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Today's Stories April 21 / 22, 2007 Fred Gardner Prozac Madness April 20, 2007 Doug Peacock Beginning of the End for the Yellowstone Grizzly? Diane Farsetta Onward, Free Market Soldiers!: Privatizing Public Diplomacy Tom Clifford The Surge in Iraqi Civilian Deaths: the Bloodiest 12 Months of the War Amira Hass The Holocaust as Political Asset Nicole Colson Desperation in Gitmo's Camp 6 Sonja Karkar Double Jeopardy Entraps Palestinians Heather Gray The Supreme Court Looks a Lot Like the Taliban Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban Syrian Expeditions Agustin Velloso Spain and Iraq, Four Years On Matthew Koehler Distorting the News in a Timber Company Town Website of the Day Gonzo's Monica   April 19, 2007 Emad Mekay / Jim Lobe Scoring at the World Bank: Wolfowitz's Quid Pro Quo Patrick Cockburn A Day of Bombs and Blood in Baghdad Larry C. Johnson The Hobbesian Hell of Iraq: How Many Dead Equal a Failed Government? Norman Solomon Bowing Down to Our Own Violence Saul Williams Notes from a Hip Hop Head: an Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey Sunsara Taylor From Iraq to the Supreme Court: a New Dark Ages for Women Harvey Wasserman How Green is Tom Friedman? Christopher Brauchli Apologies, Incorporated Anthony Papa Nightmare Behind Bars: John Valverde's Fight for Freedom Dave Lindorff Betraying Thomas Jefferson Website of the Day The Best Antiwar Song of the Iraq War? April 18, 2007 Lila Rajiva More Gun Laws or Fewer Idiots? How the Va Tech Administration Failed Its Campus Landau / Hassen Tancredo as 17th Century Indian Chief? Charles Fisher / Randy Fisher Don Imus's Firing and the Hip-Hop Culture Diane Christian Facing Death Politically Kevin Prosen Meeting the Resistance in Iraq China Hand Gold Digging: The U.S. Treasury Department's Economic Campaign Against North Korea Peter Rost, MD The Strange Profits from a Re-Branded Cancer Drug Justin Akers Chacón What's Inside the STRIVE Bill Jerry Kroth Virginia Tech and Cho Seung Hui: Love and Unhappiness in an Alien Culture Sherwood Ross Massacre at Va Tech: a Brief Glimpse into Daily Life in Iraq Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Bonfire of the Hannities Alice Cherbonnier Why South Dakota's "Informed Consent" Law Doesn't Go Far Enough Website of the Year? "I Hope I Die Before I Get Old"   April 17, 2007 Jean Bricmont / Diana Johnstone The Elections in France: a Coming Political Tsunami Paul Craig Roberts Bloodbath in Blacksburg Frida Berrigan Militarizing the Border Alison Weir The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series: Some Muslims Aren't Bad John Walsh Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC? Jason Hribal Resistance is Futile: Emily the Cow and Tyke the Elephant Evelyn Pringle The Iraq Money Trail Ben Terrall Cuban Exiles Get Hero's Welcome; Haitian Refugees Get Shafted Stan Cox 1040s and Death Certificates Soren Ambrose Confidence Crisis at the IMF Website of the Day Go Ahead and Yell: "FIRE!"   April 16, 2007 John F. Sugg Hate and Hypocrisy in the Cox Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Escalating Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise Carl G. Estabrook The Politics of the Useful Threat: It Didn't Start with the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts The Party of Brownshirts Uri Avnery Blood on Our Hands Ralph Nader Where Are the Cries of Outrage Over Military Rapes? Eamon McCann Shame of the Empire: Simon, Sir Bono and Tinkerbelle Lee Sustar Decoding the Democrats Mike Whitney Trouble in Squanderville: Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market Don Fitz Solar Capitalism? Stephen Lendman Ecuador Votes for Revolutionary Change Website of the Day Black Mesa Water Coalition   April 14 / 15, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Ho Industry Whores Jorge Mariscal Gen. Petraeus's Field Manual: a Traveler's Guide to Big Muddy Jeffrey St. Clair The Beautiful and the Dammed: How the West Got Flooded Dave Marsh The Imus Affair, Hip Hop and Politics Dr. Trudy Bond Shrinks, Lies and Torture: How Psychologists Became the Pentagon's Bitches Joe Bageant A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard Fidel Castro The Terrorist Walks Alfredo Molano "More Than Complicated" Alan Farago When Miami Crashes Michael Neumann Anglophone Fantasies and French Realities Fred Gardner Barbara McNair's Unsung Heroism: Bringing Down the Owner of EST Ron Jacobs A Conversation with Three Iraq Veterans Against the War Gail Dines Racy Sex, Sexy Racism Linda Ford Imus and Lady Hoopsters: a Long History of Bias Against Women Athletes Missy Beattie What Would Imus Do?: Iraq, Ho, Ho, Ho Dan La Botz Farm Labor Organizer Murdered in Mexico Giuliana Sgrena The Lies of Mario Lozano Laura Carlsen A Moratorium on Free Trade Agreements Abu Spinoza Wolfowitz's Real Crimes Elizabeth Schulte Grinding It Out with Quentin Tarantino Poets' Basement Davies, Harley, Engel and Landau Website of the Weekend Vonnegut's Final Interview   April 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Shattering of Mosul Stephen Soldz Aid and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective George Ciccarriello-Maher The Failed Chávez Coup: Five Years On Laith al-Saud Kirkuk, Oil and the Kurds Dave Zirin Memo to Imus John Ross Drawing a Line in the Heartland Ramzy Baroud America as Proxy Harvey Wasserman The Novelist Who Hated War: Peace Be With You, Mr. Vonnegut Lopez, Olivo and Garcia Columbia University's Two-Tiered Punishments Dols, Fukumori, Judd and Tillett-Saks Columbia: On the Wrong Side of Justice Website of the Day Democrats: an Iraq Scorecard   April 12, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski We May be Rid of Imus, But We're Still Stuck with the Culture Paul Craig Roberts Big Profits from Big Brother Marjorie Cohn U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights Evelyn Pringle Bush Family War Profiteering: Will Congress Finally Cut Them Off? Ron Jacobs God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut Norman Solomon The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack and John Joe DeRaymond The Release of Dennis Counterman: The Justice Game, the Alford Plea and Death Row Nicola Nasser Squeezing Palestinians into an Impossible Mission Nikolas Kozloff Chile, a Country Geographically Located in South America "By Accident" William S. Lind Horatio Hornblower's Worst Nightmare Siegfried L. Sassoon A Statement Against the Continuation of the War Website of the Day Where You Want This Killin' Done?   April 11, 2007 R. T. Naylor Quebec's Lessons for the US: How "Wars on Terror" Should be Fought Vijay Prashad The Generation of IEDs and iPods Patrick Cockburn The Myth of Tal Afar Winslow T. Wheeler When Will the War Money Really Run Out? Jack Balkwill Prison for a Peacemaker: A Vietnam Vet Interviews Kathy Kelly Alan Farago Florida's Fundamentally Weak Environmental Movement Russell D. Hoffman The Carbon Offset Tax is Just Another Nuke Bailout Peter Rost, MD The Fine Print on Drug Industry Kickbacks Mike Whitney Doomsday for the Greenback? Dave Lindorff Torture and Selective Outrage Susie Day Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts Website of the Day Save the Internet!   April 10, 2007 James G. Abourezk How Syria Helped the US in the "War on Terror"-and How Bush Said "Thanks" Earl Ofari Hutchinson Why Imus Should be Fired-And Why He Won't Be Joshua Frank Democrats for War Lee Sustar How Concessions by UAW Lost Jobs Joseph Grosso Tiger Woods in Dubai: Luxury and Exploitation Nirmal Ghosh China and the Fate of the Tiger Robert Jensen Impeach the System Ramzy Baroud Not an Intellectual Squabble Paul Rockwell History Will Vindicate Lt. Ehren Watada Mario Joseph and Brian Concannon Solidaridad? Chávez in Haiti Fred Wilhelms Why the New Royalty Rates Hurt Artists Website of the Day Thaw!   April 9, 2007 Saul Landau Whining Imperialists Uri Avnery Shalom, Shin Bet Nicole Colson Sami Al-Arian's Nightmare: an Interview with Nahla Al-Arian Gideon Levy Israel Does Not Want Peace Corporate Crime Reporter Big Coal Invokes Reverse Nuremberg Defense Evelyn Pringle The Surge in Casualties Hill Kemp Mega Lessons from Iraq War, Year 5 Martha Rosenberg Monsanto's Desperate Plea: "Regulate Our Competitors!" Keith Rosenthal Behind Boston's Recent "Crime Wave" Jane Stillwater Green Zone Cabin Fever Website of the Day Support Norman Finkelstein April 7 / 8, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Dead Dogs Don't Bleed: How Giuliani Lost America Sara Roy A Jewish Plea Arno J. Mayer Back to Cleopatra's Nose: Bush-Bashing and Empire's Onward March Jeffrey St. Clair In the Realm of the Grizzly Kings Vicente Navarro Why Huntington and Beck Are Wrong Fidel Castro Where Have All the Bees Gone? And Other Reflections on the Internationalizaton of Genocide Fred Gardner Medical News from the Business Pages Ralph Nader The IRS Owes You Money David N. Rahni Test Tube Zealots: American Chemical Society Purges Iranian Chemists Arthur Neslen When an Anti-Semite is Not an Anti-Semite Pratyush Chandra Joseph Stiglitz's "Another World" Missy Beattie Enough Already! The Politics of Exasperation Marc Levy A Beginner's Guide to Combat Poets' Basement Reiss, Holt, Orloski and Louise Website of the Weekend Reactor Man   April 6, 2007 Franklin Lamb Why is Hezbollah on the Terrorism List? Gloria La Riva On the Case of the Cuban Five and Luis Posada Carriles Corporate Crime Reporter The Politics of Coal in West Virginia Ron Jacobs Good Friday, Beethoven and Patti Smith Felice Pace Simon Says: The Pro-Israel Bias of NPR Walter Brasch Treason in the White House? David Swanson Heroes, Sung and Unsung Sylvia Syracuse Roadside Rampage: Salvadoran Murders in Guatemala April 5, 2007 Patrick Cockburn A De Facto Hostage Exchange Tom Barry The Fred Thompson Factor Richard W. Behan Congressional Complicity Nicola Nasser Playing US Politics with Iraqi Blood for Oil Bernadine Dohrn The New and Old SDS: Convergence Not Division Laray Polk Lucky Dragon: Does the World Really Need a New H-Bomb? Helen Redmond Female Chauvinist Pigs?   April 4, 2007 Col. Dan Smith "Have You No Sense of Decency?": the Tillman Affair and the Moral Decay of the Army Joshua Frank Democratic Blood Money: Sen. Feinstein's War Profiteering Margaret Kimberly Of Confessions and Torture Sharon Smith Circuit City's Guinea Pigs: the Latest Trend in Corporate America Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon The Martin Luther King You Don't See on TV Martin Luther King,Jr. Beyond Vietnam Bill Quigley Incident at Fort Huachuca, the Army's Torture Training Center Dave Zirin Picking Chicago's Pockets with the Olympics Evelyn Pringle Drug Companies Want Women of Childrearing Years Peter Rost, MD Pfizer's Puny Fine Website of the Day Crash of the Honey Bees   April 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn US's Bungled Plan to Kidnap Iran's Top Spook Prompted hostage Taking Marjorie Cohn Coming Up Short on Habeas Corpus for Gitmo Detainees Brian M. Downing The Army's Road to Iraq Corporate Crime Reporter Coddling Pfizer: Praise the Criminal, Dis the Whistleblower Carol Norris A Psychologist on Sexual Assault: Yes, Virginia, There is a Sollution Ralph Nader Tailpipe Blues Dave Lindorff I Quit: A Movement of One (Or a Maybe a Million) Scott Bontz The Great Depletion Thomas Dolby Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Racism and the National Anthem Website of the Day Cockburn on BookTV April 2, 2007 Gary Leupp A Bogus Hostage Crisis Uri Avnery Condi in the Middle East: Olmert and the Pussycat James Petras Palestine: The Political Economy of a Disaster Norman Solomon McCain in Baghdad: Walking in McNamara's Footsteps Robert Fisk War of Humiliation Stanley Heller A Neocon Looks Two Conquests Ahead: The Ravings of James Woolsey Sherwood Ross How the Pentagon Cheats Iraq Vets Out of Medical Care and Disability Pay Monica Benderman On Keeping Men Alive: Report from Ft. Stewart Stephen Fleischman Winners and Losers in a Dog-Eat-Dog System Anne McElroy Dachel Never Mind the Mercury Website of the Day Midwestern Common Sense on the War March 31 / April 1, 2007 Cockburn / St. Clair That Was an Antiwar Vote? Fred Gardner How Corrupt is Malcolm Gladwell? Shilling for Enron and Breast Cancer Greg Moses The Pirates of Homeland Security Gary Leupp 300 vs. Iran (and Herodotus) Robert Fisk Shakespeare and War Roger Morris The Politics of the Witch Hunt Conn Hallinan The Price of Fire: Oil, Water and Resistance in Bolivia Kristin J. Anderson A Protocol for Death Jason Hribal California's Most Unhappy Cows John Ross Strange Fruit Down South Christopher Brauchli Bush and the Politics of Falsehoods: If You're Going to Lie, Lie Big David Underhill War Breeds Stranger Bedfellows Elizabeth Schulte The Pentagon's "Don't Ask" Disaster Ben Terrall Time for Lula to Stop Doing Bush's Dirty Work in Haiti Missy Beattie Guess Who Isn't Coming to Dinner: The Story of King Abdullah and the O-Word Sonja Karkar How Palestine Became Israel's Land Daniel Wolff Have You Heard the News? David Vest A Romanian Jazz Rebel Drops a Bomb on Paris Ron Jacobs Wynton Marsalis Checks In on the Land That Never Has Been Yet Poets' Basement Davies, Holt, Wigley and Landau Website of the Weekend Kansas City Rocks   March 30, 2007 Alan Maass Oil and the Empire Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity A Memo on Iran: Brinksmanship in Uncharted Waters Richard W. Behan George Bush's Land Mine: If Iraqis Get Revenue Sharing, Exxon Gets Their Oil Gabriel Kolko Israel's Last Chance William S. Lind Operation Anabasis Stedjan / Weis The Cluster Bomb Treaty: Again, It's the US vs. the World Kevin Zeese Is Bush Lame or Is Congress? David Busch Homeless in LA Fidel Castro Biofuels and Global Hunger CounterPunch News Service Mistrial in Olympia 15 Case Website of the Day Free Shaquanda Cotton March 29, 2007 Saul Landau Comparing Padillas Patrick Cockburn When Iraqi Cops Go on a Rampage Dave Lindorff War and the Futures Market: Oil Traders Fear an Attack on Iran Arthur Neslen Normalizing Injustice: Jaffa's Ugly Truth Michael Dickinson Incident at Westminster Abbey Ingmar Lee Plantskyyd: Planting Trees with Pig's Blood in British Columbia Aseem Shrivastava As India Goes Global, the Public Goes Private Marlene Martin Sacco and Vanzetti, Revisited Mahmoud El-Yousseph Wake Up, You Live in America! Michael Foley A Citizen's Peace Lobby Website of the Day Impeach Bush Club Parade March 28, 2007 Nicole Colson The Ongoing Persecution of Sami Al-Arian Harry Clark Michigan Peaceworks on Palestine Larry Everest Another $100 Billion to Continue the War Jonathan M. Feldman Citigroup, Property and Theft Dave Zirin Yet Another Book on Muhammad Ali (and Why I Wrote It) Jane Stillwater How Runaway Inflation Has Slipped Under the Radar Ayesha Ijaz Khan Pakistan's Cry for Justice Jim Wilfong Who Owns Maine's Water? Hawra Karama An Open Letter to Kanan Makiya, an Iraqi Uncle Tom Website of the Day Free Fire on Iraqi Civilians March 27, 2007 Iain Boal / Standard Schaefer British Petroleum and the New Greenmail Patrick Cockburn The Hostage Game Monica Benderman On Ending War: Is America Ready for the Troops When They Come Home? Corporate Crime Reporter Political Players and Single Payer Joshua Frank Dems in Power: Broken Promises and Bald-Faced Lies Harvey Wasserman Will Al Gore Deliver Us to Solartopia? Sen. Russell Feingold FBI Abuses of the Patriot Act Tillman Family Crimes and Cover Ups are Not "Missteps" Patrick Bond Zimbabwe's Descent David Judd Arbitrary Discipline at Columbia Website of the Day Why Work? March 26, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Seven Days on Iraq's Cruel Roads Uri Avnery Schoolbooks and Borders Greg Moses Hothouses for Hapless Masses on the Rio Grande Bill Hatch A Plague of Big Shots John V. Walsh The Democrats' War Funding Debacle Diane Christian God Does Not Love the Aggressor Dan La Botz The Immigration Movement at a Crossroads Frederico Fuentes Latin America Tells Bush to "Get Out!" Sunsara Taylor Democrats' Victory Means More Iraqi Deaths Mickey Z. Pat Tillman: Beyond the Hype Website of the Day DynCorp's Iraq Training Policy   March 24 / 25, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Where are the Laptop Bombardiers Now? Jeffrey St. Clair Nuclear Saviors?: Kyoto, Gore and the Atomic Lobby David Rosen An American Obituary: Anna Nicole Smith and the Exploitation of Nature Ron Jacobs The Political History of the Car Bomb Robert Fantina Vietnam and Iraq, the Rhetoric Remains the Same Alan Maass Why Ralph Nader Took a Stand Atul Gawande On Washing Hands: A Surgeon's Notes on How Infections Spread in Hospitals Marianne McDonald Staging Anti-Colonial Protest China Hand Zealots Scheme to Derail North Korea Accord Kaz Dziamka The Iroquois Way of Impeachment Andrew Wimmer The Nursemaid's Tale Don Monkerud World's Biggest Debtor Nation Anthony Papa Bong Hits 4 Jesus Case Matthew Provonsha Return of the Black Bloc Missy Beattie Calling Youth and Young Adults Stephen Fleischman Confrontation, At Last Poets' Basement Newberry, Laymon, Harley and Buknatski Website of the Weekend An Interview with Ron Jacobs Song of the Weekend "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" March 23, 2007 Saul Landau Return to Syria Patrick Cockburn Welcome to Iraq, Mr. Ban Greg Moses Protesting Immigrant Prisons in the Rio Grande Valley Rep. Ron Paul The War Funding Bill Franklin Lamb Will Hezbollah Hand Israel Its 6th Defeat? Stephen Gowans Mugabe Gets the Milosevic Treatment Roger Burbach Leftist Victory in Ecuador Dave Lindorff The Gutless Mini-Politics of the Congressional Democrats William S. Lind Candles in the Hurricane Alan Mammoser The New Rules of Food Russell Hoffman Al Gore's Nose is Glowing Website of the Day Global Outsourcing and the US Working Class   March 22, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Oil-Rich Kirkuk at the Melting Point Robin Blackburn Toxic Waste in the Sub-Prime Market Michael Donnelly Mr. Green Goes to Washington: Another Oscar Performance from Al Gore Uzma Aslam Khan Down Pakistan's No-Constitution Avenue Lee Sustar Bush's Braceros: The Ugly Truth About the Guest Worker Program Robert D. Skeels LA's Vicious War on the Homeless Rev. William Alberts The Forbidden C-Word Anne McElroy Dachel The Search for the Elusive Autism Gene Mickey Z. This is Your Brain on Meat Website of the Day Raimondo Does Hitchens   March 21, 2007 Tao Ruspoli A Conversation with Robbie Conal James Petras Meet the Global Ruling Class Fred Gardner A U.S. Army Pipe Dream Corporate Crime Reporter Cramer Comes Clean: Lies, Market Manipulation and Wall Street Faisal Kutty Too Guilty to Fly, Too Innocent to Charge? Robert Fantina U.S. Imperialism in Action Isabella Kenfield and Roger Burbach Brazilian Opposition to Bush-Lula Ethanol Accords Lucinda Marshall Missing in Action: Why is the Peace Movement Ignoring the Impact of War on Women? Winslow Wheeler Dem Budget Tricks: Reform Means What We Say It Means! Website of the Day Student Day of Action Against the War     March 20, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Iraq is a Vast, Blood-Drenched Human Disaster Winslow T. Wheeler The Blank Check War Sharon Smith Hillary's Cojones: Our Bleached-Blond Thatcher? Uri Avnery The New Palestinian Unity Government Stan Cox Down-to-a-Trickle Economics Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Hating the Rich Alan Farago Why Al Gore Soft-Peddled the Environment in 2000 Richard W. Behan Impeachment and Patriotism Juan Antonio Montecino Latin America Has Moved On David Krieger The Treaty of Tlatelolco Peter Rost, MD An Open Letter to Pfizer's CEO: $11 Million Salary, 36% Raise, 10,000 Fired Employees Mickey Z. A Cat-Eat-Cat World: Beyond the Pet Food Recall Website of the Day Bringing the War Home Webclip of the Day Sunsara Taylor Beats O'Reilly, Again   March 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Crime Blotter: 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Patrick Cockburn Operation Deepening Nightmare Stauber / Rampton Why Won't MoveOn Move Forward? Werther Plame Wars: Valerie Plame, the Washington Post and the Ghost of Joe McCarthy Noam Chomsky In Memory of Tanya Reinhart Jeff Leys Tap Dancing on Graves: How Democrats Bought the War Richard May And Then There Were None: Europe's Afghan Backlash Ron Jacobs Lessons of the Antiwar Movement and the Washington Post's Lessons of the Iraq War Mike Whitney Rove in the Dock Website of the Day Ringtones That Roar     March 17 / 18, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Here Comes Another "Crime Wave" John Scagliotti A Sissy's Manifesto Jeffrey St. Clair The Green Imposter: When Al Gore Was Veep Paul Craig Roberts The Confession Backfired Greg Moses Jailing Immigrant Mothers in El Paso Harry Clark Thrice-Told Tales: Those Israel-Syria Peace Talks Brian Cloughley In the Name of Improving People's Lives: Mounting Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan and Iraq Mehran Ghassemi An Interview with Sasan Fayazmanesh on the US, Israel and Iran William Loren Katz A Disturbing Expulsion: Racism and the Cherokee Nation John Ross Being a Zapatista Where You Live Ralph Nader Ban the Bomblets! Walter Brasch An Intolerant Minority: the Witch Hunt Against Gays in the Military Samer Assad The Palestinian Unity Government: Another for US Diplomacy Dave Zirin Bowie Kuhn: Death of a Baseball Reactionary Ron Jacobs The Darker Nation's: Remembering and Re-examining the Third World Missy Beattie No to War and Pace Don Santina First, They Came for the Democrats Sami Adwan What Hillary Should Know About Palestinian Schoolbooks Dr. Susan Block Gods of Spring: the Erotics of the Equinox Poets' Basement Reed, Landau, Engel, Buknatski Website of the Weekend God Save Helen Mirren   March 16, 2007 R. T. Naylor The Political Economy of Diamonds Paul Craig Roberts The Last Days of Constitutional Rule Joshua Frank Obama's Israel Problem Diane Farsetta How Reporters Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Nuclear Front Groups Tom Barry Tancredo's Putsch: Anti-Immigrant Agenda Veers Hard Right Stephen Lendman Plays from a Political Fake Book: Congress's Phony Opposition to War Al Krebs Compounding Infamy: Chiquita, Its Workers and Colombia's Death Squads Jackie Corr Senator Schumer and the Corruption Culture Ramzy Baroud Palestinians Must Redefine Struggle Reza Fiyouzat The Chinese Way of Capitalism Website of the Day Introducing: the iRak   March 15, 2007 Alison Weir Strip-Searching Children at Israeli Checkpoints Patrick Cockburn Baghdad Under Surge Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity Memo to Congressional Leaders on Iraq Funding: First Stop the Bleeding Franklin Spinney Of Character and Contractors: the Unauthorized Rumsfeld Standard Schaefer Biofuels and the Green Resistance Conn Hallinan The Right's Stuff in Africa: Neocons, Evangelicals and Sudan Maureen Webb Another Patriot Act Abuse Sonja Karkar Rachel Corrie and Palestine Margaret Kimberly The Profits of Self-Hatred: Malkin and D'Souza, Incorporated Anthony Papa The New Capones: It's Time to Rethink Drug Prohibition Katherine Hancy Wheeler Bush's Latin American Tour: Good Will Lost Video of the Day The Easiest Targets Website of the Day Memo to Kucinich: Watch Your Back!   March 14, 2007 Tao Ruspoli A Conversation with Peter Linebaugh on the Slave Trade, Magna Carta and the State of the Left Philip Agee The Decline of the US, the Rise of Latin America Bruce Dixon The Digital Redlining of African-Americans John Walsh How One Senator Could End the War Sunsara Taylor Red Light, Green Light: the Democrats and Iran William Johnson Still Reeling from Katrina: The Spirited Strike at Pascagoula Shipyards Richard Thieme Entitlement and Empire Jeffrey Klein Right-Wing Academic Values Nicola Nasser This Time, Israeli is Missing an Historic Opportunity Dave Lindorff Political Hide-and-Seek with the Democrats Website of the Day Oil Change   March 13, 2007 Catherine Wilkerson, M.D. Scenes from a Cop Riot Jonathan Cook The Real Goal of Israel's Invastion of Lebanon Robert Bryce Beyond Redemption: the Legacy of George the Second Corporate Crime Reporter Coal-Powered Democrats Pierre Rimbert Libération and the Evolution of French Neoliberalism Dave Lindorff What's Good for Halliburton is Good ... for Dubai Elizabeth Schulte The Repackaging of John Edwards Norman Solomon The Pragmatism of Prolonged War Kevin Zeese The Democrats' Fraudulent Iraq Exit Plan Jeff Conant Greeting Rumsfeld in Taos Website of the Day Tacoma and the Big Heat     March 12, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Patriot Act Unbound Col. Dan Smith Ghost Prisoners, Shadowy Jails and Secret Trials Paul Craig Roberts Neocons in Kafkaland Ingmar Lee The Sentencing of Betty Krawczyk: a 78-Year-Old Eco-Heroine Fred Gardner Cannabis for the Wounded: Another Walter Reed Scandal Ron Jacobs Showdown at Port Tacoma: Confronting the War Machine in the Northwest Ralph Nader Send the Bush Twins to Iraq! John Ross Political Prisoners in Calderon's Mexico Stephen Fleischman Bush's Latin American Slip Eva Carazo Vargas Why We Reject CAFTA Website of the Day Mountain Justice Spring Break   March 9 / 11, 2007 Sameer Dossani Interview with Noam Chomsky: War, Neoliberalism and Empire in the 21st Century Jeffrey St. Clair Crude Alliance: The Bi-Partisan Politics of Oil Dave Marsh Bono's Bullshit: Not One Red Cent Patrick Cockburn Shia Pilgrims Die Despite US Offensive Jennifer Van Bergen A Gonzo Argument: Alberto Gonzales's Defense of NSA Domestic Spying James P. Stevenson Pardon Whom? Libby and the Cheney Unseen Arthur J. Versluis Crusade for Commercialism Corporate Crime Reporter Not a Dime's Worth of Difference: Congress and Corporate Crime Missy Beattie Too Much Info, Newt!: Sex, God and Praying Michael Simmons Annie Get Your Gums: Why I Like Ann Coulter Kevin Zeese Making Democrats Pay the Price: Voting Against the War is No Longer Enough David Swanson Shocking Video: The Dark Side of the Democrats John A. Murphy Are the Congressional Democrats Spineless? Dave Lindorff Bush Dodges a Constitutional Bullet in New Mexico: Abetted by Democrats Nikolas Kozloff Lights! Camera! Chavez! Christopher Fons Bush Goes to Latin America: Is It All About (N)PR? Mike Roselle A Thousand Miles of Bad River Mike Mejia Justice for Sibel Edmonds Susie Day Anna Nicole Smith Bombs Iran! Michael Donnelly LA Story: Rock Stars, Porn Stars and Peace Tao Ruspoli Just Say Know (Parts 4 and 5) Poets' Basement Reed, Laymon, Mezmer and Harley Website of the Weekend Japanese Dolphin Massacre   March 8, 2007 Elaine Cassel The Tragic Case of Jose Padilla Yifat Susskind Iraq's Other War: Violence Against Women Under US Occupation Corporate Crime Reporter Politics and the Prosecutors Col. Dan Smith The Sins of Walter Reed William S. Lind The Washington Dodgers Mark Engler Bush's Latin American Spring Break Roger Burbach With Negroponte as Tour Director, Bush's Trip Destined to Fail Dana Cloud Return of the Campus Witch Hunts: David Horowitz and the Thought Police Isabella Kenfield Brazil's Ethanol Pland: Breeding Rural Poverty and Environmental Degradation Lucinda Marshall We Stand with the Women of the World Tao Ruspoli Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction (Part 3) Website of the Day Filibuster for Peace March 7, 2007 Christopher Ketcham What Did Israel Know in Advance of the 9/11 Attacks? Christopher Ketcham The Kuala Lumpur Deceit: a CIA Cover Up Alexander Cockburn / Jeffrey St. Clair Ketcham's Story: Coming in From the Cold Winslow T. Wheeler Mismeasuring the Defense Budget Sean Donahue Free Scooter Libby! Dave Lindorff The Fall Guy Has Fallen Evelyn Pringle Psychosis and Mania: ADHD Drug Warnings Come Too Late for Many Tao Ruspoli Just Say Know: a Personal Look at Drugs and Drug Addiction Website of the Day Debating Iraq: Gaffney Against the World!   March 6, 2007 Gary Leupp Meet Eliot Cohen: "As Extremist a Neocon and Warmonger as It Gets" Uri Avnery Esterina Tartman: The Big Mouth of Israeli Fascism Patrick Cockburn The War on Terror is a Bust: Bush is Now Al Qaeda's Top Recruiter Saul Landau World in Crisis, Candidates in Denial Corporate Crime Reporter John Edwards' Big Lie Ron Jacobs The Legacy of Lordstown: The Union Makes Us Strong! Mike Roselle Judi Bari: Ten Years Gone P. Sainath Neoliberalism and the Ideology of the Cancer Cell Joshua Frank Dump the Dems, Unite Against the War Aniket Alam Women's Day, Lenin and a Riot in Copenhagen Dave Zirin Resurrecting Don Barksdale: Basketball's Forgotten Pioneer Website of the Day Physicians for a National Health Program   March 5, 2007 Greg Moses Holding Suzi Hazahza for Profit Patrick Cockburn Exodus of Iraq's Ancient Minorities James Petras Bush vs. Chavez Frida Berrigan US Nuclear Hypocrisy and Iran Marjorie Cohn Conscientious Objector Faces Court-Martial: the Case of Augustín Aguayo Douglas Kammen and S.W. Hayati The Rice Crisis in East Timor Sen. Barack Obama On Israel and AIPAC: "We Must Preserve Our Total Commitment to Our Unique Defense Relationship with Israel" Michael Young Sy Hersh and Iran: the Dark Side of Spun a Lot? Dave Lindorff It's the People of Washington vs. Pelosi, et al Sonja Karkar Raiding Nablus: Israel's Hot Winter Offensive Website of the Day How Obama Learned to Love Israel   March 3 / 4, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Persecution of Sami Al-Arian Corporate Crime Reporter "No Fingernails, No Good:" Al-Arian Prosecutor's Anti-Muslim Bias Jeffrey St. Clair Glory Boy and the Snail Darter: Al Gore, the Origins of a Hypocrite Patrick Cockburn War Reporting in Iraq: Only Locals Need Apply Ralph Nader Hillary, Inc.: Sen. Clinton and Corporate America M. Shahid Alam American Mamlukes Gilad Atzmon From Esther to AIPAC Fred Gardner It's Official!: Cannabis Reduces Pain George Ciccariello-Maher The Fourth World War Started in Venezuela Rock & Rap Confidential Do the James Brown!: "No One Could Speak More Authoritatively for Blacks" Gillian Russom The Court Martial of Agustín Aguayo Michael McPhearson My Small Act of Civil Disobedience Kevin Zeese The Democrats and the Peace Movement: Who Owns Whom? Sunsara Taylor Four Years of an Unjust War Wendy Thompson Re-Organizing the UAW Kenneth Rexroth Gibbon's "Decline and Fall" Missy Beattie Regarding Cheney Don Monkerud Jesus Turned Away at US Border Tina Louise Stuffed with Terror, Starved of Dreams Poets' Basement Richards, Landau and Davies Website of the Weekend John Prine: Flag Decal   March 2, 2007 Roger Morris Cheney's Bagram Ghosts Phil Gasper Prisoners of Ideology Mike Roselle Buffalo Gore: The Blood-Stained Snow of Yellowstone Robert Bryce The Ethanol Scam John V. Walsh Who is He This Time?: Kerry's Strange Call to Filibuster the War Sherwood Ross Bush and Walter Reed Hospital: Praise the Care, Slash the Budget China Hand Who Let North Korea Get the Bomb? David Rosen To Cut or Not to Cut?: the Politics of Circumcision in America Chris Genovali Connecting the Dots Peter Harley The Wall, Apartheid and Mandela Website of the Day Courage to Resist   March 1, 2007 Laura Carlsen Return to Sender: Migrants as Globalization's Junk Mail Paul Craig Roberts The Tragedy of a Dozen Evil Men Ray McGovern How Far is Iran from the Bomb? Who the Hell Knows? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Theater of the Absurd Najum Mustaq America's Musharraf Dilemma Brent Bowden The War on Terror and the Terror of War Tina Richards Demoralizing the Troops? The Mother of an Iraq War Vet Responds Ethan Nadelman Mexico and the Drug War Mike Stark "Tough on Crime" is the Problem, Not a Solution Wadner Pierre / Jeb Sprague Haiti's Poor Under a State of Siege by UN Mike Whitney Market Meltdown: the Dead Hand of Greenspan Website of the Day Dylan Hears a Who     Subscribe Online

Weekend Edition April 21 / 22, 2007 French Foreign Policy and the Presidential Election The Absent Middle East By DIANA JOHNSTONE The French presidential elections will be followed by elections for the National Assembly, whose composition will largely determine the extent to which the new president can keep her or his domestic promises--within the limits of European Union regulations and directives. Foreign policy, however, is still the privileged domain of the President. Theoretically, the one field in which the presidential election is truly decisive is foreign policy. So it is somewhat disconcerting that discussion of foreign policy is almost entirely absent from the current French presidential election campaign, whose first phase ends Sunday, when all but two of the twelve candidates will be eliminated in the first round of voting. The three candidates with a chance of being elected--Nicolas Sarkozy, Ségolène Royal, François Bayrou--have had practically nothing of interest to say about the outside world, and notably about the crucial Middle East. This could mean that the French are not interested, and so that there are no votes to be gained by talking about it. Or it can mean that to be elected, it is safer to avoid the subject. Let's try the second hypothesis. When a marginal candidate, such as the anti-globalization champion José Bové, holds a meeting in Paris, he speaks of the usual left topics : jobs, housing, public services, rights of immigrants, and his own emblematic crusade against GMO plantations. Mild applause. But when he denounces the war in Iraq, or defends the rights of the Palestinians, the crowd bursts into loud cheers and sustained applause. But Bové has nothing to lose. One can only guess what might await whichever of the three leading candidates who would dare campaign on the theme of keeping France out of U.S. wars in the Middle East and supporting the rights of Palestinians. It is a theme that many voters would heartily approve. The media, however, would raise cries of scandal, accusing the intrepid candidate of irresponsibility and incompetence--or worse Ségolène in the Middle East A sample of the danger of foreign policy initiatives was provided by Ségolène Royal's visit to Lebanon last December. Following her trademark approach of "listening to everybody", the Socialist candidate brushed aside advice from Druze leader Walid Joumblatt to "go home right away" and insisted on hearing what all sides had to say. A meeting was arranged with the foreign affairs committee of the Lebanese parliament. Among those who attended was an elected representative of Hezbollah, Ali Ammar, who, speaking Arabic, spoke of "the great role France has to play in Lebanon if it can detach itself from the madness of American policy". According to the report in the local Francophone newspaper, L'Orient-Le Jour, Ammar added that the Lebanese were "proud of their friendship with France and of the fact that Hezbollah's resistance [to Israeli occupation--the origin of its existence] was inspired by the French resistance to Nazi occupation". This was transformed into a "scandal" by confused reports that Royal had allowed Ammar to liken Israel to Nazism in her presence without reacting. In response, she pointed out that neither she nor the French ambassador at her side had heard any mention of Nazism, and that if they had heard such "inadmissible, abominable, odious" remarks, they would have "left the room". (It was confirmed that the press and the French candidate had been listening to different interpreters.) Even that wasn't enough, and commentators have continued to speak of her "foreign policy blunder" in Lebanon as evidence that she is unqualified. For the pro-Israel lobby, the mere fact of listening to a representative of Hezbollah is unacceptable. Royal's scandalous willingness to hear the other side was compared unfavorably to the "courage" of the 2002 Socialist candidate, Lionel Jospin, who when visiting the Near East as prime minister denounced Hezbollah as a "terrorist" organization. Now, it so happens that, in the real world outside the media, that statement by Jospin was negatively interpreted by much of the French population as a gratuitous concession to Israel and its lobby. And in conversations, just about everyone concedes that as President, Jospin would have followed the United States into the catastrophic Iraq quagmire, unlike Chirac. The fact is that despite the sniping from commentators and even members of her own Socialist Party, as the first round campaign is ending, Ségolène Royal is doing much better in the polls than Jospin was doing before his humiliating elimination by Jean-Marie Le Pen. She has actually run a much more vigorous campaign, making quite as much sense, and usually more, than her main rivals--while, unlike the male candidates, having to make strategic choices of wardrobe. True, the whole spectrum has been moved to the right by the European Union straitjacket, but she is still relatively to the left, at least in words, at least during the campaign. But how would she be in foreign policy? This would inevitably depend largely on her choice of advisors. Foreign policy is not the major area of competence of most professional politicians, whose primary concern is to work their own home turf. An exception is Jean-Pierre Chevènement, the independent-minded former presidential candidate, who this time decided to back Ségolène Royal, hoping to give her some useful advice. He, like such veteran realist diplomats as Hubert Védrine, might be able to preserve some remnants of France's independent foreign policy under a Royal presidency. On the other hand, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the Socialist with solid business backing, is angling to be prime minister if Ségolène wins--or even if Bayrou wins, for that matter. DSK is every bit as pro-Israel and pro-U.S. as Sarkozy, if not more so. The case of Pascal Boniface U.S. foreign policy has largely fallen into the hands of lobbies and privately-financed think tanks. In France, the foreign ministry, known by its address on the Quai d'Orsay, still plays the leading role. The Quai d'Orsay has a tradition of realistic appraisal of situations and French interests. But a generational change is underway, and some observers fear that the next generation will be heavily influenced by the media, the pro-Israel lobby and the sort of moralism that is used by both to justify U.S. foreign policy adventures. Pascal Boniface is the director of the Institut de Relations Internationales et Stratégiques (IRIS) in Paris, a think tank linked to the Socialist Party. In April 2001, he wrote a note for PS general secretary François Hollande urging the party to overcome its fear of taking a clear position on Palestine. As a professor, he was witness to students' growing sympathy for the Palestinians and outrage at their treatment. To the party's fears of "losing the Jewish vote", Boniface replied that making policy according to the wishes of a "community" constituency was not only unprincipled, but in the long run dangerous. The conspicuous influence of the organized Jewish community on policy, he warned, could only inspire the rise of an opposing lobby based in the much larger Muslim community. This threatened to divide France along ethnic or religious community lines, a prospect deeply dreaded by Socialists. For having made this observation, Boniface became the target of a campaign led by Jewish commentators and organizations which came close to destroying his career, even though he is a stalwart defender of Israel and his views on the Middle East conflict are quite moderate. However, he is still there, and the upshot of the incident may be that, in France as in the United States, impatience is growing with the lobby even in mainstream circles, and even in the Socialist Party, which is traditionally Israel's strongest supporter. Human rights These days, nobody can defend Israel's actions in the occupied territories of Palestine. Distraction rather than defense is the pro-Israel strategy. Attention is focused on the Iranian « threat to Israel's existence » or else on Darfur, where many more people are being killed. All three leading French candidates have signed onto the promise to "do something" about Darfur, probably economic sanctions against Sudan. If the younger generation is sensitive to the plight of the Palestinians, it is also very sensitive to human rights in general, and scornful of political realism. Sarkozy did nothing to improve his chances with his obsequious performance in Washington. His handshake with George W. Bush is the favorite illustration on the « anybody but Sarkozy » web sites. If he should become president, the right-wing candidate would certainly love to fortify an alliance with George W. and the neo-conservatives. But in all probability, they won't be there much longer. Sarkozy will have arrived too late. On the other hand, Ségolène Royal paints a glowing picture of a future presidential sisterhood with President Hillary Clinton. It is not clear whether she has taken the full measure of Hillary's dismal foreign policy outlook. Diana Johnstone lives in Paris. She can be reached at dianajohnstone@compuserve.com

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