Today's Stories

November 24, 2008

Mike Whitney
You Ain't Seen Nothing Yet

Pam Martens
The Rise and Fall of Citigroup

November 21 / 23, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
The Honeymoon is Looking a Bit Wan

Michael Hudson
Paulson's Cascade of Lies

Mike Whitney
Time to Move to Plan B ... If There is One

Barbara Rose Johnston /
Holly M. Barker
Cautionary Tales From a Nuclear War Zone

Serge Halimi
The Gloom of Empire: Downhill All the Way

Alan Farago
The Suburbs March On

Ralph Nader
Changing With Retreads: the Third Clinton Administration

Saul Landau
When Old Axioms Don't Apply

Robert Bryce
From LBJ to Obama: the End of Texas Dominance

Shannon May
Ecological Crisis and Eco-Villages in China

Binoy Kampmark
The End of the Yugo

Jack Ely
The Fate of the West's Wild Horses

Ramzy Baroud
The Rights of Women in War Zones

Missy Beattie
Why Vote, Anyway?

Larry Portis
Women Soldiers Serving in (and Barely Surviving) the Israeli Army

James McEnteer
Colombia's Laboratory of Failure

Christopher Brauchli
A Tale of Two Whales

David Yearsley
Real Swords, Fire and Don Giovanni

Adam Engel
Power Down

Ron Jacobs
The Continuing Saga of the White Album

Lorenzo Wolff
Honky Tonk Heroes: When Country Got Real

Poets' Basement
Raza Ali Hasan

Website of the Weekend
Lips and Fingers

November 20, 2008

P. Sainath
The Jurassic Auto and Idea Park

Brian McKenna
How Dow Chemical Defies Homeland Security and Risks Another 9/11

Paul Craig Roberts
What Uncle Sam Has to Say to His Creditors

Andy Worthington
How Guanántamo Can be Closed

Peter Lee
India Doubles Down in Afghanistan ... Maybe

Dr. Eyad al-Serraj
At the Erez Crossing

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Bush Pardons

Lance Selfa
Who Made the New Deal?

Ray McGovern
Keeping Gates

Benjamin G. Davis
Ending Torture; Prosecuting the Torturers

Tracy McLellan
Obama's Crony Democracy: the Return of Tom Daschle

Website of the Day
Finally, a Victory for Palestinians

November 19, 2008

M. Shahid Alam
Obama and the Politics of Race and Religion in America

Mario A. Murillo
Holder, Chiquita and Colombian Death Squads

Martine Boulard
Escaping the Dollar's Shadow

Robin D. G. Kelley
Will Obama be the First "Freedom" Democrat?

Behrooz Ghamari-Tabrizi
Obama and the Iron Cage

Jonathan Cook
Who Will Stop the Settlers?

Steve Conn
Spare Change or No Change at All

George Wuerthner
The NYT and the Beetles of Mass Destruction

Michael Winship
This Just in From Middle Earth

Stephen Martin
The Other Side of the Pleasure-Dome

Website of the Day
An Important Holiday Message From Kristen Johnston

November 18, 2008

Chellis Glendinning
Cheering for Morgan Stanley

George C. Wilson
Perils of Pakistan: Will It Prove to be Obama's Cambodia?

Franklin Lamb
Who Will Evict Israel from Lebanon: Hezbollah or the UN?

Bill and Kathleen Christison
The Irresponsibility of Appointing Hillary Clinton Secretary of State

Roger Burbach
Orchestrating a Civic Coup in Bolivia: How Bush Tried to Bring Down Morales

John Ross
Drilling vs. Direct Democracy in Mexico

Wajahat Ali
Is Obama the Muslim World's Superman?

Damien Millet /
Eric Toussaint
What Really Happened in Washington? The G20 and the Inconsistent Script

Marc Gardner
When Mooning is a Sex Crime

Eric Walberg
Courting the Bear: a New Era for Russian/Western Relations?

Wendy Williams
The Bottled Water Con

Website of the Day
Where's Zappa When We Need Him?

November 17, 2008

Michael Hudson
Bankers Shake Down Congress and the G-20

Paul Craig Roberts
When It's a Clear Day and You Can't See GM

Mike Whitney
Busted in Washington

Steve Conn
Where is Nader Country 2008? Mapping the Nader Votes

Andy Worthington
Closing Guantánamo: Advice for Obama

Jonathan Cook
The Real Goal of Israel's Blockade of Gaza: "They Are All Hamas"

Rannie Amiri
Dual Loyalties Will Doom Obama

David Macaray
Bailing Out the Automakers

David Michael Green
Twelve Victories

Charles Modiano
Sports Illustrated and Sexism: Tokenism or a New Day?

Website of the Day
The South Sea Bubble

November 14 / 16, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Heading for the First Hundred Days

Jeffrey St. Clair
How Bill Clinton Doomed the Spotted Owl: a Cautionary Tale for Greens in the Age of Obama

Mike Whitney
Paulson the Bungler

Sasan Fayazmanesh
RIP: the Experts, 1929-2008

Moshe Adler
Keynes: China's Greatest Export?

Anthony DiMaggio
Transcending Race?

Jean Bricmont
Cats, Dogs and Creationism

Sheldon Rampton
The Eisenstadt Hoax: a Real Life Example of a "Fake Fake"

Douglas Valentine
Let the Trials Begin!

Joseph Nevins /
Timothy Dunn
Barricading the Border

Tom Barry
Rahm Emanuel's Political Pragmatism on Immigration

Ron Jacobs
Che Guevara Meets Trashman: the Genius of Spain Rodriguez

Larry Portis
The State of the Israeli State

Mary Lynn Cramer Obama's Brain Trust: Seems Like Old Times

Sherry Wolf
The Myth of the Black/Gay Divide

Peter Cervantes-Gautschi
Secretary of Greed: How Larry Summers Championed Wall Street by Impoverishing the Mexican People

Jacob Hornberger
The Conservative Malaise: Hey, Brother, Can You Spare Some Habeas Corpus?

Lance Selfa
The Center-Right Nation Con

Benjamin Dangl
Vermont Against General Dynamics

Seth Sandronsky
Lifelines in Hard Times

Russell Mokhiber
Time to Give the Friends of Big Coal the Boot

Allan Stellar
Nuke a Gay Whale for the Navy

Kelly Overton
Get Thee to a Shelter: the Obamas and the Million-Mutt March

Martha Rosenberg
Why Mink are Cheering the Economic Crisis

Richard Rhames
Palling Around with Ray the Plumber

David Yearsley
How I Played Hooky from "High School Musical 3"

Lorenzo Wolff
Zach is Back: Songs of Hurt, Rage and Resistance

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Ford and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
The Eyes Have It

November 13, 2008

Pam Martens
The Two Trillion DollarBlack Hole

Vijay Prashad
Guilt by Participation: Sonal Shah's Membership Has Expired

Patrick Cockburn
Who is Paying for the Iraqi National Intelligence Service?

Jonathan Cook
The Withering Palestinian Economy

Ralph Nader
Obama and the Rogue Regime

Bill Quigley
McCain Owes America an Apology

Lee Sustar
Bailing Out the Big Three

Omar Barghouti
Boycotting Israeli Settlement Products

Steve Conn
More Alaska Fun

Howard Lisnoff
The Last Bastion of Hate

Jeff Cohen
What Indy Media Heroes Can Teach Us

Website of the Day
Who are the Obamagelicals?

November 12, 2008

Johanna Berrigan
Scattered Families: the Iraq Refugee Crisis

Steve Conn
The Big Mystery Election in Alaska

Patrick Bond
Against Volcker

Bokar Ture /
Dedrick Muhammad
Remembering a Black Radical in a Barack Obama America

Alan Farago
The Hispanic Vote in South Florida: Not Dyed Blue Yet

Dave Lindorff
Rescuing Joe Lieberman

Karl Grossman
Break Up Big Oil: Tyranny in the Tank

David Macaray
An Obama Litmus Test: Will Labor Have a Seat at the Table?

George Wuerthner
Act Now to Save America's Public Forests

Susie Day
Heavy Weather

Website of the Day
Does the Planet Have a Future? an Interview with Derrick Jensen

November 11, 2008

James G. Abourezk
How to Vote Against Your Own Interests

Allan J. Lichtman
What Obama Can Learn From FDR

Eric Toussaint
Financing the Bailout: a Holy Union for a Deuce of a Swindle

Ron Jacobs
Moving Beyond Hope: a Leftist Looks at the Near Future

Peter Montague
Green Coal?

Corporate Crime Reporter
BP's Big Spill on the North Slope

Laura Carlsen
Latin America Sends Obama a Piece of Its Mind

Col. Dan Smith
A New Unifying Paradigm?

Morton Skorodin
The Machine Grinds On

David Michael Green
My Michelle Moment

Charles R. Larson
Ask Your Doctor for a Free Sample

Website of the Day
Will Old Faithful Be Sucked Dry?

November 10, 2008

David Roediger
Obama's Victory and the Future of Race in the United States

Paul Craig Roberts
Conned Again?

Peter Lee
Obama's Man in Afghanistan

Corey D. B. Walker
And We Are Not Saved

Jeff Halper
A Bone in America's Throat

Bill Hatch
Look on the Bright Side, Dammit!

Andy Worthington
Guilty By Torture

Bill Quigley
Anger and Hope: Haitian Families Furious Over School Collapse

Peter Morici
Paulson's Folly

Anthony Olszewski
The Advent of a New Black Politician

Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill

Cpt. Paul Watson
Farley Mowat's Last Book? Maybe Not

Website of the Day
Boondocks, Another Banned Episode

November 7 / 9, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Hail to the Chief of Staff

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Politics of Fire

Vijay Prashad
Obama's Indian: the Many Faces of Sonal Shah

Tariq Ali
Great Expectations

Jean Bricmont
Our Obama Problem

John V. Whitbeck
Obama, Emanuel and Israel

Saul Landau
Politics Among the Ruins: Obama Faces an Economic Disaster

Peter Morici
Gone, Baby, Gone: Another 240,000 Jobs Lost

Lawrence Velvel
Obama and Afghanistan: the Return of Clintonia?

Karyn Strickler
Don't Govern From the Middle

Nativo V. Lopez
Banking on Obama with Open Eyes: Latinos and Obama

Christopher Fons
A Generational Moment: From Jackson to Obama

Alan Farago
Sarah Palin's Limited Engagement

David Yearsley
Where Late the Sweet Birds Sang

Christopher Brauchli
Pardoning Industry: Bush's Latest Executive Orders

Samah Sabawi
Gaza's New Cemetery

Dave Lindorff
Getting the Change We've Earned

Deepak Tripathi
A Revolution to Remember

Beth Sherouse
In the Wake of Lost Initiatives: the Gay Glass is Half Empty

Patrick Irelan
La Belle Dame Sans Regrets: Back to Alaska

Stephen Martin
Barack and the Temple

Richard Rhames
Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

J. Murray
White Cherokee Mythology

Lorenzo Wolff
Anthems for the Average Kid

Kim Nicolini
Exile and Displacement on Bunker Hill: Art Meets Realism in "The Exiles"

Poets' Basement
Farrelly, Fleming and Browne

Website of the Day
Take Who Takes You (For the New Big O)

November 6, 2008

Frank J. Menetrez
Now What?

John Chuckman
The Big Leap: From Hope to Change

P. Sainath
A Magic Moment (But Still Behind the Global Curve)

Joshua Frank
A Look Under the Hood of an Obama Administration

Edna Canetti
Come, Obama, Change My Life: a Plea from Israel

John Ross
Brad Will is Still Dead

Norman Solomon
Sorry Joe: a Mandate for Spreading the Wealth

Fawzia Afzal-Khan
The Morning After: Pakistan and Its New Bedfellow

Robert Weissman
Mordor Brightens: Obama's Challenge--and Our Own

Harvey Wasserman
A Blow to Nuclear Power in Chicago

Website of the Day
Pot Wins Big

November 5, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
Why McCain Lost

Chuck Spinney
How Obama Won

Ishmael Reed
Morning in Obamerica: the Promised Land?

Chris Floyd
A Prism for the New Paradigm: "What If Bush Did It?"

Binoy Kampmark
Obama's Victory: a Nation Divided

Michael Donnelly
The Rebooting of America, 2008

David Macaray
Who Should be Secretary of Labor?

Peter Morici
Obama's First Moves on the Economy

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
What Real Change Should Bring

William Willers
Will We be Forced to Sell Off the Public Lands?

Website of the Day
The Killing Fields of South Africa

November 4, 2008

Kathleen Christison
McCain, Obama and Khalidi

James Ridgeway
A New World?

Winslow T. Wheeler
Cleaning Out the Pentagon Pig Sty

Mike Whitney
Obama's Little Red Book

Conn Hallinan
A New Foreign Policy

Holly M. Barker
The Inequities of Climate Change and the Small Island Experience

Ashley Smith
Where is the Occupation of Iraq Heading?

Andy Worthington
Guilty Verdict Fails to Justify Gitmo Trials

Martha Rosenberg
AIG: Too Big to Play Fair

Stephen Martin
Breakdown of the Globalisation Agenda

Doug Lummis
Full Moon Over Okinawa

Carlos Fierro
An Anarchist View of Elections

Website of the Day
La Pequeña as Sarah Palin

November 3, 2008

Patrick Cockburn
Friends Like These

John Kennedy O'Hara
Voter Lockdown: Prosecuting Voters

Peter Montague
Is Nuclear Power Green?

Steve Conn
Nader and the Youth Vote

Andrew Gebhardt
How Much Do the Differences Between Obama, McCain and Bush Really Matter?

Ron Jacobs
Bombing Syria: Borders are for Sissies

Ralph Nader
Between Hope and Reality: an Open Letter to Senator Obama

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Cleaning Up After Bush

Uri Avnery
Obama and the Order of the Optimists

Dave Lindorff
Studs and Me

Fred Gardner
Adieu, Rimonabant

DC Larson
You Are How You Vote

David Michael Green
McCain Finally Gets Tough

Val Strange
Hopeless Hoi Polloi or Step in the Right Direction?

Tuli Kupferberg /
Jeffrey Lewis
Wailing Wall Street:
Bring Spare Money!

Website of the Day
Pranking Palin (the Uncut Version)

October 31 , 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Change You Can See

Jeffrey St. Clair
Killing Leroy Jackson: the Indian Wars Have Never Ended

Douglas Valentine
Giving Aid and Comfort to the Enemy: McCain's 14th Amendment Problem

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Great Bailout Fraud: Misrepresenting the Financial Crisis

Dr. Ignacy Nowopolski
Is the Global Economy a Mistake? an Interview with Paul Craig Roberts

Alan Maass
What's So Funny About Peace, Love and Spreading the Wealth?

William P. O’Connor
Reflections of an Average Joe

Patrick Irelan
Johnny's Tantrums: McCain the "Gook Hater"

Brian Cloughley
Out of Control: Memo From Islamabad

Mats Svensson
The Last Dance in Ramallah

Binoy Kampmark
Into Syria We Went

Steve Conn
The Future of Ted and Sarah

Alan Farago
The Division of Florida: the Politics of Growth

Morton Skorodin
The Bush-Obama-McCain Administration

Robert Bryce
Not McCain

Wajahat Ali
Dear John McCain, Please Stop...

David Yearsley
Palin's Flute, Obama's Voice

Dennis Loo
What to Do with Bush and Cheney?

Pam Martens
Why 2008 Feels Like 1932

Stephen Martin
Defense Strategies in Economic Warfare

Richard Rhames
Nothing for Something: the Doomed Rustic's Lament

Ramzy Baroud
A Third Palestinian Intifada

Missy Beattie
I'm Sick of Their Voices

Howard Lisnoff
Burning Reason: More From the Religious Right

Richard Neville
Pickled Heads: First the Revelation, Then the Revolution

Saul Landau /
Farrah Hassan
Bush Ultra Lite: Oliver Stone's Oedipal Problem

Kim Nicolini
Max Payne: Vigilante Violence as Sex Story

Lorenzo Wolff
Dance to the Music--or Else!

Poets' Basement
Four Poems from the Japanese Trans. by Rexroth

Website of the Weekend
Art Against Empire

October 30, 2008

Cockburn / St. Clair
McCain's Women Problems

Vijay Prashad
Smearing Rashid Khalidi

Paul Craig Roberts
World Tires of Rule by Dollar

Glen Ford
Turning the Tide of Ethnic Cleansing in America's Cities

Stanley Heller
Wall Street Bonus Madness

William Loren Katz
"Kill Him!:" a Political Chronicle

Joshua Frank
Memo to Progressives for Obama: What Happens After the Election?

James McEnteer
The Year of Unreliable Witnesses

Felice Pace
The Big Change: Can "Civic Unreasonableness" Save the Earth?

Jonathan Cook
The Executions at Kafr Qassem

Reza Fiyouzat
Boycott the Elections!

Website of the Day
An Open Letter to Whole Foods

October 29, 2008

Arno J. Mayer
The US Empire will Survive Bush

Eric Toussaint
How the Food and Financial Crises are Interconnected

Matt Gonzalez
What Do They Have to Do to Lose Your Vote?

Steven Conn
Obama and the Camp Followers

Jonathan Cook
Israel Bars Visit to a Father's Grave

Patrick Bond
Strauss-Kahn Strikes Again!

Ramzi Kysia
A Freedom Rider in Gaza City

Douglas Valentine
A Glimpse Inside the Head of Joe the Plumber

Stephen Martin
What America is Owed

Margaret Dooley-Sammuli
Alternatives to Incarceration

Amee Chew
Support Obama, Vote McKinney?

Website of the Day
N-Word Chant Doesn't Phase Palin

October 28, 2008

James G. Abourezk
How to Bail Out the Taxpayers

Andy Worthington
The Empty Chair at Guantánamo

Gary Leupp
The Specter of the Sixties: Palin v. Ayers

Paul Craig Roberts
The End of the American Road

Mike Whitney
Meet the World's New Currency

Gregory V. Button
What the Next President Must Do to Save FEMA

Ralph Nader
Share the Sacrifices, Share the Benefits

P. Sainath
Haunted by Socialism

Martha Rosenberg
Melting Pot in Hell

Charles R. Larson
Palin/Wurzelbacher 2012!

Website of the Day
Why You Can't See Across the Grand Canyon

October 27, 2008

Michael Hudson
Scenes From the Global Class War

Barbara Rose Johnston
The Clean, Green Nuclear Machine?

John Dinges
Palling Around with Dictators: McCain and Pinochet

Mike Whitney
Chickenhawks and the Horrors of War

Mary Lynn Cramer Greenspan's Higher Power

Alan Farago
Origins of the Fall

David Michael Green
Remind Me Again: Who Won the Cold War?

Andy Worthington
The Collapse of Omar Khadr's Guantánamo Trial

George Wuerthner
Is Ranching Sustainable? The Story of Bob the Rancher

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
The Obamanations of Barack

Website of the Day
Heartland of Darkness

October 24 / 26, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Waiting for the Curtain to Rise

Ishmael Reed
Boogiemen: How Lee Atwater Perfected the G.O.P.'s Appeal to Racism

Mike Whitney
Down for the Count

Don Santina
How Maria Fell: Death in the Central Valley

Scott Boehm
Manufacturing Sympathy: Palin, Special Needs and Identity Politics

Saul Landau
Faith-Based Surge: Whining About Winning in Iraq

Ron Jacobs
Iraq and the Arrogance of Washington

Binoy Kampmark
Afghanistan the Un-Winnable

Linn Washington Jr.
The Great Vote Fraud Hoax

Nicole Colson
Mocking Our Rights: McCain's Disdain for Women's Health

Bernard Chazelle
The Humorology of Power

Brian Jones
Campaign by Codeword

Christopher Brauchli
Down the Drain with McCain's Vetters

Benjamin Dangl
Bolivia Rejects Neoliberalism

Val Strange
The Fraternity of John McCain: Scenes from North Carolina

Joe Mowrey
Name That Candidate: He Supports Petraeus, the Death Penalty, the Bailout, Nuclear Power, the Occupation...

Steve Early
SEIU Learns the Meaning of "No"

David Macaray
Patriotism and the Labor Movement

Allison Kilkenny
You Have the Right to Airport Harassment

Richard Rhames
Open Season

Jim Bell
Nuclear Power's Big Con

Kris De Welde
Domestic Violence and Financial Stress

Barry Clemson
John Wayne Syndrome

Adam Engel
Last Exit to Disneyland

Mark Scaramella
The World's Weirdest Pipe Organ?

Tuli Kupferberg
Nobody for President: the Original Version (Annotated)

Lorenzo Wolff
A Frustrated, Broken-Hearted Joy from Kidnapkin

Poets' Basement
Gibbons, Swartzfager and Payne

Website of the Weekend
Patrick Cockburn Dismantles the Surge

October 23, 2008

Allan J. Lichtman
What Voter Fraud?

Todd Chretien
Why I'm Not Voting for Obama

John Ross
No Child Left Behind, Mexican-Style

Peter Morici
Strategies to End the Crisis

Mats Svensson
Short Film Clips at a Checkpoint

Marlene Martin
Don't Let Them Execute an Innocent Man

Robert Jensen /
Pat Youngblood
Looking Beyond the Election and Beyond Elections

Margaret Kimberley
Rightwing Obama Love

Deepak Tripathi
Post-Bush Scenarios

David Morris
Why Joe the Plumber is a Socialist (And You Are, Too)

Website of the Day
Voting While Black in North Carolina

October 22, 2008

Brian Cloughley
Kid Killers are Barbarians

Heather Gray
Raising Hell in the South: the Legacy of J. L. Chestnut, Jr.

Jeff Birkenstein
McCain's Disdain for Spain

Ralph Nader
The Song Remains the Same: Convergence and Avoidance in the Presidential Election

DC Larson
The Growing of a Heartland Nader Raider

David Swanson
Colin Powell, Not Qualified for Government Service

Keeanga-Yamatta Taylor Race and the Election: When the "Real" America Enters the Voting Booth

Larry Everest
9/11 and the Imperial Adventure in Afghanistan

Robert Fantina
Anything to Win

Martha Rosenberg
The Financier's Playbook

Stephen Martin
Giving It Up to the Combine

Website of the Day
Brokers with Hands on Their Faces

October 21, 2008

Vijay Prashad
Wealth's Apostles

Paul Craig Roberts
How Inflation Works: Why I Can't Buy an Old Ferrari

Corey D. B. Walker
Empire and White Supremacy

Steve Breyman
How to "Win" in Afghanistan

Eric Toussaint
The Economic Crisis and Latin America: Time to Delink

Wajahat Ali
Boo Radley Comes Out to Play: the Emerging Muslim-American Electorate

Robert Weitzel
Wasting a Vote for Lincoln's Radical Ideal (Or Why I'm Voting for Nader)

Brendan Cooney
Palinoscopy: an Exploration of Why Liberals are So Obsessed with Sarah Palin

Dave Lindorff
Cuba's Oil Reserves: a Game-Changer?

Marqueece Harris-Dawson / Bob Wing
When You're a Black Candidate There's No Such Thing as a Safe Lead

Patrick B. Barr
Socialist, Socialist, SOCIALIST!

Omar Barghouti
The Boycott and Palestinian Groups: Countering the Critics

Website of the Day
How to Dismantle a US War Plane (and Get Away With It)

October 20, 2008

Michael Hudson
The ABCs of Paulson's Bailout

Anthony DiMaggio
The Scandal That Never Was: ACORN, Rightwing Media and Election "Fraud"

Tariq Ali
Zardari Bans My Books

Uri Avnery
Is Akko Burning?

Bill Quigley
Hammered by the Swedes

Ben Rosenfeld
The Politics of St. Joe, Martyr to a Lie

David Michael Green
Payback's a Bitch: McCain on the Ash Heap

William S. Lind
The Afghanistan Advantage

Chris Genovali
Drill, Baby, Drill (Wink, Wink)

Stephen Martin
The Last Man in America

Howard Lisnoff
Bad News for War Resisters

David Yearsley
Organ Meat

Website of the Day
Our Brother is Sick: the Steve Ferguson Cancer Fund

October 17 / 19, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Blow Ups and Bombers

Jeffrey St. Clair
Inside Hanford: a Trip to America's Most Toxic Place

Pam Martens
How the Banksters are Making a Killing Off the Bailout

Paul Craig Roberts
Government of Thieves

Mike Whtney
No More Investment Banks

Michael D. Yates
Bowling Alley Blues: Racism Dies Hard in Johnstown, PA

Suzanne Smith
The Energy-War Connection: McCain Said It, Why Don't We?

Carl Boggs
Prosecuting Bush

Ralph Nader
Closing the Courthouse Doors

Fidel Castro
The Global Crash

Dave Marsh
The Great Levi Stubbs

Saul Landau
Denial, the Election Musical Comedy

Jo Guldi
The Floods of Heaven

Kevin Zeese
Now the Cost of War Really Matters

Larry Everest
Afghanistan, Not a Good War Gone Bad

Steve Early
Stop, in the Name of Joe!

David Macaray
Hey, Joe

Ben Terrall
When Ike Hit Haiti

Missy Beattie
Palin and God's Children

Don Monkerud
American Exceptionalism

Helen Redmond
Health Care Now's Big Con

Dan Bacher
Schwarzenegger's Delta Vision: Canals and Dams to Bail Out Big Ag

Wajahat Ali
Bush Gets Stoned

Farzana Versey
The White Tiger's Stripes and Gripes

Vladimir Frolov
Medvedev to Obama: We Come Not to Bury America, But to Buy It

Kim Nicolini
Frozen River: At Last, a Great Movie That's Neither Hip Nor Cool

Poets Basement
Gibbons, Corsale, Davis and Fleming

Website of the Day
The Real Sarah Palin?

November 24, 2008

The Kurds, Oil and Missing Records

Bush's Library

By LARAY POLK

"How fitting is it that this storied political life that began here in Texas will write its final chapters right here in the good old Lone Star state and right here on this campus. Now the work begins to plan and build the site."

-- Don Evans, member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board and chairman of the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation, July 17, 2008 [1]

Texas oilman Ray Hunt suggested to President Bush in early 2001 that he consider his presidential library to be built in Dallas, Texas on the campus of Southern Methodist University. That summer, Hunt and the president of SMU, Gerald Turner, met with Bush at his ranch in Crawford to discuss the library destination.

Months after the Bush inauguration, Turner named Tom Barry, SMU’s vice president of executive affairs, as the university’s “presidential library expert.” In the summer of 2001, SMU hired an architectural model maker to begin building a replica of the campus, complete with the envisioned Bush library. A year later, SMU formally announced its campaign to host the future library.

In 2005, SMU’s official invitation arrived from the library selection committee to compete with eight other schools. In December 2006, the committee made an announcement; SMU was being considered as the finalist. [2]

In a letter dated February 22, 2008, addressed to Turner, Bush wrote, “I understand that the Southern Methodist University Board of Trustees has recommended its campus to house the George W. Bush Presidential Library, Museum, and Institute... I am very pleased to approve proceeding consistent with the Trustees’ recommendation....Laura joins me in thanking you.” [3]

The letter does not disclose that Laura Bush, Ray Hunt and senior vice president for corporate affairs and international relations at Hunt Oil Company, Jeanne L. Phillips, are long-standing members of the SMU Board of Trustees. [4]

***

In the first year of office, having assumed the presidency under dubious circumstances, George W. Bush met in private with the president of Hunt Oil and the president of SMU to begin plans for the construction of a monument to permanently house a legacy that had not yet been established. By November, Bush had signed an Executive Order (EO) that shifted the president’s and vice president’s public records, both former and incumbent, to a shady process of indefinite self-censorship.

On November 1, 2001, President Bush signed EO 13233. It would gut the Presidential Records Act of 1978, extend a former president’s “constitutionally based privileges” to his heirs, and enable the suppression of public records indefinitely. The EO ushered in broad authority for both presidents and vice presidents; its provisions overturn a previous order that requires records to be systematically released 12 years after a president leaves office. It also provides mechanisms for sharing agreements between former presidents (or their appointed representatives or heirs) and the current president. The same privileges extend to the office of the vice president.

EO 13233 requires that the US Archivist gain agreement for a record’s release from both the former and current president. Both are granted unlimited time for review. A former president’s decision in declining the release of a record holds more sway than the judgement of the sitting president. If the position is reversed, that is, the president in office makes a privilege claim, then the record in question will remain secret even if the former president or family wishes it released. [5]

For the Reagan administration, whose interval of 12 years had arrived, the EO presented a reprieve for both the former president and his vice president, George H. Bush. The sharing agreement of the release of documents based on “extended security concerns” has served other purposes. Suppression of records from Reagan’s presidency made President Bush’s nomination of John Negroponte as deputy secretary of state plausible.

On March 14, 2007, a bill to rescind the EO, HR 1255: Presidential Records Act Amendments of 2007, passed the House of Representatives by a large majority of 333-93. The bill reached the floor of the Senate on several occasions but was stalled each time; twice by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) and once by Sen. Jim Bunning (R-KY).

While the EO works on the premise of suppressing that which is known to exist, there is another dimension of censorship taking place: Deletion of electronic data. The White House is legally required to preserve e-mails considered presidential and as belonging to the federal record. This includes the discussion of highly sensitive policy matters by way of e-mail. The archiving of records by the White House serves two major functions: as a historical account of events and as documentation in the instance of future legal quandaries.

In January 2008, an Oversight Committee, led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), announced that 473 days of White House e-mail communications were missing; essentially, days in the White House that were marked by communication “blackouts.”

Based on a study assembled by the committee, Waxman reported that no e-mails for Bush’s executive office had been archived on 12 separate days between December 2003 and February 2004; and no emails for Vice President Cheney’s executive office had been archived on 16 occasions between September 2003 and May 2005. According to the study, other areas of the White House had even higher numbers of days of no e-mail messages. These include the Council on Environmental Quality, Council of Economic Advisors, Office of Management and Budget, and Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. [6]

The issue of missing White House records remains the subject of several ongoing legal disputes. In court on May 2008, in a lawsuit filed by the National Security Archive, the White House admitted that it has lost e-mail backups from the initial days of the Iraq war. The loss of records amounts to three months worth of e-mail exchanges between March and September 2003. Spokespersons for the Bush administration testified that a system upgrade was mostly likely to blame; data was lost when Bush aides dismantled an automatic e-mail archive program used by President Bill Clinton. The missing e-mails also proved challenging for special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in his investigation of the exposed identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame. [7]

In April 2007, a lawyer for the Republican National Committee gave statements to congressional staff members that the RNC “is missing at least four years’ worth of e-mail from White House senior advisor Karl Rove” and that it had taken “action to prevent Rove – and Rove alone among the two dozen or so White House Officials with RNC accounts – from deleting his e-mails from the RNC server.” During the same week, White House administration officials publicly admitted that e-mails, including matters concerning the firing of U.S. attorneys, may have been lost because they had been sent through political messaging accounts. There have been a total of 50 such e-mail accounts during the Bush administration. [8]

Against this backdrop of emerging facts concerning secrecy, obfuscation, deletion and lawsuits, SMU officials continue to extol the merits of hosting the future George W. Bush Presidential Library. In July 2008, Brad Cheves, SMU’s vice president of development and external affairs, went on record to say that the Bush library “has the potential to bring a storehouse of history to a university campus and to the city of Dallas." [9]

The “storehouse of history,” in terms of obligatory White House records, is most likely nonexistent as a continuous historical account. And even if it were partially extant, the records would most likely be suppressed by Bush and Cheney for as long as EO 13233 provides protection. It is more probable, that the library in the beginning will not be a library at all, but, rather, a contrived narrative intended for tens of thousands of paying visitors.

The firm chosen to create the “defining moments of President Bush’s tenure,” PRD Group, is “fashioning a narrative that meets Mr. Bush’s approval.” Benjamin Hufbauer, author of Presidential Temples: How Memorial and Libraries Shape Public Memory, has commented that he has reservations when a president has a direct hand in constructing the message, “You basically have a shrine to the president...an extended campaign commercial.” [10]

Karl Rove is also playing an advisory role in the planning at SMU. Mark Langdale, the president of the George W. Bush Presidential Library Foundation, has stated that, "Karl's pretty busy doing a lot of things in his private life right now, but he's a critical resource about what happened in the administration, and he has a lot of good ideas about programming and positioning...I would appreciate his continued advice on how we can build a better library institution.” [11]

As part of the deal for the presidential library, SMU will also play host to a policy institute. As Turner publicly reminded dissenting faculty and staff, “the institute and library come as a package deal.” [12] Though the institute will have its own governing body separate from the university, visiting fellows will have the opportunity to serve in a professorial capacity within the established SMU curricula. [13]

One must ask at this juncture whether or not SMU trustees and administrators are concerned that the bulk of evidence gathered by concerned citizens and legal groups, as well as the unlawful lack of federal records, is a strong indicator that they are enablers of a controlled narrative whose end is nowhere in sight? What are the consequences of this continued ruse of respectability? Can anyone emerge unscathed from this new world order that conspires from both within and without?

***

“I knew nothing about the [Hunt Oil Co.] deal. I need to know exactly how it happened. To the extent that it does undermine the ability for the government to come up with an oil revenue-sharing plan that unifies the country, obviously I'm – if it undermines that, I'm concerned."

--President George W. Bush, White House news conference, September 20, 2007 [14]

On September 8, 2007, Ray Hunt signed a contract for an 800-square-kilometre exploration block in the Kurdistan region of Iraq. Hunt Oil Company directly negotiated the deal with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG). Hunt would later provide e-mails, when investigated by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, chaired by Rep. Waxman, that indicated that he had been given the green light by State Department officials prior to negotiations. Hunt also supplied letters from July and August of 2007 addressed to the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PIAB), of which he is a member, as proof of the board’s awareness of his future business pursuits.

On July 3, 2008, the Congressional oversight committee released its report, concluding that officials in the Bush administration had knowledge of Hunt Oil Company’s intentions to seek an independent contract with the KRG. The committee’s collection of e-mail messages, responses to a questionnaire and testimonies, reveal a host of conflicting accounts within the State Department.

One e-mail message released by the committee, sent by a State Department official in Washington to a colleague, read: “Many thanks for the heads up; getting an American company to sign a deal with the K.R.G. will make big news back here. Please keep us posted.” In an e-mail response to questions asked by the committee, John Fleming, an Iraq press officer in the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, wrote: “All companies, including Hunt Oil, which have spoken with the United States government about investing in Iraq’s oil sector, have and will continue to be given the same advice...that they incur significant political and legal risk by signing any contracts with any party before a national [oil] law is passed by the Iraqi Parliament.”

Another State Department official, who asked not to be named, went on record to say that a State Department official in Erbil, the capital city of the KRG, had met with Hunt Oil directly. According to the testimony given, the local official had “tried to dissuade Hunt officials from making the deal.” There is no written account from that meeting; Hunt Oil denies they had ever received discouragement in Erbil. [15]

Hunt employees have also produced their own contradictions. According to an e-mail provided to the committee by David McDonald, an executive for Hunt Oil, dated September 28, 2007: “I specifically asked if the U.S.G. had a policy toward companies entering contracts with the K.R.G...There was no communication to me or in my presence made by the nine State Department officials with whom I met prior to 8 September that Hunt should not pursue our course of action leading to a contract. In fact, there was ample opportunity to do so, but it did not happen.” [16] In a news story from September 21, 2007, Hunt spokesperson, Jeanne L. Phillips, stated: "We're a privately held company. We do not make it a practice to discuss our business dealings with anyone except the involved parties, and in this case the U.S. government is not an involved party.” [17]

Following Phillips’ statement, in a news story appearing almost a month later, Ray Hunt was reported saying that “he has not talked about it [Hunt-KRG contract] with Mr. Bush or anyone else in the U.S. government, either before it was signed Sept. 8 or since.” [18]

It is difficult to discern whether any of the accounts and accompanying documentation provided to the Oversight Committee have any legitimate content relevant to events as they occurred in real time. It does, however, provide a keyhole into the muddied and muddled affairs of the Bush administration. It is most likely that some State Department officials knew about the deal and approved, it is also possible that PIAB members knew of Hunt’s plans and that President Bush did not. It is also possible that Hunt abused his position on PIAB to gain access to intelligence for personal use. One such opportunity relevant to an oilman would be access to multi-spectral, high-resolution US reconnaissance satellite photographs. Such data would have told him with great accuracy which 800-square-kilometer tract to negotiate. [19]

On September 29, 2008, a little over than a year later after the Hunt contract had been finalized, President Bush signed an EO directly related to PIAB and the Intelligence Oversight Board (IOB). One news report characterized the EO as having “downsized the [Intelligence Oversight] board's mandate,” and by doing so, severely weakened “espionage oversight.” [20]

It is plausible that the espionage oversight sought by Bush had to do with PIAB itself. The EO established the IOB as a committee comprised of no more than five members of PIAB, designated by the president. The primary focus of the IOB is to “inform the President of intelligence activities that the IOB believes...may be unlawful or contrary to Executive Order or presidential directive.” [21] The Hunt deal was viewed by many, including the Oversight Committee, as deceptive primarily because it undercut the “oil revenue-sharing plan.” Hunt’s actions can easily be interpreted as contrary to both a Bush directive and prevailing US policy. Others argue, as the Iraqi oil field workers do, that provisions of the national oil law – which the “oil revenue-sharing plan” is just one – are unjust and should not be a pursued by the US nor Iraq as written. [22]

There is another overarching angle worth exploring. The independently pursued Hunt-KRG contract may have had full approval from the White House. It could have been part of an accepted strategy in an effort to hasten the signing of the national oil law by the central government in Baghdad before the end of Bush’s term.

According to Qubad Talabani, the son of Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and Washington representative of the KRG, "What's undermining the government is the lack of progress on the [national] oil law...This deal didn't undermine the oil law per se. It will give it a good kick up the backside to get the process moving forward." [23]

Talabani’s statements were made in September 2007. Since then, the process has largely remained in upheaval. On October 26, 2008, the Iraqi government submitted the national oil law (i.e. Draft Iraq Hydrocarbon Law) to parliament's Oil and Gas Committee. It failed approval and remains in committee, unsigned and vigorously disputed. [24]

It may never be precisely known how the Hunt-KRG deal came about but it is obvious what Hunt and his company could potentially gain from it. For the Kurds, the deal has in effect helped secure oil production sharing rights whereas the other regions of Iraq have no such security. The deal may also act as a means to an end in reclaiming Kurdish land confiscated during Saddam Hussein’s rule. The 800-square-kilometer exploration block includes contested territory in Ninawa province. For all regions of Iraq, the deal has caused sufficient controversy as to have kept the negotiation of its natural resources open to debate.

The citizens of the world are due a full accounting. A variety of minds is needed to make a “storehouse of history” yield a valid account of the last eight years. If such a storehouse were to exist.

What is known to exist as permanent records are EOs, proposed hydrocarbon laws, proclamations, and acts written during Bush’s tenure. The ramifications and ill-effects of these documents, and others like them, will persist with or without a library to officially house them. The Bush legacy, as it is presently known by way of public documents generated by his administration, will continue on until citizens and those actively representing them, demand revision and reversal.

This is not to rule out that the obvious offerings afforded to the paying public at the future George W. Bush Presidential Library will not be of interest. The history worth telling will include the egregious acts of deception and will be defined, like Nixon's presidency, by what is missing and known to have been destroyed. The library and policy institute even in the planning stages, are monuments in motion, opportunities for exploring how real power operates. How long can this ruse of respectability continue? And what can be gained by allowing it extended privilege? Much work is needed as a new administration assumes office.

Laray Polk lives in Dallas, Texas. She can be contacted at laraypolk@earthlink.net.

This article was first appeared on the History News Network

Notes

1. Paul Meyer, "It’s official: Bush library coming to SMU," Dallas Morning News, July 17, 2008.

2. Derek Kravitz,"SMU aimed early for Bush library: Depositions show birth of SMU’s secret, savvy push in ‘01," Dallas Morning News, August 17, 2007.

3. "SMU Chosen as Site of Bush Presidential Library," under "White House Letter to SMU," document: white-house-letter-to-smu.pdf, SMU News.
http://smu.edu/newsinfo/announcements/

4. SMU Board of Trustees, under "Board Members."
http://smu.edu/trustees/

5. Presidential Records Act Executive Order: Further Implementation of the Presidential Records Acts Executive Order.
http:// www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/11/20011101-12.html

6. Dan Eggen and Elizabeth Williamson, "‘White House Study Found 473 Days of E-Mail Gone," Washington Post, January 18, 2008.

7. Elana Schor, "White House tells court of missing emails from beginning of Iraq war," Guardian, May 7, 2008.

8. Michael Abramowitz, "Rove E-Mail Sought by Congress May Be Missing: RNC Took Away His Access to Delete Files in 2005," Washington Post, April 13, 2007.

9. Paul Meyer, "SMU agrees to terms with Bush library planners, court deposition shows," Dallas Morning News, February 21, 2008.

10. Brendan McKenna, "PRD Group to shape legacy at George W. Bush presidential library," Dallas Morning News, March 14, 2008.

11. Paul Meyer, "Rove advising on Bush library," Dallas Morning News, February 26, 2008.

12. Holly K. Hacker and Paul Meyer, "SMU still waits to seal the deal on Bush library: School says negotiation process, not lawsuit over land, behind delay," Dallas Morning News, October 22, 2007.

13. Holly K. Hacker, "SMU professors remain wary of partisan policy institute," Dallas Morning News, February 26, 2008.

14. Jim Landers, "Bush fears Hunt Oil deal will hurt Iraq: Dallas firm defends keeping White House out of Kurdish plan," Dallas Morning News, September 21, 2007.

15. James Glanz, Richard A. Oppel Jr., Andrew E. Kramer, and Mudhafer al-Husaini, "Panel Questions State Dept. Role in Iraq Oil Deal," New York Times, July 3, 2008; and Jim Landers, "U.S. didn’t balk at Hunt Oil’s Plans until after deal, documents show," Dallas Morning News, July 16, 2008.

16. Glanz et al., "Panel Questions State."

17. Landers, "Bush fears Hunt."

18. Jim Landers, "Hunt Oil deal could help shape Kurds’ future: Drilling contract with Kurds could lead to regional autonomy-or aggravate sectarian strife," Dallas Morning News, October 24, 2007.

19. President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/piab/

20. Charlie Savage, "President weakens espionage oversight: Board created by Ford loses most of its power," Boston Globe, March 14, 2008.

21. Executive Order: President’s Intelligence Advisory Board and Intelligence Oversight Board.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2008/02/20080229-5.html

22. David Moberg, "Iraqi Unions Fight the New Oil Law," In These Times.
http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/3261/
See also Antonia Juhasz, ‘Whose Oil Is It, Anyway?," New York Times, March 13, 2007.

23. Landers, "Bush fears Hunt."

24. Ahmed Rasheed, "Iraqi parliament committee fails to back oil law," Reuters, October 26, 2008.

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