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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers! ISRAEL'S IRON HEEL It began when Harry Truman was in the White House. It has continued under every U.S. President since, and in this extended report we lay out the consequences of 60 years of brutal Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Feroze Sidhwa details the human price of systematic, intentional destruction of the Palestinian social and economic fabric: physical and mental deterioration, traumatized youth, a savaged environment. Nancy Glass and Reem Salahi describe the Kafka-esque conditions in which Palestinian lawyers try to defend their people in Israel's courts. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great holiday presents. 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 December 1, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Emblems of the Bush Age: Adrift in a Sea of Booze Jeffrey St. Clair The Bear Minimum: the Grizzly and the Future of the Rocky Mountain West Roger Burbach The Battle in Bolivia Benjamin Dangl New Politics in Old Bolivia Brian M. Downing The Quiet on the Middle Eastern Front: How Much Credit Goes to the Surge? Sonja Karkar The "Never-Never" Peace Talks   November 30, 2007 Peter Stone Brown The Re-Packaging of Bob Dylan Wajahat Ali The Volatile Mistress: an Interview with Javed Jabbar, Pakistan's Former Minister of Information Allan Nairn Cold-Blooded Celebrity: Thomas L. Friedman and the Bali Bombers Alan Farago The Sorrows of Suburbia: Politics, Sprawl and the Housing Crash John Ross The Death of Latin America's First Revolution Corporate Crime Reporter America's Corporate Crime Capitals Lucia Alvarez Diego Gonzalez Argentina's Political Future James Rothenberg The Iraqi Miracle Website of the Day Bio-Bling?   November 29, 2007 R. F. Blader The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran Stephen Soldz War on the Couch: Fear, Aggression and Empire Sheldon Richman Iraq 3.0 George Wuerthner Forest Fires, Lies and Chainsaws Felice Pace Did All Things Considered Self-Censor on Annapolis? Col. Dan Smith The Meaning of Annapolis Harvey Wasserman Terror Target Nukes Nikolas Kozloff Primetime Hate Debate: Lou Dobbs, Immigration and Campaign '08 Paul Krassner Huffington Post Bloggers Go On Strike! Dave Lindorff News Not Fit to Print: US Coup Planned for Venezuela? CP News Service The One State Declaration Website of the Day A Native View of Yellowstone Bison Slaughter November 28, 2007 James Petras CIA Destabilization Memo Surfaces on Venezuela Jeff Halper Annapolis: When the Roadmap is a One Way Street Pam Martens Crashing Citigroup Peter Morici Economy in Crisis: Avoiding a Recession Mohammed Khatib Separate and Unequal in Palestine Helen Redmond The Horror and the Hope: Health Care in America William S. Lind In the Fox's Lair: Quiet Before a New Iraq Storm? Ben Tripp We, the People: a Trope for All Seasons Liaquat Ali Khan Pakistan: First, Restore the Constitution and Reinstate the Judges Jeff Berg Holbrooke Says Bush Won't Attack Iran Website of the Day The Lies of Joe Klein   November 27, 2007 Joe DeRaymond On the Road to the Torture School Paul Craig Roberts Meet the Only Two Candidates Worse Than Bush and Cheney: Hillary and Rudy Marjorie Cohn Remembering Victor Rabinowitz Mike Whitney A Dollar the Size of a Postage Stamp Ron Jacobs The Myths of Military Progress Col. Dan Smith The Pentagon's "People System" Still Doesn't Work Ralph Nader Family Learning Karim Makdisi Annapolis and the Unholy Alliance: the View from Beirut Christopher Ketcham Memo to Hollywood Writers: Strike Until You Drop Ronan Bennett Martin Amis Does a Coulter Website of the Day Celebrating the Uncensored Media   November 26, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Heading for Annapolis Paul Craig Roberts The End of All That David Macaray Enter Mediator Sameer Dossani Pakistan's Wounded Dictator Roger Burbach The Final Battle in Bolivia Mark Scaramella Guns and Greed in the Emerald Empire Brian McKinlay Howard's End Rick Kuhn The Fall of a Racist Union Buster Binoy Kampmark Ruddslide and Dull Alec Monica Benderman What Do You Know of War? Brenda Norrell Return to Alcatraz Website of the Day Ghostworld by DJ Spooky   November 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Ordeal of Catherine Wilkerson, MD Robert Fisk Darkness Falls on the Middle East Saul Landau Norman Mailer will Not R.I.P. Jeffrey St. Clair Justice Stephen Breyer, Cancer Bonds and the Origins of Neoliberal Environmentalism Rannie Amiri Beirut's Black Friday Christopher Brauchli Iraq Embassy as Gilded Palace Daniel Gross The Gap and Black Friday Mike Whitney "A Generalized Meltdown of Financial Institutions" Marjorie Cohn Iran and the 2008 Elections David Rosen Senior Sex: the Real Sexual Life of Aging Americans David Michael Green If Conservatism is the Ideology of Freedom .... Kenneth Rexroth When Euripides Played the Hindu Kush: Greeks and Buddhists in Afghanistan Muhammad Iqbal Trans. Shahid Alam Ghazal Website of the Day Aerial Footage of Delta Fish Kill November 23, 2007 Gary Leupp Killing the Buddha in Pakistan's Swat Valley Laura Carlsen Coming to Terms with Diversity in Bolivia: an Interview with Alvaro Garcia, Bolivia's VP David Macaray Keeping Labor Unions Out Andy Worthington Former Guantánamo Detainee Seeks Asylum in Sweden Clifton Ross Trashing Chavez: Keith Olberman's Toxic Rant Seth Sandronsky Battling Sodexho Dan Bacher Death in the Delta: Thousands of Fish Stranded by Bureau of Reclamation William A. Cook The Myth of Middle East Peace Website of the Day Waiting for the Guards: Stress Techniques as Torture, a Short Film   November 22, 2007 Alan Farago Who Lost America's Everglades? Greg Moses A Thanksgiving Basting Dave Lindorff Impeachment is Back on the Table Mike Ely Native Blood: the Myth pf Thanksgiving Omar Azfar Gore for President of Pakistan?   November 21, 2007 Vijay Prashad Our Dictator, Their Democracy Martha Rosenberg Undercover at a Turkey Slaughtering Plant Manuel Garcia, Jr. Epiphany on the Glacier John Ross The Last Days of Mexican Corn Brian McKenna Cancer Terrorists Unmasked Stephen Soldz Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo Monica Benderman Needing Peace Ben Terrall Slavery in the Fields: The Real Price of Sugar Website of the Day Mercy for Animals   November 20, 2007 Oren Ben-Dor Why Israel Has No "Right to Exist" as a Jewish State Wajahat Ali An Interview with Norman Finkelstein Alan Farago The Dark Arts and the Bush Dynasty Marjorie Cohn Musharraf Plays Bush for a Fool Ralph Nader Green is Gold? Andy Worthington Guantánamo Whistleblower Launches a New Attack on Rigged Tribunals Sara Olson When Going AWOL is the Only Escape Dave Lindorff Likelihood of Iran Attack Gains Credence Paul Krassner The First Amendment, a Dialogue Website of the Day Joanne Mariner on Torture November 19, 2007 Winslow T. Wheeler Why Congress Won't Reform China Hand The U.S. Game Plan in Pakistan Allan Nairn Sitting Around Talking, in Indonesia Uri Avnery How to Get Out? David Macaray The Chalice that Poisoned the Labor Movements Dave Lindorff Democrats in Future Shock: They Could Lose It All in 2008! Bill Quigley Twenty Thousand Protest at Ft. Benning; Eleven Face Federal Criminal Trials Ron Jacobs Sitting on the Group W Bench: War, Thanksgiving and Arlo Guthrie Sunsara Taylor Legalized Rights for Fertilized Eggs? Binoy Kampmark Why Steve Irwin--You're Dead! Heather Gray Another Look at W.E.B. DuBois Website of the Day The Meat Market     November 17 / 18, 2007 P. Sainath Neoliberalism's Price Tag: 150,000 Farm Suicides in India David Rosen The Scarlet Hypocrites: Republicans, Christians and the Politics of Adultery Mike Whitney Pentagon Cover Up: 15,000 or More US Deaths in Iraq War? George Wuerthner Saving the Big Wild Brenda Norrell The Case of Jim Main, Jr: In Montana, Indians are Guilty Until Proven Innocent George Ciccariello-Maher Of Submarines and Loose Screws Karim Makdisi Lebanon is Hanging by a Thread Marie Trigona Wal-Mart in Argentina Valerio Volpi The Catholic Church, Incorporated Fred Gardner The Straight-Ahead Runner Robert Fantina The White House Press Office Mike Ferner Thank God for the Senate Republicans! Missy Comley Beattie The Radical Majority Kenneth Couesbouc Circles of Power Patrick O'Hayer A Portrait of Mailer and a Young Poet Poets' Basement Davies, Buknatski and Ford   November 16, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Vices of Hillary Clinton: Secrecy, Intransigence and War Dave Zirin The Indictment of Barry Bonds: Busted by a Broken System Gary D. Barnett A Day in the Life of an Unwilling Federal Agent Alan Farago Sprawl, Mortgage Fraud and Political Corruption Dave Lindorff Two Brothers and Two Scandals Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: "What Should be Done with Those Protesters?" Robert Ovetz Cargo Ships in Paradise: Shipping Lanes Threaten the Yosemite of the Sea Brenda Norrell "Today We Experienced America:" Arresting Indigenous People on the Border David Swanson Wolf Blitzer Loses Democratic Debate Peter Letheby Outside the Box on the Great Plains Website of the Day Why Activism Fails   November 15, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair Hillary Clinton in Arkansas Adolfo Gilly The Spirit of Revolt Peter Bohmer 10 Days That Shook Olympia Andy Worthington The Trials of Omar Khadr: Gitmo's Child Soldier Gray / Derks Obama's Pitch to South Carolina's Black Churches Affronts Gay Groups Liaquat Ali Khan Liberating Pakistan Dave Lindorff Where's the Party? Christopher Brauchli Tipping Point: the Politics of Gossip Anthony Papa Racism as Law: Crack Cocaine Sentences Martha Rosenberg Merck's Big Write Off Ben Terrall Thank You, Ehren Watada Website of the Day On the Colorado: Drought, Climate Change and Water Supplies November 14, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair The Making of Hillary Clinton James Petras Venezuela Between Ballots and Bullets Al Giordano Campaign 08: Don't Trust Anyone Over 50 Paul Craig Roberts The Lobby Andy Worthington Innocents and Foot Soldiers Stephen Lendman Torturing Palestinian Detainees Fatima Bhutto Aunt Benazir's False Promises: the Dismantling of Pakistani Democracy Martin Smith Norman Mailer and the "Good War" Jeff Leys Slip Sliding Away: House Votes on War Funding Website of the Day Why the Writers are Striking November 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Hillary's Big Problem and How Bill Can Fix It Jeffrey St. Clair Mailer and Us: the Writer as Fighter Robert Bryce The Pakistan Fuel Connection David Macaray The Teamsters and the Hollywood Strike Mike Whitney Bulletins from the Titanic Ralph Nader Pakistani Lawyers vs. American Lawyers Nikolas Kozloff Chavez Blasts the Spanish King Jordan Flaherty Education Versus Incarceration in Tallulah, Louisiana B. R. Gowani Dear Mrs. Bhutto Website of the Day Monty Python: "Fuck You, Very Much FCC"   November 12, 2007 Vicente Navarro Why Hillary's Health Care Plan Really Failed Ben Brown Letter from Ho Chi Minh City: a Tribute to My Vietnam Vet Father Omar K. A Pakistani Lawyer's Testimony: Life Under the Brutal Emergency Sadia Abbas The Roots of Pakistan's Political Crisis: Corrupt Elites and a Kleptocratic Military Farzana Versey Mailer's Miasma Richard W. Behan The Political Crimes of Complicity Paul Krassner Asshole of the Year: Congratulations Tim Russert! Cindy Sheehan Faith and War Peter Stone Brown The Return of Levon Helm Dave Lindorff Dennis, You are Not Alone Website of the Day Police Attack in Olympia   November 10 / 11, 2007 Alain Gresh Uncle Sam's New Backyard: How to Turn a Region into a Graveyard Mike Whitney For Whom the Closing Bell Tolls: the Last Dead Bull on Wall Street Ron Jacobs A View from the Pakistani Left: an Interview with Farooq Tariq Jeffrey St. Clair The First Dambuster: a Coyote Story Alan Farago Tangled Up in Blue: a Brief History of Florida Environmentalism Binoy Kampmark When Language Drowns: Torture in America Robert Fantina Legitimizing Torture Fred Gardner Psychological Torture in the Name of Family Values Ayesha Ijaz Khan The General in His Labyrinth Nicola Nasser NATO's Southward Drift Philip Rizk The Blame Game in Gaza Michael Dickinson Condom Nation: the Pope vs. Terry Higgins Joel S. Hirschhorn The Grand Delusion: a Conspiracy of Two Parties Paul Krassner Flunking Out of the Electoral College Wadner Pierre / Joe Emersberger The Ongoing War on Journalists in Haiti   November 9, 2007 Patrick Cockburn In the Kandil Mountains with the PKK Mohammed Hanif Musharraf and the Drunk Uncle John Ross Blackwater Goes to Mexico Mike Whitney Ron Paul, Big Media's Invisible Candidate Tom Barry In Latin America, the Hillary Clinton Policy is the Bush Policy Corporate Crime Reporter Is the AFL Trying to Derail Single Payer Health Care? Badruddin Khan Pakistan and the Israel Lobby David Macaray The WGA STrike: the Empire Strikes Back Martha Rosenberg The Blood Sport of Vice Presidents Website of the Day Stryker Blockade!   November 8, 2007 Kathleen & Bill Christison Meeting the Other in Israel and Palestine William Loren Katz Waterboarding in American History Mike Whitney The Long Fall: a Market Without Parachutes Sheldon Richman Why Woodstock May Have Saved John McCain's Life Liaquat Ali Khan Solidarity with Pakistan's Lawyers Marc Gardner The Victims of "Jessica's Law": Parolees Without Rights (or Homes) Jackie Corr The Big Fish from Whitefish: Montana, the Last Retreat of the Investment Banker? Brenda Norrell Between Bombs and Border Walls Dave Lindorff Ridiculing Impeachment at the New York Times China Hand Rewriting the History of the Sudan Calamity Sen. Russ Feingold FISA and America's Basic Freedoms: Let's Not Repeat the Mistakes of the Patriot Act Website of the Day The Welfare Poets Meet Hugo Chavez   November 7, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Dollar's Fall Collapses the American Empire Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: Can't the Democrats End the War By Not Bringing the Funding Bill to the Floor? Vijay Prashad The Apotheosis of Bobby Jindal Niranjan Ramakrishnan Educating Pakistan: What Mukasey Can Teach Musharraf Alan Farago To Bee or Not to Bee? The Politics of Colony Collapse David Macaray The Writers' Guild Strike: Is There an Ice-Breaker? Nikolas Kozloff The Case of the Slimy Senator: Chuck Schumer Greenlights Mukasey Charlotte Laws What We Learned from Stephen Colbert's Presidential Campaign Daniel White Zahid's Story William Cook The Politics of Servility: Congress and the Israel Lobby Website of the Day Safe Lawns   November 6, 2007 Mike Whitney Welcome to Year 27 of the Reagan Revolution Ralph Nader Who Determines the Price of Oil? Andy Worthington The Torture of Ali al-Marri Pam Martens Wall Street Metes Out Street Justice to Citigroup Liaquat Ali Khan Pakistan's Dark Future William Schroder The Return of Water Torture Stephen Lendman Punishing Gaza William Blum Cuba and Original Sin Former US Intelligence Officers A Memo on Torture, Intelligence and Mukasey   November 5, 2007 Alexander Cockburn How I Spent the Eighth Brumaire Russell Mokhiber Pelosi and Me: The Democrats and Single Payer David Macaray How to Turn Workers Against Each Other (and Make Them All Poorer) Gary Leupp General Musharaff's "State of Emergency" Dave Lindorff Those Minot Nukes Ludwig Watzal Israel's Dilemma in Palestine Patrick Cockburn Tensions Ease in Iraqi Kurdistan Peter Stone Brown John Fogerty Makes Peace with His Past Michael Simmons Yo! What Happened to Peace? Website of the Day Petition: In Defense of the Morton West HS Antiwar Students   November 3 / 4, 2007 Tariq Ali Pakistan Sinks Deeper into Night David Price Army's Price Salesman of Counterinsurgency Manual Seeks to Defend Stolen Scholarship Jeffrey St. Clair Splitsville Alan Farago The Housing Crash, Suburban Sprawl and the Crisis of the American Middle Class Paul Krassner He's Back! Don Imus Meets Michael Richards Rannie Amiri Why the U.S. is Safeguarding Iraq's War Criminals P. Sainath Indexing Humanity, Indian Style Ayesha Ijaza Khan Pakistan in a Daze Robert Fantina Is the Bush Administration Talking Itself Into a War With Iran? Seth Sandronsky The Politics of Health Care in California Ron Jacobs The Bebop of Baraka Ramzy Baroud A Case for Arab Dignity Heather Gray When Capitalists Get a Free Ride   November 2, 2007 Dr. Mary Pipher Acting on Conscience: Psychologists and Abusive Interrogations Saul Landau How Pete Stark Became a Pariah Andy Worthington Guantánamo as House Arrest Sharon Smith A Tale of Two Stadiums Gary Leupp Fascist Beatifications: the History and Politics of Sainthood Gregory Harms The Chorus of Slander on Palestine Christopher Brauchli Racism in High Places Peter Morici The Falling Dollar and the Stubborn Trade Deficit Dave Lindorff The Easy Way to Stop the Looming US Attack on Iran David Penner Zombie Nation Website of the Day Fall in Yosemite   November 1, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts The Wages of Hegemony Patrick Cockburn The Most Dangerous Dam in the World Dave Lindorff The Air Force Report on the Minot-Barksdale Nuclear Missile Flight Jonathan Feldman The Strange Political Economy of Death in the South Mike Ferner They Met the Resistance in Iraq William S. Lind A Question for Would-Be Presidents Diana Johnstone "Fascislamism" Versus "Shoah Business" Jacob Hornberger The War on Telephone Privacy A..K. Gupta The Apocalypse will be Televised Lyuba Zarsky / Kevin Gallagher The Enclave Economy of Mexico's Silicon Valley Felice Pace Does the SPLC Equate Anti-Zionism with Anti-Semitism? Website of the Day This One's for You, Ed Abbey   October 31, 2007 Bill Quigley New Orleans' Broken Criminal Justice System Rev. William E. Alberts A Trail of American Blood: From the White House to CBS News Ray McGovern Attacking Iran for Israel Eric Walberg Poisonous Espionage: Litvinenko and the New Cold War V. G. Smith The Second Death of Guy Môquet Luis J. Rodriguez "Social Cleansing" from Guatemala to LA Sheldon Richman Bush has Time to Run the World Walter Brasch A Real Halloween Scare Website of the Day Boogie Rocks! October 30, 2007 David Price Pilfered Scholarship Devastates Gen. Petraeus's Counterinsurgency Manual M. Shahid Alam The Pakistan Question Andy Worthington The Epiphany of Matthew Waxman: a Government Insider Turns Against Gitmo Patrick Cockburn The Bicycle Bomber of Baquba Anthony Papa The Twisted Logic of Drug Laws Floyd Rudmin What "All Options are on the Table" Really Means Sherwood Ross Giuliani and Torture Website of the Day The Worst Lobby? You Decide   October 29, 2007 Lisa Hajjar Inside Israel's Military Courts Joe DeRaymond The Politics of Lethal Injections Patrick Cockburn The High Stakes in Iraqi Kurdistan Isabella Kenfield / Roger Burbach Corporate Murder in Brazil Fred Gardner The Frivolous Investigation of Dr. Sterner Farzana Versey Caricaturing Islam Stephen Fleischman The Greening of the Oligarchy Marcelle Cendrars The Congressional Rip Cord Eamonn McCann Dan Keating, the Last of the Republican Irreconcilables Martha Rosenberg For Halloween, Ann Coulter Dresses as .... Ann Coulter! Website of the Day Campaign 2008   October 27 / 28, 2007 Alexander Cockburn So Much for Islamo-Fascism Awareness Jeffrey St. Clair The Dam That Isn't There James Bovard Breaking Down an Innocent Man: The FBI's Right to Threaten Torture Ralph Nader Beyond the Rule of Law M. Reza Pirbhai The Wahhabis are Coming, the Wahhabis are Coming! Robert Sandels Pay the Invaders! Cuba, Claims and Confiscations Jacob G. Hornberger Ruling By Decree Missy Beattie The Arsonists in the West Wing John Ross U.S. Eyes on Oaxaca Robert Fantina Condi Rice, the Imperial Cheerleader Ron Jacobs Labor at the Crossroads Ali Moayedian In Search of Logic About Iran David Michael Green What If We Had a President Who Didn't Give a Damn About Terrorism? Poets Basement Block, Davies and Ford Website of the Day Bring 'Em Home: a Music Video   October 26, 2007 Brian Cloughley Revenging Bloodshed Saul Landau Portrait of Rudy Ahmad Al-Akras Getting Justice in the HLF Case Franklin Lamb Does "Loving" Lebanon Mean Never Having to Say You're Sorry? Mike Whitney Murdoch's Cuckoo's Nest Dave Lindorff Home of the Brave? Reducing US Casualties By Killing More Civilians Alan Farago A Castro Behind Every Bush Yifat Susskind Conscripting Feminism into the War on Terror Website of the Day Dead Life in a Political Prison October 25, 2007 Jeffrey St. Clair / Joshua Frank Iraq's Environmental Crisis Manuel Garcia, Jr. Homes of the Crash Test Dummies Paul Craig Roberts The Fraudulent War on Terror Col. Dan Smith The Politics of Paranoia: Jane Harman's War on the First Amendment Alan Farago The Way to Paradise? Chris Kutalik The Lesson of the Chrysler Rebels Brian McKinlay John Howard and the Curse of Bush Cindy Sheehan Pete, Nancy, George and WW III Website of the Day Support the America's Program!         Subscribe Online

December 1, 2007 When Che's Children Went to Iran Exit on the Left By REZA FIYOUZAT It is said that on 18 October 1967, nine days after Che was killed, Castro delivered a eulogy for Che, to a million people gathered in the Plaza de la Revolucion in Havana, and, among other things, this too he said, "They who sing victory over his death are mistaken. They are mistaken who believe that his death is the defeat of his ideas, the defeat of his tactics, the defeat of his guerrilla concepts ... If you want to know how we want our children to be, we should say, with all our revolutionary heart and mind: We want them to be like Che." Naturally, a lot of us pesky Iranian socialists got a good giggle back in October when the Iranian government, just before the fortieth anniversary of Ernesto Che Guevara's assassination in Bolivia, organized a conference with the title, 'Che like Chamran', intended to emphasize the similarities between Iran's Islamic revolution and the socialist revolution in Cuba. Che's daughter Aleida and his son Camillo were the highlighted guests at the conference. As reported in a 3 October IPS article from Tehran, the 'Chamran' part of the conference's title refers to, "[Mostafa] Chamran, a United States-educated engineer and Islamist, who helped Mousa Sadr found the Amal Movement in southern Lebanon and fought alongside Amal guerrillas in the late 1970s. Appointed the young Islamic Republic's defense minister by Ayatollah Khomeini, Chamran organized and led paramilitary forces during the early phase of the Iran-Iraq war (1980-1988) and was killed in battle in the Khuzistan province in 1981." According to a conference participant, who wrote a report for the Farsi language site, Gozareshgaran (http://www.gozareshgar.com/?id=22&tid=3144), the opening statements by Haaj Sa'eed Ghasemi stated that if Che were alive today, he would be fighting in Lebanon alongside the Hezbollah. The speaker pointed out, "Today, Communism, as predicted by [Ayatollah Khomeini], has joined history's dustbin, and the only path to salvation lies alongside the justice-seeking unitarian religious movements." The IPS report explained, "Ghasemi, who is associated with Iran's Esteshhadiyoun (volunteers of suicide operations) ... referring to a translated version of a Che Guevara book that he held in his hand, said Che Guevara was religious and believed in God. 'The people of Cuba, Fidel (Castro) and Che Guevara were never socialists or communists. Fidel has several times admitted that he and Che and the people of Cuba hated the Soviets for all they had done.'" When it was Che's daughter who came to speak, the scenario painted by the organizers started to come undone quickly. Aleida Guevara opened her address thus, "In the name of the people of Cuba", and swiftly went onto, "We are a socialist nation." No mincing words for her! According to the report for Gozareshgaraan, Alieda emphasized explicitly her father's, as well as Fidel Castro's, belief in communism and socialism, making sure to mention that the people of Cuba were grateful to the Soviet Union and, as to the suggestion of a drift between their two countries, she stated that there never was any discord between them, as mentioned by Ghasemi. She advised that if he really wanted to find out about Che Guevara's beliefs, Ghasemi had better study the sources in the original language; she also suggested checking the authenticity of the translation in the book Ghasemi was holding. As these words were being translated, there had apparently been chuckling noises heard around the hall, causing the Basiji hardliners (attending in large numbers) to look around to identify the chucklers. The conference, which was to last four days, was summarily wrapped up, and Che's children must have been sent packing, not having respected the effects required by the organizers of the conference. So, we smile! Che's spirit lives on, is alive, is full of life, and still shows up in the least likely places. at an early point in the life of the Islamic Republic, people could have been arrested, imprisoned and likely tortured merely based on suspicions aroused by the possession of a picture of Che Guevara; possessing his writings was most definitely out. This fact must surely not have been mentioned to Che's children when they were being invited to attend the conference. But, I guess, Che got the last laugh. What gives in Iran? In a country rich with resources stolen, misspent incompetently or misallocated pathetically, Iranian people's living conditions are so dire that between a third and a half of the population live under or around the poverty line. Addiction to Class-A drugs, according to conservative estimates, affects four to five million people (in a country of nearly 70 million), and increases in drug addictions are three times the population growth rate. Iran's infant mortality rates (38.1/1000) are worse than India's (34.6), Egypt's (30.1), Honduras' (25.2), and more than twice as bad as Jamaica's (15.7), just to mention a few reference points. By contrast, Cuba's infant mortality is 6.1/1000, while that of the U.S. is 6.4. Prostitution, another 'index' of healthfulness of social conditions, is rampant, and, in a new survival trend, younger women are finding alternative sources of economic relief in presenting themselves in Gulf countries such as UAE as 'temporary brides' (or, Siqhe), which is legal in Shiite Islam. Harsh socio-economic conditions in Iran are intertwined with a theocratic dictatorship that monopolizes all political realms and all public spaces. In this context, it is quite natural that different forms of social resistance grow organically within the society, as has been the case since the inception of the Islamic Republic regime. As has historically been the case, one of the more radicalized segments of the Iranian society, the university students, especially in Tehran universities such as Amirkabir University of Technology and Tehran University, have refused to stay quiet about their political demands and persist in pursuing social justice and freedom of expression and assembly. In a recent display of a spirited fight, Tehran University students, at the annual speech given by the country's president at that university (this year, on October 8, 2007), started to shout down Ahmadinejad, calling him a dictator and yelling slogans such as, "Death to the dictator!" Naturally, many students have been imprisoned, and perish in Evin and Gohardasht prisons (more information at: http://www.polytechnic-free.blogspot.com/). On the labor front, a bus drivers' union led by a vocal leader, the now-imprisoned Mansour Osanlou (see a short bio at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mansour_Osanlou), has been organizing Tehran's bus drivers and other transport workers. An international campaign has been working to bring about Osanlou's release from prison. Interestingly, Tehran's bus drivers' union sent a message of solidarity to the transport workers of France who started their strike on 13 November this year. Goes to show that international working class solidarity is not a mere dream from some long-gone prehistoric past. For a lot of people, it remains a daily affair. Women are also organizing along a variety of axes. The daily skirmishes with the 'Hejab police' is only the tip of the iceberg of this particular struggle. Among the more recent forms of battle is a current campaign to collect one million signatures for a petition demanding equal legal rights for women and men (for information in English, see: http://www.we-change.org/spip.php?article19). There are also organizing efforts along different lines. As reported by Iran Dokht (http://www.irandokht.com/news/readnews.php?newsID=35856), a newly formed Association of Mothers for Peace, issued a statement on November 4 this year, indicating their opposition to any imperialist attacks on the people of Iran, as well as calling for the release of all Iranian political prisoners from students and workers to women's rights activists, saying, "We, Mothers for Peace, believe that the inexcusable arrest and imprisonment of those seeking justice and assaults against teachers, university students, nurses, journalists, writers, the clergy, and workers, as well as against activists in the women's movement, are in fact the kinds of excuses that foreign powers use to attack our country or to impose economic sanctions; while claiming to defend human rights, the foreign powers' actual goal is the looting of our wealth." Alongside the internal struggles of the Iranian people, a helpful sort of organizing of the international kind is beginning to take shape. On November 20, 2007, student groups in Cuba and Italy held demonstrations to oppose imperialist threats against the people of Iran, and also to protest the conditions of the social rights of the Iranian people, from individual to civil rights, and from workers' to women's rights. This kind of principled solidarity and active international support is the sort that empowers the people in Iran and in the greater Middle East. This kind of solidarity also happens to be what American and European anti-imperialist and peace activists and organizers need more of. What gives in America? Why should we not turn the tables on the way things ought to be framed and fought? Along these same lines, in the U.S. we have the struggle put up at the port of Olympia, WA, attempting to hold up the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction on route to Iraq, for as long as possible, or for as frequently as possible. Of course, the trafficking continues, of course. The impact of an act, though, if well placed and timed, can go much farther than the immediate accomplishment. The total population of the student body in Amirkabir University in Tehran, for example, is under 10,000 yet their fighting spirit has always been a beam of hope for other people in Iran, and a thorn in the side of both the monarchists in bygone times and the ruling clergymen today. Along the same lines, imagine how the political scenery would change almost over night if networks of frequent mutinies were spreading visibly and more rapidly among the military service people, based on the same logic that Lt. Ehren Watada has been applying; namely, that the occupation of Iraq under the guise of 'war on terror' is a war crime and a crime against humanity, so any participation in it amounts to complicity with a war crime. Or, how about based on the fact that, as a service person, even if you survive uninjured and undead, you will come back home so broken that hundreds of you will commit suicide weekly, and hundreds of thousands of you will remain broken daily for decades, due to the trauma of having had to commit deep-structure insanity; years will go by on benches in waiting rooms at hospitals not equipped to deal with your kind of pain; and nobody's going to mention the unmentionable noxious uranium munitions you were spraying all around Iraq and Afghanistan, which may cause your kids, like those of the Iraqis', to be born with no arms, half a brain missing, and holes in the wrong places; while you come down with leukemia, bone marrow and other cancers; and while the government doctors say you're just stressed. Did not Malcolm X say it before? Something like, you have better odds of winning here if you lay down your arms now and return home immediately! Refuse to fight the wrong war! The ruling classes in the U.S. like to call it War on Terror. Did the United States government, in the aftermath of the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995, go on a bombing and razing campaign destroying all the states the terrorists had resided in or passed through the previous decade or two, in the process killing directly or causing the eventual death of nearly 14 million Americans, maiming and crippling another 15-20 million and displacing nearly 60 million (half of them to Mexico and Canada), while guaranteeing a medium-term future of diseases (long eradicated) spread atrociously due to the total destruction of all infrastructure in all those states? Would the American people put up with such a response by their government? So, why do they put up with its equivalent when it happens in Iraq and Afghanistan? Part of the answer is that they don't 'put up' with it. The voting public did try in 2006 (but made the mistake of trying politely) to force their government to change course. But, unfortunately, there are other parts to the answer, which is the big problem. A problematic, yet productive, part of the answer: people 'put up' with the ongoing war of occupation in Iraq and Afghanistan because there are no political vehicles capable of, or willing to, convert people's political wishes into reality. The left therefore needs to launch a clear and unambiguous attack on the 'two party' ruling system in the U.S. by creating a real party of the people. An absolute majority of the American people have not only no interest in the current system they get swindled by it and they know this. For things to change, they need a real political vehicle to channel their demands for social justice, for re-appropriation of taxation and representation, and for a just allocation of social goods. Without that political organization with clear strategic goals, people will inevitably be disenfranchised and neutralized as political subjects by refusing to participate in the political life of their country; or, if they chose to participate in the official setup, they are eaten up and digested by the 'two party' machine, which is the status quo. A political organism that can really rock the boat is one of the first steps of the only way forward. Reza Fiyouzat can be reached at: rfiyouzat@yahoo.com Your Ad Here

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