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* Who were the Israelis living next to Mohammed Atta? * What was in that Moving Van on the New Jersey shore? * Was the Mossad Tracking the 9/11 Hijackers in the US? * How did two hijackers end up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11?
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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! WHAT DID ISRAEL KNOW IN ADVANCE OF THE SEPTEMBER 11 ATTACKS? * Those Celebrating "Movers" and Art Student Spies
* Who were the Israelis living next to Mohammed Atta?
* What was in that Moving Van on the New Jersey shore?
* Was the Mossad Tracking the 9/11 Hijackers in the US?
* How did two hijackers end up on the Watch List weeks before 9/11?At last, the answers. Read Christopher Ketcham's exclusive expose in CounterPunch special double-issue February newsletter. Plus, Cockburn and St. Clair on how this story was suppressed and ultimately found its home in CounterPunch. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now
Get CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year Landau at UC Santa Cruz
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Today's Stories Feburary 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn
Marc Levy Andrew Cockburn Glen Ford Greg Moses Ron Jacobs John W. Farley James Marc Leas Tim Rinne Albert Wan Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Stephen Lendman Evelyn Pringle Michael Simmons Kevin Zeese Dave Lindorff Pete Shanks Peter Rost Lenni Brenner
/ Gilad Atzmon Website of the Day
February 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Dick J. Reavis Margaret Kimberly Christopher Brauchli Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross Michael F.
Brown Dave Lindorff J.L. Chestunut,
Jr. Don Fitz Michael Donnelly Dr. Susan Block Website of
the Day
February 13, 2007 Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Marjorie Cohn Col. Dan Smith Col. Douglas
MacGreagor Thomas Power Nicola Nasser David Swanson Columbia Coalition
Against the War Website of the Day
February 12, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts John Walsh Dr. John Carroll,
MD Greg Moses Nicole Colson Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Doug Giebel David Swanson Website of the Day
February
10 /11, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Gabriel Kolko Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair Kevin Alexander Gray M. Shahid Alam Greg Moses Paul Craig
Roberts George Ciccariello-Maher Kevin Zeese Turner / Kim George Duke Walter Brasch Shepherd Bliss Missy Beattie Peter Harley Pat Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Conn Hallinan Gary Leupp Lee Sustar Nikolas Kozloff Newton Garver Yitzhak Laor Dave Lindorff David Swanson Website of the Day
February 8, 2007 John V. Walsh Marjorie Cohn Trish Schuh Ron Jacobs Laura Carlsen Ramzy Baroud Brenda Norrell Bryan Farrell Judith Scherr Website of
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February 7, 2007 Daniel Wolff Tao Ruspoli Tony Swindell Sharon Smith Ken Couesbouc Jeff Cohen Col. Dan Smith Tom Kerr Joshua Frank Adam Elkus Stephen Fleischman Website of
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February 6, 2007 Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff William Blum Mike Ferner CP News Service Evelyn Pringle Christopher Brauchli Alan Cabal Website of the Day
Dave Zirin Uri Avnery Ron Jacobs Paul Craig Roberts Newton Garver Bruce Anderson Saul Landau Ralph Nader James T. Phillips Mike Whitney Kenneth Rexroth Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Tao Ruspoli Jeffrey St.
Clair Patrick Cockburn P. Sainath Sen. Russell Feingold Diane Christian Brian Cloughley Diana Barahona Timothy J. Freeman Conn Hallinan John Ross Greg Moses Missy Beattie Joshua Frank Evelyn Pringle Stephen Fleischman Muhammad Idrees Ahmad Poets' Basement Website of the Day
Chris Kutalik R. Gibson /
E. W. Ross Pam Martens John Feffer Daryll E. Ray Ronald Bruce
St. John Mitchel Cohen Website of
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Diane Farsetta Marjorie Cohn Mark Scaramella Ranni Amiri Christopher Ketcham Winston Warfield Corporate Crime Reporter Thomas P. Healy Website of the Dau
January 31, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Jean Bricmont Tao Ruspoli James T. Phillips William Johnson Tim Wilkinson Evelyn Pringle Joshua Frank Ramzy Baroud Mickey Z. Website of the Day
Werther Kathy Kelly Uri Avnery Franklin Spinney William S. Lind Pariah Mike Whitney Rev. William
E. Alberts Fran Shor Anthony Arnove Website of the Day
Nurit Peled-Elhanan Patrick Cockburn JoAnn Wypijewski Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Reza Fiyouzat Pat Williams Website of the Day
January 27 / 28, 2007 Diana Johnstone Eliza Ernshire Patrick Cockburn David Rosen Greg Moses Bernard Chazelle Tao Ruspoli Hermán
Uribe Ralph Nader Paul Craig
Roberts Fred Gardner Brian Cloughley James Abourezk John V. Whitbeck Seth Sandronsky Alan Cabal Pam Martens Website of
the Weekend
Charlotte Laws Mike Ely /
Linda Flores Joe DeRaymond Phil Donahue Zia Mian Jeb Sprague Evelyn Pringle Missy Beattie Martha Rosenberg Website of
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Patrick Cockburn John Ross Jeremy Scahill Frida Berrigan Paul Craig Roberts Jason Yossef
Ben-Meir Christopher Brauchli Holger W. Henke Dave Lindorff Julia Landau Website of the Day
January 24, 2007 Tao Ruspoli Paul Craig
Roberts Lt. Gen. William Odom Sharon Smith Brian M. Downing Heather Gray Ron Jacobs James Brooks Robert Day Website of
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Trish Schuh Robert Bryce
Stephen Soldz John Blair Gloria La Riva Joshua Frank Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Uri Avnery Website of the Day
January 22, 2007 Manuel Garcia,
Jr. Jen Marlowe George McGovern Paul Craig
Roberts Norman Solomon Amira Hass Mike Whitney Ramzy Baroud John Walsh Website of
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January 20/21 2007 Alexander Cockburn
Gail Dines
Newton Garver
Gilad Atzmon
Seth Sandronksy
Raphaelle Bail
Jim Goodman Larry Portis
Website of
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Jonathan Cook
Glen Ford Dave Lindorff
Larry Portis
Website of
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William Peace
Virginia Tilley
Michael Donnelly
B.R. Gowani
Larry Portis
Jason Hribal
Website of
the Day
Franklin Spinney John Ross Susan George Paul Craig
Roberts Joshua Frank David Lindorff
Col. Sam Gardiner
Marjorie Cohn
Saul Landau
Ron Jacobs
Susan Block Ken Couesbouck Website of
the Day
Roger Morris Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly William Blum Ralph Nader Saul Landau January 12 / 14, 2007 Patrick Cockburn David Rosen William S.
Lind Laith al-Saud Paul Craig
Roberts John Ross George Ciccariello-Maher Christopher Brauchli Robert Buzzanco Evelyn Pringle Peter Rost,
MD. Mike Whitney Yifat Susskind Saul Cohen Missy Beattie Stephen Lendman Website of
the Weekend
January 11, 2007 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly Dave Lindorff Jeff Leys Richard W.
Behan Col. Douglas MacGregor Website of
the Day Speech of the Day
Peter Linebaugh Robert Fantina Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Col. Dan Smith Ben Tripp Evelyn Pringle Ron Jacobs Mike Ferner Dave Zirin Website of
the Day Bootleg of the Day
R. T. Naylor Jonathan Cook Mike Ely and Linda Flores Joshua Frank Norman Solomon Sen. Russell
Feingold Joe Allen James T. Phillips Brian Concannon Leonard Peltier Website of the Day
January 8, 2007 Werther Jeff Leys Paul Craig Roberts Shulamit Aloni Dave Lindorff Sunsara Taylor Seth Sandronsky Dr. Susan Block Website of the Day
Alexander Cockburn Franklin C.
Spinney Paul Craig
Roberts Ralph Nader Walden Bello Marleen Martin Brian Cloughley Uri Avnery Saul Landau Ron Jacobs Joseph Nevins William S. Lind Gary Leupp Elisa Salasin George Ciccariello-Maher Beyond Chavistas and Anti-Chavistas: Deepening the Bolivarian Revolution Stefan Wray Michael Leonardi Richard Rhames Jeffrey St. Clair Barbara LaMorticella Website of the Weekend Song of the
Weekend
Jorge Mariscal John Walsh Christopher Brauchli Travis Sharpe Tom Barry Linda Schade
/ Kevin Zeese Tiffany Ten Eyck Mahmoud El-Yousseph Lucinda Marshall Website of
the Day
Patrick Cockburn Winslow T.
Wheeler M. Shahid Alam Raed Jarrar Bert Sacks Kathy Rentenbach Stephen Fleischman George Bisharat Peter Rost, MD Evelyn Pringle Website of the Day
January 3, 2007 Kathy Kelly Paul Craig
Roberts William Johnson Stan Cox Trita Parsi Declan McKenna Joe Bageant Nicola Nasser Missy Beattie Website of
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Michael Watts Amina Mire James Brooks Alevtina Rea Al Krebs Peter Rost Niranjan Ramakrishnan John Stanton Website of the Day
January 1, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Uri Avnery Joshua Frank
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Weekend
Edition Lessons from 1967Storming the PentagonBy MITCHEL COHEN Forthy years it's been. In October 1967, I was an 18-year-old junior at SUNY Stony Brook, organizing students to participate in the first militant demonstration on the East Coast against the Vietnam war. At the Pentagon. Phil Ochs -- my hero -- was scheduled to perform at Stony Brook that night. Many students were saying they weren't going on the march because they wanted to go to Phil's concert instead. SDS wrote letter after letter trying to get him to change the date. No answer. Finally -- oh, how it cut my heart out -- we organized a boycott of his records. Then, of course, his manager (his brother, Michael) was quick to respond. "Go ahead, attack the heavies in the movement if it makes you feel better," he wrote in an open letter to me printed in Statesman, the official student paper. But just as quickly they moved up the date to October 20, the evening before the march. Phil gave an interview over WUSB radio, Kenny Bromberg's show. "Who's this creep Mitchel Cohen who's telling everyone to boycott my records?" Phil raged. My first claim to fame. Somewhere at the station there's a dusty tape of that show. October 21. The huge anti-war demonstration swept past the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. and over the bridges into Virginia, wave after wave of young anti-war warriors crashing against the walls of the Pentagon. One-hundred-thousand people -- some carrying signs depicting their town's opposition to the war against Vietnam, their unions, churches, campuses -- inched up to the line of soldiers standing shoulder to shoulder pointing their rifles at our chests, their unsheathed bayonets glinting like a thousand points of fright in the afternoon sun. I'd saved the shirt I wore that day, that orange-striped pullover with the hole where I'd pressed up as far as I could against one soldier's bayonet. He didn't budge; I backed off. I remember it as vividly as the infamous sunrises over the Bread and Puppet festival in Vermont, or the incredible sunsets in New York City the week following 9-11. The man carrying the hand-made sign: "Lyndon Johnson pull out, like your father should have." The chants, "Hey hey LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?" The young woman who, in a moment of inspired artistry, began dancing up and down the lines of soldiers, as thousands of voices sang "join us," inserting flowers into the rifles. Soon, a dozen people joined her. "Flower Power," East Coast style! Suddenly, around one side of the building -- we cutely called it "the biggest edifice complex in the world" -- hundreds began climbing ropes a-fixed to a parapet overlooking a set of huge doors, just beyond the soldiers' reach. The sit-in blocked the entrance. It lasted three days. Yea, and in high school gym I couldn't climb the ropes to save my life. Oh well. Try anyway. I had managed to drag myself up a few yards when a hand grabbed one of my legs. I panicked, tried to kick it away without losing my grip, but it wouldn't let go. "Uh-oh, this is it, I'm going to get arrested," I thought, my first arrest. Kicked more and more frantically. Finally, in panic, I looked down; my father was yanking me back and my mother was screaming: "Where do you think you're going?" "What are you doing here? How did you find me in this huge crowd? I've gotta join my friends ... sit-in ... all my friends are up there." "No way." Indeed, my friends from Stony Brook SDS were already up on the ledge. Even a professor from Stony Brook, Mike Zweig, was sitting-in. "You have to let me go. I helped organize the buses!" I shouted, as if that compelling point would clinch the argument, the frustrated and embarrassed tears already beginning to spill down my cheeks. "You're exhausted, get down right now." My parents were right about one thing: I was exhausted, racing around on an adrenalin high having not slept in three days. SDS and the Organization for Progressive Thought had been selling bus tickets around the clock door-to-door in the dormitories, cafeterias and TV lounges at Stony Brook. We helped bring seven bus-loads of protesters to the Pentagon -- around 300 people. My younger brother Robert and I were among the handful responsible for selling tickets, making bus arrangements and trying to make sure the drivers would not leave us stranded somewhere en route because they hated our politics, which is what had happened to buses from a number of other campuses. There would be time enough for sleep later. I simply had to be up there! And now my parents (how did they ever find me in that huge crowd?) were yanking me back. My father, who had served in the Marine Corps in the South Pacific in World War 2 and who always spoke out against the Vietnam war, offered an interesting proposal: "We're not going to let you up there. But they're going to need food and blankets (those were in the days before the anti-nuclear movement introduced a structure in which each affinity group selects one support person, who is not to get arrested, to be responsible for the group's logistical needs). Let's start making a collection." We spent the next few hours doing precisely that, collecting dozens of blankets and warm clothing for those sitting in; afterwards, they put me on the bus to Stony Brook and made sure I stayed on it, waving good-bye as it pulled away. I crashed out in someone's (whose?) arms. Vaguely I remember someone kissing me. Forty years ago! Che Guevara had been murdered by the CIA in Bolivia just two weeks before. We had called in an obituary to the NY Times, billing it to the student government without telling them. They were at a loss to account for it when the university administration reviewed the bills. A few weeks later, New York City would be rocked by a police riot, and a few weeks after that I would be one of three Stony Brookers rejecting my draftcard and facing five years in jail. (My parents learned about that from WINS radio news.) In November, thousands of students descended on a dinner for the war makers. Some radicals had gotten jobs in the New York Hilton's kitchen and, when the country's elite lifted the lids of their dishes to dine they found pigs' heads staring back at them from their plates, and waiters and waitresses chanting: "U.S. out of Vietnam!" Outside, all hell was breaking loose. This was the first "street action" anti-war demo on the East Coast. Hundreds of people would begin crossing 6th Avenue at the green light, very very slowly. We'd only be halfway across when the light would turn red. Everyone would link arms, face the traffic, close our eyes and feel the adrenalin take over. Screeeeech! When I dared open my eyes, I found a car had skidded to a stop just inches from my stomach. Then the police moved in, and everyone snakedanced the wrong way down one-way streets, tying up traffic and making it hard for the police cars to chase us. Looking back, it sounds heroic; actually, we were scared shitless. Leaving the dinner, Secretary of State Dean Rusk's car was hit by the first molotov cocktail I'd ever seen. The cops started cracking heads. Willa Kay Weiner grabbed my hand -- Kay, where are you now?! -- tearful, gasping for breath: "Mitchel, let's get out of here!" We raced through Manhattan in search of the bus back to Stony Brook and were amazed to find that most everyone arrived at just about the same time, unscathed. The next month, the anti-war movement erupted everywhere: Anti-draft riots, draftcard burnings, military recruiters chased off campus after campus, "defense" contractors exposed, thousands blocking troop trains and munitions factories! Even Bill Clinton, in the one good thing he ever did -- which he should have sung out proudly during his campaign instead of apologizing for it -- took part in the anti-war actions. And then ... 1968: Paris ... Columbia University ... Czechoslovakia ... Chicago ... Martin Luther King's assassination ... Robert Kennedy's ... Eugene McCarthy's anti-war presidential campaign ... LBJ's abdication ... the world spinning madly out of their control, revolutionary movements being born. The pace of time accelerated. Whole lifetimes crammed into the space of a few months. We lived "emergency lives" filled with meaning, fear, excitement. Who would know it then, forty years ago -- a swatch of time longer than from the end of World War 2 to the height of the anti-war movement of the eighties, hard to believe! -- that the demonstration at the Pentagon on October 21, 1967 would be the start of the anti-imperialist, as opposed to simply the "anti-war," movement, marking the baptism of a new generation -- with great leaps of insight, risk, and imagination -- that would shake the entire world? * * * Stony Brook always had sizable contingents at anti-war demonstrations. We had the largest SDS chapter on the East Coast, after Columbia, a fact curiously omitted from books on the new left. Most of today's authors seem to find import only in what went on at elite Ivy League schools -- just as they did in the old days -- and not a whit for state universities or community colleges. The Independent Caucus of SDS was everywhere at SUNY Stony Brook in 1968. Red Balloon emerged from the caucus the following year, the most politically volatile in Stony Brook's history. I was 20 years old and still a sophomore, after four years in and out of college, coordinating the United Farm Workers grape boycott on Long Island. I'd met Roberta Quance, a recent transfer from Oberlin, in professor Jonah Raskin's English class, and we became constant companions and lovers. Roberta brought an acid-tongued feminist sensibility into our emerging collective, along with a healthy dose of anarchism. And Jack Bookman, the third member of the founding group, was planning to commemorate the opening of the then state-of-the-art computer center with an action against the University's ties to the Department of Defense. That was the initial core. Soon, we grew to fifteen in the collective. At first we helped put out underground papers -- "Introspect," the radical alternative to Statesman (the odious official student paper), and then one issue of "Vanguard," which we worked on alongside others in SDS; but we finally decided to start our own paper. After two days of going over possible names: "Vanguard" this, "Proletarian" that, "Worker" the other thing, Roberta was ready to give it up. Already, 18, 19 and 20 year olds were jaded by the "old left's" sterility. We didn't want any part of the boring, lecturing style of The Militant (Socialist Workers Party), Challenge (Progressive Labor Party) or other papers sold regularly on the campus. I had just finished a poem, which I read to the 15 people living in the supposedly six-person suite in Kelly Quad. One line went: "The cat leapt out of the tree last night, through the air like a red balloon." Frustrated, Jack said, "Hey, let's just call it 'Red Balloon' for now. We can change it next week if we want." Twenty-Five years later Red Balloon was were still kicking. Our first official action as a collective: The Department of Defense Jamboree, which exposed secret war research on campus. Liberal politician Allard Lowenstein was speaking on campus the afternoon of the Jamboree. As he often did in speeches across the country, Lowenstein targeted the new left. He denounced our attempts to drive military recruiters and war-related research from the campus. Four hundred people in the newly-opened Student Union building hooted, cheered, and generally let their opinions be known. Amid the tumult, Lowenstein got popped by a water balloon. Though it was just a physically-harmless water balloon -- we generally strive to upset the ideological applecarts without physically hurting anyone, in order to expose their hypocrisy -- Lowenstein treated it as though he'd been shot, and red-baited us, exposing his true colors. That act marked our birth on campus and permanently sealed our reputation. It also highlighted our low tolerance for liberal demagogues. Over the years, hundreds of people have at one time or another considered themselves part of our loose-knit Red Balloon collectives. Most of them are still active in fighting for a better world, although not always with the same radical flare or direct action politics. A number of our closest friends and most creative spirits have died, forever young. Chris Delvecchio (a week shy of 24 years old when he was killed in August, 1993), Patty Staib (28), Pat Dalto (33), Kate Berrigan (24), Bob Rosado (in his 30s), Shari Nezami (22). Fred Friedman, Steve Becker, Iris Burlock -- Stony Brook Red Ballooners. The rest of us are still marching to the barricades, as well as tearing down the barricades within. We helped build ACT UP actions, the CUNY Coalition Against the Cuts, and organized support for the Haitian people's right to self-determination. We've created alternative health clinics and continue to fight for women's reproductive rights. We try to break at least one law a day, do guerrilla-art attacks and take part in urban rebellions. We work with political prisoners, struggle against racism and white supremacy and, through efforts like the Earth Day Wall Street Actions, the Save the Audubon Coalition and the Greens, fight against nuclear power, genetic-engineering and the destruction of the environment, exposing the corporate and government connections to just about every horrible occurrence under the sun. Some have called us a "Conspiracy" rather than a Collective. In a sense we were, which is why we named one facet of what we did "The Red Balloon Poetry Conspiracy." Hey, every time a corporation's board of directors meets it's a conspiracy to sell us things we don't need and extract as much cheap labor and natural resources as they can get away with! You can find us in marxism classes and in anarchist, green, feminist, gay, lesbian and bi-sexual workshops. Along the way, like so many others, we've had to wrestle with various philosophies of organization, ways of conceptualizing our own purpose. Unlike much of the Left, we did not try to recruit people into our collectives; that would have required us to construct a "program" to sell to people. We believe that the "recruiting mentality" has impaired the left. Instead, we tried and continue to strengthen existing movements, help people to form their own direct action collectives and underground papers, and then link them together. In the course of developing that approach, all sorts of emotional, philosophical and relationship-type challenges have come up, some repeatedly. The Left, however, has generally refused to treat them seriously as part of its political mission, to its detriment. With all the regrouping of the Left going on today, I offer these reflections to help articulate some of the hidden questions the Left could not see, and which the new wave of the Movement still has to face. Mitchel Cohen is co-editor of "G", the
newspaper of the NY State Greens. He can be reached at: mitchelcohen@mindspring.com
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