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June
6, 2003
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
June
5, 2003
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Pools of Fire: The Looming Nuclear
Nightmare in the Woods of North Carolina
Imraan
Siddiqi
Ann Coulter's Foul Mouth
Michael
Leon
Clinton, Reno & Waco: Remember What They've Done
Robert
Jensen
Texas Pledge Law Undermines Democracy
Ann Harrison
Rosenthal is Free, But the Fight isn't Over
Paul
Dean
How You Can Be Deliriously Happy in the Age of Bush
Gary Leupp
When Spooks Speak Out
Website
of the Day
Evidence in Black and White?
June
4, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
Federal Judge Blinks; Rosenthal
Walks
Lisa
Walsh Thomas
The Isaiah Crowd: The Threat of Neo-Christianity
Jason
Leopold
Manufacturing the Iraq War
John Chuckman
Blackmail as Policy
Mazin
Qumsiyeh
Summit: Peace or Pretense?
Issam Nashashibi
Sharon's Sword of Damocles
Steve
Perry
Wolfowitz of Arabia: the VF interview transcript
June
3, 2003
Chris
Floyd
Copycat Killers: Bush, Jakarta and
the Slaughter in Aceh
Jason
Leopold
Wolfowitz Tells All
Elaine
Cassel
We Interrupt Your Normal Show to Bring You an Important Message
from Michael Powell: "Go to Hell, Americans!"
Tom
Crumpacker
The Politics of US Cuba Policy
William
S. Lind
Fourth Generation Warfare in Iraq
Sam
Hamod
The Final Brick in the Wall
Uri
Avnery
The Altalena Affair
Hammond
Guthrie
Stepping into Some Deep DARPA
Steve
Perry
The WashTimes'
al-Qaeda nuke "exclusive"
June
2, 2003
Arundhati
Roy
Day of the Jackals
Norman
Madarasz
Behind the Neo-Con Curtain: Plato,
Leo Strauss and Allan Bloom
Alain
Frachon and Daniel Vernet
The Strategist and the Philosopher: Strauss and Wohlstetter
Anthony
Gancarski
Anti-Imperialism, Then & Now
Standard
Schaefer
Wasted at the Pentagon
Jason
Leopold
Rocky's Advice to the Dems
Guthrie
& Albert
HUAC 58 Years Letter
Steve
Perry
The Politics of Terror Alerts
May
31, 2003
Alexander
Cockburn
A Whiner Called Horowitz
Gary Leupp
The Frauds of War
Dave
Lindorff
Clinton, Bush, Lies and Impeachment
Tom Stephens
Does It Matter that the Bush Administration Lied?
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Who Is Next?
Joanne
Mariner
Trivializing Terrorism
Wayne
Madsen
Ayatollah Ashcroft's Busy Week
Larry Magnuson
Is a Television a Radio or a Billboard?
Elaine
Cassel
Wake Up, America!
Gila Svirsky
Waiting for the Lament to End
Susan
Davis
Kitchen Dreams
Chris Clarke
Barbra Streisand: Environmental Hypocrite
Chris
Floyd
Bush Locates Source of World Evil: God
Adam Engel
Gravity's End Zone
Poets'
Basement
Reiss, Guthrie, Orloski, Albert
May
30, 2003
Ben
Tripp
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Agenda
Neve
Gordon
The Bad Fence
Todd
Steiner
Endangered Ocean
Robert
Freeman
Bush's Tax Cuts: a Form of National Insanity
Sean
Carter
Utah Gets Fired Up for Executions
Daniel
Bacher
How Bush's War Violated International Laws
Tariq
Ali
Re-Colonizing Iraq
Steve
Perry
Bush Wars
Web Log
May
29, 2003
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Jason
Leopold
Despite Thin Intelligence Reports,
US Plans Overthrow of Iran Regime
Ron
Jacobs
Popular Uprising, Inc.
Michelle
Ciaccorra
Bush's Nuclear Policy: Do As I Say, Not As I Do
Yves Engler
The Economics of Health Care in
America: Pay More to Die Sooner
Kimberly
Blaker
Vouchers for Jesus
Harry
Browne
Stakeknife: Britain's Army Spy at
the Top of the IRA
Stew
Albert
Cops of the World
Steve Perry
Greens 04: In or Out?
Hot Stories
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Elaine
Cassel
Civil Liberties
Watch
Michel
Guerrin
Embedded Photographer Says: "I
Saw Marines Kill Civilians"
Uzma
Aslam Khan
The Unbearably Grim Aftermath of War:
What America Says Does Not Go
Paul de Rooij
Arrogant
Propaganda
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
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June
7, 2003
CounterPunch Diary
The
Terrible Truth (Part MMCCXVILL): It's a Stacked Deck; That Rosenthal
Decision; Why Do Africans Get AIDS; Liberated NYTers Down Raines
Statue
By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
It's hard to chose which deserves the coarser
jeer: the excited baying in the press about the non discovery
of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, or the wailing in the
press about the 3-2 decision of the Federal Communications Commission
last week to allow corporate media giants to increase their domination
of the market.
Actually they're all part of the same
binding curve of nonsense, and if we meld the two, we're left
with the following ridiculous proposition, most keenly promoted
by Democrats eager to impart the impression that only greedy
Republicans are serfs of the corporate media titans, and that
the Telecommunications "Reform" Act of 1996 was actually
a well-intended effort to return the airwaves to Us The People.
The ridiculous proposition: Until the
FCC vote this week, We the people, surfing through the tv channels,
or across the AM/FM radio dial, were afforded diversity of choice,
the better to form those reasoned political judgments essential
in the functioning of this democratic republic.
The ridiculous proposition continued:
In the run-up to the US/UK attack on Iraq and before the latest
FCC ruling unleashed darkness upon the land, we were afforded
a multiplicity of analyses, not just from hole-in-the-wall operations
like Pacifica or satellite-based LINKS TV. Night after night
the bulk of the American people were able to enjoy well-informed
reporting, suggesting that the Bush administration's accusations
that Saddam Hussein had WMDs ready to use in as little as 45
minutes no factual foundation.
But now, after the FCC decision, these
voices will be stilled. We are entering the era of Big Brother.
You think I'm joking? Here's what one
of the two Democratic FCC commissioners, Michael J. Copps, said
before the vote, with his grand words now approvingly quoted
by liberal editorial writers and pundits: "Today the Federal
Communications Commission empowers America's new media elite
with unacceptable levels of influence over the ideas and information
upon which our society and our democracy so heavily depend. The
decision we five make today will recast our entire media landscape
for years to come. At issue is whether a few corporations will
be ceded enhanced gatekeeper control over the civil dialogue
of our country; more content control over our music, entertainment
and information; and veto power over the majority of what our
families watch, hear and read."
Now, didn't this happen, oh, forty, fifty,
maybe seventy years ago? Of course it did. The damage was done
long, long since, and all that happened on June 2 is that it
got slightly worse, but not to any degree instantly apparent
to the long suffering national audience. So, just as you suspected,
we were getting lousy info from the corporate press before the
FCC vote this week.
The press is now happily passing the
buck to the intelligence services, and quoting former analysts
from CIA and DIA wailing that objectivity collapsed in the face
of political pressure. We're shocked, shocked! Anyone remember
how the neo-cons forced an outside posse of experts, known as
Team B, into the CIA in the mid 1970s because Team A, the CIA
regulars were turning in reports saying that the Soviet Union
was not quite the fearsome power the neocons supposed it to be.
Anyone remember all those accusations, by the late Sam Addams
and others, that the CIA fudged the numbers in the Vietnam war
because of political pressure from the White House.
Intelligence services, or at least their
chiefs, invariably succumb in the face of political bullying.
But it didn't matter that the CIA and DIA were cowed by the wild
men in Rumsfeld's DoD, who said Iraq was still bristling with
WMDs. Any enterprising news editor could have found (and some
did) plenty of solid evidence to support the claim that Saddam
had destroyed his WMDs; that he had no alliance with Al Qaeda.
In the run-up to the attack on Iraq,
the worst journalistic outrages came in two publications at the
supposed pinnacle of the profession: the New York Times, which
recycled the Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi's agenda through its reporter,
Judith Miller; and the New Yorker, which printed Jeffrey Goldberg's
nonsense about the Saddam-Al Qaeda "connection". That
was no consequence of media concentration, or the perversion
of intelligence analysis by political priorities.
Simply on the grounds of common sense
about the prejudices of her source, Howell Raines, the now ousted
executive editor of the New York Times could have told Miller
to qualify her reports. David Remnick, the editor of the New
Yorker, could have as easily punched holes in Goldberg's story.
Instead, they delightedly hyped shoddy journalism that played
a far greater role in the White House's propaganda blitz than
the performance of the cowed CIA and DIA.
It's easy to be right after the event.
It takes fiber to stand out against the war party when it was
in full cry. The bulk of the mainstream press failed dismally
in its watchdog role, and a little more forthrightness about
this failure would be welcome indeed. But can we expect the hounds
of war, like Tim Russert, to apologize? Of course not. Some senator
will probably, sometime soon, grill the CIA's George Tenet and
the other intelligence chiefs who failed in the our of need,",
but Russert, or Miller, or Raines, or Remnick or Punch Sulzberger?
Never.
Ed Rosenthal:
Further Thoughts on That One Day Sentence
As noted here a couple of days ago, Ed
Rosenthal got one day in prison and a $1000 fine from federal
judge Charles Breyer for supplying medical marijuana under the
aegis of the city of Oakland. Of course we're delighted Ed didn't
get the prison time the prosecutor was calling for; also that
Breyer had to acknowledge the public outcry and the fury of the
jury he misled.
But there is a downside, and it's set
forth well by Clay Conrad, chairman of the Fully Informed Jury
Association. Here are some notes Conrad sent us last week:
This result is good for Ed - it is great
for Ed. It is in itself a major news event.
However, we've got to deal with the fact
that FOR THE ISSUE, it sucks. A huge injustice is the best headline
grabber for motivating future juries to nullify.
Here are a few of the problems I see
with this:
1. The next jury says: hey, it's not
like these folks will do any serious jail time.
2. The focus of the media is no longer
on the Rosenthal jury. Breyer
stole their thunder.
3. Some activists preparing to work
on future cases figure it's a waste of energy because it's not
like a MAJOR injustice is being done.
4. Some of the Rosenthal jurors may
"abandon ship," figuring Ed's liberty was not interrupted,
so they have achieved their major purpose and can go back to
their non-activist lives.
A few of the things I think we need to
focus on:
1. Ed's sentence is in the news because
it is such a surprise. If he got a predictable 5 years, nobody
would have raised an eyebrow at the sentence itself. Just as
this judge departed downwards, the next may depart upwards. One
reason why juries need to nullify in these cases is because they
CANNOT know what sentence the judge may impose - a day, or a
lifetime.
2. Breyer only gave a one-day sentence
because the JURY put the pressure on him. Again, this underlines
the power and importance of independent juries. Breyer was ashamed
and chastised by the jurors, who can take the real credit for
the one-day sentence. Had the jury not gone public, Breyer very
likely would have given the far longer sentence the Gov't was
asking for.
3. The activists need to know that this
sentence means they are winning, at least some battles, and there
is no excuse for not redoubling our efforts.
4. The Rosenthal jurors should know
that this isn't a sprint - it's a marathon. The government took
some lumps this time on sentencing, but they might well get a
life sentence in the next round. The injustice isn't what was
done to Rosenthal - it's what is being done to defendants all
across California.
5. We must also remember that the government
may well appeal Rosenthal's sentence, arguing that the judge
abused his discretion on the grounds for, or the extent of, the
downward departure. The government often WINS these types of
appeals. And, reversals on appeals rarely make headlines. Ed
could end up doing 78 months after all - and nobody in the public
will even be aware of it.
Clay S. Conrad
Why Do Africans Get
AIDS?
Initially we were much taken with an
interesting piece in the latest issue of Discover, Vol. 24 No.
6, dated June, 2003, containing an article, "Why Do So Many
Africans Get AIDS?" by Josie Glausiusz. (Note particularly
the Malthusian interest in population control in the minds of
some researchers.)
"Every major campaign against AIDS
in Africa has been based on the premise that heterosexual sex
accounts for 90 percent of transmission in adults. Yet safe-sex
efforts have not stopped the spread of the epidemic, which now
affects 30 million people. Economic anthropologist David Gisselquist
therefore suspected that HIV might be spreading primarily by
another route.
"After analyzing 20 years of epidemiological
studies, he and his colleagues concluded that unsafe injections,
blood transfusions, and other medical procedures may account
for most AIDS transmission in African adults. Their analysis
indicates that no more than 35 percent of HIV in that population
is spread through sex.
"Gisselquist's interest in AIDS
was stimulated by the guidance he received while traveling through
Africa as a World Bank consultant. 'They give you a syringe and
say, "Carry this with you, and avoid all the health care
that you can." We've been paying for third-world health
care while advising ourselves to avoid it,' he says.
"When he examined hundreds of papers
on AIDS in Africa, he found evidence to back up those concerns.
A study in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, for instance,
found that 39 percent of HIV-positive, vaccinated infants had
uninfected mothers. In contrast, Gisselquist could not uncover
any clear data proving that sexual intercourse dominates the
spread of African AIDS. In Zimbabwe, HIV incidence rose by 12
percent per year during the 1990s, even as sexually transmitted
diseases sank by 25 percent overall and condom use rose among
high-risk groups.
"Gisselquist recently reported his
findings in four papers published in the International Journal
of STD & AIDS. Medical researchers may have overemphasized
sexual transmission of African AIDS in part because condom-use
campaigns dovetail with their concerns about overpopulation,
Gisselquist says. They also fear that people in Africa will lose
faith in modern health care. Gisselquist urges new efforts to
halt the spread of AIDS: "Aid programs need to push infection
control in health care. And we need to give the public the advice
and the tools for protecting themselves in medical situations,"
such as new syringes and single-dose vials."
We liked Gisselquist's noting of Malthusian
concerns about overpopulation but then talked to our friend Cindra
Feuer who worked on the AIDS oriented New York magazine POZ and
has also spent considerable time in Africa. Feuer points out
that the argument of noxious health care doesn't look so good
if one recalls that most poor Africans don't have access to health
care.
The core problem is that safer sex advisories
and programs fare badly in poor regions in large part because
people don't have the safe sex option.
* A woman can't negotiate a condom with
her husband. Being married confers one of the highest risks of
getting HIV in Africa.
*A sex worker gets more money from her
trick if she doesn't use a condom.
* No condoms are available.
* They can't afford a condom.
Safer sex tactics don't work when people
are poor, and indeed safer sex interventions are failing in industrialized
nations.
Treatment, a strategy that had to overcome
furious opposition from the keep-your-legs-together crowd), is
the best course. If you have treatment, people will then get
AIDS drugs; they'll get tested; if they get tested they're not
as likely to have unprotected sex with their partners; if they
test positive, they're not as likely to go have unprotected sex.
If they test negative they have more incentive to stay that way.
So treatment helps to boost prevention.
If you don't have treatment, there's no incentive to get tested
and rates will remain high.
Raines Statue Downed
E-Bay is already being flooded with the
"Raines pack", cards of ousted NYT editor Howell Raines
and his inner circle, believed to have been issued by Times dissidents.
The downing of Raines' statue in midtown Manhattan was a jovial
affair, though wide-angle photos show that what seemed on the
networks to be large throngs were in fact relatively sparse,
maybe 200 in all. According to one participant, the statue toppled
swiftly, lacking an adequate base. Interim administrator Joe
Lelyveld is promising "a new era", though relief workers
warn that supplies of credibility are "near zero".
Today's
Features
David
Krieger
The Big Lie
Ramzy
Baroud
Sharon and the Myth of the Peacemakers
Anthony
Gancarski
Sharansky: "Crucifixion is a Privilege"
Sam
Hamod
His Own Little Country
Sean Carter
Why Indict Martha Stewart and Not Ken Lay?
David
Lindorff
Cracks in the Consensus
Stew Albert
Ari's Great Set
Elaine
Cassel
Ashcroft the Insatiable
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