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Today's
Stories
October
15, 2003
Uri Avnery
Three
Days as a Living Shield
October
14, 2003
Eric Ridenour
Qibya
& Sharon: Anniversary of a Massacre
Elaine
Cassel
The
Disgrace That is Guantanamo
Robert
Jensen
What the "Fighting Sioux" Tells Us About White People
David Lindorff
Talking Turkey About Iraq
Patrick
Cockburn
US Troops Bulldoze Crops
VIPS
One Person Can Make a Difference
Toni Solo
The CAFTA Thumbscrews
Peter
Linebaugh
"Remember
Orr!"
Website
of the Day
BRIDGES
October
11 / 13, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
October 10, 2003
John Chuckman
Schwarzenegger
and the Lottery Society
Toni Solo
Trashing
Free Software
Chris
Floyd
Body
Blow: Bush Joins the Worldwide War on Women
October
9, 2003
Jennifer
Loewenstein
Bombing
Syria
Ramzi
Kysia
Seeing
the Iraqi People
Fran Shor
Groping the Body Politic
Mark Hand
President Schwarzenegger?
Alexander
Cockburn
Welcome
to Arnold, King for a Day
Website of the Day
The Awful Truth about Wesley Clark
October
8, 2003
David
Lindorff
Schwarzenegger
and the Failure of the Centrist Dems
Ramzy
Baroud
Israel's
WMDs and the West's Double Standard
John Ross
Mexico
Tilts South
Mokhiber
/ Weissman
Repub Guru Compares Taxes to the Holocaust
James
Bovard
The
Reagan Roadmap for Antiterrorism Disaster
Michael
Neumann
One
State or Two?
A False Dilemma
October
7, 2003
Uri Avnery
Slow-Motion
Ethnic Cleansing
Stan Goff
Lost in the Translation at Camp Delta
Ron Jacobs
Yom Kippurs, Past and Present
David
Lindorff
Coronado in Iraq
Rep. John Conyers, Jr.
Outing a CIA Operative? Why A Special Prosecutor is Required
Cynthia
McKinney
Who Are "We"?
Elaine Cassel
Shock and Awe in the Moussaoui Case
Walter
Lippman
Thoughts on the Cali Recall
Gary Leupp
Israel's
Attack on Syria: Who's on the Wrong Side of History, Now?
Website
of the Day
Cable News Gets in Touch With It's Inner Bigot
October
6, 2003
Robert
Fisk
US
Gave Israel Green Light for Raid on Syria
Forrest
Hylton
Upheaval
in Bolivia: Crisis and Opportunity
Benjamin Dangl
Divisions Deepen in Third Week of Bolivia's Gas War
Bridget
Gibson
Oh, Pioneers!: Bush's New Deal
Bob Fitrakis and Harvey
Wasserman
The Bush-Rove-Schwarzenegger Nazi Nexus
Nicole
Gamble
Rios Montt's Campaign Threatens Genocide Trials
JoAnn
Wypijewski
The
New Unity Partnership:
A Manifest Destiny for Labor
Website
of the Day
Guerrilla Funk
October
3 / 5, 2003
Tim Wise
The
Other Race Card: Rush and the Politics of White Resentment
Peter
Linebaugh
Rhymsters
and Revolutionaries: Joe Hill and the IWW
Gary Leupp
Occupation
as Rape-Marriage
Bruce
Jackson
Addio
Alle Armi
David Krieger
A Nuclear 9/11?
Ray McGovern
L'Affaire Wilsons: Wives are Now "Fair Game" in Bush's
War on Whistleblowers
Col. Dan Smith
Why Saddam Didn't Come Clean
Mickey
Z.
In Our Own Image: Teaching Iraq How to Deal with Protest
Roger Burbach
Bush Ideologues v. Big Oil in Iraq
John Chuckman
Wesley Clark is Not Cincinnatus
William S. Lind
Versailles on the Potomac
Glen T.
Martin
The Corruptions of Patriotism
Anat Yisraeli
Bereavement as Israeli Ethos
Wayne
Madsen
Can the Republicans Get Much Worse? Sure, They Can
M. Junaid Alam
The Racism Barrier
William
Benzon
Scorsese's Blues
Adam Engel
The Great American Writing Contest
Poets'
Basement
McNeill, Albert, Guthrie
October
2, 2003
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
What's
So Great About Gandhi, Anyway?
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
The
Ashcroft-Rove Connection
Doug Giebel
Kiss and Smear: Novak and the Valerie Plame Affair
Hamid
Dabashi
The Moment of Myth: Edward Said (1935-2003)
Elaine Cassel
Chicago Condemns Patriot Act
Saul Landau
Who
Got Us Into This Mess?
Website of the Day
Last Day to Save Beit Arabiya!
October 1, 2003
Joanne
Mariner
Married
with Children: the Supremes and Gay Families
Robert
Fisk
Oil,
War and Panic
Ron Jacobs
Xenophobia
as State Policy
Elaine
Cassel
The
Lamo Case: Secret Subpoenas and the Patriot Act
Shyam
Oberoi
Shooting
a Tiger
Toni Solo
Plan Condor, the Sequel?
Sean Donahue
Wesley
Clark and the "No Fly" List
Website of the Day
Downloader Legal Defense Fund
September
30, 2003
After
Dark
Arnold's
1977 Photo Shoot
Dave Lindorff
The
Poll of the Shirt: Bush Isn't Wearing Well
Tom Crumpacker
The
Cuba Fixation: Shaking Down American Travelers
Robert
Fisk
A
Lesson in Obfuscation
Charles
Sullivan
A
Message to Conservatives
Suren Pillay
Edward Said: a South African Perspective
Naeem
Mohaiemen
Said at Oberlin: Hysteria in the Face of Truth
Amy Goodman
/ Jeremy Scahill
Does
a Felon Rove the White House?
Website
of the Day
The Edward Said Page
September 29, 2003
Robert
Fisk
The
Myths of Western Intelligence Agencies
Iain A. Boal
Turn It Up: Pardon Mzwakhe Mbuli!
Lee Sustar
Paul
Krugman: the Last Liberal?
Wayne Madsen
General Envy? Think Shinseki, Not Clark
Benjamin
Dangl
Bolivia's Gas War
Uri Avnery
The
Magnificent 27
Pledge
Drive of the Day
Antiwar.com
September
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Alan
Dershowitz, Plagiarist
David Price
Teaching Suspicions
Saul Landau
Before the Era of Insecurity
Ron Jacobs
The Chicago Conspiracy Trial and
the Patriot Act
Brian
Cloughley
The Strangeloves Win Again
Norman Solomon
Wesley and Me: a Real-Life Docudrama
Robert
Fisk
Bomb Shatters Media Illusions
M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Sage Visits the USA
John Chuckman
American Psycho: Bush at the UN
Mark Schneider
International Direct Action
The Spanish Revolution to the Palestiniana Intifada
William
S. Lind
How $87 Billion Could Buy Some Real Security
Douglas Valentine
Gold Warriors: the Plundering of Asia
Chris
Floyd
Vanishing Act
Elaine Cassel
Play Cat and Moussaoui
Richard
Manning
A Conservatism that Once Conserved
George Naggiar
The Beautiful Mind of Edward Said
Omar Barghouti
Edward Said: a Corporeal Dream Not Yet Realized
Lenni Brenner
Palestine's Loss is America's Loss
Mickey
Z.
Edward Said: a Well-Reasoned Voice
Tanweer Akram
The Legacy of Edward Said
Adam Engel
War in the Smoking Room
Poets' Basement
Katz, Ford, Albert & Guthrie
Website
of the Weekend
Who the Hell is Stew Albert?
September
25, 2003
Edward
Said
Dignity,
Solidarity and the Penal Colony
Robert
Fisk
Fanning
the Flames of Hatred
Sarah
Ferguson
Wolfowitz at the New School
David
Krieger
The
Second Nuclear Age
Bill Glahn
RIAA Doublespeak
Al Krebs
ADM and the New York Times: Covering Up Corporate Crime
Michael
S. Ladah
The Obvious Solution: Give Iraq Back to the Arabs
Fran Shor
Arnold and Wesley
Mustafa
Barghouthi
Edward Said: a Monument to Justice and Human Rights
Alexander Cockburn
Edward Said: a Mighty and Passionate
Heart
Website
of the Day
Edward Said: a Lecture on the Tragedy of Palestine
The Great Alejandro Escavedo Needs Your Help!
September 24, 2003
Stan Goff
Generational
Casualties: the Toxic Legacy of the Iraq War
William
Blum
Grand Illusions About Wesley Clark
David
Vest
Politics
for Bookies
Jon Brown
Stealing Home: The Real Looting is About to Begin
Robert Fisk
Occupation and Censorship
Latino
Military Families
Bring Our Children Home Now!
Neve Gordon
Sharon's
Preemptive Zeal
Website
of the Day
Bands Against Bush
September
23, 2003
Bernardo
Issel
Dancing
with the Diva: Arianna and Streisand
Gary Leupp
To
Kill a Cat: the Unfortunate Incident at the Baghdad Zoo
Gregory
Wilpert
An
Interview with Hugo Chavez on the CIA in Venezuela
Steven
Higgs
Going to Jail for the Cause--Part 2: Charity Ryerson, Young and
Radical
Stan Cox
The Cheney Tapes: Can You Handle the Truth?
Robert
Fisk
Another Bloody Day in the Death of Iraq
William S. Lind
Learning from Uncle Abe: Sacking the Incompetent
Elaine
Cassel
First They Come for the Lawyers, Then the Ministers
Yigal
Bronner
The
Truth About the Wall
Website
of the Day
The
Baghdad Death Count
September
20 / 22, 2003
Uri Avnery
The
Silliest Show in Town
Alexander
Cockburn
Lighten
Up, America!
Peter Linebaugh
On the Bicentennial of the Execution of Robert Emmet
Anne Brodsky
Return
to Afghanistan
Saul Landau
Guillermo and Me
Phan Nguyen
Mother Jones Smears Rachel Corrie
Gila Svirsky
Sharon, With Eyes Wide Open
Gary Leupp
On Apache Terrorism
Kurt Nimmo
Colin
Powell: Exploiting the Dead of Halabja
Brian
Cloughley
Colin Powell's Shame
Carol Norris
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
Bill Glahn
The Real Story Behind RIAA Propaganda
Adam Engel
An Interview with Danny Scechter, the News Dissector
Dave Lindorff
Good Morning, Vietnam!
Mark Scaramella
Contracts and Politics in Iraq
John Ross
WTO
Collapses in Cancun: Autopsy of a Fiasco Foretold
Justin Podur
Uribe's Desperate Squeals
Toni Solo
The Colombia Three: an Interview with Caitriona Ruane
Steven Sherman
Workers and Globalization
David
Vest
Masked and Anonymous: Dylan's Elegy for a Lost America
Ron Jacobs
Politics of the Hip-Hop Pimps
Poets
Basement
Krieger, Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Ted Honderich:
Terrorism for Humanity?
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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?
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Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
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October
15, 2003
War and Peace in Bolivia
"Like
Animals They Kill Us"
By
FORREST HYLTON
"Like animals they kill us. They
come to surround us at us with planes and helicopters and tanks,
not even animals are killed like this, there are children here
yet they're entering people's houses, to look for leaders. Here's
the proof--the bullets. "
Aymara woman from Rio Seco, El Alto
Since October 12, at least fifty-nine civilians
have died in Bolivia as a result of government repression. More
than two hundred have been injured, and the number of detained
and disappeared is unknown. Instead of negotiating with a non-violent
Aymara movement based in El Alto, which now extends to the hillside
neighborhoods of Upper Miraflores, Munaypata, Villa Victoria,
Villa del Carmen, Villa Fatima and the Cemetery of La Paz, President
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada went on CNN to declare that the protests
were being financed with foreign funds from well-intentioned
NGOs, whose naive sympathies with the plight of indigenous people
has led them to support terrorist leaders like Evo Morales, who
has visited Libya, and Felipe Quispe, an ex-guerrilla of the
EGTK (Guerrilla Army Tupak Katari). According to Sanchez de Lozada,
the alternative to his reign would be an "authoritarian,
trade union dictatorship." Just as Alvaro Uribe accused
human rights NGOs of supporting terrorism in September, so Sanchez
de Lozada accuses indigenous rights NGOs of supporting terrorism
in October. He contends that Sendero Luminoso as well as the
Colombian FARC and ELN are operating in Bolivia, and on October
9, District Attorney Rene Arzabe brought coca grower Mercelino
Janko to jail in La Paz in connection with the "drugs and
terrorism" case of Pacho Cortes, Carmelo Penaranda and Claudio
Ramirez, peasant leaders who are currently detained (illegally)
in the Chonchocoro Maximum Security Prison.
On October 13, Condi Rice expressed the
Bush administration's support for the democratic, constitutional
rule of Sanchez de Lozada, as did the OAS. Rice's declaration
needs to be placed in context: Bush called Ariel Sharon a "man
of peace"; Colin Powell is impressed with Alvaro Uribe's
"commitment" to human rights. The semantic pattern
is clear. Of course the evidence for anything other than imperially
supported state terror_of the type that characterized Bolivia's
worst dictatorships (Garcia Meza and Natusch Bush)_weighs heavily
against Sanchez de Lozada, but didn't Rumsfeld say, "The
absence of evidence is not necessarily the evidence of absence?"
Didn't Bush insist that Saddam Hussein had a connection to the
events of September 11, although the "intelligence"
agencies of the North Atlantic, including the CIA, insisted he
did not?
The average marcher from El Alto earns
no more that $105 per month, and many earn less. Few have contacts
with NGOs, and neighborhood organizations are funded with what
little residents can contribute, since municipal funds are embezzled
and misspent by the mayor. Poverty does not adversely affect
the collective discipline of the Altenos, however. Looting and
property destruction were not permitted. Since the march was
organized by neighborhood, marchers knew one another and did
not allow unknown people to participate or provoke the police
or military. The response of neighborhood residents below the
cemetery and descending to the city center was to applaud and
offer food and water to the marchers. Street corners were plastered
with homemade signs expressing solidarity with the pain and aims
of the marchers, and the poorer neighborhoods of the northern
hillsides and southern outskirts of La Paz marched toward the
center to show their support. Perhaps as many as 100,000 filled
the city center, forming an oblong-shaped chain bisected by those
who filled El Prado (the main street in La Paz), from the Plaza
del Estudiante to Perez Velasco, calling for the renunciation
of Sanchez de Lozada, the industrialization of Bolivian gas for
Bolivians, the repeal of privatization laws, as well as the re-foundation
of the country along participatory democratic lines, via a Constituent
Assembly. By early afternoon, the 4th regiment of the police
waved white banners from their post just below the Plaza de San
Francisco, and other regiments ceased to patrol the city.
In the October 13 march from El Alto
to La Paz, protestors, armed only with wooden clubs and poles,
took no lives, and destroyed only one building, Shopping Dorian's,
on the corner of Sagarnaga and Murillo behind the Plaza de San
Francisco_from the top of which a sniper had killed a young,
unarmed man who was running from tear gas. Two other buildings
were burned_the seats of two political parties, NFR and the ruling
MNR_but both had been destroyed in the uprising of February 12,
and neither had been rebuilt. Protestors attempted to occupy
the residence of former president Jaime Paz Zamora in Cota Cota,
but Paz Zamora_leader of MIR, the principal coalition partner
of Sanchez de Lozada's MNR_was rescued by US intelligence operatives.
In El Alto, backed by protestors, a cousin of Paz Zamora's forced
the military to pull back, and Altenos proceeded to burn a tank.
As this incident demonstrates, a considerable number of rank-and-file
militants in the ruling political parties are in conflict with
their leaders. Nor is dissent within the military confined to
the high command: private Edgar Lecona was shot and killed by
his superior for refusing to murder his Aymara brothers and sisters.
The southern area of La Paz is designed
like a US suburb, and many in the zona sur share the values and
habits of the average American suburbanite, so when Aymara peasants
and workers came out to protest in solidarity with Altenos, they
were met with an abundance of bullets. Four died in Obejuyo,
near Chasquipampa, and at least six died in Apana, a semi-rural
community located on the road to Illimani, the snow-capped peak
that towers more than 1500m above La Paz. In El Alto, where soldiers
killed twenty-five Aymaras on October 12, "only" three
were killed on October 13: a one year-old was asphyxiated by
tear gas, a woman was shot on her balcony in Rio Seco, while
another woman died in Rio Seco when someone blew up a gas station,
which left twenty civilians with severe burns. Meanwhile, in
Cochabamba, the Plaza 14 de Septiembre was occupied by the military
in the afternoon, and protesters were dispersed with tear gas
throughout the afternoon and evening. In the Chapare lowlands,
blockades went ahead as planned, with one coca grower killed
in San Julian, Santa Cruz. Blockades continued in the southern
highlands of Potosi and Chuquisaca as well.
On October 14, while maintaining their
civic strike, Altenos rested, mourned their dead, and plotted
their next move, while marches and civic strikes in Cobija, Sucre,
Potosi, Oruro and Cochabamba paralyzed the country and demanded
the renunciation of Sanchez de Lozada. In the zona sur of La
Paz, Bolivian Green Berets patrolled the streets, while in Calacoto,
Rangers flown in from Santa Cruz harassed small groups of marchers
who had ascended to the city center to protest the massacre of
October 13. It seems the only thing that could stem this tidal
wave of popular mobilization against neoliberalism and its leading
representative in Bolivia would be the president's resignation,
or the repeal of the law regulating privatization and multinational
investment, along with the convocation of a Constituent Assembly.
At the time of writing, Sanchez de Lozada is negotiating with
Manfred Reyes Villa, leader of the NFR, and once he has the support
of Reyes Villa, Sanchez de Lozada will most likely declare a
State of Siege. The president and his closest allies have calculated
that by killing three to four hundred opposition leaders, intellectuals
and students, and detaining between one thousand and twelve hundred,
they can "pacify" the country. Though four US military
officials are directing operations on the ground; though thousands
of troops have been flown in from the eastern lowlands of Beni,
Santa Cruz and Pando; and though the military high command issued
a communique on October 13 in support of Sanchez de Lozada, a
massacre of gross proportions a la Pinochet may be out of the
question, because an important current within the high command
recognizes the democratic nature of popular demands and would
like to see the Minister of Defense, Carlos Sanchez Berzain,
dead. A State of Siege entailing mass killings and detentions
could easily divide the army, at which point the war cry of the
unarmed Altenos--"now for sure, civ-il war"_could materialize.
If it does, it will likely begin on the afternoon of October
15 or the morning of October 16.
One can only hope that with the backing
of the opposition movements, and before it's too late to stop
the bloodshed, Vice-President Carlos Mesa calls an extraordinary
session of Parliament to demand Sanchez de Lozada's resignation,
the repeal of the laws regulating privatization and multinational
investment, and the formation of a Constituent Assembly. Fifty-one
years after its first national revolution, which brought the
MNR to power, Bolivia is ready for another_one which wil bury
the MNR once and for all.
Forrest Hylton
is conducting doctoral research in history in Bolivia and can
be reached at forresthylton@hotmail.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for Sept. 26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Kay's
Misleading Report; CIA/MI-6 Syrian Plot; Dershowitz Flaps Broken
Wings
Saul Landau
Contradictions: Pumping Empire and Losing Job Muscles
Phillip Cryan
The War on Human Rights in Colombia
Kurt Nimmo
Cuba and the "Necessary Viciousness" of the Bushites
Nelson P. Valdes
Traveling to Cuba: Where There's a Will, There's a Way
Lisa Viscidi
The Guatemalan Elections: Fraud, Intimidation and Indifference
Maria Trigona and Fabian
Pierucci
Allende Lives
Larry
Tuttle
States of Corruption
William A. Cook
Failing America
Brian
Cloughley
US Economic Space and New Zealand
Adrian Zupp
What Would Buddha Do? Why Won't the Dalai Lama Pick a Fight?
Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The Strange and Tragic Case of Sherman Marlin Austin
Ben Tripp
Screw You Right Back: CIA FU!
Lee Ballinger
Grits Ain't Groceries
Mickey Z.
Not All Italians Love Columbus
Bruce
Jackson
On Charles Burnett's "Warming By the Devil's Fire"
William Benzon
The Door is Open: Scorsese's Blues, 2
Adam Engel
The Eyes of Lora Shelley
Walt Brasch
Facing a McBlimp Attack
Poets'
Basement
Mickey Z, Albert, Kearney
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