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Today's
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January 8, 2004
James Hollander
Journalists
Under Fire: the Death of José Couso in Baghdad
January 7, 2004
Democracy Now!
Uncharitable
Care: How Hospitals are Gouging and Even Arresting the Uninsured
Greg Weiher
The
Bush Administration's Ongoing Intelligence Problem
Ben Tripp
The Word of the Year, 2003
Dave Lindorff
Dean and His Democratic Detractors
Michael Leon
The NYT Does Chomsky
Bob Boldt
God Talk
Ramon Ryan
Small
Victories and Long Struggles: the 10th Anniversary of the Zapatista
Uprising
January 6, 2004
Dave Lindorff
RNC
Plays the Hitler Card: MoveOn Shouldn't Apologize for Those Ads
Ron Jacobs
Drugs
in Uniform: Hashish and the War on Terrorism
Josh Frank
Coffee and State Authority in Colombia
Doug Giebel
Permanent Bases: Leave Iraq? Hell No, We Won't Go
John Chuckman
Sick Puppies: David Frum's New Neo-Con Manifesto
Rannie Amiri
The Politics of the Iranian Earthquake
John L. Hess
A Record
to Dissent From
Thacher Schmid
A Cheesehead's Musings on the Sunday NYT
David Price
"Like
Slaves": Anthropological Thoughts on Occupation
January 5, 2004
Al Krebs
How
Now Mad Cow!
Kathy Kelly
Squatting
in Baghdad's Bomb Craters
Jordy Cummings
The Dialectic of the Kristol Family: Putting the Neo in the Cons
Fran Shor
Mad Human Disease: Chewing the Fat Down on the Farm
Fidel Castro
"We Shall Overcome": On the 45th Anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution
Gary Leupp
North
Korea for Dummies
January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
January 2, 2004
Stan Cox
Red Alert
2016
Dave Lindorff
Beef, the Meat of Republicans
Jackie Corr
Rule and Ruin: Wall Street and Montana
Norman Solomon
George Will's Ethics: None of Our Business?
David Vest
As the Top Wobbleth
January 1, 2004
Randall Robinson
Honor
Haiti, Honor Ourselves
David Krieger
Looking
Back on 2003
Robert Fisk
War Takes an Inhuman Twist: Roadkill Bombs
Stan Goff
War,
Race and Elections
Hammond Guthrie
2003 Almaniac
Website of the Day
Embody Bags
December 31, 2003
Ray McGovern
Don't
Be Fooled Again: This Isn't an Independent Investigation
Kurt Nimmo
Manufacturing Hysteria
Robert Fisk
The Occupation is Damned
Mike Whitney
Mad Cows and Downer George
Alexander Cockburn
A Great Year Ebbed, Another Ahead
December 30, 2003
Michael Neumann
Criticism
of Israel is Not Anti-Semitism
Annie Higgins
When
They Bombed the Hometown of the Virgin Mary
Alan Farago
Bush Bros. Wrecking Co.: Time Runs Out for the Everglades
Dan Bacher
Creatures from the Blacklight Lagoon: From Glofish to Frankenfish
Jeffrey St. Clair
Hard
Time on the Killing Floor: Inside Big Meat
Willie Nelson
Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?
December 29, 2003
Mark Hand
The Washington
Post in the Dock?
David Lindorff
The
Bush Election Strategy
Phillip Cryan
Interested Blindness: Media Omissions in Colombia's War
Richard Trainor
Catellus Development: the Next Octopus?
Uri Avnery
Israel's
Conscientious Objectors
December 27 / 28, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
A
Journey Into Rupert Murdoch's Soul
Kathy Kelly
Christmas Day in Baghdad: A Better World
Saul Landau
Iraq
at the End of the Year
Dave Zirin
A Linebacker for Peace & Justice: an Interview with David
Meggysey
Robert Fisk
Iraq
Through the American Looking Glass
Scott Burchill
The Bad Guys We Once Thought Good: Where Are They Now?
Chris Floyd
Bush's Iraq Plan is Right on Course: Saddam 2.0
Brian J. Foley
Don't Tread on Me: Act Now to Save the Constitution
Seth Sandronsky
Feedlot Sweatshops: Mad Cows and the Market
Susan Davis
Lord
of the (Cash Register) Rings
Ron Jacobs
Cratched Does California
Adam Engel
Crumblecake and Fish
Norman Solomon
The Unpardonable Lenny Bruce
Poets' Basement
Cullen and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Activism Through Music
December 26, 2003
Gary Leupp
Bush
Doings: Doing the Language
December 25, 2003
Diane Christian
The
Christmas Story
Elaine Cassel
This
Christmas, the World is Too Much With Us
Susan Davis
Jinglebells, Hold the Schlock
Kristen Ess
Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, While Rafah Counts the Dead
Francis Boyle
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Alexander Cockburn
The
Magnificient 9
Guthrie / Albert
Another Colorful Season
December 24, 2003
M. Shahid Alam
The Semantics
of Empire
William S. Lind
Marley's
List for Santa in Wartime
Josh Frank
Iraqi
Oil: First Come, First Serve
Cpt. Paul Watson
The
Mad Cowboy Was Right
Robert Lopez
Nuance
and Innuendo in the War on Iraq
December 23, 2003
Brian J. Foley
Duck
and Cover-up
Will Youmans
Sharon's
Ultimatum
Michael Donnelly
Here
They Come Again: Another Big Green Fiasco
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Speech: the Decoded Version
December 22, 2003
Jeffrey St. Clair
Pray
to Play: Bush's Faith-Based National Parks
Patrick Gavin
What Would Lincoln Do?
Marjorie Cohn
How to
Try Saddam: Searching for a Just Venue
Kathy Kelly
The
Two Troublemakers: "Guilty of Being Palestinians in Iraq"
December 20 / 21, 2003
Alexander Cockburn
How
to Kill Saddam
Saul Landau
Bush Tries Farce as Cuba Policy
Rafael Hernandez
Empire and Resistance: an Interview with Tariq Ali
David Vest
Our Ass and Saddam's Hole
Kurt Nimmo
Bush
Gets Serious About Killing Iraqis
Greg Weiher
Lessons from the Israeli School on How to Win Friends in the
Islamic World
Christopher Brauchli
Arrest, Smear, Slink Away: Dr. Lee and Cpt. Yee
Carol Norris
Cheers of a Clown: Saddam and the Gloating Bush
Bruce Jackson
The Nameless and the Detained: Bush's Disappeared
Juliana Fredman
A Sealed Laboratory of Repression
Mickey Z.
Holiday Spirit at the UN
Ron Jacobs
In the Wake of Rebellion: The Prisoner's Rights Movement and
Latino Prisoners
Josh Frank
Sen. Max Baucus: the Slick Swindler
John L. Hess
Slow Train to the Plane
Adam Engel
Black is Indeed Beautiful
Ben Tripp
The Relevance of Art in Times of Crisis
Michael Neumann
Rhythm and Race
Poets' Basement
Cullen, Engel, Albert & Guthrie
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Dardagan,
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J.B.
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The
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Francis Boyle
Impeach
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January
8, 2004
Journalists Under
Fire
The
Death of José Couso in Baghdad
By JAMES HOLLANDER
"I think war is a dangerous place,
and I think that nobody would kill a journalist intentionally."
George W. Bush
"The death of José Couso
was a premeditated crime, an attack on journalists to prevent
us from telling the story of something the US has tried to hide
from the start of the war: the slaughter of civilians."
Mónica G. Prieto, Baghdad correspondent
for the Spanish newspaper El Mundo.
The invasion and occupation of Iraq has certainly
had its share of crimes and atrocities, any of which should be
cause enough to have Bush and Blair brought before the Hague,
if the mechanisms of international justice could actually bring
the powerful to heel, beginning with the war itself, which, as
noted here at Counterpunch and elsewhere, was a crime against
peace, the worst possible crime, as it constitutes a prelude
to all other crimes. As valuable and important as it is, the
immediate body count from the war doesn't begin to tell the whole
story. Indeed, even many of us opposed to the war usually fail
to grasp the fullest dimension of its unseen, long-term sheer
criminality, for it goes far beyond the direct victims of bombing
raids and the ongoing counterinsurgency by US troops: they have
lain waste to a entire country, setting back for decades its
possibilities for development and progress, ravaging its health
system, shortening its life expectancy by impairing its general
health and well-being, inflicting deep, traumatic psychological
wounds and truncating the life possibilities of Iraqis for generations:
in a word, genocide.
Though Iraqis are the main victims, journalists
also suffered their share of losses, and it should be remembered
that journalists are defined as civilians in the Geneva Conventions.
It is essential to defend journalists in war zones from the
attacks of those who would seek to cover up their crimes by silencing
reporters and thereby depriving the world of first-hand knowledge
of what's really happening in war. This is especially true for
non-US journalists, as they are less prone to simply pass on
the servings of mess-hall slop dished out by the US military,
but called "reporting" by US retail media outlets.
To stop future wars, we must work to fully bring home the horror
it entails and defend those in the field working tell the truth.
Given Washington's hostility towards
media it does not control (witness Rumsfeld and the Arab satellite
stations), the issue is crucial for them and for us, because
more wars are coming down the pike, friends, and they would like
nothing better than to make the next invasion off-limits to anyone
not "embedded," and thus prevent ghastly pictures of
the victims from making the rounds on the net, Al-Jazeera or
anywhere else.
The death of José Couso, a TV
cameraman for Tele 5, is a case in point on the treatment meted
out to troublesome witnesses to the outrages of the US empire.
It also tells us something about the impunity demanded by US
forces, its insistence on the freedom to act with no restraints
or accountability for the consequences of its actions, in effect
turning the entire planet into a free-fire zone. Moreover, the
nature of the one-way "alliance" between the US and
Spain, sealed at the Bush-Blair-Aznar summit in the Azores Islands
three days before the war, comes into plain and sordid view.
Most important, though, the mighty struggle for justice being
waged by the family, friends and colleagues of Jose Couso should
serve as an inspiration and example for all.
As the fall of Baghdad approached, some
300 international journalists were based in the Palestine Hotel,
on the eastern bank of the Tigris River. They had relocated from
the Al-Rashid when CNN left and moved to the Palestine. Most
reporters assumed that the presence of CNN would provide a sort
of cover, that the US military wouldn't bomb CNN. José
Couso and reporter Jon Sistiaga, reporting the war for Spanish
TV channel Tele 5, followed suit.
Early in the morning of April 8, the
day before the fall of Baghdad, a tank with the Third Infantry
Division's Fourth Brigade, 64th Armor Regiment standing on the
Al-Jumuriya bridge over the Tigris River aims its turret and
knocks out a camera on the roof of the offices of Abu-Dhabi Television.
From room 1403 in the Palestine across the river, José
Couso's camera captures the tank carefully aiming at the "target,"
even though Abu-Dhabi TV had already given the coordinates of
its offices to the Pentagon before the war.
Some time later, Al-Jazeera comes under
attack. Though in a more conflictive area, they had also alerted
the Pentagon to the exact GPS position of their Baghdad bureau.
To no avail: a missile takes the life of Tarek Ayyoub, a Jordanian
reporter with the network. Al-Jazeera is once again a target
for US forces, as its bureau in Kabul had been hit in November
2001.
Later that morning, a lull in the fighting
reigns in the district of Baghdad immediately surrounding the
Palestine Hotel, where, as the Pentagon knows the international
media is based. Throughout the early morning, US tanks and planes
have been cleaning up the last scattered remnants of Iraqi forces
still putting up some find of fight, almost entirely on the western
bank of the Tigris river, where the presidential palaces and
ministries are found. A calm seems to take hold, as no shooting
occurs for a good while. The Spanish reporter, Carlos Hernández
of Antena 3, says that they seemed to have run out of targets.
Some reporters go inside and begin to file reports, and many
cameras stop shooting. Sistiaga: "I even left the balcony
because I saw that a whole half-hour had gone by with a single
shot, and it seemed that the battle was at a halt." But
not José Couso, who continues to aim his camera at the
tanks on the Al-Jumuriya bridge.
Then, Couso sees and records an Abrams
M1A1 tank as it swings its turret round and points toward the
Palestine; it pauses, then fires a single round at the hotel,
some three quarters of a mile away, striking the 15th floor.
This is the third attack on the media of the day, and it's not
yet quite 12 noon. Couso himself and the Ukrainian reporter
for Reuters, Tara Protsyuk, are struck by debris and shrapnel.
Protsyuk dies almost immediately from his wounds. Severely wounded
in the leg, Couso is rushed to the hospital by his partner Jon
Sistiaga and Mexican cameraman Jorge Pliego, in scenes shown
on Spanish TV. Couso holds on for a couple of hours, but succumbs
to a massive state of shock, though doctors have done all they
could despite the chaos and sheer number of Iraqi civilians coming
in.
The explanations were murky and contradictory.
Clearly underwhelmed by the need to explain what would be a minor
incident in the victorious conquest of Baghdad, media general
Vincent Brooks in Qatar lied, using the all-purpose "responding
to enemy fire" defense. Radio communications up and down
the chain of command, as overheard by embedded reporters, and
a personal appeal to journalists from brigade commander Col.
David Perkins suggested that there had been an attempt to prevent
the Palestine from being targeted, but somehow it did not succeed,
if in earnest (See report by the Committee to Protect Journalists:
www.cpj.org/Briefings/2003/palestine_hotel/palestine_hotel.html).
The Spanish media erupted. Appearances
by Prime Minister Aznar and Foreign Minister Ana Palacio were
met with the protests of cameramen and women, who laid down their
cameras and refused to film their press conferences. Immediate
protests by colleagues, friends and family were organized in
front of the US embassy in Madrid. The family filed a suit in
Spanish court charging a war crime under Spanish and international
law against Sergeant Shawn Gibson, who fired the deadly shot,
Captain Philip Wolford, commander of the tank unit, and Lieutenant
Colonel Philip Decamp, commander of the 64th Armor Regiment.
The CPJ report is actually somewhat charitable,
concluding that the death of Couso and Protsyuk was "avoidable,"
though not "deliberate."
Their Spanish colleagues have a clearer
vision, and mince no words in spelling it out. Jon Sistiaga:
"I think they deliberately fired on the journalists' hotel
First they take out Al-Jazeera, then Abu-Dhabi a half hour later,
and a half hour after that, why not, with the same tank they
shoot at the hotel housing the rest of the international media."
Monica G. Prieto, once more: "They'd been holding those
positions since the early hours of the morning, they must have
had us extremely well located."
A month later, Spanish Prime Minister
José María Aznar was in Washington to reassure
Bush of his fealty. At a joint press conference, a Spanish journalist
had the temerity to disturb George with the issue of José
Couso, and whether the US should apologize, whereupon Bush half-murmured
the hideous malapropism found at the head of this article. Aznar
then said that the US recognized that it had been a mistake,
which was simply false, as the US has done no such thing. That
should be enough, Aznar stated, showing a clear willingness to
sacrifice as many of his countrymen as necessary on the altar
of loyalty to his imperial master (See www.cnn.com/.
Oh, and Aznar probably wanted to send down the memory hole his
own reception of Tariq Aziz at the presidential palace in Madrid
in 1998, or the meeting as late as February 2000 of then Spanish
Foreign Minister Abel Matutes with then Iraqi Foreign Minister,
Mohammed Said Al-Sahaf. Or the negotiations for an oil deal until
2000.
Foreign Minister Palacio does get Colin
Powell to promise an "investigation," the results of
which are sent in August. The Spanish Foreign Ministry sends
the Couso family two typewritten pages with no heading or signature,
with no translation into Spanish. Therein, a new explanation
arises: a spotter for Iraqi forces appeared to be using the Palestine
Hotel (See http://www.josecouso.info/,
bottom of the page). Falsely claiming that US forces were under
"heavy attack," the shot at the hotel therefore constituted
"self-defense." More lies: "the Palestine Hotel
and the areas immediately around it [were utilized] as a platform
for military operations." The 300 journalists at the hotel
insist time and again that no Iraqi soldiers or militia had ever
been operating from either the hotel or its surroundings.
Even more ominously perhaps, the text
takes an "I-told-you-so" approach, asserting that since
journalists were warned before the war that Baghdad would be
a "dangerous place," well, what do you expect. In another
words, US forces cannot be expected to comply with the requirements
of the Geneva conventions to distinguish between military and
civilian targets.
The Spanish government declared that
it was satisfied with the half-baked "investigation"
by the Pentagon and declared the issue closed. It has treated
any further questions raised about the case with contempt and
annoyance, as if they were mere insolence.
But the struggle goes on. The family,
friends and colleagues of José Couso, defying the pain
and loss they have been forced to bear, have mounted a unrelenting
campaign to demand justice for José, starting with a full
investigation of the events of April 8, and a trial for the killers
of José Couso and Tara Protsyuk. Dozens of Spanish towns
and even regions have called for justice, and demonstrations
are held every week in front of the headquarters of Aznar's ruling
PP party, and on the eighth of every month in front of the US
embassy in Madrid.
José Couso was an accomplished
professional with immense personal dedication to what he saw
as his mission: to tell the truth with his camera and pierce
through the official line with the simplicity yet depth of images.
Jon Sistiaga says: "he wanted to go beyond the sheer news
event. He tried to make the images speak for themselves so that
the journalist has to say as little as possible." In the
days before the start of the some reporters are nervous about
staying in Baghdad, but Couso urges them to stay. Carlos Hernández:
"Couso told us 'you've got to stay, we have to be here to
tell people what's happening, we can't let there be a war without
any witnesses.' " José's testament is a 24-minute
stretch of video wherein he captures the war crime that ended
his own life.
In a public statement, the family of José Couso ask a
question that not only exposes the masters of war, but also poses
a challenge to us all: "If they're capable of murdering
a journalist with credentials like our brother in the very center
of Baghdad in full view of the international community, what
won't they do to civilians or supposed enemies who get in their
way?"
James Hollander
is a translator living in Madrid. He can be contacted at antiwar@ya.com.
The campaign by family, friends and colleagues
of José Couso is at www.josecouso.info/.
Those visiting Madrid are urged to join the Tuesday demos at
noon at the HQ of the PP on Calle Genova, and in front of the
US embassy on the eighth of every month at eight in the evening.
Weekend
Edition Features for January 3 / 4, 2004
Brian Cloughley
Never
Mind the WMDs, Just Look at History
Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan
The Wrong War at the Wrong Time
William Cook
Failing to Respond to 9/11
Glen Martin
Jesus
vs. the Beast of the Apocalypse
Robert Fisk
Iraqi Humor Amid the Carnage
Ilan Pappe
The Geneva Bubble
Walter Davis
Robert Jay Lifton, or Nostalgia
Kurt Nimmo
Ashcroft vs. the Left
Mike Whitney
The Padilla Case
Steven Sherman
On Wallerstein's The Decline of American Power
Dave Lindorff
Bush's Taiwan Hypocrisy
William Blum
Codework Orange!
Mitchel Cohen
Learning from Che Guevara
Seth Sandronsky
Mad Cow and Main Street USA
Bruce Jackson
Conversations with Leslie Fiedler
Standard Schaefer
Poet Carl Rakosi Turns 100
Ron Jacobs
Sir Mick
Adam Engel
Hall of Hoaxes
Poets' Basement
Jones, Albert & Curtis
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