Today's Stories

July 19 / 20, 2008

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D.C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington "Screwed Up" and "Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U.S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U.S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be "Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U.S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N.D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on "Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

Weekend Edition
July 19 / 20, 2008

The Israel / Hezbollah Prisoner Swap

Different Planets

By URI AVNERY

I spent the whole day flipping between the Israeli channels and Aljazeera.

It was an eerie experience: in a fraction of a second I could switch between two worlds, but all the channels reported on exactly the same occasion. In one section of the breaking news, the events happened at a distance of a few dozen meters from each other, but they could just as well have happened on two different planets.

Never before have I experienced the tragic conflict in such a stunning immediacy as last Wednesday, the day of the prisoner swap between the State of Israel and the Hezbollah organization.

THE MAN who stood at the center of the event personifies the abyss that separates the two worlds, the Israeli and the Arab: Samir al-Kuntar.

All Israeli media call him "Murderer Kuntar", as if that were his first name. For the Arab media, he is "Hero Samir al-Kuntar".

29 years ago, before Hezbollah had become a significant factor, he landed with his comrades on the beach of Nahariya and carried out an attack that has imprinted itself on the Israeli national memory with its cruelty. In the course of it, a four year-old girl was murdered, and a mother accidentally suffocated her small child while trying to keep it from giving away their hiding place. Kuntar was then 16 years old - not a Palestinian, nor a Shiite, but a Lebanese Druze and a communist. The action was set in motion by a small Palestinian fraction.

Years ago I had an argument with my friend Issam al-Sartawi about a similar incident. Sartawi was a Palestinian hero, a pioneer of peace with Israel, who was later assassinated because of his contacts with Israelis. In 1978 a group of Palestinian fighters ("terrorists" in Israeli parlance) landed on the shore south of Haifa in order to capture Israelis for a prisoner swap. On the beach they came across a photographer who was innocently strolling around and killed her. After that they intercepted a bus full of passengers, and in the end all of them were killed.

I knew the photographer. She was a gentle young woman, a good soul, who liked taking pictures of flowers in nature. I remonstrated with Sartawi about this despicable act. He told me: "You don't understand. These are youngsters, almost kids, untrained and inexperienced, who are operating behind the lines of a dreaded enemy. They are scared to death. They cannot act with cool logic."

That was one of the few instances where we did not agree - though both of us were, each within his own people, on the fringe of the fringe.

This Wednesday, the difference between the two worlds was apparent in its most extreme form. In the morning, the "Murderer Kuntar" woke up in an Israeli prison, in the evening the "Hero al-Kuntar" stood in front of a hundred thousand cheering Lebanese from all communities and parties. It took him but a few minutes to cross from Israeli territory to the tiny UN enclave at Ras-al-Naqura and from there to Lebanese territory, from the realm of Israeli TV to the realm of Lebanese TV - and the distance was greater than that transversed by Neil Armstrong on the way to the moon.

By talking endlessly about the "Bloodstained Murderer" who will never be freed, whatever happens, Israel has turned him from just another prisoner into a pan-Arab hero.

Nowadays it is already a banality to say that one person's terrorist is another's freedom fighter. This week, a slight movement of the finger on the TV remote control was enough to experience this first-hand.

* * *  

EMOTIONS RAN high on both sides.

The Israeli public was immersed in a sea of sorrow and mourning for the two soldiers, whose death was confirmed only minutes before the return of their bodies. For hours on end, all the Israeli channels devoted their broadcasts to the feelings of the two families, who the media had spent the last two years transforming into national symbols (as well as rating-boosting instruments).

No need to mention that not a single voice in Israel said even one word about the 190 families, the bodies of whose sons were returned to Lebanon on the same day.

In this whirlpool of self-pity and mourning ceremonies, the Israeli public had no energy and interest left for trying to understand what was happening on the other side. On the contrary: the reception accorded to the Murderer and the victory speech of the Mastermind of Murder only added fuel to the flames of fury, hatred and humiliation.

But it would have been really worthwhile for Israelis to follow the happenings there, because they will have a lot of impact on our situation.

IT WAS, of course, Hassan Nasrallah's big day. In the eyes of tens of millions of Arabs, he has won a huge victory. A small organization in a small country has brought Israel, the regional power, to its knees, while the leaders of all the Arab countries are bending the knee before Israel.

Nasrallah promised to bring Kuntar back. For that purpose he captured the two soldiers. After two years and one war, the newly freed prisoner stood on the tribune in Beirut, dressed in a Hezbollah uniform, and Nasrallah himself, endangering his personal safety, came out and embraced him in front of the TV cameras, as a cheering crowd went wild with enthusiasm.

Faced with this demonstration of personal courage and self-confidence, its dramatic flair so characteristic of the man, the Israeli army reacted with the inane statement: "We would not advise Nasrallah to leave his bunker!"

Aljazeera brought all this live, hour after hour, to millions of homes from Morocco to Iraq and the Muslim world beyond. It was impossible for Arab viewers not to be swept along on the waves of emotion. For a young person in Riyadh, Cairo, Amman or Baghdad, there was only one possible reaction: Here is the man! Here is the man who is restoring Arab honor after decades of defeats and humiliation! Here is the man, compared to whom all the leaders of the Arab world are dwarfs! And when Nasrallah announced that "As from this moment, the era of Arab defeats has come to an end!" he captured the spirit of the day.

I suspect that there were also quite a number of Israelis who made unflattering comparisons between this man and our own cabinet ministers, the champions of empty, boastful verbiage. Compared to them, Nasrallah looks responsible, credible, logical and determined, without spin and hollow words.

On the eve of the huge rally, he addressed the public and forbade firing into the air, as is common in Arab celebrations. "Anyone who shoots, shoots at my breast, my head, my robe!" he declared. Not a single shot was fired.

* * *  

FOR LEBANON it was a historic day. Something like this has never happened before: all the country's political elite, without exception, turned out at Beirut airport to welcome Kuntar, and at the same time to salute Nasrallah. Some of them were gnashing their teeth, of course, but the understood very well the way the wind is blowing.

They were all there: the President of Lebanon, the Prime Minister, all the members of the new cabinet, the leaders of all the parties, all the communities and all the religions, all living past presidents and prime ministers. The Sunni Saad Hariri, who has accused Hezbollah of involvement in the assassination of his father; the Druze Walid Jumblat, who has demanded the liquidation of Hezbollah more than once; and the Maronite Christian Samir Geagea, who bears the responsibility for the Sabra and Shatila massacre; together with many others who but yesterday were showering Hezbollah with every possible obscenity.

In his speech, the new President praised all those who took part in freeing Kuntar, thus conferring national legitimacy not only on the Hezbollah action that precipitated the war, but also on the military function of Hezbollah in defending Lebanon. Since the President was until recently the commander of the army, this means that the Lebanese army, too, embraces Hezbollah.

On Wednesday, Nasrallah became the most important and powerful person in Lebanon. Three months after the crisis that almost caused a civil war, when Prime Minister Fuad Siniora demanded that Hezbollah turn over its private communication network, Lebanon has become a unified country. Demands like the disarming of Hezbollah have become a pipe dream. Lebanon is also united in the demand for the liberation of the Shebaa farms and for the delivery by Israel of the maps of minefields and the deadly cluster bombs left by our army after the second Lebanon war.

Those who remember Lebanon as a doormat in the region, and the Shiites as a doormat in Lebanon, can appreciate the immensity of the change.

* * *  

IN ISRAEL, some people blame the prisoner swap for the dizzying ascent of Nasrallah and the whole national-religious camp in the Arab world. But Israel's responsibility for these trends started long before Ehud Olmert's attempts to distract attention from his diverse corruption affairs.

All those are to blame who supported the stupid and destructive Second Lebanon War, which was enthusiastically hailed on the first day by all the media, the "Zionist" parties and the leading men of letters. The bodies of the two captured soldiers could have been retrieved by negotiations before the war much in the same way this has been done now. This is what I wrote at the time.

But one can trace the blame even further back, to Ariel Sharon's First Lebanon War. Then, too, all the media, the parties and the leading intellectuals deliriously welcomed the war on the first day. Before that disastrous war, the Shiite community was our good and quiet neighbor. Sharon is responsible for the ascent of Hezbollah; and the Israeli army, which assassinated Nasrallah's predecessor, gave Nasrallah the opportunity to become what he now is.

Neither should one forget Shimon Peres, who created the disastrous "Security Zone" in South Lebanon, instead of getting out in good time. And David Ben-Gurion and Moshe Dayan, who, in 1955, proposed installing "a Christian major" as dictator of Lebanon, who would then sign a peace treaty with Israel.

The deadly mixture of arrogance and ignorance that is typical of all Israeli dealings with the Arab world is also responsible for what happened on Wednesday. It would be wonderful if this taught our leaders some modesty and consideration for the feelings of others, as well as the ability to read the map of reality, instead of living in a bubble of national autism. But I am afraid that the opposite will happen: a strengthening of the feelings of anger, insult, sanctimoniousness and hatred.

All the Israeli governments bear responsibility for the national-religious wave in the Arab world, which is much more dangerous for Israel than the secular nationalism of leaders like Yasser Arafat and Bashar al-Assad. 

THIS WEEK, another important thing happened: in one great leap, the Syrian president jumped from American-imposed isolation into global stardom at a grandiose international show in Paris. The pathetic attempts by Olmert, Tzipi Livni and a band of Israeli reporters to shake the hand of Assad, or at least a minister, a low official or a bodyguard, were pure slapstick.

And still more happened this week: the No. 3 in the US Department of State officially met with Iranian delegates. And it became clear that the negotiations with Hamas over the next prisoner swap are still in deep freeze.

The new situation harbors many dangers, but also a host of opportunities. The new status of Nasrallah as a central player in the Lebanese political game imposes on him responsibility and caution. A strengthened Assad may be a better partner for peace, if we are ready to take the opportunity. The American negotiations with Iran may avert a destructive war, which would be a disaster for us, too. The legitimization of Hamas by the negotiations, when they are resumed, may lead to Palestinian unity, like the unity achieved now in Lebanon. Any peace agreement we signed with them would really have legs to stand on.

In two months Israel may have a new government. If it wants to, it could start a new initiative for peace with Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

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