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Today's Stories

December 9, 2003

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

 

 

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

 

Congratulations to CounterPuncher David Vest: Winner of 2 Muddy Awards for Best Blues Pianist in the Pacific Northwest!

 

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

 

 

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 9, 2003

The Occupation Concertina

Pentagon Punishes Iraqi Civilians Israeli Style

By ABU SPINOZA

Dexter Filkins reports in a New York Times [December 7, 2003] article, titled, "Tough New Tactics by US Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns" that the US Army is now on "wrapping up entire villages in barded wire." The report says that US soldiers are now "demolishing buildings thought to be used by Iraqi attackers," and "imprisoning the relatives of suspected guerrillas, in hopes of pressing the insurgents to turn themselves in." This is a part of United States' "get-tough strategy" and it closely follows the Israeli occupation army's practices in occupied Palestine. The US military officials admitted to have "studied closely the Israeli experience" and detailed briefs from "Israeli defense experts," that is, Israeli specialists in occupation and torture.

The Iraqi village of Abu Hishma is now "encased in a razor-wire fence." Filkins report that the villagers are forced to any ID cards, printed only in English. Only residents with cards are allowed in and out by the US occupation army. An Iraqi man called Tariq told the reporter: "I see no difference between us and the Palestinians. We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."

The use of such collective punishment against an entire village should be a matter of grave concern to all. The Iraqi villagers are being punished fro the resistance to Anglo-American occupation. This is not the first time that the US army has used collective punishment in Iraq. For example, right after Iraqis downed a US helicopters, US military swept through Iraqi neighborhoods , firing at houses suspected to be harboring hostile forces. Patrick Cockburn reported the US army bulldozed ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq. All forms of collective punishment is strictly illegal under international law.

Underlying the "new" Anglo-American strategy, which replicates Israeli methods in occupied Palestine, is a deeply racist ideology typified by Capt. Todd Brown's remarks about Arabs: "You have to understand the Arab mind. The only thing they understand is force---force, pride and saving face." There is little doubt that the Anglo-American occupiers are not only adopting Israeli methods but are in the process of internalizing a racist ideology necessary to oppress Iraqis. This is not untypical in colonial occupation. The occupier and the racist who loses his own humanity regards the occupied people as ants and claims that they do not did not value human life.

The use of collective punishment has a notorious history. It is routinely used by Israelis against the Palestinians, and was also used by some of the most vile regimes of the twentieth century. False politeness may prevent recalling their names, but when one acts like them comparison is certainly apropos.

Abu Spinoza is a columnist for Pressaction.

 

Weekend Edition Features for Nov. 29 / 30, 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?

 


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