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Today's
Stories
April
21, 2004
Bill
Christison
Only Major Policies Changes
Can Help Washington Now
April
20, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Bush and Kerry Share a Problem
Stan
Cox
Wal-Mart's Magic Numbers
Bruce
Anderson
On Listening to Air America
Joseph
Kalvoda
Czech Mate for Condi
Greg
Moses
Yesterday's Intelligence
Stan
Goff
The Democrats and Iraq
Website
of the Day
Santorum Happens
April 19, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The "Central Hand" of the
Resistance
Mike
Whitney
Bob Woodward's Imperial Trifles
Douglas
Valentine
52 Pick-Up and the 100-to-1
Rule
John
Chuckman
The Sharon Annex: Evil Does Often
Triumph
Doug
Giebel
Welcome to the Club
Rahul
Mahajan
Hospital Closings and War Crimes
April
16 / 18, 2004
Robert
Fisk
Bush Legitimizes Terror
Saul
Landau
Subverting Brazil and Cuba
Dave
Lindorff
Paying for War: $2,150 per Family
and Counting
Brandy
Baker
Fallujah's Collateral Damage
Mickey
Z.
The Left Attacks from the Right
Bruce
Jackson
The Bush Press Conference: Gott Mit
Uns
Norman
Solomon
How the "NewsHour" Changed
History
Alexander
Cockburn
Bush, Kerry and Empire
April
15, 2004
Greg
Moses
Follow the Families, Not the Script
Virginia
Tilley
The Carnage According to Gen. Kimmitt:
Just Change the Channel
Ron
Jacobs
They Coulda Been Champions of the
World: Hurricane Carter and Ron Kovic
Michael
Neumann
A Happy Compromise: Hate Crimes
Reporting in the Toronto Globe and Mail
April
14, 2004
Tom
Reeves
Return to Haiti: an American Learning
Zone
Reza
Fiyouzat
Japan and Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
What Bush Really Said
Diane
Christian
The Real Passion
April 10 /
12, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
The
Greatest Radical Journalist of His Age
Patrick Cockburn
Ambush, Kidnap, Murder: Another Day in "Post War" Iraq
Ellen Cantarow
Health Under Siege on the West Bank
Tariq Ali
Iraqi
Resistance: a New Phase
Werther
Pseudoconservatism Revisited: When God is Pro War & Other
Delicacies
Robert Fisk
Bush's War Lords to Their Critics: "Just Shut Up"
Gary Leupp
Indian Wars, Vietnam and Orientalist Fantasy
Ron Jacobs
The Iranian Revolution, Cont.
Jorge Mariscal
Perils of the Bootstrap
Phil Gasper
Defying Stereotypes About Death Row
Dave Zirin
Bringing the Black Freedom Struggle Into Sports: an Interview
with Lee Evans
Brandy Baker
The Revolution is Playing at a Theater Near You
Mickey Z.
Underground Music is Free Media: an Interview with Twiin
Ali Tonak
Get Ready for the Million Worker March
Harry Browne
Asking the Wrong Question About Richard Clarke & 9/11
Gideon Samet
The Sharonizing of America
Conn Hallinan
Remote Control Warriors
Website of
the Weekend
Taboo
Tunes
April 9, 2004
Robert Fisk
This
War's Simple Truth: Iraqis Do Not Want Us
John L. Hess
The
Non-Confessions of a Warrior Princess: Condi on the Stand
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Condoleezza's Condescensions
Christopher Brauchli
Holes in the Sky: Bush's Crazed Missile Defense Plan
Don Santina
Forget the Alamo!: Glorifying the Fight for Slavery in Texas
William S. Lind
The 4G Warfare Seminar, Cont.
Bill Christison
9/11
Commission is Bush's New Lapdog
Website of the Day
What We've Done to Fallujah
April 8,
2004
Wayne Madsen
Rice
(and the Record) Proves It: Bush Knew, But Failed to Act
Kurt Nimmo
Will
Bush Flatten Fallajuh?
Patrick Cockburn
Guided
Missile; Misguided War
Laura Flanders
Steamed
Rice
Larry Everest
What Condi Rice is Hiding
Adam Federman
Sacred Capitalism Hits Russia
M. Junaid Alam
The Iraqi Intifada Begins
Norman Solomon
The Quest for a Monopoly on Violence
Douglas Valentine
Echoes
of Vietnam: Phoenix, Assassination and Blowback in Iraq
Website of the Day
Xispas: Chicano Art, Culture and Politics
April 7, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Those
Pulitzers!
Sen. Robert
Byrd
Deeper
into the Mouth of Hell: We Must Find the Exit from Iraq
Ron Jacobs
Tet
in Iraq: Closer to the Cosmic Disaster?
Patrick Cockburn
Battles
Across Iraq: US Death Toll Mounts
Kathy Kelly
Pacification: Worth the Price?
Sonali Kolhatkar
What Are You Doing About Afghanistan?
Rahul Mahajan
Report from Baghdad: Opening the Gates of Hell
Robert Fisk
US Airlifts Saddam to Qatar
Mike Whitney
America Out of Iraq, Now!
Sam Hamod
Bush, Pandora's Box and the Tiger
April 6,
2004
C.G. Estabrook
Mercenaries
and Occupiers
William Blum
The
Anti-Empire Report: the Israel Lobby
Col. Dan Smith
The
Language of Disbelief: 1.3 Billion Still Live in War Zones
Dr. Bulent Gokay
The Coming Islamic Republic of Iraq?
Lynn Landes
Faking Democracy: Americans Don't Vote; Machines Do
Sheila Samples
What Would Royko Write?
Jason Leopold
Condi's Blind Spot: Rice Never Mentioned al-Qaeda
Mickey Z.
A Reality Show with No End in Sight
Robert Fisk
Iraq on the Brink of Anarchy
April 5, 2004
John Farrell
Lessons
from El Salvador and Iraq
Robert Fisk
Bloodbath
a Bad Omen for Bush
Gary Leupp
Shiites Say No: Another "Nightmare
Scenario"
April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
Missing
April 2, 2004
Dave Lindorff
Barbaric
Relativism: the Press and Fallujah
Kurt Nimmo
Wherever
Bush Goes, Osama is Bound to Follow
Emma Miller
The
Role of the West in the Rwandan Genocide
Dr. Susan Block
Same
Sex Marriages: Just Say "No" to Prohibition
Norman Solomon
Media Strategy Memo for George & Dick
Sacha Guney
The Meaning of the Elections in Turkey
Christopher
Brauchli
The
Disturbing Case of Cpt. Yee
Website of the Day
Mercenaries, Inc.
April 1, 2004
Ron Jacobs
Dying in Vain in Iraq
Harry Browne
No Smoke, Plenty of Fire: Ireland's Pubs Go Smokefree
Chris Floyd
Towel Boy: Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons
Nicole Colson
Inside America's Concentration Camp: Tortured at Guantanamo
Charles Arthur
Haiti's Army Cracks Down on Workers
Laura Flanders
Elaine
Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son
March 31, 2004
M. Junaid Alam
Israel:
Suicide Nation?
John L. Hess
Condi
Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters?
Fernando Suarez
del Solar
A
Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq
Sofia Perez
Spain's
U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action
David Vest
Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath
Tanya Reinhart
As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination
Mike Whitney
Time to Dump the Pledge
Donald Kaul
Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI
Milt Bearden
Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great
Marjorie Cohn
The
Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated
US and International Law
Website of the Day
New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks
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.
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April
21, 2004
"Do You Remember
When International Law was Something that Existed Years Ago?"
Alarcon
Meets the AP Editors
By JEAN-GUY ALLARD
HAVANA.
Their trip could not have been shorter.
The small delegation of AP managing editors, representing 1,700
newspapers in the United States and Canada, arrived from Mexico
the day before and left the day after.
For most, if not all, of those
executives of the publications that give the Americans their
vision of the world, it was a first trip to Cuba. A glimpse to
the country they, let's say it, constantly assail, in one way
or another, through their big news machine.
Those cleanly dressed, almost
elegant, editors from the US, with their designer glasses on
their noses, had several meetings in this short stay in Cuba's
capital. One of them was with to the Chief of the US Interest
Section, Mr James Cason. It took place in his big bunker on the
Malecon, the seaside avenue. Who knows what this manager of the
destabilisation process fed from Washington and Miami against
the Cuban revolution told his visitors.
Ricardo Alarcon, President
of the Cuban Parliament, was one of the important Cuban public
figures who attended the group. He met with them at the Villena
Library in Old Havana. It seems that no meeting room of the Hotel
Santa Isabel, just beside, was available at this moment.
"Sorry", said Alarcon,
a former diplomat at the UN, looking at the large table were
he had to sit, in the small auditorium, in front of a large bouquet
of pink flowers and a microphone. "I'm not the one who chose
the setting. I would have preferred a more intimate reunion".
Stu Wilk, President of the
AP Managing Editors, opened what had become a press conference
with a question on 'racist behaviour' in Cuba, but soon the interest
of his colleagues switched to what the AP calls the "dissidents"
and the Cuban press the "mercenaries", arrested in
Cuba in 2003, precisely because they were participating in operations
openly organised and even financed by the US Interests Section
headed by James Cason.
A member of the American delegation,
referring to the current session of the UN Human Rights Commission
in Geneva, asked Alarcon, if one year later, he doesn't feel
that it would have been better for Cuba's international image
to have handled things differently.
Alarcon, who represented his
country for 14 years in the US, speaks good English. And he had
a lot to say on the subject. Of course, the following day's report
by the AP, strictly done according to the agencies rules, had
a couple of short quotes. But Alarcon is just too inspired when
explaining his countries views to put the recorder off. Here
is what he said.
"Years ago," Alarcon
recalled, "everybody was talking about the Geneva session,
at this time of the year, in which Cuba was going to be condemned.
And do you remember the person who attended that meeting, who
was in the United States delegation? Armando Valladares.
"He was a famous Cuban
poet who was in jail, who had written very inspiring poetry in
a Cuban jail. He was also an handicapped person who could not
move without a wheelchair, according to the media. We couldn't
do anything. You decided he was a poet. So he was a poet. His
books were published. Re-published. Translated. Somebody decided
that he was in a wheelchair. But he wasn't in a wheelchair".
"Who remembers what happened?"
he asked. He then gave the answer. "In Paris, Mr Régis
Debray, representing Mr Mitterrand, and some intellectuals were
at the Airport, with an ambulance and a wheelchair to receive
Armando Valladares. And the man appeared, almost jumping in the
stairs, because he was never paralysed".
"Can you give me the title
of a single book or a single poem that he has written in the
last ten years, since being freed?" he asked again. "But
how could we counter the terrible accusation of having a poet
in prison?"
He then compared that situation
to the present one.
"We will always have to
face a very concrete fact. A very powerful country, a superpower
is involved in activities that would put individuals, unfortunately,
in the risk of being accused and tried for working for that power
because that power promotes aggression against Cuba as an established
policy with specific programs that it doesn't even try to hide".
"We must protect ourselves,
defend our sovereignty and, of course, we also have to try to
persuade people, journalists and others, that this problem regarding
Cuba should be considered with seriousness and objectivity".
Alarcón was even clearer:
"Do you remember when
international law was something that existed years ago? The US
should put an end to its hostile policy against Cuba, first,
because that policy is illegal: it is not justifiable according
to international law. You simply cannot do it. It is as simple
as that.
"You should be condemned
for imposing an economic embargo, for trying to subvert somebody
else's government, interfering in its affairs and so on and so
forth, a whole list of violations of international law".
"Remember what was said
in a State Department memo in 1959 when the first steps of economic
hostility were taken against Cuba. It is written in a published
document available to all of you since 1959 from the State Department.
The aim was to create suffering and hunger among the Cuban people.
But you have no right to do that. That kind of policy was condemned
by the UN just after the Second World War. It was defined by
the UN as genocide. An attempt to provoke suffering against an
entire group of persons, in this case the Cubans living in Cuba".
Alarcon, now in his sixties,
is a passionate man. He used to be a student leader. And he still
sounds like student leader in the way he gets inspired when he
talks, with some kind of a flame in his eyes, the flame that
believers in a cause can show.
Asked how the lifting of the
embargo could be negotiated, Alarcon answered that the US simply
should not expect "to be paid back, to receive anything
for eliminating a policy that was never morally, legally or politically
justified. The only thing that you will get in exchange of the
elimination of that policy is that we will cease denouncing that
policy."
What about the way the US recently
put aside the talks on migration with Cuba?
"The failure to attend
the meeting in Havana and the decision not to convene in New
York is a direct violation of the migratory agreement. Because
that is not an invention that came after the agreement. It is
in the text of the document that we signed in New York. It is
the first time that openly the US has gone out with a specific
action against not just the meeting to review the agreement but
against the spirit of those agreements".
And why has the US acted in
such a manner?
"It was clearly a concession
to those in Miami--not only in Miami but mostly in Miami--that
have been advocating precisely for the elimination of the migratory
agreement. Very recently, an official document of the Cuban American
National Foundation showed several points in connection with
this commission created around a so-called 'transition' in Cuba.
One goal that they had was the elimination of the migratory agreements--and
that is very serious".
"In the same speech of
Mr Roger Noriega (the Assistant Secretary of State for Western
Hemisphere Affairs) in Miami, at a meeting of the 'Cuban Liberty
Council' -the 'dissidents' of the Cuban American National Foundation,
said that a migratory crisis would be an equivalent to an act
of aggression by Cuba".
"To accuse somebody of
attacking the united States is tantamount to war. And this same
guy in this same speech was undermining and trying to destroy
the very agreement that precisely was negotiated and established
between the two parties to avoid illegal, disorderly, risky migratory.
And he was saying that in front of those people who are openly
advocating for the elimination of those agreements and also for
war!"
"The same people that
marched in the street of Miami with a banner saying 'Iraq now,
Cuba next'. It is perhaps one of the best examples of the risks
we are facing at this moment: you have this guy using that language
in this place and on the other hand you have Mr Bolton, repeating
the slanderous charges about the Cuban Weapons of Massive Destruction".
"You went to war and you
are still having some inconveniences in your effort to find these
WMDs. Imagine how we should take the allegation that we have
them in Cuba!"
"For us it is a very clear
danger".
Alarcon paused for a few seconds,
lighted a cigarette--you can still do this in Cuba without shocking
anybody--and took a sip from a cup of strong coffee that had
just been brought.
He then spoke of this 'transition'
commission created by the Bush Administration.
"Transition in the modern
American language regarding Cuba is equal to the death of President
Fidel Castro", he plainly stated.
"What else can they mean
then by 'accelerating a transition' in Cuba?" he asked.
"Please help me! What is on their minds when they are talking
about working towards 'accelerating the transition'?"
"You have a fascist congressman,
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, who went on TV in Miami and said explicitly:
'I am for the assassination of Fidel Castro'. That is a way to
accelerate the transition, isn't it?"
"Mr Noriega and others
have also clearly expressed that when that moment comes, the
US should not wait and see. They should act immediately to make
it impossible for Cuba to have a normal transition process. To
keep 'Castro's cronies' from retaining power"
"And I am one of them",
he joked, to softened the atmosphere. But he then retook the
very serious subject.
"According to an expressed
US policy, when Fidel Castro dies the US will invade Cuba".
"It is as simple as that:
the US will intervene militarily. According to the individual
who is in charge of the Western hemisphere matters in the Bush
administration. Not only him. Mr Otto Reich has said similar
things and others have been more discreet but also have emphasized
the importance of a transition and working toward that.
Speaking precisely about the
so-called 'transition commission', he stressed: "I don't
know exactly what they are going to do but who cares? Who cares
if they are ready to go that far! Suggesting the anticipation
of the death of Fidel Castro stating that they will not simply
wait to know what is the name of the person who would be the
new president no, the say 'we are going to act immediately, swiftly.
Otto Reich even spoke of a 'very speedy and violent transition'.
He said that in a public statement in Washington".
"That' why we have to
be concerned and prepared".
Do you think it's rhetoric
or do you think they would actually do that? Somebody asked.
"We are not Americans.
We only live in a small island, 90 miles from a big continental
power going from the Atlantic to the Pacific, a nuclear power,
and so on. That's perhaps what makes the big difference between
our perpectives. You do not come from the small island but from
the big country. If you are from the small island, you have to
take all those signals seriously. Without, of course, ignoring
the possibility of demagogy. But we cannot play games with that.
We can be destroyed in a matter of minutes. We don't have the
paraphernalia that the US has. And we are living in a world where
that may happen".
"In the old days, somebody
could ask the Security Council to do something. Not any more.
You simply push a button and begin attacking somebody else. There
cannot be any doubt whatsoever that there are people who are
working to achieve that, working for many years: the extremists
from the Cuban exiled community. The terrorists, the most violent
people that have been for years demonizing President Kennedy
because he didn't send the American troops at the Bay of Pigs.
Just yesterday, in the Nuevo Herald from Miami, an article by
Mr Agustin Tamargo, compared Cuba with Iraq. His conclusion is
that Cuba is by far worst than Iraq! That the US should have
acted before Iraq, not after. He said that in very explicit terms".
The meeting ended a little
later. The US editors - is this the usual way they act? - applauded
Mr Alarcon.
And Mr Wilk thanked him with
all his courtesy. They even went out of the room together and
stopped for a photo in front of Jose Marti's bust in the lobby
and then stopped again for another one on the sunny Plaza de
Armas, with some members of the group and AP's correspondent
Anita Snow. Everybody was in a great mood. The threat of war
was over. At least on this Plaza, with the pigeons walking around,
suddenly looking like doves.
Mr Alarcon then sat down in
his blue Lada. Just beside the driver. The Lada sped away. Forget
the motorcade. We are in Havana after all.
Jean-Guy Allard is a writer living in Havana.
Weekend
Edition Features for April 3 / 4, 2004
Alexander Cockburn
Anti-Depressants
a Problem? We're Shocked
Jeffrey St. Clair
How Neil Bush Succeeded in Business
Without Really Trying
Gary Leupp
On Jefferson, Diderot and the Political Uses of God
Lawrence Davidson
Orwell and Kafka in Israel / Palestine
Frederick B.
Hudson
Condi Rice: the Family Retainer
Phillip Cryan
The Magic of Coca-Cola: Colombian Workers, Civil Rights and Advertising
Dave Zirin
Lester Speaks: an Interview with Lester "Red" Rodney
Ben Tripp
Talking Dirty: Obscene But Not Heard
Bruce Anderson
Phony Liberals and Fake Concern for the Homeless
Bill Fletcher, Jr.
Justice and Legitimacy in Haiti
Mark Scaramella
Do You Have What It Takes to Be Sec. of Defense? Take the Rumsfeld
Quiz
Sharon Smith
Do Most Iraqis Really Want the US to Stay?
Rick Giombetti
Melissa Ann Rowland: a Witch for Our Time
Nader/Kerry
Quandary
Stephen Gowans
Communists
for Capitalism?
Frank Bardacke / Doug Lummis
Support Nader; Dump Bush: an Election Manifesto
Mickey Z
Turn ON
Saul Landau
Kerry: a Less Dangerous Imperialist?
Richard Oxman
Nader and/or Death?
Poets' Basement
Holt, LaMorticella, Davies, Albert and Tripp
Website of the Weekend
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