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January
23, 2002
Terry
Waite
Guantanamo
Prisoners:
Justice or Revenge?
Molly
Secours
The
Case of Abu-Ali:
Racism and the Death Penalty
Robert
Jensen
Speak
Out, Get Slimed
January
22, 2002
Brendan
Cooney
Moby-Dick
and the Hunt
for Osama bin Laden
Rick Giombetti
Progressive
Pols for Enron?
Judith
Resnik
Invading
the Courts?
Kevin
Alexander Gray
The
Crisis in Black Leadership
January
21, 2002
Marjorie
Cohn
Will
Walker's Words
Be Used Against Him?
Ahmad
Faruqui
MLK
Jr. and the Palestinians
January
19. 2002
Jordan
Green
Enron
Stole Our Future
January
18, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
The
Enron Model
Walt Brasch
Enron
at the White House
CounterPunch
Wire
Human
Rights Groups Says Guantanamo Prisoners Must
Be Treated as POWs
January
17, 2002
Gideon
Levy
Bulldozing
Rafah
Uri Avnery
That
Weapons Shipment
January
16, 2002
John Chuckman
The
Angel and the Pretzel
Lawrence
McGuire
Subverting
the
Geneva Convention
Kathy
Kelly
An
Open Letter to
Richard Perle on Iraq
January
15, 2002
George
Monbiot
Greenpeace,
Lord Melchett
and the Business of Betrayal
Jack McCarthy
Follow
the Pretzel
William
Blum
Atta
and the Times:
Follow the Changing Story
Edward
Said
Emerging
Alternatives
in Palestine
January
14, 2002
David
Vest
Open
Bag. Eat Pretzels.
Patrick
Cockburn
Collapse
of Georgia
Ignored by the World
Mokhiber/Weissman
Enron's
Accountants:
When In Doubt, Shred It
January
13, 2002
C.G. Estabrook
Why
We Kill People
January
12, 2002
Cockburn/St.
Clair
Forbidden
Truths
January
11, 2002
Lee Balllinger/Dave
Marsh
Neil
Young's Duet with Ashcroft
January
10, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Bush,
Enron, UNOCAL
and the Taliban
St. Clair/Cockburn
Greenpeace
to Greenwash?
Hans von
Sponek
Iraq:
Is There an Alternative
to Military Action?
Jim Lobe
Israeli
Human Rights Group Assails Army
Marina Mayakova
Russia's
Top Military Astrologer Predicts More Attacks from OBL
January
9, 2002
David
Vest
The
Super-Burqa
and the Big Tent
ND Jayaprakash
Winnable
Nuclear War?
Rafiq
Kathwari
Kashmir
Will Make Ground Zero Look Like a Bonfire
January
8, 2002
Prudence
Crowther
Sting
Like a B-52
Nelson
Valdés
Al-Qaeda
at Guantanamo Bay
John Chuckman
Dark
Tales from the
Ministry of Truth
Richard
Corn-Revere
Do
We Fear Freedom?
Joan Hoff
The
Nixon You Haven't Heard
January
7, 2002
Lawrence
McGuire
Confusing
Economic Tales About Argentina
Wael Masri
They
Are Taking
Our Rights Away
Philip
Farruggio
Better
Medicine
A Photographic Journal of Life
in an Afghan Refugee Camp
By Judith Mann
Resources:
100s of Links
About 9/11
CounterPunch:
Complete
Coverage of 9/11 and Its Aftermath
Five
Days That
Shook The World:
Seattle and Beyond
By Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
Photos by Allan Sekula
(Click Here to Order from CounterPunch
Online at 20% Off Amazon.com's price!)
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EXCLUSIVE
TO
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SUBSCRIBERS
Published Oct. 15, 2001
8-Page Special Issue
War Diary
CIA's Assassination Plan a History of
Torture in US Prisons
bin Laden and Bush
Business Connections
Aisha Ikramuddin on the Hidden Hype
of US Food Bombs
Peter Linebaugh on
Pakistan
Christopher Hitchens' Love for Mrs. Thatcher
Jiang Zemin Tells Bush:
Nuke 'Em
Search
CounterPunch
Read Whiteout and Find Out
How the CIA's Backing of the Mujahideen Created the World's Most
Robust Heroin Market and Helped to Finance the Rise of the Taliban
and Osama bin Laden
Whiteout:
CIA, Drugs & the
Press
by Alexander
Cockburn
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Memphis Blues Again:
Six Decades of Memphis Music Photographs
Photos by Ernest Withers
Text by Daniel Wolff
The New Intifada:
Resisting Israel's Apartheid
Edited by Roane Carey
A Pocket Guide to
Environmental Bad Guys
by James Ridgeway
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The
Phoenix Program
by Douglas Valentine
Al Gore:
A User's Manual
by Cockburn
and St. Clair
Buy
This Explosive
New Book at an
Amazing Discount!
Reviews of Gore:
a User's Manual
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January
24, 2002
Microphones, Cameras
and Writing Materials:
What
Are They For?
By David Vest
First we had Osama bin Laden telling Pakistani
journalists that the death toll in the World Trade Tower attacks
was far greater than the U.S. government was letting on. An interview
in UMMAT, published on September 28 and reported in CounterPunch,
made it clear that bin Laden had been counting on a much higher
death toll.
But later we saw him on that famous "smoking
gun" video, leaning against the wall in someone's home and
claiming that news reports of the devastation proved that the
attacks far exceeded anything he had anticipated.
Whether or not the interview and the
video established bin Laden's culpability, they certainly made
it clear that, dead or alive, he is full of shit, a veritable
sack of stercory but with plenty of money.
Speaking of money, now comes word on
the home front from President Bush and from Sen. Phil Gramm's
office that the real victims of the Enron debacle were the Bush
and Gramm families. The president's mother-in-law bought stock
last summer, but "she didn't know all the facts," said
Bush, "and that's wrong."
Surely it was not the president's intent
to suggest, as his wording did, that it was his mother in-law
who did "wrong."
"No help here" was the response,
he avowed, when Enron called members of his cabinet. Was that
the same answer Dick Cheney gave Kenneth Lay, one wonders, when
Enron called on the vice-president to sway the administration's
energy policy? "No help here, Kenny Boy"?
Sen. Gramm, for his part, did not allege
that anyone had done anything "wrong," only that he
hadn't, and neither had his wife, Wendy, who sits on Enron's
board and audit committee. Oh, well, then.
It was also instructive to see former
Commerce Secretary Robert Mosbacher (remember him? from Bush
I? he was Georgette Mosbacher's husband, remember her?) on CNN's
Moneyline with Lou Dobbs, who made no mention of the fact that
Mosbacher was on Enron's payroll. Neither did Mosbacher, who
all but suggested that "the Ken Lay I know," who is
probably "not sleeping well," ought to do everyone
a favor and fall on his sword before all the swearing-in and
plea-bargaining starts.
You get the feeling that there are other
waves, building way out there behind the Enron scandal, that
may turn out to be even bigger. Halliburton's widely-predicted
fall would cast more than sand and foam on the shoes of Dick
Cheney. And that Unocal/Afghan oil pipeline rumble could be the
Tsunami of all undertows. What WERE the Taliban doing in Sugar
Land, while Bush was governor of Texas? Did he meet with them?
Then there is the roiling divertimento
of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's clarification, following
the British reaction to some disturbing photos of sensory-deprived
people kneeling in chains in Cuba. Turns out that the photos
were misleading, clarified Rumsfeld. The al-Queda prisoners being
held in Guantanamo Bay are actually receiving an all-expense-paid
vacation in the "sunny Caribbean." Why, they've even
been provided with free medical care and "writing materials."
No doubt one of them is penning an op-ed piece for USA Today
even now, to explain the whole silly misunderstanding.
What, precisely, can our sun-basked prisoners
be expected to do with their "writing materials," apart
from confessing and naming names? Can they write home? Can they
petition their governments for assistance? Can they have pen-pals
among the infidel?
Beyond the question of the media's (and
thus the public's) right to information, there is another issue:
is access to the media, the opportunity to tell one's story,
to state one's case in daylight, some sort of basic human right,
not to be denied even terrorists and murderers?
"Treat me as you should treat me,
not as I should be treated," wrote Antonio Porchia, as translated
by W. S. Merwin in a wonderful little book called Voices. The
question is not whether the United States is treating its al-Queda
prisoners the way they ought to be treated, but whether the United
States is behaving the way the last best hope of humanity ought
to behave -- with "a decent respect for the opinions of
[hu]mankind."
David Vest
is a regular writer for CounterPunch, a poet and piano-player
for the Pacific Northwest's hottest blues band, The Cannonballs.
Visit his website at http://www.mindspring.com/~dcqv
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