home / subscribe / donate / about us / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events

Sensational New Print Edition of CounterPunch Bolivia's Third Revolution David Price tells how top-flight US anthropologists eagerly obeyed US government5s mandate to Mthink in a-moral terms”. One scheme of OSS5s willing executioners: target Japanese physical Mweak spot”, the respiratory tract, with anthrax germs. Gabriel Kolko asks What5s so New About the Neo-Cons? If they had not existed, would the policies have been the same? Jeffrey St Clair digs up more dirt on Halliburton5s secret history. Alexander Cockburn on why we need more Mcelebrity justice”. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! 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 donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories June 28, 2005 Landau / Hassen Bush's Meddling in Internal Syrian Politics June 27, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blood Sacrifices for Empty Slogans Mike Marqusee G8: Who are the Hijackers? Mark Scaramella When a Corporate Raider Claims Economic Hardship: the Court-Approved Lies of Charles Hurwitz Leigh Saavedra Press Apologists for Torture Kathy Kelly Where is the UN? June 25 / 26, 2005 Alexander Cockburn The Supreme Court's Jackboot Liberals Jennifer Van Bergen America's Parallel Legal Systems George Corsetti This Land is Their Land: Condemnation for Corporations Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer Let's Open the Gulag: a People's Mission to Gitmo Kevin Zeese Counter-Recruitment: How to Keep the Military From Getting their Hands on Your Kids P. Sainath Russian Roulette in Vidharbha John Stauber How to Bury a Mad Cow Scott Handleman Gay in the Third World Tom Barry The Politics & Ideologies of the Anti-Immigrationists John Walsh Looking for Peace in All the Wrong Places Justin E.H. Smith The Hairless Apes of Kansas vs. the Reality-Based Community: Why Progressives Have a Stake in the War on Evolution Alan Wallis The Story of Pinky: the Drug Trade in My Neighborhood Ben Tripp Negative Space: an Artful Lesson Frederick B. Hudson Songs to Lose Your Loneliness By: the Raised Voices of Sweet Honey in the Rock Poets' Basement Gaffney, Engel, Davies, and Albert   June 24, 2005 Ray McGovern The Downing St. Fixation: Fixing to Fix "Fixed" Jorge Mariscal "They Only Call Us Americans When They Need Us for War": the Paradox of Mexican Americans in Iraq Desiree Hellegers Portland vs. the FBI Zeynep Toufe What Do the American People Know and When Did They Know It? Joshua Frank Call Him Senator Con Job David Lindorff Which Flag Would Jesus Burn? Michael Neumann Victory and Recruitment Website of the Day Gagging Dr. Dean   June 23, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Thomas Griffith and Rule 49: He Practiced Law Without a License; Now He's a Federal Appeals Court Judge Clay Conrad Killing Off the Jury with Tort Reform Standard Schaefer A Retort to Military Neo-Liberalism P. Sainath Vidharbha: No rains and 116F, But It Does Have "Snow" and Water Parks Mark Engler CAFTA Deserves a Quiet Death Norman Solomon Voluntary Amnesia in America Cockburn / St. Clair Frank Calzon Kathy Kelly Where You Stand Determines What You See   June 22, 2005 Kevin Zeese The Bush Administration's Psy-Ops on the American Public: an Interview with Col. Sam Gardiner William S. Lind Afghanistan: the Other War Arsalan Iftikhar Patriots Against the PATRIOT Act Dan Nagengast Give Populism a Chance: From France to Kansas David Krieger To the Graduates: We Live in an Interdependent World Kathleen & Bill Christison Tempest in Santa Fe: Confronting Israeli Myth-making     June 21, 2005 Brian Cloughley Destroy the Unbelievers! Mike Whitney President Disconnect Dave Lindorff Who Needs Big Bird, Anyway? Mark Weisbrot Bush's Lonely Campaign Against Hugo Chavez Matthew R. Simmons The Coming Saudi Oil Crisis Dave Zirin The Crass Slipper Fits: Ron Howard's Terrible "Cinderella Man" Virginia Rodino The Anti-War Movement and Impeachment Paul Craig Roberts A War Waged by Liars and Morons   June 20, 2005 Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Tariq Ali To the Gates of the Gleneagles Hotel! Mickey Z. WMDs American-Style: It's 60 Years Since Alamogordo William Blum Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends Gary Leupp Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Chance to Attack Iraq Jason Leopold Someone Tell Bush Iraq Wasn't Behind 9/11, Before He Starts Another War Dave Lindorff Why the Media Should be Schiavo'd Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Uri Avnery Condi and Hamas Website of the Day Crimes Against Poetry June 18 / 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Is the Jury Dead? Greg Moses Race Bias and the Death Penalty, One More Time Benjamin Shepard Arrested for Stickering, Biking and Other Misadventures: Creative Direct Action in the Era of the PATRIOT Act Stan Goff Stuff to Do to Stop the War: 95 Days to Pre-Nixonize George W. Bush Lee Sustar Does Iraq's Main Labor Union Support the Occupation? Jude Wanniski The Tipping Point: Getting Out of Iraq Diana Barahona Librarians as Spooks: the Scheme to Infiltrate Cuba Via Libraries Brian Concannon, Jr. Justice Dodge in Haiti, Again: Impunity and the Raboteau Massacre Fred Gardner How Many Wins Can We Take? Mike Whitney Gen. Tommy Friedman's Plan to "Win" the War in Iraq: Reinstate the Draft Ahmad Faruqui Star Wars or Earth Wars? Manuel García, Jr. De-Eichmannizing America Roger Howard Leave Iranian Politics to Iranians Ron Jacobs Eros and the Grateful Dead Ben Tripp Situation Desperate: Why Am I Not Pleased? Poets' Basement Louise, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Christ's Entry into Washington   June 17, 2005 Ricardo Alarcón Who Helped Posada Enter the US? Clay Conrad Medical Marijuana: Is Jury Nullification the Next Step? Marc Estrin Open-Ended Closure: the Death Penalty and the Culture of Victimhood Colin Brown Firebombing Fallujah: Pentagon Lied About Use of Napalm in Iraq Christopher Brauchli Pennies for Africa: Bush's Phony Money Joshua Frank Blue State Warriors: How Democrats Derailed the Peace Movement Norman Solomon The Killing Street Memo Mary Rizzo Who's Afraid of Gilad Atzmon? Bond / Brutus / Setshedi How Bono and Trojan Horse NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism   June 16, 2005 John Walsh The Iraq War Polls: Dems' Stance Even Less Popular Than Bush's Dave Lindorff Work 'Till You Die: the Bush Retirement Plan Adrian Lomax Torture in U.S. Prisons: Common, Lethal, Unreported Tom Crumpacker The CIA, Posada and the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455 Jeffrey Kolakowski The Kinsley Paradigm: Downsizing the Downing St. Memo Julene Bair Turning Off the Ogallala Spigot: Toward a New Way to Farm on the Great Plains Michael Dickinson As We Forgive Our Debtors: the Madness of Money Francois Houtart / Isabel Parra, et al. Against Terrorism; In Defense of Humanity: an Appeal Tom Barry Meet Bolton's Replacement: Robert "First Strike" Joseph   June 15, 2005 Stan Goff An Open Letter to US Troops on Loyalty Daniel Wolff The Palace at 4 A.M. Tim Wise Discover the Nutwork: David Horowitz and the Politics of Ad Hominem Distortion Ricardo Alarcón The New CIA Revelations About Posada Joshua Frank House Republicans vs. Bush: "This is Not a Conservative War" John Hilary Bloodsuckers' Summit: Why the Left Should Rendezvous at the G8 Norman Solomon Iran's Reformers: a Threat to Theocrats and Neocons Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Juries and Lynch Mobs Website of the Day What It Feels Like to be Tasered (Turn Up the Volume)   June 14, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners Forrest Hylton Stalemate in Bolivia Richard Gott The Crisis in Bolivia Fred Gardner The Raich Decision: All Power to the Feds Steve Breyman Doing the Right Thing is Also Politically Expedient Dave Zirin Sacred Hoops: Basketball in the Barrio Robert Kent Outsourcing Torture and the Stop-Loss Program Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners   June 13, 2005 Gary Leupp Another Damning Document Dave Lindorff The Inca and Us John Stauber Mad Cow USA: the Cover-Up Begins to Unravel Fred Gardner Supreme Indignity: Medical Pot Doctors Respond to Justice Stevens Evelyn J. Pringle TeenScreen: the Lawsuits Begin Norman Solomon Letter From Tehran Winslow T. Wheeler Neo-Con Unfurls the Big Picture   June 10 / 12, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Thomas Friedman's Imaginary World Sharon Smith Torturers and Liars: Masters of Deception Brian Cloughley "Support Our Torturers!" Chris Kromm Home Cookin': Pentagon's Base Relignment Plan Would Increase South's Share Heather Gray A Day in Mississippi: Some Things Have Changed; Some Remain the Same Kevin Zeese What the Left Must Learn from 2004: an Interview with Josh Frank Mickey Z. The Pentagon Papers, 34 Years Later Gary Leupp A Review of Sison's "At Home in the World" Eli Stephens The Asshole in El Paso: Why Posada Carriles Matters Nick Dearden A Scottish Band in the Occupied Territories Oscar Olivera Recovering Bolivia's Oil and Gas Robert Fisk Screening "Kingdom of Heaven" in Beirut Michael Dickinson Oh My God!: Gunning for Blasphemers Poets' Basement Engel, Albert, Louise, Ford Website of the Weekend Gravity's Rainbow, Illustrated   June 9, 2005 Len Colodny Felt Was Asked Under Oath in 1975 If He Was "Deep Throat" Christopher Brauchli From Baseballs to Hand Grenades Ron Jacobs Light a Candle; Curse the Darkness Dave Lindorff US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist Katrina Yeaw / Alex Schmaus Repression 101: Anti-War Students Sanctioned at SFSU Alan Farago Spin Machine Busts a Gasket in the Everglades: Fed Judge Whacks Jeb Saul Landau The Charmed Life of a Mass Murderer   June 8, 2005 Jim Hougan Strange Bedfellows Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and the CIA Alan Maass Is Bolivia on the Edge of Revolution? an Interview with Tom Lewis Jason Leopold Enron Lives!: Former Army Sec. White Wants Govt. Money for New Energy Scam Niranjan Ramakrishnan Exit Right, Advani: Unpardonable Acts of Statesmanship Dave Zirin The Rotting Soul of the 49ers Derrick O'Keefe Bush's Terrorist: the Case of Posada Carriles Diana Johnstone Non, Neen, Angelene! Why Defenders of the "Oui" are Wrong Website of the Day The Meatrix   June 7, 2005 Forrest Hylton Bolivia's Agony of the Stalement Continues Greg Moses / Susan van Haitsma Pushing Back the Violence Lenni Brenner What Madison Would Think About the Air Force Academy's Offical Fanatics Col. Dan Smith Liberation vs. Survival in Iraq Joshua Frank Dean at the DNC: the Establishment vs. the Elites Dave Lindorff Fair-Weather Allies: US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing Rights Margot Veranes / Adrian Navarro Xenophobia in the Desert: Racist Fever Becomes Law in Arizona Michael Neumann Sharing Music: Property Gone Wild   June 6, 2005 Stew Albert Everybody Must Get Busted: Supremes Rule Against the Sick Paul Craig Roberts Federal Bureau of Entrapment Nicole Colson Inside Walter Reed Hospital Ali Khan Friendly Renditions to Muslim Torture Chambers Jason Leopold When Will Rumsfeld Be Indicted? Charles Walker Poff Rumsfeld, China and Hypocrisy Ramzy Baroud My Grandpa's Right of Return Rep. John Conyers Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq? Evelyn Pringle TeenScreen's Top Pusher Gary Corseri 25 Reasons to Impeach Bush Website of the Day Save This 200 Year Old Burr Oak from Bible Thumpers with Chainsaws   June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander Cockburn France's Magnificent Non! James Petras The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America Robert Fisk Who Killed Samir? Patrick Cockburn My Father, Claud Cockburn, the MI5 Suspect Rev. William Alberts When Pride in Power Corrupts: the Story of a Methodist President, His Bishops and an "Incompatible" Lesbian Minister Saul Landau 40 Interns and a Mule: Will the Dems Ever Take Advantage of the Republicans' Blunders? Mario Lamo Jimenez Dante with a Brush: Botero Immortalizes Bush Dave Lindorff What is the Media Running From? Lance Selfa Why Bush is Getting Away with Murder Tom Crumpacker On the Use of State Terrorism: the Posada Precedent Joshua Frank How Beltway Dems Sank Dean for America Fred Gardner Don't Bogart That Taxable Commodity Michael Dickinson Roll Out the Barrel: Blood, Oil and Baku Roger Martin We Can See, But Not Far Enough Reza Fiyouzat Welcome to the Third World Ben Tripp Romance: Advice from a Pro Graeme Greenback Pardon Me, While I Piss on this Bible Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Albert, Engel, Smith       June 3, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Welcome to a Has-Been Country Joseph Massad Witch Hunt at Columbia Jeff Halper The Process of Transfer Continues Tom Barry The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On? Bruce K. Gagnon Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny" Joshua Frank Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter Mickey Z. Deep Throat as Sideshow Gary Leupp "Peddling Lies About How They Were Mistreated" Website of the Day Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973     June 2, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag Forrest Hylton Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate Mike Whitney Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges Brian Cloughley Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America Mazin Qumsiyeh A Two-State Solution is No Solution Russell D. Hoffman High Tension at San Onofre Norman Madarasz "Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non" Norman Solomon War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq David Price The Shallowness of Deep Throat Website of the Day Fallujah on Film     June 1, 2005 James Petras Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning of Posada Justin Delacour Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias Against Chavez Edward Jay Epstein Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid? Omar Barghouti / Lisa Taraki The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic" Freedom Dave Lindorff When War Goes Off the Script Kevin Zeese Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo? Jason Leopold When Presidents Lie William S. Lind Wreck It and Run     May 31, 2005 Sen. Mike Gravel Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New Deep Throat David Krieger US Nuclear Hypocrisy Tad Daley The Nuclear Me-Too Club Joshua Frank Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First Richard Gott Chavez Leads the Way Norman Solomon Time to Get Serious About Impeachment Tom Segev Our Man in the Territories Walter Brasch Killing Americans with Secrecy Diana Johnstone The French "Non"     May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander Cockburn There's Their Way or the Galloway Richard Lichtman We Wuz Framed! the Consolations of George Lakoff Sharon Smith The Road to Abu Ghraib Paul Craig Roberts Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq Dave Lindorff Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party Ramzy Baroud Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just Their Holy Book Brian Cloughley Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us? Fred Gardner Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot Lee Sustar Chavez Gets Proactive Joshua Frank Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until the Riots" Justin E.H. Smith What About the People? a Report from Romania Jackie Corr A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness Michael Kimaid Bush as Ahab Toufic Haddad Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott Justin Taylor The Fear of Paul Virilio Amir Butler Searching for a Saladin Ben Tripp Insomnia and Sarcasm Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise   May 27, 2005 Gary Leupp It Really is a Crusade! Daniel Estulin Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005 Kevin Zeese Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi? Robert Fisk Mubarak's Goon Squads Dave Zirin Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer Silent Website of the Day Stuckists                                                         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

June 28, 2005 Those "Meetings" with Insurgents More Rumsfeld Lies By MIKE WHITNEY "America is conducting a war without any effort at bipartisan consultation on our tactics, on our strategy, and on our goals. We disserve a realistic definition of success for a war that increasingly threatens to become a quagmire." Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Carter security advisor "We know where they are. They're right up here in the area around Tikrit." Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, pointing to the exact location of the imaginary WMD There were reports last Friday that representatives of the US Occupation Forces in Iraq were engaged in secret talks with leaders of the Iraqi resistance. For a brief two day period, there was reason to hope that there might be a genuine opportunity to begin negotiations for a political settlement to the 27 month conflict. When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made his scheduled appearances on the Sunday morning talk shows he confirmed that the alleged meetings had taken place saying, "Well, the first thing I would say about the meetings is they go on all the time." Later, he would reinforce this suggestion on Meet the Press when he was asked whether there had been "two meetings between Iraqi and U.S. officials and some members of the insurgency." Rumsfeld responded, "I think there have probably been many more than that." It was all lies. When asked the next day whether such meetings took place, US Commander in Iraq, Army Gen. George Casey said, "Not yet. Not, to the best of my knowledge, yet. We may start moving there, but the first thing we want to do is meet with Sunni leaders. And a lot of these folks claim they have leverage over the insurgents that we've yet to see realized, frankly.But, to characterize them as negotiations with insurgents about stopping the insurgency, we're not quite there yet." What, no meetings? As always, Rumsfeld performed his part admirably; producing the result he intended from the very onset; to mislead the viewers into believing that some form of minimal progress was being achieved behind the scenes. That wasn't the case. The real purpose was simply to deceive the American public once again, to elicit greater support for a botched war that has degenerated into a quagmire. By now, every American who is capable of reading a newspaper or watching a TV should know that Rumsfeld is a compulsive liar, a serial liar, a pathological liar. The maxim one should always follow in listening to the sneering Rumsfeld is to calculate the exact inverse of whatever he says and assume that that will approximate the truth. There were no talks; it was just another sordid chapter in the Defense Dept's strategy to manipulate information to manage public perceptions.(Strategic Information; Rumsfeld's Bureau of Mendacity) Simple murder and torture fall well below the requirements of Rumsfeld's legendary narcissism; his ego necessitates that he hoodwink the masses regularly so they comply with his bloody war-script. Fortunately, fewer and fewer people are taking anything Rumsfeld says seriously. A report in a London newspaper "Al-Hayat" said that a "Committee combating occupation denies negotiations with the Americans"; saying that the rumors were "a mere fabrication". The group went on to say that the Americans were creating phony opposition groups that they could control "to suppress the real trends that reject the occupation and the political process stemming from it". Pretty clever, huh? This actually seems like one of Rumsfeld's brainier schemes except for the fact that officials for the real Iraqi resistance and General Casey have blown his cover. Shaykh Majid al-Ka'ud has denied the claims that anyone representing the resistance has negotiated with the Americans and insisted that, "The resistance will continue until victory and liberation are achieved with the departure of the occupation armies." Al-Ka'ud remarks show an impressive grasp of Rumsfeld's plan to weaken the insurgency by creating fake organizations, comprised of colluders and opportunists, which will "marginalize the resistance, obliterate Iraq's Arabismand divide it up into feeble entities that would be subject to plunder by the occupation companies." Divide and conquer; the ultimate Rumsfeld strategy tilts the nation towards civil war, where Iraqis can be trusted to kill each other rather than the American invaders. This tactic has been called the "Lebanonization" of Iraq and (as Pepe Escobar notes in a recent Asia Times article) pits "former Mukhabarat pals of former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi at the Interior Ministry, plus the militia inferno at the core of the ministry (the so-called Rumsfeld's boys'), ganging up to fight the resistance. Sunni Arab intelligence plus Shi'ite and Kurd militias fighting Sunni Arabs." This is the conflict that Rumsfeld hopes to incite. And, this is what he means when he says, "We're going to create an environment that the Iraqi people and the Iraqi security forces can win against that insurgency." In other words, Rumsfeld plans to create the "creative chaos" which he feels will best serve the overall objectives of the occupation. Every random act of terror in Iraq should be analyzed in terms of whether it fits within Rumsfeld's criteria for success. Why Iraqis Fight What sets Al-Ka'ud apart from the Defense Secretary is the use of language and passion that would melt Rumsfeld's tongue. In explaining why the members in the resistance are struggling against the overwhelming force of the American military, Al-Ka'ud said, "What prompts these people is their religion and pan-Arab duty and the Iraqis embrace them due to the common destiny and one faith." Yes, indeed, they are fighting for their country, their religion, and their way of life. That's why they will win; and that's why all of Rumsfeld's clever contrivances will amount to nothing. Mike Whitney lives in Washington State. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com