Coming
in October
From AK Press
Today's
Stories
September 16, 2003
Patrick Cockburn
The
Iraq Wreck
September 15, 2003
Stan Goff
It Was
the Oil; It Is Like Vietnam
Robert Fisk
A Hail of Bullets, a Trail of Dead
Writers Bloc
We
Are Winning: a Report from Cancun
James T. Phillips
Does George Bush Cry?
Elaine Cassel
The Troublesome Bill of Rights
Cynthia McKinney
A Message to the People of New York City
Matthew Behrens
Sunday Morning Coming Down: Reflections on Johnny Cash
Uri Avnery
Assassinating
Arafat
Hammond Guthrie
Celling Out the Alarm
Website of the Day
Arnold and the Egg
Recent
Stories
September 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
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
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
Demonstration 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.
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September
16, 2003
Isabel and the Lack
of Homeland Security
An
Ill Wind and American Policy
By ROSEMARY and WALT
BRASCH
America has already spent more than $80 billion
in the past year on its war on terrorism, and the president
has asked Congress for another $87 billion, most of it to rebuild
Iraq. The appropriated budget for the Federal Emergency Management
Agency (FEMA), dwindling each year, is $1.8 billion.
Within hours, the 400-mile wide Isabel,
a Category 3/4 hurricane packing winds of 100-140 miles per hour,
will hit between North Carolina and New Jersey. Its victims will
have to be content with leftovers. Our nation's disaster preparedness
doesn't meet the needs that any sizeable disaster might bring.
FEMA is severely underfunded. Red Cross disaster funds are negligible.
With thousands of National Guard companies deployed--now up to
a year each -most east coast states don't have the manpower or
resources it needs for a sustained recovery program.
Because of limited access and egress
from the coastal areas, and stick construction of thousands of
houses valued at $300,000 and more, the physical damage can be
significant, says Frank Lepore of the National Hurricane Center.
Heavy rains are expected into Pennsylvania and the northeast
corridor, with probable flooding. The hurricane has the potential
to cause a large loss of life, says Lepore.
Residents along the coastal areas hoping
to cover their doors and windows in preparation for the storm
are paying as much as 30-35 percent more for plywood than six
months ago. It's not greed by the lumber yards, but supply. The
federal government bought most of our plywood to send to Iraq
for rebuilding there, says Aaron Johnson of 84 Lumber, Raleigh,
N.C. The scarcity of plywood is felt throughout the east coast.
Complicating the problem, because of heavy rainfall in the summer,
most mills aren't open, says Mark Schneider, of Hugh's Lumber
Co., Charleston, S.C.
FEMA's disaster relief fund, prior to
an emergency allocation this past summer, was at a dangerously
low level, resulting in significant cut-backs on service, according
to the National Emergency Management Association. The hurricane
season isn't over until December. Hurricane Andrew, a Category
4 storm, hit the Florida coast in 1992 with the fury of what
might be best described as a massive air attack. Neighborhoods
were leveled; schools, churches, stores, and factories were destroyed;
the people were left without shelter, food, water, gas, electricity--and
jobs. It wasn't just for hours or days, but weeks, months, and
in some cases, years.
The cost for Andrew is estimated at $25
billion, according to the Red Cross; insurance payouts were about
$15 billion of that; several companies went into bankruptcy.
The Red Cross, at the scene before the hurricane hit, was still
working with its victims 10 years later.
Following Andrew in 1992, social service
agencies--along with FEMA and the National Guard--fed, clothed,
and sheltered the victims. The Guard from several states evacuated
victims and policed against looters; it provided tents, water,
and food; military trucks hauled debris, cleared by Guardsmen.
They carried workers and materials to rebuild Florida. Social
service agencies provided emergency food, clothing, and shelter--often
as far as 100 miles away from the destruction, since utilities
were non-existent in the hurricane areas. Although FEMA was slow
to react under the Bush I administration, it eventually provided
significant assistance, then was reorganized under the Clinton
administration to provide a more efficient response.
The Pennsylvania National Guard has adequate
manpower, according to Lt. Col. Chris Cleaver, with only 3,000
of its 20,000 member force currently deployed. However, most
Guard units in other states have manpower and equipment shortages
because of overseas deployment. Most state Guard units should
be able to handle the immediate evacuation and recovery. However,
long term recovery will probably be a problem.
Because of deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan,
Bosnia, Kosovo, and Guantanamo Bay, the South Carolina National
Guard is short-handed, according to Lt. Col. Pete Brooks.
That state's Guard is operating with less than 75 percent strength.
Most of the Guard's trucks, bulldozers, and heavy equipment are
in Iraq, according to Brooks.
Because of current overseas deployment,
with others on active alert, the North Carolina National Guard
is at half-strength,
according to Senior Airman Lyndsey Leffel, the Guard's public
affairs specialist. Senior officers in New Jersey and Virginia
agreeSenior officers in New Jersey, Virginia, and North Carolina
National Guards agree their manpower and equipment can handle
the initial problems. It's long-term recovery that may drain
their states resources.
Governors can request assistance from
other states Guard units. But, with a wide-spread destruction
expected, states will have to hire private companies. The cost
to to do the work the National Guard could do could be several
hundred million dollars.
The Red Cross disaster relief fund is
in a very precarious situation, according to Kelly Donaghy,
Red Cross spokesman. We like to have at least $56 million on
hand, she says. We have almost nothing. The Red Cross estimates
it would need at least $100 million for recovery from Isabel.
Funds donated to the Red Cross for the 9/11 Fund may not be spent
on anything but 9/11 victims. All social service agencies which
normally would be involved with disaster relief have had to do
with less as unemployment and a declining economy under the current
administration, combined with the largest national deficit in
more than a decade, has affected charitable contributions.
When a substantial minority of Americans
opposed sending several hundred thousand soldiers to Iraq, and
argued that the costs of war would haunt us for decades, they
were branded unpatriotic. When they argued that the Department
of Homeland Security was more of a public relations ploy than
any serious attempt to coordinate homeland security, they were
branded traitors.
Iraq, as we now know, even under a ruthless
thug, didn't harbor the terrorists the President claimed, it
had no weapons of mass destruction, and it posed no imminent
threat to the security of the American people. But, a Category
3 hurricane does pose an imminent threat, as do forest fires,
blizzards, and floods. The Department of Homeland Security, instead
of concentrating its resources upon a disaster that can kill
several thousand Americans and leave several hundred thousand
injured and homeless, is still trying to figure out why it can't
stop people with box cutters from boarding airplanes in America.
While we can't put natural disasters
into the same category as an al-Qaeda attack, they both encompass
a fear of imminent danger. Death and destruction by a Category
3/4 hurricane is more imminent than an attack by Iraq ever was--and
could leave more death and destruction than 9/11. Neither our
home nor our land is secure.
Rosemary R. Brasch, a Red Cross family services specialist for
national disasters, has worked several hurricanes along the East
Coast. Walter M. Brasch, an author and professor of journalism,
is active in emergency management. You may contact the Brasches
at brasch@bloomu.edu.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 13 / 14, 2003
Michael Neumann
Anti-Americanism:
Too Much of a Good Thing?
Jeffrey St. Clair
Anatomy of a Swindle
Gary Leupp
The Matrix of Ignorance
Ron Jacobs
Reagan's America
Brian Cloughley
Up to a Point, Lord Rumsfeld
William S. Lind
Making Mesopotamia a Terrorist Magnet
Werther
A Modest Proposal for the Pentagon
Dave Lindorff
Friendly Fire Will Doom the Occupation
Toni Solo
Fiction and Reality in Colombia: The Trial of the Bogota Three
Elaine Cassel
Juries and the Death Penalty
Mickey Z.
A Parable for Cancun
Jeffrey Sommers
Issam Nashashibi: a Life Dedicated to the Palestinian Cause
David Vest
Driving in No Direction (with a Glimpse of Johnny Cash)
Michael Yates
The Minstrel Show
Jesse Walker
Adios, Johnny Cash
Adam Engel
Something Killer
Poets' Basement
Cash, Albert, Curtis, Linhart
Website of the Weekend
Local Harvest
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