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CIA's Overthrow Plans for Iran

Agency musters Swiftboat vets, pumps funding into destabilization program aimed at Teheran. Trish Schuh reveals how White House approves race-baiting smears of Islam. Remember how Leadbelly got ripped off by Lomax, how Louis Armstrong's agent got richer than his most famous client? The rip-offs never die. Fred Wilhelms narrates how artists and musicians are being shafted in the age of the internet. Meet the real Judge John Roberts, serf for big business. Cockburn and St Clair dissect the Court's new nominee. Tailhook vet and self-proclaimed Tom Cruise model bites dust in Pentagon scandal: a defense industry parable. St. Clair on Duke Cunningham's Crash Landing. Get the answers you're looking for in the latest subscriber-only edition of CounterPunch ... CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

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Today's Stories

August 11, 2005

Paul Craig Roberts
Why is Cheney Lobbying for a Boost in China's Nuclear Capability?

 

August 10, 2005

Tim Wise
Indian Mascots and White Rage

Ron Jacobs
Rumsfeld's Delusions

Joshua Frank
Dean and the PDA: Don't Believe the Hype

Cynthia McKinney
The 9/11 Op-Ed the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Refuses to Run

Rick Wilhelm
Peter Jennings, Excuse Maker for War and Empire

Stan Goff
Homegrown Resistance

 

August 9, 2005

Mike Ferner
What One Mom has to Say to Bush: Cindy Sheehan in Dallas

Monica Benderman
Is Being a Conscientious Objector Now Criminal?

Mike Marqusee
Making Excuses for Killing De Menezes

Rep. Cynthia McKinney
Strange Fruit and Tree-Shakers

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching the US Economy Crumble

 

August 6-8, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
How the British Destroyed India

Jason Leopold
Halliburton and Iran: Still Doing Business After All These Years?

Ray McGovern
Iran, Truth-Tellers and the Devotees of Preemption

David Krieger
From Hiroshima to Humanity

Sharon K. Weiner / Robert Jensen
From Hiroshima to Iraq and Back

Fred Gardner
The Budtender's View of a Rip-Off

 

August 5, 2005

Bill Christison
New NIE Report on Iran's Nukes will Not Deter US's Posture of Extreme Aggressiveness

Paul Craig Roberts
Kelo: a Supreme Assault on Personal Liberty

Alexander Cockburn
The Taj Mahal as Kitsch; the Editor and the Water-Walking Guru

 

 

August 4, 2005

Tom Barry
Inside Bush's "World Democracy Movement"

Lila Rajiva
John Bolton's New Internationalism

Greg Moses
Bush Teaches Intelligent Design in Prison

Alexander Cockburn
Indian Journal: Why Indian Farmers Kill Themselves

August 3, 2005

 

 

August 3, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Broken Arrows and Iran: a B-52 Pilot Remembers

Paul Craig Roberts
The Kelo Calamity: Money, Power and Eminent Domaine

William A. Cook
Innocent Victims: From Hiroshima to Lower Manhattan

Dave Zirin
Bush's Texas Rangers: a Crackhouse for Juiced Players?

Dave Lindorff
Court Packing and Worker Rights

José Pertierra
Why Hamdi Isaac Yes and Posada Carriles No?

 

August 2, 2005

Ramzi Kysia
Disengagement and Diaspora: High Walls and Razor Wire in the Hebron

William A. Cook
Words Without Meaning: Torturing Bodies and Language

Paul Craig Roberts
When Armageddon Gets No Press

Mike Whitney
Chertoff's Preemptive Crackdown: 600 Arrests, Only 76 Charged

Ron Jacobs
Be a Hero: Demand That Johnny Come Home

Norman Madarsz
Before the Stun Gun: Jean Charles de Menezes, RIP

Tim Wise
The Faulty Logic of "Terrorist" Profiling

 

 

August 1, 2005

Virginia Rodino
Why Bono and Geldof Got It Wrong: War and Global Poverty are Linked

Diana Barahona
Return to Venezuela: Land Reform and Neighborhood Doctors

Joshua Frank
Gitmo's Kangaroo Courts: First Torture Them, Then Rig Their Trials

Mike Whitney
The Consolidation of Powers: Rubber Stamp Roberts

Norm Dixon
The Worst Terror Attacks in History

Norman Solomon
Operation Withdrawal Scam

James Petras
The Corruption of Lula's Regime

 

 

July 30 / 31, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Lost Nuclear Warheads Now in Iran?

JoAnn Wypijewski
Scenes and Silver Linings from Labor's Crack-Up: a Special Report from Chicago

Sheldon Rampton
War is Fun as Hell: the Video Games Recruiters Play

Jack Z. Bratich
Fingerprints of Power: a Summer of Double Super Secrecy

Greg Moses
How to Cool Your Heels in Texas When It's Late July Across the World

Jordan Green
From Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Economics and the Race Divide in a Southern City

Patrick Cockburn
Getting Out of Iraq: 5,000 US Troops Have Gone AWOL

Brian Cloughley
The Bush-Cheney Fixation on Iran

Justin Taylor
Harry Potter and the War on Terror

Saul Landau
Enhancements for the Imperial Life: Fashionism Takes Command!

John Walsh
Dems Field Another Pro-War Candidate: Meet Hack the Hawk

Joshua Frank
Color-Coded Justice: John Roberts's Racial Hang Up

Ron Jacobs
Who Needs Feminism? We Have Condi Rice!

Fred Gardner
The Ethan and Gavin Show

John Chuckman
Friedman on Terrorism: the Dumbest Story Ever Written

Liaquat Ali Khan
Lessons City Bombers Need to Learn from Newton and Donne

Remi Kanazi
Annexing Justice in Palestine

Naveen Jaganathan
The Gurgaon Riots Rock India

Richard Heinberg
Where is the Hirsch Peak Oil Report?

Max Watts
Francis Ona, the Napoleon of Mekamui

Ben Tripp
Write Your Own Editorial!

Poets' Basement
Whalen & Engel, Landau, Albert and Krieger

 

 

 

July 29, 2005

Cockburn / St. Clair
Who's the Real Martyr? Judy Miller or Jim DeFede?

P. Sainath
The Class War in Gurgaon

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
How the West Was Lost: CAFTA and the Disassembling of America

Dave Lindorff
Marvelous Marvin Bush

J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
America's Racist Inventory: Oppression Breeds Violence

Pat Williams
Giving Away the Last Best Place

Norman Solomon
In Praise of Kevin Benderman: a Moral Leader of the Nation Goes to Prison

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Bad News About the Energy Bill

 

 

July 28, 2005

Paul Craig Roberts
Departing Iraq

William S. Lind
The Duke of Alba and George W. Bush

Gilad Atzmon
Blair the Camera Man

Joshua Frank
Passing CAFTA: Blame the Democrats

Lila Rajiva
Vision Mumbai Submerged

Amina Mire
Pigmentation and Empire: the Emerging Skin-Whitening Industry

Website of the Day
Gateway to Underground News

 

 

July 27, 2005

Roger Morris
The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal

Gary Leupp
Is Iran Being Set Up?

Paul Craig Roberts
US Falling Behind Across the Board

Jackie Corr
Class War on the Ruby River: the Billionaire with His Foot in His Mouth

Mike Whitney
The Coming End of the Housing Bubble

Dave Zirin
Why Lance Armstrong Must Break with Bush

Christopher Bradley
Why I Have Trouble Reading the News

Norman Solomon
Thomas Friedman, Liberal Sadist?

Website of the Day
Stormin' Norman

 

 

July 26, 2005

Suren Pillay
The Enemy Within: When the "Other" is One of "Us"

JoAnn Wypijewski
Fission and Fizzle in Chicago: SEIU and Teamsters Quit the AFL

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq: the Unwinnable War

David Anderson
When the Greatest Outrage is the Lack of Outrage: NYC's Subway Searches

Joshua Frank
Hillary Clinton: Outflanking Bush from the Right

Lenni Brenner
Biography as Wish-Fulfillment: Jefferson, Hitchens and Atheism

David Swanson
Nuking Native Land

 

 

July 25, 2005

Paul Craig Roberts
China-Mart Takes Over

M. Shahid Alam
Terrorism: America Defines Its Targets

Uri Avnery
March of the Orange Shirts

Stan Cox
Kreationism in Kansas

Norman Solomon
"Wagging the Puppy"

Ramzy Baroud
London Bombings: Barbaric, But Not Unexpected

Mickey Z.
No Gun Ri: 55 Years Later

Website of the Day
The Birth of a Hummingbird in 15 Images

 

 

July 23 / 24, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Islamo-Anarchs or Islamo-Fascists?

Tariq Ali
The War Comes Home

Robert Fisk
Something Happened

Dave Lindorff
Return of the Academic Witch Hunts

Ricardo Alarcón
Kidnapping in Miami: the UN, the US and the Cuban 5

Col. Dan Smith
Living in a Twilight Zone: Troop Strength, Recruitment and the Draft

Brian Cloughley
The Pentagon's China Hypocrisy

Kevin Zeese
Growing Republican Opposition to Iraq War

Bill Quigley
Harrowing Hours in Haiti

Fred Gardner
The Reverberations of Raich

Rep. Ron Paul
The Patriot Act is a Threat to Liberty

Joshua Frank
Framing Abortion: Gonadal Politics and the Democrats

Shivali Tukdeo
Project Mumbai Makeover: Casualties of Development

Gilad Atzmon
Blair's "Evil Ideology"

James Petras
Baghdad: Barbarism and Civilization (a Fiction)

Ben Tripp
When Being American Was Fun

Poets' Basement
Krieger, Louise, Buknatski, Albert and Engel

Website of the Weekend
Remember the West Memphis 3

 

July 22, 2005

Heather Gray
Home Grown Axis of Evil: Corp. Agribusiness, the Occupation of Iraq and the Dred Scott Decision

David Domke
The American Press and Credibility

Lance Selfa
Battle of the Insiders: No Heroes in the Plame Leak Scandal

JoAnn Wypijewski
Is This Really an "Insurgency" to Shake Up the Labor Movement?

 

July 21, 2005

Rose Ann DeMoro
The Top 10 Problems with the "Crisis" in the Labor Movement

William Blum
London: Another Casualty in the War on Terror

J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Whites Need to Learn Something: Dixie is Everywhere

Christopher Brauchli
Strange Affairs: Liberals and Alberto Gonzales

Joshua Frank
Plame Blame Game: the 5 Ws

Brian Concannon, Jr.
Haiti's Elections: Time for a Reality Check

Patrick Cockburn
The True, Terrible State of Iraq and the Link to London

Website of the Day
Who Blew Up the Murrah Building?

 

 

July 20, 2005

Cockburn / St. Clair
Judge Roberts: Business as Usual

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz
Red Christmas

Ray McGovern
Did Dick Finger Valerie?: the Hand of Cheney

Chris Floyd
Judge Dread: John Roberts and the "Enemy Combatants"

Uri Avnery
"Silence is Filth"

Dave Lindorff
Westmoreland's Body Count Goes Up by One

Norman Solomon
Gen. Westmoreland's Death Wish

Bill Quigley
Travels in Haiti with a Wanted Priest

 

 

 

July 19, 2005

Tariq Ali
An Isolated Regime

John Ross
Jihad Meets G-8

Davey D.
More Clear Channel Censorship: "Don't F--K Around with Tha Police"

Greg Weiher
Muzzling Saddam: the Old Bait-and-Switch in Iraqi Jurisprudence

Brian McKinlay
An "Arse Licker" Goes to Washington: John Howard's Grand Tour

Norman Solomon
Nukes for India; Threats for Iran

Dave Lindorff
Get Back to Where We Once Belonged

Bill Christison
Bush's Itinerary: First Stop Syria, Next Stop Iran

Joshua Frank
Laura's Justice?: Meet Edith Brown Clement

 

July 18, 2005

Joshua Frank
An Interview with Ward Churchill

M. Shahid Alam
A Muslim Problem: Did Thomas Friedman Flunk History?

Jude Wanniski
Memo to Patrick Fitzgerald

Ron Jacobs
A Weekend to Stop the War

Mike Whitney
The Straight Line Between Falluja and King's Cross Station

William MacDougall
From "Bring It On" to "London Can Take It"

Seth Sandronsky
Temporary Recovery: New Frontiers in Labor Flexibility

Richard Lichtman
The Consolations of George Lakoff

Paul Craig Roberts
Can Congressional Republicans End Bush's Wars?

Website of the Weekend
Novels of the Neo-Cons

 

July 15 / 17, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
Don't You Dare Call It Treason

Jeffrey St. Clair
Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton

Paul Craig Roberts
Economic Treason

Harry Browne
"What They Do to Us, They Will Do to You": Shell Oil in Mayo, Ireland

Uri Davis, Ilan Pappe and Tamar Yaron
A Warning from Israel

Andrew Rubin
End of the Enlightenment: an Open Letter to Stephen Plaut

Patrick Cockburn
Iraq's Ghost Battalions

J.L. Chestnut, Jr.
Changes in Selma: Standing Up to Racism in the South

Fred Gardner
A Professional Bust

Christopher Brauchli
An Olympic Feat: How to "Double" Aid with No New Money

Chris Floyd
The Great Iraq Oil Giveaway

Ben Tripp
The Dark Incontinent

Col. Dan Smith
General Abizaid, I'm Glad You Asked

Jason Leopold
What Did Rove Say and When Did He Say It?

Jack Random
Miller Time

Norman Solomon
War and Venture Capitalism

George Ochenski
Liberate Montana's Rivers: Come One, Come All!

Website of the Weekend
Vote for CounterPuncher David Vest

 

 

July 14, 2005

Jeffrey St. Clair
Sticky Fingers: the Making of Halliburton

Subcomandante Marcos
This is What Will Do and How We Shall Do It: the Sixth Declaration of the Selva Lacandona

Dave Lindorff
No More Moral Relativism: the US is a Terrorist State

Joshua Frank
Rove Agency: Liberals and the CIA

Jude Wanniski
Those 8 Black Pages: What's the Real Story on Karl Rove?

Dave Zirin
Storming the Castle

Kevin Zeese
Exit Strategy: Within Reach?

Robert Jensen
War Myths and the Press

Reza Fiyouzat
A Worldwide Call to Free Akbar Ganji

Carol Norris
Governor Paranoid: Schwarzenegger Comes Unhinged

Website of the Day
Nate Osborn: Heroic Human Rights Activist and CounterPuncher

 

July 13, 2005

Brian Cloughley
Cold Blooded Murders in Iraq

George Galloway
We Can't Separate the London Bombings from the Political Backdrop

Carlos Fierro
A Supreme Waste of Time

Sarah Knopp
Hate on the Border

Norman Solomon
"Isolated Pockets of Problems": the Fake Optimism of Washington's Warriors

Mickey Z.
Water on the Brain

Jim Minick
The Right Tree in the Right Place

Pat Williams
American Indian Education for All

Andrew N. Rubin
Life Behind the Wall: "We are No Longer Able to See the Sun Set"

Website of the Day
"London's Burning": the Mikey Mix

 

 

July 12, 2005

Laith al-Saud
Voices of Resistance: an Interview with Dr. Mohammed al-Obaidi of Iraq's Peoples' Struggle Movement

Kara N. Tina
"This is How We Do It": Report from the Gleneagles Battlefield

William A. Cook
The London Bombings: Why Has It Come to This?

Jack Bratich
2 Live Cruise: Tom Cruise v. Big Pharma

Amina Mire
The Problem with Speaking in the Name of Others

Dick J. Reavis
Lessons from the Christian Jihadists: the Virtues of Burning Crosses and Colored Smoke

Kevin Zeese
Depleted Uranium: States Take Action to Protect Their Vets

Paul Craig Roberts
No-Think Nation

Website of the Day
Coke Gags Indian Artist

 

 

July 9 / 11, 2005

Alexander Cockburn
After the Bombings

Uri Avnery
War of the Colors in Israel

Sheldon Rampton
Blaming Galloway: Rhetoric vs. Reality in London

Bill Christison
Hiroshima's 60th Anniversary and Nukes in Iran: an Opportunity or Just More Hand-wringing from the Peace Movement?

Robert Fisk
Blair's Alliance with Bush Bombed

Stephen Winspear
Collateral Damage in London?

Saul Landau
Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken

Behrooz Ghamari
Thomas Friedman's Muslim Problem

Karl Beitel
False Promises and Real Debt Relief

Brian Concannon, Jr.
Throwing Gasoline on Haiti's Fires

Fred Gardner
Sentencing Season

John Whitlow
And What Does the Market Say?

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The London Blasts: Who's Being Transformed, Them or Us?

Lila Rajiva
Witches and Bastards

Laura Carlsen
CAFTA: Deepening the Inequities

Jackie Corr
Ted Turner and Jiminy Cricket

Dave Lindorff
"My Brother Went Over There Gung Ho; Now He's Just Bitter"

N. D. Jayaprakash
Why the CIA Tried to Kill Chou En Lai at the Bandung Conference

Seth Sandronsky
Meet the "Truth Tour": Rightwing Radio Hosts Go to Iraq

Norman Madarasz
The Choking of Brazil's Worker Party

Ben Tripp
The Inevitability of George W. Bush

Poets' Basement
Louise, Albert, Landau, Davies and Engel

Website of the Weekend
The Mother of All Enemies Lists

 

 

July 8, 2005

Paul Craig Roberts
Blowback Hits Britain: Londoners Pay Heavy Price for Blair's Deception

Tariq Ali
The London Bombings: Why They Happened

Monica Benderman
One Soldier's Fight to Legalize Morality

Rick Jahnkow
Beyond Opt-Out: the Counter-Recruitment Movement

Christopher Brauchli
Dear Vet: If You Want to Eat While You Recuperate, You Gotta Pay Extra

Kim Peterson
Bombs in the Underground: Terror Begats Terror

Joshua Frank
Leakers and Liars: Inching Toward Indictments?

Norman Solomon
Messages from the Carnage

Website of the Day
An Interview with Ray McGovern

 

July 7, 2005

Cockburn / St. Clair
Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr

John Walsh
More Hawkish Than Bush: Dems in Full Battle Cry

Mike Marqusee
Message from London

Gilad Atzmon
London's Burning

Nicole Colson
Showdown at the Supreme Court

Jack Random
Judith Miller, Anti-Hero

Norman Solomon
Judith Miller, Drum Majorette for War

Len Colodny
Is Bob Woodward Still Protecting Al Haig?

Cockburn / St. Clair
Judy Miller: the Luckiest Martyr

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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August 11, 2005

Shopping as a Universal Spiritual Value

Globalization and Its Discontents

By SAUL LANDAU

More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness; the other, to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.

-- Woody Allen

The act of four alleged suicide bombers, three British born and one Jamaican born, who supposedly detonated themselves on July 7 to kill civilians on London public transport dramatized the globalization of resistance. Their numbers may still not be very large, wrote Patrick Cockburn, but they are numerous enough to create mayhem in Iraq and anywhere else they strike, be it in London or Sharm el Sheikh Independent, July 24).

Beneath current headlines, however, lurks Sir Isaac Newton's third law: "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction?"

Bush's decision to invade and occupy Iraq, while pursuing democracy and instigating regime change required violence and non violent manipulation. The resistance -- the other side of the Newtonian equation -- also contains violent and non violent elements.

The non violent sector opposed policies of the WTO, IMF and the free trade treaties, by taking to the streets in Seattle and other places where the rich and powerful made decisions affecting how the rest of the world lived.

This diverse movement contains religious Muslims, anti-establishment students, small European farmers, U.S. factory workers and indigenous Latin American peasants. In New York on 9/11 and more recently in Iraq, Afghanistan, Bali, Madrid, London and Egypt, horrible, suicidal violence answered violent state policies. The irrational side of resistance -- suicide bombers -- to imperial globalization, do not share the moral values of their countries of birth: England and Jamaica in the case of the July 7 bombers.

The value clash between corporate globalists and their opponents also takes place in the idea realm. Thomas Friedman articulates a liberal defense of the new order in his moralistic NY Times columns, his 1999 book, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, and his 2005 update The World is Flat. This new world consists of lightning fast markets, money, information, and rapid transformations of politics and culture.

Friedmanï¿??s globalization is both positive and inevitable. Those who benefit from this process that includes outsourcing by multinational companies from the U.S., Britain and other wealthy and modern nations share a symbiotic relationship with militarism. McDonald's needs McDonald Douglas, which stands for the military industrial complex, to enforce property rules, and insure expanded markets even to places where theyï¿??re not wanted: rogue states that neither accept nor obey the rules of the new transnational corporate order.

Ronald McDonald and the three-fingered, de-sexed Mickey Mouse hardly reveal, however, the savagery with which the Bush Administration has pursued the extension of the new order that Friedman extols. The residents of devastated Falluja and tens of thousands of families of dead Iraqi and Afghan civilians can testify to that. Paul Bremer, Bush's man in Iraq for the first two years of occupation, forced the privatization clause into the Iraqi constitution, so as to put the real US stamp on the invasion. The Friedman vision of American open, consumer culture in Baghdad has already cost more blood and destruction than anticipated.

McDonald's, however, goes beyond being an icon for America. Friedman's beloved technologies have also helped suck more labor out of human beings. Along with microwave ovens, McDonald's allows women to supersize their families in minutes and thus spend more time in offices and factories.

Techno-change occurs now in weeks, so a question that Friedman used in 1999 as an illustration -- How fast is your modem?" -- has become obsolete. Concepts of time and space, thanks to the internet and email, have changed as well. But Friedman gets carried away with the possibilities without analyzing objectively the darker side.

The bar code alone has replaced millions who once did inventory, email and robot phones have taken the place of millions of women who once toiled as secretaries and switchboard operators. Much of recent progress has meant either replacing workers with machines or exporting production to places with drastically lower labor costs, no environmental regulation or workplace oversight and no taxes like Mexico, Honduras and of course China and its neighbors.

Fiber optic and digital innovations along with satellite communications have also increased productivity. This means that salesmen and executives, repair personnel and technicians no longer enjoy down time. The new technology has also increased the degree of cultural trivia and institutionalized loneliness. Advertisers offer consumers new toys like cell phones, laptops, Blackberrys and I-pods, commodities with which to have new experiences. In fact, these fun gadgets make people more productive, and more stressed. Millions of individuals experience the solitude of hours in their cars stuck in daily traffic jams, talking with their office on the cell; kids lock their doors and play video and computer games. The glories of western life!

Friedman poses the possibilities of development thanks to the technology that allows capital to invest around the world in nanoseconds -- without restrictions. But these new opportunities have also removed limits on greed. Without considering consequences, speculators ruin or make economies, which Friedman converts in his morally relativistic sensibility into a process that "turns the whole world into a parliamentary system, in which every government lives under the fear of a no-confidence vote."

Indeed, Latin American governments have fallen, e.g. Argentina, thanks to such economic activities! More importantly, speculators saw profits in buying public property like water in Bolivia and Detroit, forcing up the price of a human necessity, as if it were a luxury item.

Those who seek ever more comfort and convenience also tend to discard history as unworthy sentimentalism. For Friedman, the "olive tree" signifies a tradition whose time has passed. Think of laboratory created olive oil! Old cultures had their historical era and should move quietly like ancient elephants to the burial ground.

The olive tree side of the world has become witness to a vast increase in poverty as globalization skews ever more world income distribution. On July 26, UPI reported that the hunger crisis in Niger has also had an impact on neighboring nations, affecting at least 2.5 million people in Mali, Burkina Faso and Mauritania. The U.N. Office for the oordination of Humanitarian Affairs Monday said 1.1 million people will need food aid in Mali this year, mainly in the regions of Moptu, Timbuktu and Gao.

Similarly, Friedman tends to gloss over the pounding given to the environment by the increase in fossil fuel burning. Scientists monitoring a glacier in Greenland issued urgent warnings over the dramatic shrinking of a glacier's boundary probably because of melting brought about by climate change. . . Experts believe any change in the rate at which the glacier transports ice from the ice sheet into the ocean has important implications for increases in sea levels around the world. If the entire Greenland ice sheet were to melt into the ocean it would raise sea levels by up to 23 feet, inundating vast areas of low-lying land, including London and much of eastern England (Steve Conner, Independent, July 24).

Friedman does, however, accurately foresee that the transfer of the old world order to the new will not occur peacefully. As the bombings of civilian targets of US allies show, the resistance to globalization includes those who see suicide as their weapon of resistance. He sees them as reactionary and ignorant, trying to hold back the inevitable.

Compare the fanaticism of suicide bombers with a Friedman's ethnocentrism that leads him to conclude that balancing a Lexus with an olive tree is something every society has to work on every day. Millions in the poor parts of the world have no interest in balancing the Lexus with their version of olive trees. They don't have any more olive trees. Indeed, Israelis -- new order people -- routinely chop down the trees of old order Palestinians.

But Friedman, the pithy salesman for mega corporate progress, thinks that our own society has reached the proper balance. America at its best takes the needs of markets, individuals and communities all utterly seriously. And that's why America, at its best, is not just a country. It's a spiritual value and role model, the nation that invented cyberspace and the backyard barbecue, the Internet and the social safety net, the SEC and the ACLU."

In my America, shopping is the universal spiritual value. Maybe add flag waving and barbecues! But globalization means spreading a culture of corporate brand names and 24/7 sales pitches. Rogue States who refuse to embrace this order are targets of regime change. But if Cuba and Syria, for examples, adapt to the demands of the McDonald's-Disney order they will not become like us. They will simply lose their cultures, become poorer and more stressed.

Those resisting corporate globalizing violently and non-violently don't yet have clear alternatives, but they are absolutely justified in saying BASTA YA!

Saul Landau's newest book is THE BUSINESS OF AMERICA: HOW CONSUMERS HAVE RELACED CITIZENS AND HOW WE CAN REVERSE THE TREND. He is a fellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and teaches at Cal Poly Pomona University.