Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 12, 2003
Writers Block
Todos
Somos Lee: Protest and Death in Cancun
Laura Carlsen
A Knife to the Heart: WTO Kills Farmers
Dave Lindorff
The Meaning of Sept. 11
Elaine Cassel
Bush at Quantico
Linda S. Heard
British
Entrance Exams
John Chuckman
The First Two Years of Insanity
Doug Giebel
Ending America as We Know It
Mokhiber / Weissman
The Blank Check Military
Subcomandante Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Website of the Day
A Woman in Baghdad
Recent Stories
September 11, 2003
Robert Fisk
A Grandiose
Folly
Roger Burbach
State Terrorism and 9/11: 1973 and 2001
Jonathan Franklin
The Pinochet Files
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Postcards to the President
Norman Solomon
The Political Capital of 9/11
Saul Landau
The Chilean Coup: the Other, Almost Forgotten 9/11
Stew Albert
What Goes Around
Website of the Day
The Sights and Sounds of a Coup
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 10, 2003
John Ross
Cancun
Reality Show: Will It Turn Into a Tropical Seattle?
Zoltan Grossman
The General Who Would be President: Was Wesley Clark Also Unprepared
for the Postwar Bloodbath?
Tim Llewellyn
At the Gates of Hell
Christopher Brauchli
Turn the Paige: the Bush Education Deception
Lee Sustar
Bring the Troops Home, Now!
Elaine Cassel
McCain-Feingold in Trouble: Scalia Hogs the Debate
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Hammond Guthrie
When All Was Said and Done
Website of the Day
Fact Checking Colin Powell
September 9, 2003
William A. Cook
Eating
Humble Pie
Robert Jensen / Rahul
Mahajan
Bush
Speech: a Shell Game on the American Electorate
Bill Glahn
A Kinder, Gentler RIAA?
Janet Kauffman
A Dirty River Runs Beneath It
Chris Floyd
Strange Attractors: White House Bawds Breed New Terror
Bridget Gibson
A Helping of Crow with Those Fries?
Robert Fisk
Thugs
in Business Suit: Meet the New Iraqi Strongman
Website of the Day
Pot TV International
September 8, 2003
David Lindorff
The
Bush Speech: Spinning a Fiasco
Robert Jensen
Through the Eyes of Foreigners: the US Political Crisis
Gila Svirsky
Of
Dialogue and Assassination: Off Their Heads
Bob Fitrakis
Demostration Democracy
Kurt Nimmo
Bush and the Echo Chamber: Globalizing the Whirlwind
Sean Carter
Thou Shalt Not Campaign from the Bench
Uri Avnery
Betrayal
at Camp David
Website of the Day
Rabbis v. the Patriot Act
September 6 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
September 5, 2003
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Stacked Deck: Why Doesn't the Commander-in-Chief Visit the Wounded?
Col. Dan Smith
Iraq
as Black Hole
Phyllis Bennis
A Return
to the UN?
Dr. Susan Block
Exxxtreme Ashcroft
Dave Lindorff
Courage and the Democrats
Abe Bonowitz
Reflections on the "Matyrdom" of Paul Hill
Robert Fisk
We Were
Warned About This Chaos
Website of the Day
New York Comic Book Museum
September 4, 2003
Stan Goff
The Bush
Folly: Between Iraq and a Hard Place
John Ross
Mexico's
Hopes for Democracy Hit Dead-End
Harvey Wasserman
Bush to New Yorkers: Drop Dead
Adam Federman
McCain's
Grim Vision: Waging a War That's Already Been Lost
Aluf Benn
Sharon Saved from Threat of Peace
W. John Green
Colombia's Dirty War
Joanne Mariner
Truth,
Justice and Reconciliation in Latin America
Website of the Day
Califoracle
September 3, 2003
Virginia Tilley
Hyperpower
in a Sinkhole
Davey D
A Hip
Hop Perspective on the Cali Recall
Emrah Göker
Conscripting Turkey: Imperial Mercenaries Wanted
John Stanton
The US is a Power, But Not Super
Brian Cloughley
The
Pentagon's Bungled PsyOps Plan
Dan Bacher
Another Big Salmon Kill
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors Weep' Ninth Circuit Overturns 127 Death Sentences
Uri Avnery
First
of All This Wall Must Fall
Website of the Day
Art Attack!
September 2, 2003
Robert Fisk
Bush's
Occupational Fantasies Lead Iraq Toward Civil War
Kurt Nimmo
Rouind Up the Usual Suspects: the Iman Ali Mosque Bombing
Robert Jensen / Rahul Mahajan
Iraqi Liberation, Bush Style
Elaine Cassel
Innocent But Guilty: When Prosecutors are Dead Wrong
Jason Leopold
Ghosts
in the Machines: the Business of Counting Votes
Dave Lindorff
Dems in 2004: Perfect Storm or Same Old Doldrums?
Paul de Rooij
Predictable
Propaganda: Four Monts of US Occupation
Website of the Day
Laughing Squid
August 30 / Sept. 1,
2003
Alexander Cockburn
Handmaiden
in Babylon: Annan, Vieiera de Mello and the Decline and Fall
of the UN
Saul Landau
Schwarzenegger
and Cuban Migration
Standard Schaefer
Who
Benefited from the Tech Bubble: an Interview with Michael Hudson
Gary Leupp
Mel Gibson's Christ on Trial
William S. Lind
Send the Neocons to Baghdad
Augustin Velloso
Aznar: Spain's Super Lackey
Jorge Mariscal
The Smearing of Cruz Bustamante
John Ross
A NAFTA for Energy? The US Looks to Suck Up Mexico's Power
Mickey Z.
War is a Racket: The Wisdom of Gen. Smedley Butler
Elaine Cassel
Ashcroft's Traveling Patriot Show Isn't Winning Many Converts
Stan Cox
Pirates of the Caribbean: the WTO Comes to Cancun
Tom and Judy Turnipseed
Take Back Your Time Day
Adam Engel
The Red Badge of Knowledge: a Review of TDY
Adam Engel
An Eye on Intelligence: an Interview with Douglas Valentine
Susan Davis
Northfork,
an Accidental Review
Nicholas Rowe
Dance
and the Occupation
Mark Zepezauer
Operation
Candor
Poets' Basement
Albert, Guthrie and Hamod
Website of the Weekend
Downhill
Battle
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher Gilad Atzmon! BBC Names EXILE Top Jazz CD
August 29, 2003
Lenni Brenner
God
and the Democratic Wing of the Democratic Party
Brian Cloughley
When in Doubt, Lie Your Head Off
Alice Slater
Bush Nuclear Policy is a Recipe for National Insecurity
David Krieger
What Victory?
Marjorie Cohn
The Thin Blue Line: How the US Occupation of Iraq Imperils International
Law
Richard Glen Boire
Saying Yes to Drugs!
Bister, Estrin and Jacobs
Howard Dean, the Progressive Anti-War Candidate? Some Vermonters
Give Their Views
Website of the Day
DirtyBush
Hot Stories
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
William Blum
Myth
and Denial in the War on Terrorism
Standard Schaefer
Experimental Casinos: DARPA and the War Economy
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
|
September
13, 2003
Fiction
and Reality in Colombia
Terrorists,
Their Friends and the Bogota Three
By TONI SOLO
When President Bush attends fundraisers in Miami
he certainly needs to watch out for terrorists. But no worries--they're
likely to be on the invited guest list. Orlando Bosch and Virgilio
Paz are just two prominent Miami Cubans who were members of a
US sponsored terrorist gang active when Bush Sr was their boss
as head of the CIA.(1) Like his father and brother Jeb, George
W. Bush too is politically associated with these unrepentant
terrorists.(2) Two other members of the gang, Luis Posada Carriles
and Guillermo Novo, are currently on trial on terrorist charges
in Panama.
Rather than strengthen the rule of law
President Bush has systematically trashed the very norms and
institutions that uphold it. "Our terrorists"--the
imperial variety--are all right. No need to target them in the
"war on terror" which only applies to "foreign
terrorists". "Our terrorists" harrass the current
convenient enemy--formerly in Nicaragua or Angola, always Cuba,
now Venezuela--deal in drugs to pay for the networks, and serve
as enforcers when the populations in other imperial "democracies"
get out of hand.(3)
The Irish Connection In the summer of
2001, three Irishmen were arrested in Colombia and accused of
terrorism as they left a zone controlled by the FARC armed opposition
group during a truce period. A look at the background to their
plight exposes the US-uk coalition's hypocrisy on terrorism.
Every sign is that the three men, now in prison in Bogota, are
victims of a crude frame-up. They insist they were on a fact
finding visit carrying video equipment so as to record material
for use with organizations promoting peace back in Ireland.
The men--Niall Connolly, Martin MacAuley
and James Monaghan--are all republicans who support the Good
Friday peace agreement in Ireland. MacAuley and Monaghan are
ex-political prisoners. Both have promoted conflict resolution
work since their release from prison. Niall Connolly is a carpenter
who has worked in community development and solidarity activities
in Latin America since the early 1990s.
Before they were arrested, Sinn Fein
was making steady electoral progress throughout Ireland, and
the Unionist leadership in Belfast was in trouble. At the time,
the Ulster Unionists and British government were using the issue
of disarmament to stall full implementation of the Good Friday
peace agreement. In that context, the men's arrest was timely
and convenient.
For death squad and drugs kingpins--the
velvet touch Contrast the treatment of these three Irish soldarity
tourists with that accorded to Carlos Castaño, Salvatore
Mancuso and Juan Carlos Sierra, leaders of the United Self-Defence
Forces of Colombia (AUC), notorious paramilitary allies of the
Colombian military. In 1997, the US Attorney General accused
them of arranging to ship 17 tons of cocaine to the US and Europe.
But no practical steps have been taken to arrest the three.
In November 2002 it was revealed that
the Colombian government under President Uribe was in "ceasefire"
negotiations with Castaño and the AUC. Uribe has close
links to these narcotics dealing murderers.(4) Opposition Colombian
politicians see the talks with the AUC as a preliminary to the
formal integration of the death squads into the Colombian military.
This move has the blessing of the Bush regime.
War on terrorism bonanza Uribe is just
the latest corrupt and repressive Colombian leader to receive
US support since the 1960s. With an uncooperative popular government
in oil-rich Venezuela and a voracious need to control oil resources
for its profligate world-polluting economy, the US government
has destined $98 million to help protect a Colombian oil pipeline.
A total of US$1.5 billion in military aid has been scheduled
for the period 2002-2004. Colombia is the third-largest recipient
of U.S. military aid after Israel and Egypt.
In Colombia, poverty indicators are among
the worst in Latin America. One per cent of the elite owns 55%
of the land. 15.7 million of Colombia's 44 million inhabitants
are children, 39% of them in poverty. The latest figures from
UNICEF conclude that 67% of the total population live below the
poverty line (80% in rural areas). 11 million people live in
extreme poverty, unable even to feed themselves properly.
While the country goes hungry, President
Uribe plays the "war on terrorism" card, tricking billions
of dollars of aid from United States taxpayers to attack his
domestic opponents. Similarly, as part of the equally bogus "war
on drugs" the US has waged widespread chemical and biological
warfare against hapless rural populations--to no avail. Drug
production in Colombia has actually increased.(5) Here, as in
Iraq, oil industry insiders like Vice-President Dick Cheney,
President Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice
unscrupulously use US military muscle and aid to promote private
business interests. Drugs and terrorism are convenient pretexts.
Leading US politicians are aware of the
manipulation. In March 2002, US Representative Ron Paul member
of the House International Relations Committee and the Subcommittee
on the Western Hemisphere spoke against a bill authorizing expansion
of US intervention in Colombia, "I was only made aware of
the existence of this legislation this morning, just a couple
of hours before I was expected to vote on it. There was no committee
markup of the legislation, nor was there any notice that this
legislation would appear on today's suspension calendar.....This
legislation represents a very serious and significant shift in
United States policy toward Colombia. It sets us on a slippery
slope toward unwise military intervention in a foreign civil
war that has nothing to do with the United States."
The Bogota 3 case--the facts and the
spin After September 11th 2001, the case against Connolly, McAuley
and Monaghan became a small but significant component of the
US-uk spinning of "the war on terrorism". The facts
of their case are simple. They are accused of traveling using
false identity papers and training anti-government FARC guerrillas.
They admit the first accusation but vehemently deny the second.
The three insist they used false documents because they feared
being harassed had they used their real identities to travel.
The main charge is that of training FARC
members in explosives and mortar technology. Soon after their
arrest, US embassy personnel tested them and their belongings
for explosive traces. The tests used equipment requiring special
care with both calibration and with anti-contamination procedures
to produce trustworthy results. These procedures were not followed
and the tests showed positive. Subsequent tests carried out by
the Colombian authorities using correct procedures produced opposite
results.
The only other evidence presented against
the three is witness testimony from two young men alleged to
be former FARC members and who were under Colombian army "protection"
. Both so-called witnesses testified earlier this year that at
different times between 1998 and 2001 they witnessed explosives
and mortar training by the three men. But all three defendants
have solid, respectable alibi evidence that places them outside
Colombia on those dates.
No technical evidence was presented in
the case to justify claims of "skills transfer" of
arms technology. There is no hard evidence against the three
to contradict their explanation of their visit to the FARC zone
at a time when the ceasefire with the government was still in
place. But they are still in prison in Bogotá and face
long sentences if convicted. They are victims of "war on
terrorism" political theatre orchestrated through a lazy,
complacent news media.
Fiction and reality
The "war on terrorism" is the
US government's justification for pre-emptive military attacks
it deems necessary to promote US business and economic interests.
Some governments collaborate out of arrogance as supporting bit-players,
like the administrations of Tony Blair in the UK and Jose Maria
Aznar in Spain. Others cave in to US pressure, like the Irish
government. This deep cynicism and hypocrisy are nothing new.
Grotesque inequality in Colombia has
caused forty years of bitter, miserable conflict--a catastrophe
with lessons for everyone. The three Irishmen under arrest in
Bogota took an interest in Colombia before the "war on terrorism"
confidence trick really began. Tony Blair's government has used
the men's predicament to deceive people about British policy
in Ireland just as he, Aznar and George Bush have lied about
Iraq. Connolly, MacAuley and Monaghan risk becoming forgotten
pawns in this cynical geo-political propaganda war.
Toni Solo
is an activist based in Central America and can be reached at:
tonisolo52@yahoo.com
Notes 1. Hernando Calvo Ospina, "Pinochet,
la CIA y los terroristas cubanos", 23 de agosto del 2003,
www.rebelion.org.
Ospina's essay summarises evidence from many reliable sources
that Bosch, Novo, Paz, Posada and others were part of the US/Chilean
supported terrorist gang--at one time authorised by Vernon Walters,
later US representative to the UN--responsible for the following
crimes among many others:
* In 1974, the murder of Chilean General
Carlos Prats and his wife in Buenos Aires
* In February 1975 an attack on Chilean
exiles Carlos Altamirano and Volodia Teitelboim in Mexico.
* October 1975, in Rome, an attack against
Bernardo Leighton a Chilean dissident politician.
* March 1976. Failed murder attempt in
Costa Rica against Chilean dissident Pascal Allende.
* August 1976 after failing in a kidnap
attempt on the Cuban ambassador on Buenos Aires, the gang kidnapped
and disappeared two other Cuban diplomats.
* In September 1976, the murder of ex-Chilean
Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier and his American assistant,
Ronni Moffit in Washington.
* In October 1976 the gang bombed a civilian
Cuban airliner causing over 70 deaths.
2. Orlando Bosch was about to be deported
from the US in 1988. George Bush Sr. blocked it. His son George
W. Bush had Virgilio Paz freed from deportation custody just
before September 11th 2001. Florida governor Jeb Bush relies
on organizations that have harboured and supported these terrorists--such
as the National Cuban American Foundation--to fund his re-election
campaigns. For the Posada Carriles connection see the report
by Ann Bardach. July 12-13, 1998 New York Times.
3.Contractors playing increasing role
in U.S. drug war. Tod Robberson DALLAS MORNING NEWS. Sunday,
27 February 2000.
4. Doing the United States Dirty Work.
Israel and the Colombian paramilitaries. Jeremy Bigwood. Augist
15th 2003 www.rebelion.org
5. US Biological Terrorism in Colombia.
How Dr. Mengele Might Wage the
Drug War. Jeffrey St. Clair. Counterpunch 2003
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 1 / 7, 2003
Neve Gordon
Strategic
Abuse: Outsourcing Human Rights Violations
Gary Leupp
Shiites
Humiliate Bush
Saul Landau
Fidel
and The Prince
Denis Halliday
Of Sanctions and Bombings: the UN Failed the People of Iraq
John Feffer
Hexangonal Headache: N. Korea Talks Were a Disaster
Ron Jacobs
The Stage of History
M. Shahid Alam
Pakistan "Recognizes" Israel
Laura Carlson
The Militarization of the Americas
Elaine Cassel
The Forgotten Prisoners of Guantanamo
James T. Phillips
The Mumbo-Jumbo War
Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: Slumlords of the Internet
Walter A. Davis
Living in Death's Dream Kingdom
Adam Engel
Midnight's Inner Children
Poets' Basement
Stein, Guthrie and Albert
Book of the Weekend
It Became Necessary to Destroy the Planet in Order to Save It
by Khalil Bendib
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|