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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

 

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December 22, 2003

Abe and W.: Compare and Contrast

What Would Lincoln Do?

By PATRICK GAVIN

Abraham Lincoln must be getting quite a chuckle out of recent events.

The National Park Service, in response to conservatives pumped from their success canceling "The Reagans," is revising a video that has been shown at the Lincoln Memorial since 1995. In a Fox News world, they hope to make it "more balanced" by toning down the abortion and gay rights marches depicted in the footage and throwing in some clips of a Christian "Promise Keppers" rally and a Desert Storm march after the first Gulf War. Conservatives everywhere, it seems, are worried sick that their favorite Republican will be seen as too liberal.

Then there was Mr. Dean, whose Confederate Flag comment reopened the flood gates of political sectionalism that Mr. Lincoln worked so hard to nail shut.

And, of course, who can forget the name of the aircraft carrier that President Bush used to declare an end to major combat operations in Iraq against the backdrop of a "Mission: Accomplished" banner: U.S.S. Lincoln.

Lincoln resurfaced again last month, on the 140th anniversary of his Gettysburg Address, a gorgeous eulogy that--at 267 words--proves that, when it comes to Presidential addresses, perhaps less is more.

Seven score ago, Lincoln made his way to Gettysburg to, "to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this."

It is equally fitting and proper for us to think about Lincoln on this anniversary and to look to him for answers and insight into our current predicaments, for if you think that homeland security is a problem now, you should have been around in 1863. With a civil war being waged on the farms and in the streets and cities of the United States, terrorism was a daily reality. A recent survey of the American electorate by the Pew Research Center concluded that the United States was "Evenly Divided and Increasingly Polarized." Perhaps. But you can just hear Lincoln laughing at such a suggestion. "Divided? Polarized? Oh, you have no idea..."

If Bush finds it appropriate to conclude his own war on the deck of a ship named after Mr. Lincoln, it's worth asking what Lincoln might think of our current President.

Lincoln and Bush are similar in many ways. They both came into the Oval Office with little experience compared to their predecessors. Both were quickly thrust into moments of great enormity during their first year in office, moments that would require great courage and sacrifice. Both came under great criticism for their actions, most notably for their belief that the only way to properly honor the dead was to continue ahead with war in hopes of cleansing the earth of its darkest roots.

Lincoln would support Bush and Ashcroft's efforts with regards to the PATRIOT Act and civil rights restrictions during a time of war. In his own time, Lincoln found it both appropriate and necessary to suspend habeas corpus, limit freedom of the press, and impose martial law. Between 10,000 and 15,000 individuals were incarcerated without a prompt trial during the Civil War. Lincoln would, therefore, find little wrong with our detainment camp in Guantanamo Bay.

On the other hand, Lincoln make have taken exception to a few of Bush's actions, especially preemptive strikes. In 1848, as a Whig member of the House of Representatives, Congressman Lincoln spoke out against President Polk's decision to enter territory claimed by Mexico, justified by Polk's claim that he needed to "repel invasion." Lincoln wrote: "Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose, and you allow him to make war at his pleasure. [This logic] places our President where kings have always stood."

Since Lincoln found it "altogether fitting and proper" to "dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place," he may find it peculiar that Mr. Bush has yet to visit any the memorial services for American serviceman, even though one was only three miles away from the White House (Gettysburg, in contrast, is 65 miles away from DC). Lincoln, who used his address as a way of consecrating and dedicating the tombs of others, might find it equally peculiar that Bush has banned the photography of flag-draped caskets at Andrews Air Force base.

Lincoln--unlike Bush--also understood the essential role that allies play in any conflict. European recognition of the Confederacy would have certainly crippled the Union's war efforts, and it was for this reason that Lincoln spent so much of time carefully navigating the muddy international waters. He would understand Bush's need to act unilaterally if necessary, but he would urge him to do whatever he could to secure allies for himself, and at the same time to prevent Al Qaeda's acquisition of sympathizers.

Near the conclusion of his speech at Gettysburg, Lincoln humbly remarked, "The world will little note nor long remember what we say here." Who was he kidding? 140 years later, it's almost impossible to forget.

Patrick Gavin is a former history teacher, and currently I work as a writer at the Brookings Institution. He can be reached at: patrick_06106@yahoo.com

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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