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Today's
Stories
March 24, 2005
Andrew Wimmer
and Mark Chmiel
Torture:
Old Hat or Open Wound?
March 23, 2005
Patrick Bond
A
New War? On Wolfowitz's World Bank
Mike Whitney
Railroading
Moussaoui
Becky White
Why
I Hung from a Bridge to Defend the Wild Forests of the Siskiyou
Mountains
Michael Donnelly
Dissecting the Changeling: How the AuCoin Express Was Really
Derailed
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Remembering
Ram Manohar Lohia: the Che of Non-Violence
Ashley Smith
Bush is What Hypocrisy Looks Like
David Swanson
The More Bush Talks, the Less Popular Privatization Becomes
Derrick O'Keefe
Enter Bono, Stage Right
Paul A. Moore
The Fire This Time: the Bush Bros. Racist Crackdown in Florida
Dalton Walker
My Reservation Will Never Be the Same
Patrick Cockburn
The
US Frees Iraqi Kidnappers to Become Spies
March 22, 2005
William Blum
Anti-Empire
Report: Democracy--or is it the US Military--on the March
Jim Vallette
Cheney's Oil Change at the World Bank
Greg Moses
A Palm Sunday Chat with Sis Levin
John Farley
Bush's Culture of Life: Let the
Insurance Companies Pull the Plug When the Sick Cost Too Much
Ron Jacobs
Halt
the Anniversary Rallies and Stop the Damn War
M. Junaid Alam
How the Democratic Party Fosters Conservatism
Rep. Cynthia
McKinney
An
Immoral and Illegal War: Destroying Iraq Isn't Enough for Them
Dave Lindorff
"Saving" Schiavo; Killing the News
James Petras
Fateful
Quadrangle: Cuba and Venezuela Face Off Against the US and Colombia
March 21, 2005
John Walsh
In
the Bars on the Road to Fayettevile: War Support Paper Thin
Werther
The
Legacy of George Kennan, Chief Architect of the Cold War
Mike Stark
Where is the "Culture of Life" in Maryland? Time is
Running Out for Vernon Evans
David Swanson
Feeding
Tubes for the Third World: Put the Hungry into Comas, Then Feed
Them!
James T. Phillips
Happy Meals: Behind the Grill at a Baltimore Diner
Mike Ferner
Serving,
Refusing, Impeaching
Robert Jensen
The World Waits for an Answer
Paul Craig
Roberts
A
Threat Greater Than Terrorism
Stew Albert
Vegetable Nation
Website of
the Day
American Press Blotter: Jacko, Terry and Steroids vs. the World
March 19, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Three-Card
Monte and the One-Party State
Tom Reeves
Exposing the Coming Draft: a Draft by Any Other Name is Still
Wrong
Saul Landau
The Grandchildren of Roy Cohn: the Politics of the Repressed
Alan Maass
Making Bankruptcy a Life Sentence
Ron Jacobs
Submit or Else: the Nuclear Demon that Won't Go Awayy
David Green
The Holocaust Industry Comes to the University of Illinois
John Blair
Hey, Dick! I'm Still Free: a Blow for Freedom of Speech in Indiana
Steve Greenfield
The Decline of the Green Party: the Numbers are In
Ben Tripp
Nature isn't Real
Mike Roselle
A History of White People in the Conservation Movement
Joshua Frank
Hope in Red State America: Lessons from the Big Sky Country
Mark Weisbrot
The World Bank: a Bigger Problem Than Wolfowitz
Dave Lindorff
Congress on Steroids
Sarah Schaffer
Lula's Nukes: Bush Bullies Iran, Ignores Brazil's Nuclear Ambitions
Warren Hastings
Why the Queen Should Chop Off Tony Blair's Head for Treason
Poets' Basement
Lodge, Albert. Landau, Engel, Davies, Capaccio
March 18, 2005
Dave Zirin
The
Congressional Urine Testers: Baseball's Theater of the Absurd
Richard Thieme
The
Church Committee Candidate: I was a Victim of the KGB
John Walsh
Misdirecting the Anti-War Movement
David Swanson
Hunger
Striking for a Living Wage at Georgetown
Ben Terrall
In
the Spirit of Rachel Corrie: Confronting Caterpillar in San Leandro
David Boyle
Just Say "No" to Harvard
Dorreen Yellow Bird
Coping with Teen Suicide on the Standing Rock Reservation
Mokhiber /
Weissman
Global Bully Goes to Guatemala
Greg Moses
They
Don't Shoot Donkeys...Do They?
Website of
the Day
800
Protests: Find One Near You
March 17, 2005
Christopher
Brauchli
Rendered
Unto Caesar: the Etymology of Torture
Bill Quigley
The St. Patrick's Four and the Resistance to the War in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Bush's
Herds: Willing to Kick Anyone in the Face
Gary Bass / Adam Hughes
Inside the Bush Budget: Rhetoric vs. Reality
Dave Lindorff
The Incredible Shrinking Coalition
Jude Wanniski
Wolfowitz at the World Bank: a Perfect Fit
Alexander Billet
Irish Republicanism at the Crossroads
John Ross
Wal-Mart
Invades Mexico
Website of the Day
Campus Resistance
March 16, 2005
Ralph Nader
Filling
the Congressional Cop-Out Gap: an Idea for Local Peace Activists
William Cook
Resurrecting the Neo-Con Failures
Kevin Zeese
Two
Years of Occupation: Both US and Iraq are Worse Off
Jackie Corr
Why is Dick Cheney Laughing? The New Tax Cut Patriotism
Alan Maass
Bush's Class War Budget
David R. Kolker
Jailed Without Charges in Haiti
Cindy Ellen
Hill
Speculative Policing in Northern Ireland
Paul Craig
Roberts
America's
Has-Been Economy
March 15, 2005
Gary Leupp
The
Plan is Still on Track
Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh!
Greg Moses
The Fix-It Guys and Their Electoral Filters
Hadas Their
/ Katrina Yeaw
Military
Recruiters Target Campus Activists
Alison Weir
Uprising
on the Anniversary of Rachel Corrie's Death
Matt Koehler
A
Line in the Ancient Forest: 50 Arrested in Blockade to Save the
Siskiyous
Evelyn Pringle
Labeling Kids Mentally Ill for Profit
Harry Browne
War
and Peace in Ireland
March 14, 2005
Ralph Nader
Restarting
the Anti-War Movement
David Miller
Ministry
of Defence in the Control Booth: Did the BBC Broadcast Fake News
Reports?
Stan Cox
Look
Deeper, Mr. Moyers
Mike Roselle
Why Women Should Take Over the Environmental Movement
David Swanson
Nursing Against the Odds: the Workers' View
Simona Sharoni
To End the War, Listen to Soldiers
Dave Lindorff
Corporate Surveillance
Dorreen Yellow Bird
Incidents at Standing Rock: Suicide on the Reservation
Tom Barry
John
Bolton's Baggage
Website of the Day
Spinwatch
March 12 /
13, 2005
David H. Price
The
CIA's Campus Spies
Noam Chomsky
The Toothpaste Election
Laura Carlsen
Women's Rights Eroding in Latin America
Stan Goff
On Revolutionary Optimism: the View from Cumberland Co, NC
Valentina Nicoli
The Game of Role-Playing and the Ambush of Giuliana Sgrena
Michael Leonardi
Head Shot: Lifting the Veil on the Sgrena / Calipari Incident
Saul Landau
/ Sarah Anderson
Blood Money and the Riggs Bank: Pinochet's Bank Finally Pays
Up
Joe Bageant
It Ain't Easy Being White
Manuel García,
Jr.
The Question of American Guilt
Greg Moses
Electoral Lessons from Cuyahoga and Harris Counties
James J. Brittain
Run, Fight or Die in Colombia
Ben Tripp
Communist Watch
Joshua Frank
A Red State Paradox: Montana on the Cusp
Fred Gardner
Pesticides Made Her Sick; Pot Got Her Well
Walter Brasch
Bush's Horse Killers
Ramzy Baroud
Reining in Syria on Behalf of Israel
Christopher
Brauchli
Going All the Way for Usurers
Michael Donnelly
The Humiliation of Les "Timber Toad" AuCoin
Ron Jacobs
ZAP Comics: Still Kicking US Culture in the Ass
Richard Oxman
The Eternal Reciprocity of Tears
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Ford, Louise and Albert
March 11, 2005
Jerry Fresia
Targeting
Giuliana
Ron Jacobs
Making Lebensraum in the Middle East for Tel Aviv's Fears &
Washington's Dollars
Dave Lindorff
America's Magical Kingdom
William James
Martin
Ben Gurion and the Origin of the "Pushing into the Sea"
Myth
Muqtedar Khan
Modi's Operandi: American Business and Genocide Linked Again
Kathryn Ledebur
Bolivia
on the Brink
Mike Whitney
Saddam's Capture: Just Another Bush Lie?
Dave Zirin
Neo-McCarthyism
Slugs Baseball
Website of the Day
William Rivers Pitt, Another Hack for the Occupation
March 10, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
So
Much for the New Bush Economy
John Marc Leas, Colleen McLaughlin
and Ashley Smith
Vermont Vs. the War
Larry Birns
The Pathological John Bolton
Michael Donnelly
The Re-Reinvention of an Oregon Timber Beast
Luis Gomez
In Bolivia, Reality Changes Once Again
Jackie Corr
Whatever Happened to the Social Security Trust Fund?
Uri Avnery
Bush's Guru: Natan Sharansky
Website of the Day
Red Alert in the Siskiyous!
March 9, 2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Dirty
Harry's Fear of Flying: Making Love, War and Profits at Boeing
Ward Churchill
Who's the Terrorist?
Robert Fisk
Another Species of Cedar: a Half Million Lebanese March for Syria
Bernice Powell Jackson
No Justice for America's Nuclear Guinea Pigs in the Marshall
Islands
Mickey Z.
The Revolutionary of Potential Art
Dave Zirin
NHL Says: "Bring On the Scabs!"
Michael Donnelly
Standing Up to Ecocide in Oregon
James Reiss
Stopping by Words in Favor of Privatizing Social Security
Vijay Prashad
Get
Modi: a State Terrorist Visits Florida
March 8, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Syrian Delusion
Robert Fisk
Lebanon's Nightmare
Kurt Nimmo
War is Peace: John Bolton to the UN
Suzan Mazur
Time for a Truth and Reconciliation Commission on Polygamy?
Evelyn Pringle
Neil Bush and Crest: Another Profiteering Scheme
Giuliana Sgrena
My
Truth: "The Americans Don't Want You to Return"
Elaine Cassel
The Appalling Case of Abu Ali
March 7, 2005
Dave Zirin
Bloodlust
in Annapolis: Gov. Ehrlich Wants to Kill Vernon Lee Evans
Brian Cloughley
More War Crimes
John Chuckman
The
Creature Walks Among Us
Mike Whitney
Jose Padilla and the 10 Commandments
Mark Weisbrot
Haiti's Torment: Why Are US Human Rights Groups Silent?
Fred Gardner
The Cannabinoid Messenger
Richard Neville
The Italian Job
Uri Avnery
The
Next Crusades
March 5 / 6,
2005
Alexander Cockburn
Arnold
vs. the Nurses
Gary Leupp
What's Happening in Lebanon: an Interview with Fadi Agha, Advisor
to President Lahoud
Ron Jacobs
Lies Military Recruiters Tell
Tom Reeves
Haiti: One Year After the Coup
Jenna Orkin
Memories of Kawaggi, Saudi Arabia
Tom Barry
Negroponte: Intel Czar or Policy Hack?
Joshua Frank
The Trials of Max Baucus
Moshe Adler
When Pfizer Came to New London: Corporate Giveways vs. Eminent
Domain
Jane Stillwater
My Jury Questionnaire: "Do You Agree that a Corporation
is a Person?"
Omar Barghouti / Jacqueline
Sfeir
Double Standards on S. Africa and Israel: an Open Letter to UNESCO
Christopher
Brauchli
Target: Al Jazeera
John Pilger
The Fall of Saigon: 30 Years Later
Raúl
Zibechi
Colombia: Militarism and Social Movements
David Krieger
Saving the Nuclear Nonproliferation Agreement
Three Takes
on Nepal
Surendra R. Devkota
Another Blow to the King of Nepal
Bhishma Karki
Nepal in Twilight
Joseph Pietri
Murder at the Palace
Ben Tripp
The Good Old Days
Poets' Basement
Hassen, Chief Running Late, Wuest, Albert and Collins
Website of
the Weekend
O'Shaughnessy's: All About Medical Pot
March 4, 2005
Frederick Hudson
Caught
in a Cage
March 3, 2005
Pat Williams
"Social Security Protects the Young as Much as the Old"
Brian Cloughley
Headlines, Beliefs and Deceptions
Dave Lindorff
Why Do the Democrats Pamper Greenspan?
Amira Hass
Oslo All Over Again
Greg Moses
In Oscar Texas: One Down, One to Go?
Lynne Landes
Exit Poll Madness
Nelson P. Valdés
Rapture Takes Leftists
John Ross
Mexico's
Fox Schemes to Jail Front-Running Leftist
March 2, 2005
Saul Landau
/ Farrah Hassen
The
"Noble Liars" Attack Syria
Mike Roselle
The State of Oregon vs. Mike Roselle: Criminalizing Environmental
Dissent
M. Junaid Alam
Columbia University and the New Anti-Semitism
Suzan Mazur
Inside the Polygamy Cults of Southern Utah
Jackson Thoreau
Texas Congressman Calls for "Nuking Syria"
Michael Donnelly
No Love for Teresa Heinz; John Edwards Gets a Pass
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Uncle
Bucky Makes a Killing
Website of the Day
The Ghosts of Karl Marx & Ed Abbey
March 1, 2005
Scott Richard
Lyons
Million
Dollar Bigotry
David Lindorff
Stealing Workers' Pensions
Patrick Cockburn
/ David Enders
Bloodbath in Iraq
Ron Jacobs
The Last Poets Recalled
Tanya Garcia
USA Next: the Industry Front Group to Privatize Social Security
Joseph Pietri
The Drug Trail Ends in Kathmandu: Golden Tar Heroin and the Black
Prince
Kona Lowell
Woody: Broken in Vietnam
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
Coming End of the American Superpower
Website of
the Day
Petition: No US Intervention in Iran
February 28,
2005
Gary Leupp
Year
4 in the Five Year Plan: a June Attack on Iran?
Bill Quigley
Haitian Police Open Fire on Nonviolent Marchers
Mickey Z.
The
Million Dollar Interview: Mary Johnson on Clinton Eastwood, Hunter
Thompson and the "Right to Die"
Paul de Rooij
Why
Ted Honderich is Wrong on All Counts About Israel
David Swanson
Basic Income Guarantee Versus the Corp Media
Mario Lamo
Jimenez
Maria
Full of Cultural Contradictions at the Oscars
Emma Perez
The Attacks on Ward Churchill: a Test Case in the Neocons Purge
of Academia
Diana Johnstone
Censorship
and the Empire
Website of the Day
Stop the War Campaign!
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
An
American Jew Laments Decline in Jewish Influence
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
Rev. William E. Alberts
Rhetoric in the Air; Reality on the Ground
Fred Gardner
AARP Gets Pot-Baited
Gary Leupp
Bush and Camus on Freedom
Saul Landau
An Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon (Part 3): the Miami
Mafia
Robin Philpot
Second Thoughts on the Hotel Rwanda
Yitkhak Laor
In Praise of the Facts
Ben Tripp
Out of Sight; Out of Mind
Justin Taylor
Zizek Seen Over the Handlebars
Jack Random
The Wounds from Wounded Knee
Rafael Renteria
Ward Churchill and White America
Jim B.
Reflections on the Eve of Fatherhood
Seth DeLong
Land Reform in Venezuela: More Like Lincoln Than Lenin
John Chuckman
A Season of Depressing Political Reruns
Alison Weir
Relativity, LA Times Style
Richard Oxman
Political Solitude: From Garcia Marquez to Maria Full of Grace
Dr. Susan Block
It Always Rains in California: All About Female Ejaculation
Poets' Basement
Landau, Lowell, Louise, Davies, Soderstrom, Norris & Albert
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel Garc'a,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
Torture Memos
Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
Uri Avnery
The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
Voters
Paul Craig
Roberts
American
Police State
Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
Open Letter to Saramago: Nobel Laureate Suffers from a Bizarre
Historical Amnesia
Omar Barghouti
The Case for Boycotting Israel
Patrick Cockburn / Jeremy Redmond
They Were Waiting on Chicken Tenders When the Rounds Hit
Harry Browne
Northern Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
Richard Oxman
On the Seventh Column
Kathleen Christison
Imagining
Palestine
Website of the Day
FBI Torture Memos
December 21,
2004
Greg Moses
The
New Zeus on the Block: Unplugging Al-Manar TV
Dave Lindorff
Losing
It in America: Bunker of the Skittish
Chad Nagle
The View from Donetsk
Dragon Pierces
Truth*
Concrete
Colossus vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
Patrick Cockburn
"Things Always Get Worse"
Seth DeLong
Aiding Oppression in Haiti
Ahmad Faruqui
Pakistan and the 9/11 Commission's Report
Paul Craig
Roberts
America
Locked Up: a System of Injustice
Hot Stories
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Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
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Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
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Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
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Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
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True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
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Impeach
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|
March 24, 2005
Peak Oil
Debate
or Vendetta?
By
SUZAN MAZUR
I sometimes think peak oil has already
hit Manhattan as subways become increasingly unpredictable (although
surveillance cameras are state-of-the-art) and escalator shut-downs
present stair master survival challenges, a kind of perverse
underground amusement. Unfortunately, surfacing on Fifth Avenue
does not end the scenario, for where once there was excellence
and exquisite fashion, now there are bargain stores catering
to New Yorkers who are poor, and yes even starving.
So I was particularly fascinated by the opportunity to listen-in
to the telephone conference call that JP Morgan held for its
clients on April 7 and 8, "Peak
Oil: Fact or Fiction", which I was given exclusive permission
to monitor . Maybe there would be answers as to whether
or not Manhattan is a harbinger of what's to come for the rest
of the nation, and whether it's fleeting opulence (not counting
all the questionably-financed real estate extravaganzas rising
up) is energy-related.
The main speakers faced-off on separate days. First Dr. Colin
Campbell, Founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil,
succinctly gave his position saying that peak oil is "such
a geological matter". Campbell says we're now at the halfway
mark and that "by 2010 volatility comes to an end and then
terminal decline" sets in.
The pronouncement is chilling. What's more, Campbell says that
"over the next few years everybody will become aware of
this, and in some ways the perception of this growing situation
is as serious as the event itself". Campbell's a retired
geologist with decades of experience in the oil industry in both
exploration and executive positions. He compares peak oil to
old age saying that a man knows when it has set-in.
Campbell was followed the next day by Michael Lynch, a computer
oil and gas modeler for the past 25 years, President/Director
of Global Petroleum, Strategic Energy and Economic Research.
Lynch came out slugging, informing conference callers that Campbell
refuses to appear with him since 1997, saying "you'll understand
why very shortly". He seems to view Campbell as old school
and too tired to be optimistic about the future. Perhaps a bit
like Cheney and Rumsfeld having their last hurrahs before retiring
into the bed & breakfast business on the Eastern Shore of
Maryland.
Lynch believes the Hubbert model that Campbell's theory relies
on discoveries and production follow a bell curve
is not only "incorrectly modeled", but is "much
closer to being junk science". He says further, that while
Campbell and his colleague, Jean Laharrere, have now "stopped
saying that" . . . they've "never admitted they were
wrong".
Lynch takes the position that URR Ultimately Recoverable
Resources is not a static amount and therefore cannot follow
such creaming curves. "It grows over time," he says,
"as a result of economic changes, development in an area,
but also because of technology, and in some cases, better scientific
knowledge."
Campbell says today's oil supply is finite and that it all came
into being during two periods of global warming 90 million and
150 million years ago when "excessive" algal blooms
formed on the seas and lakes, became heavier and heavier, and
sank to the bottom of the rifts where they were "preserved"
and pressure-cooked. The resulting oil and gas then began leaching
its way back up to the surface through the sandstone (in the
pore spaces between the grains of sand) and rock.
Campbell is adamant about the peak oil issue not being an economic
or political one, but simply a case where we've now so depleted
our "endowment" that peak oil will occur by 2010, and
that soon after there will be a rapid fall-off in oil resources,
which will profoundly affect world civilization.
So the conference began with a bit of posturing and name calling
with Campbell announcing "no common ground"
with the "flat Earth economists" (Lynch et al.), who
he says believe there's an infinite supply of oil. (No one believes
this, including Saudi Aramco).
Lynch called Campbell, Laharrere (and investment banker Matt
Simmons) Malthusian pessimists, and obliquely referred to Simmons's
upcoming book on peak oil as "content free".
Fortunately, JP Morgan's clients pressed speakers for details,
which made the conference truly worth listening to. Campbell
advised that peak discovery of oil was in 1964 and that it's
been falling for 30 years. He also said that by 1981 the world
was using more than it produced 1 barrel is now found
for every 6 consumed and that there's little spare capacity
anywhere in the world.
As further proof of peak oil, Campbell adds that the major oil
companies are getting out of the business shedding staff,
divesting marketing sectors, outsourcing jobs, cutting back on
exploration and drilling fewer wells the seven sisters
are now four. He notes the majors are also buying back company
shares (i.e., BP), and argues that "the value of their past
is more important than their future". He quotes the late
Robert Anderson of Arco: "This is a sunset industry and
the sun is fairly low in the sky."
However, Campbell does spare the more "nimble" independent
oil companies, who he says will press on producing what's left,
subcontracting to state companies however they can, through initiative,
enterprise and bribes. And that oil in the ground will become
increasingly valuable.
Lynch argues the oil majors are alive and well, thinking about
returns and making their money upstream, just not investing
in things like refineries, etc. downstream. He says lack of spare
capacity and any pullback from the oil business is not because
there's not enough oil out there. It's due to economics and
politics.
Campbell counters that the picture is far worse than anyone's
thought because he's "pretty sure" we may have to
remove over 200 billion barrels of oil from world estimates as
a result of Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, and
Kuwait misrepresenting their oil numbers. Says Campbell, "If
you're limited to public information and you're watching reserves
grow, you can believe it can go on forever."
John J. Hoey, who served as President of Atlantic Refining Company
as well as Hondo Oil (Robert Anderson was CEO), and is currently
founder and Director of Tethys Oil in Stockholm, says the "Peak
Oil debate is just that a debate." Hoey believes
the adverse remarks about lack of disclosure and transparency
of sovereign entities like Saudi Arabia, Russia, etc. appear
self serving and disparaging, that the oil producing countries
are not public companies and have no duty or obligation to disclose
any more than they deem appropriate. He advises: "Try to
get some technical information from a major oil company on a
specific 'tight' well being drilled or completed in a highly
sensitive geological area."
Moreover, Hoey says he's listened to all the peak oil arguments
(including the JP Morgan call-in) and "gravitates"
towards Lynch rather than Campbell or Harvard Business School
alumnus and friend, Matt Simmons. He also lived in Saudi Arabia
during the 70s and worked closely with Aramco and Petromin; Hoey
says he has the "highest respect for the professionalism,
integrity and future of their petroleum industry".
Campbell presents a litany of pessimism on future oil as he deconstructs
reserve reporting: He says Iran and Iraq may also have been
manipulating their numbers but he's "less sure". That
UK gas and oil will be "virtually exhausted" by 2020,
as acknowledged by the UK government (BBC reports Wood
Mackenzie oil consultants described UK North Sea exploration
as "the industry's biggest waste of money over the past
five years"). That North American oil and gas is hopelessly
depleted it took 40 years for the US to go from peak discovery
to peak decline and that "Canada is way into decline".
Norway has the Ecofis "exceptional chalk reservoir,"
which has been kept going through technology, but that doesn't
change the overall pattern of decline. Germany has "no hope"
and is long past peak. Argentina's production is down. Colombia
has peaked. Egypt, with a teeming population, has hit its
peak and has no money for exploration "where will
it get its oil from?" Indonesia has "no reason to
remain in OPEC".
The only upbeat pronouncements from Campbell were that Iran
will have a "rapid rise" in oil production until 2015
(and then fall), even though a Power Bridge Associates caller
told Lynch he's been studying reserves in southwest Iran's Khuzestan
field and that Iran has about 200 billion barrels of oil and
needs capital to develop. He says Iraq holds "north of
300 billion".
Campbell believes Russia will see a second peak in 2010
the first was under Soviet rule and influenced by OPEC price
cutting in the 1980s which made Soviet oil uncompetitive. The
increase in OPEC production stemmed from revisions in reserve
estimates which allowed OPEC to exceed reserve-connected quotas.
Heavy oils of Canada and Venezuela he believes will grow, but
so will costs of getting oil out. Canadian oil sands may be a
good investment with an expected price of about $20 a barrel,
but right now the project is stuck, and is consuming Alberta's
natural gas meant for the MacKenzie pipeline and North America's
gas needs. Polar oil has "uncertain possibilities".
"Deep water booms and goes quickly." Kashagan field
in the Khazakstan sector of the Caspian will produce 10-15 billion
barrels, Campbell says, "but not what was hoped for".
Moreover, Campbell's bleak scenario includes not only a challenge
to home heating and the gas tank. He reminds that the growing
of agricultural products (crop nutrients and farm machinery)
and their transportation are heavily dependent on petroleum
meaning global food shortages.
Lynch's principal role seemed to be one of resuscitating the
audience after Campbell's address. He backed up the Saudi Aramco
claim that its definition of "oil initially in place"
(according to Society of Petroleum Engineers, World Petroleum
Congress and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists)
is the "volume or the amount of oil that's presently in
the subsurface". Lynch also disclosed during the talk that
he has worked off and on for the Saudis and does work in the
short sell market, saying "I'm sure there'll be questions
about that." Curiously, there were none.
Campbell explained the origin of the oil numbers system saying
it all began with SEC reporting practices. For financial reasons,
US oil company owners were allowed to report both proved producing
reserves and proved undeveloped wells. The SEC model then became
an international standard. He said "companies found it
convenient to be very conservative about what they reported;
they effectively reported as much as they needed to give a satisfactory
financial result, that meant the build-up of stock of under-reported
reserves".
The Saudi "oil initially in place" numbers, which
Lynch refers to, were presented at a Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS) meeting in Washington February 24
by Aramco's Manager of Reserves Management, Dr. Nansen Saleri,
and Mahmoud Abdul Baqi, VP of Exploration. They both said that
in the last 20 years Saudi Arabia's oil in the subsurface has
grown by 100 billion barrels and it currently has "in the
ground" 700 billion barrels.
Aramco also claims a 52% success rate with 64 exploratory wells
drilled in the past 10 years and says that for the fourth year
in a row the company reduced its water cut levels with the total
company aggregate water cut for 2003 less than 27% (Russia's
is 80%); water cuts pose a problem because while water flushes
out some oil, it tends to further seal-in a lot of what remains.
Aramco cites reserves at 261 billion barrels reserves
defined as "oil that can be recovered commercially with
current technology". Aramco says they expect to produce
12 million barrels of oil a day though 2025.
Lynch also obliquely referenced Matt Simmons's CSIS presentation,
calling him an investment banker who "sort of said I read
some technical articles and they describe engineering problems
in the field. He made a whole bunch of mistakes which the Saudis
corrected. . . . And he admitted he wasn't an engineer."
Simmons referred to Aramco's sophisticated "MRC (maximum
reservoir contact) wells" with multiple branches and high
resolution digital imaging as "bottle brush"
wells.
Lynch did not question the Aramco claim that by 2025 Saudi Arabia
expects to have 900 billion barrels of oil in the ground; Saudi
Aramco's position is that only 14% of their "tank"
has been tapped and that the main field Ghawar (actually many
fields in one) is only 48% tapped. Lynch did say Saudi Arabia
was virtually unexplored when it comes to oil, backing up Aramco
statements regarding plans to push forward to the promising Saudi-Iraqi
border (Campbell says you won't find much there) as well as into
the previously inaccessible Rub'al-Khali making use of
"intelligent wells" and remote control digital imaging
with a 10-million and soon 100-million cell resolution.
OPEC advises its figures also refer to member countries' remaining
reserves and not total discovered, but says it does not ask member
countries to verify reported numbers unless there is a major
discrepancy. OPEC says its figures are in line with USGS and
BP numbers, however this means that they are based on projected
demand, which leaves things a bit fuzzy. Matt Simmons has called
the very concept of proven reserves "still an art form".
OPEC's acting Secretary General and Director of Research is
Dr. Adnan Shihab-Eldin, a Berkeley-trained nuclear physicist
perhaps the most dynamic personality to emerge at OPEC
since Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani. Shihab-Eldin is guiding the
organization towards greater transparency in reporting its oil
numbers by participating in JODI (Joint Oil Data Initiative)
with APPEC (Asian and Pacific Petroleum Exporting Countries),
IEA and UNSD. Shihab-Eldin previously served as a director of
the International Atomic Energy Association and as Director,
Kuwait Institute for Scientific Institute where I first
met him in the late 1970s when KISR was developing solar energy
projects.
Shihab-Eldin said the following regarding world oil supply:
"In the current scenario of heightened political uncertainty
in the Middle East, it is widely recognized that there is a premium
on current crude prices, related to these events, of as high
as $4-$5/b, rather than any basic lack of supply. . . . Our
projections, derived from the OPEC World Energy Model, show world
oil demand growing from 76 million barrels per day in 2000 to
89 million barrels per day by 2010, and by over 106 million barrels
per day by 2020. Two-thirds of the increase in demand over that
20-year period will come from China and developing countries.
This highlights the relevance of such projects as the new multi-billion
dollar pipeline which will stretch from Eastern Siberia in Russia
to Northeast China with construction due to start in 2003.
. . . Non-OPEC production is expected to increase throughout
the entire period, with the expected decline in North Sea output
more than compensated by increases in developing countries, the
CIS and the Caspian region [which he says will add an additional
4 million barrels a day to world supply by 2015 and believes
that new discoveries will get a boost from newer technologies].
" Conference on Oil and Gas Transportation in the
CIS and Caspian Region, Vienna, Austria, Oct. 2002
Neither Campbell nor Lynch referred to the JODI figures, but
there is little doubt that the time has come for the numbers
to be counted. Even Lynch admits that OPEC's reserves numbers
in the past were often referred to as "political reserves".
Lynch says: "I was in Kuwait in 1987 and we were laughing
about the reserves numbers. Everyone knew those numbers were
not reliable".
And Lynch still believes "There are no good reserve numbers
anywhere in the world especially in the past 30 years."
But he says he's referring to "proved reserves" not
the ultimate amount available. And that proved reserves numbers
are not really very important in long-term modeling.
He characterizes Colin Campbell's and Jean Laharrere's modeling
as"curve fitting" not geological research
"like people who look at stock market cycles and try to
come up with waves". Lynch acknowledges that field size
is determined by geology but says "the process of discovery
is an economic one."
Lynch also accuses Laharrere of mixing up political and economic
events with geological ones in terms of the pause in oil exploration
in the Middle East after 1980, when Lynch says there was a world
oil glut, and the Saudis and Kuwaitis stopped exploring because
they have 100 years of oil left. And then the wars happened,
Iran/Iraq and the Gulf War. What's more, Lynch says the creaming
curves Campbell produces are not reliable estimates because field
sizes are not stable citing field growth according to the
IHS database in Norway (where horizontal drilling is producing
results which could never be realized otherwise, he says), in
Britain and Canada.
Lynch says that Jean Laharrere told the Abu Dhabis their oil
was scarce and he just wasn't believed and that OPEC doesn't
even want to deal with this "nonsense" but people keep
asking them. Says Lynch, "If you look at all their [Campbell,
Laharrere] curves, what you find is they're not doing serious
statistical analysis. They're just drawing curves and then eyeballing
then. Just looking at them and saying, does this appear to follow
a pattern?"
Lynch looks at slides regarding British North Sea production.
He s |
