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Democrats on the Brink: Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair; Innocent Lads, Depraved Killers and Predatory Priests by JoAnn Wypijewski; Torture Air, Inc.: the Road to Rendition: by Jeffrey St. Clair. Remember these stories are available exclusively in the print 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! or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 |
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Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY  Today's Stories March 24, 2005 Andrew Wimmer
and Mark Chmiel
Patrick Bond Mike Whitney Becky White Michael Donnelly Niranjan Ramakrishnan Ashley Smith David Swanson Derrick O'Keefe Paul A. Moore Dalton Walker Patrick Cockburn
March 22, 2005 William Blum Jim Vallette Greg Moses John Farley Ron Jacobs M. Junaid Alam Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Dave Lindorff James Petras
March 21, 2005 John Walsh Werther Mike Stark David Swanson James T. Phillips Mike Ferner Robert Jensen Paul Craig
Roberts Stew Albert Website of
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March 19, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Tom Reeves Saul Landau Alan Maass Ron Jacobs David Green John Blair Steve Greenfield Ben Tripp Mike Roselle Joshua Frank Mark Weisbrot Dave Lindorff Sarah Schaffer Warren Hastings Poets' Basement
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Weissman Greg Moses Website of
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March 17, 2005 Christopher
Brauchli Bill Quigley Brian Cloughley Gary Bass / Adam Hughes Dave Lindorff Jude Wanniski Alexander Billet John Ross Website of the Day
March 16, 2005 Ralph Nader William Cook Kevin Zeese Jackie Corr Alan Maass David R. Kolker Cindy Ellen
Hill Paul Craig
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March 15, 2005 Gary Leupp Dave Lindorff Greg Moses Hadas Their
/ Katrina Yeaw Alison Weir Matt Koehler Evelyn Pringle Harry Browne
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March 12 / 13, 2005 David H. Price Noam Chomsky Laura Carlsen Stan Goff Valentina Nicoli Michael Leonardi Saul Landau
/ Sarah Anderson Joe Bageant Manuel García,
Jr. Greg Moses James J. Brittain Ben Tripp Joshua Frank Fred Gardner Walter Brasch Ramzy Baroud Christopher
Brauchli Michael Donnelly Ron Jacobs Richard Oxman Poets' Basement
March 11, 2005 Jerry Fresia Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff William James
Martin Muqtedar Khan Kathryn Ledebur Mike Whitney Dave Zirin Website of the Day
March 10, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin
and Ashley Smith Larry Birns Michael Donnelly Luis Gomez Jackie Corr Uri Avnery Website of the Day
March 9, 2005 Jeffrey St.
Clair Ward Churchill Robert Fisk Bernice Powell Jackson Mickey Z. Dave Zirin Michael Donnelly James Reiss Vijay Prashad
March 8, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Robert Fisk Kurt Nimmo Suzan Mazur Evelyn Pringle Giuliana Sgrena Elaine Cassel
March 7, 2005 Dave Zirin Brian Cloughley John Chuckman Mike Whitney Mark Weisbrot Fred Gardner Richard Neville Uri Avnery
March 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Tom Reeves Jenna Orkin Tom Barry Joshua Frank Moshe Adler Jane Stillwater Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir Christopher
Brauchli John Pilger Raúl
Zibechi David Krieger Three Takes on Nepal Surendra R. Devkota Bhishma Karki Joseph Pietri Ben Tripp Poets' Basement Website of
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March 4, 2005 Frederick Hudson
March 3, 2005 Pat Williams Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Greg Moses Lynne Landes Nelson P. Valdés John Ross
March 2, 2005 Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen Mike Roselle M. Junaid Alam Suzan Mazur Jackson Thoreau Michael Donnelly Jeffrey St.
Clair Website of the Day
March 1, 2005 Scott Richard
Lyons David Lindorff Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders Ron Jacobs Tanya Garcia Joseph Pietri Kona Lowell Paul Craig
Roberts Website of
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February 28, 2005 Gary Leupp Bill Quigley Paul de Rooij David Swanson Mario Lamo
Jimenez Emma Perez Diana Johnstone Website of the Day
February 26 / 27, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Noam Chomsky Rev. William E. Alberts Fred Gardner Gary Leupp Saul Landau Robin Philpot Yitkhak Laor Ben Tripp Justin Taylor Jack Random Rafael Renteria Jim B. Seth DeLong John Chuckman Alison Weir Richard Oxman Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement
February 25, 2005 Roger Burbach Behzad Yaghmaian Kurt Nimmo Joshua Frank John Farley Lawrence Reichard Pratyush Chandra David Smith-Ferri Website of
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February 24, 2005 Omar Waraich Brian Cloughley Tom Wright Sharon Smith Dave Lindorff Fred Feldman James Reiss
Diane Christian Website of
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February 22, 2005 Naseer Aruri Richard Manning William A.
Cook Paul Craig Roberts Ken Krayeske Dave Zirin Kirkpatrick
Sale
February 21, 2005 Hunter S. Thompson John Ross Ward Churchill Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst David Swanson Dave Lindorff Stew Albert Michael Neumann
February 19 / 20, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Kathleen Christison Ted Honderich Gary Leupp Don Santina Jennifer Roesch Scott Richard
Lyons Chris Clarke George Beres Harry Browne Manuel Garc'a,
Jr. Mark Scaramella Michael Donnelly John Pilger Norman Madarasz Surendra Devkota Deborah Rich Fred Gardner CounterPunch
News Service Richard Oxman Poets' Basement
February 18, 2005 Ben Moxham Dave Lindorff Larry Birns Gregory Elich Samuel Logan / John Meyers Nicole Colson Suzan Mazur Mickey Z.
February 17, 2005 Joshua Frank Paul Craig
Roberts Robert Fisk Christopher
Brauchli Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst Alison Weir Ahrar Ahmad Saul Landau Website of the Day
February 16, 2005 Robert Fisk Kevin Zeese Gary Leupp Ron Jacobs Jessica Leight Greg Moses Mark Engler Jack McCarthy Bill Christison Website of the Day
February 15, 2005 CounterPunch
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Roberts
February 14, 2005 Robert Jensen Brian Cloughley Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Michael Donnelly Dave Lindorff Elaine Cassel
February 12 / 13, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Saul Landau Paul Craig
Roberts Patrick Cockburn John Feffer Mickey Z. Kurt Nimmo Fred Gardner Dave Zirin John Chuckman Ben Tripp Carol Norris Robert Fisk Frank / Chowkwanyun Mike Whitney Deborah Frisch Niranjan Ramakrishnan Christine TenBarge Ron Jacobs Dr. Susan Block Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
February 11, 20055 Manuel Garcia,
Jr Kurt Nimmo Dave Lindorff Larry Birns Bill Quigley Tom Barry Jennifer Van
Bergen
February 10, 2005 Dave Lindorff Christopher Brauchli Patrick Cockburn Nicole Colson Suzan Mazur Michael Donnelly Mike Stark Greg Moses Website of
the Day
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Clair Mickey Z. John Ross Tom Barry Conn Hallinan Patrick Cockburn Steen Sohn Tim Wise Website of
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February 7, 2005 Paul Craig
Roberts Carolyn Baker Joshua Frank Mickey Z. Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney Stacie Jonas Dave Zirin Tariq Ali
February 5 / 6, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Kurt Nimmo Joshua Frank P. Sainath Patrick Cockburn Laura Carlsen Dave Lindorff Pamela Olson Behzad Yaghmaian Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Roger Burbach Robert Fisk David Swanson Justin E.H. Smith Cacie Hart Ron Jacobs Mickey Z. Ben Tripp Ben Sonnenberg Poets' Basement Website of
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February 4, 2005 Brian Cloughley Bill Christison Elaine Cassel Jacob Levich Kanak Mani Dixit Ron Jacobs
February 3, 2005 Ward Churchill Sharon Smith Mickey Z. Mike Whitney Jenna Orkin Saul Landau Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff
February 2, 2005 David Domke
/ Kevin Coe Noam Chomsky M. Shahid Alam Richard Oxman Joshua Frank Dave Lindorff Nina Hartley Website of the Day
February 1, 2005 Joshua L. Dratel Patrick Cockburn Robert Fisk Uri Avnery Col. Dan Smith Alison Weir Alan Farago Ray Hanania Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
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March 24, 2005 A Call for Direct ActionTorture: Old Hat or Open Wound?By ANDREW WIMMER and MARK CHMIEL
I. On September 12, 1981, eyewitnesses saw men hustle Manfredo Velasquez, a Honduran schoolteacher and father of three, into an automobile in the marketplace of the country's capital, Tegucigalpa. Despite public pleas to Honduran army chief General Gustavo Álvarez Martínez, including a taped message from Manfredo's seven-year-old son, Velasquez joined the ranks of the disappeared. "It was a state of terror. We were very afraid," declares his sister, Zenaida Velasquez Rodriguez, herself a political refugee now living in San Jose, Costa Rica. [2] Álvarez created the Honduran Battalion 3-16 death squad, which was notorious for its disappearances and torture of civilians. Manfredo's fate was one that was repeated thousands of times throughout the dirty wars of Central America in the 1980s. Such horrors were aided and abetted, financially and militarily, by the U.S. government but, perhaps most important, operated under diplomatic cover. One U.S. citizen who played a crucial role in providing that cover was John Negroponte, our ambassador to Honduras from 1981-1985. Larry Birns, of the Council on Hemispheric Concerns, says of Negroponte: "His mission was to convert Honduras into an unsinkable aircraft carrier to supply and maintain the Contra cause against the Sandinistas [A]lthough he had this patina of being a dignified career Foreign Service officer, he was a gunslinger for a hyper-Reagan administration policy of utilizing by every means-under the rubric of the end justifies the means-the advancement of the Contra cause in Nicaragua." [3] In 1995 the Baltimore Sun published an investigative series laying bare some of the secrets of the previous decade. One former Honduran congressman, Efrain Diaz, told reporters that the attitude of Mr. Negroponte and other U.S. officials at the time was "one of tolerance and silence" vis-à-vis the Honduran murderers and torturers. Diaz articulated the clear U.S. realpolitik at work: "They needed Honduras to loan its territory more than they were concerned about innocent people being killed." [4] Reed Brody, special counsel for Human Rights Watch, summed it up neatly when he said of Negroponte: "He looked the other way when atrocities were occurring. He was the ostrich ambassador; he never saw anything wrong." [5] Negroponte, however, in his own statement to the Baltimore Sun in 1995, averred, "At no time during my tenure in Honduras did the embassy condone or conceal human rights violations." [6] Mrs. Negroponte herself felt obliged to make a public statement last year when her husband was nominated to serve as ambassador to Iraq. Protestors had been raising critical questions about Negroponte's human rights record during his years in Honduras. She was blunt: "I want to say to those people, 'Haven't you moved on?' To keep fighting all that is old hat." [7] It is impossible, however, for Zenaida Velasquez Rodriguez to move on. She laments, "As of today, we don't even have a vague idea of where his remains could be. It's like having an open wound that is bleeding all the time." [8]
II. Now, John Negroponte has been appointed to be Director of National Intelligence. President Bush must believe that the necessary tasks in the endless "war on terrorism"- extraordinary renditions to Egypt, Morocco, Syria; secret flights to Guantánamo; flagrant breaches of the Geneva Conventions-will all be served up with the flair of the "diplomat's diplomat," as Negroponte has been called. Since September 11 the Bush Administration has become quite brazen. George W. Bush has moved the dirty secret of United States-sponsored and sanctioned torture out of the shadows and into the public spotlight. Torture has been enshrined at the heart of our domestic and foreign policy. Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib are but two of the visible signs. Jonathan Schell writing recently in The Nation observed that "the war in Iraq has given birth to an issue that may one day be seen as more important than the war, the question of torture." [9] The just-war theory has a long history in Western societies. Perhaps we are witnessing the beginnings of the articulation of its logical corollary, the just-torture theory. Seymour Hersh, the author of Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, speaking at Brown University recently noted, "The problem is that George Bush is convinced he's doing the right thing At some level he thinks he'll be vindicated. It doesn't matter what we write, we can't shape [Bush]. If you think it's a little terrifying, it is. Other [presidents] felt the heat, this guy doesn't." [10] So, emboldened by their successes of the past several months, Bush and his bureaucratic henchmen-Condoleezza Rice, Alberto Gonzales, Elliott Abrams, and John Negroponte-will dedicate themselves to their tasks with renewed fervor, fully expecting that the rest of us will keep quiet and move on. They'd like us to forget such testimonies as the following from Abu Ghraib, involving our "guys and gals," that have slowly been making their way out:
Torture is now our national open wound. Bleeding all the time. How many of us notice?
III. The U.S. government has long considered itself above the law. [12] Such arrogance fused with power goes by an old biblical word-idolatry. For the Christian community, Lent is the season for personal and communal repentance. So often, people in the United States divert this by focusing on ascetic renunciations involving such things as beer and chocolate. Too often, the churches and their official leadership encourage this navel-gazing and privatization of faith. Meanwhile, how many Catholics in the pews know anything about Pope John Paul II's condemnation of the U.S. assault on Iraq? [13] How many bishops have preached in the time-honored spirit of "afflicting the comfortable"? [14] Rather than deal with the supreme national exigency of war, Catholics have been encouraged to engage in all of the traditional acts of charity that travel under the rubric of "supporting the troops." [15] And where is the ecclesial call for repentance to us as a nation for our role in one particularly heinous activity, torture? As Jonathan Schell has stated so simply, "Torture destroys the soul of the torturer even as it destroys the body of his victim. The boundary between humane treatment of prisoners and torture is perhaps the clearest boundary in existence between civilization and barbarism." [16] A few years after the end of World War II, the French writer Albert Camus met with a group of French Dominican priests. In the course of their dialogue about the still unnamed Holocaust that had taken place in Europe, Camus was troubled that the Pope had not really addressed what had happened to the Jews. Camus acknowledged that some people said the Pope did speak out, but, Camus claimed "it was in the language of the encyclicals." That is to say, dense, dry, without passion. Camus then shared with his Catholic interlocutors a simple challenge that remains true to us today:
So, on Ash Wednesday about 20 of us decided to begin our season of Lenten repentance by meeting people heading to the St. Louis Catholic Cathedral for the ritual of ashes. We handed them prayer cards that were embossed with pictures of Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo prisoners. We also held banners while several of us donned orange jump suits, pillow cases for hoods and handcuffs to bring to mind the images of our prisoners in Guantánamo, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We knelt in silence as passersby came and went from the church, perhaps ignoring us, or averting their eyes. In this public way, we simply wanted to cut through the denial that seems to have gripped many in the churches and in our country, such that Alberto Gonzales can be appointed Attorney General without a murmur of protest from the United State Catholic Bishops. Perhaps to them, Gonzales is an honorable man, being a member of Catholic Charities and an inspiring Hispanic example of the rise from rags to riches. Yet, Gonzales is also the intellectual advocate for the Bush Administration's renunciation of the Geneva Accords and the consequent unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of the President. Jane Mayer, in her New Yorker story "Outsourcing Torture," makes clear the boundaries that the administration will continue to expand unless we push back:
IV. Many Americans, if pressed, would prefer to focus on the harm they do to us: killing, beheading and maiming. About what we, as Americans, do to them, the less said the better. This attitude controverts a famous exhortation from the 6th chapter of Luke's Gospel: "Why do you observe the splinter in your brother's eye and never notice the great log in your own? How can you say to your brother, 'Brother, let me take out that splinter in your eye,' when you cannot see the great log in your own? Hypocrite! Take the log out of your own eye first, and then you will see clearly enough to take out the splinter in your brother's eye." [19] Torture and terror, American-style: the home-grown practice of lynching of black Americans, the CIA/SOA training of the torturers of the Latin American continent, the use of Tiger Cages in Vietnam, as well as the recent revelations about Bagram, Guantánamo, and Abu Ghraib. This is who we've been. Recall President Bush's reaction after Abu Ghraib: "This isn't the America I know." Many Americans might want to agree; it's only those few unruly frat-boy-like soldiers run amok. Rush Limbaugh put it into words:
The ingrained American self-perception of virtue and rectitude can only be made by those who are amnesiac about our history. When Seymour Hersh spoke in January at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue in New York City after receiving the Shalom Center's Menorah Award for "bringing light into dark places," he cautioned that "Words mean nothing, nothing to George Bush. They are just utterances. They have no meaning. Bush can say again and again, 'well, we don't do torture.' We know what happened. We know about Abu Ghraib. We know, we see anecdotally. We all understand in some profound way because so much has come out in the last few weeks, the I.C.R.C. The ACLU put out more papers, this is not an isolated incident what's happened with the seven kids and the horrible photographs, Lynndie England They're fall guys." [21] And yet the government and its intellectual cheerleaders would like nothing more than for us to swallow the "few bad apples" bait and forget. On March 10, in the latest version of the Pentagon reviewing the Pentagon and finding the Pentagon to be without blame, Vice Admiral Albert T. Church told the Senate Armed Services Committee that his review of interrogation policy and detention operations did not place specific blame for the "confusing interrogation policies that migrated from Washington to the battlefield" and that "no high-level policy decisions directly led to the abuse." But, according to the Washington Post, "Church said he did not interview top officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, nor did he make conclusions about individual responsibility, saying it was not part of his mission. [22] How soothing his compartmentalized sense of curiosity must be to Rumsfeld.
V. "Look," John Negroponte said, "any missing person is a human tragedy. For that person and their family. I've even met some of the people. My heart goes out to them. Yet, El Salvador would have more people missing in one week than occurred during the entire conflict in Honduras It's a question of keeping things in perspective." [23] Who was backing the Salvadoran death squads is not something Negroponte might want to elaborate on. Zenaida Velasquez finally had a chance to meet with Negroponte. Her response to that meeting: "You know what? He doesn't even look you in the eye. We were crying and desperate. I wanted to call him a liar. It was hard." [24] Perhaps it is simplistic, but at least it would be in the simple spirit of the Nazarene who was himself tortured by the army of an occupying power: will we align ourselves on the side of the torturers or their victims? Last month in St. Louis, delegates to the United for Peace and Justice Convocation, representing more than 1000 peace and justice organizations from across the country, unanimously endorsed a proposal calling for empowering direct action to confront torture. [25] One place to confront it is at Congressional offices. There's a recess from now until April 4, and senators and representatives will be in their home states and districts. We should pay them visits. For example, we could ask our own Missouri Senator James Talent why, if "our guys and gals just wouldn't do it," there are thousands of photos and hundreds of hours of video footage from Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo that have been kept from the American public's eyes. If our soliders are incapable of using "inhumane tactics," then why the reluctance to release the photos? So our work is clear. Never forget. Resist. Keep talking. Make a nuisance of ourselves. Be a spectacle. Mobilize the choir. Shame those who stick their heads into the sand. Reach out to the mainstreamers who wonder what all our uproar is about. Challenge intellectual justifications for torture. Humanize our victims. Refuse to be silent. Do not go gentle into that great fog of blasé civic acceptance. Remember the millions of German bystanders and say, this time, "Not in our name." Wherever we can gather in public-on Good Friday, Easter Sunday, in shopping malls, at bus stops, in government buildings, on university campuses-let a thousand flowers of resistance bloom, from boisterous street theater to wearing messages on our bodies, from |
