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Today's Stories September 13, 2006 Jim Bensman My Adventures with the FBI: How I Was Targeted as a Terrorist September 12, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Kill Arabs, Cry Anti-Semitism Seth Sandronsky The War on Nurses John Walsh Khatami Comes to Harvard Alan Maass "Islamic Fascism": the New Hysteria David Krieger Troubling Questions About Missile Defense Nate Mezmer September 12th, America Kathleen Christison The Coming Collapse of Zionism September 11, 2006 Uri Avnery State of Chutzpah Patrick Cockburn Palestinians Forced to Scavenge Rubbish Dumps for Food Col Dan Smith The Centrality of War in the Presidency of George W. Bush Dr. Susan Block Beyond Terror Anthony Alessandrini Forgetting 9/11 Dave Lindorff Bush After 9/11: Five Years of High Crimes and Misdemeanors Niranjan Ramakrishnan What Happened? Joshua Frank Proving Nothing: How the 9/11 "Truth" Movement Helps Bush & Cheney Jean Bricmont The End of the "End of History" Sprague / Emesberger "You Are a Dog. You Should Die": Death Threats Against Lancet's Haiti Investigator Website of the Day Web Piracy   September 9/10, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn The 9/11 Conspiracy Nuts: How They Let the Guilty Parties of 9/11 Off the Hook Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: In the Footsteps of Vladimir Putin (Part Six) Greg Grandin Good Christ, Bad Christ: Testament of the Death Squads Peter Stone Brown Bob Dylan's Swing Time Waltz in the Face of the Apocalypse Ralph Nader X-Raying Greed Brian Cloughley Rumsfeld at the American Legion: Dead Babies and Nazi Propaganda Col. Chet Richards Crossroads at the Litani David Model Tailoring the Case Against Iran: Cut from the Same Old Pattern Dave Himmelstein From Bil'in to Birmingham Ron Jacobs War and the Power of Words Fred Gardner Is Medical Pot Image a Turn-Off to Teens? Mike Whitney America's Economic Meltdown Josh Gryniewicz In the Belly of the Bentonville Beast: Working for Wal-Mart Daniel Gross / Joe Tessone An IWW Story at Starbucks Joe Bageant Inside the Iron Theater Nicole Colson The Colbert Factor: Some Truthiness, At Last Alexander Billet Thirty Years of "White Riot": Long Live The Clash! Poets' Basement Engel, Louise, Buknatski, Davies, & Orloski   September 8, 2006 Uri Avnery "I'm a Leftist, But ...": the Liberals' War on Lebanon Paul Craig Roberts Books Are Our Salvation Bill Quigley Judge Says: "No Clowning Around Our WMDs!" Robert Jensen Parallel Purges: Academic Freedom in Iran and the US Norman Solomon Perception Gap: The War on Terror as Others See It Keith Bolin   September 8, 2006 Uri Avnery "I'm a Leftist, But ...": the Liberals' War on Lebanon Paul Craig Roberts Books Are Our Salvation Bill Quigley Judge Says: "No Clowning Around Our WMDs!" Robert Jensen Parallel Purges: Academic Freedom in Iran and the US Norman Solomon Perception Gap: The War on Terror as Others See It Keith Bolin The Future of the Family Farm Kristin S. Schafer The Global Trade in Deadly Pesticides Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Five) Patrick Cockburn Gaza is Dying Website of the Day Help the Bismark 3! September 7, 206 Marjorie Cohn Why Bush Really Came Clean About the CIA's Secret Torture Prisons Sharon Smith Downward Mobility: No Recovery for Workers René Drucker Colín The Fraud in Mexico Michael Donnelly Bush Family Values: About Those Nazi Appeasers John Borowski Scholastic Peddles a Fictitious Path to 9/11 to Kids Lucinda Marshall Bombing Indiana Charles Sullivan Katrina and the New Jim Crow: Ethnic Cleansing in New Orleans Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part Four Jonathan Cook How Human Rights Watch Lost Its Way in Lebanon Website of the Day Rasta! Reggae's Joe Hill   September 6, 2006 Stephen Soldz Protecting the Torturers: Bad Faith and Distortions frm the American Psychological Assocation Dave Zirin Cops vs. Jocks: the Shooting of Steve Foley Ramzy Baroud The Gaza Maze: Who Gained Most from the Fox Reporters' Kidnapping Noel Ignatiev Democrats, Pwogs and the Lesser Evil Folly Dave Lindorff Bombing Without Regrets: The US and Cluster Bombs Norman Solomon Spinning Troop Levels in Iraq Binoy Kampmark The Death of Steve Irwin and the Politics of the Zoo Jeffrey St. Clair A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon (Part Three) John Ross The Death of Mexican Presidency Website of the Day Flaming Arrows   September 5, 2006 Jonathan Cook Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story? Time For A Champion of Truth to Speak Up Patrick Cockburn Better Not Meet at the Casbah Mike Whitney The Worst Secretary of Defense in U.S. History? You Be the Judge Roland Sheppard The Civil Rights Movement is Dead and So is the Democratic Party James Petras As Bush Regime Faces Twilight Slide, How Much Havoc Can Paulson Wreak? Alexander Cockburn Will Bush Bomb Teheran?   September 4, 2006 Clancy Sigal The Women Who Gave Us Labor Day Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part 2 Anthony Alessandrini The Great Debate about Aroma Coffee: Why I Boycott Dennis Perrin The Great Debate in Tarrytown: Straight Zion, No Chaser Daniel Cassidy 'S lom to Slum Paul Craig Roberts The War Is Lost   September 2 / 3, 2006 Uri Avnery When Napoleon Won at Waterloo Jeffrey St. Clair A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon Ralph Nader The No-Fault White House Noam Chomsky Viewing the World from a Bombsight Allan Lichtman Arrested Democracy: Letter from the Baltimore County Jail Stanley Heller When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is "Anti-Semitic" Rana el-Khatib Invasion's Child: the Making of Issa Peter Montague Taking on the Pentagon: Chemical Weapons to Burn Laura Carlsen Mexico on a Collision Course Dr. Susan Block Bush Hate Rising Joe Bageant Roy's People: Why Progressives Need to Listen to Orbison, Not Policy Wonks Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf A New Generation of Landmines? Gary Leupp The Emperor Has Been Exposed Stephen Fleischman The Great American Oligarchy Paul Balles Has Ahmadinejad Already Checkmated Bush? Ingmar Lee Canada's $450 Million Gift to Bush: the Softwood Lumber Slush Fund Jane Stillwater Burning Man: the Good, the Bad and the Evil Twin Ron Jacobs Dylan Faces the Apocalypse, Again St. Clair / Bossert Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Grima, Engel, Orloski and Davies Website of the Weekend To New Orleans: a Photo Journal   September 1, 2006 Uri Avnery Olmert Agonistes Paul Craig Roberts Of Wolves and Men (and Impotent Democrats) Bill Ayers Exclusionary Signs of the Times Kevin Zeese The Best War Ever Xochitl Bervera The Forgotten Children of New Orleans Norman Solomon Bush vs. Ahmadinejad: a TV Debate We'll Never See Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah Denounces Nasrallah Interview as a Fake Richard Neville Rupert Murdoch's Victims Website of the Day The Uranium Flood   August 31, 2006 David MacMichael Can the Iran Nuke Crisis be Defused? John Ross Diary of the Mexican Earthquake Edward Said Mahfouz, 9/11 and the Cruelty of Memory Amira Hass The Burden of Collaboration Missy Comley Beattie Circle in a Spiral: Families at War Lee Sustar The Case of Elvira Arellano: Racism, Divided Families and Deportation Jonathan Cook Israeli Myths: Deception as a Way of Life Website of the Day The Case for Impeachment: CSPAN   August 30, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts The Five Morons Revisited George Salzman The Revolutionary Surge in Oaxaca Dave Lindorff I Am a Curious Yellowcake: the Armitage Confession and the Niger Question Leigh Davis Privatizing New Orleans' Schools Alan Maass The Crimes Katrina Exposed: an Interview with Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Slonsky Mike Whitney Pop Goes the Bubble!: the Great Housing Crash of '07 Eliza Ernshire Murder on Rucarb Street Website of the Day CNN = iPoop2? August 29, 2006 Saul Landau Misreading Cuba, for 47 and a Half Years Jeffrey Buchanan Human Rights and the Realities of Returning to New Orleans: Lip Service and Profiteering Dave Lindorff War? What War? James Brooks The US Peace Movement and Hezbollah John F. Burnett Katrina and the Media: "I Know Y'All Want Our Story, But We Need Help" Walter A. Davis J'Accuse: the Media and Jonbenet Ramsey Rich Gibson Detroit Teachers Strike Again Amira Hass The Accidental Immigrant Paul Craig Roberts Bush Turns His Terror War on the Homeland   August 28, 2006 John Walsh With Lieberman's Loss, the Lobby Takes a Second Hit Sibel Edmonds / William Weaver Hillary Clinton: a Fool's Vessel Ramzy Kysia For Israel's Security? A Visit to Houla, Lebanon Ron Jacobs An Interview with Nativo Lopez Gideon Levy The Reservists' Protest Missy Beattie Yes, Virginia, There is a Rumsfeld Virginia Tilley Putting Words in Ahmadinejad's Mouth August 26 / 27, 2006 Weekend Edition Uri Avnery America's Rottweiler Alexander Cockburn Israel on the Slide Jordan Green Profiting from Disaster: Greed Has Stallled Gulf Coast Recovery, But Made Some Very, Very Rich Azmi Bishara Israel at a Loss Ray Close Why Bush Will Choose War Against Iran: Reflections of a Former CIA Analyst Gary Leupp The Lebanon Ceasefire and the Coming Assault on Iran Ralph Nader AIDS in Black America Joe Allen Free Gary Tyler: Thirty Years of Injustice Fred Gardner The Miraculous Resurrection of Dr. John Lee Dave Lindorff The Crime of Frag Weapons David Krieger Why are There Still Nuclear Weapons? Stephen Fleischman Jurassic White House: the Reptilian Brain of George W. Bush Mary Turck Elections and Lessons from Mexico Walter Brasch Sports Afoul: Canned Hunts Jim Scharplaz Oil and the American Farmer Israel Shamir The Grapes of Wrath Alexander Cockburn About That Nasrallah Interview Charles Henderson Scientology: a Typically American Religion? Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Grima, Ford and Mickey Z.   August 25, 2006 Elena Everett The Women of New Orleans After Katrina Juan Cole Iran's Nuclear "Threat" Chris Moore Religious Motives Behind Iraq War Deception?: Revelations from the Watada Court Martial James Marc Leas How Lebanese Civilians Thwarted Israel's War Plans Salah Obeid The Price of Ignoring the Elephant Claudio Albertani Mexico Piquetero Tom Barry Gangster Diplomacy: Elliot Abrams in Jerusalem Website of the Day Congress, the Defense Budget and Pork: a Snout to Tail Charcuterie August 24, 2006 CounterPunch News Service Penis Pump or Bomb? Bum Rap at O'Hare Uri Avnery Stop the Cancer, End the Occupation Nermeen al-Mufti "The Strong Do as They Can": an Interview with Noam Chomsky Norman Solomon The Mythical End to the Politics of Fear Megan Wiles American Responsibility and Palestine Laura Santina Busting Loose of the War Engine: a Female Perspective Mike Whitney Restarting the 34 Day War Seth Sandronsky Millionaires Make a Killing as Killings Continue Christopher Brauchli Consider the Uighurs: Freedom in a Cage   August 23, 2006 Dr. Trudy Bond Calling Dr. Mengele: APA Whitewashes Torture By Shrinks Ramzy Baroud The Real Terrorism Plot Ron Jacobs The Liberal Warmongers are at It Again Heather Gray Palestinian Sense of Place: You Can't Bomb It Away Amira Hass The Occupier Defines Justice Mavis Anderson Castro's Health and US Meddling Ingmar Lee The Great Game Goes On: India's Occupation of Ladakh Francis Boyle Statement on Behalf of Lt. Watada John Ross Mexico Approaches the Combustion Point August 22, 2006 Gilad Atzmon Israel Must Win Jack Heyman The Iron Heel Revisited: Cops as Provocateurs on the Docks Eamon McCann Bereft Belfast Mother Charges Security Firms with Wanton Murder in Iraq Sharon Smith Bush's Failing War on Terror: When in Doubt, Go Racist Edward S. Herman Faith-Based Analysis Ramzi Kysia My Journey to South Lebanon Bill Quigley Trying to Make It Home: New Orleans One Year After Katrina August 21, 2006 Jonathan Cook Caught in a Net of Delusion Paul Craig Roberts Artificial Recovery; Real Job Losses Kathy Kelly Israel's "Proportionate Response": Measured Amid the Wreckage Mike Roselle Irony Runs Through It: Making a Ruckus Lenni Brenner Mayor Bloomberg: the Flying Faker Maher Osseiran Osama's Confession; Osama's Reprieve   August 19 / 20, 2006 Weekend Edition Uri Avnery The 155th Victim Eliza Ernshire Terror and Freedom on the West Bank Virginia Tilley Inside 1701: What the UN Ceasefire Resolution Actually Says Kathy Kelly Funerals at Qana: a Journey to Southern Lebanon Marc Levy You are What You Dream: "Before you talk of heroes you must feel, taste, touch, smell the horror." Stephen Bradberry / Jeffrey Buchanan Hopes and Homes: Subject to Seizure on the Katrina's Anniversary Barbara Rose Johnston Banking on Violence: Guatemalan Genocide and US Security William Blum Perpetual Fear: Saved Again, Praise the Lord! Stephen Fleischman Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon Ralph Nader The Legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith Dave Lindorff Busted, Again: Bush is Two Times a Criminal Fred Gardner When Cannabis Failed to Sell David Krieger Nuclear Insecurity Dan La Botz The Minutemen: Mad at the Wrong Guys Poets' Basement Davies / Engel   August 18, 2006 Brian M. Downing American Generals and Iraq: Time to Call for a Rapid Withdrawal John Blair Divine Strike in the Bible Belt: Will They Bomb Bedford? Alan Hart The Lebanon War, a Post Mortem Craig Murray Hitting a Nerve: the Hair Gel Terror Hype Chris Dols Confronting Madison's NaziFest Emily Kirksey The Cuban Mirage: Self-Deception in Miami and Washington Joaquín Bustelo Forging a New Strategy for Immigrant Rights: Report from Chicago William S. Lind Beaten: Why the IDF Lost in Lebanon Podcast of the Day The F-22 PodCast Website of the Day Burn a Brick for Jesus   August 17, 2006 CounterPunch News Service "Goodbye to the Unipolar World": an Interview with Hasan Nasrallah Barucha Peller This Pain Has No Ceasefire Ramzy Baroud Lebanon: a Critical Battlefield for the New Middle East Rothem Shtarkman Gen. Dan Halutz: Inside Trader Craig Murray The UK Terror Plot: What's Really Going On? Samar Assad Gaza: One Year After Disengagement Mike Ferner Lt. Watada's Challenge Arnold Kohen A Second Rebirth for East Timor? Kevin Zeese Does the Invasion of Lebanon Foretell a Regional War? Missy Comley Beattie Open Wounds Uri Avnery From Mania to Depression Video of the Day Neil Young: After the Garden Website of the Day Art for Peace   August 16, 2006 Merav Yudilovitch Apocalypse Near: an Interview with Noam Chomsky on Lebanon Robert Fisk Behind the Lies of Bush and Blair: It Falls to Assad to Tell the Truth Mark Williams The Missiles of August: The Lebanon War and the Democratization of Missile Technology John Ross End Game Engulfs Mexico Christopher Brauchli The Poor Are Such a Nuisance John Walsh AIPAC Congratulates Itself for Slaughter in Lebanon Ron Jacobs Gee, Your Hair Smells Terror-ific!: Shampoo, Fear and Elections Rachard Itani It Ain't Over: What Did and Didn't Happen in Lebanon Felice Pace Forest Fires in the Klamath Mountains: The Real Threat is Not What You Expected Niranjan Ramakrishnan Lieberman the Enabler Frank, Sharma and Peterson Venezuela's Revolution of Hope: "In Two Years, Everything Has Changed!" Jonathan Cook Real Photo Fakers; Real War Crimes Website of the Day You Too Can Paint Like Jackson Pollock!   August 15, 2006 Andrew Ford Lyons Why Hezbollywood Was Born: Digitally Erasing a Massacre Binoy Kampmark Terrorism and the Art of Flying Robert Fisk Israel Wasn't Hoping for This Ralph Nader Bush to Israel: Take Your Time Destroying Lebanon Todd Chretien The US Antiwar Movement: Weak, Passive, Distracted Chris Floyd It's Bigger Than the Neo-Cons Mark Engler WTO: Best Left for Dead? George Galloway "You Don't Give a Damn:" the SkyNews Debate Laray Polk What's More Obscene: War or Sex? Trish Schuh Operation Change of Location?: Where Were the IDF Soldiers Captured? Website of the Day Jesus Never Existed August 14, 2006 Uri Avnery What the Hell Happened to the Israeli Army? Karim Makdisi The Flaws in the UN Resolution Kathy Kelly Approaching a Ceasefire Robert Fisk The Truce That Won't Last Norman Solomon Who's Afraid of Hillary Clinton? MoveOn, for One Sunsara Taylor Ned Lamont and the Antiwar Movement: False Hopes, Bad Terms and Ticking Clocks Robert Jensen Outside the Frame: The Limits of George Lakoff's Politics Mike Whitney The Litani Gambit: Ceasefire or Trojan Horse? P. Sainath An Indian Farmer About to Commit Suicide Writes a Note of Clarification Goretti Horgan The Raytheon Nine: Irish Antiwar Protesters Face "Terrorism" Charges Christopher Reed London Fog: Doubts Hang Over Terror Plot   August 12 / 13, 2006 Weekend Edition Jean Bricmont The De-Zionization of the American Mind Norman Finkelstein Should Alan Dershowitz Target Himself for Assassination? Robert Fisk How the London Terror Scare Looks from Beirut Adrian Grima Forget the 50 Civilians: Watching Lebanon from Malta Barucha Peller Letter from Lebanon: the Proximity of Death Omar Barghouti The UN, Lebanon and Palestine Adam Engel Tearing Down the Master's House: an Interview with Derrick Jensen Conn Hallinan How the Irish Could Save the Middle East John Stauber Meet the GOP's Latest Smear Machine: Vets for Freedom Rev. William Alberts Bush's Primetime Lies Still Go Unchallenged by the Press Fred Gardner Hollywood Does Cannabis: "Weeds," the First Season Lucinda Marshall Penis Politics: Does Dick Cheney Want Us All to Fly Nude? Ron Jacobs Kill the Precedent: an Interview with Rapper Nate Mezmer CounterPunch News Service Kerala Throws Out Coke and Pepsi Poets' Basement Katz, Davies and Orloski August 11, 2006 Col. Dan Smith Crimes Against Peace: Beyond Nuremberg John Ross Class War in Mexico City's Gridlock Michael Donnelly Sore Loserman, Redux William S. Lind Collapse of the Flanks Linda Milazzo Chertoff's New Math: Hair Gel Plot Might Have "Killed 100s of Thousands" Rep. Cynthia McKinney Something is Happening Around the World Azmi Bishara When the Skies Rain Death Henri Picciotto Jewish Dissidents Must Challenge Israel CounterPunch News Wire The Warrior Lawyer: Tom Crumpacker, 1934-2006 Dave Lindorff War Crimes in Lebanon Jonathan Cook From High Wycombe to Nazrareth: How I Found Myself with the Islamic Fascists   August 10, 2006 Uri Avnery The Buck Stops Where? Dave Marsh Who Are Mr and Mrs Lamont? Gabriel Kolko Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Arthur Versluis How Neocons' Nazi Hero Schmitt Spawned Bush's Totalitarian Lunge Jennifer Loewenstein Awakening the Resistance August 9, 2006 Linda Schade Incumbents Beware: Peace Voters Mean Business Jackie Mason Defends Mel Gibson; Ridicules Abe Foxman Jonathan Cook Hypocrisy and the Clamor Against Hizbullah Gilad Atzmon Operation Security Roof Charles Hirschkind Doing the Lebanese a Favor Tom Barry Right-wingers Ramp Up War on Migrants Cockburn & St. Clair The Sweetness of Lieberman's Defeat   August 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Requiem for Baghdad Paul Larudee The Lebanese Nakba and Israeli Ambitions Joan Roelofs The Malleable US Constitution: a Deterrent to Democracy? Dimi Reider An Interview with IDF Refusenik Sgt. Zohar Milchgrub John A. Murphy The Democrats: a Party on the Run ... from Its Own Members! Eliot Katz The View from the Big Woods: In Which a NYC Antiwar Poet Takes a Summer Vacation in Canada's Boreal Forest Tim Llewellyn Into the Valley of Death Website of the Day Galloway Speaks!   August 7, 2006 Uri Avnery The Junkies of War Karim Makdisi The Draft UN Resolutions: the View from Beirut Nadia Hijab What Israel and the US Wanted May Not Be At All What They Get Sharon Smith Birth Pangs and Dead Babies Magan Wiles Encounter at an Israeli Checkpoint George Beres A New Kind of Bigotry: Lebanon War Exposes Strange Religious Bedfellows Rachard Itani Nice Try, Mr. Bolton Norman Solomon Some Nukes Are A-Okay with the US Media Stan Cox Presidential Doping Scandal Erupts! Mickey Z. Go Ahead, Please Stare at Her Chest Jonathan Cook The Deadly US-Israeli Shell Game at the UN Website of the Day Sam Husseini Interrogates Newt Gingrich on Lebanon   August 5 / 6, 2006 Virginia Tilley Boycott Now!: the Case for Boycotting Israel Uri Avnery The Black Flag Patrick Cockburn Yes, It is a Crusade!: Blair's Mad Speech on Iraq Sgt. Martin Smith Military Training and Atrocities: Bad Apples from a Rotten Tree Gary Leupp America's Heroes on Trial Neve Gordon The New McCarthyism: Academic Freedom After 9/11 Ralph Nader Hey Joe!: the Ghosts of Lieberman's Past Peter Bouckaert For Israel, Innocent Civilians Are Fair Game Peter Montague Nukes Rising: Bush Oversees a Global Nuclear Expansion David Krieger Global Hiroshima: the Stakes Have Been Raised Michael Donnelly "Sir! No Sir!": the Story of the GI Anti-War Movement Fred Gardner Dr. Denney Sues the DEA Catherine Norris Seeking Justice Abroad: Spanish Courts Issue Arrest Warrants for the Butchers of Guatemala Imraan Siddiqi The Smokescreens of War: Moral Superiority, 9/11 and Islamic-Fascism Missy Comley Beattie One Year After the Death of Chase Comley Ira Kay Where is Geography? Getting Beyond the Place Name Game Dave Lindorff Let's Build a Wall Pratyush Chandra Nuclear Fascism in India Ron Jacobs Keeping It Radical St. Clair / Donnelly Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Katz and Davies Website of the Day Defend Bear Butte Video of the Weekend Rainbows Bust Pig Blockade   August 4, 2006 Ralph Nader Joe Lieberman and the Secret Chamber Brian Cloughley Osama Has Won Eliza Ernshire No Lights in Gaza: "We Have a Death Warrant for Your Home" Roger Assaf Letter from Lebanon: Adjusting the Heroic Commando Raid Story George Bisharat When I Last Saw Lebanon Remi Kanazi Out to Lunch: The US Media's "Special Relationship" Laura Carlsen Mexico's Critical Moment: The Boardrooms vs. the Street Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Fig (Leaflet) of Warning Derrick O'Keefe Ripe Fruit and Rotten Imperial Ambitions: US Reaction to Castro's Illness Mickey Z. Some Context on Castro and Cuba Col. Dan Smith The New Gonzales Standard for Torture: No Standards, No Accountability Website of the Day Israel's TV War August 3, 2006 Jonathan Cook Civilian Casualties and the War of Media Deception Uri Avnery Knife in the Dark Saree Makdisi Time to Call It Quits: Israel's Raid on Baalbeck's Hospital Robert Fisk The Family That Stays Together Dies Together Farrah Hassen Bush's Nutty Syria Policy: a Report from Damascus Nicola Nasser The De-Arabization of the Arab League Ron Jacobs The Hollow Body: When Exactly Did the UN Lose Its Street Cred? Mitchel Cohen Mexico Rising Seth Sandronsky Migrant Labor and Uncle Sam Bruce K. Gagnon Convert the Military Industrial Complex Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah's Top Ally in Israel August 2, 2006 John Ross Mexican Civil Resistance in Five Acts Chip Mitchell Kudos to Hitchens! Saul Landau Want Peace in the Middle East? End the Occupation Naseer Aruri The UN at the Dustbin of History: Does It Have the Capacity to Intervene? Winslow T. Wheeler Congress and the Pentagon: Co-Abusers of the War Budget Matthias Gebauer News on a Platter: the Middle East PR War Joshua Frank How the Kyoto Protocol Was (Al) Gored Bill Quigley Hiroshima, Nagasaki and North Dakota Manuel Yang A View of Gaza and Lebanon from the Interior Shamai Leibowitz Whitewashing Atrocities: the Tortured Language of War David Himmelstein Pulling the Plug on Israel Lara Marlowe The Total Destruction of Srifa Website of the Day As a Nuke Plant Falls   August 1, 2006 Michael Neumann What is to be Said?: War on the Blathersphere Robert Fisk Into the Meat Grinder: NATO and Lebanon Omar Barghouti The Massacre at Qana: Were Racism and Fundamentalism Factors? Marc Levy Whatever You Did in the War will Always be With You Diana Barahona / Jeb Sprague Reporters Without Borders and Washington's Coups Claud Cockburn Scenes from the Spanish Civil War Ross Eisenbrey When is a Raise Not a Raise? House Bill Actually Cuts Wages for Some Workers by $5.50 an Hour! Dave Lindorff Making the World Safe ... for Dictatorship John Chuckman Canada's Harper Blames the UN Dead Francis Boyle Prosecuting Israel: a War Crimes Tribunal May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War Phil Doe Bleak House Revisited: My Vacation in Water Court Stephen Soldz Psychologists, Guantanamo and Torture Website of the Day An Unfair War         Subscribe Online

September 13, 2006 Signs of Surveillance in the Public Secret Sphere Eyes Put a Spell on You By JACK BRATICH During the last couple of weeks, I've been bemused at my own confusion regarding the logo for the Discovery Channel's Ted Koppel-hosted 9/11 program "The Price of Security". Every time I saw the logo on the subway or on TV my first thought was "do those eyes belong to Koppel?" Each time I would assure myself that no, it didn't make sense to put him in there, and I would move on to whatever next image was being beamed to me. This quick and easy interpretive moment was short-circuited this Sunday as I leafed through the first section of the New York Times and noticed two full-page ads not far from each other: one was the ad for the ABC controversial mini-series "The Path to 9/11"(A8) and it bears a striking resemblance to the other, for "The Price of Security" (A18). This repetition made me slow down and tease out some possible significance (I still don't think they're Koppel's peepers). How did they get to be virtually identical (eyes peering through a crack in a US Flag object)? Did ABC and Discovery (who do not share the same owners) use the same marketing campaign? One need not lapse into an explicitly conspiratorial explanation, a scoffing dismissal of staff laziness, a simple coincidence theory, or a Jungian analysis of synchronicity and collective unconscious to ask: "what's going on in these images?" The following analysis may seem excessive in its speculation, but given this remarkable repetition in the world of security imagery, excess is precisely what is needed. The flood of imagery over the last few days begs for immediate attention. An Alchemical Tale of "Two" Logos. Who are these shadowy subjects? In each ad the eyes belong to a hidden identity. In the Koppel ad, they seem to belong to a generic white man, one whose graying, well-groomed sideburns indicate some kind of State agent. The ABC ad is more ambiguous-do those piercing brown eyes and rough fingernails belong to a terrorist menace or to a law enforcement agent? For now, let's assume the latter (the expression in the eyes is almost identical), but I'll return to the former possibility at the end of the analysis. Let's begin with the US Flag, which seems to be a background but is in actuality a broad foreground. We can see the significance of this expansive foreground with a simple substitution. Instead of the Stars and Stripes, what if a checkered keffiyeh surrounded the eyes? We would be led to identify the figure as a Palestinian, even Muslim, threat. What if it were less idiosyncratic, say an all-black background? We could still find our Islamic fundamentalist if we so chose, now in the female form of the niqab. But we could also expand this public secret figure to include Subcomandante Marcos, a generic Black Bloc participant, even a Ninja warrior. But somehow the US Flag does not signify in this way-it disappears into the horizon even more than the blackest night does. Here is the first mystery of the logo: how does something so blatant disappear so easily? We are left with the eyes. Locked into an almost hypnotic gaze, we wonder: who is this mysterious generic white man, and why is he looking at us? In the Discovery ad, he is peering through venetian blinds. Is he peering into someone's home? This is how we would typically imagine surveillance operating, with all of the attending anxieties over violations of freedom and privacy. But given that these are blinds, it makes more visual sense to say he is peering out from the inside. Is this a stakeout? Maybe. More likely a "safe house", and not only in the technical sense of an official law enforcement sanctuary (in which the eyes would belong to a guard). Rather, it is the mundane safe house. Perhaps a new Homeland Security motto is in order: "every house a safe house!" The figure thus does not present a threat to us-he protects us from threats. Instead of being a source of anxiety, the eyes belong to someone who is going to secure us. Here we face the second mystery: the transmutation of a violator into a shield. Also, we need to point out the obvious (in fact, because it is hidden in plain sight). The figure is hiding behind the flag. One could extend this to say he is wrapping himself in the flag, but there's no need to go this far in our reading: it is enough to note that the figure is not protecting the Stars and Stripes. One need not be a nationalist to appreciate the significance here. This shadowy state agent stands between the safe house inhabitants and the flag; he is a mediator. And in ABC's case, this job may require tearing the flag itself. But this interpretation is haunted by its double: as viewers of this ad we are positioned outside of this safe house (looking into the eyes of the mediator). We are the threat. We are on the other side of the flag, which now stands between us and the shadowy protector. Putting these two readings together we can stake a claim on the third mystery: we are in two places at the same time. We need to be protected from ourselves. Now we can briefly return to the alternate interpretation of the ABC ad's eyeballs, and insert the terrorist figure behind red white and blue curtain number one. This opens a new can of worms, if not a Pandora's box. While I leave the intricacies of this puzzle to other players (much more rewarding than Sudoku, I find), I will end with an opening gambit. Interpreting ABC's figure as a terrorist at first blush highlights the difference from Discovery's counterterrorist agent. This black/white contrast is not as stark as it appears. The legacy of counterinsurgency colors our reading here, where now we see an image of mimicry, where one has to know and become a guerrilla to fight them. Somewhere in these mysteries, in the solve et coagula, in the hall of mirrors embedded in the pages of the NYT, we can begin to understand how the simplest pedestrian images display the public secret processes defining politics and ourselves today. More importantly, knowing what we're up against allows us to sharpen our conceptual tools into weapons. Jack Bratich is assistant professor of Journalism and Media Studies at Rutgers University. The current issue of the journal Cultural Studies (a special issue devoted to Homeland Security) contains an article by him titled, "Public Secrecy and Popular Security: A Strategic Analysis." In his spare time, he is an amateur cultural cryptologist. He can be reached at jbratich@rci.rutgers.edu

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