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The New Print Edition of CounterPunch, Only for Our Newsletter Subscribers!

How Cops Extort Confessions;
How the U.S. “Justice System” Really Works

Ninety-two per cent of felony convictions in the U.S.  are obtained by plea bargains or confessions. Without them the “justice system” would grind to a halt. In an important piece in our latest newsletter, available only to subscribers, Emily Horowitz shows how totally innocent people will “confess” under police pressure, even without physical torture. Horowitz outlines the powerful case for banning confessions altogether. Also  in this new edition Marcus Rediker, co-author of the legendary  The Many Headed Hydra, writes of popular heroism and resistance in the favelas of Medellin, Colombia. Alexander Cockburn reports on how America’s oldest bank, patronized by the global elites, washed billions smuggled out of Russia, and how the Russians might win their money back, shaking the world’s banking system if they do so. Serge Halimi describes the real battle for the soul of Europe. 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 presents.

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Today's Stories

September 1, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Making a Killing in Iraq: McCain and the Telecoms

August 30 / 31, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Speech; McCain's Palinomy

Bill Quigley
Gustave is Coming

Jeffrey St. Clair
Valley Boy: The Rise and Fall of Richard Pombo

Andy Worthington
Shining a Light on the Dark Prison

Deepak Tripathi
The Race for the White House: Notes From a European Observer

Stanley Howard
A Prisoner's Tale of Abuse

Dave Lindorff
Troopergate in Alaska

Wajahat Ali
Palin on the Prowl: a Cougar for the PUMAs?

Robert Fantina
McCain and Palin

Josh Schlossberg
A Bias for Life: the Role of the Environmentalist

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Voting

Missy Beattie
Stars, Stripes, War and Shame

Howard Lisnoff
Better Cuba Than Florida?

Suzan Mazur
Rethinking Evolution with Stuart Newman

Rev. Jim Rigby
What Would Jesus Ride to the Conventions?

David Yearsely
Katy Perry Meets Mozart

Serge Quadruppani
Italy's Years of Lead

B.R. Gowani
What If the Israeli Lobby Was the Islamic Lobby?

Richard Rhames
Empty Political Calories

Poets' Basement
Holt, Davies, Corsale and Landau

Website of the Day
Return of the Druids

 

August 29, 2008

Mike Whitney
How the Chicago Boys Wrecked the Economy

Brian Cloughley
Resurgent Russia

David Ker Thomson
Jacko and Me: Dispatches From Fifty

Joanne Mariner
A UK Window on CIA Abuses

Neve Gordon
The Ordeal of Sahar Vardi, Refusenik

Chris Genovali
Of Whales and Off-Shore Drilling

Ron Jacobs
What's a Godfearing Country to Do?

Michael Donnelly
Honest Abe in Denver?

August 28, 2008

Judy Gumbo Albert
The Battle of Chicago

Paul Cantor
Who Killed Victor Jara?

Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassen
Axis of Evil Defeats Neocons

Andy Worthington
Clearing Out Guantánamo

Ben Terrall
Return to Port-au-Prince

Leonard Peltier
Message to Obama: Symbolism Alone Will Not Bring Change

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Miasma of Bi-Partisanship

Donna J. Volatile
The Obama Construct

Website of the Day
Ishmael Reed, Alice Walker and Maya Angelou on the Meaning of Obama

 

August 27, 2008

Anthony DiMaggio
The Myths of Joe Biden

Jordan Flaherty
Three Years After Katrina

Ralph Nader
The Politics of Avoidance

Melissa Checker
Carbon Offsets, More Harm Than Good?

Bob Sommer
Blaming the Sixties

Cynthia McKinney
How the Democrats Helped Bush Hijack the Country

Ali Khan
Pakistan's Flawed Presidency

M. Junaid Levesque-Alam
The Only Good Muslim is the Anti-Muslim

Dave Lindorff
Strip-Search Nation

David Macaray
Labor's Hard Lessons

Website of the Day
Stagnant Income in an Eroding Economy

 

August 26, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
The Big Questions About Iraq

Michael D. Yates
Obama and the Working Class

Paul Craig Roberts
Is War With Russia on the Agenda?

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Suicide Report

Rev. Jesse L. Jackson
Obama's Promised Land?

Huwaida Arraf
Sailing into Gaza

Joseph Grosso
Back to the Future: New York's Housing Crisis

Sheldon Richman
What About the Ossetians?

Binoy Kampmark
Impasse at Singur

Website of the Day
Taser Bait in Denver

August 25, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
US Out of Iraq by "2011"

Bill Quigley
Katrina, the Pain Index

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Outposts Seal Death of Palestinian State

James McEnteer
Death by Paranoia

Uri Avnery
The Devil's Hoof

Will Potter
The State Deparment's Green Scare Wing

Robert Jensen
Technological Fundamentalism

Stephen Lendman
Reinventing the Evil Empire

Wajahat Ali
Biden His Time

Carl Finamore
The Future of Trade Unions in China

Website of the Day
Don't Blow Up the Mountain, Boys

August 23 / 4, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
"Change," "Hope"...Why They Must be Talking About Joe Biden!

Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Salmon with Paul O'Neill: Power, Profits and the Future of the Columbia River

Patty O'Grady
John McCain in a New Context: Why the Senator is No War Hero

Nicole Colson
Obama and Big Corn

Steve Conn
Obama and the Mining Cartel

Deepak Trapathi
Pakistan in Uncertain Times

Robert Fantina
Once Upon a Time in America: a McCain Administration

Jonathan M. Feldman
Obamanomics: Does the Left Have Anything to Say?

Joshua Frank
Targeting Pelosi (and the War Machine): an Interview with Cindy Sheehan

Osama Qashoo
Sailing to Gaza

Howard Lisnoff
The Long Silence: American Jews and the Palestinians

David Michael Green
Sen. McShame and the Wreckage: John McCain Discovers America

Dave Lindorff
Why Not Let the Republicans Deal With This Mess?

Christopher Brauchli
A Banner Month for Passports

Alan Farago
Who Crippled the Government?

Michael Winship
Cash Register Conventions

Richard Rhames
Vlad the Derailer: Can Putin Save America From Itself?

David Rosen
The Culture Wars Are Over: But Culture Warriors Are Still Terrorizing America

Patrick B. Barr
Don't Try to Tame the Lightning Bolt

Jamie Newlin
Western Turf Wars: the Politics of Public Lands Ranching

Poets' Basement
Glendinning, McEnteer and Bonner

Website of the Weekend
Cafe Reconcile, New Orleans

August 22, 2008

Boris Kagarlitsky
Fallout from the Georgian War

Laura Carlsen
Obama and Latin America: Change or Continuity?

Bob Barr
No War for Georgia

Marwan Bishara
From Russia with Love: Putin Hits Georgia, Bloodies Bush

Peter Morici
Is the Fed Still a Central Bank?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The Big Heat

Charles Mostoller
The Battle for the Amazon

Sumbul Ali-Karamali
Obama is Not a Muslim: But Would It Be So Terrible If He Were?

Keith Rosenthal
Standing Up to Union-Bashing

John F. Miglio
The Devolution of the Baby Boom Generation

Website of the Day
Fire Sale in the Markets!

August 21, 2008

Allan J. Lichtman
Is Georgia 2008 a Repeat of Hungary 1956?

Dave Lindorff Loserville: How Obama Blew It

Ralph Nader
The Problem with Problem Banks

Joanne Mariner
The Military Commissions, So Far

Wajahat Ali
Descent Into Chaos: an Interview with Ahmed Rashid on Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Taliban

Ron Jacobs
Georgia and Historical Farce

Rostam Purzal
The Left and Iran

Anthony Papa
Unlocking the Power of Art to Counter Injustice

Website of the Day
Rocky Mountain Way

August 20, 2008

Michael Neumann
Russia and Georgia: Proportion and Distortion

Ray McGovern
Musharraf Out Like Nixon

Eric Walberg
Georgia's Ossetian Debacle

Fidaa Abed
Blocking a Gazan's Path to San Diego

Daniel Haack
The Pentagon's Most Prolific Pundit

Mike Whitney
Greenback Surges, Euro Shrivels

Website of the Day
Hands Off South Africa's Centre for Civil Society

August 19, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for Nuclear War?

Deepak Tripathi
A New Age of Torture

Marwan Bishara
The Politics of Evil in the US Elections

Saul Landau
Baseball Diplomacy or Just Baseball?

William S. Lind
Leave Georgia Alone, George

Martha Rosenberg
Whole Foods and Other Food Offenders

James Brittain
The Road to Tyranny in Colombia

Pratyush Chandra
Krugman's Great Illusion

David Macaray
AFSCME's Strike Against the University of California

Website of the Day
McCain Plagiarizing Solzhenitsyn

August 18, 2008

Tariq Ali
Pakistan After Musharraf

Gary Leupp
Russia's Georgia Campaign and the Expansion of NATO

Uri Avnery
The Anger, the Longing, the Hope

John Ross
Inside America's Death Chamber

Farooq Sulehria
An Afghan Woman Who Stands Up to the Warlords

Luis Rodriguez
The Power of Art and Youth

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
A Laser Weapon of Plausible Deniablity?

Noah Baker Merrill
We Can Do Better

Charles Thomson
Betrayal of Trustees at the Tate

Website of the Day
Gonzo Environmentalism

August 16 / 17, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Don't Know Much About History...

Jeffrey St. Clair
Last Stand in the Big Woods: Resistance and Ignominy at Cove/Mallard

Deepak Tripathi
A Pawn in Their Game: From Georgia to the Brink of a New Cold War

Conn Hallinan
Georgia on My Mind

Mike Whitney
Revisiting the "Battle of Tskhinvali"

Robert Fantina
Russia, Georgia and Bush

Ray McGovern
Out Damn Blot: a Letter to Colin Powell

Nicole Colson
Bled Dry by the Oil Giants

Fatima Bhutto
The Impeachment of Musharraf

Jean-Luis Rocca
The Middle Kingdom's Middle Way

David Michael Green
My Army Went to Iraq and All I Got was This Lousy Air Lift

Ramzi Kysia
Standing Up for Justice in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Forging the Case for War

Lisa Martinovic
What's So Funny 'Bout Bush, Lies and Torture Memos?

Richard Rhames
Single-Payer, a Dream Denied

Don Santina
Taps for the Abraham Lincoln Brigade

Rannie Amiri
Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim vs. the Ugly Dictator

Ramzy Baroud
Family Politics and the New Gaza Crisis

John Stanton
The Army's Human Terrain Systems: From Super Concept to Super Farce

Howard Lisnoff
The Deportation of Jeremy Hinzman

Ron Jacobs
Sweat and Sacrifice Make History

Seth Sandronsky
Arianna Huffington's Blind Spot

Poets' Basement
Landau, Darwish and Orloski

Website of the Weekend
Summer Screening: CounterPunch's Favorite Films

 

August 15, 2008

Steve Niva
The Surge in Iraqi Female Suicide Bombers

David Remington
Sharpening Occam's Razor on the Forged Intelligence Documents

Michael Winship
The Imperial Presidency

Paul Craig Roberts
The Neocons Do Georgia

Farzana Versey
Taming the Islamic Shrew

Harvey Wasserman
McCain Goes Nuclear

Felice Pace
The Politics of Smoke

Julian Critchley
All Experts Agree: Legalize Drugs

Website of the Day
The Farting Preacher

August 14, 2008

Saul Landau /
Nelson Valdés
The Shape of Cuba's Reforms

Conn Hallinan
The Coming Surge in Afghanistan

Mike Whitney
Georgia and U.S. Strategy

Reza Fiyouzat
U.S. and Iranian Relations: What Does Normalization Entail?

Ralph Nader
Single-Payer Health Care in an Age of Two-Party Politics

Christopher Brauchli The Cheerleader in China

Jack Bradigan Spula
Plowing Through the Farm Bill

Patrick Irelan
After the Flood

John Walsh
Buyers Remorse Over Obama

Dan Bacher
Schwarznegger Pimps the Water Bond

Website of the Day
Zevon: Renegade

 

August 13, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
"President Bush, Will You Please Shut Up?"

David Remington
Forgery, Fakery and Fatigue (Scandal, That Is)

Brian Cloughley
Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Press

Glen Ford
Are Black Politics Headed Toward the Graveyard?

Brendan Cooney
A Shattered Myth in Georgia

Dave Lindorff
This War Has Been Approved By Your Government

Tom Lewis
Morales After the Bolivian Referendum

Stan Cox
Let's Handcuff the Property Cops

Alan Farago
Crimes Against the State: Bushism and the Florida Mortgage Crisis

Martha Rosenberg
Fear and Loathing Behind the Plexiglass Curtain

Website of the Day
Here Today, Here Tomorrow: Young Workers and Social Security

August 12, 2008

Uri Avnery
Obama and the Middle East

Anthony DiMaggio
Master of Ambiguity: Obama's Non-Plan for Ending the War in Iraq

Bill Christison
No NATO Membership for Georgia

Eric Walberg
War a la Carte: How the US Invited a War in S. Ossetia

Kate Connolly
Old Cold Warriors Never Die: Brzezinski Compares Putin to Hitler

Diane Farsetta
Cracking the Pentagon Pundit Code

Peter Morici
The Trade Deficit and Job Losses

Thom Rutledge
Equal Opportunity Judgment: Reason, Morality and the Edwards Scandal

Lee Patton
How to Swiftboat McCain

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Technological Titans, Moral Midgets

Website of the Day
Mr. Hot Buttered Soul

August 11, 2008

Ishmael Reed
Politics of the Race Card: McCain Gurgles in the Slime

Paul Craig Roberts
The Moronic Party: From Off-Shore Drilling to the Georgian War

Gary Leupp
The Neo-Cons' Dream Forgery: the Habbush Letter Revisited

Douglas Kammen
Rice and Circus in East Timor

William Willers
New Paths Toward the Loss of Our Public Lands: Subsidies, Volunteerism and Outsourcing

Greg Moses
The Smell of Propaganda in the Morning: Press Calls for War in the Caucasus

Jeff Leys
Showdown at Fort McCoy

Cynthia McKinney
We Are Not Hopeless

Alan Farago
The Olympic Spectacle and the New China

Website of the Day
Mahmoud Darwish, RIP

August 9 / 10, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
You Want More Still Proofs the Crony, Old-Line Press is Dead?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Pools of Fire: the Looming Nuclear Nightmare in the Backwoods of N. Carolina

Bruce Jackson
Hamdan's Secret

Kevin Young
Targeting Civilians: the Path to Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Chris Floyd
The Serpent's Egg: Solzhenitsyn and the Origins of the American Gulag

Joshua Frank
Inside Obama's Fundraising Operation

Robert Fantina
Of Campaigns and Timelines

Brendan Cooney
The Eagle is Wounded

Mark Almond
Plucky Little Georgia?

Lois Gibbs
The Lost Lessons of Love Canal

Rev. William Alberts
Blind Patriotism? McCain's Counting On It

Kathy Kelly
The Big Voice

John Ross
The Cutthroat Games: the Decline of the Olympics from Mexico City to Beijing

David Michael Green
The Fire This Time: the GOP and the Economy

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
A Novel Approach to Politics

Ron Jacobs
I Read the News Today, Oh Boy (Or Why John McCain Wants Cindy to Show Her Tits)

Richard Rhames
The Greatest Degeneration

David Yearsley
Once More Unto the Albert Hall, Dear Friends

Lee Sustar
Justice for the Freightliner Five: a Struggle for the Soul of the UAW

Brenda Norrell
Turning Sewage into Snow on the Sacred San Francisco Peaks

Ben Terrall
Immigration in an Age of Global Apartheid

Poets' Basement
Dominguez, Jenkins, Ibn Salma and Willson

Website of the Weekend
Tuli Kupferberg's Fig Leaf Olympics

August 8, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's Nationalist Surge

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Voting: a Ritual of Justifying Biases

M. Shahid Alam
The Zionist Stratagem

Andy Worthington
Salim Hamdan's Sentence

Lawrence J. Korb
Bad Advice from Generals

David Model
Instant Genocide

Alan Farago
When Miami Goes Bust: the Politics of the Housing Crisis

Diop Olugbala
What About the Black Community, Obama?

Firmin DeBrabander
When the Olympics Went Green--with Algae

Website of the Day
Summer Reading: CounterPunch's Favorite Novels

August 7, 2008

Dr. Trudy Bond
Fixing Hell and Curing Obesity

William Blum
Breaking Young Hearts: Obama and the Empire

Paul Craig Roberts
Do You Feel Safe Now?

Ralph Nader
Gouged in the Skies: Gotcha Capitalism in the Airline Industry

Robert Weitzel
Obama and the Two Walls

Jacob G. Hornberger
Why Wasn't Ivins Declared an Enemy Combatant?

Binoy Kampmark
Driving Bin Laden

David Macaray
What Does a Radical Labor Union Look Like?

Howard Lisnoff
Echoes of the Sixties: Refusing to Recite the Pledge

Website of the Day
Bono's Retirement Fund

August 6, 2008

Marc Herold
Obama and Afghanistan

Greg Moses
The Unnecessary Execution of Jose Ernesto Medellin

Sheldon Rampton
The Anthrax Cover-Up

Kevin Young
The Atomic Bombing of Japan: Tsuyoshi Hasegawa Re-Examines the Japanese Surrender

Michael Estrada
What I Re-Discovered in Mexico

Robert Weissman
The Commercial Games

Dr. Susan Block
The Knoxville Unitarian Universalist Church Killings: Did Rightwing Talk Shows Drive Him to Kill?

Cindy Sheehan
This is Horseshit

Ace Hoffman
The Unholy Trinity

Website of the Day
Over to You, Paris

August 5, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
The Anthrax Attacks and the Assault on Civil Liberties

Jeff Halper
An Israeli Jew in Gaza

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq Better? With Three Wars Going On?

Nancy Welch
"What Did My Father Do to Deserve Such Treatment?" An Interview with Laila al-Arian

Peter Morici
Rear View Mirror Economics

Sousan Hammad
The Antisemitism Incitement Craze

Eamon Martin
The Audacity of Despair

Shepherd Bliss
Slow Food Nation Gains Momentum

Tim Matson
Keeping Cool and Saving BTUs

Website of the Day
Top Heavy Greens?

August 4, 2008

Uri Avnery
Olmert's Exit

Saul Landau
Reflections on the Cuban Revolution

David W. Remington
The Face of the Modern War Criminal

Rev. Jesse Jackson
The Question Conscience Asks

Dave Lindorff
The Cheney Doctrine: Shoot Your Friends First

Peter Morici
The Lingering Economic Malaise

Joanne Mariner
Debating Human Rights and Counter-Terrorism in Britain

Ramzy Baroud
Through the Israeli Looking Glass: Obama Joins the Club

Christian Wright
Why We're Protesting at the Democratic Convention

Website of the Day
The US and Karadzic

August 2 / 3, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Ongoing Persecution of Sami al-Arian

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Worst Day of Ted Stevens' Life?

Patrick Cockburn
Who's Really Running Iraq?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Is the King of Pork Dead?

James Abourezk
Lies the Oil Companies Peddle

Andy Worthington
The CIA's Secret Prison on Diego Garcia

Brian Cloughley
Baleful Imperial Power

Robert Fantina
Redefining Progress in Iraq

Benjamin Dangl
Total Recall in Bolivia

Marlene Martin
Living in Hell for Life

David Yearsley
The Sound and Fury of Wet Balloons Rubbed with a Big Sponge: Yes, Bill O'Reilly, This Your Kind of Music!

Fatemeh Keshavarz
What Qualifies "Them" for the Death Sentence?

David Michael Green Obama as Dukakis

Harvey Wasserman
Meet the Real Terrorists of the 1960s

Jason Hribal
Moja Has Mojo: How a Few Elephants Turned the Zoo Industry Upside Down

Phyllis Pollack
The Rolling Stones' Exile on Geary Street: an Interview with Rock Photographer Dominque Tarle

Laray Polk
Tongues of Fire, Plains of Grace: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Ron Jacobs
Jerry Garcia Meets Barack Obama

David Macaray
Labor, Management and the Adversarial Relationship

David Rosen
Teen Prostitution in America

Dan Bacher
Schwarzengger's Water Empire

Joe Allen
Batman's War of Terror

Poets' Basement
Graham, Stevens, Cory and Fleming

Website of the Weekend
Get Your War On: the Watch List

August 1, 2008

Jonathan Cook
Palestinians Face Home Demolitions Spree by Israel

Nikolas Kozloff
McCain's Mad Dog Advisor Max Boot

Rannie Amiri
Islamobamaphobia: a New Word Enters the Lexicon

Peter Morici
U.S. Economy Loses Another 51,000 Jobs

Christopher Brauchli
South Dakota's Abortion Fairy Tale

M. K. Bhadrakumar
Coup in the Great Caspian Play

Patrick Cockburn
Turkish Court Says Ruling Islamic Party Can't be Shut Down

James J. Brittain
The Continuity of FARC-EP Resistance in Colombia

Dan Bacher
Warren Buffett, Salmon Killer

Website of the Day
Shark Genocide: 100 Million Deaths a Year

 

July 31, 2008

Michael Hudson
The Next Big Bail Out: State, Local and Private Pensions

Carl Finamore
Protest Politics and the Democrats: A Street Protester Looks Back at 1968

Mike Whitney
What's Going on in Afghanistan

Joshua Frank
Obama's Green Coal: Another Myth from the Change Agent

Andy Worthington
The Peculiar Case of Jarallah al-Marri

Ralph Nader
The Living Legacy of Rosa Parks

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
The Wave of Capitol Crimes

Robert Weissman
The Collapse of the WTO Talks

Dave Lindorff
Bush Judge Does the Right Thing on Executive Immunity

Website of the Day
Perils of the New Pesticides

July 30, 2008

Brian M. Downing
Assessing the Surge

Chuck Spinney
Should Obama Escalate the War in Afghanistan? A Thought Experiment

William S. Lind
Why McCain is Wrong on Iraq

David Ker Thomson
Against Bike Lanes

Karl Grossman
Nuclear-Powered Amphibious Assault Ships?

Mike Whitney
Apocalypse Down Under

Martha Rosenberg
Heifer Palooza

James Murren
Where Your Life is Worth One Bullet

Dave Lindorff
The Impeachment Hearing

Ron Jacobs
A Conspiracy to Kill Iraqis?

Website of the Day
Mapping Job Loss to China

July 29, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
King of the Hill Indicted! Ted Stevens' Empire of Corruption

John Ross
Return of the Gunboat

Peter Morici
When Will Henry Paulson Learn?

Alison Weir
Israeli Strip Searches

Gary Leupp
"Bewilderment and Confusion on the Left?"

David Macaray
The Calculus of Union Strikes

Brenda Norrell
Censored in Indian Country

Marjorie Cohn
End the Occupations: Of Iraq and Afghanistan

Eric Ruder
A New Consensus on Iraq?

Website of the Day
"If You Could See Me Now ... "

July 28, 2008

Dr. Bryant Welch
Torture, Political Manipulation and the American Psychological Association

Kathy Kelly
Pictures from Summer Camp on the West Bank

Mike Whitney
Bad News and Bank Runs

Peter Morici
Spreading Layoffs, Sagging GDP

Christopher Brauchli
Death by (Power) Surge in Baghdad

Clifton Ross
The Spectacle and the Movement in Colombia

Stephen Lendman
The Bush Administration's Secret Biowarfare Agenda

Website of the Day
Stone's Dubya: the Trailer

 


September 1, 2008

What If the Israel Lobby was the Islamic Lobby? (Part Two)

The Lobby as Juggernaut

By B. R. GOWANI

The Israel Lobby Juggernaut scares the hell out of people. It tries to crush those who stand up against them; some suffer but persist, and the pragmatics survive by changing their tune. Nobody is immune; reporters, editors, columnists, professors, academics, politicians.... Everyone is labeled “anti-Semite” when s/he criticizes the power of the Israel Lobby or talks about the misery of the Palestinian people. Even a greeting kiss upsets them! And enquiries are never allowed to be held into Israel’s crimes.

It’s not a new phenomenon; back in the 1950s, the frustrated Secretary of State John Foster Dulles unambiguously stated: “We cannot have all our policies made in Jerusalem.” To the owner of Time Inc. Henry Luce he said: “I am aware how almost impossible it is in this country to carry out a foreign policy not approved by the Jews. [But] I am going to try to have one. This does not mean I am anti-Jewish, but I believe in what George Washington said in his farewell address, that an emotional attachment to another country should not interfere.”

However, the [emotional] attachment has turned into a Gordian Knot which the Isratics wouldn’t let any US leader break it. Only somebody like Alexander the Great can untie or cut it. None of the two presidential candidates have it in them to cut it. On June 16, in Detroit, Michigan, at Obama’s political rally, two Muslim women with headscarves were denied seats behind the podium because they would have shown up with Obama in photographs and on TVs all over the US sending a wrong message. The fear continues ...

One of the women, a lawyer, Hebba Aref realized Obama’s “change”: “I was coming to support him, and I felt like I was discriminated against by the very person who was supposed to be bringing this change, who I could really relate to. The message that I thought was delivered to us was that they do not want him associated with Muslims or Muslim supporters.”

Obama, of course, called those women and apologized.

United States’ first Muslim congressperson Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota had offered to speak on behalf of Obama to Muslims in a mosque in Grand Rapids. An aid to Obama told Ellison, “We have a very tightly wrapped message.” That is, No, thank you. His offer to campaign for Obama in North Carolina was rejected because the state is “too conservative.” (Ellison is black.)

When it came to AIPAC, Obama hadn’t felt any hesitation to attend their annual meeting just less than two weeks prior.

James Abourezk, former South Dakota senator and a victim of the Lobby describes this annual pilgrimage of the candidates in these words:

“Like a Moslem undertaking the Hajj, the once in a lifetime trip to Mecca, or a Catholic chancing to see the Pope speak from his Vatican window, presidential candidates seemingly long to trudge to the annual AIPAC conference to pay fealty to Israel and its Lobby.”

Uri Avnery, former Israeli Knesset member and a peace activist, summed it up Obama’s visit appropriately:

“And what was the first thing he did after his astounding victory? He ran to the conference of the Israel lobby, AIPAC, and made a speech that broke all records for obsequiousness and fawning.

“That is shocking enough. Even more shocking is the fact that nobody was shocked.”

Yes, nobody was shocked when Obama lied: “Israel’s quest for peace with its neighbors has stalled, despite the heavy burdens borne by the Israeli people.”

And promised: “As president, I will implement a memorandum of understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade, investments to Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation.” <34>

Of course Hillary Clinton and John McCain also attended to show their political security that can only be guaranteed by the AIPAC Political Security Agency.

Some of the victims of the Israeli Lobby Juggernaut:

Cynthia McKinney (House Rep., now Green Party presidential candidate)
Earl Hilliard (House Rep.)
Charles H. Percy (Senator)
Adlai E. Stevenson III (Senator)
Paul N. “Pete” McCloskey (House Rep.)
J. William Fulbright (Senator)
Paul Findley (House Rep.)
Walter Huddleston (Senator)
Juan Cole (political analyst)
James Abourezk (Senator)
Noam Chomsky (academic)
George W. Ball (Undersecretary of State)
Eqbal Ahmad (late)
Edward Said (late)
John Connally (Texas Governor)
Jimmy Carter (former President)
Arun Gandhi (founder, M. K. Gandhi Institute)
M. Shahid Alam (Professor)
Robert Fisk (Journalist)
John J. Mearsheimer (academic)
Stephen M. Walt (professor)
James M. Ennes Jr. (author)
Tony Judt (historian)
Vanessa Redgrave (actress)

University of Chicago Professor John J. Mearsheimer and Harvard Professor Stephen M. Walt were asked to write on the Israel Lobby by The Atlantic Monthly who then backed off from publishing the article because of the Israel Lobby’s fear. It was published by the London Review of Books in March 2006. Then it came out in a book form, The Israel Lobby and the U.S. Foreign Policy. They have been vilified and labeled as anti-Semites.

“The large Jewish contributors,” George Ball and Douglas Ball reminded us in the early 1990s, “commit their money only after they have carefully interrogated candidates on their views about Israel.” A presidential candidate George McGovern was questioned by financier Meshulam Riklis: “Senator, just what is your position on Israel?” A negotiated peace through the United Nations was his answer. He failed the one question test.

Alexander Cockburn describes Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard’s loss in these words:

“One less radical black voice in Congress. One less champion of labor. One less brave soul unafraid to jump the traces of political orthodoxy. Cynthia McKinney ... was beaten ... with the help of lots of money from American Jewish groups and by a hefty Republican cross-over in Georgia’s open primary.”

“... Like Hilliard she wasn’t cowed by the Israel right-or-wrong lobby and called for real debate on the Middle East. And she called for a real examination of the lead-up to 9/11. So the sky fell in on her. Torrents of American Jewish money showered her opponent, a black woman judge called [Denise L.] Majette. Buckets of sewage were poured over McKinney’s head in the Washington Post and the Atlanta Constitution.”
“Don’t you think that if Arab-American groups or African-American groups targeted an incumbent white liberal, maybe Jewish, congressperson, and shipped in money by the truckload to oust the incumbent, the rafters would shake with bellows of outrage.
“Yet when a torrent of money from out of state American Jewish organizations smashed Earl Hilliard, first elected black congressperson in Alabama since Reconstruction, you could have heard a mouse cough. Hilliard had made the fatal error of calling for some measure of even-handedness in the Middle East. So he was targeted by AIPAC and the others....”

In 1984, the AIPAC helped defeat Senator Charles Percy from Illinois, because he had “displayed insensitivity and even hostility to our concerns”. Thomas Dine, the then executive director of AIPAC made it clear: “All the Jews in America, from coast to coast, gathered to oust Percy. And the American politicians – those who hold public positions now, and those who aspire – got the message.”

Even Hillary Clinton’s greeting kiss to Suha Arafat or her calling for Palestinian homeland upset them.

You could be threatened for criticism of Israel. In May 2002, actor John Malkovich said he would like to “shoot” British reporter Robert Fisk of the Independent. Since late 1990s Fisk says that hate mail and death threats have risen sharply. Should you mention why?

Historian Tony Judt, a Jew, was to speak about the Israel Lobby on October 4, 2006, to the non-profit organization that rents space from the Polish Consulate in New York. The American Jewish Congress and ADL just made phone calls to the consulate and Consul General Krzysztof Kasprzyk had to yield; Judt was not allowed. Kasprzyk explained: “The phone calls were very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure.” “That’s obvious—we are adults and our IQs are high enough to understand that.”

David A. Harris, executive director of the American Jewish Congress, defended his action:

“I never asked for a particular action; I was calling as a friend of Poland.” “The message of that evening was going to be entirely contrary to the entire spirit of Polish foreign policy.”

Abraham Foxman’s excuse:

“I think they made the right decision.” “He’s taken the position that Israel shouldn’t exist. That puts him on our radar.”

One wonders who is Harris to tell the Polish Consul General what Poland’s foreign policy should be. It’s an independent country capable of taking care of its affairs.

Tony Judt gave the real reason: “This is serious and frightening, and only in America—not in Israel—is this a problem.” “These are Jewish organizations that believe they should keep people who disagree with them on the Middle East away from anyone who might listen.”

In Israel there is much more freedom to criticize Israeli policies than there is in the US.

In the late 1960s, in a speech at the Cornell University, the late Eqbal Ahmad criticized Israel for its treatment of the Palestinians after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967. Excepting three Jews and one other person, the rest of the faculty stopped talking to him.

“I would often sit at the lunch table in the faculty lounge, which is generally very crowded, and I would have a table of six to myself.”

“The issue is not one of Jew versus gentile [non-Jew]. There is a silent covenant within the academic community concerning Israel. The interesting thing is that the number of prominent Jews who have broken the covenant is much larger than the number of gentiles.”

Professor Edward Said was the most prominent Palestinian in the US up until his death in 2003. He was regularly targeted by the AIPAC trained activists. In 1983 he spoke at the University of Washington. He narrated an incident prior to his speech:

“They stood at the door of the auditorium and distributed a blue leaflet which seemed like a program but it was in fact a denunciation of me as a ‘terrorist.’ There were quotations from the PLO [Palestine Liberation Organization], and things that I had said were mixed in with things they claimed the PLO had said about murdering Jews. The idea was to intimidate me and to intimidate the audience from attending.”

This is an ongoing process. “A stream of quality academics have been attacked and some of them damaged by Lobby campaigns—Juan Cole, Rashid Khaladi, Nadia Abu el-Haq, Joel Beinen, Joseph Massad, Norman Finkelstein, among others. People like Jimmy Carter, Stephen Walt, and John Mersheimer have been under steady attack for expressing critical views on Israeli policy and Lobby influence. Speakers not satisfying the Lobby principles have been denounced and invitations withdrawn because of the systematic pressure. Publishers of books deemed overly critical, most recently Pluto Press, have been threatened. Although the efforts of Campus Watch, CAMERA, Israel on Campus Coalition, and the David Project are such a clear throwback to the McCarthy era efforts of Red Channels and other private thought-police operations, you would hardly be aware of the civil liberties threat if you read only the mainstream media.”

USS Liberty

James M. Ennes Jr. was an Electronics Material officer on USS Liberty, a ship stationed in international waters off the coast of Gaza in June 1967. The ship was there to check the progress of Israel’s war against the Arab states. It was a clear day and the ship had a new US flag flying so there was no question of anybody not recognizing it as a US ship. The Israeli planes carried out attacks for two hours killing 34 US sailors and wounding 174. The two F-4s which left the USS America to help Liberty had to turn back. The chief of Naval Operations had ordered America: “You get those fucking airplanes back on deck, and you get them back down.”

The whole story was covered up, “So as not to embarrass Israel.” The then Defense Secretary Robert McNamara said, “These errors do occur.”

Two of the several reasons in Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair’s book of essays “The Politics of Anti-Semitism,” are:

Israel was in the process of executing 1,000 Egyptian and Palestinian POWs on the very same day. The Israeli soldier, later a reporter, Gabriel Bron who was a witness described it: “The Egyptian prisoners of war were ordered to dig pits and then army police shot them to death.”

Next morning, Jeffrey St. Clair says, Israel broke the new ceasefire agreement and took over the Syrian territory of Golan Heights.

“How tightly does the Israel Lobby control the Hill? For the first time in history, an attack on an American ship was not subjected to a public investigation by the Congress.”

In 1980, when Senators Barry Goldwater and Adlai Stevenson were in the process of making the Liberty affair a public investigation by Congress, Israel agreed to pay $6 million—the cost of Liberty was $40 million. And Israel got that $6 million back because its aid was increased. “The book is now closed on the USS Liberty,” the State Department press release announced.

Only Stevenson pursued the case and it cost him the race for Illinois’ Governor; he lost to Jim Thompson in whose coffers “big money flowed,” as St. Clair puts it.

Charley Reese points out that the decision to name a library in a small town in Wisconsin after the Liberty had to face a crusade which claimed that it was anti-Semitic. And when the town named it as such, the navy personnel were forbidden by the US government to attend the ceremony.

Rachel Corrie                                                              

On March 16, 2003, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces), using the US supplied Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozer, crushed a 23 years old US citizen Rachel Corrie to death. As a member of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), she was protesting by trying to act as a “human shield” to stop the demolition of a Palestinian’s home in Gaza.

Alexander Cockburn portrays the contrast in the official reception the deaths of Rachel Corrie and another 19 year old activist Marla Ruzicka who was a victim of a suicide car bombing in Baghdad. Senator Barbara Boxer attended Ruzicka’s funeral but none of the Washington senators were at Corrie’s funeral.

The play My Name Is Rachel Corrie is based on e-mail correspondence and journals of Rachel Corrie. In London, England, it was performed in 2005. It was to be performed in New York in February 2006, but was cancelled under pressure. It was allowed to be performed in October.

 

“A Clean Break”

Iraq’s economic and social infrastructure was destroyed by the US in 1991. Anybody following Iraq since then knew very well that it had no WMDs or “weapons of mass destruction” and had no capacity to challenge its neighbors, including, the most weaponized and the only nuclear power in the region, Israel.

But in 1996, Richard Perle, an Isratic, known as a “Prince of Darkness,” led a team which prepared a report titled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” which among many other things also recommended:

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right — as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”

The report was prepared for the then Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin “Bibi” Netanyahu.

Jewish Influence

Jeffrey Blankfort quotes Benjamin Ginsberg from his book, The Fatal Embrace: Jews and the State:

“Since the 1960s, Jews have come to wield considerable influence in American economic, cultural, intellectual and political life. Jews played a central role in American finance during the 1980s, and they were among the chief beneficiaries of that decade's corporate mergers and reorganizations. Today, though barely 2  per cent  of the nation's population is Jewish, close to half its billionaires are Jews. The chief executive officers of the three major television networks and the four largest film studios are Jews, as are the owners of the nation's largest newspaper chain and the most influential single newspaper, the New York Times.”

Then Blankfort adds:

“That was written in 1993. Today, ten years later, ardently pro-Israel American Jews are in positions of unprecedented influence within the United States and have assumed or been given decision-making positions over virtually every segment of our culture and body politic. This is no secret conspiracy. Regular readers of the New York Times business section, which reports the comings and goings of the media tycoons, are certainly aware of it. Does this mean that each and every one is a pro-Israel zealot? Not necessarily, but when one compares the US media with its European counterparts in their respective coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict, the extreme bias in favor of Israel on the part of the US media is immediately apparent.”

 

Let the Play Begin

So now, in our play, the Muslims have all the super power which Jews used to have.

It is September 2002.

There are 35 Muslim congresspersons (10 Senators and 25 House of Representatives); 2 Supreme Court Justices; Deputy Secretary of Defense; few influential op/ed writers at the New York Times; The New Republic magazine’s owner and editors are Muslim; U.S. News and World Report’s editor and publisher is Muslim; Vice President’s Chief of Staff is Muslim; the Federal Reserve Chairman is Muslim; Under Secretary of Defense for Policy is Muslim; President’s Press Secretary is Muslim; and many others.

For some time now, hawkish elements are trying to convince President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Iraq is building weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) and is posing a “danger” to the United States. So some whispers began circulating about invading Iraq and removing Saddam Hussein. However, all three are careful of their words because of the Muslim Lobby’s power and also some of the Muslims working with them are of Iraqi origin.

Besides, both countries have had good relations in the not so distant past. Some misunderstandings existed but no animosity. So this definitely was an enemy mischief.  

The Muslims in the media, in Hollywood, in corporations, in academia, in the government, and elsewhere do not want this war against Iraq at all, period. Muslims are extremely powerful and wealthy but are a tiny minority, only 2 per cent , and so they try to resist open confrontation as much as possible, to avoid scrutiny of the disproportionate power they are wielding. It doesn’t mean they won’t fight back to get what they want. Efforts are underway to convince Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to stay away from warmongers like John Bolton, Fred Barnes, Robert James Woolsey Jr., Rick Santorum, and others. They somewhat succeed and Bush asks Congress to give him authority to take military action if diplomacy fails. He promises that the war will be the last option he’ll resort to. But then days later he said this:

“The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons, is rebuilding the facilities to make more and, according to the British government, could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as 45 minutes after the order is given. . . . This regime is seeking a nuclear bomb, and with fissile material could build one within a year.”

This was the public posture. The way things were developing: Bush, Rumsfeld, or Cheney were not at ease. All of them had Muslims working with them in important positions and would get in touch with them everyday. Their families would intermingle too. Bush’s press secretary Abu Faisal had parents and many relatives living in the holy (for the Shia Islam) city of Karbala, Iraq. Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Lu’ay Labib, hailed from Baghdad and was Sunni (one of the two major branches of Islam.) Pir Walif-Rizk was Deputy Secretary of Defense under Rumsfeld. Then there is Rifat Pir, also called “Prince of Lightness” for his bright ideas. We shouldn’t forget Basil Kishwar, a soft spoken gentle fellow who never misses a chance to promote peace—he’s known as “Peace Preacher.”

On Capitol Hill, the lobbyists from AIPAC (American Islamic Public Affairs Committee) and other Muslim groups are meeting  Congresspersons about the upcoming vote on the war. They don’t see much problem because the issue is “Peace Not War,” and so the Congresspersons won’t have much difficulty in convincing their constituencies to reject President Bush’s demand to wage a war against Iraq. As usual, the Lobby expects about 70 per cent of the Congress to be with them. Meanwhile, the Muslim interns implanted into the offices of the Congresspersons are also busy influencing their views.

Thamer Furud, Dawud Bushr, Zuhaa Midlaj, Mahdi Parvez, Tarf Kaukab, and others, contrary to their nature, were busy 24/7 promoting peace. Jaafer Ghawth-Badr wanted nothing but peace. He blasted the Bush government for “planning” “a short-sighted and inexcusable act of aggression.”

Former President Bill Clinton and Senator Hillary Clinton, along with their daughter Chelsea, were on a private visit to Iraq as guests of Saddam Hussein. When they were coming out of the National Museum of Iraq the reporters encircled and asked them about the rumors. Senator Clinton replied, “The Congress is not even going to entertain this heinous thought. We are a peace loving nation. War is not in our vocabulary.” Saddam Hussein said: “It’s all talk. Rumsfeld is a friend and so we don’t have to worry about. And anyway, what is the AIPAC for? It will take care.”

Next day, the Clintons were Washington bound.

On October 10, the House voted against the war 296-133 and next day the Senate voted against it 77-23. Under pressure from hawks Bush asked the Congress to reconsider its decision. AIPAC was in an equally fighting mood. It was able to bring more Congresspersons on its side. (Of course, they were given the promise of campaign money for the next election and some arm twisting with weapon of “anti-Semitism.”)

Now the conflict was in open.

Ibrahim Faqih-Ma’n of the Anti-Defamation League summoned the Secretary of State Collin Powell and told him that he’ll have to be real aggressive against the forces of war. Powell assured him that peace will prevail.

The government officials were aware of the power of the Lobby. Powell thought of what one of his predecessors George Shultz once wrote about the Lobby:

"We fought the supplement and fought it hard. President Reagan and I weighed in personally making numerous calls to Senators and Congressman. The supplement sailed right by us and was approved by Congress as though President Reagan and I had not even been there. I was astonished and disheartened.”

(He learned his lesson and has now written a foreword for Ibrahim Faqih-Ma’n’s book.)

However, Powell was with the Lobby because he himself didn’t want the war.

In the White House, Bush was on the phone with Laura and the war thing came up.

Bush: Honey, I don’t know why, but I’m very hesitant about this war. It’s the first time such a situation has developed. So many Muslims, many of them Iraqis, are working in my administration and I see several of them everyday. It’s so easy to bomb a country whose people you don’t know that closely.

(Second of four parts. To be continued tomorrow.)

B. R. Gowani can be reached at brgowani@hotmail.com. Notes and references available from the author on request.

 


 

 

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