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The New Campus McCarthyism
There’s a McCarthyite campaign in full spate across higher education in the U.S. today. For every headline case, like Norman Finkelstein or Joseph Massad, there are three or four less-publicized smear campaigns. In the sights of the witch-hunters are faculty targeted as “anti-Israel”, as terror-symps, as leftists. In our latest newsletter we feature the personal history of Victoria Fontan, a Frenchwoman who came to a US campus from field work in the back alleys of Fallujah and found out just how devastating academic warfare can be. ALSO -- Saving the Florida Everglades – Alan Farago reports from the battlefront. PLUS -- They aimed at Moscow, They Hit Kabul: Serge Halimi on Sarkozy and NATO’s Mission Creep. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.Order CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Today's Stories April 2, 2009 Robert Weissman Eric Toussaint / Russell Mokhiber April 1, 2009 Chris Floyd Stanley Heller Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy Jonathan Cook Eric Walberg Richard Morse Don Fitz Laray Polk Belén Fernández Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day March 31, 2009 Uri Avnery Peter Lee Nicholas Dearden Dave Lindorff Joanne Mariner Ron Jacobs Wiliam S. Lind David Michael Green Benjamin Dangl Johnny Barber Dedrick Muhammad Website of the Day March 30, 2009 Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Henry A. Giroux Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Paul Craig Roberts Jeremy Scahill Robert Bryce Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Website of the Day March 27-29, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Arno J. Mayer Michael Hudson José Pertierra Andy Worthington Mike Whitney Winslow T. Wheeler Souad N. Al-Azzawi Dave Lindorff Ian Masters Barbara Rose Johnston Jami Tarn Diane Farsetta David Ker Thomson Against Democracy Ramzy Baroud Rannie Amiri Wajahat Ali Nick Egnatz Gregory A. Burris Missy Beattie Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Ben Sonnenberg Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
March 26, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Sharon Smith Neve Gordon Patrick Madden Gareth Porter Dave Lindorff Hannah Safran Keith Newell Todd Chretien Nelson P. Valdés Website of the Day
March 25, 2009 Robin Blackburn Conn Hallinan David Rosen Jonathan Cook Dean Baker Ron Jacobs Russell Mokhiber David Macaray Dave Lindorff Sarah Knopp Website of the Day
March 24, 2009 Robert Sandels Harvey Wasserman Franklin Lamb Michael Donnelly Norman Solomon Elizabeth Schulte John Goekler Nicole Colson Global Balkans William S. Lind Website of the Day
March 23, 2009 M. Shahid Alam Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Brian Cloughley Dave Lindorff Amira Hass Chris Irwin Binoy Kampmark Michael Dickinson Website of the Day March 20-22, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts P. Sainath Robert Weissman Saul Landau David Michael Green Greg Moses Ron Jacobs Michael D. Yates John V. Whitbeck Andy Worthington Linn Washington Jr. David Ker Thomson Laurent Jacque Rannie Amiri Reiko Redmonde / David Macaray Kenneth Couesbouc Martha Rosenberg Alan Farago Missy Beattie Richard Rhames Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend March 19, 2009 Dave Marsh Paul Craig Roberts Mike Whitney Sam Smith Harvey Wasserman Binoy Kampmark Kathy Sanborn Christopher Brauchli George Wuerthner Diann Rust-Tierney Website of the Day
March 18, 2009 Michael Hudson Paul Craig Roberts Nelson P. Valdés Jonathan Cook John Ross Yifat Susskind Dave Lindorff Frances Moore Lappé Richard Grossman Rev. William E. Alberts Website of the Day March 17, 2009 Michael Hudson James G. Abourezk Harry Browne Joanne Mariner Alan Farago Dean Baker Peter Morici Bill and Kathleen Christison Richard Gott Walter Brasch Website of the Day
March 16, 2009 Pam Martens Uri Avnery Mike Whitney Ralph Nader Nikolas Kozloff John Walsh Ron Jacobs Binoy Kampmark Stephen Fleischman Christian Christensen Scott Handleman Website of the Day March 13 / 15, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Peter Lee Diana Johnstone David Harvey Petrino DiLeo David Ker Thomson Eric Ruder Fred Gardner David Yearsley Saul Landau Laura Carlsen Robert Weissman John Goekler / Tom Barry Kathy Sanborn Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty David Michael Green Alan Maass / Christopher Brauchli Richard Morse Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend March 12 , 2009 Sharon Smith Christopher Ketcham Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Eric Toussaint / John Ross M. Reza Pirbhai Chris Floyd Steve Early Quentin Gee Website of the Day March 11 , 2009 Mike Roselle Paul Craig Roberts Henry A. Giroux Nikolas Kozloff Norm Kent Mitu Sengupta Ludwig Watzal David Macaray William S. Lind Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day March 10 , 2009 Franklin Spinney Vijay Prashad Stan Cox Zoltan Grossman Reuven Kaminer Jonathan Cook Dave Lindorff Brian McKenna Harvey Wasserman Corey Pein Website of the Day
March 9 , 2009 Pam Martens Ralph Nader Peter Lee Mike Whitney Peter Morici Dean Baker Steve Ault Stephen Lendman Farooq Sulehria Belén Fernández Website of the Day March 6-8 , 2009 Alexander Cockburn Chris Floyd Uri Avnery Dave Lindorff Mark Weisbrot David Ker Thomson Phil Aliff Rebekah Ward Tracey Briggs Dean Baker Daniel P. Wirt, M.D. Carl Finamore Wajahat Ali David Michael Green David Macaray Michael Dickinson Susie Day Bob Sommer Ben Sonnenberg David Yearsley DC Larson Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend March 5 , 2009 James G. Abourezk Kathleen and Bill Christison Robert Weissman Patrick Cockburn William Blum Robert Fantina Saul Landau Benjamin Dangl Christopher Brauchli Website of the Day March 4, 2009 Marjorie Cohn Mike Whitney Ron Jacobs Ashley Smith Joanne Mariner Dan Bacher Mark Engler Franklin Lamb Cal Winslow David Mandelzys Website of the Day March 3, 2009 Conn Hallinan Fawzia Afzal-Khan Brian M. Downing Robert Larson Daniel P. Wirt, MD Russell Mokhiber William Loren Katz Kathy Sanborn Pauline Imbach Christopher Ketcham Website of the Day March 2, 2009 Andrea Peacock Paul Craig Roberts Peter Lee John Blair Peter Morici Uri Avnery Michael Donnelly Fred Gardner Sonia Nettnin Andrew Lehman Website of the Day
Tom Barry Harvey Wasserman Adam Turl David Macaray James McEnteer Website of the Day
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April 2, 2009 Israel's Impunity Must EndChanging the Rules of WarBy GEORGE BISHARAT The extent of Israel's brutality against Palestinian civilians in its 22-day pounding of the Gaza Strip is gradually surfacing. Israeli soldiers are testifying to lax rules of engagement tantamount to a license to kill. One soldier commented: "That's what is so nice, supposedly, about Gaza: You see a person on a road, walking along a path. He doesn't have to be with a weapon, you don't have to identify him with anything and you can just shoot him." What is less appreciated is how Israel is also brutalizing international law, in ways that may long outlast the demolition of Gaza. Since 2001, Israeli military lawyers have pushed to re-classify military operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip from the law enforcement model mandated by the law of occupation to one of armed conflict. Under the former, soldiers of an occupying army must arrest, rather than kill, opponents, and generally must use the minimum force necessary to quell disturbances. While in armed conflict, a military is still constrained by the laws of war - including the duty to distinguish between combatants and civilians, and the duty to avoid attacks causing disproportionate harm to civilian persons or objects - the standard permits far greater uses of force. Israel pressed the shift to justify its assassinations of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories, which clearly violated settled international law. Israel had practiced "targeted killings" since the 1970s - always denying that it did so - but had recently stepped up their frequency, by spectacular means (such as air strikes) that rendered denial futile. President Bill Clinton charged the 2001 Mitchell Committee with investigating the causes of the second Palestinian uprising and recommending how to restore calm in the region. Israeli lawyers pleaded their case to the committee for armed conflict. The committee responded by criticizing the blanket application of the model to the uprising, but did not repudiate it altogether. Today, most observers - including Amnesty International - tacitly accept Israel's framing of the conflict in Gaza as an armed conflict, as their criticism of Israel's actions in terms of the duties of distinction and the principle of proportionality betrays. This shift, if accepted, would encourage occupiers to follow Israel's lead, externalizing military control while shedding all responsibilities to occupied populations. Israel's campaign to rewrite international law to its advantage is deliberate and knowing. As the former head of Israel's 20-lawyer International Law Division in the Military Advocate General's office, Daniel Reisner, recently stated: "If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it. The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries ... International law progresses through violations. We invented the targeted assassination thesis and we had to push it. At first there were protrusions that made it hard to insert easily into the legal molds. Eight years later, it is in the center of the bounds of legitimacy." In the Gaza fighting, Israel has again tried to transform international law through violations. For example, its military lawyers authorized the bombing of a police cadet graduation ceremony, killing at least 63 young Palestinian men. Under international law, such deliberate killings of civilian police are war crimes. Yet Israel treats all employees of the Hamas-led government in the Gaza Strip as terrorists, and thus combatants. Secretaries, court clerks, housing officials, judges - all were, in Israeli eyes, legitimate targets for liquidation. Israeli jurists also instructed military commanders that any Palestinian who failed to evacuate a building or area after warnings of an impending bombardment was a "voluntary human shield" and thus a participant in combat, subject to lawful attack. One method of warning employed by Israeli gunners, dubbed "knocking on the roof," was to fire first at a building's corner, then, a few minutes later, to strike more structurally vulnerable points. To imagine that Gazan civilians - penned into the tiny Gaza Strip by Israeli troops, and surrounded by the chaos of battle - understood this signal is fanciful at best. Israel has a lengthy history of unpunished abuses of international law - among the most flagrant its decades-long colonization of the West Bank. To its credit, much of the world has refused to ratify Israel's violations. Unfortunately, our government is an exception, having frequently provided diplomatic cover for Israel's abuses. Our diplomats have vetoed 42 U.N. Security Council resolutions to shelter Israel from the consequences of its often illegal behavior. We must break that habit now, or see international law perverted in ways that can harm us all. Our government has already been seduced to follow, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, Israel's example of targeted killings. This policy alienates civilians, innocently killed and wounded in these crude strikes, and deepens the determination of enemies to harm us by any means possible. We do not want civilian police in the United States to be bombed, nor to have anyone "knock on our roofs." For our own sakes and for the world's, Israel's impunity must end. George Bisharat is a professor of law at Hastings College of the Law in San Francisco, and writes frequently on law and politics in the Middle East. This article originally appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle |
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