Today's Stories

July 24, 2008

Greg Moses
Who Killed Azem Hajdari?

July 23, 2008

Winslow T. Wheeler
An Air Force in Free Fall

Paul Craig Roberts
The Mother of All Messes

Ralph Nader
Pavlov's America

Mike Whitney
Visualizing Dow 6,000

Susie Day
Senator Sicko: Jesse Helms and the Theatre of the Depraved

Website of the Day
"A Kinder and Gentler Machine-Gun Hand..."

July 22, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Ten Years On, Bolivarian Revolution at Crossroads

Patrick Cockburn
Boost for Obama Over Iraq Withdrawal

Soldz, Olson, Reisner Arrigo and Welch
Torture After Dark

Moshe Adler
Everyone Must Share, Not Just Charlie Rangel

Martha Rosenberg
Protecting Bones from Drugs that Protect Bones

Dan Bacher
Bechtel and the Big Dig

Harvey Wasserman
Is Gore Inching Toward Solartopia?

Anthony Papa
A Slugger's Drug Redemption

Binoy Kampmark
Mad Over Benedict

Website of the Day
Hiroshima: A-Bombed Objects

July 21, 2008

Ishmael Reed
Remnick's Latest Blunder

Mike Whitney
The Democrats are the Real Problem

Andy Worthington
Dictatorial Powers Upheld: the Meaning of the Al-Marri Decision

Scott Pellegrino
Should "Meet the Press" Desegregate?

John Ross
McCain Crosses the Border, Gets No Satisfaction

Robert Weitzel
Blowback Through the Looking Glass

Mike Stark
I was Spied on by the Maryland Police

Website of the Day
Pinky Solves the Illegal Immigration Crisis

July 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
It's a Dull Race

Jeffrey St. Clair
How to Beat a Mining Company: Why a Gold Goliath Threw in the Towel

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

Saul Landau
Obits for Opposites: Carlin and Helms

Ron Jacobs
Why Afghanistan is Not the Good War

Uri Avnery
Different Planet:the Israel / Hezbollah Prisoner Swap

Neve Gordon
The Untold Story of Ni'lin

Roane Carey
Dr. Benny and Mr. Morris

Robert Fantina
Ashcroft, Torture and the U. S.

Christopher Brauchli
The General Lied

Fred Gardner
Cannabinoid Researchers Won’t Take the High Road

David Macaray
Labor Unions and the Courts

Richard L. Hutto
The Ecology of Severely Burned Forests

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour

Ronnie Cummins
Netroots Nation or Nation of Sheep?

David Yearsley
Opera and Globalization

Alison McKenna
A Close Call for Medicare

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight Ascends

Poets' Basement
Ko Un

Website of the Day
What If Edward Said Had Told This Joke?

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D. C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington"Screwed Up" and"Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U. S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U. S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be"Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U. S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N. D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on"Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

July 24, 2008

The Neza Brothers Want to Live with that Truth in Texas

Who Killed Azem Hajdari?

By GREG MOSES

As the ten-year anniversary of Azem Hajdari's assassination approaches, the killing of the philosophy student who led the democratic movement in Albania is being fanned into memory by US efforts to deport the brother of an eyewitness to the crime.

***

It was the evening of Sept. 12, 1998 when the legendary moral leader of the Albanian democratic movement was at the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Albania, in the capital city of Tirana.  Azem Hajdari had been leader of the student movement widely credited for toppling the Communist regime in Albania.  He had been the Democratic Party's first chairman.  And he was serving his fourth term as a member of the Albanian parliament.  At party headquaters, Hajdari and his personal bodyguard, Besim Cerja were chatting with a volunteer doorkeeper, Xhemal Neza; and with Xhemal's cousin Zenel.

"Hajdari was a man of great integrity and we respected him very much," recalls Xhemal Neza in an affidavit of April 2007.  "Shortly before 9:30 p.m. the telephone rang and Hajdari spoke to the caller. When he hung up the telephone, he told us, ‘We have to leave immediately,' because Izet Haxhia had told us to come at once. Haxhia was the personal body guard of Sali Berisha, who had become president of Albania in 1992. Berisha was the main leader of the Party on 12 September 1998. I personally heard Hajdari say the call was from Haxhia."

"I opened the door," continues the affidavit of the volunteer doorkeeper, "and Hajdari, Cerja, and my cousin Zenel Neza went out and got into Hajdari's car, which was inside the walled compound. Cerja was driving; Hajdari was in the front passenger seat, and Zenel Neza was in the back seat. While I was closing the gate the car traveled out and turned right onto the street; after it moved about four meters, a black Mercedes 500 with Vlora license plates moved up and blocked its path. There was a light gray Jeep SUV just behind the Mercedes."

"At about 9:30 p.m. Hajdari was shot. News reports saying he was killed at 10:00 p.m. are mistaken. I was about four meters from Hajdari when they killed him. I saw the persons who fired the shots and saw them pull the triggers. There were four assassins in the two cars."  Three of the assassins got out of their cars carrying automatic rifles.  They were all wearing police uniforms.  Xhemal recognized them as people he had grown up with.

Hajdari and his personal body guard were killed on the spot.  In the back seat, Zenel Neza was critically wounded.  Xhemal called his brother Rrustem, and together with cousins Skender and Gani they managed to drive Zenel to a doctor and then to safety in a nearby town.

The next day there was a demonstration.  Police fired on the crowd, killing several people, and knocking Xhemal unconscious.  The day after that, there was yet another demonstration.  And this time, Rrustem Neza told the crowd of "about a thousand people" what Xhemal had seen on the night of the assassination and who the killers were.  Xhemal went into hiding, moving every week.  During one of the moves, his driver, cousin Skender, was killed. 

"The police blasted Skender's car with gunfire and began searching for me, but fortunately I had run in the opposite direction."  Meanwhile, cousin Gani was also killed.  Of the four men who were part of the fateful rescue mission for Zenel Neza, two were dead.  Zenel managed to escape the country.  The other two, brothers Rrustem and Xhemal, eventually fled to Texas. 

***

When the Neza brothers arrived in the USA, Xhemal was granted asylum and legal residency, but his brother Rrustem's application for asylum was denied.  According to court documents filed in Rrustem's behalf, the immigration judge for Rrustem's case simply did not believe Rrustem's story.  Xhemal testified at Rrustem's hearing, but the judge wanted some corroborating evidence.  Said the judge: "one would assume that his [the cousin's] killing would have been reported in some newspaper in Albania which the respondent could have brought to court."

As Rrustem's present attorney John Wheat Gibson points out in this week's brief to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, the newspaper story about Gani Neza's killing is available to anyone who can Google "Gani Neza."  Who knows why Rrustem's former attorney did not present that newspaper article, or why the judge did not believe the brothers.  Rrustem has been appealing for asylum ever since.

When they lived in Albania, the Neza brothers shared family land where there was gold and chrome.  In Texas they opened up a pizza shop in the small college town of Nacogdoches.  Things were quiet and apparently prosperous enough for them until they put in for a license to sell beer.  An affidavit from the preparer of that license states that, "I never asked Xhemal or Rrustem about citizenship.  I just assumed."

On Jan. 18, 2007 Rrustem Neza was arrested for claiming to be a citizen on a beer license application, but he was never charged.  In February, he was transferred to the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), who locked him up at the Rolling Plains Prison of Haskell, Texas.  In order to get out of prison he would only need to agree to go back to Albania.  But he decided being alive in Haskell was better than being dead in Albania, so he waited in prison, separated from his wife and two children.

In June 2007, President Bush visited Albania, where the triumph of the Albanian Democratic Party was imaged via color photographs of Bush and Berisha smiling, waving, joined at the hip. 

In late August 2007, ICE officials retrieved Rrustem from Haskell and forced him to board an Albania-bound airplane in Dallas.  He screamed for his life.  ICE was forced to abort the deportation, so they threw him back in prison.

***

On Sept. 4, 2007 attorney Gibson shared an email about Rrustem's case, which was posted under his byline at the Texas Civil Rights Review.  From there, the story went around the world to an Albanian tabloid, Korrieri.  "WITNESS COMES FROM AMERICA," shouted the headline of Sept. 5.  "Rrustem Neza is considered by Texas Civil Rights Review one of those who made public the names of the people who killed Mr. Hajdari on 12 September 1998 in Tirana. While in Albania, there are calls for truth in the investigation process, witnesses and all the people connected to the case are still battling in the courts."

On Sept. 11, 2007 Rrustem Neza made headlines in the Dallas Morning News as the "Albanian who screamed himself off plane."  Completely unembarrassed by all of this, the heart of ICE was hardened, and on Oct. 1, US officials asked for a federal court order to "dope and deport" Mr. Neza, so that he could be rendered pharmaceutically incapable of screaming the next time they put him on a plane.

Yet by this time, finally, the patent absurdity of America's treatment of Rrustem Neza attracted the public attention of conservative East Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, who on Oct. 23 penned an editorial for the Lufkin paper, calling Mr. Neza's treatment "intolerable."  On Nov. 1, Gohmert introduced two personal bills in Congress in Mr. Neza's behalf.

During the holiday season of 2007, ICE continued to keep Mr. Neza in Haskell prison, separated from his wife and two children.

Finally, on leap day 2008, three days after a Congressional committee took up Rep. Gohmert's personal bills, Rrustem Neza was allowed to go back to his wife and two children after 13 months of imprisonment.

In March 2008, Rep. Gohmert announced that Mr. Neza's deportation would be "stayed" until March 2009, the Lufkin paper editorialized in Mr. Gohmert's behalf, and federal authorities announced that the "dope and deport" efforts had been officially "closed."

All of which brings us well into the summer of 2008.  To date, the federal government of the USA is still refusing to grant Rrustem Neza an asylum hearing where attorney Gibson can submit corroborating evidence that Gani and Skender Neza are, in sad fact, as dead as the respected leader of the Albanian democratic uprising,  Azem Hajdari.  And if they were all gunned down in cold blood, doesn't Rrustem Neza deserve to be believed when he says that deporting him to Albania would place him in reasonable fear for his life?

Greg Moses is editor of the Texas Civil Rights Review and author of Revolution of Conscience: Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Philosophy of Nonviolence. He is a contributor to Red State Rebels: Tales of Grassroots Resistance in the Heartland, to be published by AK Press in June 2008. He can be reached at: gmosesx@gmail.com

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