home / subscribe / about us / books / tower / events / archives / search / links /

 

Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers!

How Bill Saved Hillary from a Federal Indictment

Here’s the second in Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair’s series as they describe Hillary Clinton’s years in Little Rock and her narrow escape from federal charges that would have destroyed her political career for ever.PLUS KEVIN ALEXANDER GRAY on how Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are failing Black America even as they hunt for votes in South Carolina’s “Black Primary.” Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax--deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now

Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of
"Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair

Today's Stories

August 11, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
How the Democrats Blew It in Only 8 Weeks

August 10, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts
China's Threat to the Dollar is Real

Stan Goff
How Pat Tillman Died

Marjorie Cohn
A Blank Check for Domestic Spying

Saul Landau
In the Age of Immigrant Panic

Chris Floyd
Goading Xerxes: the Coming Strike on Iran

Daniel Ellsberg
A Vision for Cindy Sheehan's Campaign

Anthony Papa
The Upside Down Flag: a Country in Distress

Farzana Versey
On the Heels of Sir Salman

Sgt. Kevin Benderman
Freedom or Totalitarianism?

Nuri Nuri
Memories of T99 Nelson

Website of the Day
Lessons in Obfuscation from Sen. Larry Craig: How to Talk About Looting the Public Domain

 

August 9, 2007

Stan Goff
The Fog of Fame: Pat Tillman as Everyone's Political Football

Paul Craig Roberts
In the Hole to China

Alan Farago
The Terror of the Mortgage Pools

William S. Lind
The Surge's New Math: One Step Forward, Two Back

Doug Giebel
Letter from Montana: What the Bushvolk Have Done to America

Harvey Wasserman
Radioactive Bailout in Advance

Jacob Hill
The Tail End of Free Trade: NAFTA's Impact on the Manufacturing Sector

Raul Zibechi
The Dark Side of Agrofuels

Dave Zirin
The Making of Barry bin Laden

Website of the Day
"Babies Just Come with the Scenery"

 

August 8, 2007

Andy Worthington
Backing Up Lt. Col. Abraham on Gitmo Abuse

Jeff Halper
The Catch in Israel's "Generous Offers" at Jericho

Greg Moses
No Light in August for Texas Refugees: Judge Orders Baby Sent to Palestine

Nurit Peled-Elhanan
The Murder of Abir Aramin, 9 Years Old

Sukant Chandan
British Prisons as Islamic Universities

Robert Fisk
A Lebanese Surprise

George H. Strauss
The Military Society

D.K. Wilson
Bonds, the Haters and 756: Why Bob Costas Can't be Trusted

Bill Day
Leonardo DiCaprio's Baggage: the Perils of Celebrity Environmentalism

Tim Campbell
Monkey See, Monkey Do Politics

Website of the Day
Periodic Table of Visualization Methods

 

August 7, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Why the Surge Has Failed

Andy Worthington
Why Do We Need the Democrats?: They Have Failed to Restrain Bush on Gitmo, Iraq and Domestic Spying

Kathy Kelly
The Little Girl of Hiroshima

Stan Cox
The Antiwar Majority: Look Quickly, You Might Miss It

Sonja Karkar
Israel's Settlement Project

Sen. Russ Feingold
A License to Wiretap--Anyone

Alan Farago
Dancing in the Light of Florida

Norman Solomon
Let Us Now Praise an Infamous Woman

Binoy Kampmark
Giving Good Face: What Jeremy Bentham and Facebook Have in Common

Dave Lindorff
The Gelding Congress

John Stauber
Coffee with the Troops at Yearly Kos

Website of the Day
George Carlin on Education

August 6, 2007

Bill Quigley
Fighting for the Right to Learn in New Orleans

Kathy Rentenbach
Guatemalan Gold, Guatemalan Bones

Uri Avnery
White Elephants: Bush's Middle East Arms Deals

Col. Dan Smith
Of Time and Iraq

Ralph Nader
Cruise Ship Blues

James Neshewat
War? What War?: a Report from the New SDS Confab in Detroit

D.K. Wilson
Barry, Bud and 755

Greg Moses
Safe Passage for Willie Nelson

Fidel Castro
Hard and Obvious Realities

Mike Whitney
Judgment Week on Wall Street

 

August 4 / 5, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Rupert Murdoch and the Luck of the Bancrofts

Peter Linebaugh
Speaking in Irish Tongues

Saul Landau
Faith-Based War

Alan Farago
The Candidates and the Collapsing Economy

Dave Zirin
When Domes Attack: Even in Minnesota

Barucha Calamity Peller
Oaxaca is Not Over

Anthony DiMaggio
Double Standards in U.S. Aid to the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Spy Power: Bush Demands, Democrats Deliver--Again and Again and Again

Fred Gardner
Write Off Your Congressman

Nicola Nasser
The Iranian Option

Benjamin Dangl
Privatizing Repression in Paraguay

Rannie Amiri
Bribe, Divide and Conquer

Daniel Gross
CSR on Trial: Starbucks Behind the Brand

Sherwood Ross
Obama Renounces Use of Nuclear Weapons

Manuel Garcia, Jr
A Bridge Truth Movement?: From 9/11 to Minneapolis

Missy Beattie
The First Mannequin and the "Crime Scene"

Ron Jacobs
The Outlaw Trip to Mexico: Goin' Down the Road Feelin' Bad

Website of the Weekend
Photos: Texas Immigrant Prison

 

August 3, 2007

Gabriel Matthew Schivone
An Interview with Noam Chomsky on Responsibility, War Guilt and Intellectuals

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Jewish Problem in Tehran

Patrick Cockburn
Sunnis Walk Out of Iraq Government

Little Steven Van Zandt
Die, Greedy Swine! Die! Die!: How the Record Companies are Killing Rock Music

Christopher Brauchli
Bush Makes Putin Look Like James Madison

D. K. Wilson
Two Sides and a Middle: Michael Vick Ain't the One to Ask

Linda Ford and Ira Glunts
Maxwell's Silver Hammer: Syracuse University Enlists in the Global War on Terror

Kelly Overton
The Casualties of Green Scare: the Feds' War on the Animal Rights Mvt.

Monica Benderman
In Freedom's Name

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Minneapolis Bridge Collapse: Was Cheney at the Scene?

Website of the Day
A Cinematic Look at the Police State in Action

 

August 2, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts
The Return of the Robber Barons

Stanley Heller
Report from the Land of Apartheid

Eric Ruder
Fighting PTSD; Fighting the Army

Robert Fantina
Still Getting It Wrong: the NYT and Iraq

Alan Farago
The Toxic Mortgage Waste Crisis

Chris Floyd
Chertoff, Chiquita and Death Squads

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon's Crucial Special Elections

Sen. Russ Feingold
Closing the Book on the Abramoff Era

Anthony Papa
Drug Treatment isn't a Silver Bullet

Norman Solomon
The Big Guns of August

Website of the Day
Louie, Louie Video Contest

 

August 1, 2007

Debbie Nathan
More Secret Payments by Former NYT Reporter to Web Porn Star Surface in Nashville Courtroom

Fred Gardner
Ciao, Michelangelo

Gary Leupp
Why Iraq's Best-Loved Athlete Can't Go Home

David Rosen
America's Top 10 Political Sex Scandals

Winston Warfield
Is the Tillman Case Still a Coverup?

Daniel McBride
Lessons from Bomber Harris: If the US Strikes Pakistan

Glen Ford
The Corporate Plan to Crush Black Resistance

Thomas P. Healy
The Toxic Career of Indiana's Environmental Commissioner

John V. Whitbeck
The Five Percent Solution

David Krieger
Nuclear Weapons and the University of California

Website of the Day
The Tragic Story of Hisham Mohammed

 

July 31, 2007

Kathy Kelly
Dancing in the Darkness: the Story of Abu Mahmoud

Clancy Sigal
The Ghosts of Passchendaele

Paul Krassner
Assholes of the Week: From Baby Doll to Cheney

Joe DeRaymond
Return to the Republic of Death?

Diane Christian
"Winning": What Bush Could Learn from the Shade of Achilles

Chris Floyd
Good News is No News: Why the Bush Adm. Buries Accounts of Extremist Recantations

Ramzy Baroud
Bush's Real Agenda in Palestine

Alan Farago
Battle for the Soul of Florida

Fidel Castro
In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan American Games

Dan Bacher
The Fish Terminator: Schwarzenegger's Campaign to Build the Delta Canal and More Dams

 

July 30, 2007

Marjorie Cohn: Independent Counsel Time

Patrick Cockburn
Four Million Iraqis on the Run

Peter Quinn
Irish in America

Uri Avnery
A Warning to Tony Blair

John Ross
Zapatista Intergalatica Lands on Earth

Ron Jacobs
Free the San Francisco 8

David Vest
Farewell, Old Friend: Another Legend of the Blues is Gone

Jeffrey St. Clair
T99 Nelson: Seduced by a Legend of the Blues

Website of the Day
Collateral Repair Project

 

July 28 / 29, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Now the NYT is Selling "Bloodbath" as a Rationale to Stay in Iraq

Ralph Nader
Rotten Justice

Robert Fantina
American Lies and Iraqi Nationalism

Fred Gardner
Prohibitionists Attack, Reformers Fundraise

 

Yves Engler
Handwashing and the Bottomline

 

July 27, 2007

John Ross
Bombing Pemex--or Not?

Arthur Neslen
Gaza was a Gas for Blair

Dave Lindorff
Declaring the US a Battlefield: Martial Law is Now a Real Threat

Julene Blair
The Environmentalist Within

Christopher Brauchli
Bush Uses Children as Shock Troops in His War on Socialized Medicine

Jesse Hagopian
Fund the Wounded, Not the War

Charles Modiano
Manufacturing a Villain: Sports Illustrated's Vilification of Barry Bonds

Bill Day
The Hollow Environmentalism of Leonardo DiCaprio

Walter Brasch
Leaders Afraid to Lead

M.D. Mitchell
Farm Based Camps

Website of the Day
Fighting Sarcoma

 

July 26, 2007

Kathleen Christison
The Siren Song of Elliot Abrams

Andy Worthington
Why the Pentagon's Gitmo Study is a Joke

Clancy Chassay
How the Bush White House Seeks to Destroy Lebanon

Marjorie Cohn
Showdown Over Executive Privilege

Susie Day
Apartheid Americana

David Price
Tour de Witch Hunt: Drugs, Diaries and Purges

Marie Trigona
Argentina's "Dirty War" Crimes Trial: The Torturer Priest

Norman Solomon
Media Spin on Iraq: We're Leaving (Sort Of)

William S. Lind
How to Win in Iraq

Natsu Saito
Ward Churchill and the Regents at the University of Colorado

John Stauber
Netroots and the Iraq War: Does Ending It Matter to Them Anymore?

Website of the Day
Sticking It to the Man

 

July 25, 2007

Andy Worthington
Gains and Losses at Gitmo

Gary Leupp
Bush Speechwriter, Michael Gerson, Calls for Attack on Syria

Ray McGovern
The Sad Decline of John Conyers

Dr. Susan Block
Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker

Joshua Frank
Hillary's Neocon: the Imperial Vision of Richard Holbrooke

Tina Richards
What Harry Reid Doesn't Know About His Own Bill

Ben Terrall
Indonesia's Bloody Brand of CounterTerrorism

Farzana Versey
God Acquitted!: Lessons from the Case of Darwood Ibrahim

Mohammad Ali Salih
A Bomb in My Briefcase?

Laura Carlsen
A Strange Homecoming: Reflections on the First US Social Forum

Ron Jacobs
Come to Kennebunkport!

Sunsara Taylor
Knocked Up is F**ked Up

Website of the Day
Wal-Mart's Flip Flops: Feet Killers


July 24, 2007

Saul Landau
How to Walk in Bushtime

Kathy Kelly
The Plight of Iraqi Refugees in Jordan

Russell Mokhiber
The Michael Vick / George Bush Thing

M. Shahid Alam
Islam Now, China Then

Patrick Cockburn and Anne Penketh
Meeting in Baghdad

Dave Lindorff
Overcoming John Conyers

Binoy Kampmark
You Tube You Can't: Failure of a Medium

Richard Neville
Murdoch's Transplant: a Warning to the Wall Street Journal

Cindy Sheehan
We Must Move Beyond Politics as Usual

Evelyn Pringle
Anti-Depressants and Birth Defects: Why is the CDC Downplaying the Risks?

Norman Solomon
Media Corrections We'd Like to See

CP Newswire
Reading Harry Potter Not Sinful

Website of the Day
Sea Islands Black Heritage Festival

 

July 23, 2007

Andy Worthington
Narcolepsy on Gitmo Detainees

Uri Avnery
A Trap for Fools

Patrick Cockburn
Turkish Prime Minister Threatens to Invade Northern Iraq

Sousan Hammad
The Children Without a Title

John Walsh
Todd Gitlin's Nader Fixation

Harvey Wasserman
Spinning Kashiwazaki: PR Flacks Rush to Aid of Crippled Nuke

Martha Rosenberg
The Life and Times of a Hog-Hanging Farmer

Collin Baber
Here Come the MRAPs: Resurrecting Apartheid Armor for Iraq

Reza Fiyouzat
Iran's Forgotten Anti-Nuke Movement

Stephen Lendman
Saving a President: Scare-Mongering and Executive Orders

Website of the Day
The Port Huron Project

 

July 21 / 22, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Giuliani and the Dogs of War

Werther
How to Read a National Intelligence Estimate

Ralph Nader
Atomic Blowback

David Keen
Buy Hard: How to Sell an Endless War

Fred Gardner
Karl Rove, Pothead: When Good Drugs Happen to Bad People

Gary Leupp
Edelman's Edict: Is Hillary "Reinforcing Enemy Propaganda?"

Robert Fantina
Fear in Iraq

Saker
The Future of Palestine: an Interview with Jonathan Cook

Rannie Amiri
Nasrallah in the Crosshairs: How will the Third Lebanon War Start?

Mike Whitney
The Crisis in Hedgistan

Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD
The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness: Linking Alienation and Dissociation

Monica Benderman
Facing the Truth

Dan Bacher
Deltagate: the Politics of Fish Kills

Michael Baney
Fujimori's Long Race From Justice

Missy Beattie
Here, There and Everywhere

Ron Jacobs
Tremble, Tyrants

Adam Engel
Radical Language: an Introduction

Thomas Naylor
California Split: an Open Letter to Schwarzenegger

Poets' Basement
Landau, Ford and Engel

Website of the Weekend
Surge in Action

 

July 20, 2007

Eliza Szabo
Fatal Neglect: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan

Pam Martens
Doctoring the News: CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Laura Bush and Merck

Alan Farago
Winners and Losers in the Housing Market Crash

Harvey Wasserman
Lies and Leaks: The Earthquake That Screamed "No Nukes!"

Marjorie Cohn
Iraqis will be the Deciders

Dave Zirin
White Noise and the Black Athlete

Anthony DiMaggio
American Public Opinion and Israel

Scott Liebertz
Oaxaca on Edge

Linn Washington, Jr.
British Cops Assault Rape Allegations

Bill Piper / Anthony Papa
Flying High?: The Political Junkets of Bush's Drug Czar

Ramzy Baroud
Bush's War Policy: When Time Heals Nothing

Website of the Day
The Prankster Art of Mark Jenkins

 

July 19, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
The Next Invasion of Iraq

Remi Kanazi
Is This Ben Gurion or Hell?: a Palestinian Adventure Through Israel's Largest Airport

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Surging Costs of the Iraq War

Sharon Smith
Democrats and Health Care: Behind the Rhetoric

Dave Lindorff
Killing Cabbies in Iraq

Conn Hallinan
Have Gun, Will Travel: Mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan

D. K. Wilson
The Michael Vick Case Pulls Back the Veil on Who We Really Are

Joshua Frank
Democrats as Leviathan: Another Step Toward War with Iran

Norman Solomon
The Ghost of Wayne Morse

Russell Hoffman
Rattling the Reactor: Quakes, Fires and Leaks at the World's Largest Nuke

Ray McGovern
Bush's Wooden Headedness Kills

Website of the Day
Protesting Power


July 18, 2007

Brenda Norrell
Spy Towers on the US Border

Col. Dan Smith
How the US Could "Lose" Saudi Arabia

Martha Rosenberg
Lord of Crookharbour: the Trial of Conrad Black

Conn Hallinan
Bombing and Spraying Afghanistan

Binoy Kampmark
The SIM Card Terror Case

Patrick Bond /
Rehana Dada

Who Killed Sajida Khan?

Tom Johnson
The Long Road ... to Nowhere

Paul Craig Roberts
A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth?

Bob Quellos
Pushing the Poor Out of House and Home

Felice Pace
Falling for Lieberman's Iran Resolution

Robert Weissman
National Health Insurance: More Humane and More Efficient

CP Newswire
Shocking Report Showing Involvement of US Psychologists in Torture

Website of the Day
Gilad Atzmon Live!

 

July 17, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
Just Another Day in Iraq: 100 Fathers, Mothers and Children Killed

Marjorie Cohn
Out of Control: Executive Power Plays

Evelyn Pringle
Inside Bush's FDA

David Rosen
Moral Hypocrisy on the Hill: the Christian Right, Sexual Scandal and the Pleasures of the Courtesan

Susan Miller
Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall

Franklin Lamb
Did the UN Cave to Israel on Lebanon's Shabaa Farms?

Don Monkerud
Considering Victory in Iraq

Harvey Wasserman
Nuclear Surge

Russell Hoffman
Japan Dodges a Radioactive Bullet

Dave Lindorff
Feingold Turns to Dross

Dave Zirin
Reclaiming Sports as True Fiction

Website of the Day
Che at the UN: 1964

 

July 16, 2007

Gary Leupp
Cheney Urges Bush to Strike Iran

Ellen Cantarow
The Untold Story of Iraqi Women

Paul Craig Roberts
Impeach Now

Allan J. Lichtman
The D.C. Madam's Public Service

Dan Bacher
Cheney and the Klamath: Was the Veep Behind the Nation's Worst Salmon Kill?

Patrick Cockburn
The Killing of Khalid W. Hassan

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Property is Racism

James Brooks
AIPAC and Mahmoud Abbas: the Undemocratic Road to Defeat

Liaquat Ali Khan
The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan

Julie Flint
Suleiman Jamous in Limbo

Website of the Day
Free Suleiman Jamous!

 

July 14 / 15. 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Support Their Troops?

Andy Worthington
Gitmo's Tangled Web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majhid Khan, Dubious US Convictions and a Dying Man

Ralph Nader
Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence

Robert Fantina
The Illegalities of the Iraq War

Ron Jacobs
Architecture as Military Strategy

Joshua Frank
Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray: An Interview with Joe Bageant

Conn Hallinan
Guns, Foundations and Free Trade: How the Right Targets Africa

Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD
War and Dissociation

John Ross
No En Nuestro Nombre!: a Letter to the Mexican Antiwar Movement

Fred Gardner
Who's Afraid of Cannabidiol?

Rannie Amiri
A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak

Charles Modiano
ESPN's Rap Sheet: Pacman as Black Man

Anthony DiMaggio
America's Parochial Press

China Hand
Executive Orders and Coercive Diplomacy

Missy Comley Beattie
Reprobate Rhetoricians

Dr. James J. Murtagh, Jr.
Harry Potter Battles Big Brother

Kenneth Rexroth
On Thomas More's "Utopia"

Poets' Basement
Engel, Davies and Orloski

Website of the Weekend
GOP Sex Hypocrites: a Slideshow

 

 

Weekend Edition
August 11 / 12, 2007

The Rightwing Flip-Flopper

Romney's Dance

By ROBERT FANTINA

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney appears to be proving himself to be the classic political opportunist. He rose to fame, after amassing a considerable personal fortune, when he came close to defeating perennial incumbent Senator Ted Kennedy in an unexpectedly close race in 1994. He then enhanced his national stature by rescuing the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics from financial disaster, salvaging their tainted reputation as he did so. Capitalizing on this accomplishment, and his near miss in 1994, he honed his liberal credentials, espoused his support for abortion rights, gun control and equal protection for gays, and was elected governor of Massachusetts in 2002.

Following an uneventful tenure, Mr. Romney set his sites on a more impressive residence several hundred miles south of Boston; he announced his candidacy for the Republican presidential nomination. He seems to believe that this goal necessitates a new Mitt Romney, one that any but the most ardent right wing zealots will find most unappealing.

Let us explore Mr. Romney’s vision for America.

America on the World Stage: Senator Barrack Obama, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, has said the he would meet with the leaders of Syria, Iran and North Korea. Said Mr. Romney: “The president of the United States does not bestow our dignity and the power of our reputation around the world around those people.”

The U.S. can claim little dignity today, as it ferociously attempts the annihilation of a nation whose only crime is the possession of vast amounts of oil. America’s reputation, in shreds for the same reason, has little power today. Perhaps like Mr. Bush, Mr. Romney would prefer to simply rattle his saber at those nations, call them clever names like the ‘axis of evil,’ and pretend that their millions of citizens can be ignored. Or perhaps, more dangerously, he would embark on nation-building military adventurism and invade them, with the same degree of success as Mr. Bush has had in Iraq.

Iraq: Regarding this beleaguered nation, it appears that Mr. Romney, for reasons only his handlers know, has decided to hitch his wagon to Mr. Bush’s falling star. As Iraqis continue to suffer in their bloody, U.S.-spawned civil war, and as the American public increasingly wants U.S. soldiers withdrawn, Mr. Romney has stated that he is ‘absolutely committed’ to winning in Iraq. He, again like Mr. Bush, has yet to define what that means. Regarding the troop surge, he said this: “[A]t this stage the right course is the troop surge. No one has put forward a Plan B that is superior to that one.” He is apparently unfamiliar with the bill sent to and vetoed by Mr. Bush that provided a timetable for ending U.S. involvement in Iraq in an orderly manner.

Perhaps it is Mr. Romney’s confusion about the start of the war that leads him to believe so strongly in escalation.

During the June 6 Republican debate, the former Massachusetts governor made an amazing statement. When asked if, knowing what we all know now (no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear designs, etc.), it was a mistake for the U.S. to invade Iraq, Mr. Romney said the following: if “…Saddam Hussein had opened up his country to IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) inspectors and they’d come in and they’d found that there were no weapons of mass destruction -- had Saddam Hussein therefore not violated United Nations resolutions -- we wouldn’t be in the conflict we’re in. But he didn’t do those things, and we knew what we knew at the point we made the decision to get in.”

In analyzing the debate, CNN’s Paul Begala pointed out the following: “On September 17 of 2002, the Iraqi government, under Saddam Hussein, allowed IAEA weapons inspectors into their country. Over 250 of them went, led by Hans Blix. They searched the whole countryside and found nothing. While they were still searching, on March 17 of 2003, George W. Bush told them to get out ‘cause he was starting a war. And, on March 20th, we started the war.”

One wonders why Mr. Romney has any credibility left at all, when he either does not know these facts or chooses to ignore them. It is hard to determine which is less excusable.

Guantanamo: Much of the world was horrified when conditions at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center were exposed. Here prisoners are denied the basic rights that most Americans take for granted. They can be held indefinitely without being charged, and are not provided access to legal representatives. They are subjected to ‘interrogation techniques’ that by any reasonable definition constitute torture. Up until the end of June 2006, the Bush administration went so far as to say they were not even entitled to the protections mandated by the Geneva Conventions; the Supreme Court on that day ruled against Mr. Bush.

What are Mr. Romney’s thoughts on this cruel, inhumane center of torture? Said he: “I am glad [detainees] are at Guantanamo. I don’t want them on our soil. I want them on Guantanamo, where they don’t get the access to lawyers they get when they’re on our soil. I don’t want them in our prisons, I want them there. Some people have said we ought to close Guantanamo. My view is we ought to double Guantanamo.” Mr. Romney seems to dismiss the concept of ‘innocent until proven guilty’ as easily as he apparently dismisses the notion of human rights.

Social Issues: Mr. Romney once said that his views on gun control would not endear him to the National Rifle Association (NRA). Candidate Romney has stated he’s been a hunter all his life, although he had to amend ‘all his life’ to two hunting experiences.

Gubernatorial candidate Romney supported a woman’s right to choose; presidential candidate Romney opposes abortion.

In 1994, senatorial candidate Romney promised to be a more effective leader on establishing “full equality for America's gay and lesbian citizens” than incumbent Senator Ted Kennedy. Presidential candidate Romney supports a constitutional amendment on marriage, and opposes allowing same-sex households to adopt through religious organizations.

Much has been said about Mr. Romney’s membership in and devotion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormons). There appears to be a general feeling among some of the media that should the American voter be unfortunate enough to actually elect him president (or perhaps he will lose and be appointed by the Supreme Court), he will change the nation’s capital to Salt Lake City, and govern as directed by that religion’s leaders. Those with this concern forget that Nevada Senator Harry Reid, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader and the bane and nemesis of any Republican president, worships at the same church. The subject of Mr. Romney’s religion is irrelevant, and is only a distraction from his extremist and perilous views.

Even allowing for the possibility that Mr. Romney has learned more about the issues on which he has flipped from one view to flop to another, and has legitimately changed his opinion, his view of America and the world is frightening.

A Romney presidency would see an even greater erosion of civil rights for Americans, endless and spreading war, and an increasingly polarized society. Americans who want more of the same, more of what the last six years have wrought, will support Mr. Romney. It is hoped that the vast majority of voters will quickly reject him once the primary season begins, at which point he can return to harmless obscurity.

Robert Fantina is the author of Desertion and the American Soldier.



 



New From
CounterPunch Books

HOW THE IRISH
INVENTED SLANG
By Daniel Cassidy

 

Now Available!
How the Press Failed
The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!


Buy End Times Now!

Now Available from
CounterPunch Books!
Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World
with a Foreword by Gore Vidal


Click Here to Order!


The Case Against Israel
By Michael Neumann

Click Here to Order Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz


Grand Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror

by Jeffrey St. Clair