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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers!

Why Hillary Clinton Has Always Been a Republican

In the first of a series of profiles, Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair chart the formative years of Hillary Clinton. Watch her as she zigzags from Nixon campaigner and vote-fraud investigator in 1960 to Goldwater Girl and President of Young Republicans at Wellesley to her internship for Gerald Ford and campaigner for Nelson Rockefeller. Witness her reaction to the student protests at Yale and the demonstrations at Grant Park during the Democratic Convention in 1968. Learn how she and Bill vowed to "remake" the Democratic Party--using the Nixon model HRC learned about as a member of the House impeachment staff. And much more! Plus: David Price on anthropologist Andre Gunder Frank, the FBI and the Bureaucratic Exile of a Critical Mind.

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"Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair

CounterPunch Blues: David Vest at the Waterfront Blues Fest in Portland

Today's Stories

July 3, 2007

Bill Quigley
Injustice in Jena: Black Nooses Hanging from the "White" Tree

July 2, 2007

Andy Worthington
The Guantánamo Whistleblowers

Nina Serrano
The Assassination of a Poet: Memories of Roque Dalton

Jack Hirschman
The Nation and the Assassin: a Shameful Blunder

Paul Craig Roberts
Enter Turkey

Bill Williams
The Commissar Two-Step at DePaul

Anthony Papa
A Taste of the Gulag: What Paris Learned

Sonja Karkar
Who Will Save Palestine?

Louay Safi
Steve Emerson's Fantastic Obsession

Anthony Gregory
When Killer Cops Walk

Monica Benderman
In Consideration of War

Website of the Day
Dylan's Masters of War, at West Point, 1990

 

June 30 / July 1, 2007

John Ross
Free Frida Kahlo!

Alan Farago
Fakery, Inflation and the Housing Market

Peter Quinn
The Political Paranoia Over Immigration: Two Centuries and Counting

Christopher Brauchli
Cheney Does the Constitution

Robert Fisk
Abu Henry and the Mysterious Silence

Uri Avnery
A Dark Summit

Judith Siers-Poisson
The Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer

Saul Landau
Israel is Bad for Jewish Ethics

Abbas Zaidi
The Ad Hominem World of Pakistan Politics

Ron Jacobs
Ending the War, Organizing for Change

Ralph Nader
Move Over Oprah: a Summer Reading List

Donald Worster
Which City is Worse Off Today, New York or New Orleans?

Mike Whitney
The Fed's Role in the Bear Stearns Meltdown

Jacob Hill
Fast Track to Trade Failure

Kenneth Couesbouc
Why Global Trade is Rarely Fair

Missy Beattie
Kakistocracy

Mohammad Kamaali
Envoy for the Quartet

Ramzy Baroud
Finding Lessons in Gaza's Bloodshed

Leonard Peltier
A Gathering at Oglala

Phyllis Pollack
Seven Hours of Banging with the Stones

Poets' Basement
Reed, Orloski and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
A Podcast Interview with Cpt. Ward Boston on the USS Liberty

 

June 29, 2007

St. Clair / Frank
Toward a New Environmental Movement

Brian Cloughley
Losing the War in Afghanistan: One Civilian Massacre at a Time

Patrick Cockburn
End the Occupation: an Open Letter to Gordon Brown

Gilad Atzmon
The Peace Envoy: Tony Blair on Work Release

Dave Lindorff
Subpoenas, Executive Privilege and Liberal Pipedreams

Jennifer Matsui /
Carl Kandutsch

Electric Larryland

Kevin Zeese
A Different Kind of Peace Candidate

Daniel Klimek
Fasting for Justice at DePaul

David Michael Green
The Founding Fathers Never Met Dick Cheney

John Chuckman
The London Car Bomb

Website of the Day
BAM!

 

June 28, 2007

Bill Quigley
How to Destroy an African American City in 33 Steps

Vijay Prashad
Once More on the New York Times

Margaret Kimberley
The Whitening of Marianne Pearl: When White Actors Play Black Characters

Winslow T. Wheeler
House of Pork: Changing Lightbulbs in the Democrats' Bordello

Philip Rizk
The Failing of Gaza

D. K. Wilson
The Black Villains Club

Bill Williams
Strange Calculus at DePaul

Mahmoud El-Yousseph
The Deportation of Yardlin Jimenez

Richard Rhames
The Liberation of Paris

Paul Krassner
Bong Hits for Repression: the Giant Sucking Sound of the Supreme Court

Website of the Day
Free Lightnin' Hopkins

 


June 27, 2007

Marjorie Cohn
Targeting Dissent: FBI Spying on the National Lawyers Guild

Dr. Susan Rosenthal, MD
Sick and Sicker: Two Models of Health Care Rationing

Alan Farago
Bush and the Everglades: Rebranding Failure as Success

Carla Blank
"America, the Beautiful": the Queen, Jamestown and the Eye of the Beholder

Matthew Abraham
The Smearing of Robert Trivers, Dershowitz-Style

Sunsara Taylor
The Deadly Consequences of Compromise: Abortion Rights Under Assault, Where's the Women's Movement?

Russell D. Hoffman
16 Dirty Secrets About Nuclear Power

Robert Weissman
Blackstone and Capital's Grand Scam

Sen. Russ Feingold
Secrecy and the Federal Death Penalty

Paul Buchheit
The Footprints of Democracies

Website of the Day
Anarchy for the USA: an Interview with Josh Wolf

 

June 26, 2007

Jonathan Cook
Divide and Rule, Israeli-Style

Ralph Nader
Sicko and the Politics of Health Care

Corporate Crime Reporter
Which Side Are You On, Michael Moore?

Ron Jacobs
Are the Neocons Really Going?

Martha Rosenberg
Mad Cow in God's Country

John Chuckman
China's New Weapons

Denny Haldeman
Ethanolics Anonymous

Anthony DiMaggio
Free Speech Hypocrisy at the Supreme Court

Stephen Fleischman
The Tightrope Economy

William S. Lind
Legitimacy, Toujours Legitimacy

Website of the Day
The CIA's Family Jewels

 


June 25, 2007

Paul Craig Roberts
Goodbye to the City on the Hill

Jennifer Loewenstein
The Triumph of US / Israeli Policy in Palestine

Bob Anderson
The Grooming of Bill Richardson: New Mexico's Nuclear Governor

Robert Pollin
The Realities of Microlending

Patrick Cockburn
Chemical Ali Faces the Hangman: the Life and Crimes of al-Majid

Eva Liddell
Why They Want to Fire Ward Churchill

Dan Bacher
Democrats and the School of the Americas: 42 House Democrats Back Torture Academy

Larry Atkins
The Case of the Judge and the $54 Million Pair of Pants: an Embarrassment, Not an Argument for Tort Reform

Mark Brenner
SEIU Ends Nursing Home Partnership

James Rothenberg
Hillary Does Iraq

Website of the Day
"A Long Train of Abuses"

June 23 / 24, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Zyklon B on the US Border

Jeff Taylor
The Foreign Policy of Barack Obama

Oren Ben-Dor
Israeli Apartheid is the Core of the Crisis in Gaza

Gary Leupp
In Defense of Academic Freedom: the Ward Churchill Case

Robert Fisk
The Bumbling Envoy

David Rosen
The Hidden Cost of War: Genital Injuries, Prosthetic Devices and the War on Terror

Russell Mokhiber
Ins and Outs for 2008: Up with Spoilers!

Alison Weir
USA Today and the USS Liberty

Robert Fantina
The Floundering Congress

D. K. Wilson
Of Gangstas and Spearchuckers, Sex and Zulus

Nicole Colson
Litigating Gitmo

Stephen Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson
Torture, Psychologists and Colonel James

Dave Lindorff
Exodus of the Puppets: Bush's Incredible Shrinking Coalition

Benjamin Dangl
Cerámica de Cuyo: a Profile of Worker Control in Argentina

Michael Dickinson
The Catholicization of Tony

Poets' Basement
Davies, Engel, Gerard and Orloski

Website of the Weekend
Incarcerex: a Drug War Video

 

June 22, 2007

Andy Worthington
A Tunisian in Gitmo: the Story of Prisoner 660

Sherwood Ross
Corporate America's Deadliest Secret: the Big Profits in Biowarfare Research

Eliana Monteforte
The Torture Academy

Robert Weissman
Things Can Be Different

Richard Rhames
Farmer Preservation

Christopher Brauchli
Bush and the Uighurs: an Encounter in Albania

Ramzy Baroud
Chronicle of a Chaos Foretold

Ehud Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon
Facing an Imminent Threat of Expulsion: Palestinians in S. Hebron Hills Need Your Help!

David Michael Green
If Reid Were Rove

Kathryn Webber
Boycotting DePaul

Website of the Day
Stop Me Before I Vote Again!

 

June 21, 2007

Peter Linebaugh
The Day of the Rope

Natsu Saito
The Regents and Ward Churchill: Now is the Time to Speak Out

Ron Jacobs
The Intimidation of a Vet

Saree Makdisi
The West Chooses Fatah, But Palestinians Don't

John Stauber
Blessed Unrest: an Interview with Paul Hawken

Scott Liebertz
Fox News and Venezuela: an Analysis of How the Network Deliberately Misinforms Its Viewers

Tom Clifford
The Ghost Prisoners

Robert Jensen
The Last Sunday?

Michael J. Smith
Who Among Us Will Step Up to Destroy the Democratic Party?

Jeb Sprague
Pain at the Pump in Haiti

Website of the Day
Dion: Hey Paris


June 20, 2007

Omar Barghouti
A Secular-Democratic State Solution

Andy Worthington
Repatriated to Torture

Margaret Kimberley
Supreme Injustices: the Bush Court

Robert Weissman
Sicko, Part One: the Human Tragedy

Russell D. Hoffman
Time to Choose: Meltdowns or Solar Power?

Rannie Amiri
Mideast Alight

Stephen Lendman
The New York Times vs. Hugo Chavez

Dave Lindorff
Democratic Disconnect

David Swanson
Booing Hillary: Platitudes from the Drone Machine

Anne Dachel
Autism & Vaccines: Why are They Afraid to Look?

Website of the Day
Revolution By the Book

 

June 19, 2007

Ralph Nader
Hillary's Stock and Trade: the NAFTA Two-Step

Dr. Shepherd Bliss
Torture's Long Reach

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Demostrating Against the Catholic Church in Santa Fe

Jeff Leys
Swarming Congress: Building a Resistance to the 2008 Iraq War Supplemental Funding Bill

Dave Zirin
The Unforgiven: Barry Bonds and Jack Johnson

Chris Floyd
Hitchens Takes a Roll in the Hay

Ben Terrall
Iraq Union Leaders Speak Out Against the Occupation

Anthony Papa
Veronica's Story: a Dying Wish to Governor Spitzer

VIPS
Countering Terrorism: How Not to Do It

Linda Flores
Criminalizing the Classroom

Website of the Day
Sign On to the Iraq Moratorium


June 18, 2007

John Ross
The Annexation of Mexico

Paul Craig Roberts
The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand

Martha Rosenberg
Let Cheney at Him: Richardson the Oryx Hunter

Norman Solomon
War at the Remote

Don Santina
Memo to the Queen: Bobby Sands Died for Your Sins

Isabella Kenfield
Landless Rural Workers Confront Lula

James Brooks
America's Guilty Silence

Eva Liddell
Planning to Lose: Democratic Stratagems

Sam Husseini
Clinton Health Care Scam Revisited

Akiva Eldar
Ariel Sharon's Dream

Website of the Day
Frank Zappa: the Cop Interview

 


June 16 / 17, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
The Psychopathology of Shrinks

John Halle
Finkelstein and "The Progressive"

Robert Fisk
Welcome to "Palestine"

Andy Worthington
Return to Torture?

Uri Avnery
The Gaza Cage

Fred Gardner
Paris Hilton's Punishment: a False Parable

Saul Landau
Our Gang of Thugs: The 1970s as a Context for Terrorist Violence

P. Sainath
Heaven Can Wait: Creditors and the Widows of Vidharbha

Missy Comley Beattie
Calling Evil Its Name

Alan Gregory
When ADM Comes to Town: Killer Tax Breaks for Wildlife Destruction

Walter Brasch
Bush and the Philosophy of Swiss Cheese

Website of the Weekend
Obama Girl

 

June 15, 2007

Alan Farago
View from the Construction Crane: Sex, Taxes and Real Estate Scams in Miami

Andy Worthington
The Ordeal of Ali al--Marri

Michael Simmons
Terrorizing Artists in the USA

Franklin Lamb
Blowback Across Lebanon: The Failed Sunni Army Solution

Gary Leupp
The Day After We Attack Iran

John Ross
Ballot Burning Time in Ol' Mexico

Website of the Day
The American Rationalist

 

June 14, 2007

Michael Donnelly
Charred SUVs and the End of Citizen Eco--Activism

Faisal Kutty
Scare Canada: The No--Fly List's False Sense of Security

Harry Browne
Ireland's Green Party Sells Out

Charles Jonkel
From the Arctic to Yellowstone: Bears in a World of Indifference

Steven Higgs
Murder in a Small Town: "Gay Panic" in Indiana?

Bruce Dixon
Black Power Through Low Power Radio

Bruce K. Gagnon
What Do We Do Now? A 10--Step Plan for Antiwar Activists

Website of the Day
Finkelgate

June 13, 2007

Glen Ford
Obama's Siren Song

Marjorie Cohn
Repression in Oaxaca

Bill Christison
A Grave Injustice at DePaul University

Charles Jonkel
Bears in a World of Indifference

Silvia Cattori
"I Was Not Prepared for the Horrors I Saw": an Interview with Hedy Epstein

Richard Gott
Racism and TV in Venezuela

Firmin DeBrabander
How the Neocons Misread Machiavelli

William S. Lind
The Perfect (Sine) Wave: Bombing Railroad Stations in Iraq

Keith Rosenthal
Workers Score a Victory at Harvard

Website of the Day
GOP and Monty Python Explain: "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

June 12, 2007

Jeffrey St. Clair
How to Sell a War

Paul Craig Roberts
The Neocon Threat to American Freedom

P. Sainath
India's Plutocrats and the Press

Ralph Nader
The Biggest Scam in the World

Omar Waraich
A Black Day for Pakistan's Press

Dave Lindorff
Things Your Media Momma Didn't Tell You

Harvey Wasserman
Confessions of an Anti-Nuke Jerk

Malini Johar Schueller
It Takes a Bomb

Ramzy Baroud
War Foretold: Mark Twain and the Sins of Empire

Website of the Day
Palestinian Chronicle Needs Our Help!

 

June 11, 2007

Patrick Cockburn
The War on Journalists

Paul Craig Roberts
Losing the Economy to Mythology

Uri Avnery
40 Bad Years: the Rot of Occupation

Norman Solomon
The Silence of the Bombs

Eva Liddell
Paris Hilton Doesn't Do Dishes: How Barbie Stood Up to Allen Ginsberg

Rannie Amiri
Groundhog Day in Pakistan

Rachel Voss
Poetry and Politics in Nassau County

Christopher Brauchli
A Wild West Tale, Starring Rev. Dobson and Bill O'Reilly

D. K. Wilson
Untangling Michael Vick from the Dogs

Website of the Day
Paris, Mixed Up


June 9 / 10, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
Dissidents Against Dogma

George Ciccariello-Maher
Behind Venezuela's "Student Rebellion": Who's Pulling the Strings?

Saul Landau
An Interview with Ricardo Alarcon, Vice President of Cuba

Robert Fisk
Believe It or Not in the Middle East

Brian Cloughley
Troop Support: Deceptions and Insipid Sentiments

Ron Jacobs
Condoleezza Rice Names the System

Ward Boston
Searching for the Truth About the USS Liberty

Conn Hallinan
Dark Plots in Byzantine Beirut

Leonard Peltier
The Ongoing War on Native American Religious Practices

Lawrence Davidson
Israel's New Anti-Boycott Task Force

John Ross
Mass Nude-In Complicates Church-State Scuffling in Mexico

Kate Allan
Some People Think the Internet is a Bad Thing

Fred Gardner
Ignorance Marches On

Stephen Fleischman
Little Boy, Fat Man and Iran

Monica Benderman
Reading Tom Paine in a Time of Crisis

Geoff Bailey
A Real Oil Conspiracy: Gouged at the Pump

Missy Beattie
Faith and War

Patrick Dyer
A Democrat Revs Up Ohio's Death Machine

Tim Lengerich
Dispelling the Cowboy Myth: an Interview with George Wuerthner

James Irani
and David Rahni

Perspectives on the Arrests of Iran-Americans in Tehran

Gary Leupp
The Unfair Treatment of Paris Hilton

Michael Tillery
The Heart of a Sportswriter: an Interview with David Aldridge

Michael Simmons
Beating Off the Squares: the Hipness of Anton Rosenberg

Poets' Basement
Laymon, Davies and Ford

Website of the Weekend
This is Sea Shepherd!

 

June 8, 2007

Serge Halimi
What Sarkozy Learned About Politics from the US

Patrick Cockburn
The Turkish Incursion

Jeffrey St. Clair
Israel's Attack on the USS Liberty, Revisited

 

Paul Craig Roberts
The Secret War

William Blum
What If NBC Cheered on a Military Coup Against Bush?

Joshua Frank
Swing-State Strategy: Looking for a Spoiler

Lance Selfa
How the Six Day War Changed the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
A "Criminal Conspiracy" in the White House

Lawrence Ferlinghetti
The Summer of Love: Flashbacks of a Human Be-In

Website of the Day
Robert Pollin: "Making the Federal Minimum Wage a Living Wage"


June 7, 2007

Marjorie Cohn
The Prison is the War Crime

Soldz, Reisner and Olson:
A Q & A on Psychologists and Torture

Soldz, Reisner
and Olson, et al:
An Open Letter to Sharon Brehm, President of the American Psychological Association

Paul Craig Roberts
Losing Iraq, Nuking Iran

Bill Quigley
"How Long Must We Support a Mistake?"

Silvia Cattori
Sailing to Gaza

Carl G. Estabrook
What the June Bug Is: Politics in the Dismal Season

Ellen Taylor
Free the Tweakers!: The Good News About Meth

Corporate Crime Reporter
BAE Systems, Prince Bandar and the $2 Billion Account at the Riggs Bank

Brenda Norrell
Torture Training at Ft. Huachuca: Two Priests Face Prison for Exposing Torture in Arizona

D. K. Wilson
What Gary Sheffield Really Said

Kevin Zeese
Iraq Occupation Coming to a Head Over Oil

Website of the Day
How the Press Expired


June 6, 2007

Alain Gresh
Countdown to War on Iran

Gary Leupp
Poddy's Crazy Prayer: Bomb Iran, For Israel and America!

Steven Sherman
The Perils of Humanitarian Intervention

Bruce Dixon
Is Bill Gates Trying to Hijack Africa's Food Supply?

Corporate Crime Reporter
The Professor and the Nukes

Brian M. Downing
The Iraq War and Presidential Politics

Ron Jacobs
Luv n' Hate: a Different Take on the Summer of Love

George Bisharat
The Mirage of the Two State Solution

Nicole Colson
Over to You, Dante: Falwell's Ministry of Hate

Bruce K. Gagnon
From Italy to Guam: A Global Peace Movement is Taking Shape

Website of the Day
How the Democrats Should Treat Bush

 

June 5, 2007

Michael Neumann
Canada in Afghanistan

Jonathan Cook
The Shin Bet and the Persecution of Azmi Bishara

David Vest
The Democrats' War

Robert Fantina
America's Cuba Policy

Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury
CounterTerrorism as International Healthcare

John V. Walsh
Shaming the Official Antiwar Movement

Richard Cretan
Yellow Dog: The Strange Love of Martin Amis and Tony Blair

Adam Engel
Days of Dread: an American Tale

William S. Lind
The News from Anbar: Has Al Qaeda Over-Reached?

Myles Hoenig
Free the Oaks! Cut Down Those Yellow Ribbons!

Jim Minick
Lead-Foot Nation

Website of the Day
Punk Rock Soap Opera


June 4, 2007

Nizar Latif
An Interview with Moqtada al-Sadr

Diana Johnstone
Sarko and the Ghosts of May, 1968

Gregory Wilpert
RCTV and Freedom of Speech in Venezuela

Paul Watson
The Anchorage Whale Killing Bureaucrats Summit

Susan Rosenthal, MD
How Cindy Sheehan Unmasked the Democrats

Richard Ward
The Right of Return to New Orleans

Eva Liddell
Don't Support the Troops

Zahi Khouri
Four Decades of Occupation

Evelyn Pringle
The FDA, GlaxoSmithKline and the Avandia Disaster

China Hand
About Those North Korean Benjamin Franklins ...

Karyn Strickler
George W. Bush: a "Ficeist" Leader

Website of the Day
The Guantanamo Files

 

June 2 / 3, 2007

Alexander Cockburn
The Last of the Texas Outsiders

Marc Levy
Iraq Dead Ahead: a Brief Military History and Civilian Guide to Arlington National Cemetery

Martin Smith
Camilo Mejía's War: From Foot Soldier for Empire to Rebel for Peace

Diana Johnstone
Great Power Meddling in Kosovo

John Ross
The Oaxaca Volcano Stews

Uri Avnery
On Generals and Admirals

Sunsara Taylor
This is Not a Story About Cindy Sheehan

Richard Neville
Were the Hippies Right?

P. Sainath
The Farm Crisis and 100,000 Indian Widows

Missy Comley Beattie
Let's Roar

Nisrine Abiad
and Victor Kattan
The Hariri Tribunal: a Fait Accompli?

Rannie Amiri
Lebanon, Bush and the Three Stooges

Margot Pepper
Deconstructing "Return to Sender"

Eric Stewart
Censorship and Cop Brutality in the New Bison Wars

Ralph Nader
The Halberstam Camp

Dan Bacher
A Victory for the Fish

Shaun Harkin
and Sandy Boyer
Irish War Protesters on Trial

Richard Rhames
Selling Five Acres in Crawford

Frederick Hudson
The Rediscovery of Ella Fitzgerald

Poets' Basement
Lindorff, Landau and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Gimme Shelter


June 1, 2007

Dave Marsh
The FBI and the Godfather (of Soul): James Brown's FBI Files

Saul Landau
Return to Cuba: 47 Years Later in Havana

David Phinney
How the Baghdad Embassy Was Built: Forced Labor and Worker Abuse

Robert Jensen
The Bigot and the Boycott

Stanley Heller
Arrest Robert McNamara

Yifat Susskind
Indigenous Women Fight Back

Robert Weissman
Corporate Power Since 1980

Paul Buchheit
Africa and Its Discontents

William S. Lind
The Folly of Maximalist Objectives

Sherwood Ross
78,000 Iraqis Have Been Killed by Coalition Airstrikes

Stephen Lendman
Terrorism Defined

Website of the Day
Desert Autonomous Zone


May 31, 2007

Robert Bryce
The Language Barrier

Patrick Cockburn
Killing with Impunity: Iraq's Militias Under the Surge

Gary Leupp
Appropriate Disillusionment: the Despair of Cindy Sheehan and Andrew Bacevich

Kathy Kelly
Being Hope

Marjorie Cohn
The Unitary King George

Chris Kutalik
and Tiffany Ten Eyck

Fallout from the Sale of Chrysler: Jobs, Health Care, Pensions, All in Jeopardy

Corporate Crime Reporter
Zheng Xiaoyu Meet Lester Crawford

Dave Lindorff
Our Monica: a Hero of the Constitution

Website of the Day
Know Your Rights!

 

May 30, 2007

James Ridgeway
The Bi-Partisan Con on Synthetic Fuels

Franklin Lamb
Lebanon and the Planned US Airbase at Kaleiaat

Terrence E. Paupp
Withdrawal Symptoms

Uri Avnery
To the Shores of Tripoli

Alan Maass
and Jeffrey St. Clair
The Green Masquerade: Corporate America's Latest Counter-Attack

Rock and Rap Confidential
Watching the Detectives: the Political Censorship of Hip Hop

Ralph Nader
Taming the Giant Corporation

Nirmal Ghosh
China, CITES and the Fate of the Tiger

Jean Daniels
Dealing Democrats: Folding to Mr. 28%

Tom Barry
Meet Robert Zoellick: Bush's Pick to Head World Bank

Website of the Day
Petuuche Gilbert on the Rights of Indigenous People


May 29, 2007

Stephen Soldz
Shrinks and the SERE Technique at Guantanamo

Eliza Ernshire
Refugees Forever: Inside Bedawi Camp

Ron Jacobs
The Exit of Cindy Sheehan

Dave Lindorff
Whatever Happened to Signing Statements?

Evelyn Pringle
What Qualifies Bush to Lead Iraq War

Mike Whitney
Bush's New Middle East

David Swanson
How We Got Here: The Democrats and the Antiwar Movement

John Holt
Gating Montana, Part Two: the Feedback Loop

Cynthia McKinney
Dreaming of a True Memorial Day

Martha Rosenberg
Mad Cows, Mad Pigs and the Horse Slaughter Lobby

Website of the Day
The Ruminant


May 28, 2007

Bill Quigley
Katrina Activists: "Less Meeting, More Fighting"

Col. Dan Smith
The Paranoid and the Dead

Cindy Sheehan
Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party

Dr. Susan Block
Dr. Laura's Little Monster

Jeeni Criscenzo
What I Learned About Being a Dickhead

Douglas Valentine
Memorial Day: a Poem

Website of the Day
Peace TV

 

 

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July 3, 2007

The Approaching Prisoner Exchange

The Edginess of Lebanon

By FRANKLIN LAMB

Khiam detension center and Ansar Prison, Lebanon

The edginess of the people in Lebanon is palpable these days, North and South, East and West. A car exhaust backfires, a dump truck's rear metal gate slams shut, a fresh Lebanese army recruit drops his US mint new M-16 on the pavement outside the Main Gate of the American University of Beirut, as he and his buddies pile into the army transport truck at shift change, and people flinch and grimace. The sandwich man at the Socrate Deli and the Ras Beirut book store employee and their customers exchange knowing glances and read each others eyes: "is this it'?

"It", being the spark as in 1914 Sarajevo that was all that was needed to ignite a war so horrible that many European societies still have skewed demographic tables, such was the needless loss of millions of young men in World War I.

It is a tense atmosphere here when often the first question on rising each morning or greeting a friend is "how was the night? Are things OK?"

There are rumors and there are rumors of war.

This observer is not sure what to make of, for example, the snide jokes and rumors that Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad Sinioiri is not being allowed to leave his Serail compound office without the permission of US Ambassador Feltman, or that Feltman has to issue a 'hall pass' if Siniori wants to use the men's room, or that Siniori's personal phone is answered at the US Embassy. Or that the Embassy is using Lebanon's General Security agency to monitor journalists and pro-Palestinian and pro-Lebanese Americans, even supplying General Security with files complete with transcriptions of phone conversations which took place in America with US NGO's and Pro-Palestinian groups during the early days of the July War.

Whatever the use being made of Lebanon's General Security agency by the Bush administration, or the pressure from the Welch Club, PM Siniori's stock rose in the hearts and minds of many when on June 27, 2007 at his Paris news conference, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Lebanon joined those calling for the release of all the Lebanese and Palestinian Prisoners held in Israeli prisons in exchange for the Israeli soldier held by Hamas and the two held by Hezbollah

Siniori's 'clean swap' prisoner exchange appeal is supported by the Findings and Recommendations of a recently completed six month study of the Lebanon /Palestine prisoner file undertaken by American researchers at the American University of Beirut. The conclusions of the Study are solely those of the Researchers as AUB's administration had no input and have no responsibility for the Recommendations.

The have been 34prisoner exchanges between Arabs and Israel dating from 1948 to the present. In addition there have been 13 'political prisoner releases' by Israel, Syria and others. Of the prisoner exchanges, six took place during the 1960's, nine during the l970's and five in the l980's. The political exchanges were attached to particular events such as Oslo, the Mossad's botched attempt to kill Hamas leader Meshal in Jordan, or to encourage the other side to act in a particular way. The largest release was Arafat's 11/23/83 success with gaining the release of 4,700 Arab prisoners from Ansar prison and the May 20 1985 "Jibril Deal" which gained the release of 1,155 high value prisoners.

Yet the history of the prisoner exchanges has been problematical. Often exchanges failed because Israel suspended talks over prisoners, changed their minds and insisted on renegotiating established criteria for their release, or unilaterally 'switched the rules'. When negotiations did result in an agreement, Israel typically ignored deadlines set for the releases, released nonpolitical prisoners and claimed it had fulfilled its obligations, or simply dismissed or ignored agreements.

There have been three prisoner exchanges between Hezbollah and Israel. In July 1996, Hezbollah released the remains of two Israeli soldiers in exchange for the remains of 123 Lebanese soldiers. Hezbollah also released 25 members of Israel's proxy South Lebanon Army (SLA) a mercenary force for whom the US taxpayers unknowingly footed the bill, and in exchange the SLA released 25 Lebanese prisoners from the Israeli controlled Khiam detention camp in south Lebanon. Khiam, which Amnesty International called a " bleak limbo" is distinguishable from a prison by the fact that detainees have not faced, indictment, trial or judgment, but were herded into crowded cells f and kept there, many for more than ten years. Of the prisoners Israel still holds, 400 have been held for more than 20 years, 20 more than a quarter century.

In June 1998, Hezbollah returned the remains of Itamar Ilya in exchange for the remains of 40 Hezbollah soldiers, among them the body of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's son Hadi who was killed fighting Israel in 1997.

In January 2004, Israel released a total of 436 prisoners including 400 Palestinians; 23 Lebanese; two Syrians; three Moroccans; three Sudanese; a Libyan; and a German Muslim. Israel also returned the remains of 59 Lebanese soldiers. Israel received the remains of three Israel soldiers and the release of an Israeli drug dealer named Elhanan Tennenbaum who Hezbollah claimed was also an Israeli intelligence officer. Sheikh Abdel Kareem Obaid, who Israel kidnapped from Lebanese territory in 1989, and Sheikh Mustafa Dirani, kidnapped in 1994, were among those released by Israel.

On 34 occasions Israel has released prisoners to get what it wanted but subsequently assassinated them. There most famous example was the revered cleric, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin..

According to the Ramallah-based Mandela Institute for Human Rights, and other sources, there are approximately 11.000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and detention centers, among them approximately 150 women and 400 children.

Some Findings and Recommendations from the American NGO study with respect to the inevitable Prisoner Swap

There will be no prisoner exchange by Hezbollah without Samir Kuntar included. Hezbollah has made this clear. Israel's former Army Chief of Staff calls Kuntar "a nail without a head and thus impossible to take out". Yet, according to a recent book my Israeli military and intelligence specialists, Captives of Lebanon, Mossad and the IDF recommended Kuntar's release in 2004 but it was vetoed by Sharon because of Ron Arad. Hezbollah has more than once sent bones to Israel trying to learn what became of Arad. Israel refuses to give Hezbollah Arad's DNA to aid their search. Mossad has admitted that Hezbollah has no knowledge of Arad who apparently disappeared from a shed during an Israeli bombing attack and no one seems to have seen him. Local villages have been questioned but Arad's case remains a mystery. Hezbollah seems to want it solved as much as Israel.

When Samir Kuntar was taken off the 2004 prisoner list, Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah stated that it was a foolish act on the part of Israel's because Hezbollah would just have to take more captives to gain his and others freedom. That of course was what the July 12, 2006 operation was all about, but Israel broke the 'rules of the game' and decided to devastate Lebanon.

Now the price will be much higher. Hezbollah and Hamas have adopted the Israeli paradigm of "nothing without a price". In the Israeli system each prisoner has a price. If they exchange Israeli Arabs, the price is relatively low. With Sephardic Jews Israel will pay more. The history of the Israeli prisoner exchanges shows that they pay the highest price for Ashkenazi Jews, all of which the current group happen to be.

Despite Israel 's protestations, the record of Israeli prisoner exchanges also shows that Israel 's government prefers to raid the hideout of their captive solders and end the matter. Three times this has led to the Israeli captive being killed but at least the issue is settled. Shalit is in real danger from this sort of IDF macho raid despite the Israel lobby shunting his family all over the World to generate sympathy. They would benefit more from talking to their government.

It is quite unlikely that there will be any prisoner exchange while Olmert is in power. His promise to return the captured soldiers by destroying Lebanon failed. Israeli society will always blame him for that fiasco plus if Olmert pays the high price for the current exchange the Israeli public will not accept it. The next Israeli government will pay the price and blame it on Olmert. Such is the system.

Recommendations

I. Hamas and Hezbollah to release Shalit, Goldwasser and Regev, all of whom are apparently in good health and are being well treated. (Mr. Shalit evidently has a non-life threatening aggravated pre-existing condition which causes him periodic discomfort). Their release would occur exactly two hours after Israel releases the approximately 11,000 Muslim, Christian, and Arab prisoners it is now holding in 25 prisons, most of whom are political prisoners or victims of arbitrary arrests.

A maximum of two hours 'verification period' is recommended by the Researchers given the history of Israel "shorting" the prisoner exchanges when those delivered on the Israeli prisoner buses turned out in some cases not to be those originally agreed upon and were fewer in number.

If Israeli PM Olmert's June 26, 2007 pledge made at Sharm al- Sheik to release unconditionally 250 prisoners as a confidence building gesture to Palestinian official Makmud Abbas is honored, then Israel would release those remaining in its prisons or approximately 3,500 for each of the three Israelis.

II. The United States government should transfer to Lebanon, rather than to Israel , two years worth of military and economic aid which the House Appropriations committee recently voted for Israel at the rate of 2.4 billion per year, to be deducted from what Israel is expecting over the next ten years.

This 4.8 billion aid amount would just about cover the cost of rebuilding much of Lebanon's infrastructure, housing, schools, medical facilities, bridges, roads, coastal oil pollution, businesses, and agriculture destroyed by Israel during its most recent attack on Lebanon . The Study found that if f Israel is obliged to pay a price by having its US aid reduced by the amount of physical damage caused by attacking its neighbors, it may well consider more carefully the consequences before it bombs Lebanon or Palestine next time.

This US action would help restore some of its lost respect. As Senator Lugar advised an empty Senate Chamber the other night, US prestige in the region may well be irreparably damaged. This is equally true in Lebanon whose population was stunned and enraged by the thirty three days of Israeli carpet bombing of their families with American weapons as the White House continued to egg on Israel as part of a grotesque notions of "birth pangs of the new Middle East " and " sustainable ceasefire".

The Lebanese also remember the US support and encouragement for Israel's 22 year occupation (1978-2000) of South Lebanon , and they still talk about the 1983 shelling of the USS New Jersey. In addition, the Bush Administration is widely believed, among American Middle East analysts to have been involved in giving its Lebanese allies the gift of al-Qaeda type groups from whom Lebanon is increasingly seeing the consequences. As the highly respected senior cleric Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah has stated, the American government appears to be committed to maintaining a state of unrest and civil conflict in Lebanon.

III. Israel to deliver to the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) all relevant maps from the period 1978-2006 relative to land mines and cluster bombs, plus firing logs for all artillery, rockets, and bombs during the July 2006 War. This grave humanitarian issue continues to be a matter of life and death for children and their families in south Lebanon. As UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon emphasized in his 6/28/07 Report on Lebanon "an additional fifty new cluster bomblet strike locations have been identified by the United Nations Mine Action Coordination Centre during the past 90 days.

As of 31 May 2007, 904 cluster bomblet strike locations have been recorded, contaminating an area of up to 36.6 million square meters. Nearly one year since Israel fired into Lebanon 4.8 million cluster bomblets, 96 % of which were American, during a 33 day firing frenzy, only 15% of the sub-surface of the 36.6 million square meters have been cleared, and just 117,872 of more than one million unexploded cluster munitions have been neutralized.

Regarding the urgent need for the land mine and cluster bomb maps, the Secretary General noted: "Since the cessation of hostilities came into effect,( 8/14/06) a total of 203 civilians have been injured (180) or killed (23) as a result of cluster munitions. I regret to have to report that, despite a number of attempts by UN senior officials to obtain information regarding the firing data of cluster munitions utilized during last summer's conflict, Israel has yet to provide this critical data. I call on the Government of Israel once again to provide this information to the United Nations."

IV. Israel would cease all violations of Lebanese airspace and territorial waters which, according to UNIFIL exceeds 18,000 since 1978, when the UN began keeping records.

According to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon,'s just released Report: "UNIFIL has reported a significant increase in Israeli air violations, through jet and unmanned aerial vehicle overflights of Lebanese territory. These violations occur on an almost daily basis frequently numbering between 15 and 20, and have even reached 32 overflights in a single day. The Government of Lebanon continues to protest the overflights as a serious violation of Lebanese sovereignty and of resolution 1701 (2006) Israeli overflights not only constitute repeated violations of that and other relevant Security Council resolutions and also undermine the credibility of both UNIFIL and the LAF in the eyes of the local population, and negatively affect efforts to stabilize the situation on the ground." Sec-Gen Ki-Moon added, "I regret, that the Israeli military continues with almost daily flights over Lebanese territory and, once again, call upon the Government of Israel to cease the air violations.

On a related issue, the UN Report states that: On 28 May, the [Israeli military] violated the Blue Line by approximately 60 meters in the vicinity of UN position 4-31 with a tank and earthworks machinery. Israel also continues to occupy the Lebanese village of Ghajar in violation of UNSCR 1701.

Some in Israel and the Israeli dominated US Congress may consider that the above recommendations are unfair or unrealistic. However the Recommendations are based on Findings of Fact established by the researchers conducting the study, and applying methodology long used by the Congressional Research Service of the US Library of Congress in Washington, DC.

Why would Israel accept such an agreement? Especially given the racist views of so many leaders in Israel who over the years have vilified Arabs and Muslims as 'cockroaches, thugs, and animals and are worth nothing? (The 2006 statement of MK Rabbi Levi comes to mind: "One Jewish fingernail is worth more than one million Arabs").

Among several reasons are the following:

Firstly, as Israeli commentators have frequently stated, no Israeli government can withstand the social, political and military pressures within Israel to conduct a prisoner exchange in order to repatriate imprisoned Israelis. This is especially true regarding soldiers

Secondly, Israeli intelligence agencies are well aware that the Salafist groups invited into Lebanon, (which they initially approved) whether inspired, goal sharing, or affiliated with Al Qaeda are also eyeing the prisoners Israel holds. The prisoners are a 'bloodstream' issue for most Muslims and Arabs, perhaps second only to liberating Palestine.

According to some local Lebanese political analysts, of whom there is no shortage, Sunni Al Qaeda is feeling upstaged by Shia Hezbollah's given the latter's recent confirmation to the Europeans that the south is a "friendly environment" for the international forces and that Hezbollah looks at their military role positively because they preserve security and because they help economically because of the stability that they engender.

The June, 2006 attack on UNIFIL didn't arouse any political discussions between the international forces and Hezbollah because they knew that Hezbollah didn't have anything to do with it or with the launching of the Katyusha missiles on Israel from Khiam on the 17th of June which is corroborated by the fact that none of the international reactions to the two incidents included any public or implied criticism of Hezbollah even though Washington and the March 14 forces to, as usual, accuse Syria.

Hezbollah has risen to the position of an actual partner in the protection of the UNIFIL forces. While Hezbollah can't offer a complete guarantee because of the size of the area, it will continue to cooperate with protecting the UNIFIL forces. The Salafists resent Hezbollah's good relations with the UN and the Lebanese Army. According to confessions given by Salafi detainees more than a month ago to the Lebanese security services, members of Al-Qaeda reconnoitered the Lebanese south more than once, with special emphasis on UNIFIL units, their movements, and patrols in order to attack them.

Al Qaeda's 'Justice Campaign'

Based on conversations with Salafist activists, including Oabat Al-Ansar, based in the Ain al-Helwe Palestinian refugee camp, widely believed here in Khiam to be behind the June 17 Katyusha missile attack, the Al Qaeda inspired plan is simple but deadly. The Salafists as part of their compliance with instructions from the late Abu Mus'ab Al-Zarqawi and the number two man in Al-Qaeda, Aiman al-Zawahiri, to attack UNILFIL and the Zionists, they intend to free Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners by operating worldwide. They are also eager to demonstrate their reach to carry out what is called their Hamlet Sodek (Justice Campaign). These groups, and whoever else is involved will simply target Zionists (read Jews) in any place they are found until Israel overturns the draconian sentences it imposes (which would never be imposed on Jews even guilty of capital offenses) and releases all political prisoners. Targeting Zionists, as it was explained to this observer, means taking Jewish hostages or just killing the victims, depending on the circumstances.

"We will teach them a lesson. The Zionists will learn our reach. And when we have inflicted on them enough justice for their crimes-one Zionist for each prisoner they are holding-the Zionists will open their prisons. You will see it happen".

Israeli leaders might consider dealing straight with Hezbollah and Hamas this time and also carefully ponder P M Siniori's 'clean sweep' proposal. The alternatives are not pretty and the horizon is open.

Franklin Lamb's just released book, The Price We Pay: A Quarter Century of Israel's Use of American Weapons in Lebanon is available at Amazon.com.uk. His volume, Hezbollah: a Brief Guide for Beginners is due out in early summer, 2007. He can be reached at fplamb@gmail.com



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