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Today's
Stories
December 22, 2003
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
December 19, 2003
Elaine Cassel
Courts
Rebuke Bush for Trampling the Constitution
Robert Fisk
Raid
on Fantasyville: Shooting Samarra's Schoolboys in the Back
Zoltan Grossman
The
Occupation Has Failed to "Capture" the Loyalty of Iraqis
Mike Whitney
Bush's
Afghan Highway to Nowhere
Harold Gould
Has the Radical Arab Strategy Really Worked?
Gary Leupp
The
Neocon's Dream Memo
Last summer, CounterPunch hosted
Nalini Gwynne and Paul Flight for a concert of extraordinary
duets by these professional singers, ranging from Handel to old
Irish folksongs. She's a Welsh/Punjabi soprano; he's an All-American
counter-tenor. They ended the concert in CounterPunch's ciderhouse
with their Carols for Palestine, now
available on CD. Savage adaptions of such familiar caroles
as: While Sheperds Watch Their Flocks at Night. In Occupied Palestine/Israelis
build their prison wall / a people to confine.
December 18, 2003
Ann Harrison
A
Landmark Victory for Medical Pot
John L. Hess
Catfish
Blues: The SOB's from Out of Town
Karyn Strickler
Ebola
is Good for You!
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Duryodhana
Dies
Harry Browne
Hail
Jim Hickey, the "Irish Hero" of the Colonial Occupation
of Iraq
Hammond Guthrie
Captured in Abasement
December 17, 2003
Robert Fisk
Saddam's
Cold Comforts
Gideon Levy
"Don't
Even Think About the Children"
Marjorie Cohn
The Fortuitous
Arrest of Saddam: a Pyrrhic Victory?
Andrew Cockburn
Saddam's
Last Act
December 16, 2003
Robert Fisk
Getting
Saddam...15 Years Too Late
Mahajan / Jensen
Saddam
in Irons: The Hard Truths Remain
John Halle
Matt
Gonzalez and Me
Josh Frank
The
Democrats and Saddam
Tariq Ali
Saddam
on Parade: the New Model of Imperialism
December 15, 2003
Robert Fisk
The Capture
of Saddam Won't Stop the Guerrilla War
Dave Lindorff
The
Saddam Dilemma
Abu Spinoza
Blowback on the Stand: The Trial of Saddam Hussein
Norman Solomon
For
Telling the Truth: the Strange Case of Katharine Gun
Patrick Cockburn
The
Capture of Saddam
Stew Albert
Joy to the World
December 13 / 14, 2003
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
Stan Goff
Jessica Lynch, Plural
Tariq Ali
The Same Old Racket in Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Map is not the Territory
Marty Bender / Stan Cox
Dr. Atkins vs. the Planet
Christopher Brauchli
Mercury Rising: the EPA's Presents to Industry
Gary Leupp
On Marriage in "Recorded History", an Open Letter to
Gov. Mitt Romney
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Saga of Iran's Alleged WMD
Larry Everest
Saddam, Oil and Empire: Supply v. Demand
William S. Lind
How to Fight a 4th Generation War
Fran Shor
From Vietnam to Iraq: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency
Ron Jacobs
Child Abuse as Public Policy
Omar Barghouti
Relative Humanity and a Just Peace in the Middle East
Adam Engel
Pretty Damn Evil: an Interview with Ed Herman
Kristin Van Tassel
Breastfeeding Compromised
Ben Tripp
On Getting Stabbed
Susan Davis
"The Secret Lives of Dentists", a Review
Dave Zirin
Does Dylan Still Matter? an Interview with Mike Marqusee
Norman Madarasz
Searching for the Barbarians
Poets' Basement
Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Dean on Race
December 12, 2003
Josh Frank
Halliburton,
Timber and Dean
Chris Floyd
The
Inhuman Stain
Dave Lindorff
Infanticide
as Liberation: Hiding the Dead Babies
Benjamin Dangl
Another Two Worlds Are Possible?
Jean-Paul Barrois
Two States or One? an Interview with Sami Al-Deeb on the Geneva
Accords
David Vest
Bush
Drops the Mask: They Died for Halliburton
December 11, 2003
Siegfried Sassoon
A
Soldier's Declaration Against War
Douglas Valentine
Preemptive
Manhunting: the CIA's New Assassination Program
John Chuckman
The Parable of Samarra
Peter Phillips
US Hypocrisy on War Crimes: Corp Media Goes Along for the Ride
James M. Carter
The
Merchants of Blood: War Profiteering from Vietnam to Iraq
December 10, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
The
War According to Newt Gingrich
Pat Youngblood / Robert
Jensen
Workers
Rights are Human Rights
Jeff Guntzel
On Killing Children
CounterPunch Wire
Ashcroft Threatens to Subpoena Journalist's Notes in Stewart
Case
Dave Lindorff
Gore's
Judas Kiss
December 9, 2003
Michael Donnelly
A
Gentle Warrior Passes: Craig Beneville's Quiet Thunder
Chris White
A Glitch
in the Matrix: Where is East Timor Today?
Abu Spinoza
The Occupation Concertina: Pentagon Punishes Iraqis Israeli Style
Laura Carlsen
The FTAA: a Broken Consensus
Richard Trainor
Process and Profits: the California Bullet Train, Then and Now
Josh Frank
Politicians as Usual: Gore Dean and the Greens
Ron Jacobs
Remembering
John Lennon
December 8, 2003
Newton Garver
Bolivia
at a Crossroads
John Borowski
The
Fall of a Forest Defender: the Exemplary Life of Craig Beneville
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Revised Inspirations for War
Tess Harper
When Christians Kill
Thom Rutledge
My Next Step
Carol Wolman, MD
Nuclear
Terror and Psychic Numbing
Michael Neumann
Ignatieff:
Apostle of He-manitariansim
Website of the Day
Bust Bob Novak
December 6 / 7, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
The
UN: Should Be Late; Never Was Great
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The Politics of
Anti-Semitism"
Vicente Navarro
Salvador Dali, Fascist
Saul Landau
"Reality
Media": Michael Jackson, Bush and Iraq
Ben Tripp
How Bush Can Still Win
Gary Leupp
On Purchasing Syrian Beer
Ron Jacobs
Are We Doing Body Counts, Now?
Larry Everest
Oil, Power and Empire
Lee Sustar
Defying the Police State in Miami
Jacob Levich
When NGOs Attack: Implications for the Coup in Georgia
Toni Solo
Game Playing by Free Trade Rules: the Results from Indonesia
and Dominican Republic
Mark Scaramella
How to Fix the World Bank
Bruce Anderson
The San Francisco Mayor's Race
Brian Cloughley
Shredding the Owner's Manual: the Hollow Charter of the UN
Adam Engel
A Conversation with Tim Wise
Neve Gordon
Fuad and Ezra: an Update on Gays Under the Occupation
Kurt Nimmo
Bush Gives "Freedom" Medal to Robert Bartley
Tom Stephens
Justice Takes a Holiday
Susan Davis
Avast, Me Hearties! a Review of Disney's "Pirates of the
Caribbean"
Jeffrey St. Clair
A
Natural Eye: the Photography of Brett Weston
Mickey Z.
Press Box Red
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Orloski, Albert
T-shirt of the Weekend
Got Santorum?
December 5, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
Bremer
of the Tigris
Jeremy Brecher
Amistad
Revisited at Guantanamo?
Norman Solomon
Dean
and the Corp Media Machine
Norman Madarasz
France
Starts Facing Up to Anti-Muslim Discrimination
Pablo Mukherjee
Afghanistan:
the Road Back
December 4, 2003
M. Junaid Alam
Image
and Reality: an Interview with Norman Finkelstein
Adam Engel
Republican
Chris Floyd
Naked Gun: Sex, Blood and the FBI
Adam Federman
The US Footprint in Central Asia
Gary Leupp
The
Fall of Shevardnadze
Guthrie / Albert
RIP Clark Kerr
December 3, 2003
Stan Goff
Feeling
More Secure Yet?: Bush, Security, Energy & Money
Joanne Mariner
Profit Margins and Mortality Rates
George Bisharat
Who Caused the Palestinian Diaspora?
Mickey Z.
Tear Down That Wal-Mart
John Stanton
Bush Post-2004: a Nightmare Scenario
Harry Browne
Shannon
Warport: "No More Business as Usual"
December 2, 2003
Matt Vidal
Denial
and Deception: Before and Beyond Iraqi Freedom
Benjamin Dangl
An Interview with Evo Morales on the Colonization of the Americas
Sam Bahour
Can It Ever Really End?
Norman Solomon
That
Pew Poll on "Trade" Doesn't Pass the Sniff Test
Josh Frank
Trade
War Fears
Andrew Cockburn
Tired,
Terrified, Trigger-Happy
December 1, 2003
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Unholy
Alliances: Zionism, US Imperialism and Islamic Fundamentalism
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Baghdad Pitstop: Memories of LBJ in Vietnam
Harry Browne
Democracy Delayed in Northern Ireland
Wayne Madsen
Wagging the Media
Herman Benson
The New Unity Partnership for Labor: Bureaucratizing to Organize?
Gilad Atzmon
About
"World Peace"
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy and Intelligence: Monstrous Messes
November 29 / 30, 2003
Peter Linebaugh
On
the Anniversary of the Death of Wolfe Tone
Gary Leupp
Politicizing War on Fox News: a Tale of Two Memos
Saul Landau
Lying and Cheating:
Bush's New Political Math
Michael Adler
Inside a Miami Jail: One Activist's Narrative
Anthony Arnove
"They Put the Lie to Their Own Propaganda": an Interview
with John Pilger
Greg Weiher
Why Bush Needs Osama and Saddam
Stephen Banko, III
A Soldier's Dream
Forrest Hylton
Empire and Revolution in Bolivia
Toni Solo
The "Free Trade" History Eraser
Ben Terrall
Don't Think Twice: Bush Does Bali
Standard Schaefer
Unions
are the Answer to Supermarkets Woes
Richard Trainor
The Political Economy of Earthquakes: a Journey Across the Bay
Bridge
Mark Gaffney
US Congress Does Israel's Bidding, Again
Adam Engel
The System Really Works
Dave Lindorff
They, the Jury: How the System Rigs the Jury Pool
Susan Davis
Framing the Friedmans
Neve Gordon
Arundhati Roy's Complaint for Peace
Mitchel Cohen
Thomas Jefferson and Slavery
Ben Tripp
Capture Me, Daddy
Poets' Basement
Kearney, Albert, Guthrie and Smith
November 28, 2003
William S. Lind
Worse Than Crimes
David Vest
Turkey
Potemkin
Robert Jensen / Sam Husseini
New Bush Tape Raises Fears of Attacks
Wayne Madsen
Wag
the Turkey
Harold Gould
Suicide as WMD? Emile Durkheim Revisited
Gabriel Kolko
Vietnam
and Iraq: Has the US Learned Anything?
South Asia Tribune
The Story
of the Most Important Pakistan Army General in His Own Words
Website of the Day
Bush Draft
November 27, 2003
Mitchel Cohen
Why
I Hate Thanksgiving
Jack Wilson
An
Account of One Soldier's War
Stefan Wray
In the Shadows of the School of the Americas
Al Krebs
Food as Corporate WMD
Jim Scharplaz
Going Up Against Big Food: Weeding Out the Small Farmer
Neve Gordon
Gays
Under Occupation: Help Save the Life of Fuad Moussa
November 26, 2003
Paul de Rooij
Amnesty
International: the Case of a Rape Foretold
Bruce Jackson
Media
and War: Bringing It All Back Home
Stew Albert
Perle's
Confession: That's Entertainment
Alexander Cockburn
Miami and London: Cops in Two Cities
David Orr
Miami Heat
Tom Crumpacker
Anarchists
on the Beach
Mokhiber / Weissman
Militarization in Miami
Derek Seidman
Naming the System: an Interview with Michael Yates
Kathy Kelly
Hogtied
and Abused at Ft. Benning
Website of the Day
Iraq Procurement
November 25, 2003
Linda S. Heard
We,
the Besieged: Western Powers Redefine Democracy
Diane Christian
Hocus
Pocus in the White House: Of Warriors and Liberators
Mark Engler
Miami's
Trade Troubles
David Lindorff
Ashcroft's
Cointelpro
Website of the Day
Young McCarthyites of Texas
November 24, 2003
Jeremy Scahill
The
Miami Model
Elaine Cassel
Gulag
Americana: You Can't Come Home Again
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
Hot Stories
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?
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
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click Here
for More Stories.
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December
22, 2003
"Guilty of Being
a Palestinian in Iraq"
The
Two Troublemakers
By KATHY KELLY
Saturday evening, in Amman, we met with Fadi Elayyan
and Jihad Tahboub, two Palestinian young men who were imprisoned
for two months, without charge, by US Occupying forces who seized
them, in Baghdad, on April 10, 2003
They are trying to help four of their
companions who are still held by the US military, presumably
in a prison compound at Umm Qasr, in southern Iraq.
"On April 10, the US Marines kidnapped
us," Jihad began in a matter of fact tone. "We were
students, and we stayed in Baghdad during the war because we
did not want to give up our studies or leave our friends. The
Marines wanted to occupy our building because it is high and
gives a good view of the area. "
Some of the students had Palestinian
passports. When they asked what they were guilty of, the soldiers
said, "You are guilty of being Palestinian." The soldiers
told them, "You are not studying education in Baghdad. You
are studying terrorism."
"We said that we had citizen IDs
and we are students," said Fadi, but the soldiers insisted,
with guns pointed at their heads, "You are in Iraq and you
are terrorists."
Fadi, age 24, had been living in Baghdad
for six years. At the Mustansariya University, he was three months
short of achieving a degree in environmental engineering. Jihad,
age 23, studied hotel management.
Fadi and Jihad were released from a prison
in Umm Qasr, in southern Iraq, two months later, on June 10,
after a US military Tribunal issued each of them signed but undated
documents stating that there was no evidence to support a claim
that he committed a belligerent act against the Coalition forces.
Before being released, they had to sign a document stating that
the US military bore no responsibility for what had happened
to them while they were in custody.
"It was inhuman, the way they treated
us," said Fadi. "For the first seven days we were given
no food or water." On the first day, they were handcuffed
and taken to the Hasan Al Bakr Palace where they stayed overnight
on wet ground, outdoors. "We tried to bury ourselves in
the sand to keep warmer," Fadi recalled. "All the time
they were pointing their guns at us. They made us feel that we
are going to die now, they gonna kill us now." The next
day they were taken to Saddam Airport where they were again held
outside, in the cold, without food. "They were laughing
while they were searching us and throwing us on the ground. They
took pictures of us which they said they would send back to their
families in the US."
It was a full month before the International
Commission of the Red Cross enabled any contact between the students
and their families.
From the Saddam Airport, they were taken
to the Imam Ali Air Base at Nassiriyeh, traveling by truck. They
stayed there two days, again outdoors. If anyone screamed out,
they were beaten, by hand or by rifle butts.
From the Imam Ali Air Base, they were
moved to a huge prison compound in Umm Qasr where approximately
10,000 prisoners were held. Civilian prisoners were separated
from combatants. At first they were held in an area which consisted
of 15 compounds, each compound holding around 500 prisoners.
"They give you one blanket, but it's not enough. We did
not cover ourselves with the blanket, we used it as a mat,"
said Fadi.
"There was no place for us to stay
in the big tent," he continued, "so we built our own
tent by sticks. I asked for a stick from a guard who was outside
the fence. He didn't respond, so I asked, `Why don't you answer
me?' He said, `You are my enemy. I don't have to speak with you.'
I asked, `Who said I am your enemy?' He said, `If you say one
more word, I will kill you.'"
After initial processing in the large
compound they were moved to a second part of the prison called
"Bucca," named after a fireman who was killed at The
World Trade Center.
"There was a picture of the twin
towers in front of the prison," said Jihad, "just to
make the soldiers feel they are doing the right thing, just to
make them feel it is in the right way."
Fadi and Jihad particularly detested
the way their captors treated the children who were imprisoned
with them. "There were 13 year old kids in with us,"
Fadi said. "Sometimes they would throw candies from their
humvees, shouting `Bark like a dog, and I'll throw you the candy'.Some
of the small children were crying in the night, asking to go
home to their families. We were trying to get them quiet."
"Some of the prisoners were criminals,
thieves. They put the children with them. Some of them tried
to abuse children. We told the guards, they started laughing."
"One prisoner tried to rape a kid
and he refused, so they made a cut on his face."
Occasionally, Fadi and Jihad would refuse
to take their food because of the way soldiers in "The Feeding
Team" taunted them. "Say that you love Bush and I will
give you food," a soldier would say, before handing them
a bowl. "I told them, `I don't love Bush. I don't love Saddam,
I love only myself,'" said Fadi, but a person has to have
some honor. Telling them to keep the food, Fadi added, "Let
me go and I will cook my own food.'"
Fadi and Jihad tried to speak up on behalf
of other prisoners. "They called us 'the two troublemakers'
because we were the only two that spoke English in the whole
compound.
"After seven days we tried to make
our demands more organized. We didn't ask anything about our
legal situation because when we asked them they said it is not
our responsibility, so we started trying to make our living conditions
better."
"We were asking for enough food,
potable water, water for washing ourselves,-- skin diseases are
contagious one from another. We were asking for more medical
support. Many people had to make a dressing change. Many had
to take injections."
Sensing that some of the soldiers would
be aware of Fadi's and Jihad's strength of character, we asked
if they ever encountered some sensitivity on the part of the
soldiers. "Seldom would you find someone with feeling,"
was Fadi's response. "Maybe the girls, they would have more
feelings than men, but even they kept on laughing when they'd
see someone injured or in pain."
"The US soldiers are young, in their
twenties, I don't believe that any one of them will feel regret.
Most of them were saying, `If you do any wrong thing I will kill
you.' Most of them don't have feelings, any kind of feelings.
They just do what they are told to do."
"They don't care," Jihad added.
"One soldier was in a truck and she pointed at the American
flag and she said, `This is your flag.'"
When they were finally brought before
a tribunal, interrogators asked them if they had any information
about weapons of mass destruction or if they knew the whereabouts
of Saddam Hussein. The judge at the tribunal, a military officer,
determined that they should be released from administrative detention.
Soldiers drove them to Basra, the nearest large city, gave them
each five dollars, and set them free.
Now "the troublemakers" are
deeply troubled by the fate of their four companions who are
still imprisoned at Umm Qasr, "guilty" of being Palestinians.
Kathy Kelly
is a co-coordinator of Voices
in the Wilderness. She is traveling to Iraq with a Voices
team which will be in Baghdad for the next two weeks. She can
be reached at: kathy@vitw.org
Weekend
Edition Features for Dec. 13 / 14, 2003
Bill and Kathleen Christison
Chickenhearts
at Notre Dame: the Pervasive Fear of Talking About the Israeli
Connection
Stan Goff
Jessica Lynch, Plural
Tariq Ali
The Same Old Racket in Iraq
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Map is not the Territory
Marty Bender / Stan Cox
Dr. Atkins vs. the Planet
Christopher Brauchli
Mercury Rising: the EPA's Presents to Industry
Gary Leupp
On Marriage in "Recorded History", an Open Letter to
Gov. Mitt Romney
Sasan Fayazmanesh
The Saga of Iran's Alleged WMD
Larry Everest
Saddam, Oil and Empire: Supply v. Demand
William S. Lind
How to Fight a 4th Generation War
Fran Shor
From Vietnam to Iraq: Counterinsurgency and Insurgency
Ron Jacobs
Child Abuse as Public Policy
Omar Barghouti
Relative Humanity and a Just Peace in the Middle East
Adam Engel
Pretty Damn Evil: an Interview with Ed Herman
Kristin Van Tassel
Breastfeeding Compromised
Ben Tripp
On Getting Stabbed
Susan Davis
"The Secret Lives of Dentists", a Review
Dave Zirin
Does Dylan Still Matter? an Interview with Mike Marqusee
Norman Madarasz
Searching for the Barbarians
Poets' Basement
Guthrie and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Dean on Race
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