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Today's
Stories
January 4,
2008
Cockburn /
St. Clair
A
Good Night in Iowa
Jonathan Cook
War Crimes Airbrushed from History
January 3,
2008
Fatima Bhutto
Farewell
to Wadi Bua
Pam Martens
The
Free Market Myth Dissolves into Chaos
Joanne Mariner
The Presidential Candidates and Torture
Zoltan Grossman
Remember the '80s: Social Movements Between Woodstock and the
Web
David Domke
The Echoing Press and Huckabee
Norman Solomon
Edwards Reconsidered
Nikolas Kozloff
Return of the Faux Liberal
Jacob G. Hornberger
The Padilla Case and the Future of Habeas Corpus
Martha Rosenberg
Quit Picking on Huckabee's Son, Michael Vick
Russell Means
This Property is Condemned: a Notice to Those Occupying Lakotah
Lands
Website of the Day
WolfQuest
January 2,
2008
Jeff Taylor
The
Left and Ron Paul
M. Shahid Alam
The Life and Death of Benazir Bhutto: a Pakistani Tragedy
Gary Leupp
Madness Compounding Madness: Calls for Intervention in Pakistan
Paul Craig Roberts
Criminals with Badges
Heather Gray
Georgia's Racist Death Penalty
Fred Gardner
and Shobhit Arora
Dr. Strangelove's Nemesis
David Macaray
Labor Unions and Taft-Hartley
Benjamin Dangl
Fear and Loathing in Bolivia
January 1,
2008
Iain A. Boal
City
of Disappearances
B. R. Gowani
Benazir's Death in Crisistan
Shahid Mahmood
Bhutto and the Press
Linn Washington,
Jr.
Old Injustices Endure: From Crack Sentences to Racial Profiling
Harvey Wasserman
Taking Leonard Peltier to Iowa: the Moral Low Point of the Clinton
Era
John Ross
2008, Already a Year to Forget
Website of the Day
The Thrill is Gone: BB and Gladys
December 31,
2007
Alexander Cockburn
Goodbye
2007 and Good Riddance!
Tariq Ali
Pakistan, the Aftermath
Liaquat Ali Khan
The Perfidy of Pakistan's Rulers
Wajahat Ali
After Bhutto, a Nuclear Pakistan?
Robert Fisk
Who Killed Bhutto?
Ajai Sahni
Myths and Realities About Benazir Bhutto and Pakistan's Dark
Future
Marwan Bishara
You Say Talk, I Say Attack: The Middle East and the US Presidential
Election Campaigns
Uri Avnery
The Beilin Syndrome
Mark T. Harris
Does This Happen in Canada?
Brenda Norrell
Resistance and Censorship
Website of the Day
A People United Will Never Be Defeated
December 29
/ 30, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Options
in America: Kill Yourself or Have a Baby
Tariq Ali
Indignation and Fear Stalk Pakistan
Fawzia Afzal-Khan
My Encounter with Benazir Bhutto
Gary Leupp
The U.S. and Pakistan After 9/11: Blowback from an Unholy Alliance
China Hand
Pakistan Stares Into the Abyss
Jacob Hornberger
Stop Medddling in Pakistan
John Chuckman
Pakistan and the Failure of Quick-Fix Politics
Missy Beattie
Evaluating Bush with the Bhutto Corruption Standard
Ralph Nader
Who Will Take the Next Step?
Fidel Castro
There Hasn't Been a Day in My Life When I Haven't Learned Something
Robert Fantina
The Sham of Homeland Security
Greg Moses
Beauty from the Heart of Texas
Catherine Lutz
What We Can Not See: Art and Bombing
Kristin Van
Tassel
Seeing in the Dark
Kim Nicolini
Redacted: Brian DePalma's Scream of Outrage
Phyllis Pollack
Keith Richards Runs With Rudolph Once More
Poets' Basement
Landau, Gibbons and Davies
Website of
the Weekend
Driving Karachi in Search of the Perfect Naan
December 28,
2007
Farzana Versey
The
Complex Electra
Wajahat Ali
A
Pakistani Requiem
Binoy Kampmark
Death in Rawalpindi: Bhutto and Her Legacy
Ayesha Ijaz
Khan
Not Dead Yet: The Pakistan People's Party Still Survives
Anthony DiMaggio
Turkey's Bombing of Iraq
Ray McGovern
Creeping
Fascism
Jim Goodman
Biofuels, the Biggest Scam Going
Ron Jacobs
Transcending the Colonizer's History: Iran, a People Interrupted
Russell Hoffman
Mini-Nukes by Toshiba
John Murphy
Greens Gone Wild
Website of the Day
Guiliani Campaign Official: "Only Rudy Can Defeat the Muslims"
December 27,
2007
Dilip Hiro
A
Tragedy Foretold: Will Bhutto's Death be a Boost for Her Party?
Murtaza Shibli
Who Killed Bhutto?
Stephen Soldz
Fallujah,
the Information War and U.S. Propaganda
Bill Quigley
Locked
Outside the Gates
Paul Craig Roberts
The Great American Lock-Up
Omer Subhani
Killing Bhutto: What Happens Next in Pakistan?
Marjorie Cohn
The Torture Tape Cover-Up: How High Does It Go?
Allan Nairn
Cataclysm By Money Whim
Jacob G. Hornberger
Smearing Ron Paul: Shame on the NYT
Norman Solomon
Channeling Suze Orman
Patrick Irelan
Rumsfeld Spills the Ink
Ben Tripp
Pass the Razor Blades
Website of the Day
Quagmire, For What It's Worth
December 26, 2007
Charles Tripp
From
One Saddam to Fifty
Paul Armentano
No-Knock, You're Dead
Rannie Amiri
Lebanon in Search of a Government
Stanley Heller
Brzezinski and Charlie Wilson's War
John Walsh
Two Unreasonable Men
Martha Rosenberg
The Strange Career of Scott Gottlieb
Norman Madarasz
Bolivia Amends New Constitution and Faces Mutiny from Within
Website of
the Day
Cockburn at the Battle of Ideas
December 25,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
Conscience
and Empire
December 24,
2007
Andrea Peacock
A
Dark Ride on the Border
Tariq Ali
Thinking of Edward Said
Uri Avnery
Help! A Ceasefire!
Jill Jameson
Burma is Not Back to Normal: A Trip from Rangoon to Mae Sot
Steve Melendez
Russell Means Goes to Washington
Mike Whitney
The Big Fix
Chuck Munson
Not Getting It About New Orleans
John Walsh
Clueless Crusaders
Farzana Versey
Tony Blair and the Hawking of Religion
Richard Neville
Dreaming of a White House Christmas
Website of the Day
Back in the USSR
December 22 / 23, 2007
Alexander Cockburn
Mike
Huckabee's Ascending Chariot
Ralph Nader
Politics
and Profits: How the Oil Cartel Gets Its Way
Andy Worthington
Intelligence Failures, Battlefield Myths and Unaccountable Prisons
in Afghanistan
Ahmad Faruqui
The Comedian of Pakistan
Bill Moyers
Society on Steroids
Rev. William
E. Alberts
Blessed are the Peacemakers
Timothy J. Freeman
From Kant to Lennon: Can War Really be Over?
Anthony DiMaggio
Democrats Continue to Capitulate on Iraq
Fred Gardner
Molecule of the Year, Cannabiodiol
Paul Krassner
Enhanced Hazing Techniques
Seth Sandronsky
17 Years of Meanness: Repealing California's Three Strikes Law
William Loren
Katz
Christmas Eve Freedom Fighters: Recalling the Battle of Lake
Okeechobee
Michael Dickinson
In the Dungeon of the Zabita
Ron Jacobs
Why Leon Russell Still Matters
David Vest
Doyle Bramhall's "Is It News?"
Poets' Basement
Orloski, Davies and Ford
Website of the Weekend
George W. Hates Santa
December 21,
2007
John Ross
New Massacres Loom in Mexico
Jacob Hornberger
Nothing Can Morally Justify the Invasion of Iraq
Dick J. Reavis
A
Way Out of the Newspaper Abyss
Jeff Cohen
and Norman Solomon
The 2007 P.U.-litzer Prizes
Peter Morici
Business as Usual as Recession Looms
Jack McCarthy
Let Us Now Praise Judith Regan (Even If She Did Sleep with Bernie
Kerik)
Raúl Zibechi
Sex and Revolution
Steve Early
How the Presidential Candidates Made Me an Atheist
David Macaray
Union Aftermath
Patrick Bond
Zuma, the Center-Left and the Left-Left in S. Africa
Lakota Freedom Delegation
A Declaration of Independence from the USA
Website of
the Day
Solomon v. Beck: Tale of the Tape
December 20,
2007
David Rosen
Mitt
Romney's Secret Life as a Pornographer
Alan Farago
The
Huckster and the Wreckage: Jeb Bush and the Subprime Mortgage
Crisis
Laura Carlsen
Standing Up to NAFTA
Ashley Dawson
The Return of the Bread Riot
Wayne Smith
and Jennifer Schuett
Cuba Changes, US Policy Stagnates
Website of
the Day
How to Talk to a FoxNews Reporter
December 19,
2007
Saul Landau
Is
the NIE Bush's Watergate?
Paul W. Lovinger
Hillary the Hawk
Norman Solomon
The Mad Corporate World of Glenn Beck
Dave Zirin
George Mitchell's Drugs of Choice
Marjorie Cohn
Bush Still Spinning Iranian Nukes
Sen. Russell
Feingold
The Iraq War is Exhausting Our Nation
Sonja Karkar
A Christmas Reflection on Palestine
Anthony Papa
Open the Drug Gulags
Christopher Ketcham
Pave the Holy Lands with Good Intentions
Davey D
Britney's Little Sister is Pregnant: Should We Blame Hip Hop?
Website of
the Day
When Republicans Use the F-Word on TV
December 18,
2007
R. F. Blader
The
Politics of Teen Pregnancy
George Wuerthner
Gunning for Wolves in Idaho
Steven Higgs
Can the NAFTA Superhighway be Stopped?
Vijay Prashad
Encounters with Ghadar
David Macaray
The Free Rider Problem
Ralph Nader
Nine Books That Make a Difference: a Reading List for the Holidays
Eva Liddell
Privatizing War Abroad, Invading Privacy at Home
Martha Rosenberg
While the Bodies are Still Warm: Drugs, Shrinks and Shooters
Dave Lindorff
When Impeachment is Out of Print
Peter Morici
The Consequences the Trade Deficit
Website of
the Day
Ron Paul: How Fascism Will Come to America
December 17,
2007
Mike Whitney
Staring
Into the Abyss
Tom Barry
Planning
the War on Immigrants
Uri Avnery
A
Gaza Masada?
Greg Moses
Crossing the Line in Texas
Allan Nairn
Terrorism; Counter-
Terrorism: Excuses for Murder
Patrick Bond
South Africa's Fight Between Hostile Brothers
Stephen Lendman
Police State America
Charles Jonkel
Grizzly Right of Way
Laray Polk
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
Stephen Fleischman
Pawns in Their Game
December 15
/ 16, 2007
Peter Linebaugh
A
People's Penny for the Magna Carta
Howard Zinn
Bomb After Bomb
Standard Schaefer
The Greening of Big Tobacco
Raymond J.
Lawrence
Let's Take Christ Out of Christmas
Alan Farago
Down on Desolation Row: the Vultures and the Growth Machine
Saul Landau
Lord Byron and the Bad Tourists
Jenna Orkin
Lying to "Reassure" the Public: Bush's EPA and the
Post-9/11 Toxic Air Cover-Up
Ahmad Samih
Khalidi
Why a Palestinian "State" is a Punitive Construct
Robert Fantina
Politics By Photo-Op
Missy Comley
Beattie
Resistance Amid the Ruins
Ramzy Baroud
Of Mormons and Muslims
James L. Secor
A Vision for China's Future
Elijah Wald
Ike Turner's Music Won't be Forgotten
Website of
the Weekend
The Alliance for the Wild Rockies Needs (and Deserves) Your Support
December 14,
2007
JoAnn Wypijewski
The
Dirty Cad: What Giuliani's Sex Life Tells Us About Him
John Ross
Iraqi
Refugees Return: One Cruel Hoax
Jacob Hornberger
Terror Suspects Belong in Federal Court
Andy Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme Court: What Happened?
Allan Nairn
"Shoot Them on the Spot": Rewarding War Crimes
Dave Zirin
The Mitchell Report: Absolving the Owners
Dave Lindorff
The First Cut is the Deepest
Misty MacDuffee
Toxic Grizzlies
Ben Terrall
What Happened to Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine?
Dr. Mustafa
Barghouthi
Prerequisites for Peace
Website of the Day
Sen. Kit Bond: "Waterboarding is Like Swimming"
December 13,
2007
Paul Craig
Roberts
Shrinking
the Dollar from the Inside-Out
Mike Whitney
Dershowitz for the Defense--of Waterboarding
Ron Jacobs
Blank Check DemocratsL the Great War Funding Conspiracy
Norman Solomon
The USA's Human Rights Daze
Peter Morici
The Dragon and the Toothless Dog: China Doesn't Flinch
Sandy Mayes
Blocking the Strykers: 13 Days of War Resistance at Port Olympia
Franklin Lamb
The UN in Lebanon: Whose Mission Is It Fulfilling?
Jacob Hornberger
Don't Reform the CIA, Abolish It
Nadim Rouhana
An Interloper in My Own Land
Dave Zirin
On Pigskin and Petrol
Website of the Day
Rachel's Needs (and Deserves) Your Support!
December 12, 2007
Allan
Nairn
US Intelligence is Tapping Indonesian
Phones
Alan
Farago
How Sprawl Eats Its Young
Ray
McGovern
Torture, Lies and Videotape
Winslow
T. Wheeler
The Phony Pentagon Budget Cuts
Evan
Jones
The Raid on Great Western: Why an Australian Bank Might Spell
Doom for the US Farm Belt
James
Petras
An Open Letter to Sarkozy on the Exchange of Political Prisonsers
Joel
Hirschorn
The Horserace Fiction: Clinton, Obama and the Democratic Machine
Joshua
Frank
Why Ron Paul Deserves Our Attention
Sherry
Wolf
Why the Left Should Reject Ron Paul
Dan
Bacher
Survey of a Fish Graveyard
Website
of the Day
Men Eating Bugs
December
11, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
What's Really Happened During
the Surge?
Diana
Johnstone
The Next Kosovo War
Paul
Craig Roberts
It's Waco All Over Again: Preventive Detention and the Constitution
David
Macaray
Impasse in Hollywood
Ralph
Nader
Gail Collins Versus the Underdogs
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo Britons to be Released: a Mixed Result
Martha
Rosenberg
No Holiday for High Risk Sex Workers
Steve
Champion /
Anthony Ross
Words for Our Brother, Tookie Williams
Kim
Nicolini
Tangled Up in Dylan
Michael
Dickinson
Say Goodbye to Purgatory: Pope Rat Gets Indulgent
Website
of the Day
A Charming (and Worthy)
Pitch
December 10, 2007
Uri
Avnery
How They Stole the Bomb From Us
Debbie
Nathan
The Perils of Journalism and Child
Porn
JoAnn
Wypijewski
Is There a Left Here Left?
If So, What Can It Do?
Steve
Kelly
Cheap Chips, Counterfeit Wilderness
Donna
J. Volatile
Welcome to the Revolution
December
8 / 9, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Coup Against Bush and Cheney
Brenda
Norrell
Seize the Land, Chain the Peace Activists
Saul
Landau
The Ruins of Empire
R.
F. Blader
A Rape in Every Drink?
Ray
McGovern
Spinning Iran's Centrifuges
Allan
Nairn
Imposed Hunger in Gaza, the Army in
Indonesia
Linn
Washington, Jr
Spotlight on Death Row
Paul
Craig Roberts
When Will Bush Come Clean?
December
7, 2007
Sean
Penn
Piano Wire Puppeteers
Arthur
Versluis
Mining Water in the Desert
M.
G. Piety
Racism and the American Psyche: Some
Thoughts on Race and Intelligence
Pam
Martens
Banksters Gone Wild
Alan
Farago
Will the Free Market Kill Suburbia?
Sprawl and the Credit Crisis
Allan
Nairn
It Takes (Out) a Village
Col.
Dan Smith
Bush, Iran and the Politics of Doomsday
Alice
Slater
The Iran Opening
Robert
Weissman
The Story of Stuff
Website
of the Day
Something
About Mitt
December
5, 2007
Mike
Whitney
Why the CFR Hates Putin
Sharon
Smith
The Anti-War Enablers: Tom Hayden
and the Dead End Democrats
James
Petras
Venezuela in the Aftermath
Ron
Jacobs
The Iran Charade
Dave
Zirin
Kicking a Dead Man: the Sliming of Sean Taylor
John
V. Whitbeck
Two States or One? Time to Choose
Peter
Zinn
Covered in New Orleans
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Impeach Pelosi Instead
Alan
Farago
The Credit Bomb Detonates in Florida
Heather
Gray
US Meddling in Australian Politics
Website
of the Day
A Donner Summit Night Before Xmas
December
4, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Jackboot State Stubs Its Toe in
Ann Arbor
Andy
Worthington
Guantánamo and the Supreme
Court
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Lies at the End of the American
Dream
Ray
McGovern
No-Nuke Iran
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Admiral Mullen and the Defense Budget: When White Elephants are
Too Small
Allan
Nairn
The Regime Still Stands in Burma, Where "the People Just
Want Food"
Russell
Mokhiber
The USA v. Al Arian
Nikolas
Kozloff
As Chávez Falters: Raising the Stakes for the South American
Left
John
V. Walsh
Peace Movement Paralyzed
Ghada
Ageel
Will Peace Cost Me My Home?
Stephen
Soldz
The Facts be Damned!: Psychologists' President Defends Psychologist
Involvement in Interrogations
Website
of the Day
Hands Off the People of Iran
December
3, 2007
Tariq
Ali
Venezuela After the Referendum
Bill
Quigley
New Orleans: Bulldozers for the Poor,
Tax Credits for Developers
Eric
Walberg
The Bible and Middle East History
Uri
Avnery
After Annapolis
Marjorie
Cohn
Operation Iraqi Freedom Exposed
Dave
Lindorff
Vengeance Isn't Sweet
Stephen
Fleischman
Homeless in Paradise
Martha
Rosenberg
Perp Walks for the Mink Clad on Chicago's Mag Mile
Website
of the Day
So Just Lead!
December
1 / 2, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift
in a Sea of Booze
Jeffrey
St. Clair
The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and
the Future of the Rocky Mountain West
Mike
Whitney
"Iraq Doesn't Exist Anymore": an Interview with Nir
Rosen
Shemon
Salam
A Visit From the FBI
Roger
Burbach
The Battle in Bolivia
Benjamin
Dangl
New Politics in Old Bolivia
Brian
M. Downing
The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to
the Surge?
Greg
Moses
Night of the Living Redneck: a Texas Horror Story
Sonja
Karkar
The "Never-Never" Peace Conference
Saul
Landau
Ethics and Evil in South Boston
Margaret
Kimberley
Black America Left Behind
John
Ross
What are the Prospects for a New Mexican Revolution?
Reza
Fiyouzat
Exit on the Left: When Che's Children Visited Iran
Judith
Scherr
Berkeley Turns Right for the Holidays
Lance
Olsen
Of Forests and Finance: Logging for the Wealthy
Christopher
Brauchli
Mr. Bush and the Despots
Robert
Fantina
Iraq as U.S. Colony
Dan
Bacher
Fish Triage on Prospect Island
Michael
Donnelly
Remembering How to be Human: John Trudell and the Music of Urgency
Website
of the Weekend
Appalachian Voices
November
30, 2007
Peter
Stone Brown
The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan
Wajahat
Ali
The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's
Former Minister of Information
Allan
Nairn
Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers
Alan
Farago
The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash
John
Ross
The Death of Latin America's First Revolution
Corporate
Crime Reporter
America's Corporate Crime Capitals
Lucia
Alvarez
Diego Gonzalez
Argentina's Political Future
James
Rothenberg
The Iraqi Miracle
Website
of the Day
Bio-Bling?
November
29, 2007
R.
F. Blader
The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe
Ismael
Hossein-Zadeh
Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran
Stephen
Soldz
War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire
Sheldon
Richman
Iraq 3.0
George
Wuerthner
Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws
Felice
Pace
Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis?
Col.
Dan Smith
The Meaning of Annapolis
Harvey
Wasserman
Terror Target Nukes
Nikolas
Kozloff
Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08
Paul
Krassner
Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike!
Dave
Lindorff
News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela?
CP
News Service
The One State Declaration
Website
of the Day
A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter
November
28, 2007
James
Petras
CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces
on Venezuela
Jeff
Halper
Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One
Way Street
Pam
Martens
Crashing Citigroup
Peter
Morici
Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession
Mohammed
Khatib
Separate and Unequal in Palestine
Helen
Redmond
The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America
William
S. Lind
In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm?
Ben
Tripp
We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons
Liaquat
Ali Khan
Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges
Jeff
Berg
Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran
Website
of the Day
The Lies of Joe Klein
November
27, 2007
Joe
DeRaymond
On the Road to the Torture School
Paul
Craig Roberts
Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary
and Rudy
Marjorie
Cohn
Remembering Victor Rabinowitz
Mike
Whitney
A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp
Ron
Jacobs
The Myths of Military Progress
Col.
Dan Smith
The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work
Ralph
Nader
Family Learning
Karim
Makdisi
Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut
Christopher
Ketcham
Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop
Ronan
Bennett
Martin Amis Does a Coulter
Website
of the Day
Celebrating the Uncensored Media
November
26, 2007
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Heading for Annapolis
Paul
Craig Roberts
The End of All That
David
Macaray
Enter Mediator
Sameer
Dossani
Pakistan's Wounded Dictator
Roger
Burbach
The Final Battle in Bolivia
Mark
Scaramella
Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire
Brian
McKinlay
Howard's End
Rick
Kuhn
The Fall of a Racist Union Buster
Binoy
Kampmark
Ruddslide and Dull Alec
Monica
Benderman
What Do You Know of War?
Brenda
Norrell
Return to Alcatraz
Website
of the Day
Ghostworld by DJ Spooky
November
24 / 25, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson,
MD
Robert
Fisk
Darkness Falls on the Middle East
Saul
Landau
Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P.
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal
Environmentalism
Rannie
Amiri
Beirut's Black Friday
Christopher
Brauchli
Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace
Daniel
Gross
The Gap and Black Friday
Mike
Whitney
"A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions"
Marjorie
Cohn
Iran and the 2008 Elections
David
Rosen
Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans
David
Michael Green
If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom ....
Kenneth
Rexroth
When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in
Afghanistan
Muhammad
Iqbal
Trans. Shahid Alam
Ghazal
Website
of the Day
Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill
November 23, 2007
Gary
Leupp
Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat
Valley
Laura
Carlsen
Coming to Terms with Diversity in
Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP
David
Macaray
Keeping Labor Unions Out
Andy
Worthington
Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden
Clifton
Ross
Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant
Seth
Sandronsky
Battling Sodexho
Dan
Bacher
Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation
William
A. Cook
The Myth of Middle East Peace
Website
of the Day
Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short
Film
November
22, 2007
Alan
Farago
Who Lost America's Everglades?
Greg
Moses
A Thanksgiving Basting
Dave
Lindorff
Impeachment is Back on the Table
Mike
Ely
Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving
Omar
Azfar
Gore for President of Pakistan?
November
21, 2007
Vijay
Prashad
Our Dictator, Their Democracy
Martha
Rosenberg
Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Epiphany on the Glacier
John
Ross
The Last Days of Mexican Corn
Brian
McKenna
Cancer Terrorists Unmasked
Stephen
Soldz
Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo
Monica
Benderman
Needing Peace
Ben
Terrall
Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar
Website
of the Day
Mercy for Animals
|
January
4, 2008
Evidence of Israeli
"Cowardly Blending" Comes to Light
War
Crimes Airbrushed from History
By JONATHAN COOK
It apparently never occurred to anyone
in our leading human rights organisations or the Western media
that the same moral and legal standards ought be applied to the
behaviour of Israel and Hizbullah during the war on Lebanon 18
months ago. Belatedly, an important effort has been made to set
that right.
A new report, written by a
respected Israeli human rights organisation, one representing
the country's Arab minority not its Jewish majority, has unearthed
evidence showing that during the fighting Israel committed war
crimes not only against Lebanese civilians -- as was already
known -- but also against its own Arab citizens. This is an aspect
of the war that has been almost entirely neglected until now.
The report also sheds a surprising
light on the question of what Hizbullah was aiming at when it
fired hundreds of rockets on northern Israel. Until the report's
publication last month, I had been all but a lone voice arguing
that the picture of what took place during the war was far more
complex than generally accepted.
The new report follows a series
of inquiries by the most influential human rights groups, Amnesty
International and Human Rights Watch, to identify the ways in
which international law was broken during Israel's 34-day assault
on Lebanon. However, both organisations failed to examine, except
in the most cursory and dismissive way, Israel's treatment of
its own civilians during the war. That failure may also have
had serious repercussions for their ability to assess Hizbullah's
actions.
Before examining the report's
revelations, it is worth revisiting the much-misrepresented events
of summer 2006 and considering what efforts have been made subsequently
to bring the two sides to account.
The war was the culmination
of a series of tit-for-tat provocations along the shared border
following Israel's withdrawal from its two-decade occupation
of south Lebanon in 2000. Almost daily for those six years Israel
behaved as though the occupation had not ended, sending war planes
into Lebanese air space to create terrifying sonic booms and
spy on the country. (After the war, it resumed these flights
almost immediately.)
In response Hizbullah, a Shia
militia that offered the only effective resistance during Lebanon's
period of occupation, maintained its belligerent posture. It
warned repeatedly that it would capture Israeli soldiers, should
the chance arise, in the hope of forcing a prisoner exchange.
Israel had held on to a handful of Lebanese prisoners after its
pullback.
Hizbullah also demanded that
Israel complete its withdrawal from Lebanon in full by leaving
a fertile sliver of territory, the Shebaa Farms. Israel argues
that the area is Syrian territory, occupied by its army along
with the Golan Heights in 1967, and will be returned one day
in negotiations with Damascus. UN catrographers disagree, backing
Hizbullah's claim that the area is Lebanese.
The fighting began with a relatively
minor incident (by regional standards) and one that was entirely
predictable: Hizbullah attacked a border post, capturing two
soldiers and killing three more in the operation. Hizbullah's
leader Hassan Nasrallah proposed a prisoner swap. Israel declared
war the very same day, unleashing a massive bombing campaign
that over the next month killed nearly 1,200 Lebanese civilians.
An editorial in Israel's leading
newspaper Haaretz noted again this week that, by rejecting Hizbullah's
overtures, "Israel initiated the war".
In the last days of the fighting,
as a UN-brokered ceasefire was about to come into effect, Israel
dropped more than a million cluster bombs on south Lebanon, of
which several hundred thousand failed to detonate. Since the
end of the war, 39 Lebanese civilians have been killed and dozens
more maimed from these small landmines littering the countryside.
Israel's own inquiry into its
use of the cluster munitions wrapped up last month by exonerating
the army, even while admitting that many of the bombs had been
directed at civilian population centres. In Israel's books, it
seems, international law sanctions the targeting of civilians
during war.
Veteran Israeli reporter Meron
Rapoport recently noted that his newspaper, Haaretz again, has
evidence that the army's use of cluster munitions was "pre-planned"
and undertaken without regard to the location of Hizbullah positions.
The only reasonable conclusion is that Israel wanted south Lebanon
uninhabitable at any cost, possibly so that another ground invasion
could be mounted.
Human Rights Watch, which has
carried out the most detailed examination of the war, was less
forgiving than Israel's own investigators -- as might have been
expected in the case of such a flagrant abuse of the rules of
war. Still, it has failed to condemn Israel's actions unreservedly.
In a typical press release it noted the wide dispersal of cluster
bombs over civilian areas of south Lebanon but concluded only
that their use by Israel "may violate the prohibition on
indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian
law".
In this and other respects,
HRW's reports have revealed troubling double standards.
During the war two charges
were levelled against Hizbullah, mainly by Israel's supporters,
and investigated by the human rights group: that the Shia militia
fired rockets on northern Israel either indiscriminately or in
a deliberate attempt to target civilians; and that it hid its
fighters and weapons among its own Lebanese civilians (thereby
conveniently justifying Israel's bombing of those civilians).
Hizbullah was found guilty
of the first charge, with HRW arguing that it was irrelevant
whether or not Hizbullah was trying to hit military targets in
Israel as its rockets were not precision-guided. All its rockets,
whatever they were aimed at, were therefore considered indiscriminate
by the organisation and a violation of international law. Worthy
of note is that HRW expressed certainty about the impermissibility
of Hizbullah firing imprecise rockets but not about Israel's
use of even less precise cluster bombs.
On the second charge Hizbullah
was substantially acquitted, with HRW failing to find evidence
that, apart from in a handful of isolated instances, the militia
hid among the Lebanese population.
Regarding Israel, the human
rights organisations investigated the charge that it violated
international law by endangering Lebanese civilians during its
bombing campaigns. Given that Israel's missiles and bombs were
supposed to have pinpoint accuracy, the large death toll of Lebanese
civilians provided indisputable evidence of Israeli war crimes.
HRW agreed.
Strangely, however, after submitting
both Israel and Hizbullah to the same test of whether their firepower
targeted civilians, HRW deemed it inappropriate to investigate
Israel on the second allegation faced by Hizbullah: that it committed
a war crime by blending in with its own civilian population.
Was there so little prima facie evidence of such behaviour on
Israel's side that the organisation decided it was not worth
wasting its resources on such an inquiry?
HRW produced two lengthy reports
in August 2007, one examining events in Lebanon and the other
events in Israel. But the report on what happened inside Israel,
"Civilians under Assault", failed to examine Israel's
treatment of its own civilians and focused instead only on proving
that Hizbullah's firing of its rockets violated international
law.
HRW did made a brief reference
to the possibility that Israeli military installations were located
close to or inside civilian communities. It cited examples of
a naval training base next to a hospital in Haifa and a weapons
factory built in a civilian community. Its researchers even admitted
to watching the Israeli army firing shells into Lebanon from
a residential street of the Jewish community of Zarit.
This act of "cowardly
blending" by the Israeli army -- to echo the UN envoy Jan
Egeland's unwarranted criticism of Hizbullah -- was a war crime.
It made Israeli civilians a potential target for Hizbullah reprisal
attacks.
So what was HRW's position
on this gross violation of the rules of war it had witnessed?
After yet again denouncing Hizbullah for its rocket attacks,
the report was mealy-mouthed: "Given that indiscriminate
fire [by Hizbullah], there is no reason to believe that Israel's
placement of certain military assets within these cities added
appreciably to the risk facing their residents."
In other words, Israel's culpability
in hiding its war machine inside civilian communities did not
need to be assessed on its own terms as a violation of international
law. Instead Israel was let off the hook based on the assumption
that Hizbullah's rockets were incapable of hitting such positions.
It is dubious, to put it mildly, whether this is a legitimate
reading of international law.
An additional criticism, one
that I made on several occasions during the war, was that Israel
failed to protect its Arab communities from rocket attacks by
ensuring they had bomb shelters or early warning systems -- unlike
Jewish communities. On this issue, the HRW report had only this
to say: "Human Rights Watch did not investigate whether
Israel discriminated among Jewish and Arab residents of the north
in the protection it provided from Hezbollah attacks."
Of Hizbullah's indiscrimination,
HRW was certain; of Israel's discrimination, it held back from
judgment.
Fortunately, we no longer have
to rely on Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International for a
full picture of what took place during what Israelis call the
Second Lebanon War. Last month the Arab Association for Human
Rights, based in Nazareth, published its own report, "Civilians
in Danger", covering the ground its much bigger cousins
dared not touch.
The hostile climate in Israel
towards the fifth of the population who are Arab has made publication
of the report a risky business. Azmi Bishara, Israel's leading
Arab politician and a major critic of Israel's behaviour during
the Lebanon war, is currently in exile under possible death sentence.
Israel has accused him of treason in helping Hizbullah during
the fighting, though the secret services have yet to produce
the evidence they have supposedly amassed against him. Nonetheless
they have successfully intimidated most of the Arab minority
into silence.
Also, much of the report's
detail, including many place-names and maps showing the location
of Hizbullah rocket strikes, has had to be excised to satisfy
Israel's strict military censorship laws.
But despite these obstacles,
the Human Rights Association has taken a brave stand in unearthing
the evidence to show that Israel committed war crimes by placing
much of its military hardware, including artillery positions
firing into Lebanon, inside and next to Arab towns and villages.
These were not isolated instances but a discerible pattern.
The threat to which this exposed
Arab communities was far from as theoretical as HRW supposes.
Some 660 Hizbullah rockets landed on 20 Arab communities in the
north, apparently surprising Israeli officials, who believed
Hizbullah would not target fellow Arabs. Of the 44 Israeli civilians
killed by the rockets, 21 were Arab citizens.
Israel has cited these deaths
as further proof that Hizbullah's rocket fire was indiscriminate.
The Human Rights Association, however, reaches a rather different
conclusion, one based on the available evidence. Its research
shows a clear correlation between an Arab community having an
Israeli army base located next to it and the likelihood of it
being hit by Hizbullah rockets. In short, Arab communities targeted
by Hizbullah were almost exclusively those in which the Israeli
army was based.
"The study found that
the Arab towns and villages that suffered the most intensive
attacks during the war were ones that were surrounded by military
installations, either on a permanent basis or temporarily during
the course of the war," the report states.
Such findings lend credibility
to complaints made during the war by Israel's Arab legislators,
including Bishara himself, that Arab communities were being used
as "human shields" by the Israeli army -- possibly
to deter Hizbullah from targeting its positions.
In early August 2006, Bishara
told the Maariv newspaper: "What ordinary citizens are afraid
to say, the Arab Knesset members are declaring loudly. Israel
turned the Galilee and the Arab villages in particular into human
shields by surrounding them with artillery positions and missile
batteries."
Such violations of the rules
of war were occasionally hinted at in reporting in the Israeli
media. In one account from the front line, for example, a reporter
from Maariv quoted parents in the Arab village of Fassuta complaining
that children were wetting their beds because of the frightening
bark of tanks stationed outside their homes.
According to the Human Rights
Association's report, Israel made its Arab citizens vulnerable
to Hizbullah's rockets in the following ways:
* Permanent military bases,
including army camps, airfields and weapons factories, as well
as temporary artillery positions that fired thousands of shells
and mortars into southern Lebanon were located inside or next
to many Arab communities.
* The Israeli army trained
soldiers inside northern Arab communities before and during the
war in preparation for a ground invasion, arguing that the topography
in these communities was similar to the villages of south Lebanon.
* The government failed to
evacuate civilians from the area of fighting, leaving Arab citizens
particularly in danger. Almost no protective measures, such as
building public shelters or installing air raid sirens, had been
taken in Arab communities, whereas they had been in Jewish communities.
Under the protocols to the
Geneva Conventions, parties to a conflict must "avoid locating
military objectives within or near densely populated areas"
and must "endeavour to remove the civilian population from
the vicinity of military objectives". The Human Rights Association
report clearly shows that Israel cynically broke these rules
of war.
Tarek Ibrahim, a lawyer and
the author of the Association's report, says the most surprising
finding is that Hizbullah's rockets mostly targeted Arab communities
where military installations had been located and in the main
avoided those where there were no such military positions.
"Hizbullah claimed on
several occasions that its rockets were aimed primarily at military
targets in Israel. Our research cannot prove that to be the case
but it does give a strong indication that Hizbullah's claims
may be true."
Although Hizbullah's Katyusha
rockets were not precision-guided, the proximity of Israeli military
positions to Arab communities "are within the margin of
error of the rockets fired by Hizbullah", according to the
report. In most cases, such positions were located either inside
the community itself or a few hundred metres from it.
In its recommendations, the
Human Rights Association calls for the removal of all Israeli
military installations from civilian communities.
(Again noteworthy is the fact
that Israel has built several weapons factories inside Arab communities,
including in Nazareth. Arab citizens are almost never allowed
to work in Israel's vast military industries, so why build them
there? Part of the reason is doubtless that they provide another
pretext for confiscating Arab communities' lands and "Judaising"
them. But is the criticism by Arab legislators of "human
shielding" another possible reason?)
The report avoids dealing with
the wider issue of whether the Israeli army located in Jewish
communities too during the war. Ibrahim explains: "In part
the reason was that we are an Arab organisation and that directs
the focus of our work. But there is also the difficulty that
Israeli Jews are unlikely to cooperate with our research."
Israel has longed boasted of
its "citizen army", and in surveys Israeli Jews say
they trust the military more than the country's parliament, government
and courts.
Nonetheless, the report notes,
there is ample evidence that the army based itself in some Jewish
communities too. As well as the eyewitness account of the Human
Rights Watch researcher, it was widely reported during the war
that 12 soldiers were killed when a Hizbullah rocket struck the
rural community of Kfar Giladi, close to the northern border.
A member of the kibbutz, Uri
Eshkoli, recently told the Israeli media: "We deserve a
medal of honor for our assistance during the war. We opened our
hotel to soldiers and asked for no compensation. Moreover, soldiers
stayed in the kibbutz throughout the entire war."
In another report, in the Guardian
newspaper, a 19-year-old British Jew, Danny Young, recounted
his experiences performing military service during the war. He
lived on Kibbutz Sasa, close to the border, which became an army
rear base. "We were shooting missiles from the foot of this
kibbutz," he told the paper. "We were also receiving
Katyushas."
So far the Human Rights Association's
report has received minimal coverage in the Hebrew media. "We
are facing a very difficult political atmosphere in Israel at
the moment," Ibrahim told me. "Few people inside Israel
want to hear that their army and government broke international
law in such a flagrant manner."
It seems few in the West, even
the guardians of human rights, are ready to hear such a message
either.
Jonathan Cook is a journalist and writer based in
Nazareth, Israel. His latest book, "Israel
and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake
the Middle East", is published by Pluto Press. His website
is www.jkcook.net
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