Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
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Today's
Stories
May
19, 2004
Elizabeth
W. Corrie
Caterpillar Should Do the Right Thing,
Now
Bill
and Kathleen Christison
The US Can't Win
Vijay
Prashad
For Whom the Polls Toll: the Indian Elections of 2004
Ray
Hanania
Israeli War Crimes: Who to Believe, AIPAC or Amnesty Intl.?
Greg
Moses
Man President Kisses Up at AIPAC
Michael
Gillespie
Who is Kenneth deGraffenried?
Josh
Frank
Homes Destroyed; Death Toll Mounts: But Where's John Kerry?
Gary
Corseri
Out of Iraq and Plato's Cave
Kevin
Alexander Gray
If Malcolm Were Alive
May
18, 2004
Neve
Gordon
The Gaza Debacle
Doug
Stokes
Imperial Policing: Why Abu Ghraib
Shouldn't Surprise Us
Bob
Wing
The Color of Abu Ghraib
Vanessa
Jones
Man on a Leash
Thomas
P. Healy
Chemical Trespass: the Body Burden
Zeynep
Toufe
Torture and Moral Agency: the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations
Kenneth
Roth
Mistreatment of Detainees in US Custody: a Letter to Bush
Elaine
Cassel
Pre-empting the Bill of Rights: The Other War, One Year Later
Website
of the Day
Truth Against Truth
May
17, 2004
Kurt
Nimmo
The John-John Ticket: Kerry Woos McCain
Laura
Santina
Military Conditioning and Abu Ghraib
Mickey
Z.
With Friends Like These: More Election 2004 Madness
Frederick
B. Hudson
Police Terror: Three Mothers Search for Justice
Shakirah
Esmail-Hudani
Inside Abu Ghraib: the Violence of the Camera
Boris
Leonardo Caro
The Revelations of Mr. W.
Alex
Dawoody
Iraq: From Saddam to Occupation
Victor
Kattan
On Watching the Execution of Nick Berg
Ron
Jacobs
Rumsfeld's Sovereignty Shell Game
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
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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May
20, 2004
Brown and Bored
of Education in India
Why an Election
is Called a Race
By NIRANJAN RAMAKRISHNAN
This week, as America was marking the
50th anniversary of Brown (the landmark racial segregation decision
by the US Supreme Court), India was enacting its own version
of Brown -- Browns Only! Where the Warren court of 1954 ruled
that the constitution did not permit desegregation on the basis
of race, a combination of religious and political interests in
India managed to subvert election results by applying a distinction
based on race -- bypassing the constitution!
If you want to know roughly
what happened, here's an imaginary scenario. It's 1960. John
Kennedy has just won the Presidency. A movement is started around
the country by various powerful interests in the Republican Party,
along with strong support from the Baptist, Mormon, and other
non-Catholic churches. The message goes out that since John Kennedy
is Catholic, his allegiance is to the Catholic Church, and that
he must be stopped. Threats are issued, some veiled, others open,
and there is talk of daily agitations to bring the functioning
of the new administration to a halt. One might say -- wait a
minute -- this is what we sorted out in the elections. And Kennedy
won! And the reply -- that doesn't matter, we just cannot have
a Roman Catholic as our President! Period. After a few days of
wrangling, Kennedy decides his presidency would create an impasse,
and abdicates, leaving Johnson to take the oath.
That's about the size of what
happened this week in India.
Sonia Gandhi is an Italian-born
woman, now an Indian citizen, who has lived in India since the
late 1960's. By an accident of history, she is the head of India's
oldest political party, the Congress. She led her party to victory
in the recent elections to India's parliament, making Congress
the single largest group in the new legislature. She also retained
her own seat by a comfortable margin.
Under the Indian political
system, the leader of the largest party in Parliament is invited
by the President (the Head of State), to form the next government.
The president must be satisfied that the leader has the support
of a majority of members of parliament. Sonia Gandhi demonstrated
this. The majority could choose whoever they wanted to be Prime
Minister of India. They chose her. So it was expected she would
be sworn in as Prime Minister of India later this week. A historic
Indian election would have ended with a smooth transfer of power.
It was not to be.
Just to be sure we understand
-- no one questioned that she won. No one questioned her majority
in parliament. So what exactly was the problem? Her race. Yes,
her race.
Elements of the defeated coalition,
including members of the ousted Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP),
raised again the bogey of Sonia Gandhi being a 'foreigner'. This
ancient charge against Sonia Gandhi, repeated ad-nauseum these
last six years and intensified during the recent campaign, goes
something like this:
"She is not qualified.
She is a foreigner. She has no political experience. She is a
foreigner. National Security secrets would not be safe with her.
She is a foreigner. There were corruption charges against her
husband (an Indian, and a former prime minister). She is a foreigner..."
And on and on until the clincher,
almost straight out of Catch-22: "Even though she is an
Indian citizen, she is still a foreigner!"
Unfortunately for them, her
accusers are at variance with the Indian constitution -- according
to its provisions, any Indian citizen (with usual caveats of
age, etc.) can be elected Prime Minister. It is worth mentioning
that the NDA, BJP and other supernationalists of today made no
effort to amend the law during their six long years in power.
Given all their professed anxiety, one might expect them to be
serious about such a vital matter. But no. Some say they wanted
Sonia Gandhi to be around, so they could play the foreigner card
at will, thereby ensuring a perpetual weak-spot in the Congress
armory!
To their chagrin, their own
strategy backfired -- Sonia Gandhi out-hustled them and won the
2004 elections!
The Hindu right, which the
BJP represents, was soundly defeated in the polls (having made
claims to win 300 seats, its alliance managed barely 200). It
now saw her ascension to Prime Ministership as a ready opportunity
to whip up some fresh xenophobia, its time-tested way of resuscitating
dwindling fortunes. I saw the other day a ridiculous message
from a well-known Hindu guru, who views the installation of a
Roman Catholic as Prime Minister of India to be an affront to
the entire edifice of Indian civilization! Therefore, he argues,
we must use every effort to stop Sonia Gandhi. The Indian constitution
does not discriminate on the basis of religion. To this guru,
of course, that means nothing -- his religion trumps the constitution.
And we think there are Ayatollahs only in Iran!
The disdain shown to the electoral
results by this unholy combination of political rejects, religious
charlatans, lay zealots and a segment of the foreign based "NRI"
elite (which has suddenly discovered a convenient and safe outlet
for its "patriotism") is quite striking. And yet it
is hardly novel. Xenophobia has long been a well-established
life-form in India. In his writings, the famous Mr. Nirad C.
Chaudhuri noted racial hatred as an important characteristic
of the Indian mindset. But he was writing of the early-to-mid
20th century. Five decades later, after half-a-century of freedom,
education, travel and residence abroad, its grip seems as tight
as ever.
Aside from the inherent ugliness
of flaunting one's nationality (many of these same accusers strain
every nerve to have their children settle in the West, and others
are proud to wave their American passport at every opportunity
-- whereas Sonia Gandhi and her children live in India), the
key word in all this is 'elected'. Sonia Gandhi has been elected.
She is not a Paul Bremer heading a government of occupation.
She has been chosen according to the procedures laid down by
the Indian Constitution!
But no matter. Today the outlaws
have prevailed, the losers have won.
After considering the threats
of daily unrest in the streets, and the dangers to her own safety
(a not-entirely-irrelevant consideration for a person who lost
both her husband and her mother-in-law to political assassinations)
Sonia Gandhi made a dignified and sobering speech declining the
post of prime minister. It was never about power, she said (clearly
casting doubt upon her Indianness!).
When she was elected a couple
of days ago, the BJP and its chorus groups orchestrated a cry
of "Shame". Today it is the lovers of democratic India
who will feel humiliated, that the results of a free election
could be so easily subverted by an blatant appeal to racism.
After today, India can be likened to Fiji, where an elected government
was dismissed and replaced by another because the Prime Minister-elect
was of Indian, not Polynesian, descent. The sight of the world's
largest democracy resorting to a retrospective Bill of Attainder
(and that too without legislation and imposed wholly by threat)
is an outrage. As nauseating is the fact that the bigots' goal
has been gained partly by the fear Sonia Gandhi's children have
for their mother's life, given all the hateful propaganda that
has been churned out.
When his government was voted
out, Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee made a magnanimous speech,
saying that even though his party had lost, India had won. As
usual, these turned out to be empty words. Mr. Vajpayee knows
that when someone is kept from winning solely because of their
race, the country loses. But he has not spoken one word against
this outrage. As during mob mayhem in Gujarat, Mr. Vajpayee's
fabled eloquence fell silent when the moment came.
For the religious buffoons
who cried that the sky would fall if Sonia Gandhi became Prime
Minister, I would recall a news report from a few decades ago.
An Indian guru was touring Greece for a few days. The Greek Orthodox
Church protested his visit, claiming that this man was "corrupting
our youth and destroying our religion". The Greek government
buckled under the pressure and ordered him to leave. Before leaving,
he had a message for the Church, along these lines: "You
have been here for 2000 years. You must have built a really great
religion if it can be destroyed by a man on a four-day visit".
India, which was standing so
proudly last week after the largest electoral exercise the world
had ever seen, was diminished immeasurably by today's events.
To paraphrase Mr. Vajpayee
himself, today Sonia Gandhi lost a post, but India lost a whole
lot more. It is a day of infamy.
Niranjan Ramakrishnan is a writer living on the West Coast.
His writings can be found on http://www.indogram.com.
He can be reached at njn_2003@yahoo.com.
Weekend
Edition Features for May 15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
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