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A Special Report on the Presidential Elections Exclusively in the Print Edition CounterPunch How Progressive Challenges Have Been Killed Off Since LBJ; Gagging Fanny Lou Hamer; Eugene McCarthy on "a Peasants Rebellion;" Sabotaging McGovern; The Wreck of Jesse Jackson's Rainbow Coalition; Smearing Nader, Not Once But Three Times: by Alexander Cockburn; The Thieves of the Green Zone by Patrick Cockburn; Murder in Mississippi: Could John Doar Have Saved Cheney, Schwerner & Goodman by David Kotz. In May, CounterPunch Online was read by over 20 million viewers! 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 (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Sex, Drugs & the Blues! Serpents in the Garden CounterPunch's Sizzling New Book on Culture and Sex is Now Available Click here to purchase Today's Stories July 15, 2004 Bill Christison Reorganize the CIA? Of Course, But...   July 14, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold: the Green Deceivers Neve Gordon Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall Diane Christian The Priesthood of Death Stefan Wray Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab? Josh Frank The Nader / Dean Debate Conn Hallinan Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War and Education Website of the Day Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire   July 13, 2004 Ray McGovern The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence Debacle...and Worse Mark Donham The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney Ben Tripp Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like These, Who Needs Electorates? Mark Gaffney Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel in Iraq Dave Lindorff Osama Wins! Election Postponed! Chris White Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine Indoctrination   July 10 / 12, 2004 Kathleen Christison The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel Janine Pommy Vega Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War Sherry Wolf From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen A Transfer of Power, Sort Of Michael Donnelly How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004 Stanton / Madsen Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda? Richard Lichtman The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology Gila Svirsky Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall Kurt Nimmo Clinton's Life Toni Solo Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers and the Rest Camelo Ruiz Marrero Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize Omar Barghouti Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance Poets' Basement Curtis and Albert   July 9, 2004 Dave Zirin Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger Stands Up Against War Justin Delacour Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About Latin America Robert Fisk Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency Boris Kagarlitsky Two Congresses and a Funeral William S. Lind The October Surprises Sibel Edmonds Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth Ron Jacobs Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future Gary Leupp The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link   July 8, 2004 Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Inexplicable John McCain Toufic Haddad Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall: a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent Dave Lindorff Liberation as Martial Law Joshua Frank The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard Dean Christopher Brauchli Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card James Petras The Truth About Jimmy Carter   July 7, 2004 John Chuckman Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence of Meaning Virginia Tilley A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's Hunger Strike Susan Martinez A Letter to Bill Cosby Mickey Z Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade Michael Donnelly Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire Sean Donahue Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown Diane Christian Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq   July 6, 2004 Lisa Viscidi Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans Risk Lives to Reach El Norte Marc Norton The Felonious Five Ride Again: the Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants James Brooks Chemical Warfare on the West Bank? Ray McGovern Porter Goss as CIA Director? William Cook Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...   July 5, 2004 Forrest Hylton US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept. 11, July 4 and Systematic Torture Chris White A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning of Independence Day Joe Bageant Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July Robert Jensen Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore Misses About the Empire Kathy Kelly "Two Days an' a Wake-Up"   July 3 / 4, 2004 Elaine Cassel Bush's Police State and Independence Day Stan Goff ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti Snehal Shingavi "We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out Bruce Anderson The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens Sharon Smith Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush" Josh Frank Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates Robert Fisk Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing Joe Bageant Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite! Brian Cloughley Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine Justin Delacour The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons William S. Lind Saudi Spillover Linda S. Heard A Joke Called "Justice" Greg Moses "It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down Ron Jacobs "Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?" Toni Solo Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There Dan Nagengast Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It? Stew Albert Brando, a Personal Recollection Dave Zirin From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando Patrick W. Gavin The Progressive Case for Dodgeball Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911 Poets' Basement Kearney, Ford and Davies Website of the Day Global Peace Solution   July 2, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party Douglas Valentine Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism Gary Leupp "Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities Lee Ballinger Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights Robert Fisk Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly CounterPunch Wire "What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment Christopher Brauchli Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right Saul Landau Buzz Words and Venezuela July 1, 2004 Katherine van Wormer Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method Joe Bageant Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter? William James Martin The Dogma of Richard Perle Dave Lindorff Bush's Evacuation Moment Robert Fisk Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq Alan Maass Green Party in Reverse Website of the Day Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?   June 30, 2004 Kurt Nimmo Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush Tariq Ali Getting Away with Murder in Iraq Jennifer Van Bergen Bush and the Detainees Douglas Valentine Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American David Price Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass Roger Normand America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq Stan Cox Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art Henry David Thoreau On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming Ben Tripp Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof     June 29, 2004 Patrick Cockburn The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover Robert Fisk Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland Troy Selvaratnam New York Times Boosts Pet Developer Harry Browne Bush in Ireland Ray McGovern The CIA According to Anonymous Elaine Cassel Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really Won?   June 28, 2004 Patrick Cockburn / Leyla Linton Grisly Rituals in Iraq Amira Hass Confronting Myths and Deadly Power   June 26 / 27, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Venezuela: the Gang's All Here Patrick Cockburn Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge in Iraq Dennis Hans Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney, the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11 Ben Tripp Adventures in Fuel Efficiency Dave Lindorff That State Department Terrorism Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You Chris Floyd Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit Ali Tonak Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives, Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela Keith Rosenthal The Withering of the Anti-War Movement Bryan Sacks The Failure of the 9/11 Commission Wayne Madsen Another Case of Blowback Thomas St. John L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating in the Wizard of Oz Niranjan Ramakrishnan American Swadeshi     June 25, 2004 Stephen Gowans US to North Korea: "Trust Us" Saul Landau 2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction Amir Butler Iraq: the Deadly Embrace Jack McCarthy Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News? Greg Bates Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader       June 24, 2004 Gary Leupp John Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links Patrick Cockburn A Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing Death Threats Harry Browne On the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe Bill Kaufman Another Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli Bush, Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did They Tell? Rick Gioimbetti Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence? John Chuckman Call Center ID Hypocrisy Diana Johnstone Kerry and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"     June 23, 2004 Laura Carlsen Bush and Castro Face Off Dave Zirin Barry Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism" Kurt Nimmo From Saddam, With Love Patricia Wolff Foundation Wars Mahboob A. Khawaja "They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son" Patrick Cockburn The Pretense of an Independent Iraq Website of the Day The Road to Abu Ghraib   June 22, 2004 Dave Lindorff The Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption Ron Jacobs Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq? Vanessa Jones Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings Mickey Z An Open Letter to the People of Iraq John L. Hess Clinton Exhales Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity Committee for Pacho Cortés An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés Bruce Jackson Saying No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify Website of the Day From Boot Camp to Boot Hill   June 21, 2004 Gary Leupp Putin's Helpful Remarks Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos Upon Chaos Cockburn / Khan Saddam May Face Death Penalty Uri Avnery Irreversible Mental Damage     June 19 / 20, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid and Isolated Bruce Anderson Frozen Gringos Diane Christian Morality and Death: a Meditation on Bush and Blake Walter A. Davis Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib Josh Frank How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature Col. Dan Smith Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan Brian Cloughley A Profound Disruption of the Senses Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later Prudence Crowther Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me! Poets' Basement Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert Kathy Kelly Dying to See Their Kids     June 18, 2004 Chris Floyd Blood Victory Dave Zirin Danielle Green, Basketball Player & Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War Justin E.H. Smith The Christian Question in American Politics Gary Leupp The "Long-Established" Link?: Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi   June 17, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 18, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 16, 2004 Lenni Brenner A Question for Kerry Supporters Davey D Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan Daniel Wolff Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner Abuse? Bruce Jackson Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake Patrick Cockburn Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power Facilities Gary Handschumacher Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads JG Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop Mario Benedetti Obituary with Cheers Vicente Navarro Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who is Rodrigo Rato? Website of the Day Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch     June 15, 2004 Harry Browne Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe Neve Gordon The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited David Palmer Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI John Blair Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming Dave Lindorff God Wins in TKO Bill Quigley Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step In Patrick Cockburn Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast John Chuckman John Kerry, Political Placebo   Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

July 15, 2004 Iraq Follow the Money By WERTHER* One of the unremitting leitmotifs of one-hundred-percent Americanos is the complaint that "the media just won't print positive stories about Iraq." Apparently all the canons of journalism dictate that our dailies should be filled with edifying tales about Tikriti tykes receiving soccer balls and canned asparagus, or a venetian blind factory opening in Irbil. Yet somehow, the media conspiracy prevents the public from reading "fair and balanced" accounts that might be stenographically reproduced from the [now defunct] CPA'a press releases. Or perhaps the good news just gets lost amid the blizzard of media stories about airliners that landed safely, neighbors who didn't get murdered, and laborers who remained employed. Imagine the surprise, then, at reading the Office of Management and Budget's chaste announcement that only 2 percent has been spent from the $18.4 billion in Iraq reconstruction funds approved last October. This was no mere data point indifferently churned out by the faceless automatons at OMB; no, the White House was grudgingly releasing something it would prefer to hide. The only information the government releases on a Friday afternoon before a three-day weekend is bad news; when it is hoped that the Beltway nomenklatura, streaming over the Bay Bridge to the Delmarva fleshpots, will be distracted. You can be sure the White House wasn't ballyhooing what a good steward of the taxpayers' money it was by sitting on the money. What, then, is the explanation? There are two plausible hypotheses, neither of which is mutually exclusive: 1. The military situation in Iraq is so disastrous that projects simply cannot be undertaken. The Washington Post's story [1, contained in Reference 2 below] on the reconstruction aid suggests this reason, and quotes administration spokesmen to that effect. But this hypothesis, while likely to be at least partially true, itself raises a host of questions: a. If it is too dangerous to do widespread reconstruction, doesn't that suggest a reason for the absence of good news stories from Babylon that is more fundamental than the mere ill nature of a bunch of pack journalists (34 of whom have been killed in Iraq thus far, contrary to Deputy Secretary of Defense Wolfowitz's public impugning of journalistic elan)? And overwhelming anecdotal evidence suggests there is little real reconstruction going on; the CPA administrators, the would-be heirs of Lucius Clay (fabled in the reconstruction of post-war Germany) huddle instead in the Emerald Palace did little more than churn out press releases, befitting their origins as Capitol Hill press hacks. b. Too dangerous it may be to let contracts with the vast bulk of the appropriated reconstruction money; why, then, has the administration encountered no such difficulty obligating money in one particular instance: reimbursing Halliburton for fuel delivery? Just another coincidence, surely. c. According to the same Washington Post story, the CPA likewise had no difficulty in earmarking or disbursing nearly $20 billion of Iraq's own funds in various ways (ways that cannot be verified, because there is no independent audit -- more on this below). Given the supposedly ephemeral nature of L. Paul Bremer's recent viceroyalty, does the rapid disposition of Iraqi assets before the establishment of a native-run administration have the suspicious smell of a looting operation? That is the conclusion of the British charity Christian Aid, which says that at least $20 billion in oil revenues and other Iraqi funds intended to rebuild the country have disappeared from banks administered by the CPA [2]. And before an independent audit could take place, the CPA liquidated itself and Bremer departed Baghdad in the manner of Baby Doc or Ferdinand Marcos - unseemly haste for so regal a personage. 2. Regardless of whether Iraq was more unstable and dangerous than foreseen in October 2003, the second hypothesis argues that the administration never intended to spend the vast bulk of the money on Iraq reconstruction in any case. Quite apart from the fact that this intention would have violated article I, section 9 of our late Constitution, there are other curious features as well. The White House repeatedly emphasized how vitally important it was for Congress to pass the Iraq reconstruction package quickly. Why the haste, if the first year disbursement rate is so minuscule? Two possibilities: a. Even if the administration had no intention of spending the money, it wanted a signed bill before the Madrid donor's conference in order to induce third countries into donating money and/or cannon fodder to the Great Crusade. In other words, sucker Congress and the taxpayers into putting up the bait to sucker the Europeans. b. The WMD argument having fallen flat (David Kay released his report in September), the administration needed a fresh argument to justify to the public its military invasion of Iraq. Hence the need to swathe harsh realities with the bogus argument that the occupation was really and truly an undertaking of the most noble and altruistic character. At the time of the debate over the reconstruction aid, the rebuilding of Germany was the false historical analogy du jour; if we can rebuild the Brutal Hun's industrial machine and thereby pacify him, so the tale went, why can't we demonstrate our transcendent virtue to the people of the Middle East and incur their lasting gratitude? There was just enough plausibility in this snake oil that some Americans downed a whole jug of it. The next step, as in the solution to any complex crime, is to follow the money. Will Congress, on learning of the shaky pretenses behind the appropriation of $18 billion, schedule hearings on the matter? Anything is possible, but by no means certain. The partisan impulses of the majority party in an election year are the most obvious reasons for stonewalling, but there are more personal reasons as well: too many reputations have been staked on the reconstruction vote. Many would doubtless write off $18 billion rather than admit error. Will Congress rescind or transfer the appropriation? Again, that is doubtful. Meanwhile, the spending authority is sitting there, a no-year (i.e., unexpiring) slush fund in the hands of people who learned accounting from their campaign benefactors at Enron and Halliburton. Connoisseurs of the Congressional Record will recall that at the administration's insistence the House and Senate leadership killed a certain provision in the appropriations legislation when it was in conference committee. This provision had been previously approved by a recorded vote, and would have subjected the Iraq reconstruction contracts to audit. Why would (just to pick a random example) the Office of the Vice President not want independent auditors poking around its philanthropic enterprises in Iraq? Readers who are aficionados of black budgeting will appreciate the issues that arise. What can a government do with no-year money it doesn't feel compelled to account for? One is certain there is any number of warlords, dope-peddling "intelligence sources," and other deserving gentry eager to be reconstructed with good-will payments from Uncle Sam. Or, if you like, your government could pre-fund its next installment of the adventures in neo-conservative military strategy, much as it pre-funded the invasion of Iraq with $700 million that was supposed to fund the take-down of Al Qaeda. Or, suitably fumigated, it could fund an ad campaign in several battleground states. That is admittedly speculation, conditioned, one is compelled to admit, by a somewhat less than charitable view of the political class as it exercises its fiduciary responsibility over the public fisc. But without public accountability, how will we ever know for sure? [1] "U.S. Funds for Iraq are Largely Unspent," The Washington Post, 4 July 2004. [2] "Fuelling suspicion: the coalition and Iraq's oil billions," Christian Aid press release, 28 June 2004. Werther is the pen name of a Northern Virginia-based defense analyst Weekend Edition Features for July 10 / 12, 2004 Kathleen Christison The Problem with Neutrality Between Palestinians and Israel Janine Pommy Vega Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against War Sherry Wolf From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen A Transfer of Power, Sort Of Michael Donnelly How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004 Stanton / Madsen Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda? Richard Lichtman The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology Gila Svirsky Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall Kurt Nimmo Clinton's Life Toni Solo Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means Ron Jacobs The Black Panthers and the Rest Camelo Ruiz Marrero Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize Omar Barghouti Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance Poets' Basement Curtis and Albert WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /