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Today's
Stories
April 18,
2007
Landau / Hassen
Tancredo
as 17th Century Indian Chief?
April 17,
2007
Jean Bricmont
/
Diana Johnstone
The
Elections in France: a Coming Political Tsunami
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bloodbath
in Blacksburg
Frida Berrigan
Militarizing the Border
Alison Weir
The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series: Some Muslims
Aren't Bad
John Walsh
Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC?
Jason Hribal
Resistance is Futile: Emily the Cow and Tyke the Elephant
Evelyn Pringle
The Iraq Money Trail
Ben Terrall
Cuban Exiles Get Hero's Welcome; Haitian Refugees Get Shafted
Stan Cox
1040s and Death Certificates
Soren Ambrose
Confidence
Crisis at the IMF
Website of the Day
Go Ahead and Yell: "FIRE!"
April 16,
2007
John F. Sugg
Hate
and Hypocrisy in the Cox Empire
Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Escalating
Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise
Carl G. Estabrook
The Politics of the Useful Threat: It Didn't Start with the Neo-Cons
Paul Craig Roberts
The Party of Brownshirts
Uri Avnery
Blood on Our Hands
Ralph Nader
Where Are the Cries of Outrage Over Military Rapes?
Eamon McCann
Shame of the Empire: Simon, Sir Bono and Tinkerbelle
Lee Sustar
Decoding the Democrats
Mike Whitney
Trouble in Squanderville: Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market
Don Fitz
Solar Capitalism?
Stephen Lendman
Ecuador Votes for Revolutionary Change
Website of the Day
Black Mesa Water Coalition
April 14
/ 15, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Ho
Industry Whores
Jorge Mariscal
Gen.
Petraeus's Field Manual: a Traveler's Guide to Big Muddy
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Beautiful and the Dammed: How the West Got Flooded
Dave Marsh
The
Imus Affair, Hip Hop and Politics
Dr. Trudy Bond
Shrinks, Lies and Torture: How Psychologists Became the Pentagon's
Bitches
Joe Bageant
A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard
Fidel Castro
The Terrorist Walks
Alfredo Molano
"More Than Complicated"
Alan Farago
When Miami Crashes
Michael Neumann
Anglophone Fantasies and French Realities
Fred Gardner
Barbara McNair's Unsung Heroism: Bringing Down the Owner of EST
Ron Jacobs
A Conversation with Three Iraq Veterans Against the War
Gail Dines
Racy Sex, Sexy Racism
Linda Ford
Imus and Lady Hoopsters: a Long History of Bias Against Women
Athletes
Missy Beattie
What Would Imus Do?: Iraq, Ho, Ho, Ho
Dan La Botz
Farm Labor Organizer Murdered in Mexico
Giuliana Sgrena
The Lies of Mario Lozano
Laura Carlsen
A Moratorium on Free Trade Agreements
Abu Spinoza
Wolfowitz's Real Crimes
Elizabeth Schulte
Grinding It Out with Quentin Tarantino
Poets' Basement
Davies, Harley, Engel and Landau
Website of
the Weekend
Vonnegut's Final Interview
April 13,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
Shattering of Mosul
Stephen Soldz
Aid
and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations
in Historical Perspective
George Ciccarriello-Maher
The
Failed Chávez Coup: Five Years On
Laith al-Saud
Kirkuk, Oil and the Kurds
Dave Zirin
Memo to Imus
John Ross
Drawing a Line in the Heartland
Ramzy Baroud
America as Proxy
Harvey Wasserman
The Novelist Who Hated War: Peace Be With You, Mr. Vonnegut
Lopez, Olivo and Garcia
Columbia University's Two-Tiered Punishments
Dols, Fukumori,
Judd and Tillett-Saks
Columbia: On the Wrong Side of Justice
Website of the Day
Democrats: an Iraq Scorecard
April 12,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
We
May be Rid of Imus, But We're Still Stuck with the Culture
Paul Craig
Roberts
Big Profits from Big Brother
Marjorie Cohn
U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights
Evelyn Pringle
Bush Family War Profiteering: Will Congress Finally Cut Them
Off?
Ron Jacobs
God
Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut
Norman Solomon
The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack and John
Joe DeRaymond
The Release of Dennis Counterman: The Justice Game, the Alford
Plea and Death Row
Nicola Nasser
Squeezing Palestinians into an Impossible Mission
Nikolas Kozloff
Chile, a Country Geographically Located in South America "By
Accident"
William S.
Lind
Horatio Hornblower's Worst Nightmare
Siegfried L. Sassoon
A Statement Against the Continuation of the War
Website of
the Day
Where
You Want This Killin' Done?
April 11, 2007
R. T. Naylor
Quebec's
Lessons for the US: How "Wars on Terror" Should be
Fought
Vijay Prashad
The
Generation of IEDs and iPods
Patrick Cockburn
The Myth of Tal Afar
Winslow T. Wheeler
When Will the War Money Really Run Out?
Jack Balkwill
Prison for a Peacemaker: A Vietnam Vet Interviews Kathy Kelly
Alan Farago
Florida's Fundamentally Weak Environmental Movement
Russell D.
Hoffman
The Carbon Offset Tax is Just Another Nuke Bailout
Peter Rost, MD
The Fine Print on Drug Industry Kickbacks
Mike Whitney
Doomsday for the Greenback?
Dave Lindorff
Torture and Selective Outrage
Susie Day
Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts
Website of the Day
Save the Internet!
April 10,
2007
James G. Abourezk
How
Syria Helped the US in the "War on Terror"-and How
Bush Said "Thanks"
Earl Ofari
Hutchinson
Why Imus Should be Fired-And Why He Won't Be
Joshua Frank
Democrats for War
Lee Sustar
How Concessions by UAW Lost Jobs
Joseph Grosso
Tiger Woods in Dubai: Luxury and Exploitation
Nirmal Ghosh
China and the Fate of the Tiger
Robert Jensen
Impeach the System
Ramzy Baroud
Not an Intellectual Squabble
Paul Rockwell
History Will Vindicate Lt. Ehren Watada
Mario Joseph
and
Brian Concannon
Solidaridad? Chávez in Haiti
Fred Wilhelms
Why the New Royalty Rates Hurt Artists
Website of
the Day
Thaw!
April 9,
2007
Saul Landau
Whining
Imperialists
Uri Avnery
Shalom, Shin Bet
Nicole Colson
Sami Al-Arian's Nightmare: an Interview with Nahla Al-Arian
Gideon Levy
Israel Does Not Want Peace
Corporate Crime Reporter
Big Coal Invokes Reverse Nuremberg Defense
Evelyn Pringle
The Surge in Casualties
Hill Kemp
Mega Lessons from Iraq War, Year 5
Martha Rosenberg
Monsanto's
Desperate Plea: "Regulate Our Competitors!"
Keith Rosenthal
Behind Boston's Recent "Crime Wave"
Jane Stillwater
Green Zone Cabin Fever
Website of the Day
Support Norman Finkelstein
April 7 / 8, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Dead
Dogs Don't Bleed: How Giuliani Lost America
Sara Roy
A Jewish Plea
Arno J. Mayer
Back to Cleopatra's Nose: Bush-Bashing and Empire's Onward March
Jeffrey St.
Clair
In the Realm of the Grizzly Kings
Vicente Navarro
Why Huntington and Beck Are Wrong
Fidel Castro
Where Have All the Bees Gone? And Other Reflections on the Internationalizaton
of Genocide
Fred Gardner
Medical News from the Business Pages
Ralph Nader
The IRS Owes You Money
David N. Rahni
Test Tube Zealots: American Chemical Society Purges Iranian Chemists
Arthur Neslen
When an Anti-Semite is Not an Anti-Semite
Pratyush Chandra
Joseph Stiglitz's "Another World"
Missy Beattie
Enough Already! The Politics of Exasperation
Marc Levy
A Beginner's Guide to Combat
Poets' Basement
Reiss, Holt, Orloski and Louise
Website of the Weekend
Reactor Man
April 6,
2007
Franklin Lamb
Why
is Hezbollah on the Terrorism List?
Gloria La Riva
On the Case of the Cuban Five and Luis Posada Carriles
Corporate Crime Reporter
The Politics of Coal in West Virginia
Ron Jacobs
Good Friday, Beethoven and Patti Smith
Felice Pace
Simon Says: The Pro-Israel Bias of NPR
Walter Brasch
Treason in the White House?
David Swanson
Heroes, Sung and Unsung
Sylvia Syracuse
Roadside Rampage: Salvadoran Murders in Guatemala
April 5, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
A
De Facto Hostage Exchange
Tom Barry
The Fred Thompson Factor
Richard W. Behan
Congressional Complicity
Nicola Nasser
Playing US Politics with Iraqi Blood for Oil
Bernadine Dohrn
The New and Old SDS: Convergence Not Division
Laray Polk
Lucky Dragon: Does the World Really Need a New H-Bomb?
Helen Redmond
Female Chauvinist Pigs?
April 4,
2007
Col. Dan Smith
"Have
You No Sense of Decency?": the Tillman Affair and the Moral
Decay of the Army
Joshua Frank
Democratic
Blood Money: Sen. Feinstein's War Profiteering
Margaret Kimberly
Of Confessions and Torture
Sharon Smith
Circuit City's Guinea Pigs: the Latest Trend in Corporate America
Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon
The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV
Martin Luther
King,Jr.
Beyond
Vietnam
Bill Quigley
Incident at Fort Huachuca, the Army's Torture Training Center
Dave Zirin
Picking Chicago's Pockets with the Olympics
Evelyn Pringle
Drug Companies Want Women of Childrearing Years
Peter Rost,
MD
Pfizer's Puny Fine
Website of the Day
Crash of the Honey Bees
April 3,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
US's
Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran's Top Spook Prompted hostage Taking
Marjorie Cohn
Coming Up Short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees
Brian M. Downing
The Army's Road to Iraq
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coddling
Pfizer: Praise the Criminal, Dis the Whistleblower
Carol Norris
A Psychologist on Sexual Assault: Yes, Virginia, There is a Sollution
Ralph Nader
Tailpipe Blues
Dave Lindorff
I Quit: A Movement of One (Or a Maybe a Million)
Scott Bontz
The Great Depletion
Thomas Dolby
Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Racism and the National Anthem
Website of
the Day
Cockburn on BookTV
April 2, 2007
Gary Leupp
A
Bogus Hostage Crisis
Uri Avnery
Condi
in the Middle East: Olmert and the Pussycat
James Petras
Palestine: The Political Economy of a Disaster
Norman Solomon
McCain in Baghdad: Walking in McNamara's Footsteps
Robert Fisk
War of Humiliation
Stanley Heller
A Neocon Looks Two Conquests Ahead: The Ravings of James Woolsey
Sherwood Ross
How the Pentagon Cheats Iraq Vets Out of Medical Care and Disability
Pay
Monica Benderman
On Keeping Men Alive: Report from Ft. Stewart
Stephen Fleischman
Winners and Losers in a Dog-Eat-Dog System
Anne McElroy
Dachel
Never Mind the Mercury
Website of the Day
Midwestern Common Sense on the War
March 31 / April 1, 2007
Cockburn /
St. Clair
That
Was an Antiwar Vote?
Fred Gardner
How Corrupt is Malcolm Gladwell? Shilling for Enron and Breast
Cancer
Greg Moses
The Pirates of Homeland Security
Gary Leupp
300 vs. Iran (and Herodotus)
Robert Fisk
Shakespeare and War
Roger Morris
The Politics of the Witch Hunt
Conn Hallinan
The Price of Fire: Oil, Water and Resistance in Bolivia
Kristin J.
Anderson
A Protocol for Death
Jason Hribal
California's Most Unhappy Cows
John Ross
Strange Fruit Down South
Christopher Brauchli
Bush and the Politics of Falsehoods: If You're Going to Lie,
Lie Big
David Underhill
War Breeds Stranger Bedfellows
Elizabeth Schulte
The Pentagon's "Don't Ask" Disaster
Ben Terrall
Time for Lula to Stop Doing Bush's Dirty Work in Haiti
Missy Beattie
Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner: The Story of King Abdullah
and the O-Word
Sonja Karkar
How Palestine Became Israel's Land
Daniel Wolff
Have You Heard the News?
David Vest
A Romanian Jazz Rebel Drops a Bomb on Paris
Ron Jacobs
Wynton Marsalis Checks In on the Land That Never Has Been Yet
Poets' Basement
Davies, Holt, Wigley and Landau
Website of the Weekend
Kansas City Rocks
March 30, 2007
Alan Maass
Oil
and the Empire
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
A Memo on Iran: Brinksmanship in Uncharted Waters
Richard W. Behan
George Bush's Land Mine: If Iraqis Get Revenue Sharing, Exxon
Gets Their Oil
Gabriel Kolko
Israel's Last Chance
William S. Lind
Operation Anabasis
Stedjan / Weis
The Cluster Bomb Treaty: Again, It's the US vs. the World
Kevin Zeese
Is Bush Lame or Is Congress?
David Busch
Homeless in LA
Fidel Castro
Biofuels and Global Hunger
CounterPunch
News Service
Mistrial in Olympia 15 Case
Website of the Day
Free Shaquanda Cotton
March 29, 2007
Saul Landau
Comparing
Padillas
Patrick Cockburn
When Iraqi Cops Go on a Rampage
Dave Lindorff
War and the Futures Market: Oil Traders Fear an Attack on Iran
Arthur Neslen
Normalizing Injustice: Jaffa's Ugly Truth
Michael Dickinson
Incident at Westminster Abbey
Ingmar Lee
Plantskyyd: Planting Trees with Pig's Blood in British Columbia
Aseem Shrivastava
As India Goes Global, the Public Goes Private
Marlene Martin
Sacco and Vanzetti, Revisited
Mahmoud El-Yousseph
Wake Up, You Live in America!
Michael Foley
A Citizen's Peace Lobby
Website of the Day
Impeach Bush Club Parade
March 28,
2007
Nicole Colson
The
Ongoing Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Harry Clark
Michigan Peaceworks on Palestine
Larry Everest
Another $100 Billion to Continue the War
Jonathan M.
Feldman
Citigroup,
Property and Theft
Dave Zirin
Yet Another Book on Muhammad Ali (and Why I Wrote It)
Jane Stillwater
How Runaway Inflation Has Slipped Under the Radar
Ayesha Ijaz Khan
Pakistan's Cry for Justice
Jim Wilfong
Who Owns Maine's Water?
Hawra Karama
An Open Letter to Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi Uncle Tom
Website of
the Day
Free Fire on Iraqi Civilians
March 27, 2007
Iain Boal /
Standard Schaefer
British
Petroleum and the New Greenmail
Patrick Cockburn
The Hostage Game
Monica Benderman
On Ending War: Is America Ready for the Troops When They Come
Home?
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Political
Players and Single Payer
Joshua Frank
Dems in Power: Broken Promises and Bald-Faced Lies
Harvey Wasserman
Will Al Gore Deliver Us to Solartopia?
Sen. Russell Feingold
FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act
Tillman Family
Crimes and Cover Ups are Not "Missteps"
Patrick Bond
Zimbabwe's Descent
David Judd
Arbitrary Discipline at Columbia
Website of the Day
Why Work?
March 26, 2007
Patrick Cockburn
Seven
Days on Iraq's Cruel Roads
Uri Avnery
Schoolbooks and Borders
Greg Moses
Hothouses for Hapless Masses on the Rio Grande
Bill Hatch
A Plague of Big Shots
John V. Walsh
The Democrats' War Funding Debacle
Diane Christian
God Does Not Love the Aggressor
Dan La Botz
The Immigration Movement at a Crossroads
Frederico Fuentes
Latin America Tells Bush to "Get Out!"
Sunsara Taylor
Democrats' Victory Means More Iraqi Deaths
Mickey Z.
Pat Tillman: Beyond the Hype
Website of the Day
DynCorp's Iraq Training Policy
March 24 / 25, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Where
are the Laptop Bombardiers Now?
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Nuclear Saviors?: Kyoto, Gore and the Atomic Lobby
David Rosen
An American Obituary: Anna Nicole Smith and the Exploitation
of Nature
Ron Jacobs
The Political History of the Car Bomb
Robert Fantina
Vietnam and Iraq, the Rhetoric Remains the Same
Alan Maass
Why Ralph Nader Took a Stand
Atul Gawande
On Washing Hands: A Surgeon's Notes on How Infections Spread
in Hospitals
Marianne McDonald
Staging
Anti-Colonial Protest
China Hand
Zealots Scheme to Derail North Korea Accord
Kaz Dziamka
The Iroquois Way of Impeachment
Andrew Wimmer
The Nursemaid's Tale
Don Monkerud
World's Biggest Debtor Nation
Anthony Papa
Bong Hits 4 Jesus Case
Matthew Provonsha
Return of the Black Bloc
Missy Beattie
Calling Youth and Young Adults
Stephen Fleischman
Confrontation, At Last
Poets' Basement
Newberry, Laymon, Harley and Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
An Interview with Ron Jacobs
Song of the Weekend
"Who Would Jesus Bomb?"
March 23,
2007
Saul Landau
Return
to Syria
Patrick Cockburn
Welcome to Iraq, Mr. Ban
Greg Moses
Protesting Immigrant Prisons in the Rio Grande Valley
Rep. Ron Paul
The War Funding Bill
Franklin Lamb
Will Hezbollah Hand Israel Its 6th Defeat?
Stephen Gowans
Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment
Roger Burbach
Leftist Victory in Ecuador
Dave Lindorff
The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats
William S. Lind
Candles in the Hurricane
Alan Mammoser
The New Rules of Food
Russell Hoffman
Al Gore's Nose is Glowing
Website of
the Day
Global Outsourcing and the US Working Class
March 22,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Oil-Rich
Kirkuk at the Melting Point
Robin Blackburn
Toxic
Waste in the Sub-Prime Market
Michael Donnelly
Mr. Green Goes to Washington: Another Oscar Performance from
Al Gore
Uzma Aslam
Khan
Down Pakistan's No-Constitution Avenue
Lee Sustar
Bush's Braceros: The Ugly Truth About the Guest Worker Program
Robert D. Skeels
LA's Vicious War on the Homeless
Rev. William Alberts
The Forbidden C-Word
Anne McElroy
Dachel
The Search for the Elusive Autism Gene
Mickey Z.
This is Your Brain on Meat
Website of
the Day
Raimondo Does Hitchens
March 21, 2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Robbie Conal
James Petras
Meet
the Global Ruling Class
Fred Gardner
A U.S. Army Pipe Dream
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Cramer Comes Clean: Lies, Market Manipulation and Wall Street
Faisal Kutty
Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge?
Robert Fantina
U.S. Imperialism in Action
Isabella Kenfield and Roger
Burbach
Brazilian Opposition to Bush-Lula Ethanol Accords
Lucinda Marshall
Missing in Action: Why is the Peace Movement Ignoring the Impact
of War on Women?
Winslow Wheeler
Dem Budget Tricks: Reform Means What We Say It Means!
Website of
the Day
Student Day of Action Against the War
March 20,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Iraq
is a Vast, Blood-Drenched Human Disaster
Winslow T.
Wheeler
The Blank Check War
Sharon Smith
Hillary's Cojones: Our Bleached-Blond Thatcher?
Uri Avnery
The New Palestinian Unity Government
Stan Cox
Down-to-a-Trickle Economics
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Hating the Rich
Alan Farago
Why Al Gore Soft-Peddled the Environment in 2000
Richard W.
Behan
Impeachment and Patriotism
Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On
David Krieger
The Treaty of Tlatelolco
Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to Pfizer's CEO: $11 Million Salary, 36% Raise,
10,000 Fired Employees
Mickey Z.
A Cat-Eat-Cat World: Beyond the Pet Food Recall
Website of
the Day
Bringing the War Home
Webclip of
the Day
Sunsara Taylor Beats O'Reilly, Again
March 19,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Crime
Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
Patrick Cockburn
Operation
Deepening Nightmare
Stauber / Rampton
Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward?
Werther
Plame Wars: Valerie Plame, the Washington Post and the Ghost
of Joe McCarthy
Noam Chomsky
In Memory of Tanya Reinhart
Jeff Leys
Tap Dancing on Graves: How Democrats Bought the War
Richard May
And Then There Were None: Europe's Afghan Backlash
Ron Jacobs
Lessons of the Antiwar Movement and the Washington Post's Lessons
of the Iraq War
Mike Whitney
Rove in the Dock
Website of
the Day
Ringtones That Roar
March 17
/ 18, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Here
Comes Another "Crime Wave"
John Scagliotti
A Sissy's Manifesto
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Green Imposter: When Al Gore Was Veep
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Confession Backfired
Greg Moses
Jailing Immigrant Mothers in El Paso
Harry Clark
Thrice-Told Tales: Those Israel-Syria Peace Talks
Brian Cloughley
In the Name of Improving People's Lives: Mounting Civilian Deaths
in Afghanistan and Iraq
Mehran Ghassemi
An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh on the US, Israel and Iran
William Loren Katz
A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation
John Ross
Being a Zapatista Where You Live
Ralph Nader
Ban the Bomblets!
Walter Brasch
An Intolerant Minority: the Witch Hunt Against Gays in the Military
Samer Assad
The Palestinian Unity Government: Another for US Diplomacy
Dave Zirin
Bowie Kuhn: Death of a Baseball Reactionary
Ron Jacobs
The Darker Nation's: Remembering and Re-examining the Third World
Missy Beattie
No to War and Pace
Don Santina
First, They Came for the Democrats
Sami Adwan
What Hillary Should Know About Palestinian Schoolbooks
Dr. Susan Block
Gods of Spring: the Erotics of the Equinox
Poets' Basement
Reed, Landau, Engel, Buknatski
Website of
the Weekend
God Save Helen Mirren
March 16,
2007
R. T. Naylor
The
Political Economy of Diamonds
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Last Days of Constitutional Rule
Joshua Frank
Obama's Israel Problem
Diane Farsetta
How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front
Groups
Tom Barry
Tancredo's Putsch: Anti-Immigrant Agenda Veers Hard Right
Stephen Lendman
Plays from a Political Fake Book: Congress's Phony Opposition
to War
Al Krebs
Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death
Squads
Jackie Corr
Senator Schumer and the Corruption Culture
Ramzy Baroud
Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle
Reza Fiyouzat
The Chinese Way of Capitalism
Website of the Day
Introducing: the iRak
March 15,
2007
Alison Weir
Strip-Searching
Children at Israeli Checkpoints
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad
Under Surge
Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity
Memo to Congressional Leaders on Iraq Funding: First Stop the
Bleeding
Franklin Spinney
Of Character and Contractors: the Unauthorized Rumsfeld
Standard Schaefer
Biofuels
and the Green Resistance
Conn Hallinan
The Right's Stuff in Africa: Neocons, Evangelicals and Sudan
Maureen Webb
Another Patriot Act Abuse
Sonja Karkar
Rachel Corrie and Palestine
Margaret Kimberly
The Profits of Self-Hatred: Malkin and D'Souza, Incorporated
Anthony Papa
The New Capones: It's Time to Rethink Drug Prohibition
Katherine Hancy
Wheeler Bush's
Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost
Video of the Day
The Easiest Targets
Website of
the Day
Memo to Kucinich: Watch Your Back!
March 14,
2007
Tao Ruspoli
A
Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta
and the State of the Left
Philip Agee
The
Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America
Bruce Dixon
The Digital Redlining of African-Americans
John Walsh
How One Senator Could End the War
Sunsara Taylor
Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran
William Johnson
Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula
Shipyards
Richard Thieme
Entitlement and Empire
Jeffrey Klein
Right-Wing Academic Values
Nicola Nasser
This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity
Dave Lindorff
Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats
Website of
the Day
Oil Change
March 13,
2007
Catherine Wilkerson,
M.D.
Scenes
from a Cop Riot
Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon
Robert Bryce
Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Coal-Powered Democrats
Pierre Rimbert
Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism
Dave Lindorff
What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai
Elizabeth Schulte
The Repackaging of John Edwards
Norman Solomon
The Pragmatism of Prolonged War
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan
Jeff Conant
Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos
Website of the Day
Tacoma and the Big Heat
March 12,
2007
Marjorie Cohn
Patriot
Act Unbound
Col. Dan Smith
Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials
Paul Craig Roberts
Neocons in Kafkaland
Ingmar Lee
The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine
Fred Gardner
Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal
Ron Jacobs
Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest
Ralph Nader
Send the Bush Twins to Iraq!
John Ross
Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico
Stephen Fleischman
Bush's Latin American Slip
Eva Carazo Vargas
Why We Reject CAFTA
Website of
the Day
Mountain Justice Spring Break
March 9
/ 11, 2007
Sameer Dossani
Interview
with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st
Century
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil
Dave Marsh
Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent
Patrick Cockburn
Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive
Jennifer Van Bergen
A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic
Spying
James P. Stevenson
Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen
Arthur J. Versluis
Crusade for Commercialism
Corporate Crime
Reporter
Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime
Missy Beattie
Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying
Michael Simmons
Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter
Kevin Zeese
Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No
Longer Enough
David Swanson
Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats
John A. Murphy
Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless?
Dave Lindorff
Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by
Democrats
Nikolas Kozloff
Lights! Camera! Chavez!
Christopher
Fons
Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR?
Mike Roselle
A Thousand Miles of Bad River
Mike Mejia
Justice for Sibel Edmonds
Susie Day
Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran!
Michael Donnelly
LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5)
Poets' Basement
Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley
Website of the Weekend
Japanese Dolphin Massacre
March 8,
2007
Elaine Cassel
The
Tragic Case of Jose Padilla
Yifat Susskind
Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation
Corporate Crime Reporter
Politics and the Prosecutors
Col. Dan Smith
The Sins of Walter Reed
William S. Lind
The Washington Dodgers
Mark Engler
Bush's Latin American Spring Break
Roger Burbach
With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail
Dana Cloud
Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought
Police
Isabella Kenfield
Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental
Degradation
Lucinda Marshall
We Stand with the Women of the World
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part
3)
Website of
the Day
Filibuster for Peace
March 7, 2007
Christopher Ketcham
What Did Israel Know in Advance
of the 9/11 Attacks?
Christopher
Ketcham
The
Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up
Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey
St. Clair
Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Mismeasuring the Defense Budget
Sean Donahue
Free Scooter Libby!
Dave Lindorff
The Fall Guy Has Fallen
Evelyn Pringle
Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many
Tao Ruspoli
Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction
Website of the Day
Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!
March 6,
2007
Gary Leupp
Meet
Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It
Gets"
Uri Avnery
Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism
Patrick Cockburn
The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter
Saul Landau
World
in Crisis, Candidates in Denial
Corporate Crime Reporter
John Edwards' Big Lie
Ron Jacobs
The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong!
Mike Roselle
Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone
P. Sainath
Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell
Joshua Frank
Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War
Aniket Alam
Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen
Dave Zirin
Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer
Website of
the Day
Physicians for a National Health Program
March 5,
2007
Greg Moses
Holding
Suzi Hazahza for Profit
Patrick Cockburn
Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities
James Petras
Bush vs. Chavez
Frida Berrigan
US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran
Marjorie Cohn
Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial:
the Case of Augustín Aguayo
Douglas Kammen
and S.W. Hayati
The Rice Crisis in East Timor
Sen. Barack Obama
On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment
to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel"
Michael Young
Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot?
Dave Lindorff
It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al
Sonja Karkar
Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive
Website of the Day
How Obama Learned to Love Israel
March 3
/ 4, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
The
Persecution of Sami Al-Arian
Corporate Crime
Reporter
"No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim
Bias
Jeffrey St. Clair
Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite
Patrick Cockburn
War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply
Ralph Nader
Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America
M. Shahid Alam
American Mamlukes
Gilad Atzmon
From Esther to AIPAC
Fred Gardner
It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain
George Ciccariello-Maher
The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela
Rock &
Rap Confidential
Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively
for Blacks"
Gillian Russom
The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo
Michael McPhearson
My Small Act of Civil Disobedience
Kevin Zeese
The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom?
Sunsara Taylor
Four Years of an Unjust War
Wendy Thompson
Re-Organizing the UAW
Kenneth Rexroth
Gibbon's "Decline and Fall"
Missy Beattie
Regarding Cheney
Don Monkerud
Jesus Turned Away at US Border
Tina Louise
Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams
Poets' Basement
Richards, Landau and Davies
Website of the Weekend
John Prine: Flag Decal
March 2,
2007
Roger Morris
Cheney's
Bagram Ghosts
Phil Gasper
Prisoners of Ideology
Mike Roselle
Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone
Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scam
John V. Walsh
Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the
War
Sherwood Ross
Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget
China Hand
Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb?
David Rosen
To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America
Chris Genovali
Connecting the Dots
Peter Harley
The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela
Website of the Day
Courage to Resist
March 1,
2007
Laura Carlsen
Return
to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men
Ray McGovern
How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows?
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Theater of the Absurd
Najum Mustaq
America's Musharraf Dilemma
Brent Bowden
The War on Terror and the Terror of War
Tina Richards
Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds
Ethan Nadelman
Mexico and the Drug War
Mike Stark
"Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution
Wadner Pierre
/ Jeb Sprague
Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN
Mike Whitney
Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan
Website of
the Day
Dylan Hears a Who

|
April
18, 2007
Gold Digging
The
U.S. Treasury Department's Economic Campaign Against North Korea
By CHINA HAND
Reality-based reporting is making a
comeback on the matter of Banco Delta Asia -- fgthe little Macau
bank with the frozen North Korean accounts that has held up execution
of the Six Party Agreement for almost two months.
McClatchy's Kevin Hall is one
of the few journalists who has followed this issue closely and
critically. He recently posted two important articles on BDA.
As a result, a clearer picture
is emerging of a concerted U.S. effort to exceed the scope and
intent of U.N. sanctions by exploiting the domestic exigencies
of the Patriot Act Section 311 anti-money laundering powers as
a pretext for pursuing a worldwide economic blockade against
North Korea.
Now the imperatives of the
Patriot Act have collided with the demands of U.S. diplomacy
over the issue of Banco Delta Asia. Diplomacy dictates that the
BDA decision be overruled, but elements within the Bush administration
are unwilling to surrender or curtail the investigatory and sanctioning
power they enjoy under the Patriot Act for the sake of the Six
Party Agreement.
The Bush administration's head
might understand the superiority of the State Department's diplomatic
approach to the North Korean (and Iranian) problems, but its
heart is with the coercive anti-diplomacy of a faction within
the Treasury Department.
Apparently unwilling to choose
between one or another, the Bush administration has awkwardly
attempted to split the difference and as a result its diplomacy
in North Asia is thrown into confusion.
Now an unwelcome light is being
cast both upon the use of Patriot Act Section 311 as a policy
-- as opposed to a national security-tool, and on the role of
the Treasury Department in exploiting, misrepresenting, and,
quite possibly abusing the Act in turf struggles with realists
in the State Department.
At the heart of the BDA matter
is the Bush administration's fundamental conundrum in Asia-whether
it should confront or conciliate China.
Hall's first article, Money
laundering allegations by U.S. false, report says describes
the (relatively) clean bill of health Ernst & Young gave
to BDA in its audit, characterizing it as a legitimate bank doing
legal business, albeit with weak internal controls, and debunks
the counterfeit supernote moneylaundering canard.
The second article, Gold
sales may have spurred Macau bank's blacklisting, posits
that the real motive for the crackdown on BDA was to cut off
North Korea's (legitimate) gold bullion sales, noting that BDA
purchased and resold about $110 million of North Korean gold.
The significance of McClatchy's
reporting is that it further undercuts the U.S. assertion that
the BDA sanctions executed under Section 311 of the Patriot Act
were independent Treasury efforts to protect U.S. currency from
compromise by counterfeit currency and prevent terrorists from
exploiting the world financial system--and should not, indeed
can not, be subordinated to the exigencies of U.S. diplomacy.
However, cutting off bullion
sales by the North Korean government was not part of the U.N.-approved
international sanctions regime against Pyongyang's WMD industries;
and it could not be construed as a legitimate pretext for sanctioning
BDA under the Patriot Act.
Cutting off North Korean government
sales of bullion looks like part of a campaign of economic blockade
and financial warfare that goes beyond the targeted sanctions
regime endorsed by the United Nations.
And using Patriot Act Section
311 as the means to shut down BDA's bullion purchases from North
Korea looks less like a legitimate use of the Act to protect
U.S. national security and more like an element in a campaign
of coercion on behalf of a unilateral United States foreign policy-a
secret policy that had regime change at its heart.
As to the question of how important
BDA was to North Korea's gold bullion sales, I will admit to
being an agnostic.
Gold is as good as...gold.
People like it, especially when desperate sellers provide a discount,
as North Korea probably does.
North Korean gold is probably
not that hard to sell, even in the context of North Korea's rumored
production of six tons per annum and in the face of a U.S. campaign
to cut North Korea off from the world financial community.
What the United States has
probably accomplished is simply to make it very difficult for
North Korea to trade gold on the established international markets,
and force it to dispose of the gold at a less desirable price.
As the Christian Science Monitor
reported in January:
One indication of North Korea's
need to sell gold was its decision to provide information needed
by the London Bullion Market Association (LBMA) to list the North's
central bank as a "good deliverer" of gold and silver.
Listing with the LBMA is essential for refiners who want to sell
their products in London. The bank's listing was suspended 2-1/2
years ago when it failed to respond to LBMA requests for "proactive
monitoring."
The LBMA said it does not "take
into account any political criteria," and will keep the
bank on its rolls for another three years without monitoring.
Despite the listing, market
experts say the big banks that are major buyers of gold
and form the LBMA's core membership are not likely to flout
the spirit of the US Treasury order against Banco Delta Asia,
through which North Korea exported gold prior to the ban.
"The fact that they're
on the list does not mean they can deliver to the London market,"
says Stewart Murray, the LBMA's chief executive. "When we
have sanctions, none of the facilities will accept delivery from
a company or a country that is subject to these sanctions."
Of course, North Korean gold
exports haven't been officially banned, so Murray's statement
that, despite being listed as a "good deliverer", North
Korea was not allowed to sell gold on the London market makes
little sense except in the context of a U.S. campaign to discourage
trade in North Korean gold on the London exchange, using either
diplomatic pressure or the threat of some Treasury enforcement
action.
Colin McAskill -- who purchased
Daedong Credit Bank, the bank which has $6 million in funds tied
up in BDA -- has been campaigning to make it possible for North
Korean gold bullion and other metals to be sold freely on the
international market, thereby making foreign investment in North
Korea's gold and other metals and raw materials industries more
feasible and attractive.
I wonder if McAskill's enthusiasm
for bringing North Korea in from the cold on gold sales is a
reason why the obviously legitimate and private character of
his bank's account at BDA has been ignored by the champions of
the free market and capitalism at the Treasury Department and,
instead of being repatriated separately, his monies will disappear
into Kim Jung Il's suitcase as part of the funds "resolution".
As befits its anonymous, fungible
character, North Korean gold has found its way into the world
market through other channels.
An interesting article by Bertil
Lintner in Asia Times describes the growth of North Korean
gold and silver sales to Thailand. Precious metal exports from
North Korea to Thailand grew from virtually zero to $40 million
in 2006.
Along the way, Lintner also
documents the financial harassment of North Korea in Europe:
The action against Banco Delta
Asia, a privately owned bank that the Macau government later
had to prop up to prevent it from collapsing, was the second
move against North Korea's assets abroad. In a much less publicized
action, North Korea's only bank located in a foreign country
- the Golden Star Bank in Vienna - was forced to suspend its
operations in June 2004.
The Golden Star was 100% owned
by the Korea Daesong Bank, a state enterprise headquartered in
Pyongyang, and was allowed to set up a branch in the Austrian
capital in 1982. For more than two decades, Austrian police kept
a close eye on the bank, but there was no law that forbade the
North Koreans from operating a bank in the country.
Nevertheless, Austria's police
intelligence department stated in a 1997 report: "This bank
[Golden Star] has been mentioned repeatedly in connection with
everything from money-laundering and distribution of fake currency
notes to involvement in the illegal trade in radioactive material."
Eventually the international
pressure to close the bank became too strong. Sources in Vienna
believe the US played an important behind-the-scenes role in
finally shuttering Golden Star's modest office on 12 Kaiserstrasse
in the Austrian capital. Until then, Vienna had been North Korea's
center for financial transactions in Europe and the Middle East.
Visitors to North Korea have noted that euro coins in circulation
in the country - the US dollar is not welcome in Pyongyang -
invariably came from Austria. (Euro notes are the same in all
European Union countries, but coins designate individual member
countries.)
Here's another data point,
courtesy of Daily NK:
Singaporean newspaper "Singapore
Lianhe Zaobao" reported, "Though the recent BDA issue
ended in shambles, Macao and BDA did face some trials" and
"With the U.S. able to strangle any county with international
financial sanctions, the BDA issue rang alarm bells for illegal
acts occurring throughout the world."
The Zaobao's online site reported
on the 24th, "7~8 small scale family run banks in Macau
banks are faced with the threat of closing down as BDA concluded
that these banks were acting as North Korea's 'laundering black
money.'
Macau has been caught in this
political issue after being targeted as a place dealing North
Korea's money laundering." The newspaper also analyzed
that the international community had questioned China's morals
[emphasis added].
China's morals are probably
not the issue here.
China's insistence on following
the letter of the UN sanctions and not the broad interpretation
favored by the United States is probably at the nub of it all.
China is North Korea's largest
trading partner. It can purchase exportable North Korean outputs
for its own use or even repackage and re-export them.
It can pay for North Korean
exports using foreign exchange, let North Korea hold the funds
in a Chinese bank, and permit North Korean companies to use those
funds to open letters of credits for imports.
Its jewelry industry can easily
absorb North Korea's bullion-or, if desirable, resmelt it into
clean, pretty bars-without reference to any de facto sanctions
by the London exchange.
Therefore, China is the weak
link in any U.S.-led financial blockade of China.
And we all know, a chain is
only as strong as its weakest link.
Which means that an effective
financial blockade of North Korea had to include an effective
China component-something which is apparently lacking.
Unfortunately, diplomacy was
apparently not part of the Bush administration skill set, and
the big stick was trundled out to threaten China with dire consequences
if it didn't participate in the unilateral U.S. sanctions regime.
As David Asher-the State Department's
previous pointman for the North Korean effort at State -- acknowledged
in a recent interview, the ultimate target of Treasury's investigations
in Macau was China.
In comparison with Banco Delta
Asia, the information that had been collected on evidence of
money laundering by the Macao branch of the Bank of China was
"voluminous," Asher said.
Asher insists that the move
against Banco Delta Asia was the direct consequence of law enforcement
efforts and was not designed as political leverage in talks that
were taking place simultaneously with North Korea on nuclear
disarmament.
He advocates that efforts to
curtail North Korea's links to criminal activity, and to ensure
that China joins the enforcement effort, should not be suspended
for the sake of expediency in the disarmament talks in Beijing.
"Banco Delta may be a
sacrificial lamb in some people's minds, but it is not about
Banco Delta," he said. "It's about Macao, Macao's government,
China, the Chinese government and their complicity and their
accommodative behavior toward North Korea's illegal activities,
proliferation activities and leadership financial activities."
(Donald Greenlees and David Lague, How a U.S. inquiry held up
the N. Korea peace talks, International Heritage Tribune, April
11, 2007)
It looks like Treasury took
the provocative step of threatening Bank of China with a money
laundering tag in a failed attempt to get Macau and its patron
Beijing to fall into line on America's unilateral sanctions initiative
against North Korea.
The threats apparently persisted
even after the so-called March 14 resolution of the BDA funds-the
Treasury Department's scorched-earth final decision denouncing
BDA. After the decision was announced, Daniel Glaser went to
Macau and presented the results of the Treasury investigation
to the Macau authorities in an effort to persuade them not to
release some of the BDA funds.
Reading between the lines,
Glaser probably declared that Treasury's campaign against purported
laundering of North Korean funds by Macau banks would not be
suspended unless Macau obeyed Treasury's diktat concerning the
BDA funds.
My hypothesis is when Macau
didn't respond with appropriate enthusiasm, Glaser injudiciously
escalated the confrontation by promising further investigation
of mom-and-pop banks in Macau, possibly an indictment of BDA's
directors for being knowing conspirators (something that was
bruited about in the Macau press) and, most unwisely, threatened
to make it known that Treasury considered Bank of China Macau
to be implicated in the North Korean money laundering web.
This kind of threat against
the reputation and viability of Bank of China Macau is the best
explanation I can come up with for China's remarkably harsh and
pointed subsequent summons to Treasury.
On March 21, the Chinese Ministry
of Foreign Affairs stated:
In an effort to safeguard the
financial stability in the Macao Special Administrative Region
(MSAR), China yesterday demanded the US consult and negotiate
with the MSAR government to address the latter's concerns over
the issue of Banco Delta Asia (BDA), a Macao-based bank.
Foreign Ministry spokesman
Liu Jianchao made the remarks at a regular press conference commenting
on the frozen capital of North Korea at BDA. ... He urged the
US to negotiate with the MSAR government on the issue to maintain
Macao's financial and social stability.
Nothing here about greasing
the wheels for the Six Party Agreement. Or doing the right thing
by a little bank that got caught in the middle of superpower
diplomacy.
China's talking about the "financial
and social stability" of Macau.
That probably means Bank of
China Macau.
So Daniel Glaser was called
back for what appears to have been ten days of stonewalling during
which he refused to lift the threats against Bank of China Macau
and other banks handling North Korean money or gold.
His line of defense -- in his
discussions with perhaps his most determined opponent, the State
Department -- probably hinged on the fact that Patriot Act 311
enforcement had been sold as an independent U.S. enforcement
initiative unrelated to whatever U.N. sanction or Six Party diplomatic
process involving North Korea.
If the sanctions against BDA
were removed explicitly to facilitate the Six Party Agreement,
then the legitimacy of Patriot Act Section 311 investigations-and
their intimidating aura of implacable, inexorable malice -- would
be lost.
And Daniel Glaser and his boss,
Stuart Levey, would look like jerks who had been using the pretext
of supposed U.S. law enforcement obligations to promote a secret,
unilateral, destabilizing North Korea policy under false pretenses.
Which, in my opinion, is exactly
what they did.
And now I think the world-and
Beijing--knows it.
Which means the credibility
of Patriot Act Section 311 investigations is shot. European banks
(and governments) leery of the U.S. approach on North Korea and
Iran will find it easier to opt out of an explicitly politicized
Section 311 investigation and sanctions regime.
And obtaining explicit waiver
from Section 311 investigations will emerge as a central theme
in trade negotiations between China and the United States (whose
team will be led by Levey and Glaser's boss, Treasury Secretary
Paulson).
Nevertheless, Levey and Glaser
probably insisted to President Bush that the club of Section
311, exploiting the central position of the United States in
the world financial system and shielded from international and
U.S. law under the national security aegis, was too powerful
a weapon to repudiate for the sake of the Six Party Agreement
(indeed, this is an assertion that Glaser and Asher and their
advocates have been making with suspicious frequency in public
fora).
And perhaps President Bush,
himself a big fan of coercive middle-finger unilateralism, backed
them, in effect splitting the baby, letting State pursue engagement
and Treasury continue with confrontation.
Maybe it was the Chinese and
the State Department who blinked, in effect throwing up their
hands, ginning up a workaround, proceeding with the Six Party
Agreement, and leaving the question of what to do about Patriot
Act initiatives against Chinese banks-and the issue of the Treasury
Department's refractory attitude--for Secretary Paulson's upcoming
China trade talks.
Given the general contempt
for North Korea and the credulity and sloppiness of most Western
reporting on this subject, the only reason that we know or care
that the Treasury Department is out to screw the North Koreans
no matter what is the embarrassment and chaos its intransigence
has brought to American diplomacy.
But now, thanks to the saga
of the $25 million that somehow could not make it out of Macau,
the narrative emerging from the BDA mess is not of the threat
from North Korean supernotes, contraband, or WMDs.
It's a picture of a U.S. campaign
of economic warfare against North Korea, a campaign which may
have registered successes in cutting off access U.S. financial
institutions, intimidating European banks, ostracizing North
Korea from the London gold exchange, and twisting the arm of
the Macau monetary authority to stop BDA and possibly other Macau
banks from selling Kim Jung Il's gold.
And it's the disturbing picture
of a campaign that went too far, stalled and become meaningless
except as an unnecessary irritant to China, a crucial world power,
because the United States lacked the political will and international
support to initiate a high-stakes confrontation with North Korea's
powerful protector over a little country with a little bomb.
Even more disturbing, it's
a picture of a campaign that has been so extensive, so prolonged,
so demanding of our allies, so insistent and coercive upon international
financial institutions, and so central to American prestige and
credibility that we are unable to abandon it and move beyond
a campaign of harassment against a tiny bank in Macau-and provocation
directed against a country that is central to the United States'
economic and fiscal well-being.
But the true story is not one
of confusion, contradiction, and mixed messages in U.S. policy.
The story is one of American
shortsightedness.
If North Korea wants to be
insulated from the international financial community, all it
needs to do is hide behind China's coattails.
But that's not what it wants.
North Korea wants to achieve
international legitimacy and access to world financial markets.
It wants to export directly, attract foreign investment, raise
capital on the international financial markets, and sell its
gold on the world exchanges.
North Korea doesn't want to
grovel to the Chinese and sell energy, resources, and gold to
Beijing at below-market prices.
Quite the opposite.
Returning from North Korea,
Bill Richardson noted:
Interestingly, North Korea sees themselves eventually
as an ally of the United States; in other words, as an ally against
China. They see themselves as playing a strategic role as a buffer
between the United States and China.
Every American comes back from
North Korea with the same message.
North Korea wants to break
free of Chinese domination and align itself with the United States.
And what do we do?
Every time the North Korean
dog sticks its head out of its Chinese kennel, we beat it on
the snout with a stick-and force it back to the heel of its Chinese
master.
And we persist with the policy
even when it runs counter to our current diplomatic efforts and
security strategy for the region.
It's a policy that's blind,
self-defeating, and futile.
And now that the U.S. has abandoned
a policy of confrontation with North Korea, it's also become
ridiculous.
China Hand edits the very interesting website
China Matters.
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