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New Edition of CounterPunch Kerry in Vietnam Part One: War Hero or War Criminal? by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair; Why France Joined the US in the Coup in Haiti and the Despicable Role of Regis Debray, Le Running Dog Onctueux by Heather Williams; Ashcroft in Indonesia: Bloodshed and Terror with US Connivance by Ben Terrall. Last month, CounterPunch Online was read by 12.5 million viewers--by far our biggest month ever. 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 (tax deductible) donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! Or Call Toll Free 1-800-840 3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558 Stew Albert in Berkeley

CounterPunch's Scorching New Book on a Decade of War Order Now / Available in April   Today's Stories April 1, 2004 Ron Jacobs Dying in Vain in Iraq Laura Flanders Elaine Chao: a First Daughter for the First Son March 31, 2004 M. Junaid Alam Israel: Suicide Nation? John L. Hess Condi Under Oath: But What About the NYTs Reporters? Fernando Suarez del Solar A Year Since My Son's Death in Iraq Sofia Perez Spain's U-Turn on Iraq is Real Democracy in Action David Vest Stick 'Em Up: Put Cheney and Bush Under Oath Tanya Reinhart As in Tiannamen Square: Justice and the Yassin Assassination Mike Whitney Time to Dump the Pledge Donald Kaul Martha Stewart's Lesson: Never Talk to the FBI Milt Bearden Mired in the Tracks of Alexander the Great Marjorie Cohn The Illegal Coup in Haiti: How the Kidnapping of Aristide Violated US and International Law Website of the Day New Pentagon Papers Dropped at DC Starbucks   March 30, 2004 William S. Lind An Occurrence in Pakistan: the Battle That Wasn't Ron Jacobs Assassinations, Hate Mail & Justice Mickey Z. Tommy Boy Friedman Does "Imagine" Neve Gordon Strategic Motives of the Yassin Assassination Mark Scaramella The Founding Scam: Insider Trading is the American Way John Chuckman The Countessa of Empire: Condi Rice's Idea of Democracy Greg Moses Live from Pasadena: Silhouettes of New Order Rai O'Brien What Kind of Democracy to Expect if the Opposition Takes Power in Venezuela Bill Christison The 9/11 Commission: Dangerous Harbinger for the Future Website of the Day Ghost Town: Riding Through Chernobyl March 29, 2004 John Maxwell Crisis in the Caribbean: a Miasma Foretold J. Michael Springmann Email Spying & Attorney Client Privilege Robert Fisk / Severin Carrell Coalition of the Mercenaries The Black Commentator Haiti's Troika of Terror Doug Giebel Candide in the Wilderness: How Bush Policy Was Made David Krieger The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Bargain Mike Whitney Rejecting the Language of Terrorism Richard Oxman The Pitts: a 9/11 Burrow of an American Family Kim Scipes The AFL-CIO in Venezuela: Deja Vu All Over Again Michael Donnelly End Game for Northwest Forests Norman Solomon The Media Politics of 9/11 Kathy Kelly Last Lines Before Vanishing Website of the Day Swans: Can Money Buy Everything?   March 27 / 28, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Empire of the Locusts Gary Leupp The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria William A. Cook The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the US Faheem Hussain Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army Elaine Cassel Is Playing Paintball Terrorism? Larry Birns / Jessica Leight Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America John Ross Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead" John Eskow A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus Alan Maass Who Are the Real Terrorists? Dave Lindorff Spineless of US Journalists Joe Bageant Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy Dave Zirin Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids Craig Waggoner Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke? The Kerry Quandry Joel Wendland Marxists for Kerry Josh Frank Scary, Scary John Kerry Matt Vidal Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert Website of the Weekend Say a Little Prayer   March 26, 2004 Christopher Brauchli There's a Chill Over the Country Robert Fisk The Man Who Knew Too Much: the Ordeal of Mordechai Vanunu Joe DeRaymond Democracy in El Salvador? Think Again Mike Whitney Lessons on Apartheid from Ariel Sharon Mickey Z. Somalia and Iraq: Looking Back and Ahead Chris Floyd The Pentagon Archipelago CounterPunch Photo Wire Cheney's Close Shave? John Breneman Bush's Comic Bomb Website of the Day Dick is a Killer   March 25, 2004 Lee Sustar Who is to Blame for Lost Jobs? Standard Schaefer An Interview with Michael Hudson on Offshore Banking Centers Roger Burbach Lula vs. the IMF: Brazil Begins to Throw Off the Austerity Planners Jimmer Endres Elections Without Politics: The Military Budget Is Not an "Issue" Larry Tuttle Acting in Your Name: Identity Theft and Public Interest Groups Toni Solo Misreporting Venezuela Dan Bacher A Memorial Wall for Iraq War's Dead and Wounded Saul Landau Is Venezuela Next? Website of the Day The Spiral Railway   March 24, 2004 Gary Leupp General Musharraf's IOU Richard Oxman Shakespeare for Kerry William Lind The Beginning of Phase Three: 4G Warfare Hits Iraq Rep. Ron Paul Iraq One Year Later Michael Dempsey Killing Rachel Corrie Again Alan Farago The Bad Math of Mercury: Bush's War on the Unborn Benjamin Dangl and April Howard Media in Cuba John L. Hess No Lie Left Behind: Judy Miller Does Dick Clarke Greg Weiher Two Cheers for Dems: "We're Not as Bad as George" Eva Golinger An Open Letter to John Kerry on Venezuela Grayson Childs Where's Cynthia McKinney? Steve Niva Israel's Assassinations will Only Fuel More Suicide Bombings Website of the Day The Bushiad and the Idiossey   March 23, 2004 Phillip Cryan The Drug War's Next Casualty: Colombia's National Parks Ron Jacobs They Shoot Men in Wheelchairs, Too? Dave Lindorff A Spanish Parallel: Scare Tactics and Elections Mike Whitney Richard Clarke and Teflon George Brian McKinlay Bush's Lil' Buddy in Trouble: John Howard Starts to Wobble JG Driving Mr. Koon: "Jim Crow Lives Next Door" Phyllis Pollack Gettin' Jigga with Metallica: the Battle Over the Double Black CD Ahmed Bouzid Sharon's One-Way Track Sean Carter The G-Word Goes to Court: One Nation Under [Your Logo Here] M. Shahid Alam World's Greatest Country: Do the Facts Lie   March 22, 2004 Mazin Qumsiyeh On Extrajudicial Executions Uri Avnery The Assassination of Sheikh Yassin is Worse Than a Crime Gilad Atzmon Sharon's Rampage Mike Whitney Guilty Until Proven Innocent: the Story of Captain James Yee Jason Leopold Firm With Ties to Cheney Faces Criminal Indictment in Cal Energy Scam Greg Moses Stop Walling and Stalling: a Report from Houston's Peace March Phil Gasper San Francisco: 25,000 March for an End to the Occupation Lenni Brenner Report from NYC: Old and Young Parade for Peace Julian Borger The Clarke Revelations Steve Perry Karl Rove's Moment Website of the Day Enviros Against War     March 20 / 21, 2004 Alexander Cockburn Gay Marriage: Sidestep on Freedom's Path Jeffrey St. Clair Intolerable Opinions in an Age of Shock and Awe: What Would Lilburne Do? Ted Honderich Tony Blair's Moral Responsibility for Atrocities Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen The Plot Against Syria: an Irresponsibility Act Gary Leupp On Viewing "The Passion of the Christ" William A. Cook Fence, Barrier, Wall Phil Gasper Bush v. Bush-lite: Chomsky's Lesser Evilism Ron Jacobs Fox News and the Masters of War John Stanton Which Way John Kerry? The Senator's Inner Nixon Justin Felux Kerry and Black America: Just Another Stupid White Man Mike Whitney Greenspan's Treason: Swindling Posterity Augustin Velloso Avoiding Osama's Abyss Lawrence Magnuson Eyes Wide Open: Is Spain Caving in to Terrorism? Kathy Kelly Getting Together to Defeat Terrorism Tracy McLellan Scalia & Cheney: Happiness is a Warm Gun Kurt Nimmo Emma Goldman for President! Luis J. Rodriguez The Redemptive Power of Art: It's Not a Frill Mickey Z The Michael Moore Diet Jackie Corr When Harry Truman Stopped in Butte Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Great Trial of 1922: Gandhi's Vision of Responsibility Poets' Basement Stew Albert & JD Curtis Website of the Weekend Virtual World Election   March 19, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Zapatero to Kerry: Back Off, Senator, Our Troops are Coming Home Ann Harrison So Protesters, How Well Do You Know Your Rights? William MacDougall Fortress Britain's War on "Economic Migrants" Greg Moses Sold American: Cowboy Nation Gets Ready to Vote Cynthia McKinney Haiti and the Impotence of Black America: Roll Back This Coup, Mr. Bush Norman Solomon Spinning the Past; Threatening the Future John L. Hess "Missing" Evidence and the NYTs Vicente Navarro The End of Aznar, Bush's Best Friend Website of the War Naming the Dead   March 18, 2004 Gila Svirsky Rachel Corrie, One Year Later: She Never Lost Faith in Decency Christopher Brauchli Drilling a Hole in the Sanctions: How Halliburton Made $73 Million from Saddam William Kulin Report from Iraq: Just Another Baghdad Car Bombing Mike Whitney Resistance: a Moral Imperative Rep. Ron Paul Broadcast Indecency Act: an Indecent Attack on the First Amendment Josh Frank The Nader Question Jack Random They Lied & They Lost: Madrid and the Lessons of Democracy Greg Bates What Makes a Nader Voter Tick? A Survey Sam Hamod / Alfredo Reyes Contempt of the World: Hastert, Bush and Cheney on Spain Gary Leupp The Madrid Bombings: the Chickens Come Home to Roost Website of the Day Privatizing Armageddon: Buy Your Own Doomsday Key   March 17, 2004 Marjorie Cohn Spain, the EU and the US: War on Terror or Civil Liberties? David MacMichael Untruth and Consequences Michael Donnelly Wear the Green, But Skip the Green Beer Tom Stephens "Steady Leadership": Let the Buyer Beware Wayne Madsen Sen. Kerry, Let Me Help You Out Karyn Strickler Who Owns the Sierra Club? Anonymous Donors and Rigged Elections Peter Linebaugh Bush: Blanc Blanc   March 16, 2004 Lenni Brenner James Madison: the Anti-Clerical Father of the Bill of Rights Scott Boehm Madrid Diary: How to Change World Order in Four Days Alexander Lynch From Franco to Aznar: the History Behind the Spanish Elections Sam Hamod and Alfredo Reyes The Truth About the Spanish Elections: Aznar Was Going Down Anyway Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg You Wouldn't Do a Dog This Way: Executing David Clayton Hill Mike Whitney The Case for a Nuclear Iran Robert Fisk The Bloody Price of the "War on Terror" Bill Christison The Aftershocks from Madrid CounterPunch Photo Wire The Passion of St. Teresa Website of the Day Join the War on Art!   March 15, 2004 Harry Browne Terror Nothing New to Europe Mike Whitney Justice Not Murder: the Tragic Symmetry of Terrorism Lidice Valenzuela Haiti: a Coup without Consultation Greg Moses Lessons from the Texas Primaries: Looking for a Coalition with Legs Mickey Z. Depraved Indifference: C-Sections, Patriarchy & Women's Health Asaf Shtull-Trauring AWOL in New York: From Refusenik to Organizer CounterPunch Wire Gen. Gramajo Executed by Bees!   March 12 / 14, 2004 Gabriel Kolko The Coming Elections and the Future of American Global Power Saul Landau Oh, Jesus...It's the Movie! William Blum Neo-Con(tradictions) William S. Lind Why They Throw Rocks Rahul Mahajan The Meaning of Madrid: War on "Terrorism" Makes Us All Less Safe Neve Gordon Demographic Wars Kurt Nimmo Kerry and the Progressive Interventionists Mickey Z. The "New" UN Blames the Poor Mike Whitney War Games: the American Media Leads the Charge Helen Scott and Ashley Smith Aristide's Fall: What Led to the Coup? Justin E.H. Smith Loïc Wacquant: Against a Sociodicy of the American Prison Brandy Baker Him Again? Al Gore Needs to Move On Robin Philpot Nobody Can Call It a "Plane Crash" Now: the Report on the Assassination of Rwandan President Habyarimana Mokhiber / Weissman The Meat Monopoly Takes a Rare Pounding Dave Zirin She Turned Her Back on the War: an Interview with Toni Smith Daniel Wolff The Lord's Pier   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 Search CounterPunch

April 1, 2004 Towel Boy Bush Hits Workers with Chemical Weapons By CHRIS FLOYD A warning to readers: this column is obscene. It relates details of an act so depraved that young children should not be exposed to it; even adults will be debased by the contact. The characters described herein exhibit all the human enlightenment and moral engagement of monkeys idly scratching their groins on a hot day at the zoo. Last November, in one of the innumerable, unnoticed little corruptions that belch forth daily, even hourly, from the geyser of graft that is the Bush Administration, the man who calls himself the president decided that some of the lowliest laborers in America should be left to sicken or die from forced exposure to filthy rags dripping with toxic waste. Why? Because their bosses paid him money. That's the only reason. They gave George W. Bush a fat roll of cash, so he gave them protection from laws designed to safeguard workers in industrial laundries who handle "shop towels," heavy-duty cleaning rags used to mop up poison chemicals, David Donnelly reported last week in Campaign Money Watch. Just how crude and blatant was this corporate copulation? As Donnelly notes, in September 2003, Richard Farmer, bossman of the nation's biggest industrial launderer, pitched one of the bribe-orgies known as "campaign fundraisers" for his longtime pal, the Toxic Texan. In a single night, he forked over $1.7 million to Bush. A few weeks later, Bush's minions at the ever-more ironically named Environmental Protection Agency introduced a new rule that would exempt Farmer's industry "from federal hazardous and solid waste requirements for shop towels contaminated with toxic chemicals." How much quid was this pro quo worth? The EPA says industrial launderers will save more than $30 million a year by ditching safety procedures for their wage slaves, most of them low-paid immigrants. Not a bad return on a $1.7 million investment. But hey, that's our George for you: he gives great quid. And Farmer's certainly no slouch when it comes to putting out quo. He and his company, Cintas, have given more than $2 million to the Bushist Party since it seized power in the court-ordered coup of December 2000. In fact, Farmer is one of Bush's little "Rangers," a rank reserved for tycoons who network their connections - and browbeat their employees - into shooting a total wad of at least $200,000 into Bush's wide-open coffers. But is the EPA decision really so awful? Will anyone die from it? Probably not; not immediately, anyway. Oh sure, patches of their skin will fall off, their sinuses will rot, their lungs will deteriorate, they'll be crippled, pain-wracked - and saddled by crushing debt from a rapacious medical system whose measly public benefits were gutted late last year by yet another quid job between Bush and his corporate johns: more than $46 billion siphoned from the public purse to private health plans, as the New York Times reports. Of course, the laundry workers will also see their cells fill up with a sediment of cancer-causing toxins - but most of these time-bombs of malignancy won't explode until after Ranger Robert and his fellow Bush barons have squeezed all possible profit from the infected peons' labor. And that profit is huge. Farmer, already one of the nation's richest men, saw his Cintas sweatshop pull down almost $250 million in pure gravy last year alone. Cintas controls a third of the market, so, overall, the towelmongers take home about $750 million in profit annually. You can see how all this safety malarkey - which they've been operating under for years - is really cutting into their bottom line. Thank god they've finally bought a president who feels their pain! It's true that a few malcontents, such as Congresswoman Rosa DeLauro, have noted that Bush's porn-star turn for the shop-towel bosses will also harm another group: the general public. The new EPA rule will allow the bosses to process 100,000 tons of toxic solvents - which will then find their way into the rivers, streams and groundwater of the surrounding communities. Not to worry, though: Farmer's sweatshop empire has a sterling record of environmental husbandry and concern for community health. For example, one of his Connecticut plants has been cited a mere 250 times for violations that can cause "death or serious physical harm," including "excessive emissions of cancer-causing solvents" and "serious lapses in worker training, hazardous material handling and protective equipment." But any real people affected by the Ranger's runoff - nice white people with office jobs, suburban homes and "Bush-Cheney '04" stickers on their Jeep Cherokees - can probably afford a good private health plan, right? As for the laundry workers, who cares? If God wanted to protect them from unregulated poisons and brutal exploitation, then why didn't He arrange to have them born into wealthy families grown fat from generations of war profiteering and crony stroking like the divinely appointed Leader, hmm? You going to argue with God? No - but you can still argue with Bush. His Ranger-romping rule is not yet final; the EPA "comment phase" is open until April 9. Why not go to <www.epa.gov> and tell them what you think? (They don't make it easy, but follow the "Laws, Regulations and Dockets" link through "EPA Dockets," then "View Open Dockets," then "Docket ID RCRA-2003-0004.") Will it do any good? Of course not! A man so depraved that he'd kill 10,000 innocent people in a loot-gobbling war crime - and joke about it, as Bush did recently at a public tryst with media bigwigs - won't blush at a pipsqueak scam like the shop-towel caper. But at least you can tell him to stop scratching his graft-infested groin so blatantly. Children might be watching. Chris Floyd is a columnist for the Moscow Times and a regular contributor to CounterPunch. His CounterPunch piece on Rumsfeld's plan to provoke terrorist attacks came in at Number 4 on Project Censored's final tally of the Most Censored stories of 2002. He can be reached at: cfloyd72@hotmail.com   Weekend Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004 Jeffrey St. Clair Empire of the Locusts Gary Leupp The Yassin Assassination: Prelude to an Attack on Syria William A. Cook The Yassin Assassination: a Monstrous Insanity Blessed by the US Faheem Hussain Some Thoughts on Waziristan: Once and Always a Colonial Army Elaine Cassel Is Playing Paintball Terrorism? Larry Birns / Jessica Leight Disturbing Signals: Kerry and Latin America John Ross Bush Tells the World: "Drop Dead" John Eskow A Memo to Karl Rove from the Hollywood Caucus Alan Maass Who Are the Real Terrorists? Joe Bageant Howling in the Belly of the Confederacy Dave Zirin Reasonable Doubt: Why Barry Bonds is Not on Steroids Craig Waggoner Who Would Mel's Jesus Nuke? The Kerry Quandry Joel Wendland Marxists for Kerry Josh Frank Scary, Scary John Kerry Matt Vidal Spoilers, Electability and the Poverty of American Democracy Poets' Basement LaMorticella, Hamod, Guthrie, Davies and Albert Website of the Weekend Say a Little Prayer Keep CounterPunch Alive: Make a Tax-Deductible Donation Today Online! home / subscribe / about us / books / archives / search / links /