Wars
of the Laptop Bombers
Today's
Stories
February 26
/ 27, 2005
Noam Chomsky
Nuclear
Terror at Home
February 25,
2005
Roger Burbach
Murder
in the Amazon
Behzad Yaghmaian
Iranian Distrust of America: 50 Years in the Making
Kurt Nimmo
Conclave of the Brats
Joshua Frank
Diagnosing the Green Party
John Farley
How to Stop the War in Iraq: Punish Pro-War Politicians
Lawrence Reichard
The D'Aubuisson Memorial: Flowers of Evil
Pratyush Chandra
The Royal Coup in Nepal and Global Imperialist Designs
David Smith-Ferri
When
the Battlefield has No Borders
Website of
the Day
The 2005 Election in 3-D
February 24,
2005
Omar Waraich
The
Galloway Saga: Smearing an Anti-War Politician
Brian Cloughley
Bribing and Twisting Amerian Journalists: Valerie Plame &
30 Pieces of Silver
Tom Wright
Torture Nation: Abu Ghraib, a Year Later
Sharon Smith
The Anti-War Movement After Kerry: Learning All the Wrong Lessons
Dave Lindorff
Do These Roosting Chickens Have Flu?
Fred Feldman
Lynching Ward Churchill
James Reiss
On Hearing About a Plot to Assassinate President Bush
Diane Christian
Bad
Blood: Ritual & Sexual Torture in Iraq
Website of
the Day
The Gray Line
February 23,
2005
Werther
The
Poisoned Well: What the CIA's Nazi Files Can Tell Us About Iraq
W. John Green
A Salvador Option for Iraq? How Negroponte Changes the Ground
Rules
James Petras
A New Face to Bush Foreign Policy?
Conn Hallinan
Cornering the Dragon: the Return of the China Lobby
Joe Pietri
Cannabis: the Goose that Lays Golden Eggs (For Consumers and
Cops)
Louis Proyect
Hunter Thompson and the "New" Journalism
Alexander Cockburn
Hunter
S. Thompson and Gonzo
Website of
the Day
Did You Make the Blacklist? Why Not?
February 22,
2005
Naseer Aruri
The
Politics of the Hariri Assassination: Remapping the Middle East
Richard Manning
The
Economy of Hunger: Starvation is Part of the Economic Plan
William A.
Cook
Righteous
Racism Running Rampant
Paul Craig Roberts
The Agents of Instability
Ken Krayeske
Dr. Thompson is Out
Dave Zirin
How the Owners Destroyed the NHL
Kirkpatrick
Sale
Imperial
Entropy: the Collapse of the American Empire
February 21,
2005
Hunter S. Thompson
"He
Was A Crook"
John Ross
Mexico:
the Pentagon's Proxy Army in Iraq
Ward Churchill
What Did I Really Say? Why Did
I Say It?
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military Recruiting on Channel One: Geometry 101, Brought to
You by the US Navy
David Swanson
Fighting for a Living Wage, State by State
Dave Lindorff
All the News That's Fit to Fake
Stew Albert
Fear and Loathing: HST
Michael Neumann
Strategies
in Palestine: a Shrinking Pie in the Sky
February 19
/ 20, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Back
to Salem: Paul Shanley and the Return of "Recovered Memory"
Kathleen Christison
Struggling
for Justice in Palestine
Ted Honderich
On Being Persona Non Grata
Gary Leupp
Self-Hating Gays: Welcome to the White House & Welcome to
Commit Suicide
Don Santina
Reparations for the Blues
Jennifer Roesch
John Negroponte: Dirty Warrior
Scott Richard
Lyons
Ward
Churchill and the Identity Police
Chris Clarke
Ward Churchill and Liberal Outrage
George Beres
Censorship in the Land of Wayne Morse: Gagging W. Churchill in
Oregon
Harry Browne
The Belfast Heist: the Plot Unravels
Manuel García,
Jr.
Who Killed Rafik Hariri?
Mark Scaramella
Lessons from the Hidden Afghan War
Michael Donnelly
Whatever Happened to John Edwards?
John Pilger
First, They Attack the Past
Norman Madarasz
Death Wish for Reform in Brazil?
Surendra Devkota
The Monarchy in Nepal
Deborah Rich
How Anti-GMO Ballot Measures May Miss the Mark
Fred Gardner
When Dr. Tod Met Merle Haggard
CounterPunch
News Service
About King Mswati: Political Developments in Swaziland
Richard Oxman
CounterPunching Arthur Miller
Poets' Basement
Albert, Giebel, Tripp, Engel and Orkin
February 18,
2005
Ben Moxham
In
East Timor, the Nightmare Continues
Dave Lindorff
The
Scum Also Rises: the Bloody Career of John Negroponte
Larry Birns
Negroponte: a Resume of Death Squads, Deceptions and Bribery
Gregory Elich
N, Korea's Phantom Nukes and the US's Subversion of Diplomacy
Samuel Logan / John Meyers
The Future of Colombia's Paramilitary Death Squads
Nicole Colson
Shock and Awe on Civil Liberties: From Lynne Stewart to Ward
Churchill
Suzan Mazur
Whose National Security Are We Talking About?
Mickey Z.
"One
Man Has Stopped Killing"
February 17,
2005
Joshua Frank
Hogtying
of the Deaniacs
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
Willing Sychophants: the Conservative Media
Robert Fisk
Under
the Shadow of Death in Lebanon
Christopher
Brauchli
Where
Time Stands Still: Kinsey and Darwin in Cobb County, GA
Dr. Teresa
Whitehurst
Military
Recruitment TV: Why Send Them to College, When Your Kid Can be
Cannon Fodder?
Alison Weir
Russia, Israel and Media Omissions
Ahrar Ahmad
A Review of Shahid Alam's "Is There an Islamic Problem?"
Saul Landau
An
Interview with Cuban VP Ricardo Alarcon: "The US Tramples
the Laws It Wrote"
Website of the Day
Petition to Support Ward Churchill
February 16,
2005
Robert Fisk
Lebanon:
a Battlefield for the Wars of Others
Kevin Zeese
Creating a Real Ownership Society: Share the Wealth; Protect
Retirement
Gary Leupp
Meanwhile, in Nepal...
Ron Jacobs
Why the Iranian Opposition Should Not Trust the Bush Administration
Jessica Leight
Oil-Flush Chavez Begins to Strut His Stuff
Greg Moses
Houston, You've Got a Problem: Documenting Voting Irregularities
in Texas
Mark Engler
The Last Porto Alegre
Jack McCarthy
Where's the Outrage About Pat? Buchanan Does a Churchill
Bill Christison
US
Foreign Policy Dangerously Slanted Toward Israel
Website of the Day
The
World is Melting: a Photo Survey by Gary Braasch
February 15,
2005
CounterPunch
News Service
Dean
a "Safe" Moderate, Says NYT Citing CounterPunch
Robert Fisk
The
Killing of Mr. Lebanon
Uri Avnery
"Sharm-al-Sheikh,
We Have Come Back Again"
Stan Cox
Fighting Big Pharma in Little Digwal
Mickey Z.
Radio
Active North of the Border: an Interview with Chris Cook
Dave Zirin
Bashing Bush: Jose Canseco Comes Clean
Nadia Martinez
Ending
World Poverty? Opening at the World Bank, Apply Now
Lila Rajiva
"Little Eichmanns" and the 'Harijan': the Danger of
Magical Thinking in Politics
Paul Craig
Roberts
The
American Job Sell Out
February 14,
2005
Robert Jensen
Ward
Churchill: Right to Speak Out; Right About 9/11
Brian Cloughley
Kuwait's Freedom, Bush-style
Patrick Cockburn
Outcome
of the Iraqi Elections: Shortages, Corruption, Guerrilla War
Gary Leupp
Post-election Iraq: What Next?
Michael Donnelly
Sacred Nature: Just Another Commodity?
Dave Lindorff
When Bush Came to My Neighborhood
Elaine Cassel
The
Lynne Stewart Verdict
February 12
/ 13, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill's Genes
Saul Landau
Alarcon
Speaks: an Interview with the Vice President of Cuba
Paul Craig
Roberts
Nothing
to Fear But Bush Himself
Patrick Cockburn
Two Years After the Fall of Saddam, the Resistance Controls All
Major Roads into Baghdad
John Feffer
Bush
v. N. Korea: Round Two
Mickey Z.
Right to Remain Silent; Duty to Speak
Kurt Nimmo
Viva la Cucaracha!
Fred Gardner
Waiting for Raich
Dave Zirin
Fighting the New Republic(ans)
John Chuckman
Hiroshima, Mon Amour
Ben Tripp
A Leftist on the Bush Payroll
Carol Norris
"Buddy, Can You Spare a Dwarf?"
Robert Fisk
No Middle East Peace Without Justice
Frank / Chowkwanyun
Muzzled Activist in an Age of Terror: the Case of Sherman Austin
Mike Whitney
Condi's Euro Tour
Deborah Frisch
A Psychologist's Defense of Ward Churchill
Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Reading Khomeini in Colorado
Christine TenBarge
What's So Special About Ward?
Ron Jacobs
Curtis Mayfield's Train to Jordan
Dr. Susan Block
Chemistry of Love: a Valentine's Greeting
Poets' Basement
Louise, Smith-Ferri, Ford and Albert
Website of the Weekend
Free Sherman
February 11,
20055
Manuel Garcia,
Jr
The
Eight Percent War
Kurt Nimmo
Ann
Coulter's Racism: Where's Geronimo When You Really Need
Him?
Dave Lindorff
Guckert
or Gannon? The Perfect Plant; He Fit Right In
Larry Birns
War is Peace; Slavery is Freedom: Democracy According to Elliott
Abrams
Bill Quigley
Twenty Questions: a Social Justice Quiz
Tom Barry
Bush's State of Delusion
Jennifer Van
Bergen
Lynne
Stewart's Conviction Hurts Us All
February 10,
2005
Dave Lindorff
What
Academic Freedom?
Christopher Brauchli
The Love of Slaughter: From Rwanda to Iraq
Patrick Cockburn
In Baghdad, It's Easy to Get Killed
Nicole Colson
Have the Democrats Surrendered on Abortion Rights?
Suzan Mazur
More
on the Assassination of Lumumba from Mr. Garsin of Kinshasha
Michael Donnelly
Salvaging an Opposition
Mike Stark
Driving Ossie Davis: "Give Them a Little Truth, a Little
Hope"
Greg Moses
Taking
Jesus Back from the Hijackers
Website of
the Day
The Missionary Positions
February 9,
2005
Jeffrey St.
Clair
Duck
and Cover Redux: Bunker Busters and City Levellers
Mickey Z.
What Ward Churchill Didn't Say
John Ross
Hecho
en Mexico: the Iraqi Election
Tom Barry
Ambassador of Lies: Elliott Abrams, the Neocon's Neocon
Conn Hallinan
The
Coup in Nepal: Nursing the Pinion
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Vision for Iraq: Cricket is Fine, But Chess is "Absolutely
Forbidden"
Steen Sohn
Danish PM Says It's OK for Israel to Violate UN Resolutions
Tim Wise
Reflections on Empire and Uppity Indians
Website of
the Day
Support Antiwar.com
February 8,
2005
Patrick Cockburn
Shia/Kurd
Coalition to Dominate New Iraqi Govt.: "It's an Electoral
Pact, Not a Party"
Brian Cloughley
Out
of the Mouths of Generals: "It's Fun to Shoot Some People"
Steve Breyman
Against the Selfishness of the "Ownership Society"
Harry Browne
"Don't
Get on that Plane!": Soldiers Seek Asylum in Ireland
Doug Giebel
"We Love Free Speech in America": the People, the President
and Ward Churchill
Nate Collins
The Censorship of Ward Churchill and Dancehall Reggae: It's the
Same Beast
Dave Lindorff
It's Time for a Labor-Oriented Newspaper
David Smith-Ferri
Sanctions and the Health Crisis in Iraq
February 7,
2005
Paul Craig
Roberts
Bush's
War on Jobs
Carolyn Baker
The New McCarthyism on Campus: Churchill and the Attack on Higher
Ed
Joshua Frank
Marc Cooper's Hit List: First Mumia; Now Ward Churchill
Mickey Z.
Warning: More Hate Speech from W. Churchill
Patrick Cockburn
The
Kidnapping Gangs of Iraq
Mike Whitney
Tom Friedman: Scribe for New Age Imperialism
Stacie Jonas
Pinochet: Fit to be Tried
Dave Zirin
A Miserable Super Sunday: Clinton, Bush and the FBI
Tariq Ali
Imperial
Delusions
February 5
/ 6, 2005
Alexander Cockburn
Ward
Churchill and the Mad Dogs
Kurt Nimmo
A Ward Churchill Kind of Day
Joshua Frank
Liberals Trash Ward Churchill
P. Sainath
Mumbai's Man-Made Tsunami
Patrick Cockburn
Sistani's Triumph; Allawi's Bust
Laura Carlsen
Bush, Rice and Latin America
Dave Lindorff
How the NYT Killed the Bush Bulge Story
Pamela Olson
West Bank Story
Behzad Yaghmaian
The Future of Sudanese Refugees in the West
Saul Landau / Farrah Hassen
A Threatened UN in King George's Court
Roger Burbach
World Social Forum: a Tale of Two Presidents
Robert Fisk
History by Laptop
David Swanson
James Forman and the Liberal-Labor Syndrome
Justin E.H. Smith
Gay Marriage: a Report from Canada
Cacie Hart
The "State" of the Union: More War and a Ban on Love
Ron Jacobs
Chairman Bob Avakian: a Revolutionary Life
Mickey Z.
Viewing America from the Outside
Ben Tripp
Republican Heroes: a New Breed of Good Guy
Ben Sonnenberg
France at the End of the Devil's Decade: Renoir's Rules of the
Game
Poets' Basement
Smith-Ferri, Davies, Collins, & Albert
Website of
the Weekend
John Trudell: How to Earn a 17,000 Page FBI File
February 4,
2005
Brian Cloughley
The
Army Symphonist: "Sometimes the Only Way to Change the Behavior
of Someone Like That is to Kill Them"
Bill Christison
Election
Parallels: Vietnam, 1967; Iraq, 2005
Elaine Cassel
Did Zoloft Make Him Do It?
Jacob Levich
Chomsky and the Draft
Kanak Mani Dixit
Return of the Royalists in Nepal
Ron Jacobs
The
Downward Spiral in Iraq
February 3,
2005
Ward Churchill
On
the Injustice of Getting Smeared: a Campaign of Fabrications
and Gross Distortions
Sharon Smith
Resisting
Soldiers Need Our Support
Mickey Z.
Leslie
Gelb Asks Iraq: Who's Your Daddy?
Mike Whitney
President of Alienation: a Desperate State of the Union
Jenna Orkin
9/11 the Sequel: the Toxic State of Lower Manhattan
Saul Landau
Elections Won't Prevent Civil War in Iraq
Yitzhak Laor
Strange is the Silence
Dave Lindorff
The
Assault on Social Security: a New Campaign of Lies
February 2,
2005
David Domke
/ Kevin Coe
Bush's
Brand of Christianity
Noam Chomsky
Iraq
After the Elections
M. Shahid Alam
O'Reilly's
Fatwah on "Un-American" Professors: FoxNews Puts Me
in Its Crosshairs
Richard Oxman
Ringing in 1984 with Ward Churchill and Derrick Jensen
Joshua Frank
The Suckering of Howard Dean
Dave Lindorff
A History Lesson from the NYT
Nina Hartley
Feminists for Porn
Website of the Day
War is a Racket
February 1,
2005
Joshua L. Dratel
The
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Patrick Cockburn
New Doubts About Allawi
Robert Fisk
"The Only Decent Food We Get is at Funerals"
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The Stalemate
Col. Dan Smith
"W" Stands for Withdrawal
Alison Weir
Making America as "Secure" as Israel
Alan Farago
Heaven and Hell in the Everglades
Ray Hanania
Low Voter Turnout of Iraqi Expatriates: Less Than 10% of Qualified
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Paul Craig
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American
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Website of the Day
Statisticians Refute Official Rationale for Exit Poll Errors
December 22,
2004
James Petras
An
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The Case for Boycotting Israel
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FBI Torture Memos
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Weekend Edition
February 26 / 27, 2005
"How to End the 1948 War"
In
Praise of the Facts
By
YITZHAK LAOR
"Israel/Palestine:
How to End the 1948 War"
by Tanya Reinhart
Seven Stories Press, 280 pages, $10.36
D uring the time of the Lebanon War,
late at night at the Red Bar after editing the news, one desk
head told about a young major general who was circulating in
the salons of Tel Aviv society and introducing himself as a future
prime minister. I remember asking: "But on behalf of which
party?" "Ah, that isn't clear yet," replied my
boss. That person, who at the time seemed like a joke to night-desk
editors--who "know everything," even what cannot be
published, or cannot be given prominence of place, or can be
given prominence of place, with a wink--was the destroyer of
the Israeli left, Ehud Barak.
It is from this man that Tanya
Reinhart's book begins, and the fact that the government is now
headed by his military mentor, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon--who
also did not know which party to join after the Israel Defense
Forces--is only a minor element in the structure of parallels
and similarities between the two. The main thing is that the
elder of the two established the "project" of Jewish
settlement in the territories, and the younger gave it the official
seal of approval of the Zionist left, even before he became prime
minister. Reinhart examines the closeness between the two with
great precision.
The book has come out in Hebrew
at a time when it is relatively easy to refute the official version,
which four-and-a-half years ago enlisted many supporters for
itself, first in Israel and later abroad as well: "We offered
the Palestinians a lot; they rejected the offer; then they launched
an attack on us." This version has faded not because of
the lies, but rather because no one, apart from politicians and
the army, believes this narrative anymore. But the refrain has
been playing in the background ever since the autumn of 2000,
and in it the difference between the Zionist left and the right
drowned long ago, and the peace festival at the gates, just as
in the days of Oslo, again prohibits the asking of questions
"from the left side." What will happen when Israel
once again insists on its favorite pieces of real estate? Tanya
Reinhart is a person who can be relied upon not to tire of reminding
us of what has been forgotten or is fading.
Reinhart insists that it is
possible to build the counter-narrative only from reports that
have been published in the press, but do not belong to the description
of the reality among the Israelis. The contradictions can be
refuted by means of reading the open source materials, she believes.
She talks about facts.
Shaking
off the mythology
If it were a matter of investment
in foreign capital markets, for example, Israeli investors would
try to shake off the mythology, stripping the fictional world
of everything that belongs to the imagination, and end up confronting
the rules themselves, equipped with the facts. This is the secret
of the charm of capital markets: Their disciples do not buy nonsensical
things, even if they have been written about by babes-in-the-woods,
best-selling Zionist authors and generals.
But in Israeli politics there
are those who have an interest in keeping the flame of war burning
eternally, and perhaps reason has little place in Israel's belligerent
politics (see Lebanon, for example). And the facts? Where are
they? It is doubtful that it would have been possible to do it--that
is, to publish everything and nevertheless neither know nor believe,
if that that has no connection to the facts did not play such
a significant role in our world.
Is there any importance to
the fact that the IDF and Israeli politicians made every effort
to get the "them" (the Palestinians) out into the streets
in order to turn their struggle into a bloody conflict? In remarks
that former head of Military Intelligence Amos Malka made to
Akiva Eldar in Haaretz on June 11, 2004, this is exactly what
it is possible to see. In the autumn of 2000 a great effort was
made, following Sharon's provocation of visiting the Temple Mount,
with Barak's permission, to turn the disquiet into a war.
Since Reinhart wrote her first,
English version of the book, a year after the start of the intifada,
the atmosphere has changed. It is now permitted to say what in
the beginning only Haaretz's Amira Hass reported. Hass wrote
more than four-and-a-half years ago what Malka said to Eldar
only eight months ago, yet nothing gets anyone excited anymore.
Not a bird has chirped, not a writer among Barak's supporters
has asked for forgiveness. What have the facts got to do with
our mythical life? Moreover, what Eldar published in 2004 from
Malka's mouth, Ben Caspit published more than two-and-a-half
years ago in the mass-circulation daily Maariv, apparently also
with Malka as his source.
Thus, the truth about the start
of the intifada had already been revealed, and no propagandist
has yet been pilloried. However, as is the wont of lies, the
"they started it" story became a truth that no longer
needed ideologues. The consensual lie became a prevailing truth.
No fact will any longer undermine "they started it,"
apart from a real trauma, and of course we cannot hope for a
real trauma, along the lines of the Yom Kippur War, because what
kind of hope is it to wait for a disaster?
Fragile
convictions
For whom, then, is Reinhart's
excellent book intended? Cynics will say "for those who
are in any case convinced." However, there is nothing like
an intifada for delineating the weakness of the "convinced
in any case." After all the posturing of Oslo ("Our
way has prevailed") came the miserable, impotent folding
of the Zionist left by the first weeks of the disturbances. Take
the article "Left in Distress" (Haaretz Magazine, October
20, 2000) and see how fragile the "conviction of the convinced"
was. And those who were perplexed at that time also remained
silent when the Lebanon War began. Thus, what was it that the
"convinced" couldn't face? Incorrect facts? Or perhaps
the need to express reservations about a prime minister who was
"one of us"--that is, Barak? Or perhaps they could
not face the need to stand up against "our" army? Tribalism,
which is the primary characteristic of the Zionist left, was
working overtime.
Excessive faith in the power
of facts is an inherent flaw in very many people of the radical
left. Most of them assume that if only they succeed in "showing
the truth" to everyone, politics will change. Alas, most
Israelis do know about the hell that Palestinians go through
in the territories, yet at the same time most Israelis are in
a different, mythical history--"the rebirth of the Jewish
people." The facts do not succeed in becoming part of the
chain of cause and effect. Reinhart, however, does believe in
facts. She truly believes that taking a position should be done
in a manner similar to examining a scientific theorem, through
the refinement of awareness, the clearing away of all sentiment--apart
from moral sentiment--and using a basis of knowledge, devoid
of interests.
We are lacking many facts,
even after reading this book. Reinhart knows this. She says that
she does not deal with investigations. This is the role of the
press, but the press is in no hurry to investigate. When, for
example, was the plan prepared to suppress the "uprising"
that would become an uprising, if we know how to breathe fire
into it? Is it necessary to be a demagogic propagandist, or alternatively
a paranoid tabloid reader, to think that in the autumn of 2000,
and even two years later, at the height of the big terror attacks,
there was any danger to Israel's very existence? But "the
second half of the 1948 war" was echoing in the renewed
transfer plan. This transfer is being carried out. Everything
that is happening around the fence, everything that is being
put into operation in the matter of the Palestinians' property
and lands--with the help of regulations and special laws passed
and used right during the establishment of the state to confiscate
massive amounts of Palestinian property within Israel--happened
once and is happening again, but "they started it."
There is quite a lot that looks like a continuation of 1948,
and everything is quietly passing by with a yawn.
"They started it"
affords a kind of assuaging of the guilt. And what about the
solution? There is no solution. Or there is a solution. Bang-bang,
we're done. Just so there's quiet.
When David Zonsheine was called
up for reserve duty to "take a line"--that is, to prepare
his company for reserve duty in the Gaza Strip--the commander
of his division, a brigadier general, said to him arrogantly:
"In this intifada there is no judge advocate general [JAG]."
Zonsheine decided to refuse to serve, and together with other
officers he established the Courage to Refuse organization. That
brigadier general's remark came up since in all too many contexts:
"In this intifada there is no JAG." And wonder of wonders:
It was none other than the JAG during this intifada, Menachem
Finkelstein, who--to put it mildly--tried not to send soldiers
and officers to trial for war crimes. Indeed this Finkelstein
was the first, and for the time being the only, JAG to be demobilized
with the rank of major general.
This is an event that cries
out for interpretation. The facts exist. The connection has not
yet been made. This is a place where the press is too lazy to
think, perhaps because the press itself has looked the other
way and has not wanted to see the deeds for which Finkelstein
covered Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz's posterior--and not just
Maariv.
The facts convince or help
to convince, but the history of the human race needs Reinhart's
faith (and the faith of other believers in facts and also of
those who do not believe in facts, but are dedicated to collecting
them), because how is it possible to live in a world where there
is no difference between a lie and a truth? And how can the difference
between a truth and a lie be established without the facts?
Yitzhak Laor is an Israeli novelist who lives in
Tel Aviv.
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