Today's Stories

March 24, 2009

Robert Sandels
Obama and Cuba: Real Change or Minor Tweaks?

March 23, 2009

M. Shahid Alam
Capitalism From the Standpoint of Its Victims

Uri Avnery
Israel's Most Revolting Law?

Mike Whitney
Zombie Economics: Judgment Day for Geithner

Ralph Nader
Bush the Teacher

Brian Cloughley
Tilting at Afghan Windmills

Dave Lindorff
Toxic Bailouts

Amira Hass
The Rules of Engagement in Gaza: Open Fire on Rescuers

Chris Irwin
When Nonprofit Groups Go Bad

Binoy Kampmark
The Celebrity of Celebrity

Michael Dickinson
Tollbridge Over Troubled Waters

Website of the Day
State of the Birds

March 20-22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Edge of the Volcano

Paul Craig Roberts
When Things Fall Apart

P. Sainath
Slumdogs vs. Billionaires

Robert Weissman
Lessons From AIG

Saul Landau
Sliding Down in Anger: If We Bail Out the Banks, Why Shouldn't We Own Them?

David Michael Green
Obama and the Altar of Greed

Greg Moses
Winter Soldiers Come to Texas

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan in Turmoil: an Interview with Farooq Tariq

Michael D. Yates
A Nation of Immigrants

John V. Whitbeck
Happy New Year, Iran!

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Zuhair

Linn Washington Jr.
Supreme Test: the Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

David Ker Thomson
Actions: Things to Do Instead of Hailing the Chief

Laurent Jacque
Is the Euro Doomed?

Rannie Amiri
The Middle East's Jittery Monarchies

Reiko Redmonde /
Larry Everest
The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

David Macaray
The Myth of the Powerful Teachers' Union

Kenneth Couesbouc
Where has the Consumption Gone?

Martha Rosenberg
Meltdown in the Drug Industry

Alan Farago
The Recession, the Developers and Baseball

Missy Beattie
Still Waiting for Change

Richard Rhames
Invisible But Not Completely Insolvent

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Jets

Charles R. Larson
Impeach Obama!

David Yearsley
On Bach's Birthday

Lorenzo Wolff
Manic Levity

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Gary Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Teachers for CEO Merit Pay!

March 19, 2009

Dave Marsh
Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

Paul Craig Roberts
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

Mike Whitney
Why Business is Hysterical About Card Check (And Why America Needs It)

Sam Smith
The Economy in Two Eras of Democrats

Harvey Wasserman
The Crash of France's Nuclear Poster Child

Binoy Kampmark
Back Into NATO: the End of French Exceptionalism

Kathy Sanborn
Broken Culture: the Desecration of Iraq's Art Treasures

Christopher Brauchli
Taxing Problems

George Wuerthner
Permanent Damage From Temporary Logging Roads

Diann Rust-Tierney
New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Bailout Plan: "Cross Your Fingers and Hope"

March 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Real AIG Conspiracy

Paul Craig Roberts
Israel's American Chattel

Nelson P. Valdés
Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

Jonathan Cook
Bedouin Villages Left in the Dark Ages

John Ross
The Death of the American Newspaper

Yifat Susskind
Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

Dave Lindorff
Who's Calling the Shots Now?

Frances Moore Lappé
The City That Ended Hunger

Richard Grossman
Beware the Madoff Diversion!

Rev. William E. Alberts
On Being Whole Not Holy

Website of the Day
Three Weeks in Cuba: a Painter's Perspective

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

James G. Abourezk
Show Business: AIG and the Posturing Democrats

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Alan Farago
The National Ponzi Scheme

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

Website of the Day
Single-Payer Action

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

March 24, 2009

Four Murders at Mieh Mieh Refuge Camp

Who Tried to Kill Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki and Why?

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Mieh Mieh Palestinian Camp, Sidon.

Yesterday afternoon, Kamal Medhat, 58, known in Lebanon’s Palestinian Camps affectionately as ‘Kamal Naji’, a senior member of the Palestinian Fatah movement was killed exiting Mieh Meih Camp by a 25-30 kilogram bomb.  The bomb was   hidden in a small roadside shed between two checkpoints, one manned by the Lebanese army and the other at the Kifah el Musallah Camp security check point. According to Fateh intelligence sources, a man on a tall building near the Camp entrance watched Medhat's car approach and detonated it as he passed at almost exactly  2 pm.   

The bombing appears to have been an assassination hit aimed at the Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon, Abass Zaki.  Also killed were Akram Daher, Director of the PLO's youth organization in Lebanon, and Medhat’s bodyguards, Khaled Daher and Mohammed Shehadeh. Three Palestinians in a second car were seriously injured and are being treated in hospital.

Fateh sources claim the real target was Abass Zaki, the PLO Diplomatic Representative to Lebanon.  Zaki had left Mieh Mieh, a camp of about 5,000 refugees, about 7 minutes earlier in a nearly identical window-darkened black car to that of his deputy, Kamal Medhat.  Medhat has paused in exiting the Camp to further express his condolences at a funeral held for his friend and Chairman of the Mieh Mieh Camp Popular Committee, Raef Naufal who was killed while trying to calm down a two-family feud between the Faraj and Kaouch families two days earlier.

The much respected Medhat, who joined Fatah from his village near Gaza when he was sixteen years old, was a loyalist to, and confidant of Yasser Arafat and Abu Jihad. He rose within the PLO’s ranks and earned a PhD in International relations and military science in the USSR.  Recently Medhat played a key role in tamping down violence and tension among various groups in Ein el Helwe and in fostering dialogue among Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian community.  Among his PLO portfolios was former Head of Intelligence in Lebanon.  PLO Embassy staff noted that Medhat had recently expressed to colleagues his suspicions that he was being targeted for assassination and that he advised his superiors in Ramallah of his concerns.

Their response, if any, was not known to the Embassy staff, but according to Fatah sources close to Zaki, the Mokhabarat Jeish Lebnene (Lebanese army intelligence) has been warning both Medhat and Zaki not to move around the Camps and to restrict their movements outside their secured offices.

Zaki, mild mannered, reserved, and a bit formal and distant on first meeting, appears to be increasingly well liked in the Palestinian and Lebanese community. He is available to his people and at virtually every Palestinian event I have attended  the past 30 months, Zaki was there—from distributing laptops to Palestinian youngsters on the 26th anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre last September 16 in Shatila Camp, or various rallies in support of Gaza.  He rarely missed Palestinian holidays or commemorative events at UNESCO Palace or other venues and sometimes joined with Hamas leader Osama Hamdan, in preaching Palestinian unity! Palestinian Unity! Palestinian Unity!

Whoever tried to kill him knew that there was a very good chance that Zaka would, in Arab tradition, visit Mieh Mieh yesterday for the funeral of his friend and colleague, Raef Naufal.

There is common agreement in Lebanon’s Palestinian community Tuesday morning that the motive for the assassination attempt was to torpedo the growing intra-Palestinian unity moves in Lebanon and in order undermine Lebanon’s recent stability.  Zaki and his colleagues have been working hard for Fatah-Hamas unity in Lebanon.

Fatah’s Zaki blamed Israel for the killing and warned it would have serious repercussions in Lebanon and the Palestinian camps.  "Those behind the killing are working in one way or another for Israel," he told the press.

Osama Hamdan, the popular representative of Hamas in Lebanon, condemned the killing, saying it was aimed at creating discord in Palestinian camps. Hezbollah said the attack bore "the fingerprints of the Zionists and was aimed at sowing discord."

No one has claimed responsibility and no one likely will. The most frequently mentioned suspects this morning include Israel, Syria, Egypt and the US.

One suspect mentioned is a “third party Palestinian faction” led by Mohammad Dahlan in Ramallah working on behalf of Israel and the US and wanting to prevent Palestinian unity to confront Israel.

Some have mentioned an Egyptian involvement arguing that Mubarak does not want the Cairo talks to succeed because he fears Hamas with have the upper hand in becoming the new Palestinian leadership.

A Lebanese army source noted that the 30 kilo bomb used (one body was thrown 200 meters from one of the two destroyed vehicles and Medhat’s car was  literally blown up the hill into an olive grove) was similar to the m.o. used in the Tripoli attacks on the Army in 2007. Fatah el Islam is the primary suspect in that attack.

The fact of the two-day, Beirut-hosted Arab Interior Ministers’ Meeting which ended yesterday at the Phoenicia Hotel and which was focusing on “Combating Internal Terrorism” may have been the recipient of a message from Al Qaeda or another group has been speculated upon.

Kassem a very knowledgeable Fatah official in Shatila Camp and longtime friend, reported a fairly common deep suspicion that Syria was somehow behind the killing.

Kassem, it must be said, is no admirer of the Syrian Assad regime. At the beginning of the Syrian instigated Camp Wars in the mid-1980’s, when the Amal militia cut electricity,  Kassem was hauling an electrical generator from Shatila Camp to AkkA Hospital on Kuwait Embassy road and was stopped by  a Syrian Army patrol and accused of supporting Yassir Arafat from whom the Syrian were trying to wrest control of the PLO.  Tortured repeatedly, and imprisoned for four years, Kassem sees Syrian involvement yesterday at Mieh Mieh:

“Maybe they used Fatah el Islam in Meih Meih of Jung el Sham or others.  But they don’t need those fools. Syria has the same intelligence capability as before their army left in 2005.  For sure they have never stopped trying to split and control the PLO for their own benefit and not for ours."

At this point, Kassem’s politically astute teenage daughter Zeina mercifully intervenes:

“I am not so convinced it was the Syrians, Bapa (father). The Israelis still have plenty of agents in the camps. We all know that for sure. Remember the recent Israeli spies caught? I thought that one man was one for a long time. There are even Israeli spies inside Hezbollah like their trusted vehicle-supplier man in Nabetiyeh arrested a couple of weeks ago.  I think it’s not the Syrians but the Israelis.”

Like just about everything that happens in Lebanon these days , yesterday’s assassination  is analyzed locally through the prism of who stands to gain  by this crime in the fast approaching June 7 election. The Pro US-Saudi March 14 ‘majority team’ or the pro-Syrian-Iran March 8th Opposition lead by Hezbollah?

Meanwhile the Lebanese authorities promise an immediate, thorough investigation to find those responsible for the murders at Mieh Mieh.   The good people of Lebanon, as is their fate, will patiently wait for the Investigation Report, just as they  still wait for the reports of the Lebanese investigations into the most recent 46 political assassinations in Lebanon over the past decade, more than half of those killed being body guards of the intended victims.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon.  He can be reached at fplamb@sabrashatila.org.

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