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Today's Stories July 28, 2006 Charles Glass Operation "Save Israel's High Command" July 27, 2006 Tanya Reinhart Israel's New Middle East Saul Landau Castro at 80: History Absolved Him, Now What? Ramzi Kysia Watching Lebanon Burn: Notes From a Free Fire Zone Tom Barry John Bolton: Israel's Man at the UN Joseph Grosso Israel and Iraq: Hillary's White House Ticket Sharon Smith Lebanon and the Future of the Antiwar Movement Gale Courey Toensing 9/11 Nablus: First, Destroy the Archives Christopher Reed Hirohito's Ghost: Japan's New Militarists Werther Hoosier Hooey: Is Terre Haute the Peshawar of the Midwest? Yusuf Mansur Can the Crime Justify the Act? Richard Harth Squeezing the Last Drops from Palestine Website of the Day Who's Arming Israel? July 26, 2006 Norman Solomon Applauding While Lebanon Burns: Richard Cohen's Blood Lust Barbara Olshanksy Gitmo: Justice Denied is Murder, and a War Crime David Nally The Detention of Ghazi Walid Falah: Israel Arrests Geography Professor from University of Akron Jonathan Cook Five Myths That Sanction Israel's War Crimes Patrick Cockburn Beware Iraqi Leaders Bearing Good News William Blum They Simply Can't Stop Lying, Can They? Joshua Frank Israel's Invasion Pretext Under Fire Gabriel Kolko Bankers Fear World Economic Breakdown Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Dudes Michael Dickinson Arrested in Istanbul: "Sorry, We Thought You Were Israeli!" Robert Fisk Beirut as Munich Uri Avnery Is Beirut Burning? Website of the Day Free Ghazi Walid Falah   July 25, 2006 Harry Browne Acquittal!: Activists Found Not Guilty in Irish Ploughshares Case Marjorie Cohn Willful Blindness: Bush Greenlights War Crimes Robert Bryce Israel and the Irony of UN Resolutions Sharat G. Lin Chronology of the Latest Chrisis in the Middle East George Bisharat Most Lebanese Now Know Who Their Real Tormentor Is CounterPunch News Desk Class War in the Blathersphere Zena El-Khalil "Tell Them That I'm Not Leaving. We Love Lebanon" Larry Lack The Bottled Water Madness Mike Mejia The Secret Behind "State Secrets" Ashraf Isma'il Why Israel Is Losing Website of the Day Peace on Trial   July 24, 2006 Mark Levy The Whys and Wherefores of PTSD Robert Fisk Israelis Bomb Fleeing Villagers Maher Osseiran Beirut, 1982 Paul Craig Roberts Israel's Criminal Accomplice Patrick Cockburn More Than 100 Iraqis Being Killed Each Day Website of the Day sirnosir.com   July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan Cook Israel's Indiscriminate Onslaughts Paul Craig Roberts The Shame of Being an American Gilad Atzmon Israel's New Math Robert Fisk Elegy for Beirut Ralph Nader Here's How to Halt This Horror Fred Gardner The Double Standard on Depression Christopher Reed The Right's Use of Sexpot Schoolgirls Dr. Susan Block Bush's Fecal World Najla Said Do People Know How Much We Hurt? Uri Avnery "Stop that Shit" July 21, 2006 George Galloway John Cornford and the Fight for the Spanish Republic P. Sainath Indian Prime Minister Faces the Dead Farmer Problem Aseem Shrivastava The Iraq War is a Huge Success Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah, Hamas and Israel: Everything You Need to Know Website of the Day FromIsraeltoLebanon July 20, 2006 William S. Lind Why Hezbollah is Winning Robert Jensen Florida Puts History on Probation John Ross AMLO Presidente! Tom Hayden I Was Israel's Dupe Paul Craig Roberts The Unfolding Horror Show July 19, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Massacres Soar in Central Iraq: Maliki Government Discredited Trish Schuh Israel Targets, Flattens Beirut TV Station HQ Jonathan Cook Is Israel Using Arab Villages As Human Shields? Vicente Navarro The Spanish Civil War, 70 Years On: The Deafening Silence on Franco's Genocide July 17 / 18 2006 Mike Whitney Israel's Shameful Attack on Gaza Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land     July 14 / 15, 2006 Weekend Edition Alexander Cockburn How Venice is Dying Tanya Reinhart The IDF is Hungry for War Robert Fisk Beirut Waits: Is Damascus the Key? Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Jazz Winslow Wheeler Pentagon Budget Gimmickry: When a Cut is Actually an Increase Hugh O'Shaughnessy In Amazonia: Slavery and Deforestation M. Shahid Alam Israel, the US and the New Orientalism William S. Lind Two Signposts in Iraq Ramzy Baroud Racism Plagues Media Coverage of Gaza Assault Gilad Atzmon Echoes of the Wehrmacht Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Railroading Your Rights Samar Assad A History of Israeli-Palestinian Prisoner Exchanges Ron Jacobs Japan and Pre-Emptive Strikes: Why Would They Want to Go There? Lee Ballinger A New Kind of Jim Crow? Walter Brasch A World Without Fajitas?: the Rightwing's Language Police Dave Lindorff The Bush Swingers?: They Broke the Law and People Died Clifton Ross Up from Below in Oaxaca Tom Crumpacker Planning for the Re-Colonization of Cuba Ricardo Alarcon The Mad Annexationist William Hughes Rev. Billy Graham: A War-Monger in the Pulpit Susie Day Bugging Hillary Farrah Hassen The Road to Gitmo: Dramatizing the Banality of Evil Poets' Basement Smith-Ferri, Engel and Davies   July 13, 2006 Rev. William Alberts Rationalizing War Crimes: Saying the Obvious to Conceal the Devious Ramzi Kysia Scenes from the Lebanese Front Rep. John P. Murtha What the Iraq War is Costing Us Radford / Santos Race, Class and the Battle for South Central Farm Stan Cox Marching Plague: the Critical Art Ensemble's Biological Defense Program Saul Landau Lies as Patriotism José Pertierra Is Venezuela the Real Target of Bush's New Cuba Plan? Website of the Day National Security Whistleblowers' Dirty Dozen Campaign   July 12, 2006 John Ross Mexico Splits in Half: the Election Hits the Streets John Stauber The CIA Propagandist and Former Prankster Stewart Brand: John Rendon's Long, Strange Trip in the Terror Wars Robert Boston Top 10 Powerbrokers of the Religious Right Wayne S. Smith Bush's New Cuba Plan: Embargoes, Blacklists and Assassination Plots John Graham Secrecy and the Curtain of Oz Ed Kinane Arrested for Failing to Obey a Lawful Order to Cease Protesting an Unlawful War: My Statement to the US District Court Kevin Prosen Goodbye Mr. Zeidler, You Will Be Missed Jonathan Cook Israel's Latest Bueaucratic Obscenity Website of the Day Addicted to Oil: Starring GW Bush   July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Does a State of War Give Bush the Right to Commit War Crimes? Dave Zirin Why I Wear My Zidane Jersey Mokhiber / Weissman Boeing's Criminal Agreement: Odd and Unusual Amira Hass A War on Families Clare Hanrahan The Last Free Fourth of July? Brian Cloughey Stop Blaming Pakistan Felice Pace The US Media and the World Cup Raed Jarrar Iraq: Raped Website of the Day Bad Boy of Gitmo   July 10, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts Courting Doom with North Korea Uri Avnery A One-Sided War Roger Burbach Democracy Betrayed: Electoral Fraud and Rebellion in Mexico Ron Jacobs The New SDS: Toward a Radical Youth Movement Joshua Frank Sectarian Flames in Iraq Missy Comley Beattie Bush's Stunning Admission to Larry King Alexander Cockburn The War in Iraq: a Dreadful Mistake July 8 / 9, 2006 Weekend Edition Stephen Green When War Criminals Retire Paul Craig Roberts Republic or Empire?: Lessons from Stanford Greg Moses Boots Down on the Rio Grande Ralph Nader The Wail of the Oceans Laura Carlsen Mexico's Election Lacks Credibility Conn Hallinan Dumping Musharraf: Is Pakistan Expendable? John Chuckman Afghanistan is No One's War Fred Gardner Big Pharma's Strange Holy Grail: Cannabis Without Euphoria? Dr. Tod Mikuriya Cannabis as a Frontline Treatment for Childhood Mental Disorders Pierre Tristam Missile Envy: Is N. Korea Bush's Most Reliable Ally? Lucinda Marshall Deep Sexing the News: the Rape of Iraq David Swanson Command Rape: the Ordeal of Suzanne Swift Heather Gray The Spiral of Violence: What the Dead Might Tell Us Dave Zirin / John Cox French Soccer and the Future of Europe: Le Pen's Racists vs. Zindane and Henry Mark Engler Mexico's Fear of Democracy: Elites, Fraud and the Status Quo Michael Lettieri Mexico: Don't Discount a Recount Ron Jacobs 2008 Might Be Too Late: the Case for Impeachment Now Jamal Juma' Globalizing the Occupation Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Engel and Kirbach   July 7, 2006 John Ross Anatomy of a Fraud Foretold: Mexico's Surreal Elections July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden Profiting from the Occupation: the Corporate Interests Behind the War on Palestine John Stanton Nationalize the Defense Industry Ralph Nader The Politics of the Minimum Wage Laray Polk Cambodia Then; Gaza Now Saul Landau Who Mourned the Victims of the US Covert War on Chile? Joshua Frank Sweet Angst, Power Chords and Politics: Farewell Sleater-Kinney William S. Lind To Be or Not to Be a State? Hamas and 4th Generation War Adelman / Lindorff Impeachment Comes to Main Street, USA Jonathan Cook An Experiment in Human Despair Website of the Day Adulterers in Chief? July 5, 2006 Mike Whitney Is Cheney Betting on Economic Collapse?: the Veep's Curious Investment Portfolio Saul Landau False Axioms: Star Democrats and Iraq Massacres Ramzy Baroud And Israel Shall Be Safe Again Missy Comley Beattie An Axis of Nuts: Ready, Aim, Fear Arthur Neslen A Way Out of the Gaza Crisis? Vincent Maruffi Party Politics in Connecticut: Lieberman, Lamont and the Greens Paul Cantor Aberrations: Hell, High Water and the Moral High Ground Paul D. Johnson Mystery Meat: Let's Be Honest About Food's Origin David Price Shouting Down Nazis in Olympia July 4, 2006 Col. Dan Smith Iraq and Independence Day: Lessons from the War of 1812 Chris Floyd American Power in Mahmudiyah Marjorie Cohn Israel's Collective Punishment of Gaza James Brooks Israel 9,000 Palestine 1: Destroying the Gaza Strip Medea Benjamin "Dictatress of the World:" Has America Become JQ Adams' Worst Nightmare? Matt Reichel An Independence Day Lesson for the American Left from France Elisa Salasin Why I am Fasting Today Rick Wilhelm Will Lieberman Apologize to Ralph Nader? Paul Craig Roberts Rape, Lies and Murder Website of the Day A Mighty Handsome Family   July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Gaza in the Dark: Poor, Frustrated and Powerless Dr. Bouthaina Shaban "I Hope You're Not Here to Talk About the Palestinians" Julia Olmstead The Biofuel Illusion: Running on Top Soil Dave Lindorff The Real Meaning of the Hamdan Ruling: Bush Adm. Has Committed War Crimes Andres Gomez A Mockery of Justice Alan Singer Another Encounter with Chuck Schumer: Just as Hawkish as Hillary, But Nastier Alexander Cockburn Temple of Mammon, Planet of Doom July 1/2, 2006 Weekend Edition Paul Craig Roberts Bush's Assaults on Freedom: What's to Stop Him? Stephen T. Banko Echoes from Vietnam; Nightmares in Iraq Daniel Cassidy How the Irish Invented Slang: the Bunkum of Bunkum (for Dizzy Gillespie) Fawzia Afzal-Khan The Class Behind the Muslim Jeff Taylor The Sandy Foundation of the White House: a Bible-Believing Christian's View of Bush John Ross Mexico: There's a Riot Going On Greg Moses Psycho-Management Hits Mexico's Maquiladoras Laura Carlsen Mexico's Elections: a Choice for Change Justin E.H. Smith Lethal Injection and Other Fashion Trends Brian Cloughley Different Worlds: When Liberation is Worse Than Oppression Anthony Papa Punishing Addiction: No Walk in the Park for Dwight Gooden Mike Ferner Getting Busted for Wearing a Peace T-Shirt Jerry Tucker Liberalism's Long Goodbye: McGovern Hoists the White Flag Jane Goodall / Rick Asselta Remembering the Marshall Islands Phyllis Pollack Roll Over Beethoven: Chuck Berry is Back in Town Poets' Basement Salasin, Swindell, Ferri-Smith and Engel   June 30, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Supreme Rebuke: Bush Loses Gitmo Case Heather Williams Will Mexicans Ignore What Bolivians Learned? Burbach / Cantor Yellowback Democrats: the Party of Cut-and-Run (from Principle) Nick Dearden Crime in the Valley: Life on the Other Side of Palestine Michael J. Smith Under the Broadcast Flag: Intellectual Property as Intellectual Theft Brian Concannon The Return to Haiti: a Homecoming for Aristide? Virginia Tilley Israel's Appalling Act: Starving in the Dark   June 29, 2006 Bill Quigley Gutting New Orleans Ron Jacobs Killing a Nation to Rescue a Soldier Paul Craig Roberts The High Price of American Gullibility June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Mexican-American Soldiers, Iraq and the Politics of Immigrant Bashing Greg Moses Down in Pinal County: Where the Pun's on Us Mark Weisbrot Mexico: Their Brand is Crisis Ramzy Baroud Re-Interpreting Iraq: the Latest Propaganda Campaign Dave Lindorff Redacting the Constitution: Why Signing Statements Matter William S. Lind Neither Shall the Sword: War in a Fouth Generation World Mike Ferner 50 Years Down the Wrong Direction: Taken for a Ride on the Interstate Highway System Zoltan Grossman Military Resistance: a Brief History   June 27, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Playing Politics with Timetables Benjamin / Jarrar Leading Dems Froth Over Amnesty Plan William Hughes Roadmap to Starvation Doug Giebel Showdown in Montana: Burns vs. Testor Uri Avnery The World Cup and Middle East Peace Alexander Cockburn Hitchens Hails the "Glorious War"   June 26, 2006 Don Santina American Rituals: Massacres, Baseball and Apple Pies Ralph Nader Beyond Binary Politics Dave Lindorff CounterPunch v. CounterPunch: Taking Impeachment on the Road Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz An Interview with Mumia Abu-Jamal on Hispanics and Latin America Evelyn Pringle Big Pharma's Big Graveyard: Drug Profits, Fraud and Death Jonathan Cook Israeli "Retaliation" and Double Standards   June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Divestment, Corporate Engagement and Israel Dave Lindorff Cut and Run: a Winning Strategy Ron Jacobs Dogs of War Barking at the Moon Col. Dan Smith Iraq: Fool Me Twice   June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Friendly Fire Ambush Winslow T. Wheeler Lockheed, the Senator and the F-22 Tanya Reinhart A Week of Israeli Restraint Mike Marqusee The Forest Gate Raid William Blum Why Bush's Iraq is Worse Than Saddam's       Subscribe Online

July 28, 2006 What Kind of Tour de France Was It? Much Ado About Landis By DAVID PRICE Most mornings I get up around five o'clock and I try and write for an hour. The last few Julys I've become absurdly addicted to watching and listening to live feeds of the Tour de France in the early hours of the west coast morning while I write. As a simple bike commuter, it amazes me to watch the peloton clip along effortlessly at 30 miles per hour, riding the distance I commute all year in three weeks. While Lance Armstrong's victories were always impressive, the superhuman quality of Armstrong's ability to harness his body to his will generally held little suspense, and the work of Armstrong's lieutenants, protecting him, chasing and breaking others made the outcomes of the last few tours almost foregone conclusions. I usually started out rooting against Armstrong, but he was so good I couldn't help but become a fan, even if he knew he was the greatest rider ever. This year, Floyd Landis seemed from the very beginning to be the unassuming man to watch in the Tour. Unlike Armstrong, Landis is a different sort of biking star. Landis comes across as a humble rider doggedly racing against himself as much as anything. His performance in this year's Tour at times seemed uneven, but you could tell he was doing all he could with the limitations of his team to position himself for a push towards the end of the tour. Landis had limited team support and apparently thus made some strategic decisions to pass the yellow jersey to other teams, letting them draw the fire to defend it for a few stages, and then he would seize it back. When Landis lost all power climbing up an endless mountain side, he dropped from leading the tour to a hopeless eight minutes behind. Landis lost too much time to have any hope of recovering in the few remaining stages. It was obvious that he would not see the yellow jersey again this year-perhaps never again as he would be having hip replacement surgery this fall. After stage sixteen Landis made no excuses. He shyly told the press that everyone has bad days and he'd just had one at an inopportune time. It was a real loss to see such an honest rider lose all he'd fought for so quickly, but as I read that morning's newspaper, Landis' fall to the middle of the pack made as much sense as the news headlines declaring that Israel was hastening total war, and the U.S. congress had voted to unanimously support this war against the Lebanese public. Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich and TV commentators all declared this the beginning of World War Three. Loss seemed to be everywhere. But somehow, the next day Landis came back; and it is the "somehow" that is garnering all this attention on Landis' stage seventeen urine sample. Somehow on stage seventeen Floyd Landis left all the competition minutes behind as he tore up the Alps and shot down windy roads at top speeds wining the stage and regaining almost all of his lost time. This was a superhuman feat that would be simply unbelievable in fiction. Around the world, cycling commentators and past champions declared this to have been the greatest stage victory they'd seen in their lives. I've certainly never seen anything like this and am sure I never will again. It was the impossible comeback. With the gains of stage seventeen Landis was set to win the time trial two days later, and then the Tour itself. It was all a fairy tale ending, until the urine tests showed unusual levels of testosterone. Now Landis is presumed guilty from a few drips of this single urine sample. Floyd Landis' Mennonite upbringing in Lancaster, Pennsylvania adds something to the story. His background is not that of your average glory grabber. Years ago I read that as a young mountain biker he had asked a member of the clergy for special dispensation to wear bum-hugging spandex while racing. He seems to have transferred his hardworking farming ethic easily to the sort of inner discipline needed to push oneself further up an endless mountainside, only to arrive and do it again the next day. His past grace in losing makes this first evidence of doping all the more troubling, as this counters not only the public image projected but his Mennonite roots. Early news reports quoted his mother, on the family farm, proclaiming her love for him and describing the intense pressures and temptations all riders face, her words presented by the press as if she might be wondering if her son had indeed doped-but in a way that suggested these were the temptations of the world, which I suppose they are. Later reports quoted her as complaining about the high levels of scrutiny that the Tour had always put on Lance Armstrong and other Americans, undertones suggesting that the French do not like having American clean their clocks in their own Alps. Unlike soccer, football, baseball and basketball, cycling doesn't mess around with athletes caught using performance enhancing drugs. After one confirmed positive doping incident riders are suspended, if it happens again they are banned for life. This is one of the few sports that takes doping seriously and top cyclists are among the most heavily tested athletes on earth-which isn't to say doping doesn't happen, it does. Just days before this tour, a slate of top riders were suspended from competition just for providing incomplete information about their dealings with a doping doctor. I don't know what to make of Landis' doping allegations. I don't know Floyd Landis, and neither do the hundreds of millions of other who are judging him. I have no idea whether or not Floyd Landis doped his performance on stage seventeen; but everyone should all wait and see what happens with his second sample. The mathematics of conditional probability show that false positives are tricky things; so tricky, that tests with 99 percent accuracy can still generate more false positives than true positives when testing for something rarely occurring. There are good reasons why multiple urine samples are taken. That Landis' single suspect urine sample came from a day with such an impossible performance inevitably heightens suspicions. Something unusual happened on stage seventeen. It will be a shame if it does turn out to have been dope that lit up Landis. Watching his comeback in stage seventeen gave me momentary hope for the next time I have a disastrous day; but should it found to have been a juiced ride the possibility of such comebacks for we mere mortals will be likewise removed. David Price is author of Threatening Anthropology: McCarthyism and the FBI's Surveillance of Activist Anthropologists (Duke, 2004). His next book, Weaponizing Anthropology: American Anthropologists in the Second World War will be published by Duke University Press. He can be reached at: dprice@stmartin.edu

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