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Eamonn Fingleton gives a stunning account of how the elite press – the Wall Street Journal, The Economist, the New York Times and Washington Post - pilloried US autworkers while systematically concealing the hidden subsidies which have allowed Japan and Korea to destroy Detroit. All this with the connivance of the US government. Also in our latest newsletter: Michelle Obama comes to Merced. Bill Hatch, the Balzac of the Central Valley, gives an uproarious account of Michelle’s state visit to UC’s new campus. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and gear make great presents.
How the U.S. Press Helped Destroy the Auto IndustryOrder CounterPunch By Email For Only $35 a Year !
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Today's Stories June 15, 2009 Michael Hudson June 12-14, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Gareth Porter Mike Whitney Mark Ames Esam Al-Amin Franklin Lamb Patrick Cockburn Andy Worthington Heather Gray Felice Pace Ron Jacobs George Wuerthner Jeffrey Buchanan / David Ker Thomson Renaud Lambert Kevin Zeese David Macaray Evelyn Pringle Chris Genovali David Michael Green Brian J. Foley Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 11, 2009 Kathy Kelly / James Bovard Tristan de Bourbon Dave Lindorff Kevin Zeese Ralph Nader Harvey Wasserman Nicole Colson Mark Weisbrot Dan Bacher Website of the Day June 10, 2009 Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Jennifer Van Bergen / Douglas Valentine Kathy Kelly Paul Craig Roberts Rev. William E. Alberts Peter Lee Carol Miller Emily Ratner Robert Weissman Dave Lindorff Website of the Day June 9, 2009 Winslow T. Wheeler Mike Whitney Stan Cox Sibel Edmonds Jonathan Cook David Macaray Robert Jensen Nadia Hijab Mark Weisbrot Website of the Day June 8, 2009 John Ross Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney Franklin Lamb Uri Avnery Jonathan Cook Eric Toussaint Jim Goodman Norman Solomon Reza Fiyouzat Website of the Day June 5 -7, 200 Alexander Cockburn George Galloway Paul Craig Roberts Jennifer Loewenstein Franklin Lamb Mike Whitney Andy Worthington Missy Comley Beattie Farzana Versey Stanley Heller John V. Whitbeck Robert Weissman Lee Sustar Dave Lindorff William Blum Ernest Callenbach / Greg Moses Ron Jacobs David Yearsley Tim Stelloh Belén Fernández David Ker Thomson Karyn Strickler Christopher Brauchli Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend June 4, 2009 Arno J. Mayer Mike Whitney Gareth Porter Ayesha Ijaz Khan Mouin Rabbani Jordan Flaherty Adam Turl Nikolas Kozloff Yifat Susskind Website of the Day June 3, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Kathy Kelly Alan Farago Franklin Lamb Bill Hatch Nadia Hijab Dean Baker Binoy Kampmark Manuel Garcia, Jr. Remi Kanazi Behzad Yaghmaian Website of the Day June 2, 2009 Uri Avnery Robert Weissman Conn Hallinan Gideon Spiro Roger Burbach Dylan Quigley Dave Lindorff Ray McGovern Belén Fernández Martha Rosenberg Willie L. Pelote, Sr. Website of the Day June 1, 2009 Pam Martens Yitzhak Laor Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Saul Landau Eugenia Tsao Afshin Rattansi Debra Sweet Abdul Malik Mujahid Bill Quigley John Wright Website of the Day May 29-31, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Patrick Cockburn Vijay Prashad Gary Leupp Ray McGovern Rannie Amiri Bill Hatch Chellis Glendinning, Stephanie Mills and Kirkpatrick Sale Phyllis Pollack David Yearsley Jean-Christophe Servant Dave Lindorff James McEnteer Missy Beattie James C. Faris David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Adam Federman David Ker Thomson Mark Seth Lender Stephen Martin Joseph Nevins Sophia Mihic Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 28, 2009 Joan Roelofs Paul Craig Roberts Ralph Nader Mouin Rabbani Joe Bageant James McEnteer Dedrick Muhammad Richard Morse David Macaray Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day May 27, 2009 Joanne Mariner Paul Craig Roberts Walden Bello Dave Lindorff Brian M. Downing Carlos Villarreal Nadia Hijab Adam Federman Laray Polk Isabella Kenfield David Michael Green Website of the Day May 26, 2009 Manuel Garcia, Jr. Mike Whitney Sharon Smith Marjorie Cohn Dean Baker Deepankar Basu Fred Gardner Jordan Flaherty Josh Ruebner Brian Cloughley Website of the Day May 25, 2009 Diane Christian John Ross Kenneth Hartman Uri Avnery Fred Gardner Cindy Sheehan Sen. Russell Feingold Sibel Edmonds Franklin Lamb Dave Lindorff Daniel Wolff Website of the Day May 22-24, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Michael Teitelman Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Sonia Cardenas / Clive Hamilton Conn Hallinan Fred Gardner Carlo Cristofori Dean Baker Rannie Amiri Andy Worthington David Macaray Nadia Hijab Franklin Lamb Ted Newcomen David Ker Thomson David Rosen Mark Weisbrot Robert Fantina Heather Gray Farzana Versey Chris Genovali Ron Jacobs Jay Diamond Dr. Susan Block Ben Sonnenberg David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 21, 2009 Jeffrey St. Clair / Paul Craig Roberts Chris Floyd Gerald Paoli Zach Mason Uri Avnery Andy Worthington Niranjan Ramakrishnan Norman Solomon Dave Lindorff Website of the Day May 20, 2009 Michael Hudson Gary Leupp Michael D. Yates Jonathan Cook Peter Lee Binoy Kampmark Peter Zinn William Loren Katz Gary Lapon Trudy Bond Website of the Day May 19, 2009 Kristoffer Rehder Mike Whitney Ray McGovern Vijay Prashad Mirjam Hadar Meerschwam Mustafa Barghouthi Andy Worthington Binoy Kampmark John Walsh David Macaray Website of the Day May 18, 2009 Dave Lindorff Abdul Malik Mujahid Jonathan Cook Ben Rosenfeld Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader Stephen Soldz Eugenia Tsao Walter Brasch Roberto Rodriguez Charlotte Laws Website of the Day May 15-17, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair David Rosen Mike Whitney Bruce Page Jeremy Scahill Fred Gardner Tom Barry Mats Svensson Ramzy Baroud Mark Engler Mark Weisbrot Farzana Versey Ron Jacobs Hannah Wolfe Cal Winslow David Macaray Christopher Brauchli Mark Seth Lender Robert Fantina David Ker Thomson Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson Chase Madar Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend May 14, 2009 Michael Hudson Andy Worthington Paul Craig Roberts Jonathan Cook Ray McGovern Lance Selfa David Green Dave Lindorff Frida Berrigan Sue Udry Website of the Day May 13, 2009 Brian M. Downing Gareth Porter Robert Sandels Ricardo Alarcón Eric Walberg Dave Lindorff Deepak Tripathi William S. Lind Kevin Zeese Franklin Lamb Website of the Day May 12, 2009 Gary Leupp Richard Neville Wajahat Ali Dean Baker Franklin Lamb Norman Solomon Paul Craig Roberts Lisa M. Hamilton Bob Fitrakis / David Macaray Website of the Day May 11, 2009 Andrea Peacock Michael Hudson Patrick Cockburn Ralph Nader John Kelly Saul Landau Dave Lindorff David Michael Green Anthony Papa Paul Krassner Website of the Day
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June 15, 2009 US Troops Leaving the CitiesA Whole New Ballgame in IraqBy PATRICK COCKBURN Baghdad. There are few American patrols on the streets of Baghdad and soon there will be none. In just over two weeks time on June 30, US military forces will withdraw from Iraqi cities. The occupation which began six years ago is ending. On every side there are signs of the decline of US influence. When the Iraqi prime minister Nouri al-Maliki held a meeting with his 300 top military commanders in Baghdad last week a US general who tried to attend was told to leave. “We apologize to you, but this is an Iraqi meeting and you’re not invited,” he was told by an Iraqi general. Mr Maliki, who was put into power by the US in 2006, spoke of the departure of US troops as if he had been leading an insurgency against them. “Foreign forces have to withdraw from the cities totally,” he said in the course of an hour long speech in which he mentioned America only once. “This is a victory that should be celebrated in feasts and festivals.” Given that the US is Mr Maliki’s main ally this seems to show an astonishing lack of gratitude on his part. American commanders and diplomats comfort themselves by reflecting that Mr Maliki is burnishing his Iraqi nationalist credentials in the months before the crucial parliamentary elections at the end of next January. But his public distancing himself from the US shows that he believes that anti-Americanism has a strong appeal to the majority of Iraqis. There are other more covert signs of receding American influence. In the years after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein the Iraqi National Intelligence forces were controlled and paid for by the CIA. The agency appointed its chief, General Mohammed Abdullah al-Shahwani, who had long worked for the US. For several years Iraqi intelligence did not even appear in the Iraqi budget and senior Iraqi officers in it all worked with US advisers. Iraqi politicians say that Iraqi Intelligence is now reverting to the control of their government. Iraqis are only slowly taking on board that the US is really pulling out. Some 133,000 US troops remain in the country, the last combat troops will depart only in August 2010 and the remaining US forces at the end of 2011. The 16,000 Marines who have been in Anbar province west of Baghdad since 2003 will leave Iraq by next spring. But, as Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress and an astute judge of Iraqi politics, says: “Whatever you may hear from American generals in Iraq, Obama has made clear that US is really pulling out.” The knowledge that the US forces in Iraq will go is already transforming the Iraqi political landscape, long before the exit of the last American troops. It is no longer politic for any Iraqi leader to be identified in the eyes of Iraqis with the American occupation. The US forces are leaving behind a country in which security is much better than during the bloodbath of 2006-7, but is still probably the most dangerous country in the world. Many Iraqis ask themselves if there will be an upsurge of fighting as the US troops go, though violence is already high. Last week saw serious incidents in Baghdad, as well as northern and southern Iraq, that underscore the fragility of the improved security. The most dramatic attack was the assassination of Harith al-Obaidi, the leader of the main Sunni bloc in parliament, as he was leaving the al-Shawaf mosque in the Yarmouk district of west Baghdad on Friday. His killer shot dead Mr Obaidi, his secretary and three of his bodyguards, before he was cornered by guards and blew himself up with a grenade. The method of the assassination, and the fact the assassin killed himself, bear all the hallmarks of an al-Qa’ida attack. Mr al-Obaidi had only recently taken over as leader of the Sunni bloc and was a campaigner on behalf of prisoners. The most likely motive is that al-Qa’da in Iraq, though it has lost much of its strength in the Sunni community from which it springs over the last two years, wants to show that it can eliminate any Sunni leader who cooperates with the government. Al-Qa’ida had demonstrated its long reach against a Shia target earlier in the week when a car bomb blew up in the town of Batha outside the city of Nassariya, 225 miles south east of Baghdad, killing at least 30 people and wounding 65. This appears to be a sectarian attack by al-Qa’ida on poor people in a crowded market place, geared to killing as many Shia as possible. The target was probably chosen to show that In northern Iraq Kurds and Arabs are engaged in a war of words that has a potential for violence that could surpass anything that al-Qa’ida is capable of. At stake is control, along a 300-mile-long unofficial frontier, of areas which are outside the boundaries of the highly autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government but have a Kurdish majority. In 2003 the Kurds, allied to the US, were able to capture Mosul and Kirkuk, the two biggest cities of northern Iraq. They remained in control of Nineveh province, which is one third Kurdish and two thirds Sunni Arab and the capital of which is Mosul, until provincial elections in January this year. These elections were won by al-Habda, a Sunni party with an anti-Kurdish platform, under Atheel al-Nujaifi who is now governor. There have been continual incidents ever since as al-Habda and the central government in Baghdad try to reassert control. The Kurdish forces are not giving any ground. On May 8 Mr al-Nujaifi tried to enter the Kurdish-held town of Bashiqa. The Kurds issued “a shoot to kill” order against him and he eventually turned back. “Nobody admits to issuing the order,” says a diplomat in Baghdad, “but if al-Nujaifi had been killed then Arabs and Kurds would have started slaughtering each other all over Nineveh.” When the Sunni Arab police chief of Nineveh tried to enter a Kurdish part of his province a few weeks later his convoy, though it contained Iraqi soldiers and police, was again forced to retreat by the Kurdish forces. The Kurds can feel the balance of power swinging against them as the Americans depart, the central government in Baghdad grows in political and military strength and the Arabs in Nineveh and Kirkuk become more assertive. The President of the KRG, Massoud Barzani, has not seen Mr Maliki for many months. “We have better relations with Ankara than we do with Baghdad these days,” said one Kurdish leader. On top of territorial disputes there are deep divisions over oil, which is being discovered in large quantities in the KRG under contacts the Oil Ministry in Baghdad denounces as illegal. War between Kurds and Arabs is possible in northern Iraq but both sides have a lot to lose. The Kurds hold critical posts in the Baghdad government. They are much the best organized faction within it. So long as they are part of the Baghdad government they are much better able to withstand pressure from Turkey, Iran and Syria. Mr Maliki also has a lot to lose if he has a conflict with the Kurds. The Iraqi coalition which replaced Saddam Hussein’s predominantly Sunni regime was a Shia-Kurdish one. The Kurds have shown over half a century that they can destabilize Iraq and even Saddam Hussein was unable to crush them. Mr Maliki may be tempted to take advantage of the current strong anti-Kurdish feeling among Iraqi Arabs, both Shia and Sunni, to gain popularity before the parliamentary elections next January, but it would be a short-sighted and dangerous move. Iraq may not explode into renewed war as US troops depart but this does not mean that it is solving its problems. The government is divided into factions. Shia, Kurdish and Sunni leaders all fear and distrust each other. The same is true of their followers. Iraqi society and the economy remain shattered by 30 years of war and sanctions. But one of the main destabilizing factors in Iraq for the last six years has been the presence of a large US army and with its departure Iraq’s many simmering conflicts might just be kept under control. 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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