Today's Stories

April 13, 2009

Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit

Jeremy Scahill
A Test Case for Habeas Corpus: Will Obama Prosecute the Somali Pirate in a US Court?

Karl Grossman
A Radioactive Extension for Aging Nuclear Plants

Nadia Hijab
Still Waiting: Obama and American Muslims

April 10 / 12, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Resurrection and Revenge

Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

Mike Whitney
"Liquidate the Banks; Fire the Executives!" Warren's Devastating Report to Congress

Saul Landau
How the Media Bought the Surge

M. Reza Pirbhai
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations

Franklin Spinney
The Art of the Scam: Wall Street and the Pentagon

Rannie Amiri
Iran's Elections: Why Arab Leaders Want Ahmadinejad to Win

William Blum
The Ideology of Barack Obama

Matt Vidal
Why Card Check Would Help the Economy

Jeff Howison
Death of the Square Deal

Jeff Leys
Resisting the Af-Pak War: the Creech Air Base Arrests

Dave Lindorff
America's Imperial Wars: Why We Need to See the Horrors

Ramzy Baroud
Israel Investigated: But Will It Repent?

Missy Beattie
The Grateful Dead, Wounded and Displaced

Fred Gardner
Fakes Left, Goes Right: Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy

Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes?

Suzan Mazur
A Revolution in Biology: an Interview with Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse

Bernard Umbrecht
German Capitalists Take Fire

David Macaray
A Word Clooney, Hanks and Baldwin Should Learn: Solidarity

Janet Kauffman
How to Starve (or Feed) a River

Ron Jacobs
Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win

Norman Solomon
Getting a Death Grip on Memory

Michael Winship
Let the Railsplitter Awake!

Richard Rhames
Empire, Ennui and Extra Cheese

Wanda Fucha
Brother, Can You Spare a Million Bucks?

David Yearsley
My Journey to the Heart of Rahman

Lorenzo Wolff
Getting Beyond the Black-and-White: Jason Isbell's Challenging New Album

Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini's Louis XIV: "Neither the Sun Nor Death Can be Gazed Upon Fixedly"

Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller

Poets' Basement
Corseri and Corzett

Website of the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!

April 9, 2009

Mike Whitney
The Decade of Darkness

Patrick Cockburn
What It Would Take to Mend Fences with Islam

Stephen Soldz
Caught on Tape: Diagnostic Abuse of Veterans

P. Sainath
The Rise of the Shoe-cide Bomber

Ellen Cantarow
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer

Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Obama and Israel's Threat to Strike Iran

Jeremy Scahill
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up Against Obama's Bloated Military Budget?

Jerry Kroth
Saving GM From Bankruptcy--With the Stroke of a Pen

Binoy Kampmark
Fujimori Convicted: A Measure of Justice in Latin America

Fidel Castro
My Meeting with the Black Caucus

Website of the Day
Bird Song Radio

April 8, 2009

John Prados
The Af-Pak Paradox

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Changing the Rules of the Blame Game

Winslow T. Wheeler
The Tooth Fairy and the Defense Budget

Russell Mokhiber
PBS Lashes Back

Kathy Sanborn
Depression Fury

Rev. William E. Alberts
If the Shoe Fits: Bush and Al-Zaidi

James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement"

Nadia Hijab
Olmert's Nightmare

Adam Turl
Card Check on the Ropes

Kevin Zeese
Escaping the Drug War Quagmire

Website of the Day
Walk Score Your Neighborhood

April 7, 2009

David Price
Counterinsurgency's Free Ride

Uri Avnery
Who's the Boss?

Chris Floyd
Talking Peace in Prague, Dropping Bombs in Pakistan

Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System

Marjorie Cohn
Prosecuting the Bush Torture Team: Spain Leads the Way

Dean Baker
Hands Off Social Security

Diana Johnstone
NATO, Strasbourg and the Black Block

Dave Lindorff
Politicizing Accounting

Martha Rosenberg
Life on HBO's Factory Hog Farm

Evelyn Pringle
Motherhood and the Psycho-Pharmaceutical Complex

Website of the Day
Gaza: Closed Zone

April 6, 2009

Michael Hudson
The IMF Rules the World

Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror

Ray McGovern
Profiles in Cowardice: Eric Holder and Colin Powell

Deepak Tripathi
The Pakistan Enigma

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: a Glide-Path to Destitution

Norman Solomon
Meet the New Escalators: the Democrats and the Afghan War

Jonathan Cook
Israel Railways Accused of Racism in Firing of Arab Workers

Judith Bello
Justice for the Developmentally Disabled

Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia

Dr. M. Kamiar
"There's No 'Eye' in Iran:" Obama's Pronunciation Problem

Website of the Day
Prison Talk

April 3-5, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots

Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones

Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety

Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression

Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA

Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?

Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business

Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences

Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern

John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?

Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust

Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech

Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum

Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival

David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card

John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era

Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six

Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace

Reza Fiyouzat
The Iran/US Rapproachment Dance

Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You

Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Batting 50-50

Charles R. Larson
Too Much Stuff

Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!

Stephen Martin
Gordon Brown's Chicken Run at the G20

Kim Nicolini
"Last House on the Left:" Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie

David Yearsley
Homage to Moog and Mallards

Phyllis Pollack
An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey on Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Saint Jude

Poets' Basement
Foley, Valentine and Kozak

Website of the Day
The Corner Store

April 2, 2009

Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught

George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End

Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS

Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?

Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals

David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"

Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt

Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation

Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?

Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis

April 1, 2009

Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss

Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes: Thank God, It Was Only Rumors

Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy

Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert

Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision

Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past

Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis

Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution

Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?

Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island

Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared

March 31, 2009

Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango

Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield

Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis

Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal

Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"

Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit

Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War

David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?

Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas

Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange

Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide

Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement

March 30, 2009

Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?

Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?

Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons

Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?

Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class

Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq

Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine

Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs

Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling

April 13, 2009

"What Have We Done to Deserve This?"

Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit

By PATRICK COCKBURN

The Sunni Arabs lost their dominant position in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was overthrown, but they began to regain their strength when the United States recruited them as foot soldiers to fight against al-Qa’ida. But now, as American troops prepare to go home, the Sunni who changed from insurgents to US allies over the last two years are once more fearful for their future.

This weekend was a case in point. In the latest attack, a suicide bomber – almost certainly from al-Qa’ida – killed 13 and wounded 30 Sunni paramilitaries. The victims were all members of the Awakening Councils, the US-backed Sunni militia groups, which had at first fought the American occupation until they revolted against growing al-Qa’ida control of the rebellion. In all an estimated 53 Awakening Council members were killed last week.

Not only are members of the Awakening Council being targeted by the bombers and assassins of al-Qa’ida. They are regarded with extreme distrust by the largely Shia government and security forces in Baghdad at the very moment that their American protectors are departing.

Some 250 of the lightly armed Awakening Council fighters, also known as al-Sahwa or the Sons of Iraq, were milling around outside an Iraqi army base in the town of Jbala, 35 miles south of Baghdad, waiting to collect their pay when the bomber struck on Saturday. He was wearing an explosives belt and was able to infiltrate the crowd because he was wearing the same uniform as the Awakening Council members.

"What have we done to deserve this?" shouted Mohammed al-Janabi, who was seriously wounded in the stomach and legs by the blast. "We helped to make this area safe and when come to receive our salaries, our bodies are ripped apart. God damn al-Qa'ida! God damn al-Qa'ida!"

The latest attack shows al-Qa'ida, while weaker than it was in 2005-07 at the height of the Sunni-Shia civil war, still has the ability to recruit, equip and target suicide bombers in central and northern Iraq. Last Friday a truck loaded with 2,000lb of explosives crashed into the entrance of the main military base in the northern city of Mosul, killing five US soldiers and two members of the Iraqi security forces.

The Awakening Councils, whose emergence at the end of 2006 was crucial to ending the Sunni uprising against the US occupation, contain many former anti-American insurgents and al-Qa'ida members. This makes it easy for al-Qa'ida to obtain intelligence on when the paramilitaries are most vulnerable to attack.

A sign of the deep suspicions dividing members of the Awakening Councils and the predominantly Shia government security forces is that the Sunni fighters had not been allowed to enter together the base at Jbala to receive their pay, which was in any case three months' late. Instead of being protected by the base's fortifications the fighters were compelled to wait in the street outside while small parties entered the base to get their money.

The Awakening Councils have always been suspected by the Iraqi government, which is dominated by Shia and Kurds, of containing many former Baathists and insurgents who cannot be trusted. The original backlash against al-Qa'ida in overwhelmingly Sunni Anbar province and in Sunni strongholds in and around Baghdad was largely spontaneous.

But the US forces swiftly gave full backing and pay to the Awakening Councils, a move only grudgingly supported by the Iraqi security forces.

With US soldiers due to leave Baghdad and other cities on 30 June under a Status of Forces Agreement signed between Iraq and the US last year, many Sunni Arabs and Awakening Council members believe the government will move against them. Last October the government agreed to pay the Awakening Council members, but their salaries often arrive late and sometimes not at all.

The government has also been averse to giving the paramilitaries the influential jobs in the security services which they have demanded. Many Awakening Council leaders and members have been arrested over the past year. In Baghdad in March, assisted by US forces, they moved against the Sunni fighters in the al-Fadhil district, a commercial area in central Baghdad specialising in selling building supplies, timber and metal. Local Awakening Council members were arrested or dispersed.

The Awakening Councils in the past have threatened to become insurgents again. "Most of the Sunni people believe the government will never allow al-Sahwa to continue their work and their role is finished," said one Sunni resident of west Baghdad who did not want his name published. "The government is wrong if it thinks this because most of the al-Sahwa were in al-Qa'ida or in the Islamic Army of Iraq and it is easy for them to switch back."

But it may be difficult for the Awakening Council members to change allegiances once again. The Sunni community to which they belong has been seriously weakened. It makes up 20 per cent of the Iraqi population; the Shias make up 60 per cent. As a result of sectarian cleansing, Baghdad is now overwhelmingly Shia. Sunni who fled to Jordan and Syria have often not returned and, when they do, not to their old homes.

The Awakening Councils are also disunited. In some areas they are fighting the government but in others they want a share in state authority and patronage.

Al-Qa’ida remains strongest in largely Sunni Arab Mosul and in Baquba, the capital of the fruit-growing Diyala province north east of Baghdad. In Mosul it is even able to enforce its brand of Islamic puritanism by threatening to kill co-religionists if they celebrate or hold ceremonies commemorating the birthday of the Prophet Mohammed or Sha’ban, the month after Ramadan. The Islamic State of Iraq, an al-Qa’ida umbrella organisation, has put out leaflets and made threats by text messages and phone calls to any Muslim who participates in these events. Even giving sweets to children has been targeted.

Such is the fear of al-Qa’ida in Mosul that nobody dares break these anonymous edicts or find out if there will be retribution. At the same time the backlash against al-Qa’ida which led to the original creation of the Awakening Movement in 2006 was sparked by al-Qa’ida trying to impose its fundamentalist ideology on an unwilling population.

Patrick Cockburn is the author of 'The Occupation: War, resistance and daily life in Iraq', a finalist for the National Book Critics' Circle Award for best non-fiction book of 2006. His new book 'Muqtada! Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia revival and the struggle for Iraq' is published by Scribner

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