Today's Stories

April 30, 2009

Dana L. Cloud
The McCarthyism That Horowitz Built

Paul W. Lovinger /
Jeannette Hassberg
A Nation of Laws

Binoy Kampmark
Swine at the Trough: the Business of Pandemics

April 29, 2009

Joann Wypijewski
Death at Work in America

Patrick Cockburn
The Taliban's Roads to Kabul

Andy Worthington
Cheney's Twisted World

Chris Floyd
The Specter Diversion

Dave Lindorff
No More Excuses: a Specter is Haunting the Democrats

Jeremy Scahill
The Nuremberg Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

Doug Henwood
Zionist Lobby Targets Another Tenured Professor: an Interview with William Robinson

Michael Hudson
Will Iceland be Handed Over to a New Gang of Kleptocrats?

Russell Mokhiber
My Ron Pollack Problem--And Yours

Eric Toussaint
Ecuador at the Crossroads

Website of the Day
An Interview with Leslie and Andrew Cockburn on "American Casino"

April 28, 2009

Uri Avnery
A Little Red Light: On Israeli Fascism

Jeremy Scahill
Obama's Iraq: the Picture of Dorian Gray

Dean Baker
The Perfect Gift for Wall Street: a Financial Transactions Tax

Michael D. Yates
At the Factory Gate

Conn Hallinan
Georgian Plots? Saakavili's "Order No. 2"

John Stauber
Beyond MoveOn

Tom Barry
The Failed Border Security Initiative

Harvey Wasserman
Who Pays for America's Chernobyl Roulette?

Jeff Nygaard
Pirates, Profits and Propaganda

Frederico Fuentes
Why the U.S. Still Hates Cuba

Website of the Day
The Man Behind the Hood

April 27, 2009

Pam Martens
The Far Right's Plot to Capture New Hampshire

Patrick Cockburn
Torture? It Probably Killed More Americans Than 9/11

Andrew J. Bacevich Guardian of the Status Quo: Obama's Sins of Omission

Mitu Sengupta
The Bloodbath in Sri Lanka

Franklin Lamb
Hillary Does Beirut: The 165-Minute Swoop-In

Firmin DeBrabander
Crimes of Economic Madness

Dave Lindorff
Wide Open to Pandemic?

Russell Mokhiber
How Corrupt is That?

Mike Whitney
Pinter's Message to Obama

Mark Weisbrot
Overhauling the IMF

Rev. José M. Tirado
Iceland's New Dawn: How the Right Got Trounced

Website of the Day
American Casino

April 24-26, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Putting the Bush Years on Trial

Marjorie Cohn
Torture Used to Try to Link Saddam with 9/11

Andy Worthington
Who Ordered the Torture of Abu Zubaydah?

Jeremy Scahill
Are Leading Democrats Afraid of a Special Prosecutor to Investigate Torture?

Chris Floyd
Top of the Heap: the Democrats' Teachable Moment on Torture

Mike Whitney
A Housing Crash Update

Anthony DiMaggio
Obama and the Housing Crisis

Chris Kromm
Democratic Lobbyists Key to Fight Against Employee Free Choice Act

Saul Landau
Seventeen Months in "the Hole:" an Interview with the Leader of the Cuban Five

Dave Lindorff
Free John Walker Lindh

Greg Moses
The Debt Looters

Joshua Frank
Calling for a Coal Moratorium: an Interview with Ted Nace

Fred Gardner
Collective Farming and the Lynch Case

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Homework, Testing and Stealth Apartheid in Education

David Michael Green
Of Tea Parties and Teleprompters

Ramzy Baroud
Middle East Spies: a New Front in Gaza's Conflict

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak's Expanding Enemies List

Laura Carlsen
Mr. President, Calderon is Not Mexico

Richard Morse
The Haitian People Need a Lobbyist

Nikolas Kozloff
Protecting the Bald Eagle: a Task Now Falling to ... Hugo Chavez?

Kent Peterson
The Fight to Save Mexico's Mangroves

Robert Bryce
The Ethanol Scammers Rent a General

Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Financial Experts

Ron Jacobs
Torture is More Than Just "Harsh Tactics"

Richard Rhames
Roman Legends, Book Burning and History's Hunt

Stephen Martin
Wherefore Art Thou American Dream?

David Yearsley
Rodgers, Hammerstein, Michener and Nostalgia's Clammy Embrace

Poets' Basement
Khalil and Mankh

Website of the Weekend
Doug and Andrea Peacock on Grizzlies and Edward Abbey

April 23, 2009

Eamonn Fingleton
How the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times Buried the Madoff Scandal for at Least Four Years

Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture

Michael Ratner
The Torture Commission Trap

Alan Farago
The Quicksand Economy

Rob Larson
Business Gets Carded

Nadia Hijab
The Real Heroes of Durban

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
Deconstructing the Taliban

Dave Lindorff
Are Members of Congress Being Blackmailed?

Helen Redmond
Selling Out Single-Payer: the "Public Option" Con

Adam Federman
The Battle Over New York's Marcellus Shale

Website of the Day
An Interactive Map of Vanishing Employment Across the Country

April 22, 2009

Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project

Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement

Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans

Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics

Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy

Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits

Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School

Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here

Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas

Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe

Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said

April 21, 2009

Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape

Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture

Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit

George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year

Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel

Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers

Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza

Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n

Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk

John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer

David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed

Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere

April 20, 2009

Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever

Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula

Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens

Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes

Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers

Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos: Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes

Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East

Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad

P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word

Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama

Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?

Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance

Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...

April 17-19, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Thin Ice From Here to the Horizon

Saul Landau
Infiltrating Alpha 66: a Conversation with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuba Five

Franklin Lamb
Persia Rising

Ralph Nader
The Greedsters Are Back!

Fred Gardner
Obama's Chimerical Marijuana Policy: a Guide for the Perplexed

Dean Baker
A Win-Win Solution: Tax the Rich!

Rannie Amiri
The Curious Case of Benjamin Netanyahu

George Wuerthner
The War on Predators

Dave Lindorff
No Amnesty for Torturers

David Swanson
Personal Torture Laws

Jim Goodman
The Control of Food

Kathy Sanborn
Economic Fallout Hits Families Hard

Don Monkerud
Economic Recovery for Whom?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The People's Money

David Michael Green
Home of the Barricaded, Land of the 'Fraid

Nelson P Valdés
The OAS Charter, Cuba and the United States

Manuel Gomez
From the Bay of Pigs to Trinadad and Tobago

Dr. Susan Block
On Sex Addiction: the Deadliest Sin?

Ramzy Baroud
Non-Violence in Palestine?

Christopher Brauchli
Banning Barbie

Stephen Martin
Statelessness: the Final Frontier

Ron Jacobs
Tearing the Whole Building Down: the Dead in Greensboro

David Yearsley
Monkey Music

Lorenzo Wolff
A Song for the End of the World

Poets' Basement
Moser, McTeer and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
New England Journal of Medicine Report on Civilian Deaths in Iraq

April 16, 2009

Mike Whitney
A Bulletin From the Captain of the Titantic

Russell Mokhiber
The Top 10 Enemies of Single-Payer

Ronald Teska
From Iraq to Appalachia

Gareth Porter
Predator Blowback

Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Thinking Like an Afghan

Benjamin Dangl
Latin America Changes

Kevin Pina
Haiti: Obama's First Foreign Policy Disaster?

Robert Bryce
Another Ethanol Producer Goes Bust

George Wuerthner
See the Forest: the Value of Dead Trees

Paul Garon, David Roediger and Kate Khatib The Surreal Life of Franklin Rosemont

Website of the Day
Socialism and the Facebook Generation

April 15, 2009

Kathleen and Bill Christison
Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It

Ray McGovern
W, the Torture Decider

Robert Sandels
Is There a Latin American Policy?

Heather Williams /
Paul Baker
Carbon Cap and Trade: How Wall Street will Game the Regs and Trash the Planet

Jack Willoughby
The Lessons of the S & L Crisis

David Swanson
Habeas at Bagram?

Paul Craig Roberts
94 Years of Serfdom

Sara Mann
Norman Rockwell and the Perils of Nostalgia

Kenneth Couesbouc
John Maynard's Martingale: How Keynes Got Rich

Binoy Kampmark
Tax Haven Hypocrisies

Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Hi'llani Cruz, George Kahumoku Flores, et al.: An Urgent Letter to Obama on the Rights of Native Hawaiians

Website of the Day
Taxa: the Paintings of Isabella Kirkland

April 14, 2009

Conn Hallinan
The Afghan Rubik's Cube

Mike Whitney
Why is Goldman Sachs So Scared of Mike Morgan?

Peter Morici
Taxing Grandma to Subsidize Goldman Sachs

Greg Moses
Economic Curveballs: the Laffer Posse

Fidel Castro
Obama's Cuba Policy: Not a Word About the Blockade

Robert Weissman
No Blank Check for the IMF

Rebecca Macaux /
Philip Primeau
Somali Piracy and American Foreign Policy

Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
The Dubious Revoution: Biofuels, the Next Generation

Dave Lindorff
Snatch-and-Jail Justice: the Ugly War on Immigrants

Walter Brasch
The Resurrection of Intolerance

Benjamin Day
Why Has the Press Failed Us in Reporting on Health Care Reform?

Website of the Day
The Appraisal Bubble

April 13, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit

Uri Avnery
Our Dissonance

Jeremy Scahill
A Test Case for Habeas Corpus: Will Obama Prosecute the Somali Pirate in a US Court?

Martha Rosenberg
Suicide Syndrome: Are VA Protocols Behind Iraq Vet Suicides?

Karl Grossman
A Radioactive Extension for Aging Nuclear Plants

Nadia Hijab
Still Waiting: Obama and American Muslims

Sam Smith
America's Cultural Bear Market

James McEnteer
Peru's Shining Example

Sean McMahon
Globalizing Politicide: Israel's Strikes on Sudan

Namihei Odaira
Makota's "Campaign Against Poverty"

John V. Walsh
Bossnapping

Website of the Day
Declining IRS Audits for Big Financial Houses

April 10 / 12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Resurrection and Revenge

Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

Mike Whitney
"Liquidate the Banks; Fire the Executives!" Warren's Devastating Report to Congress

Saul Landau
How the Media Bought the Surge

M. Reza Pirbhai
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations

Franklin Spinney
The Art of the Scam: Wall Street and the Pentagon

Rannie Amiri
Iran's Elections: Why Arab Leaders Want Ahmadinejad to Win

William Blum
The Ideology of Barack Obama

Matt Vidal
Why Card Check Would Help the Economy

Jeff Howison
Death of the Square Deal

Jeff Leys
Resisting the Af-Pak War: the Creech Air Base Arrests

Dave Lindorff
America's Imperial Wars: Why We Need to See the Horrors

Ramzy Baroud
Israel Investigated: But Will It Repent?

Missy Beattie
The Grateful Dead, Wounded and Displaced

Fred Gardner
Fakes Left, Goes Right: Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy

Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes?

Suzan Mazur
A Revolution in Biology: an Interview with Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse

Bernard Umbrecht
German Capitalists Take Fire

David Macaray
A Word Clooney, Hanks and Baldwin Should Learn: Solidarity

Janet Kauffman
How to Starve (or Feed) a River

Ron Jacobs
Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win

Norman Solomon
Getting a Death Grip on Memory

Michael Winship
Let the Railsplitter Awake!

Richard Rhames
Empire, Ennui and Extra Cheese

Wanda Fucha
Brother, Can You Spare a Million Bucks?

David Yearsley
My Journey to the Heart of Rahman

Lorenzo Wolff
Getting Beyond the Black-and-White: Jason Isbell's Challenging New Album

Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini's Louis XIV: "Neither the Sun Nor Death Can be Gazed Upon Fixedly"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Poets' Basement
Corseri and Corzett

Website of the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!

April 9, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Decade of Darkness

Patrick Cockburn
What It Would Take to Mend Fences with Islam

Stephen Soldz
Caught on Tape: Diagnostic Abuse of Veterans

P. Sainath
The Rise of the Shoe-cide Bomber

Ellen Cantarow
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer

Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Obama and Israel's Threat to Strike Iran

Jeremy Scahill
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up Against Obama's Bloated Military Budget?

Jerry Kroth
Saving GM From Bankruptcy--With the Stroke of a Pen

Binoy Kampmark
Fujimori Convicted: A Measure of Justice in Latin America

Fidel Castro
My Meeting with the Black Caucus

Website of the Day
Bird Song Radio

April 8, 2009

John Prados
The Af-Pak Paradox

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Changing the Rules of the Blame Game

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Tooth Fairy and the Defense Budget

Russell Mokhiber
PBS Lashes Back

Kathy Sanborn
Depression Fury

Rev. William E. Alberts
If the Shoe Fits: Bush and Al-Zaidi

James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement"

Nadia Hijab
Olmert's Nightmare

Adam Turl
Card Check on the Ropes

Kevin Zeese
Escaping the Drug War Quagmire

Website of the Day
Walk Score Your Neighborhood

April 7, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency's Free Ride

Uri Avnery
Who's the Boss?

Chris Floyd
Talking Peace in Prague, Dropping Bombs in Pakistan

Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System

Marjorie Cohn
Prosecuting the Bush Torture Team: Spain Leads the Way

Dean Baker
Hands Off Social Security

Diana Johnstone
NATO, Strasbourg and the Black Block

Dave Lindorff
Politicizing Accounting

Martha Rosenberg
Life on HBO's Factory Hog Farm

Evelyn Pringle
Motherhood and the Psycho-Pharmaceutical Complex

Website of the Day
Gaza: Closed Zone

April 6, 2009

Michael Hudson
The IMF Rules the World

Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror

Ray McGovern
Profiles in Cowardice: Eric Holder and Colin Powell

Deepak Tripathi
The Pakistan Enigma

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: a Glide-Path to Destitution

Norman Solomon
Meet the New Escalators: the Democrats and the Afghan War

Jonathan Cook
Israel Railways Accused of Racism in Firing of Arab Workers

Judith Bello
Justice for the Developmentally Disabled

Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia

Dr. M. Kamiar
"There's No 'Eye' in Iran:" Obama's Pronunciation Problem

Website of the Day
Prison Talk

April 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots

Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones

Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety

Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression

Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA

Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?

Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business

Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences

Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern

John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?

Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust

Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech

Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum

Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival

David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card

John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era

Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six

Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace

Reza Fiyouzat
The Iran/US Rapproachment Dance

Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Batting 50-50

Charles R. Larson
Too Much Stuff

Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!

Stephen Martin
Gordon Brown's Chicken Run at the G20

Kim Nicolini
"Last House on the Left:" Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie

David Yearsley
Homage to Moog and Mallards

Phyllis Pollack
An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey on Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Saint Jude

Poets' Basement
Foley, Valentine and Kozak

Website of the Day
The Corner Store

April 2, 2009

Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals

David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"

Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt

Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation

Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis

April 1, 2009

Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss

Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy

Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert

Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision

Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past

Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis

Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution

Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?

Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island

Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared

March 31, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango

Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield

Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal

Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit

Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War

David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas

Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange

Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide

Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement

March 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?

Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?

Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons

Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class

Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine

Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs

Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling

April 30, 2009

An Interview with Jerry Gordon on the State of the Antiwar Movement

Not Dead Yet

By RON JACOBS

GIs and Iraqis still dying in battle in Iraq. An increase in troops and air attacks in Afghanistan. Civilian casualties on the rise. Despite campaign promises to begin bringing US troops home from Iraq in 2009, the number of US troops in Iraq remains virtually unchanged. General Odierno says the US may have to keep soldiers and Marines in Iraqi cities past the July 1, 2009 deadline agreed to in the Status of Forces Agreement signed in December 2008 between Washington and its client regime in Baghdad. In Afghanistan, US intelligence agencies look for ways to ensure that Washington's man wins the upcoming election, with flashbacks to the fraudulent votes in Vietnam that put Nguyen van Thieu in the palace in Saigon.

Despite the fact that Washington's imperial adventures in both of these nations are far from over, there has been very little protest in the home country. Indeed, one national antiwar network--United for Peace and Justice--is suffering from financial problems and is losing one of its national coordinators. There is one organization however, that is planning to forge ahead. They are the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations. This group was formed in 2008 by a group of antiwar activists unaffiliated to any party. The group's founding conference was held in Cleveland and was attended by several hundred individuals, including members of both national antiwar networks and several other organizations including Veterans for Peace, several political organizations and a number of labor and religious groups. I recently received word from one of the group's founders that the Assembly was holding its second conference this July. What follows is an email exchange he and I had.

Ron: Hi Jerry. To begin, would you mind introducing yourself and explain your role in the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations? Also, can you give the readers a little of your history in the antiwar movement?

My name is Jerry Gordon and I am the secretary of the National Assembly to End the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars and Occupations.  I have been actively involved in struggles against U.S. wars, occupations and interventions starting with the Korean War (1950-53) and including Vietnam (as a National Co-Coordinator of the National Peace Action Coalition), Central America, Yugoslavia, the first Iraq War in 1991, and the current war. 

Ron: I've provided the readers with a brief history of the founding of the National Assembly in the introduction to this interview. Is there anything you would like to add to that description?

Yes, I would add that the founding conference featured spirited discussion and debate regarding what the antiwar movement should do in the period ahead. The conference was unique in that it was open on a non-exclusionary basis to all activists wishing to attend. Over 400 people did so, reflecting widely different points of views on all kinds of questions. Decisions were made on the basis of one person, one vote.

Ron: Since the inauguration of Barack Obama as president, I've noticed a decrease in antiwar activity among even many of the most involved antiwar activists. While it is safe to say that this decrease began well before January 2009, the virtual lack of protest around the occupations and wars seems to indicate a major change of heart among many protesters. Do you agree? If so, to what would attribute this? If not, why?

I don’t believe there has been a major change of heart among the antiwar majority in this country, although the turnout at recent demonstrations has unquestionably been smaller than at previous ones. I believe there are several factors at work here.

Let’s go back to the largest action against the Iraq War which was held September 24, 2005 in Washington D.C., which drew some 700,000 people. Unfortunately, two things of a distinctly negative character happened in the aftermath of that action.

One was the swing against mass action by big chunks of the movement, who advocated electoral politics as the central strategy. The focus was on electing a Democratic Party majority in both Houses of Congress as the way to end the Iraq War. Well, the Democrats got control of both the Senate and House of Representatives as a result of the 2006 elections but the war continued and even escalated. And the Democrats continued voting to fund it.

The other negative development was the split in the antiwar movement. Instead of parlaying the success of the 2005 mobilization, which was co-sponsored by United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ) and the ANSWER Coalition, and concentrating on organizing even larger united actions, the movement fractured, with UFPJ leaders declaring they would have no further collaboration with ANSWER. This severely weakened the movement and it remains a continuing and festering problem.

The current period has ushered in major developments that profoundly affect the antiwar movement. The first, of course, is the very severe economic crisis. For tens of millions of people in this country, the central issue today is survival. Ending the wars and occupations is no loner the priority it once was, especially since U.S. casualties are much less than they were in the previous period. Today we are witnessing increasing numbers of protest actions against budget cuts, denial of essential social services, assaults on workers’ living standard and their right to organize and bargain collectively, mass unemployment, housing foreclosures, lack of health care coverage, breakdown of the infrastructure, environmental issues, etc. In short, American society faces a deep crisis of epidemic proportions which grows worse by the day. The antiwar movement is struggling to connect its issues to the fightback on other fronts and to demonstrate its relevance by arguing, among other things, that the choice is guns or butter, because we can’t have both. So our greatest challenge is to make that connection and that is an ongoing process.

The other major development is the election of Barack Obama to the White House. Elected as an antiwar candidate, Obama has already dashed the hopes of millions by escalating in Afghanistan, which he continues to argue is the “good war,” and by intensifying the drone bombings in Pakistan.  At the same time, he says he will not pull out all U.S. troops from Iraq until 2011.That’s much too long for many in the antiwar movement but since the casualties are down and the direction appears to be to get out, large numbers are prepared to give Obama the benefit of the doubt and no longer feel the same compulsion to take to the streets to demand “Out Now!”

As long as Obama’s maintains his credibility and popularity in the conduct of foreign policy, and as long as illusions persist that the Iraq War is winding down and that the U.S. will indeed withdraw all of its forces, and as long as the rationale for continuing the war against Afghanistan and Pakistan is not challenged more assertively, the antiwar movement will not likely draw the kind of crowds it did in the past. But everything changes and that will certainly be the case here as the economic meltdown accelerates, the number of casualties in Afghanistan climbs, and new flareups and conflicts erupt in Iraq. The National Assembly believes that these and other developments will result in our antiwar message resonating more broadly, as we proceed and persist in the struggle to strengthen, rebuild and unite the antiwar movement.  

Ron: The National Assembly is having a national conference in Pittsburgh on July 10th and 11th this year. Can you tell us why the conference is being held now? What are your hopes for this conference?

The conference has been called primarily to assess the current situation and to plan actions in the period ahead. The antiwar movement critically needs continuity, meaning it has to constantly stay active planning and organizing periodic mobilizations in the streets – however large or small – to build the movement, win new activists to its ranks, demonstrate visibility, and educate masses of people. Reflecting this last priority, we look to the Pittsburgh conference to combine an educational/activist program which will revitalize the movement and make it a more powerful force in the struggle to end the wars and occupations. We are convinced that the best way to arrive at such a program is by convening a national conference open to all peace activists who will have the opportunity to share their ideas and proposals.

We also hope that the Pittsburgh conference will further promote the cause of unity of the antiwar movement. There are a number of positive signs reflecting broad and growing support for the National Assembly’s unity campaign. Top leaders of the movement – such as Michael T. McPhearson, UFPJ’s Co-Chair and Executive Director of Veterans for Peace, and Brian Becker, ANSWER’s National Coordinator -- are scheduled to address the conference and this bodes well. All of us in the movement need each other and it is high time to put aside past grievances and move forward together. This would certainly be in the interest of the larger struggle to end the wars and occupations, and the tens of millions of people subjected to foreign occupations and the killing and destruction that goes with it would enthusiastically welcome such a development. Our responsibility is to help make that happen.

Ron: The National Assembly has been against the occupation and war in Afghanistan since the Assembly was formed. Other national antiwar networks have been less pointed on this matter, focusing mostly on the situation in Iraq instead. Why has the National Assembly been as opposed to the war in Afghanistan as it is to the occupation (and war) in Iraq?

One of the highlights of the June 2008 conference was the proposal from the floor that the National Assembly expand its agenda to include the demand for immediate withdrawal of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan. Proponents of this proposal argued convincingly that the same government waging war and occupying Iraq was doing the same thing in Afghanistan. The proposal was debated and approved by a majority. In retrospect, it is clear to all of us that we arrived at the correct decision. This was a classic example of democracy in action as practiced by the National Assembly.

The war against Afghanistan violates the right of self-determination; is resulting in more and more deaths and casualties of Afghanis, Americans, and other nationals; is unwinnable; and is costing taxpayers a fortune that is needed to feed, clothe and house people, not slaughter them. These are all good reasons to oppose the war’s continuation.

Ron: Back to Obama for a minute. What do you think it will take to get him to withdraw US troops from Iraq before 2011? When I look at his record so far, especially in regards to his action (or lack thereof) on the use of torture, illegal eavesdropping and the closing of Gitmo and other torture chambers, I am less hopeful than I was in January. What kind of strategy do you hope to see develop that will end these occupations and the accompanying activities?

We believe in the strategy of mass action as the principal way to end the wars and occupations. What is critical to achieving success in this struggle is not who is sitting in the White House but who is marching in the streets. After all, the Vietnam War was ended during the Nixon and Ford Republican administrations, not under the Democrats. Electoral politics and other forms of protest all have a role, but masses of people in motion are what brings about fundamental change. This includes forcing changes in government as shown by the ouster of the Shah of Iran in 1979 and the overthrow of dictator Ferdinand Marcos seven years later in the Philippines, despite the history of his being propped up by Washington.

Ron: I read recently that there are tens of thousands of security contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan in addition to the troops. How does one go about insuring their withdrawal as well?

The presence of so many private contractors in Iraq is undoubtedly a gigantic problem. They play a mercenary role and do a lot of the occupying power’s dirty work, which, as we now know, includes torturing prisoners and detainees. Private contractors outnumber U.S. troops in Iraq, and more than 180,000 civilians, including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis, are under U.S. contracts.  All must be sent packing and when we call for “Out Now!” we include contractors with an exclamation point.  The same mass movement that will sooner or later force Washington to withdraw U.S. troops and equipment from Iraq and Afghanistan and shut down U.S. military bases in both countries is the same movement that must insure that the contractors leave as well.

Ron: Thanks. Anything else?

Yes, we urge readers of this article and other antiwar activists to register for and attend the July 10-12 conference. It will be held at La Roche College in Pittsburgh. Please visit our website at www.natassembly.org  or call 216-736-4704 or email natassembly@aol.com for more information. You can register online or via regular mail. We will be glad to send you upon request a brochure containing a registration form. Write National Assembly, P.O. Box 21008, Cleveland, OH 44121.

Ron Jacobs is author of The Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground, which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's collection on music, art and sex, Serpents in the Garden. His first novel, Short Order Frame Up, is published by Mainstay Press. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net 

Now Available from CounterPunch Books!

Spell Albuquerque:
Memoir of a
"Difficult Student"
By Tennessee Reed

Waiting for Lightning
to Strike:
The Fundamentals
of Black Politics
Kevin Alexander Gray

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Buy!

The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
Bush War Machine
By Harry Browne

Born Under a Bad Sky:
Notes from the Dark Side
of the Earth
By Jeffrey St. Clair

Buy End Times Now!

Click Here to Buy!

Click Here to Order!

Humanitarian Imperialism
By Jean Bricmont