|
|
home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events
|
SPECIAL REPORT: How Iraq is Being Destroyed "A weak Iraq suits many." Three years after the US attack, Iraq is breaking apart. Eyewitness report from Patrick Cockburn in Irbil. One of the great left journalists of his time, he was on the front lines in Korea and Vietnam. Chris Reed on Wilfred Burchett, the man who made Murdoch foam at the mouth. Katrina washes whitest. Bill Quigley in New Orleans reports tales of lunacy and hope. 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! |
|
Today's Stories April 7 -9, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Jeffrey
St. Clair Patrick
Cockburn David
Vest Dave
Lindorff Gary
Leupp Elaine
Cassel Saul
Landau James
Ridgeway Ron
Jacobs John
Walsh Ramzy
Baroud Christopher
Brauchli Todd
Chretien Jonathan
Scott John
Bomar Michele
Brand Ronan
Sheehan Mickey
Z. Don
Monkerud Michael
Dickinson Website
of the Weekend
April 6, 2006 John
Ross Dave
Lindorff Don
Monkerud Robert
McDonald Boris
Kagarlitsky Remi
Kanazi Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Robert
Fisk
April 5, 2006 Dick
J. Reavis Mark
Brenner Brian
Cloughley Jozef
Hand-Boniakowski Matt
Vidal Juan
Santos Alan
Maass JoAnn
Wypijewski Website
of the Day
April 4, 2006 Jackson
Thoreau Gary
Corseri Dave
Lindorff Paul
Craig Roberts Norman
Solomon Michael
Carmichael Winslow
T. Wheeler Ingmar
Lee Michael
Neumann Website
of the Day
April 3, 2006 Saul
Landau Richard
Thieme Timothy
B. Tyson Omar
Barghouti Iwasaki
Atsuko Julian
Edney Roger
Morris
April 1 / 2, 2006 Alexander
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Dave
Zirin David
Underhill Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Dave
Lindorff P.
Sainath Fred
Gardner Clancy
Chassay Heather
Gray Greg
Moses John
Chuckman Ron
Jacobs Jeffrey
St. Clair Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 31, 2006 Gary
Leupp Patrick
Cockburn Saree
Makdisi Ron
Jacobs Mark
Engler Curtis
F.J. Doebbler Laith
al-Saud Website
of the Day
March 30, 2006 Uri
Avnery Sen.
Russell Feingold Winslow
T. Wheeler Dave
Lindorff Juan
Santos Frida
Berrigan Joshua
Frank Vonnie
Edwards Neve
Gordon Website
of the Day
March 29, 2006 CounterPunch
News Service Patrick
Cockburn John
Ross Omar
Barghouti William
S. Lind Missy
Comley Beattie Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Website
of the Day
March 28, 2006 Sharon
Smith Paul
Craig Roberts Tariq
Ali Manuel
Garcia, Jr. Ramzy
Baroud Evelyn
Pringle Seth
Sandronsky Patrick
Cockburn
March 27, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Joshua
Frank Ron
Jacobs Jeff
Lays Davey
D. Robert
Billyard Jim
Rigby Lisa
Viscidi Nick
Dearden Gideon
Levy Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn Patrick
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Christopher
Reed Jeff
Ballinger Joseph
Massad Brian
Cloughley Chris
Floyd Elaine
Cassel Dave
Zirin John
Chuckman Sharon
Smith Christopher
Fons Chris
Kromm John
Bomar Ron
Jacobs Maymanah
Farhat St.
Clair / Walker / Vest Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 24, 2006 Cockburn
/ Sengupta / Duff P. Sainath Todd
Chretien Marty
Omoto Michael
Carmichael Peter
Phillips Gabriel
Kolko Website
of the Day
March 23, 2006 Charles
V. Peña Joe
DeRaymond Robert
Fisk Jonathan
Cook Tom
Engelhardt Joshua
Frank Norman
Solomon Robert
Fitch / Joe Allen Patrick
Cockburn CounterPunch
News Service Website
of the Day
March 22, 2006 David
MacMichael Juan
Santos Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Ramzy
Baroud Jason
Leopold Dennis
Perrin William
Blum Jeffrey
St. Clair Website
of the Day
March 21, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Winslow
Wheeler Tom
Engelhardt Arnold
Oliver Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Mike
Whitney William
A. Cook Sophia
A. McLennen
March 20, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Dave
Lindorff Ralph
Nader Diane
Christian Jeff
Halper Harry
Browne Norman
Solomon Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
March 18 / 19, 2006 Cockburn
/ St. Clair Werther Chris
Kromm Patrick
Cockburn Elaine
Cassel S. Brian
Willson Fred
Gardner Brian
Cloughley Laura
Carlsen Eamon
Martin Julie
Hilden Alison
Weir Jeffrey
St. Clair Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 17, 2006 Eduardo
Galeano Greg
Moses Richard
Falk / David Krieger Cindy
and Craig Corrie Amira
Hass Mike
Marqusee James
Petas and Robin Eastman-Abaya Website
of the Day
March 16, 2006 Norman
Solomon Tom
Philpott Heather
Gray Amira
Hass Missy
Comley Beattie Sen.
Russell Feingold Lucinda
Marshall Andrew
Bosworth Clancy
Sigal Website
of the Day
Jonathan
Cook Winslow
Wheeler Diane
Christian Ron
Jacobs Missy
Comley Beattie Jared
Bernstein Noam
Chomsky Website
of the Day
March 14, 2006 Earl
Ofari Hutchinson Dave
Lindorff Kevin
Zeese Todd
Chretien Jason
Kunin Thomas
Palley Cockburn
/ St. Clair Website
of the Day
March 13, 2006 Uri
Avnery Dave
Lindorff Mike
Whitney David
Green Jeremy
Scahill Mike
Ferner Corey
Harris Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn Ralph
Nader Paul
Craig Roberts Ben
Tripp John
Strausbaugh Landau
/ Hassen Robert
Bryce Gary
Leupp Fred
Gardner Ron
Jacobs Jonathan
Scott Ramzy
Baroud Jordan
Flaherty John
Chuckman Joe
Allen Julia
Kendlbacher St.
Clair / Walker / Pollack / Vest Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
March 10, 2006 Ben
Rosenfeld Lila
Rajiva Saree
Makdisi Elena
Shore Joshua
Frank Dave
Zirin Aura
Bogado
March 9, 2006 John
Walsh Annie
Zirin Brian
McKenna Chris
Floyd Rachard
Itani Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Wylie
Harris Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day
March 8, 2006 Patrick
Bond Brian
Concannon, Jr. Pat
Williams Lance
Selfa Mokhiber
/ Weissman Walter
Brasch Vijay
Prashad Website
of the Day
March 7, 2006 Werther John
Blair Dave
Lindorff Mike
Whitney Warren
Guykema Sen.
Russell Feingold Robert
Jensen Norman
Solomon Bernie
Dwyer Website
of the Day
Ralph
Nader Dave
Zirin Vanessa
Redgrave Walter
A. Davis Joshua
Frank Nate
Mezmer Paul
Craig Roberts Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn Jennifer
Van Bergen Steven
Higgs Winslow
T. Wheeler Ron
Jacobs Rev.
William E. Alberts Colin
Asher Fred
Gardner "Pariah" John
Scagliotti Seth
Sandronsky Joan
Roelofs Arjun
Makhijani Ardeshr
Ommani Diana
Barahona Ben
Tripp St.
Clair / Socialist Worker Staff Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend March 3, 2006 Laura
Carlsen John
V. Whitbeck Chris
Floyd Mohamed
Hakki Pratyush
Chandra John
Scagliotti Website
of the Day
March 2, 2006 Paul
Craig Roberts Dave
Lindorff Ramzy
Baroud Saul
Landau Joe
Allen Steve
Shore Denise
Boggs Norman
Finkelstein Website
of the Day
March 1, 2006 Mairead
Corrigan Maguire Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Faheem
Hussain Antony
Loewenstein Elizabeth
Schulte Mike
Whitney John
Ryan Michael
Donnelly Tom
Reeves Website
of the Day
Subscribe Online
|
Weekend
Edition CounterPunch Diary If Only They'd Hissed Barack Obama By ALEXANDER COCKBURN What a contrast between the French demonstrations and the vast and exciting marches here against proposed immigration laws, as against the limp turnouts against the U.S. war on Iraq! Across a few explosive weeks the first two series of protests have surged up in numbers and political impact. In France earlier this week there were a million on the streets. Just in Los Angeles a couple of weeks ago, half a million. In Paris Dominique de Villepin, the author of the hated law loosening curbs on employers' right to fire new hires, is fighting for his political life. In Congress, (U.S. senators revised the language of their bill in step with the magnitude and passion of the rallies. Meanwhile, though two out of three here in the U.S.A. disapprove of the war in Iraq there's no energetic political leadership from above, no irresistible shove from below. Reason? There's no draft. There's no reason to fear that your number will come up and in a few months you'll be in a truck on a road outside Baghdad, waiting for some sort of bomb or missile to blow you apart. No draft, hence no burgeoning antiwar movement, going from strength to strength, terrorizing the politicians. What's the degree of separation between most of us and the 120,000 U.S. military in Iraq? My accountant who has monitored my relations with the IRS for the past 24 years just told me his son, whom I knew to be in the USMC, is in Fallujah, with seven months to go. My friend Bill Broyles' son David has served two tours there. There are also the parents in Military Families Speak Out I share platforms with. So how do we narrow the degrees of separation? By vets counseling students against enlisting, by inviting the parents in MFSO to speak locally against the war. Remember, the antiwar movement reached its peak last year because Cindy Sheehan connected millions to the war. Also--this is crucial--her vigil outside Crawford allowed for buildup. She didn't fold her tent in a day. There was a five-day buildup in Seattle, in the great anti-WTO battles there, in 1998. (Cindy Sheehan will be down at Camp Casey, April 12-16, and says everyone should come on down. UPFJ has a peace rally in New York scheduled for April 29.) The war's coming home indeed, in the form of people dreadfully wounded in body and spirit. Thousands of tragedies that will unwind, often violently, for years to come. But for now, for the most part, it's pictures on TV, not tears and terror on the hearthrug. So the Democrats in Congress aren't too worried about pressure from their antiwar constituents, even though the mere possibility of a primary challenge by Cindy Sheehan put the wind up Diane Feinstein. The awful six-termer, Jane Harman, faces a primary challenge from Marcy Winograd in southern California, after a couple of unions defied orders and endorsed Winograd. Meanwhile, at the other end of the country in Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman faced a decidedly cool audience at a big Democratic dinner at the end of March and got bailed out by his brother senator from Illinois, Barack Obama, who told the crowd to haul out their check books and make sure Lieberman gets returned for another term. What kind of a signal is this? Here is Obama, endlessly hailed as the brightest rising star in the Democratic firmament, delivering (at a closely watched political dinner, with Lieberman's primary opponent, Ned Lamont, sitting in the crowd) a ringing endorsement to his "mentor", Lieberman, Bush's closest Democratic ally on the war in Iraq, and overall pretty much a symbol of everything that's been wrong with the Democratic Party for the past twenty years. What a slimy fellow Obama is, as befits a man symbolizing everything that will continue to be wrong with the Democratic Party for the next twenty years. Every time I look up he's doing something disgusting, like distancing himself from his fellow senator Dick Durbin for denouncing the torture center at Guantanamo, or cheerleading the nuke-Iran crowd. How many degrees of separation
do I have from people without green cards, people who just come
across the border, people awaiting relatives coming across the
borders, the guy behind the bar in an Irish pub, the fellow in
the gas station, the woman at the cash register ? Try to pass a bill--as the House of Representatives is now doing--that makes a significant chunk of the population co-conspirators in the commission of a felony, and you're going to get some action, and so they did: student walkouts that have put maybe 1.5 million on the streets in the past few weeks. Out of these rallies and marches and tussles with the school authorities and cops will come some of the leaders and organizers of the next twenty or thirty years. This has been their baptism of fire. The horrible part of the story
is that this is a moment when the antiwar movement should be
at full effective stretch. A couple of weeks ago Tony Swindell,
a newspaper editor in north Texas wrote to me as follows: "Begin
paying attention to stories from Iraq like the very recent one
about U.S. Marines killing a group of civilians near Baghdad.
This is the next step in the Iraq war as frustration among our
soldiers grow--especially with multiple tours. I served in Vietnam
with the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, and
My Lai was not an isolated incident. We came to be known as the
Butcher's Brigade, and we also were the birthplace of the Phoenix
Program." There is some sort of slow motion, semi-mutiny going on in the Democratic Party in bits of the country at the moment, and much of its rather tepid steam comes from the antiwar movement, aghast at the complicity of so much of the Democratic leadership in the war. But set the tempo of this mutiny next to what has been happening in France or on the streets of Los Angeles, and like Swindell one feels numbness in one's guts. The peace movement hasn't got fire in its belly. If it had, Obama, the rising star, would have passed up the invitation to go pitch for Lieberman, and two-thirds of the crowd would have hissed him when he did. As things are, they gave the new star a big cheer, instead of treating him the way the folks in Lancashire did Condoleezza Rice.
McKinney Abandoned Meanwhile, not one Democrat in Congress (and few outside it) would stand up for Cynthia McKinney, victim of racial profiling right in their own hallway. Eventually the Democratic leadership forced her to apologize. It's not the first time they've thrown her to the wolves. The first time was when they backed Majette against her in her own district. Majette repaid the Democrats' favor by eventually converting to the Republican Party, allowing McKinney to recapture her seat. Then, when she was back in the House, her fellow Dems denied her the appropriate seniority from her previous five terms. The uproar over McKinney's swat of the Capitol Hill cop with her cell phone after he's manhandled her was grotesque. Tot up the hours devoted to McKinney, as opposed to the fleeting attention to Republican Rep Duke Cunningham, finally sent to the Joint for taking upwards of $2 million in bribes; or to David Savafian, Bush's man in charge of procurement at OMB, arrested for corruption as a spin-off of the Abramoff scandal. CounterPuncher Fred Gardner used to work as San Francisco DA Terrence Hallinan's press secretary, and had plenty of time at the S.F. Hall of Justice to observe security gates and how they should be supervised. Here's a letter he sent to the S.F. Chronicle:
Here at CounterPunch we don't think McKinney handled the affair deftly. Why did she have to appear on talk shows with lawyers? Tom DeLay, who's got a lot to answer for, confronted the press alone, and never stopped smiling. And why, oh why did McKinney apologize? As Jesse Jackson learned, it doesn't do any good. You've copped a guilty plea and then they say, You didn't apologize enough! You have to go on apologizing for the rest of your life.
Ben Sonnenberg's Dream Ben calls me from New York to tell me he's had a strange dream. "I saw some rather lovely hands through a triangular window, like the vent window on an old car. Then, into view came a third hand, not mine, holding a stiletto and scored the palm of one of the hands, which a voice tells me belong to Leon Wieseltier. I think there was blood." I ask Ben if he's ever met Wieseltier, who has been the literary editor of the New Republic since 1883. Yes. 1883. It's been that long. Ben says no, and then adds that "subsequent reflection--what Freud called 'secondary revision' -- tells me that I was remembering a photograph in my father's house in Grammercy Square of the hands of Tillie Losch." Losch was a dancer and choreographer who was very briefly married to Edward James. She was a friend of Ben's parents. "Secondary revision" is what happens when your conscious mind starts dealing with, cleaning up, and censoring the dream material. It's what the New York Times does every day. Recounting dreams used to be an innocent pursuit at Victorian and Edwardian breakfast tables. My father Claud went to school at Berkhamsted, whose headmaster was James Greene, father of Graham. In his autobiography, In Time of Trouble, my father recalled:
When he finished describing the dream Ben pressed on to telll me that it was one of the happiest days of his life. He has translated Fernand Crommelynck's 1920 play Le cocu magnifique , and a splendid array of talented friends had assembled in his apartment on Riverside Drive and given the play a spirited reading. I imagine we'll being seeing it on Broadway in the not-too-distant future. If you have interpretations of his dream, send them to Ben at harapos@panix.net.
Death Threats A couple of years back, a rightwing radio talk host made frequent on-air death threats against 3 environmentalists living near Kalispell, Montana. The Gordon Liddy clone called for his listeners to take headshots at the greens and even read out their home address over the air. Complaints were made to local police and the FBI, but nothing came of them. Contrast this indulgence with the current case against animal rights activist Rod Coronado, a member of the Pascua Yaqui tribe, who was arrested by the FBI last month on charges of inciting eco-terrorism. The charges stem from a speech Coronado gave at the University of California at San Diego in the summer of 2003 where, in response to a question from the audience, he demonstrated how he had madea Molotov cocktail for use in a previous arson for which he had already been convicted and served his time. It so happens CounterPunch is currently the object of a public death threat, and we're curious why google is a co-conspirator in this affair. American Jihad is a site run by George M. Weinert V, of Chicago, Illinois, a 54-year old white male who describes himself as an "internet consultant and programmer", also as working in the "law enforcement and security" industry. On its homepage for March 28, 2006, beneath the headline "Treason--A Capital Offense" Weinert identifies CounterPunch as a conduit of material he deems treasonous and has this to say:
On the evidence of his obsession
with "queers" and "arses" and "sucking",
Weinert's psyche is the usual stew of repression and self-loathing.
But he is calling for homicide and we're surprised that Google,
which has the mightiest search engines this side of the NSA,
hasn't picked up the threat with the alacrity that it displays
when it thinks clients of its google ad business are churning
for business. American Jihad is a subset of blogspot.com, and
the registrant of blogspot.com is Google Inc. (DOM-345046), 1600
Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View CA 94043.
Back on May 10, 2002, way ahead of the two profs from the University of Chicago and Harvard, we published a piece on this site titled "Our Vichy Congress" with the subtitle, "A Congressional Staffer Details Israel's Stranglehold on Capitol Hill: "We are All Members of Likud Now." As you'll see, if you refresh your memory, it was rousing stuff and hugely popular, causing quite a stir. The author called himself George Sunderland, adding that this was a nom de guerre, not his real name. Now mark the sequel. From: george.sunderland As a real George Sunderland I am offended by a clown aasociated with You using my name. Please stop using my name immediately. George Sunderland, Ft Meade MD From: Alexander Cockburn
Hi there George, Are you presuming to speak in the name of all the George Sunderlands in Maryland, of whom there are at least two? Personally, I'd be proud to be associated with the author of that fine article. If you want I'll put a note in my next CounterPunch Diary saying that you are most definitely NOT the G. Sunderland who authored that piece. Best, Alex Cockburn, co-editor. From george.sunderland From: Alexander Cockburn
I'll put something up next Saturday. Actually that piece -- published back in 2002 -- was very popular, and certainly not nutty. And the author--a congressional staffer -- was not nutty in using a pseudonym, since people publicly criticizing the relationship in Israeli wouldn't have extensive career prospects on the Hill, or many other places here, like for example Harvard, if you're following the current row. Best Alex C From: "Sunderland, George R Mr AAA" Thanks. Actually, guess who the other George Sunderland in Maryland is? That's right, I'm a junior and he's my father. This issue first popped up when I was under employment investigation with NSA. They kept asking me if I ever worked in the media, didn't seem to like my answer and I didn't know what they were talking about. I finally grew tired and decided to stay employed with the Army. A year later, I found your article during a web surf. I now realize, that may have cost me the NSA job. Your staffer probably pulled my name from an Army Audit Agency report on NBC survivability that was featured in Congressional testimony. Unfortunately, that name was given at birth to a real person. So, while you may not have intended to do so, damage was probably done. Please be careful in the future. Lastly, as a Georgetown MPA alum, I am a political policy wonk myself. But, while I was once a Jesse Helms Republican, I am neither left nor right. George R. Sunderland Jr. From: alexandercockburn@asis.com Think of it this way. Maybe we saved you indictment down the road for being part of the illegal NSA eavesdrops! "Sunderland" is no staffer, but submitted his piece under the GS pseudonym through an intermediary. I guess it''s a reason to opt, as Kennan did, for "Mr X"and other more obvious noms de guerre. Best Alex C
Elie Wiesel and Juliek's Violin Strings In my recent piece on Wiesel's Night I discussed the inherent implausibility of the scene in which a boy called Juliek plays Beethoven on his violin, in freezing temperatures, amid a death march. Now this: From: DanCas1@aol.com a chara: Footnote: an earlier version
of the first item ran in the print edition of The Nation that
went to press last Wednesday.
|
from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. |