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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 Clothes for a Hot Summer: Brand New CounterPunch T-Shirts!

Today's Stories May 29, 2007 Stephen Soldz Shrinks and the SERE Technique at Guantanamo Eliza Ernshire Refugees Forever: Inside Bedawi Camp May 28, 2007 Bill Quigley Katrina Activists: "Less Meeting, More Fighting" Col. Dan Smith The Paranoid and the Dead Cindy Sheehan Why I Am Leaving the Democratic Party Dr. Susan Block Dr. Laura's Little Monster Jeeni Criscenzo What I Learned About Being a Dickhead Douglas Valentine Memorial Day: a Poem Website of the Day Peace TV     May 26 / 27, 2007 Alexander Cockburn The Greenhousers Strike Back and Out Michael Donnelly Green Sabotage as "Terrorism" Patrick Cockburn Sadr's Dramatic Reappearance Franklin Lamb Inside Nahr el-Bared: "Another Waco in the Making" Jean Bricmont The Moral Collapse of the Moral Left Gary Leupp Cheney, Israel and Iran James Petras Imperial Rot: The Beginning of the End of the American Empire? William Peace Ashley Unlawfully Sterilized Judith and John Sharpe The Saga of Our Son, Lt. Commander John Sharpe: Under Investigation for Antiwar Sentiments Saul Landau Four Dead in Ohio: From Kent State to Tiannamen Square Paul Craig Roberts Democracy in Iraq, Tyranny at Home? Jonathan M. Feldman Congress and the Iraq War Vote Dave Lindorff Democratic Blood Money Missy Beattie Congress Plays Dead Mike Whitney Swan Song of the Democrats Badruddin Khan AIPAC Intervenes on Iran and Congress Folds, Again Ron Jacobs The Crime of Silence Zoe Blunt The Antidote to Despair Arjun Chowdhury, Mark Hoffman and Kevin Parsneau The Can-Do Troops and the New Anti-Politics Heather Gray The 1969 Riots Against the Chinese in Malaysia: a New Explanation N. D. Jayaprakash Disarmament Negotiations: A History and Prospectus Joe Allen and Paul D'Amato Cartoons with Class Poets' Basement Gowani, Ford, Anderson and Simon Website of the Weekend Addicted to War May 25, 2007 Robert Jensen What the Finkelstein Tenure Fight Tells Us About the State of Academia David Vest So You Thought They'd End the War John Stauber Democratic Spin Won't End the War in Iraq Evelyn Pringle Congress Gives War Profiteers Another $100 Billion Corporate Crime Reporter Why Corporate Social Responsibility Programs are a Fraud Susan Rosenthal, MD What's Missing from the Health Care Debate Roberto Rodriguez Us vs. Them in the Immigration Debate Steve Fournier Goodie, Goodie Goodling Patrick McElwee Venezuela and RCTV: Is Free Speech Really at Stake? Robert Weissman Resisting the Commercialization of Public Schools Website of the Day New DNC Motto: "We Suck"     May 24, 2007 Franklin Lamb Who's Behind the Fighting in North Lebanon Corporate Crime Reporter House Democrats Buckle to Big Oil: Strip Down Price Gouging Bill Robert Fantina Giuliani: Righteous, Indignant and Wrong Norman Solomon Deadly Illusions, Rest in Peace Dave Lindorff Kerrycrats All!: Now It's a Democratic War Sen. Russell Feingold We are Moving Backwards on Iraq Fred Gardner Doctor of Last Resort Mike Whitney Paulson in China Kevin Parsneau, Arjun Chowdhury and Mark Hoffman Becoming Imperialist: a Warning to Iraq War Critics Caroline Paul My Brother the "Terrorist": Animal Liberation and Prosecutorial Overkill Eva Liddell In Defense of Lying on Job Applications Website of the Day Johnny's Jumped the Shark May 23, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Opium: Iraq's Newest Export Rev. William Alberts Faith-Based Imperialism Joe DeRaymond Colombia's Civil War and the US Sudhanva Deshpande and Vijay Prashad The Political Economy of a Crisis Paul Craig Roberts Republicans in Self-Destruct Mode Glen Ford A Less "White" USA Rannie Amiri The Great Bank Heist of Tripoli China Hand China's Great Wall of Cash? Zoe Blunt Tales from the Tree Tops: Veteran Tree Sitter Tells All Nivien Saleh Who's to Blame for Iraq? Website of the Day Debating the Israel Lobby May 22, 2007 Robert Fisk A Front Row Seat for the Bloodbath in Lebanon Joshua Frank Hillary Clinton's Achilles Heel? Harvey Wasserman Drop Dead, New Yorkers: Giuliani and the Toxic Fallout from 9/11 David Mos Masumoto An Orchard Without Workers Sonja Karkar Israeli Forest Named After Australian Prime Minister Conn Hallinan The Afghan Quagmire Dave Lindorff A Widening Chasm on Impeachment Jeffrey Kolakowski Meet Us in Detroit: an Open Letter to John Konyers Evelyn Pringle A Misleading Suicide Warning Jim Baumer Politics Gary, Indiana-Style Website of the Day Should the Democrats Fear Mike Gravel? May 21, 2007 Patrick Cockburn The Secret US Plot to Kill Sadr Nicole Colson Much Ado About the Fort Dix Pizza Plot John Ross Shooting for the Top: Mexico's Drug Gangs Take Aim at Calderon Stephen Fleischman Werewolf of Washington: Wolfowitz Comes Full Circle M. Shahid Alam Chosenness and Israeli Exceptionalism Ron Jacobs Green Mountain Days: Return to Vermont Peter Rost, MD Pfizer CFO Resigns Alan Farago Can the Everglades Save Florida? Paul Buchheit The Dark Side of Democracy Promotion Website of the Day Code Monkey: Live! May 19 / 20, 2007 Andrew Cockburn Why America Lost the War in Iraq Uri Avnery The Next War Peter Gelderloos My Arrest in Spain: The Easy Road from Tourism to Terrorism Saul Landau Bush's Accomplishments Robert Fantina Iraq's History: Lessons for the Present and the Future Fred Gardner Hemp vs. Pot, a False Dichotomy Ralph Nader Timid Democrats and the Antiwar Movement Jean Daniels Waiting for Obama Reza Fiyouzat Vietnam Syndrome: Dead or Alive? Missy Beattie Ron Paul, Rudy Giuliani and Osama's Fatwah Robert Alvarez Magical Thinking About Nuclear Waste Sonja Karkar The Palestinians of Iraq Dave Lindorff Mumia Case on Hold Jeff Sher Keep Workers Healthy and Reduce Health Care Cost: Eliminate Co-Pays Julian C. Holmes Torture, Maine Style Clancy Sigal Red Mutiny: 11 Fateful Days on the Battleship Potemkin Prairie Miller The Murder of Fred Hampton James Murren The Dog Ate Karl Rove's Homework: When Turd Blossom Met the Teachers of the Year Poets' Basement Davies, Valentine and Engel Website of the Weekend Yellowstone's Shame: Harassing Newborn Bison   May 18, 2007 Adam Jones When Does Genocide Purify? Ask the Pope Sharon Smith The Death of Triangulation Politics? Christopher Brauchli Cheney's Middle East Adventure Peter Rost, MD Bribes and Spies in the Drug Industry Denise Maloney Pictou The Murder of Our Mother, Anna Mae Pictou Aquash: After 31 Years, It is Time for Justice David Swanson Of Snoops and Dupes Ali Khan The Lawyers' Mutiny in Pakistan Susan Rosenthal, M.D. Cho Seung-Hui Delivers His Message Samer Assad Israel and the Refugees: Fifty-Nine Years of Dispossession CP News Service Bidding for Extinction: Ivory Trade on eBay Threatens Survival of Elephants Website of the Day Another War Criminal Goes to Harvard   May 17, 2007 Tariq Ali The General vs. the Judge Yifat Susskind Honor Killings in the New Iraq: The Murder of Du'a Aswad Dave Zirin Being Ali or Being Owned: an Open Letter to LeBron James Brian J. Foley Hell, No, Harry Won't Go! W. John Green The Godfather of Colombia: Uribe and the Para Scandal Eric Johnson-DeBaufre Challenges for the New Sanctuary Movement Badruddin Khan Rebirthing the Neocons: Bernard Lewis' Latest Call to Arms Martha Rosenberg From Cockfighting to Foie Gras: On the Menu and on the Docket China Hand Pope Rat in Brazil: "The Amazon Tribes Longed for Christianity!" Dan Vojir Falwell's Tinky Winky Legacy: Who Will Battle the Telebubby Threat Now? Website of the Day Welcome to the Terrordome 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 Argument? 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?         Subscribe Online

May 29, 2007 Pack Up and Leave or Stay Home and Die Bush's New Middle East By MIKE WHITNEY " ... under the sky without hope the self inside me dies ... I will always be from nowhere Without a face, without a history from nowhere." "Traveler without Luggage" by Abdul-Wahab Al-Bayyati It's hard to know what Bush hopes to accomplish by backing the bloody siege of the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, but one thing is certain; things are never as they seem. In an interview on Democracy Now last week, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh stated that, Fatah al-Islam---the group of Sunni extremists inside the camp--were getting material support from the Saudis, the Bush administration and members of the Lebanese political establishment. So, the Bush administration is supporting terrorism? That's right. Sy Hersh put it like this: "The idea was to provide them (Fatah al-Islam) with some arms and some money and some basic equipment so -- these are small units, a couple hundred people. There were three or four around the country given the same help covertly, the goal being they would be potential enemies of Hezbollah in case of warfare". But if Fatah-al-Islam is an American-Saudi creation than why is the Bush administration shipping weapons to Lebanon to help kill them? Is this is another example of "blowback"---the unintended consequences of a misguided foreign policy? Yes and no. While it is true that the US uses terrorist organizations to further its policy objectives (The US supported Bin Laden in Afghanistan, the KLA in Kosovo, the Mujahedin Klaq in Iran) the situation in Lebanon is a bit more complex. Fatah al-Islam is comprised of Sunni radicals who were recruited from the other Gulf States to counterbalance Hezbollah. Now, it appears, they have outlived their usefulness and the Lebanese warlords have decided to eliminate them. According to independent journalist Franklin Lamb, who is reporting from the battered Bedawi refugee camp, the charges against the group are purely fabricated. "There was no bank robbery" and "no heads were cut off". The allegations in the western press were merely a pretext for restarting the fighting. The siege of Nahr al-Bared is probably just Phase 2 of Israel's 34 Day War--- a conflict in which "Israel's air force, armed with U.S.-manufactured and -fueled F-16s, went on a rampage with more than 14 combat missions every single hour of the war, destroying, among other things, 73 bridges, 400 miles of roads, 25 gas stations, 900 commercial structures, two hospitals, 350 schools and 15,000 Lebanese homes." (Dahr Jamail) The US-Israeli goals in Lebanon have never really changed. Israel wants a reliable client to its North and access to Lebanon's water supplies. They also want to crush their main enemy, Hezbollah, the Shiite resistance organization which has routed the IDF twice in the last 15 years. Bush, on the other hand, is trying to destabilize the entire region using the madcap neocon strategy of "creative destruction". He thinks that if he can erase the traditional borders and create a fragmented Middle East, the transnational corporations will be able to control the region's vast resources. Washington's allies in Beirut like the idea, too. Walid Jumblat, Sa'ad Hariri and Prime Minister Fuad Siniora"all believe that the outbreak of violence will only strengthen them politically. Siniora "The Lionhearted" It's interesting to watch how eager Siniora is to bomb of a defenseless refugee camp, when just months ago he was too afraid to deploy troops to the south of Lebanon to fight the invading Israeli army. Why is that? Siniora showed his true colors during the 34 Day War. At one point he was photographed sipping tea with Condi Rice while Lebanese civilians in the south were being pelted with American-made bombs dropped from American-made F-16s. The Prime Minister has proved that he is every bit as worthy of Washington's praise as Karzai in Afghanistan or Abbas in Palestine. But there's another reason for the present siege of Nahr al-Bared besides Siniora's newfound courage, that is, NATO wants to clear the area for another military airbase. According to the Lebanese newspaper Al-Diyar: "NATO has decided to join the Lebanese territories to North-African & African coast military region, to establish Military airbases". ... . "American-German-Turkish military delegation toured and surveyed Akkar region, reported to the NATO headquarter in Brussels, mentioning that the military bases will contribute to the development and the economic recovery in the region, advising the government to focus on the financial aspect and positive reflection on the population of the region, giving the bases a name "Lebanese Army and Security training centre". So, it looks like northern Lebanon has been chosen as the site for further NATO expansion in the Middle East. That means that NATO-planners must have agreed on a credible justification for evacuating the people who presently occupy the land. That's where Fatah al Islam comes in. The hobgoblin of terrorism always provides the perfect excuse for state sanctioned violence---in this case the group is being used to conceal a massive ethnic cleansing operation. Iraqi poet and blogger Layla Anwar made these comments about the situation in Iraq, but they can be easily applied to Nahr al-Bared as well. She says: "If you want to reconstruct a country, you need to eliminate its people and start anew right? Like restoring the virginity to the land so you can build better and stronger fortresses. A brand new Iraq with a brand new population. A total Babel makeover. You know, like the ones you see on these American TV reality shows. Revamped, relooked, redone...beyond recognition". (Layla Anwar, "Aliens in Babel" An Arab Woman's Blues) Anwar is right. The siege of Nahr al-Bared is an attempt "to eliminate people and start anew" by pushing 30 or 40 thousand Palestinians out of their homes and onto the streets so their foreign overlords can "build a stronger fortress". It is a tragedy and the Bush administration has only added to the crime by providing arms and equipment to the Lebanese Army. According to the U.K. Guardian: "The United States has sent planeloads of arms and ammunition for the Lebanese army, as tension grows around the besieged refugee camp in the north of the country. The weapons were welcomed by members of the Lebanese government, who said they wanted the army equipped "to the teeth" in the face of threats of renewed violence." The siege of Nahr al-Bared follows a familiar pattern that we have seen in Gaza, Falluja, Tel Afar and Samarra. The camp has been surrounded and cut off, snipers have been positioned on the rooftops, civilian areas have been shelled with impunity, and the bodies of the dead have been left to rot on the streets. Sound familiar? It should. These are the basic contours of the Bush Doctrine as it is applied to the (remaining) independent states in the Middle East. The options for the victims are always the same: One can either pack up and find shelter in another filthy refugee-hovel or stay home and die. There's no other choice. It's easy to see why the number of refugees in the region has swollen to more than 4 million people in just a few years. Most of them are the victims of US aggression in Iraq, but the trend is now spreading to Lebanon. Is this what Condi Rice meant when she announced the "birth pangs" of a "New Middle East"---a humanitarian crisis extending from the Mediterranean to the Caucuses? Many people are wondering why the United Nations has remained silent while Bush ships more weapons to the frontlines and the Lebanese Army continues to pound away at the most densely populated area in the Middle East. Is it because the UN has become a rubber stamp for US-Israeli colonial ambitions in the region? Face it; the UN's role is to feign concern for human rights while the US and its allies pursue their imperial goals. It's only gotten worse under the newly-appointed Secretary General, Ban Ki Moon. Moon has shown that he's incapable of being evenhanded and that he's little more than an American stooge. With less than a year in office, his credibility is already shot. The only bright spot in this latest American-made catastrophe is the courage demonstrated by the victims. As Franklin Lamb says in his latest article "Inside Nahr el-Bared: Another Waco in the making": "Amazing examples of humanity are happening here. There are many family connections between the two camps. Kids distribute and water bread when it arrives in cars from Beirut and elsewhere. Young girls picking up and caring for babies of people they don't know, helping old people find a place to sit and listen to them when they tell of what happened. I could be wrong but I have rarely witnessed the solidarity among people as I see here with the Palestinians. Clean, smart, patient, charming, funny, and caring toward one another-determined to return to Palestine." Even though they've lost their homes, the Palestinians have raised themselves above the squalor and cruelty of their predicament and shown selflessness and bravery. That's a powerful statement about the affects of culture and national identity. As the Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish says in his poem "Passport": "My nationality resides in the hearts of all the people, so go ahead and remove my passport!" Mike Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at: fergiewhitney@msn.com

Now Available! The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Jeffrey Goldberg, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained! Buy End Times Now! Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal Click Here to Order!   "The Case Against Israel" Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz WHAT'S INSIDE Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair       The Occupation by Patrick Cockburn Humanitarian Imperialism By Jean Bricmont     CITY BEAUTIFUL By Tennessee Reed   Bruce Springsteen On Tour By Dave Marsh   The Book on 9/11 the White House Denounced as "ABSOLUTE GARBAGE"