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Sensational New Print Edition of CounterPunch Amazing Plan Surfaces: "We Need Ethno-Weapons!" David Price tells how top-flight US anthropologists eagerly obeyed US government's mandate to "think in a-moral terms". One scheme of OSS's willing executioners: target Japanese physical "weak spot", the respiratory tract, with anthrax germs. Gabriel Kolko asks What's so New About the Neo-Cons? If they had not existed, would the policies have been the same? Jeffrey St Clair digs up more dirt on Halliburton's secret history. Alexander Cockburn on why we need more "celebrity justice". Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... 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! Show the New York Times You Don't Believe a Word of It: CounterPunch's New 14 Per Cent Club T-Shirts Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by KATHY KELLY Click Here to Order the Hot New CounterPunch Book by 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly! Today's Stories July 6, 2005 Gary Leupp Accusing Ahmadinejad July 5, 2005 Behrooz Ghamari What's the Matter with Iran?: How the Reformists Lost the Presidency Elaine Cassel Why This Progressive Will Miss Sandra Day O'Connor Ron Jacobs Robert and Mabel Williams's Great Fight for Justice Bob Libal The Right's Assault on Academia Dr. Peter Rost Mea Culpa from a Big Pharma CEO Mark Engler The Big Debt Deal: Where's the Jubilee? Gideon Levy They Broke the Public's Heart Dave Zirin The Great Olympics Scam Sameer Dossani The Trouble with Gleneagles   July 2 / 4, 2005 Alexander Cockburn "Bomb Teheran!" Urges Jilted Condi? Lenni Brenner Jefferson, God and the Fourth of July Laura Carlsen Zapatista's Red Alert James Petras The Pretensions of Neoliberalism: Six Myths About the Benefits of Foreign Investment William A. Cook Kings of Serpents Brian Cloughley Quagmire of the Vanities Saul Landau The Mass Media, Symbols and Ownership Tom Crumpacker Who Has What to Hide About Luis Posada Carriles? Greg Moses Dylan's America Dr. Susan Block My Adelphia Story: a Tale of Censorship, Fraud, Christian Family Values and Really Lousy Cable Service Fran Shor Disassembling Bush's Iraq War: Liberated into a No Man's Land Fred Gardner Study: Smoking Marijuana Does Not Cause Lung Cancer Moshe Adler The New London Case: Corporate Giveaways That Destroy Communities, But Don't Create Jobs David Model The Downing Street Memo: So What's New? Seth Sandronsky California Spying, Schwarzenegger-Style Ramzy Baroud Managed Democracy in the Middle East Suzan Mazur Frank Carlucci the First: the "Sublime Prince" of Scranton Ben Tripp Voltaire, I Can Dig Your Rap Justin Taylor Faux Biography and the Pleasures of "Lint" Brendan Bailey Mesh Caps, Vice Magazine and the Trouble with Irony Poets' Basement Albert, Engel and Louise Website of the Weekend Radical Reference July 1, 2005 Christopher Brauchli With Friends Like These: Bush Buddies Karimov and Musharraf Pat Williams What Real Westerners Think About Bush's Pseudo-Cowboy Palaver Gary Leupp Summer Surprise? John Stauber Mad Cow in America: the USDA Continues to Lie John Chuckman The Blessings of Canada Justicia y Paz Colombia's Disappeared: Their Names, At Least! Cockburn / St. Clair It's Put Up or Shut Up for Bush and the Dems on the Supreme Court   June 30, 2005 Kathy Kelly An Open Letter to Carl Levin: Compassion for Iraqis John Stauber Oprah Not the "Only" Mad Cow in America Virginia Rodino All Roads Lead to Baghdad: Unity in the Anti-War Movement Jason Leopold Meet the New Chair of the FERC: James Kelliher, the Man Who Invited Enron to Write Bush's Energy Policy Dave Lindorff What Was Bush Thinking? Greg Moses Racism at Cape Cod Norman Solomon Memo to the Iraq War Joshua Frank Israel's Theocrats Alexander Cockburn The Political Function of PBS   June 29, 2005 Mike Schaefer How the Washington Post Lied About Its Own War Poll Roger Burbach / Paul Cantor Bush's Big Democratic Hoax in Iraq Sharon Smith Democrats Shift into Reverse Sam Husseini A Quick Way to End the Insurgency John Stauber Put a Photo of Mad Cow #2 on a Milk Carton Ahmad Faruqui Is Militarism Irreversible in Pakistan? Linda S. Heard Bush's Speech: the View from Cairo Stew Albert Chet Helms: a Rock and Roll Hero Ray McGovern Bush at Ft. Bragg: Stay the Crooked Course   June 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts A Defeat Bred in Deceit Landau / Hassen Bush's Meddling in Internal Syrian Politics John A. Murphy Keeping Nader Off the Ballot: an Analysis of Political Profiling in Pennsylvania Mike Whitney More Lies from Rumsfeld: Those "Meetings" with Insurgents CounterPunch News Service JFK on Staying in Vietnam: Is Bush Reading from Kennedy's Playbook? Dave Zirin Pining for the Pistons Dave Lindorff Showtime in Washington Patrick Cockburn Iraq: a Bloody Mess   June 27, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blood Sacrifices for Empty Slogans Mike Marqusee G8: Who are the Hijackers? Mark Scaramella When a Corporate Raider Claims Economic Hardship: the Court-Approved Lies of Charles Hurwitz Leigh Saavedra Press Apologists for Torture Kathy Kelly Where is the UN? June 25 / 26, 2005 Alexander Cockburn The Supreme Court's Jackboot Liberals Jennifer Van Bergen America's Parallel Legal Systems George Corsetti This Land is Their Land: Condemnation for Corporations Mark Chmiel / Andrew Wimmer Let's Open the Gulag: a People's Mission to Gitmo Kevin Zeese Counter-Recruitment: How to Keep the Military From Getting their Hands on Your Kids P. Sainath Russian Roulette in Vidharbha John Stauber How to Bury a Mad Cow Scott Handleman Gay in the Third World Tom Barry The Politics & Ideologies of the Anti-Immigrationists John Walsh Looking for Peace in All the Wrong Places Justin E.H. Smith The Hairless Apes of Kansas vs. the Reality-Based Community: Why Progressives Have a Stake in the War on Evolution Alan Wallis The Story of Pinky: the Drug Trade in My Neighborhood Ben Tripp Negative Space: an Artful Lesson Frederick B. Hudson Songs to Lose Your Loneliness By: the Raised Voices of Sweet Honey in the Rock Poets' Basement Gaffney, Engel, Davies, and Albert     June 24, 2005 Ray McGovern The Downing St. Fixation: Fixing to Fix "Fixed" Jorge Mariscal "They Only Call Us Americans When They Need Us for War": the Paradox of Mexican Americans in Iraq Desiree Hellegers Portland vs. the FBI Zeynep Toufe What Do the American People Know and When Did They Know It? Joshua Frank Call Him Senator Con Job David Lindorff Which Flag Would Jesus Burn? Michael Neumann Victory and Recruitment Website of the Day Gagging Dr. Dean June 23, 2005 Christopher Brauchli Thomas Griffith and Rule 49: He Practiced Law Without a License; Now He's a Federal Appeals Court Judge Clay Conrad Killing Off the Jury with Tort Reform Standard Schaefer A Retort to Military Neo-Liberalism P. Sainath Vidharbha: No rains and 116F, But It Does Have "Snow" and Water Parks Mark Engler CAFTA Deserves a Quiet Death Norman Solomon Voluntary Amnesia in America Cockburn / St. Clair Frank Calzon Kathy Kelly Where You Stand Determines What You See   June 22, 2005 Kevin Zeese The Bush Administration's Psy-Ops on the American Public: an Interview with Col. Sam Gardiner William S. Lind Afghanistan: the Other War Arsalan Iftikhar Patriots Against the PATRIOT Act Dan Nagengast Give Populism a Chance: From France to Kansas David Krieger To the Graduates: We Live in an Interdependent World Kathleen & Bill Christison Tempest in Santa Fe: Confronting Israeli Myth-making     June 21, 2005 Brian Cloughley Destroy the Unbelievers! Mike Whitney President Disconnect Dave Lindorff Who Needs Big Bird, Anyway? Mark Weisbrot Bush's Lonely Campaign Against Hugo Chavez Matthew R. Simmons The Coming Saudi Oil Crisis Dave Zirin The Crass Slipper Fits: Ron Howard's Terrible "Cinderella Man" Virginia Rodino The Anti-War Movement and Impeachment Paul Craig Roberts A War Waged by Liars and Morons   June 20, 2005 Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Tariq Ali To the Gates of the Gleneagles Hotel! Mickey Z. WMDs American-Style: It's 60 Years Since Alamogordo William Blum Some Things You Need to Know Before the World Ends Gary Leupp Old News Indeed: In 1999, Bush Craved Chance to Attack Iraq Jason Leopold Someone Tell Bush Iraq Wasn't Behind 9/11, Before He Starts Another War Dave Lindorff Why the Media Should be Schiavo'd Alan Maass The GM Job Massacre Uri Avnery Condi and Hamas Website of the Day Crimes Against Poetry                                                                               Hot Stories Alexander Cockburn Behold, the Head of a Neo-Con! Subcomandante Marcos The Death Train of the WTO Norman Finkelstein Hitchens as Model Apostate Steve Niva Israel's Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings? Dardagan, Slobodo and Williams CounterPunch Exclusive: 20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians Steve J.B. Prison Bitch Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber True Lies: the Use of Propaganda in the Iraq War Wendell Berry Small Destructions Add Up CounterPunch Wire WMD: Who Said What When Cindy Corrie A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter I Can't Hear From Gore Vidal The Erosion of the American Dream Francis Boyle Impeach Bush: A Draft Resolution Click Here for More Stories.     Subscribe Online

July 6, 2005 Jeb Bush and Terri Schiavo: a Strange Affair Political Necrophilia in Florida By ELAINE CASSEL On March 31, Teresa "Terri" Schiavo died. But the controversy overher case, it turns out, may live on - not only in the media, but perhaps in court, as well. On June 15, Pinellas County Medical Examiner Jon Thogmartin released his long-awaited, thirty-nine-page autopsy report on Terri - a report that included extensive evidence from neuropathologists who had examined her brain and spinal cord The report's findings, in general, supported the position of Terri's husband, Michael - as opposed to that of her parents, who had suggested she had shown signs indicating significant brain activity in her last days. It is unsurprising, then, that within hours of the report's release, Terri's parents denounced it as inaccurate. (Florida Governor Jeb Bush, however, has not yet challenged the report, and may never do so.) In particular, the report showed that, as over a decade of court wrangling had already proved, Terri had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS). Indeed, the report also found that her brain had atrophied to half normal size, and that she was blind, the visual areas of her brain having been destroyed. Nevertheless, the autopsy left an opening for politics to once again insert itself into the case - prompting Gov. Bush to instruct the state's Attorney General to investigate Michael Schiavo. As I will explain, there is no good reason to investigate. Rather, this investigation is simply a continuation of the politics that have always surrounded the Schiavo case. Nationwide, as much as 70 percent of the American people believe that Congress had no business stepping in the Schiavo case in the first place. And now, Americans' message is clear: Let's close the book on this tragic situation, and go on to address all the other pressing issues we must confront. But, apparently blinded by ambition, Gov. Bush is not listening. A New Mystery: The Cause of Terri's 1990 Collapse Although it resolved the debate on Terri's condition, the autopsy report, unintentionally perhaps, reopened the debate on the reasons for Terri's collapse on February 25, 1990. That incident stopped her heart and deprived her brain of oxygen for a period of time sufficient to leave her in a vegetative state. It had been thought by many that Terri had had an eating disorder, bulimia, that had dangerously lowered her potassium levels. But Thogmartin found no evidence of bulimia - a disorder that can, for instance, leave traces on the esophagus. Moreover, like many investigators before him, Thogmartin did not find any evidence of any kind of trauma that could have caused Terri's collapse. So why did Terri collapse - if not as a result of bulimia or trauma? It's not clear. And, more to the point, why did her collapse transform her into a PVS patient? Possibly, that result may have been due to the treatment she received, or failed to receive, after her collapse. It was on this theory that Gov. Bush called on Florida's attorney general to investigate Michael Schiavo, on the speculation that he might have delayed in calling for emergency assistance the day of her collapse. It's true that Michael gave conflicting times, as much as 30 minutes apart, when asked when he called 911. But as he testified in prior court hearings, that's because he had to estimate. Understandably, he was not looking at his watch when his wife collapsed and he, presumably, frantically tried to get help for her. Recall the last emergency situation you were in - can you remember exactly when it began, when it ended, or how long it lasted? Doubtless, you remember the sequence of events, but could you reconstruct a timeline? Time can seem to distort in an emergency - with events happening much more slowly than they actually occurred. A quick car accident can seem to take forever, for instance; time can seem to virtually stop. The New Investigation of Michael Schiavo: An Abuse of Executive Power Michael Schiavo not only has provided a credible explanation for the different times he gave for his 911 call; he has also been found, repeatedly, by judges, to be telling the truth about issues surrounding Terri's death. Terri's parents had long accused Michael of causing Terri's initial collapse. Then, after the collapse, they have accused him of abusing and neglecting her in the years between her hospitalization and her death. These cruel charges are rebutted by the fact that Michael tried all kinds of therapy for Terri in the early years after her collapse, none of which helped her. Florida authorities under the control of, and presumably sympathetic to, Gov. Bush, repeatedly investigated Michael, and found no evidence to support any allegations against him. Governor Bush must be well-acquainted with these prior investigations and their results, as he repeatedly called for them and repeatedly cited them as proof of his concern for Terri. Why, he even called for one more investigation in the last days of Terri's life! Further, the reports and transcripts absolving Michael of any wrongdoing are repeatedly cited in the very autopsy report that the Governor says prompted him to call for yet another investigation. Governor Bush Should Confine His Campaigning to the Editorial Pages This call for a new investigation has nothing to do with the autopsy report. The real motive is ambition - Jeb Bush's political ambition. But that is no reason to continue to ruin the life of a private citizen whom no court has ever found to have done anything wrong - and who has said, all along, that he only fought to honor his wife's wishes. Ambition, though, is powerful - and Jeb Bush may aspire to the Presidency. Indeed, according to E. J. Dionne of the Washington Post, a source floated to Dionne the suggestion that Republicans are considering a John McCain-Jeb Bush ticket for the 2008 Presidential race. If so, that would set up a possible Jeb Bush run for the presidency - even one as early as 2012, if McCain, who'd then be in his mid-seventies, declined to run again. Ambitious as he is, Gov. Bush ought to keep his campaigning based on the exploitation of the Schiavo tragedy out of the courts. He is free to use the media to continue to cater to his political base, as he has already done. For instance, last week when the New York Times ran an editorial commenting on the autopsy report and the politics that embroiled both Bush brothers in a family matter, Gov. Bush responded with a fiery letter in his own defense, in which he promised to continue to defend the "rights" of every "vulnerable" citizen. Gov. Bush should rethink his call for yet one more investigation into Michael Schiavo. After over a decade of litigation, and both state and federal intervention, his efforts to make Terri's husband into a villain--and himself into a hero--have failed. His outright stubbornness on this issue demonstrates his continuous catering to the extreme elements in the Republican Party. To win higher office - even to gain a spot on that hypothetical McCain ticket - he will have to please moderates as well, and do so by taking on issues that are appropriate for politicians to tackle. End-of-life family issues are not among them. Elaine Cassel practices law in Virginia and the District of Columbia, teaches law and psychology, and follows the Bush regime's dismantling of the Constitution at Civil Liberties Watch. Her new book The War on Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Have Dismantled the Bill of Rights, is published by Lawrence Hill. She can be reached at: ecassel1@cox.net