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Towards a Global Gaza
How Israel is Rewriting Laws of WarFrom Israel, in a chilling and important report, Jeff Halper reports on how two Israeli professors are rewriting the Geneva Conventions to give legal cover for total war on civilian populations. “If you do something for long enough,” says Colonel (res.) Daniel Reisner, former head of the IDF’s Legal Department, “the world will accept it.” From Moscow, Boris Kagarlitsky profiles Russia’s economic liberals, the last true believers in pure capitalism. Welcome to the theater of the absurd. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories March 2, 2010 Tricia Shapiro March 1, 2010 Ralph Nader Will Parrish / Mike Whitney Diana Johnstone Jayne Lyn Stahl Vijay Prashad Paul Buhle Organizing Against Empire: Where Left and Right Meet ... Amicably Robert Jensen Marga Tojo Gonzales Website of the Day February 26 - 28, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Alison Weir Will Parrish / Jason Hribal Saul Landau / Mark Weisbrot Alan Farago Suzan Mazur Martha Rosenberg Ray McGovern Rannie Amiri Dave Lindorff Ramzy Baroud David Macaray Jared Ritvo Missy Beattie Brian McKenna Don Santina Binoy Kampmark M.G. Piety Michael Dickinson Art as Defensive Weapon Charles R. Larson Ben Sonnenberg David Yearsley Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend February 25, 2010 Jason Hribal Clancy Sigal Tariq Ali Jonathan Cook Mike Whitney Peter Lee Russell Mokhiber Prosecuting Bush for War Crimes Deepak Tripathi Charlie Wilson's Legacy Norman Solomon Phillip Doe Website of the Day February 24, 2010 Ashley Smith Mike Whitney Garerth Porter Joe Bageant Shamus Cooke Al Benchich Harvey Wasserman Jim Goodman Ron Jacobs Stewart J. Lawrence Tom Clifford Website of the Day February 23, 2010 Uri Avnery Paul Craig Roberts William P. O'Connor Steven Higgs Marshall Auerback / L. Randall Wray Jeff Sher Carl Finamore Dave Lindorff Benjamin Dangl Anthony Papa Bob Sommer Robert Bryce Website of the Day February 22, 2010 Vincent Navarro Michael Neumann Marc Weisbrot Richard Neville P. Sainath Christopher Ketcham Marc Catone February 19 - 21, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Bill Quigley Joshua Frank / Joan Roelofs Paul Craig Roberts Peter Lee Gareth Porter Saul Landau / Mark Schuller Rev. William E. Alberts Thomas M. Power John Ross Nicola Nasser Rannie Amiri Ramzy Baroud David Macaray M. Shahid Alam George Wuerthner Missy Beattie Adam Turl Dave Lindorff Alan Cabal Farzana Versey M. G. Piety Charles R. Larson Kim Nicolini David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend February 18, 2010 Sasan Fayazmanesh Nadia Hijab David Rosen Jayne Lyn Stahl Ralph Nader Dean Baker Christopher Brauchli Charlotte Laws Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Bouthaina Shaaban Katya Rodriguez Website of the Day February 17, 2010 Michael Hudson Karl Grossman Nirmal Ghosh Dean Baker Russell Mokhiber John V. Walsh Martin Lukacs Nouri Gana Heather Gray / Daniel Wolff Website of the Day February 16, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Forrest Hylton Carl Ginsburg Jonathan Cook Robert Alvarez Deepak Tripathi George Wuerthner Shamus Cooke Robert Bryce Brian Cloughley Carl Finamore David Rovics Website of the Day February 15, 2010 David Price Michael Hudson / Ishmael Reed Conn Hallinan Yvonne Ridley Bill Quigley Patrick Cockburn Dave Lindorff David Díaz-Arias Stephanie Westbrook Harvey Wasserman Norman Solomon Website of the Day February 12-14, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Andrew Cockburn Arno J. Mayer Ishmael Reed / Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Jonathan Cook Gareth Porter William Blum Jeffrey St. Clair Saul Landau John Ross Fran Shor Marshall Auerback Dave Lindorff Ramzy Baroud Gary Leupp Joseph Sher David Swanson Randall Amster David Ker Thomson Bill Piper Missy Beattie Farzana Versey Dan Bacher Bill Worf Christopher Brauchli Dr. Susan Block Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Binoy Kampmark Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend February 11, 2010 Patrick Cockburn Mark Schuller Stephen Soldz Harvey Wasserman Stephen Fleischman Ron Jacobs Helen Redmond Steve Zhou Fatemeh Keshavarz Ahmadinejad, the Western Press and the Iranian Green Opposition Gary Goldstein Website of the Day
February 10, 2010 Jules Boykoff Paul Craig Roberts David Macaray William Blum Martine Bulard M. Shahid Alam Tolu Olorunda Jayne Lyn Stahl Cecilia Lucas Eric Walberg Website of the Day February 9, 2010 Vijay Prashad Bill Quigley Jonathan Cook Shamus Cooke Robert Jensen Laura Flanders Chris Kromm Dave Lindorff George Wuerthner Belén Fernandez Michael Donnelly Susie Day Website of the Day February 8, 2010 Pam Martens Heather Gray Paul Craig Roberts Franklin Spinney Ralph Nader Ellen Brown Sasha Kramer Richard Morse Fred Gardner Binoy Kampmark Michael Winship David Michael Green Charles R. Larson Website of the Day February 5 - 7, 2010 Alexander Cockburn Paul Craig Roberts Forrest Hylton Joanne Mariner Bill Quigley Jeffrey St. Clair Todd Gordon / Jeffrey R. Webber Consolidating the Coup in Honduras Joseph Nevins Mike Miller Mark Weisbrot Alison Weir David Swanson Missy Beattie Jonathan Cook Richard Morse David Ker Thomson Benjamin Dangl Cal Winslow Jim Goodman Michael Dickinson Bouthaina Shaaban Don Monkerud Ananya Mukherjee-Reed Doug Bevington Stephen Martin Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Day February 4, 2010 Barbara Rhine Barry Lando David Macaray Shamus Cooke P. Sainath Christopher Brauchli Ramzy Baroud Suzan Mazur Harry Clark Andy Worthington Website of the Day February 3, 2010 Paul Craig Roberts Kathleen Christison Franklin Spinney Dean Baker Marc Levy Kathy Kelly Gareth Porter Joshua Frank Rannie Amiri Gregory Vickrey Website of the Day February 2, 2010 Michael Hudson Boadiba Chris Floyd Paul A. Passavant Mike Whitney John Ross Jonathan Cook Susan Galleymore Dave Lindorff Tolu Olorunda Ron Jacobs Website of the Day February 1, 2010 Michael Hudson Stan Goff Patrick Cockburn Saul Landau Dr. Carol Paris, MD Marshall Auerback Harvey Wasserman Johanna Berrigan Peter Gelderloos David Michael Green Martha Rosenberg Kevin Zeese Alan Farago Website of the Day
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Special Legal Appeal March 2, 2010 Muslim DisunityA Religion Divided Against ItselfBy PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS Muslims are numerous but powerless. Divisions among Muslims, especially between Sunni and Shi’ites, have consigned the Muslim Middle East to almost a century of Western control. Muslims cannot even play together. The Islamic Solidarity Games, a regional version of the Olympics, which were to be held in April in Iran, have been cancelled, because the Iranians and the Arabs cannot agree on whether to call the body of water that separates Iran from the Arabian Peninsula the Persian Gulf or the Arabian Gulf. Muslim disunity has made it possible for Israel to dispossess the Palestinians, for the U.S. to invade Iraq, and for the U.S. to rule much of the region through puppets. For example, in exchange for faithful service, Egypt receives $1.5 billion a year from Washington, which enables President Mubarak to buy off opposition. The opposition had rather have the money than support the Palestinians. Therefore, Egypt cooperates with Israel and the U.S. in the blockade of Gaza. Another factor is the willingness of some Muslims to betray their own kind for U.S. dollars. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to neoconservative Kenneth Timmerman, head of the Foundation for Democracy, which describes itself as “a private, non-profit organization established in 1995 with grants from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) to promote democracy and internationally-recognized standards of human rights in Iran.” By now we all know what that means. It means that the U.S. finances a “velvet” or some “color revolution” in order to install a U.S. puppet. Just prior to the sudden appearance of a “green revolution” in Tehran primed to protest an election, Timmerman wrote that “the National Endowment for Democracy has spent millions of dollars during the past decade promoting ‘color’ revolutions in places such as Ukraine and Serbia, training political workers in modern communications and organizational techniques. Some of that money appears to have made it into the hands of pro-Mousavi groups, who have ties to non-governmental organizations outside Iran that the National Endowment for Democracy funds.” So, according to the neocon Timmerman, funded by the National Endowment for Democracy, it was U.S. money that funded Mousavi’s claims that Armadinejad stole the last Iranian election. During President George W. Bush’s regime it became public knowledge that American money is used to purchase Iranians to work against their own country. The Washington Post, a newspaper sympathetic to the neocon’s goal of American hegemony and war with Iran, reported in 2007 that Bush authorized spending more than $400 million for activities that included “supporting rebel groups opposed to the country’s ruling clerics.” This makes the U.S. government a “state sponsor of terrorism.” For confirmation, one of the U.S. paid operatives, who conducted terror operations in Iran, has ratted on his terrorist supporters in Washington. Abdulmalek Rigi, leader of the Baloch separatist group responsible for several attacks, was recently arrested by the Iranians. Rigi admitted that the Americans in Washington assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran. (Read his confession here.) Possibly he was tortured into confession. It is the American way. If the “light of the world,” the “indispensable people,” and the “shining city on the hill” tortures people, perhaps the Iranians do as well. Rigi’s younger brother, himself on death row in Iran, has said that the U.S. provided direct funding to the separatist group and even ordered specific terrorist attacks inside Iran The U.S. and its NATO puppets have been killing Afghan women, children, and village elders since October 7, 2001, when the U.S. military invasion “Operation Enduring Freedom,” a proper Orwellian title for a self-serving war of aggression, was launched. The U.S. installed puppet president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is bought and paid for with U.S. dollars. The money that Washington gives Karzai finances the corruption that supports him. Karzai’s corruption and his treason against the Afghan people encourage the Taliban to keep fighting in order to achieve a government that serves Afghans instead of Washington, D.C. Without the puppet Karzai selling out Afghans to Washington, the U.S. would have already been driven out of the country. With Karzai paying Afghans with American money to fight Afghans for the Americans, the war drones on into its ninth year. Feminists, liberals, and naive American flag-wavers will say that what is written here is utter rot, that Americans are in Afghanistan to bring women’s rights and birth control to Afghan women and to bring freedom, democracy and progress to Afghanistan, even if it means leveling every village, town, and house in the country. We, “the indispensable people,” are only there to do good, because we care so much for the Afghan people who live in a country that most Americans can’t find on a map. While this collection of naifs rants on about America “saving” Afghans from whatever, the White House and the Congress are conspiring against the American people to cut $500 billion dollars out of Medicare in order to give the money to private insurance companies. Jobless benefits are about to run out for millions of Americans, whose jobs have been moved offshore in order to make the rich richer. The U.S. Senate failed on Friday, Feb. 26, to extend jobless benefits. A single Republican Senator, Jim Bunning of Kentucky, was able to block the bill because it would cost a measly $10 billion and “would add to the budget deficit.” The “fiscally responsible” Bunning supports blank checks for wars of aggression (war crimes under the Nuremberg standard) and payoffs to investment banks for wrecking the retirement plans of most Americans. Bunning sends the bills to the unorganized and unrepresented Americans, whose jobs have been stolen by corporate offshoring of jobs and whose retirements have been stolen by the endless greed of the Wall Street investment banks. What fool believes that the U.S. government, which is totally indifferent to the fate of its own citizens, cares so much about Afghanistan that it will spend blood and treasure to bring “progress” and “women’s rights” to a country half a world away, while it drives its own citizens into the ground? At Washington’s behest, the government of Pakistan is conducting war against its own people, killing many and forcing others to flee their homes and lands. The Pakistani government’s war against its own citizens has caused military expenses to soar, putting Pakistan’s budget deep in the red. Deputy US Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin ordered the Pakistani government to raise taxes to pay for the war against its own people. The puppet ruler, Asif Ali Zardari, complied with his American master’s orders. Zardari declared a broad-based value added tax on virtually all goods and most services in Pakistan. Thus, Pakistanis are forced to finance a war against themselves. The “cakewalk war” in Iraq has lasted 7 years instead of the promised 6 weeks, and the violence is still ongoing with Iraqis killed and maimed nearly every day. The reason Americans are still in Iraq is because the Iraqis hate each other more than they hate the American invader. The vast majority of the violence in “the Iraq war” was committed between Iraqi Sunnis and Iraqi Shi’ites as they cleansed one another from neighborhoods. The majority Shi’ites regarded the American invasion of Iraq as an opportunity to gain power over the minority Sunnis, who ruled under Saddam Hussein. Therefore, the Shi’ites never engaged the American invading forces. The minority Sunnis (20 percent of the population) gave most of their effort to fighting the Shi’ite majority, but in their spare time a few thousand Sunnis were able to inflict serious losses on the American superpower. Finally realizing the power of lucre in the Arab world, the Americans put 80,000 Sunnis on the U.S. military payroll and paid them to stop killing Americans. This is how the U.S. won the war in Iraq. Iraqis sold out their independence for American dollars. Considering that a few thousand Sunnis were able to prevent superpower America from successfully occupying Baghdad or much of Iraq, had the Shi’ites joined with the Sunnis against the invaders, the U.S. would have been defeated and driven out. This outcome was not possible, because the Shi’ites wanted to settle the score with the Sunnis, who had ruled them under Saddam Hussein. This is the reason that Iraq today is in ruins, with one million dead, four million displaced or homeless, and the professional class having fled the country. Iraq, under the American puppet Maliki, is an American protectorate. As long as Muslims hate and fear one another more than they hate their conquerers, they will remain a vanquished people. Paul Craig Roberts was an editor of the Wall Street Journal and an Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. His latest book, HOW THE ECONOMY WAS LOST, has just been published by CounterPunch/AK Press. He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
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