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Today's
Stories
July
17, 2007
Marjorie
Cohn
Out of Control: Executive Power Plays
July
16, 2007
Gary
Leupp
Cheney Urges Bush to Strike Iran
Ellen
Cantarow
The Untold Story of Iraqi Women
Paul
Craig Roberts
Impeach Now
Allan
J. Lichtman
The D.C. Madam's Public Service
Dan
Bacher
Cheney and the Klamath: Was the Veep Behind the Nation's Worst
Salmon Kill?
Patrick
Cockburn
The Killing of Khalid W. Hassan
Manuel
Garcia, Jr.
Property is Racism
James
Brooks
AIPAC and Mahmoud Abbas: the Undemocratic Road to Defeat
Liaquat
Ali Khan
The Judicial Crisis in Pakistan
Julie
Flint
Suleiman Jamous in Limbo
Website
of the Day
Free Suleiman Jamous!
July
14 / 15. 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Support Their Troops?
Andy
Worthington
Gitmo's Tangled Web: Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Majhid Khan, Dubious
US Convictions and a Dying Man
Ralph
Nader
Lawlessness, Waste and Incompetence
Robert
Fantina
The Illegalities of the Iraq War
Ron
Jacobs
Architecture as Military Strategy
Joshua
Frank
Eat, Fight, Screw, Pray: An Interview with Joe Bageant
Conn
Hallinan
Guns, Foundations and Free Trade: How the Right Targets Africa
Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD
War and Dissociation
John
Ross
No En Nuestro Nombre!: a Letter to the Mexican Antiwar Movement
Fred
Gardner
Who's Afraid of Cannabidiol?
Rannie
Amiri
A Primer on Israeli Doublespeak
Charles
Modiano
ESPN's Rap Sheet: Pacman as Black Man
Anthony
DiMaggio
America's Parochial Press
China
Hand
Executive Orders and Coercive Diplomacy
Missy
Comley Beattie
Reprobate Rhetoricians
Dr.
James J. Murtagh, Jr.
Harry Potter Battles Big Brother
Kenneth
Rexroth
On Thomas More's "Utopia"
Poets'
Basement
Engel, Davies and Orloski
Website
of the Weekend
GOP Sex Hypocrites: a Slideshow
July
13, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
The Decider in Denial
Winslow
T. Wheeler
Bush's Iraq Benchmarks Assessment: Grading on a Curve for the
Wrong Test
Imran
Khan
When Dictators Serve US Interests
Todd
Chretien
The Wal-Mart of Garbage
Sam
Husseini
Killing the Constitution
Dr.
Herman Mindshaftgap
Why, in Truth, There is No Surge
Anthony
Papa
The Hard Road Home
D.
K. Wilson
The Wonderful World of Mike Greenberg and Barry Bonds
David
Michael Green
In the Last Throes, Judiciously
Website
of the Day
Strange Attraction: Mrs. Thompson and Mr. Wolfowitz
July
12, 2007
Paul
Craig Roberts
Restoring the People's Power
Robert Jensen
Lessons
from the Lal Masjid Tragedy
Dr. Susan Block
Hookergate II: The Senator and the Veep
Joshua Frank
The Liberal Thrashing of Ward Churchill
John Chuckman
How Terror Lost Its Meaning
Corporate Crime
Reporter
The Problem with Bribeline
Mike Whitney
Demonizing Putin
Nicola Nasser
Will New Delhi's Palestinian Policy be Neutralized?
Richard Rhames
Requiem for the Paxilated
William S.
Lind
Not Fourth Generation Warfare
Website of the Day
Video: World's Largest Nuclear Explosion
July
11, 2007
Patrick
Cockburn
The Benchmark Blame Game
Richard
Neville
Is This Man a Psychopath? Bomber McNeill, the Faceless Pol Pot
of the Sky
Debra
McNutt
Privatizing Women: Military Prostitution and the Iraq Occupation
John
V. Walsh
A Plea to Ralph Nader
Scott
Liebertz
Where's the Outcry? Mexico's Monitor Radio vs. RCTV
George
C. Wilson
Beware the Iran Hawks
James
McEnteer
My Impossible Dream Candidate
Philip
Rizk
Submission or Resistance in Gaza?
Johnny
Hazard
Mexico Commemorates a Fraud
Dave
Lindorff
On the Road with Impeachment
Website
of the Day
Sly Stone's Higher Power
July
10, 2007
James
Ridgeway
True North: Big Oil in the Arctic
Tariq
Ali
New Clashes in Islamabad: Judges and Jihadis Torment the Regime
Javed
Hussein
Pakistan's Waco?: The Storming of the Red Mosque
William
Blum
Neocons, Theocons, Demcons, Excons and Future Cons
Ralph
Nader
Grown in China
Jay
Arena
New Orleans, Public Housing and the Non-Profit Industrial Complex
Anthony
DiMaggio
A Begrudging Reversal: The New York Times and the "Anti-War"
Turn
Eva
Liddell
Has Ann Coulter Got the Hots for John Edwards?
Jerry
Kroth
Democratic Defectors and the Israel Lobby
Alice
Woodward
White Supremacy and the Jena Six
Nikolas
Kozloff
Where's Jerry?: On Cheney Impeachment, Rep. Nadler's a No Show
Paul
Shannon
It's Time to Reform Sex Offender Laws
Website
of the Day
March for Remembrance
July
9, 2007
Fidel
Castro
The Killing Machine: Reflections from
a Target of the CIA
Diana
Johnstone
King Sarko the First
John
Walsh
Will the Greens Seize the Moment?
Uri
Avnery
The Jordanian Option
Ramzy
Baroud
The Palestinian Left: a Lost Opportunity?
John
Ripton
The New West Bank Palestinian State
Stephen
Lendman
Making Gaza Scream
Bruce
Jackson
Bush Going Down: the Correct Way to Affix a Stamp
Michael
Donnelly
What's the Matter with Winchester?
Doug
Giebel
Wanted: Old Men with Nothing to Lose
Website
of the Day
Ron Paul on This Week with George
July 7 / 8, 2007
Saul
Landau
Blame the Puppet
Ismael
Hossein-zadeh
Parasitic Imperialism
Fawzia
Afzal-Khan
What Lies Beneath: Dispatches from the Frontlines of t he Burqa
Brigade
Alan
Maass
Will "Sicko" Spark a Movement?: a Film, Militant Nurses
and a New Opportunity for Single Payer Health Care
John
Ross
The Fire Last Time
Pat
Williams
The Supreme Court and Mr. Peanut
Rannie
Amiri
The Unbreakable Mordechai Vanunu
Farzana
Versey
Does the Taj Mahal Deserve to be a Wonder of the World?
Bart
Gruzalski
Bush, the Revolution and the Iraq War
Paul
Rockwell
An Army of None
Reza
Fiyouzat
Tax Cuts for the Rich Only Benefit the Economy of the Rich
Monica
Benderman
Americans, Honestly!
Kenneth
Couesbouc
Total War: From Clausewitz to Clinton and Bush
Dave
Lindorff
Poll: Impeach the Bastards
Charles
Modiano
History's Hit Job on Thomas Paine
Missy
Beattie
King Cretin
Dal
LaMagna
A Peacemaker's View of Baghdad
Jean
Gerard
Those So-Called Oil Contracts in Iraq
Anne
Dachel
Autism: an Epidemic of Fairly Recent Origin
Ron
Jacobs
Modes and Melodies of Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Gibbons, Orloski, Engel and Buknatski
Website
of the Day
Van Morrison and Bob Dylan in Athens
July 6, 2007
Daniel
Ellsberg
When the Crimes of the White House
are Unpunishable
Gary
Leupp
The Cracks in Cheney's World
Harvey
Wasserman
Leonard Peltier vs. Scooter Libby: the Hero and the Henchman
Omer
Subhani
Our Dead are Not the Same: Ignoring Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan
Marjorie
Cohn
Compassion, Conspiracy and Commutation
Christopher
Brauchli
Kingly Edicts: Bush's Executive Orders
David
Michael Green
Scalia Time: the Wrecking Ball Court
China
Hand
Catfish Blues: Food Safety, the FDA and the Emerging Trade War
with China
Renee
Saucedo
and Todd Chretien
The New Challenges Facing the Immigrant Rights Movement
Corporate
Crime Reporter
The Crime Wave Behind the Media Curtain
Website
of the Day
Jean Bricmont on the Humanitarian Interveners
July
5, 2007
Andy
Worthington
Two Americas, Both Unjust: Scooter
Libby vs. the "Enemy Combatants"
Mike
Stark
Double Standards of North Carolina "Justice"
Norman
Solomon
The Keyboard Hawks: a Bloody Media Mirror
Michael
Schwartz
Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month
Susie
Day
Killer Lesbians Mauled by Killer Court (and Media Wolfpack)
Jacob
Hornberger
A Tangled Web of Lies: Bush and the Libby Case
Bill
Hatch
Smoking with Arnold: The Strange Return of Toxic Mary Nichols
Don
Fitz
When Building Green Ain't So Green
John
Wright
The Crisis of Imperialism
Website
of the Day
Anti-Flag and Tom Morello: "This Land is Your Land"
July
4, 2007
St.
Clair / Frank
Obama's Nuclear Ambitions
Vijay
Prashad
Democrat (Punjab): Obama and Outsourcing
Carl
G. Estabrook
The Declaration of Independence and the Right to Exist
Ron
Jacobs
Texas Wants to Kill Another Man, the Law be Damned: the Disturbing
Case of Kenneth Foster
David
R. Dow
The Quality of Bush's Mercy: the Ghosts of Texas
Claudia
Johnson
Is My Doctor a Terrorist?
William
S. Lind
What Israel's Defeat in Lebanon Means for Defense Industry Fat
Cats
Gregory
Afghani
Truth and Tenure: Finkelstein and the Perils of Impeccable Scholarship
Paul
Edwards
End It Now!
D.
K. Wilson
The Sliming of Tank Johnson
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Thank You, Mr. President: Bush/Cheney for Dummies
Thomas
Jefferson
The Spirit of Resistance: Lethargy is the Forerunner of the Death
of Public Liberty
Cindy
Sheehan
Call Out the Instigator
Website
of the Day
Springsteen: 4th of July, Ashbury Park
July 3, 2007
Bill
Quigley
Injustice in Jena: Black Nooses Hanging
from the "White" Tree
Gary
Leupp
Civil Strife in Palestine: a Broader Context
Lynda
Brayer
Norman Finkelstein and the Catholic Church
Richard
Thieme
Mind Wars: Brain Research, Nanotech and the Military
Helen
Redmond
They Don't Come Back the Same: the Mind of the Returning Iraq
War Vet
David
Swanson
Scooter and the Commuter: When Presidents Pardon Their Own Crimes
Jacob
Hornberger
Martha Stewart vs. Scooter Libby: Commutation as Cover-Up
Ayesha
Ijaz Khan
Pakistan's New Jihad
Franklin
Lamb
The Edginess of Lebanon
Ray
McGovern
Unimpeachably Impeachable: Start with Cheney
Kevin
Zeese
The Air Force vs. Rev. Lennox Yearwood
Dave
Lindorff
Nancy Pelosi and the Low Bar Democrats
Website
of the Day
A Military Guide to the Iraq War
July 2, 2007
Andy
Worthington
The Guantánamo Whistleblowers
Nina
Serrano
The Assassination of a Poet: Memories of Roque Dalton
Jack
Hirschman
The Nation and the Assassin: a Shameful Blunder
Paul
Craig Roberts
Enter Turkey
Bill
Williams
The Commissar Two-Step at DePaul
Anthony
Papa
A Taste of the Gulag: What Paris Learned
Sonja
Karkar
Who Will Save Palestine?
Louay
Safi
Steve Emerson's Fantastic Obsession
Anthony
Gregory
When Killer Cops Walk
Monica
Benderman
In Consideration of War
Website
of the Day
Dylan's Masters of War, at West Point, 1990
June
30 / July 1, 2007
John
Ross
Free Frida Kahlo!
Alan
Farago
Fakery, Inflation and the Housing
Market
Peter
Quinn
The Political Paranoia Over Immigration: Two Centuries and Counting
Christopher
Brauchli
Cheney Does the Constitution
Robert
Fisk
Abu Henry and the Mysterious Silence
Uri
Avnery
A Dark Summit
Judith
Siers-Poisson
The Politics and PR of Cervical Cancer
Saul
Landau
Israel is Bad for Jewish Ethics
Abbas
Zaidi
The Ad Hominem World of Pakistan Politics
Ron
Jacobs
Ending the War, Organizing for Change
Ralph
Nader
Move Over Oprah: a Summer Reading List
Donald
Worster
Which City is Worse Off Today, New York or New Orleans?
Mike
Whitney
The Fed's Role in the Bear Stearns Meltdown
Jacob
Hill
Fast Track to Trade Failure
Kenneth
Couesbouc
Why Global Trade is Rarely Fair
Missy
Beattie
Kakistocracy
Mohammad
Kamaali
Envoy for the Quartet
Ramzy
Baroud
Finding Lessons in Gaza's Bloodshed
Leonard
Peltier
A Gathering at Oglala
Phyllis
Pollack
Seven Hours of Banging with the Stones
Poets'
Basement
Reed, Orloski and Buknatski
Website
of the Weekend
A Podcast Interview with Cpt. Ward Boston on the USS Liberty
June
29, 2007
St.
Clair / Frank
Toward a New Environmental Movement
Brian
Cloughley
Losing the War in Afghanistan: One Civilian Massacre at a Time
Patrick
Cockburn
End the Occupation: an Open Letter to Gordon Brown
Gilad
Atzmon
The Peace Envoy: Tony Blair on Work Release
Dave
Lindorff
Subpoenas, Executive Privilege and Liberal Pipedreams
Jennifer
Matsui /
Carl Kandutsch
Electric Larryland
Kevin
Zeese
A Different Kind of Peace Candidate
Daniel
Klimek
Fasting for Justice at DePaul
David
Michael Green
The Founding Fathers Never Met Dick Cheney
John
Chuckman
The London Car Bomb
Website
of the Day
BAM!
June
28, 2007
Bill
Quigley
How to Destroy an African American
City in 33 Steps
Vijay
Prashad
Once More on the New York Times
Margaret
Kimberley
The Whitening of Marianne Pearl: When White Actors Play Black
Characters
Winslow
T. Wheeler
House of Pork: Changing Lightbulbs in the Democrats' Bordello
Philip
Rizk
The Failing of Gaza
D.
K. Wilson
The Black Villains Club
Bill
Williams
Strange Calculus at DePaul
Mahmoud
El-Yousseph
The Deportation of Yardlin Jimenez
Richard
Rhames
The Liberation of Paris
Paul
Krassner
Bong Hits for Repression: the Giant Sucking Sound of the Supreme
Court
Website
of the Day
Free
Lightnin' Hopkins
June 27, 2007
Marjorie
Cohn
Targeting Dissent: FBI Spying on the
National Lawyers Guild
Dr.
Susan Rosenthal, MD
Sick and Sicker: Two Models of Health Care Rationing
Alan
Farago
Bush and the Everglades: Rebranding Failure as Success
Carla
Blank
"America, the Beautiful": the Queen, Jamestown and
the Eye of the Beholder
Matthew
Abraham
The Smearing of Robert Trivers, Dershowitz-Style
Sunsara
Taylor
The Deadly Consequences of Compromise: Abortion Rights Under
Assault, Where's the Women's Movement?
Russell
D. Hoffman
16 Dirty Secrets About Nuclear Power
Robert
Weissman
Blackstone and Capital's Grand Scam
Sen.
Russ Feingold
Secrecy and the Federal Death Penalty
Paul
Buchheit
The Footprints of Democracies
Website
of the Day
Anarchy for the USA: an Interview with Josh Wolf
June
26, 2007
Jonathan
Cook
Divide and Rule, Israeli-Style
Ralph
Nader
Sicko and the Politics of Health Care
Corporate
Crime Reporter
Which Side Are You On, Michael Moore?
Ron
Jacobs
Are the Neocons Really Going?
Martha
Rosenberg
Mad Cow in God's Country
John
Chuckman
China's New Weapons
Denny
Haldeman
Ethanolics Anonymous
Anthony
DiMaggio
Free Speech Hypocrisy at the Supreme Court
Stephen
Fleischman
The Tightrope Economy
William
S. Lind
Legitimacy, Toujours Legitimacy
Website
of the Day
The CIA's Family Jewels
June 25, 2007
Paul
Craig Roberts
Goodbye to the City on the Hill
Jennifer
Loewenstein
The Triumph of US / Israeli Policy
in Palestine
Bob
Anderson
The Grooming of Bill Richardson: New Mexico's Nuclear Governor
Robert
Pollin
The Realities of Microlending
Patrick
Cockburn
Chemical Ali Faces the Hangman: the Life and Crimes of al-Majid
Eva
Liddell
Why They Want to Fire Ward Churchill
Dan
Bacher
Democrats and the School of the Americas: 42 House Democrats
Back Torture Academy
Larry
Atkins
The Case of the Judge and the $54 Million Pair of Pants: an Embarrassment,
Not an Argument for Tort Reform
Mark
Brenner
SEIU Ends Nursing Home Partnership
James
Rothenberg
Hillary Does Iraq
Website
of the Day
"A Long Train of Abuses"
June
23 / 24, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
Zyklon B on the US Border
Jeff
Taylor
The Foreign Policy of Barack Obama
Oren
Ben-Dor
Israeli Apartheid is the Core of the Crisis in Gaza
Gary
Leupp
In Defense of Academic Freedom: the Ward Churchill Case
Robert
Fisk
The Bumbling Envoy
David
Rosen
The Hidden Cost of War: Genital Injuries, Prosthetic Devices
and the War on Terror
Russell
Mokhiber
Ins and Outs for 2008: Up with Spoilers!
Alison
Weir
USA Today and the USS Liberty
Robert
Fantina
The Floundering Congress
D.
K. Wilson
Of Gangstas and Spearchuckers, Sex and Zulus
Nicole
Colson
Litigating Gitmo
Stephen
Soldz, Steven Reisner and Brad Olson
Torture, Psychologists and Colonel
James
Dave
Lindorff
Exodus of the Puppets: Bush's Incredible Shrinking Coalition
Benjamin
Dangl
Cerámica de Cuyo: a Profile of Worker Control in Argentina
Michael
Dickinson
The Catholicization of Tony
Poets'
Basement
Davies, Engel, Gerard and Orloski
Website
of the Weekend
Incarcerex: a Drug War Video
June
22, 2007
Andy
Worthington
A Tunisian in Gitmo: the Story
of Prisoner 660
Sherwood
Ross
Corporate America's Deadliest Secret: the Big Profits in Biowarfare
Research
Eliana
Monteforte
The Torture Academy
Robert
Weissman
Things Can Be Different
Richard
Rhames
Farmer Preservation
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush and the Uighurs: an Encounter in Albania
Ramzy
Baroud
Chronicle of a Chaos Foretold
Ehud
Krinis, David Shulman and Neve Gordon
Facing an Imminent Threat of Expulsion: Palestinians in S. Hebron
Hills Need Your Help!
David
Michael Green
If Reid Were Rove
Kathryn
Webber
Boycotting DePaul
Website
of the Day
Stop Me Before I Vote Again!
June
21, 2007
Peter
Linebaugh
The Day of the Rope
Natsu
Saito
The Regents and Ward Churchill: Now is the Time to Speak Out
Ron
Jacobs
The Intimidation of a Vet
Saree
Makdisi
The West Chooses Fatah, But Palestinians Don't
John
Stauber
Blessed Unrest: an Interview with Paul Hawken
Scott
Liebertz
Fox News and Venezuela: an Analysis of How the Network Deliberately
Misinforms Its Viewers
Tom
Clifford
The Ghost Prisoners
Robert
Jensen
The Last Sunday?
Michael
J. Smith
Who Among Us Will Step Up to Destroy the Democratic Party?
Jeb
Sprague
Pain at the Pump in Haiti
Website
of the Day
Dion: Hey Paris
June 20, 2007
Omar
Barghouti
A Secular-Democratic State Solution
Andy
Worthington
Repatriated to Torture
Margaret
Kimberley
Supreme Injustices: the Bush Court
Robert
Weissman
Sicko, Part One: the Human Tragedy
Russell
D. Hoffman
Time to Choose: Meltdowns or Solar Power?
Rannie
Amiri
Mideast Alight
Stephen
Lendman
The New York Times vs. Hugo Chavez
Dave
Lindorff
Democratic Disconnect
David
Swanson
Booing Hillary: Platitudes from the Drone Machine
Anne
Dachel
Autism & Vaccines: Why are They Afraid to Look?
Website
of the Day
Revolution By the Book
June
19, 2007
Ralph
Nader
Hillary's Stock and Trade: the NAFTA
Two-Step
Dr.
Shepherd Bliss
Torture's Long Reach
Bill
and Kathleen Christison
Demostrating Against the Catholic Church in Santa Fe
Jeff
Leys
Swarming Congress: Building a Resistance to the 2008 Iraq War
Supplemental Funding Bill
Dave
Zirin
The Unforgiven: Barry Bonds and Jack Johnson
Chris
Floyd
Hitchens Takes a Roll in the Hay
Ben
Terrall
Iraq Union Leaders Speak Out Against the Occupation
Anthony
Papa
Veronica's Story: a Dying Wish to Governor Spitzer
VIPS
Countering Terrorism: How Not to
Do It
Linda Flores
Criminalizing the Classroom
Website
of the Day
Sign On to the Iraq Moratorium
June 18, 2007
John
Ross
The Annexation of Mexico
Paul
Craig Roberts
The Reign of the Tyrants is at Hand
Martha
Rosenberg
Let Cheney at Him: Richardson the Oryx Hunter
Norman
Solomon
War at the Remote
Don
Santina
Memo to the Queen: Bobby Sands Died for Your Sins
Isabella
Kenfield
Landless Rural Workers Confront Lula
James
Brooks
America's Guilty Silence
Eva
Liddell
Planning to Lose: Democratic Stratagems
Sam
Husseini
Clinton Health Care Scam Revisited
Akiva
Eldar
Ariel Sharon's Dream
Website
of the Day
Frank
Zappa: the Cop Interview
June 16 / 17, 2007
Alexander
Cockburn
The Psychopathology of Shrinks
John
Halle
Finkelstein and "The Progressive"
Robert
Fisk
Welcome to "Palestine"
Andy
Worthington
Return to Torture?
Uri
Avnery
The Gaza Cage
Fred
Gardner
Paris Hilton's Punishment: a False
Parable
Saul
Landau
Our Gang of Thugs: The 1970s as a
Context for Terrorist Violence
P.
Sainath
Heaven Can Wait: Creditors and the
Widows of Vidharbha
Missy
Comley Beattie
Calling Evil Its Name
Alan
Gregory
When ADM Comes to Town: Killer Tax
Breaks for Wildlife Destruction
Walter
Brasch
Bush and the Philosophy of Swiss Cheese
Website
of the Weekend
Obama Girl
June
15, 2007
Alan
Farago
View from the Construction Crane:
Sex, Taxes and Real Estate Scams in Miami
Andy
Worthington
The Ordeal of Ali al--Marri
Michael
Simmons
Terrorizing Artists in the USA
Franklin
Lamb
Blowback Across Lebanon: The Failed
Sunni Army Solution
Gary
Leupp
The Day After We Attack Iran
John
Ross
Ballot Burning Time in Ol' Mexico
Website
of the Day
The American Rationalist
June 14, 2007
Michael
Donnelly
Charred SUVs and the End of Citizen
Eco--Activism
Faisal
Kutty
Scare Canada: The No--Fly List's False
Sense of Security
Harry
Browne
Ireland's Green Party Sells Out
Charles
Jonkel
From the Arctic to Yellowstone: Bears in a World of Indifference
Steven
Higgs
Murder in a Small Town: "Gay Panic"
in Indiana?
Bruce
Dixon
Black Power Through Low Power Radio
Bruce
K. Gagnon
What Do We Do Now? A 10--Step Plan
for Antiwar Activists
Website
of the Day
Finkelgate
June 13,
2007
Glen Ford
Obama's
Siren Song
Marjorie Cohn
Repression
in Oaxaca
Bill Christison
A Grave Injustice at DePaul University
Charles Jonkel
Bears in a World of Indifference
Silvia Cattori
"I Was Not Prepared for the Horrors I Saw": an Interview
with Hedy Epstein
Richard Gott
Racism and TV in Venezuela
Firmin DeBrabander
How the Neocons Misread Machiavelli
William S. Lind
The Perfect (Sine) Wave: Bombing Railroad Stations in Iraq
Keith Rosenthal
Workers Score a Victory at Harvard
Website of the Day
GOP and Monty Python Explain: "Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"
June 12,
2007
Jeffrey St.
Clair
How
to Sell a War
Paul Craig
Roberts
The Neocon Threat to American Freedom
P. Sainath
India's
Plutocrats and the Press
Ralph Nader
The Biggest Scam in the World
Omar Waraich
A Black Day for Pakistan's Press
Dave Lindorff
Things Your Media Momma Didn't Tell You
Harvey Wasserman
Confessions of an Anti-Nuke Jerk
Malini Johar
Schueller
It Takes a Bomb
Ramzy Baroud
War Foretold: Mark Twain and the Sins of Empire
Website of
the Day
Palestinian Chronicle Needs Our Help!
June 11,
2007
Patrick Cockburn
The
War on Journalists
Paul Craig
Roberts
Losing the Economy to Mythology
Uri Avnery
40 Bad Years: the Rot of Occupation
Norman Solomon
The Silence of the Bombs
Eva Liddell
Paris Hilton Doesn't Do Dishes: How Barbie Stood Up to Allen
Ginsberg
Rannie Amiri
Groundhog Day in Pakistan
Rachel Voss
Poetry and Politics in Nassau County
Christopher
Brauchli
A Wild West Tale, Starring Rev. Dobson and Bill O'Reilly
D. K. Wilson
Untangling Michael Vick from the Dogs
Website of
the Day
Paris, Mixed Up
|
July
17, 2007
Executive Power
Plays
Out
of Control
By MARJORIE COHN
Our Founding Fathers created three separate
but co-equal branches of government to check and balance each
other so no one branch would become all powerful. Indeed, James
Madison wrote in the Federalist Papers, "The preservation
of liberty requires that the three great departments of power
should be separate and distinct." Madison warned, "The
accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary
in the same hands ... may justly be pronounced the very definition
of tyranny." The American colonists were reacting against
a police state.
More than 200 years later,
we have another King George. In the last six years, George
W. Bush has sought to accumulate all governing powers in the
same hands - his. In the Declaration of Independence, the framers
charged that the King "refused his Assent to Laws, the most
wholesome and necessary for the public good." Bush has
repeatedly violated the Constitution's command that the President
"shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,"
by breaking some and refusing to enforce others. The Constitution
grants Congress the power to make laws; after both houses pass
a bill, the President can only sign it or veto it. Bush, however,
takes a different tack. He has vetoed just three bills, then
quietly attached "signing statements" to more than
1,000 congressional laws, indicating his intent to follow only
those parts with which he agrees.
In an end run around Congress
and the courts, Bush secretly authorized the Terrorist Surveillance
Program to conduct electronic surveillance without a judicial
warrant, in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA) and the Fourth Amendment. Although two judges on
a three-judge panel of the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals ordered
the dismissal of a lawsuit challenging the legality of Bush's
spying program for lack of standing, the only two judges ever
to rule on the merits declared the program illegal.
The Bush administration lied
to Congress to get authority to invade Iraq. Long before the
9/11 terrorist attacks, Bush and his officials were planning
to attack Iraq and change its regime. Dick Cheney's secret energy
task force drew up maps of Iraq's oil fields to divvy up the
black gold once we occupied that country. They then devised
an elaborate scheme to convince the American people that Saddam
Hussein posed a threat to the United States, notwithstanding
overwhelming intelligence to the contrary. Since Bush launched
"Operation Iraq Freedom," more than 3,600 American
soldiers and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have died;
many thousands more have been wounded. This invasion is a war
of aggression, which violates the UN Charter, because it was
neither executed in self-defense nor approved by the Security
Council.
During the war, U.S. troops
have been acting under rules of engagement - free-fire zones
- that have led some to commit war crimes. For instance, the
killing, execution-style, of 24 civilians in the Haditha Massacre,
the execution of a disabled man, and the shooting of a wounded
unarmed Iraqi in a mosque violate the Geneva Conventions which
prohibit willful killing of civilians. Commanders, all the way
up the chain to the commander-in-chief, could be convicted of
war crimes if they should've known their subordinates would commit
them and the commanders didn't stop or prevent it.
Bush's legal eagles, particularly
David Addington and John Yoo, concocted elaborate "legal"
arguments to justify the torture of prisoners. Never mind that
international and American law forbid torture under all circumstances.
Pursuant to a common plan to violate the Geneva Conventions
and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment, prisoners in U.S. custody
are being tortured and abused. Prisoners have been subjected
to water-boarding, attacks by dogs, sexual humiliation, and excruciatingly
painful force-feeding.
The Bush administration has
secretly rendered prisoners to other countries to be tortured.
One former CIA agent observed, "If you want a serious interrogation,
you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured,
you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear - never
to see them again - you send them to Egypt."
Shortly after 9/11, the Bush
gang set up a prison camp in Guantánamo, intending to
create a legal black hole where they could hold prisoners for
the rest of their lives without any judicial oversight. But
the Supreme Court didn't buy the administration's argument that
U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over Guantánamo because
it's in Cuba. And the Court struck down Bush's original military
commissions since they violated the Uniform Code of Military
Justice and the Geneva Conventions.
The Supreme Court said in
Berger v. United States that a prosecutor's job is to see
that justice is done, not to politicize justice. But Bush's
Department of Justice, the chief law enforcement agency in the
government, has been seriously compromised. Several U.S. attorneys
who refused to bring frivolous charges that would further Bush's
political agenda, or who brought charges that didn't, were purged.
The White House is resisting
congressional subpoenas that call for testimonial and documentary
evidence about the U.S. attorney firing scandal. The deadline
for Bush, Cheney and the Justice Department to produce documents
in response to Senate Judiciary Committee subpoenas about the
warrantless surveillance is July 18. In 1974, when the House
Judiciary Committee passed three articles of impeachment against
Richard Nixon, Article III charged refusal to comply with subpoenas
during the Watergate hearings.
Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson
School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. Her
new book is Cowboy
Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law
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