Today's Stories

April 10 / 12, 2009

Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos

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

March 27-29, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Obama's Fall Guy

Arno J. Mayer
Too Big to Fail?

Michael Hudson
How the Scam Works

José Pertierra
Gesture for Gesture: How to Free the Cuban Five

Andy Worthington
A Letter to Obama From a Guantánamo Uighur

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Hog Wallow

Winslow T. Wheeler
What Does an F-22 Cost?

Souad N. Al-Azzawi
Iraq: Let the Numbers Speak for Themselves

Dave Lindorff
A Financial History Lesson

Ian Masters
The Zombie Presidency

Barbara Rose Johnston
Water Culture Wars

Jami Tarn
Smearing Tristan Anderson

Diane Farsetta
The Nuclear Industry Targets Wisconsin

David Ker Thomson Against Democracy

Ramzy Baroud
Netanyahu and the Future of the Peace Process

Rannie Amiri
Saudi Shiites' One-Word Demand

Wajahat Ali
Writer as Fighter: the Genius of Ishmael Reed

Nick Egnatz
Whatever Happened to the Fierce Urgency of Now?

Gregory A. Burris
The Insolents Abroad: a Defense of Iceland

Missy Beattie
This Land

Stephen Martin
The Broken Stone of Corporatism

Charles R. Larson
Obama, Smoking and Me

David Yearsley
How They Built Bach's Face (Is the Bard Next?)

Ben Sonnenberg
Won't You Please Get Thee Behind Me? Buñuel's Simon of the Desert

Kim Nicolini
The Mafia Without Moralizing: Garrone's Gomorrah

Lorenzo Wolff
Pat Boone Syndrome

Poets' Basement
Four Poems by Paulann Petersen

Website of the Weekend
Ann Coulter: a Portrait by Ben Tripp

March 26, 2009

Paul Craig Roberts
Is the Bail Out Breeding a Bigger Crisis?

Sharon Smith
Another Blow to Labor ... from the Democrats

Neve Gordon
Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Shame

Patrick Madden
Why the Geithner Plan Will Fail

Gareth Porter
The Big Con on Iraq

Dave Lindorff
Why Do We Need a Health Insurance Industry?

Hannah Safran
The Israeli Resistance: "Ready to be Traitors"

Keith Newell
Will the Cellphone Please Take the Stand?

Todd Chretien
Behind the Green Collar

Nelson P. Valdés
When It Comes to Cuba and the Media Anything Goes

Website of the Day
G20 Meltdown

March 25, 2009

Robin Blackburn
Media Revolution or Mirage?

Conn Hallinan
Europe in Crisis

David Rosen
Sexting: a First Amendment Challenge for Obama

Jonathan Cook
Turkey's Fallout with Israel Deals Blow to Settlers

Dean Baker
Billions More for Failed Banks

Ron Jacobs
Karzai on a String

Russell Mokhiber
Corporate Liberals vs. Single-Payer

David Macaray
Slice and Dice on Card Check

Dave Lindorff
Geithner's Power Grab

Sarah Knopp
LA Teacher's Sit-In Over Layoffs

Website of the Day
How to Create an Animal Rights "Terrorist"

March 24, 2009

Robert Sandels
Obama and Cuba: Real Change or Minor Tweaks?

Harvey Wasserman
People Died at Three Mile Island

Franklin Lamb
Who Tried to Kill Palestinian Ambassador Abass Zaki and Why?

Michael Donnelly
Obama's Team of Losers

Norman Solomon
Denial and Evasion on Afghanistan

Elizabeth Schulte
The Stark Facts About Violence Against Women

John Goekler
The Most Dangerous Person in the World?

Nicole Colson
Is Justice Finally in Sight for Sami Al-Arian?

Global Balkans
NATO's 78-Day Bombing of Yugoslavia: Ten Years On

William S. Lind
Cat-and-Mouse Off Hainan Island

Website of the Day
Video: IDF Fired on Medics in Gaza

March 23, 2009

M. Shahid Alam
Capitalism From the Standpoint of Its Victims

Uri Avnery
Israel's Most Revolting Law?

Mike Whitney
Zombie Economics: Judgment Day for Geithner

Ralph Nader
Bush the Teacher

Brian Cloughley
Tilting at Afghan Windmills

Dave Lindorff
Toxic Bailouts

Amira Hass
The Rules of Engagement in Gaza: Open Fire on Rescuers

Chris Irwin
When Nonprofit Groups Go Bad

Binoy Kampmark
The Celebrity of Celebrity

Michael Dickinson
Tollbridge Over Troubled Waters

Website of the Day
State of the Birds

March 20-22, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
On the Edge of the Volcano

Paul Craig Roberts
When Things Fall Apart

P. Sainath
Slumdogs vs. Billionaires

Robert Weissman
Lessons From AIG

Saul Landau
Sliding Down in Anger: If We Bail Out the Banks, Why Shouldn't We Own Them?

David Michael Green
Obama and the Altar of Greed

Greg Moses
Winter Soldiers Come to Texas

Ron Jacobs
Pakistan in Turmoil: an Interview with Farooq Tariq

Michael D. Yates
A Nation of Immigrants

John V. Whitbeck
Happy New Year, Iran!

Andy Worthington
The Case of Ahmed Zuhair

Linn Washington Jr.
Supreme Test: the Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

David Ker Thomson
Actions: Things to Do Instead of Hailing the Chief

Laurent Jacque
Is the Euro Doomed?

Rannie Amiri
The Middle East's Jittery Monarchies

Reiko Redmonde /
Larry Everest
The Cold-Blooded Murder of Oscar Grant

David Macaray
The Myth of the Powerful Teachers' Union

Kenneth Couesbouc
Where has the Consumption Gone?

Martha Rosenberg
Meltdown in the Drug Industry

Alan Farago
The Recession, the Developers and Baseball

Missy Beattie
Still Waiting for Change

Richard Rhames
Invisible But Not Completely Insolvent

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Jets

Charles R. Larson
Impeach Obama!

David Yearsley
On Bach's Birthday

Lorenzo Wolff
Manic Levity

Poets' Basement
Three Poems by Gary Corseri

Website of the Weekend
Teachers for CEO Merit Pay!

March 19, 2009

Dave Marsh
Sir Bono: the Knight Who Fled From His Own Debate

Paul Craig Roberts
Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

Mike Whitney
Why Business is Hysterical About Card Check (And Why America Needs It)

Sam Smith
The Economy in Two Eras of Democrats

Harvey Wasserman
The Crash of France's Nuclear Poster Child

Binoy Kampmark
Back Into NATO: the End of French Exceptionalism

Kathy Sanborn
Broken Culture: the Desecration of Iraq's Art Treasures

Christopher Brauchli
Taxing Problems

George Wuerthner
Permanent Damage From Temporary Logging Roads

Diann Rust-Tierney
New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty

Website of the Day
Bailout Plan: "Cross Your Fingers and Hope"

March 18, 2009

Michael Hudson
The Real AIG Conspiracy

Paul Craig Roberts
Israel's American Chattel

Nelson P. Valdés
Why Obama's New Cuba Rules Violate the Constitution

Jonathan Cook
Bedouin Villages Left in the Dark Ages

John Ross
The Death of the American Newspaper

Yifat Susskind
Where Are We Leaving Iraqi Women?

Dave Lindorff
Who's Calling the Shots Now?

Frances Moore Lappé
The City That Ended Hunger

Richard Grossman
Beware the Madoff Diversion!

Rev. William E. Alberts
On Being Whole Not Holy

Website of the Day
Three Weeks in Cuba: a Painter's Perspective

March 17, 2009

Michael Hudson
Mr. Bernanke Spreads the Fire

James G. Abourezk
Show Business: AIG and the Posturing Democrats

Harry Browne
Ireland's Blast From the Past

Joanne Mariner
U.S. Human Rights Abuses in the War on Terror

Alan Farago
The National Ponzi Scheme

Dean Baker
Getting Lehman Bros. Wrong ... Again

Peter Morici
Cuts for Autoworkers, Bonuses for Derivatives Traders

Bill and Kathleen Christison
Obama and the Empire

Richard Gott
Victory for the Left in El Salvador

Walter Brasch
Dog Mutilations vs. Cosmetics

Website of the Day
Single-Payer Action

March 16, 2009

Pam Martens
Has a Comedian Just Saved America?

Uri Avnery
The Rape of Washington

Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Witness Protection Program

Ralph Nader
Americans Want Justice for Wall Street Crooks

Nikolas Kozloff
Down But Not Out: the Latin American Right

John Walsh
Redbaiting on the Left

Ron Jacobs
A Call for Common Sense

Binoy Kampmark
The Case of Tim K

Stephen Fleischman
Coxey's Army Will March Again!

Christian Christensen
A 25-Year Misunderstanding: Springsteen's "Born in the USA"

Scott Handleman
Shooting Tristan Anderson

Website of the Day
Clean, Green, Sustainable

March 13 / 15, 2009

Alexander Cockburn
The Parable of the Shopping Mall

Peter Lee
What the Chas Freeman Fight Was Really About

Diana Johnstone
NATO's Global Mission Creep

David Harvey
Is This Really the End of Neoliberalism?

Petrino DiLeo
Inside Obama's Housing Plan: Will Millions be Left Out in the Cold

David Ker Thomson
Tender to the Earth

Eric Ruder
Massacre in Slow Motion: an Interview with Haider Eid on Gaza

Fred Gardner
Cannabidiol Now!

David Yearsley
Music Torture

Saul Landau
How Israel Gives Jews a Bad Name

Laura Carlsen
Drug War Doublespeak

Robert Weissman
We Told You So

John Goekler /
Merle Lefkoff
The Struggle in Saffron

Tom Barry
Imprisoning Immigrants for Profit

Kathy Sanborn
Money Out of Thin Air

Chris Mobley / Leela Yellesetty
Criminalizing Poverty: the Jail Seattle Doesn't Need

David Michael Green
The Perils of Being Right and Wrong

Alan Maass /
Lee Sustar
A Socialist Moment?

Christopher Brauchli
Pity, the Poor Tax Collectors

Richard Morse
Clinton in Haiti

Lorenzo Wolff
Taking It From the Streets: From Springsteen to the Wu-Tang Clan

Poets' Basement
Springate and Johnston

Website of the Weekend
Hear the Buffalo

March 12 , 2009

Sharon Smith
Bottom Feeders at the Trough

Christopher Ketcham
Full Spectrum Penetration: Israeli Spying in the United States

Mike Whitney
Haircut Time for Bondholders

Ray McGovern
Obama Caves to the Lobby

Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
The Doublespeak of a Discredited IMF

John Ross
The War is Not Over

M. Reza Pirbhai
Men in Black: Another View of Pakistan

Chris Floyd
Lost Liberty Blues: Prisons, Profits and the Banality of Evil

Steve Early
Why Labor Doesn't Need a "House of Lords"

Quentin Gee
Hiding the Costs of Coal

Website of the Day
Amadee Coral Reef: a Spherical Panorama

March 11 , 2009

Mike Roselle
From Birmingham to Coal River: Why is the Environmental Movement So Timid?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Criminal Injustice System

Henry A. Giroux
Academic Labor in Dark Times

Nikolas Kozloff
The Death Cries of the Salvadoran Right

Norm Kent
I am Patient Number 380206011

Mitu Sengupta
Reforming the World Bank: Different Image, Same Tune?

Ludwig Watzal
The Structure of Israel's Occupation

David Macaray
The Battle Over EFCA Has Begun

William S. Lind
Rounding Up the Usual Suspects

Martha Rosenberg
A Merger From the Folks Who Brought You Vytorin

Website of the Day
American Indicator: One in Fifty Kids are Homeless

March 10 , 2009

Franklin Spinney
What Israeli Peace Process?

Vijay Prashad
What Did Hillary Clinton Do?

Stan Cox
There's No Free Lunch on Your Browser: the Internet's Energy Drain

Zoltan Grossman
Coffee Strong: Listening to the G.I. Voice at Fort Lewis

Reuven Kaminer
Pure and Unadulterated Racism

Jonathan Cook
Memoricide in the West Bank

Dave Lindorff
Business Rules

Brian McKenna
How Anthropology Disparages Journalism

Harvey Wasserman
Is This the End of the Age of the Automobile?

Corey Pein
He Told You So

Website of the Day
AIG and Systemic Failure: $1.6 Trillion in Insured Deriviatives

March 9 , 2009

Pam Martens
Madoff and the Sorkin Affair

Ralph Nader
Too Big...Period

Peter Lee
Meet Gulbuddin Hekmatyar: the US's Worst/Best Hope for Afghanistan?

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Charade

Peter Morici
Fixing the Banks: Treasury's Doomed Strategy

Dean Baker
Why Do We Need a Private Health Insurance Industry, Anyway?

Steve Ault
Kiss Thailand's Tolerance for Gays Goodbye

Stephen Lendman
Guantánamo Under Obama

Farooq Sulehria
Tennis Without Spectators

Belén Fernández
Chávez, a Cockfight and the Caracazo

Website of the Day
How Lincoln Learned to Read

March 6-8 , 2009

Alexander Cockburn
Harlots High and Low

Chris Floyd
Tangled Up in Karl

Uri Avnery
Remember Ophira?

Dave Lindorff
Kiss the Banks Goodbye

Mark Weisbrot
The Crisis vs. the Dogma

David Ker Thomson
Against Work

Phil Aliff
Soldier Suicides

Rebekah Ward
Georgia Injustice: Another Young Life Wrecked

Tracey Briggs
How Capitalism Feels in the Head

Dean Baker
Depression Nostalgia?

Daniel P. Wirt, M.D.
Remove the Handle From the Health Insurance Misery and Death Pump

Carl Finamore
The Recovery Plan: Save Us From Those Who Would Save Us

Wajahat Ali
The Pakistani Monster

David Michael Green
Smart is the New Stupid

David Macaray
The Minimum Wage Revisited

Michael Dickinson
On Financial Fools Day

Susie Day
Line in the Sand

Bob Sommer
Echoes of the Townhouse Explosion

Ben Sonnenberg
No Forgiveness for the Bourgeoisie: Buñuel's "The Exterminating Angel"

David Yearsley
Sonic Fakery in "Slumdog" From the Mozart of Chennai

DC Larson
They're Writing Those Depression Songs, Again

Lorenzo Wolff
Live Truth: Music Sans Headphones

Poets' Basement
Dominquez, MacNeil and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Environment & Obama: a Conversation with Jeffrey St. Clair

March 5 , 2009

James G. Abourezk
This Time It's Mrs. Clinton's Turn

Kathleen and Bill Christison
U.S. Military Aid to Israel

Robert Weissman
Wall Street's Best Investment: Paying for Public Policy

Patrick Cockburn
My Day at the Terror "Charity"

William Blum
Being Serious About Torture...Or Not

Robert Fantina
From Iraq to Afghanistan: Augmentation All Over Again

Saul Landau
The Unseen Crisis

Benjamin Dangl
Striking a Blow Against the Beer Cartel: a Grassroots Victory in Utah

Christopher Brauchli
The New Leaders of the GOP

Website of the Day
The Angola 3: 36 Years of Solitude

March 4, 2009

Marjorie Cohn
Blueprints for a Police State

Mike Whitney
Blowing Up the Economy: How Securitization Lit the Fuse

Ron Jacobs
The Banality of Occupation: the Rand Papers

Ashley Smith
War by Another Name

Joanne Mariner
Obama's War on Terror

Dan Bacher
The California Water Wars: Why It's Not a Conflict Between Fish and People

Mark Engler
Will the Winds of Change Reach El Salvador?

Franklin Lamb
"What's Hezbollah Done for Us Lately?"

Cal Winslow
Slugging It Out in California

David Mandelzys
Apartheid Week

Website of the Day
Guantánamo: the Definitive Prisoner List

March 3, 2009

Conn Hallinan
Ethnic Cleansing and Israel

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Long, Dark Night of Pakistan

Brian M. Downing
The Changing Game in Afghanistan

Robert Larson
External Damnation: Companies are Designed for Destruction

Daniel P. Wirt, MD
Single-Payer Health Reform

Russell Mokhiber
Burn Your Health Insurance Bill!

William Loren Katz
Obama, One Ape and Two Newspapers

Kathy Sanborn
The Lazy Man's Guide to the Economic Crisis

Pauline Imbach
A New Start for the World Social Forum?

Christopher Ketcham
The Best Journalism You'll Write is Priceless

Website of the Day
The Surveillance Self-Defense Project

March 2, 2009

Andrea Peacock
A Poisoned Town's Shot at Justice

Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's Budget

Peter Lee
Pakistan Lurches Toward the Abyss

John Blair
Locking Down Big Coal

Peter Morici
Treasury's Flawed Plan for Citigroup

Uri Avnery
10 Ways to Kill Fatah

Michael Donnelly
Resistance to the War on the Wild

Fred Gardner
The Judge Who Ruled Marijuana is Medicine

Sonia Nettnin
Middle East Medical Mission Heroes

Andrew Lehman
A New Deal for the Web

Website of the Day
Pentagon Papers II?

Eric Holder and the Whitewashing of Racism

Tom Barry
Napolitano's Hard Line

Harvey Wasserman
Obama's Excellent Atomic Omission

Adam Turl
The Enemies of Unions and the Lies They Tell

David Macaray
When People are Fired Illegally

James McEnteer
Rush to the Rescue: Limbaugh's Secret Plan to Save the Economy

Website of the Day
The Carbon Casino

Weekend Edition
April 10 / 12, 2009

New Rhetoric for Old Wine?

Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations

By M. REZA PIRBHAI

Since President Obama unveiled his administration’s ‘new’ Afghan policy in March, 2009, analysis has been a steady feature of the global media, mainstream and alternative. The elephant in the room that few have tackled, however, is the role afforded India in US strategy. Yet, the importance of this element was highlighted in the most recent round of talks between the Pakistani civilian and military establishment, and such high-ranking US officials as Richard Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen. Pakistani officials and media commentators – otherwise seldom on the same page – together declared that the plan was souring Pak-US ties. Of the two reasons cited – the first being US violations of Pakistani sovereignty in the form of predator strikes – the second is US support for India’s activities in Afghanistan and refusal to mediate the Kashmir dispute. So severe was the rift that Holbrooke had to appear before the press yesterday to clarify that differences of opinion are natural, but that relations were not strained, immediately after which, he and Mullen left Islamabad for New Delhi.

To be fair to US policy makers, Holbrooke’s and Mullen’s travel itinerary confirms that the issue of India-Pakistan relations has not been ignored. The problem in Pakistan, though not in India, is the manner in which it has been addressed. As General Petreaus recently stated before the Senate Armed Services Committee, the ‘new’ plan involves convincing Pakistanis that al-Qaida and the Taliban, rather than India, represent the most “serious threat to Pakistan’s very existence”. President Obama himself used the metaphor of a terminal “cancer”. The hope is that this ‘new’ rhetoric, along with financial aid, will deliver the US a long list of wants. These include persuading the Pakistan military to stay out of political office, work closely with India to muzzle Kashmiri separatists, provide access to A. Q. Khan and the nuclear program, as well as firmly commit to US designs (including further missile strikes and the possibility of joint operations within Pakistani territory) against al-Qaida, the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistani Taliban and other anti-US and anti-Indian groups in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.  

Such arguments may persuade members of the US government, but they are clearly hard to sell in Pakistan. First, it should be clarified that even when the US government’s closest supporters in Pakistan, the administrations of Presidents Musharraf and Zardari, have negotiated ‘peace-treaties’ with Taliban and associated groups, most of Pakistan’s English-language media and intelligentsia have been highly critical. The latter have argued that Taliban, et al., pose a mortal threat to the already precarious status of women in Pakistan. They also threaten the well-being of religious and sectarian minorities in Pakistan, as well as the very fabric of Pakistani culture; particularly, the visual arts, music, dance, theatre and film. They further hamper the development of educational institutions, science and technology, and the smooth functioning, let alone growth, of Pakistani industrial, financial and government institutions. But, an ’existential threat’ to the state of Pakistan? No one has gone that far, recognizing that the Pakistani Taliban is not a single entity with a unified political agenda, while the Pakistani Taliban, Afghani Taliban and al-Qaida harbor broader differences still, even if some in their ranks are united in opposition to a US presence in the region. Thus, in searching for meaning between the Obama administration’s lines, some Pakistani commentators have concluded that Washington’s contention in this regard is no more than a veil obscuring the real ‘existential threat’ to Pakistan. 

Particularly since the Bush administration began missile strikes on Pakistani targets, and Obama’s ‘new’ plan has continued this policy with deadly effect, editorial and opinion pages in the Pakistani press have been screaming that such violations of Pakistani sovereignty are part of a US plot to destabilize, invade and extract Pakistan’s nuclear capabilities, while transferring nuclear technology to India; a course of action that will ultimately leave Pakistan at India’s mercy (i.e., herald Pakistan’s destruction). Others have argued that recent buzz in Washington about expanding missile strikes into Baluchistan province, is part of a plot hatched with India to break that large region off, thus creating a corridor from Afghanistan to the Arabian Sea that not only by-passes Pakistan, but deprives the remainder of the state a major source of natural resources and strategic value. In other words, there are some in Pakistan who believe the type of statements made by President Obama and General Petreaus are, in fact, laying the groundwork for the US and India to end ‘Pakistan’s very existence’.

These are alarmist perspectives, to be sure, and they certainly do not represent the mainstay of Pakistani commentary, but the alarm itself reveals the broader anxiety caused by India’s role in the region – one that President Obama’s plan seeks to address with no more than unsubstantiated statements of India’s good intentions and fanciful notions of Taliban/al-Qaida’s ‘existential threat’ to Pakistan, not to mention the obligatory ‘bakshish’ promised to those holding the reins of power in Pakistan. However, Pakistani commentators are not alone in recognizing that India’s relationship with the US and role in Afghanistan plays an important part in shaping Pakistani policy towards Taliban and like-minded groups operating in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. In a recent round-table discussion hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations and published in Foreign Affairs, most contributors agreed with the opinion of Shaun Gregory, Director of the Pakistan Security Research Unit at the University of Bradford, that, “Anyone seeking greater stability in the region, or seeking to wean Pakistan off support for extremists and terrorists, has to address Pakistan's legitimate security needs”.

It cannot be forgotten that although the US entered Afghanistan in 2001, India (with Iran and Russia) and Pakistan had been fighting a proxy war in Afghanistan throughout the previous decade; the former supporting the Tajik-dominated ‘Northern Alliance,’ while the latter backed the Pashtun Taliban. This conflict was practically won by Pakistan-backed forces, when the US charged into the region and placed the Northern Alliance in power. The US presence post-9/11, certainly changed the equation, but did not end the proxy war. Thus, the ‘legitimate security needs’ of which Gregory speaks arise from what fellow contributor Aqil Shah – a Rhodes scholar and PhD candidate in political science at Columbia University - identified as the Pakistan army’s “fear that the United States could simply lose interest in Afghanistan once it captures the senior leadership of al Qaeda (as Washington did after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan), leaving Pakistan exposed to Indian (and Russian) ‘encirclement’ -- evidence of which it sees in New Delhi's alleged support for the insurgency in Pakistan's resource-rich Baluchistan province and Indian funding for a 135-mile road connecting Afghanistan's Nimroz province with the Iranian port of Chabahar.”

Christine Fair of the Rand Corporation added: “Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan. Kabul has encouraged India to engage in provocative activities such as using the Border Roads Organization to build sensitive parts of the Ring Road and use the Indo-Tibetan police force for security. It is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar--across from Bajaur. Kabul's motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India's interest in engaging in them. Even if by some act of miraculous diplomacy the territorial issues were to be resolved, Pakistan would remain an insecure state. Given the realities of the subcontinent (e.g., India's rise and its more effective foreign relations with all of Pakistan's near and far neighbors), these fears are bound to grow, not lessen. This suggests that without some means of compelling Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon militancy, it will become ever more interested in using it -- and the militants will likely continue to proliferate beyond Pakistan's control”.

Along with addressing India’s role in Afghanistan, the above trio of commentators also raises the importance of the Kashmir dispute. Stated most forcefully by Shah, “The United States has to pay more attention to the Kashmir conflict and be seen to be doing so. Kashmir shapes the Pakistani state's worldview to a significant degree. It also plays a crucial role in legitimating the military's virtually open-ended security mission and limits the prospects of reversing military power in domestic politics”.  Shah’s logic is rooted in an awareness of the fact that Pakistan’s history of military rulers, religio-political militancy and the kind of existential fears that led to nuclearization, not to mention at least two conventional wars with India, is very much a legacy of the Kashmir dispute. Furthermore, the undercurrent of mistrust created by the lack of any resolution (armed or diplomatic) has played no small part in leading India and Pakistan to became embroiled in the proxy war in Afghanistan that apparently continues into the present. In other words, a mutually agreeable resolution of the Kashmir dispute is necessary for US interests in the region, particularly if those interests involve weaning the Pakistani military off ‘reliance upon militancy’.

As if US interests in the region were not enough, there are also Pakistani reasons for considering the Kashmir dispute central to the region’s future stability. Although ‘irrational’ historical rivalries and the ‘false consciousness’ of ideological divides are always mentioned in discussions of the Kashmir dispute, the more mundane but infinitely more pertinent fact that the Indus River and two of its major tributaries (the Chenab and Jhelum Rivers) flow from the mountains of Kashmir is seldom added. Yet, this fact has been quietly recognized as central by all parties to the dispute since the conclusion of the first Indo-Pak War in 1948, as evinced by Pakistan’s desire to take the matter of water allocation up with the International Court of Justice, and India’s refusal to venture beyond bilateralism, leading to no talks of any kind between the two states by 1951. It was under these circumstances that an agent of the US State Department visited the area and suggested that the World Bank might step in to broker a water distribution treaty as a means of lowering tensions and building confidence. The result was the World Bank brokered ‘Indus Water Treaty’, negotiated over a period of six years and signed in 1960. In essence, the treaty gave Pakistan exclusive rights to the Indus, Chelum and Jhelum Rivers, despite the fact that they flowed out of Indian-administered areas of Kashmir, while India received the same rights to three other Indus tributaries, despite their flowing into Pakistan. The treaty also set up a ‘Permanent Indus Commission’ to monitor implementation and mediate future disputes.

Of all the confidence building measures undertaken and treaties signed between India and Pakistan over the decades, the Indus Water Treaty has been most crucial to stability and so, the most enduring. Yet, this pillar of Indo-Pak entente has been under threat for the last two decade, or so. The first rumblings of change came in 1984, when Indian forces took advantage of Pakistan distraction with the US-backed ‘jihad’ against the Soviets in Afghanistan, to push beyond the 1949 ‘Line of Control’ that separates Indian and Pakistani-administered Kashmir and seize the Siachen Glacier, whose run-off feeds (through tributaries) into the Indus River. Since then, Siachen has become known as the ‘world’s highest battlefield’, and hostilities there contributed to everything from Pakistan backing armed insurgents in Indian-administered Kashmir from 1989, to Pakistani troop involvement in the Kargil Conflict of 1999, bringing South Asia to the brink of nuclear war, while the US withdrew from the region following the defeat of the Soviets. None of these Pakistani moves, however, have succeeded in wresting back control of Siachen, let alone pushing India to negotiate an end to the broader dispute. Rather, they have led Indian forces into a counter-insurgency campaign that international human rights organizations calculate has cost the lives of 80,000 to 100,000 civilians in Indian-administered Kashmir, as well as routine ‘disappearances’, ‘rapes’ and ‘torture’. As if this mix was not toxic enough, in 2000, India also announced plans to dam the Chelum River, stirring the Kashmiri cauldron further. Although India claimed that the hydro-electric project was necessary for the development of Kashmir, Pakistan argued that it was a clear violation of the Indus Water Treaty. Thus, Pakistan raised objections with the Permanent Indus Commission soon after work on the ‘Baglihar Dam Project’ was initiated in 2000, but under the auspices of the World Bank, the Pakistani case was overruled in 2007, without a word from the recently re-engaged US. India was merely required to lower the height of the dam by 1.5 meters. Under such circumstances, work on the dam was revitalized and, in 2008, it was inaugurated by Prime Minister Singh, despite protests from independent geologists (who warn that it lies on a fault-line) and unrelenting objections from Islamabad on the basis of the Indus Water Treaty.

Adding the issue of water rights to the Kashmir dispute only goes to prove the difficulties involved in bringing about any form of ‘quick-fix’. However, the elemental nature of water also best highlights the fact that from Pakistan’s vantage-point, the state’s ‘very existence’ is not dependent on al-Qaida, Taliban or even the US, but on who governs Kashmir and under what terms. Thus, when added to Indian activities in Afghanistan, it is easy to see why the majority of contributors to the previously cited roundtable discussion hosted by the Council on Foreign Relations argued that addressing ‘Pakistan’s legitimate security needs’ vis-à-vis India, is an essential component of any plan ‘seeking greater stability in the region, or seeking to wean Pakistan off support for extremists and terrorists’.

Nevertheless, there are also voices of opposition, not least of which is the Indian government and its lobby in Washington. At least one voice of dissent was even heard at the aforementioned roundtable. Sumit Ganguly, professor of political science and Director of Research at the Center on American and Global Security at Indiana University (Bloomington), acknowledged Indian activities in Afghanistan as “a pincer movement designed to relieve pressure in Kashmir”, but nevertheless went on to argue that India does not “constitute a viable threat” to Pakistan, while evidence of Indian involvement in Baluchistan province is “thin”. All of these issues, including the idea that the Pakistani psyche is scarred by India’s role in the separation of half the country from the whole in 1971, Ganguly dismissed as “paranoia”, “obfuscatory [Pakistani] propaganda” and “India-bashing”.  Thus, he ultimately urged US policymakers to induce the Pakistan army to focus on “legitimate threats”, identifying them in the statement that the US must “ask Pakistan to end its ties with jihadi organizations. This is in the American interest, in the interests of India and Afghanistan, and ultimately in the interest of Pakistan itself…. The menace that was spawned on and unleashed from Pakistani soil threatens us all, and we need to be forthright about it”.

Although representative of minority opinion at the Council of Foreign Relations roundtable, the actions and statements of the Obama administration confirm that the brand of opinion forwarded by Ganguly (and the Indian establishment) carries more weight in Washington than all other contributors to the debate, including the government, media and intelligentsia of Pakistan. In fact, in the latest round of talks between Pakistani and US officials mentioned above, the US representatives’ silence on Pakistani concerns about Indian activities in Afghanistan and Baluchistan, and vociferous dismissal of any US role in mediating the Kashmir dispute, reaffirmed that India-Pakistan relations are no more part of Obama’s ‘new’ plan, than they were a feature of the Bush administration’s strategy in the region. Only one reason can be surmised: US relations with India are viewed in the long-term, while those with Pakistan are not, despite assurances to the contrary. From the Pakistani perspective, therefore, the ‘new’ plan, like the ‘old’, acknowledges and pampers an elephant in the room, but asks the cat under its feet to ignore it and other ‘predators’ in the air, because a rat is also present. At the risk of carrying the metaphor too far, such a scenario can only lead the cat and the rat to accommodate each other, lest both risk being crushed. That is to say, when provisions for India-Pakistan relations are considered, Obama’s ‘new’ plan, like Bush’s ‘old’ one, appears to yield exactly the opposite of its stated intention, at least so far as Pakistan is concerned.

M. Reza Pirbhai is an Assistant Professor of South Asian History at
Louisiana State University. He can be reached at: rpirbhai@lsu.edu

[Sources include: “What’s the Problem with Pakistan?” Foreign Affairs (March 31-April 3, 2009); “World Bank Rules on Kashmir Dam”, BBCNEWS.COM (February 13, 2007)]

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