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Special Issue for CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! The Battle Over the Israel Lobby As John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's long awaited "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" draws hysterical abuse, former CIA intelligence officers Kathy and Bill Christison define the Lobby's real nature, trace its history, and measure its actual power. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair

Today's Stories September 26, 2007 Bill Quigley HUD's Wrecking Ball China Hand Is China the True Target of Financial Sanctions Against Iran?   September 25, 2007 Nicole Colson On the March Against Racism Uri Avnery Foam on the Water Brendan Cooney Ahmadinejad on Broadway: Free Speech? Arrest Him! Harry Browne Bruce Springsteen Comes Home ... to Hell Marjorie Cohn The Drift Toward War with Iran David Macaray The UAW-GM Strike: the Long Knives are Already Out Ralph Nader Hypocrisy and Inverted Priorities in Congress Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger, the Climate Change Hypocrite Anthony Papa Perverted Justice & America's Drug Laws Christopher Ketcham All Politicos Now Classed as Sexual Deviants Website of the Day John Waters on Free Speech   September 24, 2007 George Ciccariello-Maher Racist Violence from Jena to Oakland Saree Makdisi The War on Gaza's Children David Keen Action-as-Propaganda: Learning About the Iraq War from Hannah Arendt Sherwood Ross Just How Powerful is the Israel Lobby? Only Cheney Knows for Sure Ron Jacobs Greenspan's Open Secret Donna Saggia The Cult of the Military and the Decline of Democratic Values Mike Ferner Free Speech Takes a Capitol Beating Malini Johar Schueller Norman Hsu is a Model Minority Monique Dols and Dylan Stillwood Ahmadinejad and Columbia Website of the Day The Promotion September 22 / 23, 2007 Alexander Cockburn On Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" Jennifer Loewenstein Beneath the Hideous Veneer of Security Linn Washington, Jr. The Injustice in Jena: Prosecutorial Misconduct More Dangerous Than Racism Jeffrey St. Clair Going Down in Dinosaur: Oil, Dams and Whitewater (Part One) Alan Farago Genuflecting to China Brian Cloughley Of Hate, Hubris and Atrocities Robert Fantina The Deadly Pattern of US Imperialism Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Land Tenure and Resistance in New Mexico Jason Hribal Fear of an Animal Planet David Rosen Slugger Sex: Athletes, Violence and Male Sexuality Mike Whitney The Era of Global Financial Instability John V. Walsh Who Will Lead a Filibuster of the Iraq War Spending Bill? Dave Lindorff Why Aren't We Banning Blackwater Here? David Michael Green Hiding Behind a Camouflage Skirt Fred Gardner Claudia Jensen (Look Back in Anger) Cassandra Jones Support Our Mercenaries Roger van Zwanenberg Pluto Press Under Attack by Israel Lobby Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Ford Website of the Weekend "For the Bible Tells Me So"   September 21, 2007 Karim Makdisi Letter from Lebanon M. Shahid Alam A History of Violence Alan Farago Who Will Buy My House? Joshua Frank The Demise of the Congressional Black Caucus Dave Zirin Notre Dame and the Economy of Sports Kenneth Couesbouc A Short History of Lending and Borrowing Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein Mass Health Care Failure Ben Terrall The Streets of San Francisco: Where Impeachment is Taken Seriously--By Everyone But Pelosi Steve Fournier Ex-Dems, Sign Up Here Frederico Fuentes, et al Voices in Defense of Bolivia Website of the Day Sabra and Shatila, Remembered   September 20, 2007 Kathleen Christison Whatever Happened to Palestine? Zoltan Grossman An Endless Occupation? Paul Craig Roberts As the Empire Slips: Greenspan and the Economy of Greed Stan Cox and Wes Jackson Carbon-Free and Still Wrecking the Planet Russell Mokhiber AARP to Kucinich: Drop Dead Charles Modiano Jim Crow's Children: the Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton and Blog Power Raymond J. Lawrence Bush's Worrisome Use of Religion Brendan Cooney Body-Snatched Nation Website of the Day Mind Control for Breakfast   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 Seth Sandronsky Living in a Dilapidated Market: To Rent or Own? Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer Robert Weissman Oil Warriors: From Greenspan to Kissinger Mike Ferner Can We Talk? Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's $9 Billion Boondoggle for Big Water Website of the Day Housing Cost Calculator   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         Subscribe Online

September 25, 2007 "Funding the War is Killing the Troops" Interrupting the Empire, 30 Seconds at a Time By MIKE FERNER The massive U.S. Capitol Building is situated to dominate Washington, D.C. from every angle. Its brightly lit facade dominates the night skyline even more. Inside, a first time visitor is at least impressed if not overwhelmed, waiting to enter the House or Senate gallery. A mural entirely dominating one stairwell titled, "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way," depicts heroic, windswept pioneer families cresting a mountain pass. Dark, formal portraits of the icons of American history look down from within ornate, gold frames. The illuminated words of founding fathers inscribed on marble walls fairly shout hosannas to liberty, freedom and democracy. By the time a visitor approaches the final security checkpoint immediately outside the gallery itself, mere mortals about to view the workings of the gods are properly awed; particularly if they've read the back of their gallery pass which states: Rules of the Gallery Nothing may be taken into the Galleries other than articles of clothing and handbags. Guests must remain seated and refrain from reading, writing, smoking, eating, drinking, applauding or picture taking. Front railing must be kept clear of all objects and guests must not lean on railings. Appropriate hats may be worn by gentlemen for religious purposes only. Any disturbance or infraction of these rules is justification for expulsion from the Galleries. The Sergeant at Arms Such was the setting on September 20, 2007, when Linda Wiener, Leah Bolger and I walked into the gallery overlooking a session of the U.S. House of Representatives. In large letters our banner read, "FUNDING THE WAR IS KILLING OUR TROOPS" and it had a fine pedigree -- only hours before it was a tablecloth at the trendy Washington Chop House where a sympathetic busboy donated it to the cause. Neatly folded and tucked into my pants, it made it past every security check except the last, electronic one which beeped at the cell phone I'd forgotten in my pocket. It seemed fitting that a banner with such a prestigious past should hang momentarily from the balcony of the House gallery, but such was not to be. We were seated in a coveted first row, immediately behind the balcony railing, prepared to send our message at least verbally. Below us, the Acting Speaker of the House was conducting a vote described on a small, electronic scoreboard only as "On the previous question." Voting consisted of a surprisingly raucous, undisciplined period when members walked around and talked loudly with their colleagues. To the untrained eye it appeared entirely chaotic. We waited for two such votes on equally mysterious questions and decided to do our presentation over the noise and bustle below. I put on my blue garrison cap with white letters spelling "Veterans For Peace," and stood up with Linda. In unison, we said loudly and clearly, "Congress! Congress! Funding the war is killing our troops. Please stop." About half the members on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives stopped talking and turned to look. We were able to repeat our message a couple more times before the Acting Speaker pounded a gavel and said the magic words to the Sergeant-at-Arms and Capitol Hill Police: "Restore order!" Within seconds I felt a strong hand on my arm and heard a voice say, "Sir, come with me!" We accepted his invitation but continued delivering our message on the way out and in the hallway where we were quickly handcuffed and propelled towards the elevator. After a 30-hour twilight of custody by the Capitol Police, D.C. Metropolitan Police, and finally U.S. Marshals, I appeared before the judge in D.C. Superior Court for less than five minutes. My attorney, a third-year law student from the Georgetown Law Clinic successfully rebuffed the prosecutor's request that I be given a "stay away" order preventing me from stepping foot in the several Congressional Office Buildings, the Capitol, and sundry bits of property adjacent to them all. I was told to return for a "status hearing" on October 30th, and released on my own recognizance. That jail experience, although relatively short, was degrading as all jail experiences are intended to be. Going back to Washington D.C. for a status hearing and again for a trial is costly and inconvenient. But let's face it. Many, many people in social justice movements before us have paid much more dearly than we're asked to. For the most part, peace protesters these days aren't being clubbed mercilessly, or disappeared into a gulag of prisons, or tortured when we're arrested. We're not yet under martial law, subject to being swept off the streets at a whim, nor are we being gunned down for protesting. That's why it is so very important that we step forward now, before things get that bad, and demand an end to this war and justice for Iraqis and our returning troops. Officer Wilson of the Capitol Police, whom I've gotten to know after a couple trips through his booking facility, asked, "Is it worth it? You know you're not going to stop the war." I have to admit that just that morning on my way to the Capitol I considered saying "the hell with it" and going home. I had just been arrested September 15th with 200 others on the grounds of the Capitol. I knew this next arrest would entail an overnight stay in the D.C. Metro Police lockup and more trips to Washington for court appearances. One more arrest wasn't going to end the war. But I thought of the absolute hell experienced by the people of Iraq and the relative hell experienced by our soldiers occupying them; of the physical and mental anguishes they suffer and will continue to suffer for years to come; of the culpability I share in this criminal war. The logic seemed simple and clear to me: this was something I could do, therefore I must do it. In trying to end this war using nonviolence, such actions are among the most significant a person can take. So I answered Officer Wilson, "Yes, it's worth it," and tried unsuccessfully to explain my position to someone with a very different view of the world. Later, I learned that on the day Linda spoke out and were arrested, 36 activists were arrested elsewhere in the Capitol Building, doing a die-in and reading the names of people killed in the war as a tour group of students watched. From that one day's experience, imagine what would happen if we decided to educate Congress with a variety of short speeches four times a day, for four days a week, for two weeks. That would take just 32 people; 64 people could keep it going for a month. Then, the next time 100,000 people come to D.C. for a demonstration and 5,000 of them do a die-in, what would happen if they were prepared to stay there indefinitely--and got on their phones to tell their friends to join them--and within days we had several times that number filling the streets, filling the jails? Now that actually begins to stop business as usual in Washington. We can do it; therefore we must! Mike Ferner is a former Navy corpsman and author of "Inside the Red Zone: A Veteran For Peace Reports from Iraq". He can be reached at: mike.ferner@sbcglobal.net Your Ad Here

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