Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
May
4, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
A Timeline of Torture and Abuse Allegations
and Responses
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Privatized Torture
David
Peterson
CBS, Self-Censorship & Iraq
Barry
Lando
CACI's Private Torture Chambers
Patrick
Cockburn
Torture: Iraqis Disgusted, But Not Surprised
Dr.
Susan Block
Indecent Insurgents: Watch What You Say
Fidel
Castro
A Mindless, Unnecessary War
Mike
Whitney
Empire of Torture
Sonali
Kolhatkar
How to Stop the War: Demonstrate Against
John Kerry
Josh
Frank
The Lost Sierra Club
Stan
Goff
The Role: Another Open Letter to US Troops in Iraq
Agustin
Velloso
Spare Us Your Disgusting Ethics
Stew
Albert
American Know-How
Website
of the Day
Scenes from a Cover-Up
May
3, 2004
Virginia
Tilley
Let the Wall of Silence Fall
May
1 / 2, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
An Army in Disgrace, a Policy
in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat
Robert
Fisk
"Good Guys" Who Can Do No
Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders,
Useless Spies, Angry World
Heather
Williams
Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin
American Troops Flee Iraq
Diane
Rejman
An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq:
Abu Ghraib as My Lai?
Diane
Christian
Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and
Sharon Speak the Same Language
Patrick
Cockburn
Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked,
Shocked, Shocked
Chris
Floyd
Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists
and Annihilation
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome
Death of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the
Banality of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the
Ultimate Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
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.
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Weekend
Edition
May 15/16, 2004
A Public Morality
Play
Iraq Goddamn
By JOHN WHITLOW
"Alabama's got me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
and everybody knows about Mississippi Goddamn."
-Nina Simone
In the past two weeks, we've been privy
to a public morality play of dizzying proportions. Just as the
prison abuse scandal at Abu Ghraib gathered momentum, threatening
to bury a newly contrite but still crotchety Donald Rumsfeld,
news broke that an al Queda-connected website was displaying
footage of a young American getting beheaded by his captors.
Meanwhile, outside the war
zone, the US Justice Department announced that it had reopened
the case of Emmett Till, the 14 year old African-American murdered
by a gang of white Mississippians in 1955. These events, disparate
though they may seem, say a lot about America's collective self-perception_its
urge to simultaneously view the other with compassion and disgust,
all the while avoiding serious discussion of its own sins.
Immediately following the publication
of photos of American military personnel posing enthusiastically
with their Iraqi victims at Abu Ghraib, reaction from the US
media intelligentsia was swift and_in important respects_unequivocal:
we'd been shamed as a nation by these soldiers, whose acts_by
virtue of their departure from our sense of shared morality_had
undermined our standing in the world and our sense of ourselves.
Thomas Friedman, in a May 6th
Op-Ed piece in The New York Times titled 'Restoring our Honor,'
wrote, "We are in danger of losing something much more important
than just the war in Iraq. We are in danger of losing America
as an instrument of moral authority and inspiration in the world."
CNN's Lou Dobbs opined that we need to apologize to the world
for Abu Ghraib "because those few soldiers ... offended
American values of decency, fairness and propriety."
In perhaps the richest comment
of all, New York Times columnist David Brooks, speaking on the
PBS NewsHour, summed up why the Abu Ghraib incident so shocked
America's collective conscience: "We assign ourselves higher
standards and we portray ourselves and think of ourselves as
higher. We are not a people that's well versed in the dark side
of human nature."
From statements like these,
one can only infer that the only sentiment more powerful than
American contrition is American arrogance: we're genuinely sorry
for what happened, but the real reason we're so sorry is that
we're better than that_and better than you in fact.
As if on cue, this sentiment
was given grist by the ghoulish image of 26 year old American
Nicholas Berg being beheaded by men who claimed to be acting
out of revenge for Abu Ghraib. The responses from shapers of
public opinion in the US were prompt. On news shows and in columns
across the country, commentators spoke in terms borrowed from
19th century orientalism.
In an Op-Ed piece in TheLA
Times, Charles Paul Freund wrote about the alleged perpetrator
of Berg's murder, Abu Musab Zarqawi: "[He] has reminded
his enemies that, unlike him, they are at least capable of shame."
Senator John McCain said, "It's terrible. It's tragic. It
also shows the stark difference between America and these barbarians."
Ah, the difference between
America and the barbarians. This purported difference is at the
heart of the reportage of recent events, whether it be the prison
abuse/turture scandal at Abu Ghraib or the horrific murder of
Nicholas Berg. In fact, it's at the heart of our sense of national
belonging in the US. But what about this difference? Or, more
to the point, what do popular representations of it tend to say
about the way we look_or choose to look away from_ourselves?
Now, lest anyone get the wrong
idea, I'm not saying that what was done to Nicholas Berg shouldn't
be classified as an act of barbarism. Slicing someone's neck
and literally ripping his head off pretty much speaks for itself
as an act of sheer depravity. What I am saying is that it's utter
hypocrisy for US commentators to use this as occasion to take
the moral high ground.
In that light, another recent
news story is illuminating. The US Justice Department announced
on May 10th that it was reopening the case of Emmett Till. Till
is of course the black teenager who was brutally murdered for
committing the cardinal sin of whistling at a white woman in
Jim Crow Mississippi.
Emmett Till's murderers abducted
him, beat him to a pulp, gouged his eyes out, shot him in the
head, and threw his body in the Tallahatchie River. Adding insult
to injury, there was no justice for Emmett Till, as the two men
tried for his murder were acquitted in what can only be described
as a kangaroo court proceeding. Till's case, though notable for
the impact it had on the Civil Rights Movement, is but one of
many examples of 'unsolved' murders of blacks in the American
South.
Meanwhile, in today's America,
black men are incarcerated at a rate that exceeds even that of
apartheid South Africa (7150 per 100,000 compared to 851 per
100,000).
I wonder if Thomas Friedman,
David Brooks, et al. are aware of those numbers or the story
of Emmett Till, or some of the other barbarous commonplaces of
American life. I'm sure they are. After all, they're smart, well-educated
men. So why the easy pronouncements of America's intrinsic moral
superiority and authority, the declarations of our collective
innocence when it comes to 'the dark side of human nature?'
The answer, I suppose, has
nothing to do with education or erudition; rather it comes from
an ideological framework in which the rules the West applies
to the other have little to no applicability when it comes to
the West itself. How else to explain the combination of shame,
haughtiness, and forgetfulness on display the past two weeks.
Iraq goddamn.
Weekend
Edition Features for May 8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
|