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PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS ON HOW THE 'FREE TRADE' CASE FOR OFFSHORING AMERICA'S JOBS HAS COME UNGLUED Roberts on the sensational exposure of the faked "gains" and phantom stats of the free traders. Who was America's most anti-imperialist president? Try Grover Cleveland! JoAnn Wypijewski on the unlikely hero of Hawai'i's restoration movement. Alexander Cockburn reports on evangelical Christians in crisis amid fresh onslaughts by forces of darkness. The Warbler's Parable: Rosa Miriam Elizalde on the black-masked visitors to Cuba defying the US economic blockade.
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Today's Stories June 30 / July 1, 2007 John
Ross Alan
Farago Peter
Quinn Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Judith
Siers-Poisson Saul
Landau Ralph
Nader Mike
Whitney Jacob
Hill Kenneth
Couesbouc Missy
Beattie Ramzy
Baroud Leonard
Peltier
June 29, 2007 St.
Clair / Frank Brian
Cloughley Patrick
Cockburn Gilad
Atzmon Dave
Lindorff Jennifer
Matsui / Kevin
Zeese Daniel
Klimek David
Michael Green John
Chuckman Website
of the Day
June 28, 2007 Bill
Quigley Vijay
Prashad Margaret
Kimberley Winslow
T. Wheeler Philip
Rizk D.
K. Wilson Bill
Williams Mahmoud
El-Yousseph Richard
Rhames Paul
Krassner Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD Alan
Farago Carla
Blank Matthew
Abraham Sunsara
Taylor Russell
D. Hoffman Robert
Weissman Sen.
Russ Feingold Paul
Buchheit Website
of the Day
June 26, 2007 Jonathan
Cook Ralph
Nader Corporate
Crime Reporter Ron
Jacobs Martha
Rosenberg John
Chuckman Denny
Haldeman Anthony
DiMaggio Stephen
Fleischman William
S. Lind Website
of the Day
Paul
Craig Roberts Jennifer
Loewenstein Bob
Anderson Robert
Pollin Patrick
Cockburn Eva
Liddell Dan
Bacher Larry
Atkins Mark
Brenner James
Rothenberg Website
of the Day June 23 / 24, 2007 Alexander
Cockburn Jeff
Taylor Oren
Ben-Dor Gary
Leupp Robert
Fisk David
Rosen Russell
Mokhiber Alison
Weir Robert
Fantina D.
K. Wilson Nicole
Colson Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson Dave
Lindorff Benjamin
Dangl Michael
Dickinson Poets'
Basement Website
of the Weekend
June 22, 2007 Andy
Worthington Sherwood
Ross Eliana
Monteforte Robert
Weissman Richard
Rhames Christopher
Brauchli Ramzy
Baroud Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon David
Michael Green Kathryn
Webber Website
of the Day
June 21, 2007 Peter
Linebaugh Natsu
Saito Ron
Jacobs Saree
Makdisi John
Stauber Scott
Liebertz Tom
Clifford Robert
Jensen Michael
J. Smith Jeb
Sprague Website
of the Day
Omar
Barghouti Andy
Worthington Margaret
Kimberley Robert
Weissman Russell
D. Hoffman Rannie
Amiri Stephen
Lendman Dave
Lindorff David
Swanson Anne
Dachel Website
of the Day
June 19, 2007 Ralph
Nader Dr.
Shepherd Bliss Bill
and Kathleen Christison Jeff
Leys Dave
Zirin Chris
Floyd Ben
Terrall Anthony
Papa VIPS Linda Flores Website
of the Day
John
Ross Paul
Craig Roberts Martha
Rosenberg Norman
Solomon Don
Santina Isabella
Kenfield James
Brooks Eva
Liddell Sam
Husseini Akiva
Eldar Website
of the Day
Alexander
Cockburn John
Halle Robert
Fisk Andy
Worthington Uri
Avnery Fred
Gardner Saul
Landau P.
Sainath Missy
Comley Beattie Alan
Gregory Walter
Brasch Website
of the Weekend
June 15, 2007 Alan
Farago Andy
Worthington Michael
Simmons Franklin
Lamb Gary
Leupp John
Ross Website
of the Day
June 14, 2007 Michael
Donnelly
Faisal
Kutty Harry
Browne Charles
Jonkel Steven
Higgs Bruce
Dixon Bruce
K. Gagnon
Website
of the Day June 13, 2007 Glen Ford Marjorie Cohn Bill Christison Charles Jonkel Silvia Cattori Richard Gott Firmin DeBrabander William S. Lind Keith Rosenthal Website of the Day June 12, 2007 Jeffrey St.
Clair Paul Craig
Roberts P. Sainath Ralph Nader Omar Waraich Dave Lindorff Harvey Wasserman Malini Johar
Schueller Ramzy Baroud Website of
the Day
June 11, 2007 Patrick Cockburn Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Norman Solomon Eva Liddell Rannie Amiri Rachel Voss Christopher
Brauchli D. K. Wilson Website of
the Day
Alexander Cockburn George Ciccariello-Maher Saul Landau Robert Fisk Brian Cloughley Ron Jacobs Ward Boston Conn Hallinan Leonard Peltier Lawrence Davidson John Ross Kate Allan Fred Gardner Stephen Fleischman Monica Benderman Geoff Bailey Missy Beattie Patrick Dyer Tim Lengerich James Irani
Gary Leupp Michael Tillery Michael Simmons Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
June 8, 2007 Serge Halimi Patrick Cockburn Jeffrey St. Clair
Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Joshua Frank Lance Selfa Dave Lindorff Lawrence Ferlinghetti Website of the Day
Marjorie Cohn Soldz, Reisner
and Olson: Soldz, Reisner
Paul Craig Roberts Bill Quigley Silvia Cattori Carl G. Estabrook Ellen Taylor Corporate Crime
Reporter Brenda Norrell D. K. Wilson Kevin Zeese Website of
the Day
Alain Gresh Gary Leupp Steven Sherman Bruce Dixon Corporate Crime Reporter Brian M. Downing Ron Jacobs George Bisharat Nicole Colson Bruce K. Gagnon Website of the Day
June 5, 2007 Michael Neumann Jonathan Cook David Vest Robert Fantina Hoffman, Parsneau and Chowdhury John V. Walsh Richard Cretan Adam Engel William S. Lind Myles Hoenig Jim Minick Website of
the Day
Nizar Latif Diana Johnstone Gregory Wilpert Paul Watson Susan Rosenthal,
MD Richard Ward Eva Liddell Zahi Khouri Evelyn Pringle China Hand Karyn Strickler Website of the Day
June 2 / 3, 2007 Alexander Cockburn Marc Levy Martin Smith Diana Johnstone John Ross Uri Avnery Sunsara Taylor Richard Neville P. Sainath Missy Comley
Beattie Nisrine Abiad Rannie Amiri Margot Pepper Eric Stewart Ralph Nader Dan Bacher Shaun Harkin Richard Rhames Frederick Hudson Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
Dave Marsh Saul Landau David Phinney Robert Jensen Stanley Heller Yifat Susskind Robert Weissman Paul Buchheit William S.
Lind Sherwood Ross Stephen Lendman Website of the Day
Robert Bryce Patrick Cockburn Gary Leupp Kathy Kelly Marjorie Cohn Chris Kutalik
Corporate Crime Reporter Dave Lindorff Website of the Day
May 30, 2007 James Ridgeway Franklin Lamb Terrence E. Paupp Uri Avnery Alan Maass Rock and Rap
Confidential Ralph Nader Nirmal Ghosh Jean Daniels Tom Barry Website of the Day
Stephen Soldz Eliza Ernshire Ron Jacobs Dave Lindorff Evelyn Pringle Mike Whitney David Swanson John Holt Cynthia McKinney Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day
Bill Quigley Col. Dan Smith Cindy Sheehan Dr. Susan Block Jeeni Criscenzo Douglas Valentine Website of the Day 
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Weekend
Edition The Ad Hominem World of Pakistan PoliticsDarkness VisibleBy ABBAS ZAIDI
In Pakistan's history 22 June 2007 will
be remembered for its post-meridian darkness. Not the natural
darkness that comes after sundown, nor the man-made one that
results from the never-ending outages of electricity that have
plagued the masses of Pakistan for months on. It was the darkness
of moral bankruptcy that culminated in one man's inhumanity to
another man. It took place on a talk show aired by the pro-government
GEO channel in which Imran Khan, Pakistan's cricket legend and
a member of Parliament, was made to sit between Ijaz ul Haq and
Babar Ghauri, and become a victim of unprecedented verbal assault.
Ijaz ul Haq, who heads Pakistan's Orwellian Ministry of Religious
Affairs, is a son of General Zia's ul Haq who during his 11 years
(1977-1988) of martial law turned Pakistan into the heart of
sectarian, linguistic, and ethnic darkness. Babar Ghauri, Pakistan's
Minister for Ports and Shipping, is a senior member of MQM (United
National Movement). The MQM is a General Zia creation which has
since its creation imposed a reign terror in Karachi (see below),
one of world's largest cities. On 9 March 2007 General Musharraf suspended Chaudhry Iftikhar, Chief Justice of Pakistan's Supreme Court. The reaction to the suspension of Justice Iftikhar stunned the people of Pakistan: for the first time since General Musharraf grabbed power by arresting Pakistan's elected prime minister in October 1999, the masses rose against him led by the lawyers. Within days they were joined by the opposition parties of the country. Justice Iftikhar was invited by the bar councils of different cities where he was given unprecedented welcome. On 12 May Justice Iftikhar arrived in Karachi to address the Karachi chapter of the Supreme Court Bar Council. Hundreds of thousands of lawyers, political workers, and people in general came out to welcome him. To counter them, the MQM took out a rally in support of General Musharraf. Soon the pro-Justice Iftikhar rallies were attacked with automatic weapons. Karachi became a battlefield for hours. The Aaj TV channel, a private channel that the Musharraf government has taken off the air repeatedly, came under a hailstorm of bullets for 7 hours nonstop. Justice Iftikhar had to return to Islamabad. By evening, 34 people had been killed, four of them MQM supporters, the rest from the anti-Musharraf opposition. Although the Aaj channel showed the faces of young men firing from klashnikovs at people, the government took no action. According to Imran Khan and Pakistan's entire political opposition, it is Altaf Hussain, the Chairman of the MQM, who ordered his minions to carry out the killings. Altaf Hussain is an absconder with 40 cases of murder filed against him. He has been living in London since 1992. Worse, he was given a British passport soon after escaping to London, which has angered Pakistanis who think that he is being protected by the British Government. It is from London that he directs the MQM. He regularly speaks to congregations of his party members via phone connected to amplifiers. Commenting on the MQM's unenviable role in the notorious killings on 12 May, The Economist called it not a political party, but, to quote the exact word, a "mafia". The National Memorial Institute for Preventing Terrorism (MIPT), an American terrorism-specific research institute funded by the US Homeland Security Department, has put the MQM on its list of Pakistan-based terrorist organizations. After the Karachi carnage (in winch members of Imran Khan's Justice Party were killed too), Imran Khan went to London with what he called evidence against Altaf Hussain's terrorism, and registered a case with Scotland Yard. In London he was publicly backed by Pakistan's former prime minister Nawaz Sharif (sacked through coup d'état and then exiled for ten years by General Musharraf). Nawaz Sharif claimed MQM's involvement in high-profile murders during his prime ministership, and provided Khan with relevant information to strengthen his case against Altaf Hussain. MQM's counter attack on Khan The MQM immediately fired back. Protest processions against Imran Khan were taken out in Karachi (the MQM stronghold) chanting Imran-is-a-roué slogans and burning his effigies. Throughout Karachi, "wall-chalking" was done in which extremely vulgar language was used against Khan. The campaign against Khan culminated on 12 June when the MQM filed a reference against him invoking articles 62 and 63 of Pakistan's Constitution and the Public Representation Act. According to these articles (that the pigs in Animal Farm must have forgotten to advertise on their announcement wall), anyone who has ever drunk wine, or been involved in extra-marital affair (however far in the past!) can neither "contest elections", nor "continue as a member of parliament". The Speaker of Parliament immediately sent the reference to the Election Commission for further action, i.e., Khan's disqualification. Darkness visible: the talk show The talk show began on Salman Rushdie's knighthood and the comment made by the Speaker of the Punjab Assembly ("I will kill Salman Rushdie or any other blasphemer with my own hands!"). Ghauri and Haq clearly supported the Speaker ("Today every Pakistani has a bleeding heart!" Haq said.). The talk show host claimed, "The people behind the Rushdie knighthood are Jews." But despite the host's prodding Khan refused to support the Speaker, and instead tried to focus on the incompetence of Muslim leaders everywhere and the fact that they do not represent the masses. Suddenly the host veered to the above-mentioned reference against Khan. Khan mentioned 234 criminal cases against Altaf Hussain that include 40 murder and 18 torture cases. He called the MQM Chairman an absconder who had not come to Pakistan to face the cases. At that Ghauri responded to Khan not by protesting his leader's innocence but by attacking Khan the person: "There is no comparison between you and Altaf Hussain. A governor, dozens of ministers, hundreds of MPs, and thousands of councilors belong to Altaf's party. Altaf Hussain has millions of loyal supporters in every part of the world." After that Ghauri accused Khan of having lived in sexual relationship with Sita White without marrying her. He referred to a 30 July 1997 Los Angeles case in which the Superior Court declared that Khan was the father of Tyrian, an out-of-wedlock daughter of Khan and White. After that Ghauri showed photos from a magazine in which Khan was sitting with Tyrian ("the girl" in his word); he also showed Sita White's photos. Here are some of the gems that Ghauri sprinkled: "Is it [unmarried sex] legitimate in Islam?" "Isn't Tyrian your and Sita White's daughter?" "Accept her as your daughter!" "Imran Khan has not done justice to his own daughter!" "You tell people now that you are the father of the girl, or we will have you undergo a paternity DNA test!" Imran, vexed but controlled, blamed him for resorting to "cheap and vulgar tactics in order to defend you leader who is a murderer". Ghauri, as if speaking from script, continued semi-shouting: "His anger proves that the girl is his daughter!" and "You have not answered my question about the girl!" As he spoke, Ghauri held the magazine up in front of the camera. And then, "You have done injustice to cricket in the past!" Pakistan: "the greatest blunder in the history of mankind" To Khan's credit, he did not lose patience; a lesser man would have. He responded: "MQM is raising filth both in the assembly and on television channels. Its chief is a terrorist and an absconder and responsible for all the killings in Karachi on May 12. MQM should be ashamed of what it has been doing". After that he insisted to the host that a portion of Altaf Hussain's speech (that he delivered in Delhi to an Indian audience) be shown. The portion was played in which the MQM chief said: "The division of the subcontinent was the greatest blunder in the history of mankind. It was not the division of land, but the division of blood. I request the Indian government to pardon those who migrated from India in 1947 and given them asylum back in India." After the clip had been shown, Ghauri said that Khan had not answered his question about the paternal identity of "the girl". At this time Ijaz ul Haq stepped in to buck up Ghauri. "Altaf Hussain is not a traitor. Yes, he did talk about the blunder of Partition, but he did not say that Partition should be reversed". Then Haq produced a bolt from the blue: he denounced Benazir Bhutto (who had nothing to do with debate) for being the Traitor No. 1 of Pakistan and is a Khan ally. Despite a question on Altaf's Delhi speech, he refused to condemn him. When Imran said "70 percent of the assembly seats will become vacant if the articles 62 and 63 are applied" and "I want government to oust me from the assembly because then I will show who can continue to function as a parliamentarian", Haq pounced upon him for "undermining the sanctity of Parliament" and declared that the following day he would move a privilege resolution in Parliament (presumably against Khan). He never did. Khan's dilemma Khan's tragedy is that his political locale is Pakistan where principles are non-existent, and where a political opponent is not challenged on the political or legal, but on the personal basis. The "best" way to undermine an opponent (and it is not just politics, but every walk of society including the highest institutions of learning) is to character-assassinate them. Spread vulgar rumors about your opponent's sister, wife, or mother, and you are sure to reap some dividends. Crooks, fraudsters, murderers, mobsters, mafiosos, and assorted criminals regularly and proudly run for political offices and win. Khan referred to "a very serious case of money laundering against Shaukat Aziz" pending in the United States. One can point out that General Musharraf is no stranger to high treason (e.g., violating Pakistan's constitution by invading India without the knowledge of the government, and overthrowing a government through a coup). Recently, in a TV interview he has threatened to take "extra-constitutional" steps to remain in power. Pakistan's ruling elite belong to the same kleptomaniac brotherhood (Dr Ayesha Siddiqua's recently published Military Inc chronicles the details of the kleptomania). They do not attack each other's personal fallings and private affairs even when they seem to be divided politically. Khan is an outsider. He talks about real issues (poverty, illiteracy, health), and not the Islam-in-danger, Hindu-Jewish-conspiracy-against-Islam, and only-the-Army-can-save-Pakistan balderdash. He will always find the traditional power brokers against him as long as he deals with real issues. He is in a wrong place with the right ideas. As long as he keeps talking about the real issues, his opponents will campaign for Justice for Tyrian while ignoring dozens of little boys and girls that are found dead every day on streets after being raped. One can only hope Khan and people like him will continue to struggle to change their country's political culture, and will not end up as "insiders". Abbas Zaidi's writings have appeared, inter alia,
New Internationalist, The Salisbury Review, New York Press, and
Exquisite Corpse. He is Asian Editor of GOWANUS. Currently he
is doing a PhD on the sociology of Punjabi. He can be reached
at: manoo@brunet.bn
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CounterPunch Books of the Crossroads: HOW THE IRISH INVENTED SLANG By Daniel Cassidy  Click Here to Buy! How the Press Failed The Gang's All Here: Judy Miller, Bob Woodward, Rupert Murdoch, Bill O'Reilly...End Times Leaves No Reputation Unstained!  Buy End Times Now! CounterPunch Books! Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal  Click Here to Order!  Michael Neumann's Devastating Rebuttal of Alan Dershowitz 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                   |
