Counterpunch

A US biweekly political magazine that since 2018 has moved sharply to the official narrative.

 http://www.counterpunch.org   
Started: 1994

Constitutes: media,  gatekeeper

Counterpunch (CP) is a US focused biweekly political magazine. During 2018, it underwent a substantial purge of writers and a narrowing on several editorial lines, now aligning strongly with dominant US/NATO narratives on subjects such as Russia, deep politics and the regime change operation in Syria.

History

Started in 1994 by Alexander Cockburn,Ken Silverstein and Jeffrey St. Clair, it was for several decades one of the main outlets for independent leftist thought, with a relative openness to some deep state subjects, like the assassination of Martin Luther King and the CIA-Contra cocaine smuggling operation.

2018 Purge

Noticeably starting around mid 2018, the magazine underwent a drastic purging of writers. Contributors who had been with them for decades found themselves refused publishing, and when asking for an explanation or discussion, received no answer.

The writers purged included Andre Vltchek, Ann Garrison, C.J. Hopkins, Diana Johnstone, Israel Shamir, Mike Whitney As Edward Curtin, one of the purged writers, noted, "Others, smelling an odd odor, have walked away."

Campaign against Caitlin Johnstone

In July 2017, CounterPunch ran a whole series of articles with vituperate attacks on independent antiwar journalist Caitlin Johnstone. When Johnstone discussed on her blog how to create a broad single-issue antiwar movement and mentioned the possibility of an alliance with people nominally on the right in politics, specifically mentioning Michael Cernovich as a random example, she was pounced upon by Counterpunch. Over the next few months, CP published almost a dozen articles with a weirdly overreacting aggressive tone against Johnstone. Even when Johnstone conceded Cernovich was a bad example, the attacks continued.

Reporting

On December 20, 2002, Sean Carter for CounterPunch wrote an article on The Bush Rape Story about Margie Schoedinger's lawsuit. In contrast to the majority of early reporting on the story, it was still online as of 2019. Carter wrote that "anyone with a computer and a modem can verify the story by downloading court documents. However, the accuracy of the story does not seem to be enough for the media. Apparently, this story does not meet its threshold of “responsible journalism.”"

'Alice Donovan'

In 2016, the Washington Post presented claims from anonymous US intelligence sources that Counterpunch had published an article by an alleged “Russian troll” named Alice Donovan, and four more pieces by "her" the following year.

When Washington Post broached the subject again in late 2017, the CP editors investigated, concluding that CP had "published five stories by Donovan. One was apolitical. Four could be considered critiques of US foreign policy during the Trump administration. None mentioned Hillary Clinton, Vladimir Putin, the 2016 elections, Wikileaks or Julian Assange." Alice Donovan was seemingly a false name or pseudonym, but the claimed Russian connection remained tenuously proved. Someone under the name Alice Donovan had also published a handful rather bland pieces on Inside Syria Media, generally positive to the Syrian government.

This incident happened during the CIA's Russiagate psychological operation and the first phase in the war against independent media, with false news as the angle. Given the blandness of Donovan's articles, it is not unreasonable to assume the incident was a setup by an agent provocateur connected to the US secret services. This has been a standard FBI technique time and again for a century.

 

Documents sourced from Counterpunch

Title	Type	Subject(s)	Publication date	Author(s)	Description
Document:A Death Sentence for Greece	article	Greece IMF Eurozone	13 February 2012	Mike Whitney	An analysis and deconstruction of the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Greek government and its creditors which secured Greek parliamentary approval amid scenes of unprecedented protests by the Greek population on 11 February 2012.
Document:A Perfect Conspiracy	article	Terrorism Industry 7-7	22 July 2005	Trowbridge Ford
Document:After Mossad Targeted Soleimani, Trump Pulled the Trigger	Article	Mossad Benjamin Netanyahu Donald Trump Ruhollah Khomeini Qassem Soleimani	3 January 2020	Jefferson Morley	Donald Trump has now fulfilled the wishes of Mossad. After proclaiming his intention to end America’s “stupid endless wars,” the president has effectively declared war on the largest country in the region in solidarity with Israel, the most unpopular country in the Middle East.
Document:Britain Bans Press TV	article	Censorship Press TV	22 January 2012	Ashfin Rattansi	The story of the banning of Press TV from the UK Sky Platform channel 515 that you will not see covered in the commercially controlled media.
Document:Empire of Lies	speech	Iraq War 2003 Corporate Media/Propaganda	25 February 2011	Jonathan Cook
Document:From Glory Boy to PoW Songbird	article	John McCain	13 June 2008	Douglas Valentine	A reality based counterbalance to the de-rigeur 'war-hero' treatment that John McCain is routinely accorded by the US commercially-controlled media and his Wikipedia entry
Document:How Saville got the Higher-ups off the hook	article	Bloody Sunday - 1972	18 June 2010	Eamonn McCann	A powerful critique of the Saville report into the 'Bloody Sunday' killings in Derry Northern Ireland by British paratroopers
Document:International Injustice: the Conviction of Radovan Karadzic	article	Srebrenica Massacre Radovan Karadžić Kosovo War Bosnian War	30 March 2016	Diana Johnstone	Commentary on the guilty verdict on Radovan Karadzic by the International Criminal Court on 24 March 2016
Document:Itamar - What the media missed	article	Itamar attack	17 March 2011	Alison Weir
Document:Julian Assange Must be Freed, Not Betrayed	Article	Wikileaks Julian Assange Gareth Peirce Saudi Arabia Islamic State Qatar John Podesta Hillary Clinton Keir Starmer David Leigh Malcolm Turnbull Julia Gillard Scott Morrison John Shipton Nils Melzer Sarah Ferguson Stefania Maurizi	18 February 2020	John Pilger	Sarah Ferguson's interview made no mention of a leaked document, revealed by WikiLeaks, called 'Libya Tick Tock', prepared for Hillary Clinton, which described her as the central figure driving the destruction of the Libyan state in 2011. This resulted in 40,000 deaths, the arrival of ISIS in North Africa and the European refugee and migrant crisis.
Document:Las Malvinas Son Argentinas: Return to the Falklands?	article	Document:Falklands and Chagos - A Tale of Two Islands Falkland Islands	4 April 2016	John Wright
Document:Libya and the Return of Humanitarian Imperialism	article	2011 Attacks on Libya "Humanitarian intervention" Imperialism	8 March 2011	Jean Bricmont
Document:MI5 and the Christmas Tree Files	book extract	MI5 BBC BBC/Deep state control	1988	Mark Hollingsworth Richard Norton-Taylor
Document:Manning Memo 14 March 2002	memo	2003 Iraq War	14 March 2002	David Manning
Document:Meyer Memo 18 March 2002	memo	Downing Street memo Iraq War 2003	18 March 2002	Christopher Meyer
Document:NATO Massacre at Majer	webpage	2011 Attacks on Libya	12 August 2011	Franklin Lamb
Document:Pushing Ukraine to the Brink	article	2014 Ukraine coup Afghanistan/2001 Invasion	9 July 2014	Mike Whitney	An illuminating introduction to extent that control of both gas and oil pipelines defines Usaian global policy and actions - especially in the Middle East, Central Asia and Ukraine. It is essentially anti-Russian and aimed at maintaining Ango-US dominance over the EU and Europe
Document:Putin's triumph	article	2014 Ukraine coup	23 March 2014	Israel Shamir	Israel Shamir on the historical background to the politics of Vladimir Putin and the unfolding events in Ukraine and Crimea
Document:Riots and the Underclass	webpage	2011 England riots	12 August 2011	Alexander Cockburn
Document:Sanctions of Mass Destruction: America’s War on Venezuela	Article	Venezuela Alfred de Zayas Hugo Chávez Nicolás Maduro Juan Guaidó	1 February 2019	Garikai Chengu	America’s largest export used to be manufactured goods made proudly in the United States. Today, America’s largest export is the US dollar. Any nation like Venezuela that threatens that export is met with America’s second largest export: weapons, chief amongst which are Sanctions of Mass Destruction.
Document:Speech by Head of MI6	speech	MI6 MI5 Society of Editors	28 October 2010	John Sawers	A speech by then Director General of MI6 to The Society of Editors about the work of the SIS's and their relationship with the media.
Document:The Assange Arrest is a Warning From History	Article	Wikileaks Julian Assange Sarah Tisdall Chelsea Manning The Guardian Alan Rusbridger Katharine Viner Hillary Clinton David Leigh Paul Manafort Luke Harding Scott Morrison Leni Riefenstahl Lenín Moreno	12 April 2019	John Pilger	Leni Riefenstahl, close friend of Adolf Hitler, whose films helped cast the Nazi spell over Germany told me that the message in her films, the propaganda, was dependent not on “orders from above” but on what she called the “submissive void” of the public: "When people no longer ask serious questions, they are submissive and malleable. Anything can happen.”
Document:The Brown Revolution in Ukraine	article	US/Sponsored Regime-change efforts since 1945 Ukraine Riots 2013-14	24 February 2014	Israel Shamir	Israel Shamir's take on the February 2014 events in Western Ukraine with a pithy, numbered outline of this particular 'Regime-change' modus-operandi - one which is becoming wearily predictable and familiar to students of these things.
Document:The Brutal Legacy of Bloody Sunday is a Powerful Warning to Those Hoping to Save Brexit	Article	The Troubles Bloody Sunday (1972) Theresa May Boris Johnson Brexit Democratic Unionist Party Good Friday Agreement Irish question	19 March 2019	Patrick Cockburn	What we are seeing is the two most divisive issues in modern British history coming together in a toxic blend: these are Brexit and the Irish question.
Document:The Demonization of Jeremy Corbyn	Article	BBC Austerity Boris Johnson Ed Balls Jeremy Corbyn Ephraim Mirvis	10 December 2019	Tony McKenna	Notwithstanding, Corbyn was transfigured by a rabid establishment into successive manifestations of the purest evil: he was a terrorist sympathiser; a threat to national security; a communist spy; a misogynist; and, a dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semite.
Document:The International Terrorist Threat and the Dilemas in Countering it	speech	"War on Terror"	1 September 2005	Eliza Manningham-Buller	A promotion of The War On Terror from the head of UK's MI5. "The world has changed"... etc.
Document:The London Riots in Historical Perspective	webpage	2011 England riots	11 August 2011	Ashley Dawson
Document:The Move to Muzzle Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala	article	"Antisemitism" Censorship Dieudonné M'bala M'bala Quenelle	1 January 2014	Diana Johnstone	How a French Cameroonian Comedian has the Judaic-dominated French establishment so worried they are making embarrassing fools of themselves.
Document:The Pentagon’s “2015 Strategy” For Ruling the World	article	US/Exceptionalism US/Military File:2015 US National Military Strategy.pdf	3 July 2015	Mike Whitney	A critique of the 2015 US National military strategy document
Document:The Shoah as State Religion?	article	"Antisemitism" Quenelle	24 January 2014	Diana Johnstone	The paranoid sensitivities of the French establishment to any and all manifestations of ridicule and satire concerning the 'State Religion' of the Shoa or Holocaust
Document:The Strange Death of Hugo Chavez	Interview	Hugo Chávez	22 April 2016	Mike Whitney Eva Golinger	Mike Whitney interviews Eva Golinger and discusses persuasive evidence that Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez did not die from a naturally occuring cancer in 2013
Document:The Suicide State	article	Israel Zionism	17 February 2012	Uri Avnery	On the suicidal tragectory of zionist Israel
Document:The War Prayer	short story	War Patriotism	November 1916	Mark Twain	Mark Twain's scathing indictment of war, and particularly of blind patriotic and religious fervor as motivations for war. The piece was left unpublished at his death, largely due to pressure from his family, who feared that it would be considered sacrilegious. Twain’s publisher and other friends also discouraged him from publishing it.
Document:Three Shattered Myths	open letter	Babar Ahmad UK/Police UK/Torture	26 January 2005	Babar Ahmad	Written after 12 months in HM Prison Woodhill, pending legal challenges to a US extradition application. In spite of multiple rulings that there was "insufficient evidence" to charge Ahmad with any criminal offence under UK law, he was held for 8 years before being extradited to USA on October 6, 2012.
Document:To understand or not to understand Putin	article	Vladimir Putin 2014 Ukraine coup	8 May 2014	Diana Johnstone	Understanding President Vladimir Putin and the dogged, determined unanimity of the western media to demonise and blame him for everything, in near total disregard of the evidence - a surreal situation explained with clarity
Document:Washington's "Pivot" hits a Brick Wall	article	2014 Ukraine coup/Civil war	29 August 2014	Mike Whitney	A scathing polemic on US support and promotion of the civil war in Ukraine
Document:Why Much of the Global South Isn’t Automatically Supporting the West in Ukraine	Article	Russia China 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine Global North and Global South Western world	28 February 2023	Krishen Mehta	"The BRICS are not imposing sanctions on Russia nor supplying arms to the opposing side. While Russia is the biggest supplier of energy and foodgrains for the Global South, China remains the biggest supplier of financing and infrastructure projects to them through the Belt and Road Initiative. And now Russia and China are closer than ever before because of the war."

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.