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New Edition of CounterPunch Ebb-Tide for the Occupation: a Journey to Najaf with the Medhi Army by Patrick Cockburn; State Terror, Oregon Division: Killer Cops by Kristian Williams; Torture in America by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. 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 22 / 23, 2004 Paul de Rooij Colin Powell, a Political Obituary May 21, 2004 Ray Close The Canards of the Apologists Christopher Brauchli "The Object of Torture is Torture" Amira Hass Darkness at Noon Jack McCarthy Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from the US Army? Bill Kauffman Nader v. Bush Omar Barghouti No More Tears for America Ghali Hassan Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza Christopher Reed How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to Torture Website of the Day Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much   May 20, 2004 Andrew Cockburn The Truth About Chalabi Kathy Kelly A Visit from the FBI Niranjan Ramakrishnan Brown and Bored of Education in India Tom Stephens & John Philo The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co. Sam Bahour / Michael Dahan Genocide by Public Policy Robert Ovetz Ending the Race for the Last Turtle Billy Wilson The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year Website of the Day Rafah Today   May 19, 2004 Elizabeth W. Corrie Caterpillar Should Do the Right Thing, Now Bill and Kathleen Christison The US Can't Win Vijay Prashad For Whom the Polls Toll: the Indian Elections of 2004 Ray Hanania Israeli War Crimes: Who to Believe, AIPAC or Amnesty Intl.? Greg Moses Man President Kisses Up at AIPAC Michael Gillespie Who is Kenneth deGraffenried? Josh Frank Homes Destroyed; Death Toll Mounts: But Where's John Kerry? Gary Corseri Out of Iraq and Plato's Cave Kevin Alexander Gray If Malcolm Were Alive     May 18, 2004 Neve Gordon The Gaza Debacle Doug Stokes Imperial Policing: Why Abu Ghraib Shouldn't Surprise Us Bob Wing The Color of Abu Ghraib Vanessa Jones Man on a Leash Thomas P. Healy Chemical Trespass: the Body Burden Zeynep Toufe Torture and Moral Agency: the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations Kenneth Roth Mistreatment of Detainees in US Custody: a Letter to Bush Elaine Cassel Pre-empting the Bill of Rights: The Other War, One Year Later Website of the Day Truth Against Truth   May 17, 2004 Kurt Nimmo The John-John Ticket: Kerry Woos McCain Laura Santina Military Conditioning and Abu Ghraib Mickey Z. With Friends Like These: More Election 2004 Madness Frederick B. Hudson Police Terror: Three Mothers Search for Justice Shakirah Esmail-Hudani Inside Abu Ghraib: the Violence of the Camera Boris Leonardo Caro The Revelations of Mr. W. Alex Dawoody Iraq: From Saddam to Occupation Victor Kattan On Watching the Execution of Nick Berg Ron Jacobs Rumsfeld's Sovereignty Shell Game   May 15 / 16, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Green Lights for Torture Douglas Valentine ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited John Stanton Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel Ben Tripp Torture: a Fond Reminiscence Brian Cloughley Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot Act Justin E. H. Smith Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey Brandy Baker Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism John Chuckman Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: Goon Squad John Holt Fencing the Sky Ron Jacobs The Power of Patti Smith Brian J. Foley Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib? Robin Philpot Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide Eric Leser The Carlyle Empire Ray Hanania From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good War Crime Jeff Halper Dozers of Mass Destruction Joe Surkiewicz Inside the Baltimore Detention Center John Whitlow Iraq Goddamn Michael Leon Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video Poets' Basement Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert     May 14, 2004 Dr. Susan Block Bush's POW Porn Ron Jacobs Secret History of the War on Drugs William Blum God, Country and Torture Michael Donnelly The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast Niranjan Ramakrishnan India Shines Stephen Gowans Building Democracy in Iraq and Other Absurdities     May 13, 2004 Dave Lindorff Where is Kerry? Colm O'Laithian Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style? Saul Landau and Farrah Hassan Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting Practices Ralph Nader An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners Willliam James Martin Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled Marc Salomon Reality TV Bites Forrest Hylton Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet on the Southern Front? May 12, 2004 Blanton / Kornbluh Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in 1992 Virginia Tilley So, Who's to Blame? Bruce Jackson James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator of Them All Thomas P. Healy No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks Linda S. Heard Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq Norman Solomon Spinning Torturegate Lisa Viscidi The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala Jack Heyman View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March on DC Niranjan Ramakrishnan Rummy's Reprieve CounterPunch Wire Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence Christopher Brauchli Detention Camp, USA William S. Lind Bush's Waterloo? May 11, 2004 Mark Engler On the "Necessity" of Torture Ray McGovern More Troops? A March of Folly Kurt Nimmo Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment Mickey Z. Less Than Hero Christopher Reed Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse Dennis Hans When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar Bruce Jackson Pete Seeger at 85 Mike Whitney Killing al Sadr Simon Helweg-Larsen Shrinking the Guatemalan Military William A. Cook The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation, Nakedly Displayed   May 10, 2004 Robert Fisk From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism and Torture as Entertainment Wayne Madsen The Israeli Torture Template: Rape, Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks Col. Dan Smith The Shame of Abu Ghraib Joe Bageant John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife! Ron Jacobs Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave Ben Tripp Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage Ray Hanania Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse Reza Fiyouzat "Mishandled" Invasions Diane Christian Images & Abstractions & Genitals Website of the Day Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport? May 8 / 9, 2004 Cockburn / St. Clair Torture: as American as Apple Pie Adam Jones America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated and Shot at Kunduz? Douglas Valentine Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press Kurt Nimmo Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib Brian Cloughley Humpty Dumpty is Falling Lucia Dailey Forbidden Games Joanne Mariner * * * *: Redacting Moussaoui Mickey Z. Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders) John Chuckman The Thing with No Brain Doug Giebel Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs Norm Dixon How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11 Sam Bahour A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah Susan Davis Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art Dave Marsh In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing Laura Flanders Life with Dick and Lynne Dave Zirin Fans Push Spiderman Off Base Carolyn Baker Why I Won't Vote in 2004 Prince "Ain't No Sense in Voting" Dr. Susan Block Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation Poets' Basement Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska   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             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 22 / 23, 2004 Democracy in Latin America Great for Investors; Not So Good for People By SAUL LANDAU "Our model [neo-liberal economic model] is very good for Brazil, but not so good for Brazilians." -- President Emilio Medici, 1971 According to comedian Chris Rock, democracy doesn't deliver equality. For example "a black C student can't even be the manager of Burger King. Meanwhile, a white C student just happens to be the president of the United States of America." I told this to a Tijuana cab driver. He laughed. So, I said, with the election of Vicente Fox in 2000, Mexico now has democracy. "And I can walk on water," he replied. Well, at least democratic elections. Tell me, has this changed your life in any way? "You mean did I get a beautiful new girlfriend, or a new house with a swimming pool?" No, I said. Has democracy improved your situation? You see, the UN Development Program recently took a poll in Latin America and found that while democratic institutions had spread throughout the region, most people did not think they had benefited from them. "Polls?" the driver retorted. "Some pollsters found that the majority of adults know people who go to work drunk or stoned on drugs. The minority used the survey as rolling paper." I laughed. "What's democracy got to do with poverty," he asked, turning suddenly serious. "I voted for Fox because the PRI [the Institutionalized Revolutionary Party that governed Mexico for seven decades] was a bunch of thieves. But Fox didn't ask his billionaire friends to share their fortunes with working people. Those who stole vast sums from the public, thanks to their political cronies, have gotten richer. Am I poorer or richer in the last four years? Who has time to count? "Listen, in Mexico, poor people expect nothing. That way they can't get too disappointed. I imagine most of Latin America feels the same way. Politicians say democracy as if it would produce magic, like they did with NAFTA. They swore life would change for the better. But it hasn't. Sure, NAFTA made new jobs, but at the same time the government devalued the currency. If I had 50 thousand pesos in the bank before devaluation, they were worth a third of that afterwards. Patriots like me deposited savings in Mexican banks instead of the ones in San Diego. I was a fool," said the cab driver. Some multi national corporations that had built plants in the Otay Mesa area have recently moved to China because they paid lower wages there. Had this changed life in this buzzing border city? "Tijuana has more people now. Maybe 2 million? Who really knows? They come from rural Mexico or other places where there's no work. More people are employed than say, ten years ago. And more are unemployed as well. Tijuana has more money, more crime, more consumer goods and more drugs. In the old days, whores worked at bars that watered down drinks and offered sex shows to sailors and marines from California. The farmacias still sell cheap drugs to retired Americans. But now, Tijuana lives off maquilas. The new whores sell themselves to the young men who come from the farms. Disease, divorce, more passion crimes. Well, that's evolution," he concluded. "It's like democracy. You get an honest election, but not necessarily honest politicians who win them." I paid my fare. Did this cab driver represent Latin American public opinion? The UN researchers, directed by former Argentine Foreign Minister Dante Caputo, interviewed 20,000 people in 18 countries (excluding Cuba) and concluded that like the Tijuana cabby, the majority have become disillusioned with democracy because it hasn't touched inequality. By failing to deal with the consequences of extreme poverty, the researchers conclude, the current system could lead "to the slow death of democracy" and the reemergence of military dictatorships. One doesn't need to conduct a survey to discover that since 2000, four elected presidents have left office before the end of their terms. Last October, prolonged economic stagnation provoked rage among Bolivians who forced President Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to flee to Miami in fear. In Argentina and Ecuador, elected presidents also recently left office because their economic policies produced political hatred. Aristide's departure had more complex reasons, but certainly the failure of the free market model loomed large in Haiti. And in Peru, Alejandro Toledo, who won wide appeal by trumpeting democracy in his campaign, has watched his approval rating dip to 7 percent. He had promised voters that he not only meant free speech and politics, but the creation of jobs to address Peru's super high unemployment rate. Now Peruvians know that democracy means US-backed "free market" economics. The UN study doesn't ask those interviewed what they mean by democracy. Nor does it ask the State Department, which has reserved its blessings for governments that adopt free market policies. And no wonder! The balance of trade falls favorably on the U.S. side. The investments receive protection, the World Bank and IMF hand out loans at substantial interest rates of course and the elected governments then take the heat, as they should. In 1989, Venezuelan Social Democratic President Carlos Andres Perez ordered troops to quell an anti-IMF riot in Caracas. Estimates of those killed by their own army ran as high as 2,000. Then, when the Social Democrats lost the next election, the Christian Democrats replaced them and followed the same failed economic policy. When anti-free market Hugo Chavez won in 1998, Washington withdrew its approval. Yes, democracy in Latin America is preferable to dictatorship. Thousands of people no longer "disappear" in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay as they did in the 1970s and 80s; tens of thousands don't experience torture and hundreds of thousands need not flee into exile. Organized constituencies occasionally even win some gains on the economic and cultural fronts. But they prove short lived. The neo-liberal model has actually reduced living standards in several countries, meaning that the right to vote does not necessarily mean making a living wage, getting an education or access to medical care. A 2003 report by the Inter-American Development Bank indicates that Latin American unemployment rates have reached all time highs, and poverty has spiraled out of control. As a result, the majority apparently reject democracy, which many see as the free market model and demand instead that governments make social issues a priority. The antipathy towards democracy revealed in the poll means that voters understand the word as voting for one of a choice of candidates, all of whom support free market economics. Freedom in practice means foreign investors get favors and workers get screwed; rule of law covers multinational corporate investments. When George W. Bush repeats "free Iraq" or lauds democracy in Latin America as he browbeats Latin Americans into supporting the FTAA (Free Trade Agreement of the Americas), he doesn't envision freedom as the majority exercising its will to uplift their economic conditions. The April 26 NY Times editorial assumes that democracy has truly spread, but warns that "it's easy to take the triumph for granted... to lose sight of just how anomalous it is for the bulk of Latin America to be governed by democratic rule, given the region's authoritarian tradition and trends in other developing parts of the world." Please, the United States has a tradition of slavery and apartheid. The reason democracy as practiced has little meaning relates to the fact that successive governments refuse to deal with redistribution of wealth and, when one does, as with Castro in Cuba or Chavez in Venezuela, the United States targets it with violence, propaganda and economic sanctions. It's easy and boring to relegate the issue to "chronic official corruption," when in fact US policies reward such behavior: US policy not only tolerated but supported the most corrupt regimes in the Hemisphere, including the Somoza and Duvalier family dictatorships in Nicaragua and Haiti from the 1930s through the 1980s. U.S. policy overthrew elected governments that tried to address poverty and corruption in Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973). When the NY Times preaches that "democracy is about more than elections and market-opening economic reforms the twin obsessions of United States policy makers and multilateral financial organizations" you know the elite has begun to worry. But reviving old saws like "bolstering the rule of law" and "development of independent judiciaries" does not touch the redistribution of wealth. Such a path would call for the United States to begin to return some of the fortune it has stolen from the people of Latin America just doing business over the past century. Don't hold you breath. Latin Americans, even if they resort to rule of law and honest courts, will have to do this without support from Washington or the NY Times. On my way back to the U.S. border I asked another cab driver, less vocal than the one who brought me, if he felt optimistic about democracy in Mexico. He shrugged his shoulders. "Someone said that an optimist is simply a poorly informed pessimist. I try not to think about such things. It clouds my mind." Saul Landau is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies. He teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University. For Landau's writing in Spanish visit: www.rprogreso.com. His new book, PRE-EMPTIVE EMPIRE: A GUIDE TO BUSH S KINGDOM, has just been published by Pluto Press. His new film is Syria: Between Iraq and a Hard Place, now available from the Cinema Guild. He can be reached at: landau@counterpunch.org Weekend Edition Features for May 15 / 16, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Green Lights for Torture Douglas Valentine ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited John Stanton Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel Ben Tripp Torture: a Fond Reminiscence Brian Cloughley Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot Act Justin E. H. Smith Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey Brandy Baker Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism John Chuckman Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape Bill Glahn RIAA Watch: Goon Squad John Holt Fencing the Sky Ron Jacobs The Power of Patti Smith Brian J. Foley Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib? Robin Philpot Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide Eric Leser The Carlyle Empire Ray Hanania From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good War Crime Jeff Halper Dozers of Mass Destruction Joe Surkiewicz Inside the Baltimore Detention Center John Whitlow Iraq Goddamn Michael Leon Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video Poets' Basement Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /