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Exclusive to CounterPunch Newsletter Subscribers! America's First Terror War From Pirates to Enemy Combatants: R.T. Naylor traces the birth of the American Military-Industrial Complex and illustrates the striking parallels between Thomas Jefferson's naval war on the Barbary Coast states and Bush's War on Terror. Oil Company U?: Ali Tonak takes apart the big merger between British Petroleum and Cal-Berkeley and reveals BP's plot to saturate the Third World with GM crops, all in the name of oil conservation. Get your copy today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Remember contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now Order CounterPunch By Email for Only $35 a Year and Receive a Free Copy of "Imperial Crusades: a Diary of Three Wars" by Cockburn and St. Clair Cool Digs for a Hot Summer: Brand New CounterPunch T-Shirts!

Today's Stories May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali The General vs. the Judge May 16, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Chalabi Speaks Ashley Dawson Who's Afraid of Wolfowitz? Joshua Frank Obama's Cash Flow: Maverick or Kidder? Corporate Crime Reporter Corporate Drug Pushers Ray McGovern A Four-Letter Word for Tenet Glen Ford Black Labor and the Big Mission Joe Bageant The Ghosts of Timothy Leary and Hunter S. Thompson Sonja Karkar The 59-Year Catastrophe Mickey S. Huff Preaching Hate: Farewell, Falwell John Chuckman Falwell's Lone Act of Kindness Kaz Dziamka What Ever Happened to Rogerian Arugment? Website of the Day We're All Going to Hell   May 15, 2007 Michael Neumann Two States, One State and Snake Oil Patrick Cockburn An American Nightmare Ashley Smith How the US Set Iraq on Fire Marc Gardner Parole and the Long-Distance Trucker Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington, Jr Mumia Case Reaches Its Climax Ben Terrall Benchmark as Theft: Iraq Oil Workers Strike to Stop Privatization Ron Jacobs Cheney Threatens More War Harvey Wasserman The Legacy of Seabrook Marcus Mabry Shopping During Katrina Dr. Susan Block Cheney and the DC Madam's Cookie Jar Website of the Day Save Jean Klock Park from the Mega-Developers!   May 14, 2007 Jennifer Roesch Giuliani Time: the Mussolini of Manhattan Jeffrey St. Clair Humans, CO2 and Climate Change George Bisharat For Palestinians, Memory Matters Diane Wachtell The Real Imus Lesson Ramzy Baroud From Palestine to Rotterdam Rosemary and Walter Brasch When the National Guard Goes Missing: An Ill Wind and American Policy Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed Blair's Exit Roberto Rodriguez The Elusive Bars of Justice Jonathan Culp Cutting Out Collage: Copyright and Art in Canada Website of the Day Uranium Rock May 12 / 13, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Who are the Merchants of Fear? Patrick Cockburn State of Surge Jeffrey St. Clair High Line Fever: a Trip Across the Dark Side of Montana Diane Farsetta Untold Stories from the Pat Tillman / Jessica Lynch Hearings Ralph Nader Strip Mining the Newsroom: Mr. Zell and the Tribune Company Jean Bricmont The Great Illusion: Sarkozy and the "Decline" of France Marcus Breen Cheering Sarkozy: the US Media and the Rightwing Takeover of France Joe Bageant Rising Above Politics Conn Hallinan European Missiles and the Camel's Nose Fred Gardner The Unreported I-880 Fire Juan Santos and Leslie Radford Public Terror: Escalating the War on Migrants Eve Bachrach Inside Colombia's Flower Industry Missy Comley Beattie Shame Ron Jacobs The Bitterness of Regis Debray Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Sepoy Mutiny After 150 Years Susie Day Jesus Christ Weds Pat Robertson Poets' Basement Newberry, Engel, Landau, Katz and Davies Website of the Weekend The Shipyard: Recycling as Art May 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Blair's Depature: the View from Baghdad Kathleen Christison Playing at Peace Mike Ferner Collateral Genocide John Holt Gating Montana: A Ghastly Disneyland with High Rise Outhouses Laurie Hasbrook This Minute and Then the Next: a Plea from an Antiwar Mother Christopher Brauchli The Children of Limbo: Will the Pope Finally Set Them Free? Margaret Kimberley GOP Openly Embraces Gipper Values: Racism, Violence and Control Dave Lindorff Use It or Lose It: The Democrats and the Impeachment Clause Nicole Colson Anger Erupts at Conditions in For-Profit Indiana Prison John V. Walsh Beware the Do-Gooders in Body Armor Website of the Day Take the Terrorist Quiz!   May 10, 2007 Tariq Ali Adieu, Blair, Adieu Patrick Cockburn Killing of Teachers Turns Iraqi Sunnis Against al--Qa'ida Neve Gordon and Yigal Bronner In Israel Not All Blood is the Same: The Death of Samir Dari Marjorie Cohn Fighting Terror Selectively: Washington and Posada Carriles David Rosen The New Disappeared: Sex Offenders, Civil Confinement and the Resurrection of "Evil" Alan Farago Why the Everglades Have Dried Up: Developers and the South Florida Drought John Hellman France: From Pétain to Sarkozy Kathy Rentenbach A 100 Days of Rafael Correa BANCO The Stage is Set for Sentencing Another Innocent Black Man Richard Rhames Is Paris Burning? Website of the Day Tame the Corporation May 9, 2007 Jeff Leys Iraq and Afghanistan Supplemental Spending, 2008 Patrick Cockburn An Interview with Iraq's Foreign Minister on Iran and Iraq Glen Ford No Black Plan for America's Cities Paula Rothenberg Feminism Then and Now Kathryn Weber A Conversation with Norman Finkelstein John Chuckman The Likely Historical Significance of the War in Iraq Jordan Flaherty Looking for Justice in Jena, Louisiana Dave Lindorff Pelosi's Toothless Threat to Sue Bush Stephen Lendman Criminalizing Speech: the War on Free Expression in a Post-9/11 World Website of the Day "Fifth and Market": a Short Film About the Iraq War     May 8, 2007 Dave Lindorff The Great Oil Robbery Patrick Cockburn The Horrific Stoning Death of a Yazidi Girl Sparks Waves of Revenge Killings Corporate Crime Reporter Snuff Politics: Democrats Escalate Attack on Single Payer Ralph Nader The People's Crusade of Mike Gravel Malini Johar Schueller Decoding Harlan Ullman: Shock and Awe as Sexual Fantasy Juan Santos The Hate Equation: Targeting Migrant Children in LA Dave Zirin Jason Whitlock, the Clarence Thomas of Sportswriters? Joshua Frank The Price of Fire in Latin America Evelyn Pringle Serotonin Syndrome Eamonn McCann Irish Peace Dividend for Discredited Premiers Website of the Day The Pagan Science Monitor     May 7, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Great Wall of Baghdad Rises Monica Benderman Land of Opportunity Greg Moses Hutto Prison Rebuffs UN Rapporteur Rannie Amiri The Sham at Sheikh: Iraq Regional Conference a Flop Fitrakis / Wasserman Media Silence on Kent State Revelations Fred Wilhelms Another Royalty Forfeiture From SoundExchange: And This Time It's Secret! Ramzy Baroud The Hourglass of Blood: Darfur Revisited Bruce K. Gagnon The Democrats Don't Own the Antiwar Movement T. W. Croft Home Movies from a Weekend in Paris--And Related Dreamscapes Sonja Karkar Prizes for Supporting Israel? Website of the Day Posada Carriles: the Declassified Record May 5 / 6, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Trying to Catch Up with the Voters William Blum How America Has Changed Iraq Uri Avnery Exercise in Escapism Franklin Lamb Harvard's Twisted Report on Israel's Invasion of Lebanon Fred Gardner Elective Surgeries Kill Lawrence R. Velvel The American Moral Meltdown Accelerates Missy Beattie Lying and Dying: The Moral Sensibility of Military Recruiters Robert Fantina Bush's Veto: Hypocritical Words and Actions Carla Blank American Massacres and the Media Linn Washington, Jr. The Long Ordeal of Harold Wilson Stephen F. Jackson Taking It to Drummond: Paramilitaries and Mining Companies in Colombia P. Sainath The Jailing of Indian Farmers Anthony Papa Time to End New York's War on Itself James T. Phillips Blather Cancer John Ross Last Days of the Willie Loman of the EZLN Stephen Lendman Chavez's Oil Policy Sparks Panic at Wall Street Journal Ben Terrall Iggy Pop at 60 CounterPunch Newswire Advice from a Geezer Assassin Poets' Basement Valentine, Engel and Davies Website of the Weekend Mountain Justice Summer   May 4, 2007 Patrick Cockburn How the Surge is Failing Col. Dan Smith From Watergate to Gonzogate Norman Solomon FOX on Wall Street Azmi Bishara Why is Israel After Me? Ron Jacobs Sitting in on Senator Kohl and the War Dave Lindorff Clinton and Byrd are Calling for Revocation of the Wrong AUMF Kevin Zeese The Democrats Cave to Bush Bob Fitrakis Why Four Died in Ohio: Kent State, Gov. Rhodes and the FBI Janet Kauffman "Stop the Mudness!" Bare Earth is Scorched Earth Website of the Day Let Us Gather in Missouri!   May 3, 2007 Jeff Halper The Livni-Rice Plan for the Middle East: a Just Peace or Apartheid? Christopher Brauchli Bush's Best and Brightest: From Dr. Keroack to Bernard Kerik Dave Zirin Talking Sports from Death Row: an Interview with Kevin Cooper Corporate Crime Reporter Big Pharma Gets Its Hooks into Seton Hall Law School Robert Fisk Olmert Comes Undone Mike Ferner Bush Veto, Right for the Wrong Reasons? Mike Whitney A Stock Market Post-Mortem Pham Binh The Democrats and War Funding Dave Lindorff Kucinich's Impeachment Train: Look Who Just Stepped Aboard Michael A. Johnson Tenet on 60 Minutes Website of the Day Olivia Wilde: the Interview   May 2, 2007 Saul Landau Would Jesus Wear a Rolex on His TV Show? Dr. Susan Block Hookergate II: Madame Julia's Big Black Book of Cheesy Republican Sex Acts Carla Blank Historical Amnesia: Worst U.S. Massacre? Margaret Kimberly The Candor of Mike Gravel: "These People Frighten Me" Kevin Zeese Durbin Gives Edwards More to Apologize For Carlos Villareal How "Law and Order" Covers for Bigotry in the Immigration Debate Michael Dickinson Trouble in Turkey: Criminalizing Political Art Tim Shorrock A Raw Deal Between Washington and Seoul: Corporate Interventionism as Trade Policy Alevtina Rea The Myth-Makers of Estonia William S. Lind General Incompetence: Col. Yingling and the Military Brass Website of the Day Good News: Rost's "ZubeGate Exposé Prompts Congressional Inquiry May 1, 2007 Andrew Cockburn How Rumsfeld Micromanaged Torture Fred Gardner Affirmative Abstinence: Adios, Randall Tobias, the Man Who Turned His Wife's Suicide into a Sales Pitch for Prozac Chase Madar Are Working Class Jobs Bad for Your Health? Ralph Nader Cheney and the BYU 25: Faith, Accountability and Protest in Utah John V. Walsh Edgy Dems Snarl at Their Antiwar Base Joshua Frank Obama, Incorporated Leslie Radford The Migrant Trap and the Migrant's Way Out Shaun Harkin An Interview with Nativo López on Immigration Bills and Protests Dave Lindorff Murtha Talks Impeachment Peter Rost, MD Inspector General Requests Meeting with Pfizer Whistleblower Peter Linebaugh May Day and Magna Carta Website of the Day Impeachment? Why Bother?   April 30, 2007 Frank Menetrez Dershowitz v. Finkelstein: Who's Right and Who's Wrong? Paul Craig Roberts Incompetence at the Top: Tenet and His Masters Ray McGovern Tenet's Self-Serving Apologia Manuel Garcia, Jr. Fire Collapses Oakland Freeway as Steel Supports Fail Diana Johnstone The Three Rs of "Sarko the American" Sherwood Ross A So-Called "Liberal" Answers His Death Threats Peter Rost, MD Did Pfizer Illegally Market Its New HIV/AIDS Drug? Robert Jensen Anti-Capitalism in Five Minutes Kevin Zeese While Congress Voted for War, the Peace Movement Protested Inside the Senate Jane Stillwater Dalai Lama and Costco Website of the Day Francis Boyle: Impeaching Bush   April 28 / 29, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Is Global Warming a Sin? Jeffrey St. Clair Versailles on the Potomac Fred Gardner Fuel for a Killer: What Drugs Had Cho Taken? David Orchard and Michael Mandel Afghanistan and Iraq are the Same War Alan Maass The War on Hip Hop: an Interview with Dave Marsh Joe Bageant Why Are Leftists So Damn Afraid of God? Robert Fantina The Rhetoric of Dick Cheney: Lying as Art Form Hanan Ashrawi Palestine and Peace: the Looming Challenges Ron Jacobs Return of the Guitar Army Nicole Colson The Surpeme Court Targets Abortion Rights Ben Terrall Tracking Torture Missy Beattie Quit Your Day Job, George Harvey Wasserman The Lesson of Chernobyl Cindy Beringer The Horrors of Hutto: Inside Texas' For-Profit Immigrant Prison Mike Roselle The Dog Philosophy: What Kant Can't Tell Us About Why We Love Wilderness RAWA Freeing Afghanistan James McEnteer Where the Movie Villains are American: Screening Films in Bolivia Poets' Basement For Stew Albert Website of the Weekend Rudy and Donald: the Drag Smooch April 27, 2007 Eva Liddell How Can Women Defend Themselves Against Stalkers? Phyllis Bennis and Robert Jensen Moving Beyond Anti-War Politics Mike Whitney Where's the Beef?: Padilla and the Zucchini Prosecution Michael F. Brown Biden and Pelosi: Failing to Hold Israel Accountable for War Crimes in Lebanon Jordan Flaherty Forgotten Mississippi Margaret Kimberly John McCain, Cold-Blooded Senator Christopher Brauchli The Dangers of Unstable People Jacob Mundy Stalemate in the Western Sahara? Website of the Day Yee Speaks April 26, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Wolfowitz's War Franklin Lamb Giuliani Plays the Islamic Terror Card Patrick Cockburn Al-Qa'ida Group Behind US Deaths in Iraq Roger Morris Dispatches From the Front Henry Siegman The Three Nos of Jerusalem Alevtina Rea A Sister City Debate in Rachel Corrie's Hometown Paris Are You a Hip Hop Apologist? Nikolas Kozloff White Racism and the Aymara in Bolivia Alan Farago Dow 13,000 Disconnect Matthew S. Miller The Limits to Lakoff Website of the Day PBS: Blaming Blacks Again April 25, 2007 Sharon Smith The Rights of Children in America David Price The Long Lost War Diana Johnstone Who Wants Sarko? New or Old France? Brendan Cooney Cho and Cheney: Killer Looks Sonja Karkar Israeli Democracy, For Jews Only? Brian Concannon Wolfowitz and Haiti Lee Gaillard Baptism Under Fire: Can the Osprey Fly? Leah Fishbein Women Under Siege Dave Lindorff The First Shoe Drops Neal Galloway US Agricultural Policy is Destructive at Home and Abroad Website of the Day Anti-War Student Movements: a Short History   April 24, 2007 Ishmael Reed How Imus' Media Collaborators Almost Rescued Their Chief Lila Rajiva Tragedy and Irony After Virginia Tech Paul Craig Roberts The War Goes Ever On Patrick Cockburn Sunnis Protest Baghdad's "Prison Wall" Ralph Nader The Corporate Debasement of Earth Day Mike Whitney Housing Bubble Boondoggle Website of the Day "Refugees"   April 23, 2007 Saul Landau The Courage to Withdraw Patrick Cockburn Time of the Death Squads: Iraq as Revenge Tragedy Robert Fantina Changing Sentiments Sam Husseini The Gonzales Distraction Corporate Crime Reporter Bought-and-Paid-For Journalism at the Philly Inquirer Elizabeth Lalasz Sick and Getting Sicker Harvey Wasserman Earth Day, Incorporated Dave Lindorff Huge Win for Impeachment in Vermont: Are You Listening Sen. Leahy? Gary Leupp Maoist Homophobia in Nepal? Stephen Lendman A Short History of the Christian Right Website of the Day No to OLF April 21 / 22, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Bring Back the Posse Fred Gardner Prozac Madness Kristoffer Larsson The Islamic Threat to Europe: By the Numbers Barbara Rose Johnston Nuclear War and Its Consequences Manuel Garcia, Jr. The Heart of Whiteness: Racism, Wealth and IQ John Scagliotti Unlocking Closets, Locking Free Speech Marjorie Cohn Gonzo Justice: Counting on Alberto Patrick Cockburn Sadr Raises the Stakes Diana Johnstone The Absent Middle East Ron Jacobs Explaining the Spectre Evelyn Pringle How Iraq Was Looted BANCO Travesties of Justice in a Black City in Michigan: the Persecution of Rev. Pinkney Paul Richards Thinking Big in the Northern Rockies Dan Bacher Zapatistas in the Colorado River Delta Ben Terrall Showdown at Chevron: SF Protest Against New Iraq Oil Law Sherwood Ross How the Taliban Defeated the Pakistani Army in Waziristan Remi Kanazi Bill Maher's "Towel-Headed Hos" Aseem Shrivastava Behind the Curtain of SEZs Poets' Basement Valentine, Reed, Harley and Engel Website of the Day Reading Sappho in New Orleans   April 20, 2007 Doug Peacock Beginning of the End for the Yellowstone Grizzly? Diane Farsetta Onward, Free Market Soldiers!: Privatizing Public Diplomacy Tom Clifford The Surge in Iraqi Civilian Deaths: the Bloodiest 12 Months of the War Amira Hass The Holocaust as Political Asset Nicole Colson Desperation in Gitmo's Camp 6 Sonja Karkar Double Jeopardy Entraps Palestinians Heather Gray The Supreme Court Looks a Lot Like the Taliban Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban Syrian Expeditions Agustin Velloso Spain and Iraq, Four Years On Matthew Koehler Distorting the News in a Timber Company Town Website of the Day Gonzo's Monica   April 19, 2007 Emad Mekay / Jim Lobe Scoring at the World Bank: Wolfowitz's Quid Pro Quo Patrick Cockburn A Day of Bombs and Blood in Baghdad Larry C. Johnson The Hobbesian Hell of Iraq: How Many Dead Equal a Failed Government? Norman Solomon Bowing Down to Our Own Violence Saul Williams Notes from a Hip Hop Head: an Open Letter to Oprah Winfrey Sunsara Taylor From Iraq to the Supreme Court: a New Dark Ages for Women Harvey Wasserman How Green is Tom Friedman? Christopher Brauchli Apologies, Incorporated Anthony Papa Nightmare Behind Bars: John Valverde's Fight for Freedom Dave Lindorff Betraying Thomas Jefferson Website of the Day The Best Antiwar Song of the Iraq War? April 18, 2007 Lila Rajiva More Gun Laws or Fewer Idiots? How the Va Tech Administration Failed Its Campus Landau / Hassen Tancredo as 17th Century Indian Chief? Charles Fisher / Randy Fisher Don Imus's Firing and the Hip-Hop Culture Diane Christian Facing Death Politically Kevin Prosen Meeting the Resistance in Iraq China Hand Gold Digging: The U.S. Treasury Department's Economic Campaign Against North Korea Peter Rost, MD The Strange Profits from a Re-Branded Cancer Drug Justin Akers Chacón What's Inside the STRIVE Bill Jerry Kroth Virginia Tech and Cho Seung Hui: Love and Unhappiness in an Alien Culture Sherwood Ross Massacre at Va Tech: a Brief Glimpse into Daily Life in Iraq Niranjan Ramakrishnan The Bonfire of the Hannities Alice Cherbonnier Why South Dakota's "Informed Consent" Law Doesn't Go Far Enough Website of the Year? "I Hope I Die Before I Get Old"   April 17, 2007 Jean Bricmont / Diana Johnstone The Elections in France: a Coming Political Tsunami Paul Craig Roberts Bloodbath in Blacksburg Frida Berrigan Militarizing the Border Alison Weir The Message of PBS's "Crossroads" Series: Some Muslims Aren't Bad John Walsh Why is the Peace Movement Silent About AIPAC? Jason Hribal Resistance is Futile: Emily the Cow and Tyke the Elephant Evelyn Pringle The Iraq Money Trail Ben Terrall Cuban Exiles Get Hero's Welcome; Haitian Refugees Get Shafted Stan Cox 1040s and Death Certificates Soren Ambrose Confidence Crisis at the IMF Website of the Day Go Ahead and Yell: "FIRE!"   April 16, 2007 John F. Sugg Hate and Hypocrisy in the Cox Empire Ismael Hossein-Zadeh Escalating Military Spending: Income Redistribution in Disguise Carl G. Estabrook The Politics of the Useful Threat: It Didn't Start with the Neo-Cons Paul Craig Roberts The Party of Brownshirts Uri Avnery Blood on Our Hands Ralph Nader Where Are the Cries of Outrage Over Military Rapes? Eamon McCann Shame of the Empire: Simon, Sir Bono and Tinkerbelle Lee Sustar Decoding the Democrats Mike Whitney Trouble in Squanderville: Bubble People and the Faith-Based Market Don Fitz Solar Capitalism? Stephen Lendman Ecuador Votes for Revolutionary Change Website of the Day Black Mesa Water Coalition   April 14 / 15, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Ho Industry Whores Jorge Mariscal Gen. Petraeus's Field Manual: a Traveler's Guide to Big Muddy Jeffrey St. Clair The Beautiful and the Dammed: How the West Got Flooded Dave Marsh The Imus Affair, Hip Hop and Politics Dr. Trudy Bond Shrinks, Lies and Torture: How Psychologists Became the Pentagon's Bitches Joe Bageant A Feral Dog Howls in Harvard Yard Fidel Castro The Terrorist Walks Alfredo Molano "More Than Complicated" Alan Farago When Miami Crashes Michael Neumann Anglophone Fantasies and French Realities Fred Gardner Barbara McNair's Unsung Heroism: Bringing Down the Owner of EST Ron Jacobs A Conversation with Three Iraq Veterans Against the War Gail Dines Racy Sex, Sexy Racism Linda Ford Imus and Lady Hoopsters: a Long History of Bias Against Women Athletes Missy Beattie What Would Imus Do?: Iraq, Ho, Ho, Ho Dan La Botz Farm Labor Organizer Murdered in Mexico Giuliana Sgrena The Lies of Mario Lozano Laura Carlsen A Moratorium on Free Trade Agreements Abu Spinoza Wolfowitz's Real Crimes Elizabeth Schulte Grinding It Out with Quentin Tarantino Poets' Basement Davies, Harley, Engel and Landau Website of the Weekend Vonnegut's Final Interview   April 13, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Shattering of Mosul Stephen Soldz Aid and Comfort for Torturers: Psychology and Coercive Interrogations in Historical Perspective George Ciccarriello-Maher The Failed Chávez Coup: Five Years On Laith al-Saud Kirkuk, Oil and the Kurds Dave Zirin Memo to Imus John Ross Drawing a Line in the Heartland Ramzy Baroud America as Proxy Harvey Wasserman The Novelist Who Hated War: Peace Be With You, Mr. Vonnegut Lopez, Olivo and Garcia Columbia University's Two-Tiered Punishments Dols, Fukumori, Judd and Tillett-Saks Columbia: On the Wrong Side of Justice Website of the Day Democrats: an Iraq Scorecard   April 12, 2007 JoAnn Wypijewski We May be Rid of Imus, But We're Still Stuck with the Culture Paul Craig Roberts Big Profits from Big Brother Marjorie Cohn U.S. Attorneys and Voting Rights Evelyn Pringle Bush Family War Profiteering: Will Congress Finally Cut Them Off? Ron Jacobs God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut Norman Solomon The Awful Truth About Hillary, Barack and John Joe DeRaymond The Release of Dennis Counterman: The Justice Game, the Alford Plea and Death Row Nicola Nasser Squeezing Palestinians into an Impossible Mission Nikolas Kozloff Chile, a Country Geographically Located in South America "By Accident" William S. Lind Horatio Hornblower's Worst Nightmare Siegfried L. Sassoon A Statement Against the Continuation of the War Website of the Day Where You Want This Killin' Done?   April 11, 2007 R. T. Naylor Quebec's Lessons for the US: How "Wars on Terror" Should be Fought Vijay Prashad The Generation of IEDs and iPods Patrick Cockburn The Myth of Tal Afar Winslow T. Wheeler When Will the War Money Really Run Out? Jack Balkwill Prison for a Peacemaker: A Vietnam Vet Interviews Kathy Kelly Alan Farago Florida's Fundamentally Weak Environmental Movement Russell D. Hoffman The Carbon Offset Tax is Just Another Nuke Bailout Peter Rost, MD The Fine Print on Drug Industry Kickbacks Mike Whitney Doomsday for the Greenback? Dave Lindorff Torture and Selective Outrage Susie Day Peter Pace Porks a Peck of Pinko Perverts Website of the Day Save the Internet!     Subscribe Online

May 17, 2007 General Strike Paralyzes Pakistan The General vs. the Judge By TARIQ ALI Sixty years old this August, Pakistan has been under de facto military rule for exactly half of its life. Military leaders have usually been limited to a ten-year cycle: Ayub Khan (1958-69), Zia-ul-Haq (1977-89). The first was removed by a nation-wide insurrection lasting three months. The second was assassinated. According to this political calendar, Pervaiz Musharraf still has another year and a half to go, but events happen. On 9 March this year the President suspended the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. Unlike some of his colleagues, the Judge in question, Iftikhar Chowdhry, had not resigned at the time of the coup, but like previous Supreme Courts, had acquiesced to the bogus 'doctrine of necessity' that is always used to judicially justify a military take-over. He was not known for judicial activism and the charges against him are related to a ' corrupt misuse of his office', but its hardly a secret that Chowdhry's recent judgements against the Government on a number of key issues, including the rushed privatisation of the Karachi Steel Mills in Karachi, the demand that 'disappeared' political activists be produced in court and taking rape victims seriously, panicked Islamabad. Might this turbulent judge go so far and declare the military presidency unconstitutional? Paranoia set in. TV stations engaged in objective reporting were raided by the police, thus destroying the regime's proud boast (hitherto largely true) that it interfered less with the media than all its predecessors. The decision triggered off a remarkable social movement. Initially confined to the country's 80,000 lawyers and several dozen judges, it soon began to spread.This in itself came as a surprise to a country whose people have become increasingly alienated from elite rule whose roots are rotten. Also worth noting is that this civil society opposition to a crude decision had nothing to do with religion. It was a defence of judicial independence (however nominal) against the executive. The lawyers who marched on the streets did so to insist on a separation of constitutional powers. There is something delightfully outmoded and old-fashioned about this struggle. It involved neither money nor religion, but principle. As respect for the movement grew, bandwagon careerists from the Opposition (some of whom had organised their own thuggish assaults on the Supreme Court when in power) made the cause their own. As often happens in a crisis, Musharraf and his advisers, instead of acknowledging that a mistake had been made and moving rapidly to correct it, decided on a test of strength. As Iftikhar Choudhry's cavalcades through various became more and more popular, Islamabad plotted its counter-strike. The Judge was due to visit the country's largest city, Karachi. Political power here rests in the hands of the MQM, an unsavoury outfit created during a previous dictatorship, addicted to violence and protection rackets and insensitive to moral and human realities. It consisted largely of poor muhajir families (Muslim refugees who fled to Pakistan at the time of Partition in 1947), who felt abandoned by the State. Musharraf too, hails from a middle-class refugee background. For this reason the MQM adopted him as one of their own (even though Musharraf's mother was a Communist sympathiser and the family as whole was progressive). On Islamabad's instructions, the MQM leaders now decided to prevent the Judge from addressing any meeting in Karachi. That is what led to armed clashes and nearly fifty deaths in the city a few days ago. Footage of the killings, screened on Aaj (Today) TV led to the station being assaulted by armed MQM volunteers. All this provoked a successful general strike, isolating the regime. Were a Presidential election to be held today there is little doubt that the Judge would defeat the General. Justice Choudhry's popularity can only be understood in a context where traditional politicians had become thoroughly discredited. First Benazir Bhutto (Pakistan People's Party appointed her husband Asif Zardari as the 'Minister for Investment' and the couple, together with their cronies, began to milk the country dry. The Bhutto/Zardari accounts in safe havens abroad are reputed to be in the region of a billion dollars. Bhutto's failure to do anything substantial for the poor who had voted her into office resulted in mass disillusion. She was removed from office for corruption and in the subsequent elections her old rival Sharif (Pakistan Muslim League) won a large majority on the basis of a very low turn-out (under 30 percent). Bhutto's disgusted supporters stayed at home. Nawaz Sharif made his brother Shahbaz the Chief Minister of the Punjab. His late father became the unofficial President of Pakistan and was involved in negotiations with a disaffected Army. It was old man Sharif who advised his sons that Generals, not being angels from heaven, could also be bought and sold in the market-place. But not all of them. And not Musharraf. Nawaz Sharif's comic-opera attempt to retire Musharraf backfired disastrously. 9/11 made the Pakistan President a key player in the region. For the native elite this was a godsend. Money began to pour in, nuclear-related sanctions were lifted, and the EU granted trade concessions worth over a billion Euros and simultaneously relaxed tariffs on Pakistani textile exports. As the US became more closely involved the Pakistani military and political elite fell into line. Everyone----venal politicians, grovelling high officials, and harebrained society hostesses---- applauded Pakistan's return to its old status as a frontline state. Not the Islamists, of course, since the new war was against them and their friends in Afghanistan. For a while the only opposition to the regime came from the Islamists, moderates and extremists alike, though the methods were different in each case. The attempt to browbeat a Judge has released a new fissure in Pakistani society. The violence in Karachi makes compromise difficult for both sides. There is an easy solution. The General should discard his uniform, the Judge should forego his wig and the two men should battle it out on the electoral terrain without hindrance from the MQM or the numerous apparatuses of the State. It may seem like attempting to square a circle, but there are imminent dangers unless the Generals agree to compromise. Tariq Ali's new book, Pirates of the Caribbean: Axis of Hope, is published by Verso. He can be reached at: tariq.ali3@btinternet.com

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