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Today's
Stories
March 2, 2004
William Blum
If Kerry's the Answer, What's the
Question?
March 1, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Morris
Thanks War Criminal in Front of Billions
Richard Oxman
Oscar's
Obit: Thanking Bob McNamara
Elaine Cassel
Writing and Reading as "Terrorism"
Mickey Z
Thomas Friedman's Education
Mike Whitney
George Will and Anti-Semitism: a Cul-de-Sac of Prejudice
Heather Williams
Haiti
as Target Practice: How the US Press Missed the Story
Cathy Crosson
Chanson d'amour haïtienne
Website of the Day
God Hates Shrimp
February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
February 27, 2004
Thomas C. Mountain
A
White Jesus During Black History Month?
Laura Carlsen
Americans
Abroad: Bush is Persona Non Grata
John B. Anderson
Nader's Campaign Brings Back Memories: Creating an Open Electoral
Process
Jason Leopold
Spying
on Kofi Annan
John Chuckman
Nader,
Risk and Hope
Standard Schaefer
An
Interview with Michael Hudson on Putin's Russia
Ray McGovern
Punished
for Honest Intelligence
Saul Landau
The
Haiti Redux
Website of the Day
Bush: Why I'm Running for Re-election
February 26, 2004
Brandy Baker
Is Nader
on to Something?
Jacques Kinau
AEI
to Colombia: "Can't Give You Anything But Guns, Baby"
Norman Solomon
Bugging Kofi Annan: UN Spying
and the Evasions of US Journalism
Greg Weiher
A Purloined Letter: the Zarqawi Gambit
Walt Brasch
Janet Jackson, Bush & No. 542: There are No Halftime Shows
in War
Shadi Hamid
The Music World Explodes in Anger
Norman Madarasz
As Canadian as Corruption
Chris Floyd
Bullets and Ballots
Virginia Tilly
The
Deeper Meaning of the Wall
Amy Goodman / Jeremy
Scahill
Haiti's
Lawyer Says US is Arming Haiti's Anti-Aristide Paramilitaries
Website of the Day
Clear Channel Sucks
February 25, 2004
Dr. Susan Block
Saddam's
Sex Therapist and the Rape of Free Speech
Bruce Anderson
Treacherous Bastards: The Greens and the Dems and Nader
Ron Jacobs
Our Power is on the Streets and
in Our Hearts
Mike Whitney
Bush
and Gay America: the Politics of Duplicity
Sam Husseini
Jesus in 100 Words
John L. Hess
Kick Off or Flub?
Sam Hamod
Bush's Newest Red Herring
Cockburn / St. Clair
Winning
with Nader
Website of the Day
VotePact
February 24, 2004
Ralph Nader
Why
I'm Running for President
Greg Moses
Rally
the Mob! Bush, Gay Marriage and the Constitution
Douglas O'Hara
The
Merchants of Fear: Smearing Nader
Phillip Cryan
Frozen in Time: The WSJ's Paranoid
Lens on Latin America
David Lindorff
John Kerry's China Connection
Jason Leopold
Cheney's Shame: Halliburton Faces New Charges
Gary Younge
Haiti: Throttled by History
Kromm, Masri & Purohit
Why No Democracy in Iraq?
Steve Perry
Tangled Up in Red and Blue: Beware the Electoral College
February 23, 2004
Neve Gordon
Israel's Apartheid Wall on Trial
at The Hague
Kurt Nimmo
Richard Perle, Executioner: "Heads Should Roll"
Jonathan Franklin
US Soldier Seeks Refugee Status in Canada
Al Krebs
The Liberal "Intelligentsia" v. Nader
Josh Frank
Nader's Nadir? Not a Chance
Bruce Jackson
Nader, Another View: "He's as Evil as Bush"
Gary Leupp
A Misguided
Attack, The Passion, Rabbi Lerner and the Gospels
February 20 / 22, 2004
Cockburn / St. Clair
Kerry:
He's Peaking Already!
Derek Seidman
Chasing
Judith Miller from the Stage: Watch Her Run!
Ghada Karmi
Sharon is not the Problem
Vanessa Jones
This Week in Redfern, a Boy Dies, Chased by Cops
Ben Granby
Anatomy of a Night Raid on Balad, Iraq
John Holt
An Air That Kills: Greed, Apathy, Dead People
Saul Landau
Entry from a White House Diary
Tom Jackson
Why They Couldn't Wait to Invade Iraq
Frederick B. Hudson
Slave Power and the Constitution: Jefferson, Slaves, Haiti and
Hypocrisy
Roger Burbach
Argentina Fights Back
Kate Doyle
Lessons on Justice from Guatemala
Mike Whitney
Operation Enduring Misery: the Afghanistan Debacle
Greg Moses
What Gives Texas A&M the Right to Trample the Civil Rights
Act?
David Krieger
US Elections: an Opportunity to Debate Nuclear Weapons
Sam Bahour
Palestinian Issue Riddles Bush's Budget
David Grenier
You Could Get 10 Years in Prison Just for Reading This
Charles Sullivan
Corporatism vs. Single Party Politics
Poet's Basement
Hilda White, Larry Kearney & Stew Albert
Website of the Weekend
The Rumsfeld Fighting Technique
February 19, 2004
Cecilie Surasky
Anti-Semitism
at the World Social Forum? That's Not What I Saw
Ray McGovern
Iraq
Hawks and Deceptive Intelligence: Did They Really Think They'd
Get Away With It?
Tariq Ali
How Far
Will Bush Go in Iraq?
Ralph Nader
Whither
the Nation?
Wayne Madsen
Would Kerry Purge the Neo-Cons?
Norman Solomon
The Collapse of Dean's Cyber-Bubble
Christopher Brauchli
Cheney, Halliburton and the NYT
Mike Whitney
Bush's Iraq Strategy: "I Hope They Kill Each Other"
Lewis Carroll
Bush the Mighty Helmsman from Yale
Website of the Day
Sex Toy Horoscope
February 18, 2004
William Wilgus
Bush:
AWOL and Dereliction of Duty
William Blum
Mush-Minded
Liberals
Dave Lindorff
Bush's China Syndrome
Greg Weiher
Why
is Kerry Getting a Pass?
Mike Griffin
Killing the Messenger: the AFL-CIO's Attack on Harry Kelber
Mark Hand
Kerry Tells Peace Movement to "Move On"
February 17, 2004
Mike Ferner
The
Countryside Murders in Iraq
Mokhiber / Weissman
Corporation
as Psychopath
Marjorie Cohn
DrakeGate:
a Victory for Free Speech
Kurt Nimmo
Bush's
Endgame: a Review of Chalmers Johnson's "Sorrows of Empire"
Greg Bates
Nader Ambush: a New Low for The
Nation
Ximena Ortiz
A Bush
Doctrine, of Sorts
Gary Leupp
Whatever Happened to Gen. Khazraji?
Sen. John Kerry
"The Cause of Israel is the Cause of America"
Steve Perry
Kerry
1, Drudge 0
February 16, 2004
James Johnston
Huddling
with the Cheeseheads in a NASCAR World
Sara Eltantawi
To
Wear the Hijab or Not
Bruce Anderson
Kevin
Cooper and the Midnight Needle
Elaine Cassel
Feds
on Campus: the Drake Subpoenas
Rahul Mahajan
Bush,
Is the Tide Finally Turning?
Kevin Cooper
The Ritual of Death
Stan Cox
Goodbye, Howard Dean
Larry David
My War
Steve Perry
Bush and the Guard: the Cover-Up's the Thing
Website of the Day
Prison Patriots: Help This Vital Film Get Made
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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March
2, 2004
Regime Change in Haiti
The
Bush Dominoes Keep Falling
By MIKE WHITNEY
"Will I resign? No, I will not resign,
I will fulfill my term and I will not allow criminals and terrorists
to take over."
Jean-Bertrand Aristide
This long-simmering crisis is largely of Mr. Aristide's
making. His failure to adhere to democratic principles has contributed
to the deep polarization and violent unrest that we are witnessing
in Haiti today." Press Secretary, Scott McClellan
The Bush Administration's response to
the rebellion in Haiti is the most explicit example of contempt
for democracy we've seen yet. The United States has had 2000
Marines ready for immediate deployment to the beleaguered island,
but has held back until Haiti's "first democratically elected
President" was spirited out of the country by force of arms.
It is currently being reported by the BBC that Mr. Aristide was
escorted to the plane in which he made his dawn escape by US
Marines already in the country. This only adds to the suspicion
of US complicity in the President's ouster.
Aristide pleaded for help from the international
community, and particularly the United States, saying that perhaps
only a few dozen marines could salvage his presidency. The US
flatly refused, condemning the Aristide government to certain
collapse. The culpability for that collapse resides entirely
with the Bush Administration.
We cannot imagine what conclusions are
being drawn by the various leaders in the Middle East who are
now being presented with Mr. Bush's Greater Middle East Initiative
(GME). They are being asked to launch democratic reforms in their
own countries while at the same time, witnessing the flagrant
duplicity of the Administration's actions in Haiti. Are we to
believe that Bush and co. have a genuine interest in democracy
when then they refuse to even lift a finger to help a struggling
neighbor in their own back yard? Instead, they issue a steady
stream of criticism at the elected government (via the media)
which further emboldens the rebel leaders to continue their onslaught.
Things really started going downhill
for the Aristide Government when the Bush Administration began
their well-calculated attack on its legitimacy. As Scott McClellan
said, "Aristide's actions have called into question his
fitness to continue to govern."
Really? Then who should govern, if not
the man who was elected by over 80% of the Haitian population?
Not every country accepts the idea that the Supreme Court should
decide elections. Some nations still entertain the archaic notion
that the president should be chosen by popular mandate, a view
that has been regrettably abandoned in the US. The action taken
in Haiti is an affront to the basic principle of representative
government.
Statements like McClellan's this made
it abundantly clear to everyone that Bush supported the overthrow
of Aristide by the dubious gang of terrorists and misfits who
instigated the coup. As ex-ambassador Richard Holbrook opined,
they are nothing more than "murderers, drug-lords and criminals."
Holbrook added that, "Bush had pulled the plug on Aristide
and must accept responsibility" for what happens now.
As Democracy Now reported earlier this
week, "Many of the men leading the armed insurrection in
Haiti right now are well known to veteran Haiti observers and,
for that matter, the US intelligence agencies that worked closely
with the paramilitary death squads which terrorized Haiti in
the early 1990s. People like Louis Jodel Chamblain, the former
number 2 man in FRAPH, Guy Philippe, a former police chief who
was trained by US Special forces in Ecuador and Jean Tatun, another
leader of FRAPH."
"The question is, will the international
community stand by and allow a democracy in this hemisphere to
be terminated by a brutal military coup of persons who have a
very, very sordid history of gross violations of human rights?"
(Democracy Now)
Ira Kurzban, the Miami-based attorney
who has served as General Counsel to the Haitian government since
1991, said that the paramilitaries fighting to overthrow Aristide
are being backed by Washington.
"I believe that this is a group
that is armed by, trained by, and employed by the intelligence
services of the United States. This is clearly a military operation,
and it's a military coup." (Democracy Now)
"There are enough indications from
our point of view, at least from my point of view, that the United
States certainly knew what was coming about two weeks before
this military operation started," Kurzban said. "The
United States made contingency plans for Guantanamo." (Democracy
Now)
"All of the men were trained in
Ecuador by US Special Forces during the 1991-1994 coup....Because
it is a military operation. It's not a rag-tag group of liberators,
as has often been put in the press in the last week or two."
(Democracy Now)
So, why has the Bush Administration decided
to rid itself of the Aristide Government?
Aristide has always sought to address
the crushing poverty and hunger of his countrymen. After following
the "free trade" dictates issuing from Washington during
the 1980's, Haiti's domestic rice production was in shambles.
US subsidies to American farmers left "a hungry nation even
hungrier."
Aristide knew that "we could either
enter the global economic system, in which we cannot survive,
or, refuse, and face death by slow starvation." This is
the same dire situation that faces many third world countries.
For them, free trade is not so free.
International donors to poorer countries
base their loans on a neoliberal economic plan; lower tariffs,
tight monetary control and privatization. These oftentimes have
a devastating affect on fragile economies.
As Aristide said, "we wanted to
guard against a quick total sale of state assets." This
is what the IMF required to guarantee the needed loans. When
Aristide balked on the sale of state owned cement and flour plants,
the hammer came down. The IMF threatened "cutting off all
funds to Haiti. The international media followed suit with a
frenzy of condemnation and character assassination."
This is a familiar pattern for the leaders
of countries who try to resist the seizure of their most valuable
resources and assets from outside corporations.
And, this is essentially how Aristide
fell from grace with the Bush administration. He refused to comply
with the economic regimen that forces poor countries to deepen
their poverty and surrender their assets. He defied the highway
robbery that disguises itself as "free trade", but
only offers more suffering and grief.
As we can see, he paid for his defiance.
Make no mistake; this form of despotism
is now backed by the full force of the United States Military,
the gendarmes of the new economic order.
Aristide is just the latest victim.
Mike Whitney can
be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com
Weekend
Edition Features for February 28 / 29, 2004
Stephen Green
Serving
Two Flags: Neo-Cons, Israel and the Bush Team
Gary Leupp
Another Senseless Bush Battle: Defining and Protecting Marriage
William A. Cook
Israel:
America's Albatross
Ron Jacobs
Kucinich: Good Fight; Wrong Battlefield
Ben Tripp
A Nosegay of Posies: Queer Weddings at Last!
Leilla Matsui
Dances with Crucifixes
Mike Whitney
Dismantle
the Military Goliath
Yoel Marcus
Down and Out in the Hague
Uri Avnery
The Dancing Bear
Linda S. Heard
Britons and Americans Condemned to a Hobson's Choice
Al Krebs
Unmasking a Secret American Empire: Land, Water & Cotton
Stan Cox
Life (Pat. Pend.): Genetic Commandeering
JG
The Haiti Boomerang: "After The Looting & Pillaging,
Your Hunger Will Remain"
Rick Giombetti
Censorship at the Seattle P-I on Forced Psychiatry
Keith Hoeller
The Bankruptcy of Mental Health Insurance Parity
Dave Zirin
Colorado Football: Buffalo Swill
NADERAMA
Alan Maass
Nader and the Politics of Lesser
Evils
Michael Donnelly
Regime
Rotation: Anybody But Bush...Again?
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Exeunt Serenaders; Enter Nader
Doug Giebel
So Nader's Running? Get Over It
Bruce Jackson
An Open Letter to Naderites
CounterPunch Wire
Stalinists for Kerry! and Other Roars from the Crowd
Poets' Basement
Davies, Scarr, Kearney & Albert
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