Today's Stories

July 19 / 20, 2008

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D.C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington "Screwed Up" and "Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U.S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U.S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

Weekend Edition
July 19 / 20, 2008

Justice American Style

Ashcroft, Torture and the U.S.

By ROBERT FANTINA

Is it possible for the U.S. to further degrade itself on the world stage? Only days after videos showing Canadian citizen Omar Khadr being tortured in a U.S. torture chamber, videos taken when he was only fifteen years old, the House Judiciary Committee members gathered themselves together to determine if any al-Qaida suspects in the custody of the U.S. had been tortured.

It appears that discussions of torture, what it is and what it isn’t, have become commonplace in U.S. political circles. During his confirmation hearings, Attorney General Michael Mukasey was questioned about waterboarding, a practice dating back at least to the Spanish Inquisition and one that the civilized world bans. Mr. Mukasey was asked if the practice constituted torture and was therefore illegal. He was unable to state that it was.

President George Bush has stated categorically that the U.S. does not torture its prisoners. This is the same man who, addressing the United Nations on September 12, 2002, categorically said the following:

“Iraq employs capable nuclear scientists and technicians. It retains physical infrastructure needed to build a nuclear weapon. Iraq has made several attempts to buy high-strength aluminum tubes used to enrich uranium for a nuclear weapon.”

The thoughtful reader will base his or her knowledge on the degree of truthfulness of the latter statement (none) to judge the probable truthfulness of the former.

Why, one wonders, does a civilized society need to have discussions at the highest levels of government to determine what is and isn’t torture? Don’t civilized societies shun anything even remotely resembling such barbaric practices? Perhaps the key word here is ‘civilized.’ Civilized nations also do not invade sovereign nations for no better reason than to steal their natural resources.

But as this farcical hearing proceeded, former Attorney General John Ashcroft assisted it in achieving a circus-like atmosphere. Mr. Ashcroft, known for his tendency to warble saccharine, patriotic songs, sometimes written by his own hand, had this to say during his testimony: “You know, I'm just right now, next to standing up and singing the national anthem.” Based on Mr. Ashcroft’s past behavior, one would not be surprised if he did just that. So much for the dignity of the U.S. Congressional process.

One may well wonder why, in a discussion about whether or not the U.S. has tortured political prisoners in the recent past (no discussion of present torturing was included; perhaps that will occur after Mr. Khadr is tortured to death), there is anything to sing patriotic songs about. Continuing to act the buffoon, a part for which he seemed to have been born, Mr. Ashcroft said this: “You had a situation where there's people who have differing legal opinions. And eventually somebody has to decide. And the president comes down on the side of the Department of Justice. What's wrong with that picture? ... Eventually you get to the right decision being made. That's something I would expect a free society to do, involve vigorous debate.” So while all these ‘differing opinions’ were being ‘vigorously debated,’ people held as political prisoners by the U.S. were being tortured. Why, one might ask, are there ‘differing opinions’ about a practice that has been banned by civilized societies for hundreds of years? Why must there so recently, in 2004 which is the time period Mr. Ashcroft was referring to, be ‘vigorous debate’ about whether or not waterboarding is torture?

Mr. Ashcroft and Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-CA, announced darkly that, had it not been for what they euphemistically call these ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ (the rest of the world simply calls them torture), countless attacks on the U.S. would have been perpetrated. Said Mr. Gallegly: “There have been many direct attacks that we're aware of have been foiled by our interrogation process. Had we not used those, would the probability of another attack not only be a probability but a certainty?” Mr. Ashcroft’s response: “It could well have been.”

What those near misses were they did not bother to say. There seems to be a belief among government officials that their statements should be accepted by the citizenry as solid fact. For those with very short memories, it may be. For the rest, the current statements coming out of the Judiciary Committee hearings are considered worthless.

As members of Congress pontificate over whether or not their approved practices against political prisoners constitute torture, they only demonstrate the depths of moral depravity to which they and the nation have sunk. Sitting in their comfortable offices and meeting rooms they discuss the academics of torture, as if the entire world did not know about Guantanamo. They talk about how the nation has benefited from torturing prisoners, not realizing that their own behavior puts them at least on par, if not beneath, their political victims. They issue pseudo-patriotic statements to the press, careful not to commit themselves to anything more definite than that tried and true principle, inherent only in the U.S., of ‘my country right or wrong.’ They seem not to care about how often they come out on the ‘wrong’ side.

It is highly unlikely that the Judiciary Committee will determine that torture was inflicted on the three prisoners in question. That mild phrase ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ will be used repeatedly, and will be approved; after all, think of all those aborted attacks on the U.S. that those ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ prevented.

Should Iraq or some other nation begin practicing such ‘harsh interrogation techniques’ on U.S. soldiers, it should be difficult for Congress and the president to criticize them. But the fact that it should be will not make it so. One can picture members of Congress now, standing in front of a flag, filled with angry indignation that invading soldiers should be so treated. The response will be more bombs, more blood-letting and more death. Yet they will see not connection between their own torturing of political prisoners and increased hatred of the United States. That is the situation the nation finds itself in today; that is how the leadership of the U.S. leads.

It is a further sad commentary that the current candidates for president are not proclaiming that they will end the torture of the U.S.’s political prisoners. Rather, Republican candidate Senator John McCain is busy talking about Social Security, while his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama fumes about criticism of his wife. Anyone looking for moral leadership after the moral vacuum of the Bush Administration will be disappointed. Mr. McCain represents business as usual, and Mr. Obama, the self-proclaimed candidate of change, seems increasingly to be the candidate of the status quo. Congressional leaders have long since proven themselves hopeless.

How low the U.S. will sink remains to be seen. It will be tragic if in its long descent it takes innocent victims with it. Yet that is what it has traditionally done, and continues to do today.

Robert Fantina is author of 'Desertion and the American Soldier: 1776--2006. 

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