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Cockburn / St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War Now Available! Today's Stories July 3 / 4, 2004 Elaine Cassel Bush's Police State and Independence Day Stan Goff ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive" Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti Snehal Shingavi "We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak Out Bruce Anderson The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens Sharon Smith Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush" Josh Frank Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates Robert Fisk Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing Joe Bageant Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite! Brian Cloughley Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine Justin Delacour The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons William S. Lind Saudi Spillover Linda S. Heard A Joke Called "Justice" Greg Moses "It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't Back Down Ron Jacobs "Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?" Toni Solo Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There Dan Nagengast Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It? Stew Albert Brando, a Personal Recollection Dave Zirin From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for Our Brando Patrick W. Gavin The Progressive Case for Dodgeball Steven Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911 Poets' Basement Kearney, Ford and Davies Website of the Day Global Peace Solution July 2, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise of the Green Party Douglas Valentine Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism Gary Leupp "Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities Lee Ballinger Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights Robert Fisk Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly CounterPunch Wire "What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's Arraignment Christopher Brauchli Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right Saul Landau Buzz Words and Venezuela July 1, 2004 Katherine van Wormer Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in His Method Joe Bageant Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter? William James Martin The Dogma of Richard Perle Dave Lindorff Bush's Evacuation Moment Robert Fisk Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq Alan Maass Green Party in Reverse Website of the Day Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?     June 30, 2004 Kurt Nimmo Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush Tariq Ali Getting Away with Murder in Iraq Jennifer Van Bergen Bush and the Detainees Douglas Valentine Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen The Quiet American David Price Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass Roger Normand America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq Stan Cox Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's War on Art Henry David Thoreau On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming Ben Tripp Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof     June 29, 2004 Patrick Cockburn The Cloak-and-Dagger Handover Robert Fisk Alice in an Iraqi Wonderland Troy Selvaratnam New York Times Boosts Pet Developer Harry Browne Bush in Ireland Ray McGovern The CIA According to Anonymous Elaine Cassel Hamdi, Padilla & Rasul: Who Really Won?     June 28, 2004 Patrick Cockburn / Leyla Linton Grisly Rituals in Iraq Amira Hass Confronting Myths and Deadly Power   June 26 / 27, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Venezuela: the Gang's All Here Patrick Cockburn Iyad Allawi, the CIA's New Stooge in Iraq Dennis Hans Once They Were Sweethearts: Cheney, the NYTs and the Myth of an Iraq Link to 9/11 Ben Tripp Adventures in Fuel Efficiency Dave Lindorff That State Department Terrorism Report: What They Knew, But Didn't Tell You Chris Floyd Cold Irons Bound: the Russian Gambit Ali Tonak Contamination at Berkeley: Profit Motives, Academic Freedom and the Case of Ignacio Chapela Keith Rosenthal The Withering of the Anti-War Movement Bryan Sacks The Failure of the 9/11 Commission Wayne Madsen Another Case of Blowback Thomas St. John L. Frank Baum, Racist: Indian-Hating in the Wizard of Oz Niranjan Ramakrishnan American Swadeshi   June 25, 2004 Stephen Gowans US to North Korea: "Trust Us" Saul Landau 2006 Pentagon Budget as Sacrilege: Bush Invests the National Treasure in Death and Destruction Amir Butler Iraq: the Deadly Embrace Jack McCarthy Another Times Plagiarism Scandal? Did Maureen Dowd Lift from the World Weekly News? Greg Bates Chomsky and Zinn Plan to Vote Nader     June 24, 2004 Gary Leupp John Lehman on the Iraq / al-Qaeda Links Patrick Cockburn A Day in the Life of Col. Abu Mohammed: Defusing Bombs, Facing Death Threats Harry Browne On the Rebound: Bush Bounces Back...in Europe Bill Kaufman Another Marxist for Kerry: Joel Kovel's Sad Smear of Ralph Nader Christopher Brauchli Bush, Cheney and the 9/11 Commission: What Did They Know? What Did They Tell? Rick Gioimbetti Andrea Yates: Victim of Psychiatric Violence? John Chuckman Call Center ID Hypocrisy Diana Johnstone Kerry and Kosovo: the Lie of a "Good War"     June 23, 2004 Laura Carlsen Bush and Castro Face Off Dave Zirin Barry Bonds vs. Boston: "A Flea Market of Racism" Kurt Nimmo From Saddam, With Love Patricia Wolff Foundation Wars Mahboob A. Khawaja "They Had Me Arrested and Shackled My Son" Patrick Cockburn The Pretense of an Independent Iraq Website of the Day The Road to Abu Ghraib June 22, 2004 Dave Lindorff The Meaning of Putin's Pronouncement: Mutually Assured Pre-emption Ron Jacobs Nuclear Plants in US Protectorate of Iraq? Vanessa Jones Coogee, Peter Garrett and Valium Earrings Mickey Z An Open Letter to the People of Iraq John L. Hess Clinton Exhales Pedro Marset/Ex-Solidarity Committee for Pacho Cortés An Exchange on the Case of Pacho Cortés Bruce Jackson Saying No to Prosecutors: Why Steve Kurtz's Colleagues Refused to Testify Website of the Day From Boot Camp to Boot Hill   June 21, 2004 Gary Leupp Putin's Helpful Remarks Lucson Pierre-Charles Haiti After the Press Went Home: Chaos Upon Chaos Cockburn / Khan Saddam May Face Death Penalty Uri Avnery Irreversible Mental Damage     June 19 / 20, 2004 Patrick Cockburn Inside the Green Zone: US is Paranoid and Isolated Bruce Anderson Frozen Gringos Diane Christian Morality and Death: a Meditation on Bush and Blake Walter A. Davis Passion of the Christ in Abu Ghraib Josh Frank How Democrats Helped Bush Rape Mother Nature Col. Dan Smith Respectable Genocide?: the Crisis in Sudan Brian Cloughley A Profound Disruption of the Senses Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Timken Plant, a Year Later Prudence Crowther Mr. Ashcroft, Deport Me! Poets' Basement Iqbal/Alam, Krieger and Albert Kathy Kelly Dying to See Their Kids     June 18, 2004 Chris Floyd Blood Victory Dave Zirin Danielle Green, Basketball Player & Disabled Vet, Speaks Out Against War Justin E.H. Smith The Christian Question in American Politics Gary Leupp The "Long-Established" Link?: Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi   June 17, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 18, 2004 Noel Ignatiev Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People of Palestine Kurt Nimmo The Bush-Kerry Conundrum Ed Cardoni The Persecution of Steve Kurtz Ron Jacobs Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do Dave Lindorff Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years" Greg Moses Geneva Ignored Norm Dixon How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical Weapons     June 16, 2004 Lenni Brenner A Question for Kerry Supporters Davey D Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan Daniel Wolff Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner Abuse? Bruce Jackson Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake Patrick Cockburn Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power Facilities Gary Handschumacher Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads JG Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop Mario Benedetti Obituary with Cheers Vicente Navarro Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who is Rodrigo Rato? Website of the Day Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch     June 15, 2004 Harry Browne Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe Neve Gordon The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited David Palmer Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI John Blair Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming Dave Lindorff God Wins in TKO Bill Quigley Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step In Patrick Cockburn Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast John Chuckman John Kerry, Political Placebo   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 July 3/4, 2004 Pre-emptive War; Pre-emptive Arrests Bush's Police State and Independence Day By ELAINE CASSEL As a criminal defense attorney, I am often in the unenviable position of telling a first-time offender that the rights they thought they had under the Constitution don't mean what they think they do. Recently, a well-educated, professional woman engaged me to defend her in charges of obstruction of justice. Her crime? She had tried to talk to a police officer (big mistake, there) about the circumstances that led to her friend, about to be arrested, walking on highway (absolutely nothing wrong with that, but that is beside the point). She was arrested for obstruction of justice, but not until backup officers and dogs had been called. Her companion, who had exited her car over an argument they were having, was "arrested" for jaywalking. He was not "jaywalking," and, if he were, he would have been issued a "summons," not arrested and cuffed and taken to jail. My client was arrested, cuffed, taken to jail, finger-printed, charged, released on bail, and faces trial. Depending on the judge and prosecutor, they may be little I can do. For technically, she violated the law. She "interfered" with an officer in the line of duty--which, now, the Supreme Court has recently told us, includes stopping any of us and inquiring about our identity, even if we are doing nothing wrong. Even though the charges against her friend were summarily dismissed by the judge, the charge against her stands. For the case against her does not depend on the valid arrest of her friend--but on the fact that she attempted, so the officer has charged, to impede him while he was making an arrest. Under the law, that arrest can have been illegal, and my client still found guilty. The point of this story is, that any one of you may be at the wrong end of the criminal justice system even though you did nothing "wrong." The same can be said in the "war on terror." Even though you are not a "terrorist," you may be detained, imprisoned, charged, arrested, and tried as one. That's why you better care about the Ashcroft and Bush's agenda. It has trickled down to your local and state police, many of whom are recipients of federal dollars to look for "suspicious" people and "detain" them until the feds are called. The New York Times today, July 4, has what I think is an extraordinary editorial. I share it with you today, Independence Day, with the hope that you will make yourselves aware of how, under the Bush regime, we are far less free than we were when he took office. Supreme Court decisions notwithstanding (see my article on this on this page), you have much more to fear from the Bush doctrine of preemptive and unlawful arrests than you think. About Independence People too often get the impression that the only people who use the nation's civil liberties protections are lawbreakers who were not quite guilty of the exact felony they were charged with. Perhaps we should thank the Bush administration for providing so many situations that demonstrate how an unfettered law enforcement system, even one pursuing worthy ends, can destroy the lives of the innocent out of hubris or carelessness. There was, for instance, Purna Raj Bajracharya, who was videotaping the sights of New York City for his family back in Nepal when he inadvertently included an office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. He was taken into custody, where officials found he had overstayed his tourist visa, a violation punishable by deportation. Instead, Mr. Bajracharya wound up in solitary confinement in a federal detention center for three months, weeping constantly, in a 6-by-9 cell where the lights were never turned off. As a recent article by Nina Bernstein in The Times recounted, Mr. Bajracharya, who speaks little English, might have been in there much longer if an <F.B.I>. agent had not finally taken it upon himself to summon legal help. Mr. Bajracharya ran afoul of a Justice Department ruling after the 2001 terrorist attacks that ordered immigration judges to hold secret hearings in closed courtrooms for immigration cases of "special interest." The subjects of these hearings could be kept in custody until the <F.B.I>. made sure they were not terrorists. That rule might have seemed prudent after the horror of 9/11. But since it is almost always impossible to prove a negative, any decision to let a person once suspected of terrorism free constitutes at least a political risk. If officials have no particular prod for action, they will generally prefer to play it safe and do nothing. The unfortunate Nepalese was finally released only because of James Wynne, the <F.B.I>. agent who originally sent him to detention. Mr. Wynne's investigation quickly cleared Mr. Bajracharya of suspicion, but no one approved the paperwork necessary to get him out of prison. Eventually, Mr. Wynne called Legal Aid, which otherwise would have had no way of knowing he was even in custody. When law enforcement officials make mistakes, there is an all-too-human temptation to press on rather than admit an error. Brandon Mayfield, a lawyer in Oregon, was arrested in connection with the bombing of commuter trains in Madrid, even though he had never been to Spain. Spanish authorities had taken a fingerprint from a plastic bag discovered at the scene and <F.B.I>. officials thought it matched Mr. Mayfield's prints, which were among the many from discharged soldiers in the enormous federal database. The American investigators must have felt they hit pay dirt when they discovered that Mr. Mayfield was a convert to Islam, that his wife had been born in Egypt and that he had once represented a terrorism defendant in a child custody case. The fact that there was no indication he had been out of the country in a decade did not sway them. Neither did the fact that Spanish authorities were telling them that the fingerprints did not actually match. Mr. Mayfield was held for two weeks, even though the only other connections between him and terrorism were things like the fact, as the <F.B.I>. pointed out, that his law firm advertised in a "Muslim yellow page directory" whose publisher had once had a business relationship with Osama bin Laden's former personal secretary. When the Spaniards linked the fingerprint to an Algerian man in May, Mr. Mayfield's case was dismissed and the <F.B.I>. did apologize. But the ordeal could have dragged on much longer if the investigation had not involved another nation, whose police were not invested in the idea that the Oregon lawyer was the culprit. And it could have been endless if Mr. Mayfield had been an undocumented worker being held in post-9/11 secrecy, or if he had been picked up in Afghanistan as a suspected Taliban fighter and held incommunicado at Guantanamo. For more than two years now, about 600 men have been kept in American custody in Cuba, and the odds are that some _ perhaps most _ were merely hapless Afghan foot soldiers or bystanders swept up in the confusion of the American invasion. But it took the Supreme Court to tell the Bush administration they could not be kept there forever without giving them a chance to contest their imprisonment. Anyone who needs another demonstration of how difficult it is for law enforcement authorities to acknowledge error can always look to the case of Capt. James Yee. A Muslim convert, Captain Yee was a chaplain at Guantanamo until he was taken into custody on suspicion of espionage. He was held in solitary confinement for nearly three months, during which time authorities realized that the case against him was nonexistent. Rather than simply let him go, they charged him with mishandling classified material. The charges seemed to have much less to do with security concerns than official face-saving. And to repay Captain Yee for its self-inflicted embarrassment, the military went at great lengths in court to prove he was having an affair with a female officer. While that had nothing to do with security either, it did humiliate the defendant in public, as well as his wife and child, who were present at the trial. Virtually every time the Bush administration feels cornered, it falls back on the argument that the president and his officials are honorable men and women. This is an invitation to turn what should be a debate about policy into a referendum on the hearts of the people making it. But this nation was organized under a rule of law, not a dictatorship of the virtuous. The founding fathers wrote the Bill of Rights specifically because they did not believe that honorable men always do the right thing. Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teaches law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling of the Constitution at Civil Liberties Watch. Her book, The War on Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights, will be published by Lawrence Hill this summer. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net Weekend Edition Features for June 12 / 13, 2004 Peter Linebaugh Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto and Runnymede Team CounterPunch CP's Favorite Albums Jeffrey St. Clair Troy, Now and Then Gary Leupp Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq? Brian Cloughley US Military in Crisis Antonio Ponvert, III Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection Ben Tripp The Polls Get Stupider Joe Bageant Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash" Ron Jacobs The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency Forrest Hylton Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés Christopher Brauchli Federal Bureau of Errors Kurt Nimmo Going After Qaddafi, Again Wayne Madsen Israel's Slap at Reagan Anthony Loewenstein Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World Michael Donnelly A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous Greg Moses Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah? Susan Davis Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban Joseph Ramsey Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground Niranjan Ramakrishnan The 18th Brumaire in the 21st Century Wayne Saunders The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup Poets' Basement Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert Website of the Weekend Insurgent Music WWW http://www.counterpunch.org   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /