Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
June 18,
2004
Gary Leupp
The "Long-Established" Link?:
Iraq, al-Qaeda, and al-Zarqawi
June
17, 2004
Noel
Ignatiev
Zionism, Anti-Semitism and the People
of Palestine
Kurt
Nimmo
The Bush-Kerry Conundrum
Ed
Cardoni
The Persecution of Steve Kurtz
Ron Jacobs
Power Relations: Rounding Up Everyone Who Knows More Than They Do
Dave
Lindorff
Philly Daily News: "Four Wasted Years"
Greg
Moses
Geneva Ignored
Norm
Dixon
How Reagan Armed Saddam with Chemical
Weapons
June
16, 2004
Lenni
Brenner
A Question for Kerry Supporters
Davey
D
Hip Hop Reflections on Reagan
Daniel
Wolff
Why Did Michael Moore Withhold Video Evidence of US Prisoner
Abuse?
Bruce
Jackson
Harry Levin and the Penultimate Manuscript of Finnegans Wake
Patrick
Cockburn
Boom! Boom! Out Go the Lights: Bombings Target Oil and Power
Facilities
Gary
Handschumacher
Mourn Ben Linder, Not His Killer: Reagan's Death Squads
JG
Turning Haiti into One Big Sweatshop
Mario
Benedetti
Obituary with Cheers
Vicente
Navarro
Meet the New Head of the IMF: Who
is Rodrigo Rato?
Website
of the Day
Iraqi Oil Revenue Watch
June
15, 2004
Harry
Browne
Ireland Adds a Brick to Fortress Europe
Neve
Gordon
The Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
David
Palmer
Richard Armitage, Abu Ghraib and CACI
John
Blair
Lovelock's Misguided Call: Nukes Are No Solution to Global Warming
Dave
Lindorff
God Wins in TKO
Bill
Quigley
Blood-Pouring Peace Activists: State Charges Dropped; Feds Step
In
Patrick
Cockburn
Carbombs and Street Dances: 13 More Killed in Baghdad Blast
John
Chuckman
John Kerry, Political Placebo
June
14, 2004
John
Stanton / Wayne Madsen
Torture, Inc: Oliver North Joins
the Party
Kathy
Kelly
Requiems: What Happens When Compassion Dies?
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Gets Testy About Torture
Lee
Sustar
Strikers Defy Visteon's Company Thugs
Kurt
Nimmo
The Desperate Censors: the Republican Plot to Kill Farhenheit
9/11
Jim
Davis
Hard Right Nativism
Eliot
Katz
Death and War
Uri
Avnery
The Nightmare Comes True
Website
of the Day
Instruments of Statecraft
June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
| June
18, 2004
Danielle
"D-Smooth" Green Speaks Out Against War
From Division
I Basketball Player to Disabled Army Vet
By DAVE
ZIRIN
"Coach,
you know how you were always on me about working on my right hand dribble.
Well, I'm going to start."
With this
line delivered amid laughter and tears, former Notre Dame southpaw basketball
standout Danielle "D-Smooth" Green told her ex-Fighting Irish
Coach Muffet McGraw, the horrifying news. A grenade blew off army MP
Green's left hand while she patrolled a Baghdad police station.
Like the
late NFL safety turned Army Ranger Pat Tillman, Green could easily be
used as a symbol of patriotic resolve. She would far neatly into potent
place where athletics meets war. Yet unlike Tillman, who cannot speak
for himself, D-Smooth has chosen not be treated like an icon but to
speak out against what she sees from first hand experience, as an unjust
war.
From her
hospital bed, Green told the New York Times, "They just don't want
us there. I personally don't think we should have gone into Iraq. Not
the way things have turned out. A lot more people are going to get hurt,
and for what?"
Secretary
of State Colin Powell confronted with her words on Meet the Press could
only mutter, "I hope she will see in time that her sacrifice was
worth it." Green respectfully disagrees. "I'm not going to
lie, I didn't understand the mission, the purpose. If you understand
what you're fighting for, then you've got something to hang on to. But
we didn't even have that. I think if I hadn't lost my arm, I would have
lost my mind. It was enough to drive you insane, and I think that's
where I might have been headed."
If D-Smooth
weren't so quick to speak her mind, she would be perfect fodder for
a pro-war press desperately searching the rubble of Iraq for positive
news about the US occupation.
Green
was a decorated athlete at Chicago's Roosevelt High School, winning
11 letters in four sports. She was also sports editor of the school
newspaper, a lieutenant colonel in Junior ROTC, treasurer of the student
council and a member of the National Honor Society.
She also
was able to emerge from a childhood where a mother addicted to drugs
raised her. "I was 6 or 7 years old the first time I saw my mom
smoke reefer," Green said. "Then it got to be an everyday
thing. And then I saw her smoke out of a crack pipe. I went to my room
and cried. But I also made up my mind that day what I was going to do
with my life. I
wrote down some goals. I wanted to go to Notre Dame someday, and I wanted
to be GI Joe in the military."
Those
dreams have been shredded along with her illusions about why she enlisted.
"The most disappointing thing about Iraq is that I thought I was
going to change those peoples' lives," she said. "But in the
four months I was there, I don't think I touched one life."
But by
not being silent, Green will touch more lives than she can imagine.
"D" has never been so "Smooth."
Dave
Zirin can be reached at editor@pgpost.com.
Read his sports writing at www.edgeofsports.com.
Weekend Edition June 12 / 13, 2004
Peter
Linebaugh
Remembering the Common Hood: Soweto
and Runnymede
Team
CounterPunch
CP's Favorite Albums
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Troy, Now and Then
Gary
Leupp
Not Really a Puppet Government in Iraq?
Brian
Cloughley
US Military in Crisis
Antonio
Ponvert, III
Iraqi Prisoner Abuse: the Connecticut Connection
Ben
Tripp
The Polls Get Stupider
Joe
Bageant
Mash Note to the "Girl with the Leash"
Ron
Jacobs
The Return of the Hip Hop Insurgency
Forrest
Hylton
Object Lessons from the Case of Francisco Cortés
Christopher
Brauchli
Federal Bureau of Errors
Kurt
Nimmo
Going After Qaddafi, Again
Wayne
Madsen
Israel's Slap at Reagan
Anthony
Loewenstein
Al Jazeera Awakens the Arab World
Michael
Donnelly
A Lightship in the Forest: Greenpeace Docks in the Siskiyous
Greg
Moses
Who Will Tell Us More About the Workers of Nasiriyah?
Susan
Davis
Harry Potter & the Prisoner of Azkaban
Joseph
Ramsey
Weather Report: a Review of The Weather Underground
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The 18th Brumaire in the 21st
Century
Wayne
Saunders
The Gipper, D-Day and the Stanley Cup
Poets'
Basement
Richey, Ford, La Morticella, Albert
Website
of the Weekend
Insurgent Music
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