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Wars of
the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 17, 2005
Saul Landau
An Interview with
Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples the Laws It
Wrote"
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
January 31, 2005
Dave Zirin
Mr. Frank's Fatwah:
New Republic Writer Calls for Death & Torture of Arundhati Roy and
Stan Goff
Robert Fisk
Amid Tragedy,
Defiance
Chyng Sun
Gonzales: Chief
Prosecutor of Porn?
Greg Moses
The Real
Scandals of the Texas Election
Mike Whitney
Cheney at
Auschwitz
Ali Tonak
Turkey and the
EU: Fantasies and Ultimatums
Patrick
Cockburn
A Victory for the
Shia
Website of the Day
Voting
by the Script: Where Did the 8 Million Voter Turnout Figure Come
From?
January 29 / 30,
2005
Manuel Yang / Peter
Linebaugh
A Dialogue About
Murder in Toledo
Gabriel Kolko
Wilsonian and
Neoconservative Myths
Patrick Cockburn
Baghdad: City
of Empty Streets
Robert Fisk
This Election
Will Change the World, But Not as the US Wanted
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Con Job:
Bush Pledges on Racism Lack Realism
Bernard Chazelle
Why the
Children of Iraq Make No Sound When They Fall
Gary Leupp
"This Kind of
Subject Matter": Bush's New Ed Secretary vs. Vermont's
Lesbians
JoAnn Wypijewski
The Passion of Paul
Shanley
Alexander Cockburn
The Case of
Father Jerry
Ron Jacobs
Ballot of the
Puppets in Iraq
Brian Cloughley
Smart Bombs;
Wrong House: Iraq's Civilian Dead
Fred Gardner
Peron May
Split
Sister Dianna
Ortiz
Memo to Bush
from a Survivor of the Guatemalan Torturers: Stop the
Torture!
Tom Reeves
How Bush Brings
Freedom to the World: the Case of Haiti
Fran Quigley
Report: Haiti
Now "More Violent and More Inhuman"
Suzan Mazur
"Mr. Garsin from
Kinshasa": an Old Hand Weighs In on the Murder of Lumumba
Kurt Nimmo
Condi Rice and
the Neocon Plan for the Palestinians
Lenni Brenner
Holocaust
History: Beyond the UN's Rhetoric
Gilad Atzmon
The Politics of
Auschwitz
Luis Gomez
Power and
Autonomy in Bolivia
Mark Gaffney
NASA Searches
for a Snowball in Hell: Why Velikovsky Matters
Ben Tripp
Lament of the
Mnemonopath
Richard Oxman
Meet the
Fuqers
Poets' Basement
Louise, Collins,
Shanahan and Albert
Website of the
Weekend
Chemical Industry: Deceit and
Denial
January 28, 2005
Rachard Itani
Tsunami Aid By the
Numbers: the US Really is a Miser
Jensen /
Youngblood
Iraq's
Non-Election
Patrick Cockburn / Elizabeth Davies
Attacks on
Polling Places Leave 13 Dead
Dave Zirin
The Great
Donovan McNabb: Proud "Black Quarterback"
Dave Lindorff
Suicide by
State Execution?
Karyn Strickler
A Corporate
Death Penalty Act?
Jorge Mariscal
Fighting the
Poverty Draft
January 27, 2005
Seymour Hersh
We've Been Taken
Over By a Cult
Cockburn /
Sengupta
The US's Bloodiest
Day in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Juke Box
Journalism: Shilling for Bush
Ignacio Chapela / John F.
García
The Laws of
Nature
Mike Whitney
The Widening
Chasm Among Conservatives
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Those
Liberal Southern Baptists!
Ray McGovern
Reining In
Cheney
Russ Wellen
Marginalizing
Bin Laden
Christopher
Brauchli
The FBI's
Carnival of Errors
Website of the Day
Informed
Eating
January 26, 2005
Saree Makdisi
An Iron Wall of
Colonization: Fantasies and Realities About the Prospects for Middle East
Peace
Scott Fleming
In Good
Conscience: an Interview with Concientious Objector Aidan
Delgado
Dave Lindorff
Filling
Saddam's Shoes: the Puppet Regime Return's to Torture
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Salazar
and Obama: Two Dismal Debuts
Toni Solo
The US and Latin
America: a Not-So-Magical Reality
William James Martin
Condoleezza
Rice: Confused About the Middle East
William A. Cook
Bush's Second
Inaugural Address: the Lost Ur-Version
Eric Hobsbawm
Delusions About
Democracy
Alexander Cockburn
The CIA's New
Campus Spies
January 25, 2005
Brian
Cloughley
Iraq as
Disneyland
Mike Roselle
Satan is My
Co-Pilot
Josh Frank / Merlin
Chowkwanyun
The War on Civil
Liberties
John Chuckman
Freedom on
Steroids
Paul Craig
Roberts
A Party Without
Virtue
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
The Intolerance
of Christian Conservatives
James Petras
The US / Colombia
Plot Against Venezuela
Website of the Day
Lowbaggers for the
Environment
January 24, 2005
Fred Gardner
Last Monologue in
Burbank
Lori Berenson
On the
Politicization of My Case
Uri Avnery
King
George
January 22 / 23,
2005
Jennifer Van Bergen / Ray Del
Papa
Nuclear Incident in
Montana
Alexander
Cockburn
Prince Harry's
Travails
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Company
That Runs the Empire: Lockheed and Loaded
Stan Goff
The
Spectacle
Saul Landau
Nothing
Succeeds Like Failure
Gary Leupp
Official Madness
and the Coming War on Iran
Fred Gardner
Is GW Getting
the Runaround?
Phil Gasper
Clemency
Denied: the Politics of Death in California
Stanley Heller
A Kill-Happy
Government: Connecticut Chooses Death
Greg Moses
The Heart of
Texas: an Inauguration Day Betrayal on Civil Rights
Justin Taylor
The
Folk-Histories of John Ross
Daniel Burton-Rose
One China; Many
Problems
Elaine Cassel
Try a Little
Tyranny: Questions While Watching the Inaugural
Mike Whitney
Failing
Upwards: the Rise of Michael Chertoff
Mark L. Berenson
My Daughter
Has Been Wrongly Imprisoned
Christopher
Brauchli
It Doesn't
Compute: a $170 Million Mistake
Gilad Atzmon
Zionism and
Other Marginal Thoughts
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Day of
the Rats
Mark Donham
The Secret
Messages of Rahm Emmanuel
Ben Tripp
Adventures in
Online Dating
Walter Brasch
Hollywood's
Patriots: Soulless Kooks, Mr. Bush?
Poets' Basement
Wuest, Landau,
Ford, Albert & Drum
January 21, 2005
Dave Lindorff
A Great American
Journalist:
John L. Hess (1917-2005)
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War
Movement and the Iraqi Resistance
Don Santina
Baseball,
Racism and Steroid Hysteria
Ron Jacobs
Locked Out and
Pissed Off: Protesting the Bush Inauguration
Kurt Nimmo
The Problem with
Mike Ruppert
Don Monkerud
Once They
Were Cults: Bush's Faith-Based Social Services
Alan Farago
Swimming Home
from the Galapagos
Derek Seidman
An Interview with
Army Medic and Anti-War Activist Patrick Resta
January 20, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Dying for
Sycophants
William Cook
The Bush
Inauguration: A Mock Epic Fertility Rite
Joshua Frank
The Democrats
and Iran: Look Who's Backing Bush's Next
Eric Ruder
Why Andres Raya
Snapped: Another Casualty of Bush's War
Mike Whitney
Coronation in
a Garrison State
Robert Jensen
A Citizens Oath
of Office
Peter Rost
Bush Report on
Drug Imports: Good Data, Bad Conclusions
David Underhill
Is It
Torture Yet?: the Eclectic Fool Aid Torture Test
James Reiss
Adieu, Colin
Powell: Pea Soup in Foggy Bottom
CounterPunch
Staff
Voices from Abu
Ghraib: the Injured Party
January 19, 2005
Marta Russell
Social Security
Privatization & Disability: 8 Million at Risk
Mike Ferner
Marines Stretching
Movement: Protesting Urban Warfare in Toledo
Nancy Oden
The Nuremberg
Principles, Iraq and Torture
Tony Paterson
A Catalogue
of British Abuses in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
Bush's
Divide-and-Conquer Plan to Destroy Social Security
Doug Giebel
BS and CBS:
When 60 Minutes Helped Promote WMD Fantasies
Alexander
Cockburn
Will Bush Quit
Iraq?
January 18, 2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
How Americans Were
Seduced by War: Empire and Militant Christianity
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Federal Judge:
Abu Ghraib Abuses Result of Decision to Ignore Geneva
Conventions
Douglas Lummis
It's a No
Brainer; Send Graner: a Rap for Our Time
Ron Jacobs
Syria Back in
the Crosshairs?
Seth DeLong
Enter the
Dragon: Will Washington Tolerate a Venezuelan-Chinese Oil
Pact?
Lance Selfa
Stolen
Election?: Most Democrats Didn't Even Bother to Inquire
Paul D. Johnson
Mystery Meat:
a Right-to-Know About Food Origins
Elisa Salasin
An Open Letter
to Jenna Bush, Future Teacher
January 17, 2005
Heather Gray
Misconceptions About
King's Methods for Social Change
Robert Fisk
Hotel Room
Journalism: the US Press in Iraq
Dave Lindorff
What the NYT
Death Chart Omitted: Civilians Slaughtered by US Military
Jason Leopold
Sam Bodman's
Smokestacks: Bush's Choice for Energy Czar is One of Texas's Worst
Polluters
Gary Leupp
A Message from
the Iraqi Resistance
Douglas Valentine
An Act of
State? the Execution of Martin Luther King
Harvey Arden
Welcome to
Leavenworth: My First Encounter with Leonard Peltier
Greg Moses
King and the
Christian Left: Where Lip Service is Not an Option
January 15 / 16,
2005
James Petras
The Kidnapping of a
Revolutionary
Robert Fisk
Flying Carpet
Airlines: My Return to Baghdad
Ron Jacobs
Unfit for
Military Service
Brian Cloughley
Smack
Daddies of the Hindu Kush: Afghanistan's Drug Bonanza
Fred Gardner
The
Allowable-Quantity Expert
Dr. Susan Block
The
Counter-Inaugural Ball: Eros Day, 2005
John Ross
Zapatista
Literary Llife
Suzan Mazur
Unspooking Frank
Carlucci
M. Shahid Alam
America's New
Civilizing Mission
Frederick B. Hudson
Jack Johnson's
Real Opponent: "That I Was a Man"
Mike Whitney
Bush's Grand
Plan: Incite Civil War in Iraq
Tom Crumpacker
A
Constitutional Right to Travel to Cuba
Bob Burton
The Other Armstrong Williams Scandal
John Callender
La Conchita
and the Indomitable 82-Year Old
Lila Rajiva
Christian
Zionism
Saul Landau
An Imperial
Portrait: a Visit to Hearst's Castle
Doug Soderstrom
A Touch of
Evil: the Morality of Neoconservatism
Poets' Basement
Davies, Louise,
Landau, Albert, Collins and Laymon
January 14, 2005
Robert Fisk
"The Tent of
Occupation"
Lee Sustar
Bush's Social
Security Con Job
José M. Tirado
The Christians
I Know
Dave Zirin
The Legacy of
Jack Johnson
Sheldon Rampton
Calling John
Rendon: a True Tale of "Military Intelligence"
Tracy McLellan
Under the
Influence
Yves Engler
The
Dictatorship of Debt: the World Bank and Haiti
Tom Barry
Robert Zoellick: a
Bush Family Man
Website of the Day
Ryan for the Nobel
Prize?
January 13, 2005
Mark Chmiel / Andrew
Wimmer
Hearts and Minds,
Revisited
Joe DeRaymond
The Salvador
Option: Terror, Elections and Democracy
Greg Moses
Every Hero a
Killer?...Not
Dave Lindorff
The Great WMD
Fraud: Time for an Accounting
Jorge Mariscal
Dr. Galarza
v. Alberto Gonzales: Which Way for Latinos?
Christopher Brauchli
Gonzales and
the Death Penalty: the Executioner Never Sleeps
Gary Leupp
"Fighting for the
Work of the Lord": Christian Fascism in America
January 12, 2005
Robert Fisk
Fear Stalks
Baghdad
Josh Frank
The Farce of the DNC
Contest
Jack Random
Casualties of War:
the Untold Stories
John Roosa
Aceh's Dual
Disasters: the Tsunami and Military Rule
Carol Norris
In the Wake of
the Tsunami
Mike Whitney
Pink Slips at
CBS
Alan Farago
Can the Everglades
be Saved?
Paul Craig
Roberts
What's Our Biggest
Problem in Iraq...the Insurgency or Bush?
January 11, 2005
Tom Barry
The US isn't
"Stingy"; It's Strategic: Aid as a Weapon of Foreign Policy
James Hodge and Linda
Cooper
Voice of the
Voiceless: Father Roy Bourgeois and the School of the the
Americas
Linda S. Heard
Farah Radio
Break Down: Joseph Farah's Messages of Hate and Homophobia
Derrick O'Keefe
Electoral
Gigolo?: Richard Gere and the Occupied Vote
Gila Svirsky
A Tale of Two
Elections
Harry Browne
Irish "Peace
Process", RIP
January 10, 2005
Ramzy Baroud
Faith-Based
Disasters: Tsunami Aid and War Costs
Talli Nauman
Killing
Journalists: Mexico's War on a Free Press
Uri Avnery
Sharon's
Monologue
Dave Lindorff
Tucker Carlson's
Idiot Wind
Dave Zirin
Randy Moss's
Moondance
Dave Silver
Left Illusions
About the Democratic Party
Charles Demers
Plan Salvador
for Iraq: Death Squads Come in Waves
William A.
Cook
Causes and
Consequences: Bush, Osama and Israel
January 8 / 9, 2005
Alexander
Cockburn
Say, Waiter,
Where's the Blood in My Margarita Glass?
John H.
Summers
Chomsky and
Academic History
Greg Moses
Getting Real
About the Draft
Walter A. Davis
Bible Says: the
Psychology of Christian Fundamentalism
Victor Kattan
The EU and
Middle East Peace
John Bolender
The Plight of
Iraq's Mandeans
Robert Fisk
The Politics of
Lebanon
Fred Gardner
Situation
NORML
Joe Bageant
The Politics
of the Comfort Zone
Mickey Z.
I Want My DDT:
Little Nicky Kristof Bugs Out
Ben Tripp
CounterClockwise
Evolution
Ron Jacobs
Elvis and His
Truck: Out on Highway 61
Saul Landau
Sex and the
Country
Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Time to End
the Blackout
Ellen Cantarow
NPR's
Distortions on Palestine
Richard Oxman
Bageantry
Continued
Poets' Basement
Gaffney, Landau,
Albert, Collins
January 7, 2005
Omar Barghouti
Slave
Sovereignty: Elections Under Occupation
Kent Paterson
The Framing
of Felipe Arreaga: Another Mexican Environmentalist
Arrested
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Old Vijay
Merchant and the Tsunami
David Krieger
Cancel the
Inauguration Parties
Gideon Levy
New Year, Old
Story
Dave Lindorff
Ohio Protest:
First Shot Fired by Congressional Progressives
Christopher
Brauchli
Privatizing
the IRS
Roger Burbach / Paul
Cantor
Bush, the Pentagon
and the Tsunami
January 6, 2005
Brian J. Foley
Gonzales: Supporting
Torture is not His Greatest Sin
Greg Moses
Boot Up America!:
Gen. Helmly's Memo Leaks New Bush Deal
Petras / Chomsky
An Open Letter to
Hugo Chavez
Alan Maass
The Decline of
the Dollar
Dave Lindorff
Colin
Powell's Selective Sense of Horror
Jenna Orkin
The EPA and a
Dirty Bomb: 9/11's Disastrous Precedent
P. Sainath
The Tsunami and
India's Coastal Poor
January 5, 2005
Alan Farago
2004: An
Environmental Retrospective
Winslow T.
Wheeler
Oversight
Detected?: Sen. McCain and the Boeing Tanker Scam
Jean-Guy Allard
Gary Webb: a
Cuban Perspective
Fred Gardner
Strutting,
Smirking, As If The Mad Plan Was Working
David Swanson
Albert Parsons
on the Gallows
Richard Oxman
The Joe Bageant
Interview
Bruce Jackson
Death on the
Living Room Floor
January 4, 2005
Michael Ortiz
Hill
Mainlining
Apocalypse
Elaine Cassel
They Say They Can
Lock You Up for Life Without a Trial
Yoram Gat
The Year in
Torture
Martin Khor
Tragic Tales and
Urgent Tasks from the Tsunami Disaster
Gary Leupp
Death and Life in
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January 3, 2005
Ron Jacobs
The War Hits
Home
Dave Lindorff
Is There a Single
Senator Who Will Stand Up for Black Voters?
Mike Whitney
The Guantanamo
Gulag
Joshua Frank
Greens and
Republicans: Strange Bedfellows
Maria Tomchick
Playing
Politics with Disaster Aid
Rhoda and Mark
Berenson
Our Daughter
Lori: Another Year of Grave Injustice
David Swanson
The Media and
the Ohio Recount
Kathleen
Christison
Patronizing the
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January 1 / 2, 2005
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Earthquakes and End
Times, Past and Present
Rev. William E.
Alberts
On "Moral
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M. Shahid Alam
Testing Free
Speech in America
Stan Goff
A Period for
Pedagogy
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Bush and the
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The Aftermath in
Aceh
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Requiem for
2004
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A Visible
Future?
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The 2004 Said
Awards: Books Against Empire
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The Erotics of
Nonviolence
James T. Phillips
The Beast's
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David Krieger
When Will We
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Poets' Basement
Soderstrom,
Hamod, Louise and Albert
December 23, 2004
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Report from Kiev:
Yushchenko's Not Quite Ready for Sainthood
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Smith-Ferri
The Real UN Disgrace
in Iraq
Bill Quigley
Death Watch for
Human Rights in Haiti
Mickey Z.
Crumbs from Our
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Christopher Brauchli
Merck's Merry
X-mas
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When No Law Means No
Law
Alan Singer
An Encounter with
Sen. Schumer: a Very Dangerous Democrat
David Price
Social Security Pump
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Website of the Day
Gabbo Gets
Laid
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
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Northern
Ireland: No Postcards from the Edge
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On the Seventh
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Imagining
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December 21, 2004
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Losing It in
America: Bunker of the Skittish
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The View from
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Dragon Pierces
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Concrete Colossus
vs. the River Dragon: Dislocation and Three Gorges Dam
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"Things Always
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February 17,
2005
Do Americans Even Care?
Russia,
Israel and Media Omissions
By ALISON
WEIR
As is often the case with AP's coverage of news having to do with
Israel, there's a serious omission in its reporting on the Russia-Israel
connection even when it involves oil and the United States.
The day after the State of the Union
Address, two Interpol fugitives attended the "National Prayer Breakfast"
held in Washington DC. The day before that, these fugitives from the law
were the guests of honor at an hour-long meeting of the International
Relations Committee on Capitol Hill, invited by ranking Democrat Tom
Lantos (Calif.)
You would think it would be hot news when
wanted men being hunted by European police suddenly pop up in the US
particularly on Capitol Hill and at events attended by the US
president.
Yet, there was not a single AP story in the
US on any of this. [1] Not a single national network television or radio
news program even mentioned these facts. In fact, Google and LexisNexis
searches four days after these events took place turned up only three
newspaper articles on them anywhere in the entire country. [2]
Who are these fugitives from the law, wanted
by Interpol, who are meeting at the highest levels of the US government?
And why didn't we learn of them?
Therein lies the story. These two men, it
turns out, are just the tips of a colossal iceberg. And this iceberg
doesn't just have 90 percent of its mass hidden under water; this iceberg
is almost entirely submerged.
They are Mikhail Brudno and Vladimir Dubov,
Israeli-Russian partners in the giant Russian oil company Yukos. They,
along with a number of their cronies, are wanted by Interpol for allegedly
bilking Russian citizens out of billions of dollars. To elude Russian
prosecution, these men have taken up residence in Israel. [3]
As the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz
explains: "In recent years Russian authorities began investigating
[Yukos], its managers and major stockholders, many of whom are of Jewish
origin. The probes caused several of the managers to flee to Israel, and
resulted in Khodorkovski's [Yukos CEO] arrest and a Kremlin attack on
Yukos."
The fact is that Israel is an important
factor in the ongoing, nation-shaking power struggle now going on in
Russia. Yet AP virtually never reports this connection. For example, a few
months ago in a typical AP story on this power struggle, "Report: Russia
again charges Berezovsky," [4] Moscow AP Bureau Chief Judith Ingram makes
no mention anywhere that Berezovsky is an Israeli citizen, or of his many
connections to Israel.
Such omissions by AP and large swaths of the
American media leave Americans seriously disadvantaged in deciphering what
is going on in Russia, and its profound significance for the
world.
In order to make sense of this Russian power
struggle, and to understand its importance to the rest of us, it is
necessary to understand the usually omitted Israeli subtext. When this is
understood, the friendship of such pro-Israel Congressional leaders as
Rep. Lantos to fugitive Russian oil tycoons begins to make
sense.
To explore this background it is often
useful to turn to the Israeli press. In July a major Israeli publication,
the Jerusalem Post, carried an article headlined: "Boris
Berezovsky: Putin's Russia dangerous for Israel." Before describing what
this contained, let us first go into a little of the
background.
The
Oligarchs
Boris Berezovsky is one of seven
"oligarchs," as they are known both inside and outside Russia: massively
rich, powerful manipulators who through violence, theft and corruption
acquired a mammoth percentage (reports range from 70 to 85 percent) of
Russia's resources, from its oil to the auto industry to mass media
outlets.
At the same time, the group steadily gained
control over much of the country's political apparatus. Using
extraordinary financial resources and insider dealing, the oligarchs
handpicked prime ministers and governmental leaders and barely even
bothered to do this behind the scenes.
In 1997 Yukos founder Mikhail Khodorkovsky,
one of the group and Russia's sometimes richest man (several of the
oligarchs trade the top spot back and forth) told an interviewer before he
was arrested and imprisoned by Putin last year:
"If we rank all the fields of man's
activity by profitability, politics will be the most lucrative business.
When we see a critical situation in the government, we draw lots in
order to pick out a person from our milieu for work in power."
[5]
Almost all of these oligarchs, it turns out,
have significant ties to Israel. In fact, Berezovsky himself has Israeli
citizenship a fact that caused a scandal of Watergate proportions in
Russia in 1996 when it was exposed by a Russian newspaper. [6]
Do Berezovsky's dual loyalties really
matter? Yes. In the realm of global dominance, Israel's interests and
Russia's are considerably divergent. It is in Israel's interests to bring
to power a regime in Russia friendly to Israel, rather than the current
one under Putin, which Israeli leaders feel is supportive of its enemies.
Not long ago, for example, Putin met with Syrian leaders an action highly
disturbing to Israel.
Having an Israeli citizen at the highest
levels of the Russian government is ideal, from Israel's point of view. In
Berezovsky they had such a man. The Jerusalem Post article
mentioned above is revealing. It describes Berezovsky as "the Godfather of
the Oligarchs' and Kingmaker of Russia's Politics'" and reports
Berezovsky's statement that "Putin's Russia is dangerous for Israel."
Berezovsky goes on to assert that Putin "supports terror" in the Middle
East through Russia's previous relations with Iraq and current relations
with Iran. [7]
While Israelis may have been delighted at
Berezovsky's position in Russia, It is not surprising that Russian
citizens were somewhat less so. Finding that a powerful leader and member
of the Russian Security Council was an Israeli citizen was disconcerting,
at best.
As a result of the media uproar over
Berezovsky's Israeli citizenship and other events, the Oligarchs'
connections to Israel are widely known in Russia and elsewhere. In Israel
they are covered frequently, often with adulation, including a recent hit
Israeli TV series called "The Oligarchs."
"Some of its episodes," according to Israeli
writer Uri Avnery, "are simply unbelievable or would have been, if they
had not come straight from the horses' mouths: the heroes of the story,
who gleefully boast about their despicable exploits. The series was
produced by Israeli immigrants from Russia."
Avnery writes that the oligarchs used
"cheating, bribery and murder," as they "exploited the disintegration of
the Soviet system to loot the treasures of the state and to amass plunder
amounting to hundreds of billions of dollars. In order to safeguard the
perpetuation of their business, they took control of the state. Six out of
the seven are Jews." [8]
According to a Washington Post story
by David Hoffman, the group bought and controlled Russian governmental
officials at the highest levels. After financing Yeltsin's election in
1996, Hoffman writes: "The tycoons met and decided to insert one of their
own into government. They debated who and chose [Vladimir] Potanin, who
became deputy prime minister. One reason they chose Potanin was that he is
not Jewish, and most of the rest of them are, and feared a backlash
against the Jewish bankers." [9]
In Russia, the oligarchs are deeply loathed,
considered villains who worked to bleed the country dry; during their
reign many Russian citizens saw their life savings disappear overnight. A
new term was coined for their dominance, "semibankirshchina" (the rule of
the seven bankers), and they were widely known to have wielded small,
murderous armies. There are rumors that Berezovsky, subject of the
respectful AP article, was even responsible for the gunning down of an
American journalist, Forbes Moscow editor Paul
Klebnikov.
While no one has been charged with the
murder of Klebnikov, who had written a book on Berezovsky, many suspect a
Berezovsky connection. As a friend of Klebnikov wrote: "Experienced
expatriates in Russia shared an essential rule: Don't cross these brutal
billionaires, ever, or you're likely to go home in a box." [10]
The Chechnya
Connection
There is evidence that Berezovsky's
responsibility for death and tragedy may be vastly greater.
"Berezovsky boasts that he caused the war in
Chechnya," Avnery reports, "in which tens of thousands have been killed
and a whole country devastated. He was interested in the mineral resources
and a prospective pipeline there. In order to achieve this he put an end
to the peace agreement that gave the country some kind of independence.
The oligarchs dismissed and destroyed Alexander Lebed, the popular general
who engineered the agreement, and the war has been going on since
then.
"In the end," Avnery writes, "there was a
reaction: Vladimir Putin, the taciturn and tough ex-KGB operative, assumed
power, took control of the media, put one of the oligarchs (Mikhail
Khodorkovsky) in prison, caused the others to flee (Berezovsky is in
England, Vladimir Gusinsky is in Israel, another, Mikhail Chernoy, is
assumed to be hiding here.)"
Yet, apart from the Washington Post,
American media report on almost none of this. Instead, US coverage largely
portrays Berezovsky and his crowd as American-style entrepreneurs who are
being hounded by a Russian government whose actions are, to repeat the
media's commonly used phrase, "politically motivated."
US news stories, even when they occasionally
do hint at questionable practices, tend to use such phrases as "brash
young capitalists" to describe the oligarchs. [11] For example, a long
series co-produced by FRONTLINE and the New York Times referred to
these men as "shrewd businessmen," and asked "what it's like to be young,
Russian and newly affluent?" [12] Massive violence, dual loyalties, and
control of resources are rarely, if ever, part of the picture.
When AP Moscow bureau chief Ingram was asked
for this article about Berezovsky's Israeli citizenship, she claimed to
know nothing about it, a curious contention for someone who has been an AP
news editor in Moscow since 1999. When Ingram was queried further, she
hung up the phone.
An examination of Ingram's reporting on the
Berezovsky story cited above raises serious questions. Though she is
located in Moscow, Ingram interviewed only two people for her news story:
Berezovsky, who is in London, and Berezovsky associate Alex Goldfarb, in
New York. One wonders why she interviewed none of the Russians residing
around her.
Similarly, one wonders why not a single AP
story has identified Berezovsky's considerable connection to
Israel.
Further, nowhere does Ingram's article
convey the ruthlessness of the oligarchs' actions, or the significance of
their holdings, including control of its media. Unnoted in Ingram's report
is the fact that her subject and fellow oligarch Vladimir Gusinsky have
been two of Russia's most powerful media tycoons.
Before Putin's crackdown, according to
the Washington Post, oligarchs had succeeded in seizing "the reins
of Russia's print and broadcast media, vital to the evolution of the
country's fledgling democracy and growth of its nascent civil society."
Berezovsky crony Gusinsky, who is close friends with Rupert Murdoch and
was about the launch a satellite network, fled to Israel when it appeared
he would be arrested." [13]
Somehow, AP's bureau chief seems to have
missed all this.
Does this matter to
Americans?
AP is the major news source for the
thousands of news outlets around the country who cannot afford to have
their own foreign correspondents. When AP chooses not to cover something,
its omission is felt throughout the nation. When national news networks
and others leave out the same facts, the cover-up is almost
total.
Russia, despite its current turmoil,
contains enormous power. Its natural resources are gargantuan: it
possesses the world's largest natural gas reserves, the second largest
coal reserves, and the eighth largest oil reserves. It is the world's
largest exporter of natural gas, the second largest oil exporter, and the
third largest energy consumer.[14] Russia's significance on the world
stage now, as in the past, is immense.
Similarly, the United States is currently
the most powerful nation on earth. It is therefore essential that its
citizens be accurately informed on issues of significance. Israeli
citizens, Russian citizens, and citizens of nations throughout the world
know the information detailed above. It is critical that American citizens
be no less well informed.
For years, the neocons' push for war against
Iraq was largely uncovered by the US media. For even longer, the neocons'
close connections to Israel have gone largely unmentioned in mainstream
American news reports. As a result, very few Americans know to what degree
many of those responsible for the tragic US invasion and occupation of
Iraq have been motivated by Israeli concerns.
The omission in coverage of Iraq has been
profoundly disastrous, both for the Middle East and for Americans. In
fact, it is quite likely that only history will show the true extent of
this disaster. It is deeply troubling to see the same kind of omission
occurring on Russia.
Alison Weir is Executive Director of If Americans Knew
[1] Interestingly, an AP report sent out
only on its Worldstream wire (i.e. to Europe; Britain; Scandinavia; Middle
East; Africa; India; Asia; England, but not to US papers) contained
information on this at the end of the report.
[2] Washington Post: "Prayer
Breakfast Includes Russian Fugitives" (overall, the Post has been
an exception to the general blackout on this subject); the Seattle
Times, which ran the Post story, and the New York Times,
in a short story on page 12 on Sunday, three days after the event.
Interestingly, the NY Times story was filed from Moscow (not Washington)
and quotes a "spokesman" for the two men, Charles Krause, who has worked
as a correspondent in Israel for the News Hour with Jim Lehrer. In the
Times story Russian attempts to prosecute these men are described as
"politically motivated."
[3] This is a wise move, since Israel is
known for never extraditing Jewish citizens, no matter what their crime.
Even requests for such cooperation by the US, which gives Israel over $10
million per day, go unheeded by the Israeli government. Private citizens
wanted for committing murder in the US, for example, are not returned for
trial.
[4] Associated Press, Sept. 22,
2004
[5] "Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia,"
By David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, August 28,
1998; Page A01
[6] "Media and Politics in Transition: Three
Models," Post-Soviet Media Law & Policy Newsletter, Issue 35,
Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, Feb. 27, 1997
[7] "Boris Berezovsky: Putin's Russia
dangerous for Israel.', Bret Stephens, The Jerusalem Post, July 5,
2005
[8]" The Oligarchs",
Uri Avnery, CounterPunch, Aug. 3, 2004
[9] "Tycoons Take the Reins in Russia,"
By David Hoffman, Washington Post Foreign Service, Friday, August 28,
1998; Page A01,
[10] "Same Old Ruthless Russia," by Michael
R. Caputo, Washingtonpost.com
[11] Washington Post, Aug 28,
1998
[12] October 2003, Sabrina
Tavernise,
[13] "Powerful Few Rule Russian Mass Media,"
David Hoffman, Washington Post, March 31, 1997; Page A01
[14] http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/russia.html
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