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BUSH'S MELTDOWN AND THE US DEFEAT IN IRAQ

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LILA RAJIVA in the Northwest on ABU GHRAIB

Today's Stories

December 16, 2005

Saul Landau
Bolivian Democracy and the US: a History Lesson

December 15, 2005

Oren Ben-Dor
The Ethical and Legal Challenges Facing Palestine

Stan Cox
"Agroterrorists" Needn't Bother

Joshua Frank
Organic Inconsistencies: Federal Food Politics

Ben Terrall
Waivers for State Terror: Bush and the Indonesian Generals

Patrick Cockburn
Silence Descends on Baghdad

Monica Benderman
What Peace Needs

Walter A. Davis
Fear and Loathing in San Quintin

Vijay Prashad
Our Torture Problem

Website of the Day
Hourly Wages After Four Years of "Recovery"


December 14, 2005

Patrick Cockburn
Iran Poised to Win Iraqi Elections

Paul Craig Roberts
Lethal Developments

Lawrence R. Velvel
A Bore Called Bob: On Trying to Read Woodward

Wayne Garcia
The Summer of Sami

John Sugg
Preach Peace, Sami; Get Truthful Prosecutors

Gary Leupp
Bush and the Constitution: "Just a Goddamned Piece of Paper"

Ray McGovern
Torture: a Defining Moment

Alan Maass
They Murdered a Peacemaker

April Hurley, MD
NPR Swallows Bush's Guestimate on Iraqi Dead

Kevin Alexander Gray
Richard Pryor's Mirror on America

 

December 13, 2005

Stephen T. Banko, III
Heroes

Patrick Cockburn
America's War So Far: 1000 Days of Getting It Wrong

Laura Carlsen
What's at Play at the WTO

Karl Grossman
Nuclear Routlette in the Troposhere: Another NASA Plutonium Launch

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Original Sin

Kevin Zeese
Report from the International Peace Conference in London

Norman Solomon
At the Gates of San Quentin

Michael G. Smith
Ending the Death Penalty

Stew Albert
California Killers

Bob Dylan
Song for Tookie: George Jackson

Phil Gasper
California Murders Tookie Williams: a Report from San Quentin

Website of the Day
Boot Hill

 

December 12, 2005

Paul Craig Roberts
The Defenders of Torture

Lawrence R. Velvel
George the Disconnected

Jessica Stewart
My Husband is at the Gates of Gitmo

George Bisharat
Busharon: a Fusion of Like Minds

Nate Mezmer
Killing Tookie Williams: If a Black Man Dies in America, Does It Make a Sound?

Earl Ofari Hutchinson
Richard Pryor Wasn't Crazy

Alison Weir
My Bethlehem Experience

Seth Sandronsky
Thank You, Richard Pryor

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: the Beginning of the End

Website of the Day
Wrestling for Peace


December 10 / 11, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
All the News That's Fit to Buy

Landau / Hassen
The Condemned of Nablus

Ralph Nader
The Widening Wasteland of American Media

Linn Washington, Jr
The Philly Media and Mumia: When They Don't Bash, They Ignore

Bill Christison
Apathy, US Culpability and Human Rights Day

Mike Ferner
The Courage of Jim Loney

Elizabeth Schulte
Abortion and the Bush Court

Neve Gordon / Yigal Bronner
Murder in Jerusalem

Linda S. Heard
Saddam's Trial: Grandstanding in the Theater of the Absurd

Ingmar Lee
A Kayak Journey to Vancouver Island's Wildest Forest

Ray McGovern
Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice

John Chuckman
Torture and White Phosphorous: the Moral Hell of Condi Rice

John Ryan
An Honorary Degree in Child Sacrifice?: Madeleine Albright and US Foreign Policy

Dick J. Reavis
From Waco to Baghdad

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Hired Pens

Behzad Yaghmaian
Trapped at the Gates of the European Union

Aseem Shrivastava
The Winter in Delhi, 1984

John Ross
Bushlandia in Black and White

Ben Tripp
War, What is It Good For?

St. Clair / Pollack / Vest / Despair
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Hassen, Bear Dog, Ford, Mickey Z, Albert & Engel

Website of the Week
Burn a Brick for Bush

 

December 9, 2005

Linn Washington, Jr.
Roots of Gitmo Torture Lie Close to Home

Dave Zirin / Mike Stark
On Seeing Wesley Baker Die

Patrick Cockburn
Blair Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft

Alexander Cockburn
Murtha Returns to Attack; Flays Bush

Lila Rajiva
Shooting the Mentally Ill

Gary Leupp
White House Liars on the Defensive

Jason Leopold
Rove Running Out of Answers, Time

Bruce K. Gagnon
So These Are the Democrats?

Andrew Cockburn
Meet Rahm Emmanuel, the Democrats' New Gatekeeper

Website of the Day
"X-mas Time for Visa"

 

December 8, 2005

Kathy Kelly
Blessed are the Merciful in Baghdad

James Petras
The Venezuelan Election: Chavez Wins, Bush Loses (Again)

William S. Lind
Questionable Assumptions: Dissecting the Stategy for Victory

Laura Carlsen
The Strange Mission of Vicente Fox: Free Trade and Mexico

Justin Akers
Bush's Border War

Thomas Graham, Jr
A Nuclear Pearl Harbor in Outer Space?

Norman Solomon
Rumsfeld's Handshake Deal with Saddam

Tariq Ali / Robin Blackburn
The Lost John Lennon Interview

Website of the Day
Pigs at the Trough of War

 

December 7, 2005

John Ryan
Dershowitz vs. Chomsky: a Review of the Harvard Debate

Gary Leupp
Suicide Before Dishonor in Occupied Iraq

Fran Quigley
How the ACLU Didn't Steal Christmas

Jeremy Brecher / Brendan Smith
Bush War Crimes: the Posse Gathers

Joshua Frank
Bird Dogging Hillary

William W. Morgan
Rendition, Torture and Democracy

Dave Lindorff
A Stunning Win for Mumia Abu Jamal

Patrick Cockburn
Saddam: "Come Visit My Cage"

Harold Pinter
Art, Truth and Politics: the Nobel Lecture

Website of the Day
Witnesses to Torture

 

December 6, 2005

Ron Jacobs
No One is Illegal; No One is an Infidel

Patrick Cockburn
Inside Saddam's Trial: Tales of the Human Meat Grinder

Yifat Susskind
Death, Politics and the Condom: African Women Confront Bush's AIDS Policy

Mike Whitney
How Greenspan Skewered America

Pat Williams
Public Land Should Stay Public

Paul Craig Roberts
Condi to Europe: Trust Us

Website of the Day
Debunking Woodward

 

December 5, 2005

John Walsh
The Lies of John Edwards: What Did the Democrats Know and When Did They Know It?

Brian Cloughley
The Poor Dead: the Relative Value of Human Lives

Mokhiber / Weissman
The Corporate Crime Quiz

Robert Jensen
How Big Money Eviscerates the First Amendment

Norman Solomon
Hidden in Plane Sight: US Media Ignores Iraq Air War Plan

Peter Rost, MD
An Open Letter to the Justice Department: Pfizer May Have Violated Federal Laws When They Fired Me

Lila Rajiva
The Torture-Go-Round: CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons

Website of the Day
National Day of Counter-Recruitment


December 3 / 4, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
The Revolt of the Generals

Lawrence R. Velvel
Iraq, Brains and Lies

Rev. William Alberts
The Forgotten Christmas Story: Saying No to King Herod

Saul Landau
Latino Troops Have Parents

Ralph Nader
Consumerama

Paul Craig Roberts
Don't Confuse the Jobs Hype with the Facts

Mike Whitney
Blood Feast: Celebrating Executions in America

Allan Lichtman
The DeLay Scheme: Blatantly Buying Our Government

Dave Lindorff
A Sudden Rush for the Exits?

Brian Concannon, Jr.
Haiti's Elections

Fred Gardner
Oregon NORML Honors Growers

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
On Freeing the CPT

Carol Wolman
Remembering the 60s

St. Clair / Vest / Walker / Pollack
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Albert, Engel and Orloski

Website of the Weekend
Free the CPT

 

December 2, 2005

Stan Goff
An Open Letter to Congress from a Veteran and Military Dad

Mike Ferner
Beware Iraqization: Melvin Laird, Vietnam and Christmas Bombings Over Baghdad?

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Constitutional Kamikazes: Padilla's No-Win Dilemma

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Questions for the President

Manuel Talens
The Chávez Theorem

Peter Phillips
Death By Torture: Media Ignores the Hard Evidence

J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Alabama's Taliban: Judge Roy Moore, Preachers and Dixie Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Support the Hampton University Peace Activists!

 

December 1, 2005

John Walsh, MD
The God Gaps

Ron Jacobs
Hard Rain: Toward a Greater Air War in Iraq?

Jenna Orkin
EPA's Latest Betrayal at Ground Zero

Joshua Frank
Howard Dean's Blunt Message: Forget Palestine

Tiffany Ten Eyck
Rank and File Resistance to Delphi

Missy Comley Beattie
Home on the Range: Where the Fear and the Animus Play

Eli Stephens
The Reed and Kerry Show

Elaine Cassel
A Government Game of "Gotcha" with Jose Padilla

Website of the Day
Rare Erotica

 

November 30, 2005

Allen / D'Amato
Incident at Oglala 30 Years Later: the Long Struggle of Leonard Peltier

Mike Whitney
The Cheerleader at Annapolis

Kevin Zeese
The Hallucinations of Joe Lieberman

Norman Solomon
Colin Powell: Still Craven After All These Years

Ramzy Baroud
Sharon's New Party

Dave Lindorff
What Happened to All Those Bush/Cheney Bumperstickers?

Stephen Soldz
Mental Health Workers in Iraq

 

November 29, 2005

Phil Gasper
Live from Death Row: an Interview with Tookie Williams

Behzad Yaghmaian
The Ghost of Sangatte

Joshua Frank
Jack Abramoff's Bi-partisan Sleaze

Walter A. Davis
Life on Death Row: a Monologue

Gary Leupp
Bush the Dupe?

Len Colodny
Woodwardgate: Still Protecting the Rightwing

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Duke and the Enterprise: Randy Cunningham's Crash Landing

Bill Quigley
Human Rights Leaders Call for Release of Haiti's Political Prisoners

Website of the Day
Watch Chomsky vs. Dershowitz Live, Tonight at 7PM, EST!

 

November 28, 2005

Chris Reed
The "Bomb Al Jazeera" Documents Trial

David Isenberg
Cooked Intelligence: the Dog that Didn't Bark

Ron Jacobs
Contraindications: a Review of Blood on the Border

Norman Solomon
The Woodward Scandal Must Not Blow Over

Justin E.H. Smith
Schwarzenegger's Curious Power

Mickey Z.
Abbie Hoffman at 70: Steal This City

Mike Whitney
The Pentagon's Domestic Spying Operation

David Swanson
Is Impeachment an Election Issue?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Grave Threat of the Bush Administration

Website of the Day
"Don't Bomb Us!": a Blog by Al Jazeera Staffers

 

November 26 / 27, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
How the Democrats Undercut John Murtha

Saul Landau
Who We Are: Torture and the Empire

Ralph Nader
Junk Television: Excluding Voices That Save Lives

Brian Cloughley
What Are They Dying For?

John Ross
When a Language Dies

Gary Leupp
The Nepal Pact

Fred Gardner
Dr. Denney Goes to Arkansas

Christopher Brauchli
Compassion for Corporations: Northrup Grumman and Katrina's Victims

Dave Lindorff
US War Crimes List Keeps Growing

P. Sainath
See, Neoliberalism Really Works: Net Worth of India's Billionaires Soars!

Timothy J. Freeman
The Price of Freedom

Lila Rajiva
Of Mice, Men and GM Peas

Eric Ruder
Beat the Needle: Saving Tookie Williams

Seth Sandronsky
Working Toward Whiteness: an Interview with David Roediger

Joaquin Bustelo
What Really Happened at Mar del Plata

Lewis Alper
Is the President's Soul in Jeopardy?: an Evangelical Christian Looks at Bush's Skull and Bones Initiation

Will Youmans
In Search of Paradise

Phyllis Pollack
The Stones' Rough Justice in Bush Time

St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week

Barbara LaMorticella
Poetry and the City of Ideas

Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Buknatski, Engel, Albert and Davies

Website of the Weekend
NLR: The Chequered Rainbow

 

 

November 25, 2005

David Price
How US Anthropologists Planned "Race-Specific" Weapons Against the Japanese

Brian McKenna
Will Bush Miss the Next Bhopal?

Jeff Halper
Peretz or Bust?

Ray McGovern
Will the US Seize the Opportunity for Troop Withdrawal?

Leigh Saavedra
Thanksgiving at Camp Casey

Ingmar Lee
How Have the Mighty Fallen?

Website of the Day
Saving Cathedral Grove

 

November 24, 2005

James Petras
How to Think About War and Peace

Bob Shirley
Thanksgiving Torture: What the Puritans Fled

Mike Fox
Torture Survivors Speak for Themselves

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Adrift? Perhaps. A Draft? Never!

Greg Moses
Thanksgiving Delayed: TX High Court Blesses Inequality

Alexander Cockburn
Turkeys in the Larger Scheme of Things

 

November 23, 2005

Ramzy Baroud
The Great Gaza Border Deal: What Does It Mean?

Mike Whitney
Bush, Padilla and Thomas More

Stan Cox
Red, White and Blue Dawn: What a Bad Hollywood Film Can Teach Americans About Life Under Occupation

Linda S. Heard
Targeting Al Jazeera

November 22, 2005

Kevin Gray / Mike Hersh
Maxine Waters, the Real Leader of the Anti-War Caucus

Ralph Nader
What Do Dems Stand For?

Michael Donnelly
The "Vetting" of Bernard Kerik

Mike Ferner
The CIA's "Torture Taxi" in the Spotlight

Pierre Tristam
The Justice Deficit

Marshall Auerback
Bush's "Compassionate Conservativism": Neither Compassionate Nor Conservative

Website of the Day
I Don't Like Geldof

 

November 21, 2005

Mike Marqusee
Clinton's Hypocrisies on Iraq

Josh Frank
Democratic Hawks: the Avian Flu of the Antiwar Movement

Mike Whitney
Hugo Chavez vs. the King of Vacations

Norman Solomon
Getting Out of Iraq

Russ Baker
Woodward's Weakness

Robert Jensen
A National Day of Atonement

Paul Craig Roberts
Lies and Official Secrets

 

November 19 / 20, 2005

Fred Gardner
The Raid on MendoHealing

Rep. Cynthia McKinney
The House GOP Has Done a Heinous Thing: Stop Playing Politics; Get the Troops Out Now

Ron Jacobs
A Pathetic Congress: If It Walks and Talks Like a Withdrawal Resolution, Why Won't You Vote For It?

David Vest
The Politics of Surrender: It's as American as Robert E. Lee

J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Condi Rice's Disdain for the Civil Rights Movement

John R. Bomar
Staying the Course on "Freedom's Frontier": a Vietnam Vet on Iraq

John Ross
The Dragon Flies High, But Not Over Mexico

Phillip Cryan
Colombia: "Political Kidnapping" and Murder in Cauca

Dave Lindorff
RIP In These Times

Dick J. Reavis
The Future of the Daily Press

Jeremy Scahill
Vegetarian Between Meals: This War Can't Be Stopped by a Loyal Opposition

Dan Wright
Cleaning Up Alaska's Scan Bay

John Stanton
Scowcroft Talks Turkey; Edmounds Fights Fascism

St. Clair / Vest / Walker
Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week

Phyllis Pollack
The Stones: Rarities

Dr. Susan Block
Our Night of Weimar Love

Poets Basement
Albert, Engel, Ford, Harley and Louise

 

November 18, 2005

Michael Neumann
The Palestinians and the Party Line

Dave Lindorff
Murtha and the L Word

Michael Donnelly
Black November 15

Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer
Uncrucify Them

Don Monkerud
A Decent Workplace

Tom Kerr
Grant Clemency to Tookie Williams

Trish Schuh
Faking the Case Against Syria

 

November 17, 2005

John Walsh
A Fractured Anti-War Movement

Rep. John Murtha
Iraq Must Be Freed from the US Occupation

Brian J. Foley
We Are All In GITMO Now

CounterPunch News Service
Guardian Apologizes to Chomsky; Publishes Total Retraction of Brockes' Slurs

Dave Lindorff
In Post-Saddam Iraq, There are No Civilians

Mark T. Harris
Coming Out in an Up-and-Coming Sport

Cockburn / St. Clair
From Reporter to Courtier: the Decline of Bob Woodward

 

November 16, 2005

John F. Sugg
Al-Arian Speaks: In His First Interview Since the Trial Began, Al-Arian Talks About What the Jury Didn't Hear

Noam Chomsky
Putting Out the Englightenment

Dave Lindorff
Shake and Bake: Pentagon Admits Using Phosphorous Bombs on Fallujah

Evelyn Pringle
Laurie Mylroie's War

Sam Husseini
Trying to Look a Female Suicide Bomber in the Eye

Pierre Tristam
Toturers' Theater

Greg Bates
Waffling Alito Charms DiFi

Farrah Hassen
Moustapha AkkadDavid Lean of the Middle East Killed in Amman Blast

Bill Christison
Evidence Mounts That Bush Wants New Wars

Website of the Day
Violent Oscillations

 

November 15, 2005

Todd Chretien
My Evening in the No Spin Zone; Or Why Bill O'Reilly Hates San Francisco

Leah Caldwell
Death of the Jailhouse Press

Frederick Hudson
Rosa's Wreath: Miss Parks and Robert Williams

Harry Browne
Bush-Linked Judge Bows Out: Another Mistrial in Irish Ploughshares Case

Jason Leopold
Secret CIA Testimony: Iraq Posed No Threat

Ingmar Lee
Logging Lackies vs. Canada's Most Endangered Species

Diana Barahona
Showdown on the Silver Coast

Tom Andre
New Orleans, Two Months Later

Website of the Weekend
Ernest Crichlow: 1914-2005

 

November 14, 2005

Diana Johnstone
The Origins of the Guardian's Attack on Chomsky

Paul Craig Roberts
Power Over All: Unlimited Detentions and the End of Habeas Corpus

Conn Hallinan
Provoking Syria: Cambodia All Over Again?

Joshua Frank
Off She Goes: Hillary in Israel

Christopher Reed
The Persistence of Racism in Koizumi's Japan

 

November 11 / 13, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
First the Lying, Then the Pardons

Gwyneth Leech
Cross Connections: a Painter Reimagines the Passion of Christ in the Wake of Abu Ghraib

Elmas Mallo
Chillin' in the Blazin' Texas Sun: Inside the Texas Prison System

Michael Neumann
The Rebel King of Bluegrass: Jimmy Martin, an Appreciation

Saul Landau
Leakgate: the Screenplay

Sam Husseini
Bush and Zarqawi Bomb Because We Let Them

Brian Cloughley
Sleaze, Deceit and Torture

Ron Jacobs
Rep. McGovern's Withdrawal Resolution: a Step in the Right Direction?

Lila Rajiva
Dover Bitch: the Curses of Pat Robertson

Michael Donnelly
Hypocrisy Watch

Joe Allen
Murder in El Salvador: Who Killed Gilberto Soto?

Roland Sheppard
Lessons from the Montgomery Bus Boycott

Justin E.H. Smith
Another Monkey Trial?

Ben Tripp
The Cost of War

St. Clair / Vest
Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Jones, Louise, Ford, Smith, Albert and Engel

Website of the Weekend
Iraq Vets and Against the War Need Your Help!

 

 

November 10, 2005

Peterside, Ogon, Watts and Zalik
Delta Blues Again: Ken Saro-Wiwa, 10 Years Gone

Pat Williams
Will Alito Cost the Republicans the Senate?

Steve Higgs
Bush Crony Targets Indiana's Forests: 400% Hike in Logging

Jimmy Massey
Is Ron Harris Telling the Truth?

Lucson Pierre-Charles
Haiti: Insanity Takes Over

Anthony Newkirk
Syria in the Crosshairs

Lawrence R. Velvel
Why Did Libby Lie?

Website of the Day
Imperial Margarine

November 9, 2005

Gary Leupp
The Niger Deception / Plame Affair: an Incomplete Chronology

Tariq Ali
Blair Defeated on Terror Laws

Chris Floyd
The Philosopher's Stone

Elaine Cassel
The Shocking Trial of an American Citizen: the Case of Ahmed Abu Ali

Joshua Frank
Sen. Max Baucus's NASCAR Pay Day

Alison Weir
Memo to Jon Stewart: Glad You're Against Torture, So Why'd You Give Israel a Pass?

Diana Johnstone
Rage in the Banlieue


November 8, 2005

Paul Craig Roberts
Still No Jobs

Roger Burbach
Bush v. Chavez: the Imperial President Meets the Bolivarian Democrat

Ron Jacobs
An Interview with Behzad Yaghmaian on the Paris Uprising

Ralph Nader
"The Worst Marketed Disease on the Planet"

Jim McGrath
Voter Beware: a Cautionary Tale for Election Day

David Bloom
McCain, Israel and Torture: Setting the Record Straight

Stan Goff
Jimmy Massey, Ron Harris, and Ambush Journalism

 

 

 

 

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December 16, 2005

Why I Didn't Salute...

When Ollie North Came to Hot Springs

By JOHN BOMAR

"They took out their knives and stuck them under his fingernails. After they took his fingernails off, then they broke his elbows. Afterwards they gouged out his eyes. Then they took their bayonets and made all sorts of slices in his skin all around his chest, arms, and legs. They then took his hair off and the skin of his scalp. When they saw there was nothing left to do with him, they threw gasoline on him and burned him. The next day they started the same thing with a 13 year old girl. They did more or less the same, but they did other things to her too. First, she was utilized, raped by all the officers. They stripped her and threw her in a small room, they went in one by one. Afterwards they took her out tied and blindfolded. Then they began the same mutilating, pulling her fingernails out and cutting off her fingers, breaking her arms, gouging out her eyes and all they did to the other fellow. They cut her legs and stuck an iron rod into her womb."

"Rosa had her breasts cut off. Then they cut into her chest and took out her heart. The men had their arms broken and their testicles cut off and their eyes poked out. They were then killed by slitting their throats and pulling the tongue out through the slit."

These are but two of the hundreds of documented eyewitness accounts of the kind of brutal and sadistic rapes, sodomies, kidnappings, tortures and murders committed by the Contra forces in Nicaragua in the 1980's -- Contras that were clothed, fed and armed by the illegal efforts of Oliver North.

I guess it is no wonder that his recent visit to Hot Springs gave me waking nightmares. It was as if the spirits of those brutalized, tortured and murdered by the Contra "freedom fighters" were calling out to me. Perhaps it was my working knowledge of Spanish and my thirty years of travel to Latin America that brought these souls to my door. The images haunted and shamed me. The most horrible aspect of these tales is that the atrocities were commonly committed on the most vulnerable; young boys and girls, their pregnant mothers and their grandparents. Many times the families were forced to watch as these abominations were carried out. Terror, you see, is most effective and intimidating when viewed publicly. In all, over 30,000 civilians were killed in Nicaragua by the Contras, mostly peasants, rural doctors and health care workers, teachers, clergy, and civil administrators trying to afford social services to the poorest in the land. This is our government's most recent legacy in Central America.

The Sandanistas had been freely and fairly elected among seven active political parties, with 75% voter turn out. It was declared a just election by all international observers and monitors. After leading the rebellion to oust one of Latin America's most infamously brutal and greedy military dictators Anastacio Samoza, the new government chose a more socialized model that quickly garnered international acclaim for its efforts at providing health care, food, education, literacy and land reform for its population. It also brought on the wrath of the U.S. government and the CIA who financed the ex-national guardsmen: Samoza's former henchmen, who formed the core of the Contra forces. Eventually, the U.S. congress was so repulsed by the stories of horror and butchery coming out of the villages in northern Nicaragua, and lobbied strongly by ecumenical church organizations representing millions of church goers, they forbade any further financing of the effort or any further U.S. involvement. A congressional intelligence committee at the time confirmed that the Contras "raped, tortured and killed unarmed civilians, including children" and that "groups of civilians, including pregnant women and children were burned, dismembered, blinded and beheaded."

With the elimination of U.S. funds the Contra forces waned and were forced back into their sanctuaries across Nicaragua's borders. That was when Mr. North secretly went to work in the basement of the White House. His unlawful scheme eventually involved tens of millions of dollars, secretly selling arms to the Islamic fundamentalists in Iran. This sad story also includes sworn testimony by those involved of cocaine filled airplanes returning to the U.S. after dropping off supplies, explosives and arms to the Contras. Some have attributed this "coca pipeline" to the crack epidemic that swept through many American cities in the mid 1980's. By his own hand written accounts at the time, preserved in the last days of the Reagan administration, Mr. North acknowledged being repeatedly informed of contra ties to drug trafficking. Luis Posada, deeply implicated in the terrorist bombing of a Cubana DC 8 airliner filled with teenagers in 1976, and a confessed hotel lobby bomber, was a leading local coordinator of the effort. Many lurid tales have come to light in the ensuing years of our CIA,s dealings with the dirtiest of the dirty in Latin America during this era.

I guess, being a believer in the inalienable rights of an oppressed people to rise up and throw off their yokes and form a new government, even one we don't particularly like, puts me in a foreign camp to some. To me, national sovereignty means a country being able to chart its own course, free of coercive outside attack from powerful and wealthy forces, even down what many of us believe is the dead-end road of extreme socialism. It is giving to other nations nothing more than we demand for ourselves.

So, I hope you can understand if I couldn't stand up and salute when Ollie came to town. The whispered voices and tortured images wouldn't let me.

Dr. John Bomar, a veteran of the Vietnam War, is a Catholic Lay Minister and student of Latin American history. He can be reached at: johnrbomar@hotsprings.net

 

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