Coming
Soon!
From Common Courage Press
Recent
Stories
July
29, 2003
Ray
McGovern
Cheney Chicanery
Website
of the Day
Julie Hilden Caught on Tape
July
26 / 28, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
Standard
Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
July
25, 2003
Francis
A. Boyle
Impeaching Bush
David
Krieger
15 Questions
Harvey
Wasserman
Pat Robertson's Supreme Fatwah
Steve Dunifer
Seize the Airwaves!
Dan
Bacher
Federal Judge Throws Out Bush Salmon Plan for Klamath River
Kurt Nimmo
Bread, Circuses, Uday and Qusay
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Stop the Wall!
July
24, 2003
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft Loses...Again
Robert
Fisk
The Ugly Story of Camp Cropper: The
US Torture Camp in Iraq
David
Lindorff
Dumb and Dumber in Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
Ashcroft Demands Death Penalty in
Puerto Rico
David
Vest
Dylan in Bend
Tom Turnipseed
Killing Saddam & His Family Won't Stop Killing of US Troops
Douglas
Valentine
A Nation of Assassins
Stew Albert
Contract Killing
Steve
Perry
Bush's Wars Weblog
Website
of the Day
Report on Palestinian Child Prisoners
July
23, 2003
Uri
Avnery
Caesar's Favor
David
Lindorff
Lynne Stewart's Big Win: Ashcroft
Rebuked
Mano
Singham
Iraq's Missing WMD Scientists
Steve
Perry
Better Late Than Never: the Press, the Dems, and Bush's Lies
John Stanton
Avoiding Plato's Republic in America: Is Anarchy the Only Hope?
Patrick
Bond
Bush and South Africa: a Petro-Military-Commerce Mission
Harry Browne
A Victory for a Disarming Irishwoman
Paul
Beaulieu
When the WTO Comes to Montreal
Robert
Fisk
The Sons are Dead, But the Resistance
Will Grow
William
Witherup
Georgie Porgie
Website
of the Day
Lieberman & Falwell:
True Love at Last
July
22, 2003
Diane
Christian
Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces;
Peace Frees
Jeremy
Brecher
Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran
Steve
Kretzmann
and Jim Vallette
Plugging Iraq into Globalization
Sam
Smith
Greening the Golden Triangle
James
Plummer
Smile, You're on Federal Camera
Lucretia
Stewart
This Day Shall Not Define My Life:
January 18, 2003
Website
of the Day
Iraq Coalition Casualties
July
21, 2003
Edward
Said
Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping
of Arabs
Ron
Jacobs
Shut Up and Shoot
Allan J.
Lichtman
Why is George Bush President?
Elaine
Cassel
How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq
Christopher
Brauchli
History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment
Camps
Bruce
Jackson
Third and Arizona, Santa Monica
Website
of the Day
John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim
by Claim
July
19 / 20, 2003
Arthur
Mitzman
Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable
Than the Dot.com Bubble?
Julian
Bond
We Shall be Heard
Cynthia
McKinney
Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad
Mel
Goodman
What is to be Done with the CIA?
Jason Leopold
Tenet Blames Wolfowitz
Mickey
Z.
History Forgave Churchill
Doug Giebel
Impeachment as the Message
Jon
Brown
Whipping the Post
Mano Singham
Cheney's Oil Maps
Steven
Sherman
Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC
Robin Philpot
Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters
Khaldoun
Khelil
Capturing Friedman
Jeffrey
St. Clair
You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed
Lenni
Brenner
Sitting in with Mingus
Vanessa
Jones
Three Dog Night
Adam
Engel
Video Judas Video
Poets'
Basement
Foley, Smith and Curtis
Website
of the Weekend
Illegal Art
July
18, 2003
David
Vest
Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo
Rahul
Mahajan
Deceit Runs Deep
John Chuckman
Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World
Harold
A. Gould
The Bush-Musharraf Conclave
Alvaro
Angarita
In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists
David
Grenier
Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island
Dave Lindorff
Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal
Website
of the Day
Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair
Hot Stories
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
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
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.
|
July
29, 2003
Bush's
Biotech Shock and Awe Campaign
Food Bully
By CONN HALLINAN
The decision by the Bush Administration to sue
the European Union (EU) over its five-year moratorium on genetically
modified (GM) foods has all the earmarks of a "shock and
awe" campaign targeted at prying open a major potential
market. But the suit before the World Trade Organization (WTO)
may be aimed less at the EU than at developing nations, which
are far more vulnerable to strong-arm tactics.
Take the case of the reluctant Egyptians.
Egypt had originally joined the suit,
along with Argentina and Canada, but, in the face of a domestic
backlash over the safety of GM food crops, withdrew. However,
it filed a separate complaint on an EU ban against its GM drought-resistant
cotton, joining, at least in spirit, the U.S. action.
Besides responding to popular sentiment,
the Egyptians were also nervous over the confrontational tone
of the U.S. suit. "The way (the complaint) was announced
was like a war with the EU," one Egyptian trade official
told the Financial Times, "We can't go to war with the EU.
It is 40 percent of our trade."
Avoiding war with the EU, however, landed
them in a shootout with the Americans. Reacting with fury, the
U.S. accused the Egyptians of breaking their word and cancelled
free trade talks.
According to the Financial Times, Egyptian
officials were "stunned" by the U.S. reaction, particularly
after U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick recently described
their country as a "linchpin" for a Middle East free
trade agreement and "the heart of the Arab world."
The White House was banking on Egypt
to represent the need for GM crops in "developing countries,"
in particular, Africa. GM crops as a solution to the African
famine is one of the major arguments the Bush Administration
has used against the EU ban.
The Bush Administration seems to be applying
its "for us or against us" anti-terrorism formula to
trade policy, particularly if the country is a developing one
like Egypt. Similarly, when Croatia and Thailand raised health
objections to GM crops, the U.S. threatened trade sanctions and
both countries backed down.
The White House has been more circuitous
with big countries, like India and Brazil. In the case of Brazil,
U.S. corporations--underwritten by taxpayers--bring politicians
and scientists to the U.S. and South Africa to study GM crops.
And reaction to India's ban on U.S. GM crops has been muted.
There is much at stake in this fight
over biotechnology, and it has nothing to do with alleviating
hunger or overcoming famine. The "Big Five" biotech
companies- Monsanto, Dupont, Syngenta, Dow Chemical and Aventis--
have invested billions of dollars in research and development.
Out of 1085 biotech patents, the Big Five control 937.
The U.S. argues that GM crops represent
the new "green revolution" that will allow countries
to feed the growing world population. But the U.S. Department
of Agriculture's own Economic Research Service found that crop
yields were no higher for GM crops than they are for regular
crops, and GM crops can be tricky to grow. They were created
for huge American super farms, not the small-scale agriculture
that characterizes most of the developing world. Plus GM seeds
cost more, and few poor farmers have access to cash.
The Bush Administration presents its
GM-friendly policies as a solution to hunger. During his recent
tour of Africa, Bush said, "For the sake of a continent
threatened by famine, I urge the European governments to end
their opposition to biotechnology." But many Africans are
suspicious and see the spread of GM crops as creating a kind
of "bioserfdom," with farmers in thrall to huge biotech
companies. Amadou Kanoute, research director of African Office
of Consumers International, says the spread of GM crops, "will
plunge Africa into greater food dependency."
American agricultural policy has always
had a strong self-interest streak in it. According to a policy
statement by the US Agency for International Development (USAID),
the main vehicle for foreign food aid, "The principal beneficiary
of America's foreign assistance programs has always been the
United States." Hunger is a product of access and distribution,
not production, as the cases of India and Uganda make clear.
India produces more than 48 million tons
of surplus food, yet most is never distributed to the more than
320 million Indians who go to bed hungry each night. In Orissa's
Kalahandi Province there is actual starvation, even though the
area is rich and fertile and produces 50,000 tons of surplus
rice annually.
In Uganda, the problem is transport,
not food production. The wet and fertile west of the country
produces plenty of surplus, but poor roads and inadequate rail
systems make shipping the food to the dry east expensive. Yet
few international organizations or lenders will pony up money
for improving things like infrastructure.
The Administration's charge that EU policies
are encouraging famine in Africa has deeply angered Europeans.
As EU officials point out, Europe gives Africa seven times as
much aid as the U.S. does, and further, that most of that aid
is delivered in cash, which bolsters local economies. The U.S.,
on the other hand, delivers its aid in the form of agricultural
surplus, which allows the U.S. to dump its overproduction.
The European Parliament has already decided
to phase out the moratorium against GM crops, although it will
demand strict labeling. Any product containing more than 0.9
percent GM products will be flagged, and GM food will have to
be segregated from non-GM food in production and harvesting.
The U.S., however, refuses to accept
labeling. Zoellick says, while he supports consumer choice, "this
information should be non-prejudicial in presentation and feasible
for producers to provide," adding that the labeling plan
"does not meet this standard."
The "feasible" in Zoellick's
statement refers to the expense involved in segregating GM products
from non-GM products. But the Administration is also nervous
that that if Europeans get labeling, Americans might demand the
same. Three fourths of the food on U.S. shelves contain GM products,
and a recent study by the high biotech firm Novartis found that
92 percent of Americans approve of labeling.
The EU is unlikely to be intimidated
by fines imposed by the WTO, and if the Americans manage to block
labeling, European consumers will probably just boycott all American
food imports. The only real casualties in that trade war will
be American farmers.
The prize in this fight is not the EU,
which in any case only absorbs some 10 percent of American agricultural
exports. The prize is the developing world, where regulations
are lax, profits higher, and resistance may carry a very high
price.
Conn Hallinan
is a provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz. He
can be reached at: connm@cats.ucsc.edu
Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
NYT's Screws Up Again; Uday and
Qusay Deaths Bad for Bush; Gen. Hitchens at the Front
Gary
Leupp
Faith-Based Intelligence
Saul Landau
A Report from Syria
Stan
Goff
Bring 'Em On Home, Now!
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Book Cooking at Boeing
Andrew
Cockburn
The Sons Are Dead; Now the Blood Feud
Begins
Jason Leopold
CIA Points the Finger at the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans
Robert
Fisk
The Power of Death
Joanne
Mariner
Monsieur Moussaoui
Standard
Schaefer
Joblessness and the Invisible Hand
M. Shahid
Alam
The Global Economy Since 1800: a Short History
Harry
Browne
Northern Ireland: the Other Faltering Peace Process
Fidel Castro
Moncada, 50 Years Later
Lula
Democracy Requires Social Justice
Edward
S. Herman
Refuting Brad DeLong's Smear Job on Noam Chomsky
Ron Jacobs
Guided by a Great Feeling of Love: a Review of Gordon's The Company
You Keep
Julie
Hilden
A Photographer, an Offer and Cameron Diaz's Topless Photos
Adam Engel
Man Talk
Poets'
Basement
Keeney, Witherup, Short, Nimba, Guthrie and Albert
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|