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What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter How the U.S. Army Kills Its Own Soldiers A horrifying, exclusive report from JoAnn Wypijewski on the grim secrets of Fort Sill, Oklahoma. How a sadistic drill sergeant tortured basic trainees, amid brutal indifference that led to the death on March 19,2006,of 21-year-old PFC Matthew Scarano. Dead Movement Marching? Cockburn and St Clair assess the failures of the national antiwar groups, even as popular opposition to the war tops 60 per cent. Stalin or Confucius? Chris Reed on the Secrets of the Garden of Bliss, otherwise known as North Korea. 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! Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year

Today's Stories March 25 / 26, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Why There's No Strategy to End This War Patrick Cockburn The Battle for Baghdad: It's Already Begun Ralph Nader Bush's Divorce from Reality Christopher Reed Slave Labor and Hell Ships: Mitsubishi Awaits Judgment for Its War Crimes Jeff Ballinger Memo to Walter Mosley: the Crisis in Black Leadership Chris Floyd Death in the Village of Isahaqi Elaine Cassel Abortion Politics: The FDA and Plan B Dave Zirin Death Row Talks Back to Etan Thomas John Chuckman Sorry, Prime Minister, Afghanistan is Not Canada's War Christopher Fons A City With Latinos Chris Kromm Coretta Scott King a Communist? There's a History Here   March 24, 2006 Cockburn / Sengupta / Duff How the CPT Hostages were Freed P. Sainath Bribe or Die Todd Chretien Jim Crow Goes Fishing: the Racist War on Immigrants Marty Omoto The Other California Michael Carmichael Islamophobia at Downing Street: Tony Blair's Bipolarity Peter Phillips Impeachment Movement Grows; Media Yawns Gabriel Kolko The US Empire vs. Reality Website of the Day Music for Peace   March 23, 2006 Charles V. Peña Bush's Pro-Terrorism Defense Budget Joe DeRaymond El Salvador 2006: a Broken Nation Robert Fisk "US Authorities Say..." Jonathan Cook The Emerging Jewish Consensus in Israel Tom Engelhardt Whatever Happened to Congress?: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson Joshua Frank Political Lemmings: the Democrats and the Precipice Norman Solomon The Ultimate Scapegoat: Blaming the Media for Bad War News Robert Fitch / Joe Allen An Exchange on the State of Organized Labor Patrick Cockburn Kirkuk's Dr. Death CounterPunch News Service On the Proper Way to Address a Bible-Waving Republican State Senator from Maryland Website of the Day Bird-Dogging Kerry   March 22, 2006 David MacMichael Iranian Nuclear Showdown: an Unnecessary Crisis Juan Santos Brown Skin, Yellow Star: Making Latinos Illegal Paul Craig Roberts Hollow Nation: Americans Don't Live Here Anymore Patrick Cockburn Iraq's My Lai?: Shooting Any Iraqi Who Moves Ramzy Baroud The Jericho Raid Jason Leopold The Mysterious "Official One": Woodward's Plame-Leak Deep Throat Dennis Perrin Killer Lies from Cheney's Harlot William Blum The Cuban Punching Bag Jeffrey St. Clair Contract Casino Website of the Day Bird Flu: Will It Cross Over?   March 21, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Delusional Speech Winslow Wheeler Lipstick on the Pig: the Fiasco of Congressional Earmark Reform Tom Engelhardt Cold Warrior in a Strange Land: an Interview with Chalmers Johnson Arnold Oliver To the Guy Who Called Me a Traitor: Dissent and the Iraq War Earl Ofari Hutchinson When Black Cops Go Bad: the Killing of Elio Carrion Mike Whitney Death Squad Democracy William A. Cook Israeli Human Rights: Starve the Palestinians Sophia A. McLennen Assault on Higher Education: the Conservative Push for the Right Student   March 20, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts A Collapsing Presidency Dave Lindorff Howard Dean Tells CounterPunch: DNC No Foe of Impeachment Ralph Nader The DNC's "Grassroots Agenda": Howard Dean's Plea for Advice Diane Christian License to Lie: Over to You, Dante Jeff Halper "To Hell with All of You": the Power of Saying No Harry Browne Unhappy St. Patrick's Day: Bush's Crackdown on Gerry Adams and Sinn Fein Norman Solomon Why are We Here?: Is There a Right Way to Wage a Wrong War? Patrick Cockburn Death Squads on the Prowl; Iraq Convulsed by Fear Website of the Day Abugate   March 18 / 19, 2006 Cockburn / St. Clair Three Years On: Where's the Resistance Here on the Home Front? Werther Bombs and Butchers: "Where Do We Get Such Men?" Chris Kromm Katrina Aid Package: Much Too Little; Much Too Late Patrick Cockburn Halabja: Kurds Destroy Monument to Victims of Saddam's Poison Gas Attack Elaine Cassel Abortion Politics and Animus for Women: Can Justice Kennedy be Swayed? S. Brian Willson Iraq Vets and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Fred Gardner The War on Kids Brian Cloughley General Insanity: the Prevarications of Gen. Peter Pace Laura Carlsen Challenging Disparity: Toward a New US Policy in Latin America Eamon Martin Life in the Shadows of the Empire: Mysterious Photographers of Nothing Julie Hilden Free Speech in the Classroom: Teachers Don't Enjoy Enough Legal Protection Alison Weir So Much for "Sunshine Week": AP Erases Video of Israeli Soldier Shooting Palestinian Boy Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Krieger, Louise, and Engek Website of the Weekend Are the Elites Turning Against the Effects of the Israel Lobby?   March 17, 2006 Eduardo Galeano Abracadabra: Uruguay's Desaparecidos Begin to Appear Greg Moses Bush and Nuclear Preemption: Do You Feel Safe With This Man's Finger on the Button? Richard Falk / David Krieger The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty is Dying: What Now? Cindy and Craig Corrie Three Ways to Remember Rachel Amira Hass Hamas's Haniyeh: "I Never Sent Anyone on a Suicide Mission" Mike Marqusee Reasons to March James Petas and Robin Eastman-Abaya Philippines: the Killing Fields of Asia Website of the Day Black Shamrock   March 16, 2006 Norman Solomon Hook, Line and Sinker: War-Loving Pundits Tom Philpott Neoliberalism at the Garden Gate: Community Farming in LA Heather Gray Anne Braden: the South's Rebel Without a Pause Amira Hass Is Hamas Playing into the Hands of Israeli Hardliners? Missy Comley Beattie Dangerous-to-Society Women: Locked Up in the Tombs Sen. Russell Feingold President Bush has Broken the Law; He Must be Held Accountable Lucinda Marshall President Ken Doll: Bush Insults Women on Intl. Women's Day Andrew Bosworth From the Man Who Voted Against Katrina Aid: Joe Barton's War on CITGO Clancy Sigal In Celebration of Dachau's 73rd Anniversary, Halliburton Gets Concentration Camp Contract Website of the Day Help Rebuild the New Orleans Public Library March 15, 2006 Jonathan Cook Israel's Raid on the Jericho Jail Winslow Wheeler Hiding the Cost of War: Paying for Iraq with Supplemental Funding Diane Christian Sharon's Stroke Ron Jacobs New Tenants for Abu Ghraib?: a Cell for Kissinger and Haig Missy Comley Beattie How Many Brinks to Pass? Jared Bernstein The Minority Wealth Gap Noam Chomsky The Crumbling Empire Website of the Day French Students Reclaim the Streets of Paris   March 14, 2006 Earl Ofari Hutchinson No Requiem for a Black Conservative: the Fall of Claude Allen Dave Lindorff Why the Gitmo Tribunals are a Bad Idea: Exhibit A, t he Moussaoui Case Kevin Zeese Divide and Rule in Iraq Gone Awry Todd Chretien Counting the Dead in Iraq: Why is the Left Understating the Carnage? Jason Kunin Canada in Afghanistan: "We're Here Because We're Here" Thomas Palley The Economics of Outsourcing Cockburn / St. Clair Pages from the Liberals' War Website of the Day Golf Courses and Swimming Pools   March 13, 2006 Uri Avnery The Missing Word Dave Lindorff Extra, Extra! Media Reports on Censure Motion Mike Whitney South Dakota's Taliban: the Fanatics are on the Loose David Green Questions of Solidarity: Blacks and Jews in Neo-Con America Jeremy Scahill Rest Easy, Bill Clinton: Slobo Can't Talk Any More Mike Ferner Up Against the Wall, Son: Hungering for Justice During My First Congressional Testimony Corey Harris Memories of Ali Farka Touré Paul Craig Roberts Killing Off Milosevic: Was Serbia a Practice Run for Iraq? Website of the Day Prayer Flags for Peace March 11 / 12, 2006 Alexander Cockburn Democrats: When the War Was Lost Ralph Nader Bush at the Tipping Point Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Bush Destroy Iraq? Ben Tripp My Night at the Oscars: the Happy People Speak Out John Strausbaugh The Cowboys and the Village Voice: Alt Press Flagship Goes Corporate Landau / Hassen Why "We" Fight "Their" Wars Robert Bryce A Thousand Pages of Rage Gary Leupp Why They Really Think They Must Defeat Iran Fred Gardner "But He's Good on Our Issue" Ron Jacobs Condi and Iran: Folly, Tragedy and Farce Jonathan Scott Science Fiction's Black Oracle: the Genius and Courage of Octavia Butler Ramzy Baroud Who Will Stop Bush's Militant Militarists? Jordan Flaherty Gitmo on the Mississippi: Life Under the Klan Wasn't This Bad John Chuckman Parable of the Hatchet: the Fallacy of Nation-Building in Afghanistan Joe Allen Smearing Ron Carey and the TDU: Bob Fitch's Hatchet Job Julia Kendlbacher Amazonia: Where All Life Matters St. Clair / Walker / Pollack / Vest Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Hassen, Harley, Ford and Subiet Website of the Weekend No Hay Ser Humano Ilegal   March 10, 2006 Ben Rosenfeld The Great Green Scare and the Fed's Case Against Rod Coronado: a War on the First Amendment Lila Rajiva The Gitmo Documents: Miller, Boykin, Cambone and Feith Saree Makdisi From Rachel Corrie to Richard Rogers: the Wall, the Javits Center and the Bullying of an Architect Elena Shore FBI Grills US Professor Over Support for Venezuela Joshua Frank How the Green Party Slays Their Own Dave Zirin Lynching Barry Bonds Aura Bogado An Interview with Subcomandate Marcos   March 9, 2006 John Walsh Neocon Daniel Pipes Advocates Civil War in Iraq as Strategic Policy Annie Zirin Leftwing Generals: the Dark Side of Liberal Imperialism Brian McKenna We All Live in Poletown Now: GM and the Corporate Uses of Eminent Domain Chris Floyd Scar Tissue: How the Bushes Brought Bedlam to Iraq Rachard Itani "Over There": Iraq as Soap Opera Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Action Thing Wylie Harris Immigration and Jeffersonian Democracy: Free Borders Make Good Neighbors Alexander Cockburn Ex-State Department Security Officer Charges Pre-9/11 Cover-Up Website of the Day About Pace: Expelling Anti-War Students   March 8, 2006 Patrick Bond The Loans of Mass Destruction: Wolfowitz's Anti-Corruption Hoax at the World Bank Brian Concannon, Jr. Elusive Victories in Haiti Pat Williams Buyer's Remorse: Bush, the View from the Purple States Lance Selfa The Democrats and Dubai: the Politics of Distraction Mokhiber / Weissman Have You Ever Been Convicted of a Felony? Walter Brasch Compromising Civil Liberties Vijay Prashad For Them Indian Mangoes: Anatomy of an Agreement Website of the Day Rachel Corrie: a Call to Action   March 7, 2006 Werther Half a Trillion Dollars: It's an Awful Lot of Money to Make Us Less Safe and Less Free John Blair Dr. Strangelove is Our President: Global Peace Through Nuclear Weapons Dave Lindorff The Impeachment Groundswell and Bush's Last Hope: the Democrats Mike Whitney No Immunity: Israel's Policy of Targeted Assassination Warren Guykema Who is Afraid of Rachel Corrie? Sen. Russell Feingold Misleading Testimony About NSA Domestic Spying Robert Jensen Why I am a Christian (Sort Of) Norman Solomon Digitalized Hype: a Dazzling Smokescreen? Bernie Dwyer Hopeful Signs Across Latin America: an Interview with Noam Chomsky Website of the Day Golem Song March 6, 2006 Ralph Nader Bush and Katrina: "Situational Information?" Dave Zirin Why Did Pat Tillman Die? an Investigation Reopens Vanessa Redgrave Censorship of the Worst Kind: the Second Death of Rachel Corrie Walter A. Davis Theater, Ideology and the Censorship of "My Name is Rachel Corrie" Joshua Frank Down By Law: the Mysterious Case of David Cobb Nate Mezmer A Second Look at "Crash": More Myths About Blacks and Racist Cops Paul Craig Roberts America's Bleak Jobs Future Website of the Day Crossroads: Race, Class and Art March 4 / 5, 2006 Alexander Cockburn The Dubai Ports Purchase: National Insecurity, Imported or Homegrown? Jennifer Van Bergen Bush's NSA Spying Program Violates the Law Steven Higgs Dying for Their Work: Westinghouse Workers and the Highest Level of PCBs Ever Recorded Winslow T. Wheeler The Generals, the Legislators and the Gulfstream VIP Transports Ron Jacobs Stealing Back Adam's Rib Rev. William E. Alberts Remember Damadola Colin Asher Goodbye, Dubai: the Teamsters and the Ports Fred Gardner Denney's Law "Pariah" Scapegoats and Shunning: Sexual Fascism in Progressive America John Scagliotti Brokeback Mountain: Pain is Not Enough Seth Sandronsky When the White House Walks Away: Bush, Arnold and the Flood Risk in the Central Valley Joan Roelofs A Challenge to Rebuild the World Arjun Makhijani The US / India Nuclear Pact: a Bad and Dangerous Deal Ardeshr Ommani Destroying the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Diana Barahona An Open Letter to Freedom House: Release Info on Your Federal Grants Ben Tripp Bonzo, Wherefore Art Thou? St. Clair / Socialist Worker Staff Playlist: What We're Listening To Poets' Basement Engel, Davies, Buknatski Website of the Weekend The Return of Pearl Jam March 3, 2006 Laura Carlsen Mexico: the Power of Corruption and the Corruption of Power John V. Whitbeck Two States or One? Chris Floyd The Monolith Crumbles: Reality and Revisionism About Iran Mohamed Hakki Wolfowitz at the World Bank: Cronyism and Corruption Pratyush Chandra Bush in India: Dinner with George and Manmohan John Scagliotti Why are There No Real Gays in "Brokeback Mountain"? Website of the Day Support the IRC!   March 2, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts How the Economic News is Spun Dave Lindorff Troops to Bush: Get Us Out of Here! Ramzy Baroud Middle East Democracy: the Hamas Factor Saul Landau Halfway Down the Road to Hell Joe Allen The Murder of George Jackson: an Interview with His Lawyer, Stephen Bingham Steve Shore Berlusconi on Capitol Hill: "I Am Italy!" Denise Boggs Roadless and Clueless: Wilderness Logging Greenwashed by Enviro Groups Norman Finkelstein The Attacks on Beyond Chutzpah Website of the Day ScreenHead   March 1, 2006 Mairead Corrigan Maguire The Human Right to a Nuclear Free World Niranjan Ramakrishnan The India That Can No Longer Say No Faheem Hussain Bush in Pakistan Antony Loewenstein Spinning Us to War with Iran: an Aussie Perspective Elizabeth Schulte The Charge to Overturn Roe Has Begun Mike Whitney Sudan: Beware Bolton's Sudden Humanitarianism John Ryan Canada and the American Empire Michael Donnelly Brokeback Mountain: a No Love Story Tom Reeves Haitian Election Aftermath Website of the Day Mardi Gras Index: Reuilding of New Orleans Stalled         Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition March 25 / 26, 2006 More Than Just a Band King Harvest Has Yet to Come By RON JACOBS I was around fourteen years old when The Band's "Up On Cripple Creek" made it into the Top Forty. Must have been the summer of 1969 or thereabouts. The first thing I did upon hearing the tune was look on a map to try and figure out where the hell Cripple Creek was. This was well before the days of Google and other such search engines, but I had a bit of a sense of geography. I found it out in Colorado. Then I found out about the mining that went on in those parts. Wasn't but a few years after that that Robert Altman's movie McCabe and Mrs. Miller came out. It didn't take place in Cripple Creek, but it could have. For those of you who have never seen this flick, it's all about monopoly capitalism and how it destroys everything that came before it. I digress. Let me get back to The Band and that album that "Up On Cripple Creek" was on. I had a buddy back then who turned me on to the first Band album titled Music From Big Pink. He was the same guy who introduced me to Buffalo Springfield and their successors, among many others. I got him into Dylan. We dug grooves so deep in Dylan's John Wesley Harding and the bootleg Great White Wonder that those records became transparent. Anyhow, it was that song "The Weight" that convinced me The Band was more than just A Band. When the album that contained "Up On Cripple Creek" came out, the Beatles had released Abbey Road and the Stones had Let It Bleed in the stores. The Doors had just released the over-produced yet iconclastic The Soft Parade and The Who had their rock opera Tommy busting up the concert venues. Bob Dylan was a married man operating out of Woodstock, New York and had just put out his country album Nashville Skyline. Speaking of Woodstock, a big old rock festival took place there that summer, too. Y'all might have heard of it. I remember playing the Stones album for my mom, followed by The Band. My dad was overseas fighting a war in Vietnam. She suggested I not tell him about the Stones, but he might like The Band. When he came back in February 1970, he couldn't tell the difference. It was all hippie music to him. Some rock groups write about a future they wanted to see. Others write about surviving in the world as it is. Still others write about places that can never be. The Band did all three; and they did by singing about a past that was part myth and part allegory, part history and part dream. The album simply titled The Band is an austere looking package. Brown and gray, it tries to represent a time when people were genuine and politicians had to try and prove they were people. Even the Confederate anthem ,"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" isn't about the confederacy as much as it's about the desire to be true to oneself and one's people. The sing reminds me of where I live now--in the mountains of western North Carolina--where people pride themselves on their independence and opposition to those who would consolidate them. Plantation owners and corporate capitalist--screw 'em all. At the same time, the song is about how that desire for independence can be manipulated by the powers that be to serve their ends. Slavery back then and Empire today. Contradictions still unresolved. There was a big divide in the US of A back then. It was so big that it seemed biblical at times. Bob Dylan and his songs were the part of the poetry of one side of that divide. At least, that's how it seemed back then. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters. The house divided against itself. There was no crossing that divide. Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver put it like this: if one wasn't part of the solution, one was part of the problem. That little brown and gray album simply titled The Band was the sons and daughters' attempt to bridge that ever-widening gap. Their advice was simple and real. It was based on something larger than the war in Vietnam and the length of one's hair or the intoxicants they chose. "Just grab your hat, and take that ride/Get yourself a bride, And bring your children down to the river side." After all, when it's all said and done, life goes on like it always has. Even with the bomb hanging over our heads. The Band counseled us all to look for the things we had in common, with music being one of the most obvious means to talk about those things. Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan were singing the same tune and together. Merle Haggard was singing about his fightin' side while the Grateful Dead (both of whom had done their own part to widen that aforementioned divide) sang his songs. Like the lonesome sparrow, the musicmakers were showing us how to harmonize. The America that was born in the madness of the industrial revolution and the robber barons is reflected in the song "Unfaithful Servant." "Life has been good to us all" sings Rick Danko, "even when the sky was raining." We the people said goodbye to the country home, hopping on the train to the big city and its chill and greed. But we also said goodbye to the ignoble institution of racial slavery when we did so. The thing about the songs here is that, while regretting the loss of innocence, they acknowledge the fact that there's some things that we can't do a thing about and must learn to take in stride. "We're still one and the same..." after all is said and done. Humans all of us. The great divide is part of the evolution of time. When I first played this album for my friends in Germany (it hadn't made it to the Post Exchange yet), the guys' immediate favorite was "Rag Mama Rag." This is a little ditty about making love and having fun. Nothing wrong with that. On further listening, however, the overwhelming favorite was "King Harvest." This simple song about a union man who hopes that this time around he'll get his just due is a testament to the faith of a union man and, by projection, the faith of all of us who believe that there is justice somewhere on this earth if only we believe. That union man was the new slave, but his wage slavery was different than that of the plantation Black, if for no other reason than that he assumed he had some element of power. Even when his job was oppressive or stolen away, he still had his independence. He could walk away and not be hunted like the runaway slave. The virtuosity of the musicians that made up The Band was never in question. These men had chops. Chops they had developed in many a roadhouse as the backup band for rocker Ronnie Hawkins. Chops that they refined as Bob Dylan's electric orchestra in the mid to late 1960s. No one did what they did. No one does it now, although there are several bands out there whose influences definitely include The Band. Speaking of Dylan, he toured with The Band again in his legendary comeback tour of 1974. I caught this tour on the afternoon of January 31, 1974 at Madison Square Garden. I'm being quite honest when I write that the musical aspect of this show was somewhat lost on me that day. I was overwhelmed just because I was seeing and hearing Bob Dylan for the first time. I do recall "It's All Right, Ma" as the highlight in my mind. Perhaps this was because of the audience response to the line "Sometimes even the president of the United States must have to stand naked..." Richard Nixon was on his way out of the White House because he had been stripped naked and there were enough senators and congressmen who had heeded the call to take seriously their job to impeach the SOB. If one wants to get a genuine flavor of this tour, they should give the album that was recorded from the tour--Before The Flood--a listen. The great divide was still there, but we were growing up and our parents were adjusting to the new world. Certain values never change, they just get reinterpreted. The Band knew it all along. Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net

Now Available from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann Click Here to Order Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair   CounterPunch Speakers Bureau Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org. The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"