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New Exposés in Special Print Edition of CounterPunch CIA's Overthrow Plans for Iran Agency musters Swiftboat vets, pumps funding into destabilization program aimed at Teheran. Trish Schuh reveals how White House approves race-baiting smears of Islam. Remember how Leadbelly got ripped off by Lomax, how Louis Armstrong's agent got richer than his most famous client? The rip-offs never die. Fred Wilhelms narrates how artists and musicians are being shafted in the age of the internet. Meet the real Judge John Roberts, serf for big business. Cockburn and St Clair dissect the Court's new nominee. Tailhook vet and self-proclaimed Tom Cruise model bites dust in Pentagon scandal: a defense industry parable. St. Clair on Duke Cunningham's Crash Landing. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch's Hot New T-Shirts for Women! Call Toll Free 1-800-840-3683 or write CounterPunch, PO BOX 228, Petrolia, CA 95558

Now Available! Other Lands Have Dreams: From Baghdad to Pekin Prison by Kathy Kelly Click Here to Order 3-time Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Kathy Kelly's Harrowing First-hand Account of Iraq Under the Squeeze of Sanctions and Missiles of Shock and Awe! Today's Stories July 30 / 31, 2005 Sheldon Rampton War is Fun as Hell: the Games Recruiters Play July 29, 2005 P. Sainath The Class War in Gurgaon Niranjan Ramakrishnan How the West Was Lost: CAFTA and the Disassembling of America Dave Lindorff Marvelous Marvin Bush J.L. Chestnut, Jr. America's Racist Inventory: Oppression Breeds Violence Pat Williams Giving Away the Last Best Place Norman Solomon In Praise of Kevin Benderman: a Moral Leader of the Nation Goes to Prison Sen. Russ Feingold The Bad News About the Energy Bill Cockburn / St. Clair Who's the Real Martyr? Judy Miller or Jim DeFede?     July 28, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Departing Iraq William S. Lind The Duke of Alba and George W. Bush Gilad Atzmon Blair the Camera Man Joshua Frank Passing CAFTA: Blame the Democrats Lila Rajiva Vision Mumbai Submerged Amina Mire Pigmentation and Empire: the Emerging Skin-Whitening Industry Website of the Day Gateway to Underground News   July 27, 2005 Roger Morris The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal Gary Leupp Is Iran Being Set Up? Paul Craig Roberts US Falling Behind Across the Board Jackie Corr Class War on the Ruby River: the Billionaire with His Foot in His Mouth Mike Whitney The Coming End of the Housing Bubble Dave Zirin Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush Christopher Bradley Why I Have Trouble Reading the News Norman Solomon Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist? Website of the Day Stormin' Norman     July 26, 2005 Suren Pillay The Enemy Within: When the "Other" is One of "Us" JoAnn Wypijewski Fission and Fizzle in Chicago: SEIU and Teamsters Quit the AFL Patrick Cockburn Iraq: the Unwinnable War David Anderson When the Greatest Outrage is the Lack of Outrage: NYC's Subway Searches Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton: Outflanking Bush from the Right Lenni Brenner Biography as Wish-Fulfillment: Jefferson, Hitchens and Atheism David Swanson Nuking Native Land   July 25, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts China-Mart Takes Over M. Shahid Alam Terrorism: America Defines Its Targets Uri Avnery March of the Orange Shirts Stan Cox Kreationism in Kansas Norman Solomon "Wagging the Puppy" Ramzy Baroud London Bombings: Barbaric, But Not Unexpected Mickey Z. No Gun Ri: 55 Years Later Website of the Day The Birth of a Hummingbird in 15 Images   July 23 / 24, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Islamo-Anarchs or Islamo-Fascists? Tariq Ali The War Comes Home Robert Fisk Something Happened Dave Lindorff Return of the Academic Witch Hunts Ricardo Alarcón Kidnapping in Miami: the UN, the US and the Cuban 5 Col. Dan Smith Living in a Twilight Zone: Troop Strength, Recruitment and the Draft Brian Cloughley The Pentagon's China Hypocrisy Kevin Zeese Growing Republican Opposition to Iraq War Bill Quigley Harrowing Hours in Haiti Fred Gardner The Reverberations of Raich Rep. Ron Paul The Patriot Act is a Threat to Liberty Joshua Frank Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats Shivali Tukdeo Project Mumbai Makeover: Casualties of Development Gilad Atzmon Blair's "Evil Ideology" James Petras Baghdad: Barbarism and Civilization (a Fiction) Ben Tripp When Being American Was Fun Poets' Basement Krieger, Louise, Buknatski, Albert and Engel Website of the Weekend Remember the West Memphis 3 July 22, 2005 Heather Gray Home Grown Axis of Evil: Corp. Agribusiness, the Occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott Decision David Domke The American Press and Credibility Lance Selfa Battle of the Insiders: No Heroes in the Plame Leak Scandal JoAnn Wypijewski Is This Really an "Insurgency" to Shake Up the Labor Movement?   July 21, 2005 Rose Ann DeMoro The Top 10 Problems with the "Crisis" in the Labor Movement William Blum London: Another Casualty in the War on Terror J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Whites Need to Learn Something: Dixie is Everywhere Christopher Brauchli Strange Affairs: Liberals and Alberto Gonzales Joshua Frank Plame Blame Game: the 5 Ws Brian Concannon, Jr. Haiti's Elections: Time for a Reality Check Patrick Cockburn The True, Terrible State of Iraq and the Link to London Website of the Day Who Blew Up the Murrah Building?     July 20, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judge Roberts: Business as Usual Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Red Christmas Ray McGovern Did Dick Finger Valerie?: the Hand of Cheney Chris Floyd Judge Dread: John Roberts and the "Enemy Combatants" Uri Avnery "Silence is Filth" Dave Lindorff Westmoreland's Body Count Goes Up by One Norman Solomon Gen. Westmoreland's Death Wish Bill Quigley Travels in Haiti with a Wanted Priest       July 19, 2005 Tariq Ali An Isolated Regime John Ross Jihad Meets G-8 Davey D. More Clear Channel Censorship: "Don't F--K Around with Tha Police" Greg Weiher Muzzling Saddam: the Old Bait-and-Switch in Iraqi Jurisprudence Brian McKinlay An "Arse Licker" Goes to Washington: John Howard's Grand Tour Norman Solomon Nukes for India; Threats for Iran Dave Lindorff Get Back to Where We Once Belonged Bill Christison Bush's Itinerary: First Stop Syria, Next Stop Iran Joshua Frank Laura's Justice?: Meet Edith Brown Clement   July 18, 2005 Joshua Frank An Interview with Ward Churchill M. Shahid Alam A Muslim Problem: Did Thomas Friedman Flunk History? Jude Wanniski Memo to Patrick Fitzgerald Ron Jacobs A Weekend to Stop the War Mike Whitney The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station William MacDougall From "Bring It On" to "London Can Take It" Seth Sandronsky Temporary Recovery: New Frontiers in Labor Flexibility Richard Lichtman The Consolations of George Lakoff Paul Craig Roberts Can Congressional Republicans End Bush's Wars? Website of the Weekend Novels of the Neo-Cons   July 15 / 17, 2005 Alexander Cockburn Don't You Dare Call It Treason Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Paul Craig Roberts Economic Treason Harry Browne "What They Do to Us, They Will Do to You": Shell Oil in Mayo, Ireland Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron A Warning from Israel Andrew Rubin End of the Enlightenment: an Open Letter to Stephen Plaut Patrick Cockburn Iraq's Ghost Battalions J.L. Chestnut, Jr. Changes in Selma: Standing Up to Racism in the South Fred Gardner A Professional Bust Christopher Brauchli An Olympic Feat: How to "Double" Aid with No New Money Chris Floyd The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway Ben Tripp The Dark Incontinent Col. Dan Smith General Abizaid, I'm Glad You Asked Jason Leopold What Did Rove Say and When Did He Say It? Jack Random Miller Time Norman Solomon War and Venture Capitalism George Ochenski Liberate Montana's Rivers: Come One, Come All! Website of the Weekend Vote for CounterPuncher David Vest     July 14, 2005 Jeffrey St. Clair Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton Subcomandante Marcos This is What Will Do and How We Shall Do It: the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona Dave Lindorff No More Moral Relativism: the US is a Terrorist State Joshua Frank Rove Agency: Liberals and the CIA Jude Wanniski Those 8 Black Pages: What's the Real Story on Karl Rove? Dave Zirin Storming the Castle Kevin Zeese Exit Strategy: Within Reach? Robert Jensen War Myths and the Press Reza Fiyouzat A Worldwide Call to Free Akbar Ganji Carol Norris Governor Paranoid: Schwarzenegger Comes Unhinged Website of the Day Nate Osborn: Heroic Human Rights Activist and CounterPuncher   July 13, 2005 Brian Cloughley Cold Blooded Murders in Iraq George Galloway We Can't Separate the London Bombings from the Political Backdrop Carlos Fierro A Supreme Waste of Time Sarah Knopp Hate on the Border Norman Solomon "Isolated Pockets of Problems": the Fake Optimism of Washington's Warriors Mickey Z. Water on the Brain Jim Minick The Right Tree in the Right Place Pat Williams American Indian Education for All Andrew N. Rubin Life Behind the Wall: "We are No Longer Able to See the Sun Set" Website of the Day "London's Burning": the Mikey Mix     July 12, 2005 Laith al-Saud Voices of Resistance: an Interview with Dr. Mohammed al-Obaidi of Iraq's Peoples' Struggle Movement Kara N. Tina "This is How We Do It": Report from the Gleneagles Battlefield William A. Cook The London Bombings: Why Has It Come to This? Jack Bratich 2 Live Cruise: Tom Cruise v. Big Pharma Amina Mire The Problem with Speaking in the Name of Others Dick J. Reavis Lessons from the Christian Jihadists: the Virtues of Burning Crosses and Colored Smoke Kevin Zeese Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Vets Paul Craig Roberts No-Think Nation Website of the Day Coke Gags Indian Artist     July 9 / 11, 2005 Alexander Cockburn After the Bombings Uri Avnery War of the Colors in Israel Sheldon Rampton Blaming Galloway: Rhetoric vs. Reality in London Bill Christison Hiroshima's 60th Anniversary and Nukes in Iran: an Opportunity or Just More Hand-wringing from the Peace Movement? Robert Fisk Blair's Alliance with Bush Bombed Stephen Winspear Collateral Damage in London? Saul Landau Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken Behrooz Ghamari Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem Karl Beitel False Promises and Real Debt Relief Brian Concannon, Jr. Throwing Gasoline on Haiti's Fires Fred Gardner Sentencing Season John Whitlow And What Does the Market Say? Niranjan Ramakrishnan The London Blasts: Who's Being Transformed, Them or Us? Lila Rajiva Witches and Bastards Laura Carlsen CAFTA: Deepening the Inequities Jackie Corr Ted Turner and Jiminy Cricket Dave Lindorff "My Brother Went Over There Gung Ho; Now He's Just Bitter" N. D. Jayaprakash Why the CIA Tried to Kill Chou En Lai at the Bandung Conference Seth Sandronsky Meet the "Truth Tour": Rightwing Radio Hosts Go to Iraq Norman Madarasz The Choking of Brazil's Worker Party Ben Tripp The Inevitability of George W. Bush Poets' Basement Louise, Albert, Landau, Davies and Engel Website of the Weekend The Mother of All Enemies Lists     July 8, 2005 Paul Craig Roberts Blowback Hits Britain: Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception Tariq Ali The London Bombings: Why They Happened Monica Benderman One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality Rick Jahnkow Beyond Opt-Out: the Counter-Recruitment Movement Christopher Brauchli Dear Vet: If You Want to Eat While You Recuperate, You Gotta Pay Extra Kim Peterson Bombs in the Underground: Terror Begats Terror Joshua Frank Leakers and Liars: Inching Toward Indictments? Norman Solomon Messages from the Carnage Website of the Day An Interview with Ray McGovern   July 7, 2005 Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr John Walsh More Hawkish Than Bush: Dems in Full Battle Cry Mike Marqusee Message from London Gilad Atzmon London's Burning Nicole Colson Showdown at the Supreme Court Jack Random Judith Miller, Anti-Hero Norman Solomon Judith Miller, Drum Majorette for War Len Colodny Is Bob Woodward Still Protecting Al Haig? Cockburn / St. Clair Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr                                                             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

Weekend Edition July 30 / 31, 2005 When It's Late July All Over the World How to Cool Your Heels in Texas By GREG MOSES On a hot day in July the chamber of the Texas Senate turns out to be a great place to catch some A/C and think about how there are two monuments to Confederate heroes on the front lawn of the Capitol. Read that Southmost monument carefully. The only reason they lost that war, explains the marble script, was because the Heroes were outnumbered six to one. It never was a fair fight, and the monument testifies that the Heroes never lost it. The Heroes put 400,000 lives on the line, but so did the Northern Aggressors, so the Heroes had not another 400,000 to waste, but the Northern Aggressors did. Jesus, what a bloody mess. In 1901, they were not at all ready to let that one go, so they built another monument on the South Capitol lawn. And even today, over my bar-b-que lunch I see a fellow diner in a Confederate flag t-shirt. Here we are at Ben's Long Branch Bar-B-Que on East 11th Street, where they serve Soul Food Wednesdays. And in walks this confederate flag. Do these fights never go away? These are the things you can ponder as you stare at the chandeliers round about 1:30 PM Thursday, as the titans of the Democratis Party huddle on the Senate floor, having no company to keep with Republicans who were huddled somewhere out of sight. There were, among others, Gonzalo Barrientos, the long-time survivor from Austin; John Whitmire, the filibusterer from North Houston; Royce West, the education whip, hobbling around with a kind of cast on his left leg no less (it was West wasn't it with the cast? if I'd known that was going to be the best image of the day, I'd have taken notes); and Eliiot Shapleigh, the one who will tell you plain out that Texas would do much better having an income tax. Other than that, all we see in terms of Senators is one guy on the Right side of the aisle cruising Google Earth in search of various properties that we up in the gallery suppose that he owns. Everybody could see that these hapless pols weren't part of the back-room deal making that, by day's end, would be sure enough promised to deliver the Senate this time once more, yeah sure, to successful conclusion on education policy. When Lieutenant Governor David Dewhurst walked out to rationalize for the press, you could see that it was gonna be a little more talk and a lot less action. Not a bad time to get a Starbuck's coffee, read the New York Times article about Rumsfeld in Baghdad and cross your fingers about mid-term elections next year. It also helps to sit near lobbyists. "There she goes back to her office," said two well-heeled suits at the same time, indicating a well-placed staffer who smiled briefly into the galleries before disappearing. "It's going to be awhile," they agreed. But can you believe it? Not one, but two monuments to the Confederacy out front? The history of this legislature is surely written in granite priorities outside. I had time to mosey through the monuments this morning, being as how I was early to the Latino Coalition's press conference, and even after circling both Civil War monuments I was still early enough to catch the MALDEF team standing alone at the South Steps. David Hinojosa, Luis Figueroa, and an intern were staking out the territory for this morning's announcement of a six-point plan--a simple way of reminding Texas what a good education bill would look like--one that wouldn't require court intervention either. "They say we're out of ideas and we only oppose bills," said Figueroa. "So we're here to show them the ideas that we're for." "People have asked whether no bill would be better than a bad bill," said Hinojosa. "But what about a great bill?" A great education bill would: (1) Equalize Funding so that all children would share the wealth regardless of where they are born. (2) Make sure facilities are up-to-date, a need that remains unmet in many of MALDEF's client districts in the latest round of education litigation. (3) Fund realistic "weights" for the education of English Language Learners (15 percent of all students) and Low Income Children (50 percent, yes half of all Texas Students are Low Income). These students need a forty percent increase right away. (4) Pay teachers good wages. The Southwest Workers Union was on hand this morning with signs asking, "Living Wages for School Workers", and a huge banner demanding: "Mandamos Justicia". (5) Accountability without high stakes testing. As the press kit explained, many students take tests that assume they have been taught the material in the first place by obedient if not qualified teachers. (6) And finally (because there are only really five things that the legislature refuses to do, not six) why not give the kids of Texas a chance to excel in education. Give them the education they need to rank among the top tiers of their globalized peers. Wouldn't that be the kind of thing a state would want for its kids? Isn't this the kind of things heroes fight for? But what does any of this have to do with tax cuts, you ask? And aren't tax cuts the one thing that legislators have to bring back to their voters this year? The MALDEF team takes no official line on taxes, but they have noticed that cutting taxes is much more important to this legislature than doing six (or five) good things for education. But who hasn't noticed that? The message of the Latino Coalition is crisp and bright. But it ain't a cheap message, that's for sure. And Texas voters are having difficulty rising to level of maturity required to say: children first. By afternoon Thursday, it's not clear that any of this Latino Coalition sunshine has penetrated into the carpeted hush of Senate chambers where up at the gallery level children come and go quickly with their vacationing parents. It's not a bad space to be walking around or sitting around as the July sun climbs up the ladder outside. A dozen blocks away at City Hall I tug on the first door handle, my body looking forward to the whoosh of chilled air, but what's that noise? Turns out that door handle is unauthorized entrance and I've just set off an intruder alert. A guy is wagging his finger at me. I don't wait for him to finish his sentence. I step back out into the heat. Great. Shows you how well I know City Hall these days. Okay so back out the door and around through the metal detector and x-ray, probably a video tape, too. Here I don't set off any alarms, so I go stand by the Chief of Police for a second while I search for a seat. Councilmember Brewster McCracken is looking over the freshly drafted city budget and trying to come to grips with the fact that the city is headed toward a police state far as the eye can see. Of course, that's not the way he says it exactly. But he notices that the police portion of the city budget is up to 75 percent and climbing. Give us a decade, and we'll all be working for the police union, while not doing jobs like librarian, park maintenance, after school programs, health care--you know, all that socialist nonsense that we began to finally outgrow round about 1980. So I'm not unhappy to go out and join the socialists, anarchists, greens, poets, artists, and possibly even Democrats who have gathered along Cesar Chavez Street this afternoon to protest the killing of 18-year-old Daniel Rocha, who, according to the sign I was holding, was shot in the back at point blank range. He was unarmed at the time, although possibly guilty of having smoked a reefer two hours earlier, if you believe the revised toxicology report, which folks out here with signs aren't really wanting to to. And even if Rocha had been stoned two hours earlier, so what? I mean you go around killing previously stoned people in Austin, Texas? No wonder Willie is keeping a heavy touring schedule these days. Back inside the building, Councilmember Danny Thomas wants to know how police get a 2.7 customer satisfaction rating? Those are the kinds of questions you can sincerely wonder about in there with your air conditioners humming, behind your security screens, as you pass out an award to the cop who killed a mentally deranged woman who was threatening someone with a knife. Today it is official, that the cop has been cleared by the feds, so he is a hero, he saved a life. Now on to the Rocha killing. And, um, I forget, what was that question you asked Mr. Thomas? Oh right. Why are people who are not federal agents or Councilmembers not impressed with police today? And I know you didn't ask this, but why won't they--even in the face of what a police state looks like--raise taxes for education? "Money for jobs and ed-u-ca-tion. Not more po-lice oc-cu-pa-tion." I put down my sign and make a note of this chant. Sort of sums up my day. Two standing monuments to Confederate Heroes, can you believe it? Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence. His chapter on civil rights under Clinton and Bush appears in Dime's Worth of Difference, edited by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair. He can be reached at: gmosesx@prodigy.net