Tells the Facts and Names the Names

August 2007 alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair vol. 14, no. 14 The Vices of Scenes from the Struggle Secrecy, for the Rights of The Intransigence Guantanamo Detainees and War By Andy Worthington By Alexander Cockburn As the time steadily approaches the tribunals. Abraham criticized the en- when the U.S. Supreme Court will con- tire process as severely flawed, often re- and Jeffrey St. Clair sider whether, after over three years lying on “generic” evidence and designed of stalling and obfuscation on the part solely to rubber-stamp the detainees’ Hillary Clinton’s propensity for overkill of the administration, the detainees at prior designation as “enemy combatants”. earned her and Bill the enmity of people Guantanamo will be allowed “full access Abraham’s statement, filed in a case in capable of inflicting serious damage, as to the U.S. court system” and the right June, is widely credited with encouraging the Whitewater and Cattle Futures scan- to challenge the basis of their detention the Supreme Court to agree to take the dals duly attested. And soon, as they in federal courts, the detainees’ case in June, reversing a deci- embarked on the 1992 presidential cam- reports that 411 senior officials from the sion made just two months earlier. Such paign, the same overkill reflex produced a and Europe — 25 retired a reversal is very rare. The last one oc- perfect storm of bad publicity that came U.S. diplomats, two retired rear admirals, curred 60 years ago, within an ace of finishing Clinton off al- a retired Marine general, and 383 current In their submission to the Supreme together. or former members of the European and Court, the 383 European politicians — “of In January 2002, America was intro- British parliaments — made their sup- divergent political views”, as the AP put duced to the Gennifer Flowers scan- port for the detainees’ case clear to the it — declared that it was “important that dal, courtesy of the National Enquirer. Supreme Court on Friday , August 24. even when faced with the threat of inter- Flowers was a former Little Rock news- Their opposition to the administra- national terrorism, all states, including caster with whom Governor Clinton tion’s policies stems from a profound the United States, comply with the stan- had an extended love affair for five years dissatisfaction with the tribunal sys- dards set by international humanitarian in the 1980s, as pleasingly chronicled tem — the Combatant Review Status law and human rights law by granting full in Flowers’ entirely credible memoir, Tribunals (CRST) — which were hur- court access”, and added, pointedly, “The Gennifer Flowers: Passion and Betrayal. riedly established by the administration treatment of petitioners currently falls After the Enquirer broke the Flowers after the Supreme Court first ruled, 38 short of these standards”. story while Clinton was campaigning in months ago, that the detainees had the For their part, the 25 retired U.S. dip- New Hampshire, his campaign advisors right to challenge their detention — after lomats pointed out that lower court rul- went into crisis mode, trying to figure they had already spent two and a half ings “supporting the Bush administra- out the best defense. Seasoned tacticians years in a hermetically sealed legal limbo. tion's opposition to full court access” like Betsey Wright and David Ifshin sug- Far from being an adequate response, the were “seized upon by repressive govern- gested that the best course would be to tribunals — in which three-member mili- ments as a license to incarcerate their shrug the story off as unsubstantiated tary panels reviewed the detainees’ status own citizens and others with impunity”, gossip mongering by a supermarket tab- as enemy combatants, but the detainees but the most trenchant criticism came loid. The national press corps was already themselves had no right to legal counsel from Brig. Gen. David M. Brahms, the taking this tack, since the reporters on and were not allowed to see the classified senior legal adviser for the Marine Corps the campaign bus were loath to admit information on which most of the ver- from 1985-88, Rear Adm. John D. Hutson, they had been scooped by the Enquirer dicts were supposedly based — had been the Navy's judge advocate general from — whose story was in fact a piece of criticized from the moment of their in- 1997-2000, and Rear Adm. Donald J. well-researched investigative reporting, ception. They were recently subjected to Guter, the Navy's judge advocate gen- backed up by taped phone calls and mes- fierce condemnation by Lt. Col. Stephen eral from 2000-02, who declared that sages to Gennifer from Bill. Abraham, a member of the team respon- the Tribunals had been “tainted by the (Editors continued on page 2) sible for compiling the “evidence” used in (Worthington continued on page 4) August 2007 Befitting a Midwestern Methodist with a bullying father, repression has always been one of Mrs. Clinton’s most prominent characteristics.

It was Hillary who instructed the cam- one thing, but insulting Tammy Wynette? Foster to suicide. After the Clintons ar- paign to put the ruthless private investi- The nation’s number one country star rived in the White House, it became gator Jack Palladino on the case. In her had been watching the program and was Foster’s role to guard their secrets. It was memo to Palladino, she ordered him to furious. She immediately called her pub- one thing to lock documents into a secret “impeach Flowers’ character and veracity licist to vent her outrage, and the pub- room during the campaign. It was quite until she is destroyed beyond all recogni- licist relayed this to the press. For three another to play hide-and-seek with files tion.” Thus primed, Palladino went into days the Clinton campaign tried to talk in the White House, as Mrs. Clinton re- action, seeking to portray Flowers as a to Wynette. She declined all calls until quired Foster to do. Now there weren’t prostitute, a shakedown artist and career finally they got Burt Reynolds to call her, nosy reporters but special prosecutors scamster. and she relented, releasing the news she with subpoenas, looking for documents While Palladino was trying to finish would accept Hillary’s apologies. relevant to Whitewater, to Mrs. Clinton’s off Flowers, Hillary urged Bill to follow The next storm the Clintons had to billing records at Rose Law, her tax re- the high-risk strategy of both of them face was the matter of his avoidance of cords relevant to the commodity trades. going on CBS’s 60 Minutes for an inter- the draft during the . James Foster was tasked with hiding all these view conducted by Steve Kroft. In front Carville, the campaign manager, advo- documents: some in his house, some in of a vast national audience Bill, visibly ill cated forthright admission that this is his office and some — the most damag- at ease, admitted to causing pain to his what he had done. Clinton agreed with ing files — back in his Little Rock house. family while denying that their marriage Carville’s plan to go on ABC’s Nightline There were additional burdens for was merely an arrangement. “This is a with Ted Koppel, bringing with him his Foster. He was trying to douse another marriage,” he asserted. Hillary broke in. famous letter to Colonel Eugene Holmes fire started by Mrs. Clinton. This was her Years of effort in burnishing Bill’s image frankly discussing the conflict between instruction to fire the White House travel as a Son of the South went up in smoke his desire to go and fight in Vietnam and staff, on a trumped-up rationale. There as she declared, “You know, I’m not sit- his concomitant eagerness to “maintain were six separate investigations into ting here like some little woman standing my political viability”. But Hillary was these firings, all of which Foster had to by my man like Tammy Wynette.” adamant. He should not admit that he deal with. Finally, the wretched man had The polls promptly showed Bill’s num- wanted to avoid the draft. On the other to listen to Mrs. Clinton publicly blame bers plummeting south of the Mason- hand, he should not be forced to apolo- the whole “Travelgate” mess on him, even Dixon line. An affair with Flowers was gize for being against the war. The entire as he was concealing documents making file of documents and letters should be it clear she had been the person initiating concealed. Her view prevailed, and the the mess. On top of that, Mrs. Clinton inevitable consequence was the draft- demanded Foster be the principal liaison dodging issue stayed alive as a steady with Congress on her health reform plan. stream of compromising documents For the last month of his life, she refused EDITORS was leaked to the press over the next five to communicate with him, even though Alexander Cockburn months. their offices were thirty feet apart. Jeffrey St. Clair The desire for secrecy is one of Mrs. Health reform was Mrs. Clinton’s as- ASSISTANT EDITOR Clinton’s enduring and damaging traits, signment in her husband’s first term. The Alevtina Rea which is why these campaign imbroglios debacle is well known. In early 1993, 64 are of consequence. Clinton dug himself per cent of all Americans favored a sys- BUSINESS into many a pit, but his greatest skill was tem of national health care. By the time Becky Grant in talking his way out of them in a man- Mrs. Clinton’s 1342-page bill, generated in Deva Wheeler ner Americans found forgivable. Befitting secret, landed in Congress, she had man-

DESIGN a Midwestern Methodist with a bullying aged to offend the very Democratic lead- Tiffany Wardle father, repression has always been one ership essential to making health reform of Mrs. Clinton’s most prominent char- a reality. The proposal itself, under the COUNSELOR acteristics. Hers has been the instinct to mystic mantra “Managed Competition”, Ben Sonnenberg conceal, to deny, to refuse to admit any embodied all the distinctive tropisms of CounterPunch mistake. Mickey Kantor, the Los Angeles neoliberalism: a naïve complicity with the PO Box 228 lawyer who worked on the 1992 cam- darker corporate forces, accompanied by Petrolia, CA 95558 paign, said that Hillary adamantly refused adamant refusal to even consider build- 1-800-840-3683 to admit to any mistakes. ing the popular political coalition that [email protected] It’s clear from Jeff Gerth and Don Van alone could have faced and routed the www.counterpunch.org Natta Jr.’s very revealing Her Way: The insurance and pharmaceutical lobbies All rights reserved. Hopes and Ambitions of Hillary Rodham — two of the most powerful forces on the Clinton that Mrs. Clinton played a major American political scene. Mrs. Clinton’s role in driving White House lawyer Vince rout on health reform remains one of the

2 August 2007 great avoidable disasters of the last centu- Hillary had been the one who insisted he was reconstituting his nuclear weap- ry in American politics, and one with ap- that no deal be made with Paula Jones, ons program; and that he was giving aid palling human and social consequences. who could have been bought off with and comfort to Al Qaeda. The only other This disaster was compounded by the modest settlement her lawyer was Democratic senator to make all four of the fact that after the collapse of health requesting. Hillary said she didn’t want these claims in his floor speech was Joe reform, on the advice of Dickie Morris Jones to get “a single dollar”.) Lieberman. But even he didn’t go as far as (summoned by Mrs. Clinton), the Bill had his Tammy, and he knew the Senator Hillary. In Lieberman’s speech, Clintons swerved right, toward all the en- price. “Whatever Hil wants, Hil gets,” there was conditionality about some of suing ghastly legislative ventures of their he told his staff in 1998, and he began to the claims. In Senator Clinton’s, there regime — the onslaughts on welfare, the read books about the campaigns of suc- was no such conditionality, even though crime bill, NAFTA. With Morris came cessful female politicians — Margaret a vehement war hawk, Ken Pollack, ad- the birth of “triangulation” — the tactic Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Benazir Bhutto, vising Senator Clinton prior to her vote, of the Clinton White House working with Golda Meir. As Clinton headed toward had told her that the allegation about the Republicans and conservative Democrats impeachment, Hillary set her course for al-Qaeda connection was “bullshit”. and actively undermining liberal and pro- the New York Senate seat. Later, as the winds of opinion changed, Senator Clinton claimed — and contin- Mrs. Clinton’s rout on health reform remains ues to do so to this day — that hers was a vote not for war but for negotiation. In one of the great avoidable disasters of the last fact, the record shows that only hours century in American politics, and one with ap- after the war authorization vote she voted against the Democratic resolution palling human and social consequences. that would have required Bush to seek a diplomatic solution before launching the gressive initiatives in Congress. Money Since Vietnam, there’s never been a war. that could have given the House back to war that Mrs. Clinton didn’t like. She Today, Hillary Clinton says she sup- the Democrats in 1996 was snatched by argued passionately in the White House ports the “surge” in Iraq and claims it’s the White House purely for the self-pres- for the NATO bombing of Belgrade. Five working. This is the candidate who has ervation of the Clintons. days after September 11, 2001, she was a 22 per cent lead over Barrack Obama After health care went down the tubes, calling for a broad war on terror. Any among those who claim to be anti-war Hillary adopted a very low-key political country presumed to be lending “aid and Democrats. From candidate, maybe pres- profile, in part because Leon Panetta, the comfort” to al-Qaeda “will now face the ident Hillary Clinton, Iran can expect no new White House chief of staff, banned wrath of our country.” Bush echoed these mercy. cp her from political meetings. She out- words eight days later in his nationally flanked him in two ways: by secret strat- televised speech on September 21. “I’ll Subscription Information egizing with Morris every two weeks and stand behind Bush for a long time to by nightly strategy sessions with Clinton come”, Senator Clinton promised, and Subscription information can be found and Al Gore. 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Published twice monthly knew the full extent of her husband’s rela- Of course she supported without res- except July and August, 22 issues a year. tions with the woman she called “Elvira” ervation the attack on Afghanistan and, (the mid-'90s horror queen) on January as the propaganda buildup toward the One year hardcopy edition $45 21, 1998, eight months before the official onslaught on Iraq got underway, she Two year hardcopy edition $80 narrative claims that Bill informed her of didn’t even bother to walk down the hall One year email edition $35 his treachery the night before he gave his to read the national intelligence estimate Two year email edition $60 deposition. She ordered a full-bore attack on Iraq before the war. (She wasn’t alone One year email & hardcopy edition $50 on Lewinsky as “a stalker with a weight in that. Only six senators read that NIE.) 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3 August 2007

(Worthington continued from page 1) pointed military judges in two cases — him an , “in part permissible use of evidence obtained by that of child soldier and the because al-Qaeda does not follow the torture” and stated, “If the United States Yemeni , who worked as rules of war”. He added that, even if the holds prisoners indefinitely — potentially a driver for Osama bin Laden — closed judges rejected that argument, the pros- lifetime imprisonment — based on sham down the proceedings because the MCA ecution “should be permitted to present Tribunal proceedings and without pro- had authorized them to try “illegal enemy proof to a trial judge that Mr. Khadr was viding meaningful judicial review of their combatants”, whereas the Tribunal pro- in fact an unlawful combatant and could imprisonment, enemies in current or fu- cess, which made detainees eligible for therefore be prosecuted before a military ture conflicts may use that as an excuse trial by Military Commission, had ruled commission”. Two of the three judges — to mete out similar treatment to captured only that they were “enemy combatants”, Brownback and Allred — did not appear American military forces”. the word “illegal” being omitted. to be convinced. The complaints of these 411 men and Despite efforts to dismiss the distinc- The administration also faces stiff op- women are not without precedent. In tion as a mere technicality, the judges position from the military defense law- the last few years, a roll-call of retired — Army Colonel Peter Brownback (for yers who, as in the case of Lt. Cmdr. U.S. military commanders and diplo- Khadr) and Navy Captain Keith Allred Charles Swift (who represented Hamdan mats (many of them Republicans) and (for Hamdan) — refused to back down. until he was turned down for promo- European parliamentarians have joined The administration, in a fit of pique, de- tion and forced to leave the military last a chorus of disapproval from the leaders clared that it would appeal the decisions. month) are prepared to sacrifice their ca- of other countries, from U.N. represen- Its plan disclosed the stunning ineptitude reers to maintain opposition to what they tatives, from religious leaders, and from of its renegade approach to the law when regard as a system designed to justify tor- judges, lawyers and human rights activ- it emerged that the appeal court in which ture and to break the law. Swift, it tran- ists, pointing out essentially the same the government would file its petulant spires, was not so easily dismissed, and things: that the system is monstrously complaints had not yet been established. he will continue to lead Hamdan’s team unjust, that it darkens the name of the This oversight has now been remedied. as a civilian lawyer from his new post United States worldwide, that it em- at Emory University School of Law in powers dictators by example, and that it “It’s like the Titanic. You Atlanta, and his successor, Army Major endangers the lives of U.S. soldiers and know someday the ship Thomas Rougheen, has already expressed civilians abroad. This time, however, the his opposition to the system, explaining timing may be significant, as the admin- is going to sink. God al- that he is “confident” that it will “collapse istration is due to begin court filings in its under high court scrutiny”, and adding, own defense in October. mighty, let’s get there “It’s like the Titanic. You know someday In other developments in late August, already! ” the ship is going to sink. God almighty, the administration attempted to re- let’s get there already!” vive its beleaguered and much reviled As the special appeals court convened on One of their number, Lt. Cmdr. system of Military Commissions at Friday, August 24, in what the New York William C. Kuebler recently described Guantanamo, established to try those re- Times described as “a borrowed court- the Commissions as rigged, ridiculous, garded as the most dangerous detainees room half a block from the White House”, unjust, farcical, and a sham, adding, “I in Guantanamo in a brand-new system retired Army Col. Francis Gilligan, one of think things have been done to people that spurns both military law and civilian the military prosecutors, declared, “We’re that under any definition except this law as enacted on the mainland. Just as attempting to start the trials”, although he administration’s very narrow one would the Tribunals have been condemned for added, a little sheepishly, “We’ve sort of be torture”. Now he has indicated that providing a pale and unjust imitation of had a judicial stall”. This, of course, was he remains implacably opposed to any habeas rights, the four-year history of the something of an understatement, and it attempt to revive the Commissions, tell- Commissions has been rocked by judicial remains to be seen whether the newly ing journalists after the hearing, “This is setbacks and abortive, farcical proceed- established and grandly titled “United about the credibility of the United States ings, fostering the widespread belief that States Court of Military Commission and the perception around the world of the Commissions are as unjust and un- Review” can overturn the objections ex- our commitment to the ”. Like principled as the Tribunals, and designed, pressed by the military judges in June. a gauntlet-hurling hero of old, Kuebler like them, to secure a guilty verdict at all The session convened to deal, in the concluded, “This is a lawless process”, and costs and to prevent all mention of tor- first instance, with Omar Khadr’s case, “I look forward to further legal fireworks ture by U.S. forces. did not get off to a good start. As soon as the limping administration attempts First condemned by the Supreme Court as it began, defense lawyers challenged — unsuccessfully, I hope — to bully its in June 2006, which ruled that they were the very legitimacy of the court, arguing way to further injustices”. cp illegal under U.S. law and the Geneva that it was improperly constituted be- Conventions, the Commissions were cause its members were appointed not revived late last year when the Senate by the defense secretary, as the law calls Andy Worthington is a British historian passed the criminally negligent Military for, but by a deputy secretary. Ignoring and the author of The Guantánamo Files: Commissions Act (MCA) , but they came this inconvenient truth, Gilligan said The Stories of the 774 Detainees in unstuck as soon as they were reinstated, that the court should be able to accept America’s Illegal Prison (to be published two months ago. The government-ap- that Khadr’s tribunal effectively declared by Pluto Press in October 2007).

4 August 2007

McKinley, the political genius, knew how he would accomplish his goals. It McKinley, Bush and would be through the act of foreign war with the result that imperial America The Distractions of War would be united into “national unity and By Eva Liddell cohesion”. By “accident”, of course. Only an accidental empire could be acceptable to Americans. By the time that William McKinley be- and the privileged, the only way he could War would kill reform. War would came president in 1896, followed around have won. quell dissent. War would take the peo- by his front man Mark Hanna, the guy When the sweet-tempered McKinley ple’s minds off of their domestic troubles who claimed to have modeled came into power, people couldn’t fig- and direct attention to foreign affairs, to himself, the Republican Party was run- ure him out. This was due to the fact he war itself. Ever since McKinley, all sub- ning out of steam. For twenty years the never told anybody what he wanted to sequent war presidents have gone to war Party had insisted it was the “one true do. He spoke in windy, vague and self- for essentially the same reason. The rhet- Party” based on one prime to glory. The contradictory terms. The press assailed oric remains unchanged. No need to fix Great Emancipator, the hero of the plain him as weak, and he did nothing to cor- what always works. Before going to war folk, had been a Republican too. rect the impression. No other president with Spain, McKinley announced that “all There had been a lot of money made until George Bush Jr. has been seen as diplomatic efforts to secure the peace had during the Civil War favoring the cities such an instrument of other people’s vi- been exhausted”. Responsibility for the of the North. War had built factories, sions and the tool of their ambitions. He new American Empire were due to the enlarged mills, increased the railroads projected himself as the victim of circum- “march of events”, to the “almighty hand and telegraph services. Trades, crafts, stances and allowed his front man Hanna of God”, to the accidents of war, to popu- labor unions —all bloomed into exis- to be seen as the powerful force driving lar demand, to “destiny”, and to “duty”. tence aided by the war . It wasn’t his campaign and running his presidency. As for the Democratic Party after so kind to the farmer or the plain rural He seemed to be even too weak to care McKinley’s “splendid little war”, it could folk no matter where they lived, be it the about the insults that he was Hanna’s happily put talks of reform to rest. By North or the Midwest. Twenty years after puppet. But it was Hanna who did all the pretending to be anti-imperialist once the war, they were beginning to see the dirty work while McKinley seemed to imperialism was safely in place, all pre- real picture of what the Civil War meant want very little. vious internal issues were manageable. to them economically. They threw away This appearance was a political neces- Nor was the new imperialism lost on their photograph of Lincoln rising among sity for McKinley who knew that in order the . The once great the clouds into the embrace of Jesus to get what he wanted — which was Party of Negro Rights and Equality that Christ. The Lincoln cult was replaced by nothing less than the radical reconstruc- now governed the “lesser breeds” in the cynicism and the realization that while tion of the republic — he had to appear Philippines gave the Democrats the li- the Western farmer may have fought the as not wanting it. He spoke in a confused cense to treat southern blacks just as the South to save the Union, the real gain was fashion to the people about his vision for McKinley administration intended to made by businessmen in the North. a new republic, one of “national unity treat the newly colonized dark-skinned Before 1896, during the anomalous sit- and cohesion”. He, of course, knew what people. Segregation laws carried out uation of having a Democrat for a presi- this new “unity and cohesion” meant. It by southern Democrats in 1898 and the dent, the people had made known to the would quell discontent, eliminate dissent years thereafter were no coincidence. politicians they were angry and agitated and weaken those who still had a vision George Bush and the man who is sup- at their economic circumstances which of the old republic. He knew it meant posed to be his operator, his wirepuller, they blamed on the monopolists. The the imposing of order and discipline on his brain —Karl Rove — merely work Panics during Cleveland’s administration the country’s unruly politics and on its from the template that McKinley put only deepened their plight. Their cry for sprawling economy. While he set about into place. The reasons may vary why reform made America’s overprivileged these aims, he spoke to a baffled public the U.S. will want war with this country business magnates a pack of frightened about the importance of “love for the or with that one. But there is one reason men. In 1896, the Democratic Party — flag” and his own “feelings of mystique” that never changes. Keeping the pub- always terrified of reform — insisted it about red, white, and blue bunting. The lic focused on a current war or the im- had changed its ways and was now the press assailed his idiotic speeches as the minent dangers of a new one guarantees “Party of Reform”. It had no choice but ramblings of a confused man. the death of domestic reform. Every need to put up as its candidate for the presi- What he wanted is not a mystery now. for change is thrust into the background dency the orator and populist reformer He wanted what all presidents have want- when our immediate task is to concen- and no choice ed subsequently. To steal the wealth of trate on solving the problems of war. but to make sure that he lost. They picked the nation and concentrate it in the hands Our two vaunted political parties work some sleazy Bourbon Democrat out of of the few. To protect the monopolists as in collusion united by that common goal. to manage his campaign and they ally themselves to party power, all the The third party, the one with no name, instructed the loyal Bryan not to make while remaining themselves a separate the Money Power, insures that they carry inflammatory speeches against the rich party of no label except that of money. it out. cp

5 dealer dudes. Employers of domestic help San Antonio, often rob customers, and A Kinder, rarely pay social security, and the govern- frequently rape the women travelers.” ment certainly won’t be knocking on the But now, Jose says, all those extra Gentler Coyote doors of lady bosses in the West Village Border Patrol agents are having an ef- By Debbie Nathan or Brentwood, much less checking ID fect. It’s so hard to cross now that fewer amid the fancy strollers in Washington people are coming. This has created in- Bowing to anti-immigration pressure, Square Park. tense competition among the coyotes, the Bush administration announced in Still, for Central American and who have responded by vastly improving August that U.S. employers now have 90 Mexican women, there’s the fabled, il- their services. days to clear up worker social security legal trip across the evil Rio Grande or “Now, they pay your way on a first- numbers that don’t match with the gov- Arizona desert, with the snakes and de- class bus from your home town to the ernment’s database. After that, employ- hydration and sexually assaultive “coy- border. They cross only 8 people at a ers who don’t fire out-of-status workers otes” – the smugglers. Who wants to risk time. After they get you to the U.S. side, will face criminal sanctions. So will em- that? Answer: Plenty of distaffers. Studies you only have to walk a few hours be- ployees. show that half of illegal immigrants com- cause they’ve made arrangements with According to a friend of mine in the ing from the south today are female. And farmers in South to put you up Mexican state of San Luis Potosi whom Jose explained to me that crossing for for the night, even feed you. And some I’ll call Jose, this new policy is going to women is getting downright convenient, of those farmers are gringos,” Jose adds. make life better for women. thanks to the U.S. government. “Then they put you in vans and drive you The intent of the new policy is to erad- Jose has crossed solo several times in to Houston.” icate employment opportunities in the the past 15 years to work in agriculture. “And they’re much nicer to women U.S.A. for the undocumented. Of course, Lately, though, stepped up border en- now. No more robberies. No rapes. They we’re talking only about the overground forcement has made it so difficult to get know it will get out by word of mouth, economy, including the agricultural sec- past Laredo that he’s taken to hiring a and they desperately want to maintain tor. Will we be getting any fresh broccoli coyote for $1,300. He knows lots of peo- and expand their customer base.” cp or apples after the new rule takes effect? ple who’ve always used smugglers, and Debbie Nathan lived in El Paso for Whatever – there’s always McDonald’s. until recently, he says, the coyotes were a many years before moving to New York. Meanwhile, there’s the black market nasty lot. “They would cross 40 people at She wrote Women and Other Aliens: – which is far more about female nan- a time, impose the charges at the border, Essays from the U.S.-Mexico Border nies and house cleaners than about crack make everyone walk three to six days to (Cinco Puntos, El Paso: 1991).

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