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Inside Iraq's Resistance HOT HOT HOT New CounterPunch Print Edition! Meet actual Iraqis and not just Western caricatures. Laith al-Saud interviews top man in Iraq's national resistance. It's not just Abu Ghraib and bids to kill Fidel Castro. Torture and assassination are integral parts of America's imperial machine. Don't miss Andrew Wimmer's searing journey into the soul of a nation that tortures as a way of life. Plus Alexander Cockburn on the killing of General Kassem. PLUS Sam Sillen's rollicking exhumation of Edmund Wilson as Malthusian Trostskyite. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch Writer Daniel Wolff in Portland on Race, Music and Ashbury Park Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Today's Stories October 7, 2005 Jennifer Van Bergen New American Law: the Case of Dr. Dhafir October 6, 2005 P. Sainath "Take That, Tom Friedman": Indian Masses Reject NYT's Neoliberal Idol Again Scott Parkin When Antiwar Activists Get Mugged Paul Craig Roberts Blundering into Syria Andréa Schmidt Haiti's Biometric Elections: a High-Tech Experiment in Exclusion Dave Lindorff Easy Money in the Big Easy Joshua Frank In Defense of Lew Rockwell M. Junaid Alam Jackboots at George Mason Matthew Koehler Cock and Bull on the Bitterroot Robert Pollin Is the Dollar Still Falling?   October 5, 2005 Heather Gray Militarization is Not an Answer for Reconstruction: the Case of the Philippines Robert Jensen Is Bush a Racist? Ramzy Baroud Bush's Final Choice: America or the Empire Col. Dan Smith Keeping Promises to Iraq: "Everything is Bad" Dave Zirin Barry Bonds Laughs Last Paul Craig Roberts Liberal Guilt? How the Neocons Took Over Alan Maass Doing the Right Wing's Dirty Work   October 4, 2005 Nikolas Kozloff Shocking the Two Party System: a Political Opportunity for Sheehan and the Antiwar Mvt. Mike Roselle Houston, You've Got a Problem Joshua Frank The Scoop on Harriet Miers John Chuckman War Porn: What the Gruesome Images Say Alan Farago Storm Warning for Jeb: Developers, Hurricanes and the Keys Mickey Z. An Interview with Thaddeus Rutkowski Christine & Ethan Rose Home Depot Exploits Hurricane Victims Gary Leupp An Earlier Empire's War on Iraq: a Lesson from Roman History Website of the Day Rodney Crowell on Bob Dylan   October 3, 2005 Vijay Prashad Desperation at Holyoke Paul Craig Roberts Condi Rice: Gunslinger Joshua Frank An Interview with Cindy Sheehan Seth Sandronsky The Hiring Crisis for Black Teens Jeffrey St. Clair The Great Green Scare   October 1 / 2, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Democrats Sink Deeper into the Ooze Dave Marsh A Direction Home: a Message from Bob Dylan Ralph Nader Gutless, Spineless and Clueless Flavia Alaya Showdown at Sheriff's Plaza Uri Avnery The Gladiators: Sharon's Victory Chris Kutalik The Battle at Northwest Airlines Greg Moses Bill Bennett's Book of Cracker Virtues Brian J. Foley I Gave My Copy of the Constitution to a Pro-War Vet Nicole Colson Hunger Strike at Gitmo Ray McGovern Abu Ghraib is a Command Responsibility Fred Gardner Ricky Williams Takes a Late Hit Justin Felux Save America from Crime: Abort Every White Baby! Will Youmans "Free the P": Hip-Hop for Palestine Mike Ferner What Else Shall We Do? David Krieger The War in Iraq: a Broken Covenant Agustin Velloso Samson Returns to Gaza Saul Landau The Constant Gardener: Serious Cinema Ben Tripp Right Down the Middle Poets Basement Peddibone, Crowell, Engel and Albert Website of the Weekend Holler If Ya Hear Me   September 30, 2005 Mary Geddry Why I Marched: They Made My Son Kill Paul Craig Roberts Bush is Cooking Up Two New Wars Dave Lindorff Judith Miller's Strange Voluntary Jail Time Gregory Wilpert "The Osama Bin Laden of Latin America" Benjamin Dangl "Gringo, Go Home:" an Interview with Orlando Castillo James McMurtry We Can't Make It Here Anymore T.R. Johnson Return to the Ninth Ward   September 29, 2005 Sen. Russ Feingold Bush's Iraq War is Weakening America Carl G. Estabrook Obama the Enabler Ramzy Baroud Rhetoric and Reality of War Dave Lindorff What Opposition Party? Mike Whitney Brownie's Comic Opera Jozef Hand-Boniakowski What Noble Cause? Gary Handschumacher Getting Arrested with Cindy Sheehan Winslow T. Wheeler No Leaders in Congress Against This War: Lame Democrat and Tame Republicans   September 28, 2005 Dr. Eyad Serraj Letter from Gaza: What Disengagement Sounds Like William A. Cook Bush's Security Barrier Liaquat Ali Khan The Invention of Porno Torture Mike Whitney Apartheid Justice in America Joshua Frank Sheehan and the Democrats: Anybody Home? CounterPunch Wire New Orleans Prisoners Abandoned to Floodwaters Chris Genovali Cutting the Bears Out of the Great Bear Rainforest Linn Washington, Jr. White Affirmative Action: How John Roberts Got to the Top   September 27, 2005 Forrest Hylton Political Murder in Puerto Rico: a Matter for Our Movement Jason Leopold The Decline and Fall of Bill Frist Jennifer K. Harbury Torture is US Policy, Not an Aberration Ray McGovern Torture and Cowardice: Why are American Religious Leaders Silent? Mike Ferner Bringing the War Home: Arrested at the Pentagon Antony Loewenstein When the Truth Comes to Town: What You Can't Say About Israel in Australia Harry Browne Live from Hollywood: the IRA Disarms   September 26, 2005 Rafael Rodriguez Cruz Assassination in Puerto Rico: the FBI Murders a Legend Joshua Frank Democrats Flee Peace Protests Lamis Andoni The Railroading of Taysir Alony Mike Marqusee Those Pesky "Urban Intellectuals": Blair, Spiro Agnew and the Antiwar Movement Rep. Cynthia McKinney They Can't Fool Us Anymore Ron Jacobs A Small March for Me, a Giant March for the Antiwar Movement Norman Solomon The Media and the Antiwar Movement John Chuckman Bush in a Bottle Paul Craig Roberts America is Running Out of Time   September 24 / 25, 2005 Kathy and Bill Christison Polluting Palestine: Settlements & Sewage Ralph Nader Stealing the Moment: How Corporations Cashed in on Katrina Saul Landau The Terrorist Resumé of Luis Posada Greg Moses A Movement Gathers Power on the Sorrow Plateau Roger Burbach Hugo Chavez's Mission Vijay Prashad America's Shame Laura Carlsen After NAFTA Robert Fisk When Man and Nature Conspire to Expose the Lies of the Powerful Dave Lindorff A Gusher Called Katrina: They Fix Oil Prices, Don't They? Kirkpatrick Sale / Thomas Naylor Secession from the Empire: the Middlebury Declaration Maj. Anthony Milavic The US Military and Torture: the View of a Former Interrogator Brian Concannon, Jr. Haiti: the Time for Action is Now   September 23, 2005 CounterPunch News Service In Which, Phil Donahue Demolishes Bill O'Reilly Diane Farsetta Katrina and Right-Wing Think Tanks Robert Sandels Militarizing the Market Christopher Brauchli Bush: the Good Samaritan for Corporations Alan Farago Bird Flu Takes Flight Dave Zirin When Sports & Politics Collided: Redeeming the Olympic Martyrs of 1968 Maxine Conant A Simple Test for Bush David Price Workers Get Hit Twice: Katrina and Davis-Bacon Profiteering   September 22, 2005 Smith, Wood, Leas, and Greenfield Which Way Forward for the Green Party? a Report from Tulsa Patrick Cockburn Iraqis: This Government has No Authority Manuel Garcia, Jr. Thinking is Religious Freedom Lucia Dailey Trial of the St. Patrick's Four: Day One Mokhiber / Weissman Are You a Speed Freak? Russell D. Hoffman The Nukes in Rita's Path Kona Lowell God's Hurricane? Jason Leopold GOP Fiscal Policy and Katrina Website of the Day Robert Pollin on the Global Economy   September 21, 2005 Jorge Mariscal Military Recruiters: Counselers or Salesmen? Linda S. Heard Double Standards in Iraq: Basra Brit Jailbreak Joshua Frank NYPD Unplugs Cindy Sheehan Eric Ruder "The Problem in Iraq is the US": an Interview with Camilo Mejia Pierre Tristam The Struts and Bull Presidency Dave Lindorff The Real Story of the German Elections Mike Ferner Sit Down in DC Missy Comley Beattie Bush's Katrina Bling Bling Jeffrey St. Clair W Marks the Spot Website of the Day New Orleans: Survivor Stories   September 20, 2005 Steve Breyman Toxic Gumbo: Katrina and Environmental Justice George Galloway Et Tu, Greg Palast? Patrick Cockburn What Happened to Iraq's Missing $1 Billion? M. Shahid Alam Gen. Musharraf and Israel: Is Pakistan Selling Out? Mike Whitney The Gitmo Hunger Strikers Winslow T. Wheeler It's Not Rocket Science Niranjan Ramakrishnan Back to the Future: North Korea's Gambit Paul Craig Roberts Will Neocon Fanaticism Destroy America?         Subscribe Online

October 7, 2005 Hope is Fading Haiti's Children's Prison By JUDITH SCHERR Port-au-Prince. Rays of Haiti's scorching noontime sun slip between the bars into the otherwise dark 8 by 10 foot cell, illuminating the sets of eyes that stare out at the visitors. My eyes adjust and the forms of children emerge. I count 16 boys. Most squeeze seated together on the upper and lower levels of the three bunk beds that fit into a tight "U." A few sprawl behind the seated ones or sit in the tight space on the concrete floor that separates the beds. Three more cells, each with 16 boys, adjoin this one. The youngest of the 64 children is 10 ­ there are at least three 10-year-olds. The oldest is 17. Many have lived in these cells for more than a year. A journalist visiting Haiti for the third time, I'm accompanying San Francisco Bay Area human rights workers. With me at the children's prison is Sr. Stella Goodpasture, OP, Justice Promoter, Dominican Sisters of Mission San Jose and translator, guide, advisor and friend, Daniel Tillas. We speak to the children one at a time through the bars of the first cell door and Sister Stella offers each the packet of toiletries she has brought and her blessings. We talk with the children in the other three cells more briefly as they receive their packets. About 80 percent of those we interview have not been brought before a judge to be charged with a crime, something the Haitian constitution requires during the first 48 hours after arrest. Several children say they were brought to see a judge before being taken to jail as required, but the judge wasn't there, so they were locked up. Those who had actually seen a judge, such as Claude, 15, were simply read a summary statement of charges. "The judges won't give you a chance to talk. They let you be in here forever," Claude said. (While the youngsters are anxious for others to hear their stories and do not ask for anonymity, I am withholding their real names because they are children and they are not safe.) Judges asked several children for money for their release ­ one judge demanded $5,000 U.S. for the child to get out of jail. None of the children has legal representation. While some children have been jailed for as long as 18 months, none reports being incarcerated before Feb. 29, 2004, when the U.S. flew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide into exile. (The U.S. says Aristide asked to go, but Aristide, now exiled in South Africa, says he was forced out.) One guard tells me many of the children were jailed as "preventive detention," though the children do not explain their incarceration in that way. A number say they were picked up in police "operations," which are sweeps of poorest districts, during which police and/or United Nations soldiers cast a wide net, looking for individuals who may be "bandits" or "chimères," often code words for Aristide supporters. Samuel, 12, has been locked up since Dec. 12, 2004. He was in his home, building a birdhouse, when police came inside and arrested him as part of an "operation." Sylvan, 16, has been jailed since July 5, 2004, caught up in a police sweep. Paul, 15, was also picked up in a police sweep, arrested with others in his family home and incarcerated since April 28, 2004. Ronald, 17, has been in prison since July 21, 2004, picked up while "the police were looking for bandits." Raymond, 14, got picked up Dec. 5, 2004 in a police "operation." One of the few, his parents visit every Sunday. Daniel, 10, was arrested Dec. 12, 2004 and is accused of murder. Edwin, 15, was found smoking marijuana and has been jailed since May 29, 2004; Charles, 14, was accused of gang affiliation and has been jailed since May 12, 2004; Jacques, 17, was arrested Sept. 24, 2004 after a fight. Marc, 16, accused of rape, has been incarcerated since Nov. 24, 2004. Joseph, 16, has been in jail since March 24, 2004, accused of murder. The children do not claim mistreatment by prison guards, who walk out of earshot during the interviews, but some speak of police beatings at the time of their arrest. Jean, 15, has been locked up since January. When police arrested him "they asked me to tell them about the bandits." He told them he didn't know who they were. "They beat me and forced me to say I know the bandits," he said. Paul was also beaten during his arrest. "They beat us to say something," he said. A few of the children, such as Samuel, 14, and Edwin say their parents don't know where they are. (The existence of the children's jail is largely unknown in Port-au-Prince.) Some, but not all, are street children, orphans or those whose parents were unable to afford to keep them at home. Those few parents who visit speak to their children through the narrow cell door, as we are doing. The kids leave their cells to shower and for a daily recreation period; they accomplish their toilet needs at shower and recreation time. They have a bucket to share at other times. The children said the Red Cross has come to visit them. Jean-Yves Clemenzo Port-au-Prince Red Cross spokesperson said he was unable to comment on the organization's role there. The organization's access to prisons depends on keeping discussions with authorities out of the public eye. "It's a long process," he said, acknowledging that the prison conditions in Haiti, in general, such as at the National Penitentiary and the Women's Prison present "a lot of needs." The Red Cross has installed a water system at the National Penitentiary, which had been lacking. Clemenzo also reiterated what is already well known in Haiti: "Many are in jail without due process." The Red Cross is addressing some of that need. "We're in discussions with the department of prison affairs to express our concerns," he said, noting a limitation of resources. (Attempts to meet with Thierry Fagart, U.N. human rights official, in Port-au-Prince or to get comments from him by phone or e-mail have been unsuccessful. The U.N. oversees police and jails in Haiti.) When we get to the last cell, the guards ask us to speed up our visit, as it is approaching time for recreation. We find one child lying on a back bunk, his head wrapped in what could have been a shirt. He is not interested in talking or getting up to receive the packet of toiletries. He says he's had a bad headache for five days. The children say they don't see doctors. The guards are unaware of the child's headache, and, in front of the visitors, call someone they say will give him medical attention. The visit weighs heavily on Sr. Stella. "I'm grief struck and shocked to see the children in the dark with no place to sleep," she says. I ask some of the children what they wish for. Many say education. "I'd like some training," says Edwin. "Something to help me be useful for my country." Others express hopelessness. "I need prayers," says Claude, jailed since July 11. "I don't know how long I'll stay here." Judith Scherr is a freelance writer in Berkeley.                                                         CLARIFICATION ALEXANDER COCKBURN, JEFFREY ST CLAIR, BECKY GRANT AND THE INSTITUTE FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF JOURNALISTIC CLARITY, COUNTERPUNCH We published an article entitled "A Saudiless Arabia" by Wayne Madsen dated October 22, 2002 (the "Article"), on the website of the Institute for the Advancement of Journalistic Clarity, CounterPunch, www.counterpunch.org (the "Website"). Although it was not our intention, counsel for Mohammed Hussein Al Amoudi has advised us the Article suggests, or could be read as suggesting, that Mr Al Amoudi has funded, supported, or is in some way associated with, the terrorist activities of Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda terrorist network. We do not have any evidence connecting Mr Al Amoudi with terrorism. As a result of an exchange of communications with Mr Al Amoudi's lawyers, we have removed the Article from the Website. We are pleased to clarify the position. August 17, 2005

Coming in the Fall from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Click Here to Advance Order Philosopher Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz Coming This Fall Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair