home / subscribe / about us / books /events / archives / search / links / faq

 

What You're Missing in our subscriber-only CounterPunch newsletter

CHINA'S GREAT LEAP BACKWARDS

Peter Kwong gives us the "New China" without illusions: from the "millionaires' fair" in Shanghai, with $60,000 diamond-studded dog leashes to one of the most savagely repressed working class and peasantry on the planet. How China's leaders swapped Marx and Mao for Milton Friedman. Alexander Cockburn on What's wrong with the U.S. left. They're sitting in darkened rooms weaving conspiracy fantasies about 9/11; they're blogging; they're confusing a medium with a movement; they're not doing enough to stop the war in Iraq. John Ross takes us along the stormy trail of the Mexican election. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible.

Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now!

Get CounterPunch Newsletter By Email for Only $35 a Year

July 22-23, 2006

Jonathan Cook
Israel's Indiscriminate Onslaughts

Uri Avnery
"Stop that Shit"

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?

Paul Craig Roberts
The Shame of Being an American

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

Saul Landau
Lies as Patriotism?

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

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

June 21, 2006

Ramzy Baroud
Zarqawi's Death: Myth vs. Reality

Patrick Cockburn
Embassy Work as Death Sentence

Gary Leupp
Making the Case for Impeachment

Greg Moses
Elite Logic at the Border

June 20, 2006

Fred Gardner
The Long War on Aspirin

Omar Waraich
Ode to Joy: Watching Blair Sink

Christopher Reed
Japan Nixes Payments to Its Wartime Slaves

CP Newswire
Coca Cola Takes a Hit

Jonathan Cook
Israel Engineers Another Cover-Up

 

June 19, 2006

Bill Quigley
HUD's Bulldozers and the Poor of New Orleans

John Walsh
Tears of a Clown: Al Franken's War

Mike Whitney
The Zoom Lens War: Bush's Baghdad Photo Op

Alexander Cockburn
The Left and the Blathersphere

June 16 / 18, 2006
Weekend Edition

Kathy / Bill Christision
The Power of the Israel Lobby

Joseph Nevins
On the Migrant Trail: No More Walls, No More Deaths

Farrah Hassen
An Interview with Syria's Ambassador to the US, Dr. Imad Moustapha

Greg Moses
The Real Mission of the Uniformed Ghost at the Border

Nicole Colson
"There's No Hope at Gitmo"

John Scagliotti
How MoveOn Wastes Its Donors' Money

Mokhiber / Weissmann
Corporate Democrats

 

June 15, 2006

Kathy Kelly
Look Them in the Eye: Honest Abe and the Residents of Ramadi

Norman Solomon
Premature Triangulation: Hillary's Big Problem

Ron Jacobs
Publicity Stunts as Public Policy

Sam Bahour
Cover Up on Gaza Beach

Ramzy Baroud
Palestine on the Brink

CounterPunch Wire
Death Squads at Colombia's Universities

Gabriel Kolko
Why a Global Economic Deluge Looms

Website of the Day
Antje Duvekot: Music You've Been Waiting Years to Hear

 

June 14, 2006

Nicole Colson
"They Want the Fear Level at a High Pitch": An Interview with Lawyer Lynne Stewart

Jonathan Cook
Israeli Law and Order

Joseph Schechla
Bulldozing Palestine: an Open Letter to Caterpillar, Inc.

Michael Carmichael
Bolton at Oxford: Jeered and Taunted

Evelyn Pringle
Karl and George, the Teflon Partnership

Ward Churchill
My Trial By Media: Turning Quibbles Over Footnotes into Felonies

Rev. William E. Alberts
Decoding the Coders of Christ: Jesus the Political Insurgent?

Website of the Day
Marines Iraq Snuff Film

 

June 13, 2006

Medea Benjamin
Take Back America Suppresses Anti-War Dissenters at HRC Speech

Anthony Alessandrini
The Evil of Banality: the General, the New York Times and the Gitmo Suicides

Paul D'Amato
The Meaning of Haditha

Dave Lindorff
The Strange Death of Zarqawi: Was He Killed So He Wouldn't Talk?

John Ross
Elections and the World Cup: If Team Mexico Advances, Will Anyone Show Up to Vote for Lopez Obrador?

Gabriel Garcia
Venezuela and Drug Trafficking: Bush Bashes Chavez Despite Positive Results

Hilton Obenzinger
DIvestment is a Stand for Equality in Israel

Yitzhak Laor
The Secret of Authority

Juan Antonio Ocasio Rivera
Puerto Rico at the UN

Jennifer Van Bergen
The Story Behind Zarqawi's Death: What's the Legality of the Assassination?

Website of the Day
Paul Wright: a Real American Freedom Fighter

 

June 12, 2006

Paul Craig Roberts
Bush's Armageddon Wish: a Final End to History?

Patrick Cockburn
The US Already Misses Zarqawi

Mike Marqusee
Rebranding a Team: English Nationalism and the World Cup

Lee Sustar
"I Never Had the American Dream:" Left with No Future by GM and Delphi

Robert Fisk
Has Racism Invaded Canada?

Michael J. Smith
Enter Sandman; Exit Kosland

Felice Pace
NPR's Warped Covereage of the MIddle East

Jennifer Loewenstein
Setting the Record Straight on Hamas

Website of the Day
Our Way Home

 

June 10 / 11, 2006
Weekend Edition

Robert Fisk
Zarqawi's End is not a Famous Victory

Diane Christian
Zarqawi's Face

Joe Allen
The American Way of Atrocities: Marine Corps' Killer Virtues

Ralph Nader
Let Us All Praise the Dixie Chicks

Fred Gardner
Tylenol Toxicity Terror

Dave Lindorff
Nothing New About Haditha

Dave Zirin / John Cox
Will Racism Spoil the World Cup?

Dennis Perrin
Death is Patriotic: Necro-Porn, Live on CNN

Greg Moses
Militarizing the Border: Why Operation Jump Start Worries Me

John Chuckman
Terror in Toronto or Tempest in a Teapot?

Michael J. Smith
Babes in Kosland: Dem Blogfest, Day Two

Roger Burbach
Bachelet in DC: Chilean President Refuses to Back Down to Bush

Ira Moskowitz
Israeli Court Finds Mad-Dog US Prof Libeled CounterPuncher Neve Gordon

Sam Bahour
The Gaza Air Strikes: Begging for a Response

Seth Sandronsky
Grocery Chains and Bush's Ownership Society: Profits Fall, Stores Close

Michael Berg
A Father's Day Message: Both Parties Have Betrayed America

Kirsten Roberts
Desmond Dekker and the Music of the Shantytowns

Ron Jacobs
Who's Fooling Who?

Jeffrey St. Clair
Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week

Poets' Basement
Jones, Davies, Engel and Louise

Website of the Weekend
Miles and Trane, So What?

 

July 22-23, 2006

The Shame of Being
An American

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

Do you know that Israel is engaged in ethnic cleansing in southern Lebanon? Israel has ordered all the villagers to clear out.  Israel then destroys their homes and murders the fleeing villagers.  That way there is no one to come back and nothing to which to return, making it easier for Israel to grab the territory, just as Israel has been stealing Palestine from the Palestinians.

Do you know that one-third of the Lebanese civilians murdered by Israel’s attacks on civilian residential districts are children?  That is the report from Jan Egeland, the emergency relief coordinator for the UN.  He says it is impossible for help to reach the wounded and those buried in rubble, because Israeli air strikes have blown up all the bridges and roads.  Considering how often (almost always) Israel misses Hizbollah targets and hits civilian ones, one might think that Israeli fire is being guided by US satellites and US military GPS.  Don’t be surprised at US complicity.  Why would the puppet be any less evil than the puppet master?

Of course, you don’t know these things, because the US print and TV media do not report them.

Because Bush is so proud of himself, you do know that he has blocked every effort to stop the Israeli slaughter of Lebanese civilians.  Bush has told the UN “NO.”  Bush has told the European Community “NO.”  Bush has told the pro-American Lebanese prime minister “NO.”  Twice.  Bush is very proud of his firmness.  He is enjoying Israel’s rampage and wishes he could do the same thing in Iraq.

Does it make you a Proud American that “your” president gave Israel the green light to drop bombs on convoys of villagers fleeing from Israeli shelling, on residential neighborhoods in the capital of Beirut and throughout Lebanon, on hospitals, on power plants, on food production and storage, on ports, on civilian airports, on bridges, on roads, on every piece of infrastructure on which civilized life depends?  Are you a Proud American?  Or are you an Israeli puppet?

On July 20, “your” House of Representatives voted 410-8 in favor of Israel’s massive war crimes in Lebanon.  Not content with making every American complicit in war crimes, “your” House of Representatives, according to the Associated Press, also “condemns enemies of the Jewish state.”

Who are the “enemies of the Jewish state”?

They are the Palestinians whose land has been stolen by the Jewish state, whose homes and olive groves have been destroyed by the Jewish state, whose children have been shot down in the streets by the Jewish state, whose women have been abused by the Jewish state.  They are Palestinians who have been walled off into ghettos, who cannot reach their farm lands or medical care or schools, who cannot drive on roads through Palestine that have been constructed for Israelis only.  They are Palestinians whose ancient towns have been invaded by militant Zionist “settlers” under the protection of the Israeli army who beat and persecute the Palestinians and drive them out of their towns.  They are Palestinians who cannot allow their children outside their homes because they will be murdered by Israeli “settlers.”

The Palestinians who confront Israeli evil are called “terrorists.”  When Bush forced free elections on Palestine, the people voted for Hamas.  Hamas is the organization that has stood up to the Jewish state.  This means, of course, that Hamas is evil, anti-semitic, un-American and terrorist.  The US and Israel responded by cutting off all funds to the new government.  Democracy is permitted only if it produces the results Bush and Israel want.

Israelis never practice terror.  Only those who are in Israel’s way are terrorists.

Another enemy of the Jewish state is Hizbollah.  Hizbollah is a militia of Shia Muslims created  in 1982 when Israel first invaded Lebanon.  During this invasion the great moral Jewish state arranged for the murder of refugees in refugee camps.  The result of Israel’s atrocities was Hizbollah, which fought the Israeli army, defeated it, and drove it, with its tail between its legs, out of Lebanon.  Today Hizbollah not only defends southern Lebanon but also provides social services such as orphanages and medical care.

To cut to the chase, the enemies of the Jewish state are any Muslim country not ruled by an American puppet friendly to Israel.  Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and the oil emirates have sided with Israel against their own kind, because they are dependent either on American money or on American protection from their own people.  Sooner or later these totally corrupt governments that do not represent the people they rule will be overthrown.  It is only a matter of time.

Indeed Bush and Israel may be hastening the process in their frantic effort to overthrow the governments of Syria and Iran.  Both governments have more popular support than Bush has, but the White House Moron doesn’t know this.  The Moron thinks Syria and Iran will be “cakewalks” like Iraq, where ten proud divisions of the US military are tied down by a few lightly armed insurgents.

If you are still a Proud American, consider that your pride is doing nothing good for Israel or for America.

On July 20 when “your” House of Representatives, following “your” US Senate, passed the resolution in support of Israel’s war crimes, the most powerful lobby in Washington, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), quickly got out a press release proclaiming “The American people overwhelming support Israel’s war on terrorism and understand that we must stand by our closest ally in this time of crisis.”

The truth is that Israel created the crisis by invading a country with a pro-American government.  The truth is that the American people do not support Israel’s war crimes, as the CNN quick poll results make clear and as was made clear by callers into C-Span.

Despite the Israeli spin on news provided by US “reporting,” a majority of Americans do not approve of Israeli atrocities against Lebanese civilians.  Hizbollah is located in southern Lebanon.  If Israel is targeting Hizbollah, why are Israeli bombs falling on northern Lebanon?  Why are they falling on Beirut?  Why are they falling on civilian airports?  On schools and hospitals?

Now we arrive at the main point.  When the US Senate and House of Representatives pass resolutions in support of Israeli war crimes and condemn those who resist Israeli aggression, the Senate and House confirm Osama bin Laden’s propaganda that America stands with Israel against the Arab and Muslim world.

Indeed, Israel, which has one of the world’s largest per capita incomes, is the largest recipient of US foreign aid.  Many believe that much of this “aid” comes back to AIPAC, which uses it to elect “our” representatives in Congress.

This perception is no favor to Israel, whose population is declining, as the smart ones have seen the writing on the wall and have been leaving. Israel is surrounded by hundreds of millions of Muslims who are being turned into enemies of Israel by Israel’s actions and inhumane policies.

The hope in the Muslim world has always been that the United States would intervene in behalf of compromise and make Israel realize that Israel cannot steal Palestine and turn every Palestinian into a refugee.

This has been the hope of the Arab world.  This is the reason our puppets have not been overthrown.  This hope is the reason America still had some prestige in the Arab world.

The House of Representatives resolution, bought and paid for by AIPAC money, is the final nail in the coffin of American prestige in the Middle East.  It shows that America is, indeed, Israel’s puppet, just as Osama bin Laden says, and as a majority of Muslims believe.

With hope and diplomacy dead, henceforth America and Israel have only tooth and claw.  The vaunted Israeli army could not defeat a rag tag militia in southern Lebanon.  The vaunted US military cannot defeat a rag tag, lightly armed, insurgency drawn from a minority of the population in Iraq, insurgents, moreover, who are mainly engaged in civil war against the Shia majority.

What will the US and its puppet master do?  Both are too full of hubris and paranoia to admit their terrible mistakes.  Israel and the US will either destroy from the air the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon, Palestine, Syria, and Iran so that civilized life becomes  impossible for Muslims, or the US and Israel will use nuclear weapons to intimidate Muslims into acquiescence to Israel’s desires.

Muslim genocide in one form or another is the professed goal of the neoconservatives who have total control over the Bush administration. Neocon godfather Norman Podhoretz has called for World War IV (in neocon thinking WW III was the cold war) to overthrow Islam in the Middle East, deracinate the Islamic religion and turn it into a formalized, secular ritual.

Rumsfeld’s neocon Pentagon has drafted new US war doctrine that permits pre-emptive nuclear attack on non-nuclear states.

Neocon David Horowitz says that by slaughtering Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, “Israel is doing the work of the rest of the civilized world,” thus equating war criminals with civilized men.

Neocon Larry Kudlow says that “Israel is doing the Lord’s work” by murdering Lebanese, a claim that should give pause to Israel’s Christian evangelical supporters.  Where does the Lord Jesus say, “go forth and murder your neighbors so that you may steal their lands”?

The complicity of the American public in these heinous crimes will damn America for all time in history.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration.  He is coauthor of The  Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com

 

 

 

 

 

Now Available
from CounterPunch Books!
The Case Against Israel
By Michael Neumann

Click Here to Order Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz

WHAT'S INSIDE
Grand Theft Pentagon:
Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror

by Jeffrey St. Clair

 

CounterPunch Speakers Bureau

Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.


The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"