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Exciting New Print Edition of CounterPunch Bolivia's Third Revolution Confused by Bolivia's upheavals? CounterPunch's Newton Garver gives you the history, the politics and a roadmap through the present great upsurge of Indians who say NO to centuries of theft and oppression. On the track of Guatemala's killers: a searing report from John Ross on the US-backed monsters who turned Guatemala into a charnel house and on the heroes who hunt them down. The rise and rise of a corporation called Halliburton: Jeffrey St Clair scours some of Texas' history's dirtiest pages and tells how Halliburton's cash helped put two presidents to the White House. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories Bond / Brutus / Setshedi How Bono and Trojan Horse NGOs Sabotage the Struggle Against Neoliberalism June 16, 2005 John Walsh The Iraq War Polls: Dems' Stance Even Less Popular Than Bush's Dave Lindorff Work 'Till You Die: the Bush Retirement Plan Adrian Lomax Torture in U.S. Prisons: Common, Lethal, Unreported Tom Crumpacker The CIA, Posada and the Bombing of Cubana Flight 455 Jeffrey Kolakowski The Kinsley Paradigm: Downsizing the Downing St. Memo Julene Bair Turning Off the Ogallala Spigot: Toward a New Way to Farm on the Great Plains Michael Dickinson As We Forgive Our Debtors: the Madness of Money Francois Houtart / Isabel Parra, et al. Against Terrorism; In Defense of Humanity: an Appeal Tom Barry Meet Bolton's Replacement: Robert "First Strike" Joseph   June 15, 2005 Stan Goff An Open Letter to US Troops on Loyalty Daniel Wolff The Palace at 4 A.M. Tim Wise Discover the Nutwork: David Horowitz and the Politics of Ad Hominem Distortion Ricardo Alarcón The New CIA Revelations About Posada Joshua Frank House Republicans vs. Bush: "This is Not a Conservative War" John Hilary Bloodsuckers' Summit: Why the Left Should Rendezvous at the G8 Norman Solomon Iran's Reformers: a Threat to Theocrats and Neocons Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Juries and Lynch Mobs Website of the Day What It Feels Like to be Tasered (Turn Up the Volume)   June 14, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners Forrest Hylton Stalemate in Bolivia Richard Gott The Crisis in Bolivia Fred Gardner The Raich Decision: All Power to the Feds Steve Breyman Doing the Right Thing is Also Politically Expedient Dave Zirin Sacred Hoops: Basketball in the Barrio Robert Kent Outsourcing Torture and the Stop-Loss Program Paul Craig Roberts Enabling Evil: Bush's Willing Executioners   June 13, 2005 Gary Leupp Another Damning Document Dave Lindorff The Inca and Us John Stauber Mad Cow USA: the Cover-Up Begins to Unravel Fred Gardner Supreme Indignity: Medical Pot Doctors Respond to Justice Stevens Evelyn J. Pringle TeenScreen: the Lawsuits Begin Norman Solomon Letter From Tehran Winslow T. Wheeler Neo-Con Unfurls the Big Picture   June 10 / 12, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Thomas Friedman's Imaginary World Sharon Smith Torturers and Liars: Masters of Deception Brian Cloughley "Support Our Torturers!" Chris Kromm Home Cookin': Pentagon's Base Relignment Plan Would Increase South's Share Heather Gray A Day in Mississippi: Some Things Have Changed; Some Remain the Same Kevin Zeese What the Left Must Learn from 2004: an Interview with Josh Frank Mickey Z. The Pentagon Papers, 34 Years Later Gary Leupp A Review of Sison's "At Home in the World" Eli Stephens The Asshole in El Paso: Why Posada Carriles Matters Nick Dearden A Scottish Band in the Occupied Territories Oscar Olivera Recovering Bolivia's Oil and Gas Robert Fisk Screening "Kingdom of Heaven" in Beirut Michael Dickinson Oh My God!: Gunning for Blasphemers Poets' Basement Engel, Albert, Louise, Ford Website of the Weekend Gravity's Rainbow, Illustrated June 9, 2005 Len Colodny Felt Was Asked Under Oath in 1975 If He Was "Deep Throat" Christopher Brauchli From Baseballs to Hand Grenades Ron Jacobs Light a Candle; Curse the Darkness Dave Lindorff US Media Shamed by Brit Journalist Katrina Yeaw / Alex Schmaus Repression 101: Anti-War Students Sanctioned at SFSU Alan Farago Spin Machine Busts a Gasket in the Everglades: Fed Judge Whacks Jeb Saul Landau The Charmed Life of a Mass Murderer June 8, 2005 Jim Hougan Strange Bedfellows Deep Throat, Bob Woodward and the CIA Alan Maass Is Bolivia on the Edge of Revolution? an Interview with Tom Lewis Jason Leopold Enron Lives!: Former Army Sec. White Wants Govt. Money for New Energy Scam Niranjan Ramakrishnan Exit Right, Advani: Unpardonable Acts of Statesmanship Dave Zirin The Rotting Soul of the 49ers Derrick O'Keefe Bush's Terrorist: the Case of Posada Carriles Diana Johnstone Non, Neen, Angelene! Why Defenders of the "Oui" are Wrong Website of the Day The Meatrix   June 7, 2005 Forrest Hylton Bolivia's Agony of the Stalement Continues Greg Moses / Susan van Haitsma Pushing Back the Violence Lenni Brenner What Madison Would Think About the Air Force Academy's Offical Fanatics Col. Dan Smith Liberation vs. Survival in Iraq Joshua Frank Dean at the DNC: the Establishment vs. the Elites Dave Lindorff Fair-Weather Allies: US Denies French Fighters Emergency Landing Rights Margot Veranes / Adrian Navarro Xenophobia in the Desert: Racist Fever Becomes Law in Arizona Michael Neumann Sharing Music: Property Gone Wild   June 6, 2005 Stew Albert Everybody Must Get Busted: Supremes Rule Against the Sick Paul Craig Roberts Federal Bureau of Entrapment Nicole Colson Inside Walter Reed Hospital Ali Khan Friendly Renditions to Muslim Torture Chambers Jason Leopold When Will Rumsfeld Be Indicted? Charles Walker Poff Rumsfeld, China and Hypocrisy Ramzy Baroud My Grandpa's Right of Return Rep. John Conyers Did Bush Deliberately Deceive America About Iraq? Evelyn Pringle TeenScreen's Top Pusher Gary Corseri 25 Reasons to Impeach Bush Website of the Day Save This 200 Year Old Burr Oak from Bible Thumpers with Chainsaws   June 4 / 5, 2005 Alexander Cockburn France's Magnificent Non! James Petras The Centrality of Peasant Movements in Latin America Robert Fisk Who Killed Samir? Patrick Cockburn My Father, Claud Cockburn, the MI5 Suspect Rev. William Alberts When Pride in Power Corrupts: the Story of a Methodist President, His Bishops and an "Incompatible" Lesbian Minister Saul Landau 40 Interns and a Mule: Will the Dems Ever Take Advantage of the Republicans' Blunders? Mario Lamo Jimenez Dante with a Brush: Botero Immortalizes Bush Dave Lindorff What is the Media Running From? Lance Selfa Why Bush is Getting Away with Murder Tom Crumpacker On the Use of State Terrorism: the Posada Precedent Joshua Frank How Beltway Dems Sank Dean for America Fred Gardner Don't Bogart That Taxable Commodity Michael Dickinson Roll Out the Barrel: Blood, Oil and Baku Roger Martin We Can See, But Not Far Enough Reza Fiyouzat Welcome to the Third World Ben Tripp Romance: Advice from a Pro Graeme Greenback Pardon Me, While I Piss on this Bible Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Albert, Engel, Smith       June 3, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Welcome to a Has-Been Country Joseph Massad Witch Hunt at Columbia Jeff Halper The Process of Transfer Continues Tom Barry The Immigration Debate: Whose Side Are You On? Bruce K. Gagnon Bush Seeks Military Control of Space: "It's Our Destiny" Joshua Frank Bombing Iran: Facts Don't Matter Mickey Z. Deep Throat as Sideshow Gary Leupp "Peddling Lies About How They Were Mistreated" Website of the Day Tattoo on My Heart: Warriors of Wounded Knee, 1973     June 2, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts The Slave Traders of the Gitmo Gulag Forrest Hylton Bolivia: the Agony of Stalemate Mike Whitney Post-Mortem on the 4th Amendment: Warrants without Judges Brian Cloughley Anarchy in Afghanistan; Ignorance in America Mazin Qumsiyeh A Two-State Solution is No Solution Russell D. Hoffman High Tension at San Onofre Norman Madarasz "Le Jolie Mois de Mai": the Meaning of the French "Non" Norman Solomon War Made Easy: from Vietnam to Iraq David Price The Shallowness of Deep Throat Website of the Day Fallujah on Film     June 1, 2005 James Petras Beyond Hypocrisy: the Deeper Meaning of Posada Justin Delacour Framing Venezuela: US Media Bias Against Chavez Edward Jay Epstein Was "Deep Throat" a Fictoid? Omar Barghouti / Lisa Taraki The AUT Boycott: Freedom vs. "Academic" Freedom Dave Lindorff When War Goes Off the Script Kevin Zeese Reality Check: Who to Believe on Iraq War and Gitmo? Jason Leopold When Presidents Lie William S. Lind Wreck It and Run     May 31, 2005 Sen. Mike Gravel Thank You, Mark Felt: We Need a New Deep Throat David Krieger US Nuclear Hypocrisy Tad Daley The Nuclear Me-Too Club Joshua Frank Pelosi at AIPAC: Israel Comes First Richard Gott Chavez Leads the Way Norman Solomon Time to Get Serious About Impeachment Tom Segev Our Man in the Territories Walter Brasch Killing Americans with Secrecy Diana Johnstone The French "Non"     May 28 / 30, 2005 Alexander Cockburn There's Their Way or the Galloway Richard Lichtman We Wuz Framed! the Consolations of George Lakoff Sharon Smith The Road to Abu Ghraib Paul Craig Roberts Bush Opts for Civil War in Iraq Dave Lindorff Whigged Out: the Dems Have Become Merely a Vestigial Opposition Party Ramzy Baroud Muslims Were Desecrated, Not Just Their Holy Book Brian Cloughley Why Are Nukes OK for You, But Not for Us? Fred Gardner Advice from a Lawyer About Medical Pot Lee Sustar Chavez Gets Proactive Joshua Frank Isikoff Comes Clean: "Nobody in the US Said a Word, Until the Riots" Justin E.H. Smith What About the People? a Report from Romania Jackie Corr A Montana History Lesson on Assfulness Michael Kimaid Bush as Ahab Toufic Haddad Lessons from the Reversal of the AUC Boycott Justin Taylor The Fear of Paul Virilio Amir Butler Searching for a Saladin Ben Tripp Insomnia and Sarcasm Poets' Basement Albert, Engel, Davies and Louise   May 27, 2005 Gary Leupp It Really is a Crusade! Daniel Estulin Infiltrating Bilderberg 2005 Kevin Zeese Iraq Withdrawal Vote: If Walter "Freedom Fries" Jones Can See the Light, Why Can't Nancy Pelosi? Robert Fisk Mubarak's Goon Squads Dave Zirin Why Pat Tillman's Parents Are No Longer Silent Website of the Day Stuckists                                                         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 June 18 / 19, 2005 Librarians as Spooks? The Scheme to Infiltrate Cuba's Libraries By DIANA BARAHONA The U.S. has been pretty successful at mobilizing world opinion against Cuba since the late 1980s. Emboldened by the fall of the Soviet Union it has gone to considerable trouble and expense to bring down the revolution that refuses to be defeated a scant 90 miles off the empire's shore. Part of this effort has involved creating an artificial opposition movement on the island and enlisting liberal organizations and intellectuals to support it. But U.S. librarians, targeted by name in the State Department's 400-page destabilization blueprint, the Report to the President of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, not only refuse to play the game but are trying to assist their Cuban colleagues to improve their libraries. The rent-an-opposition has several components: independent trade union groups, independent journalists, independent political parties and independent libraries ­ all paid and directed by the U.S. Interests Section. They are also composed of the same people; one person may be an independent press agency, a political party, and run a library out of his house. The depth of U.S.-style "civil society" was evident May 20-21 at the Congress of the Cuban Dissident Movement in Havana. Financed with a special congressional grant of $6 million and featuring a videotaped greeting from Bush himself, this gathering was supposed to bring together 360 dissident organizations; it barely drew 100 people. Cuba not only has libraries, it has a lot of them ­ 400 to be precise, plus 6,000 school libraries. So why has the State Department created a network of independent libraries there? What exactly is an independent library? Rhonda L. Neugebauer and Larry Oberg, both university librarians, went to Cuba to meet with colleagues and study the library system in 2000. But they also visited the so-called independent libraries run out of people's houses. What they found were carefully-chosen drop-off and contact points for personnel from the U.S. Interests Section and others, who visited them on a regular basis to deliver materials and money. They also discovered that by keeping bookshelves with these materials in their homes, the "librarians" qualified for a monthly stipend ­ "for services rendered," as one of them put it. They found no evidence that anyone ever checked out a book, and when they enquired of neighbors, nobody even seemed to know the libraries were there. But the story doesn't end there. For years Neugebauer has been trying to set up a program of exchange and assistance to Cuba's real libraries, which not only lack funding for books and journals, but also for copying and computer equipment, and phone lines and technical support for internet access. But she and others are confronting a heated campaign to get the American Librarian Association and related organizations to condemn the Cuban government and support the independent libraries, waged by a New York librarian named Robert Kent. Kent founded an organization called Friends of Cuban Libraries in 1999. When he traveled to Cuba in May of that same year, Kent made contact with Aleida Godínez, an intelligence agent posing as a dissident. According to Godínez, Kent introduced himself as Robert Emmet and even held a passport with that name. He said he had come as an emissary of Frank Calzon, executive director of the Center for a Free Cuba. "Robert Emmet" and Aleida Godinez. "Emmet" didn't bring books or spend any time studying libraries; "He put a lot of emphasis on the role of the independent press," says Godínez. "He said absolutely nothing about the so-called independent libraries. He barely mentioned to me that he was a librarian." Instead, Kent arrived with surveillance equipment ("a camera, a shortwave radio, a 10-band transmitter and receiver, and a watch, a Cassio brand") and lots of cash, which he passed out to various dissidents. But the most disturbing aspect of the librarian's visit was that he allegedly asked Godinez to help him ­ with drawings and photographs ­ map out the security measures at the home of Vice President of the Council of State, Carlos Lage Davila. Godínez says he gave her $100 for film for that purpose. Understandably, "Emmet" was detained and expelled for espionage. As if this weren't weird enough, 1999 is the same year the founder of Reporters Without Borders, Robert Menard, went to Cuba, and the behavior of the two men was identical. Both came as friends of Calzón and both arrived with cash and electronic equipment and sought out dissidents. Both asked questions unrelated to the ostensible purpose of their trips: Menard asked his contact, also an undercover agent, if he knew of any "disgruntled" people in the Cuban armed forces. Kent says his numerous trips to Cuba were financed by Freedom House, a Miami-based outfit funded by the State Department. For an idea of the pressure Kent is putting on U.S. librarians, here is an open letter from his web site sent on June 5 to the president of the ALA, titled "Time to Take a Stand": "[W]e in The Friends of Cuban Libraries are inviting you to make a decision which will establish, for all time, your stand on one of the most important intellectual freedom issues confronting librarians today: the persecution of Cuba's independent library movement. We are asking you to use your authority as ALA president to invite Ramon Colas and Berta Mexidor, the co-founders of Cuba's independent library movement, to be speakers at the upcoming ALA conference in Chicago. "For six years, a small but powerful extremist group within the ALA has used falsehoods, evasions and coverups to prevent the ALA from fulfilling its duty to condemn the systematic persecution of people who, in an historic challenge to tyranny, are opening uncensored public libraries for their fellow citizens in Cuba. Exploiting the inattention of the majority of ALA members on this issue, over the past six years the extremist faction in the ALA has tried to ignore the numerous reports by respected human rights organizations and journalists which have documented the systematic persecution of library workers in Cuba. Sadly, for the past six years reports and resolutions engineered by the ALA's extremist group to deny and coverup Cuba's grim reality have been naively and unthinkingly approved by the well-meaning but negligent majority on the ALA's governing Council." This "extremist faction" Kent routinely lambasts includes Neugebauer, who says Kent has traveled to Europe and enlisted support from individuals in former communist bloc countries, including some library associations. Kent also finds the time to write press releases full of wild disinformation and has gained favorable coverage for his cause, putting the ALA on the defensive; Nat Hentoff of The Village Voice has become one of his attack dogs against the organization. For those who appreciate the art of propaganda, the reason Kent gives for refusing to meet with Cuban librarians and virulently opposing professional exchanges is that they are working for the "state." It seems to have escaped him that at his job for the New York Public Library he also works for the state, as do most of his colleagues. And given his possession of a fake passport and shady activities and associations, "Agent Emmet" is undoubtedly a lot closer to the "state" than any Havana bibliotecario. Diana Barahona is a freelance journalist. She can be reached at dlbarahona@cs.com Robert Kent refused to be interviewed for this article. Instead, he sent the following email message: Dear Ms. Barahona: Thank you for your message. The Friends of Cuban Libraries welcome fair and accurate journalism related to the Cuban government's persecution of the brave people in Cuba who, in an unprecedented challenge to government control of information, are opening uncensored libraries for the benefit of their fellow citizens. Sadly, after reviewing a number of your articles on Google (access to which is a crime in Cuba, except for a privileged few), it is evident that your brand of journalism is neither fair nor accurate. The Friends of Cuban Libraries defend the victims of human rights violations, and you are evidently in the business of attacking them. For this reason, we decline to comment on your questions dredged up from the dubious files of the Cuban secret police. For additional information on the Friends of Cuban Libraries and the persecution of Cuba's independent librarians, please refer to our website, the reports of reputable human rights organizations such as Amnesty International and Reporters Without Borders, and the numerous articles on Cuba's independent libraries written by principled journalists for the New York Times, the BBC, Le Monde and other news sources. Sincerely, Robert Kent Co-chair The Friends of Cuban Libraries (www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org)