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What You're Missing in Our Subscriber-only CounterPunch Newsletter Blood Diamonds: the Inside Story An amazing expose by T.R. Naylor: How the "Blood" or "Conflict Diamonds" Myth peddled by NGOs Helped a Vicious Mining Company Shore Up Its Monopoly, Made a Pile of Money for A Washington Post Reporter and Leonardo di Caprio, Served As A Propaganda Myth in the "War on Terror" and had Nothing to Do With Osama Bin Laden. Pinochet is gone, and the world is a cleaner place. JoAnn Wypijewski recalls 1988 in Santiago, when Chile lost its fear. And yes, here they are in charge of Congress again, ready to facilitate a troop hike in Iraq. Alexander Cockburn re-introduces an old acquaintance: the Democrats--Party of War. 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 towards the cost of this online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year Remember: You Only Have a Few More Days to Make a Year End & Tax Deductible Contribution to CounterPunch!

Today's Stories December 30 / 31, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Iraq 2006: a Nation Soaked in Blood Tears Itself Apart Manuel Garcia, Jr. Exeucting Saddam, Protecting the Rackets Tariq Ali Saddam at the End of a Rope Paul Craig Roberts The New Dark Age: Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power Douglas Valentine At the End of My Rope: Hanging With Saddam Brian M. Downing The New Iraq Policy: Escalation Bert Sacks Can You Imagine the Long War for Iraqis? Nick Dearden The War on Terror Hits Africa Missy Beattie In Harm's Way: How Our National Coward Describes War Dan La Botz Defend Illegal Immigrants: Help Them! Harbor Them! December 29, 2006 Bill Quigley A Tale of Two Sisters: Why is HUD Spending Tens of Millions in Katrina Money to Bulldoze 4,534 Public Housing Apartments in New Orleans? Norman Finkelstein The Dershowitz Treatment John Borowski Curb Your Environmentalism: Laurie David and Me Abid Mustafa The Re-Talibanization of Afghanistan Greg Moses World Responds to Palestinian Family's Jailing Despite Media Blackout Uri Cohen Stand Up for Herod: a Seasonal Story of Ancient Palestine Bailly / Caudron / Lambert The Secrets in Ikea's Closet Website of the Day Justice for New Orleans   December 28, 2006 Norman Finkelstein The Ludicrous Attacks on Jimmy Carter's Book Anthony Cowell Highway Robbery: Privatizing New Jersey's Toll Roads John Ross Gateway to the Next Mexican Revolution? Hilaria Cruz I'm Going to Stay Right Here: Story of a Oaxacan Prisoner Greg Moses Palestinian Immigrant Jailings in Texas Brittany Bond The Blood Trail of Luis Posada Carriles, Washington's Preferred Terrorist Website of the Day Godfather of Soul and Father of Funk   December 27, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Farewell to Our Greatest President: Adieu, Gerald Ford Faruq Ziada Is There a Sunni Majority in Iraq? Christopher Brauchli Burning EPA's Books: What They Don't Want You to Read Might Save Your Life Michael Ortiz Hill Journey to Vietnam: Dare We Not Say Genocide? Nikolas Kozloff Saving Caracas Mark Schneider Why Hope? Reasons for Optimism December 26, 2006 Peter Stone Brown James Brown: Please Don't Go Tito Tricot Chile: the Ghosts of Torture Gary Leupp Cowboys Differ on Iran Attack: Cheney/Bush vs. the Baker Commission John V. Walsh Dershowitz vs. Carter in Beantown: Peace Movement AWOL, Again Reza Fiyouzat Red Christmas: Why Santa Was Hot in China This Year Ron Jacobs The Golem: a Conversation with Marc Estrin Website of the Day JB: Prisoner of Love December 25, 2006 Saul Landau A Jeep Trip with Fidel Lang / McGovern To Surge or Not to Surge? Michael Dickinson Should Stupid Thoughts Be Crimes?: Deny Santa If You Will, But ... Website of the Day James Brown, RIP December 23 / 24, 2006 Marjorie Cohn What's Going On? Jeffrey L. Gould The Capital of Salvadoran Memory: El Mozote After 25 Years Diane Christian The Rape of Iraq William Loren Katz From the Raid on "Fort Negro" to Iraq: Lessons from the First US Invasion Greg Moses This War Can't be Made Right by Winning M. Shahid Alam An Islamic Civil War: Chaos by Design? Fred Gardner Exposé as Inoculant: HRT, Zyprexa, Lilly and the Press Dave Lindorff Crime of the Century Azmi Bishara Ways of Denial Ralph Nader The BCS: a Monopoly on College Football Seth Sandronsky Fiscally Imperiled Social Security? William Hughes Cop Assaults Activists at Lockheed Protest Ron Jacobs Making Stones Weep Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to on New Year's Eve   December 22, 2006 David Rosen Bush's Foreign Sex Policy: Imperialism's Second Front Christopher Brauchli When the Secret is the Question: Secret Prisons, Top Secret Interrogations John Ross Flashlights in the Tunnel of Hate J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Political Sell-Outs in Black and White Rahul Mahajan Dennis Kucinich: Maverick or Stalking Horse? Arthur Neslen Provoking Civil War in the Occupied Territories Peter Rost, MD The Secrets of His Success: Fired Pfizer CEO Walks Away with $198 Million Website of the Day 10 Ways to Change the World in 2007 December 21, 2006 Rosa Mariam Elizalde An Interview with Gore Vidal: "I am Jealous of Cuba" Arundhati Roy Breaking the News Brian Cloughley Poppies Rising: Afghanistan's Drug Catastrophe Daniel White Jimmy Carter in Austin: Time to Come Clean on the Shoot Down of That Itavia DC-9 John V. Whitbeck On Israel's Right to Exist Sam Smith Still Smearing Ralph Nader for 2000 Paris Reidhead GM Ice Cream: Something's Fishy in Your Good Humor Bar Kevin Wehr Denying Disaster: Katrina and the Case for Impeachment Website of the Day Pesticides and Amphibians: a Vital New Database December 20, 2006 Gabriel Kolko Rumsfeld and the American Way of War Winslow T. Wheeler The Pentagon Measures the Chaos in Iraq Tariq Ali The War is Lost Saree Makdisi Israel, Apartheid and Jimmy Carter Bruce Jackson Saying "Oh!": John Mohawk and the Power to Make Peace Dave Lindorff Democrats Walk Into a Bush Trap on Iraq Leslie Radford The Winter Harvest of the South Central Farmers Dave Jansson Divided We Stand, United We Fall: Secessionists Confront the Empire Johnny Barber Jesus is a Terrorist Website of the Day Is It for Freedom? December 19, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Democrats Prepare to Fund Longer War Jonathan Cook End of the Strongmen Greg Moses Globalized Gulag: Palestinian Refugees and Children Held in Hutto, TX Jail Sean Penn Georgie, There's a Crowd Downstairs Dave Lindorff Innocents Abroad: Cracking Down on Gitmo Detainees Despite Overwhelming Evidence Most Are Not Terrorists Ralph Nader Going Postal Laura Carlsen Latin America's Pink Tide? Carlos Villarreal The Well is Poisoned: Victory Requires an Immediate Pull-Out Website of the Day Chuck Spinney on the Pentagon December 18, 2006 Luis J. Rodriguez En Lak Ech: Chicanos, Mayans and Mel Gibson Norman Solomon Washington Refuses to End the War: Powell, Baker, Hamilton--Thanks for Nothing! Uri Avnery Lebanon: War Without a Plan Ron Jacobs More Troops, More Body Bags Phil Gasper Afghanistan: Bush's Other War Unravels Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi Iran's Elections: The World Isn't Florida and Bush Isn't Its Supreme Leader William Blum The United States of Punishment Jim Goodman So What's the Big Deal If Wal-Mart Makes a Mistake? James Brooks Talking Surge: Let's Kill Some More Before We Go Maria C. Khoury Walking Into the Art World: Designing a Palestinian Academy for the Arts Website of the Day Got Powell December 16 / 17, 2006 Weekend Edition Vijay Prashad A Perilous Way to Socialism Saul Landau Filming Fidel Anthony Arnove The US Occupation of Iraq: Act III of a Tragedy of Many Parts Paul Cantor The Puppet and the Puppeteer: Pinochet and Kissinger Annie Nocenti Baluchistan's Fight: The Khan of Kalat Gathers the Tribes Nicole Colson Hard Times on the Killing Floor: Smithfield's Rotten Record Stephen Gowans Tehran's Holocaust Conference Jordan Flaherty A Catastrophic Failure: Foundations, Nonprofits and the Second Looting of New Orleans Fred Gardner Dustin Costa Faces 15 to Life P. Sainath There's No Such Thing as a Free Cow Seth Sandronsky The Democrats and Social Security: Watch What the Party Says and Does Nadia Hijab An AIPAC Shot Across Baker's Bow? Deb Reich Dear Santa, (Or Someone): Greetings from the Occupied Holy Lands Susie Day Cops Shoot Another Rich White Man! Albert Wan Why Does It Take 50 Bullets? Missy Beattie Will the Next Leader Stand Up? Please! Martha Rosenberg Kicking the Wyeth Habit Saves Women's Lives Lee Ballinger The Devil's Highway: Clinton, Border Checkpoints and the Deaths of the Yuma 14 Michael Dickinson Kingdom of Fear Jeffrey St. Clair Live/Evil: Listening to Miles Davis Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford Website of the Weekend "I Heard It Through the Grapevine"   December 15, 2006 Eliza Ernshire Palestinian "Civil War" and the Israeli Chocolate Ration Virginia Tilley What Are You Going to Do Now, Israel? Mike Ferner Roll Call for the Choir: If They Vote for War, Occupy 'Em! John Ross Mad Mel's Mayan Apocalypse Fred Wilhelms The Flip Side of Ahmet Ertegun: Where Did You Get Those Shoes? Kevin Zeese Dennis Kucinich's Strange Mission: Can You Be a Real Anti-War Candidate in a Pro-War Party? David Severn Social Engineering Begins at Home: Jeffrey Skoll, Billionaire Philantropist Dave Lindorff Sen. Tim Johnson Death Watch: Senate Gridlock May Be Best Outcome Sunsara Taylor As American as Shopping and Torture Website of the Day June 2, 2004: When Iraq Was There For The Looting   December 14, 2006 Jonathan Cook The Recognition Trap Riz Khan An Interview with Jimmy Carter Jason Hribal Kasatka, the Sea World Orca Pennick / Gray The Plight of Black Farmers: Racism in the US Farm Program Richard Levins That Embezzled Anti-Castro Money Pat Williams The College Crisis: Universal Access, Student Loan Debts and Pell Grants Peter Rost, MD Simply Irresistible: Do Women Prefer Bad Boys? Website of the Day The Sound of Rummy   December 13, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Iraq is Beyond Repair Greg Moses The Dixie Chicks Come Home to Roost Elizabeth Schulte Hungry for the Holidays Joshua Frank Death By Coke Debra Eschmeyer Corporations Control Your Dinner Leon Hadar Baker's Rescue Mission: Too Little, Too Late Peter Rost, MD I've Been a Very Bad Boy Margaret Knapke Mow bé and Malachi, Presenté! Reza Fiyouzat Are Cows Free? Fred Wilhelms A Last Minute Appeal: If You Know One of These Musicians Let Them Know They Are Owed Money--By Friday! Website of the Day The Crimes of Augusto Pinochet December 12, 2006 Fernando A. Torres The Last Man of the Junta: an Open Letter to Kissinger from One of Pinochet's Political Prisoners Paul Craig Roberts America's Injustice System is Criminal Stephen Soldz Abusive Interrogations Uri Avnery Baker's Cake William S. Lind Knocking Opportunity: From Vulcans to Vultures in Iraq Missy Beattie Convicted for Our Convictions: Trespassing for Truth at the UN Dave Lindorff The 35-Year Long Scream: Torture, Impeachment and a Vietnam Vet's Tears George Pyle Our Perverse Farm Plan: Where Christmas Comes Every Five Years Norman Solomon Is the USA the Center of the World? Website of the Day Citizens' War Tribunal   December 11, 2006 Virginia Tilley Banning Mandela Roger Burbach The Condor Model: the Atrocities of Pinochet and the US Col. Douglas MacGregor There's Only One Option Left: Leave! Fawwas Traboulsi Lebanon on the Brink Ron Jacobs Death of a Pig: Poetic Justice for Pinochet Gideon Levy The Cruel Line into Gaza: Elbow to Elbow, Like Cattle Mary McGrane Burning Books at Harvard Law Bernardo Ruiz The Disappeared of Oaxaca: a Message from One of the Actors in Apocalypto Website of the Day La Cancion de la Unidad Video of the Day Killing Castro: Congresswoman as Contract Killer?   December 9 / 10, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Liberal Consensus for More Troops in Iraq Sen. Gordon Smith Out of Iraq: Cut and Run or Cut and Walk Greg Grandin Jeane Kirkpatrick, Mid-Wife of the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts How Many More Will Die for Bush's Ego? Col. Dan Smith The Vietnamization of Iraq: Inside the Military Training Program Ralph Nader The Man from NAM: John Engler's Trail of Destruction Behrooz Ghamari The Donkey and the Date: Iran's Upcoming Municipal Elections Rev. Willliam Alberts Doing Unto Others: Pastor Haggard and President Bush James T. Phillips The James Gang: "Did You Kill Her?" Bennis / Leaver A Bi-Partisan Occupation Dave Lindorff A Congress of Hucksters and Pipsqueaks Nikolas Kozloff Robert Gates and Venezuela: Another Saber Rattler in Latin America Seth Sandronsky Activating White Racism Lucinda Marshall McKinney and Karpinsky: Silenced for Telling the Truth Mike Whitney Something's Gotta Give: James Baker vs. the Lobby John V. Whitbeck Recommendation No. 80 Faisal Kutty Is the Universal Declaration of Human Rights Merely a Western Construct? Hugh Sansom Smearing Jimmy Carter: an Open Letter to the New York Times Robert Gold My South American Journey: Impunity in Colombia Boots Riley Crash and Burn: an Urgent Message from The Coup Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel & Buknatski Website of the Weekend Alive in Mexico December 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn The Iraq Study Group's Cautious Appraisal Leutisha Stills Just How Progressive is the Congressional Black Caucus? Norman Finkelstein The Media Lynching of Jimmy Carter Will Youmans Mr. Lieberman Comes to Washington: Brookings Hosts an Ethnic Cleanser Peter Rost, MD What Went Wrong at Pfizer? Jonathan Demme My Friend Bruce Langhorne: a Great Musician Needs Your Help! Ray McGovern Senate Democrats Give Gates a Free Pass Lucinda Marshall What She Wore Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn The Lost John Lennon Interview Website of the Day John Lennon's FBI Files   December 7, 2006 Alex Friedman Rev. Phelps' Hate-Fueled Fanatics Find a Home in the Kansas Prison Industry Maureen Webb Risk Scoring and the National Insecurity State Paul Craig Roberts Catastrophe Still Awaits Dave Lindorff Prosecutor Admits: Mumia Abu-Jamal Had "No True Defense" Matt Vidal Drug Pushers, Inc.: Power and Profit in the Legal Drug Trade Yifat Susskind Looking for a Few Good Principles: What Should be Done in Iraq Rodriguez / Jones NYPD's Death Squads: From Diallo to Sean Bell Website of the Day 2006, Remixed December 6, 2006 Robert Bryce Omitting the Obvious with James Baker: From the S&L Crisis to the Iraq Study Group William S. Lind The Boomerang Effect: When Will the First IED Strike Cincy? Zoe Blunt The Clearcut Truth About the Great Bear Rainforest Corporate Crime Reporter The New Conventional Wisdom: Prosecute Individuals, Not Corporations Amira Hass A Regrettable Indifference: Israel's Treatment of Palestinian Prisoners Richard W. Behan The Surreal Politics of Premeditated War Sophie McNeill Why Hezbollah is Broadcasting Sunday Mass December 5, 2006 Virginia Tilley Apartheid Israel: a Beacon of Hope? Sharon Smith The New Washington Consensus: Blame the Victims in Iraq Joe Bageant Somewhere a Banker Smiles Ron Jacobs A War Washington Can't Win Norman Solomon Media Consensus, Stay in Iraq! Mike Whitney Rumsfeld's Final Snowflake: "I Was Just About to Change Everything ... " Derrick O'Keefe Regimes Unchanged: Chavez's Victory Strengthen's Cuba Julian Assange The Road to Hanoi Missy Beattie Bush, the Unhappy Helmsman Website of the Day Lessons of Suez and Iraq   December 4, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Gaza and Darfur George Ciccariello-Maher Tears of the Escualidos: Election Diary, Venezuela Ray McGovern Lame Ducks, Hold That Nomination!: a CIA Insider's Take on Gates John Ross Repression on the Menu in Mexico Walden Bello Hurricane Milton: Friedman, Bayonets and Markets Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Clueless Executives Stephen Lendman The Withering of the Bush Dynasty Gideon Levy This Ceasefire will Go Up in Flames Website of the Day The "Babes" of Hizbullah?   December 2 / 3, 2006 Weekend Edition Barucha Calamity Peller The Dirty War of Oaxaca Paul Craig Roberts Is Bush Sane?: When Denial Goes Pathological Ralph Nader The Big Boys of Financial Crime Winslow T. Wheeler Committee of Enablers: Is Gates Fit to Serve? Are the Senators? Amira Hass The Checkpoint Generation Maymanah Farhat Depoliticizing Arab Art: Christie's and the Rush to "Discover" the Arab World Dave Lindorff Fighting the Iraq War--At Home Fred Gardner Dr. Jimenez Defends His Practice Methods Col. Dan Smith The Semantics of Civil War Raed Jarrar Maliki's Monopoly of Power Seth Sandronsky US Prison Nation: Locking Up Surplus Labor K.-Y. Taylor The Bride Wore Black: the Shooting of Sean Bell and the Resurgence of American Racism Yifat Susskind Greed, Dogma and AIDS David Rosen Made in China: the Global Trade in Sex Toys Ron Jacobs All Hands on Deck!: the New Pirates of the Caribbean Nikolas Kozloff Venezuela Prepares to Vote Talli Nauman Fighting La Choya: the Secret Toxic Dump on the Border Alan Gregory Shadow Trout: Why Hatchery Fish Aren't Real Joe Allen RFK and Hollywood Mythmaking: Emilio Estevez's Beatification of Bobby Kennedy St. Clair / D'Antoni Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Davies, Engel, Ford and Orloski Website of the Day Demo for Oaxaca   December 1, 2006 Greg Grandin Midnight in Mexico: Calderón's Inauguration Behind Closed Doors Linn Washington, Jr. The Mumia Case After 25 Years: Still More Keystone Kops Antics George Ciccariello-Maher Sleeping with the Enemy: At Home with the Anti-Chavistas Brian J. Foley Taking Responsibility for Iraq Dave Zirin Rebel Athletes: Organizing the Jocks for Justice Joshua Frank The Montana Formula: Jon Tester's Neopopulism Chris Floyd Hideous Kinky: Thomas Friedman Comes Undone Ingmar Lee Atomic Porker Strikes Indian Point Nuke Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Dark Fire: the Fall of WTC 7 Website of the Day No Gun Ri Revisited Video of the Day Drunken Hack Goes Ape at Aussie "Pulitzers" November 30, 2006 Jonathan Cook Palestinians Are Being Denied the Right of Non-Violent Resistance Tariq Ali Axis of Hope: Venezuela and the Bolivarian Dream Winslow T. Wheeler Confirmation Hearings as Kabuki Dance Manuel Garcia, Jr Heat and Steel: the Thermodynamics of 9/11 William S. Lind More Troops Into a Lost War? Ray McGovern Gates is Rumsfeld Lite Fidel Castro "It is Our Duty to Save Our Species" Agustin Velloso Equatorial Guinea: So Close to the West, So Far From Democracy CP News Service The Arrest of Gerardo Bonilla: Muralist Among Oaxaca's Disappeared Website of the Day The Life and Times of H-Bomb Ferguson November 29, 2006 Glen Ford Barack Obama and the Winds of War Chris Sands Blood, Snow and NATO: the Latvian Summit Viewed from Afghanistan Rochelle Gause Dispatch from Oaxaca: Where Murderers Still Stalk the Streets, Protected by Police Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Physics of 9/11 Norman Finkelstein HRW's Shameful Press Release on Palestine Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Shell Game: the Contraction Begins Gary Leupp CIA Report: No Evidence of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program Joe DeRaymond From Norman Morrison to Malachai Ritscher: Self-Immolation as Anti-War Protest Christopher Fons Prostituting Democracy: History, Latvia and Bush's Night on the Town in Riga Sibel Edmonds Auctioning Off Former Statesmen and Dime-a-Dozen Generals Website of the Day Bombing a Mosque   November 28, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Iraq Nears the "Saigon Moment" Winslow T. Wheeler SASC-ing Robert Gates Michael Ratner The War Crimes Case Against Rumsfeld: a Q&A John Ross The War on Rebel Journalists Molly Secours Racism Kills: From Michael Richards to the NYPD Peter Rost, MD Big Pharma and "the Pill": Profits, Branding and Experimentation on Women Lucinda Marshall War Chic Website of the Day "Action" in Iraq   November 27, 2006 Kathleen and Bill Christison Genocide or Erasure of Palestinians: Does It Matter What You Call It? Uri Avnery An Evening in Jounieh Nikolas Kozloff The Rise of Rafael Correa: Ecuador and the Contradictions of Chavismo Michael Donnelly Freedom Air: Keeping the Skies Safe from Nipples and Muslims Ben Terrall / John Miller Bush's Big Indonesian Photo-Op Robert Jensen Digging In and Digging Deep Sol Littman Missing Canada's Health Care System in Tucson Website of the Day State Minimum Wages: a Policy That Works   November 25 / 26, 2006 Gabriel Kolko Factors in Our Colossal Mess Saul Landau Republic of the Repressed William Blum New Congress, Same Quagmire Ralph Nader The Trouble with the Bubble Fred Gardner The War on Us: Another 1.9 Million Victims Daniel Wolff Return to District 8, New Orleans M. Shahid Alam Pitting the West Against Islam James J. Brittain Censorship in Colombia: the Arrest of Freddie Muñoz George Ciccariello-Maher Contingency and Counter-Contingency in Venezuela Aseem Shrivastava India on 20 Cents a Day Seth Sandronsky The Washington Post's War on Social Security Julian Assange The Curious Origins of Political Hacktivism Christopher Brauchli The Rout and the Honeymoon: In and Out of Bed with Bush Michele Naar-Obed A Letter to the Judge Who Sentenced My Husband to Federal Prison for Protesting Nuclear Weapons Ramzy Baroud Reclaiming America Christiane Passevant / Larry Portis Women in the Israeli Army: Two New Films Adam Engel Striving of His Day-Days: a Prose Poem Jeffrey St. Clair / David Vest Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Davies, Gibbons, Louise, Buknatski, Orloski Website of the Weekend The Black Agenda   November 24, 2006 Charles Glass How to Let Lebanon Live Gideon Levy A Prayer in Paradise Jonathan Cook Syria as Fallguy Ron Jacobs Build a Fire on Main Street: Stop the War, Now! Brian McKenna Native Resurgence Spurs Hope: Giving Thanks to America's Indians Kim Ives The UN Fails Haiti, Again   November 23, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Democrats and the Slaughterhouse November 22, 2006 Kathleen Christison The Massacre at Beit Hanoun Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Lone Victory: Defeating the Bill of Rights Mike Roselle Green Muscle on Election Day: Now is the Time for Boldness Dave Lindorff The First Task of the New Congress Greg Moses Up From Chiapas: Giving Thanks to Women's Revolution Dave Zirin Born Under Punches: the Pimping of Mike Tyson Nadia Martinez Dealing with Ortega Sherwood Ross Why the World Needs Trade Unions Now More Than Ever David Kalbfeisch I Am A Navy Veteran Against Wars Gilad Atzmon Palestinian Solidarity in a Time of Massacres Website of the Day Sorry, Charlie: No Draft   November 21, 2006 Robert Bryce The Ongoing Myth of Energy Independence John V. Walsh Spoilers of the World Unite! Luis Hernandez Navarro Lessons from the Teachers of Oaxaca Kevin Zeese An Interview with Michael Isikoff on Iraq Peter Rost, MD Rules of the Game: How Big Corporations Avoid Paying Their Taxes Evelyn Pringle Drug Your Fetus: How Big Pharma Hits on Pregnant Women Roger Morris Reason in an Age of Folly (and Felony) Don Monkerud Here Come the Democrats ... So? Website of the Day The Grind   November 20, 2006 David H. Price American Anthropologists Stand Up Against Torture and the Occupation of Iraq Col. Dan Smith Usurpation of Power Katherine Hughes Compassion on Trial in War on Terror: Muslim Charities and the Case of Dr. Rafil Dhafir Dave Himmelstein Ziodammerung: Netanyahu and the End Times Robert Jensen Opportunities Lost Joe Mowrey America's Progressive Nightmare: Here Come the Armani Democrats Mike Whitney Housing Bubble Smack Down: Alan Greenspan, Homewrecker Carl N. McDaniel Living Within Limits Robert Fisk Shia Walk Ramzy Baroud Killing Hope in Beit Hanoun Website of the Day Iraq: the Hidden Story   November 18 / 19, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn Top Dems to Voters: "Shut Up! We've Got a War to Run!" Ralph Nader The Hole in Bush's Brain: How Karl Rove Lost the Senate Barucha Calamity Peller Who Will Live on in the Oaxaca Uprising? John Ross Halliburton Wrecks Mexico Dave Lindorff The Albatross: Why the Democrats Should Cut Loose Joe Lieberman Fred Gardner The Adverse Effects of Marijuana: California Medical Survey Ron Jacobs Back in the Aether Again: Thomas Pynchon's Stunning Return Larry Portis The Songs of Basilio Martin Patino: Father of the New Spanish Cinema Frida Berrigan The Weapons Bonanza: a Perfect Storm of Profit Wes Enzinna Ghosts of Dictatorships Past: the School of the America's and Memory in Latin America Elizabeth Schulte The Fall of Donald Rumsfeld: Architect of a Disaster Peter Rost, MD The Credit Card Trap Martha Rosenberg We're Drinking What? Milk, rBST and Monsanto's Rats Seth Sandronsky University Unity: California's Professors and Students Unite Missy Beattie Explore This! Adam Engel Data Days Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Newberry and Curtis Website of the Weekend A Modest Proposal for the Art World   November 17, 2006 Greg Grandin The Road from Serfdom: Milton Friedman and the Economics of Empire Joseph Massad Pinochet in Palestine: Fateh's Unholy Alliance Kevin Zeese George McGovern's Return to Capitol Hill: "A Down-to-Earth Disengagement Plan" Gideon Levy After the Rain of Death Bill Quigley WMDs Protected!: Blood-Pouring Anti-Nuke Clowns Sent to Prison David Swanson Last Chance for the Democrats?: a Tale of Two Conyers Sherry Wolf Gay Rights: When Will the US Catch Up with Africa? Jerry Beisler What James Webb Knows Website of the Day Thanks for the False Memories!   November 16, 2006 Kathy Kelly Sources of Violence Col. Douglas MacGregor Was It Only Rumsfeld? Norman Solomon Operation Last Resort: the Media Offensive to Prolong the Iraq War Nikki Thanos From Oaxaca to Portland Cindy Sheehan Impeachment Proceedings Lena Khalaf Tuffaha Jimmy Carter and the "A" Word: Will the Democrats Listen to Carter on Palestine? Gloria La Riva Where is the Justice? Anti-Castro Terrorist Gets Only 4 Years Pat Williams How the Democrats Won the West Kerry Joyce From Rummy to Rahmmy: Bob Novak's New Source CP News Service Wal-Mart Charged with Selling Non-Organic Food as "Organic" David Letterman Top 10 Slogans for Wal-Mart Wine James Ridgeway Did Robert Gates' Planning Help Bring Black Hawk Down? Website of the Day A Conversation with West Point Grads Against the War   November 15, 2006 Jennifer Loewenstein Alice in Erez: the Gaza Crossing David Rosen Rev. Ted Haggard and the Eclipse of Evangelical Fury Ashley Smith A Socialist in the Senate? Landau / Hassen Talking Tough on Iraq Isn't Courageous Walden Bello Iraq After November 7: New Challenges for the AntiWar Movement Sibel Edmonds The Highjacking of a Nation Austin / Bernstein Why Bill Cosby is Wrong to Link Black Culture to Economic Decline Yitzhak Laor This Merchandise, Security James Rothenberg Unimpeachable: a Brief Argument Why Gail Dines "Borat": It's a Guy Thing Website of the Day Kakistocracy November 14, 2006 Werther Beltway Bromo-Seltzer: a Sneak Peak at the Baker Report Ray McGovern Benching Scowcroft John Walsh Korea, Vietnam and Iraq Syndrome: Alive, Well and Gaining Strength David MacMichael Gates to the Pentagon William S. Lind Lose a War, Lose an Election Sharon Smith Democrats, Born to Compromise Laura Carlsen Oaxaca Fights Back Ron Jacobs The Perishing Republic Peter Rost, MD Whistleblowers: Who Are They? Carol Norris Post-Campaign Ad Stress Disorder? Website of the Day A Map of the US Nuclear Arsenal     November 13, 2006 Kathleen and Bill Christison Screw the Palestinians, Full Steam Ahead Bill Quigley Robin Hood in Reverse: the Corporate Looting of the Gulf Coast Paul Craig Roberts The Democrats and Civil Liberties: Will They Turn a Blind Eye? Uri Avnery Call It What It Is: a Massacre! Joe DeRaymond The Strange Return of Daniel Ortega Norman Finkelstein Jimmy Carter's Roadmap Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's Revolving Gates: Out with the Old, In with the Old Shepherd Bliss After the Party Dave Lindorff What Vote-Theft Conspiracy? Missy Beattie For Better / For Worse: Will Laura Stay the Course? Trenticosta / Fleming Vindication for the Angola 3       Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition December 30 / 31, 2006 An Interview with A.C. Thompson on the Origins of the CIA's Secret Rendition Flights The Third Degree By ELIZABETH WEILL-GREENBERG What always horrifies me is, as Hannah Arendt phrased it, the utter banality of evil. Every generation's atrocity has the pencil pushers who work, somehow, in the business of murder, torture and degradation. While they literally don't get their hands dirty, the horrors would be impossible to accomplish without them. Torture Taxi: On the Trail of the CIA's Rendition Flights, the beautifully written and investigated book by Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson, shows how the US policy of torture can be traced to a family law office in a forgettable building surrounded by a bagel shop, hair salon and Wardle's Pharmacy in Dedham, Massachusetts, and to the sleepy town of little league games and Boy Scout camping trips that is Smithfield, North Carolina. A.C. Thompson, a staff writer at SF Weekly, recently spoke with City Belt. You've got a background of touring with punk bands -- so how did you end up in journalism? I was always interested in writing, and I was always into journalism. But I spent a bunch of years hanging out in the punk scene, and doing that whole trip. In my mid-20s, I realized I needed to have my own career, my own vocation, rather than just basically being a roadie for bands and supporting their dreams. So I got into writing when I was about 24 years old. I was always interested in social justice stories, and stories that spoke to struggles between the powerful and the less powerful. But I really wanted to do crazy overseas adventure travel narrative reporting, and that was originally what I thought I'd be doing. But then when I was here in San Francisco, writing day in and day out, I found that the thing that I could do that would be most effective and most interesting would be to dig into a subject and figure out what was really going on. It became sort of a quest for me to see if I could prove that people were doing wrong and catch them in the act of doing that before the authorities did. If I could document malfeasance, misfeasance, ineptitude, evil, idiocy--that was my goal. And that's what I've been basically doing ever since. Can you tell me a little bit about how this book came about? Back in December 2005, my co-author Trevor Paglen gave me a call and said, "Hey, I've been checking out these planes. Can I come over to your office and talk about it?" And he came over and basically said, "I believe these planes are involved with the CIA in some way. Can you help me figure out who owns them and where they're based, and find any clues about the corporations who allegedly own these planes?" So right on the spot we started doing document searches at my desk, and looking up the ownership records for some of these planes. Very quickly it became clear that the planes that he was interested in were not normal. Normally, if you look at any company, you'll find that it has an office somewhere, it has a CEO or president who can be easily located, it has a Web site -- it has all the basic sort of stuff that you'd expect. And the companies that putatively owned these planes had none of that. You couldn't find an office, you couldn't find any real estate that they owned, you couldn't find a phone number for the executives, you couldn't find an address, and you couldn't find any homes that executives of these companies owned. Now, you'd expect that the president of even a small aviation company probably owns a home somewhere--you know, you wouldn't see any of this stuff. And so, very quickly, we realized that there was something weird about this. Once you saw that something wasn't really right, what was the next step? Our whole thing was that we were researching this as people who didn't have intelligence sources, as people who didn't have sources deep in the aviation business. We were trying to reverse engineer the program. That was our goal. So we gathered up all the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) records and corporate paperwork that we could. Then we also networked with the plane spotters--the sort of nerdy hobbyists who spend their time obsessing over the minutia and esoterica of aviation -- Where does one plane go? Where does it land? What kind of plane is it? Who owns it? Who flies it? In a lot of ways, they were the ones who actually cracked the CIA's code, because these geeky types have Web sites and listservs where they're sharing information with one another. And a lot of them are very interested in suspicious aircraft, and they had obtained flight logs and documented these planes -- with photos -- in very interesting places. We could build on that information and start understanding better where these planes were going, and that, in fact, they were very likely CIA planes. That same tactic was employed by Stephen Grey, the author of Ghost Plane , and John Sifton at Human Rights Watch. And really, that sort of became the cutting edge of human rights research and reporting at the moment -- to understand how aviation flight patterns work. It was kind of a weird thing. What kind of obstacles did you run into when you were investigating this? The obstacles are everywhere; they're everything -- because everything here is secret. So anything you want to figure out is difficult to figure out. Anything you want to learn is a challenge. To compile any piece of information for this one was not easy. Really, the obstacle was trying to get any definite information at any time. Also, when we could find people who were closely associated with the program, obviously a lot of them didn't want to talk. We contacted numerous people who fly these missions, and only one of them would eventually talk to us. To get that one interview, we drove all over North Carolina and made many phone calls to people who were basically CIA contract pilots. How did you understand the reluctance of the pilots, for example, to want to talk to you? I knew that the vast majority of them weren't going to talk to us. These are people who are involved in secret missions, they're working under contract with the CIA, they're people who tend to believe in this sort of stuff--and so I knew it was going to be a challenge to get them to talk. In a lot of these cases though, it's people who become less-than-gruntled with what they're doing or with their employer who might want to talk. That's one of the ways to get in. I found the section on Smithfield really interesting. You wrote about how, to protest the torture flights, for people there it was to protest the people that were you're neighbors. It seemed like that touched on a theme in the book -- the banality of evil. Precisely. That's definitely a theme that runs throughout the book. For us, that was sort of the whole point of doing the book; to point out to people that this torture thing, this CIA program, is not something that happens abroad -- it's not distanced from your daily life. The people who make it happen are your neighbors. They are unassuming people who are not necessarily government employees. They provide the cover and provide the infrastructure for the CIA to cruise around the world, kidnap people, throw them in dungeons and torment them. That was really the theme that we wanted to hammer home: We all have culpability here. This is our government, these are our neighbors, this is our community, and this is not an exotic, totally covert thing. This is also a very pedestrian program. It's in some ways a program that connects the very exotic and horrific to the very mundane facets of American life. Smithfield is a very small place. As we wrote in the book, a lot of the people pretty much knew that there was some sort of CIA activity going on at the little regional airport there. What was interesting to us was when that became very widely known, when people finally sprang up to protest this, the discourse was all about 'What Would Jesus Do? Would Jesus be a torturer? Would Jesus kidnap people?' And that was sort of the idiom of the area--the protesters tended to be quite religious Christians, and the targets of the protests tended to be as well. I think big city liberals don't really get that--that the people who might be agreeing with them and might be their allies in more rural parts of the country may be very religious folks, and may even be evangelical Christians. They may be coming at it from a different point, but they're getting to the same place. There were regular, everyday people who were somehow participating in this program, whether it was working for the flight company or offering a front for the CIA. How do you understand their rationalizations for that? You know, I don't know so much. We ran up against a lot of roadblocks in figuring that out. What I can tell you is that the former pilot who we interviewed, who had worked for one of these front companies, basically said that the men involved as pilots are patriots and they are gung ho. Some of them have worked in law enforcement fields before--the DEA, the FBI, that sort of thing. None of them were particularly well compensated, but they realized that they were doing secret missions, they got a rush from that, and they felt good about serving their country. I think it's only been more recently, as more and more has come out about just how they're serving their country, that some of those guys are rethinking their commitment. You heard some really terrifying stories of torture. Do any stick with you today? And were you surprised at all by what you heard, and that Americans were the perpetrators? Look, this is the scene. When we went to Afghanistan, we went all over, trying to find as much evidence as we could about what the CIA was doing over there. In that trip, I went down to a town called Gardez, which is south of Kabul. It's not a great place to go--it's a pretty dangerous place. The governor of the area was suicide bombed a little while back; his funeral was blown up the next day--it's a pretty sketchy place. Sitting there, in the same room with men who had been grabbed by US military forces and taken to detention centers and interrogated by Americans, listening to the stories they told, was absolutely horrifying. It was something that I was prepared for, but at the same time I wasn't prepared for it. I've been writing for many years about injustices and misdeeds, and humans doing bad to one another, but I found the stories these men told me tremendously chilling. What about the continued denial by the Bush administration about our complicity in torture, and some of the strange legal memos that have been produced to basically allow them to say this? There's been a lot of convoluted legal reasoning and memoranda generated to justify what's gone on, and to give it the veneer of legitimacy that the Bush administration would like it to have. So you can take that backwards from the Military Commissions Act, which the president recently signed into law, that basically says that everything we've been doing in recent years--grabbing people, keeping them incommunicado in secret facilities, and tormenting them--is OK, and that we can now take these people into a quasi-judicial proceeding under military laws, and try them. That sort of retroactively said all the bad we've done is now OK. Before that, you had the Yoo, Bybee, and Gonzales memos that sort of did the same thing--they said that these extreme measures we're taking with people are all good, they're not a problem. I think that these are all things that are going to go down in American history -- we'll look back upon in the future and say, "I can't believe that happened." These will go down as very ignoble moments in American history. Beyond that, what is interesting are the admissions that the Bush administration has made. They said -- for years -- that this isn't going on. And then in early September, they said that actually, it has been going on, and we've kept a small number of people in secret facilities because we believe they're very dangerous, and now we're going to try to adjudicate 14 of these people through the military commissions. But the other thing is, when the president put out that statement, he also didn't say a lot of things. He said a small number of people have been grabbed. Most people who are looking at this don't believe a small number have been grabbed, most think there are between 150 and several hundred abducted. When he says we'll take these 14 people and try them, that gives the public the idea that this is a very miniscule program. Nobody besides George Bush believes that to be true. So even when there are these revelations, they're shaded with what I believe is misinformation or disinformation. How do you think the press has covered the torture flights and the victims? What more could both the mainstream and alternative press do? I've been working in the alternative press for 10 years now, but I think that throughout the "war on terror," the mainstream media has done the far better job, in general, in covering the war and its excesses and its truly awful aspects. They've done a better job covering that than the alternative press. I think ABC News, The Washington Post, The New York Times and The New Yorker have really done a tremendous job at covering these issues, as far as breaking stories that let us know what's happening and what's being done in our name. Now, I'm not convinced that they've done a great job in analyzing the import of these stories, of framing the debate and saying strongly enough, 'Do we want to be a nation of torturers? Do we want to be a nation that tramples on human rights? Do we want to run around the world and kidnap people and cast them into dungeons? Do we want to return to the Middle Ages?' I don't believe that they've confronted the real heart of the issue in political or human rights terms. But in terms of breaking the stories, I think they've done a tremendous job--and that's partially because a lot of these people have great intelligence sources. The alternative press has done some good work in framing the issues and commenting on the issues, but I think I'd like to see a lot more reporting and a lot more investigation out of the alternative press. Why do you think there hasn't been as much reporting and investigation coming out of the alternative press? A lot of it is resources; a lot of it is being sourced up. It's easy for an alternative press reporter to get sourced up on beats other than the military and the CIA--those are hard places for a lefty to penetrate. But also, it just takes time. The whole media business now is just geared toward generating constant copy, rather than spending time to do really hard-hitting, probative stories. What do you think is the next piece of the rendition story? Are you still investigating this? We're probably going to do a second edition of the book that updates some of the material, and talks about the more recent developments. But that's the thing about the program--it's always mutating, it's always morphing. The flight patterns are always changing. The locations seem to be changing. From what we can tell, the CIA is now moving people to different countries, it's now opening facilities in different countries. Our suspicion is that people who were once held in, say, Eastern Europe, are now being flown to other regions. The story's not over--not at all. Do you think that this fall's elections -- and Donald Rumsfeld's resignation -- will have any effect on the program at all? That's an interesting question, because here's my gripe: I feel like the Democrats have not, by and large, made an issue out of human rights, and they've not made an issue of the encroachment on our civil liberties in the elections. That doesn't give me a ton of faith that they're going to do the right thing in the coming weeks and say that we need to get a handle on this program and stop doing what we're doing. I hope they do, but I'm not convinced that they will. As far as Rumsfeld goes, he's a military guy. His ouster may have very little impact on what the CIA does. But, as we found out in our research in Afghanistan, sometimes it's hard to tell who's doing just what -- there seems to be an overlap between the CIA, the military, and the private military contractors. At times, they all seem to be working together, or at least their missions seem to intersect. Do you think that people--from the writers of legal memos to CIA contractors -- will ever be held accountable for their participation in this program? I'm skeptical that anyone will ever be held responsible for these human rights abuses. Now, what's interesting is that people have been targeted. The Italian government has criminally indicted several Americans who are CIA agents for their participation in abducting someone on Italian soil. That's a huge story that's gotten almost no press over here. I would hope that, if the evidence is there, that those men and women are tried, convicted and punished. I don't think that's going to happen, but I would like to see that happen. As far as the lawyers go, who have given the CIA cover, who have helped set up all these phony companies that allow the CIA to carry out its activities, there's an interesting aspect to that. Lawyers are not supposed to lie. Their professional codes say that they are not supposed to be involved in deceit and deception. For example, one of the companies was set up in Nevada, and Nevada's rules for lawyers say that, in the course of representing a client, a lawyer shall not knowingly make a false statement of material fact or law, or fail to disclose a material fact. I wonder whether some of these lawyers who have basically been lying on behalf of the CIA shouldn't be brought up on charges before their respective state bars for doing that. What can ordinary people do to help stop this program? What needs to be done to put this in the past? There's a precedent here for the American people pressuring their government to curb the excesses of the national police and intelligence agencies. In the 70s, the citizenry was very upset with the sort of craziness that the FBI and CIA were involved in -- they pressured Congress, Idaho Sen. Frank Church convened numerous hearings that shed light on what the agencies were doing, and Congress put a bunch of curbs on what they could do. It's totally possible for people--if they feel compelled--to stop the serious human rights abuses that our country is engaged in, to pressure politicians from the local to the national level to actually make it an issue, to have hearings, and then to put some restraints on these people. There's a million ways that you can be active on that, it's just a question of whether you're going to be. That's what it's going to take. The CIA is not going to change its policies because a couple of news stories come out. The CIA is going to change its policies because the American people tell their government that they're sick of what's going on, and that it has to change. Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg can be reached at elizabethwg@gmail.com. This story was originally published by City Belt, New Jersey's alternative, progressive newsmagazine.

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