Now
Available from
CounterPunch for Only $11.50 (S/H Included)
Today's
Stories
November 24, 2003
Ron Jacobs
Iraq
Now: Oh Good, Then the War's Over?
Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch: Global Tyrant
November 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
November 13, 2003
Jack McCarthy
Veterans
for Peace Booted from Vet Day Parade
Adam Keller
Report
on the Ben Artzi Verdict
Richard Forno
"Threat Matrix:" Homeland Security Goes Prime-Time
Vijay Prashad
Confronting
the Evangelical Imperialists
November 12, 2003
Elaine Cassel
The
Supremes and Guantanamo: a Glimmer of Hope?
Col. Dan Smith
Unsolicited
Advice: a Reply to Rumsfeld's Memo
Jonathan Cook
Facility
1391: Israel's Guantanamo
Robert Fisk
Osama Phones Home
Michael Schwartz
The Wal-Mart Distraction and the California Grocery Workers Strike
John Chuckman
Forty
Years of Lies
Doug Giebel
Jessica Lynch and Saving American Decency
Uri Avnery
Wanted: a Sharon of the Left
Website of the Day
Musicians Against Sweatshops
November 11, 2003
David Lindorff
Bush's
War on Veterans
Stan Goff
Honoring
Real Vets; Remembering Real War
Earnest McBride
"His
Feet Were on the Ground": Was Steve McNair's Cousin Lynched?
Derek Seidman
Imperialism
Begins at Home: an Interview with Stan Goff
David Krieger
Mr. President, You Can Run But You Can't Hide
Sen. Ernest Hollings
My Cambodian Moment on the Iraq War
Dan Bacher
The Invisible Man Resigns
Kam Zarrabi
Hypocrisy at the Top
John Eskow
Born on Veteran's Day
Website of the Day
Left Hook
November 10, 2003
Robert Fisk
Looney
Toons in Rummyworld: How We Denied Democracy to the Middle East
Elaine Cassel
Papa's Gotta Brand New Bag (of Tricks): Patriot Act Spawns Similar
Laws Across Globe
James Brooks
Israel's New War Machine Opens the Abyss
Thom Rutledge
The Lost Gospel of Rummy
Stew Albert
Call Him Al
Gary Leupp
"They
Were All Non-Starters": On the Thwarted Peace Proposals
November 8/9, 2003
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Zionism
as Racist Ideology
Gabriel Kolko
Intelligence
for What?
The Vietnam War Reconsidered
Saul Landau
The
Bride Wore Black: the Policy Nuptials of Boykin and Wolfowitz
Brian Cloughley
Speeding Up to Nowhere: Training the New Iraqi Police
William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report:
A Permanent Occupation?
David Lindorff
A New Kind of Dancing in Iraq: from Occupation to Guerrilla War
Elaine Cassel
Bush's War on Non-Citizens
Tim Wise
Persecuting the Truth: Claims of Christian Victimization Ring
Hollow
Toni Solo
Robert Zoellick and "Wise Blood"
Michael Donnelly
Will the Real Ron Wyden Please Stand Up?
Mark Hand
Building a Vanguard Movement: a Review of Stan Goff's Full Spectrum
Disorder
Norman Solomon
War, Social Justice, Media and Democracy
Norman Madarasz
American Neocons and the Jerusalem Post
Adam Engel
Raising JonBenet
Dave Zirin
An Interview with George Foreman
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert and Greeder
November 7, 2003
Nelson Valdes
Latin
America in Crisis and Cuba's Self-Reliance
David Vest
Surely
It Can't Get Any Worse?
Chris Floyd
An Inspector
Calls: The Kay Report as War Crime Indictment
William S. Lind
Indicators:
Where This War is Headed
Elaine Cassel
FBI to Cryptome: "We Are Watching You"
Maria Tomchick
When Public Transit Gets Privatized
Uri Avnery
Israeli
Roulette
November 6, 2003
Ron Jacobs
With
a Peace Like This...
Conn Hallinan
Rumsfeld's
New Model Army
Maher Arar
This
is What They Did to Me
Elaine Cassel
A Bad
Day for Civil Liberties: the Case of Maher Arar
Neve Gordon
Captives
Behind Sharon's Wall
Ralph Nader and Lee Drutman
An Open Letter to John Ashcroft on Corporate Crime
November 5, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Just
a Match Away:
Fire Sale in So Cal
Dave Lindorff
A Draft in the Forecast?
Robert Jensen
How I Ended Up on the Professor Watch List
Joanne Mariner
Prisons as Mental Institutions
Patrick Cockburn
Saddam Not Organizing Iraqi Resistance
Simon Helweg-Larsen
Centaurs
from Dusk to Dawn: Remilitarization and the Guatemalan Elections
Josh Frank
Silencing "the Reagans"
Website of the Day
Everything You Wanted to Know About Howard Dean But Were Afraid
to Ask
November 4, 2003
Robert Fisk
Smearing
Said and Ashrawi: When Did "Arab" Become a Dirty Word?
Ray McGovern
Chinook Down: It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Vietnam
Woodruff / Wypijewski
Debating
the New Unity Partnership
Karyn Strickler
When
Opponents of Abortion Dream
Norman Solomon
The
Steady Theft of Our Time
Tariq Ali
Resistance
and Independence in Iraq
November 3, 2003
Patrick Cockburn
The
Bloodiest Day Yet for Americans in Iraq: Report from Fallujah
Dave Lindorff
Philly's
Buggy Election
Janine Pommy Vega
Sarajevo Hands 2003
Bernie Dwyer
An
Interview with Chomsky on Cuba
November 1 / 2,
2003
Saul Landau
Cui
Bono? The Cuba Embargo as Rip Off
Noam Chomsky
Empire of the Men of Best Quality
Bruce Jackson
Midge Decter and the Taxi Driver
Brian Cloughley
"Mow the Whole Place Down"
John Stanton
The Pentagon's Love Affair with Land Mines
William S. Lind
Bush's Bizarre Korean Gambit
Ben Tripp
The Brown Paste on Bush's Shoes
Christopher Brauchli
Divine Hatred
Dave Zirin
An Interview with John Carlos
Agustin Velloso
Oil in Equatorial Guinea: Where Trickle Down Doesn't Trickle
Josh Frank
Howard Dean and Affirmative Action
Ron Jacobs
Standing Up to El Diablo: the 1981 Blockade of Diablo Canyon
Strickler / Hermach
Liar, Liar Forests on Fire
David Vest
Jimmy T99 Nelson, a Blues Legend and the Songs that Made Him
Famous
Adam Engel
America, What It Is
Dr. Susan Block
Christy Canyon, a Life in Porn
Poets' Basement
Greeder, Albert & Guthrie
Congratulations
to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best
Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!
October 31, 2003
Lee Ballinger
Making
a Dollar Out of 15 Cents: The Sweatshops of Sean "P. Diddy"
Combs
Wayne Madsen
The
GOP's Racist Trifecta
Michael Donnelly
Settling for Peanuts: Democrats Trick the Greens, Treat Big Timber
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Diary: Iraqis are Naming Their New Babies "Saddam"
Elaine Cassel
Coming
to a State Near You: The Matrix (Interstate Snoops, Not the Movie)
Linda Heard
An Arab View of Masonry
October 30, 2003
Forrest Hylton
Popular
Insurrection and National Revolution in Bolivia
Eric Ruder
"We Have to Speak Out!": Marching with the Military
Families
Dave Lindorff
Big
Lies and Little Lies: The Meaning of "Mission Accomplished"
Philip Adams
"Everyone is Running Scared": Denigrating Critics of
Israel
Sean Donahue
Howard Dean: a Hawk in a Dove's Cloak
Robert Jensen
Big Houses & Global Justice: A Moral Level of Consumption?
Alexander Cockburn
Paul
Krugman: Part of the Problem
October 29, 2003
Chris Floyd
Thieves
Like Us: Cheney's Backdoor to Halliburton
Robert Fisk
Iraq Guerrillas Adopt a New Strategy: Copy the Americans
Rick Giombetti
Let
Them Eat Prozac: an Interview with David Healy
The Intelligence Squad
Dark
Forces? The Military Steps Up Recruiting of Blacks
Elaine Cassel
Prosecutors
as Therapists, Phantoms as Terrorists
Marie Trigona
Argentina's War on the Unemployed Workers Movement
Gary Leupp
Every
Day, One KIA: On the Iraq War Casualty Figures
October 28, 2003
Rich Gibson
The
Politics of an Inferno: Notes on Hellfire 2003
Uri Avnery
Incident
in Gaza
Diane Christian
Wishing
Death
Robert Fisk
Eyewitness
in Iraq: "They're Getting Better"
Toni Solo
Authentic Americans and John Negroponte
Jason Leopold
Halliburton in Iran
Shrireen Parsons
When T-shirts are Verboten
Chris White
9/11
in Context: a Marine Veteran's Perspective
October 27,
2003
William A. Cook
Ministers
of War: Criminals of the Cloth
David Lindorff
The
Times, Dupes and the Pulitzer
Elaine Cassel
Antonin
Scalia's Contemptus Mundi
Robert Fisk
Occupational Schizophrenia
John Chuckman
Banging Your Head into Walls
Seth Sandronsky
Snoops R Us
Bill Kauffman
George
Bush, the Anti-Family President
October 25 / 26,
2003
Robert Pollin
The
US Economy: Another Path is Possible
Jeffrey St. Clair
Outsourcing US Guided Missile Technology to China
James Bunn
Plotting
Pre-emptive Strikes
Saul Landau
Should Limbaugh Do Time?
Ted Honderich
Palestinian Terrorism, Morality & Germany
Thomas Nagy
Saving the Army of Peace
Christopher Brauchli
Between Bush and a Lobotomy: Killing Endangered Species for Profit
Laura Carlsen
Latin America's Archives of Terror
Diane Christian
Evil Acts & Evil Actors
Muqtedar Khan
Lessons from the Imperial Adventure in Iraq
John Feffer
The Tug of War on the Korea Peninsula
Brian Cloughley
Iraq War Memories are Made of Lies
Benjamin Dangl
and Kathryn Ledebur
An Uneasy Peace in Bolivia
Karyn Strickler
Down
with Big Brother's Spying Eyes
Noah Leavitt
Legal Globalization
John Stanton
Hitler's Ghost Haunts America
Mickey Z.
War of the Words
Adam Engel
Tractatus Ridiculous
Poets' Basement
Curtis, Subiet and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Project Last Stand
October 24, 2003
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft's
War on Greenpeace
Lenni Brenner
The Demographics of American Jews
Jeffrey St. Clair
Rockets,
Napalm, Torpedoes and Lies: the Attack on the USS Liberty Revisited
Sarah Weir
Cover-up of the Israeli Attack on the US Liberty
David Krieger
WMD Found in DC: Bush is the Button
Mohammed Hakki
It's Palestine, Stupid!: Americans and the Middle East
Harry Browne
Northern
Ireland: the Agreement that Wasn't
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.
|
November
24, 2003
The
Miami Model
Paramilitaries,
Embedded Journalists and Illegal Protests: Think This is Iraq?
It's Miami
By
JEREMY SCAHILL
Miami.
We were loading our video equipment into the trunk
of our car when a fleet of bicycle cops sped up and formed a
semi-circle around us. The lead cop was none other than Miami
Police Chief John Timoney. The former Police Commissioner of
Philadelphia Timoney has a reputation for brutality and hatred
of protesters of any kind. He calls them "punks," "knuckleheads"
and a whole slew of expletives. He coordinated the brutal police
response to the mass-protests at the Republican National Convention
in Philadelphia in 2000. After a brief stint in the private sector,
Timoney took the post of Miami police chief as part of Mayor
Manny Diaz's efforts to "clean up the department."
We had watched him the night before on
the local news in Miami praising his men for the restraint they
had shown in the face of violent anarchists intent on destroying
the city. In reality, the tens of thousands who gathered in Miami
to protest the ministerial meetings of the Free Trade Area of
the Americas summit were seeking to peacefully demonstrate against
what they consider to be a deadly expansion of NAFTA and US-led
policies of free trade. There were environmental groups, labor
unions, indigenous activists from across the hemisphere, church
groups, grassroots organizations, students and many others in
the streets. What they encountered as they assembled outside
the gates to the building housing the FTAA talks was nothing
short of a police riot. It only took a few hours last Thursday
before downtown Miami looked like a city under martial law.
On the news, Chief Timoney spoke in sober
tones about the tear gas that demonstrators fired at his officers.
No, that is not a typo. Timoney said the protesters were the
ones launching the tear gas. He also said the demonstrators had
hurled "missiles" at the police. "I got a lot
of tear gas," Timoney said. "We all got gassed. They
were loaded to the hilt. A lot of missiles, bottles, rocks, tear
gas from the radicals."
Seeing Timoney up close and personal
evokes this image of Mayor Daley at the '68 Democratic Convention
ordering his men to shoot protesters on sight. He is that kind
of guy.
Back at our car, Timoney hopped off his
bike as a police cameraman recorded his every move. It all had
the feel of being on an episode of COPS. He demanded the license
and registration for the car. Our colleague Norm Stockwell of
community radio station WORT in Madison, Wisconsin gave him his
license. We informed him we were journalists. One of his men
grabbed Norm's press pass, looking it over as though it was a
fake. They looked at all of us with nasty snares before getting
back on their bikes and preparing to continue on to further protect
Miami. Timoney gave us this look that said, you got away this
time but I'll be back. You could tell he was pissed off that
we weren't anarchists (as far as he knew).
As Timoney was talking with his men,
one of the guys on the bikes approached us with a notepad. "Can
I have your names?" he asked.
I thought he was a police officer preparing
a report. He had on a Miami police polo shirt, just like Timoney's.
He had a Miami police bike helmet, just like Timoney's. He had
a bike, just like Timoney's. In fact there was only one small
detail that separated him from Timoney-a small badge around his
neck identifying him as a reporter with the Miami Herald. He
was embedded with Chief Timoney.
That reporter was one of dozens who were
embedded with the Miami forces (it's hard to call them police),
deployed to protect the FTAA ministerial meetings from thousands
of unarmed protesters. In another incident, we saw a Miami Herald
photographer who had somehow gotten pushed onto the "protesters
side" of a standoff with the police. He was behind a line
of young kids who had locked arms to try and prevent the police
from advancing and attacking the crowds outside of the Inter-Continental
Hotel. He was shouting at the kids to move so he could get back
to the safe side. The protesters ignored him and continued with
their blockade.
The photographer grew angrier and angrier
before he began hitting one of the young kids on the line. He
punched him in the back of the head before other journalists
grabbed him and calmed him down. His colleagues seemed shocked
at the conduct. He was a big, big guy and was wearing a bulletproof
vest and a police issued riot helmet, but I really think he was
scared of the skinny, dreadlocked bandana clad protesters. He
had this look of panic on his face, like he had been in a scuffle
with the Viet Cong.
Watching the embedded journalists on
Miami TV was quite entertaining. They spoke of venturing into
Protesterland as though they were entering a secret al Qaeda
headquarters in the mountains of Afghanistan. Interviews with
protest leaders were sort of like the secret bin Laden tapes.
There was something risqué, even sexy about having the
courage to venture over to the convergence space (the epicenter
of protest organizing at the FTAA) and the Independent Media
Center. Several reporters told of brushes they had with "the
protesters." One reporter was quite shaken after a group
of "anarchists" slashed her news van's tires and wrote
the word "propaganda" across the side door. She feared
for the life of her cameraman, she somberly told the anchor back
in the studio. The anchor warned her to be careful out there.
So dangerous was the scene that the overwhelming
majority of the images of the protests on TV were from helicopter
shots, where very little could be seen except that there was
a confrontation between police and "the protesters."
This gave cover for Timoney and other officials to make their
outrageous and false statements over and over.
Timoney spun his tales of "hard-core
anarchists" rampaging through the streets of Miami; "outsiders
coming to terrorize and vandalize our city." He painted
a picture of friendly restrained police enduring constant attacks
from rocks, paint, gas canisters, smoke bombs and fruit. "We
are very proud of the police officers and their restraint. Lots
of objects were thrown at the police officers," Timoney
said. "If we didn't act when we did, it would have been
much worse."
It was much worse.
Timoney's Paramilitaries
After last week, no one should call what
Timoney runs in Miami a police force. It's a paramilitary group.
Thousands of soldiers, dressed in khaki uniforms with full black
body armor and gas masks, marching in unison through the streets,
banging batons against their shields, chanting, "back back
back." There were armored personnel carriers and helicopters.
The forces fired indiscriminately into
crowds of unarmed protesters. Scores of people were hit with
skin-piercing rubber bullets; thousands were gassed with an array
of chemicals. On several occasions, police fired loud concussion
grenades into the crowds. Police shocked people with electric
tazers. Demonstrators were shot in the back as they retreated.
One young guy's apparent crime was holding his fingers in a peace
sign in front of the troops. They shot him multiple times, including
once in the stomach at point blank range.
My colleagues and I spent several days
in the streets, going from conflict to conflict. We saw no attempts
by any protesters to attack a business or corporation. With the
exception of some graffiti and an occasional garbage can set
on fire, there was very little in the way of action not aimed
directly at the site of the FTAA meetings. Even the Black Bloc
kids, who generally have a rep for wanting to smash everything
up, were incredibly restrained and focused.
There was no need for any demonstrator
to hurl anything at the forces to spark police violence. It was
clear from the jump that Timoney's men came prepared to crack
heads. And they did that over and over. After receiving $8.5
million in federal funds from the $87 billion Iraq spending bill,
Miami needed to have a major combat operation. It didn't matter
if it was warranted.
Miami Mayor Manny Diaz called the police
actions last week a model for homeland security. FTAA officials
called it extraordinary. Several cities sent law enforcement
observers to the protests to study what some are now referring
to as the "Miami Model."
This model also included the embedding
of undercover police with the protesters. At one point during
a standoff with police, it appeared as though a group of protesters
had gotten into a brawl amongst themselves. But as others moved
in to break up the melee, two of the guys pulled out electric
tazers and shocked protesters, before being liberated back behind
police lines. These guys, clearly undercover agents, were dressed
like any other protester. One had a sticker on his backpack that
read: "FTAA No Way."
The IMC has since published pictures
of people dressed like Black Bloc kids-ski masks and all-walking
with uniformed police behind police lines.
The only pause in the heavy police violence
in Miami came on Thursday afternoon when the major labor unions
held their mass-rally and march. Led by AFL-CIO President John
Sweeney, the march had a legal permit and was carefully coordinated
with the police. Many of the union guys applauded the police
as they marched past columns of the body-armored officers on
break from gassing and shooting unarmed demonstrators.
But as soon as the unions and their permits
began to disperse, the police seized the moment to escalate the
violence against the other protesters. Fresh from their break
during the union rally, Timoney's forces ordered the protesters
to clear the area in front of the Inter-Continental. Some of
the demonstrators shouted back that they had a right to peaceably
protest the FTAA.
Boom. The concussion grenades started
flying.
Hiss. The tear gas was sprayed.
Rat-a-tat-tat. The rubber bullets were
fired.
Bam, bam. The batons were swinging.
The police methodically marched in a
long column directly at the several hundred protesters who believed
they had a right to protest, even without John Sweeney at their
side. They fired indiscriminately at the crowds. One woman had
part of her ear blown off. Another was shot in the forehead.
I got shot twice, once in the back, another time in the leg.
My colleague, John Hamilton from the Workers Independent News
Service was shot in the neck by a pepper-spray pellet-a small
ball that explodes into a white powder. After a few moments,
John began complaining that his neck was burning from the powder.
We doused him in water, but the burning continued. When I tried
to ask the police what the powder was, they told me to "mind
myself."
I've been in enough police riots to know
that when the number of demonstrators dwindles and the sun sets,
that's when the real violence begins. Eventually, the police
forced the dissipating group of protesters into one of the poorest
sections of Miami, surrounding them on 4 sides. We stood there
in the streets with the eerie feeling of a high-noon showdown.
Except there were hundreds of them with guns and dozens of us
with cameras and banners. They fired gas and rubber bullets at
us as they moved in. All of us realized we had nothing to do
but run. We scattered down side streets and alleys, ducking as
we fled. Eventually, we made it out.
After nearly an hour, we managed to find
a taxi. We got in and the driver started choking from our pepper-sprayed
clothes. She wanted us to get out of the taxi. We apologized
for our smell and offered her more money just to get us to the
hotel. She agreed.
The Real Crime: Failure
to Embed
The next day, we went to a midday rally
outside the Dade County Jail where more than 150 people were
being held prisoner. It was a peaceful assembly of about 300
people. They sang "We all live in a failed democracy,"
to the tune of "We all live in a yellow submarine."
They chanted, "Free the Prisoners, Not Free Trade,"
and "Take off your riot gear, there ain't no riot here."
Representatives of the protesters met
with police officials at the scene. The activists said they would
agree to remain in a parking lot across the street from the jail
if the police would call off the swelling presence of the riot
police. They reached an agreementor so the police said.
As the demonstration continued, the numbers
of fully armed troops grew and grew. And they moved in from all
four sides. They announced that people had 3 minutes to disperse
from the "unlawful assembly." Even though the police
violated their agreement, the protesters complied. A group of
5 activists led by Puppetista David Solnit informed the police
they would not leave. The police said fine and began arresting
them.
But that was not enough. The police then
attacked the dispersing crowd, chasing about 30 people into a
corner. They shoved them to the ground and beat them. They gassed
them at close range. My colleague from Democracy Now!, Ana Nogueira,
and I got separated in the mayhem. I was lucky to end up on the
"safe" side of the street. Ana was in the melee. As
she did her job-videotaping the action-Ana was wearing her press
credentials in plain sight. As the police began handcuffing people,
Ana told them she was a journalist. One of the officers said,
"She's not with us, she's not with us," meaning that
although Ana was clearly a journalist, she was not the friendly
type. She was not embedded with the police and therefore had
to be arrested.
In police custody, the authorities made
Ana remove her clothes because they were soaked with pepper spray.
The police forced her to strip naked in front of male officers.
Despite calls from Democracy Now!, the ACLU, lawyers and others
protesting Ana's arrest and detention, she was held in a cockroach-filled
jail cell until 3:30 am. She was only released after I posted
a $500 bond. Other independent journalists remained locked up
for much longer and face serious charges, some of them felonies.
In the end, Ana was charged with "failure to disperse."
The real crime seems to be "failure
to embed."
In the times in which we live, this is
what democracy looks like. Thousands of soldiers, calling themselves
police, deployed in US cities to protect the power brokers from
the masses. /Posse Comitatus/ is just a Latin phrase. Vigilantes
like John Timoney roam from city to city, organizing militias
to hunt the dangerous radicals who threaten the good order. And
damned be the journalist who dares to say it-or film it-like
it is.
Jeremy Scahill
is a producer and correspondent for the nationally syndicated
radio and TV program Democracy Now! He can be reached at jeremy@democracynow.org.
For more reports on the FTAA protests,
go to: www.democracynow.org
Weekend
Edition Features for Nov. 14 / 23, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
Clintontime:
Was It Really a Golden Age?
Saul Landau
Words
of War
Noam Chomsky
Invasion
as Marketing Problem: Iraq War and Contempt for Democracy
Stan Goff
An Open Letter to GIs in Iraq: Hold on to Your Humanity
Jeffrey St. Clair
Bush Puts Out a Contract on the Spotted Owl
John Holt
Blue Light: Battle for the Sweetgrass Hills
Adam Engel
A DC Lefty in King George's Court: an Interview with Sam Smith
Joanne Mariner
In a Dark Hole: Moussaoui and the Hidden Detainees
Uri Avnery
The General as Pseudo-Dove: Ya'alon's 70 Virgins
M. Shahid Alam
Voiding the Palestinians: an Allegory
Juliana Fredman
Visions of Concrete
Norman Solomon
Media Clash in Brazil
Brian Cloughley
Is Anyone in the Bush Administration Telling the Truth?
William S. Lind
Post-Machine Gun Tactics
Patrick W. Gavin
Imagine
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Brand of Leadership: Putting Himself First
Tom Crumpacker
Pandering to Anti-Castro Hardliners
Erik Fleming
Howard Dean's Folly
Rick Giombetti
Challenging the Witch Doctors of the New Imperialism: a Review
of Bush in Babylon
Jorge Mariscal
Las Adelitas, 2003: Mexican-American Women in Iraq
Chris Floyd
Logical Conclusions
Mickey Z.
Does William Safire Need Mental Help?
David Vest
Owed to the Confederate Dead
Ron Jacobs
Joe: the Sixties Most Unforgiving Film
Dave Zirin
Foreman and Carlos: a Tale of Two Survivors
Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert, Greeder, Ghalib and Alam
Keep CounterPunch
Alive:
Make
a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online!
home / subscribe
/ about us / books
/ archives / search
/ links /
|