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Today's
Stories
March 30, 2004
Bill Christison
The 9/11 Commission: Dangerous
Harbringer for the Future
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
Jennifer Loewenstein
A
Journey to Rafah
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.
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March
29, 2004
Live from Pasadena
Silhouettes
of New Order
By GREG MOSES
Riding the new commuter train from Los Angeles
to Pasadena, I think about the powers that turn history forward
and back.
Half a century ago, these tracks were
torn up and replaced by freeways. The "Red Cars" of
Pacific Electric were laid off in favor of automobiles, smog,
and oil wars.
But a Pasadena muse hums in my ear as
I sit aboard the newly re-built Metro Gold Line and listen to
fellow passengers who share their conversations in Chinese. Sometimes
the powers that make history have to realize that the "Red
Cars" were good ideas in the first place.
***
Looking up later from the pizza joint
at De Lacey and Del Mar, the logo of the Parsons Corporation
smiles down the avenue like polished teeth. The global engineering
company is on a billion dollar binge these days, feasting on
a banquet of federal contracts that have much to say about where
the powers of history are taking us these days.
If we only count the money since New
Year's Day, there is first of all the Jan. 6 contract for $1.8
Billion from USAID. The package, known as "Iraq Infrastructure
II" is a sexy three-way partnership between Parsons, Bechtel,
and Horne to build electricity, water, sewer, airport, seaport,
schools, "selected ministry buildings," and more.
"After developing an implementation
plan in conjunction with USAID, the team intends to hire the
maximum number of Iraqi employees at all levels, to subcontract
to qualified Iraqi companies to the maximum extent possible,
and to provide comprehensive training and work experience for
Iraqi managers and their employees. Also planned is a significant
program to include small businesses in the project," gloats
a press release posted at the Parsons website.
Then, on Jan. 14, the company bagged
a $500 million starter package from the US Army Corps of Engineers.
This three-way with DynCorp and Michael Baker is renewable for
four more years and another billion dollars. The Corps needs
help with engineering projects in "twenty-five countries
in Central Asia, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa."
Chants that demand, "US out of Iraq
now" seem meek in the context of this five-year plan by
the Corps of Engineers for the greater CENTCOM region that stretches
from Kazakhstan to Kenya.
Then, on Jan. 29, the Air Force joined
USAID and the Army in allocating contracts to Parsons. The Air
Force sewer gurus, otherwise known as the Center for Environmental
Excellence, tapped Parsons to keep the toilets flushing at the
Tadji military base in Iraq.
"'A key benefit of completing this
project is giving the Iraqi Armed Forces the facilities they
need for the defense of their country,' explains Major General
Paul D. Easton, U.S. Army, commanding general of the Coalition
Military Assistance and Training Team."
By the way, Parsons got to know Air Force
environmentalists while inserting 18x2-inch tubes into wells
at air bases across the country. Technically called "Passive
Diffusion Bag Samplers," the tubes allow the Air Force to
measure precise depths of toxicity.
But getting back to Iraq's security needs,
the Parsons wastewater project at Tadji is one of 2300 total
projects that will employ tens of thousands of Iraqis, says Rear
Admiral David J. Nash (retired), who directs the Pentagon's Program
Management Office in Baghdad, and who is quoted in a Parsons
press release.
Indeed, the power to direct billions
for public works and jobs programs is something worth bragging
about during this election year.
Admiral Nash was prominently featured
in a March 12 story by the Associated Press, archived at Google,
drawing attention to cozy relationships that appear to exist
between powerful contractors and US administrators overseas.
Says the AP: "The Parsons Brinkerhoff
construction company was one of two companies picked to share
a $43.4 million contract to help manage reconstruction of Iraq's
electricity grid. Retired Navy Rear Adm. David Nash, director
of the program management office for the Pentagon in Baghdad,
is a former president of a Parsons Brinkerhoff subsidiary.
"The company also has Republican
connections. It gave $90,000 to various Republican Party committees
in the past five years, and $8,500 to similar Democratic groups."
The Republican administration sells itself
as purveyor of small government, not interfering in the lives
of self-directing people. But quite a different image emerges
if you take Parsons as one exhibit of power on the spot. These
days, Washington is taking the whole world for a ride.
When Parsons announced last September
that they were appointing Karen L. Kimball as Business Development
Director for their Energy Sector of the Systems, Defense, and
Security (SDS!) Division of Parsons Infrastructure & Technology
Group, the company bragged again.
"As the DOE continues to evolve
and expand its mission, Karen brings exactly the skills we need
to identify and develop opportunities to expand our role as a
strategic partner with the DOE," states Jack Scott, Parsons
Group President.
Back in September, the folks at Parsons
were talking like they already knew.
On Feb. 10, Parsons landed a three-year
fabrications contract at the Hanford toxic waste facility in
Washington state--a contract that once again builds upon prior
relationships and dirty work. In 2001 Parsons began working near
Hanford to, "fabricate and test its neutralization systems
that destroy nerve and blister agents from the U.S. chemical
weapons stockpile."
"The chemical demilitarization programs
will continue through 2012, providing jobs for Hanford's skilled
workers and fabrication opportunities for the transferred shop,"
brags a Parsons press release.
Then on Feb. 25, Parsons announced a
startup venture with Evergreene Construction to build Air Force
housing. The brand new company, to be headquartered in Utah,
"has already landed contracts valued at $480 million for
24 projects at 19 U.S. Air Force bases."
On March 4, Parsons earned the privilege
to go around the world and pick up unexploded bombs. Not surprisingly,
Parsons has been doing this type of work for a couple of decades,
too.
"This contract award gives us the
welcome opportunity to continue managing an important program
that secures and destroys conventional weapons and equipment,
which otherwise could be used against our troops or cause death
or injury to innocent civilians," notes Jack Scott, Parsons
Group President.
Most recently, on March 25, the Pentagon
gave Parsons a contract for $500 million, "to provide design-build
construction services for projects associated with the construction
of new, and renovation of existing, public buildings, hospitals,
healthcare clinics, and housing throughout Iraq."
Baghdad remade in the image of Southern
California is a tempting image, considering the career of Parsons'
newly named VP for Infrastructure and Technology, Kenneth J.
Deagon. A November press release tells the story of Mr. Deagon's
rise, from manager of the Southern California region, to manager
of Middle East operations, then to manager of the Captured Enemy
Ammunition Program in Iraq.
***
At the courtyard of the Westin Plaza
Hotel in Pasadena, moonlight splashes into bubbling fountains.
Fresh spring breezes carry chatter. And tonight, the palm trees
of Pasadena cut a silhouette readymade for Baghdad skies.
Under a flag of inevitable destiny, costly
choices are being made by Washington today. An 8-lane freeway
paved for history itself. But the Pasadena muse reminds us that
sometimes the old "Red Cars" can't be forever put away.
Greg Moses
writes for the Texas
Civil Rights Review. He can be reached at: gmosesx@prodigy.net
Weekend
Edition Features for March 20 / 21, 2004
Jennifer Loewenstein
A
Journey to Rafah
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
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