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Recent Stories

July 12 / 13, 2003

Arthur Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future

Standard Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson

John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetery: Washington and Pyongyang

Ron Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran

Elaine Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights

Tom Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11

David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"

Jason Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11

Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?

Mickey Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa

Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group

Ramzy Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Adam Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist

Robert Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream

Poets' Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie

 

July 11, 2003

Conn Hallinan
The Coin of Empire

Tim Wise
God Responds to Bush

Mokhiber / Weissman
The Two Faces of Bush in Africa

Edward S. Herman
Whitewashing Sandra Day O'Connor

David Orr
Coffeen-gate: What's Going on at the Sierra Club Foundation?

David Lindorff
An Iraq War & Occupation Glossary

Website of the Day
Dead Malls

 

July 10, 2003

Ron Jacobs
Dealing with the Devil: the Bloody Profits of General Dynamics

Sean Donahue
Bush and the Paramillitaries: Coddling Terrorists in Colombia

Yemi Toure
Who Outted Bush in Afrika?

Robert Jensen
Politics and Sustainability: an Interview with Wes Jackson

Ali Abunimah
US Leaves Injured Iraqis Untreated

Joanne Mariner
Federal Courts, Not Military Commissions

Website of the Day
Electronic Iraq

 

July 9, 2003

David Lindorff
Is the Media Finally Turning on Bush?

David Krieger and Angela McCracken
10 Myths About Nuclear Weapons

Mickey Z.
Why Speak Out?

Lee Sustar
The Great Medicare Fraud

John Chuckman
The Worst Kind of Lie

Gary Leupp
"Pacifist" Japan and the Occupation of Iraq

Website of the Day
Hail to the Thief:
Songs for the Bush Years

 

July 8, 2003

Elaine Cassel
Bully on the Bench: the Pathological Dissents of Scalia

Alan Maass
Nights of Fire and Rage in Benton Harbor

Chris Floyd
Troubled Sleep: Getting Used to the American Gulag

Linda S. Heard
America's Kangaroo Justice

Brian Cloughley
They Tell Lies to Nodders

Charles Sullivan
Bush the Christian?

Saul Landau
The Intelligence Culture in the National Security Age

Website of the Day
Occupation Watch

 

July 7, 2003

William Blum
The Anti-Empire Report

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuke with a Hole in Its Head

Ramzy Baroud
Peace for All the Wrong Reasons

Simon Jones
What Progressives Should Think About Iran

Lesley McCulloch
Fear, Pain and Shame in Aceh

Uri Avnery
The Draw

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3

 

July 4 / 6, 2003

Patrick Cockburn
Dead on the Fourth of July

Frederick Douglass
What is Freedom to a Slave?

Martha Honey
Bush and Africa: Racism, Exploitation and Neglect

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Rat in the Grain: Amstutz and the Looting of Iraqi Agriculture

Standard Schaefer
Rule by Fed: Anyone But Greenspan in 2004

Lenni Brenner
Jefferson is for Today

Elaine Cassel
Fucking Furious on the Fourth

Ben Tripp
How Free Are We?

Wayne Madsen
A Sad Independence Day

John Stanton
Happy Birthday, America! 227 Years of War

Jim Lobe
Bush's Surreal AIDS Appointment

John Blair
Return to Marble Hill: Indiana's Rusting Nuke

Lisa Walsh Thomas
Heavy Reckoning at Qaim

David Vest
Wake Up and Smell the Dynamite

Adam Engel
Queer as Grass

Poets' Basement
Christian, Witherup, Albert & St. Clair

Website of the Weekend
The Lipstick Librarian

 

July 3, 2003

Patrick W. Gavin
The Meaning of Gettysburg

Thomas W. Croft
There Was a Reason They Called It the Casino Economy

David Lindorff
Outlawing Subversives: Hong Kong and the US

John Chuckman
Lessons from the American Revolution

Jackson Thoreau
New Far-Right Scheme: Impeach Supreme Court Justices

Stan Goff
"Bring 'Em On?": a Former Special Forces Soldier Responds to Bush's Invitation for Iraqis to Attack US Troops

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/3


July 2, 2003

Diane Christian
Good Killing and Bad Killing

Richard Falk
After Iraq, Does UN War Prevention Have a Future?

Mokhiber / Weissman
Bush Administration: Causing Repetitive Stress

Justin Podur
Uribe's Onslaught Across Colombia

Reuven Kaviner
Prosecuting Ben-Artzi, the Refusenik

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/2

July 1, 2003

Sasan Fayamanesh
Weapon of Choice: Nukes, Israel and Iran

Elaine Cassel
Sex and the Supreme Moralizer: Scalia and the Sodomy Cops

Susan Block
A Love Supreme: Our Assholes Belong to Ourselves

Bill Glahn
RIAA Watch: No, No Bono

David Lindorff
Weapons in Search of a Name

Gary Leupp
Occupation, Resistance and the Plight of the GIs

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 7/1

 

June 30, 2003

Karyn Strickler
The Do-Nothings: an Exposé of Progressive Politics in America

Col. Dan Smith
The Occupation of Iraq: Descending into the Quagmire

Tim Wise
Race and Destruction in Black and White

Neve Gordon
The Roadmap and the Wall

Chris Floyd
The Revelation of St. George: "God Told Me to Strike Saddam"

Elaine Cassel
Kentucky Woman

Uri Avnery
Hope in Dark Times

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/30

Website of the Day
Bush El Hombre

 

June 28 / 29, 2003

M. Shahid Alam
Bernard Lewis: Scholarship or Sophistry?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Meet Steven Griles: Big Oil's Inside Man

Laura Carlsen
Democracy's Future: From the Polls or the Populace?

Alan Maass
You Call These Democrats an Alternative?

C.Y. Gopinath
Bush and Kindergarten

Noah Leavitt
Bush, the Death Penalty and International Law

Joanne Mariner
Rehnquist Family Values

Ignacio Chapela
Tenure, Censorship and Biotech at Berkeley

Bob Scowcroft
Bush's Squeeze on Organic Farmers

Jon Brown
Tom Delay: "I am the Government"

Kam Zarrabi
Keep Your Hands Off Iran, Please!

Ron Jacobs
Big Bill Broonzy's Conversation with the Blues

Julie Hilden
Fear Factor: Art, Terror and the First Amendment

Adrien Rain Burke
The Anarchists' Wedding Guide

Adam Engel
US Troops Outta Times Square

Poets' Basement
Witherup, Guthrie, Albert, Hamod

 

June 27, 2003

Jason Leopold
CIA: Seven Months Prior to 9/11 Iraq Posed No Threat to US

David Vest
Supreme Silence: Bush's Bunker-Hunker

David Lindorff
The Catch and Release of "Comical Ali"

Ray McGovern
Cheney, Forgery and the CIA

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/26

Website of the Day
John Kerry, Teresa Heinz & Ken Lay: The Politics of Hypocrisy

June 26, 2003

Sen. Robert Byrd
The Road of Cover-Up is a Road to Ruin

Jason Leopold
Wolfowitz Instructed the CIA to Investigate Hans Blix

Paul de Rooij
Ambient Death in Palestine

Chris Floyd
Mass Graves and Burned Meat in Bush's New Iraq

Elaine Cassel
Wolfowitz as Lord High Executioner

CounterPunch Wire
Musicians Unite Against Sweatshops

Sheldon Hull
Squatting in Mansions

Ben Tripp
A Guide to Hating Almost Anyone

Uri Avnery
The Best Show in Town

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25

Website of the Day
Ordinary Vistas:
The Photographs of Kurt Nimmo

 

June 25, 2003

Bruce Jackson
Buffalo Cops Wage War on Pedal Pushers

Mickey Z.
The New Dark Ages

David Lindorff
Indonesia's War on Journalists

Dan Bacher
Butterflies and Farmworkers Confront USDA and Riot Cops

Adam Federman
"Success is Not the Issue Here"

Elaine Cassel
"Ain't No Justice": Fed Judge Quits, Assails Sentencing Guidelines

Bill Kauffman
My America vs. the Empire

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/25

Website of the Day
You Are Being Watched:
Elevator Moods

 

June 24, 2003

Elaine Cassel
Supreme Indemnity
Holocaust Denial at the High Court

Roya Monajem
A Message from Tehran: Is It Worth It to Risk One's Life?

John Chuckman
The Real Clash of Civilizations

David Lindorff
WMD Damage Control at the Times

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/24

 

June 23, 2003

Marc Pritzke
Washington Lied: an Interview with Ray McGovern

Conn Hallinan
The Consistency of Sharon

Wayne Madsen
Commercials, Disney & Amistad

Edward Said
The Meaning of Rachel Corrie

Steve Perry
Bush's Wars Web Log 6/23

June 21 / 22, 2003

Alexander Cockburn
My Life as a Rabbi

William A. Cook
The Scourge of Hopelessness

Standard Schaefer
The Wages of Terror: an Interview with R.T. Naylor

Ron Jacobs
US Prisons as Strategic Hamlets

Harry Browne
The Pitstop Ploughshares

Lawrence Magnuson
WMD: The Most Dangerous Game

Harold Gould
Saddam and the WMD Mystery

David Krieger
10 Reasons to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

Avia Pasternak
The Unholy Alliance in the Occupied Territories

CounterPunch
Summer Reading:
Our Favorite Novels

Todd Chretien
Return to Sender: Todd Gitlin, the Duke of Condescension

Maria Tomchick
Danny Goldberg's Imaginary Kids

Adam Engel
The Fat Man in Little Boy

Poets' Basement
Guthrie, Albert & Hamod


June 20, 2003

Walter Brasch
Down on Our Knees

Robert Meeropol
The Son of the Rosenbergs on His Parents Death and Bush's America

Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman
Grannies and Baby Bells

Norman Madarasz
Pierre Bourgault: the Life of a Quebec Radical

Gary Leupp
Bush on "Revisionist Historians"

Steve Perry
Bush's Lies Marathon: the Finale

 

Hot Stories

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

Elaine Cassel
Civil Liberties Watch

Michel Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I Saw Marines Kill Civilians"

Uzma Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War: What America Says Does Not Go

Paul de Rooij
Arrogant Propaganda

Gore Vidal
The Erosion of the American Dream

Francis Boyle
Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution

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Bastille Day
July 14, 2003

Training Colombia's Killers in the US

Plan Colombia: Three Years Later

By SOA Watch

July 13th marked the third anniversary of the US military aid package known as "Plan Colombia" and consequently, the fatal impact it has had on human rights. Three years ago the US Congress voted to send 1.3 billion dollars to Colombia in order to fight the "war on drugs".

An amendment to U.S. law currently prohibits military aid to units linked to human rights abuses. Although violations officially attributed to the Colombian military have decreased, the Human Rights Watch and State Department Reports establish the collusion and collaboration between the military and paramilitary forces.

With military support, the paramilitaries have begun operating as surrogate death squads and thugs. A United Nations report confirmed this trend, stating that "Members of the military participated in massacres, organized paramilitary groups, and spread death threats. The security forces also failed to take action, and this undoubtedly enabled the paramilitary groups to achieve their exterminating objectives."

Many of the Colombian officers cited in the reports graduated from the School of the Americas (SOA) - a US military training institution for Latin American soldiers - and certainly the strategy of using paramilitary groups for the military's dirty work is nothing new for SOA students.

Roberto D'Aubuisson established the Death Squads that were responsible for much of the violence in El Salvador in the 1980's, and Benedicto Lucas Garcia masterminded the creation of the Civil Defense Patrols in Guatemala. Mexico's Jose Ruben Rivas Pena, who took the SOA's elite Command and Staff Course, called for the "training and support for self-defense forces or other paramilitary organizations in Chiapas."

The 1998 State Department Human Rights Report describes the case against SOA graduate Gen. Yanine Diaz from Colombia, who "was accused of implementing a strategy to have paramilitary groups carry out counter guerrilla activities that the army was prohibited from doing. Despite the Government's attempts to bring him to justice in the civilian court system, the military prevailed, continuing the tradition of impunity for all but the lowest-ranking members of the security forces."

The Human Rights Watch Report cited SOA grads Maj. Jesus Maria Clavijo Clavijo and Maj. Alvaro Cortes Morillo for their links to paramilitary groups through cell phone and beeper communications and regular meetings on military bases. In sworn testimony, a former Fourth Brigade solider implicated Clavijo in the paramilitary killings in February 1999 and in "legalizing" corpses delivered by paramilitaries for bounty. The witness told investigators that "everywhere Clavijo went, there were disappearances, murders, and wherever he was there was always a flood of reports of abuses."

Human Rights Watch cited another SOA graduate, Brig. Gen. Jaime Ernesto Canal Alban, Commander of the Third Brigade for setting up a "paramilitary" force in southern Colombia in 1999 and providing it with weapons and intelligence.

SOA grad Gen. Carlos Ospina Ovalle commanded the Fourth Brigade at a time when there was "extensive evidence of pervasive ties" between the Fourth Brigade and paramilitary groups involved in human rights abuses, including evidence of continued illegal activity throughout 1998 and 1999. While under the command of Ospina Ovalle, the Fourth Brigade - along with paramilitary groups -- is also implicated in the 1997 massacre in El Aro.

"We know the names of the generals and the high-ranking officers implicated in these killings, and nothing has been done," said Luis Eduardo Guerra, a Colombian peace activist whose community has repeatedly been targeted by paramilitaries. "We know that the officers who trained the paramilitaries were trained at the School of the Americas."

School of America's Watch can be reached through their excellent website.


Weekend Edition Features for July 12/13, 2003

Arthur Mitzman
The Double Wall Before the Future

Standard Schaefer
The Coming Financial Reality: an Interview with Michael Hudson

John Feffer
A Fearful Symmetery: Washington and Pyongyang

Ron Jacobs
Shades of Gray in Iran

Elaine Cassel
Judicial Terrorism Against the Bill of Rights

Tom Stephens
Civil Liberties After 9/11

David Lindorff
New White House Slogan: "Case Closed. Just Move On"

Jason Leopold
The Mini-War Against Iraq Prior to 9/11

Lee Sustar
What's Behind the Crisis in Liberia?

Mickey Z.
AIDS Dissent and Africa

Sam Hamod
Semitic is a Language Group, Not a Race or Ethnic Group

Ramzy Baroud
Awaiting Justice on an Old Blanket

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Adam Engel
Parable of the Lobbyist

Robert Sanders
A Review of Ralph Lopez's American Dream

Poets' Basement
Albert, Witherup, Guthrie

 

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