of Arnold & Co.
Website
of the Day
This Land is Your Land
July
19, 2004
Uri
Avnery
Marie and the Ghosts: the Hoax of
Paris
Col.
Dan Smith
What Has Been Accomplished?
Mike
Whitney
Allawi: Our Puppet with a Pistol
Karyn
Strickler
Just Marriage, Not Gay Marriage
Robert
Fisk
The Crisis of Information in Baghdad
David
Swanson
Media Blackout of US Labor Opposition
to Iraq War
Jennifer
van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
July
17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything
Wrong with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
August
17, 2004
Proxy
Soldiers in Bush's War
Mexico
Fiercely Opposes the Iraq War, But Mexicans Are Dying There Every
Week
By
JOHN ROSS
"She died on Friday thinking
about coming home to eat beans and carnitas"
Father of Sgt. Isela Rubacalva
MEXICO CITY.
When Lance Corporal Juan Lopez Rangel
was killed in a firefight near the rebel city of Fallujah in
Al Anbar province just west of Baghdad on June 21st, his grieving
parents, who now live in a small Georgia town, were determined
to bury the proud marine in his hometown of San Luis de la Paz,
Guanajuato Mexico, a dusty crossroads in the shadow of the desolate
Sierra Gorda where the only action after dark are the all-night
funeral parlors and from which Juan Lopez and his family escaped
when he was 15 for a new life on the Other Side.
Juan's funeral set for Mexico
over the July 4th weekend--U.S. Independence Day--would include
plenty of patriotic fanfare--U.S. patriotic fanfare. After negotiations
with Mexican authorities over protocols, it was agreed that a
four member U.S. Marine Corps Honor Guard carrying ceremonial
weapons could accompany the interment--a 21 gun salute with M-16s
was nixed by the Mexican military.
The U.S. marines paraded solemnly
through the empty streets of San Luis de la Paz, stopping in
front of the old house on Zaragoza Street where Juan had been
born and where now he was being mourned. "Your son was
a hero in our country" the marine spokesman told Juan's
parents, presenting Francisco Lopez and Delfina Rangel with a
neatly folded U.S. flag. Then with the pallbearers in place
and the U.S. Marine Corps leading the way, the final procession
set out for the town cemetery.
But a few blocks short of its
destination, the passage of the cortege was blocked by a dozen
armed Mexican soldiers who demanded that the marines surrender
their "ceremonial" arms or be held in violation of
Mexico's tough firearms laws. When the honor guard refused, the
marines were escorted back to the vehicles that had brought them
to San Luis and surrounded by the Mexican troops until Taps had
sounded at graveside.
The message of this poignant
tableau was clear: the Mexican army would not tolerate armed
foreign troops on Mexican soil, particularly those of a nation
that has repeatedly invaded Mexico.
The standoff at Juan Lopez
Rangel's funeral outraged U.S. ambassador Tony Garza, a Bush
crony who seems to have spent his entire career here defending
one U.S. aggression after another. "Jose Lopez (sic) was
a hero  and a native son of Mexico
who Mexicans should honor," the offended Garza complained.
The ambassador's sentiment
was echoed by Dr. Jorge Santibanez, director of the prestigious
College of the Northern Border and an expert on Mexican out-migration,
who wrote of duel allegiances and pressures upon immigrant youth
to sign up for the U.S. military. After Santibanez's remarks
were published in the national daily La Jornada, the border think
tank's e-mail began to ring off the hook with angry messages.
"This boy was not a hero but a victim of the bad policies
of Bush," read one from a group of self-described patriotic
railroad workers, "our heroes are not the traitors who join
the American army but those Mexicans who fought the Americanos
when they invaded our country in 1846."
Even as Taps was being sounded
over Juan Lopez's bier up in Guanajuato this past July 4th weekend,
several thousand anti-war protestors were taking advantage of
the U.S. holiday to build a mock-up of Abu Ghraib prison in front
of Garza's embassy on Mexico City's Reforma boulevard. The demonstrators
laid out 12,000 white paper crosses on the sidewalk to honor
the Iraqis killed since the American invasion began 16 months
ago. A hooded student perched precariously on a cardboard box,
electric cables attached to his genitals, a dark icon of the
Yanqui "liberation" of Iraq for which Juan Lopez had
just given up his life.
From top to bottom, Mexico
has rejected Bush's war since its inception. President Vicente
Fox refused to support White House plans to bomb Iraq, earning
Bush's eternal enmity, and the chill has frozen bi-lateral relations
between these two distant neighbor nations ever since. The U.S.
threatened and spied upon the Mexican delegation at the United
Nations Security Council and when Ambassador Adolfo Aguilar would
not bend, Bush unilaterally declared war and stepped up recruitment
of Mexican and Mexican American youth to illegally invade Iraq.
Juan Lopez Rangel was the 36th
and most recent U.S. soldier of Mexican descent to die in Iraq
(since this was written two more G.I.s of Mexican descent have
appeared in the New York Times daily list of the dead.) By
this reporter's count, 20 of the dead soldiers were born in Mexico
and 16 were the children of migrants who had gone over to the
other side to find their fortune in El Norte. The number of
Mexican deaths in Iraq equals the number of Mexicans awaiting
execution on Texas death row.
Among the Mexican dead are
at least three women, including one of Jessica Lynch's tank mates.
After Sergeant Isela Rubacalva, 25, a native of Ciudad Juarez,
was killed near Mosul in May, her father Ramon mourned "she
died on Friday thinking about coming home to eat carnitas and
beans, drink a beer and go to a dance. This war is useless,
as useless as Vietnam."
Although it is not a member
of Bush's crumbling "coalition of the willing", Mexico
has taken more casualties than any other nation in this cruel
conflict outside of Iraq, the U.S., and Great Britain.
The first to fall was Rodrigo
Gonzalez, the son of Coahuila farmers, whose helicopter went
down in Kuwait February 25th 2003, even before the invasion
began. Four Mexicans and one Guatemalan were killed in the first
days of Bush's aggression--marine units from Camp Pendleton where
most California Mexican recruits train were in the vanguard of
the invading force. "Latinos Give Their Lives For Their
New Land" The New York Times editorialized.
Joining the marines has become
a sort of macho rite of passage for Mexican kids in southern
California. Full court press recruitment in high school and
promises to fix migration problems lures young people whose only
other options are fieldwork or a dead-end job at McDonalds.
13,000 members of the U.S. Marine Corps--8% of the force--are
either Mexican or Mexican American. Mexicans and Mexican Americans
account for 55% of the 109,000 Latinos--Puerto Ricans, Dominicans,
and Central Americans--who constitute a tenth of the United States
armed forces.
Although non-citizens are barred
from induction in the U.S. military (the marines have an exemption),
the loopholes are large. To bolster recruitment for the War
on Terror in the wake of the attacks on New York and Washington,
Bush issued new regs promising all non-citizens who joined the
military after 9/11 that they would be on the "fast track"
for citizenship. Still, despite Bush's edict, the only non-citizen
soldiers (out of a total 0f 37,000) who were eligible for immediate
citizenship were dead ones--death in combat automatically conferred
this dubious honor post-humously.
After the illusionary U.S.
victory announced May 1st, 2003 by Bush in his "Mission
Completed" declaration from the deck of an aircraft carrier
off San Diego, all non-citizens serving in Iraq were granted
immediate citizenship.
One of the first Mexican soldiers
to be killed in action in Iraq was Jesus Suarez who grew up in
Tijuana but came to California after his father won immigration
amnesty. When the military offered Fernando Suarez post-mortem
citizenship for his son, he turned it down. His son was a Mexican
and proud of it--an "Aztec warrior" so enamored of
his indigenous roots that he had joined a Tijuana "concheros"
Aztec dance troupe.
Convinced of the futility of
his son's sacrifice, Fernando Suarez later traveled to Iraq to
see where Jesus had fallen and to talk to other Latino soldiers
about what they are doing in that occupied land. "Their
faces are hard but you can see their true sentiments in their
eyes" the elder Suarez wrote in an e-mail, "their gaze
asks what am I doing killing innocent people for nothing?"
This summer, Fernando Suarez joined anti-war protests at the
political conventions.
Other Mexican families have
suffered grievously over the loss of their children in Iraq.
Ruben Estrella Sr., one of four El Paso Texas Mexican fathers
whose sons or daughters were taken from them by Bush's illegal
war, is suing the army because, he says, the family was cheated
out of his son's death benefits by an unscrupulous recruiter.
Angela Banuelos, the mother of Lance Corporal Juan Carlos Cabral,
heard about his death while serving time in an Ohio penitentiary.
Zeferino Colunga, the father of yet another dead Mexican G.I.,
was deported to his native Michoacan after living for over a
decade in Texas.
Now with the U.S. military
facing an alarming short-fall to fight the Terror War and collateral
"preventative" wars to be waged upon the darker peoples
of the world, the head-hunting of Mexican youth on both sides
of the border (U.S. recruiters have repeatedly invaded Ciudad
Juarez and Tijuana high schools seeking duel citizenship students)
is sure to be stepped up. Although Latinos are now the largest
U.S. minority, they are under-represented in the armed forces
and the Pentagon has launched a full-blast media campaign on
Spanish-speaking media to sign them up.
"The recruiters have a
lot of guilt for the death of our children" Fernando Suarez
considers, "they tell them that only the veterans will go
to fight the war and it isn't true. Most of the Mexicans who
have died in Iraq did not even have a year of military service."
Mexicans often join and serve
together in the military. There are high concentrations of Mexicans
and Mexican Americans in California marine units, Texas National
Guard units, and, for some unexplained statistical quirk, there
are many Mexican Patriot missile operators.
A New York Times reporter recently
spent a day on patrol in south Baghdad with Company A of the
Fifth Calvary which has many Mexican and Mexican-American members
recruited principally off the streets of East Los Angeles. The
stories they told of their months in Iraq confirm what Fernando
Suarez saw in their eyes when he visited.
Specialist Ray Flores was shot
twice in the head at the beginning of April, a cruel month for
U.S. casualties. His buddy Roberto Araiga, who was sitting right
next to him, was killed instantly--Roberto had just been denied
leave to go home and get married. When he returned from the
hospital, Flores's superiors informed him that his tour of duty
had been extended for 14 months. Now he is confined to barracks
for "mental stress" and sits in a window seat all day,
his automatic weapon trained on the terrain. "My life is
ruined," he told the Times reporter, "I am all alone
out here."
Specialist Gerardo Barrajas
just wants out. His homeboy Jose Gonzalez caught one early in
the war and Gerardo wants to go back to the barrio and marry
the "ruca" whose photo is pinned up in his tank turret,
and not in a flag-draped coffin. But there are pressures. While
the Times reporter is present, Barrajas is bullied and abused
by his commanding officer, also a Latino, as a "parasite"
for being reluctant to re-up.
For specialist Jesse Lopez,
another East L.A. boy, there are few options. "I'd rather
be doing what I'm doing here (presumably killing Iraqis - ed
note) than flipping Big Macs at the minimum wage." Lopez
had just re-upped for four years.
For Mexican G.I.s and those
of Mexican descent in Iraq, there is no more significant role
model than Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the former commander
of U.S. occupation forces. "To the Mexican people, he is
a great hero," boasts Sergeant Ernesto Quijada whose family
migrated from Cancun to New York ten years ago (actually, the
"Mexican people" generally don't know that General
Sanchez is a Mexican.)
A poor kid `from Rio Grande
City, across the big river from the honky tonk town of Miguel
Aleman Tamaulipas on the Mexican side, Sanchez grew up ragged
and hungry in south Texas. His father, an itinerant welder,
disappeared when he was six and the family survived on welfare.
An older brother who joined the military and came back from
Vietnam with medals was Ricardo's own role model. A ROTC kid
who literally pulled himself up by his bootstraps in a post-Vietnam,
more 'multicultural" military, Sanchez moved up the ranks
quickly and his big break came as deputy to General John Abizaid
in Kosovo.
Although Sanchez's military
career has been a stunning success until quite recently, he has
always been burdened by his humble Mexican origins and the fact
that he is not a West Pointer, and has had to battle for recognition
at every step of the way, a personal struggle that has made him
a role model for young Mexican and Mexican American troops.
But General Sanchez, whose
greatest moment of glory came with the capture of Saddam Hussein
in his spider hole in December 2003, seems to have fallen into
his own spider hole of late. 600 U.S. troops went home in flag-draped
coffins during his June-to-June tenure at the head of the occupation
forces with no weapons of mass destruction or victory in sight.
More painfully, the tortures on his watch at Abu Ghraib prison,
a ten-minute helicopter ride from Sanchez's Baghdad airport command
post, have permanently stained his once-unblemished reputation.
General Sanchez was recently
passed over to take over the Southern Command which oversees
all U.S. military operations in Latin America, a post he was
expected to fill, and it now seems unlikely that he will ever
achieve the fourth star he has long coveted. Although some Mexican
troops charge that General Sanchez has been unjustly scapegoated
for the Abu Ghraib abuses by Rumsfeld and the Pentagon brass,
the career of this Latino role model is kaput, one more Mexican
victim of Bush's illegal war in Iraq.
John Ross will be on the spot in Mexico City
for much of July and August before sallying forth to do maximum
mischief at the Republican National Convention in Manhattan from
where he will launch the intergalactic tour of his latest instant
cult classic "Murdered
By Capitalism--A Memoir of 150 Years of Life & Death on the
U.S. Left".
Weekend
Edition Features for August 7 / 8, 2004
James Petras
The
Anatomy of "Terror Experts": Meet the Mandarins of
Abu Ghraib
Fred Gardner
Run
Ricky Run: Football, Pot and Pain
Justin Delacour
Anti-Chavez Pollsters Panic: Fix Numbers; Reinvent Venezuela
Brian Cloughley
Persecuted by All; Supported by None: Who Would Be A Kurd?
Joshua Frank
The
Outsider: a Talk with Ralph Nader
Iain A. Boal
On "Shame": Warmed-Over Orientalism and Racist Projection
Chris Floyd
All About Eve: Open Season on Women in DC and Rome
Andrew Fenton
Fighting for Democracy and Justice in Haiti
Aseem Shrivastava
Saga of an Anguished Afghan
Neil Corbett
See Cuba: Sometimes a Cigar is Just a Cigar, Mr. Bush
Carol Miller
/ Forrest Hill
Rigged Convention; Divided Party: How David Cobb Won with Only
12% of the Vote
Tarek Milleron
Breaking the Principled Voter
Donald Macintyre
The
Battle of Najaf
Ron Jacobs
Spirits of The Dead: Why I Love My Petty Bourgeois Tendencies
Mickey Z.
Kid
Gavilan's Grave: Propaganda Scores a TKO
Poets' Basement
Adler, Ford and Albert
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