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Special Issue for CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! The Battle Over the Israel Lobby As John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's long awaited "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" draws hysterical abuse, former CIA intelligence officers Kathy and Bill Christison define the Lobby's real nature, trace its history, and measure its actual power. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair

Today's Stories September 28, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison The Teflon Alliance with Israel September 27, 2007 Alan Farago Housing Market Crashes and Burns Andy Worthington A Bad Week at Guantánamo Jonathan Cook Why Did Israel Attack Syria? William Hughes Billy Graham, a Prince of War Exposed Ray McGovern Bush, Oil and Moral Bankruptcy Ron Jacobs Joe Biden's Plan to Chop Up Iraq Dave Lindorff Quit the Party! Join the Mass Resignation Movement! Joshua Frank Pruning the Green Party Anne Dachel The CDC, Vaccines and Autism Website of the Day The God-O-Meter   September 26, 2007 Bill Quigley HUD's Home Wreckers Paul Craig Roberts A Pandemic of Police Brutality Jeff Kisseloff Still Smearing Alger Hiss China Hand Is China the True Target of Financial Sanctions Against Iran? Behzad Yaghmaian At the Gates of Paradise Sonja Karkar The Quality of Mercy in Gaza Mike Ferner Interrupting the Empire, 30 Seconds at a Time Col. Dan Smith Freedom to Speak, Freedom to Learn Clifton Ross Bollinger's Barbarous and Ignorant Speech Brenda Norrell A Meeting of Indigenous Peoples in Caracas Website of the Day The Smearing of Jean Maria Arrigo, a Psychologist Opposed to Torture   September 25, 2007 Nicole Colson On the March Against Racism Uri Avnery Foam on the Water Brendan Cooney Ahmadinejad on Broadway: Free Speech? Arrest Him! Harry Browne Bruce Springsteen Comes Home ... to Hell Marjorie Cohn The Drift Toward War with Iran David Macaray The UAW-GM Strike: the Long Knives are Already Out Ralph Nader Hypocrisy and Inverted Priorities in Congress Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger, the Climate Change Hypocrite Anthony Papa Perverted Justice & America's Drug Laws Christopher Ketcham All Politicos Now Classed as Sexual Deviants Website of the Day John Waters on Free Speech   September 24, 2007 George Ciccariello-Maher Racist Violence from Jena to Oakland Saree Makdisi The War on Gaza's Children David Keen Action-as-Propaganda: Learning About the Iraq War from Hannah Arendt Sherwood Ross Just How Powerful is the Israel Lobby? Only Cheney Knows for Sure Ron Jacobs Greenspan's Open Secret Donna Saggia The Cult of the Military and the Decline of Democratic Values Mike Ferner Free Speech Takes a Capitol Beating Malini Johar Schueller Norman Hsu is a Model Minority Monique Dols and Dylan Stillwood Ahmadinejad and Columbia Website of the Day The Promotion September 22 / 23, 2007 Alexander Cockburn On Naomi Klein's "The Shock Doctrine" Jennifer Loewenstein Beneath the Hideous Veneer of Security Linn Washington, Jr. The Injustice in Jena: Prosecutorial Misconduct More Dangerous Than Racism Jeffrey St. Clair Going Down in Dinosaur: Oil, Dams and Whitewater (Part One) Alan Farago Genuflecting to China Brian Cloughley Of Hate, Hubris and Atrocities Robert Fantina The Deadly Pattern of US Imperialism Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz Land Tenure and Resistance in New Mexico Jason Hribal Fear of an Animal Planet David Rosen Slugger Sex: Athletes, Violence and Male Sexuality Mike Whitney The Era of Global Financial Instability John V. Walsh Who Will Lead a Filibuster of the Iraq War Spending Bill? Dave Lindorff Why Aren't We Banning Blackwater Here? David Michael Green Hiding Behind a Camouflage Skirt Fred Gardner Claudia Jensen (Look Back in Anger) Cassandra Jones Support Our Mercenaries Roger van Zwanenberg Pluto Press Under Attack by Israel Lobby Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Ford Website of the Weekend "For the Bible Tells Me So"   September 21, 2007 Karim Makdisi Letter from Lebanon M. Shahid Alam A History of Violence Alan Farago Who Will Buy My House? Joshua Frank The Demise of the Congressional Black Caucus Dave Zirin Notre Dame and the Economy of Sports Kenneth Couesbouc A Short History of Lending and Borrowing Dr. Steffie Woolhandler and Dr. David Himmelstein Mass Health Care Failure Ben Terrall The Streets of San Francisco: Where Impeachment is Taken Seriously--By Everyone But Pelosi Steve Fournier Ex-Dems, Sign Up Here Frederico Fuentes, et al Voices in Defense of Bolivia Website of the Day Sabra and Shatila, Remembered   September 20, 2007 Kathleen Christison Whatever Happened to Palestine? Zoltan Grossman An Endless Occupation? Paul Craig Roberts As the Empire Slips: Greenspan and the Economy of Greed Stan Cox and Wes Jackson Carbon-Free and Still Wrecking the Planet Russell Mokhiber AARP to Kucinich: Drop Dead Charles Modiano Jim Crow's Children: the Jena 6, Shaquanda Cotton and Blog Power Raymond J. Lawrence Bush's Worrisome Use of Religion Brendan Cooney Body-Snatched Nation Website of the Day Mind Control for Breakfast   September 19, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts Why Did Senator John Kerry Stand Idly By? Paul Krassner The Power of Laughter Sgt. Martin Smith The New Private Warriors: Blackwater in Iraq Seth Sandronsky Living in a Dilapidated Market: To Rent or Own? Claud Cockburn Looking back at the Great Crash Victoria Buch Israel's Agenda for Ethnic Cleansing and Transfer Robert Weissman Oil Warriors: From Greenspan to Kissinger Mike Ferner Can We Talk? Dan Bacher Schwarzenegger's $9 Billion Boondoggle for Big Water Website of the Day Housing Cost Calculator   September 18, 2007 Mike Whitney U.S. Banks Brace for Storm Surge as Dollar and Credit System Reel Alan Farago Interviewing Alan Greenspan: How 60 Minutes Blew It John Ross America's Great Wall: Where Will the Workers Go When They Finish It? Ron Jacobs Nooses Hung From Jena, La. to College Park, Md. Alex Doherty Britain's 9/11 "Truth Movement": Who's Responsible? September 17, 2007 Marjorie Cohn Erwin Chemerinsky and the Post-9/11 Attack on Academic Freedom Paul Craig Roberts Conservatism Isn't What It Used to Be Ricardo Alarcón The Return of C. Wright Mills Amid the Dawn of a New Era Marc Levy Fake Vets Chasing Fame Eva Liddell In 1969 We Already Knew What 2007 Would Look Like Website of the Day Propaganda: Your Job in Germany. Directed by Frank Capra, and written by Theodor Geisel Sept. 15-16, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The General Came to Washington Vicente Navarro How the U.S. Schemed Against Spain's Transition from Dictatorship to Democracy Mike Whitney Plummeting Dollar, Credit Crunch Herman Mindshaftgap Has There Ever Been a Surge? If so, Has it a Future? Ellen Cantarow Girls! Music! Palestine! Jordan Flaherty K-Ville: Fox's New Paean to the N.O.P.D. Zachary Hurwitz Julio Cusurichi on Amazonian Development September 14, 2007 Debbie Nathan New York Times reporter was a member of an illegal underage porn site, claims he was only "posing as online predator" Franklin Lamb Sabra-Shatilla, 25 Years Later Patrick Cockburn Greet Bush and Die: The Killing of Abu Risha Farzana Versey The World's Richest Muslim Tycoon Alan Farago This is Florida, Epicenter of the Housing Bust and of Public Corruption Hank Edson Bill's New Book is Giving Me a Headache September 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Petraeus Confided Presidential Ambitions to Iraqi Official Scott Vest, former Air Force Captain at Minot The Barksdale Nukes Andy Worthington Guantánamo: "Ghost" Prisoners Speak At Last Michael Baney Mr. Fixit of Quake-Stricken Peru Has Death Squad Past Dr. Susan Block Is U.S. Run by Secret Homintern? September 12, 2007 Paul Craig Roberts American Economy: RIP Stan Goff The Petraeus Report William Blum When Soldiers Mutiny...Only Those Fighting the War Can End It. Manuel Garcia Forgetting 9/11 Debbie Nathan Why One Sex Survey Didn't Make the Big Time September 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Fakery of General Petraeus Iain Boal Specters of Malthus: Scarcity, Poverty, Apocalypse Michael Dickinson Osama on 9/11 Guerry Hoddersen Free Speech is Not Given, but Taken Bill Hatch Irish Politics in Old Time California Gary Leupp The Legacy of Luciano Pavarotti Website of the Day Elisa Salasin's "My September 11th" September 10, 2007 Uri Avnery A Big Victory Against the Wall Patrick Cockburn Petraeus's Closet Saul Landau and Farrah Hassen Screwing Up In Iraq David Michael Green Why Fred Thompson is Uniquely Qualified to be the GOP's Nominee Pius Adesanmi A Solidarity Letter to a Victim of Michael Vick Betty Schneider How to Deal With Sex Offenders   September 8 / 9, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Will the US Really Bomb Iran? Saul Landau The Irrational Drama of a Declining Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Hurricane Katrina and Bush's Wars Ray McGovern Petraeus, the Westmoreland of Iraq Matthew Abraham Finkelstein's Legacy at DePaul Alan Farago The Governor and the Growth Machine Christopher Brauchli Grand Old Party Animals Rannie Amiri Battle of the Camps Fred Gardner Will Snoops Get Stopped? James L. Secor B-52 Flexing Nuclear Muscles: H-Bombs Over Barksdale Missy Comley Beattie Choices: Shall We Stay or Shall We Go Now? Ben Tripp Still in the Clover Francis Boyle The University of Illinois' Little Red Sambo Show Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Jason Bourne vs. James Bond Website of the Weekend Drilling Wyoming: the View from Above September 7, 2007 Robert Fantina Those Iraq Reports: Bush vs. Reality John Ross Coca-Cola's Raid on a Sacred Mountain James Brooks The Occupation Within Russell Mokhiber Robert Reich and the Elimination of Corporate Criminal Liability Joshua Frank The Green Implosion Continues: Cyberlynching John Murphy John Walsh On the Green Party Mark Brenner New York Taxi Workers Strike Over Tracking Devices Mike Ferner "I Will Salute No More Forever" Website of the Day Help Save Osny Zachary's Life   September 6, 2007 Kathleen and Bill Christison Bush, Iran and Israel's Hidden Hand Allan J. Lichtman When General Petraeus Speaks, Don't Listen ... Norman Solomon The Secret Addiction of Thomas Friedman Yifat Susskind Hurricane Felix's First Responders: Courage and Tragedy on the Miskito Coast Catherine Fenton Why I Am Going to the Protest Laura Santina Can the War Machine be Contained? Farzana Versey Fission Kashmir Yves Engler Haiti: Where a Wage of $2 a Day is Too Much for the Lords of Industry to Pay Kelly Overton Bang Bang; Shoot Shoot: Is Hunting Racist? Michael Simmons One Jew's Views: The Strange Genius of Drew Friedman and Kominsky Crumb Website of the Day Dams and Genocide in Guatemala     September 5, 2007 Stan Goff The End Begins Michael Dickinson Working for Mother Teresa: Memoirs of a Rebellious Volunteer Matthew Abraham Standing Firm with Norman Finkelstein and DePaul's Heroic Students: a Defining Moment Patrick Cockburn The Basra Debacle Dave Lindorff Beware the Wounded Beast Paul Craig Roberts Who Are the Fanatics? Clifton Ross Ecuador and the Struggle for Latin American Unity Elizabeth Schulte Katrina's Forgotten Refugees Joseph Grosso Labor Day in New York City Ben Terrall Where's Nancy? On Trying to Protest Pelosi in San Francisco Website of the Day A Guide to Narco Dollars   September 4, 2007 Jean Bricmont Why Bush Can Get Away with Attacking Iran Patrick Cockburn Cut and Run in Iraq Ron Jacobs The Haditha Massacre: Spinning a War Crime Tom Kerr Buried Alive on San Quentin's Death Row Gary Leupp The Case of Jose Maria Sison Sonja Karkar The Weeping Olive Trees of Palestine Heather Gray The Best and Worst of America: 9/11, Joseph Lowery and the Lethal Silence of Billy Graham Fidel Castro The Super-Revolutionaries Jackie Corr Home Depot Comes to Butte--Begging Bowl in Hand Sunsara Taylor Katrina and the Progress of the System Website of the Day Colombia Journal   September 3, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Brits Flee from Basra Eamon McCann Qana, Derry: The Dead Lie in Familiar Shapes Joshua Frank The End of the Green Party? Chris Floyd Post-Mortem America: Bush's Year of Triumph Marjorie Cohn A Look at Bush's Iran War Plans Walter Brasch The News Drones: How Fake Photos Helped Lead the US to War in Iraq Matt Reichel Redefining the American Dream Website of the Day Don't Get Fooled Again   September 1 / 2, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Entrapment Snares Larry Craig Andy Worthington Britain's Guantánamo Saul Landau The Tragic Ordeal of the Cuban Five David Keen An Occident Waiting to Happen: Intellectuals and the War on Terror Patrick Cockburn The Collapse of Iraq's Health Care Services Diana Johnstone Back in Uncle Sam's Pocket George Longstreth, MD & Karen Longstreth, RN The Sorrows of Occupation: Life in the West Bank Linda M. Woolf A Sad Day for Psychologists--a Sadder Day for Human Rights Ralph Nader Wrapping the World with Advertising Fred Gardner The Trial of Mollie Fry, MD Ben Tripp Enquiry in America Today David Michael Green American Indigestion: Why Bush Governs from the Gut Missy Comley Beattie Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places: What the GOP Hasn't Learned About Tolerance Michael Dickinson Who's Cheating: Remembering Princess Diana Paul Krassner Assholes of the Week: From Larry Craig to Wesley Clark Ron Jacobs A Sports Nation of Millions Poets' Basement Buknatski, Davies and Mickey Z         Subscribe Online

September 28, 2007 The Other 9/11 September, the Cruelest Month in Chile By SAUL LANDAU "Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain." T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land On September 10, 1810, Chile declared independence from Spain. On September 4 1970, Chile's Popular Unity coalition of left parties under the leadership of Dr. Salvador Allende won the presidential elections with a plurality of 36.4 percent. On September 11, 1973, Army Chief General Augusto Pinochet led a US-backed military coup that killed Allende and Chilean democracy. The military dictatorship endured for 17 years. US interference in Chile's elections began in the 1950s and 1960s when the CIA poured money into the right wing opposition. Less than a week after Nixon received the disappointing news about the presidential vote, he decided to annul the Chilean vote. A quote widely attributed to Secretary of State Henry Kissinger explained Nixon's morality: "I don't see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves." Nixon ordered CIA Director Richard Helms, according to Helms' subsequently published notes, to use violence, economic warfare and whatever else it took to prevent Allende's inauguration and, failing that, to unseat his government. Nixon and Kissinger's sense of "responsibility" meant breaking the law -- in the name of "national security." Following the bloody 9/11/73 coup in Chile, Kissinger eagerly recognized the Pinochet-led coup's illegitimate "junta" and offered it economic aid as well. He also pressured international lending organizations to open their wallets to Pinochet. The US government has yet to declassify documents related to the role in the coup of US Navy spy ships docked in the Valparaiso harbor ­ by coincidence? ­ on Septmber 11. The ships monitored Chilean military phone and radio traffic on the day of the golpe and provided coup organizers with information about units loyal to Allende that might resist; thus, the coup plotters could repress them and avoid civil war. The coup script also called for Allende to surrender. Since he refused to play his assigned part, the generals ordered Chilean Air Force jets to fire rockets into the Moneda Palace. (Think of the Pentagon 28 years later ­ only the Chilean pilots did not sacrifice themselves, but flew their military jets to safety!) The assault on the President's office killed Chilean democracy ­ and President Allende. The high command of the Chilean armed forces ­ unlike the fiends who flew commercial aircraft into office buildings and the Pentagon ­ acted at the behest of "higher powers" in Washington, not in Heaven, although no one should doubt the intensity of US support for the coup. General Carlos Prats, former Chilean Chief of Staff, identified Lt. Col. Patrick Ryan, a Naval Attache, as the key US military liason officer assigned to the coup plotters. (Prats was assassinated in 1974 in Buenos Aires by agents of Pinochet's secret police.) Ryan called the day of the coup "our D-Day." He described the military operation as "close to perfect." (Department of Defense, U.S. Milgroup, Situation Report #2, October 1, 1973 ) Perfection for Ryan included the reestablishment of "liberty." In the weeks following the coup, the military dictatorship showed its understanding of liberty: its troops murdered, kidnapped and tortured tens of thousands and forced hundreds of thousands to flee the country. Pinochet's dictatorship endured for 17 years. Thirty years later, Secretary of State Colin Powell offered sort of an apology: "what happened with Mr. Allendeis not a part of American history that we're proud of." (Interview on Black Entertainment Television's Youth Town Hall, Feb. 20, 1973) A typical congressional responses to imperial crimes came in 1975: post mortem hearings about the CIA's role in Chile. In the testimony, the Solons "discovered" that Nixon and Kissinger had ordered the CIA to "destabilize" the Allende government. (United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, a U.S. Senate committee chaired by Senator Frank Church (D-ID). Sanctimonious Senators and haughty House Members declared their outrage. Yes, once again, the President had broken US laws by conspiring to overthrow governments and kidnap and murder people. This "shocking" behavior occurred just as Congress voted no more funds to continue the Vietnam War where such behavior had become routine. In one "responsible" gambit, the Agency paid $50 thousand to Patria y Libertad thugs. The extreme right wing "action" group tried to kidnap Army Chief General Rene Schneider, but the abductors shot and killed the General and his chauffer. The CIA also organized strikes in strategic sectors of the economy, orchestrated Chilean media propaganda campaigns to smear Allende and paid saboteurs to attack power plants and other infrastructural assets. The Treasury Department pressured international agencies and foreign "allies" to curtail Chile's foreign credit. "Make the economy scream," wrote CIA Chief Richard Helms in his notes taken from a meeting with Nixon and Kissinger about what the Agency should do to bring down the Alllende government. Nixon had to resign in 1974, not because of his criminal acts against Chile, but rather for showing his contempt for US laws at home as well. Kissinger, however, continues to receive honorific deference and high consulting fees. In addition, he still gets his pompous commentaries published in leading newspapers. Like Nixon before he died, Kissinger deserves his proper place: in the dock facing charges of war crimes for conspiracy to commit mass murder and other crimes against the people of Chile. (Add to his crimes orders to bomb civilian targets in Vietnam and his support for massive killing in Indonesia. Kissinger represents the obvious dark side of empire ­ that Metternichian balance to "democracy spreaders" who paint noble intentions over US aggressions.) Even after four and a half years of war in Iraq, "naïve Members still feign "shock" when confronted by daily illegal behavior. Imagine, the President dares violate the very laws and treaties that state Congress must declare war and outlaws interference in other nations' destinies! Haven't they learned the unwritten clause attached to US laws that says they apply to everyone else, not the empire's rulers. Indeed, how would the empire "punish" naughty ­ disobedient -- nations if it had to abide by such restrictions as non-intervention? Others count much less. The US media paid little or no attention to the 34th anniversary of Allende's election, or the military coup in Chile. When TV or print news cover that Andean nation ­ rarely ­ reporters often fail to mention the coup and the US role in it. Instead, Chile gets characterized as a "successful democracy," an example of "free market" success, where neo liberal economics brought economic growth. Amnesia exists in some Chilean minds as well; not just young people, but those who don't want to recall the "unpleasantness" of that aberrant period. How long does it take to heal from the trauma of a coup and 17 years of military rule? I asked a Chilean friend. "I'll let you know," he said. September 18 is Chile's national day, a week after September 11. Chileans count more dead from their 9/11 than the US does from its trauma ­ plus the loss of liberties, the constitution, university system and other institutions deemed dangerous by the military plotters. Chileans have recovered some freedom, some confidence in old institutions. Fools anywhere may continue to trust the military to accept its subordinate role, but only idiots will rely on Washington's repeated assurances that it will obey international law. The loss of innocence is painful and permanent. Salvador Allende, one of the last true democrats, perished with gun in hand, defending the Constitution, the people's document. In his last radio speech, tanks surrounding the Moneda Palace, Allende said: "My words do not have bitterness but disappointment." He refused to resign. "I will pay for loyalty to the people with my life. And I say to them that I am certain that the seeds which we have planted in the good conscience of thousands and thousands of Chileans will not be shriveled forever." Allende asked Chile's workers to grasp the lesson: "foreign capital, imperialism, together with the reaction, created the climate in which the Armed Forces broke their traditionThe people must defend themselves, but they must not sacrifice themselves. The people must not let themselves be destroyed or riddled with bullets, but they cannot be humiliated eitherThese are my last words, and I am certain that my sacrifice will not be in vain, I am certain that, at the very least, it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason." One day, the majority will absorb Allende's warning. Saul Landau writes a regular column for CounterPunch and progresoweekly.com. His new Counterpunch Press book is A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD. His new film, WE DON'T PLAY GOLF HERE (on globalization in Mexico) is available through roundworldproductions@gmail.com His commentaries appear in CounterPunch and www.progresoweekly.com Your Ad Here

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