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Coming Soon! From Common Courage Press Recent Stories July 23, 2003 Uri Avnery Caesar's Favor July 22, 2003 Diane Christian Bad Guy / Good Guy: War Forces; Peace Frees Jeremy Brecher Solidarity and Student Protests in Iran Steve Kretzmann and Jim Vallette Plugging Iraq into Globalization Sam Smith Greening the Golden Triangle James Plummer Smile, You're on Federal Camera Lucretia Stewart This Day Shall Not Define My Life: January 18, 2003 Website of the Day Iraq Coalition Casualties   July 21, 2003 Edward Said Imperial Arrogance and the Vile Stereotyping of Arabs Ron Jacobs Shut Up and Shoot Allan J. Lichtman Why is George Bush President? Elaine Cassel How's the Occupation Going? Ask the People of Iraq Christopher Brauchli History Recapitulates: Guantanamo and the Japanese Internment Camps Bruce Jackson Third and Arizona, Santa Monica Website of the Day John Dean: Taking Apart Bush's State of the Union Speech, Claim by Claim   July 19 / 20, 2003 Arthur Mitzman Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable Than the Dot.com Bubble? Julian Bond We Shall be Heard Cynthia McKinney Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad Mel Goodman What is to be Done with the CIA? Jason Leopold Tenet Blames Wolfowitz Mickey Z. History Forgave Churchill Doug Giebel Impeachment as the Message Jon Brown Whipping the Post Mano Singham Cheney's Oil Maps Steven Sherman Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC Robin Philpot Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters Khaldoun Khelil Capturing Friedman Jeffrey St. Clair You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed Lenni Brenner Sitting in with Mingus Vanessa Jones Three Dog Night Adam Engel Video Judas Video Poets' Basement Foley, Smith and Curtis Website of the Weekend Illegal Art   July 18, 2003 David Vest Drowning in Deep Doo-Doo Rahul Mahajan Deceit Runs Deep John Chuckman Enron-style Management in a Dangerous World Harold A. Gould The Bush-Musharraf Conclave Alvaro Angarita In the Eye of the Storm: Colombia's War on Journalists David Grenier Sovereignty and Solidarity in Indian Country...Rhode Island Dave Lindorff Bush and Hitler: a Response to the Wall Street Journal Website of the Day Murder of a Whistleblower? Timeline in David Kelly Affair   July 17, 2003 Ron Jacobs Sometimes Even the President of the United States Has to Stand Naked Lisa Walsh Thomas Bush Country: the Venom and Adulation of Ignorance Martin Schwarz Bush Pre-emptive Strike Doctrine is the Bane of Non-Proliferation Watchdogs Heidi Lypps Better Justice Through Chemistry? Forced Drugging and the Supreme Court Norman Madarasz Third Ways and Third Worlds: Lula at the Progressive Governance Conference Pankaj Mehta Criminalizing the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Marjorie Cohn Bush, War Lies & Impeachment: the Boy Who Cried Wolf Hammond Guthrie (Dis) Intelligence Revisited Website of the Day No Force, No Fraud: the Soul of Libertarianism July 16, 2003 Jason Leopold Wolfowitz Told White House to Hype Dubious Uranium Claims William Cook Defining Terrorism from the Top Down Elaine Cassel Judge Brinkema v. Ashcroft: She Whom Must Not Be Obeyed Jason Leopold How Can They Justify the War If WMDs Are Never Found? Linda Heard Bondage or Freedom? Raymond Barrett From Detroit to Basra Jeffrey St. Clair Back to the Future in Guatemala: The Return of Gen. Ríos Montt   July 15, 2003 Kathleen and Bill Christison Why We Resigned from VIPS Elaine Cassel Ashcroft's War on Legal Whistleblowers: the Ordeal of Jesselyn Radack Chris Floyd Barge Poles: Oil Wars and New Europe's Mercenaries Jason Leopold CIA Warned White House Last October that Niger Docs were Forgeries Gaius Publius Considering the Obvious: Fool Us Once, Fool Us Twise...Please John Troyer The Niger Syndrome Becky Gillette No Conspiracy at Coffeen Nature Preserve: a Response to David Orrr Uri Avnery The Bi-National State: The Wolf Shall Dwell with the Lamb Website of the Day Cost of Iraq War   July 14, 2003 Lisa Taraki Hot Days in Ramallah Walter Brasch Bush: the Pretend Captain SOA Watch Training Colombia's Killers in the US Dan Bacher Yurok Tribe Denounces Klamath River Salmon Killers Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Intelligence Unglued Website of the Day Coalition for Democratic Rights and Civil Liberties 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 Symmetry: 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   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 Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online Search CounterPunch

July 24, 2003 Ashcroft Imposes Death Penalty in Puerto Rico Demanding Death Across the Board By CHRISTOPHER BRAUCHLI Only the hypocrite is really rotten to the core. Hannah Arendt, On Revolution Once again the death penalty is prowling around the halls of justice looking for work. Found in the interstices of the local papers was a story that Puerto Rico is the latest beneficiary of Mr. Ashcroft's gentle importuning on behalf of the friend on whom he relies to dissuade criminals from doing the sorts of things that give the death penalty license to continue with its life's work. Mr. Ashcroft's penchant for overriding his own U.S. attorneys and mandating that they seek the death penalty even when they, in their considered wisdom, have concluded that it is not appropriate in a given case, is well known. According to the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel, there have been 30 cases in the last two years in which Mr. Ashcroft overrode the judgement of local U.S. attorneys and demanded the death sentence. In at least one or two cases the demand was made after the U.S. attorneys had already agreed to a plea bargain for a lesser sentence. (Former Attorney General, Janet Reno, by contrast, only overrode local prosecutors 26 times in eight years.) According to the death penalty's spokesperson, Barbara Comstock, Mr. Ashcroft wants to establish "one standard" for death sentences and eliminate the present disparity between states. New York and Connecticut, for example, despite being the home of many of our most enlightened citizens, execute fewer people than places like Virginia and Texas. In a perfect world those states would execute the same number of criminals as those two. John Muhammad and Lee Malvo, the snipers who terrorized the Washington, D.C. area for most of October, were examples of Mr. Ashcroft's interest in the death penalty's welfare. The shootings started in Montgomery County, Maryland, and ended there with the arrest of the two men. That was an unfortunate coincidence, as far as Mr. Ashcroft was concerned, because Maryland had a moratorium on hiring Mr. Ashcroft's friend and before the existence of the moratorium, had permitted the death penalty to work its will on only three people in the preceding twenty-five years, a dismal record indeed from the perspective of the death penalty and Mr. Ashcroft. (He helped the death penalty in that case by taking steps that resulted in moving the trial to Virginia whose enthusiasm for the death penalty is exceeded only by that of Texas.) Having worked his magic in Maryland, Mr. Ashcroft has now turned his attention to Puerto Rico. That benighted place which is less sophisticated than its cousins on the mainland, enacted a constitution in 1952 that has this bizarre sentence: "The death penalty shall not exist." That is a palpably absurd statement and one which the death penalty finds demeaning. Everyone knows it both exists and performs a useful function. People know what the Puerto Ricans meant is that they don't want the death penalty to take up residence in their fair island. For them the attorney general has news. His friend exists in Puerto Rico notwithstanding the Puerto Rican constitution. A federal trial is taking place in Puerto Rico as this is written in which the Justice Department wants to enlist the aid of the death penalty when it's time for punishment. According to a report in the New York Times, everyone from local politicians, to lawyers, scholars and just plain folk have denounced the trial. They call it a betrayal of their constitution which was approved in its entirety by the U.S. Congress in 1952. The Justice Department didn't see it that way. Court filings by the U.S. attorney say that federal criminal laws override local laws irrespective of their genesis. The law establishing Puerto Rico says, among other things, that federal laws that are "not locally inapplicable" are in force on the island. Whether that prevents the death penalty from plying its trade is a matter of conjecture and inconsistent decisions. Commenting on a Puerto Rican capital case being tried in front of him some years ago, Salvador E. Casellas, a federal judge said: "It shocks the conscience to impose the ultimate penalty, death, upon American citizens who are denied the right to participate directly or indirectly in the government that enacts and authorizes the imposition of such punishment." The First Circuit in Boston said it understood that Puerto Ricans were not friends of the death penalty but nonetheless permitted it to compete in the trial saying the argument about the death penalty is "a political one, not a legal one." William Matthewman is the lawyer representing Acosta Martinez, the defendant in the case now being tried. He is under court order not to discuss the case. In his only reported public comment he said: "It seems a waste of time and resources for the federal government to go into any jurisdiction where it's not wanted." Mr. Matthewman has not met John Ashcroft. As observed above, Mr. Ashcroft likes nothing better than to go into a jurisdiction where he's not wanted, if in so doing he's helping out the death penalty. That has not, however, been as helpful to his friend as he might have hoped. The Death Penalty Information Center reports that from 1988 to 2000, 46% of the federal capital trials resulted in death sentences. Since John Ashcroft has been attorney general, only 15% of the capital trials have produced that result. Juries in 15 of the last 16 cases tried have declined to impose the death penalty. That might tell the meddlesome Mr. Ashcroft something were he listening. Christopher Brauchli is a Boulder, Colorado lawyer. He can be reached at: brauchli.56@post.harvard.edu Weekend Edition Features for July 19 / 20, 2003 Arthur Mitzman Will the Pax Americana be More Sustainable Than the Dot.com Bubble? Julian Bond We Shall be Heard Cynthia McKinney Bush's Racial Politics at Home and Abroad Mel Goodman What is to be Done with the CIA? Jason Leopold Tenet Blames Wolfowitz Mickey Z. History Forgave Churchill Doug Giebel Impeachment as the Message Jon Brown Whipping the Post Mano Singham Cheney's Oil Maps Steven Sherman Nickle, Dimed and Slimed at UNC Robin Philpot Liberia: History Doesn't Repeat Itself, It Stutters Khaldoun Khelil Capturing Friedman Jeffrey St. Clair You Must Leave Home, Again: Gilad Atzmon's A Guide to the Perplexed Lenni Brenner Sitting in with Mingus Vanessa Jones Three Dog Night Adam Engel Video Judas Video Poets' Basement Foley, Smith and Curtis Website of the Weekend Illegal Art   Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /