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Special Issue: the Collapse of America Paul Craig Roberts gives CounterPunchers the definitive data on what is happening to jobs in America. Not just blue collar jobs. Middle-class, white collar jobs. Roberts' stunning probe is the first true picture of what the U.S. economy is fast becoming and of the savage class wars that lie ahead. Plus Mike Ferner on what it really means to investigate war crimes in Iraq. CounterPunch Online is read by millions of viewers each month! But remember, we are funded solely by the subscribers to the print edition of CounterPunch. Please support this website by buying a subscription to our newsletter, which contains fresh material you won't find anywhere else, or by making a donation for the online edition. Remember contributions are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! |
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Today's Stories July 29 / 30, 2006 Michael
Neuman July 28, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Uri Avnery Renee Bowyer Robert
Fisk Patrick Cockburn Ramzy
Baroud Don Fitz Elaine
Cassel David Price Mike Whitney Mickey Z. Niranjan
Ramakrishnan Charles
Glass Website
of the Day
July 27, 2006 Tanya
Reinhart Saul Landau Ramzi
Kysia Tom Barry Joseph
Grosso Sharon Smith Gale Courey
Toensing Christopher Reed Werther Yusuf Mansur Richard
Harth Website of the Day
Norman
Solomon Barbara
Olshanksy David
Nally Jonathan
Cook Patrick
Cockburn William
Blum Joshua
Frank Gabriel
Kolko Daniel
Cassidy Michael
Dickinson Robert
Fisk Uri
Avnery Website
of the Day
July 25, 2006 Harry
Browne Marjorie
Cohn Robert
Bryce Sharat
G. Lin George
Bisharat CounterPunch
News Desk Zena
El-Khalil Larry
Lack Mike
Mejia Ashraf
Isma'il Website
of the Day
July 24, 2006 Mark
Levy Robert
Fisk Maher
Osseiran Paul
Craig Roberts Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
July 22-23, 2006 Jonathan
Cook Paul
Craig Roberts Gilad
Atzmon Robert
Fisk Ralph
Nader Fred
Gardner Christopher
Reed Dr.
Susan Block Najla
Said Uri
Avnery July 21, 2006 George
Galloway P.
Sainath Aseem
Shrivastava Alexander
Cockburn Website
of the Day July 20, 2006 William
S. Lind Robert
Jensen John
Ross Tom
Hayden Paul
Craig Roberts July 19, 2006 Patrick
Cockburn Trish
Schuh Jonathan
Cook Vicente
Navarro July 17 / 18 2006 Mike
Whitney Kathleen Christison Atrocities in the Promised Land
July 14 / 15,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Tanya Reinhart Robert Fisk Daniel Cassidy Winslow Wheeler Hugh O'Shaughnessy M. Shahid Alam William S. Lind Ramzy Baroud Gilad Atzmon Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg Samar Assad Ron Jacobs Lee Ballinger Walter Brasch Dave Lindorff Clifton Ross Tom Crumpacker Ricardo Alarcon William Hughes Susie Day Farrah Hassen Poets' Basement
July 13, 2006 Rev. William
Alberts Ramzi Kysia Rep. John P. Murtha Radford / Santos Stan Cox Saul Landau José
Pertierra Website of
the Day
July 12, 2006 John Ross John Stauber Robert Boston Wayne S. Smith John Graham Kevin Prosen Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
July 11, 2006 Dave Lindorff Dave Zirin Mokhiber / Weissman Amira Hass Clare Hanrahan Brian Cloughey Felice Pace Raed Jarrar Website of the Day
July 10, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts Uri Avnery Roger Burbach Ron Jacobs Joshua Frank Missy Comley Beattie Alexander Cockburn
Stephen Green Paul Craig
Roberts Greg Moses Ralph Nader Laura Carlsen Conn Hallinan John Chuckman Fred Gardner Dr. Tod Mikuriya Pierre Tristam Lucinda Marshall David Swanson Heather Gray Dave Zirin
/ John Cox Mark Engler Michael Lettieri Ron Jacobs Jamal Juma' Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
July 7, 2006 John Ross July 6, 2006 Nick Dearden John Stanton Ralph Nader Laray Polk Saul Landau Joshua Frank William S. Lind Adelman / Lindorff Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
Mike Whitney Saul Landau Ramzy Baroud Missy Comley Beattie Arthur Neslen Vincent Maruffi Paul Cantor Paul D. Johnson David Price
Col. Dan Smith Chris Floyd Marjorie Cohn James Brooks Medea Benjamin Matt Reichel Elisa Salasin Rick Wilhelm Paul Craig
Roberts Website of the Day
July 3, 2006 Robert Bryce Dr. Bouthaina Shaban Julia Olmstead Dave Lindorff Andres Gomez Alan Singer Alexander Cockburn
Paul Craig
Roberts Stephen T.
Banko Daniel Cassidy Fawzia Afzal-Khan Jeff Taylor John Ross Greg Moses Laura Carlsen Justin E.H.
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Smith Brian Concannon Virginia Tilley
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Roberts June 28, 2006 Jorge Mariscal Greg Moses Mark Weisbrot Ramzy Baroud Dave Lindorff William S.
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June 26, 2006 Don Santina Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Rafael Rodriguez-Cruz Evelyn Pringle Jonathan Cook
June 23, 2006 Youmans / Erakat Dave Lindorff Ron Jacobs Col. Dan Smith
June 22, 2006 Marjorie Cohn Winslow T.
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Weekend
Edition How Israel Could Destroy ItselfDelusional ExpectationsBy JOHN CHUCKMAN At this writing, Israel has killed six hundred civilians in Lebanon, including more than one hundred children, and killed another one hundred and fifty in Gaza. It has created hundreds of thousands of refugees and destroyed enough bridges and power stations and apartments to create misery for years to come. Nothing is more dishonest than attempting to justify this barbarism with "Islamist fundamentalists declare their goal openly to destroy the state of Israel and kill Jews." There is no possibility that Israel can be destroyed by Islamic fundamentalists: the notion is simply a fantasy. This is so not just because of Israel's ready willingness to bomb and kill, but because of great-power guarantees. It is so also because no Arab state believes any longer that Israel,s destruction is a sensible or possible goal, despite their leaders, public rhetoric. And it is true because the enemies Israel claims are so threatening, organizations such as Hezbollah or Hamas, are militarily weak by any rational standard of calculation. Israel began by moving into a bad neighborhood, and everyone involved understood this from the beginning, yet Israel behaves as though it should be normal to enjoy a pristine Disney-like suburb with white-picket fences. It reacts to activities in the bad neighborhood that disturb its fantasy with ferocious indignation. Israel's destructive behavior is explained largely by this delusional expectation. If Israel had spent half the resources it has spent on war over the last fifty years instead on helping its neighbors and building up their economies, the region would be a far better place today. And if Israel had been willing to make reasonable concessions to the needs of others in the region, there might well be lasting peace today. The irony of Israel,s current destructive behavior is that a healthy, prosperous Lebanon is in Israel,s long-term interest, just as it is in Israel,s interest to have all of its neighbors prosperous and flourishing. But, instead, Israel,s response to any provocation from any gang or individual is always war and maintaining "the iron wall" - an early Zionist phrase that has provided the foundation of Israeli policy for over half a century - against all outsiders with disregard for their interests or needs. Deception is an important tool in any war, and Israel,s extensive use of it shows us how it regards neighbors and others it should have cultivated as friends. Look at the bombing of a UN observation post in Lebanon, killing four unarmed UN workers. Israel says it was an accident, but the post had been there for years, and it was well marked. Moreover, the UN workers were killed in a bunker, meaning that a certain kind of munition had to be used to kill them. According to a BBC report, the UN peacekeepers had contacted Israeli forces ten times about artillery shelling in the hours before they were hit by a precision-guided missile. How possibly can this have been an accident? Could the failed international conference in Rome where proposals for an immediate cease-fire and an international force in Southern Lebanon were advocated have provided Israel,s motive? The cease-fire proposal was quickly killed by the United States to give Israel more bombing time. Was the proposal for an international force the target of Israel,s attack? Who would commit observers or troops if this is what would happen to them? We know Israel does not want outside interference in Lebanon. More broadly, Israel has shown intense hostility towards the UN for years, perhaps one of its closest bonds with Bush,s mob. There is some evidence that the Israeli soldiers kidnapped at the beginning of the current bombardment were actually kidnapped inside Lebanon on a provocative mission. I have no idea whether this true, but it is far from improbable. The kidnapping has certainly provided an excuse for bombing the hell out of southern Lebanon. Israel,s many past deceptions naturally enough leave one uncomfortable about any of its official statements on any important matter. First was the covert creation of a nuclear arsenal, a fact not acknowledged to this day. Then there was Israel,s secret assistance to apartheid South Africa, including still-unacknowledged assistance in creating and testing a nuclear weapon. There was Israel,s manipulation of events leading to the Six Day War, a war Israel knew it could handily win for great gains (see my March, 2003, article, Was Einstein Right? ). There was Israel,s attempt to sink the U.S.S. Liberty, an American spy ship, during the Six Day War, an event never meaningfully explained but likely intended to prevent evidence of atrocities against captured Egyptian soldiers in the Sinai being recorded. A large group of Israeli spies was arrested after 9/11, but their extensive activities in the United States leading up to that event have never been explained. Only a few weeks ago, before its attacks on Lebanon and Gaza, Israel mounted an effort claiming the munition which wiped out a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach belonged to someone else, when in fact a collected scrap of casing clearly showed its American origin, a type of munition not made available to anyone else in the region. All gangs and individuals who rudely remind Israel that it really does live in a bad neighborhood are simply flattened, but flattening the perpetrators is never enough. Always Israel takes the lives of innocents and destroys their property, believing that such ruthlessness eventually will intimidate everyone around into a zombie-like peace, but this is simply another delusion. The logic of Israel,s behavior taken to its limit would have a two- or three-hundred mile perimeter around Israel,s border (whatever that is) bulldozed and paved over. This would certainly provide complete security, but it is utter fantasy, just as impossible as the destruction of Israel. What is the solution in the Middle East? It is found in so simple an act as Israel,s dealing fairly with its neighbors and negotiating to sort things out. Israel has never yet done this. It presents only an iron wall, bristling with weapons. When breakthroughs do come, as with the Oslo Accords, Israel,s establishment quietly ignores them or works actively against them while still talking about peace. Israel has all the advantages. It has advanced weapons. It has great-power guarantees. It has billions of dollars in assistance every year. It has unmatched access to American intelligence and government. By comparison, Hamas and Hezbollah are pretty anemic forces. Organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas owe their very existence to Israel's past behavior. Hezbollah flourished as a guerrilla force opposing Israel's previous invasion of Lebanon and its long-term partial occupation. It served also as an important charity in the midst of chaos. Hamas was created with the deliberate help of Israeli intelligence, intending to create a rival for the PLO and introduce instability into Palestinian politics. When Hamas was elected recently as part of the government of Palestine, it was only after innumerable excuses from Israel for not meeting with Abbas and after imprisoning and threatening Arafat for several years before his death. How are Palestinians to deal with an Israel that always has an excuse for not negotiating, for not even speaking, to its government? Israel has now kidnapped the cabinet of an elected government, but this is quietly supported by Bush,s democracy-loving mob. Israel wants us to accept the simplistic assertion that organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas are proof of Islamist determination to destroy Israel. So long as this is the accepted view, greatly over-simplifying a truly complex situation, there can be no understanding and no sensible approach to peace. Refusing even to talk with the democratically-elected Hamas government and cutting it off from all connections and revenues was an act of war in response to party slogans. You can't build peace on fantasy. I said Israel could not be destroyed by anyone, but there is an important exception to that statement: Israel could well be destroyed by itself. John Chuckman lives in Canada.
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from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                    |
