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Today's Stories August 30, 2007 Gary Leupp Larry Craig on the Seat August 29, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Maliki and The Mass Shia Pilgrimage to Kerbala Winslow T. Wheeler The Costs of the Afghanistan War David Rosen The GOP's Outed All-Stars: The Forced Freeing of Gay Men from the Republican Closet Dave Zirin Confronting Katrina Paul Craig Roberts More Shame, More Sorrow Diane Farsetta Christie Todd Whitman's Nuclear Spinning Wheel Ben Davis Who Won't Stand Up for Kenneth Foster?: Charles Rangel, For One Alan Farago The Housing Crisis and the Environment Jenna Orkin Echoes of 9/11: Another Fire at Ground Zero Don Monkerud The Vanishing American Vacation Richard Nasser Surfing Gaza: More Uplifting News from NPR Website of the Day Don't Sleep on the Struggle   August 28, 2007 Uri Avnery The Language of Force Bill Quigley Katrina, Two Years Later Joshua Frank The Fight to Save the Rocky Mountains China Hand "I am Alden Pyle:" Bush's Vietnam Fantasy Firmin DeBrabander Drug Wars: From Afghanistan to Baltimore Charles Peña Nuclear Fear Factor Andy Worthington Good Riddance, Gonzales Ramzy Baroud Abbas and the Abyss Anthony Papa Roger Stone's New Patsy Ashley Smith Drawing the Line at Kennebunkport Website of the Day B is for Bomb August 27, 2007 Jorge Mariscal The General Reports Bill Christison Why the US and Israel Should Lose Middle East Wars Manuel Garcia, Jr. 911 Emergency! Calling Robert Fisk!: You are Now Entering a Black Hole Anthony DiMaggio Chronicle of a Coup Foretold?: Bush, al-Maliki and the Press Bruce A. Roth India and the New Nuclear Era John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Roadshow, Part 2 Dave Lindorff Gonzo's Gone Ron Jacobs Taking It to the Streets Binoy Kampmark Poshed Up: Why the Beckhams Should Go Back to Brighty Russell D. Hoffman My Favorite Scientist: John Gofman, Bane of the Nuclear Industry Website of the Day George W. Told the Nation   August 25 / 26, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Don't Carpool with Nouri al-Maliki James Petras The Great Financial Crisis Jeffrey Buchanan / Chris Kromm Where Did the Katrina Money Go? Marjorie Cohn Turning Iraq into Vietnam Rev. William E. Alberts Jesus, the Theological Prisoner of Christianity Robert Fantina Ari Fleischer, Freedom Watch and the Pro-War Lobbyists Brian Concannon Whitewashing the History of Abolition Ralph Nader What Do They Have to Hide? Laura Carlsen Extending NAFTA's Reach Fred Gardner Notes from Hempfest David Michael Green History, the Last Refuge of Scoundrels Stephen Soldz Why Mary Pipher Returned Her APA Award Mike Ferner Combatants for Peace: Former Enemies Find New Way Forward Paul Krassner Mort Sahl's Punchline Ben Tripp Resistance is Impossible--But Not Futile Missy Beattie President Druzilla Website of the Weekend Blue Print for Gulf Renewal   August 24, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts A Hegemonic Hubris Greg Moses A Cruel and Unusual Excuse William Schroder Bush, Vietnam and Iraq Alan Farago The Pain of Paper Millionaires Jackie Corr Uncle Ben Bernacke and the Nanny State Jeff Ballinger Naomi Klein and the Path Not Taken Bill Quigley Pere Jean-Juste Comes Home Dave Zirin Inching Toward Insanity Richard Rhames Deaver and the Making of Reagan Ryan Haygood How Newark Can Mend Website of the Day Lindorff's Iraq Rag   August 23, 2007 Kathy Kelly We Shouldn't be Causing This P. Sainath Meeting the Mahatma Ron Jacobs Bush, Vietnam and 14 More GIs Dead Christopher Brauchli Beyond Kafka: Mistakes, Soreheads and Eavesdropping D.K. Wilson When Sports Journalists Talk Race Joshua Frank The Weeds of Willapa Bay Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's True Lies About Dams and Canals Brenda Norrell Bush's House of Snakes: Indians, Border Biometrics and Migrating Corporations John Wright The Ongoing Tragedy of Afghanistan David Vest Elvis and Racism, Round 2 Website of the Day Urgent Plea: the Black Agenda Report Needs Your Help!   August 22, 2007 Norman Finkelstein Remembering Raul Hilberg Marc Levy Sleepless in Iraq Lawrence R. Velvel When Courts Bow Down to Secrecy Ray McGovern Bush's Iran War Drums Beating Louder Norman Solomon How to Survive at the Pentagon on $2 Billion a Day John Walsh Abe Foxman's Genocide Denial Road Show Michael Dickinson Little Brother is Watching You William S. Lind Operation Kabuki?: the Credibility of David Petraeus Bill Hatch A Short Walk into the Valley of Death Kenneth E. Foster and John Joe Amador How We Will Protest Our Executions David Vest Predictable Parallels: CNN and PBS Website of the Day The Once and Future Steve Perry August 21, 2007 Saul Landau The FBI's New Power Alan Farago Sand Houses and Missing Beaches John Stauber Iraq: the Gift that Keeps on Bleeding Phillip Rizk Gaza and the Jordanian Option Debbie Nathan Giuliani's Garden District Binoy Kampmark The Art of Sinning Martha Rosenberg The Fastow Economy Sunsara Taylor Back to School During Wartime Website of the Day Coffee with the Troops   August 20, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Padilla Jury Opens Pandora's Box Uri Avnery Stumbling Toward Another War Rannie Amiri Nasrallah's Surprise: a Warning from Beirut's No Bluff Zone John Ross The Fine Art of Bad Elections Harvey Wasserman The Senate's Radioactive Rip-Off Robert Billyard Canada's Disgrace: the Cases of Maher Arar and Omar Khadr Dave Lindorff Excuse Us, Nancy Pelosi James Rothenberg Why Your Vote Will Never Matter David "DC" Larson To Smear a King Website of the Day Bird Cinema August 18 / 19, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Exit Karl Rove, Everyone's Useful Demon Saul Landau The FBI in War and Peace Ralph Nader Greed and Folly on Wall Street Patrick Cockburn A Bloody Week in Iraq Robert Fantina Cannon Fodder: Beau Biden and other "Deployable Assets" Robert S. Eshelman Azar's Story: an Iraqi Refugee Living in Syria P. Sainath The Last Battle of Laxmi Panda Dave Lindorff Tossing Fuel on a Fire: US Military Aid to Israel Anthony DiMaggio Iraq, Iran & the Vanishing Context in American News Fred Gardner The Politics of Schizophrenia Ron Jacobs The Virtues of Resistance Tom Turnipseed War Profiteering and Corruption: From Lexington, S.C. to the White House Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: Special Preachers, Priests and Clerics Edition! Ben Tripp I'm So Screwed Andrew Wimmer Living With Grief Nancy Oden Where Inmates Can Grow for Free N.D. Jayaprakash India Backtracks on Disarmament Rick Smith Reflections on Cuba: an Interview with Doug Morris Missy Beattie The Suicide Bomber Poets' Basement Engel, Ford, Orloski and McLellan Website of the Weekend Imperial Storm Troopers in Action August 17, 2007 Joanne Mariner Terrorizing Social Protest Paul Craig Roberts China is not the Problem Shepherd Bliss Returning to the Scene of the Crime: Chile, 30 Years Later Dave Lindorff Convicting Padilla: Bad News for All Americans John Muthyala The Water and the Road: Katrina, Poverty and the American Dream Patrick Cockburn Deepening Divsions in Iraq Sherwood Ross Military Interrogators are Posing as Lawyers at Gitmo Phil Doe The Old West Moves East: the Political Science of Colorado River Water David Michael Green Karl Rove and the Damage Done Website of the Day Gorilla Slaughter: a Personal Account August 16, 2007 Jonathan Cook The Second Lebanon War, a Year Later Christopher Brauchli Babes in Toxic Toyland Norman Solomon Backspin for War Lee Sustar / Orlando Sepuldeva Victory on the Picket Line: How Immigrant Workers Won Their Strike Against Cygnus George Bisharat Boycott Movement Targets Israel Binoy Kampmark Tasteless: Gordon Ramsey and the Death of Gastronomy Evelyn Pringle Protection Racket?: the FDA and Avandia Hugo Blanco The Epic Struggle of Indigenous Andean / Amazonian Website of the Day Burning Man: the Field Recordings   August 15, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts "No American President Can Stand Up to Israel" Michael Neumann In Memoriam: Raul Hilberg Jordan Flaherty The Struggle to Free the Jena Six Sonja Karkar Can You Hear the Cries from Gaza? Felice Pace NPR Watch: Will Linda Gradstein Go to Gaza? Joshua Frank On Censoring Pearl Jam Dave Lindorff Terrorist Nation? Carla Blank Elvis Presley: King or Apprentice? David Vest Guralnick, Elvis and Racism Harvey Wasserman Why the Neocons Won't Miss Karl Rove Peter Rost, M.D. FDA Approved Drug Makes You Hypersexual and a Compulsive Gambler Russell Mokhiber An Arab American's Pocket Political Dictionary Website of the Day Stoners Busted   August 14, 2007 Paul de Rooij Humanitarian Wars and Associated Delusions Winslow T. Wheeler Congress's Busted September: Disingenuous Gestures Amid Catastrophe David Rosen The Case of Genarlow Wilson: Racism, Justice and Age-of-Consent Laws in America Gary Leupp Bush Warns Puppets Not to Praise Iran Clifton Ross Latin America at the Crossroads Muhammad Idress Ahmad The Politics of Democracy Promotion Jacquelyn Godin A Circle of Poison: Pesticides in the Plantations Uri Avnery Oslo Revisited Ramzy Baroud A Palestinian Miracle at the UN? James McEnteer Philistines as Cultural Critics Website of the Day When Cheney Called Iraq a Quagmire   August 13, 2007 Jeremy Scahill The Mercenary Revolution F. William Engdahl The Hidden Agenda Behind Bush's Biofuel Plan Alexander Cockburn The Veldt Will Never Be the Same Kathy Kelly Iraq's Refugees: "et to Work" Chris Floyd No Light, Light Tunnel: the Bipartisan Guarantee of More War in Iraq Paul Craig Roberts Hegemony of the Cockroach William Blum First Pullout, Then Bloodbath? Kenneth Couesbouc The Language of Dominion Rannie Amiri Tancredo's Screedo: a Lethal Mix of Ignorance and Insanity Brenda Norrell Priests Expose Secret Cycle of US Torture Fran Shor All Fall Down Ron Jacobs Dr. Strangelove Meets Dubya's Double Buzz Twofer Website of the Day The Beauty of Defiance   August 11 / 12, 2007 Alexander Cockburn How the Democrats Blew It in Only 8 Months Stan Goff The Cover-Up of Pat Tillman's Death Ralph Nader GM Radio: Payola to Rightwing Talk Shows? Vijay Prashad Destination Darfur: a New Cold War for Oil Greg Moses SubPrime People: Behind the Banking Crisis Alan Farago The Cratering Mortgage Market, WCI Communities and Amb. Al Hoffman Patrick Cockburn The Cracks in Saddam's Dam Ben Tripp On Fleeing the Country Robert Fantina Romney's Dance: The Rightwing Flip-Flop John Ross The Guelaguetza Strategy in Oaxaca Seth Sandronsky Organizing Nurses Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Mitt Romney to Bill Richardson Website of the Weekend Pearl Jam: Censored by ATT   August 10, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts China's Threat to the Dollar is Real Stan Goff How Pat Tillman Died Marjorie Cohn A Blank Check for Domestic Spying Saul Landau In the Age of Immigrant Panic Chris Floyd Goading Xerxes: the Coming Strike on Iran Daniel Ellsberg A Vision for Cindy Sheehan's Campaign Anthony Papa The Upside Down Flag: a Country in Distress Farzana Versey On the Heels of Sir Salman Sgt. Kevin Benderman Freedom or Totalitarianism? Nuri Nuri Memories of T99 Nelson Website of the Day Lessons in Obfuscation from Sen. Larry Craig: How to Talk About Looting the Public Domain   August 9, 2007 Stan Goff The Fog of Fame: Pat Tillman as Everyone's Political Football Paul Craig Roberts In the Hole to China Alan Farago The Terror of the Mortgage Pools William S. Lind The Surge's New Math: One Step Forward, Two Back Doug Giebel Letter from Montana: What the Bushvolk Have Done to America Harvey Wasserman Radioactive Bailout in Advance Jacob Hill The Tail End of Free Trade: NAFTA's Impact on the Manufacturing Sector Raul Zibechi The Dark Side of Agrofuels Dave Zirin The Making of Barry bin Laden Website of the Day "Babies Just Come with the Scenery"   August 8, 2007 Andy Worthington Backing Up Lt. Col. Abraham on Gitmo Abuse Jeff Halper The Catch in Israel's "Generous Offers" at Jericho Greg Moses No Light in August for Texas Refugees: Judge Orders Baby Sent to Palestine Nurit Peled-Elhanan The Murder of Abir Aramin, 9 Years Old Sukant Chandan British Prisons as Islamic Universities Robert Fisk A Lebanese Surprise George H. Strauss The Military Society D.K. Wilson Bonds, the Haters and 756: Why Bob Costas Can't be Trusted Bill Day Leonardo DiCaprio's Baggage: the Perils of Celebrity Environmentalism Tim Campbell Monkey See, Monkey Do Politics Website of the Day Periodic Table of Visualization Methods   August 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Why the Surge Has Failed Andy Worthington Why Do We Need the Democrats?: They Have Failed to Restrain Bush on Gitmo, Iraq and Domestic Spying Kathy Kelly The Little Girl of Hiroshima Stan Cox The Antiwar Majority: Look Quickly, You Might Miss It Sonja Karkar Israel's Settlement Project Sen. Russ Feingold A License to Wiretap--Anyone Alan Farago Dancing in the Light of Florida Norman Solomon Let Us Now Praise an Infamous Woman Binoy Kampmark Giving Good Face: What Jeremy Bentham and Facebook Have in Common Dave Lindorff The Gelding Congress John Stauber Coffee with the Troops at Yearly Kos Website of the Day George Carlin on Education       Subscribe Online

August 30, 2007 The Right-Wing's War on the Gibran Academy Arabic as a Terrorist Language By ANTHONY DiMAGGIO A good friend and former Professor of mine always began his classes on the developing world with an introduction to Islam. One of the first points driven home in the class, semester after semester, was the difference between Islam and Arabic. While the terms are obviously not synonymous (one being a religion and the other a language), this basic distinction is disregarded in recent fundamentalist efforts to demonize not only Islam, but the Arabic language itself. I wanted to believe that we'd come far enough in this country that Muslim-Americans and non-citizens alike don't have to suffer under irrational hatred, fanaticism, and repression. But for America's small, but influential right-wing minority, this seems too much to ask. I am referring to the racist war that has been declared on the Kahlil Gibran International Academy (in New York), and most specifically its Principal, Debbie Almontaser. The Gibran Academy is the first public institution in the U.S. committed specifically to learning the Arabic language. But the way the school has been attacked in media diatribes, one would think it was named after Osama bin Laden, rather than an uncontroversial, but well known poet. The Lebanese-American poet Kahlil Gibran is best known for his classic work, The Prophet, written over 80 years ago and translated into over 20 languages. While Gibran's works focused heavily on the corruption of Christian clergies and churches of his day, his other common themes include love, religion, life and death, and philosophy. The Gibran Academy "controversy" comes at a time when Americans are desperately in need of shedding their parochialism of foreign cultures and languages. As the United States has become an international pariah during its occupation of Iraq, attacks on diversity can do little but strengthen American isolationism and ignorance. Americans are consistently rated in world opinion polls along with Iran and North Korea in terms of likeability, and incidents such as the Gibran protest are unlikely to improve its image. The anti-Arabic campaign is being spearheaded by notable reactionaries such as Daniel Pipes and Alicia Colon, as well as newspapers in the Big Apple including the New York Post and New York Sun. But what, you might ask, are the specific crimes committed by Almontaser and the academy, deemed so egregious as to warrant the right-wing's wrath? Daniel Pipes lays out his case in a number of editorials written in the NY Sun in the last few months. Pipes claims as "fact" that "Islamic institutions [which Gibran Academy is not], whether schools or mosques, have a pattern of extremism and even violence." He argues that "learning Arabic in-and-of-itself promotes an Islamic outlook," as "Arabic-language instruction is inevitably laden with pan-Arabist and Islamist baggage." Pipes feels that the teaching of Arabic may lead to "moral decay," since "Muslims tend to see non-Muslims learning Arabic as a step toward an eventual conversion to Islam, an expectation I encountered while studying Arabic in Cairo in the 1970s." In another Op-Ed for the NY Sun, Alicia Colon follows up on Pipe's statements, protesting that "This proposal [for an Arabic language school] is utter madness, considering that five years after September 11, ground zero is still a hole in the ground and we're bending over backwards to appease those sympathetic to individuals who would destroy us again." The editors at the NY Post also deem the anxieties over the school as "right on target." Pipe's and Colon's anger appear to be derived, in part, from Principal Almontaser's alleged "support for terrorism." Almontaser was demonized for initially refusing to condemn a t-shirt with the slogan "Intifada NYC," which was being sold by the group "Arab Women Active in Art and Media," which shares an office with another group that has ties to Almontaser (a rather tenuous and tendentious "connection," I know). Aside from the "crime" of having this connection with the group in question, Almontaser has also committed the second crime of explaining the meaning of the word Intifada: "it basically means 'shaking off.' That is the root word if you look it up in Arabic. I understand it is developing a negative connotation due to the uprising in the Palestinian-Israeli areas. I don't believe the intention is to have any of that kind of [violence] in New York City. I think it's pretty much an opportunity for girls to express that they are part of New York City societyand shaking off oppression." This statement, while seemingly innocent enough, is deemed irrefutable proof of Almontaser's "gratuitous apology for suicide terrorism," in Pipe's own words, and as evidence of "warmongering," in the eyes of the NY Post editors. Normally whenever I read such fanatical claims amongst American right-wingers, I don't bother to respond. Pipes and Colon's claims may be too stupid to merit a rebuttal, but the effectiveness of such attacks is truly disturbing for anyone committed to multiculturalism and democracy. Racist rhetoric has been allowed to dominate media discourse for too long, and has often been successful in setting the terms of debate ­ as erroneous as those terms may be. Consider, for example, an August 26 report from the Chicago Tribune on the disputed school. The story claims that "at the core of the debate [over the school] is a linguistic disconnect." This may be what apologists for Pipes want the public to believe, but the claim has no bearing on reality whatsoever. For one thing, there has been no "debate" going on here, only racist bullying. American media commentary has been hijacked by pundits who have zero commitment to intellectual debate of the issues, and even less commitment to understanding the nuances that come along with learning about foreign cultures and languages. That the claims of Pipes and others could even be taken seriously by New York political leaders and media reporters is a sign of just how far our intellectual culture has deteriorated. Consider a few of the following facts that are either ignored or twisted in the current media-political "debate" over the school. 1. While the Kahlil Gibran academy has been attacked for indirectly teaching Islam in a public institution, Gibran himself was not even Muslim, he was Christian Arab. Why the administrators of the school would have consciously chosen Gibran as an inspiration for an "Islamic school" is never explained in media debate (and why would devout Muslims enroll in a school named after a Christian poet expecting to get an Islamic education anyway?). One would hardly know about the school's non-Muslim roots, however, after reading Pipe's tirades. 2. The official language of the most populous Muslim country in the world (Indonesia) is not even an Arabic, but Bahasa Indonesia. One wouldn't know this either by reading the NY Sun or NY Post editorials. That there's nothing inherently linking Islam with Arabic is a lesson Americans should be taught as children, although it is not included in most civics discourses in this country. 3. Contrary to the claims of Colon and Pipes, Almontaser was indeed correct that the word "Intifada" means "uprising" or "shaking off." The word is not inherently tied to military attacks on civilians. I used to make this same point when I taught Middle East politics, although I would also presumably be denigrated as a terrorist sympathizer for my failure to declare war on the Arabic language. 4. The nation for which Pipes reserves most of his anger is Palestine ­ as he attacks Palestinian suicide bombers who target Israeli civilians. While predominantly Arabic speaking, Palestine retains a sizable non-Muslim minority, another inconvenient fact ignored by Pipes. Twenty-five percent of West Bank residents are Christian and Jewish speaking Arabs. Such a reality would be deemed little more than a paradox, however, by ignorant minds vilifying the Arabic language as Muslim in orientation. Claiming that the Arabic language is inherently Muslim makes about as much sense as claiming that English is inherently Christian. But this doesn't mean that such efforts to confuse the public are ineffective. As of late August (and in light of a five month campaign by the "Stop Madrassa Coalition," of which Pipes is a part) Almontaser has been pressured to step down as Principal of the Gibran Academy. Furthermore, Pipes and other members of his coalition have vowed not to end their campaign until the academy is permanently closed. The New York Times reports that, in light of the protests, "the chancellor of schools, Joel Klein, is considering other locations for the school [currently in Brooklyn], or even postponing the opening for a year." The attacks, and many others of their kind, have also left a terrible psychic scar on many Arab-Americans forced to endure unbridled American racism. Sadly, U.S. "multiculturalism" seems to make room only those with enough political and social capital to effectively fight back against media and public prejudice and xenophobia. Even Arab-American citizens are deemed as "outsiders" or "foreigners" within such a twisted value system. It remains to be seen whether the racist views of Pipes and his ilk are representative of the American public as a whole. How Americans react to anti-Arab/anti-Muslim political-cultural campaigns will do much in determining the status of Arab Americans in the future, and the vigor of our democracy. One thing seems clear though: as long as a loud minority of reactionaries is allowed to hijack public dialogue and debate, not much is going to change. Anthony DiMaggio has taught Middle East Politics and American Government at Illinois State University. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Mass Media, Mass Propaganda: Examining American News in the "War on Terror" (forthcoming December 2007). He can be reached at adimag2@uic.edu                     Your Ad Here

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