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Today's Stories July 31, 2007 Kathy Kelly Dancing in the Darkness: the Story of Abu Mahmoud July 30, 2007 Marjorie Cohn: Independent Counsel Time Patrick Cockburn Four Million Iraqis on the Run Peter Quinn Irish in America Uri Avnery A Warning to Tony Blair John Ross Zapatista Intergalatica Lands on Earth Ron Jacobs Free the San Francisco 8 David Vest Farewell, Old Friend: Another Legend of the Blues is Gone Jeffrey St. Clair T99 Nelson: Seduced by a Legend of the Blues Website of the Day Collateral Repair Project   July 28 / 29, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Now the NYT is Selling "Bloodbath" as a Rationale to Stay in Iraq Ralph Nader Rotten Justice Robert Fantina American Lies and Iraqi Nationalism Fred Gardner Prohibitionists Attack, Reformers Fundraise   Yves Engler Handwashing and the Bottomline   July 27, 2007 John Ross Bombing Pemex--or Not? Arthur Neslen Gaza was a Gas for Blair Dave Lindorff Declaring the US a Battlefield: Martial Law is Now a Real Threat Julene Blair The Environmentalist Within Christopher Brauchli Bush Uses Children as Shock Troops in His War on Socialized Medicine Jesse Hagopian Fund the Wounded, Not the War Charles Modiano Manufacturing a Villain: Sports Illustrated's Vilification of Barry Bonds Bill Day The Hollow Environmentalism of Leonardo DiCaprio Walter Brasch Leaders Afraid to Lead M.D. Mitchell Farm Based Camps Website of the Day Fighting Sarcoma   July 26, 2007 Kathleen Christison The Siren Song of Elliot Abrams Andy Worthington Why the Pentagon's Gitmo Study is a Joke Clancy Chassay How the Bush White House Seeks to Destroy Lebanon Marjorie Cohn Showdown Over Executive Privilege Susie Day Apartheid Americana David Price Tour de Witch Hunt: Drugs, Diaries and Purges Marie Trigona Argentina's "Dirty War" Crimes Trial: The Torturer Priest Norman Solomon Media Spin on Iraq: We're Leaving (Sort Of) William S. Lind How to Win in Iraq Natsu Saito Ward Churchill and the Regents at the University of Colorado John Stauber Netroots and the Iraq War: Does Ending It Matter to Them Anymore? Website of the Day Sticking It to the Man   July 25, 2007 Andy Worthington Gains and Losses at Gitmo Gary Leupp Bush Speechwriter, Michael Gerson, Calls for Attack on Syria Ray McGovern The Sad Decline of John Conyers Dr. Susan Block Bonobo Bashing in the New Yorker Joshua Frank Hillary's Neocon: the Imperial Vision of Richard Holbrooke Tina Richards What Harry Reid Doesn't Know About His Own Bill Ben Terrall Indonesia's Bloody Brand of CounterTerrorism Farzana Versey God Acquitted!: Lessons from the Case of Darwood Ibrahim Mohammad Ali Salih A Bomb in My Briefcase? Laura Carlsen A Strange Homecoming: Reflections on the First US Social Forum Ron Jacobs Come to Kennebunkport! Sunsara Taylor Knocked Up is F**ked Up Website of the Day Wal-Mart's Flip Flops: Feet Killers July 24, 2007 Saul Landau How to Walk in Bushtime Kathy Kelly The Plight of Iraqi Refugees in Jordan Russell Mokhiber The Michael Vick / George Bush Thing M. Shahid Alam Islam Now, China Then Patrick Cockburn and Anne Penketh Meeting in Baghdad Dave Lindorff Overcoming John Conyers Binoy Kampmark You Tube You Can't: Failure of a Medium Richard Neville Murdoch's Transplant: a Warning to the Wall Street Journal Cindy Sheehan We Must Move Beyond Politics as Usual Evelyn Pringle Anti-Depressants and Birth Defects: Why is the CDC Downplaying the Risks? Norman Solomon Media Corrections We'd Like to See CP Newswire Reading Harry Potter Not Sinful Website of the Day Sea Islands Black Heritage Festival   July 23, 2007 Andy Worthington Narcolepsy on Gitmo Detainees Uri Avnery A Trap for Fools Patrick Cockburn Turkish Prime Minister Threatens to Invade Northern Iraq Sousan Hammad The Children Without a Title John Walsh Todd Gitlin's Nader Fixation Harvey Wasserman Spinning Kashiwazaki: PR Flacks Rush to Aid of Crippled Nuke Martha Rosenberg The Life and Times of a Hog-Hanging Farmer Collin Baber Here Come the MRAPs: Resurrecting Apartheid Armor for Iraq Reza Fiyouzat Iran's Forgotten Anti-Nuke Movement Stephen Lendman Saving a President: Scare-Mongering and Executive Orders Website of the Day The Port Huron Project   July 21 / 22, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Giuliani and the Dogs of War Werther How to Read a National Intelligence Estimate Ralph Nader Atomic Blowback David Keen Buy Hard: How to Sell an Endless War Fred Gardner Karl Rove, Pothead: When Good Drugs Happen to Bad People Gary Leupp Edelman's Edict: Is Hillary "Reinforcing Enemy Propaganda?" Robert Fantina Fear in Iraq Saker The Future of Palestine: an Interview with Jonathan Cook Rannie Amiri Nasrallah in the Crosshairs: How will the Third Lebanon War Start? Mike Whitney The Crisis in Hedgistan Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD The Hidden Injuries of Powerlessness: Linking Alienation and Dissociation Monica Benderman Facing the Truth Dan Bacher Deltagate: the Politics of Fish Kills Michael Baney Fujimori's Long Race From Justice Missy Beattie Here, There and Everywhere Ron Jacobs Tremble, Tyrants Adam Engel Radical Language: an Introduction Thomas Naylor California Split: an Open Letter to Schwarzenegger Poets' Basement Landau, Ford and Engel Website of the Weekend Surge in Action   July 20, 2007 Eliza Szabo Fatal Neglect: Civilian Casualties in Afghanistan Pam Martens Doctoring the News: CNN's Sanjay Gupta, Laura Bush and Merck Alan Farago Winners and Losers in the Housing Market Crash Harvey Wasserman Lies and Leaks: The Earthquake That Screamed "No Nukes!" Marjorie Cohn Iraqis will be the Deciders Dave Zirin White Noise and the Black Athlete Anthony DiMaggio American Public Opinion and Israel Scott Liebertz Oaxaca on Edge Linn Washington, Jr. British Cops Assault Rape Allegations Bill Piper / Anthony Papa Flying High?: The Political Junkets of Bush's Drug Czar Ramzy Baroud Bush's War Policy: When Time Heals Nothing Website of the Day The Prankster Art of Mark Jenkins   July 19, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Next Invasion of Iraq Remi Kanazi Is This Ben Gurion or Hell?: a Palestinian Adventure Through Israel's Largest Airport Winslow T. Wheeler The Surging Costs of the Iraq War Sharon Smith Democrats and Health Care: Behind the Rhetoric Dave Lindorff Killing Cabbies in Iraq Conn Hallinan Have Gun, Will Travel: Mercenaries in Iraq and Afghanistan D. K. Wilson The Michael Vick Case Pulls Back the Veil on Who We Really Are Joshua Frank Democrats as Leviathan: Another Step Toward War with Iran Norman Solomon The Ghost of Wayne Morse Russell Hoffman Rattling the Reactor: Quakes, Fires and Leaks at the World's Largest Nuke Ray McGovern Bush's Wooden Headedness Kills Website of the Day Protesting Power July 18, 2007 Brenda Norrell Spy Towers on the US Border Col. Dan Smith How the US Could "Lose" Saudi Arabia Martha Rosenberg Lord of Crookharbour: the Trial of Conrad Black Conn Hallinan Bombing and Spraying Afghanistan Binoy Kampmark The SIM Card Terror Case Patrick Bond / Rehana Dada Who Killed Sajida Khan? Tom Johnson The Long Road ... to Nowhere Paul Craig Roberts A Free Press or a Ministry of Truth? Bob Quellos Pushing the Poor Out of House and Home Felice Pace Falling for Lieberman's Iran Resolution Robert Weissman National Health Insurance: More Humane and More Efficient CP Newswire Shocking Report Showing Involvement of US Psychologists in Torture Website of the Day Gilad Atzmon Live!   July 17, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Just Another Day in Iraq: 100 Fathers, Mothers and Children Killed Marjorie Cohn Out of Control: Executive Power Plays Evelyn Pringle Inside Bush's FDA David Rosen Moral Hypocrisy on the Hill: the Christian Right, Sexual Scandal and the Pleasures of the Courtesan Susan Miller Width Matters: Displacement and Israel's Wall Franklin Lamb Did the UN Cave to Israel on Lebanon's Shabaa Farms? Don Monkerud Considering Victory in Iraq Harvey Wasserman Nuclear Surge Russell Hoffman Japan Dodges a Radioactive Bullet Dave Lindorff Feingold Turns to Dross Dave Zirin Reclaiming Sports as True Fiction Website of the Day Che at the UN: 1964   July 16, 2007 Gary Leupp Cheney Urges Bush to Strike Iran Ellen Cantarow The Untold Story of Iraqi Women Paul Craig Roberts Impeach Now Allan J. Lichtman The D.C. Madam's Public Service Dan Bacher Cheney and the Klamath: Was the Veep Behind the Nation's Worst Salmon Kill? Patrick Cockburn The Killing of Khalid W. Hassan Manuel Garcia, Jr. Property is Racism James Brooks AIPAC and Mahmoud Abbas: the Undemocratic Road to Defeat Liaquat Ali Khan The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan Julie Flint Suleiman Jamous in Limbo Website of the Day Free Suleiman Jamous!   July 14 / 15. 2007 Alexander Cockburn Support Their Troops? Andy Worthington Gitmo's Tangled Web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majhid Khan, Dubious US Convictions and a Dying Man Ralph Nader Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence Robert Fantina The Illegalities of the Iraq War Ron Jacobs Architecture as Military Strategy Joshua Frank Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray: An Interview with Joe Bageant Conn Hallinan Guns, Foundations and Free Trade: How the Right Targets Africa Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD War and Dissociation John Ross No En Nuestro Nombre!: a Letter to the Mexican Antiwar Movement Fred Gardner Who's Afraid of Cannabidiol? Rannie Amiri A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak Charles Modiano ESPN's Rap Sheet: Pacman as Black Man Anthony DiMaggio America's Parochial Press China Hand Executive Orders and Coercive Diplomacy Missy Comley Beattie Reprobate Rhetoricians Dr. James J. Murtagh, Jr. Harry Potter Battles Big Brother Kenneth Rexroth On Thomas More's "Utopia" Poets' Basement Engel, Davies and Orloski Website of the Weekend GOP Sex Hypocrites: a Slideshow

July 31, 2007 The Story of Abu Mahmoud Dancing in the Darkness By KATHY KELLY Amman, Jordan. Last weekend was an important one, regarding education, here in Jordan. Jordanian high school students learned the results of exams qualifying them (or not) for University studies. Television news showed students - among the 52% who passed - dancing for joy. And, King Abdullah announced that Jordan will open its public schools to Iraqi students under fifteen years of age. Along with this news came a UNHCR request for $129 million in funding to help provide schooling for Iraqi children living in neighboring countries, especially Jordan and Syria. I hope this will be good news for several of Abu Mahmoud’s children who have already missed three years of school. Abu Mahmoud came to Jordan three years ago, after assailants attacked him while he was driving home from his job, in Kirkuk, Iraq. He has pictures of his bullet-ridden car. Having narrowly escaped, he and the family moved into a dingy apartment in Amman, Jordan. Since then, none of his children have attended school. He begged the authorities at one school to permit his oldest son, Mahmoud, to just sit in the classroom and listen, but it wasn’t allowed. With the government's new ruling, Mahmoud and his brothers, Ahmed and Ali, may be able to gain admission and perhaps even some remedial help in a Jordanian school. Their sister, Najima, is sixteen years old. It seems that the new ruling won’t open classrooms to children over fifteen years of age. Although Najima has missed formal schooling for the past three years, she experienced a very unusual kind of education during two of these years. Slight and quite beautiful, Najima worked in a printing factory, ten hours a day five days a week, for very little money, making books instead of reading them. The paper-cutting machine she operated was much larger than she is, and I asked her if she ever had trouble with it. “No!” she replied, “Never! And I learned how to lift very heavy loads.” She’s proud of her skill, and should be. The family relied on her income as the only means to help them make ends meet. Her father had sought work, but he was caught, twice, for working “illegally.” The second time, co-workers had to beg the Jordanian police not to deport him, and the police agreed, but he never risked returning to work. If he is deported across the Jordanian-Iraq border, he could be beheaded, as has reportedly happened to many Shi’a people who were taken to the border and had no choice but to ride along the exceedingly dangerous highway from the border into Iraq. Najima told me she felt proud of her father because of the work he did in Iraq. In one of his jobs, he had been part of a team, in the northern governorate of Kirkuk, which helped educate Iraqis about democracy following the U.S. invasion. He had also helped to resettle homeless Iraqis who were evicted from housing granted them under Saddam Hussein’s regime. He was the “go-to” guy for many families that struggled to obtain housing, blankets, food, and health care. When he came to Amman, he hoped that the U.S. authorities might help him to resettle, since he had clearly risked his life working for a U.S. NGO. But he has yet to be granted even temporary refugee status, a necessary step before being allowed to approach the U.S. Embassy for a visa. Now, he feels he has nowhere to go, and no one in Jordan to whom he can turn. Najima has stopped working at the factory. Her father could no longer bear the anguish and humiliation of watching his little daughter work so hard. What’s more, he learned that Najima was being paid much less than other older workers. Najima leaned on her father’s shoulder, as we talked, but sat up straight when she wanted to make a point about her factory work. She was happy that all of the customers knew her. One day, when the owner was away, someone entered the shop and asked who was in charge? “I am!” she said. This story became a favorite amongst many of the customers who were no doubt charmed by the pretty, elfin child. I told her that when I was 17, making money for college, I worked in a Chicago meat packing factory, slinging nearly frozen pork loins onto the conveyor belt of the machine that injected them with pickle juice. We laughed together, sharing “foreman” stories. I recalled not understanding when the foreman was shouting, “Andele! Andele!” – which means “Speed up! Speed up!” in Spanish. I would generally smile and wave, thinking he meant, “Hello,” and then feel baffled when this made him angry. “I know this!” she said, easily identifying with my zany memory. “Yes, I understand!” I told her about a film, “Dancer in the Dark,” in which a woman from Iceland, a famous star named Bjork, plays the role of a factory worker trying to help her son who is going blind, as she herself is, from a hereditary disease. The woman commits a murder rather than allow someone to rob her of the money she has saved for her son’s treatment. The film zeroes in on how members of her community react to her and judge her, some giving her aid, others seeking her death. Najima listened attentively, nodding her head and telling me, again, that she understands. Abu Mohammed’s parents are now here with the family. They left after a neighbor’s small son was killed by an explosive just outside his home. Much of the neighborhood decided it was too dangerous to stay and left homes, cars, and favorite belongings behind them as they fled the country. Abu Mahmoud’s children eagerly welcomed the grandparents into the family fold. Fourteen year old Mahmoud sat next to his grandfather, massaging his feet; six year old Ali sat in his grandfather’s lap and the ten year old brother, Majid, leaned against his shoulder. The grandmother, sitting next to me, occasionally took my hand in hers, smiling softly. When Abu Mahmoud’s wife entered the room to collect empty tea glasses, the children scrambled to help her. But of course the arrival of Abu Mahmoud’s parents puts the family in even greater financial insecurity. His father has diabetes; his mother, heart disease. Unable to wait until an appointment could be available through a local charity, he took her to a Jordanian heart specialist, whose fee has cut heavily into the funds he has available for rent, water and electricity. Majid rolled up his pant leg and showed me stitches he recently needed after he fell on broken glass and gashed his leg. This emergency cost the family the equivalent of a month’s electricity and water. Last week, when I visited with Abu Mahmoud, he received a phone call from a cousin who had fled from a death threat and is now living with his pregnant wife and two small children in a Syrian border camp, under very strained circumstances. Distraught by the news and despairing of life in Jordan or Syria, he told me he sometimes feels so desperate that he thinks of risking a return to Iraq in hopes of finding some means there of providing for his family, although, of course (after calming down) he admits this is a crazed notion. . Last night, I sat with an Iraqi friend who told me he feels like he and many Iraqis are in a cave, a very dark cave. “But God doesn’t create this darkness,” my friend said. “People are responsible. And we will be judged by the ways we seek to solve problems.” I responded, “You have a very deep faith,” “Yes,” he said, “I’m grateful to God for this faith. Without it, I think I would become psychologically sick.” Before leaving the home of Abu Mahmoud, I asked Najima what she would most like to study when next she gets a chance, as I hope she someday will, to be in school. “Science!” she said, her eyes dancing yet again. “This is because I will become a doctor. I will help people who are sick to get better,” The she added, becoming quite serious, “And I won’t charge them any money.” Kathy Kelly is a co-coordinator of Voices for Creative Nonviolence. She is the author of Other Lands Have Dreams. She can be reached at: kathy@vcnv.org

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