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Today's Stories February 26, 2008 Debbie Nathan Confessions of a Gitmo Guard February 25, 2008 Roger Morris A Death in Damascus Anthony DiMaggio Military Bases, the Media and the Democrats Ralph Nader Why I'm Running Patrick Cockburn Iraq Broils Paul Craig Roberts Kosovo and the Empire Crazies Peter Morici Bernanke's Failing Policies: a Long Recession Looms Dave Lindorff General Welch's Whitewash: What We Still Don't Know About That Minot Nuke Incident Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen Fanatics, Mountebanks and Drillers: a Bloody Oil Film Heather Gray James Orange, Civil Rights Legend Robert Weitzel Accomodating Torture John Halle Kucinich Goes Down Website of the Day Do the Trunk Monkey! February 23 / 4, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Mushrooming Clouds That Hang Over McCain Paul Craig Roberts Obama and Global Trade Wajahat Ali Omissions of the Commission: an Interview with Phillip Shenon on the 9/11 Commission Ralph Nader Neutering the FDA Jürgen Vsych "What Was Ralph Nader Thinking?" Fidel Castro Watching the US Presidential Campaign from Havana Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo David Macaray Unions Under Assault Jeremy Scahill The Real Story Behind Kosovo's Independence David Krieger Stanley Sheinbaum Caging the Cold War Monster Ron Jacobs Building for the Future Michael Garrity The Last, Best Hope for the Northern Rockies Brian McKenna Higher Ed's "Civic Engagements" Get Dumbed Down Missy Beattie Over the Hill with John McCain Fred Gardner American College of Physicians Takes Pro-Cannabis Stand (Mostly) Boris Kagarlitsky The Growth of the Russian Labor Movement Mike Ferner Kick That Barrel Dan Bacher On the Trail with the Border Angels Christopher Ketcham Hillary Goes Where Obama Fears to Tread Poets' Basement Davies and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Obama Mariachi   February 22, 2008 Mike Whitney The Bonfire of Capital Jason Hribal Elephants and the Circus: The Story of Janet Liaquat Ali Khan Arresting Musharraf Joshua Frank That Obama Glow: the Nuclear Industry's Golden Child Dave Lindorff Vicki's John: Ask Not What She Did for Him, Ask What He Did for Her! Liliana Segura When Torture is Old News: McCain's Blonde Diversion Robert Fantina Castro, Bush and Cuba: a Fiasco Waiting to Happen? Yifat Susskind The ABCs of Death: Bush vs. Africa's Women Norm Kent Pushing 60 with Pot Website of the Day Bush Gets Down in Liberia February 21, 2008 Saul Landau Fidel Steps Aside Elizabeth Schulte Left Behind, With No End in Sight: America's Long-Term Unemployed Helen Redmond Health Care as a Human Right Benjamin Dangl Undermining Bolivia Michael Levitin Kosovo's Dilemma Liam Leonard Fear and Loathing on the Emerald Isle Patrick Irelan Land and Food in Venezuela Linn Cohen-Cole Poor Ohio: a Second Letter to Hillary on Her Ties to Monsanto Michael Simmons Daydream Believer: John Stewart, the Miles Davis of Folk Music CounterPunch News Service A Message from the Women of Okinawa to US GIs Website of the Day Cop Abuse in Shreveport   February 20, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Lies and Spies Paul Krassner My Brief Encounter with Fidel Castro Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Pakistani Elections Farzana Versey The Great Dictator: Musharraf, Peace and the Autumn of the Patriarch Allan Nairn Dying for a Second Round: Israel's New Plan to Attack Lebanon John V. Whitbeck If Kosovo, Why Not Palestine? Niranjan Ramakrishnan A Balcony Seat to Our Own Balkanization? Steve Eckardt Cuba Sans Fidel: No News is Big News Lee Sustar Union-Busting at Freightliner Mike Ferner How Sick of It are You? Website of the Day The US Military Index   February 19, 2008 Uri Avnery Blood and Champagne Paul Craig Roberts Paying Insurgents Not to Fight Gary Leupp The Independence of Kosovo Fidel Castro The Moment Has Come David Macaray Management's Dirty Little Secret Reza Fiyouzat Buck the Circus! The Left and the Elections Valerie Morse The New Zealand Terror Raids: Land of the Long White Lie Walter Brasch Bush on Safari Website of the Day Don't Think Twice, It's Alright   February 18, 2008 Wajahat Ali Free Pakistan: an Interview with Imran Khan Diana Johnstone NATO's Kosovo Colony Paul Craig Roberts What Do We Stand For? Andy Worthington Gitmo: "We're Making This Up as We Go Along" Debbie Nathan Bernie Ward's Sex Tapes Anthony DiMaggio Following the Money Trail: the Democratic Party and the Business of Elections Bill Simpich Ten Years Ago, People Power Stopped Clinton in Iraq Eva Liddell A Short History of Super-Delegates: Hope, Yes! But Pay in Cash Christopher Brauchli The President Who Couldn't Keep His Word: Short-Changing Veterans Stephen Soldz Wikileaks is Under Attack! Johann Rossouw The Ouster of Thabo Mbeki: South Africa and the Costs of Neoliberalism Website of the Day Sick of It Day!   February 16 / 17, 2008 Alexander Cockburn The Terrorists Still at Ground Zero, 7 World Trade Tower, Lower Manhattan Ralph Nader We the Corporations ... David Macaray The Big Buy Out: Did GM Drive Another Nail in Labor's Coffin? William J. Peace Wheelchair Dumping Ron Jacobs War on the Psyche: Shellshock and Redemption Diane Christian War Corrupts Alan Maass Oil, Blood and Greed: Taking Upton Sinclair to the Big Screen (and Beyond) Ramzy Baroud Iraq and the US Elections Michael Donnelly Genitalia First! Old Guard Feminists Play the XX Card Cpt. Paul Watson The Art of Finding Whalers James L. Secor China Diary: Spring Festival and New Year 2008 Eve Bachrach Bush Returns to Africa Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Anti-Imperialist Army Stephen Gowans Steven Spielberg, Faux-Humanitarian Missy Beattie To Vote or Not to Vote? David Michael Green Warming Slowly to Obama Wajahat Ali Attack of the Info-tainment Circus Poets' Basement Gibbons, Willson, Mickey Z., Orloski and Reuther Website of the Day Yellowstone's Bison Need Your Help--NOW!     February 15, 2008 George Szamuely The Absurdity of "Independent" Kosovo Patrick Cockburn Ground-Truthing the Surge: Is the US Really Bringing Stability to Baghdad? Wajahat Ali Pakistan is Burning: an Interview with Steve Coll on the Taliban, Bin Laden and the Bush Administration Mike Whitney Henry Paulsen's Wild Ride on the Economic Hindenberg Alan Farago God and the Democrats Chris Genovali Alberta's Black Gold Rush Jacob Hornberger Courting Injustice: Scalia on Torture Dave Lindorff Snoops Always Ring Twice: Bush's Protect America Bill Bull Website of the Day Live From the Land of Hopes and Dreams     February 14, 2008 Kathleen and Bill Christison Palestine in the Mind of America Mike Whitney Swan Song for NATO Clancy Sigal Strike Notes from a Screenwriter George Wuerthner A Bloody Sham: the Yellowstone Bison Slaughter Peter Morici Is Bernanke Headed for the Exit? John Ross Drug War Mayhem Boils Over from Border to Border Allan Nairn Mafia Rules in the Middle East: If You're Big Enough, You Can Whack Anyone Rannie Amiri Lebanon's Warmongers Niranjan Ramakrishnan The New Tractatus: Where Wittgenstein Meets Feinstein Donna Volatile Be Careful What You Vote For, You Just Might Get It Seth Sandronsky The Student Squeeze: Fighting California's Tuition Hikes Website of the Day Conventions: the Land Around Us   February 13, 2008 Nikolas Kozloff Meet John McCain: Mr. Big Stick in Latin America Alan Farago Hell to Pay: Warren Buffett on the Goal Line Christina Kasica King's Dream Foreclosed: the Subprime Crisis in Black America Vicente Navarro How to Read the U.S. Primaries Hall Greenland Australia's Finest Hour Lee Sustar Strange Stimulation: Too Little for Those Who Need It Most David Macaray The Writers' Strike Finally Ends Roderick Frazier Nash Celebrating Wilderness Patrick Irelan Hugo Chávez and High Anxiety at the NYT Anthony Papa Mean Mister Mukasey: AG Tries to Block Crack Cocaine Releases Carl Finamore Another Parade Passes Me By: Don't Let Your Movement be Coopted by Politicians Website of the Day John He Is   February 12, 2008 Frank J. Menetrez The Case Against Alan Dershowitz Paul Craig Roberts War Without End Dr. Trudy Bond The Elephant at Gitmo: Camp 7 and the Torturer's Shrink Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Six: Why Charge Them Now? What About the Torture? Col. Dan Smith The Psychology of Killing: Close In or Far Away? Ronnie Cummins Globalization: Standing at the End of the Road Ralph Nader Open the Government John V. Walsh Antiwarriors, Divided and Conquered Dave Lindorff Obama and Progressive Change: Let's Hope the Movement Transforms the Candidate Michael Donnelly Who's Pimping Whom? The Clintons' Selective No Talk Rules Ron Jacobs La Lucha Continua: Castro's "Life" Ben Tripp Beggars Collide Website of the Day Springsteen and Youngstown   February 11, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Lessons for Obama: When is a Delegate Not a Delegate? Wajahat Ali A Discussion with Walt and Mearsheimer on the Israel Lobby Ray McGovern Waterboarding for God and Country Allan Nairn The Shooting of Jose Ramos Horta Uri Avnery An End Foreseen? Chris Floyd American Psycho: the Meaning of Mitt Romney's Exit Speech Martha Rosenberg School Lessons in a Lunchbox: Lunchmeat from Tortured Cows Stephen Fleischman The Bonnie and Clyde of American Politics Marc Lamont Hill Not My Brand of Hope Liliana Segura Obama and Torture: the Sounds of Silence and Equivocation Peter Morici Challenges for the New President Christopher Brauchli A Drug Rant from a Former Taker Website of the Day Annie vs. the Blue Angels   February 8 / 10, 2008 Paul Craig Roberts Does the GOP Have Aces Up Its Sleeves? Patrick Cockburn Will Moqtada al-Sadr's Truce Hold? Mike Whitney The Great Bust of '08 Anthony DiMaggio How the Press Covers Waterboarding Andy Worthington The Guántanamo Trials: Where are the Terrorists? Linn Cohen-Cole Hillary, Will You Renounce Your Ties to Monsanto? Firmin DeBrabander Notes from the Foreclosure Front: Suing Your Way to Solvency Cpt. Paul Watson The Other Whaling Industry: How Greenpeace Cashes In on the Suffering and Deaths of the Great Whales Kenneth S. Pope Why I Resigned from the American Psychological Association Jacob G. Hornberger American Soldiers Will Pay the Price for Bush's Torture Policy Robert Bryce Beyond Group Think on Climate Change: If More CO2 is Bad ... Then What? P. Sainath The Last of the Buccaneer Editors Allan Nairn Give Me Back My Land Fred Gardner / Pebbles Trippet "The District Attorney of Shasta County Doesn't Know the Law!" Andrew Wimmer Growing Up Catholic: Ignorance is Death Robert Fantina America's Disgrace: the Case of Omar Khadr David Michael Green Partycide in Six Easy Steps: Watch the Democrats Destroy Themselves Kevin Zeese Is Dennis Kucinich Being McKinney'd? Peter Morici Wall Street Gives Bernacke a Vote of No Confidence Chris Driscoll Could Nader be the Come-Back Kid of 2008? Prairie Miller Black August: Bringing George Jackson's Life to the Screen Poets Basement Davies and Buknatski   February 7, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Why Baghdad Will Explode Again Bill Christison Potholes Bigger Than Ever for Palestinians David Anderson NBC's "To Entrap" a Predator: Perverting Justice for the Sake of Ratings Ron Jacobs Innocent Flesh: Recruiting Kids to Kill Nikolas Kozloff Hugo Chávez's Coca: It's the Real Thing Jane Rockefeller The Moral Economy of an Anti-Poverty Foundation Andy Worthington On Waterboarding: Two Questions for Michael Hayden Dave Zirin Instep Intifada Saul Landau The "Honestest" Candidate Since Lincoln Susie Day Our Blob in the White House Website of the Day George Carlin on Voting   February 6, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair Super Tuesday's Vote for Chaos Ben Rosenfeld Informant Games: The Disturbing GreenScare Case of Briana Waters Vijay Prashad An Intellectual Hustler Lays It All Out Joe Bageant Nine Billion Little Feet on the Highway of the Damned Michael Donnelly What White Women Do In Private Voting Booths Allan Nairn Does the US Need a Civilizing Mayan Invasion? Kathryn Gray Wilderness on Edge: The Fate of Donner Summit Ray McGovern Powell's UN Fiasco Sheldon Richman The Whining Empire Paul Cantor / Roger Sparks A Presidential Aptitude Examination John Chuckman Political Bits and Pieces Website of the Day Save the Albatross February 5, 2008 Winslow T. Wheeler The Chaos in America's Vast Security Budget Tariq Ali Why I Will Not Participate in the Turin Book Fair Stephen Soldz The Secret Rules of Engagement in Iraq: Did Rumsfeld Authorize War Crimes? Chris Floyd Strange Fruit: America's Gulag and the Good War William S. Lind Saddam's Secret War Strategy: Die and Win Martha Rosenberg Live From the Killing Floor Heather Gray Conversations with Georgia Voters Ayesha Ijaz Khan Obama, Bhagwandas and the Battle for a Secular Politics David Macaray Unions Need to Stop Being So Nice Eliza Ernshire Making Music and Laughing Till the Tears Run Brenda Norrell Hated Nation Website of the Day The Things I Used to Do     February 4, 2008 Marc Levy Winter in America Patrick Cockburn The Bird Market Bombings Saree Makdisi Strangling Gaza Uri Avnery From Stalingrad to Winograd Alan Farago Let's Get Bambi! Someone is Slaughtering Florida's Key Deer Ben Tripp Spare Change: the Whine of the Progressive Voter Paul Wolf Civil Wars North and South Paul Craig Roberts Why Were the 9/11 Tapes Destroyed? Joshua Frank MoveOn's Obama Endorsement: Why There's No Hope for Change John Halle Whither Progressive Democrats? Website of the Day How to Cheat in School   February 2 / 3, 2008 Alexander Cockburn Hot Democratic Properties Pam Martens Bankers Gone Bonkers: Global Finance and the Insanity Defense Ralph Nader The Great Clinton-Obama Debate: Questions They Weren't Asked John Ross Hilaria vs. "El Moreno" Wajahat Ali Hillary, Obama and the Clash of Civilizations: an Interview with Imam Zaid Shakir Robert Fantina A Colony by Any Other Name: Iraq as Stepchild of the American Empire B. R. Gowani Not All Veils and Guns James L. Secor China in Winter: On the Western Edge of the Great Snow John V. Walsh The Invisible Green Primary Niranjan Ramakrishnan Barack's Bubble, Bubba's Trouble Dave Zirin Who Stole the Super Bowl's Soul? Jeremy Scahill Blackwater and Blood Fidel Castro Reflections on Lula Joe Allen Tet Reconsidered: the Turning Point in the Vietnam War Stephen Lendman Life in Occupied Gaza Patrick Irelan What Happened to the Streetcars? Andrej Grubacic Ziga Vodovnik Caligula's Horse: the USA, New Europe and Kosovo Josh Karpoff Dead Soldiers and the Antiwar Movement Ron Jacobs Carl Oglesby's War Paul Krassner Tom Waits Meets Super-Joel Website of the Weekend Company Woman: Hillary and Wal-Mart   February 1, 2008 Ray McGovern The Iniquities and Inequalities of War Diane Farsetta The Wild Career of James "Dow 36,000" Glassman Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Country in the World for Journalists Tariq Ali Et Tu, New York Times? Allan Nairn Eating Dirt for Lunch in Haiti Rannie Amiri Collective Punishment in Beirut Ramzy Baroud People Power in Gaza: They Simply Did It Kenneth Couesbouc The Mother of All Snowballs Peter Morici Recession Looms Mumia Abu-Jamal Witha "Brutha" Like This: Bill Clinton as White Negro Rosemary Jackowski 27 Reasons Nader Should Run for President Scott Campbell Direct Action to Stop the War Re-emerges Website of the Day Betes et Hommes   January 31, 2008 Saul Landau Return to Afghanistan Andy Worthington Horror at Guantánamo Mike Whitney Rate Cut as Dagger: America's Teetering Banking System Jeff Ballinger Sustainability for Dictators Initiative? Clinton Praises the "Suharto of the Steppe" Tiffany Ten Eyck The Saga of the Freightliner Five William Loren Katz Waterboarding: Torure or Mystery? Alan Farago Why the Republicans are in Deep Trouble Col. Dan Smith Oh Say Can You See the 2009 Budget? China Hand Slouching Toward Islamabad Dave Lindorff The Usual Suspects Once Again Wadner Pierre Fake Democracy in Haiti Website of the Day One Big Union   January 30, 2008 Cockburn / St. Clair McCain vs. Clinton? Christopher Ketcham The Genius of the Development Industrial-Complex Robert Weissman America By the Numbers: The Shameful State of the Union Neve Gordon An Experiment in Famine Paul Craig Roberts Regulation or Deregulation, Which is Worse? Joanne Mariner How Anti-Terror Laws Threaten Free Speech David Macaray Labor's Only Real Weapon Liaquat Ali Khan Is NATO Committing Genocide in Afghanistan? Raymond J. Lawrence Prankster-in-Chief: Bush's Troubling Non-Verbal Communication Dan Bacher The Collapse of the Central Valley Salmon Website of the Day Onward Through the Fog   January 29, 2008 Franklin C. Spinney Bush's New War Budget: the $70 Billion Hand-Off Mike Whitney The Great Credit Unwind of 2008 Alan Farago Buyer Beware: Florida, the Candidates and the Latin Builders Association Patrick Cockburn "The Americans Bring Us Only Destruction" Gary Leupp "We Can't Afford to Let Them Spill the Beans:" a Sibel Edmonds Timeline R. F. Blader A World Without Abortion: USA v. Romania Ahmad Faruqui Musharraf's Post-Electoral Prospect Fran Shor Obama, the Kennedys and "Change We Can Believe In" Jeremy Scahill Secret Trials and Criminal Convictions: the Ordeal of the Blackwater Protesters Allan Nairn Bush's SOTU: Entitlement, Justice and the War of All Against All Website of the Day The Ghost of Rambo   January 28, 2008 Patrick Cockburn Return to Fallujah Paul Craig Roberts The End of American Liberty Allan Nairn The Breaking of the Gaza Wall Eyad al-Sarraj / Sara Roy Ending the Stranglehold on Gaza Martha Rosenberg Obit for the "Front Page" City Corporate Crime Reporter How They Rip Us Off David Michael Green Kristolizing Iraq: What a Great Freakin' War Jennifer Van Bergen What's Left? Nancy Oden Survival Tips for Hard Times Divya Karnad Saving India's Sea Turtles James L. Secor Pissed About Pistorious: Why the Olympics Needs a Gimp Website of the Day Yellow Journalism?         Subscribe Online

February 26, 2008 Debating Norman Finkelstein Menetrez's False Allegations By ALAN M. DERSHOWITZ Frank Menetrez, in "The Case Against Alan Dershowitz" on the CounterPunch website, absurdly repeats the politically motivated and false charge that I committed plagiarism by quoting Mark Twain and citing to the original Mark Twain book The Innocents Abroad, when, as he falsely claims, I found that quote in Joan Peters' 1984 book From Time Immemorial. The actual facts are as follows: I have been quoting the Mark Twain reference since 1970, when I found it in preparing for a PBS program called The Advocates. I placed the quote on a blue card that I had with me during the debate. I subsequently used the card in several debates that I had during the nineteen seventies and eighties. This fact has been confirmed in writing by a producer of the PBS show, as well as by other witnesses. I have owned for many decades an 1871 edition of the Mark Twain book, which is marked in my handwriting at the point of the quotation. I believe that I originally found a reference to the quote in a pro-Israel pamphlet published by The Near East Report. I have in my library a copy of one such pamphlet with the page on which the Mark Twain quote appears bent over with two pencil marks pointing to the quote itself. This pamphlet was published prior to the publication of the Peters book. It is clear, therefore, that I did not and could not have first come upon the Twain quote in the Peters book (though I obviously read it there again). It would have been dishonest and absurd for me to have cited the Peters book, when I owned and read the quote in the original Twain book and in other works published before the Peters book. Nor was it proper to cite it to a pamphlet which is not generally available in libraries. The appropriate citation, according to The Chicago Manual of Style and other standard works, is to the original, which is precisely what I did. It is crystal clear to any objective reader that this entire dispute about my citation of the widely-quoted Twain passage is politically motivated and directed against me because I have written books in support of Israel. Professors Stephen M. Walt and John J. Mearsheimer repeatedly cited primary sources without checking the original and without citing the secondary source where they actually found the quotation. I proved this in my response to the original online version of their screed against the Israel Lobby. (1) Yet nobody accused Walt and Mearsheimer of plagiarism, for the simple reason that what they did is not plagiarism by any reasonable definition of that term. It reflects, at worst, some sloppiness in citation form. It is not plagiarism, even when the author never checked the primary source against the secondary source in which he first found the quote, as Walt and Mearsheimer failed to do. It is certainly not plagiarism when the author found and used the quoted material years before the secondary source was even published, as is the situation with me. Harvard was fully aware of the details of the phony plagiarism charge when they investigated it, because I provided them with the allegations and because The Harvard Crimson reported on it in detail. (2) The entire thrust of Menetrez's politically motivated charge is disproved by documented facts. Notes (1) From page 19 Alan Dershowitz, "Debunking the Newest-and Oldest-Jewish Conspiracy: A Reply to the Mearsheimer-Walt Working Paper," Kennedy School of Government Faculty Research Working Papers at 19: "Moreover, on several occasions, the authors cite quotations to their primary sources, when it's obvious that they did not find the materials there. For example, the authors cull a single quotation that originally appeared on pages 401-403 of Max Frankel's biography, The Times of My Life and My Life with The Times. ("I was much more deeply devoted to Israel than I dared to assert.") It is the type of quotation that pops up regularly on radical conspiracy theory web sites that assert the same sort of Jewish domination of the media as Mearsheimer and Walt allege. Clearly the authors did not read Max Frankel's autobiography, but rather came across the quotation somewhere far less reputable. On at least one occasion, they quote to the primary source incorrectly. Though they cite to page 99 of the Steve Cox translation of Nahum Goldmann's The Jewish Paradox, the quotation that Walt and Mearsheimer use is not from Cox's and Goldmann's book. Rather than citing to where they actually found the quotation, the authors simply copied a citation without checking the source they were citing. A few years ago, Finkelstein accused me of "plagiarism" on the basis of his claim that I cited to original sources, rather than to the secondary sources from which he (erroneously) believed I had initially found some of my quotations. In other words, Walt and Mearsheimer did exactly what Finkelstein accused me of doing. (The claim that citing to original sources amounts to plagiarism is patently ridiculous, and it was promptly refuted by quick reference to the Chicago Manual of Style, as well by investigations conducted by Harvard University, The New York Times, a former president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a score of librarians and professors.) Nor was I ever accused of taking quotations out of context in any way. I note that Finkelstein has not raised any "plagiarism" charges against Walt and Mearsheimer, either because he realizes that the accusation is utterly absurd, or because he has a double standard when it comes to criticizing his ideological soul mates. I suspect that both reasons play a part in his decision to remain silent. Finkelstein, who has made a career out of falsely maligning the academic integrity of nearly every prominent Holocaust historian and supporter of Israel's right to exist (including Elie Wiesel, whom Finkelstein has called a "liar," "cheater," "clown," "ridiculous character," and "wimp") never criticizes the citation form of his ideological allies." (2) Lauren A. E. Schuker, "Dershowitz Accused of Plagiarism," The Harvard Crimson, Sept. 29, 2003. Alan Dershowitz, "Professor Dershowitz 'Rests His Case,'" The Harvard Crimson, Oct. 3, 2003. Norman Finkelstein, "Finkelstein Proclaims 'The Glove Does Fit," The Harvard Crimson, Oct. 3, 2003.   Reply to Alan Dershowitz By FRANK J. MENETREZ "Disproved by documented facts"? Unfortunately for Alan Dershowitz, saying it doesn't make it so. Dershowitz's response documents nothing. The one fact he claims he can document is that he encountered the Twain quotation long before Joan Peters published her (notoriously worthless) book From Time Immemorial. He has made that claim before, as I reported in my article. I also reported that I checked the only proof he has previously cited, but I found that it didn't support him -- according to the transcript, he never quoted or even mentioned Twain in his 1970 debate on The Advocates. As I also explained, even if Dershowitz could establish that one fact, it would still not provide a defense to the charge of plagiarism. (It goes without saying that Dershowitz's irrelevant attack on Walt and Mearsheimer does not provide a defense either.) Regardless of how long Dershowitz has known about the Twain quote, there is no avoiding the conclusion that he copied The Case for Israel's Twain quote directly from Peters' book, not from the original source. There is likewise no avoiding the conclusion that, having copied the quote from Peters, he neither cited Peters nor checked the quote against the original source, even though he now says that the original source was sitting on his own bookshelf. The reason both conclusions are inescapable is that, as my article showed, The Case for Israel's Twain quote is riddled with errors, large and small, that are identical to the errors in Peters' quotation from the same source. Dershowitz never challenges my evidence on that point. In fact, as usual, he never mentions the identical errors argument, and he again fails to confirm that Harvard investigated it. (Dershowitz also says not a word about my documented charge that he deliberately deceived DePaul University about his own proposal that Israel should destroy entire Palestinian villages in response to Palestinian terrorist attacks. He doesn't even bother to deny it.) According to Dershowitz, it would be "absurd" for him to cite Peters, given that he (allegedly) knew of the Twain quote long before Peters published her book. The problem with Dershowitz's argument is that the proper way for him to avoid that purported "absurdity" would be for him to check the quote against the original Twain himself. If he doesn't feel like checking the Twain, then he shouldn't be citing it directly. Prior awareness of the quote cannot protect him against the charge of plagiarism. On this point, Dershowitz makes the remarkable suggestion that what he did "is not plagiarism by any reasonable definition of that term." He refers vaguely to "The Chicago Manual of Style and other standard works" but never mentions Harvard's guidelines for student writing, which his own conduct clearly violated, as I explained in my article. And The Chicago Manual of Style (14th ed.) states: "It is impossible to overemphasize the importance of meticulous accuracy in quoting from the works of others. Authors should check every direct quotation against the original, if possible, or against a first, careful transcription of the passage." (Section 10.5) Accordingly, the Manual provides that "[r]eferences to the work of one author as quoted in that of another must cite both works." (Section 15.425) As for definitions of plagiarism, my electronic copy of the New Oxford American Dictionary defines it as "the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own." The evidence demonstrates that is precisely what Dershowitz did. He took Peters' work--her rendering of the Twain quotation at the very least--and passed it off as his own. It bears emphasis that the Twain quote is just one example. Norman Finkelstein catalogued twenty sources that Dershowitz appears to have lifted directly from Peters, many of them arcane texts from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. (Beyond Chutzpah, pp. 232-242) The plagiarism is easy to prove in the case of the Twain quote only because Peters made so many mistakes and Dershowitz copied all of them so carefully. For sources that Peters quoted more carefully or that Dershowitz copied from her more sloppily, there will be no such evidence to be found. Finally, two comments on the big picture: First, Finkelstein has repeatedly stated that the plagiarism charge is of secondary importance, the primary issue being The Case for Israel's whitewash of Israel's human rights record. But Dershowitz, who has now spent years pillorying Finkelstein in every forum that will let him, has never answered a single one of Finkelstein's substantive arguments on that score. Thus, Finkelstein's case against Dershowitz on the preeminently important issue of Israel's human rights record stands completely unrebutted. Second, if my analysis is sound, Dershowitz committed plagiarism. Finkelstein exposed it. As "punishment" for his misconduct, Dershowitz received an official exoneration from Harvard University. As a "reward" for Finkelstein's exposure of Dershowitz's misconduct, Finkelstein's own career was destroyed. I do not expect Dershowitz to care about or even notice the injustice of this state of affairs. But it should not be too much to ask that someone else at Harvard would notice and would care enough to say so.

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