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Today's
Stories
June
5, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
John Walker Lindh, Revisited
June
4, 2004
Chris
Floyd
Masked and Anonymous: Inside America's
Animal House
Cornwell
/ Penketh
Exit Tenet: the Fall of a Fall Guy
Wayne
Madsen
Apprehension & Frustation: Neo-Cons on the Brink
Greg
Moses
Agitating for Workers' Rights in Iraq
Yitzak
Laor
Before Rafah
Ghali
Hassan
Ambassador to Death Squads: Who is Negroponte?
Jane
Stillwater
God, the Rapture and Vera Casey
CounterPunch
Wire
D-Day Reconsidered: Was It Really Worth the Carnage?
John
Borowski
Woo-Wooism v. Meteorites: Why the Dems Are No Match for Bush
Mike
Griffin
Caterpillar's Assault on the UAW
Alexander Cockburn
Has Bush Gone Over the Edge?
Website
of the Day
Aquae Urbis Romae:
Water and Empire
June
3, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Iran's Nuclear Dilemma
Dr.
Susan Block
America in tha Hood
Michael
Donnelly
The Bully and the Brahmin
John
Chuckman
Insanity in America: US Ranks Number
One in the Deranged
Christopher
Brauchli
The Return of Cardinal Law: Rome
on $12,000 a Month
Samia
Nassar Melki
Caravaggio in Iraq
Mike
Whitney
Subverting Justice: Pre-Trial Ruminations in the Padilla Case
Diane
Rejman
Memorial Day Isn't Just About the Dead
Scott
Morris
"WMDs" in Cuba
Paul
de Rooij
Palestinian Misery in Perspective
June
2, 2004
Brian
Cloughley
The Liars are Winning
Ray
McGovern
How Far Would They Go? Beware "Credible
Intelligence"
Josh
Frank
The Anybody But Bush Offensive
Mike
Whitney
The Afghanistan Failure: Bush's Warlord Patriots
Jackie
Corr
Iraq and Ireland: Three Tales from Butte, Montana
Robert
Jensen
The US Lost the Iraq War...and It's a Good Thing, Too
Alexander
Cockburn
"Bye, Bye Boonville!"
June
1, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Instant Karma: Bush's Sins Catch Up
with Him
William
A. Cook
Manufacturers of Fear and Loathing in
Rafah
Dave
Lindorff
Will the Times Clean House?
Kevin
Zeese
Inside the Kerry / Nader Meeting: Did
the Kerry Campaign Lie About What Was Discussed?
Jacob
Levich
Coming Soon: Return of the Draft,
a Bipartisan Production
Kathy
Kelly
Voices in the Wilderness v. the US
Government
Website
of the Day
Remind Us
May
29 / 31, 2004
Lee
Ballinger / Dave Marsh
The Origins of Memorial Day
Janine
Pommy Vega
Memo for Memorial Day
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
May
28, 2004
Rafael
Rodriguez Cruz
Curtain of Silence on the Cuban 5
Greg
Moses
Bush's Misleading Speech on Abu Ghraib
Dave
Lindorff
Dissing Independent Contractors:
Those Who Do the Dirty Work
Norman
Solomon
Leaping for Lies at the Times
Rep.
Bill Delahunt
Bush's Cruel New Rules on Cuba
Paul
McGeough
Chalabi Baba and the 40 Thieves
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India and Nehru: 40 Years After
Alexander
Cockburn
NYTs: "Maybe We Did Screw Up...a
Little"
May
27, 2004
Amy
Goodman / David Goodman
Fatal Errors: the Lies of Our Times
Douglas
Valentine
Ragging the Dogs of War at the
NYTs
John
L. Hess
The Times Confesses...Kind Of
Stew
Albert
Dellinger, the Wrestling Pacifist
Dave
Dellinger
a 1993 Interview
Christopher
Brauchli
Tax Breaks for Scions...to Hell with Poor Kids
Rampton
/ Stauber
Banana Republicans: Pumping Irony
May
26, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Goodbye, David Dellinger: He Was a
Friend of Ours
Robert
Fisk
The Things Bush Didn't Say in His Speech
Zeynep
Toufe
New Draft UN Resolution Permits Perpetual Occupation
Conn
Hallinan
Bush and Sharon: the Oil Connection
Tom
Stephens
2 + 2 is On My Mind: More Morons
and War Crimes
Derek
Medley
Protesting Gov. Bigot
CounterPunch
Wire
FBI Abducts Artist; Seizes Art
Andrew
Cockburn
The Trail to Tehran
May
25, 2004
Joe
Bageant
The Covert Kingdom: On Earth as It
is in Texas
Col.
Dan Smith
A Question of Human Dignity
Gary
Handschumacher
Visiting Lori Berenson: Time to Bring Her Home
Toni
Solo
A Developing War in the Andes
Marc
Estrin
September Song: Disturbing Questions
About 9/11
Stephen
Banko, III
A Vietnam Vet on "Supporting the
Troops"
Website
of the Day
The Wizard of Whimsy
May
24, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Dan Senor is Safe!
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Tricks & TortureGate: the
Missing Taguba Pages
Sam
Hamod
Gen. Zinni: "Wrong War, Wrong
Place, Wrong Time"
Mike
Whitney
The Wedding was a Bomb
Stan
Goff
Open Season on MAMs
Image
of the Day
A Photo from Abu Ghraib We Didn't See on the Front Page of the
NYTs
May
22 / 23, 2004
Paul
de Rooij
Colin Powell, a Political Obituary
Jeffrey
St. Clair
When War is Swell: Bush and the Carlyle Group
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Her Son Was Told He Wouldn't See Combat; Now He's Dead: an Interview
with Sue Niederer
Brian
Cloughley
America is Committing War Crimes in Iraq
Saul
Landau
Democracy in Latin America: Great for Investors; Not So Good
for People
Brandy
Baker
Feminists Stand By Their Man: Abortion, Judges and Kerry
Randall
Robinson
Bushwhacked in the Caribbean
Uri
Avnery
The Rape of Rafah
Ben
Tripp
Assume the Worst
Bruce
Anderson
News from Ecotopia: the Truth About the Wine Business
Josh
Ruebner
Why I Burned My Israeli Military Papers
Peter
Wolson, Ph. D.
Exhibitionistic Revenge at Abu Ghraib
Chloe
Cockburn
In Defense of "Troy": What Hector Could Teach Rummy
Linda
Burnham
Sexual Domination in Uniform: an American Value
Adrien
Rain Burke
War of the Necrophiliacs: Spc. Sabrina Harman and Her Corpse
David
Krieger
Charting a New Course for US Nuclear Policy
Ron
Jacobs
Turnaround
Poets'
Basement
Ford, Albert & LaMorticella
May 21, 2004
Ray
Close
The Canards of the Apologists
Christopher
Brauchli
"The Object of Torture is Torture"
Amira
Hass
Darkness at Noon
Jack
McCarthy
Camilo Mejia: Can the Son of a Sandinista Get a Fair Trial from
the US Army?
Bill
Kauffman
Nader v. Bush
Omar
Barghouti
No More Tears for America
Ghali
Hassan
Moral Failure of the "Free World" in Gaza
Christopher
Reed
How the CIA Taught the Portuguese to
Torture
Website
of the Day
Eric Idle on the Bush Administration: Fuck You, So Very Much
May
20, 2004
Andrew
Cockburn
The Truth About Chalabi
Kathy
Kelly
A Visit from the FBI
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Brown and Bored of Education in India
Tom
Stephens & John Philo
The War Crimes of Bush, Cheney & Co.
Sam
Bahour / Michael Dahan
Genocide by Public Policy
Robert
Ovetz
Ending the Race for the Last Turtle
Billy
Wilson
The Most Important Thing I Learned at School This Year
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Rafah Today
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Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
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Steve Niva
Israel's
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Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
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Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
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WMD: Who Said What When
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Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
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Weekend
Edition
June 5 / 6, 2004
Venezuela
2004
Nicaragua's
Contra War Reprised
By
TONI SOLO
Another article in the continuing media
campaign in Britain against Venezuela's President Chavez again
posits civil war as a possible sequel to the current recall referendum
process in Venezuela. In a self-contradictory account published
by the Guardian on May 25th, Miami Herald writer Sybilla Brodzinsky
writes that the recall referendum "...may also be the last
chance to avoid a civil war, experts say." She offers no
source for the assertion, although she might easily have cited
President Chavez himself who has openly referred to the possibility
of civil war – as a result of foreign intervention.1
The insistence with which the
spectre of a spontaneous civil war has been invoked lately in
the less reactionary British media by writers like Rupert Cornwell
in the Independent and now by Sybilla Brodzinsky in the Guardian
is noteworthy. It is as though all mainstream media reporting
on Venezuela have been briefed to spread anxiety about a civil
war. Thus, such fears become the very prophecy the White House
war-crime machine is already primed to make come true.
The way the "free press"
works can be seen from a report by Martha Sanchez in the Washington
Post on May 20th. She writes "State Department officials
say they are talking with U.S. editorial writers, hoping to send
a clear message to Chavez through the press: let the recall referendum
happen or face the consequences." Pass-the-parcel threats,
accompanying misrepresentation and downright falsehood, are routine
in mainstream reporting on Venezuela just as they were on Nicaragua
through the 1980s. Other similarities abound.
Sybilla
Brodzinsky meets the Red Queen
That Guardian piece by Sybilla
Brodzinsky is very reminiscent of the endless hatchet jobs on
the Sandinista government in the 1980s. She states in the first
few paragraphs "In its last chance to remove the president
constitutionally, the opposition this week hopes to be able to
validate more than a million signatures on a petition to trigger
a recall vote against Mr Chavez."
Ten paragraphs later she quotes
an opposition leader saying that if they lose the chance for
a referendum when the validation result is made public this week
the opposition will focus on the elections in 2006. The Red Queen
might say, "a poor kind of a last chance...." Such
lapses are a constant peril for anyone writing on current affairs,
but Brodzinsky also fails to mention the local elections scheduled
for August this year.
One lapse is understandable.
Two or three look like bespoke tailoring. The Guardian should
be ashamed for allowing Brodzinsky to refer to the months-long
lockout by the private business dominated Venezuelan opposition
in 2002 as a "general strike". But that msrepresentation
is all of a piece with the article's pro-opposition slant.
Imperial
sauce--bad news for colonial ganders
That kind of "free press"
has been one of the main tools used by all US governments in
their war crimes, from the extermination of native indians and
the Spanish-American War to the present day. Cooking up fake-respectable
democracy is a White House speciality. George W. Bush is stretching
the process even further than his predecessors--rigged elections,
Camp X-Ray, Patriot Act and all.
In Venezuela, the United States
government and its representatives have encouraged an unprecedented
campaign of incitement to violence and insurrection by the opposition
controlled media against the elected government. Venezuela's
representative to the Organization of American States (OAS) recently
denounced US Assistant Secretary of State Roger Noriega for inciting
trouble. Noriega has declared that the US government will not
accept a result in the recall referendum that does not lead to
a recall vote.2
This kind of hubris seems incredible
to anyone uncontaminated by US official and media narcissism.
It becomes laughable when Assistant Secretary of State Lorne
Cramer tries to explain the clamp-down on independent media outlet
Al Jazeera in Iraq. He said, "We are extremely tolerant,
but inciting violence is something else." 3
Venezuela has been a more democratic
country than the United States since the majority rejected the
bogus US-style democracy imposed for decades by the local oligarchy
and elected Hugo Chavez to be their President. That attempt by
the Venezuelan people at some real self-determination represents
the same yearning of the poor majority for a genuine say and
a better life that the US stifled in Nicaragua. US efforts to
destroy that process in Venezuela continue apace.
Iran-Contra
in Venezuela
The experience of the long
drawn out war against Nicaragua is being brought to bear on Venezuela
by the same people who led the United States to its conviction
for terrorism against Nicaragua by the International Court of
Justice in 1986. Powell, Cheney, Armitage, Abrams, Noriega, Rice,
Maisto, all these people familiar from Ronald Reagan's outlaw
terrorist government have leading jobs in the current Bush regime.
Colin Powell's big-mailed-stick and little-withered-carrot approach
was perfected in Nicaragua. What should we expect from such people
in Venezuela?
Consummate behind the scenes
perception management of mainstream international media comes
high on the list along with persistent, aggressive bullying and
downright lies in public statements. Intervening openly in Venezuela's
politics, the US government has provided hundreds of thousands
of dollars to political opponents of the Chavez government just
as they did in Nicaragua. It is hard to see how the opposition
could mobilise so consistently without that direct US intervention
and regular support from the US embassy in Caracas. The constant
message they put out is "Chavez is a dictator endangering
democracy".
The US ignored Nicaragua's
1984 election which the Sandinista's won with over 60% of the
vote in the first free and fair election in Nicaraguan history.
Now they are ignoring President Chavez's consistently proven
electoral support and his government's introduction of the most
democratic constitution in the Americas. Who would fancy the
chances of George W. Bush in a recall referendum right now? It
was the Chavez government who made the recall process possible
in Venezuela in the first place.
Flipping
through the Contra "how to...."
Bush regime concern at alleged
human rights abuses deliberately provoked by opposition violence
contrasts sharply with its complacency about terrorism and violence
against supporters of the Chavez regime and its toleration of
anti-Chavez terrorists in the US. Not that those Florida-based
terrorists are necessary. Like Nicaragua, Venezuela has a long
virtually indefensible land border through terrain perfect for
infiltrating Contra-style task forces. Colombia is playing the
same role Honduras and Costa Rica played against Nicaragua.
They provided secure bases
for Contra terrorist attacks against schools, clinics and farm
cooperatives at the same time as they double-talked their way
through the motions of a peace process. Now Venezuela is faced
with aggression from Colombian paramilitaries indirectly or directly
funded and trained by the US military and by US, British and
other mercenaries working with the Colombian army.
As in the terror war against
Nicaragua, allies have been been lined up through NATO and the
Organization of American States. Holland has provided the US
military with Forward Operating Locations in its Caribbean colonies
Aruba and Curacao. Little can be expected from the craven European
Union (EU) in defence of democracy in Venezuela. The absence
of meaningful measures against Israel following its serial massacres
from Jenin to Rafah shows the kind of political support the EU
offers victims of ruthless aggression.
For its terrorist attacks on
Nicaragua the US was able to use the Ilopango air base in El
Salvador, Palmerola in Honduras and Howard in Panama. Along with
the bases in the Dutch Antilles, Ecuador has made available an
air base near Manta, a small port within easy flying time of
Colombia and Venezuela. Like Nicaragua, Venezuela is now ringed
by US air bases.
Leading
man Gaviria and the OAS travelling troupe
The current OAS president is
the Colombian Cesar Gaviria. Gaviria masterminded the CONVIVIR
rural paramilitaries providing a nascent structure and training
ground for the forerunners of the AUC death squads. During his
presidency over 1000 representatives, officials and members of
the left wing Union Patriotica were murdered by paramilitaries,
convincing opposition guerrillas to abandon any ideas of adopting
constitutional politics. The OAS is now helping Colombian President
Uribe to legalize the paramilitaries in Colombia under cover
of a "peace negotiation", something they seem curiously
unable to arrange with the left-wing opposition fighters.
Closely allied to multinational
corporations, the World Bank and the IMF, Gaviria shamelessly
offers himself as an honest broker in Venezuela just as Oscar
Arias did in Nicaragua. The US stage management of their exercises
in destabilization has become so consummate they hardly need
to lift up the phone to appeal for performers. Starry-eyed hopefuls
longing for General Secrtearyship at the UN or a Nobel Peace
Prize line up for casting.
Unwashed
extras standing by for their cue
Chainsaws at the ready, the
paramilitary killers too relish their chance to move into lucrative
new killing fields. The "or else" of the White House
is very clearly the kind of terror rampant for decades in Colombia
and recently unleashed by US proteges in Haiti. That is the most
likely explanation of the arrest and detention of over 80 Colombian
paramilitaries and army reservists early in May near Caracas.
They had been training for terrorist operations on a farm belonging
to Roberto Alonso one of the more extremist of the Venezuelan
opposition leaders.
Figures for pro-Chavez trades
union and rural workers organizers murdered in Venezuela vary.
Most estimates put the number at over 120 since 1999. 4 Much
of the violence occurs in frontier areas where the Colombian
army and paramilitaries are active. As well as combating Colombian
guerrillas and running drugs, these paramilitaries are also involved
in very profitable fuel smuggling. A typical attack on Venezuelan
civilians by the Colombian army was reported on May 24th this
year when a Colombian army helicopter of the 1st Mobile Brigade
attacked a settlement in Ovejas in the Sucre department killing
and wounding villagers.5
"When
did you last see your father?"--AUC chainsaw style
Meanwhile in Colombia's updated
version of the National Security State so popular among repressive
regimes supported by the US through the 1970s and 1980s, President
Uribe repeats all the characteristic excesses of that model.
Contempt for basic human rights is the norm. Uribe and his officials
are notorious for their attacks on human rights defenders and
their complacency at the murderous repression of labor unions
and rural workers activists.
Right now they are negotiating
with paramilitary leaders who have worked in close support of
the Colombian army for many years murdering and terrorising people
and communities perceived to be opposed to the government or
the interests of big landowners and foreign multinationals like
BP, Repsol, Drummond, Occidental Petroleum and others. Paramilitary
activity in the resource rich Arauca department intensified in
May this year. In April, an attack in Bahia de Portete offered
one more horrific example of paramilitary collusion with the
Colombian Army whose 2nd Brigade has harrassed the indigenous
Wayuu people in the area for many years.
On April 18th a large group
of heavily armed paramilitaries took over the town. Two children
who couldn't tell their parents' whereabouts were burned alive.
Other villagers were dismembered alive by chainsaw. Three hundred
of the Wayuu escaped on foot to seek refuge in Venezuela vowing
to return and fight for their land and homes.6 It was a text
book operation lifted straight from the practice of the Nicaraguan
Contra.
All the conditions are well
advanced for the kind of skilful destructive destabilization
campaign developed in every underhand way possible at which the
Bush team are so good. They will mix the usual ingredients of
covert terror, overt threats, economic and diplomatic arm-twisting
and every imaginable hypocrisy backed up by their country's incomparable
military might. Nicaragua lived the horror of US government "low
intensity" terrorism for nearly a decade through the 1980s.
Now the same individuals in this Bush regime are ready to do
the same to Venezuela.
1"Chavez denuncia invasion
desde Miami y Colombia" Humberto Marquez, 12 may 2004 (IPS)--InterPress
Service
2Venezuela denuncia ante la
OEA la injerencia estadounidense 28 de mayo del 2004.
3"Libertad de prensa,
pero no para Al Jazeera" Emad Mekay 1 de junio de 2004 IPS
InterPress Service in <www.rebeli>o<n.org>
4Untitled Article by ADITAL
dated 15/08/2003 Published 19/08/2003
5Report by Jhony Valetta 30.05.2004
ANNCOL
6"Paramilitares exterminaron
a un pueblo wayuu" Jorge Chavez Insurgiendo 28 de mayo del
2004
Weekend
Edition Features for May 29 / 31, 2004
Mike
Ferner
On Their Way to Abu Ghraib
Alfred
W. McCoy
The Cruel Shadow: the Long History of CIA Torture Research
Douglas
Valentine
An Open Letter to the NYT: Questions, Questions, Questions
Chris
White
First to Fight Culture: a Former Marine on the Marine Motto
Bruce
Anderson
The Awful Injustice to Tai Abreu
David
Vest
Get Ready for Kerry's War: the 100 Year Quagmire
Saul
Landau
Torture: the Logical Outcome of Bush's War for Democracy?
Kurt
Nimmo
Abu Hamza al-Mazri, Made in the USA
Elaine
Cassel
The Secrets of Surveillance: Ashcroft, Snoops, and Gag Orders
Will
Potter
The New War on "Terror": Protest the Torture of Chimps;
Get Arrested as a "Terrorist"
Ben
Tripp
They Fiddled While Nero Got the Matches
Dr.
Susan Block
Save Abu Ghraib!
Kia
Kojouri
Nukes, the US, Israel and Iran: an
Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh
Mickey
Z
D-Day: 60 Years is Enough!
Jon
Brown
Correcting the Correction at the Times
Patrick
B. Barr
Pre-emptive War Insurance
Stephen
Gowans
Bad Apples in a Bad Barrel
Tom
Gorman
Gore on Bush in Iraq: the Approach May be Exotic, But It's Hardly
New
Dave
Zirin
Fighting for Boxers' Rights: an Interview with Eddie Mustafa
Muhammad
Gregory
Weiher
Bush to Arabs: "Go Get Yourself Some Democracy"
Erik
Cummings
Jung Meets Bush
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Ford, Kearney, McLellan and Albert
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