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Today's Stories September 6, 2006 Dave Zirin Cops vs. Jocks: the Shooting of Steve Foley John Ross The Death of Mexican Presidency September 5, 2006 Jonathan Cook Will Robert Fisk tell us the whole story? Time For A Champion of Truth to Speak Up Patrick Cockburn Better Not Meet at the Casbah Mike Whitney The Worst Secretary of Defense in U.S. History? You Be the Judge Roland Sheppard The Civil Rights Movement is Dead and So is the Democratic Party James Petras As Bush Regime Faces Twilight Slide, How Much Havoc Can Paulson Wreak? Alexander Cockburn Will Bush Bomb Teheran?   September 4, 2006 Clancy Sigal The Women Who Gave Us Labor Day Jeffrey St. Clair The Remaking of Cataract Canyon: Part 2 Anthony Alessandrini The Great Debate about Aroma Coffee: Why I Boycott Dennis Perrin The Great Debate in Tarrytown: Straight Zion, No Chaser Daniel Cassidy 'S lom to Slum Paul Craig Roberts The War Is Lost   September 2 / 3, 2006 Uri Avnery When Napoleon Won at Waterloo Jeffrey St. Clair A Premature Burial: the Remaking of Cataract Canyon Ralph Nader The No-Fault White House Noam Chomsky Viewing the World from a Bombsight Allan Lichtman Arrested Democracy: Letter from the Baltimore County Jail Stanley Heller When Criticism of Cluster Bombs is "Anti-Semitic" Rana el-Khatib Invasion's Child: the Making of Issa Peter Montague Taking on the Pentagon: Chemical Weapons to Burn Laura Carlsen Mexico on a Collision Course Dr. Susan Block Bush Hate Rising Joe Bageant Roy's People: Why Progressives Need to Listen to Orbison, Not Policy Wonks Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf A New Generation of Landmines? Gary Leupp The Emperor Has Been Exposed Stephen Fleischman The Great American Oligarchy Paul Balles Has Ahmadinejad Already Checkmated Bush? Ingmar Lee Canada's $450 Million Gift to Bush: the Softwood Lumber Slush Fund Jane Stillwater Burning Man: the Good, the Bad and the Evil Twin Ron Jacobs Dylan Faces the Apocalypse, Again St. Clair / Bossert Playlist: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Grima, Engel, Orloski and Davies Website of the Weekend To New Orleans: a Photo Journal   September 1, 2006 Uri Avnery Olmert Agonistes Paul Craig Roberts Of Wolves and Men (and Impotent Democrats) Bill Ayers Exclusionary Signs of the Times Kevin Zeese The Best War Ever Xochitl Bervera The Forgotten Children of New Orleans Norman Solomon Bush vs. Ahmadinejad: a TV Debate We'll Never See Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah Denounces Nasrallah Interview as a Fake Richard Neville Rupert Murdoch's Victims Website of the Day The Uranium Flood   August 31, 2006 David MacMichael Can the Iran Nuke Crisis be Defused? John Ross Diary of the Mexican Earthquake Edward Said Mahfouz, 9/11 and the Cruelty of Memory Amira Hass The Burden of Collaboration Missy Comley Beattie Circle in a Spiral: Families at War Lee Sustar The Case of Elvira Arellano: Racism, Divided Families and Deportation Jonathan Cook Israeli Myths: Deception as a Way of Life Website of the Day The Case for Impeachment: CSPAN   August 30, 2006 Paul Craig Roberts The Five Morons Revisited George Salzman The Revolutionary Surge in Oaxaca Dave Lindorff I Am a Curious Yellowcake: the Armitage Confession and the Niger Question Leigh Davis Privatizing New Orleans' Schools Alan Maass The Crimes Katrina Exposed: an Interview with Larry Bradshaw and Lorrie Slonsky Mike Whitney Pop Goes the Bubble!: the Great Housing Crash of '07 Eliza Ernshire Murder on Rucarb Street Website of the Day CNN = iPoop2? August 29, 2006 Saul Landau Misreading Cuba, for 47 and a Half Years Jeffrey Buchanan Human Rights and the Realities of Returning to New Orleans: Lip Service and Profiteering Dave Lindorff War? What War? James Brooks The US Peace Movement and Hezbollah John F. Burnett Katrina and the Media: "I Know Y'All Want Our Story, But We Need Help" Walter A. Davis J'Accuse: the Media and Jonbenet Ramsey Rich Gibson Detroit Teachers Strike Again Amira Hass The Accidental Immigrant Paul Craig Roberts Bush Turns His Terror War on the Homeland   August 28, 2006 John Walsh With Lieberman's Loss, the Lobby Takes a Second Hit Sibel Edmonds / William Weaver Hillary Clinton: a Fool's Vessel Ramzy Kysia For Israel's Security? A Visit to Houla, Lebanon Ron Jacobs An Interview with Nativo Lopez Gideon Levy The Reservists' Protest Missy Beattie Yes, Virginia, There is a Rumsfeld Virginia Tilley Putting Words in Ahmadinejad's Mouth August 26 / 27, 2006 Weekend Edition Uri Avnery America's Rottweiler Alexander Cockburn Israel on the Slide Jordan Green Profiting from Disaster: Greed Has Stallled Gulf Coast Recovery, But Made Some Very, Very Rich Azmi Bishara Israel at a Loss Ray Close Why Bush Will Choose War Against Iran: Reflections of a Former CIA Analyst Gary Leupp The Lebanon Ceasefire and the Coming Assault on Iran Ralph Nader AIDS in Black America Joe Allen Free Gary Tyler: Thirty Years of Injustice Fred Gardner The Miraculous Resurrection of Dr. John Lee Dave Lindorff The Crime of Frag Weapons David Krieger Why are There Still Nuclear Weapons? Stephen Fleischman Jurassic White House: the Reptilian Brain of George W. Bush Mary Turck Elections and Lessons from Mexico Walter Brasch Sports Afoul: Canned Hunts Jim Scharplaz Oil and the American Farmer Israel Shamir The Grapes of Wrath Alexander Cockburn About That Nasrallah Interview Charles Henderson Scientology: a Typically American Religion? Jeffrey St. Clair Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Grima, Ford and Mickey Z.   August 25, 2006 Elena Everett The Women of New Orleans After Katrina Juan Cole Iran's Nuclear "Threat" Chris Moore Religious Motives Behind Iraq War Deception?: Revelations from the Watada Court Martial James Marc Leas How Lebanese Civilians Thwarted Israel's War Plans Salah Obeid The Price of Ignoring the Elephant Claudio Albertani Mexico Piquetero Tom Barry Gangster Diplomacy: Elliot Abrams in Jerusalem Website of the Day Congress, the Defense Budget and Pork: a Snout to Tail Charcuterie August 24, 2006 CounterPunch News Service Penis Pump or Bomb? Bum Rap at O'Hare Uri Avnery Stop the Cancer, End the Occupation Nermeen al-Mufti "The Strong Do as They Can": an Interview with Noam Chomsky Norman Solomon The Mythical End to the Politics of Fear Megan Wiles American Responsibility and Palestine Laura Santina Busting Loose of the War Engine: a Female Perspective Mike Whitney Restarting the 34 Day War Seth Sandronsky Millionaires Make a Killing as Killings Continue Christopher Brauchli Consider the Uighurs: Freedom in a Cage   August 23, 2006 Dr. Trudy Bond Calling Dr. Mengele: APA Whitewashes Torture By Shrinks Ramzy Baroud The Real Terrorism Plot Ron Jacobs The Liberal Warmongers are at It Again Heather Gray Palestinian Sense of Place: You Can't Bomb It Away Amira Hass The Occupier Defines Justice Mavis Anderson Castro's Health and US Meddling Ingmar Lee The Great Game Goes On: India's Occupation of Ladakh Francis Boyle Statement on Behalf of Lt. Watada John Ross Mexico Approaches the Combustion Point August 22, 2006 Gilad Atzmon Israel Must Win Jack Heyman The Iron Heel Revisited: Cops as Provocateurs on the Docks Eamon McCann Bereft Belfast Mother Charges Security Firms with Wanton Murder in Iraq Sharon Smith Bush's Failing War on Terror: When in Doubt, Go Racist Edward S. Herman Faith-Based Analysis Ramzi Kysia My Journey to South Lebanon Bill Quigley Trying to Make It Home: New Orleans One Year After Katrina August 21, 2006 Jonathan Cook Caught in a Net of Delusion Paul Craig Roberts Artificial Recovery; Real Job Losses Kathy Kelly Israel's "Proportionate Response": Measured Amid the Wreckage Mike Roselle Irony Runs Through It: Making a Ruckus Lenni Brenner Mayor Bloomberg: the Flying Faker Maher Osseiran Osama's Confession; Osama's Reprieve   August 19 / 20, 2006 Weekend Edition Uri Avnery The 155th Victim Eliza Ernshire Terror and Freedom on the West Bank Virginia Tilley Inside 1701: What the UN Ceasefire Resolution Actually Says Kathy Kelly Funerals at Qana: a Journey to Southern Lebanon Marc Levy You are What You Dream: "Before you talk of heroes you must feel, taste, touch, smell the horror." Stephen Bradberry / Jeffrey Buchanan Hopes and Homes: Subject to Seizure on the Katrina's Anniversary Barbara Rose Johnston Banking on Violence: Guatemalan Genocide and US Security William Blum Perpetual Fear: Saved Again, Praise the Lord! Stephen Fleischman Self-Fulfilling Prophecies: Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon Ralph Nader The Legacy of John Kenneth Galbraith Dave Lindorff Busted, Again: Bush is Two Times a Criminal Fred Gardner When Cannabis Failed to Sell David Krieger Nuclear Insecurity Dan La Botz The Minutemen: Mad at the Wrong Guys Poets' Basement Davies / Engel   August 18, 2006 Brian M. Downing American Generals and Iraq: Time to Call for a Rapid Withdrawal John Blair Divine Strike in the Bible Belt: Will They Bomb Bedford? Alan Hart The Lebanon War, a Post Mortem Craig Murray Hitting a Nerve: the Hair Gel Terror Hype Chris Dols Confronting Madison's NaziFest Emily Kirksey The Cuban Mirage: Self-Deception in Miami and Washington Joaquín Bustelo Forging a New Strategy for Immigrant Rights: Report from Chicago William S. Lind Beaten: Why the IDF Lost in Lebanon Podcast of the Day The F-22 PodCast Website of the Day Burn a Brick for Jesus   August 17, 2006 CounterPunch News Service "Goodbye to the Unipolar World": an Interview with Hasan Nasrallah Barucha Peller This Pain Has No Ceasefire Ramzy Baroud Lebanon: a Critical Battlefield for the New Middle East Rothem Shtarkman Gen. Dan Halutz: Inside Trader Craig Murray The UK Terror Plot: What's Really Going On? Samar Assad Gaza: One Year After Disengagement Mike Ferner Lt. Watada's Challenge Arnold Kohen A Second Rebirth for East Timor? Kevin Zeese Does the Invasion of Lebanon Foretell a Regional War? Missy Comley Beattie Open Wounds Uri Avnery From Mania to Depression Video of the Day Neil Young: After the Garden Website of the Day Art for Peace   August 16, 2006 Merav Yudilovitch Apocalypse Near: an Interview with Noam Chomsky on Lebanon Robert Fisk Behind the Lies of Bush and Blair: It Falls to Assad to Tell the Truth Mark Williams The Missiles of August: The Lebanon War and the Democratization of Missile Technology John Ross End Game Engulfs Mexico Christopher Brauchli The Poor Are Such a Nuisance John Walsh AIPAC Congratulates Itself for Slaughter in Lebanon Ron Jacobs Gee, Your Hair Smells Terror-ific!: Shampoo, Fear and Elections Rachard Itani It Ain't Over: What Did and Didn't Happen in Lebanon Felice Pace Forest Fires in the Klamath Mountains: The Real Threat is Not What You Expected Niranjan Ramakrishnan Lieberman the Enabler Frank, Sharma and Peterson Venezuela's Revolution of Hope: "In Two Years, Everything Has Changed!" Jonathan Cook Real Photo Fakers; Real War Crimes Website of the Day You Too Can Paint Like Jackson Pollock!   August 15, 2006 Andrew Ford Lyons Why Hezbollywood Was Born: Digitally Erasing a Massacre Binoy Kampmark Terrorism and the Art of Flying Robert Fisk Israel Wasn't Hoping for This Ralph Nader Bush to Israel: Take Your Time Destroying Lebanon Todd Chretien The US Antiwar Movement: Weak, Passive, Distracted Chris Floyd It's Bigger Than the Neo-Cons Mark Engler WTO: Best Left for Dead? George Galloway "You Don't Give a Damn:" the SkyNews Debate Laray Polk What's More Obscene: War or Sex? Trish Schuh Operation Change of Location?: Where Were the IDF Soldiers Captured? Website of the Day Jesus Never Existed August 14, 2006 Uri Avnery What the Hell Happened to the Israeli Army? Karim Makdisi The Flaws in the UN Resolution Kathy Kelly Approaching a Ceasefire Robert Fisk The Truce That Won't Last Norman Solomon Who's Afraid of Hillary Clinton? MoveOn, for One Sunsara Taylor Ned Lamont and the Antiwar Movement: False Hopes, Bad Terms and Ticking Clocks Robert Jensen Outside the Frame: The Limits of George Lakoff's Politics Mike Whitney The Litani Gambit: Ceasefire or Trojan Horse? P. Sainath An Indian Farmer About to Commit Suicide Writes a Note of Clarification Goretti Horgan The Raytheon Nine: Irish Antiwar Protesters Face "Terrorism" Charges Christopher Reed London Fog: Doubts Hang Over Terror Plot   August 12 / 13, 2006 Weekend Edition Jean Bricmont The De-Zionization of the American Mind Norman Finkelstein Should Alan Dershowitz Target Himself for Assassination? Robert Fisk How the London Terror Scare Looks from Beirut Adrian Grima Forget the 50 Civilians: Watching Lebanon from Malta Barucha Peller Letter from Lebanon: the Proximity of Death Omar Barghouti The UN, Lebanon and Palestine Adam Engel Tearing Down the Master's House: an Interview with Derrick Jensen Conn Hallinan How the Irish Could Save the Middle East John Stauber Meet the GOP's Latest Smear Machine: Vets for Freedom Rev. William Alberts Bush's Primetime Lies Still Go Unchallenged by the Press Fred Gardner Hollywood Does Cannabis: "Weeds," the First Season Lucinda Marshall Penis Politics: Does Dick Cheney Want Us All to Fly Nude? Ron Jacobs Kill the Precedent: an Interview with Rapper Nate Mezmer CounterPunch News Service Kerala Throws Out Coke and Pepsi Poets' Basement Katz, Davies and Orloski August 11, 2006 Col. Dan Smith Crimes Against Peace: Beyond Nuremberg John Ross Class War in Mexico City's Gridlock Michael Donnelly Sore Loserman, Redux William S. Lind Collapse of the Flanks Linda Milazzo Chertoff's New Math: Hair Gel Plot Might Have "Killed 100s of Thousands" Rep. Cynthia McKinney Something is Happening Around the World Azmi Bishara When the Skies Rain Death Henri Picciotto Jewish Dissidents Must Challenge Israel CounterPunch News Wire The Warrior Lawyer: Tom Crumpacker, 1934-2006 Dave Lindorff War Crimes in Lebanon Jonathan Cook From High Wycombe to Nazrareth: How I Found Myself with the Islamic Fascists   August 10, 2006 Uri Avnery The Buck Stops Where? Dave Marsh Who Are Mr and Mrs Lamont? Gabriel Kolko Reflections on Hiroshima and Nagasaki Arthur Versluis How Neocons' Nazi Hero Schmitt Spawned Bush's Totalitarian Lunge Jennifer Loewenstein Awakening the Resistance August 9, 2006 Linda Schade Incumbents Beware: Peace Voters Mean Business Jackie Mason Defends Mel Gibson; Ridicules Abe Foxman Jonathan Cook Hypocrisy and the Clamor Against Hizbullah Gilad Atzmon Operation Security Roof Charles Hirschkind Doing the Lebanese a Favor Tom Barry Right-wingers Ramp Up War on Migrants Cockburn & St. Clair The Sweetness of Lieberman's Defeat   August 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Requiem for Baghdad Paul Larudee The Lebanese Nakba and Israeli Ambitions Joan Roelofs The Malleable US Constitution: a Deterrent to Democracy? Dimi Reider An Interview with IDF Refusenik Sgt. Zohar Milchgrub John A. Murphy The Democrats: a Party on the Run ... from Its Own Members! Eliot Katz The View from the Big Woods: In Which a NYC Antiwar Poet Takes a Summer Vacation in Canada's Boreal Forest Tim Llewellyn Into the Valley of Death Website of the Day Galloway Speaks!   August 7, 2006 Uri Avnery The Junkies of War Karim Makdisi The Draft UN Resolutions: the View from Beirut Nadia Hijab What Israel and the US Wanted May Not Be At All What They Get Sharon Smith Birth Pangs and Dead Babies Magan Wiles Encounter at an Israeli Checkpoint George Beres A New Kind of Bigotry: Lebanon War Exposes Strange Religious Bedfellows Rachard Itani Nice Try, Mr. Bolton Norman Solomon Some Nukes Are A-Okay with the US Media Stan Cox Presidential Doping Scandal Erupts! Mickey Z. Go Ahead, Please Stare at Her Chest Jonathan Cook The Deadly US-Israeli Shell Game at the UN Website of the Day Sam Husseini Interrogates Newt Gingrich on Lebanon   August 5 / 6, 2006 Virginia Tilley Boycott Now!: the Case for Boycotting Israel Uri Avnery The Black Flag Patrick Cockburn Yes, It is a Crusade!: Blair's Mad Speech on Iraq Sgt. Martin Smith Military Training and Atrocities: Bad Apples from a Rotten Tree Gary Leupp America's Heroes on Trial Neve Gordon The New McCarthyism: Academic Freedom After 9/11 Ralph Nader Hey Joe!: the Ghosts of Lieberman's Past Peter Bouckaert For Israel, Innocent Civilians Are Fair Game Peter Montague Nukes Rising: Bush Oversees a Global Nuclear Expansion David Krieger Global Hiroshima: the Stakes Have Been Raised Michael Donnelly "Sir! No Sir!": the Story of the GI Anti-War Movement Fred Gardner Dr. Denney Sues the DEA Catherine Norris Seeking Justice Abroad: Spanish Courts Issue Arrest Warrants for the Butchers of Guatemala Imraan Siddiqi The Smokescreens of War: Moral Superiority, 9/11 and Islamic-Fascism Missy Comley Beattie One Year After the Death of Chase Comley Ira Kay Where is Geography? Getting Beyond the Place Name Game Dave Lindorff Let's Build a Wall Pratyush Chandra Nuclear Fascism in India Ron Jacobs Keeping It Radical St. Clair / Donnelly Playlists: What We're Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Katz and Davies Website of the Day Defend Bear Butte Video of the Weekend Rainbows Bust Pig Blockade   August 4, 2006 Ralph Nader Joe Lieberman and the Secret Chamber Brian Cloughley Osama Has Won Eliza Ernshire No Lights in Gaza: "We Have a Death Warrant for Your Home" Roger Assaf Letter from Lebanon: Adjusting the Heroic Commando Raid Story George Bisharat When I Last Saw Lebanon Remi Kanazi Out to Lunch: The US Media's "Special Relationship" Laura Carlsen Mexico's Critical Moment: The Boardrooms vs. the Street Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Fig (Leaflet) of Warning Derrick O'Keefe Ripe Fruit and Rotten Imperial Ambitions: US Reaction to Castro's Illness Mickey Z. Some Context on Castro and Cuba Col. Dan Smith The New Gonzales Standard for Torture: No Standards, No Accountability Website of the Day Israel's TV War August 3, 2006 Jonathan Cook Civilian Casualties and the War of Media Deception Uri Avnery Knife in the Dark Saree Makdisi Time to Call It Quits: Israel's Raid on Baalbeck's Hospital Robert Fisk The Family That Stays Together Dies Together Farrah Hassen Bush's Nutty Syria Policy: a Report from Damascus Nicola Nasser The De-Arabization of the Arab League Ron Jacobs The Hollow Body: When Exactly Did the UN Lose Its Street Cred? Mitchel Cohen Mexico Rising Seth Sandronsky Migrant Labor and Uncle Sam Bruce K. Gagnon Convert the Military Industrial Complex Alexander Cockburn Hezbollah's Top Ally in Israel August 2, 2006 John Ross Mexican Civil Resistance in Five Acts Chip Mitchell Kudos to Hitchens! Saul Landau Want Peace in the Middle East? End the Occupation Naseer Aruri The UN at the Dustbin of History: Does It Have the Capacity to Intervene? Winslow T. Wheeler Congress and the Pentagon: Co-Abusers of the War Budget Matthias Gebauer News on a Platter: the Middle East PR War Joshua Frank How the Kyoto Protocol Was (Al) Gored Bill Quigley Hiroshima, Nagasaki and North Dakota Manuel Yang A View of Gaza and Lebanon from the Interior Shamai Leibowitz Whitewashing Atrocities: the Tortured Language of War David Himmelstein Pulling the Plug on Israel Lara Marlowe The Total Destruction of Srifa Website of the Day As a Nuke Plant Falls   August 1, 2006 Michael Neumann What is to be Said?: War on the Blathersphere Robert Fisk Into the Meat Grinder: NATO and Lebanon Omar Barghouti The Massacre at Qana: Were Racism and Fundamentalism Factors? Marc Levy Whatever You Did in the War will Always be With You Diana Barahona / Jeb Sprague Reporters Without Borders and Washington's Coups Claud Cockburn Scenes from the Spanish Civil War Ross Eisenbrey When is a Raise Not a Raise? House Bill Actually Cuts Wages for Some Workers by $5.50 an Hour! Dave Lindorff Making the World Safe ... for Dictatorship John Chuckman Canada's Harper Blames the UN Dead Francis Boyle Prosecuting Israel: a War Crimes Tribunal May be the Only Deterrent to a Global War Phil Doe Bleak House Revisited: My Vacation in Water Court Stephen Soldz Psychologists, Guantanamo and Torture Website of the Day An Unfair War   July 31, 2006 Jonathan Cook Birth Pangs or Death Throes? Uri Avnery Syria in the Gunsight Robert Fisk Atrocity in Qana: Israel Kills 34 Kids Amina Mire The Struggle for Somalia: Warlords, Islamists, US Global Militarism and Women Marjorie Cohn Bush's Enemy Du Jour Sibel Edmonds / William Weaver All That's Given Up in the Name of Security John Ross Report from a Red Alert: Zapatistas at Critical Crossroads Stanley Rogouski Why Howard Dean Denounced Our Puppet in Iraq Gideon Levy Days of Darkness: the Cruel, Collective Punishment of Lebanon Ron Jacobs No One Is Illegal James Ridgeway / Alicia Ng Witch Hunting Russell Tice: 3 Films Brian Tokar The Visionary Life of Murray Bookchin Alexander Cockburn The Triumph of Crackpot Realism July 29 / 30, 2006 Weekend Edition Michael Neuman Humanitarian Intervention: The White Man's Burden Vijay Prashad Cry Havoc: Anyone Who Opposes Israel is Labeled a Terrorist Ramzi Kysia Lebanon's Children: Voices from an Invasion Werther The Manchurian Clergyman: Rev. John Hagee's War Robert Fisk Bush and Blair: "Keep It Up!" Patrick Cockburn Repeating the 1982 Fiasco Ralph Nader Big Oil's Biggest Score: Who Says Crime Doesn't Pay? Rachard Itani Professor of Propaganda: the Lies of Alan Dershowitz Eduardo Galeano One Country Bombed Two Countries Gary Leupp Cowboys Still in the Saddle: Neocon Plans in the MIddle East Eve Poretsky The Biggest Stick in the Middle East John Chuckman Delusional Expectations: How Israel Could Destroy Itself Fred Gardner San Diego v. Prop 215 Juan Santos Apocalypse No!: an Indigenist Perspective Punyapriya Dasgupta Israel's Foes as Beasts and Insects Liaquat Ali Khan The War Crime Machine: Defeating the IDF Israel Shamir Friends, True and False William A. Cook The Power of Evil Stanley Heller Bill Clinton Comes to Lieberman's Rescue Dave Lindorff Bush's War Crimes Dodge Moshe Adler Kelo, a Year Later: Property Sezied By Eminent Domain Must Remain Public Susie Day Comrade Bush: Back in the USSA Pat Williams The Right's Pre-Election Sleight of Hand Anthony Papa Collateral Damage from the War on Drugs John V. Whitbeck Imperial Overreach: Suez 1956 to Lebanon 2006 Jackie Corr Last Rites for Evel Knievel Myles Palmer Old Soul: James Hunter's "People Gonna Talk" Tom D'Antoni Playlist: What I'm Listening to This Week Poets' Basement Orloski, Louise, Davies, Engel and Meyers Website of the Weekend Electronic Lebanon   July 28, 2006 Jonathan Cook The Lies Israel Tells Itself Uri Avnery Who is Winning? Questions and Answers About the War in Lebanon: Renee Bowyer When Condi Came to Ramallah Robert Fisk Smoke Signals from Bint Jbeil Patrick Cockburn Baghdad's Death Squads, Official and Otherwise Ramzy Baroud The War in Lebanon: More Than Meets the Eye Don Fitz Half-Hour Hurricanes: Where Were the Warnings About St. Louis's Ultra Storm? Elaine Cassel The Second Andrea Yates Verdict: Why the Jury Did the Right Thing David Price Much Ado About Landis: What Kind of Tour de France Was It? Mike Whitney Bull's Eye: Israel's Targeted Assassination of UN Peacekeepers Mickey Z. Power (Outage) to the People: Why Queens Went Dark Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Power of Arrogance in a World Without Deterrence Charles Glass Operation "Save Israel's High Command" Website of the Day Military Intelligence and You!   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         Subscribe Online

September 6, 2006 Bad Faith and Distortions From the American Psychological Association Protecting the Torturers By STEPHEN SOLDZ   "A torturing nation uses fear, persuasion, and propaganda to secure the assent to torture from society in general and from members of its legal, academic, journalistic, and medical professions." -- Steven Miles, M.D., Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror Bahraini national al-Dossari has been imprisoned at Guantánamo Naval Base for over four-and-a-half years. Amnesty International has obtained his account of his treatment in United States care in Afghanistan and in Guantánamo Naval Base. Here is one excerpt: "The investigators would also put psychological pressure on me. Some of the things that happened to me during investigations are: I was threatened with being murdered, tortured and having to spend the rest of my life in jail in Cuba, my daughter Nura would be kidnapped, they would make trouble for my family in Saudi Arabia and they threatened to assassinate me after I am released. They put very strong detergent in the investigation room and poured it all around me until I almost suffocated. They put a music stereo record on very, very loudly, they put very bright torches to my face, they put me in a very, very cold room and reduced the temperature to the lowest temperature for many long hours and did not allow me to have food or drink, go to the toilet or perform my ablutions to pray. "There were many other things such as they tied my hands to my feet in the ring on the floor of the room. All the investigation rooms have a metal ring fixed in the floor to tie the detainees' feet to it. "As for sexual assaults, many things happened to me and I will mention some of them here. One day, on a Saturday ­ I will tell you the reason for why I remember this date later ­ the soldiers took me at night for investigation. In the investigation room, they tied my feet to that steel ring and then they left me and went away. I sat alone for a long time. Then the door was opened forcefully and four soldiers wearing black masks and a female investigator came in. The soldiers started terrorising me by raising their voices and one of them had a video camera in his hand that he was taping this with. Then this investigator said to me, 'now we want you to confess that you are with Al Qaeda or that you have some connection to the attacks in America, otherwise tonight we will show you something that you will never ever forget for the rest of your life', and of course, I will never forget what happened for as long as I live. I told her that I had no connection to what she was talking about. They also had extra shackles with them that the soldiers moved in their hands to terrorise and frighten me. They started threatening me and when I realised that something serious was going to happen to me, I started screaming and shouting so that perhaps one of the brothers would hear my screams. However, that was out of the question as all the investigation rooms were soundproof. She said to me, laughing, 'it's Saturday, it's the weekend, it's late at night and there are no officials around'. After one final attempt to threaten me, she ordered the soldiers to start ­ what they had previously been ordered to do; the soldiers came and took me off the chair. My feet were tied to that ring as I mentioned before. They then laid me out on my back and put the extra shackles on top of my hand shackles and pulled me by them forcefully and brutally in the opposite direction, towards my feet, while I was lying on my back. Then the investigator signalled to a soldier who [had] a pair of scissors in his hand to cut off all my clothes (sic). The soldiers cut off all my clothes, removed them and threw them in a corner of the room. The investigator then started taking off her clothes ­ the soldier with the camera was filming everything. When she was in her underwear, she stood on top of me. She took off her underpants, she was wearing a sanitary towel, and drops of her menstrual blood fell on me and then she assaulted me. I tried to fight her off but the soldiers held me down with the chains forcefully and ruthlessly so that they almost cut my hands. I spat at her on her face; she put her hand on her dirty menstrual blood that had fallen on my body and wiped it on my chest. This shameless woman was wearing a cross on a chain. The cross had a figure of a crucified man on it. She raised the cross and kissed it, and then she looked at me and said that this cross was a present for you Muslims. She stained her hands with her menstrual blood and wiped my face and beard with it. Then she got up, cleaned herself, put her clothes back on and left the roomthen the soldiers took my hands and tied them to my feet on the ground. All the soldiers left once they had taken my clothes from the corner of the room and left me in this state ­ tied up, naked and smeared with [] menstrual blood... [J]ust before dawn. I was in a hysterical state, I was in a really bad state; I almost went mad because of what had happened, how it had happened and why it had happened." Al-Dossari's account is far from unique. Treatment such as that described has been routine at Guantánamo and other United States detention centers in the Global War Against Terrorism. A significant aspect of the treatment at Guantánamo constitutes what Physicians for Human Rights has called (in their report Break Them Down: Systematic Use of Psychological Torture by US Forces) "psychological torture." Included under this term are "techniques such as sensory deprivation, forced nudity, forced grooming, isolation, and use of detainees' phobias, such as fear of dogs" (p. 25). Integral to the interrogations at Guantánamo, and to the psychological torture that commonly occurred during them, has been the participation of members of the so-called "helping professions," including physicians, nurses, and psychologists. Perhaps most innovative is the existence of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams, or BSCT (pronounced "biscuits" in military jargon) consisting of psychologists and psychiatrists participating in interrogations and consulting on interrogation strategies for particular detainees. A July 2004 New Yorker article by Jane Mayer presented circumstantial evidence that these BSCT staff received specialized training by psychologists from the military's Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape (SERE) program. This SERE program teaches military officers how to resist torture by subjecting them to a brief period of extreme psychological abuse. At the time of Mayer's article, hard evidence that Guantánamo interrogators had been trained in SERE techniques was lacking, despite the fact that top SERE staff were kown to have consulted at Guantánamo. Recently Salon found direct evidence that SERE techniques were indeed taught to Guantánamo interrogators. The Salon article details some SERE techniques reportedly utilized at Guantánamo (and at Abu Ghraib): "forced nudity, stress positions, isolation, sleep deprivation, sexual humiliation and exhaustion from exercise." Also used were extremely loud music and prolonged cold. Physician and bioethicist Steven Miles has reported the participation of BSCT psychologist Maj. John Leso in the brutal and prolonged interrogation of Mohammed al-Qahtani. (See also the detailed interrogation log on al-Qahtani, referred to as Detainee 063.) During al-Qahtani's interrogation he was subjected to extreme cold to the point where his heart slowed and he was hospitalized (he was then warmed up and again subjected to extreme cold), he was injected with several bags of saline solution while being strapped to a table until he urinated on himself, and he was forced to bark like a dog; we are not told what was done to him to get him to bark. As the nature of the treatment of detainees at Guantánamo was revealed, this treatment was condemned as an illegal violation of human rights by numerous international organizations including the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the United Nations Committee Against Torture, the European Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross, and Amnesty International. Al-Dossari described the involvement of psychiatrists, other doctors, and nurses in his interrogation. As a result of repeated accounts like these, the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association have barred the participation of psychiatrists and, indeed, all medical doctors in interrogations. Unlike the medical and psychiatric associations, the American Psychological Association, as I documented in my recent article, A Profession Struggles to Save Its Soul: Psychologists, Guantánamo and Torture, has steadfastly refused to condemn (mis)use of psychological techniques to break detainees at Guantánamo or elsewhere and has consistently refused to forbid members to participate in interrogations at these facilities. In fact, the Association leadership has worked persistently to protect the ability of psychologists to participate in "national security" interrogations, even, at times, claiming an ethical obligation to do so to prevent harm to society, presumably from the "terrorists" imprisoned there for the last four-and-a-half years. (See also Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter's report on the Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) she chaired: "as experts in human behavior, psychologists contribute to effective interrogations.") In recent months the opposition to Association policy from within has strengthened. However, these efforts have been limited in nature and opponents have, in every instance, been outmaneuvered by the Association leadership. In addition to the disturbing events reported in my previous article, more evidence on the smokescreen of manipulations, distortions and downright lies used by the Association raises additional questions as to what the Association leadership is up to. Ethics Code Exempts Government and Military Employees: Endorsing the Nuremberg Defense "Psychologists strive to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm." -- American Psychological Association Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct One questionable action concerns the Association ethics code that governs members' professional behavior, which was changed in 2002 so as to exempt psychologists working for the government (including the military) from being bound by the Association code. Thus, the 1992 code had a somewhat ambiguous clause: "1.02 Relationship of Ethics and Law. "If psychologists' ethical responsibilities conflict with law, psychologists make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the conflict in a responsible manner." In 2002 this clause was changed to read: "1.02 Conflicts Between Ethics and Law, Regulations, or Other Governing Legal Authority "If psychologists' ethical responsibilities conflict with law, regulations, or other governing legal authority, psychologists make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the conflict. If the conflict is unresolvable via such means, psychologists may adhere to the requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority." Note that the new wording explicitly exempts psychologists aiding torture or abuse under military or government orders from being charged with ethics violations as long as they can claim they took steps to resolve the conflict. By this change the Association in 2002 would have implicitly endorsed the defense of Lieutenant William Calley (convicted for ordering the My Lai massacre), Adolf Eichmann and other Nazi war criminals, and many others who claimed they were simply following orders, a defense that was rejected by the United States and the world through the Nuremberg and other war crimes trials. In addition to directly incorporating the Nuremberg Defense into the ethics code, this change also has other harmful effects. By weakening the prohibition against acting in conflict with the ethics code, the Association significantly weakened the standing of any military psychologists desiring to refuse an immoral order or to refuse orders that violate international law. They could no longer call upon the ethics code as requiring refusal. While military personnel are allowed to refuse illegal or immoral orders, they do so at profound risk to themselves. In the case of military psychologists contemplating refusal of orders, the Association has increased this risk tremendously. This change in the Association's ethics code has the effect of making other Association statements on allowable psychologist behavior largely irrelevant. Thus, statements forbidding psychologists from participating in torture or other abusive behavior have no standing if the psychologists are ordered to participate by a "governing legal authority," e.g., a commanding officer. As long as Section 1.02 remains in the Association ethics code, efforts to get the Association to adopt statements on torture, coercive interrogations and the like (see next section) are essentially exercises in futility as these statements would not be binding on psychologist members working for the military or other government agencies (e.g., the CIA). Association critics working for such changes should realize that they have been wasting their time for the last several years pursuing what would have been ineffective changes in the ethics code. Some critics have recognized the problem and have tried for years, unsuccessfully, to get Section 1.02 amended to require adherence to international human rights standards when following laws or government orders. Given the long history of discussion of the "following orders" defense, there is no possibility that the Association "ethics" leadership did not know exactly what they were doing. The only question is why they felt the need to build the Nuremberg Defense directly into the ethics code. Were there particular ethics violations they were aware of and were trying to protect, or did they have a more general goal of allowing free reign to psychologists enlisted in the then-beginning "Global War on Terror?" It is interesting that this revision occurred just as the first information was coming out about the torture occurring at Guantánamo and in Afghanistan and prior to the public awareness that psychologists were an intimate part of the interrogation apparatus there. Revising Anti-torture Statement to Reduce Influence of International Law "Every torturing government tries to apply a patina of law to these crimes. Any government can find lawyers or legislators to renounce, suspend, or define away the world's settled opinion opposing torture, expressed in documents like the Geneva Conventions." - - Steven Miles, M.D., Oath Betrayed: Torture, Medical Complicity, and the War on Terror At the APA Convention this August, the Association's Peace Psychology Division introduced a resolution to reaffirm long-standing APA opposition to torture. At the same time, this Division and the Association's Divisions for Social Justice (a coalition of 10 divisions supporting social justice initiatives) declined to put forward a resolution banning psychologists' participation in coercive interrogations, at least partially out of concern that such a resolution would be defeated. Between the final draft version of the anti-torture resolution prepared by proponents and the version that was actually adopted and published, crucial wording defining proscribed behavior was changed in a subtle, but profound way. The original Final Draft clearly defined torture and abuse using the United Nations Declaration and Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment. It contained the following language: "[T]he term 'torture' means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted upon a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official [e.g., governmental, religious, political, organizational] capacity. It does not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in, or incidental to lawful sanctions [in accordance with both domestic and international law]." The inclusion of this statement would seem to be a clear and unambiguous acceptance by the Association of international law and understandings as to what constitutes torture. However, in the published version the following paragraph defining "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of punishment" was added: "BE IT RESOLVED, that the term 'cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment' means treatment or punishment by any psychologist that is of a kind that, in accordance with the McCain Amendment, would be prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, as defined in the United States Reservations, Declarations and Understandings to the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Forms of Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment done at New York, December 10, 1984." This all sounds relatively benign. But the phrase "United States Reservations" should raise one's interest. Just what are these Reservations and what are they doing in the Association's resolution? It turns out that, when the United States ratified this UN Convention, the U.S. government took steps to significantly reduce or even eliminate its potential impact. (Several countries, namely Sweden, the Netherlands, and Finland took exception to the U.S. Reservations at the time.) As I, a non-lawyer, read these Reservations, there are two potentially relevant clauses (Daily Kos diarist Valtin provides a somewhat different discussion of the impact of the second of these clauses but seems to have missed the first). The first of these clauses states: "That the United States considers itself bound by the obligation under article 16 to prevent 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment', only insofar as the term 'cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment' means the cruel, unusual and inhumane treatment or punishment prohibited by the Fifth, Eighth, and/or Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States." That is, for behavior not rising to the level of "torture," U.S. ratification of this Convention did not make anything illegal that was not already illegal according to U.S. law. No international understandings will be binding. Interpretations of "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment of punishment" by other countries, by the United Nations, or by other international organizations and institutions are irrelevant. By this means, also, the U.S. made its obligations under the Convention subject to the vagaries of U.S. law in this area. If U.S. courts interpret U.S. law as constitutionally allowing a certain type of behavior, that behavior would then by definition not be banned by U.S. adherence to the Convention. As long as that behavior was not quite "torture," it wouldn't matter if it was proscribed by every other country on earth. Unfortunately, it is not at all clear that the "psychological torture" techniques used by U.S. interrogators are violations of the U.S. Constitution. As John Shifton argued in a recent article in Slate (Criminal, Immunize Thyself: The Bush administration's get out of jail card for torturers; see also Marty Lederman: The CIA Cruelty Authorization Act of 2006), the Bush administration is currently pushing to amend the U.S. War Crimes Act to legalize all abusive behavior that fails to meet the legal definition of torture. The added paragraph in the Association resolution will thus pass any new immunity down to psychologists engaged in interrogations. As U.S. law changes with regard to "cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment," so potentially will the ethical obligations of psychologists. The second potentially relevant clause in the U.S. Reservations is concerned with limiting the definition of the most severe behaviors, those that are clearly proscribed by U.S. ratification of the UN Convention: "That with reference to article 1, the United States understands that, in order to constitute torture, an act must be specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering and that mental pain or suffering refers to prolonged mental harm caused by or resulting from (1) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of severe physical pain or suffering; (2) the administration or application, or threatened administration or application, of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality; (3) the threat of imminent death; or (4) the threat that another person will imminently be subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the administration or application of mind altering substances or other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or personality." (Emphases added) Interestingly for psychologists, this, the longest clause in the U.S. Reservations, is explicitly designed to circumscribe the definition of torture so as to exclude most psychological torture. With the exception of attempts to create a "profound" disruption of "senses or the personality" or of threats to self or others of death or severe physical pain, the prolon