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Today's
Stories
April 23, 2009
Ray McGovern
Obama Plays Hamlet on Torture
April 22, 2009
Chris Floyd
The Fatal Thread: Torture, War and the Imperial Project
Joanne Mariner
Torture Evidence and Terror Blacklists
Vijay Prashad
Obama's Afghan Plan: Fracturing the Antiwar Movement
Gareth Porter
U.S. Lacks Capacity to Win Over Afghans
Dean Baker
The Tyranny of Bad Economics
Peter Morici
Housing Sales and Fixing the Economy
Winslow T. Wheeler
Eliminating Bad Pentagon Habits
Barucha Calamity Peller
The Battle to Take Back the New School
Harvey Wasserman
Chernobyl Could Happen Here
Aisha Brown /
Dedrick Muhammad
White Privilege in the Americas
Teo Ballvé
Obama's Feel Good Meeting with Colombia's Uribe
Website of the Day
Ahmedinejad's Durban Speech: What He Actually Said
April 21, 2009
Randy Rowland
Lindy Blake's Great Escape
Dave Lindorff
Jay Bybee's Conspiracy to Torture
Fidel Castro
The Secret Summit
George McGovern
Pull Out of Iraq This Year
Greg Moses
The Unemployment Channel
Benjamin Dangl
Argentina Remembers
Sonia Nettnin
Saving Lives in Gaza
Frank Barat
The Death of Bassem: a Shooting at the Wall in Bil'n
Binoy Kampmark
Legal Purgatory and John Demjanjuk
John V. Walsh
Code Red for Single Payer
David Macaray
SAG Should be Praised, Not Assailed
Website of the Day
Bonus Man: For Executive Assholes Everywhere
April 20, 2009
Mike Whitney
Housing Bust Comes Roaring Back, Worse Than Ever
Andrea Peacock
Histrionics and Legalisms in Missoula
Henry A. Giroux
Ten Years After Columbine: the Tragedy of Youth Deepens
Liaquat Ali Khan
Drone Attacks on Pakistan's Indigenous Tribes
Fred Gardner
Obama's DoJ Backs Prosecution of Medical Marijuana Providers
Stephen Soldz
Obama, Blair, Panetta and the Torture Memos:
Praising Moral Cowards, Ignoring Real Heroes
Nadia Hijab
Obama's Multi-Polar Middle East
Dave Lindorff
The Meeting in Trinidad
P. Sainath
India's Press Nixes "R" Word
Nelson P Valdés
A Modest (Transition) Proposal to Obama
Mark Engler
American Empire Foreclosed?
Belén Fernández
The FARC Can't Dance
Website of the Day
Dear Mr. Buffett...
April 17-19, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Thin Ice From Here to the Horizon
Saul Landau
Infiltrating Alpha 66: a Conversation with Gerardo Hernandez, Leader of the Cuba Five
Franklin Lamb
Persia Rising
Ralph Nader
The Greedsters Are Back!
Fred Gardner
Obama's Chimerical Marijuana Policy: a Guide for the Perplexed
Dean Baker
A Win-Win Solution:
Tax the Rich!
Rannie Amiri
The Curious Case of Benjamin Netanyahu
George Wuerthner
The War on Predators
Dave Lindorff
No Amnesty for Torturers
David Swanson
Personal Torture Laws
Jim Goodman
The Control of Food
Kathy Sanborn
Economic Fallout Hits Families Hard
Don Monkerud
Economic Recovery for Whom?
Manuel Garcia, Jr.
The People's Money
David Michael Green
Home of the Barricaded, Land of the 'Fraid
Nelson P Valdés
The OAS Charter, Cuba and the United States
Manuel Gomez
From the Bay of Pigs to Trinadad and Tobago
Dr. Susan Block
On Sex Addiction: the Deadliest Sin?
Ramzy Baroud
Non-Violence in Palestine?
Christopher Brauchli
Banning Barbie
Stephen Martin
Statelessness: the Final Frontier
Ron Jacobs
Tearing the Whole Building Down: the Dead in Greensboro
David Yearsley
Monkey Music
Lorenzo Wolff
A Song for the End of the World
Poets' Basement
Moser, McTeer and Buknatski
Website of the Weekend
New England Journal of Medicine Report on Civilian Deaths in Iraq
April 16, 2009
Mike Whitney
A Bulletin From the Captain of the Titantic
Russell Mokhiber
The Top 10 Enemies of Single-Payer
Ronald Teska
From Iraq to Appalachia
Gareth Porter
Predator Blowback
Paul Fitzgerald /
Elizabeth Gould
Thinking Like an Afghan
Benjamin Dangl
Latin America Changes
Kevin Pina
Haiti:
Obama's First Foreign Policy Disaster?
Robert Bryce
Another Ethanol Producer Goes Bust
George Wuerthner
See the Forest: the Value of Dead Trees
Paul Garon, David Roediger and Kate Khatib The Surreal Life of Franklin Rosemont
Website of the Day
Socialism and the Facebook Generation
April 15, 2009
Kathleen and Bill Christison
Solving Palestine While Israel Destroys It
Ray McGovern
W, the Torture Decider
Robert Sandels
Is There a Latin American Policy?
Heather Williams /
Paul Baker
Carbon Cap and Trade: How Wall Street will Game the Regs and Trash the Planet
Jack Willoughby
The Lessons of the S & L Crisis
David Swanson
Habeas at Bagram?
Paul Craig Roberts
94 Years of Serfdom
Sara Mann
Norman Rockwell and the Perils of Nostalgia
Kenneth Couesbouc
John Maynard's Martingale: How Keynes Got Rich
Binoy Kampmark
Tax Haven Hypocrisies
Kekuni Blaisdell, Lynette Hi'llani Cruz, George Kahumoku Flores, et al.: An Urgent Letter to Obama on the Rights of Native Hawaiians
Website of the Day
Taxa: the Paintings of Isabella Kirkland
April 14, 2009
Conn Hallinan
The Afghan Rubik's Cube
Mike Whitney
Why is Goldman Sachs So Scared of Mike Morgan?
Peter Morici
Taxing Grandma to Subsidize Goldman Sachs
Greg Moses
Economic Curveballs:
the Laffer Posse
Fidel Castro
Obama's Cuba Policy:
Not a Word About the Blockade
Robert Weissman
No Blank Check for the IMF
Rebecca Macaux /
Philip Primeau
Somali Piracy and American Foreign Policy
Carmelo Ruiz-Marrero
The Dubious Revoution: Biofuels, the Next Generation
Dave Lindorff
Snatch-and-Jail Justice: the Ugly War on Immigrants
Walter Brasch
The Resurrection of Intolerance
Benjamin Day
Why Has the Press Failed Us in Reporting on Health Care Reform?
Website of the Day
The Appraisal Bubble
April 13, 2009
Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Militia Fear Reprisals After US Exit
Uri Avnery
Our Dissonance
Jeremy Scahill
A Test Case for Habeas Corpus:
Will Obama Prosecute the Somali Pirate in a US Court?
Martha Rosenberg
Suicide Syndrome: Are VA Protocols Behind Iraq Vet Suicides?
Karl Grossman
A Radioactive Extension for Aging Nuclear Plants
Nadia Hijab
Still Waiting:
Obama and American Muslims
Sam Smith
America's Cultural Bear Market
James McEnteer
Peru's Shining Example
Sean McMahon
Globalizing Politicide: Israel's Strikes on Sudan
Namihei Odaira
Makota's "Campaign Against Poverty"
John V. Walsh
Bossnapping
Website of the Day
Declining IRS Audits for Big Financial Houses
April 10 / 12, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
Resurrection and Revenge
Chris Floyd
Hope Abandoned: Obama Protects CIA Torture Memos
Mike Whitney
"Liquidate the Banks; Fire the Executives!" Warren's Devastating Report to Congress
Saul Landau
How the Media Bought the Surge
M. Reza Pirbhai
Obama's Afghanistan Plan and India-Pakistan Relations
Franklin Spinney
The Art of the Scam:
Wall Street and the Pentagon
Rannie Amiri
Iran's Elections:
Why Arab Leaders Want Ahmadinejad to Win
William Blum
The Ideology of Barack Obama
Matt Vidal
Why Card Check Would Help the Economy
Jeff Howison
Death of the Square Deal
Jeff Leys
Resisting the Af-Pak War: the Creech Air Base Arrests
Dave Lindorff
America's Imperial Wars:
Why We Need to See the Horrors
Ramzy Baroud
Israel Investigated: But Will It Repent?
Missy Beattie
The Grateful Dead, Wounded and Displaced
Fred Gardner
Fakes Left, Goes Right:
Obama's Crossover Dribble on Marijuana Policy
Harvey Wasserman Another $50 Billion for Rust Bucket Nukes?
Suzan Mazur
A Revolution in Biology: an Interview with Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse
Bernard Umbrecht
German Capitalists Take Fire
David Macaray
A Word Clooney, Hanks and Baldwin Should Learn: Solidarity
Janet Kauffman
How to Starve (or Feed) a River
Ron Jacobs
Daring to Struggle, Failing to Win
Norman Solomon
Getting a Death Grip on Memory
Michael Winship
Let the Railsplitter Awake!
Richard Rhames
Empire, Ennui and Extra Cheese
Wanda Fucha
Brother, Can You Spare a Million Bucks?
David Yearsley
My Journey to the Heart of Rahman
Lorenzo Wolff
Getting Beyond the Black-and-White: Jason Isbell's Challenging New Album
Ben Sonnenberg
Rossellini's Louis XIV: "Neither the Sun Nor Death Can be Gazed Upon Fixedly"
Jeffrey St. Clair
Savage Incongruities: the Photographic Life of Lee Miller
Poets' Basement
Corseri and Corzett
Website of the Weekend
The Palestine Chronicle Needs Your Help!
April 9, 2009
Mike Whitney
The Decade of Darkness
Patrick Cockburn
What It Would Take to Mend Fences with Islam
Stephen Soldz
Caught on Tape: Diagnostic Abuse of Veterans
P. Sainath
The Rise of the Shoe-cide Bomber
Ellen Cantarow
Israel's Master Plan for Transfer
Gareth Porter /
Jim Lobe
Obama and Israel's Threat to Strike Iran
Jeremy Scahill
How Many Democrats Will Stand Up Against Obama's Bloated Military Budget?
Jerry Kroth
Saving GM From Bankruptcy--With the Stroke of a Pen
Binoy Kampmark
Fujimori Convicted: A Measure of Justice in Latin America
Fidel Castro
My Meeting with the Black Caucus
Website of the Day
Bird Song Radio
April 8, 2009
John Prados
The Af-Pak Paradox
Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Changing the Rules of the Blame Game
Winslow T. Wheeler
The Tooth Fairy and the Defense Budget
Russell Mokhiber
PBS Lashes Back
Kathy Sanborn
Depression Fury
Rev. William E. Alberts
If the Shoe Fits: Bush and Al-Zaidi
James McEnteer Rashomon and the Binghamton Shooter: the Rush to Interpret Jiverly Wong's "Statement"
Nadia Hijab
Olmert's Nightmare
Adam Turl
Card Check on the Ropes
Kevin Zeese
Escaping the Drug War Quagmire
Website of the Day
Walk Score Your Neighborhood
April 7, 2009
David Price
Counterinsurgency's Free Ride
Uri Avnery
Who's the Boss?
Chris Floyd
Talking Peace in Prague, Dropping Bombs in Pakistan
Winslow T. Wheeler Defense Cuts: Gates and the System
Marjorie Cohn
Prosecuting the Bush Torture Team:
Spain Leads the Way
Dean Baker
Hands Off Social Security
Diana Johnstone
NATO, Strasbourg and the Black Block
Dave Lindorff
Politicizing Accounting
Martha Rosenberg
Life on HBO's Factory Hog Farm
Evelyn Pringle
Motherhood and the Psycho-Pharmaceutical Complex
Website of the Day
Gaza: Closed Zone
April 6, 2009
Michael Hudson
The IMF Rules the World
Andy Worthington Bagram: Guantánamo's Dark Mirror
Ray McGovern
Profiles in Cowardice: Eric Holder and Colin Powell
Deepak Tripathi
The Pakistan Enigma
Mike Whitney
Bernanke's Financial Rescue Plan: a Glide-Path to Destitution
Norman Solomon
Meet the New Escalators: the Democrats and the Afghan War
Jonathan Cook
Israel Railways Accused of Racism in Firing of Arab Workers
Judith Bello
Justice for the Developmentally Disabled
Deena Metzger Blackwater in Liberia
Dr. M. Kamiar
"There's No 'Eye' in Iran:"
Obama's Pronunciation Problem
Website of the Day
Prison Talk
April 3-5, 2009
Alexander Cockburn
From Twin Towers to Twin Camelots
Kathy Kelly /
Brian Terrall
Getting a Closer Look at the Killer Drones
Sue Sturgis
Fooling with Disaster? Startling Revelations About Three Mile Island Raise New Doubts Over Nuclear Plant Safety
Peter Morici
Girding for a Depression
Kathy Sanborn
Homeless in Tent City, USA
Andy Worthington
Britain's Guantánamo: Fact or Fiction?
Rob Larson
Subprime Supreme Court: The Roberts Court Has Become a Powerful New Tool for Business
Saul Landau
Biden and Nixon: a Tale of Two Latin American Experiences
Steve Early
An Evening with Andy Stern
John Goekler
Was Gaza Israel's Waterloo?
Rannie Amiri
Arab League Reconciliation Summit a Bust
Dave Lindorff
Hooray for Juries! A Courtroom Victory for Ward Churchill and Academic Free Speech
Lee Ballinger
Sound Garden: Tom Morello at the Grammy Museum
Ron Jacobs
Artifacts for Survival
David Macaray
AIG Plays the Sympathy Card
John Wight
G20: Capital's New World Symphony
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
Race in the Obama Era
Mychal Bell
Surviving Jena Six
Missy Beattie
Hoop Hopes, War and Peace
Reza Fiyouzat
The Iran/US Rapproachment Dance
Michael Boldin
The War on Drugs is a War on You
Christopher Brauchli
The Pope's Batting 50-50
Charles R. Larson
Too Much Stuff
Susie Day
Bernie Breakout Shocker!!
Stephen Martin
Gordon Brown's Chicken Run at the G20
Kim Nicolini
"Last House on the Left:" Vigilantes of the Bourgeoisie
David Yearsley
Homage to Moog and Mallards
Phyllis Pollack
An Interview with Legendary Rock Producer Chris Kimsey on Working with the Stones, Ronnie Wood, Jimmy Cliff, Peter Tosh and Saint Jude
Poets' Basement
Foley, Valentine and Kozak
Website of the Day
The Corner Store
April 2, 2009
Robert Weissman
What If Obama Had Treated Detroit Like Wall Street?
Eric Toussaint /
Damien Millet
A G20 Meeting for Naught
George Bisharat
Israel's Impunity Must End
Russell Mokhiber
Something is Rotten at PBS
Franklin Lamb
Has Washington Lost Lebanon?
Gareth Porter
Settling Scores in Iraq: Maliki Draws US Troops into Crackdown on Sunni Rivals
David Macaray
Obama and the Ruling Class: "Only the Little People Pay Taxes"
Chris Genovali
B.C.'s Bloody Grizzly Hunt
Sam Smith
The Politics of Adulation
Suzan Mazur
Is Neo-Darwinism Dead?
Website of the Day
Fighting for Change in St. Louis
April 1, 2009
Chris Floyd
Surging Further Into the Afghan Abyss
Stanley Heller
Israeli War Crimes:
Thank God, It Was Only Rumors
Mark Brenner, Mischa Gaus and Jane Slaughter Obama's Perilous Plan for Detroit: Restructure the Big 3, But Not With Bankruptcy
Jonathan Cook
The Slow Demise of Ehud Olmert
Eric Walberg
EU in Tatters: Only the Protesters Have Any Vision
Richard Morse
Why Haiti Can't Forget Its Past
Don Fitz
Guess Who Came to Dinner with a Match? Green Mayoral Candidate's Van Firebombed in St. Louis
Laray Polk
Texas and Evolution
Belén Fernández
12 Años de Soledad?
Harvey Wasserman
Cracking the Media Silence on Three Mile Island
Website of the Day
Pentagon Fraud Investigations Fell, While Contracts Soared
March 31, 2009
Uri Avnery
The Deception Tango
Peter Lee
Ghosts in the Machine: the World's Hottest Cyberwar Battlefield
Nicholas Dearden
A New Global Debt Crisis
Dave Lindorff
The Obama Betrayal
Joanne Mariner
"We'll Make You See Death"
Ron Jacobs
Obama's Pakistan Gambit
Wiliam S. Lind
Another Lost War
David Michael Green
Who Says the GOP Doesn't Have a Plan?
Benjamin Dangl
Beyond Elections in the Americas
Johnny Barber
Meditation in Orange
Dedrick Muhammad
Economic Inequality: the Foundation of the Racial Divide
Website of the Day
How the Obama Dems Took Over the Peace Movement
March 30, 2009
Michael Hudson
Financing the Empire: Do US Face G20 Mutiny?
Patrick Cockburn
What Next in Afghanistan?
Henry A. Giroux
Hard Lessons
Mike Whitney
Where's Eliot Spitzer Now That We Need Him?
Ralph Nader
Where's All the Money Coming From?
Paul Craig Roberts
Obama's War on the (Upper) Middle Class
Jeremy Scahill
The Logistical Nightmare in Iraq
Robert Bryce
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion
Jonathan Cook
Remembering Land Day in Palestine
Ray McGovern
Obama Bombs
Website of the Day
Hersh: Syria Calling
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April 23, 2009
Appoint a Special Prosecutor
The Torture Commission Trap
By MICHAEL RATNER
Today I awoke to read that a number of human rights type groups have called on President Obama to create a commission of accountability to investigate and report publicly on torture and the cruel and inhumane treatment of detainees. There is not a word in the petition about criminal prosecutions of the torture team. Yet, I know that some of these groups would say they still want prosecutions. Sadly, this call and a commission if set up, would almost guarantee that prosecutions won't happen.
Briefly, here is why. We have reached a critical political moment on this issue. Obama has been forced or pushed to open the door to prosecutions, an opening I thought would take much longer to achieve. If there was ever a time to push that door open wider and demand a special prosecutor it is now. We have documented and open  admissions of criminality. We have Cheney and Hayden admitting what they approved these techniques; and Cheney saying he would approve waterboarding again. We have the Senate Armed Services Report detailing how the torture program was authored and approved by our highest officials in the Whitehouse and employed in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. And we have thousands of pages of proof. There is public outrage about the torture program and the media in the US and the world are covered with the US misdeeds.
So at this moment, instead of human rights groups getting together and calling for a special prosecutor what do they do? Call for a commission. What this call does and it must be said strongly is take the pressure off what is the growing public push for prosecutions and deflects it into a commission. Outrage that could actually lead to prosecutions is now focused away and into a commission. Think if this list of human rights groups had demanded prosecutions. We would be closer and not farther from the goal.
I am sure some of these human rights groups will argue that a commission will or can be a first step to prosecutions. Sure, it is possible, but unlikely for the reasons I gave in a letter published in Harper's and available on my blog. The commission process will drag on, statutes of limitation will run and the conclusion of the commission is likely to be: the US should not have tortured, but it was an extraordinary and dangerous moment after 9/11 and the torturers were acting in our best interest to avoid another 9/11. Prosecutions are not recommended.
I don't think I need to repeat here why we need prosecutions. If we are to stop torture in the future we need to send the clear message that if an official tortures, prosecutions will follow. Without that message the next President or even this one, can again put us on the page of torture by signing another executive order. And don't think that won't happen no matter how many commissions reach results saying the US should not have tortured. It will and Cheney, Hayden and other have said so.
It is time to do what is necessary. Appoint a special prosecutor and insure that this country will not again be a country of torture.
Michael Ratner is president of the Center for Constitutional Rights and author of The Trial of Donald Rumsfeld: a Prosecution by Book.
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