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Today's
Stories
October 14,
2004
Nicole Colson
Maimed
for Oil and Empire
October 13,
2004
Bishop Thomas
Gumbleton and Bill Quigley
Aftermath
of a Coup: The Other Disaster in Haiti
Sharon Smith
Barak
O-Bomb-a?: Democrats Target Iran
Christopher Brauchli
God and the Bush Administration
Mike Whitney
The Real Meaning of the Hamdi Case
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: a False Beacon?
Website of
the Day
Operation
Truth
October 12,
2004
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
"Indian
Country"
Greg Bates
The Year of Voting Dangerously: a Survey Request of Nader Voters
in Swing States
Steven Conn
Progressives as Pawns: Kerry's War on Nader
Jason Leopold
Under Cheney, Halliburton Helped Saddam Siphon Billions from
UN Oil-for-Food Program
Security Scholars
for a Sensible Foreign Policy
Time for a Change of Course
Timothy J. Freeman
Dying for a Mistake
Pierre Tristam
Deconstructing Bush
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The 2nd Debate: the Blurring of Act and Audience
Bill and Kathleen
Christison
Israel as Sideshow
Website of the Day
John Kerry's Personal Off-Shore Tax Shelters
October 11,
2004
Robert Fisk
Iraq:
Unforgivable Betrayals and Broken Promises
Kevin Pina
The
Untold Story of Aristide's Departure from Haiti
Patrick Gavin
Rethinking
Columbus Day
Chris Floyd
Tribes with Flags in the New Afghanistan
Daniel Wolff
Radioactive Money: Entergy, Political Cash and America's Most
Dangerous Nuclear Plant
Walter Brasch
The Only Ones Who Believe Saddam Had WMDs are Bush, Cheney...and
40% of All Americans
Mike Whitney
The Phony Afghan Elections: Ballot of the Disappearing Ink
Ari Shavit
"He Talks to Condi Rice Every Day": an Interview with
Sharon's Lawyer
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Debates and the Big Lie
Website of the Day
Dylan's Greatest Recording?
October 9 /
10, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
"There
Are No Innocents"
Paul de Rooij
Northern Ireland is Still the Issue: a Conversation with Gerry
Adams
M. Shahid Alam
Making Sense of Our Times
Laura Carlsen
Protest and Populism in Latin America
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: ASA Goes to Court
Col. Dan Smith
Bush's Credibility Gap
Paul Craig
Roberts
Faith-Based Economics
Greg Bates
What If Nader Critics Get What They Demand?
Joshua Frank
Cobb, the Greens and the Collapse of the Left
Felice Pace
Wilderness, Politics and the Oligarchy: How the Pew Charitable
Trust is Smothering the Grassroots Environmental Movement
Walter A. Davis
Of Pynchon, Thanatos and Depleted Uranium
William A.
Cook
The Agony of Colin Powell
Phyllis Pollack
Twas No Crank Call Love Affair: London Calling, 25 Years Later
Poets' Basement
Klipschutz, Albert, Ford
Website of the Weekend
Abu Ghraib: the Taguba Annexes
October 8,
2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
The
Israeli Invasion of Gaza
Moshe Adler
Edwards' Gambit: He Hoped No One Would Notice the Similarities
David Swanson
Media Blackout: Press Continues to Ignore Labor's Opposition
to Iraq War
Dave Zirin
CounterPunch Contest: Let's Name the New DC Baseball Team!
Rep. Ron Paul
The Draft is a Form of Slavery
William S. Lind
Keeping Our SA Up
Samar Assad
Kerry v. Bush: No Difference When It Comes to Israel / Palestine
Jim Ingalls
and Sonali Kolhatkar
The Elections in Afghanistan
October 7,
2004
Dave Lindorff
All
Out of Volunteers: A Draft is in the Air
Masha Hamilton
Fear in Kandahar
Christopher
Brauchli
Master of Corruption: the Ripening Scandals of Tom Delay
Jason Leopold
Is There Still Time to Impeach Bush?
Bruce K. Gagnon
Bombing the Panhandle: Fighting the Pentagon in Rural Florida
Meredith Kolodner
Where
is the Urgency?: The Anti-War Movement's Election Year Challenge
October 6,
2004
Jeffrey St.
Clair
"Please,
Dude, Can I Take Them Out?": Targeting Civilians in Fallujah
Ron Jacobs
Going
Nuclear: the Ghost of Edward Teller Lives
Michael Colby
The National Flip-Flop: Suddenly Bush is Unfit to Lead?
Tarif Abboushi
More of the Same: Israel Wins the Debates
Matthew Behrens
Canadian Firms Profit from Iraqi Blood
Mike Whitney
Rethinking WMDs
John Pilger
Stealing Diego Garcia
Ben Tripp
Kerry's "Triumph"
Kevin McKiernan
Cheney's Poison Lab: Wrong Time, Wrong Target
Patrick Cockburn
Elections
Will Not End the Fighting in Iraq
Website of the Day
Is There an Islamic Problem?
October 5,
2004
Anthony Loewenstein
Rupert
Murdoch and the Marginals: "Personally Creating Outcomes"
Mark Clinton
and Tony Udell
The
Suicide of an Iraq War Veteran
Greg Bates
Trading
Idiots: an Open Letter to Eric Alterman
Dave Lindorff
What's
the Frequency, Karl?
Norm Dixon
Why Washington Won't Save Darfur Villagers
Larry Kearney
God Talk and Burning Children
Bill Linville
Dirty Politics in the Land of "Clean" Government
Gary Leupp
What
Edwards Should Ask Cheney
Website of
the Day
A Guide to Halliburton for Tonight's Debate
October 4,
2004
Diane Christian
The
Gates of Hell
Joshua Frank
An Interview with David Cobb
Doug Giebel
Incurious George: What If Bush Didn't Lie?
John Chuckman
Strange Victory: Sen. Obvious and the Pathetic Lump
Ramzy Baroud
Reverse the Picture: Anatomy of a Palestinian Outrage
Julia Stein
Remembering Mario Savio and the FSM
Sean Donahue
Outsourcing
Terror: Kerry and Special Forces
Website of
the Day
Mapping
Mt. St. Helens as She Rocks
October 2 /
3. 2004
Paul Wright
John
Kerry on Criminal Justice
Kathleen and Bill Christison
An Exchange with Israeli Historian Bennie Morris
Kathie Helmkamp
My Son Trent: a Marine Who Doesn't Want to Kill
Phillip Cryan
Indigenous Mobilization in Colombia
Lenni Brenner
The First Ex-Catholic Saint: Memories of Mario Savio
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: In Case You Missed "Montel"
Ron Jacobs
It Did Happen Here: When Neo-Nazis Terrorized Olympia
Ben Tripp
Sticker Shock
William S.
Lind
The Grand Illusion: Iraqi Security Forces
Dave Zirin
The Swindle of the Century: Baseball Comes to DC
Dave Lindorff
Lies from the Great Debate
Luscon Pierre-Charles
Haiti's Elections: a High-Tech Sham is Underway
Zoe Moskovitz
& Sasha Kramer
Separating Lies from Truth About Haiti
Nelson P. Valdes
Habana Night vs. Latin American Scholars in Vegas: 61 Banned
Cuban Academics
Alan Farago
The "Ownership Society" and the End of the Everglades
Nancy Haley
What is the Historical Jesus Trying to Tell Us?
Alex Billet
Long Live The Clash: London Still Calling After 25 Years
Steve Fesenmaier
Save and Burn: The War on Libraries
Poets' Basement
Smith, Holt, Albert
October 1,
2004
Steve Breyman
Kerry's
Missed Opportunities
Rose Gentle
My
Son Died for a Lie
Lee Sustar
Iran
in the Crosshairs
Ralph Nader
What
We Didn't Hear at the Debate: Where's the Exit Strategy?
Walter Andrews
We Are Less Secure Now Than Ever
Mike Whitney
Pandora's
Government
Mickey Z.
Debate
This
Saul Landau
The
Iraq Invasion: Lessons from the Pinochet Cases
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.
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October 14, 2004
6,300 People
Die a Year from Lack of Water
Water,
Women and War
By
LAURA SANTINA
Water was the biggest buzz at the 2004
Women's International League of Peace and Freedom Congress in
the little town of Kungälv, Sweden. Who has it? Who needs
it? Who does it belong to? Is it clean enough to drink? Are
we running out of it? Will it be the next excuse for war? During
the week-long conference, which included official reports from
twelve countries, over 300 sisters from 31 countries discussed
the condition, distribution and availability of water in their
own countries.
The Congress took place in
Nordiska Folkhighschool, situated on one of the many Kungälv
hills overlooking sleepy canals and rivers. The school was nestled
between huge oaks, firs, pines, and birch trees. Sweet smelling
air and magical, misted light filtered onto open balconies and
into meeting rooms through long, rectangular windows. Nordiska
Folkhighschool is one of 350 schools in a special government-supported
school system exclusively "for adult people who long to
study something during the winter," according to the headmaster.
"There are no structures here-no exams, no curriculum, no
credits and no prescribed courses." Though some of the
legislative business of WILPF (the world's oldest women's peace
and justice organization) was structured, this beatific school
and its informal, patient hosts inspired the process of learning,
sharing and rebuilding a unique, collective knowledge which often
extended into long, late night discussions.
There was no question that
water is a women's issue. Classically, women are responsible
for, and in some countries actually fetch and carry, the water
used in households because they do the washing, cleaning, cooking
and the bathing of children. The more members learned about
the scarcity and misuse of today's water, the higher the steam
did rise. Indeed, over the course of the Congress, the picture
of world's water took on a grim and dangerous face.
A dramatic shift came with
the 1991 UN decision-muscled by international corporations and
the World Trade Organization--to define water as a human need
instead of a human right, meaning that it can now be bought
and sold for profit by private companies. Every WILPF delegate
I spoke with disagreed with the UN position. Water, they agreed,
was the earth's most precious resource and a human right, meaning
that all people must have equal access to it on a not-for-profit
basis.
In spite of the eternal floods
and droughts, water was taken for granted by most of world's
people until the exploding 21st century demands of population
growth, pollution, industrialization, militarization and privatization
created the current critical scarcity. The Congress learned
from WILPF women in developing nations that the high yield genetically
engineered seeds, developed by the US and forced upon their farmers,
had actually created an irrigation catastrophe. Indigenous, drought-resistant
crops were replaced with crops that required more water. Rivers
began to dry up before reaching the ocean. The previous sustainable
irrigation methods were replaced with deep wells and large dams
were built to compensate for the lack of water, at a rate of
two a day for the last 50 years.
"Sixty-three hundred people
in the world die every day from lack of water," announced
Regina Birchem, the newly elected President of International
WILPF.
Bolivian delegate Katty Pattino
said that "only 3 out of 5 people in my country have access
to safe drinking water. The lack of clean water is one of the
major causes of our infant mortality and disease." She
held up a jar containing water from her home. It was half filled
with dirt.
Several presenters confirmed
that pollution by industry, herbicides and insecticides is creating
serious illnesses such as cancer and birth defects in many countries.
"Our rivers, lakes, the surface water and the underground
water are 94% contaminated," said Leticia Paul de Flores
from El Salvador. "There is a completely uncontrolled construction.
Industry pollutes our rivers."
There is a high instance of
mortality because the contaminated waters are especially dangerous
in areas where people have reduced immune systems due to HIV/AIDS.
Reports from several countries indicated a critical shortage
of 'safe water' in the cities and the rural areas, particularly
in the countryside. Liss Schanke reported that cholera, typhoid
fever and diarrhea are prevalent in Tanzania, a condition echoed
by several other speakers, again due to lack of safe water.
Though there was no official
presenter on water from the US, the US problems were addressed
in continued discussions. In addition to overuse of water, one
devastating problem is radioactive waste from years of plutonium
production used to build nuclear weapons which is now invading
US rivers and streams. Overuse of water was also seen as a problem
in Australia, where the average citizen consumes more water than
anyone else in the world.
"Just as we fought wars
over oil, so will we fight wars over water," was the threatening
mantra hanging over the Congress. Dr. Shusma Pankule of India
did confirm, "We have disputes with Pakistan on one side
and with China on the other over water." Israel has stolen
the Palestinian water and is selling it back to them at prices
they cannot afford," reported Aliyah Strauss of Israel.
"The situation is explosive."
Privatization is a grave part
of the problem. Vivendi Universal (France), Suez Lyonnaise des
Eaux (France), Bouygues-Saur (France), RWE-Thames (Germany) and
Bechtel-United Utilities (US) have become the water barons who
are taking over public utilities. A common practice is to buy
the water from a poor community, bottle it and sell it to consumers
in the US, thereby leaving the original community without enough
water to sustain itself. These corporations also buy up local
water rights and sell the water back to the community at much
higher rates.
Most WILPF presenters agreed
that we must have a sustained investment in water infrastructure
in order to protect "safe" or clean water. Private
companies' allegiance is to profit, not to community or to long
term solutions. Upgrading or replacing infrastructures is expensive.
In order to upgrade they charge more for water or sell out to
the highest bidder. Many companies also have profit guarantees
in their contracts giving them the right to raise prices if communities
use less water than predicted, a practice which stultifies conservation.
The Congress did not, due to
time constraints and the enormity of the problem, spend much
time in evaluation. However, it became clear that the ultimate
solutions lie in the hearts and minds of our communities. NGOs
and well funded, well focused governments can provide technical,
legislative and economic muscle, but each community must fuse
and fight to save its own water.
There are many, many grassroots
communities already engaged in taking back their water and in
finding long term solutions to the water dilemma. They are evaluating
the condition and availability of water in their own communities,
including ownership; prices; military, industrial or agricultural
pollution; condition of infrastructure; purposes for which water
is used in a given community; availability now and predictions
of availability in the future. They are fighting back.
We can take our inspiration
from the protest movements against the rampant privatization
of the world's water. In Sri Lanka, Dulci de Silva reported
that "we are resisting converting water to a commodity for
exploitation by international water markets as encouraged by
the World Bank. We have established several campaigns to protect
our water. We have collected signatures; we have a coalition
of 300 women's groups and NGOs and farmers and everybody who
is being affected by the encroaching privatization of water in
Sri Lanka."
The Bolivian people successfully
kicked out Bechtel, who bought up the rights to their water and
raised the prices higher than people could afford to pay. "Killer
Coke" and global "Boycott Coke" campaigns initiated
in Columbia are underway. Citizens of Lexington, Kentucky, have
organized Bluegrass FLOW to fight to regain control of Kentucky-American
Water Co. which had been bought by RWE in 2003. Nestle's right
to local spring water for bottling is being challenged by local
citizens in Mecosta County, Michigan. There are countless other
examples of the potential power of a community to save its own
water.
On one of the last days of
the week-long Congress, I sat with a few new Swedish friends,
sipping tea and watching the sun set on an old fortress on the
hill across the gently flowing river. I asked them about the
availability and condition of water in Sweden, as they had been
rather quiet about it. I learned that water is plentiful and
clean in this small country. The water supply and sewage disposal
are, by law, a municipal responsibility. They are not allowed
to operate by a profit margin. Sweden also has sound conservation
and recycling policies.
The morning after Congress
adjourned and everyone was packing their bags, I went for a walk
along the river and up to the old fortress on the hill. The
surfaces of the walls facing the sky were covered with grass
that had edged its way through the dense rock, living testimony
to the decision by the Swedish people-190 years ago-to eliminate
war as a way of solving problems. Perhaps it really was possible
for the rest of us to put war behind us, too, including the predicted
water wars. I felt Carl Sandburg standing beside me, breathing
in the sweet, damp air and watching the grass, bearing witness
to the infinite, resolute power of life.
Later on, I spent an hour sitting
in front of the only open store on the main street, a newspaper
shop. Having come from a region in the world where nothing ever
closes and everything is for sale, I found myself transfixed
by the Sunday morning stillness. I saw only two people. A skinny
man peddled down the long cobbled street, leaned his old bike
against the brick stairs, went in to buy a paper and rode away
again. After a while, a gray haired women wearing a flowing
blue dress passed by on a bicycle she had probably been riding
since she was a child.
It was hard to leave the warm
company of new and old friends from all around the world who
take life, every life, so seriously. It was hard to leave the
quiet, kindly town, its clear-eyed, under-programmed residents,
its seductive sanity. The stuff of our collective dreams seemed
almost tangible, almost within reach, in Kungälv. I finally
found a taxi and made my way to the airport, reconciled that
the memories of that time will bubble and spill like tiny, charged
tributaries into the daily lives of each of us, creating their
own new possibilities.
Laura Santina is a freelance writer and chair of
Berkeley/East Bay branch of WILPF. She can be reached at: Lindey89@aol.com
Weekend
Edition Features for September 18 / 19, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Forgeries,
Fingerprints and Forensic Fakery
Jeffrey St. Clair
High Plains Grifter: Bush's Mask of Anarchy
Patrick Cockburn
Into the Abyss: the Week Iraq's Dream of Peace Fell Apart
Fred Gardner
Pot Shots: Financial Torture (Asset Forfeiture)
Joe Allen
The Comrades Kerry Abandoned: the Real Story of Vietnam Vets
Against the War
George Corsetti
Poletown Revisited: Finally, Some Vindication
Scott Handleman
The Knock-Knock of a Sledgehammer: Sequestered in Nablus
Richard Ward
Two Weeks in Beit Arabiya
Conn Hallinan
Ashcroft and Indonesia
Lori Smith
Health Care in America: And Then I Got Sick...
Dave Zirin
Hold the Booyah!: SportsCenter Out of the Middle East
John L. Hess
Rather Will Take the Heat, As Bush's War Deteriorates
Brian J. Foley
W is for Wimp: So Why do Manly Men Love Him?
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman and Osama bin Laden: Odd Juxtapositions
Poets' Basement
Vest, Landau & Albert
Website of the Weekend
Eye on the NYTs
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