home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq

Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! Hillary Clinton's Fatal Vices Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair dissect HRC in her White House years and conclude their series on the woman who may be the next president. PLUS Eva Liddell on the man who really set the course of the Bush presidency PLUS Andy Worthington on the battle for the rights of the Guantanamo detainees PLUS Debbie Nathan on what the border crackdown has done to the women crossing the Rio Grande. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair

Today's Stories September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z   August 31, 2007 Jeff Gibbs Why I Am Not Going to the Protest Paul Craig Roberts The War Criminal in the Living Room Ray McGovern Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran? Robert Weissman The Benchmarks Iraq is Missing Matt Vidal Subprime Lending and Shady Mortgages Robin Mittenthal The Biofuels Trap Chris Kutalik Auto Makers Push Health Care Trust Solution for Industry in Crisis Richard Forno Watching Freedom's Watch Binoy Kampmark Dianified Dave Zirin Kenneth Foster Lives Website of the Day Free the Jena 6   August 30, 2007 Gary Leupp Larry Craig on the Seat John Ross Dead Forest Defenders Anthony DiMaggio Arabic as a Terrorist Language: the Right-Wing Assault on the Gibran Academy Jordan Flaherty Racism and Criminal Justice in New Orleans Michael Donnelly The Sierra Club Greenwashes Al Gore (and Desecrates John Muir) Russell Mokhiber Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond Global Financial Apartheid William S. Lind The Truth Tellers Martha Rosenberg They Call Him Dr. Cruel Jeff Leys / Brian Terrell Seasons of Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project Website of the Day Bragg: "Old Clash Fan Fight Song" August 29, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Maliki and The Mass Shia Pilgrimage to Kerbala Winslow T. Wheeler The Costs of the Afghanistan War David Rosen The GOP's Outed All-Stars: The Forced Freeing of Gay Men from the Republican Closet Dave Zirin Confronting Katrina Paul Craig Roberts More Shame, More Sorrow Diane Farsetta Christie Todd Whitman's Nuclear Spinning Wheel Ben Davis Who Won't Stand Up for Kenneth Foster?: Charles Rangel, For One Alan Farago The Housing Crisis and the Environment Jenna Orkin Echoes of 9/11: Another Fire at Ground Zero Don Monkerud The Vanishing American Vacation Richard Nasser Surfing Gaza: More Uplifting News from NPR Website of the Day Don't Sleep on the Struggle   August 28, 2007 Uri Avnery The Language of Force Bill Quigley Katrina, Two Years Later Joshua Frank The Fight to Save the Rocky Mountains China Hand "I am Alden Pyle:" Bush's Vietnam Fantasy Firmin DeBrabander Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore Charles Peña Nuclear Fear Factor Andy Worthington Good Riddance, Gonzales Ramzy Baroud Abbas and the Abyss Anthony Papa Roger Stone's New Patsy Ashley Smith Drawing the Line at Kennebunkport Website of the Day B is for Bomb August 27, 2007 Jorge Mariscal The General Reports Bill Christison Why the US and Israel Should Lose Middle East Wars Manuel Garcia, Jr. 911 Emergency! Calling Robert Fisk!: You are Now Entering a Black Hole Anthony DiMaggio Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?: Bush, al-Maliki and the Press Bruce A. Roth India and the New Nuclear Era John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2 Dave Lindorff Gonzo's Gone Ron Jacobs Taking It to the Streets Binoy Kampmark Poshed Up: Why the Beckhams Should Go Back to Brighty Russell D. Hoffman My Favorite Scientist: John Gofman, Bane of the Nuclear Industry Website of the Day George W. Told the Nation   August 25 / 26, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Don't Carpool with Nouri al-Maliki James Petras The Great Financial Crisis Jeffrey Buchanan / Chris Kromm Where Did the Katrina Money Go? Marjorie Cohn Turning Iraq into Vietnam Rev. William E. Alberts Jesus, the Theological Prisoner of Christianity Robert Fantina Ari Fleischer, Freedom Watch and the Pro-War Lobbyists Brian Concannon Whitewashing the History of Abolition Ralph Nader What Do They Have to Hide? Laura Carlsen Extending NAFTA's Reach Fred Gardner Notes from Hempfest David Michael Green History, the Last Refuge of Scoundrels Stephen Soldz Why Mary Pipher Returned Her APA Award Mike Ferner Combatants for Peace: Former Enemies Find New Way Forward Paul Krassner Mort Sahl's Punchline Ben Tripp Resistance is Impossible--But Not Futile Missy Beattie President Druzilla Website of the Weekend Blue Print for Gulf Renewal   August 24, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts A Hegemonic Hubris Greg Moses A Cruel and Unusual Excuse William Schroder Bush, Vietnam and Iraq Alan Farago The Pain of Paper Millionaires Jackie Corr Uncle Ben Bernacke and the Nanny State Jeff Ballinger Naomi Klein and the Path Not Taken Bill Quigley Pere Jean-Juste Comes Home Dave Zirin Inching Toward Insanity Richard Rhames Deaver and the Making of Reagan Ryan Haygood How Newark Can Mend Website of the Day Lindorff's Iraq Rag   August 23, 2007 Kathy Kelly We Shouldn't be Causing This P. Sainath Meeting the Mahatma Ron Jacobs Bush, Vietnam and 14 More GIs Dead Christopher Brauchli Beyond Kafka: Mistakes, Soreheads and Eavesdropping D.K. Wilson When Sports Journalists Talk Race Joshua Frank The Weeds of Willapa Bay Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's True Lies About Dams and Canals Brenda Norrell Bush's House of Snakes: Indians, Border Biometrics and Migrating Corporations John Wright The Ongoing Tragedy of Afghanistan David Vest Elvis and Racism, Round 2 Website of the Day Urgent Plea: the Black Agenda Report Needs Your Help!   August 22, 2007 Norman Finkelstein Remembering Raul Hilberg Marc Levy Sleepless in Iraq Lawrence R. Velvel When Courts Bow Down to Secrecy Ray McGovern Bush's Iran War Drums Beating Louder Norman Solomon How to Survive at the Pentagon on $2 Billion a Day John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Road Show Michael Dickinson Little Brother is Watching You William S. Lind Operation Kabuki?: the Credibility of David Petraeus Bill Hatch A Short Walk into the Valley of Death Kenneth E. Foster and John Joe Amador How We Will Protest Our Executions David Vest Predictable Parallels: CNN and PBS Website of the Day The Once and Future Steve Perry August 21, 2007 Saul Landau The FBI's New Power Alan Farago Sand Houses and Missing Beaches John Stauber Iraq: the Gift that Keeps on Bleeding Phillip Rizk Gaza and the Jordanian Option Debbie Nathan Giuliani's Garden District Binoy Kampmark The Art of Sinning Martha Rosenberg The Fastow Economy Sunsara Taylor Back to School During Wartime Website of the Day Coffee with the Troops   August 20, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box Uri Avnery Stumbling Toward Another War Rannie Amiri Nasrallah's Surprise: a Warning from Beirut's No Bluff Zone John Ross The Fine Art of Bad Elections Harvey Wasserman The Senate's Radioactive Rip-Off Robert Billyard Canada's Disgrace: the Cases of Maher Arar and Omar Khadr Dave Lindorff Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi James Rothenberg Why Your Vote Will Never Matter David "DC" Larson To Smear a King Website of the Day Bird Cinema August 18 / 19, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Exit Karl Rove, Everyone's Useful Demon Saul Landau The FBI in War and Peace Ralph Nader Greed and Folly on Wall Street Patrick Cockburn A Bloody Week in Iraq Robert Fantina Cannon Fodder: Beau Biden and other "Deployable Assets" Robert S. Eshelman Azar's Story: an Iraqi Refugee Living in Syria P. Sainath The Last Battle of Laxmi Panda Dave Lindorff Tossing Fuel on a Fire: US Military Aid to Israel Anthony DiMaggio Iraq, Iran & the Vanishing Context in American News Fred Gardner The Politics of Schizophrenia Ron Jacobs The Virtues of Resistance Tom Turnipseed War Profiteering and Corruption: From Lexington, S.C. to the White House Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: Special Preachers, Priests and Clerics Edition! Ben Tripp I'm So Screwed Andrew Wimmer Living With Grief Nancy Oden Where Inmates Can Grow for Free N.D. Jayaprakash India Backtracks on Disarmament Rick Smith Reflections on Cuba: an Interview with Doug Morris Missy Beattie The Suicide Bomber Poets' Basement Engel, Ford, Orloski and McLellan Website of the Weekend Imperial Storm Troopers in Action August 17, 2007 Joanne Mariner Terrorizing Social Protest Paul Craig Roberts China is not the Problem Shepherd Bliss Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Chile, 30 Years Later Dave Lindorff Convicting Padilla: Bad News for All Americans John Muthyala The Water and the Road: Katrina, Poverty and the American Dream Patrick Cockburn Deepening Divsions in Iraq Sherwood Ross Military Interrogators are Posing as Lawyers at Gitmo Phil Doe The Old West Moves East: the Political Science of Colorado River Water David Michael Green Karl Rove and the Damage Done Website of the Day Gorilla Slaughter: a Personal Account August 16, 2007 Jonathan Cook The Second Lebanon War, a Year Later Christopher Brauchli Babes in Toxic Toyland Norman Solomon Backspin for War Lee Sustar / Orlando Sepuldeva Victory on the Picket Line: How Immigrant Workers Won Their Strike Against Cygnus George Bisharat Boycott Movement Targets Israel Binoy Kampmark Tasteless: Gordon Ramsey and the Death of Gastronomy Evelyn Pringle Protection Racket?: the FDA and Avandia Hugo Blanco The Epic Struggle of Indigenous Andean / Amazonian Website of the Day Burning Man: the Field Recordings         Subscribe Online

September 4, 2007 The Crimes Continue Katrina and the Progress of the System By SUNSARA TAYLOR On the two year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, George Bush stood in the middle of the still devastated Ninth Ward of New Orleans, and crowed, "This town is better today than it was yesterday, and its going to be better tomorrow than it is today." This is not because Bush failed to notice the boarded up homes, the overgrown empty lots, or the fact that most of the residents have not and will never return. It is not government neglect or mismanagement of funds. Speaking for a system that was built on slavery and genocide, that has white supremacy built into its structures, laws and culture, George Bush looked at all this and saw progress. Survivors: "They was trying to wipe us out." Beginning the evening of August 29 and continuing for four more days the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita included sessions on the abuse of prisoners, police brutality, lack of evacuation plans and neglect of the levees, environmental racism, labor and migrant rights, schools, gentrification, and displacement and other outrages. Nkechi Taifa opened the indictment against the U.S. Government for Crimes Against Humanity by invoking the memory of Mamie Till whose son Emmett was brutally lynched by white men in Mississippi in 1955. Mamie Till courageously insisted that the casket of her 14-year-old son, Emmett, be opened up for the world to see. She displayed his battered and water-soaked body publicly, shocking the conscience of the world. Two years after Katrina and Rita, Nkechi insisted that the barbarity and criminality of what was-and is continuing to be done-to Black people and others in and around New Orleans still needs to be opened up for the whole world to see. For two and a half days over Katrina's anniversary, I visited New Orleans. Through the Tribunal, at protests, in Cooper projects, and in the Lower Ninth Ward, I heard bitter stories Of prisoners hurling fists, broom sticks and wheelchairs against the walls of their confinement amidst rising flood waters till they collapse in exhaustion. Guards long since gone. Lights out. Water, thick and putrid with sewage, rising to their necks in the pitch black. That still haunt Children swept out of the arms of parents. Elderly folks stranded in wheelchairs for days as maggots and waterbugs, soaked out of the building foundations, crawl all around and over them. That flow from-and were enforced by-a system "You know what hurt me?" asked an older woman from Cooper Projects, as two years later tears pile out of both eyes, "When we was going through all that water, that filth, that oil, all that to get over to that bridge I see nothing but FEMA cars police lights big Army helicopters sitting in that spot. Those people sitting there not trying to help us. They was looking at us die. Come on now! That hurts. That hurts I will die saying they was trying to wipe us out." Protest and Anger On August 29, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of residents and activists from around the country held commemorative events and protests around the city. Robert Green held a public memorial in the Ninth Ward where his home had been swept off the ground in twenty feet of raging floodwater. His mother died there, and his granddaughter had slipped off the roof and disappeared into the water two years before. After being abandoned to die in the storm, the authorities refused to retrieve his mother's body from the rooftop where she was clearly visible from a distance and weeks later Green had to go in and do it himself. Later that day, up to a thousand residents, volunteers, and activists gathered at the levee wall where it had broken and marched through the Ninth Ward. Most of its residents have not returned because of obstacles thrown up by city, state and federal government. People marched through pouring rain to Congo Square some five miles into town. Throughout the afternoon a Day of Presence, organized by Susan Taylor, editor of Essence magazine, brought together Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, poet Jessica Care Moore, and other Black leaders and artists in front of the Convention Center where tens of thousands had been stranded without food or water for days during the storm. This, however, is downtown. Everything is cleaned up here. A "David Duke for Governor" (a notorious Klan white-supremacist) bumper sticker taunted those who gathered. For five days, the International Tribunal on Hurricanes Katrina and Rita pried open the crimes of the government before, during, and after Katrina with first-hand testimony from prisoners, witnesses of summary executions, victims of severe police brutality, folks still dispersed and living in trailers, people locked out of public housing and activists and experts from the ACLU, National Conference of Black Lawyers, Center for Constitutional Rights, NAACP, National Lawyers Guild, Louisiana Justice Institute, People's Hurricane Relief Fund and Malcolm X Grassroots Committee. I spoke with Phyllis Montana LeBlanc, famous for her honest and angry testimony about surviving the storm in Spike Lee's documentary, When the Levees Broke. She told me that she's met people who were ready to kill themselves before they heard her testimony in the film. Hearing her speak the truth gave them the strength to keep struggling. Housing and the Right to Return One very sharp concentration of the system's plans to "rebuild" New Orleans is the forced displacement of people, a refusal to rebuild privately owned housing, and the shuttering of public housing. Large housing projects in New Orleans, like St. Bernard, Lafitte, and C.J. Peete are completely shut down while several others, including Iberville and B.W. Cooper are mostly fenced off and unoccupied. These projects could house more than 5,000 families, and they comprise some of the least damaged housing in New Orleans post Katrina. The government used Hurricane Katrina to empty the projects and keep the people who lived there, most of them poor Black people, from returning to the city. One of these projects is going to be replaced by a golf course! On August 31, residents of public housing, public housing advocates and others protested at the office of the executive director of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), demanding an end to the destruction of public housing and the right of all New Orleans residents to return. In response, the HANO office closed for the day, police and National Guardsmen cordoned off the building, entered it and surrounded the Director's office for several hours until protesters marched out of the building. An encampment of homeless folks has sprung up across the street from Mayer Nagin's office downtown demanding that housing be opened up to those who need it. Activists there told me that Mayor Nagin at one point offered to open up housing to the protesters, but they refused, choosing to continue sleeping in the park with others until housing is provided for everyone. Two years after Katrina, the crimes against the people continue. New Orleans population is less than two-thirds of what was before Katrina, yet estimates say there are now three times as many homeless people. While New Orleans moves to permanently shut down its four largest housing projects, nearby St. Bernard Parish passed a "whites only" law in the form of requiring that anyone who moves there must have a blood relative already living in the Parish, which is 93% white (the law is being challenged in court). 33,000 people are estimated to be still living in FEMA trailers, many of which are infested with dangerous levels of formaldehyde. A man who lives in a FEMA park with about 23 trailers housing 75 people told me that, of the adults, there is one woman who works26 miles away at a Wendy's. The only town nearby is almost entirely white and the 1,500 or so people who live there don't want the evacuees around. "My thirteen-year-old, he finished second in his class. But on awards day, they didn't give him anything," the man explains with pain in his voice. "He was very disappointed, you know? I know what it is. A thirteen year old don't understand that." One thing that makes every resident of New Orleans I meet smile is the volunteers who have come through to rebuild. Over 14,000 volunteers, including students from over 200 colleges, have been part of rebuilding just with the Common Ground effort. They helped residents clear debris from their homes and yards in the Ninth Ward, they set up volunteer clinics and risked arrest to clean out and reopen schools-including the one Bush had the audacity to pose for a photo-op in. Most of the volunteers have come not only from long distances, but also from very different walks of life. The ones I spoke with have been changed by the survivors they've met and from their close-up look at how this system treats those at the bottom. One told me, "When I was back in California there were a lot of things I worried about that really now this experience kind of gives me an appreciation for how little some of that matters." But despite the wonderful spirit of these volunteers, and despite the burning, fierce desire of the people of New Orleans to survive and rebuild, the system stands in the way at every turn. The system is shuttering housing when people need housing, moving jobs when people need work, creating a viciously two-tiered educational system when people need schools Everywhere you turn, the system is the problem not the solution. There is a great challenge to everyone to step forward in political resistance, and to not let what is happening in New Orleans go down like this. Sunsara Taylor writes for Revolution Newspaper and sits on the Advisory Board of The World Can't Wait ­ Drive Out the Bush Regime. She can be reached at: sunsarasworld@yahoo.com Your Ad Here

New From CounterPunch Books The Secret Language of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy Click Here to Buy! Cassidy on Tour Click Here for Dates & Venues   Now Available! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained! Buy End Times Now! Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair       The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont   CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed     Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"