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New Edition of CounterPunch The Return of Robert Rubin: Kerry, Jobs and the Economy by Alexander Cockburn; Party Favors: the Political Business of Terry McAuliffe by Jeffrey St. Clair; The Kill Zone: Caring for the Wounded in Fallujah by David Martinez. In April, CounterPunch Online was read by 16.1 million viewers--by far our biggest month ever. But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Now Available: Hot New CounterPunch T-Shirts! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Cockburn / St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War Now Available! Today's Stories May 8 / 9, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair Torture: as American as Apple Pie John Chuckman The Thing with No Brain May 7, 2004 Human Rights Watch 10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention Facilities in Iraq Ron Jacobs UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So Robert Fisk An Illegal and Immoral War Ahmad Faruqui The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien Phu Alexander Zaitchik From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison) Bell? Mike Whitney The Price of Victory Norman Solomon This War, Racism and Media Denial M. Shahid Alam A Comic Apology May 6, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with Shit; Kicked to Death Kathy Kelly May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor for the War Machine Werther The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas Casino Game Lawrence Ferlinghetti Totalitarian Democracy Robert Fisk "Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded Men Being Shot by US Helicopter John Janney Torturing the Way to Freedom? Christopher Ketcham Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now! Alan Farago Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish Sam Hamod Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning James Brooks Sullen Spring William S. Lind On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq   May 5, 2004 Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba Complete US Army Report on Abuse of Iraqi Prisoners Kathleen and Bill Christison Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives? Will Youmans Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian Zionist and the End of the World Patrick B. Barr Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label Lawrence Magnuson Nightline's All-American Morgue Greg Moses Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals Niranjan Ramakrishnan Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing Truth Lee Ballinger Cinco de Mayo and Unity Gilbert Achcar Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire Website of the Day Operation Phoenix & Iraq   May 4, 2004 Human Rights Watch A Timeline of Torture and Abuse Allegations and Responses Kurt Nimmo The CIA Privatized Torture David Peterson CBS, Self-Censorship & Iraq Barry Lando CACI's Private Torture Chambers Patrick Cockburn Torture: Iraqis Disgusted, But Not Surprised Dr. Susan Block Indecent Insurgents: Watch What You Say Fidel Castro A Mindless, Unnecessary War Mike Whitney Empire of Torture Sonali Kolhatkar How to Stop the War: Demonstrate Against John Kerry Josh Frank The Lost Sierra Club Stan Goff The Role: Another Open Letter to US Troops in Iraq Agustin Velloso Spare Us Your Disgusting Ethics Stew Albert American Know-How Website of the Day Scenes from a Cover-Up   May 3, 2004 Virginia Tilley Let the Wall of Silence Fall May 1 / 2, 2004 Patrick Cockburn An Army in Disgrace, a Policy in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat Robert Fisk "Good Guys" Who Can Do No Wrong Alexander Cockburn Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders, Useless Spies, Angry World Heather Williams Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin American Troops Flee Iraq Diane Rejman An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq: Abu Ghraib as My Lai? Diane Christian Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and Sharon Speak the Same Language Patrick Cockburn Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah Dave Lindorff Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked, Shocked, Shocked Chris Floyd Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists and Annihilation April 29 / 30, 2004 Dave Zirin A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome Death of Pat Tillman Kathy Kelly The Warden's Tour Greg Weiher Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the Banality of Evil Michael S. Ladah Terrorism and Assassination: the Ultimate Depception Patrick Cockburn The Fallujah Mutinies     April 28, 2004 Christopher Brauchli Meet Congressman Know-Nothing: Tom Tancredo Wendy Brinker The Politics of the Numb Faisal Kutty The Dirty Work of Canadian Intelligence John Chuckman Seeking the Evil One Mike Whitney Flag-Draped Coffins and the Seattle Times Tom Mountain Rwanda and the F***** Word Graeme Greenback The Iraqi Alamo: a CNN/CIA Production Tracy McLellan The War Comes Home M. Junaid Alam We are the Barbarians William Loren Katz Iraq, the US and an Old Lesson   April 27, 2004 James Davis The Colombia 3 Acquitted Dave Lindorff Chalabi as Prosecutor Bruce Schneier Terrorist Threats and Political Gain Cockburn / Sengupta British Generals Resist Calls for More Troops to Aid Americans in Iraq Walt Brasch Presidential Letters: The Day I Was Asked to Feed an Elephant Saul Landau The Empire in Denial and the Denial of Empire April 26, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Crossing the Shia Line: US Troops Prepare to Enter Najaf Wayne Madsen Trading Places: Will the US Go the Way of the USSR? Grover Furr Protest, Rebellion, Commitment Elaine Cassel Lies About the Patriot Act Mickey Z. Inspired by Pat Tillman? Greg Moses Bremer's De-De-Ba'athjfication Gambit Gila Svirsky Anarchy in Our Souls Uri Avnery Vanunu and the Terrible Secret April 24 / 25, 2004 William A. Cook Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry and Bush Melt into One Jeffrey St. Clair Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank Brandy Baker A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So Robert Fisk A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free Speech Ben Tripp October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios Nelson Valdés "Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti's Return to the Future Kurt Nimmo The CIA Killed Pat Tillman Mark Scaramella Does Anybody Know Anything? Patrick Cockburn The Return of Saddam's Generals Gary Engler Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas Col. Dan Smith Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush Greg Weiher Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam... Elaine Cassel Life on the Outside: a Review Vanessa Jones Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney Jim French Agriculture's Bullied Market Hammond Guthrie Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles Poets' Basement Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella April 23, 2004 Ron Jacobs The Only Solution is Immediate Withdrawal Dave Lindorff Imagination Deficit Disorder Mokhiber / Weissman Contractors and Mercenaries: the Rising Corporate Military Monster Norman Solomon Country Joe Band, 2004: "What Are We Fighting For?" Cynthia McKinney All Things Are Not Equal: the Perils of Globalization CounterPunch Wire A Bitch Called Wanda Karyn Strickler Sierra Club, Inc. Hammond Guthrie Yellow Caked in the Face Paul de Rooij Graveyard of Justifications: Glossary of the Iraqi Occupation   April 22, 2004 Patrick Cockburn When Terror Came to Basra: "I Saw a Minibus of Children on Fire" Tanya Reinhart The Wall Behind Disengagement Lance Selfa Why is Kucinich Still in the Race? Josh Frank Street Fighting Man? Kucinich's Pulled Punches Sen. Robert Byrd Bush Owes America Answers on Iraq William S. Lind Why We Get It Wrong Mickey Z. Undoing the Latches Robert Jensen Why They Fast: Remembering the Victims of the World Bank John L. Hess The New York Times from 30,000 Feet   April 21, 2004 Gary Leupp Yeats on Iraq Alfredo Castro Colombia's Forgotten Prisoners Dr. Susan Block Bush's Taliban Drug Deal William A. Cook George 1 to George 2 Jack Random Iraq and Vietnam Jean-Guy Allard Alarcon Meets the Editors Mike Whitney Charade in the Desert Bill Christison Only Major Policies Changes Can Help Washington Now     April 20, 2004 Dave Lindorff Bush and Kerry Share a Problem Stan Cox Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers Bruce Anderson On Listening to Air America Joseph Kalvoda Czech Mate for Condi Greg Moses Yesterday's Intelligence Stan Goff The Democrats and Iraq Website of the Day Santorum Happens     April 19, 2004 Kurt Nimmo The "Central Hand" of the Resistance Mike Whitney Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles Douglas Valentine 52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1 Rule John Chuckman The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often Triumph Doug Giebel Welcome to the Club Rahul Mahajan Hospital Closings and War Crimes     April 16 / 18, 2004 Robert Fisk Bush Legitimizes Terror Saul Landau Subverting Brazil and Cuba Dave Lindorff Paying for War: $2,150 per Family and Counting Brandy Baker Fallujah's Collateral Damage Mickey Z. The Left Attacks from the Right Bruce Jackson The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit Uns Norman Solomon How the "NewsHour" Changed History Alexander Cockburn Bush, Kerry and Empire   April 15, 2004 Greg Moses Follow the Families, Not the Script Virginia Tilley The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt: Just Change the Channel Ron Jacobs They Coulda Been Champions of the World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic Michael Neumann A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail   April 14, 2004 Tom Reeves Return to Haiti: an American Learning Zone Reza Fiyouzat Japan and Iraq Ron Jacobs What Bush Really Said Diane Christian The Real Passion   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.     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition May 8 / 9, 2004 "Ya Get What Ya Settle For" Why I Will Not Vote in 2004 By CAROLYN BAKER The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful and virtuous. Frederick Douglass On May 3, 2004, the California Secretary of State nixed all electronic, touch-screen voting in the state and called for the criminal prosecution of the Diebold Company. For those who have been researching the questionable practices of Diebold and the potential manipulation of electronic voting, (www.blackboxvoting.com and (www.wired.com/), California's decision appears to be a victory for American democracy but does not necessarily herald hope for clean elections in November since overwhelming evidence suggests that conflicts of interest permeate the relationship between electronic voting machine companies throughout the nation and Republican politicians. For example: In 2000, 5 of the 12 directors of Diebold, a leading voting machine manufacturer, made donations totaling $94,750 to predominately Republican politicians; o Former Florida Secretary of State Sandra Mortham ® and Former State Election Supervisor of California Lou Dedier ® both have ties to Election Systems and Software (ES&S), one of our nation's leading voting machine manufacturers and tabulators. Sandra Mortham was a lobbyist for ES&S and the Florida Association of Counties during the same time period. The Florida Association of Counties made $300,000 in commissions from the sale of ES&S's voting machines. Still worse, it appears that another episode of name purges is imminent for Florida voters for the November elections, a re-run of 2000. Other states may follow California's lead-or not. If there is an election in November, 2004, and it is not absolutely certain there will be, as I will be discussing later in this article, I am not willing to vote unless I can have a paper receipt verifying my vote. This is not possible in the state where I reside. "But why don't you vote absentee?" the reader may ask. Because in a similar manner, absentee ballots can be tampered with as they were in Florida in 2000: The data shows that out of over 21,500 absentee ballots cast in Escambia County, not one voter overvoted their ballot by placing marks next to the names of only two presidential candidates. However, 296 absentee voters placed three or more marks on their presidential ballot. The odds against this occurring naturally are vanishingly small. And when one considers that the Escambia County Canvassing Board manually duplicated over 2,400 absentee ballots that were originally read by machine as overvotes and undervotes, the only conclusion is that the duplicate ballots created in Escambia County did not reflect what was on the original absentee ballots themselves. While absentee voting may decrease the odds of tampering, voter fraud itself is not the principal issue for me. For most of my adult life, I have been faced with "choices" that are not choices when voting for political leaders. More egregiously than ever before in U.S. history, the candidates for President in 2004 are not choices but clones. And how could it be otherwise when entire parties have become clones of each other, rabidly racing to the center as compliant corporate hand-puppets must do? The ghastly debasement of the American political system unequivocally eradicates valid choice, riddled as it is with conflicts of interest, soaking in the sewage of corporate contributions and a very well documented drug money pipeline which helped finance the campaigns of the Democrats and Republicans in 2000. Both political parties, with their mainstream media handmaidens, portrayed the not-so-alternative Howard Dean as a colossal nutcase (does anyone remember their portrayal of Al Gore as "wooden"?) and the palpably alternative Dennis Kucinich as "un-telegenic" and "too divisive." I hasten to add that I am closely watching Kucinich to see if he will refuse to give his blessing to Bush-clone Kerry. If he capitulates, I can only rest my case. At this moment, however, our "choice" is between the cowboy and the cadaver-both marinated in Zionism and special interest skullduggery. The abhorrent reality that someone like Kerry could receive the Democratic Party's nomination blatantly demonstrates the depths of depravity to which it has sunk. Consequently, I have come to abhor the mindless mantra "Anybody But Bush." While John Kerry is not a neo-conservative nor a co-author of the Project For A New American Century (PNAC), he does espouse global economic domination by the United States. Moreover, on virtually every momentous issue, Kerry is an echo of neo-con madness: He supports the War on Terror, including sending more troops to Iraq; he voted for the Iraq invasion; he voted for the Patriot Act; he states that "the cause of Israel must be the cause of America"; he opposes the democratically-elected opponent of U.S. imperialism in Venezuela, Hugo Chavez; he has no problem with the recent U.S. backed coup in Haiti nor the militarization of space. In 2000, after Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA) introduced a labeling law that would have given Americans the right to know whether the foods they ate contained genetically modified organisms, Kerry refused to support that bill. Why? Gee, could it be that Monsanto Corporation lawyers have contributed generously to his Senatorial campaigns from 1997 through 2000?. Kerry's national security advisor, Rand Beers, has been deeply involved in the toxic defoliation programs (compliments of Monsanto) in Colombia, one of the countries the Bush Administration is planning to invade and occupy in its so-called War on Terrorism (translation: non-war on drugs and for oil). While I could cite evidence ad nauseum of the Bush-Kerry clone syndrome, even that is not my ultimate reason for refusing to vote in 2004. Anybody But Bush (AB) enthusiasts argue that although Kerry is an echo of the Bushonian cacophony, he will give us a pro-choice agenda and appoint more balanced judges to the Supreme Court, which Bush intends to pack with Scalia clones. That the AB adherents could have such unswerving, faith in their cosmetically-improved Bush carbon-copy to steer the ship of state in a decisively less fascistic direction, particularly in the face of all evidence to the contrary, is both astonishing and predictable. Make no mistake: John Kerry, like his Democratic predecessor, Bill Clinton, is a corporate globalist. Neo-con in denial? Imperialist more marketably packaged? Yet even this is not the quintessential reason why I will not vote in November. Like the rest of my generation, I was assiduously schooled in the virtue of doing my civic duty-casting my ballot on election day or facing four years of guilt and shame attended by clichés about not complaining if I didn't vote. I was also taught that my vote is sacred because my right to clean, honest, democratic elections is sacred. My elementary and secondary teachers inculcated their propaganda about the evils of the Soviet Union and third world countries where elections were non-existent at worst and appallingly corrupt or offered citizens no valid choices at best. How fortunate we were to live in America!! Hundreds of thousands of American soldiers had given their lives so that we could vote freely in clean elections offering legitimate choices of candidates. Feminist "sheroes" like Margaret Sanger and Alice Paul marched and tirelessly campaigned so that women could vote alongside men. Nothing, I was exhorted, was more sacred or precious than my vote. Flag waving and apple pie notwithstanding, I showed up at the polls every four years throughout my adult life, proudly marking my paper ballot and feeling gratified that I could vote in free elections, even as my choices every four years became increasingly absurd. All of that changed for me in 2000 and has continued to change throughout the past three years. Suddenly, the reprehensible extent to which the voting process had become an atrociously rigged game jolted me from my teddy bear notions about free, fair, and valid elections in America. Sadly yet indisputably, I became no longer willing to play in a rigged game-no longer capable of espousing "lesser evilism." My vote, you see, is far too sacred to me. But worse, and this is my point, I now know that in America, we are not heading into fascism, not about to enter fascism, not on the verge of fascism-we are LIVING UNDER fascism. Today, it is incontrovertibly clear to me that my vote has as much meaning as the votes of Germans under Hitler, Russians under Stalin and Mexicans under seven decades of the PRI Party. In essence, there was a time when not voting would have been for me a sacrilege; today, casting my vote for anyone, especially the "lesser of two evils," is inestimably odious. Should I not vote for Nader who "has every right to run," or Kucinich in order to "make a statement"? Should I not simply realize that no governments are perfect, they never have been, they never will be, and I should simply "hold my nose and vote" for one of two clones or a candidate who cannot possibly win? Shouldn't I settle for casting a "symbolic" vote? To answer "yes," to these questions is to consent to the debacle that the American voting process has become. To answer "yes" is to remain in denial of the totalitarian government under which I now live. As an American, it is my divine right, to vote in a clean election with a paper record of my vote for a valid candidate who offers an authentic choice for leadership of my government. Therefore, were I to vote, I would disavow my commitment to the kind of America our founding fathers constructed, the kind of America for which men and women fought and died and marched and struggled since 1776. Hence, the most patriotic American act I can perform on November 4, 2004 is to stay as far away from the polls as possible and inform as many other Americans as possible of the realities of the totalitarian state in which they reside. Moreover, I have come to understand that if American citizens have any hope of transforming their government, they must not rely on voting every two, four, or six years at the polls, but rather vote every day with their time and money by refusing to consume media that is lying to them, refusing to patronize corporations that are enslaving them and refusing to participate in a phony electoral charade that drives their nation deeper into fascism. In other words, boycott the system in every manner humanly possible, and above all, do not collude in the lie that any part of it works on our behalf!!! Eclipsing all of the aforementioned arguments, however, is the ominous likelihood of a pre-election catastrophic terrorist attack in the United States, brought to us by the same players in the American government who were complicit in the September 11, 2001 attacks. Condi Rice's recent hint of possible pre-election terrorist attacks, underscored by subsequent warnings from Bush and Rumsfeld lend weight to the odds. Should there be another terrorist attack on American soil, it is axiomatic that the terror level color code would immediately be elevated to red. The United States would be in the throes of a national emergency in which the Constitution would be suspended and martial law declared. Most likely, panic and chaos would prevail, and the majority of terrified Americans would acquiesce to a Presidential order or a Congressional vote to suspend the national election. I have no crystal ball, nor would it would give me any pleasure to be right about this horrifying possibility, but to discern that the United States government is now being run as a criminal enterprise is to also understand that its leaders are as likely to accept being voted out of office as Al Capone would have, had he been mayor of Chicago in the 1920s. I refuse to live the lie called "democratic elections" in the United States in 2004 and thereby join, in the words of Benjamin Franklin, those who have "become so corrupted as to need despotic Government, being incapable of any other." If you are still considering voting for "the lesser evil," ask yourself exactly how much despotic government you still need, and why you need it. Or in the more homespun, no-B.S. style of Thelma and Louise, "Ya get whatchya settle for." Carolyn Baker teaches at New Mexico State University. She can be reached at: drumbaker@zianet.com Weekend Edition Features for April 24 / 25, 2004 William A. Cook Tweedledee and Tweedledum: Kerry and Bush Melt into One Jeffrey St. Clair Stryking Out: a General, GM and the Army's Latest Tank Brandy Baker A Revitalized Women's Movement? Let's Hope So Robert Fisk A Warning to Those Who Dare Criticize Israel in the Land of Free Speech Ben Tripp October Surmise: a Case of Worst Scenarios Nelson Valdés "Submit or Die": Iraq and the American Borg Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti's Return to the Future Kurt Nimmo The CIA Killed Pat Tillman Mark Scaramella Does Anybody Know Anything? Patrick Cockburn The Return of Saddam's Generals Gary Engler Welcome to La Paz: a Vacation in Tear Gas Col. Dan Smith Whistling in the Dark: Israel, Palestine and Bush Greg Weiher Iraq is Utterly Unlike Vietnam... Elaine Cassel Life on the Outside: a Review Vanessa Jones Letter from Australia: Why an Independent Won Sydney Jim French Agriculture's Bullied Market Hammond Guthrie Al Aronowitz, Bob Dylan and The Beatles Poets' Basement Jones, Holt, Albert, LaMorticella WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /