Today's Stories

July 26 / 27, 2008

Joseph Nevins
Death as a Way of Life on the Borderlands

July 25, 2008

Harvey Wasserman
NRC: New Nukes Not Ready for Prime Time

Paul Craig Roberts
Are You Ready for the Facts About Israel?

Alan Farago
Where's the Outrage?

Paul D'Amato
The Arrest of Radovan Karadzic and the Selective Prosecution of War Crimes

Gary Leupp
War With Iran? State Dept. Realists vs. Cheney's Ultras

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Eyes Wide Shut in India

Mike Whitney
Obama Dazzles Old Europe, While McCain Cries, "No Mas!"

Paul Krassner
Inside Camp Mogul

Mike Roselle
All Hail Nero!

Website of the Day
Pressing Starbucks

July 24, 2008

Greg Moses
Who Killed Azem Hajdari?

Andy Worthington
Folly and Injustice: Salim Hamdan's Guantanamo Trial

James Bovard
Daniel Ellsberg's Lessons for Our Time

Joe Bageant
Life in the Post-Political Age

George Wuerthner
Boondoggle in the Fields

DC Larson
Shutting Out Ralph Nader

William Willers
The Forest Products Industry in Public Education

David Macaray
On the Prospects for a SAG Strike

Website of the Day
Pacifica Radio Archive of 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago

July 23, 2008

Winslow T. Wheeler
An Air Force in Free Fall

Paul Craig Roberts
The Mother of All Messes

Ralph Nader
Pavlov's America

Mike Whitney
Visualizing Dow 6,000

Susie Day
Senator Sicko: Jesse Helms and the Theatre of the Depraved

Website of the Day
"A Kinder and Gentler Machine-Gun Hand..."

July 22, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Ten Years On, Bolivarian Revolution at Crossroads

Patrick Cockburn
Boost for Obama Over Iraq Withdrawal

Soldz, Olson, Reisner Arrigo and Welch
Torture After Dark

Moshe Adler
Everyone Must Share, Not Just Charlie Rangel

Martha Rosenberg
Protecting Bones from Drugs that Protect Bones

Dan Bacher
Bechtel and the Big Dig

Harvey Wasserman
Is Gore Inching Toward Solartopia?

Anthony Papa
A Slugger's Drug Redemption

Binoy Kampmark
Mad Over Benedict

Website of the Day
Hiroshima: A-Bombed Objects

July 21, 2008

Ishmael Reed
Remnick's Latest Blunder

Mike Whitney
The Democrats are the Real Problem

Andy Worthington
Dictatorial Powers Upheld: the Meaning of the Al-Marri Decision

Scott Pellegrino
Should "Meet the Press" Desegregate?

John Ross
McCain Crosses the Border, Gets No Satisfaction

Robert Weitzel
Blowback Through the Looking Glass

Mike Stark
I was Spied on by the Maryland Police

Website of the Day
Pinky Solves the Illegal Immigration Crisis

July 19 / 20, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
It's a Dull Race

Jeffrey St. Clair
How to Beat a Mining Company: Why a Gold Goliath Threw in the Towel

Dave Lindorff
I Was a Victim of the TSA

Saul Landau
Obits for Opposites: Carlin and Helms

Ron Jacobs
Why Afghanistan is Not the Good War

Uri Avnery
Different Planet:the Israel / Hezbollah Prisoner Swap

Neve Gordon
The Untold Story of Ni'lin

Roane Carey
Dr. Benny and Mr. Morris

Robert Fantina
Ashcroft, Torture and the U. S.

Christopher Brauchli
The General Lied

Fred Gardner
Cannabinoid Researchers Won’t Take the High Road

David Macaray
Labor Unions and the Courts

Richard L. Hutto
The Ecology of Severely Burned Forests

Bill Moyers /
Michael Winship
Mother's Milk of Politics Turns Sour

Ronnie Cummins
Netroots Nation or Nation of Sheep?

David Yearsley
Opera and Globalization

Alison McKenna
A Close Call for Medicare

Wajahat Ali
The Dark Knight Ascends

Poets' Basement
Ko Un

Website of the Day
What If Edward Said Had Told This Joke?

July 18, 2008

Corey D. B. Walker
A Kinder, Gentler Imperialism?

Mike Whitney
Swan Song for Fanny Mae

Robert Bryce
Iran Rising

Mike Roselle
Ed's Chicken: Fighting King Coal in Appalachia

Bouthaina Shaaban
U. S. to Mandela: Happy 90th and You're No Longer a Terrorist

Eve Spangler
The Deaths of Children

Website of the Day
Lowbagger Needs Your Help

July 17, 2008

Paul Craig Roberts
Airport Gestapo

James G. Abourezk
Big Oil's Raid on the Great Plains

Ralph Nader
D. C. Socialists Save Crashing Capitalists

Allan J. Lichtman
Conservative Denial

Andy Worthington"Screwed Up" and"Abused": Omar Khadr's Interrogations at Gitmo

Ronnie Cummins
Move Over MoveOn

July 16, 2008

Jeffrey St. Clair
Star Whores: How John McCain Doomed Mt. Graham

Paul Craig Roberts
War Crimes Paradox

Conn Hallinan
To the Edge in the Middle East

Dave Lindorff
Torture for Torturers?

William S. Lind
Running the Narrows in Iraq

Christopher Brauchli
Sweepstakes Politics

Website of the Day
History of Iraqi Art

July 15, 2008

Michael Hudson
Why the Bail Out of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae is Bad Economic Policy

Brian Cloughley
Iran's Missile Tests

Patrick Cockburn
Sadr's Militia May Live to Fight Another Day

John Ross
Crunchtime for Mexico's Oil

Howard Lisnoff
When Torture Was Practiced on U. S. Soil

Website of the Day
Rachel Corrie Soccer Tournament

July 14, 2008

Uri Avnery
Will Israel and / or the US Attack Iran?

Paul Craig Roberts
Enabling Tyranny

Trish Schuh
Talking to Iran's Only Jewish Member of Parliament: an Interview with Morris Motamed

Patrick Cockburn
Immunity in Iraq

Mike Whitney
Betancourt Unbound

Alan Farago
Will Miami's Cubans Vote Blue?

Seth Sandronsky
Taxing U. S. Stocks and Bonds

Phyllis Pollack
Stones Paint It Black

Website of the Day
Our Pal in Butte, Jackie Corr, RIP

July 12 / 13, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Lock and Load--It's the Law!

Jeffrey St. Clair
The Origins of the Western Greens

James Abourezk
Talking World War III Blues: From Dylan to Iran

Nicole Colson
The Ethanol Scam

Stan Cox
Fixing a Broken Agriculture

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Is There an Oil Shortage?

Wajahat Ali /
Omid Safi
The Future of Iran: an Interview with Iranian Nobel Laureate Shirin Ebadi

John Stauber
There May be a Left, But is it Moving? An Interview with David Sirota

Alan Farago
The Crash of the King of Liquidity

Missy Beattie
Dark Neighborhoods

Robert Fantina
Bush's Last Yes Man: Canada, Guantanamo and Yankee Poodles

Rannie Amiri
Mubarak Hires the Mosque

Gregory Kafoury
After the Obama Betrayal

Fran Shor
The Audacity of Hype

Martha Rosenberg
Why Heifer International is Rolling in Dung

David Macaray
Will There be an Actors Strike?

Andrew Wimmer
No Lies! No War!

Ron Jacobs
They Call Me the Seeker

Farzana Versey
The Kashmir Chiaroscuro

Kim Nicolini
Angelina Jolie's Wanted: Taking the M-Fers Down with Guns and Exploding Rats

Poets' Basement
Wright, Fleming, Solomon and Birnbaum

Website of the Weekend
Parsing Jesse Ventura

July 11, 2008

Kevin Alexander Gray
Why Does Barack Obama Hate My Family?

Sasan Fayazmanesh
Historical Amnesia and the Shoot Down of Iran Air Flight 655

Peter Morici
Breaking Down the Trade Deficit

Mike Whitney
Worse Than McCain?

Manuel Garcia, Jr.
Oiling the War Machine

Robert Weissman
Crime, Punishment and ExxonMobil

Ramzy Baroud
The Not-So-Historic Barak-Talabani Handshake

Kelly Overton
If There is a Chimp Heaven

Adrian Burgos
In Praise of Jules Tygiel

Website of the Day
Wendell Berry on Mountaintop Removal

July 10, 2008

Brian McKenna
McCain's Melanoma Cover-Up

Paul Craig Roberts
Watching Greed Murder the Economy

Saul Landau
Mississippi River Blues

Ron Jacobs
Who Will Leave Iraq First?

Joshua Frank
Cutting Deals with Big Timber's Darth Vader

Peter Morici
What's Driving the Wall Street Rout

Alan Maass
Jesse Helms Finally Does the Right Thing

Robert Weissman
Humanitarian Failure at the G8

William Blum
Dr. Strangelove

Alan Farago
Coral Reef Meltdown

Website of the Day
Lieberman Must Go!

July 9, 2008

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
Are They Really Oil Wars?

Luis Rodriguez
The Deadly Fallout from Gang Injunctions

Sheldon Richman
What's Wrong with Selling Your Vote?

Fatemeh Keshavarz
Lessons from Sa'di of Shiraz on"Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

Chad Hanson
Blowing Smoke: Logging Industry Lies on Forest Fires and Climate Change

Sen. Russ Feingold
The Problems with the FISA Bill

Niranjan Ramakrishnan
Defining Deviancy Down with FISA

Dave Lindorff
Paul Krugman's Blind Spot

Stanley Heller
A Damned Good Assembly

Philip Rizk
Sick at the Gaza Crossing

Website of the Day
Mumia on Nader

July 8, 2008

Nikolas Kozloff
Riding the Colombia Gravy Train

Laura Carlsen
North America Doesn't Exist: the New Geography of Trade

Mike Whitney
Bush's Rampage in Somalia

Andy Worthington
Scandal at Diego Garcia

Patrick Irelan
The Empire Goes to the Movies

Chellis Glendinning
The Un-tied States of America

David Macaray
A Union Story

Dave Lindorff
Mumia's Long-Shot Appeal

John Chuckman
The Myths of Independence Day

Phillip Doe
FISA and the Decline of America

Website of the Day
Daniel Ellsberg on Warrantless Wiretap Bill

July 7, 2008

Patrick Bond
Can Reparations for Apartheid Profits be Won in US Courts?

Kathy Kelly
Cold Shoulders

Andy Worthington
Repatriation as Russian Roulette

Clifton Ross
A Rescue Staged for the Screen

Elizabeth Schulte
Obama's War Room

Ralph Nader
The Patriotism of Deeds

Dave Lindorff
Keeping Count

Binoy Kampmark
The World According to Jesse Helms

Stephen Fleischman
Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Change

Website of the Day
Time for a Change

July 5 / 6, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Could Anyone be"Worse" Than Bush?

Jeffrey St. Clair /
Joshua Frank
Preliminary Notes from No Man's Land

Patrick Cockburn
Blowback from a Strike on Iran

Mike Whitney
Hunkering Down in Afghanistan with Field Marshall Obama

Robert Fantina
Obama, Iraq and Change

Binoy Kampmark
The Anwar Case: Snitching and Sodomizing

Rannie Amiri
Can Nasrallah Unite Lebanon?

Eric Ruder
Hidden Casualties

Brian Cloughley
Israel Flexes Its Muscles

William Blum
Some Thoughts on Patriotism

Frank Barat
The One-Word Solution

Christopher Brauchli
Bush's Phony Pollution Accounting

David Yearsley
Rubbert Shines, as US Envoy Puts Foot in His Mouth

Ron Jacobs
U. S. Blues

Karim Makdisi
On Soccer and Politics in Lebanon

Wendy Thompson /
Chris Kutalik
What Can We Learn from the American Axle Strike?

N. D. Jayaprakash
The NPT as a Roadblock to Disarmament

Ramzy Baroud
Journalistic Imperatives

Kelly Overton
Animal Rights and Obama

Richard Neville
Bitch Fights and Tomorrow's Top Model

Poets' Basement
Anderson, Gibbons, Matson and Buknatski

Website of the Weekend
Ginsberg and Cassady on"Extremists"

July 4, 2008

Kathy Kelly
Istiklal

Dave Lindorff
My War Story

Paul Krassner
Confessions of a Barista

Jackie Corr
In the Footsteps of Evel Knievel: Obama Heads Back to Butte

Laray Polk
Military-Industrial Convergence

Dan Bacher
Dead Runs: Salmon Fishing Banned in Central Valley Rivers

Walter Brasch
The Rocket's Red Glare--May be Chinese

Charles Modiano
Hall of Fame Hypocrisy

Website of the Day
Springsteen: Independence Day

July 3, 2008

Sharon Smith
Exxon's Legal Guardians

Andy Worthington
Another Torture Victim Gets Charged

Laura Carlsen
NAFTA and the Elephant in the Room

Peter Morici
Crisis Grips the Jobs Market

Ramzi Kysia
Breaking Into a Prison

Martha Rosenberg
Mandatory School Milk and the Early Death of Football Players

Anne Landman
Who Really Benefits From Voluntary Codes of Corporate Conduct?

Dave Zirin
Grand Theft Hoops

Kristin Bricker
US Contractor Leads Torture Training in Mexico

Website of the Day
Bush Tours America to Survey Damage from His Presidency

July 2, 2008

Patrick Irelan
Holy Obama

Vijay Prashad
Lunch with Karzai

Brian Cloughley
Sense of Honor, French and US Style

Ralph Nader
Economic Domino Theory

Robert Fantina
General Stupidity: McCain, Obama and Clark

Dave Lindorff
What's So Special About Veterans?

Parvez Ahmed
Obama and Those Pesky Muslim Rumors

Robert Bryce
The Democrats and Off-Shore Drilling

Website of the Day
King Corn: Q&A

July 1, 2008

Alexander Cockburn
Two Months Later, Seymour Hersh Strains to Catch Up With CounterPunch

Mike Whitney
Getting to the Heart of America's Economic Crisis: an Interview with Michael Hudson

Douglas Macgregor
Obama's General?

Steven Higgs
Fighting the NAFTA Super-Highway

Andy Worthington
Guantánamo as Alice in Wonderland

Binoy Kampmark
The Global Seed Police

Dave Lindorff
Blood Money Democrats

Roger Burbach
Fighting Food Fascism

Richard W. Behan
The Story Behind George Bush's Lies

Gary Leupp
The McCain Edge Among Voters on Iraq

Website of the Day
Mountaintop Removal and the Fight for Coalfield Justice

Weekend Edition
July 26 / 27, 2008

Economic Aggression

Will the US Get Its Way with Iran?

By LEE SUSTAR

The U.S. is dangling carrots in front of Iran to suspend its uranium enrichment program--but only after smacking the Iranians with some increasingly big sticks in the form of sanctions.

After an inconclusive meeting over Iran's nuclear program involving high-level U.S and Iranian negotiators, the U.S. is pressing ahead with plans to squeeze Iran economically by making it increasingly difficult for Iranian banks and other companies to function in the West.

"The U.S. is fine-tuning new financial penalties against Iran that would target everything from gasoline imports to the insurance sector, and the prospect of such sanctions grew after talks over its nuclear-fuel program [July 19-20] made no progress," the Wall Street Journal reported.

"U.S. and European officials said they will intensify efforts to impose these penalties should their diplomatic drive fail to induce Iran to freeze its nuclear program. The sanctions effort could include measures to impede Iran's shipping operations in the Persian Gulf and its banking activities in Asia and the Middle East, the officials said."

Iran currently endures UN sanctions for its efforts to enrich uranium, which can be used both for nuclear power and to build nuclear weapons. While the program isn't a violation of international law, the sanctions were imposed because Iran failed to provide the necessary notifications about its program, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insists is for peaceful purposes.

After rattling sabers repeatedly--implying the possibility of military action by the U.S. or its proxy, Israel--Washington has toned down the bellicose rhetoric. But it is turning up the pressure of sanctions, and this is already having a serious impact. In late June, the European Union froze the assets of Iran's Bank Melli, added to a list of Iranian organizations with assets liable to being frozen, and barred 20 top Iranian nuclear officials from entering EU countries.

Next came the bombshell announcement by the French oil giant Total, which said it was pulling out of plans to invest in Iran's South Pars oilfield. In recent years, Total and other European companies had cashed in as U.S. sanctions on Iran sidelined their American rivals. But on July 10, Total boss Christophe De Margerie, "Today, we would be taking too much political risk to invest in Iran, because people will say, 'Total will do anything for money.'"

Sanctions could soon become tougher if Congress passes legislation that would bar from the U.S. any company that invests more than $20 million in Iran's energy industries. That would knock out many of the smaller contractors that provide crucial technology and skills to Iran's oil sector.

* * *

THE SANCTIONS come at a time of increasing economic problems in Iran. Despite record-high oil prices that have boosted economic growth, unemployment remains high. Despite government statistics showing a drop in joblessness to 9.6 percent from 11 percent a year ago, many economists estimate a real unemployment rate of about 20 percent.

Inflation is perhaps the most pressing economic issue. Government officials put the figure at 21 percent, but the actual rate may be closer to 40 percent. Even government statistics show price rises that are severe, especially in food and housing. According to the Central Bank of Iran, the annual inflation rate for food products hit 45 percent in early July. For rice, the inflation rate was 238 percent.

A state agency admits that in the southern province of Bushehr, food prices have increased between 70 percent and 100 per cent in just two months. And government inflation figures are understated, because they don't include the price of housing. In Tehran, house prices reportedly have increased up to 250 percent in recent years.

Iran's economic problems come despite the populist promises of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won election in 2005 in large part on pledges to improve the lot of Iran's poor and working class majority. But his economic policies have failed to deliver much, even as a surge of revenue from high oil prices exacerbates social inequality.

The economic problems, as well as dissatisfaction over Ahmadinejad's hard-line foreign policy, have given his domestic political rivals new room to maneuver. The new speaker of the Iranian majlis, or parliament, Ali Larijani, recently launched a major attack on Ahamdinejad for his populist policies.

"The monopolization of economic activities and opportunities by the government...will create an inflationary economy which, in my opinion, is the worst form of injustice," Larijani said in June. "Unlike those who, in the early days of the Islamic Revolution, believed that the nationalization of the economy is more Islamic, experience has proven that nationalization leads to an ailing economy and promotes injustice."

The speech seems to signal a turn back to the pro-privatization, free market-oriented policies of reformers under the former president, Ayatollah Mohammad Khatami, who aggressively, and successfully, courted foreign investment, mainly from Western Europe.

But Larijani's speech is especially noteworthy because he was Iran's top nuclear negotiator until he was ousted by Ahmadinejad for being too conciliatory towards the West. He was rescued from the political dustbin by Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who used his clout to install Larijani as speaker following parliamentary elections earlier this year.

Ironically, Khamenei had promoted Ahmadinejad during the 2005 elections in an effort to toughen up Iranian security to respond to pressure from the U.S. But in the parliamentary elections, Khamenei threw his weight behind Ahamdinejad's rivals. Now, on the nuclear issue, Khamanei has again undercut Ahmadinejad and his circle, this time by making favorable remarks about the potential for the Geneva negotiations, as has Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki.

* * *

IT WAS these splits in the Iranian ruling class that apparently pressured Ahmadinejad into sending Iran back to the nuclear negotiating table.

Like George W. Bush, Ahmadinejad is increasingly seen as a lame duck, even though he's eligible to run for reelection next year. As a result, he's forced to take a more consensus-oriented approach to foreign policy--which means that if a strong section of Iran's ruling circle want to avoid confrontation with the West, Ahmadinejad is obliged to let it play out.

There's a similar dynamic at work in Washington, where foreign policy is increasingly set by the permanent U.S. State Department bureaucracy via Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice--along with the pronouncements of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama. "The judgments I've made over the past two years matched up with the realities on the ground," Obama said of the U.S.-Iran meeting in Geneva. "That's where U.S. foreign policy has to go."

Rice's approach has converged with that of the European powers--a ratcheting down of military threats against Iran in favor of concessions that require patience to achieve results. The deal was sealed during Bush's tour of European capitals in June and allowed the U.S. to create a united front of the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council--Russia, China, Britain and France--as well as Germany, in dealing with Iran.

The decision by the Bush administration to send a high-ranking State Department official to join European negotiators in talks with Iran over its uranium enrichment program was, predictably, denounced by hawks like John Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. Until now, the U.S. had demanded that Iran renounce its nuclear program prior to any high-level talks.

The fact that the July 19-20 talks in Geneva came less than two weeks after Iran test-fired long-range missiles was particularly galling to neoconservatives. Thus, Michael Rubin of the right-wing American Enterprise wrote that "President Bush's reversal is diplomatic malpractice on a Carter-esque level that is breathing new life into a failing regime."

Certainly, the right wing is frustrated, having wagered that the occupation of Iraq would be a springboard for regime change in Iran. But while the U.S. is tied down militarily in Iraq, U.S. imperialism has many more weapons at its disposal to go after Iran--and the more patient approach is starting to get results.

Ironically, the right-wing analysis of U.S. failure is mirrored by some on the left, who have concluded that the U.S. policy toward Iran has failed completely. "The overall U.S. strategy of containing Iran has failed in principle," wrote Hannes Artens on the Foreign Policy in Focus Web site in an article headlined, "Iran Isolation Attempts Backfire." "And the attempt to impose a sanctions regime on Iran has led to an erosion of U.S. strategic influence in Asia and the Middle East."

Arten's evidence for this is the prospect of a gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan and India, which, he argues, presages a "new geo-strategic axis--Tehran-Islamabad-New Delhi-Beijing" that will "radically reshuffle the power structure in Asia and, with it, the global balance of power."

But the actual construction of a pipeline is a long way off and could be derailed by India-Pakistan tensions, political instability in Pakistan itself, the threat of more sanctions from the U.S., and much more. Certainly, Iran will pursue any strategic counterweight to the U.S. that it can, but wishes and results are two different things.

In the meantime, the U.S. will use sanctions to lay siege to the Iranian economy, hoping to trigger a power struggle that would open the way to greater intervention later. And lest anyone think that sanctions are a humane alternative to war, consider the deadly effect of the economic embargo on neighboring Iraq during the 1990s.

While the threat of a military strike on Iran by the U.S. or Israel can't be ruled out, for now, Washington appears to be content to let the damage to Iran's economy accumulate in order to get what it wants. This is imperialist aggression by other means--and it must be opposed.

Lee Sustar writes for the Socialist Worker.

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