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Today's Stories September 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? Paul Krassner The Power of Laughter Sgt. Martin Smith The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer September 18, 2007 Mike Whitney U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel Alan Farago Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It John Ross America's Great Wall: Where Will the Workers Go When They Finish It? Ron Jacobs Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md. Alex Doherty Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible? September 17, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom Paul Craig Roberts Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be Ricardo Alarcón The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era Marc Levy Fake Vets Chasing Fame Eva Liddell In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like Website of the Day Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel Sept. 15-16, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The General Came to Washington Vicente Navarro How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy Mike Whitney Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch Herman Mindshaftgap Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future? Ellen Cantarow Girls! Music! Palestine! Jordan Flaherty K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D. Zachary Hurwitz Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development September 14, 2007 Debbie Nathan New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator" Franklin Lamb Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later Patrick Cockburn Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha Farzana Versey The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon Alan Farago This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption Hank Edson Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time September 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Fakery of General Petraeus Iain Boal Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse Michael Dickinson Osama on 9/11 Guerry Hoddersen Free Speech is Not Given, but Taken Bill Hatch Irish Politics in Old Time California Gary Leupp The Legacy of Luciano Pavarotti Website of the Day Elisa Salasin's "My September 11th" September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery A Big Victory Against the Wall Patrick Cockburn Petraeus's Closet Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen Screwing Up In Iraq David Michael Green Why Fred Thompson is Uniquely Qualified to be the GOP's Nominee Pius Adesanmi A Solidarity Letter to a Victim of Michael Vick Betty Schneider How to Deal With Sex Offenders   September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Will the US Really Bomb Iran? Saul Landau The Irrational Drama of a Declining Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Hurricane Katrina and Bush's Wars Ray McGovern Petraeus, the Westmoreland of Iraq Matthew Abraham Finkelstein's Legacy at DePaul Alan Farago The Governor and the Growth Machine Christopher Brauchli Grand Old Party Animals Rannie Amiri Battle of the Camps Fred Gardner Will Snoops Get Stopped? James L. Secor B-52 Flexing Nuclear Muscles: H-Bombs Over Barksdale Missy Comley Beattie Choices: Shall We Stay or Shall We Go Now? Ben Tripp Still in the Clover Francis Boyle The University of Illinois' Little Red Sambo Show Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Jason Bourne vs. James Bond Website of the Weekend Drilling Wyoming: the View from Above September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality John Ross Coca-Cola's Raid on a Sacred Mountain James Brooks The Occupation Within Russell Mokhiber Robert Reich and the Elimination of Corporate Criminal Liability Joshua Frank The Green Implosion Continues: Cyberlynching John Murphy John Walsh On the Green Party Mark Brenner New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices Mike Ferner "I Will Salute No More Forever" Website of the Day Help Save Osny Zachary's Life   September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z   August 31, 2007 Jeff Gibbs Why I Am Not Going to the Protest Paul Craig Roberts The War Criminal in the Living Room Ray McGovern Do We Have the Courage to Stop War with Iran? Robert Weissman The Benchmarks Iraq is Missing Matt Vidal Subprime Lending and Shady Mortgages Robin Mittenthal The Biofuels Trap Chris Kutalik Auto Makers Push Health Care Trust Solution for Industry in Crisis Richard Forno Watching Freedom's Watch Binoy Kampmark Dianified Dave Zirin Kenneth Foster Lives Website of the Day Free the Jena 6   August 30, 2007 Gary Leupp Larry Craig on the Seat John Ross Dead Forest Defenders Anthony DiMaggio Arabic as a Terrorist Language: the Right-Wing Assault on the Gibran Academy Jordan Flaherty Racism and Criminal Justice in New Orleans Michael Donnelly The Sierra Club Greenwashes Al Gore (and Desecrates John Muir) Russell Mokhiber Whiskey is for Drinking, Water is for Fighting Dennis Brutus and Patrick Bond Global Financial Apartheid William S. Lind The Truth Tellers Martha Rosenberg They Call Him Dr. Cruel Jeff Leys / Brian Terrell Seasons of Discontent: a Presidential Occupation Project Website of the Day Bragg: "Old Clash Fan Fight Song" 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             Subscribe Online

September 19, 2007 Day One of the IVAW's "Truth in Recruiting" Campaign Can We Talk? By MIKE FERNER Washington, DC. This began as a story about the Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW) "Truth in Recruiting" campaign. But by the end, it seemed more like a story about whether or not we can still talk with each other in this country. In the early morning chill of September 17, on the plaza in front of Union Station, members of IVAW set out literature and donuts on a card table and waited for the young International A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition activists to arrive. After a briefing, four-person teams left for various military recruiting offices and the campaign was underway. In addition to handing flyers to people walking into recruiting offices, the effort includes "Befriend a Recruiter," a tactic intended to waste as much of a recruiter's time as possible by talking with youth who have no intention of joining the military. Within minutes, the teams at an Armed Forces Recruiting Station in the northwest quarter of the District called back to the IVAW post with a report that volunteers were being hassled by "Gathering of Eagles" members ­ in town to dog peace activists throughout a busy week of activities in the nation's capital. IVAW members Adam Kokesh and Mark Train, and Veterans For Peace (VFP) member Leah Bolger jumped into Kokesh's aged Ford Bronco to offer assistance. When they arrived at the recruiting office, D.C. Metro Police and Federal Protective Services officers were already on the scene and more were on the way. A dozen Metro Police formed a line between a handful of "Eagles" members in their 50's and 60's holding signs, and about a dozen 20-something activists in yellow A.N.S.W.E.R. t-shirts, walking and chanting in a picket line. Already the volume on both sides was approaching a 10, on its way to 11. VFP president, Elliott Adams, a former Army paratrooper familiar with much more explosive situations in Viet Nam, had arrived with the A.N.S.W.E.R. activists and was talking with the police. Bolger, a retired Navy Commander, was soon in conversation with one of the women Eagles. Bolger said she tried asking the woman if she was concerned about the civilian death toll in Iraq. "She thought the reported estimates were way off base," Bolger related. "But when I started explaining what I thought was the case, she asked me how many abortions I'd had and whether I had a man waiting for me at home!" Deborah King-Lile, 55, and a 25-year Navy veteran from St. Augustine, Florida who served in the Persian Gulf War, was the first to offer a comment to a reporter. "We didn't finish the job then (in 1991), so my husband had to go there in 2005. My son-in-law just returned from a one-year deployment and he's prepared to go back if necessary to keep my granddaughter from having to go." Nodding towards the picketers the neatly-coiffed woman added, "I'm sick of the vocal minority." Beverly Perlson said her son is on his fourth deployment in Afghanistan with the 82nd Airborne. The Oak Lawn, Illinois resident stressed, "He believes in the war." Pointing to the picket line she said, "It's really painful for a mother of a soldier to see that. I wish they'd go somewhere else, like Iran. I don't believe they represent mainstream Americans who are quiet and at work on a day like today." Contrasting her version of mainstream America with the sight before her, she added disdainfully, "Just look at these people and look at their clothes." Before rejoining a colleague carrying a "Support the troops" placard from Veterans of the Vietnam War, Inc., Perlson said, "I'm tired of having Cindy Sheehan speak for me. I came out of my living room because of what she was saying." "That boy there called me a bitch, a fucking bitch," Angela Lashley said, looking towards a picketer who was angrily telling one of the Eagles to "get back over on your side" of the police line. "My son is in Iraq, I don't know where," Lashley added. "He educated himself; he didn't need the education benefits. He felt compelled to serve." She pulled a c.d. out of her purse and pointed to a song on the label she wrote called "So Brave." "It's not about waving the flag or God bless America. It's got nothing to do with a political agenda. What we need to do (about the war) is get the politics out of it and let the President do his job." "It's painful to the parents of a dedicated soldier. We're not warmongers. We are artists and teachers. When these children scream nasty words, it hurts. I tried to speak kindly to them. Screaming won't help," she said, her eyes filling with tears. "The mothers of this country won't tolerate people like this breaking the morale of our soldiers." A few minutes later she was in conversation with IVAW board member, Adam Kokesh. "I respect you. I can see in your eyes you are good. But I also see much hurt and disappointment. I'm glad you served. I'm just sorry that whatever happened to you made you feel like this. But while you're doing this you're breaking the morale of our soldiers. It's hard for me but I try to be kind. Didn't Cindy Sheehan's words have a bad effect on you?" "Cindy Sheehan had no effect on my morale," the former Marine replied. "My morale was low because we couldn't get the equipment we needed." Larry Bailey identified himself as Chairman of Gathering of Eagles. From Chocowinity, North Carolina, the gregarious 68 year-old is a retired Navy SEAL Captain. He smiled and said, "I like talking to people with a measurable IQ." "Our group is ad hoc, we don't have membership fees so anybody who feels like they're part of us just is." He said that the Eagles who came to Washington this week "paid our own way, just to get in the face of these people we call the 'moonbats.'" Asked what motivated him to travel to Washington, he answered, "I'm a Vietnam vet. I'm doing this to make sure the troopers from Iraq and Afghanistan don't get the same as troops coming back from Vietnam. Back then, the American people didn't counter the left-wing propaganda. I'm not pro-war. I'm pro-troops." Later, Bailey and Kokesh began conversing about whether Iraqi civilians have been killed in the war. The Eagles chairman, referring to a widely-quoted Johns Hopkins study published in the British medical journal, Lancet, said, "Six hundred thousand Iraqisthat's the number we're supposed to have killed. That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. I can guarantee you that our military did not directly kill any such number of Iraqi civilians." Kokesh countered, "That number is based on a scientific survey "Come on," Bailey laughed," We both know that you can make scientific surveys say anything you want." "I've heard of the Lancet," he continued. "It's right up there with the top medical journal here. But you know who controls the medialet me tell you what La Monde (a prominent French publication) did." He related to Kokesh a brief anecdote about a story La Monde did on a Gathering of Eagles demonstration in which the magazine published "completely untrue" crowd figures, making it look like his group was greatly outnumbered by their opponents. Although they interrupted each other at times, their conversation continued and it seemed that both of them were looking for something on which they could agree. Bailey offered that he was a Libertarian. Kokesh smiled and said so was he, and repeated his earlier concern that in Iraq he saw U.S. troops that were poorly equipped. Larry responded that he had given one hundred dollars to help purchase helmets for U.S. a troops. A spokesman for Gathering of Eagles, Kristinn Taylor, said he has three family members in the military, including one who was in Afghanistan. He related a number of details he considered important background about the groups involved. "The IVAW was started by Veterans For Peace, you know, and that's a Marxist front. VFP had a 'water project' for the Sandinistas, and the same thing for Cuba and even Iraq." A middle-aged man in business casual dress, wearing a USEPA I.D. tag, watched while he took a smoke break. He offered that he was a Vietnam veteran, and when asked if the actions of protesters of that era affected his morale, he answered with a smile, "Ruin my morale? I was wishing somebody over here would pay attention to them!" Two construction workers eating lunch on the sidewalk looked preoccupied with their sandwiches. When asked their opinions, one said he had no comment and the other replied, "Well somebody's got to go. It (war) is inevitable, isn't it?" Meanwhile, the picketers, numbering about 20 with the addition of two VFP members, continued to march in a loop in front of the recruiting station, chanting loudly, "Hell No We Won't Go," and "No Justice; No Peace. U.S. Out of the Middle East." Four TV cameras and what appeared to be assorted independent videographers eventually showed up to cover the ruckus. Bullhorn-amplified chants continued for another hour. Asked if he viewed the morning's activity as a success, Kokesh said, "We got some help doing our job and no one got recruited here today. There must be 30 cops here. Do you think any kid is going to go in there and talk to a recruiter with this going on?" Mike Ferner is a former Navy corpsman and author of "Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq", available on his website www.mikeferner.org Your Ad Here

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