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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! Note: Thanks to a last minute surge of donations from CounterPunchers across the globe we met and surpassed the goal of our annual funding appeal. More than 2,000 CounterPunchers helped us raise $76,175! A heartful thanks to one and all! Remember, if you haven't yet donated, contributions to CounterPunch are tax deductible and 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 November 29, 2007 R. F. Blader The Most Dangerous Kind of Bribe 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!   October 24, 2007 Natalie Washington-Weik White Fantasies About Race-Based Intelligence Andy Worthington The Guantánamo Suicides Michael Birmingham What Happened in Nahr Al Bared? Corporate Crime Reporter The Nuclear Democrats Tariq Ali Bush's Cuba Detour Farzana Versey Imagining Serfdom in a Scarf Dave Zirin White Noise James Murren What "Support Our Troops" Means Todd Chretien Looking Reality in the Face Martha Rosenberg What Came First, the Chicken or the Cage? Website of the Day Hillary Clinton on Nuclear Power   October 23, 2007 Ralph Nader Bush's Catastrophic Rhetoric Lawrence R. Velvel Goldsmith Stands Convicted--By His Own Mouth: How a Harvard Law Professor Justified Rendition at the Bush Justice Dept. Vijay Prashad The Nuke Deal is Dead Bonnie Bricker / Adil E. Shamoo The True Cost of War for Oil Dave Lindorff Christopher Dodd's Make or Break Moment Mike Whitney The Big Squeeze Farzana Versey Race with the Devil Stanley Heller / Ben George Something New from the Antiwar Movement Marcelle Cendrars You Too Can Confront the Holy Executive Regan Boychuk Burma and Haiti: Comparing the Media Response Website of the Day King Corn   October 22, 2007 Ishmael Reed Should Blacks Go Green? Marjorie Cohn Mukasey and the Constitution: Another Loyal Bushie Rannie Amiri Is There a Method to Bush's Middle East Madness? Diane Farsetta Time to Pay for Payola: the FCC and Pundit-for-Hire Armstrong Williams Todd Alan Price Renewing No Child Left Behind: A Hurricane Katrina Aimed at Public Education Robert Jensen The Quagmire of Masculinity Stephen Lendman The UAW Leadership Sells Out Its Workers Jemima Khan The Kleptocrat in an Hermes Headscarf Sunsara Taylor David Horowitz Can't Handle the Truth Binoy Kampmark No Ideas, Please: the Australian Elections Website of the Day Support the Center for International Policy     October 20 / 21, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Man Who Builds Hillaryworld Tariq Ali A Massacre Foretold Jeffrey St. Clair Greetings from Echo Park Andy Worthington The Shame of Diego Garcia Mike Whitney Housing Flameout Daniel Wolff Play It As It Lays David Rosen Deviants on Parade: Folsom St. Fair and America's 4th Sexual Revolution Saul Landau David and Goliath in Iraq Ron Jacobs COINTELPRO and the Panthers Robert Fantina The Strange Love of Mitt Romney and Bob Jones David Heleniak Erring on the Side of Hidden Harm Joe Allen Hoffa Brown-Nosing at UPS Prairie Miller Lions for Lambs Poets' Basement Gibbons, Holt and Buknatski Website of the Weekend Crash!   October 19, 2007 John Ross Che's Mexican Legacy Sheldon Rampton Shared Values Revisited: a Case Study in the Limits of Propaganda Rahul Mahajan A Tale of Two Atrocities: Blackwater and Haditha Devra Davis Deadly Secrets: Chemical Pollution and Cancer Christopher Brauchli Blasphemous Science Wadner Pierre Haiti After the Deluge Bill Quigley Jailed for Justice Website of the Day Textbook Sticker Shock   October 18, 2007 Saree Makdisi Academic Freedom is at Risk Meg Dwyer What I Learned from 9/11: Who Wouldn't Want Us Dead? Alevtina Rea Sketches of Russian Life Norman Solomon The United States of Violence Kristoffer Larsson Something is Rotten in Sweden Harvey Wasserman Nukes are Back and So are We Website of the Day Eve Ensler: "A Filibuster Would Stop This War"   October 17, 2007 Steve Niva Counter-Insurgency, American-Style Andy Worthington The Case of Mohamed Jawad Alan Farago The Credit Shock Russell Mokhiber The New Billionaire-Criminal Class Sharon Smith Democrats, AWOL When It Mattered Mike Whitney Time for the Banks to Face the Hangman Robert Fantina Iraq, Iran and the US: Business as Usual Chris Irwin Where Have All the Rednecks Gone? Website of the Day Sex Ed at Oral Roberts University October 16, 2007 Peter Linebaugh Doris Lessing and the Dynamite Prize Paul Findley Follow the Leader: The Open Secret About the Israel Lobby Robert Bryce Inconvenient Corrections: Al Gore's Wacky Facts Uri Avnery The Mother of All Pretexts Paul Craig Roberts The Iraqi Genocide Ray McGovern What Did Nancy Pelosi Know About NSA Spying and When Did She Know It? Norman Solomon The Pro-War Undertow of the Blackwater Scandal Martha Rosenberg The Curse of Cymbalta William S. Lind Out of the Frying Pan Joel S. Hirschborn Time to Boycott Voting Website of the Day Pipeline Through Paradise: Big Oil's Arctic Play         Subscribe Online

November 29, 2007 A Pretext for War? Distorting Fascism to Demonize Iran By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH In their frantic drive to pave the way for a military strike against Iran, leading figures in the neoconservative pro-Israel lobby have embarked on a vicious campaign of demonizing that country by comparing it with the early years of Nazi Germany and its President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, with Hitler. These champions of war and militarism are the same trigger happy characters who helped orchestrate the criminal war against Iraq on the basis of ghastly lies and criminal fabrications of evidence. Instead of being held responsible for all of the grisly lies and evidence manufacturing, they are let loose to once again beat the drums of war-this time against Iran. Top among these civilian militarists are Norm Podhoretz, a senior foreign policy adviser to the Republican frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, and the leader of Israel's Likud Party Benjamin Netanyahu. These are part of the leading members of the "war party" that include, among others, Vice President Dick Cheney in the White House and Elliot Abrams in the State Department. Podhoretz's wild charges of fascism against Ahmadinejad, Iran, and Islam-at times bordering on delirium and self-parody-are unabashedly spelled out in his recently published book, "World War IV: the Long Struggle against Islamofascism." Although Elliot Cohen was the original author of the concept of World War IV, Norman Podhoretz has been the major popularizer of the concept. Describing the Cold War as World War III, he sets out to explain both the rationale for the projected World War IV and the strategies to win it. To explain the "looming world conflagration" that is allegedly predicated on the conduct of militant Islam, he begins by asserting that "the malignant force of radical Islamism" has as its objective "to conquer our land" and to destroy "everything good for which America stands." After a long and discursive detailing of how and why Islam is incompatible with progress and modernization, and how it therefore poses a serious threat to Western values, he then argues that, "to fend off the menace of militant Islam," the United States needs to resolutely engage in a long, drawn out war in the Muslim world that can be called World War IV.[1] Benjamin Netanyahu has also frequently called upon the Bush administration to launch a military strike against Iran on the grounds that, "like Nazi Germany," it is a menace to world peace: "It's 1938 and Iran is Germany. And Iran is racing to arm itself with atomic bombs. . . . Believe him [Ahmadinejad] and stop him. . . . This is what we must do. Everything else pales before this." While the Iranian president "denies the Holocaust," Netanyahu said, "he is preparing another Holocaust for the Jewish state."[2] Senator Lieberman's characterization of Ahmadinejad as being another Hitler is somewhat subtle and indirect: "I'm proud that I co-sponsored that bipartisan resolution calling for regime change in Iran because there are some leaders you can't negotiate with. Look at what Ahmadinejad has said. History reminds us in the case of Hitler and Osama bin Laden that they said exactly what they ultimately did. . . . We need to be working with people in Iran, who hate this government, to help them overthrow it."[3] Anyone even faintly familiar with the socio-economic and historical characteristics of fascism would dismiss these wild accusations and characterizations of Iran as bogus. Ahmadinejad differs from Hitler on a number of major grounds. To begin with, Ahmadinejad is known as a grassroots leader or fighter, not an agent or collaborator of big business, as would be the case with fascist or fascistic figures and characters. Indeed, he came to power by challenging and running against the presidential candidate of big business, whereas fascist leaders like Hitler or Mussolini were promoted by big business. Second, Hitler represented an expansionist imperial power. By contrast, Ahmadinejad (and the Iranian government in general) represent an anti-imperialist challenge or force in the Middle East that harbors no expansionist ambitions or territorial claims. Third, Hitler was an unrivaled and unchallenged dictator. He had complete monopoly of power; not only commanding the German armed forces, but also controlling all the branches of government and, indeed, the entire German society. By contrast, Ahmadinejad is not a dictator; he is an elected president without much power. The real power rests with the "Supreme Leader," Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is commander in chief of all of Iran's armed forces. Khamenei has the final say on all major foreign policy issues. Ahmadinejad is also constantly and relentlessly challenged by both the parliament and the Judiciary. For example, the legislature rejected more than two-thirds of his recommendations for ministers, which meant that it took nearly a year before his cabinet was fully staffed. As intelligent and educated individuals, Lieberman, Podhoretz, Netanyahu and their neoconservative cohorts must certainly be aware of these glaring differences between Hitler and Ahmadinejad, or between today's Iran and the late 1930s Nazi Germany. So, why are they disregarding such obvious differences and deliberately obfuscating the historic characteristics of fascism? The answer is clear: they want to justify another war of aggression, a military strike against Iran. The more fundamental question, however, is why do they want to attack Iran? The answer, in a nutshell, is that the pro-Israel lobby is determined to eliminate any and all obstacles to the continued occupation of the Palestinian land. And since the lobby views Iran as one of those obstacle, it is therefore driven to demonize that country as the next target of a military strike. All other publicly stated or implied reasons such as national interests, democratic ideals, Iran's nuclear technology, and the like are simply harebrained pretexts for achieving this overriding goal. There are, of course, additional factors or forces behind the drive to attack Iran. For example, President Bush and the neoconservative handlers of his administration hope that, by accusing Iran of arming the Iraqi insurgents, they can blame their disastrous failure in Iraq on Iran. They also hope that by expanding the war to Iran they can stifle or preempt calls for accountability and/or impeachment of those responsible for the illegal war on Iraq. Another driving force behind the plan to attack Iran is the armaments lobby and the powerful Pentagon contractors who view the extension of war to Iran as an unmistakable expansion of their economic fortunes. President Bush's neoconservative policies of war and militarism have been a boon for the arms industry and related businesses of war profiteering. It is obvious, then, that the major forces behind the war juggernaut against Iran are driven not by the interests of the American people or "national interests," as the champions of war and militarism claim, but by some powerful special interests that converge on war and political convulsion in the Middle East: the economic interests of the armaments lobby and the geopolitical interests of the pro-Israel lobby. Since the interests of these two highly influential forces converge on war and international conflicts in the Middle East, they often play into each others hand in their pursuit of war and militarism in the region. More importantly, however, they also coordinate their politics and/or policy agendas to influence U.S. foreign in the area.[4] Although there is no formal alliance between these two powerful forces, their collaboration can often be seen through their identical views of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Institutionally, this de facto collaboration is carried out through a number of militaristic think tanks such as Project for the New American Century, the American Enterprise Institute, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, Center for Security Policy, Middle East Media Research Institute, Middle East Forum, Washington Institute for Near East Policy, and National Institute for Public Policy. A closer look at the records of these militaristic think tanks shows that they are set up to essentially serve as institutional fronts to camouflage the dubious relationship between the Pentagon, its major contractors, and the Israeli lobby, on the one hand, and the war-mongering neoconservative politicians, on the other. Major components of the Bush administration's foreign policy, including the war on Iraq and the plans to strike Iran, have been designed largely at the drawing boards of these think thanks.[5] It is ironic-indeed, tragic-that hardline Zionist leaders, who constantly (and rightly so) remind us to not forget the atrocities of fascism, so callously distort the socio-economic and historical characteristics of fascism in order to use it in the service of their short-sighted and misguided agenda for the Middle East. They hope-in vain-that they can permanently keep the occupation of the Palestinian land by force, and that by destroying Iran and/or other opponents of occupation the Palestinian question would somehow go away. Yet, as the late Albert Einstein put it, peace can be achieved only by understanding, not force. Calling Ahmadinejad and/or Iran fascist is even more ironic (it is, in fact, a perfect case of chutzpah) in light of the fact that the expansionist policies of unilateral aggression promoted by the leading figures of Neoconservatism are more akin to Hitler's policies of unprovoked invasion of other countries than is Iran's foreign policy, which respects the sovereignty of its neighbors and harbors no territorial ambition or military aggression against any country. Neoconservative champions of war and militarism often use terms and adjectives such as fascist or Hitler to characterize opponents of US-Israeli policies in the Middle East in order to justify their agenda of "regime change" in the region. Such wanton or opportunistic use of political rhetoric for nefarious political purposes represents a gross misreading of social structures and historical developments. Fascism cannot be defined or characterized capriciously; it is a specific historical category that evolves out of particular socio-economic circumstances or structures. It cannot be haphazardly applied to any socio-economic system or political leader that is at odds with the neoconservative agenda of regime change in the Middle East. Nor can fascism be reduced to the "sins" of political personas and individual leaders of Nazi Germany, or the pathological problems of Hitler's mind. While simplistic or obfuscationist judgments of this sort may succeed in dressing in the uniform of Adolf Hitler the horrific acts that the capitalist system can occasionally perform, such reductionist judgments would not be very useful for the purposes of averting social conditions that may lead to the recurrence of fascism. Hitler was not any more responsible for the rise of fascism in Europe than is President George W. Bush for the rise of neoconservative militarists in the United States, or for the control of U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East by the representatives of the military-industrial-Likud interests. Some friendly critics attribute the aggressive militaristic policies of militant Zionism to the traumatic memories of fascism and the attendant brutalities that were committed against Jewish people. Thus, political commentator Jim Lobe writes, for example, "the horrific experience of European Jewry in the twentieth century, culminating as it did with the Nazi Holocaust, is critical to understanding the neoconservative mindset."[6] While this may explain radical Zionists' "mindset" and their policies of unilateral militarism, it does not justify their plans of war and "regime change" in the Middle East. Palestinians and other Arab/Muslim people had nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust. That these peoples have been subjected to horrendous punishment for the crimes committed by others simply defies logic-let alone any sense of justice. Hard-line Zionist ideologues like Lieberman, Podhoretz, Netanyahu and their cohorts in the misguided pro-Israel lobby, who sloppily coin terminologies such as Hitler or fascism in reference to the opponents of their policies of aggression, are misrepresenting fascism, drawing wrong lessons from it, and punishing the wrong people for its crimes. With friends like these fanatical Zionists, the Jewish people need no enemies! Ismael Hossein-zadeh is a professor of economics at Drake University, Des Moines, Iowa. He is the author of the newly published book, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism. His Web page is http://www.cbpa.drake.edu/hossein-zadeh References: [1] Norman Podhoretz, "World War IV: How It Started, What It Means, and Why We Have to Win," Commentary (September 2004). [2] Evan Derkacz, "Netanyahu cries: "Hitler! Hitler! Hitler!" alternet.org (Posted on November 17, 2006). [3] Joseph Lieberman in Connecticut 2006 Senate general campaign Debate, [4] Ismael Hossein-zadeh, The Political Economy of U.S. Militarism (Palgrave-Macmillan 2007). [5] Ibid. [6] Jim Lobe, "New Book Attacks Neo-Cons from the Right," commondreams.org (August 5, 2004). Your Ad Here

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